“Suppose the other glove does just the opposite? Healing Worrall by making other people ill?”
“You may be onto something there, Marcus Welby,” she replied. “Sounds just twisted enough to be right.” She rolled her eyes. “And the fact that it makes sense to me just proves that I’ve been working here too long.”
“Just wait until you’re my age.” He ambled over to her desk. “Any progress?”
“Already?” She snorted. “Impatient much?”
“You have complete access to every database on the planet.” He glanced again at his watch, wondering if he should wake Myka to debrief her. He wanted to know if Worrall had looked healthier after he infected Pete. “How hard can it be to find one walking epidemic?”
“Harder than it sounds, actually,” she admitted, a trifle sheepishly. “He’s gone off the grid in a major way. From what I can tell, he withdrew a large sum of money a while ago and dropped out of sight. He hasn’t used his credit cards for months.”
Artie frowned. “What about his cell phone?”
“No recent calls. To be honest, I get the impression this guy isn’t much of a people person. He’s not even on Facebook.” She stubbornly bounced around the Internet, surfing from Web site to Web site. “He’s probably relying on disposable phones, if he’s talking to anyone at all.”
“Sounds like he’s being very careful,” Artie deduced, “which means he’s worried about being tracked or being linked to that chain of typhoid fever outbreaks.” He gave Worrall points for paranoia. “Very clever, Calvin. I should have been paying more attention to you.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” Claudia said. “It’s not like you haven’t been distracted lately, first by MacPherson, then by H. G. Wells. Not to mention the usual Warehouse wackiness.”
He refused to let himself off so lightly. “No excuses. Not when it might cost Pete his life.”
In his stint at the Warehouse, Artie had outlived most every other agent. He had seen far too many good men and women killed, driven insane, petrified, bifurcated, lost in space/time, or worse, all in the line of duty. Their diversely tragic fates weighed on him. He was in no hurry to add Pete to the Warehouse’s long list of casualties.
“You know,” Claudia said, “I have to ask: Don’t we have something on the shelves that might be able to fix Pete? Maybe Louis Pasteur’s milk bottle or something?”
Artie shook his head. “Too dangerous. Using one artifact to counteract another is never a good idea. Mixing their energies can produce random, wildly unpredictable results, like that time the disco ball accidentally triggered Lewis Carroll’s mirror. We could easily make Pete even worse.”
“Really?” Claudia asked. “I hate to say it, but I’m not sure he’s got a lot to lose.”
Artie gave her his sternest look. He couldn’t blame Claudia for grasping at straws, but this was something she needed to understand, especially if she was ever going take his or Mrs. Frederic’s place running the Warehouse.
“There was an agent once,” he said gravely, “who tried to keep his bones from dissolving by ingesting a rare vial of powdered ivory.”
“And?” Claudia prompted.
“You’ve heard of the Elephant Man?”
She looked appropriately appalled. “Oh. Ick.”
“Ick indeed.” He trusted he’d made his point. “We have enough on our hands with Clara Barton’s gloves, no pun intended. The last thing we—or Pete—needs is to throw another artifact at him.”
“Okay,” she said. “Message received, loud and clear. No shortcuts. It’s the gloves or nothing.”
She reapplied herself to the search, zipping through cyberspace almost faster than Artie could follow. Passport applications, tax returns, SAT scores, and library late notices flashed across the screen, one after another. Separate windows, each containing a different document or JPEG, fanned across the screen like playing cards dealt by a quick-fingered stage magician. She even called up a third-grade essay on how Worrall spent his summer vacation (getting his appendix removed, apparently). But all she found was dead ends.
“Frell!” she cursed in geek. She threw up her hands. “In the immortal words of the Shat, this guy needs to get a life. How am I supposed to find him unless he surfaces sometime soon? He’s a ghost!”
He shared her frustration. Every minute that passed decreased Pete’s odds of survival. “What about typhoid fever? When was the last outbreak?”
She had the answer at her fingertips—literally. “A football game in New Jersey, yesterday evening. A whole squadron of ambulances had to be dispatched.”
“Who exactly was infected?” Artie asked. “The audience or the team?”
“Both. Everybody.” She scanned the emergency dispatches and news bulletins. “Even the cheerleaders aren’t so cheery anymore.”
Artie was troubled by the reports, which he read over Claudia’s shoulder. “This is not good. The infection rate is escalating, as is the list of fatalities. Hospitals all along Worrall’s route are filling up with dying fever patients, none of whom are responding to treatment. Worrall could be approaching plague proportions soon.”
“Plague?” She made a face. “I’m guessing we want to avoid that?”
