Nell's strange, PDA-like device was tiny in his hand, but he could read the screen easily enough. Sometimes messages would come up, but they were in a code he didn't want to bother understanding. A blinking red arrow led him on a clear path through the city to a business center on the far side of town, not too far from the hospital.
It was a clean area with frequent police patrols, and people drove through it constantly. Despite that, there was almost no foot traffic whatsoever. The people who worked here went straight inside at nine and came out at five. Their fancy office buildings had balconies for smoking and cafes for coffee and lunch. There was no need for an employee to leave on their lunch break.
When people did leave buildings, they either went straight to the parking garage and their car, or they sat for five minutes at the bus stop.
Move along, Derek thought, There's nothing to see here. Nothing at all.
The arrow indicating Nell's location behaved confusedly for a moment before fixing on a large marble building with a small parking lot. It was a government building, Derek ascertained from the signs, but he wasn't sure what it was used for. He suspected that this was where all the paper pushers worked.
There were no cars parked out front, but that didn't mean no one was inside. The Afterdark walked around the building to get an idea of where its exits and entrances were. There was a van parked in the shadows, a corvette at its side, and a street-racing motorcycle. If he hadn't suspected that someone was in the van monitoring everything around, he would have gone over and let the air out of the tires. A giant shadow creeping along wasn't too noticeable, but when that shadow started messing with peoples' rides, then alarms were raised.
Groping around with his mind, he found nothing. If there were people, they either had powers or they were wearing helmets. There was no one to commandeer.
He would wait in the dark, like Rikki-Tikki the mongoose in the bathroom of the bungalow creeping up on Nag the cobra, for the right time to go.
It was a clean area with frequent police patrols, and people drove through it constantly. Despite that, there was almost no foot traffic whatsoever. The people who worked here went straight inside at nine and came out at five. Their fancy office buildings had balconies for smoking and cafes for coffee and lunch. There was no need for an employee to leave on their lunch break.
When people did leave buildings, they either went straight to the parking garage and their car, or they sat for five minutes at the bus stop.
Move along, Derek thought, There's nothing to see here. Nothing at all.
The arrow indicating Nell's location behaved confusedly for a moment before fixing on a large marble building with a small parking lot. It was a government building, Derek ascertained from the signs, but he wasn't sure what it was used for. He suspected that this was where all the paper pushers worked.
There were no cars parked out front, but that didn't mean no one was inside. The Afterdark walked around the building to get an idea of where its exits and entrances were. There was a van parked in the shadows, a corvette at its side, and a street-racing motorcycle. If he hadn't suspected that someone was in the van monitoring everything around, he would have gone over and let the air out of the tires. A giant shadow creeping along wasn't too noticeable, but when that shadow started messing with peoples' rides, then alarms were raised.
Groping around with his mind, he found nothing. If there were people, they either had powers or they were wearing helmets. There was no one to commandeer.
He would wait in the dark, like Rikki-Tikki the mongoose in the bathroom of the bungalow creeping up on Nag the cobra, for the right time to go.
