Chapter 21 – Discovered Check

Samsara Ashtear, rising star in the field of temporal mathematics, stood in front of the front door to her apartment and fumbled for her keys. The dimly lit hallway in which she stood felt cozily quiet after a weekend of posters, of speeches, of free dinners in crowded rooms with colleagues, of giving talks and answering questions, of sleeping in a rollaway in a small hotel room shared by several other researchers from her university, and of more coffee than was good for her. After a weekend smack in the middle of the sharp edge of civilization, the soft, welcoming confines of her apartment complex were like a pillow in which she could lose herself, alone at last, in comfortable quiet. For a moment, Samsara could do nothing other than close her eyes and breathe in slowly, counting exactly four seconds each time she inhaled and four more while exhaling. After a count of twenty-four, she could feel her heart slowing and her mind unwinding.

The turn of her key in the front lock made a sound louder than any available white noise, most of which could be traced to nocturnal neighbors watching drama videograms on their home video monitors. The faint neighbor sounds became almost like light scratches against the surface of the atmosphere, themselves barely louder than the hum of the fluorescent light fixture overhead. The clang of the lock slipping open and the creak of the door's hinges temporarily topped all other sounds, and then they and most of the rest of the background noise faded as Samsara stepped into her room and closed the door behind her.

Glad to be home, Samsara wasted no time in kicking off her shoes, dumping a bowl of popcorn into her microwave over and turning it on, and pattering off to her bedroom to change into more comfortable, less showy night clothing. She picked a light green heavy t-shirt and a pair of darker sweat pants, slipping them on just before her popcorn finished. Back in the main room, she retrieved her popcorn bowl and slumped down onto an overstuffed, tattered, purple couch nestled into the comfortable corner next to her own home video monitor. A few mouths full of hot, buttery, salty snack later, she shoved her hand under one of the cushions and clawed around until she located the monitor's long-distance operational control device. She then flipped on the local news.

Stocks were up today, with big gains in the tech industry. PrinTemps, subsidiary of BalthaCom, gained two percent, while competitor…

Samsara half listened, half replayed highlights from the conference in her memory. By the time the news program finished the business headlines, she found herself both out of popcorn and quite thirsty, so she reluctantly pried herself from her seat and plodded back to the kitchen, which was really more a corner of the main room. What neon lighting could reach her from the outdoors mixed with the blue from the video monitor to give her just enough vision to find a bag of instant noodle mix. She dumped the contents in a bowl, added a pinch of spices, and put the microwave back to work before opening the refrigerator to find something to quench her thirst, eventually deciding on a bowl of thin poi mixed with milk and coconut with slices of banana, her mother's favorite.

Work could wait; at that point Samsara cared only about winding down and forgetting work, just for an evening. She let the newscast continue.

…won tonight, defeating the Arris Argonauts 7-2 to move into first place in the Zenan division. Tomorrow's matchup features…

Samsara felt the urge to sleep tugging at her, but she shrugged it off and took a sip of poi.

…but efforts to recover the kitten have been fruitless thus far. Authorities urge residents to…

Samsara looked around, half cognizant of something wrong with the scene, but she shrugged the feeling off as nothing more than the paranoia she felt after every conference. Hundreds of people, all of them working on the same problems she wanted to solve first, all of them eager to publish before she could—it was no wonder these things made her want to curl up on a couch with some food to help her forget.

…and that's all for tonight. Join us at six tomorrow for your morning EpicNews. Next is the Late Night Show.

Finishing her noodles, Samsara curled her feet up onto the couch (something Jinling would scold her for doing, surely) and shifted her back over to the side cushion, letting her head lean back against the arm rest at an angle that still allowed her to see her monitor. She stared halfheartedly as the news desk vanished and the set of a comedy variety show replaced it. Onscreen, a large man in a square suit and a loud tie told a few jokes about national politics while a robot band played along, made up of crude imitations of the R-XXY series, provided the music. Samsara chuckled at one or two of the better jokes, and she smiled a bit at seeing the old, rusty robots. While none of the leaps in technology required to create the series in the comedian's band would have been possible without Lucca, she still couldn't help but wonder how the world would react when she finally marketed her newer model. Much slicker. Much more useful. Much better with a saxophone.

Jinling hated this show, but she didn't seem to be complaining, perhaps because she was already asleep in her own room and perhaps because she was out late working. Samsara imagined it was work, anyway, even though it just as easily could have been something more frivolous. She preferred to give her friend the benefit of the doubt to cover up any guilt she might have over holding someone else up to the standards only an Ashtear normally had to deal with. Samsara never quite decided whether the pressure to live up to her name had helped her or hurt her.

