Serafina and the Virtual Man - By Marie Treanor Page 0,5
Ewans were hiding something. And if it was equipment capable of conjuring something like the effects of a poltergeist, she needed to know. She could scratch her head over motive later.
Besides, how could anyone who appreciated electronics pass by the chance of a snoop around the house of the Genesis owner?
Jilly whisked into the room and pushed the door back into its original position. So far, so good.
She was in Dale Ewan’s study: surprisingly small, dominated by a huge desk; laptop almost hidden by a big tower computer and three monitors. At last—geeks’ paradise. Except the laptop was closed and the big computer was switched off. So where was all the power coming from?
From beyond the inner door.
Jilly almost didn’t see it because there was no frame surrounding it and no handle. At first glance it looked like part of the wall, except that it had a keypad beside it at around Jilly’s head height.
Impasse. She glared at the tiny, visible crack down one side of the door. Apparently, Sera’s lover, the vampire Blair, could open doors by looking at them. For the first time ever, Jilly wished for his presence. Since she didn’t have it, she ran one finger down the crack in a regretful sort of way while wondering if she could simply ask Dale for a tour. She decided against it on the grounds that he’d almost certainly take it as an invitation to seduce her.
Jilly wrestled with her conscience and her common sense. Not only would breaking in be wrong, she could lose Serafina’s the job and get herself arrested. She really didn’t want the police poking around her own electronic gadgetry.
I’m a hacker, not a burglar.
But they’re hiding something, I know they are. That must impact on the case…
“Fuck it,” Jilly whispered and delved into her laptop bag to find the correct, illegally acquired instrument. Even as she stuck one end to the keypad panel and plugged the other into her laptop, she was aware that the case wasn’t her only motive. She really wanted to see what Genesis was up to next. For no other reason than sheer geekery.
The computer whirred, the door clicked and slid open. Jilly took a deep breath, detached the gadget from the keypad and walked inside while still shoving her equipment back in the bag.
Oh yes, she’d struck gold. Not one but several computers were banked along one wall of the large, sterile room, although only one hummed busily behind its blank screen.
Jilly surveyed the room. It was large, probably ran for some distance behind the mirror in the gallery. A cushioned bench, like an operating table, stood in the centre of the space with masses of wiring, virtual reality headsets, gloves, etc. Above it hung other instruments. It looked a bit like a dentist’s surgery.
She’d no time to investigate properly. Pointless—and mad!—to have broken in here without several hours to play around.
She turned back to the active computer, bent, and wiggled its mouse. Nothing more interesting than a list of numbered files popped up. On impulse, Jilly grabbed a memory stick from her bag and shoved it into one of several USB ports.
She had to remind herself that less than five months ago she’d hacked into the systems of several banks and got away with it. Nicking files was no big deal. It wasn’t as if she’d use them for anything except satisfying her own curiosity.
She clicked Copy and stepped back from the computer, farther into the room.
As if she’d pressed a different button entirely, coloured lights suddenly flashed all around her. She whirled. The lights seemed to merge into one green one, emanating from some instrument over the operating table. The light moved, sweeping down her body and back up with increasing brightness so that she had to throw her arms up over her eyes.
When she lowered her arms, a man stood in front of her.
Tall, lean, a little dishevelled, he regarded her with a mixture of frowning anxiety and wonder. His steady, unblinking eyes were a melting dark brown, his hair a shock of unstyled black messiness, sticking up in various places and flopping forward over one side of his forehead. He wore casual, faded blue jeans and an old black T-shirt with some of the band logo worn off.
The overall effect was curiously appealing. Of course, his shoulders were broad and his arms pleasingly muscled, and he was very good-looking in a careless sort of way Jilly didn’t quite understand, because the sight of him