Margaret Ball by The Shadow Gate

Author:The Shadow Gate
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-05-31T11:34:38+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

But besides these gross absurdities, all their plays be neither right tragedies nor right comedies: mingling kings and clowns, not because the matter so carrieth it, but thrust in clowns by head and shouders, to play a part in majestical matters, with neither decency nor discretion.

—Sir Philip Sidney

At this late hour, the streets of downtown Austin were dark and empty. To the north, the pinkish dome of the Capitol reflected a faint glow from the lights set around the building; further north, the tower in the center of the University of Texas campus was illuminated with orange floodlights to celebrate some athletic victory. The tall office buildings that lined the downtown streets were walls of black glass and stone picked out with random squares of yellow where a janitor was cleaning or where somebody had forgotten to turn out his office lights.

One of these squares of yellow was on the third floor of the XCorp Building, the black steel monolith of empty suites and unrented offices. More lights flared across an entire floor higher up, but Lisa and Nick paid no attention to them.

“He’s not being subtle about it, is he?” Nick muttered. “I wonder if it’s a trap.”

“If it were a trap,” Lisa pointed out, “I’d think they would have made it easier to come after them, don’t you? What is the penalty for car theft?”

Nick’s grin was distinctly lopsided. “Less than for breaking and entering—ah, but we won’t have to do that!”

The lobby was dark, but the double glass doors were unlocked, and no alarm sounded as Nick pushed on the metal bar that opened the right-hand door. He glided into the lobby sidewise, as quietly as if he had been in his stocking feet, and Lisa followed him.

“Careless janitors they’ve got here,” Nick whispered. “Leaving the doors open, turning on all the lights on die floor where they’re working. After I’m disbarred maybe I’ll apply for a job as head of security for XCorp.”

The light whisper moved ahead of Lisa as Nick slid along the north wall of the lobby. “Where’s the stairwell?”

“Down this hall…”

A beam of light pierced the shadows and Lisa swallowed the end of her sentence. Nick froze where he stood and Lisa tried to shrink into the narrow crack between the hall door and the wall while two sets of heavy footsteps came toward her, paused…

“Don’t see anybody here. Maybe something tripped the door alarm by accident.”

“Better check it out anyway.”

“Okay, okay. You take the north hall, 1*11 take the south.”

While the guards talked, Lisa felt fingers on her wrist. She followed the light tug and Nick drew her down the hall with agonizing slowness, pausing ev-ery few steps. She could see nothing in the darkness, but every time he paused she heard very faint metallic clicks.

“Hurry,” she breathed. “One of them is coming down this…”

“I know.” Nick moved a few feet down the hall and stopped again. This time he breathed out a long satisfied sigh. “Door’s unlocked,” he reported. “Wait…”

There was a circle of light shining on the glass doors through which they had come.

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