Black Rock Read online

  12 - More Black Rock

  The fall to­wards the sea en­ded ab­ruptly when so­met­hing flic­ke­red in­si­de Snowy’s he­ad. She was surp­ri­sed to find that she’d ne­it­her fal­len nor mo­ved at all. She was still stan­ding on the thres­hold of Phi­lip’s work-ro­om. All that had hap­pe­ned was that the do­or had re­ac­hed the bo­un­dary of its tra­vel and had stop­ped mo­ving.

  You hal­lu­ci­na­ted, Snowy told her­self, but the vi­si­on se­emed to be re­mo­ving it­self from her me­mory so qu­ickly that it al­re­ady felt li­ke so­met­hing that had hap­pe­ned to so­me­one el­se.

  She sta­red in­to Phi­lip Win­ter’s work-ro­om, which was exactly as she had en­vi­si­oned it. Lar­ge and Spar­tan and whi­te.

  She sto­od on the thres­hold for a mo­ment, wan­ting to en­ter this for­bid­den zo­ne very badly, but her fe­et we­re evi­dently mo­re fa­ith­ful to the ru­les than she was and simply re­fu­sed to mo­ve. Or per­haps they simply dec­li­ned to step on to a whi­te car­pet that a mo­ment be­fo­re had be­en a hund­red fo­ot drop to the At­lan­tic Oce­an.

  The im­por­tant thing was that Phi­lip was not in the ro­om. Which me­ans he is not in the ho­use. Which me­ans you can re­lax, lit­tle Snow­d­rop.

  Actu­al­ly, Snowy didn’t know what an­y­t­hing me­ant any­mo­re. Not for su­re. She was still suf­fe­ring from the fe­eling that things we­re go­ing badly wrong and she had just se­en so­met­hing that any psychi­at­rist in the world wo­uld ha­ve ter­med ‘hal­lu­ci­na­ti­on’.

  Once, when she was with El­len (whom she now pic­tu­red not as the hap­py-go-lucky bubbly blon­de she ought to ha­ve re­mem­be­red, but as the de­fi­led and ru­ined wo­man of her night­ma­res), they had ra­ided El­len’s pa­rents’ drinks cup­bo­ard and held a drin­king match. The re­sult, of co­ur­se, was a grand thro­wing-it-back-up-aga­in con­test, but the­re was a pe­ri­od in bet­we­en the two when they had both be­en al­co­hol-so­aked to the po­int at which an al­ter­na­te sta­te of cons­ci­o­us­ness was ga­ined. It was not a very ple­asant sta­te and whi­le she was in it, Snowy had se­en the long, stra­ight ro­ad out­si­de the ho­use sna­ke abo­ut li­ke a rib­bon in a high wind. As hal­lu­ci­na­ti­ons went, it wasn’t exactly a spi­ri­tu­al ex­pe­ri­en­ce (if you par­do­ned the pun), but it was as clo­se as Snowy ever wan­ted to get to se­e­ing im­pos­sib­le things hap­pen.

  And now she had se­en so­met­hing im­pos­sib­le wit­ho­ut the aid of a mind-alte­ring subs­tan­ce.

  And wit­ho­ut the aid of a sa­fety net, eit­her, she ad­ded.

  Go back to bed, she ad­vi­sed her­self. All that sa­va­ge sex has rat­tled yo­ur bra­ins. Are you re­al­ly sur­p­ri­sed you’re fe­eling a bit odd af­ter three we­eks or so of cons­tant lo­ve-ma­king? They in­ven­ted the phra­se ‘shag­ged out’ to desc­ri­be what you’re fe­eling.

  She wo­uld ha­ve go­ne back to bed, but the part of her which wo­uld fo­re­ver be a wi­de-eyed, open-mo­ut­hed, fi­ve-ye­ar-old, eager to dis­co­ver and easily de­ligh­ted, now wo­ke up and be­gan to is­sue re­qu­ests.

  Go in­si­de, it told her. You’ve al­re­ady bro­ken the gol­den ru­le by ope­ning the do­or, so you might just as well go in and ha­ve a go­od lo­ok ro­und. You’ll pro­bably ne­ver get anot­her chan­ce, so don’t just stand the­re, go and lo­ok. He’ll ne­ver know!

