by Stone, C. L.
“Are you out of cigarettes? Is that why you’re still talking?”
“I’m out here where I’m not supposed to be and I don’t understand why.”
“You’re here to make sure the signal goes offline and to help us talk to this guy who shows up. You can tell us if he’s lying.”
“Like I’m supposed to know?”
I walked behind them, listening to the exchange as they rattled on. It was mostly Doyle complaining about why he was here, and Blake humoring him but not releasing him from going with us.
I wasn’t sure if this was the best idea. We weren’t targeting Alice or Eddie anymore. We were targeting the people who owned the core. Wouldn’t this alert them that someone was onto them and shut it down? And then Alice would kill Axel, Marc and Brandon?
Maybe...or maybe there was someone out there we could talk to that could help us. Maybe Ethan had someone who worked on this core and he’d send him out and we could figure a way around it.
Maybe Blake was right to go to the source, and find a way to communicate without alerting Alice or the others that something was up.
I kept my head down, and had put Mr. Anderson’s shirt on in the car to keep myself warm. It wasn’t the nicest part of town, either, so I was on the lookout for any local thugs.
Blake and Doyle walked to the brick building and circled it once. The building was plain, brick, with a couple of broken windows, though only one was taped up at all. The church next door was taller.
“Abandoned,” Doyle said. He checked his cell phone and read. “It’s owned by the same real estate company this Ethan guy works at though.”
“We’ll have to try our luck and be on the lookout,” Blake said. “There could be hobos inside. Or guards planted to keep this core safe.”
“You’re just full of sunshine and daisy thoughts, aren’t you?” Doyle asked.
Blake started to approach the steps and then stopped and looked back at me. An eyebrow lifted. “You okay?”
Something seemed... not right. “Are we sure this thing is here?”
“This neighborhood is where the signal is coming from,” Doyle said. “And this is the only place that has any sort of antenna.”
“I mean, if you’re going to have a multimillion dollar secret phone service, would you set it up on the roof of an abandoned building in this neighborhood?”
Blake looked up the block while Doyle looked the opposite way. The one thing saving this town from looking so plain was the old church, which had old architecture and steeples and a lovely garden with a fountain.
Doyle turned back first. “Who am I to account for the tastes of rich men? I mean, look at Blake? He still eats Pop Tarts like when we were kids.”
“Shush your mouth,” Blake said, turning to the door and checking on how to open it. “Don’t go talking about my Pop Tarts.”
I faced Doyle, grinning. “You knew him when you were younger?”
“We grew up together!” he said. “Well, during a few months of the year when my parents dragged me away from Ireland. And then eventually they moved here. We’re practically cousins. He got the dumb genes in the family, though. And the ugly ones.”
I inserted my arm into Doyle’s, and held on to it, trying to drag him up the stairs. “Come tell me about Blake Coaltar and his childhood. And skip the boring stuff.”
“What? You mean you just want to hear the dirty bits? No. Nope. I don’t even want to think about the time he convinced a bunch of girls in high school to skinny-dip in the school pool and let the whole male swim team watch.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Blake said, bending to look at the lock. “We were young. It was his idea. He started it.”
“Oh no,” Doyle said. He waved his hand. “No, I couldn’t convince girls to do anything. You were the one they listened to. Still do. Like let me tell you about Mrs. Smitherson… Was that her name? Smithtonian? The lady with the red hair and the husband who...”
Blake cleared his throat and stood taller. He pointed at the door. “Can we just hurry along now?”
I was actually grateful for it. As much as I wanted to know about Blake and his past, there were some things I was sure I didn’t want to hear about. Especially his playboy teen years. There was a lot I could forgive as boys being boys, of course, but that didn’t mean I needed to hear about it.
Although it was interesting to hear that Blake Coaltar grew up like a normal kid. Where did he acquire his enormous wealth? Was it a recent development? I just assumed he’d inherited it.
I checked out the lock Blake was having problems with. “Anyone have a flashlight?” I asked. There was one in the car, along with other tools. I needed to keep some in my pocket. I’d given the phone to Doyle to hang on to for sourcing the signal.
Doyle reached into his pocket, pulling out a lighter.
Blake pushed the light away and then pulled out his cell phone, finding a light app and turned it on. “Let’s try not to burn the place down, all right?”
“Like what we used to do with the eggs?” Doyle asked.
I was inspecting the lock but lost focus just enough to look at Doyle. “Eggs?”
Doyle nodded. “Trust me. Don’t put a whole carton of eggs into the microwave. That doesn’t make hardboiled eggs. He and I learned it the hard way...”
“Guys,” Blake said. He put a lot of emphasis into his southern voice. “I don’t particularly want to get caught with my pants down here, so if you don’t mind...”
“He means get to opening the door before anyone catches us,” Doyle said, with a short wave at me.
I rolled my eyes, shaking my head. I checked the lock out again, noticed it was old, and not a deadbolt. “Anyone have a credit card?”
“That trick doesn’t work,” Doyle said.
“Stick to computers,” Blake said. He pulled out a card, started to pass it to me and then right when it touched my palm, he pulled it back, holding it to his chest and then put it back into his wallet. “Hang on, I still use that one.”