“By all means,” he stated. As much as they were all understandably worried about Pete, he couldn’t lose sight of the bigger picture. Worrall and the left-hand glove were a menace, and exactly the kind of threat Warehouse 13 was meant to contain. “Any clue as to where he’s heading next?”
“Nada,” she replied. “Nobody even remembers seeing him there. I think they’re all too busy groaning and puking their guts out.”
Artie lost his appetite. “Thanks for that visual.” He put away what was left of his donut before pacing back and forth behind Claudia. “Maybe we’re going at this the wrong way.”
“How do you mean?”
“We know the gloves are being drawn together, and that Worrall is after Nadia’s glove. So perhaps we should focus our efforts on finding her?”
Claudia connected the dots. “Because where Nadia is, Worrall is sure to follow.”
“With the glove that made Pete sick.” Artie wasn’t sure which glove they actually needed to cure Pete, but maybe it didn’t matter. “Forget Worrall for now. Concentrate on finding Nadia.”
“And then?” she asked.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Find me Nadia—and that glove.”
“Sounds like a plan, Stan.” She cleared her screen and started over. A blinking cursor awaited her direction. “Let’s see, if I was mystical healer with delusions of grandeur, where would I be this weekend?”
“Don’t forget,” he coached her. “She may be using a new alias or stage name.”
“Well, duh. Like I wasn’t going to think of that?”
He backed off to give her a little space. Breathing down Claudia’s neck was not going to find an answer any faster, or at least he didn’t think so. He stretched his weary limbs. His creaking muscles and joints reminded him of just how long he had been at this. He envied Claudia’s youth and enthusiasm. She was going to be a great agent someday—if she lasted that long.
“Okay, now. That’s more like it!”
Her infectious grin boded well. New Age music tinkled from her computer’s speakers. He rushed back over to her desk.
“What is it? What did you find?”
“Take a gander at this, old man.”
She gestured smugly at the monitor, which now displayed a Web site advertising a large psychic fair being held later today in New York’s Central Park. OVER 150 PSYCHICS, MYSTICS, SEERS, HEALERS, AND VENDORS! the site proclaimed. AURA READINGS, CHANNELING WORKSHOPS, ANGEL GUIDES, CHAKRA IMAGING, DIVINATION, YOGA, MEDIUMS, AND PAST-LIFE REGRESSION. AN ENLIGHTENING AND SPIRITUALLY UPLIFTING EXPERIENCE FOR ALL OF MOTHER EARTH’S CHILDREN!
More like plenty of careless amateurs meddling in things that should be left alone, Artie thought crankily. He had cleaned up too many messes caused up
by well-meaning people tampering with the preternatural. Not everybody knew how to handle their gifts like Leena.
“It says here that thousands of people are expected to attend,” Claudia said. “Including a certain up-and-coming psychic healer?”
“Possibly.” Artie was impressed by her discovery. This was a promising lead. He skimmed the Web site, perusing the fine print. “Any mention of Nadia or Princess Nefertiti?”
“Not by name,” she conceded. “But c’mon, how can she resist a woo-woo-palooza like this? Think of all the people she could heal.”
“Yes,” he added soberly. “And all the people Calvin Worrall can infect.”
The prospect of the gloves converging in Central Park of all places filled Artie with apprehension. This was bigger than just Pete and what might happen to him. This was a potential catastrophe in the making.
Artie’s Farnsworth rested on a nearby bookshelf. He snatched it up.
To hell with what time it was on the East Coast. He needed to get hold of Myka.
Before New York City turned into a plague zone.
CHAPTER
14
WAREHOUSE 13
An electronic chirp awoke Claudia, jolting her from a freaky dream involving David Bowie, a computer virus, and the planet Mongo. “No, no, not the boreworms,” she murmured groggily before lifting her head from her keyboard. An embarrassing puddle of drool provided forensic evidence that she had dozed off at her desk. She wiped off her cheek as she found herself back in Artie’s office. Her computer beeped insistently, making her wish it came with a snooze button. A flashing red icon on the monitor announced that the motion detectors had registered a disturbance down on the Warehouse floor. WARNING: POSSIBLE ARTIFACT ACTIVITY! the message blinked, like a dashboard engine alert. IMMEDIATE ACTION RECOMMENDED.
“Okay, okay.” She yawned and rubbed her eyes. Any lingering impressions of the dream receded back into her unconscious. She stuck her tongue out at the computer. “I hear you. Don’t have a cow.”
“What’s the matter?” Artie asked from across the room. He looked up from his Farnsworth, where he seemed to be engaged in updating Myka on their recent discoveries. “Hold on a moment,” he told Myka, annoyed by the interruption. His raised eyebrows interrogated Claudia. “Anything serious?”
