Kay glanced down, hoping to catch the wood cracking in time so they could hop out of the way before they plunged through the porch to the ground. Watching her feet, she missed what Nick did. It wasn't as easy as putting a key in the lock-though why anyone would lock the door to this place was beyond her. He'd used something she hadn't quite seen, like maybe a remote control? At any rate, he was slipping something long and slender in his pocket when the door clicked and opened. Very smoothly.
Huh.
They walked into the one-room shack, Kay a little warily. The place smelled of abandonment, and where there was abandonment there could be rats, or worse. Spiders. She hated spiders.
Nick stopped her by simply tightening his hold on her arm. Okay. She stood still, taking in the sad shack. A hot plate on a counter where there was also a sink, which meant there must be some form of electricity, probably an outdoor generator. A single light bulb hanging from a wire in the middle of the ceiling. Two sagging armchairs, a rickety table with four mismatched wooden chairs, which looked like they'd barely support her weight, let alone Nick's.
Oh, and a steel frame cot in a corner with a bare mattress that looked stained.
The flooring was splintered hardwood, except for just inside the entrance. They were standing on a steel plate.
The whole place reeked of mold and looked so desolate it hurt the heart.
She could do this. She could. So what if the place gave her the creeps? It sure beat being dead.
Nick was still holding her arm. Well, she'd seen what was here. Not much. So-what were they waiting for?
He pulled something out of his jacket pocket. A weird-looking pair of goggles. He handed them over. "Put them on," he said quietly.
She did-and recoiled. "Whoa."
The entire shack was crisscrossed with laser beams, invisible to the eye and visible only through the goggles, which must have been IR-enabled. The beams covered almost the entire area, from the floor up to a height of about six feet.
Suddenly, she realized what she was looking at. A very effective security measure. No one could enter without triggering the beams. An interruption in the light would doubtless be signaled to some control area.
Kay lifted her foot and put it back down. That steel plate felt very solid.
"This is a trigger plate, am I right?"
"Bingo. Give the lady a brass ring." Nick slanted a glance at her, one corner of his mouth lifted in a half smile.
"So I guess this place isn't quite as desolate as it looks?"
"Hmm. Yeah." Nick reached to the side and pressed something and the laser lights blinked out. "There are a few surprises."
Kay handed him back the goggles and they walked across the shabby, dusty floorboards to the opposite wall, where an unpainted wooden door led to another room.
Or so she thought.
When Nick opened the door, there was a stainless-steel panel behind it. A beeping sound came from his jacket pocket and the panel slid open to reveal a space the size of a small bathroom. They walked in, the panel slid shut and the ground fell beneath her feet.
An elevator.
They fell fast, but came to a surprisingly gentle halt. Kay estimated that they had fallen perhaps four or five stories. The panel slid back open and she walked out into … wow.
Nick dropped his arm as Kay turned in a full circle, trying to take everything in. It was one of the most amazing spaces she'd ever seen.
She met Nick's amused eyes. He winked at her. "Like the Time Lord says, it's bigger on the inside than on the outside."
"A Mount Hood Tardis." Kay smiled. "I see Felicity's rubbing off on you."
He gave a mock frown. "I liked Dr. Who before I met Felicity. I just wasn't a nerd about it the way she is. So-what do you think about the Grange?"
"It's-it's amazing."
And it was. They were in a huge open-air plaza with circular balconies connected by four transparent external elevators. The ground floor-the floor they were on-was paved with slabs of limestone, interspersed with rectangles of earth filled with thriving plants. Kay had no idea how it worked because outside it had seemed that the shack was surrounded by dense forest, but down here, there was a huge circular space seemingly open to the sky, flooding the space with light. Looking closely, she could faintly see a covering over the open area. Nothing material, more like a shimmer.
The materials were rustic-chic, in earth-tone colors. Limestone, wood, brass. Plexiglas benches everywhere giving a feeling of lightness. Across the plaza, she could see other areas clearly designated as areas for social groupings, work spaces, eating spaces. They were under the ring of balconies but somehow the place was very well lit.
"Suzanne designed the look of the place. She said she refused to have a bolt hole that technically was designed to help us survive a nuclear holocaust and have it be ugly."