“I’m not going to break it,” I said.
He pulled one out from the back of his wallet. It looked old, with the numbers faded off. I rolled my eyes and then slipped it between the double doors of the building. With a little shake, wedging and a tug of the handle, I had the door open.
The credit card snapped in two as a result. I passed the pieces back. Blake smirked and put them back in his wallet.
I got a draft of old rotten wood, dust, and other disgusting smells all at once. The only light inside was from the church next door’s gardens lamps. There was a large open space and then I believe what was meant to be offices in the corners, but the walls had been busted out, and a single staircase rose in the middle. There was trash everywhere. I had a feeling when people couldn’t afford to pay their monthly garbage bill, they threw it into this building.
I covered my mouth and nose with my palms. Not that it helped much. I swallowed, trying not to breathe in too much. It was overwhelming.
Doyle made a noise that sounded like he was puking. “Oh my god,” he said. “It’s disgusting.”
“Funny,” Blake said. He moved into the building with careful steps, checking the floorboards with his weight. “I thought this would be more like home to you.”
“I’d rather go back to Doyle’s house right now,” I said through my hand.
“See?” Doyle said. “Even the wench knows.”
“Don’t call her a wench,” Blake said.
“I forgot her name.”
“It’s Kayli,” Blake said, and then spoke in exaggeration. “Kaaaay-leeee. Two syllables.”
“I’m horrible with names,” he said. “I’m still not sure what yours is. You say Blake, but I’m pretty sure it’s like Bob. Or Sanchez.”
I strolled forward, unsure if I wanted to stick around and listen to the rest of this argument, or conversation, or whatever it was they were doing.
Still, I’d wished I’d begged Doyle for some shoes, too. With the heels
, I didn’t feel safe walking through trash. I was worried they’d get caught in something. Like an old diaper, which was what this place smelled like. Did hobos use it as a restroom?
I was walking over bags of garbage to get to the stairs when I heard rustling in the corners. I stilled for a moment, afraid to wake a human...or dog or rats… snakes. I hated the thought of snakes more.
Blake was at my back instantly, a hand guiding me forward. “Tiptoe,” he whispered at my ear. “Quickly.”
I looked back once, spotting Blake with Doyle behind him. Both now looked serious and grim, leading me to believe whoever else was in this building was most definitely human and not someone we wanted to have a conversation with.
The stairs looked hazardous with trash all over them, but the old construction was sound. Sticking to the stairs, I focused on them, rather than looking through the rest of the building.
The further we went in, the more I was convinced this was the wrong place. Rich people would send someone here to put together a sophisticated antenna? It’d be noticed. Even if you didn’t have to manage it much, you still had to maintain it. You’d have to keep people out with security measures. There wasn’t any way I’d let hobos sleep in the same building as my illegal cell thingie.
While the trash problem lessened as we went up, the cold and the smells were just as bad. I didn’t want to voice my opinion when others nearby could be listening in. Even if they were hobos, in the dark we could pretend to be other hobos looking for a spot to sleep and hopefully they wouldn’t bother us if we stayed quiet.
We had to walk up and out into the fourth floor to find the way. The stairs to the roof turned out to be an old ladder that was hidden in the ceiling. Blake found it, and had to break the handle to open the door and allow the rusted old ladder to come down. It dropped with a screeching clank. It appeared it’d fall apart the moment anyone stepped on it.
“Ladies first,” Doyle whispered.
Uh, no. I nudged Doyle toward it.
He dug in his heels. “No, no,” he said, starting to talk a little louder. “I’m not going up there.”
“I’ll go up first,” Blake said. He passed over something small into my palm, and I realized it was the pocketknife. “Hang on to this.”
“How did you get that?” I asked. “That was in my pocket.”
“I found it in the car floor,” he said. “You must have dropped it.”
I wasn’t sure if that was true, but I’d passed out and forgot about it, so I was glad he was able to grab it, steal it, whatever. I wasn’t used to carrying tools.
Blake went up, the ladder creaking and shaking the whole time. Hobos nearby rustled, probably drunk asleep and stirred by the noise. I hoped they weren’t angry drunks.
I stepped between the ladder and Doyle. If a hobo approached, I wanted to be able to shimmy up, or at least hide behind Doyle.
“Ugh,” Blake said somewhere above our heads.
“What?” Doyle asked. “Is it locked?”
“Spiders,” he said. “Come up here.”
“No,” Doyle said. “I don’t do spiders. That’s Karen’s job.”
“Kayli,” Blake said. “Her name is Kayli.”
“Are you sure?” Doyle asked.
“Sssh!” I hissed at them both.
In a few minutes, Blake had the top opened up. I could see sky and some light and that was about it. Blake disappeared onto the roof.
I caught movement in the corner. There was stirring and something rose up in the darkness. Fear motivated me enough to face spiders and whatever was upstairs simply to avoid the zombie drunken hobo ghost.
Doyle was on my heels. He scampered up, pushing on my ankles. “Hurry or I’ll throw you off,” he said.
I kicked out below me, hitting him on the arm, but then hurried up.