“Doubtful.” She stabbed a key to kill the alarm. Chances were, it was no big deal. The motion detectors were a relatively new addition to the Warehouse’s security systems, and they were still working out the bugs. Random energy discharges triggered false alarms way too frequently as far as she was concerned. She didn’t want to think about how much of her valuable time she had wasted checking on them. “Probably just another roving ball of static.”
“You positive about that?” Artie glanced back and forth between his Farnsworth and the computers, his concentration pulled in two directions. He started to get up from his chair. “Maybe I should—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Claudia said, hurrying to beat him to the punch. Artie had more important things to worry about right now, like finding Clara Barton’s gloves in time to save Pete. She could take care of any minor distractions. “I’m on it.”
Her brain hadn’t fully woken up yet, so she snagged a Red Bull from the fridge and took a long swig from the can before heading for the door. With any luck, the sugar and caffeine would give her enough of a buzz to check on whatever irritating glitch had given the sensors conniptions. Talk about lousy timing, she thought. Like we don’t have bigger fish to harpoon right now?
“Don’t forget your Farnsworth,” Artie nagged her. “In case you need to check back with me.”
She rolled her eyes. Did he really think she couldn’t handle this on her own? She had only done this a zillion times before. “Yes, Mother.”
Rummaging around, she located the device beneath a pile of old Civil War casualty reports. The polished black lozenge was not just any Farnsworth; it was Philo’s original prototype, which Artie had gifted her with a while ago. It was her prized possession, so she tucked it carefully into the pocket of her denim jacket. Going back to her computer, she noted the coordinates of the disturbance. A roll-out map on one wall offered a row-by-row guide to the Warehouse, complete with handwritten corrections and annotations, and she looked up the address. Just her luck, it was way on the other side of the Warehouse.
One of these days she wanted to install a GPS unit in her Farnsworth, so she could navigate the Warehouse the twenty-first-century way, but Artie had practically blown a gasket the last time she had tinkered under the prototype’s hood, so she was stuck relying on the map for now. Just you wait, she thought. I’m gonna upgrade this gizmo eventually.
Artie kept one eye on her as she got ready. “Let me know right away if there’s a problem.”
“You just concentrate on helping Myka and Pete.” She gulped down the last of Red Bull and chucked the can into an overflowing wastebasket. “Leave this to me.”
A door led out to a high gallery overlooking the Warehouse’s main floor. Claudia closed it behind her before he could think of something else to kvetch about. It was bad enough that she had to bother with this right now. Artie needed to let it go—for Pete’s sake.
She just hoped she wouldn’t miss anything important.
The gallery offered a panoramic view of the Warehouse’s vast interior, which stretched for miles above and below her. An oversize pair of binoculars, of the coin-operated sort found at scenic vantage points at the Grand Canyon or Mount Rushmore, were mounted on the railing, but she didn’t bother using them to search for her destination. She already knew where she was going, more or less.
“Figures.” The nuisance would have to be on the other side of anywhere, especially at a time like this. Why couldn’t it be a short hop away from the office for once? It would take forever to get there by foot. Good thing there was a faster way across the Warehouse . . . assuming you weren’t too afraid of heights.
A decrepit keyboard jutted from the brick wall behind her. Claudia entered her password, then keyed in the coordinates. An elaborate gear-and-pulley system responded, manipulating an inclined stainless steel cable that was stretched taut above the main storage area. The mechanism realigned the cable until it was pointed in the right direction. A pulley was suspended upon the cable at the top of the incline. Metal handlebars hung below the pulley.
“Oh, boy.” She contemplated the zip line with little enthusiasm; this wasn’t exactly her favorite way to get around the Warehouse. “Here we go again.”
An upright metal locker rested against the wall. Rusty hinges squeaked as she tugged it open. Protective gear hung inside the locker, and she reluctantly helped herself to a crash helmet, a safety harness, thick leather work gloves, and knee and elbow pads. By the time she put it all on, she looked like she was ready to break up a soccer riot. She closed the locker and approached the zip line. A gap in the railing opened onto empty space. She peeked over the edge and instantly regretted it.
“Okay, that’s a loooong way down.”
She couldn’t believe she was actually doing this while sleep deprived, but how else was she supposed to check on things without it taking all morning? Being careful not to skip a step in the procedure, she clipped the harness to the pulley, then took hold of the handlebars with both hands. She took a deep breath and backed up as much as she could to get a running start. Second, third, and fourth thoughts weighed down her feet, but she mentally consigned them to a garbage file. Pete and Myka were in trouble. She needed to get this over with and get back to the office ASAP, which meant taking a flying leap.
She dashed forward and launched herself off the gallery.