Interface

by writerfan2013

"It was ambitious, but for his own safety somebody had to do it, and with any luck he need never find out. Mattie squinted at her screen, and prepared to hack Leo Elster." A plan to restore Fred goes horribly wrong, but could it change things for Mattie and Leo? Follows A Little Light and Poor Design, or can be read alone. Leo x Mattie

7. Chapter 7

She drove, the Fiesta's one-litre engine screaming all the way, straight to Fred's location. It was a damp October day, the air heavy with suspended droplets, and every tree dripped. Mattie stuck the car in the car park, and saw Leo's van, already here. The overcast day already seemed dark, so Mattie pulled her torch from the glove compartment.

The destination was a self storage centre, a lonely warehouse where cages and shipping containers stacked up along bleak corridors, full of the things that people couldn't or wouldn't have in their homes.

Mattie slung her laptop bag over her back, and took a key out of her pocket. She'd rented a small unit before she left, and collected the key on the way here. The key got her inside, and then all she had to do was find Fred, and Leo.

She strode along the concrete corridors, white overhead lights flashing on as she approached, darkness following behind, as she worked methodically through the building. If things had gone wrong, Hobb might already be here. Mattie gripped the heavy MagLite from her car and tried to swallow her fear.

She found the unit on the second floor, where smaller cages and cobwebbed ceilings showed that this was the cheap end of the self-storage market. She hesitated by the lift, nerving herself to step into the narrow corridor between cages heaped with unknown draped objects. Most units were dark. But one at the far end of this corridor glowed with a dim blue light. Screen light.

She had her phone in her hand as she paced towards the open cage door. The only noise was the sound of her uncertain footsteps, and the buzz of fluorescent ceiling lights. Her thumb was on Mia's number.

Too slowly, too quickly, she reached the last cage.

She saw wooden tea chests, a tangle of electrical cables, and the blanket they had wrapped around Fred, months before.

Fred was gone. But a body lay on the concrete floor.

Mattie pressed the Call button by reflex and ran inside. "Leo! Oh god." She dropped the phone onto an upturned chest.

Leo was lying on his left side in the dust. His legs were entwined with a mess of cables, and his eyes were wide open. But he was pale, and cold, and still.