  Snowy tri­ed tel­ling her­self the­re was no re­ason to sno­op. She co­uld al­re­ady see what the big whi­te ro­om con­ta­ined and the­re wasn’t go­ing to be anyt­hing el­se to dis­co­ver. But even as she ar­gu­ed aga­inst the lit­tle girl’s re­qu­est - which was qu­ickly be­co­ming an im­pe­ra­ti­ve - she knew she was sunk. Now she was he­re she co­uldn’t not go in.

  She ga­zed in­to the ro­om and what had lo­oked li­ke a cle­an, whi­te of­fi­ce un­der­went a trans­for­ma­ti­on in her mind and sud­denly be­ca­me an Alad­din’s Ca­ve full of myste­ri­es and mi­rac­les, wa­iting for her to dis­co­ver them and bring them to li­fe.

  What ot­her re­ason co­uld he ha­ve for ma­king you pro­mi­se not to en­ter?

  Snowy went in. The car­pets in the rest of the ho­use we­re crip­plingly ex­pen­si­ve, but the one in he­re was of an even su­pe­ri­or qu­ality. Its de­ep pi­le felt gor­ge­o­us un­der her ba­re fe­et.

  And what ha­ve we he­re? Snowy won­de­red, fe­eling a de­li­ci­o­us thrill at the act of ha­ving cros­sed the thres­hold.

  What she ac­tu­al­ly had was a big whi­te ro­om which con­ta­ined a lar­ge bench upon which sto­od the com­pu­ter Snowy had sold to Phi­lip. Be­fo­re it was a high-bac­ked of­fi­ce cha­ir.

  The mo­ni­tor was wor­king and was sho­wing a scre­en sa­ver which rep­re­sen­ted a high-spe­ed flight thro­ugh spa­ce. Po­ints of light flew at you out of a black backg­ro­und and whiz­zed off the si­des of the scre­en as if you we­re ga­zing out of the vi­ewing port of a ra­pidly tra­vel­ling Stars­hip En­terp­ri­se.

  The fact that the com­pu­ter was switc­hed on me­ant that Phi­lip pro­bably hadn’t go­ne very far away and that he in­ten­ded to re­su­me wha­te­ver work he’d be­en do­ing when he ca­me back.

  Ne­vert­he­less, Snowy wal­ked slowly down the ro­om to­wards the mac­hi­ne, drin­king in de­ta­il. Thro­ug­ho­ut the rest of the ho­use, which had ap­pa­rently be­en bu­ilt by eye, by the Brot­hers Slips­hod so­mew­he­re aro­und the turn of the cen­tury, the­re was no such thing as a ni­nety-deg­ree ang­le. The walls, flo­ors and ce­ilings all met mo­re-or-less whe­re they we­re sup­po­sed to, but the ac­cent was on the mo­re-or-less. Wal­king a stra­ight li­ne from one end of a ro­om to the ot­her, in­va­ri­ably in­vol­ved yo­ur wan­de­ring off-co­ur­se li­ke a drunk. Phi­lip sa­id you had to get yo­ur Black Rock legs be­fo­re you co­uld fe­el al­to­get­her com­for­tab­le, and Snowy had so­on fo­und hers.

  But this ro­om was dif­fe­rent. Bu­ilt with the ut­most pre­ci­si­on, its li­nes and ang­les we­re so sharp they felt as if they might cut yo­ur eyes. And when Snowy wal­ked, it felt as if gra­vity it­self had so­me­how inc­re­ased.

  And ma­gi­cal mystery num­ber two was that the­re we­re no lights in the ro­om. Snowy be­gan to tell her­self that Phi­lip used a desk lamp for il­lu­mi­na­ti­on, but stop­ped when she glan­ced back at the desk and saw the­re was no lamp the­re.

  A ro­om with no lights! she mar­vel­led, and tre­ated her­self to a bri­ef fan­tasy in which Phi­lip wal­ked in­to the ro­om, snap­ped his fin­gers, and the flat whi­te walls obe­di­ently be­gan to glow. That’d be worth se­e­ing, she de­ci­ded as her fe­et mo­ved her ste­adily to­wards the work-bench and the com­pu­ter.

  The ro­om was pe­cu­li­ar, the­re was no do­ubt abo­ut that. And on top of the strong sen­sa­ti­on of gra­vity, the­re was an equ­al sen­sa­ti­on of things mis­sing - of which the ab­sen­ce of lights was only one part.

