Dead Matter

by Anton Strout

  “Oww,” I said, rubbing the spot while I looked around. “What the hell was that?”

  Nicholas stood up from his set of consoles and turned to look past me. He reached down and picked up the object. It was a CD.

  “It’s one of our backup systems,” he said, pointing to a long cylinder across the room. It looked like ten coffee cans stacked on top of one another. “It loads a DVD-R with crucial building metrics nightly, burns a copy, and then it gets sent to an off-site storage facility.”

  Nicholas started for the main doors we normally used, but the whine of gears firing up stopped him in his tracks.

  “What’s that?” I said, moving to join him.

  “That would be the main door locks kicking in and securing this room.”

  “By themselves?”

  “Like I told you,” Nicholas said, looking around the room. “The building is protecting itself.”

  “Well, can’t you just, like, turn to mist and seep under the door, get us some help?”

  Nicholas shook his head. “This facility was designed by vampires with vampires in mind. Those seals are airtight. Besides, not all of us can actually pull that off.”

  Several more discs flew across the room from the device, but this time I was ready and dodged them as they shattered against the wall behind me.

  “Don’t you have a safety word?” I asked.

  “Remember all that frantic typing you just saw?” he said with testiness in his words. “Didn’t work.” Nicholas was getting more aggravated with each passing second. “Follow me, and keep a steady pace. That machine holds up to five hundred discs.”

  Running through the maze of monitors and chairs, the two of us started toward the only other set of open doors, on the opposite wall. They were already closing. I pulled out my shiny new bat, extended it, and prepared to throw it.

  “That will never stop those doors,” Nicholas shouted over the sound of sailing discs and their impact explosions. “Even if you get it in between them, it’s only a gap of inches!”

  “Not going for the door,” I said and launched my bat end over end. It struck one of the sleek high-tech office chairs, spinning it on its swivel, but also driving it on its wheels toward the closing door. The chair clanged into place between the ever-slimming opening in the doors, catching there, and holding. I ran for it, scooping up my bat and jumping over the chair into the next room. I landed hard and rolled, turning over just in time to see Nicholas making a graceful dive between the doors, landing on his feet. The sound of shattering discs firing off from the backup system kicked in, deafening and constant like the sound of a machine gun. Every once in a while, a stray one would make it through the opening and fly off across the room we were in, crashing into cabinets, vending machines, chairs, and tables.

  “We’re in a break room,” I said.

  “Thank you for pointing out the obvious,” Nicholas said. “Did you see any other way out of that room?”

  I shut my mouth and decided that rather than argue, I would do something constructive. I put my foot against the seat of the chair lodged in the doorway and gave it a shove. The chair slid into the main control room and the door snapped shut, barely allowing me time to pull my foot free of it.

  I knelt down in front of the door, checking the locking mechanism to see if there was a way to keep the doors shut, but it was no use. The tech level of these was beyond my usual level of thieving skills.

  “Jesus,” I said. “Get out of the criminal business for a few years, and suddenly everything looks foreign.”

  The doors started to open again and I grabbed at the two halves of it in a fruitless effort to hold them shut.

  “Allow me,” Nicholas said, grabbing them by their handles. The doors slowed as Nicholas struggled to keep them together, but even with his preternatural strength, the pained look on his face showed it was a losing battle. The strain on the doors caused the motors to whine, piercing my ears with their effort. I put my hands over my ears, stepping back from the door.

  From behind me, something hit the door next to me with a sharp crack and exploded beside my head. Liquid covered my face and my first thought was blood. I had even felt something cut my cheek. The liquid splashed into my mouth and I couldn’t help but taste it. No, not blood . . .

  Soda?

  I looked at the door. Whatever had hit it had slid down to the floor and sure enough, there were the remains of a torn-apart soda can. I turned around. A Transformers version of a soda machine was crossing the room on treaded wheels. It was bulky and lumbering and, as far as soda machines went, full of menace. One of the press buttons for selecting a soda lit up on the front of it. There was the familiar sound of a can dropping, then a soft pfoosh as it launched like lightning out of the machine. Without thinking, I raised my bat and hit it away. It ruptured immediately, but the empty can went sailing. Babe Ruth would have been proud.