Samsara pondered the question, hanging halfway between wakefulness and dream. The videogram of the comedian droned on, eventually giving way to an interview between the host and the author of a new book on robotics. Eventually the sound of the comedian's voice and the smell of the warm fruit and milk and the texture of the cushion lulled Samsara just over the threshold, and she drifted off into blissful sleep.

XXX

Samsara woke to the sound of the EpicNews morning host discussing minutia of this year's shipment of crops from El Nido. Groggy, she nearly forgot she had a mostly empty bowl of leftover poi balanced on her ribcage, which nearly fell off onto the floor as she started to get up to fetch her morning dose of chemical stimulants. The beginning of the new week after a conference promised something of a grind at work, with all the excitement dead and only the drudgery of cleaning up loose ends before starting on new experiments to look forward to until at least midway through the week. Samsara actually wondered if she would be missed if she were to stay home, but she did not pursue that line of speculation to its inevitable disappointing conclusion, at least not before having a cup of hot tea.

Morning tea had to be Samsara's favorite smell in the world. At that point in the day, just after shaking off sleep and before letting the rest of her responsibilities pull her attention in a half dozen directions at once, she could concentrate on absolutely nothing but her tea. Satisfied for the time being with a packet of instant tea, she filled her favorite cup with water, heated it up, and dropped two packets of black leaves into the brew, dangling them in and out of the surface to stir her drink up and darken it. Mint flavored steam rose from the cup and filled her nostrils. Staring intently at the top of the cup, she sniffed it until her eyes began to water. Only when she was completely satisfied with the drink's color and smell did she take a sip off the top.

At 6:15, her alarm clock sounded. She let it ring for a minute before leaving her tea behind to turn it off. When she did leave, she found herself jogging into her room, half because of the light feeling her tea inspired in her and half because she remembered that the alarm could easily be heard from Jinling's room, so she wanted to stop the sound as quickly as she could.

That accomplished, she decided to get ready for work. After changing into typical laboratory clothing, she brought her tea over to her computer to finish it while reading any mail she might have received over the weekend. A few people would surely have questions about the talk she had given at the conference, so she might as well file those questions away to answer later. Hardly thinking about what she was doing, Samsara pushed the power switch and waited for the computer to boot up.

She frowned. After the boot prompt, the computer told her she had forgotten to do a manual shutdown last time she had used it, but that was something she never forgot. Maybe she just hadn't been thinking before the conference, with everything so hectic. Shoving the problem to the back of her mind, she entered her user ID at the next prompt and then pushed the power button her music player—she was in no mood to try to recall her password from memory, as often as she changed it. Turning the volume knob, she waited for a recognizable melody to waft out from the speakers. Idly, she wondered whether even the sound of the world's greatest music could compete with the smell of morning tea, but she decided nothing could be gained by comparing that apple to that orange, so she pushed her attention to the sounds.

No sounds came.

She turned the volume up higher, but still she could hear nothing. She was sure she hit the power switch; she had heard the click that confirmed it. Somehow, though, there was no music.

Slightly miffed, she looked over at the player and noticed no display on the screen. For some reason, the player was not turned on. It was as if the player's switch had been in the 'on' position all weekend, and she had just flipped it back off without thinking.

Samsara shrugged and flipped the switch again. She listened for something familiar, but instead she heard one of the less familiar movements from Das Rheingold. It took her a minute to realize what it was. Normally, she would have left the player on one of her favorite movements so she could retrieve her password more easily. More annoyed by the minute at her carelessness before rushing off for the weekend, she typed in her password and brought up her mail.

Most of the emails were new but expected, but one in particular, one that was already marked as having been opened and read, caught her attention. Nimzovich's.

Samsara grunted as she clicked the screen to read the message. As she read it, she felt her vision blur and her heart rate speed up, effectively canceling out the morning breathing exercises she had forgotten to do anyway.

She called for Jinling, but no one answered. Someone had clearly been in the apartment, possibly someone dangerous. Concern for her friend shoved itself to the front of her consciousness.

She called again, and still she received no answer. Thoroughly worried, she discarded all sense of politeness and ran into Jinling's room, not caring at all if she woke her. When confronted with nothing but an empty bed, covers folded neatly (or what passed for neatly, with Jinling), she ran back out and threw open her desk drawer, frantically looking for her gun.

She called her friend's name again. When she could find neither Jinling nor the gun, she began to panic.