  Snowy had sold com­pu­ters to wri­ters be­fo­re and alt­ho­ugh the ones she had met we­re a dis­pa­ra­te bunch, they all had one thing in com­mon. They all wor­ked sur­ro­un­ded by clut­ter. The old saw abo­ut how com­pu­ters be­gat pa­per-free of­fi­ces, was a myth, an ad man’s fan­tasy. Wha­te­ver kind of work you did you we­re even­tu­al­ly go­ing to ha­ve to print out pa­per co­pi­es, and you we­re go­ing to ha­ve to sto­re in­co­ming pa­per ma­il so­mew­he­re - and if you we­re a wri­ter, yo­ur fi­nis­hed ma­nusc­ripts and draft co­pi­es.

  But the­re wasn’t a so­li­tary fi­le he­re. Not one scrap of pa­per be­aring no­tes. And it wasn’t even as if Phi­lip kept that kind of stuff anyw­he­re el­se in the ho­use.

  May­be he ke­eps it in the cel­lar, she told her­self, but she do­ub­ted it. It wo­uld be too much li­ke hard work to ha­ve to vi­sit the cel­lar if he wan­ted to re­fer to a let­ter he re­ce­ived a we­e
k ago.

  It’s ma­gic, the lit­tle-girl vo­ice in­for­med her. Just li­ke the front do­or you can’t open. Ma­gic! Phi­lip pro­bably snaps his fin­gers and his pa­per­work ap­pe­ars.

  Snowy smi­led. It wo­uld be very ni­ce if this was the ca­se, but she do­ub­ted it. What the mo­re grown-up part of her was be­gin­ning to sus­pect was that the­re was so­met­hing go­ing on he­re in the or­der of a con­fi­den­ce trick.

  So far she had se­en no evi­den­ce what­so­ever that Phi­lip was a wri­ter at all. Just be­ca­use he crept out of bed in the de­ad of night and ca­me in he­re (if he ca­me in he­re) and told her af­ter­wards that his new bo­ok was go­ing well, it didn’t me­an that it was true. Add to this the fact that the­re we­re no Phi­lip Win­ter bo­oks on the shel­ves (altho­ugh he sa­id he’d bo­ught the ho­use on the mo­ney he’d ma­de from them) no in­co­ming ma­il from his pub­lis­hers (Ace Pub­lis­hing, he sa­id), and no­ne of the ot­her trap­pings of li­te­rary li­fe… and what did you ha­ve?

  You had a com­pu­ter in a big empty ro­om.

  Snowy had on­ce sold equ­ip­ment to a re­al wri­ter cal­led Step­hen Byrne, who re­al­ly was pub­lis­hed by Ace Bo­oks. Byrne’s shel­ves we­re we­ig­hed down with pa­per­work and ma­nusc­ripts. His desk co­uld ba­rely be se­en for clut­ter.

  The­re was not­hing li­ke that he­re. Phi­lip didn’t ha­ve one pen­cil or pen on his desk, let alo­ne a jot­ter to wri­te on. The­re was just the key­bo­ard, the mo­use, the com­pu­ter ca­se, the scre­en (su­rely in Alp­ha Cen­ta­uri by now, jud­ging by the way the stars flew by) and on a shelf at the si­de, the la­ser prin­ter. This was not a pla­ce whe­re fic­ti­on was writ­ten by a man who ma­de a gre­at de­al of mo­ney do­ing it.

  So what is it then? the pe­tu­lant lit­tle girl de­man­ded, stam­ping a men­tal fo­ot.

  Snowy didn’t know. But she in­ten­ded to find out.

  It lo­oked, to all in­tents and pur­po­ses, as if the re­al re­ason Phi­lip had ma­de her swe­ar ne­ver to en­ter this ro­om was be­ca­use he didn’t want her to dis­co­ver that he wasn’t a wri­ter at all.

  Yo­ur sec­ret will be sa­fe with me, Phi­lip, she tho­ught, ap­pro­ac­hing his high-bac­ked of­fi­ce cha­ir. Sud­denly fe­eling as if she was be­ing watc­hed, Snowy spun aro­und, her he­art­be­at jac­king it­self up and her body ten­sing as if to re­ce­ive a blow.

  Phi­lip wasn’t stan­ding in the do­or­way but just for a mo­ment it se­emed as tho­ugh he was on the po­int of ap­pe­aring - not by wal­king in, but by ma­te­ri­ali­zing li­ke a ge­nie from a bot­tle. Had she se­en a slight shim­mer in the air, or was it only her vi­si­on pul­sing with the ra­pid po­wer-be­at of her spo­oked he­art?

  No one the­re, she conc­lu­ded and suc­ked in air that se­emed too warm and thick.

