Erasure and Affirmation (Hypernaturals 11)

Sandy

I paused immediately inside the sliding glass door and felt Vera almost bump into me.

"We are inside now. He stopped. Very suddenly. I don't think its anything but Fangs being cautious: he is looking around, inhaling deeply, and listening. Using all that special radar he has." Vera gave play-by-play.

I looked back. "Trying to. Lots of chatter back there, coming from the weapons officer." I said.

I noticed Vera never redid her top. She has been around me too long: getting body casual. If someone attacks, at least they might be distracted long enough for me to take them out.

"Got it. Shutting the fuck up." Vera said.

I looked. Scented. Listened carefully. All I could hear is Vera breathing. The woman in the chair breathing. The sounds from the phone of Morgan breaking all the speed laws. I idly wondered if she called DeWayne and had the Austin police carefully ignore the hopped up Miata. I know Morgan. My protector. Under her self control, she is freaking out that she is not here to save me.

The ultra-bright lobby in this brand new building is big. Wide-open. Both stories of the building included in the lobby space to create a high ceiling. With a few contrasting colors, some plants, maybe a water fountain, it would even be nice. There is a line of large windows up at the top edge of what is the second floor. Natural light is supposed to help a space, but these had the effect of making everything even brighter. Bright white LED lights washed-out white marble floors, white melamine paneled wall with no artwork, white painted trim around all the doors.

The elevator lobby is directly behind the lobby area and to one side, on the opposite side from the sliding glass doors. More white.

The darkest things in the room, besides its captive, are the oddly out-of-place wood trim on broad, wide stairs to the immediate left, and a smoked glass wall to an office to the right. Then there are the smoked glass domes of the security cameras. How to draw attention to security cameras. Make them stand out. The domes are all warm in IR so they are on. We are being watched.

At the top of the stairs to the second floor, there is a crossover with white-painted metal railings. The left and right portions of the second floor are connected with this crossover. It makes a cool visual feature in the open space of the lobby, except that it utterly nondescript paint job made it boring. I have never seen a space that needed some Earth tones worse than this one.

There are white planters to the left and right, just inside the glass doors and glass wall to the portico, but nothing is in them. In a room that screams for color, there is none even in the planters.

Everything is recently painted. More recently than the two weeks ago building completion date. More like last night.

"They do not want my senses to work." I said out loud. "They put in industrial masking odors of every imaginable kind. Fresh paint. Caulk. Industrial floor cleaners. Floor sealants. You name it, it is in the blank white room." I explained.

"So it is a trap." Morgan's voice said over the phone, her little car screaming in the background as I heard her speed shift.

"So it seems." I agreed. "Baited with the most effective possible bait. Her."

I regarded my rapist coldly.

The little woman I was staring at struggled, and above her gag, her eyes were very wide behind her glasses.

"We are also being watched. Security cameras." I reported as an afterthought. I did not want to panic Morgan, but I thought she should know.

"I assumed that would be true." Morgan said. I know that calm tone was her self control in full force.