  “Hey, Nick,” I shouted. “It’s not looking too safe in here, either.”

  The vampire turned away from the doors to take a look, and was suddenly covered in an explosion of lettuce, croutons, and what looked like Thousand Island dressing. It appeared as if another of the vending machines—this one with sandwiches and salads—was joining the fray. Its inner multi-tiered carousel whipped into action inside the machine as the various plastic doors for dispensing began to slide open and shut. Now food started flying across the room as well as soda cans.

  Nicholas looked down at his ruined suit and something in his face changed to an angry mask, his humanity stretched into a tight, leather mockery of his features. He pulled at the two halves of the door and I heard the metal buckling. I dove out of the way, taking a few heavy hits from some of the flying cans in the process, but I needed to get clear.

  Nicholas screamed in rage and the door flew across the room, tearing into the sandwich machine’s plastic carousel. The upper half of it teetered for a moment, and then fell backward as a shower of sparks rose from the remaining half.

  Nicholas turned and tossed another piece of door at the soda machine, lodging it in the center of the machine. The soda machine spun itself in circles on its fancy high-tech treads until it slammed into the wall and stayed there, grinding its gears.

  I stood up, brushing bits of food and drops of soda off of me. I stepped toward Nicholas, but when I saw the look on his face, I stopped. He snarled without any sign that he recognized me. I backed away, climbing over flipped tables and scattered chairs, trying not to slip on the sticky film of soda that coated everything in the room.

  “Easy now, Nicky,” I said. “Remember what Brandon told you about me.”

  His eyes were fixated on my face and I suddenly realized why. The cut I had received from the first exploding can. I was bleeding.

  I reached up and covered my cheek.

  “Remember what Brandon, your lord and master, told you,” I repeated. “I’m for helping, not for eating.”

  Nicholas paused for a second, his face still feral-looking. I prayed I was getting through, but before I could find out, the machine from the main control room fired up and started spitting DVD-Rs at us again. Nicholas held an arm up to block his face, but I was glad to see that his focus shifted from me to the other room.

  “Follow me,” he said ferocity in his voice, an inhuman growl beneath his words.

  I nodded in silence and followed when he dashed back into the control room. By the time I entered, he was already tearing into the DVD-R machine. I headed for the doors, but stopped in my tracks when I heard a familiar voice over the sound system.

  “Simon?” There was a vocoder quality to my name, full of electronic clicks and whirs, but the voice was definitely Jane’s. “Simon?” it said again, this time coming from off to my left. I turned to it.

  The main display of the control room was taken up by a staticky image of Jane. Her long blond hair waved against a sea of black, the ends of it trailing off to pixilated blocks that faded and vanished into the darkness.

  “Jane!
” I said, heading over to the screen. On the giant wall monitor, Jane’s head and shoulders were huge, stretching from floor to ceiling.

  “Did you get my present?” she asked, the eyes on the monitor turning to focus on where I stood in the room.

  I smiled and held up the new bat. “Yes,” I said. “Very shiny.”

  “Good,” Jane said, smiling, too. “Tell Wesker I don’t think I’ll be back to work on Monday.”

  I collapsed my bat and sheathed it, then slipped off my gloves and held my hands up to the screen, the pulse of its electricity warming them.

  “Why don’t you come tell him yourself?” I asked.

  “I don’t think I can do that,” she said, her eyes seeming distant, as if she was concentrating very hard on something. Her head and shoulders started to shrink as her size adjusted to match mine, almost as if a camera were pulling back on her. Jane was naked. I didn’t have time to be shocked. She held her hands up to mine. “Just tell him.”

  I started to cry, tears rolling down my cheeks. “No,” I shouted at the screen. “You have to come in. You haven’t been with the Department long enough to have accumulated this much vacation time or sick time.”

