L.A. in Winter
Emerald and Amber
Starlight
Nighttime Colors
Sunset
12 Days (pt. 9/12)
Ian and Lila raced from the exhibit hall to try to catch up with Mitchell. He was nowhere to be seen.
“I’d like to know exactly what he meant by three towers,” Lila said thoughtfully as they walked slowly toward their car. As they got closer to it, she saw a white piece of paper underneath the driver side wiper blade. Leaning over, she lifted the wiper blade and pulled the paper from beneath it.
Smoothing the paper flat against the side of the car, she studied a simple hand drawn map in black ink with two lines indicating what appeared to be a road, a dividing line with CA / NV written on either side of it, and three towers off to the side of the road. There was a small compass in the right corner of the paper that indicated the towers were on the north side of the road.
Lila wore a puzzled expression as she tapped the paper a couple of times before turning to Ian. “You know where this is, don’t you?”
“Not really. I mean, I can tell that it’s close to the California-Nevada border, but aside from that…” Ian’s voice trailed off and he shrugged.
“It’s in the Mohave Desert next to the interstate. I see it every time I’m driving to Vegas,” Lila said with conviction.
“You’re sure you can find it?” Ian looked at her skeptically.
“Absolutely. You’ll know it when you see it,” she said confidently.
Clutching the map, Lila hopped in the passenger side and looked up at Ian expectantly. “Let’s go!”
Twilight was falling over the desert when less than three hours later Ian pulled onto the shoulder of northbound I-15.
Lila pointed to the other side of the freeway at the three glowing towers. “There they are,” she said triumphantly.
Ian gave a low whistle. “Nice work. Let me see the map one more time.”
She passed it over to him.
“It fits,” he agreed, and gave the map back to her.
Easing back onto the road, he continued until they reached the exit for the tiny town of Primm situated near the Nevada border. He took the exit and drove across the road to the southbound on-ramp for I-15 where he merged back onto the interstate.
As they closed in on the area near the three towers, Ian pulled as far off the road as possible.
“Lucky there isn’t more traffic,” Lila commented in a low voice.
Ian nodded, all his attention focused on the three towers. “Can you get the binoculars from under the seat?” he asked Lila quietly.
She reached under the seat and grabbed the digital camera binoculars.
Ian reached up to turn off the dome light so that they wouldn’t be illuminated as they opened the car doors. As they exited the car and began walking toward the towers, they heard a voice behind them.
12 Days (pt. 3/12)
Ian and Lila entered the Computer History Museum cautiously and watched their reflections on the glass surfaces to see if anyone followed them into the building. From what they could see, they were alone.
After paying the admission fees, Lila and Ian meandered their way over to a series of laptops set up in the entrance hall leading to the main exhibit. Volunteers wearing nametags sat beside the computers, available to assist visitors with the Hour of Code event taking place that day.
Lila seated herself in front of one of the computers on display and smiled broadly at the older female volunteer sitting across from her. “Great day to try coding, eh?”
The woman returned her smile. “Would you like to try one of the programs?”
Lila scanned the menu interface on the computer screen. “Maybe Python,” she replied, suggesting one of the many programming languages.
“By the way,” Lila mentioned offhandedly while navigating the program’s software, “a friend of mine was supposed to leave a note for me. Did anyone leave something for Lila?”
The woman’s face wrinkled up and she turned to the elderly man sitting next to her. “Do you have a note for the young lady? Lila, right?” she confirmed, asking Lila once more.
The man looked thoughtful. “I believe so.” Creakily he stood and walked to a small round table that stood apart from the others. Picking up a manila envelope, he walked slowly back to Lila and held out the envelope to her.
Lila smiled her thanks and quickly finished the short programming assignment on the computer. Ian rose from his seat beside her and together they walked toward the first exhibits. As soon as they descended a set of stairs that placed them out of view of the hall tables, Lila tore into the envelope. On it was written:
GO TO THE KITCHEN COMPUTER
Lila looked puzzled. “Kitchen computers?” She turned in a slow circle and seeing nothing that fit that description, tugged on Ian’s hand and pulled him along with her through the exhibit, following the direction of the arrows painted on the floor.
