Sanctuary Falling (22 page)

Annette tried to form an answer, but before she could, the door to the waiting room hissed open. Sinclair trotted into the room with a superior look on his face which faded as soon as he saw Niri and Annette sitting and eating. Annette looked at the clock, it was precisely nine-fifteen.
 
She almost felt his disappointment, he had hoped to show Niri up by arriving on time when he thought she was late.

Annette’s attention returned to Angela, who had been watching her. They shared eye contact for a moment. Then Angela’s eyes turned hard and she addressed Sinclair,
 
“Good morning mister Chavez.”

Annette almost giggled at the strange look which crossed his face. She held the impulse in check with the help of a sudden painful sensitivity to the normal illumination of the room. It was bright like a
 
sunny day in the middle of a snow field. The light lanced at Annette’s eyes even when she shut them.
 
It hurt, but it also struck her as funny that she felt
 
snow blinded in a place that had never seen snow, or rain, or wind. Memories of weather bubbled to the surface of her mind shoving aside both the bright light and the pain and covering all other thoughts. She swam in the taste of rain, and the gritty-smooth feel of snow melting into numbness in her palms, winds of memories she couldn’t remember sang to her.

 
“Annette? Hey Annette?” Annette shook herself back into reality at the sound of Becky’s voice calling her name. The room was empty except for Becky, everyone else had gone.
 
“Anybody home in there?”

“Yeah, sorry Becky. Where is everyone?” Annette hurriedly replied.

“Niri, Chavez and his boy are in the waiting room, Mom’s in the viewing room. And I can’t believe you fell asleep and missed her instructions. You were so together when you spilled your guts at her earlier,” Becky answered, “And my name is actually Maria.”

“I’ve kind of been stressed out lately,” Annette gritted and ground her teeth, “Do you think you could give me a repeat of the instructions?”

Maria smiled and pulled a pop-pad from a pack strapped around her waist, “I haven’t been instructed not to. Your mission, should you chose to accept it, is to pass through several puzzle-slash-obstacles until you get to this terminal,” Maria brought up a picture on the pad of a computer interface panel, “Once there you need to answer as many multiple choice questions as you can in fifteen minutes.” Maria pulled a sack from beneath Annette’s chair, it was an over the shoulder sack a little smaller than Maria’s waist pack.
 
“You have been provided with everything you need to complete this task. All you have to supply is knowledge, and skill.
 
This test will self destruct in five. . .four- oh I’m just kidding nothing self destructs.”
 
Maria laughed “I love TV.
 
As if things actually happen that way.”

Annette slung the sack into place over her shoulder, “When do we- uh I start?”

“About five minutes after you fell asleep, a.k.a.
 
right before I woke you.” Maria answered.

Annette rested her head in her hands. She wasn’t starting this test off well. Annette lifted her head, “So where do I go first?”
 

Maria smiled a
 
shrug, “I can’t tell you.”

Annette retrieved a pop-pad from the appropriate locked zipper of her sack. It was automatic, her fingers knew where to look to find it while her brain still tried to figure out what to ask it for.
 
An activating screen tap brought up a holographically projected 3-D map of Sanctuary. The map showed a white dot and a green dot separated by several levels, corridors and departmental divisions, some of which were restricted to specific departments and ranking factors. Annette put a finger to the white dot and the screen of the pad showed a surveillance view of the conference room with her and Maria inside of it. Annette turned and found the camera, she waved.
 
She tapped the other dot and an image of the computer interface came up. Annette slapped her hand through the hologram and it cut out.
 
She knew where she was going. The terminal was somewhere in the maze of research and development.
 
She crossed to the room’s transport booth and keyed in the R&D booth as a destination.
 
She started to activate it but stopped.

Why would Maria still be here after Annette told Angela she knew about the test.
 
Her instinct replayed Maria’s voice, “You have been provided with everything you need to complete this task.” Maria was necessary.

Annette glanced around the room, the box of pastries and
 
doughnuts remained as well.
 
Annette took a piece of tissue paper and examined the contents of the box. There were still a few cinnamon rolls and glazed doughnuts but most plentiful were jelly filled with sprinkles. Annette grabbed a napkin and carefully
 
wrapped up one of those before tucking it and her pop-pad back into her sack.
 
Then Annette
 
walked to the transport booth.
 
“Hey, Maria, would you do me the favor of joining me in my quest?”

Maria smiled and shook her head, “Yeah, I was wondering when you were going to ask. You don’t seem to miss much.”

Annette’s heart leapt, doughnut and companion, both necessary choices, both choices Tony would not make. Maria joined her and Annette tapped the activation key. The next instant they stepped out into the rough hewn hallway outside of research and development.
 
Annette walked purposefully down the hall counting the doors silently. She hoped it gave her the look of someone who belonged there. Maria followed silently behind.
 
Annette stopped at the appropriate door, labeled cavern one.

Annette knew from her obsession with all things factor that the term cavern wasn’t figurative.
 
Though on this level
 
the term “level” wasn’t strictly speaking literal. The doors she had passed opened mainly onto stairwells and ramps leading up or down into other wings of the research and development complex but cavern one was level with the corridor.
 