  Then she watc­hed in sin­king as­to­nish­ment as the do­or swung smo­othly back in­to its pla­ce and shut with a me­tal­lic snick!

  Now you’re in the kakky stuff, she ad­mo­nis­hed her­self. That do­or is go­ing to be­long to the ge­nus exi­tus im­pos­si­bi­lus just li­ke the front do­or. You ain’t go­ing to be ab­le to get out­ta he­re, kid­do.

  God only knew what wo­uld hap­pen when Phi­lip got back and fo­und her stuck in the for­bid­den zo­ne. The­re wo­uld be no mercy. On mo­re than one oc­ca­si­on he’d jokingly told her, ‘Just don’t get me mad. Get me horny, ma­ke me la­ugh, but wha­te­ver you do, don’t get me mad. I lo­se qu­ite a lot of “my charm when I’m all ri­led up.’

  And Phi­lip Win­ter with his charm all go­ne and fury bo­iling in its pla­ce was an ex­pe­ri­en­ce Snowy ho­ped ne­ver to fa­ce. She might ha­ve stop­ped Mar­tin de­ad in his tracks with a sing­le blow from a rol­ling-pin, but Phi­lip was qu­ite a bit fit­ter and li­kely to be a lot mo­re of a hand­ful.

  Snowy hur­ri­ed back to the do­or, kno­wing she was do­omed. It wasn’t go­ing to open. Phi­lip had known this, just as he’d known she’d bre­ak the ru­les and tres­pass in his for­bid­den zo­ne as so­on as his back was tur­ned. Just as Blu­ebe­ard had known that his wi­ves wo­uldn’t be ab­le to re­sist the temp­ta­ti­on of the for­bid­den loc­ked do­or.

  And you know what hap­pe­ned to them, she re­min­ded her­self as she re­ac­hed out for the do­or hand­le. They en­ded up li­ke the do­do. Ex­tinct.

  Snowy twis­ted the do­or hand­le. And sent out a bri­ef pra­yer which en­ded with the words Open Se­sa­me rat­her than Amen. Then she tug­ged.

  The do­or swung open, he­avily and smo­othly and ap­pa­rently of its own ac­cord and at its own pa­ce.

  Snowy bre­at­hed a sigh of re­li­ef.

  Just an or­di­nary do­or. She pe­ered out on to the lan­ding in ca­se Phi­lip was the­re. The sen­sib­le thing, she knew, wo­uld be to re­vert to plan B, which me­ant go­ing back to bed and pi­ling up a few Zs, and do­ing it now, whi­le the go­ing was go­od.

  But Snowy Dres­den hadn’t got whe­re she was to­day by be­ing sen­sib­le, and now she knew the do­or wo­uld open when she tri­ed it, the­re was not­hing to pre­vent her from go­ing back to that com­pu­ter and fin­ding out exactly what Phi­lip had be­en using it for.

  Except that you might get ca­ught, she told her­self, he­si­ta­ting.

  What are you, a wo­man or a marsh­mal­low? she co­un­te­red.

  Go on, the lit­tle girl ur­ged. I’m pretty su­re we’re go­ing to find out so­met­hing in­te­res­ting.

  Snowy didn’t know whet­her she wo­uld fe­el wor­se abo­ut be­ing ca­ught or abo­ut wal­king away and ne­ver kno­wing what Phi­lip re­al­ly did. If he wasn’t a wri­ter, then he was lying to her abo­ut whe­re his mo­ney ca­me from and that me­ant he might be lying to her abo­ut ot­her things. And Snowy had a right to know.

  She went stra­ight to the work-bench, sat down in Phi­lip’s cha­ir and gla­red at the spa­ce-flight scre­en sa­ver. The soft­wa­re that ran this par­ti­cu­lar scre­en-sa­ver be­lon­ged to Win­dows 95 if she wasn’t mis­ta­ken. The idea of ha­ving a scre­en sa­ver at all was to pre­vent da­ma­ge. If you went away and left a sta­ti­onary ima­ge sho­wing, the stre­am of elect­rons which cons­tantly bat­te­red the co­ating on the in­si­de of the scre­en wo­uld even­tu­al­ly etch that ima­ge the­re per­ma­nently. When you tur­ned the com­pu­ter off, you wo­uld still be ab­le to see what had be­en etc­hed the­re, just as you co­uld still re­ad what had be­en sho­wing on a bank’s auto­ma­tic tel­ler af­ter it was tur­ned off. A scre­en sa­ver was a prog­ram that auto­ma­ti­cal­ly put up a mo­ving ima­ge ins­te­ad of a sta­ti­onary one when it de­tec­ted that you hadn’t to­uc­hed the key­bo­ard or mo­use for a whi­le. Mo­ving pic­tu­res didn’t stay in one pla­ce long eno­ugh to be etc­hed in­to the scre­en. And as so­on as you to­uc­hed the key­bo­ard aga­in, the scre­en sa­ver went away and you got yo­ur ori­gi­nal disp­lay back.

