Ultimate Nyssa Glass by H. Burke (ebook reader browser txt) 📗

construct like a great, rusty oil barrel but with wheels and two long metal arms tipped with pruning shears, rolled by. It paused at a topiary, snipped at it several times, then rolled to the next. Another set of blades rotated beneath its body, swiping the neatly trimmed grass. Nyssa rubbed her eyes.

Ignoring her, the robot continued past, from bush to bush, clipping and trimming.

Fully automated. Not even needing maintenance, I bet. Swell set up. Albriet’s right. If we could put a couple of those in the coal mines, it could save a lot of lives. There might be some value to this mission after all.

She fiddled with her goggles. The robot glowed consistently, but she could see no other electronic fields. From the state of the rest of the garden, it was probably the only machine currently operational on the outside. Kind of sad, really. Doomed to complete the same basic task, appreciated by no one, until it rusts and falls apart.

Nyssa darted across the lawn, the sound of the robot’s pruning fading in her wake.

Chapter Four

Nyssa scanned the outside of the mansion, switching her goggles between x-ray and field detection. Within the exterior walls, wires crisscrossed in complex patterns, but they didn’t appear to be live. At least this portion of the house didn’t have any power.

Feeling relatively safe, she pulled herself up onto a decorative ledge below a first story window. Grime caked the glass. She rubbed at it with her sleeve but succeeded only in smudging the pane. I wonder if the whole house is powerless. The garden wall security might be tapped into the same power as the street lights. Kind of ironic, a multi-millionaire, genius inventor stealing electricity.

Without power for any alarms, the entry process became stupidly simple. She took out a small screwdriver and inserted it between the window and the sill. After a little wiggling, the latch snapped. She pushed it open and surveyed the room. Leather chairs faced each other, ready to host a cozy after-dinner conversation. Still no electricity, though a video-screen sat in the middle of the far wall, framed by bookshelves.

Looks like a Dalhart 2. Mr. C would be impressed.

The videophone and the chandelier seemed to be the only things wired for electricity. What she was looking for wouldn’t be here. Confident in the lack of security measures, she dropped down onto the dusty carpets of the sitting room.

Nyssa shut the window and latched it. She closed her eyes, listening. Silence. No whirring wheels or hum of generators. No distant footsteps or whisper of voices.

Opening her eyes, she swept her finger across a side table. Dust coated everything. “Yeah, this place hasn’t been lived in for years.”

A pair of large double doors beckoned from across the room. Nyssa pushed them open, and the rusty hinges screeched, the sound sharp as a woman’s scream. A hall stretched into darkness. She flipped the dial on her goggles one more notch, bathing everything in a sickly green tint. Curtains lined both sides of the passage.Strange for an interior hall.

She brushed the gray cloth back. A goggle wearing face gaped back at her, and a strangled cry escaped Nyssa's lips. The face flinched.

Nyssa flushed, resisting the urge to slap herself. It’s just a plain old mirror. She found a cord and pulled until the entire wall of curtains slipped away. Mirrors, mirrors, mirrors. They were displayed like portraits, each inside elaborate, gilded frames.

“Professor Dalhart must’ve been quite vain.” Nyssa stared at the various angles of herself, using the reference to pick several twigs out of her hair. “Something’s off about these. I mean, why would anyone need so many?” She traced the edge of the nearest frame, and something gave beneath her fingers. A button?

She knelt for a better view of the frame’s underside. Wires ran from it into the wall. Clearly this had some sort of electronic function, but there was no power to test it. Prying with her fingernails, she pulled out a control panel, hidden behind the frame.

Her lips curled into a grin. “It’s a computer system. If I can just get it to power on …” That the records Albriet wanted could be here, literally at her fingertips, was almost too good to be true. Computers weren’t a particular skill of Nyssa’s, but electronics were electronics. “You just need juice, don’t you, boy?” She lovingly wiped the dust from the buttons.

The wires had to be hooked to something. A set up this elaborate probably had its own generator. If I can get that online and boot up the system, I’m home free. Albriet must’ve been lying about losing people in here. It’s not scary at all. Just old and dusty.

The hall wound past several rooms, some with doors cracked open. Glances inside revealed dining rooms, parlors, and even an expansive ballroom, but nothing to suggest the technological payoff Nyssa needed. Scuffs in the thick layer of dust on the floor, though, indicated others had been here recently. She stooped and examined the footprints: men’s shoes, at least three different sets … at different times, based on the thin layer of dust over one set that wasn’t on the others.

“What happened to you?” Her voice sounded hollow in the silence. A slight echo responded, and she shivered.

Another large pair of double doors opened up before her, revealing a massive foyer. Sunlight filtered in from a blue glass window, illuminating a crystal chandelier which would’ve been brilliant if not for the ever-present dust. A sweeping staircase led to an upper story. At least one pair of footprints headed in that direction, but the more recent ones continued down the hall. A door of dark oak with a family crest carved into the upper panel sat at the end of the passage.

“I’ll check that out first.”

Her footsteps tapped, no matter how she tried to muffle her movements. Of course, in this cursed silence, even the swish of her skirts sounded like a windstorm. She reached for