Broken Pixels (Broken Realms, #4)

CHAPTER 3-2

Twenty minutes later, after circling the hospital once and accidently backing out onto Market Street in southeast Portland, Mara found her way to the entrance of the parking garage. She wondered why no signs pointed the way, at least until she pulled up to the tiny booth with a retractable gate arm in front of the building. A sign on the side of the booth read Employee Parking Only. Mara craned her neck to find a way in around the barrier but only saw an exit lane, which featured a barrier arm extending from the opposite side of the booth. When she turned to face forward again, an attendant exited the booth, pointing to an electronic card swipe mounted to a pole two feet behind Mara’s window. She had missed it when she pulled up. She rolled down her window.

“If you don’t have an employee pass, ma’am, you can’t enter the garage. Back out before someone pulls in behind you,” the attendant said.

“We’ve got to pick up a large package, and I was told to come in this entrance,” Mara said.

The attendant shook his head. “I don’t know who told you that, but there are no pickups in the garage. You might want to check at the rear of the building. A couple vendor loading areas are there. That’s the only place I know of where you can make a pick up. Now please back out.”

Mara put the car in Reverse, but Sam reached over her seat and tapped her on the shoulder. He opened the back passenger window, leaned out and called to the attendant. “Excuse me, sir. Could you help me with something?”

The attendant looked put out but sauntered closer to the car.

Locking gazes with the man as he approached the side of the car, Sam nodded and said, “She swiped her card, and it didn’t work.”

The attendant nodded in sync with the boy. “Yeah, I saw her swipe it, and the gate didn’t go up.”

“When she showed you the card, it might have had a scratch on the back, but it was definitely a valid pass to get into the parking garage.”

The attendant continued to nod. “Happens all the time.”

“What do you normally do when that happens?” Sam asked.

“I just open the gate manually.”

“That sounds like a good idea. Why don’t you go to the booth and open the gate manually? After we enter, you won’t even remember the problem.”

The man turned on his heel and returned to the gate, muttering, “No problem at all.”

Sam sat back and closed his window.

As the barrier arm rose in front of the car, Mara said, “You know, I’m beginning to think being a prompter might be better than all this progenitor stuff I’ve got to deal with.”

She drove into the garage and followed the signs pointing to level P2. After executing two tight turns on narrow ramps leading deeper underground, she pulled up to a yellow curb next to a wide sidewalk, along a concrete wall running the length of the garage and featuring doors spaced about thirty feet apart—the storage rooms. Mara cut the car’s ignition, opened her window and leaned out.

“Okay, that’s the elevator alcove back there,” she said, looking behind them. Pointing to the second door from that direction, she added, “That’s the room he was in on Friday, before all the dragon business started up. Let’s go.”

Ping exited his car door and stood. Over the hood, he said to Mara, “Those doors have a keypad lock. I assume you know the code to get in.”

“Not exactly,” she said. She peered at Sam. “Bring my book bag.”

“Do I look like a bellhop or something?” he said. Mara made a move to open the back door. He raised a hand and grinned at her. “Just yanking your chain, sis. Mellow out. I’ll get it.”

The garage seemed more foreboding at night. A pinkish light cast weak shadows on the concrete walls and asphalt surface. Footsteps and squealing tires echoed from the level above, but Mara couldn’t detect any sound or movement from here, the lowest level of the garage. She heard only their own footfalls as they approached the storage room door. When they stopped in front of it, Sam handed the book bag to her, but she shook her head.

“Don’t you need your tools? I figured, without the code, you could probably take apart the keypad and hot-wire it or something,” Sam said.

“I suppose if I had an hour or two to figure it out, that might work,” she said. “Just hold on to the bag. I want you and Ping to lean against the wall on either side of the door and keep an eye on things behind me. I’m doing something a little different here.”

Sam glanced over to Ping, as if he might know what Mara was up to, but he simply shrugged and leaned his backside against the wall on the left side of the door. Sam said, “Okay,” and slouched on the right side.

Standing directly before the door, Mara cupped her right hand in front of the doorknob and narrowed her eyes in concentration. Her fingers loosened and extended slightly as if she expected a ball to land in her palm.

Sam looked up from her hand and frowned. “What are you trying to do?”

“Shut up,” she said through tight lips.

Her fingers flexed again. The doorknob blurred.

“She’s pixelating it,” Sam said.

“Shush.”

Mara’s eyes tightened into a squint, and her fingers opened. The doorknob vanished in a flash of light. A second burst of brilliant white appeared above her hand. When it receded, two doorknobs bridged by a complete locking mechanism sat in her palm. The weight of it pulled Mara’s arm downward, so she relaxed her arm and let it drop to her side.

Sam pointed to the round hole in the door and said, “Cool. You popped the whole thing from the door.”

Ping looked impressed. “The element of Space, but you didn’t have to exchange one object for another. When were you aware that you had developed this ability?”

Handing the doorknobs and locking mechanism to her brother, Mara pulled open the door. “That’s the first time I’ve done it intentionally. It happened spontaneously during the battle with the dragon, and I’ve been wondering if I could do it when I’m not freaked out.”

“It appears so,” Ping said. “Why not just pixelate the lock? Make it go away?”

“I’m hoping we can get in and out of here without looking like a felony has been committed. With any luck I can replace the mechanism before we leave. If we simply break in, that might draw more attention, if the feds come snooping around,” she said, stepping into the storage room.

She remembered the light switch was on the far side of the room and slowly walked forward with her arms extended. After several steps, her thigh grazed the gurney, and her hip rubbed against what felt like a hand. She found the switch and flipped it. Her gaze locked on the decapitated body on the gurney. Her phone vibrated in her pocket.

Taking it out, she saw an opened message from Cam, the first she’d received since Friday. She tapped it, and the message displayed Hurry.