Untouched The Girl in the Box - By Robert J. Crane Page 0,63
I kicked a trash can savagely, sending it hurtling across a snowfield. I started back toward the dormitory building at a brisk walk, as though I could exorcise the demons of Perugini’s words by walking them off.
I was already in the building and almost to my door when I remembered that Gavrikov had burned my room. I stopped outside the door, which had caution tape across it and gave it a gentle push. It swung open and I found the space covered from the outside by several tarps. The broken glass was gone from the floor, as were the carpets, leaving bare concrete.
The room was frigid and the furniture was all gone—desk, bed, everything. The walls had already been replaced, the scorch marks gone, vanished with the addition of fresh drywall. It hadn’t been painted yet, giving the place the smell of a construction site.
I walked into the closet and found the clothes were missing. I smiled as I wondered if the Directorate had finally run out of jeans and turtlenecks in my size. My smile vanished when I realized that would bode ill for me; my current outfit was scorched, stunk of acrid smoke and was missing a sleeve.
I heard the scrape of a footstep on the concrete and all my amusement vanished as I sprung to attention. I stood in the darkness of the closet and heard someone walk to the door, opening it wide to let light from the hallways outside my room filter in. “You were supposed to come see me.” Dr. Zollers stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame in the way of a man who’d been awakened from a deep slumber and might return to it while standing there.
“Dr. Perugini called you?” I took a step toward him and he nodded. “I thought maybe it could wait until tomorrow.”
“Well, that was dumb,” he said and turned, then gestured for me to follow him. “Let’s go.”
I went with him, out of the dormitory building, back to his office. He didn’t talk the whole way there and I started to wonder why, but when we got to his office, he poured a cup of coffee and gestured for me to sit. He yawned, took a big swig of his mug and cracked a smile. “Much better.” He pointed to his cup. “Want some?”
“No, I had a bad experience with coffee.” He looked at me quizzically. “I tried to drink it with meatloaf. It was my first time with both of those things, so...” I shrugged.
“All right, so let’s talk.” He put his mug down and picked up his notebook, all business. “You’ve got a maniac in your head.”
“Plus Wolfe,” I said with a smile.
“Clever. How’s it feel?”
“Being clever? Damned good. It’s my only vice.” I grinned, then turned more serious when he didn’t smile back. “He mostly just talked, until recently. Smarted off and whatnot. Told me a couple things—like where his lair was, who the man behind the armor was.”
“When did you figure out that he could hijack your body?” He was already writing feverishly, but paused to look up when he asked the question.
I looked away, uncomfortable. “Um...probably when the Science Building exploded and I woke up in the snow with no idea how I got there.” I hesitated. “But I had a suspicion before that. Ariadne said they had footage of me breaking into the cafeteria and I didn’t remember doing it.”
“Sleepwalking is not usually a good sign, even if it’s just to get something to eat.” He put down the pen and looked up to me. “We have no scientific idea how you drain a soul. Sessions is mystified.” Zollers stopped to smile. “He’s always a little confused, but this one started him on all the possibilities of other mythological powers that might hold some truth. For example, the ability of a succubus to influence dreams?” He waited, eyebrow raised, as though he were expecting an answer.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “I can contact people in my dreams. It’s a kind of weird, two-way communication dream. Like a video conference, but entirely in my head.” I frowned. “Like a hallucinatory video conference.”
“Anything else you haven’t been telling us?” he asked with a cocked eyebrow and a half smile. It could have come off as an accusation, if anyone else had done it. Zollers pulled it off like a pro. I think I smiled when I shook my head. “All right. So...how are we going to get the Wolfe under control?”