“Jane?” I grabbed her by her arm, only to feel a harsh jolt of electricity hammer into my body, knocking me on my ass. My muscles were twitching and I had a hard time shaking it off, but taking it slow, I got back on my feet. “Jane!”

Hearing the desperation in my voice seemed to pull her out of her trance. She looked down at her hands and turned to me in a panic, her eyes bugging out.

“Help…?” she croaked.

I started to reach for her again, and she violently shook her head no. “What if my hands come off at the wrist?”

The muscles in her arms flexed as she tried to pull herself free, but every move she made caused her to sink even farther into the screen.

“Don’t struggle,” I said. “It’s like quicksand.”

But Jane was beyond panic now and tugged wildly to free herself.

I was about to yell at her once again to stop struggling, but when I looked at her I froze. Jane was glowing. A soft white light was spreading up her arms and down her body.

I had no idea what was going on, but I had to do something, even if it meant taking another serious jolt by touching her. This time, however, I would be ready for it, and I pulled my gloves out and slipped them on. I hoped they would at least reduce the conductivity a little, but a second later, it didn’t matter.

I reached for Jane, only to be driven back as the white glow intensified into a blinding flash. Not to be deterred, I pushed toward her, but as quick as the flash had come, it was gone. And Jane with it.

“Jane?”

I felt around where Jane had just been, hoping that maybe it was some kind of optical illusion, but she was definitely gone. I stepped into the space and placed my hands on the touch screen, but it was as solid as when I had been using it before. My heart started to race as I felt my own panic setting in, and I spun around looking for her. My left foot slipped on something and I fought to keep my balance. I looked down to only see all of Jane’s clothes-her hip-huggers, the RESIDENT EVIL 4 shirt she had been wearing, and on top of the pile, the necklace I had just bought her.

I scooped up the necklace, clutching it in my hands. There was no pillar of salt or pile of dust or blood. Jane simply was gone.

“No, no, no,” I said, over and over, not sure what to do next when my cell phone went off. I pulled it out. I had a new text.

WORST. TOUCHSCREEN. EVER!

I typed back: WHERE THE HELL RU?

I slipped her necklace in my coat pocket while I waited. A minute later, my phone went off again.

NOT SUR THINK IM IN THE BUILDIN.

WHERE? I typed back. I reached for the kiosk and brought up the mall area map on the touch screen while I waited.

IN THE BUILDING ITSELF.

Did she mean inside the actual building?

RU OK?

Waiting for an answer to this question had my heart in my throat.

4 NAO. Then, HELP.

If I was going to help her, I was going to need help myself, and there was only one person close enough to give it. Connor. I only hoped his recent bout of the crazies hadn’t put him out of commission.

I started the long walk back through the maze of shops to get the hell out of the Gibson-Case Center. Panic started to set in and by the time I reached the revolving doors leading out to the streets of New York, I was running.

11

As I ran to Connor’s apartment farther west and two blocks down, I tried his number, but his phone went straight to voice mail. Given how close I was, I didn’t bother to leave a message.

By the time I reached his apartment, I had calmed myself a little. The fact that Jane had been able to send me messages meant she was still alive, and that gave me hope.

At Connor’s building, someone was just leaving as I arrived, and I grabbed the door before it could close behind him to let myself in. Outside Connor’s apartment upstairs, the sound of his movie sound system poured straight through the thickness of his wooden door. I hammered on it for several minutes, and when he didn’t answer I feared that maybe Jane and I had made a bad call leaving him to sleep it off the other night. Maybe whoever or whatever had scaled his wall had returned and taken care of him. I pounded harder.

The door flew open and a wild-eyed Connor stood there wearing the same clothes I had found him in at the graveyard. He looked ready to fight. Despite his crazed appearance, it was nice to see that the swelling had gone down around his eyes. When he saw it was me, he relaxed a little.

“Wow,” Connor said. He wandered away from the door back into his apartment. I caught it before it swung shut. “Two social calls in one week,” he said. “I’m touched.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call this social,” I said, walking in. Not much had changed in the apartment since yesterday, except up on his projection wall Fisherman Quint was being devoured by the powerful jaws of a giant great white shark. Other than that, there was maybe a fresh pizza box on top of one of the many stacks of pizza boxes… possibly a new odor or two.

“I see you’ve been working on your funk some more since we dropped you off,” I said, stopping in my tracks. “Do I detect a hint of something that died?”

“So glad you could drop by, kid,” Connor said. He plopped himself down in one of the movie-watching chairs. He went back to watching Jaws, but not before flipping up the top on one of the pizza boxes and pulling out a cold slice that I hoped was relatively new.

“Like I said, this isn’t really a social call,” I said, pulling the plug on his projection system. The room went dead silent. I thought he was going to kill me so before he could say anything, I blurted it all out. I spent the next few minutes telling Connor about everything that had happened since last night-from discovering that he hadn’t dreaming about having a lurker all this time, chasing the intruder back to the Gibson-Case Center-everything up to Jane’s disappearance.

“And then…” I said, hearing the catch in my own voice, but controlling it, “she just vanished into one of the information kiosks there, like she was being sucked into the Matrix.”

Connor sat in his movie-watching chair in quiet contemplation. “So about the first part of your story… You didn’t think this would be worth bringing up to me, say, last night after you chased whoever away?”

“After seeing the way you looked after we found you knocked down at Trinity Church? No.”

“Why the hell not?” Although his words were sharp, there was more desperation than anger in his voice.

“No offense, Connor, but you don’t really seem on your ‘A’ game right now,” I said.

He laughed, but it was a dark sound. “And you thought now might be a good time to tell me?”

“I don’t know, honestly. I don’t think there’s any good time to tell someone something as messed up as all this, but I guess you should know that you’re not having crazy dreams. Whatever is happening to you, it’s real.”

“Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t,” he said, giving an unhinged laugh and standing up. He walked over to me and poked me in the chest. “How do I know that you’re really here and really telling me all this?”

“I could kick your ass, if it would help you think I’m real,” I said.

“If you won, then I’d know this was all a hallucination,” he said. He shook his head, still crazy-eyed. “In case you haven’t noticed, Mr. Figment of my Imagination, I’m still off the company clock. I’m not running on Departmental time and…”

“Excuse me?” I said. “Listen, Connor, trust me… This is going to override your precious vacation time. Help me find Jane.”