Page 34, From the private files of D. Sidewalker

[Lynet]

10:30 AM Pao Mellon’s information about the book order is probably nothing, but I have no other leads. I take Moriz and Chavez for a walk down the street. I try not to think about the embarrassment to me, and to the rest of the force, if the missing woman turns out to be living on the same block as the police station. For a month.

A ring on the doorbell brings a pale man in shirtsleeves running. Moriz asks the man if he has seen a dark-haired woman in the area. Her name is Andromeda O’Neill. Etc., Etc.



“Of course! She’s downstairs with Arkin. Come along. I’ll point the way.”

Moriz, Chavez and I look at each other, then follow him. He leads us through the property to an older building in the rear, one of those that the Preservation Society has listed as Untouchable. Inside the crumbling interior, a small, rotting wooden door opens to concrete steps leading down.

I suspect the Preservation Society does not know about the brand new concrete steps and walls that we discover as we walk down to a brightly lit area three levels below the street.



We feel a faint vibration through the floor. We don’t have to walk far before we find ourselves in a small room full of people. One of them looks like a member of the Orcus family. She’s busy talking to another guy who looks like he’s a member of the mushroom family. He and several others, like the man who met us upstairs, have skin so pale that I’m forced to conclude they live permanently underground.

In the middle of them, and in the middle of machines covered with multicolored, blinking lights, is a robot. And also, Andromeda O’Neill, looking flushed, healthy and very happy.

“We did it!” she says when she see us. “Landgraab is finished.”



“Did what?” Chavez and I spoke together.

The robot said, “We took control of the weather machine away from him. Around you here is the Counter Effect. It‘s taken weeks of hard work, but it‘s done. He thought he could control the world by controlling the weather. We can‘t stop the weather, but we can mitigate the damage.”

All three members of the police force stared at him blankly.

Finally, I said, “What’s weather?”

I will not try to repeat what Arkin told us. I didn't understand it anyway. But he and Andromeda insisted that whatever happens after today might have been a whole lot worse, and might now be only amusing. Even entertaining.



I hope so. I looked around at their machines and didn't ask any more questions. I really didn't want to know the answers.

Then I took Andromeda home.






The End

[muffin-tacos]

A nice story, Lynet, I was biting my nails towards the end. As usual the pictures are beautiful!