Austin was the only person who lived there because the developer’s plans had been bigger than his bank account, and he’d gone bankrupt before anyone else could buy a unit. Everything was half finished and covered in drywall dust, including the elevator, an open freight lift with a gated door.
I got in, pulled the gate closed, and it lurched slowly toward to the top floor.
The elevator stopped and I stepped out. Twin steel doors, black and formidable, were set in the opposite wall. A thick metal plate with the numbers 111110100 was welded to the door. Only Austin would convert his unit number to binary code.
There was no doorbell, no knocker of any kind so I pounded on the door with my fist. It barely made a sound, like punching a gravestone.
“Austin! It’s Nyah!” My voice echoed around me.
I listened: only silence beyond the doors. I’d come this far and I wasn’t going to leave until I’d spoken to him. No, forget that. I wasn’t leaving without the money.
I tried the silver door lever. It turned easily under my hand and the latch clicked. Unlocked. What good was a having a front door like Fort Knox if you left it wide open? But I suppose it made sense when you’re the only one in the building.
I eased the door open and went in.
“Austin?”
The loft was cavernous, with pitted hardwood floors, exposed brick walls, and ceilings twenty feet overhead. Daylight spilled through huge windows rising high on the walls.
“Hello?” My voice disappeared into the large space.
There was none of the furniture you’d expect—no couches or chairs, no coffee tables or bookshelves. Instead, the space was filled with organized clusters of high-tech lab equipment, panels of large-screen monitors and computers, and row upon row of blinking, humming server racks. And above it all, large rumbling ductwork that dumped cold air into the space, no doubt to cool the equipment.
Over the thrum of the ventilation, a sound pulsed—a droning whum whum whum that moved through the apartment like an electrical current. It was too thick and resonant to be coming from the servers.
“Austin?” I called louder. “It’s Nyah. You here?”
I walked deeper into the loft, passing equipment that belonged in a hospital, not a computer lab: light boards plastered with skull X-rays taken from various angles, large stainless-steel tables meticulously organized with chemistry equipment, microscopes, centrifuges, electroencephalogram (EEG) and electrocardiogram (ECG) machines. All of it was dwarfed by an enormous, shrink-wrapped machine strapped to large pallets. The label stamped on the side read SignaTech NeuroImaging Solutions.
Neuroimaging? What was he doing with that ?
I rounded the last server rack, and the far side of the apartment came into view. I froze and my breath caught. There he was, standing barefoot in a grey hoodie and black jeans. He wore a black knit beanie, pulled tight over his head, and large red headphones.
He hadn’t spotted me yet.
Austin was leaning over a tyrannosaurus-sized control panel that reminded me of a mixing board I’d seen once in a music studio, only bigger. He seemed lost in his own world, frenetically dialing knobs, pushing buttons, sliding controllers, all of it punctuated by quick glances up at an array of screens mounted to the panel. As he tweaked the controls, the sound reverberating through the room changed subtly.
He looked past the screens and I realized the noise was coming from a sound booth of some kind beyond the control panel—a room within the room with a glass observation window set into the wall facing the control panel.
I took a step toward him and my motion drew his attention.
He jerked upright and turned. His face was drawn and thinner than the last time I’d seen him. Paler. His eyes went wide like someone shaken from a deep dream.
Without taking his gaze off me, he pushed a button, killing the sound, and slipped the headphones off.
He stood motionless for several
I got in, pulled the gate closed, and it lurched slowly toward to the top floor.
The elevator stopped and I stepped out. Twin steel doors, black and formidable, were set in the opposite wall. A thick metal plate with the numbers 111110100 was welded to the door. Only Austin would convert his unit number to binary code.
There was no doorbell, no knocker of any kind so I pounded on the door with my fist. It barely made a sound, like punching a gravestone.
“Austin! It’s Nyah!” My voice echoed around me.
I listened: only silence beyond the doors. I’d come this far and I wasn’t going to leave until I’d spoken to him. No, forget that. I wasn’t leaving without the money.
I tried the silver door lever. It turned easily under my hand and the latch clicked. Unlocked. What good was a having a front door like Fort Knox if you left it wide open? But I suppose it made sense when you’re the only one in the building.
I eased the door open and went in.
“Austin?”
The loft was cavernous, with pitted hardwood floors, exposed brick walls, and ceilings twenty feet overhead. Daylight spilled through huge windows rising high on the walls.
“Hello?” My voice disappeared into the large space.
There was none of the furniture you’d expect—no couches or chairs, no coffee tables or bookshelves. Instead, the space was filled with organized clusters of high-tech lab equipment, panels of large-screen monitors and computers, and row upon row of blinking, humming server racks. And above it all, large rumbling ductwork that dumped cold air into the space, no doubt to cool the equipment.
Over the thrum of the ventilation, a sound pulsed—a droning whum whum whum that moved through the apartment like an electrical current. It was too thick and resonant to be coming from the servers.
“Austin?” I called louder. “It’s Nyah. You here?”
I walked deeper into the loft, passing equipment that belonged in a hospital, not a computer lab: light boards plastered with skull X-rays taken from various angles, large stainless-steel tables meticulously organized with chemistry equipment, microscopes, centrifuges, electroencephalogram (EEG) and electrocardiogram (ECG) machines. All of it was dwarfed by an enormous, shrink-wrapped machine strapped to large pallets. The label stamped on the side read SignaTech NeuroImaging Solutions.
Neuroimaging? What was he doing with that ?
I rounded the last server rack, and the far side of the apartment came into view. I froze and my breath caught. There he was, standing barefoot in a grey hoodie and black jeans. He wore a black knit beanie, pulled tight over his head, and large red headphones.
He hadn’t spotted me yet.
Austin was leaning over a tyrannosaurus-sized control panel that reminded me of a mixing board I’d seen once in a music studio, only bigger. He seemed lost in his own world, frenetically dialing knobs, pushing buttons, sliding controllers, all of it punctuated by quick glances up at an array of screens mounted to the panel. As he tweaked the controls, the sound reverberating through the room changed subtly.
He looked past the screens and I realized the noise was coming from a sound booth of some kind beyond the control panel—a room within the room with a glass observation window set into the wall facing the control panel.
I took a step toward him and my motion drew his attention.
He jerked upright and turned. His face was drawn and thinner than the last time I’d seen him. Paler. His eyes went wide like someone shaken from a deep dream.
Without taking his gaze off me, he pushed a button, killing the sound, and slipped the headphones off.
He stood motionless for several
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