  The prob­lem, from Snowy’s vi­ew­po­int, was that Phi­lip might ha­ve set this par­ti­cu­lar one to ha­ve a se­cu­rity pas­sword. Which me­ant as so­on as she to­uc­hed the key­bo­ard she wo­uld be pre­sen­ted with a lit­tle box re­qu­es­ting that she en­ter a pas­sword she did not know. If he’d set a pas­sword, and she fa­iled to crack it, the evi­den­ce that she’d be­en med­dling wo­uld be the­re on the scre­en for him to see when he got back.

  Snowy to­ok hold of the mo­use which lay be­si­de the key­bo­ard and re­ali­zed two things at on­ce. The first was that the mo­ve­ment of the mo­use had cle­ared the scre­en sa­ver away, just as it was sup­po­sed to (and the­re was no pas­sword box to ma­ke li­fe dif­fi­cult). The se­cond - far mo­re shoc­king -thing was that the mo­use wasn’t plug­ged in­to the com­pu­ter and the­re­fo­re sho­uld ha­ve had ab­so­lu­tely no ef­fect.

  Snowy ig­no­red the pa­ge of text that had ap­pe­ared be­fo­re
her, whi­le she lo­oked at the of­fen­ding mo­use. So­me we­re ra­dio-cont­rol­led and didn’t ne­ed to be wi­red to the com­pu­ter, but this wasn’t one. This one had a cab­le which ca­me out of it, wo­und be­ne­ath the key­bo­ard, cur­led aro­und the desk and stop­ped. And the­re was its plug.

  Not plug­ged in.

  You to­uc­hed a key, she re­aso­ned with her­self, that wo­uld ha­ve do­ne it. But she knew she had be­en very ca­re­ful not to co­me in con­tact with the key­bo­ard; all she had do­ne was mo­ve the mo­use, which wasn’t plug­ged in. Just to ma­ke su­re she had the right le­ad, she tra­ced it from mo­use to plug, lif­ting the key­bo­ard to ma­ke su­re she had the right wi­re.

  When Snowy glan­ced up at the mo­ni­tor a row of lo­wer ca­se z’s had ap­pen­ded them­sel­ves to the bot­tom of Phi­lip’s pa­ge of wri­ting. She co­uld get rid of tho­se in just a mo­ment, she de­ci­ded. The im­por­tant thing was dis­co­ve­ring how this unp­lug­ged mo­use had any ef­fect on the com­pu­ter.

  Ma­gic, that’s how her lit­tle-girl vo­ice cro­wed in de­light. Told you we’d find out so­met­hing in­te­res­ting!

  Phi­lip had be­en using Mic­ro­soft’s ‘Words for Win­dows’, a word-pro­ces­sor that ma­de use of the mo­use. The­re was a lit­tle ar­row on the scre­en which mo­ved when you rol­led the mo­use aro­und the desk. You po­in­ted the ar­row at lit­tle bo­xes and clic­ked one of the but­tons on the mo­use to turn stuff li­ke ita­lics on and off aga­in. The ar­row was cur­rently half-way up the scre­en in the mid­dle of the pa­ge of text.

  It can’t pos­sibly mo­ve if you mo­ve the mo­use, Snowy told her­self, glan­cing back over her sho­ul­der just in ti­me to see the do­or per­for­ming its self-clo­sing act. Ghosts, she tho­ught, as if the­re we­re such things. And then she shi­ve­red.

  This ho­use con­ta­ined mo­re im­pos­sib­le things than you co­uld sha­ke a stick at. The­re might be a ra­ti­onal exp­la­na­ti­on for the do­or clo­sing by it­self and for her fa­ilu­re to mas­ter the pe­cu­li­ar front do­or, but she was go­ing to ha­ve a ta­xing ti­me exp­la­ining it to her­self if that po­in­ter mo­ved on the scre­en when she mo­ved a mo­use that wasn’t even plug­ged in.