The fresh air outside was welcome to the musty and rotten odors from below. I didn’t want to have to go back through. I thought jumping from the roof was a more viable option this time.
Blake was over by the satellite dish, examining it. As I approached, I caught him scratching his head and checking out the base of it.
“Doyle,” he said. He did a come-hither motion and pointed to the base. “Come look at this. Does this look like—”
Doyle shoved him aside before he could finish. He got down on his knees, looking at the wiring and the box that was beside the dish and then angled his head more, nearly putting his ear to the ground to check it out. “What is this?” he asked.
I stood aside quietly, keeping an eye on them and the ladder behind us. I worried one of the hobos would climb it, or put the ladder back and lock us up here.
“You tell me,” Blake said. “How do we turn it off?”
“It is off,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
Doyle picked up his head and dusted his hands off on his jeans before he raked through his hair. “This isn’t it,” he said.
I fully turned now, looking at him. Blake stared too. “What do you mean?” Blake asked. “You said this was it.”
“So?” Doyle said. “I said the biggest signal was coming from this...general vicinity. It’s the most logical place to put it.”
“Atop an abandoned building?” I asked. “You thought the best place to put an antenna that was supposed to be a secret to be on top of a building filled with hobos, with no security and rusted ladders and spiders everywhere?”
“Well, when you put it that way,” he said. “But how was I supposed to know about the rustiness of the ladder? But will you look at this dish? It’s a perfectly good dish. I’d use it for an underground cell phone service. If I had one. I wouldn’t start one though. That’s a lot of work. And apparently people named Amanda come after you.”
“Alice,” I said. “And she’s already got to the first one. We need access to another antenna before she figures a way in, and Axel and Marc and Brandon get killed.”
“Well, we’ll have to find the next one,” he said. He stood up and continued to wipe his jeans and look around. “If it isn’t here, it’s like a false signal or something.”
“Or it isn’t this building,” Blake said. He walked away from us, toward the edge of the roof, looking out toward the church and the churchyard behind it. “You just need something tall, right? Something high enough to send out a signal?”
“Something to bounce signals off of, yes,” Doyle said. “And a lot of them.”
Blake stared out at the church, and I wasn’t connecting it until I caught the cross on top of the steeple, the tallest thing for miles.
That’s when it struck me. Brandon had said that an antenna didn't have to be obvious. It could be anything. It was just large metal...with the right sort of signal behind it, anything could act like a cell phone tower.
And then I remembered the large observatory with the telescopes that overlooked a stretch of church towers amid the trees.
“Ethan,” I breathed out, stepping up beside Blake and staring off at the church. “The man that started the core. He’s a religious man. He’s gotten a bunch of emails from church people.”
“So no one would think it odd if he happened to come out to church, and did a little fiddling in the steeples,” Blake said. He turned to me, smiling big. “That’s brilliant. That takes the cake. Using church steeples as antennas system. It’s in your face and yet it’s hidden.”
“Should have figured,” Doyle said behind us. “Happens all the time. I mean, churches are evil, aren’t they? What with the crosses and the rituals and the singing.”
A CHURCH STEEPLE AND A PRAYER
There was a debate as to going down the ladder again or jumping off the side of the roof, when Blake pointed out there was a fire escape. It was rusty, and creaky, but we were outside, and it didn’t fall apart on us.
Once we were on the ground, we crossed the street, heading for the church. The garden had a concrete path among low hedges and the occasional late blooming rose bush and a fancy fountain in the center
. It was probably better looking during the day, but for the moment, there were shadows, and I kept picturing hobos sleeping in the bushes.
“It’s midnight,” Doyle said. “Isn’t the church closed?”
I’d been wondering the same thing. “How do we break into a church?”
“Are you both heathens?” Blake asked. “This is a church. It’s never closed and you don’t break into one.”
I blinked at him, a little stunned. Churches closed, didn’t they? I mean, no one was here this late. Wouldn’t someone come in and like loot the tithing box? Steal the gold crosses? Did they even have gold crosses anymore? I was guessing based on every movie or TV show I’d ever watched about churches.
While there were lights on, they were minimal, making the church appear foreboding. It was Catholic, according to the sign, although I didn’t catch the name. The steps up to the front doors were empty, with lights focused on the engraved wooden doors and the shiny brass handles.
I lingered back, intimidated by the building. The grounds had been scary enough. The church itself terrified me. Would a priest see me, know me for what I was, and kick me out? Would I have to go into a confession box? Wasn’t I supposed to put holy water on myself at some point?
Blake pulled on the door handle. I held my breath, thinking there was no way this church was open and worried we’d set off some sort of alarm.
But the door opened easily, and with barely a creak.
I swallowed. If it hadn’t been open, we’d have had to break into it, but even now, I was expecting fire and brimstone for stepping through the front door.
Nothing happened as I followed the guys inside. The front area, whatever it was called, had a marble floor and high ceilings and lamps that looked like candles. There was a table nearby with pamphlets, one advertising the history of the chapel, and the others about religious services.
I scanned the area, but didn’t see anyone. Yet there was a feeling that we weren’t completely alone. The place smelled of old wood and an undertone of lemon, like furniture polish.
