Chapter 15 #3
“Mmmm, I doubt it.” The hall was full, as was the kitchen.
Much as I hated to admit it, Benedict’s spiky inert dross took up a lot less space.
The bottles were really stacking up, both full and empty.
At a loss, I tucked the empties by the fireplace.
“The loom here isn’t much. Cement walls and a chemical hood that leads to a vault smaller than this room. ”
Spiders crawled over my spine as Benedict fixed another bottle of dross into a spiny nugget.
I hadn’t felt the others, and I wondered if maybe this was why Pluck hadn’t returned with Marty.
“I should check. Marty, you want to come with me?” I said, wanting to get out of the room, and Marty lit up. “I mean if you’re good here, Benny.”
“Sure, go,” he said as he concentrated on the bottle and another spiky nugget took form.
Marty’s obvious excitement held a thread of worry. “I’ve never seen a loom. We just left bottles at the door at my old job.”
That sounded about right, and I managed a smile as I remembered the first time I’d gone down to St. Unoc’s main loom.
Darrell had been working it. My smile faltered.
“Benny, I’ll tape that up in a minute,” I said as I moved a couple of full bottles closer to him, and he bobbed his head.
“Stairs. I’m not sure where the stairs are,” I added, and Pluck’s presence in my thoughts strengthened.
Through the door, iced up through me. That isn’t a closet.
Thanks, I thought, seeing the faded door between Akeem’s and Ryan’s offices.
“I thought you worked here,” Marty said as I tried the door to find it unlocked.
“No, I worked at the loom under the Surran building.” The door creaked open, and I flicked on the light. Wooden stairs went down, lit by an ancient bulb. “This is a temporary situation.”
I headed down, Marty lagging behind, the two empties hitting the wall. Pluck padded along beside me, chilling my leg as he phased in and out of it. It was hard to tell who was more eager to see the vault—for different reasons.
“Yeah, this is it,” I added when I saw the formidable fire door and lit keypad at the bottom.
Pluck was waiting impatiently, clearly unable to get past the door.
A quick rattle of the handle convinced me it was locked, but the keypad was glowing, and I tapped it awake. “Petra Grady, weaver third-class.”
The door unlocked with a heavy thump. There was no cheerful voice announcing me, which I both appreciated and missed.
Let me check it out first. Pluck pushed past me, and in three seconds, Good! bubbled up through my mind.
Nose wrinkled at the scent of neglect, I fumbled for a light switch and clicked it on, scuffing to a halt just inside the door.
“Good” wouldn’t be my word choice. It was small, cinder-block walls with a cement floor.
An empty floor-to-ceiling rack took up one wall, but there were no scales to measure what was being processed.
The graciously named loom was nothing but a chemical hood with poke-through gloves and a swing door that presumably led to the vault.
“Wow, that’s it?” Marty said as she set her two empties on the rack.
“This is really primitive,” I admitted, tapping the glass hood with a fingernail.
“Nothing like the loom at the Surran building. We had a full kitchen and showers. Somewhere to relax. The Spinners had their offices down there.” I remembered Darrell’s potted plants under full-spectrum lights and her strung loom now on display in the Surran building. “It was nice.”
Marty swung the glass door open and shut, studying it before locking it. “It’s not in use, is it?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“And they used to put shadows in here?”
“Yes, unfortunately. But no one knew they were sentient back then.” Which was sort of a lie.
Shadow had been vaulted only when it was too “smart” to use for instruction.
Which sort of begged the question of whether maybe the “dumb” shadow had pretended to be ignorant to avoid being vaulted only to be divided into wands and other repelling safety equipment.
Cheese and crackers, what a choice to have been given—burned alive or cut into pieces so small you were lobotomized.
“St. Unoc was originally an artists’ commune,” I said, stifling a shudder of horror.
“It grew into an artists’ town, then a small university to provide dross traps disguised as artwork.
St. Unoc University still is known for that.
Our graduates are in high demand. It’s one of the careers that’s open to sweepers that actually pays well because it’s still art. ”
“Huh.” Marty ran a finger along the loom’s door seals. “Are you sure it’s empty?”
“Not without opening that wall door and looking, but it was supposed to have been emptied when the new vault went into service. They needed a large enough pool of starter dross to attract the stuff they were putting in. Pluck would know.”
I scanned the floor, then the stained ceiling, not seeing him. “Pluck?”
For a heartbeat, I froze, listening to the silence. Not a fizz or bubble lifted through my mind. Actually, he had been missing for a while.
“Petra!” echoed faintly from upstairs, followed by a heavy thump, and then nothing.