  Jane cocked her head at me, some of the humanity returning to her face. “No?”

  “No,” I said. “And . . . think of all the paperwork I’ll have to fill out explaining this. The pile will be taller than I am.”

  Jane’s face floated in front of mine, the pixels of her eyes dancing as she looked into mine. She gave a weak smile.

  “You don’t want that,” I said, “do you?”

  Jane flickered on-screen. “No, I suppose not.”

  I pressed my hands hard against the glass of the giant monitor. “Then come to me, Jane. Come to me.”

  I looked to my hands and her eyes followed. Her fingers traced mine and I pushed my power into the screen, trying to make any kind of connection that I could. Old images of building surveillance started filling my mind and I felt the electricity of the building mixing with my power, coursing through me.

  And then it was joined by another sensation. A wave of an energy I couldn’t comprehend washed through me and I felt something familiar in it, something . . . caring. Jane. I pushed myself toward it, and then felt it touch me. I shook myself free of my psychometric vision.

  I was still standing at the screen, but when I looked down, Jane’s flesh-and-blood hands were sticking through the screen, holding both of mine. Our fingers were intertwined, little shocks of electricity jolting up my arm. I eased her arms forward, extracting her out through the monitor inch by inch. It was like pulling her out of a pool of molasses. Her big blue eyes widened as her face approached the surface of the monitor, and then her whole head pushed through. As it broke the surface, she gasped in air.

  “That’s it,” I said. “That’s it.”

  Jane shrieked in pain, startling me. I stopped pulling. “What’s wrong?” I said, as if pulling my girlfriend out of a big-screen television wasn’t wrong enough. Then I realized what it was as I felt something tug her back to the other side. The building was trying to keep her.

  “Fight it, Jane,” I said, holding on to her. “I’m not letting go. You have to fight it.”

  “It hurts,” she cried out, her body convulsing in my arms. I let go of her hands and hugged her to me. It was no use. The pull from within the monitor was too strong and Jane’s body was slowly drawing back into it.

  Still hugging her, I let one of my hands free and reached out to the monitor. I pushed my psychometric power back into it, desperate to try anything to keep Jane. Usually when I read an object, using that power drained me, but this was no regular object. This was a sentient one. Maybe I could actually drain it instead. Using another part of my mind’s eye, as I had when reading Perry the vampire to create a mental shield, I pictured my own energy as a battery charge meter, like the one on my phone. It was at the halfway mark. I concentrated on the meter, willing it to recharge, feeling the building’s power give a bit. I kept watching the meter, ignoring Jane’s screams out in the real world as I forced the meter to fill. First one bar filled on it, then another. I pushed myself harder, until the reading showed a full charge, and then pulled myself out of the vision. Hopefully it was enough to have drained the power I was fighting against.

  Jane still struggled against the monitor, but she was making progress freeing herself. Now she was caught in the monitor only waist high, trying to pull herself out of it like someone who had fallen in a hole while ice fishing. All around us the rest of the room was in turmoil. Emergency lights were flashing; alarms were going off; monitor stations were smoking as circuits blew and the acrid smell of burning electronics filled the room. I grabbed Jane, put one of my feet up on the monitor’s edge, and pulled her toward me. She stuck for a moment, but then the two of us were falling as she slid out of the monitor with one last rush of electronic buzzing. I landed hard on my back, the crunch of broken DVDs sounding out from underneath me. Jane landed on top of me.

  She looked stunned for a moment, and then smiled.

  “Hello, Tall, Dark, and Human,” she said. I couldn’t help but smile back before I pulled her closer and kissed her.

  I would have stayed in her warm embrace forever if the sound of crunching footsteps hadn’t drawn me back to reality. The two of us sat up and I got my first good look at her, my mouth agape.

  “What are you staring at?” she asked, worried.

  “You,” I said, struggling out of my coat. “You’re naked.” Jane looked down at herself as if noticing for the first time. Her face went red, even if her body didn’t. I handed her my coat and she slid it on within seconds. I reached into its pocket and pulled out the necklace, fastening it around her neck again.

