Then I stop. I do have one. I am not sure if it will check out, but my next move is scaling the back wall and busting out a window. Pretending to be Spiderman is not on the list of things I wanted to do tonight.
“Yes, of course,” I say, with the smile that makes Silvia's demonic face flush and that landed Syd in my bed. I pull my wallet and hold up Alex Parker's student ID.
She nods, then presses a button under her desk and turns back to her phone conversation.
The door clicks unlocked.
I wave my free hand in gratitude, hoping she doesn't decide to validate my claims, and let myself through the door.
Straight ahead is the emergency exit. To my immediate left is a break room, a closed lab, and an open office with no one inside. To the right, the library and media center. I dip into the room, trying to act casual as I pass the small computer lab where a girl is watching anime and head into the rows of shelves.
Intel said the books were together in a box. What sort of a box? A shipping box? How likely is it they have been unpacked already?
Someone should educate intel on the Dewey Decimal System.
I walk up and down the aisles, scanning each level of the shelves. Nothing. The reading area to the side doesn't offer anything of interest, either. No boxed up books. No gold-colored spines.
I exit the library and head across the hall to another lab. This one is open, and a sign outside the room says the bathrooms are through here. A half-dozen people are working at the long steel tables standing parallel to each other in the center of the room. Against the far wall, a counter filled with microscopes and gadgets with dials. In the corner, a floor to ceiling cabinet.
No one seems to notice me. They're too busy fussing with slides and talking amongst themselves. I turn and head down the hallway. Three small labs and the stairwell to the left, and a museum to the right. I turn into the museum.
Glass cases house pottery dishes, old rugs that might have once been brightly colored, and a tablet with what appears to be ancient text.
I can't believe I have to burn down this place.
At the end of the room is another case, with something about the size of a coconut held up on a stand. I approach, leaning in to get a better view.
It's part of a skull. I squint at the display card but it just gives an exhibit number. No name, no details.
On the wall beside it, a mounted display contains oblong items—stone or clay, I can't tell—with thick spikes jabbing out at intervals. Another card with an exhibit number, nothing else.
As much as I would like to hang out and try to decipher what I'm seeing, there are no books here. The hum says I have to keep moving.
The backpack is starting to grow heavy, so I switch it to the other hand. I return to the hall and push open the door to the stairwell. My boots thud up the metal steps, rattling the railing.
I enter onto the second level. Straight ahead are bathrooms and a few vending machines. I turn and follow down the hallway. To the right is a closed office and then a large, but unoccupied, room labeled “Teaching Lab”. Inside are high desks with cabinets, sinks, and several large windows revealing the night sky.
Across from the teaching lab is a closed off area labeled “Wet Dirt Lab”. I'm not entirely sure what that is, but it doesn't sound like a place to keep books.
Outside of the apparently messy lab are laptop stations.
That is the anthropology center in its entirety.
I have no idea where the books can be. Time to start digging.
I begin with the teaching lab, making my way through the rows of desks, opening drawers and cabinets. A stack of textbooks sit on a wall mounted shelf, but they don't have gold colored spines. I'm also pretty sure Karl could order them on Amazon.
Nothing stands out to me, so I try the office next door. A desk and computer, some file cabinets. Nothing.
Now I'm worried. Now I'm grinding my teeth.
Anger wells inside me. Why the hell does he send me on these doomed-from-the-start missions? What is the point of assigning impossible tasks?
What is he going to do if I fail—again?
I have knocked off a handful of businessmen and pulled a few kidnappings. Now a quest for a stack of books is going to be my downfall.
I don't want to do this anymore. I want to get in my car, drive back to Phoenix, and ask Syd to run away with me. We can disappear in the night and never be heard from again.
But I have this fuckin' hum in my head that's starting to get violent. It's beating at the back of my eyes. A little longer, and I'm taking this damn place hostage.
Except … I don't know what to tell them to hand over. I don't know what I'm actually looking for.
If I were back in Arizona, I would storm into the summoning chamber and cap Karl in the chest.
A sharp pain pierces my skull. I drop the backpack. My hand goes to my head, and I hunch forward as the dagger of disobedience jabs through my brain.