Annette took the last step towards the door, which should have activated it. A strangled hiss sounded but the mechanism failed to open the door. Annette palmed the pad next to the door and with a sound like a seasick cat it cranked open three inches.
 
She tried to lever it open further, and it snapped shut almost fast enough to take off her fingers.

“Something tells me we aren’t going to get in this way,” Maria said planting her butt on the floor next to the wall.

“Got any
helpful
suggestions or comments?” Annette snapped.

Maria grimaced and threw up her hands in a defensive way. “Is there another way in?”

Annette yanked out her pop-pad, channeling her anger into the gesture, rather than verbally alienating Maria further. After all, the test could be looking for Annette’s reaction to a frustrating situation. With a tap to the screen, the map came back up.
 
It showed an alternate route, but it could take all day to work their way around to where they were going. If she could get the door to open it would be over in an hour and a half.

Annette tapped the help button, and eyed the index. Two of the listings caught her eye, one was a quick link to the maintenance department and the other was labeled belly button lint. Annette keyed the maintenance shortcut first.

A well dressed woman appeared on the screen, “Maintenance, may I help you?”

“Yes, my name is Annette Peterson, and I would like to report a stuck door, the main entrance to cavern one R&D,” Annette managed to keep her voice level and businesslike despite the fact that the idea of making a maintenance call turned the butterflies in her stomach to gelatin.
 

The woman on the screen didn’t seem to notice Annette’s nervousness. “I’ll have someone right down there. Thank you for your call.”
 

The screen flashed back to the help index. Annette eyed belly button lint again. Why not, she had nothing better to do. She keyed it.

A recording of Angela’s face
 
came up on screen, “Congratulations, you have just inquired about belly button lint. It shows a factor’s instinct, which led you to tap a very helpful help item.
 
This recording will cut half an hour off of your test, namely the multiple choice questions.
 
I’ll give you the punch-line now. Don’t bother answering the questions, they were just to get you to sit in one place long enough to perhaps see the real goal. . .
 
Look to the left of the terminal, on the counter you will find a small note saying
>
Do not take the test.
 
Bring this note back to Angela!’
 
Do as it says and congratulations you will pass!” The screen went blank.

Maria giggled beside her, “Belly button lint. . . good one mom.”

The door suddenly whooshed open and a man in greasy coveralls stepped out. “Somebody call for a door to be unstuck?”

“Yes, sir,” Annette said stepping to her feet and rapidly stowing her pop-pad.

The repair
 
man eyed Annette
 
barely flicking a glance at Maria, “Well, it’s open now. Though I’m not quite sure if you two girls need to be wandering around in here. Lots of dangerous stuff being tested in here.”

“I sort of qualify in that category at the moment,” Annette mumbled without really meaning to, years of mumbling comebacks to people challenging her right to exist weren’t easily forgotten.

The repairman’s eyebrow rose and fell rapidly, “Then perhaps you should get in here before you let loose something a tad more volatile than your vocal apparatus.”

Annette scurried sheepishly past the repairman, fairly sure that fixing stuck doors wasn’t his usual job. He didn’t sound very much like a repairman. Maybe later she’d ask Angela, or more likely Niri about him.
 
Annette turned to find the repairman missing and Maria following silently behind. The look on Maria’s face showed indifferent surprise, as near as Annette could read it.

Annette turned back to navigating her way through the cubicles. After over an hour of brisk walking and referring to the map, it was beginning to take a great deal of Annette’s
 
will power not to stop and gawk at the activities of the researchers and engineers working in each area. During a month of training on the end products of these rooms, Annette had begun to find
 
the technicians almost as interesting as the factors, and this test was putting her closer to them than she had ever thought of being. Maybe. . . If things didn’t work out. . .
 
Annette glanced into a cubicle containing a woman, a mannequin wearing a body suit and yards of a beautiful greenish-tan colored fabric. Annette stopped at the idea of a seamstress in a technical area. The woman smiled and waved at Annette then began pinning a cut swatch of the fabric to the body suit.

Annette started to reach for her pop-pad, a twitch in her gut telling her there was something important here. A competing inner voice shouted, “red herring.” Annette glanced at Maria who looked tired after their brisk walk. “Maria, want to take a break?”

Maria leaned gently against a cubicle partition, “I ought to speak to my mother about cruel and unusual punishment. For getting me mixed up in this, and for pairing me with someone who probably runs a mile a day.”

“Ten,” Annette grimaced. Was this an act? Was the seamstress important? Was she sure she wanted to even be a factor? Annette grabbed a wall as her head swam from too much information, too much second guessing, and suddenly too much everything. Her eyes, ears, mind and skin all
 
suddenly sending sensations beyond any Annette thought could exist. Through it all one thought pounded in Annette’s mind, “Not right now, not here!”
 
The thought pounded loudly and rapidly dampening the maelstrom.

“Hey, are you okay?” Maria asked suddenly producing a plastic pouch containing a liquid factor emergency ration.

Annette carefully accepted the pouch from Maria. She slowly moved the straw to her mouth, through the subsiding wavering of her senses. After a sip, Annette had enough thought gathered together to respond, “Yeah, just an attack of performance anxiety. You know. . . what if I don’t make it.”