  “I believe this is yours,” I said.

  Jane ran her hand over it, tracing the silver FOREVER banner along the front of the heart. “Thanks,” she said, standing up.

  I stood as well and turned to Nicholas, who was just joining us. He had reverted to his regular human form, but nothing could hide the fact that he was covered in bits of food and flecks of broken discs. Behind him, nothing remained where the disc-throwing machine had once stood.

  “Everyone okay?” he said, brushing at the shiny metal flakes that coated him.

  “You look like a disco ball,” I said. Jane giggled, causing Nicholas to stop brushing at himself and look up at her.

  “Nicholas Vanbrugh,” I said, “this is my girlfriend, Jane Clayton-Forrester, your ghost in the machine.”

  Nicholas held his hand out, upturned in a formal gesture. Jane clutched my coat closed around her with one hand and gave him her other. Nicholas gave a low bow, and then kissed it. “Enchanted.”

  “As am I,” she said. She withdrew her hand and started buttoning the coat. “Forgive me. I’m usually not so naked.”

  Nicholas turned away in modesty. He looked at me. “Sorry I acted like that in the break room.”

  “Hey, no apologies,” I said. “Your Hulking out seemed to have had a positive effect on getting out of this situation.”

  Nicholas looked hesitant. “Still . . . I prefer to not show that side of myself, but when that salad hit me, something inside me snapped. I’m wearing Armani, after all.”

  “A little vanity can go a long way,” I said, and he smiled.

  “That it can.”

  “Hey, riddle me this,” I said. “Why would vampires need a soda machine or a vending one?”

  Nicholas looked mock offended. “What? We can’t drink or eat for flavor?”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I guess we’ve spent so much time in the Department figuring out how to fight you guys. Not really up on your culinary habits—other than the blood drinking.”

  Nicholas nodded. “Besides, not everyone who works here is of the fanged persuasion.”

  “Ah,” I said. I turned to Jane. Her brow was furrowed with concern. “Jane . . . ?”

  She held up her finger to shush me and I fell sil
ent. “Do you hear that?” she asked.

  I listened for a few seconds and shook my head. “No, I don’t. Sorry.”

  “Exactly,” she said. “It’s far too quiet. Mr. Vanbrugh, is the building all right?”

  Nicholas listened for a minute, and then headed for one of the few still-operational consoles in the room.

  “No, it’s not,” he said, after a moment at the keyboard. “A lot of the systems are down, including the security systems.”

  He keystroked in a few commands, then entered them again and again before the security doors to the room finally opened. A stream of workers poured in, all of them looking around at the chaos with amazement. A few of them, I noticed, weren’t shy about getting a look at Jane wearing nothing more than my coat.

  We left Nicholas and his men to assess the damage to the Gibson-Case Center. I put my arm around Jane’s waist and headed us toward the door, carefully helping her step over all the shards of broken discs covering the floor. One crisis down, seventy-three to go. I didn’t know what I was going to do next on that list, other than find some clothes for my recently returned girlfriend. Something more substantial than just a necklace, anyway.

  On our way from the control room down to the castle, we had to go through part of the shopping district of the Gibson-Case Center, but no one dared stop us. They all just stared. When Jane and I entered the forest and she saw the castle for the first time, Jane looked like she was dazed. When we finally went into the castle and came to Brandon’s chamber door, the blond vampire from his council, Gerard, let us in. Council seemed to be in session, and with them were Aidan, Beatriz, and Connor. When Connor turned and saw it was us, his face lit up.

  “Jane!” Connor said. His face broke into a wide smile and he ran across the room to hug her. He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her tight. Jane just stood there, looking stunned.

  “Oh,” she said, a pained look on her face. “Hello.”

  Connor stepped back from her, put his arms on her shoulders, and looked her in the eyes. “You do remember me, right?” He looked to me. “She does remember me, right, kid?”