4. Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon by Donna Andrews

Author:Donna Andrews [Andrews, Donna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780312990015
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2003-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

I peered carefully out of the cube. I'd seen someone in the computer lab. During the daytime there were always people in the lab, of course; even at midnight, which it very nearly was, seeing someone working late would not be odd – but this someone was sitting in the dark.

I'd never found out why, unlike the rest of the office, the computer lab had floor-to-ceiling glass walls. I didn't find the view of a large room full of hardware that aesthetically pleasing, but maybe I wasn't the intended audience. Maybe to the technically oriented, it was a symphony in plastic, metal, and silicon, a tone poem in black, white, gray, and beige.

Or maybe it was a security measure, so no one could easily get up to any kind of sabotage. Anyone who walked down the north corridor could see everything that was happening in the lab.

And anyone in the lab could see anyone who walked down the corridor.

I peered carefully out of the cube where I was hiding. My eyes were more adjusted to the dark now, and the flicker from several monitors gave enough light for me to recognize the occupant of the lab.

It was Roger.

He was making CD-ROMs. „Burning“ them, as the guys said. Mutant Wizards had several CD burners in the lab, so the programmers could make a small quantity of CDs when they wanted to get people to test new versions of the game. As I watched, Roger punched a button on one of the CD burners. The drawer slid open. He removed the CD inside and put it on top of the inch-high stack of CDs beside the burner. Then he took a fresh CD from a stack to his left, placed it in the holder and pushed the drawer back in. His fingers flew over the keys for a few minutes, and then he sat back, clasped his arms behind his head, and went back to watching the various monitors and CD burners.

Of course, it was always possible that he had some legitimate reason for being there. Doing some urgent task related to the new release. And that he hated the fluorescent lights and preferred to sit in a room lit only by the glow of the monitors. And found it more convenient to sneak in the back door, rather than through the front door, where I'd have seen him. But still…

I ducked back into a cube and looked around. Luis's cube, I noticed. I rifled the papers by his phone and, as I'd hoped, found a copy of the emergency contact list. Roger was on it, and, more important, his work, home, and cell phones were listed.

I called his cell phone. After a couple of rings, he answered. „Yeah?“

„Roger!“ I exclaimed. „Thank God someone's got his phone on; I've been ringing people for fifteen minutes. Listen, you live pretty near the office, right?“

„Right,“ he said.

„Is there any chance you could do me a big favor and drop by the office really quickly?“

„Why?“ he asked.

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