They finally reached a section representing computer inventions from the 1960s. Lila stopped stock still, pointing toward a picture of a woman standing next to a computer embedded into a kitchen counter. “That’s it,” she said in a hushed voice to Ian.
Feigning intense interest in the kitchen setup, Lila watched the reflections on the glass case while Ian strolled over to examine a nearby exhibit. Together they waited.
Within a few minutes Lila felt someone bump her arm as she leaned in to look at the exhibit. Quickly she looked up, however it was only in time to see the silhouette of a person vanish around the corner. She immediately turned to Ian and motioned toward the route the individual took. Ian nearly ran around the corner following the lead, but soon appeared again. He shook his head in answer to her questioning look.
Halloween Surprise, pt. 5/30
“Crap.” Lila said, astonished. She looked from one side of the restaurant to the other, gazing into the distance contemplatively. “Why would he stick a Slinky in a box?”
Ian reached into the box and gingerly took out the plastic spring-shaped object. “I haven’t seen one of these since I was a kid. They used to be made of metal.” He passed the small cardboard box to Lila and drew out the toy for inspection. Engraved into the plastic rings was a series of what appeared to be codes.
“Can I just say, WTF?” Ian pronounced succinctly. “Why would anyone spend all that time to carve a Slinky?”
“Whatever’s carved there will stick around a long time, I mean, what are you gonna do, burn it?” Lila looked thoughtful, as though she would whip out a lighter and torch the Slinky on the table.
Ian contemplated the plastic toy. “Maybe it’s not what’s on the Slinky, but what’s inside it.”
Lila grabbed the Slinky and banged it on the tabletop.
“Whoa,” Ian said. “Hold on. Let’s wait until we know what it’s made of.”
“Plain, ordinary plastic.” Lila said and tossed it toward him, causing it to stretch out in classic Slinky form.
Ian gestured toward the box. “Anything else in there?”
Lila scrabbled around the bottom, pulling out a couple of credit card sized badges labeled in Russian. “Sergey Ivanov and Anna Sokolova,” Lila read the names aloud. She examined the lettering and coding on the cards before suddenly tossing them to the ground in alarm.
Ian looked at her as though she was crazy. “That’s evidence.”
“That’s a dosimeter!” Lila said in an concerned tone. “And according to the markings, Sergey and Anna already absorbed over 100 rads of ionizing radiation. You know, life threatening levels,” she continued pedantically. “And if those cards were exposed to that much radiation, I really don’t want to hold them in my hands.” She grimaced as she took a wad of paper napkins and used it to pick up the dosimeters from the ground, placing them carefully back in the box before closing it.
While she was doing this, Ian had been examining the Slinky close up. “There’s a word here. Looks like ‘trianon.’”
Lila uselessly spritzed a glob of hand sanitizer onto her hands and wiped it off meticulously before indicating for Ian to pass the Slinky to her. “Here. Let me see that.”
She held the Slinky close to the light emitted from her cell phone and made out the word “trianon” enscribed on the second ring from the top. Baffled, she tilted her head to think. “Trianon. Where have I heard that?” Her breath quickened. “The Trianon is an apartment building near Hollywood and Western. The one shaped sort of like a castle.”
Ian nodded his head and stood up. “I know it. Let’s head over there.”
Lila handed Ian the box containing the dosimeters and took the Slinky in her hands. As they walked, she let it cascade from one hand to the other in a soothing back and forth motion.
As they reached the Trianon, the Slinky abruptly seemed to crack apart in the middle, leaving the upper half edge in a jagged pattern lined with an inset that appeared to be metal. Lila ran the blunt edge across her finger consideringly, and held it up for a closer investigation. Once again using her phone light to cast a shadow on the metal tip, she saw the numbers 432 inscribed across the rim.
Raising her eyes to the Trianon, Lila then turned to Ian. “Shall we go in?” She held the Slinky’s metal lined tip toward him and quirked her eyebrows, “I believe we have the keys to the castle.”
It’s a Beautiful Day in Hollywood
Busy, busy, busy
Grab a moment to enjoy a treat.
Things have been incredibly busy, and time just seems to slide past. Ian and Lila’s work continues to hit critical levels for things having to be done. Sleep is greatly to be desired, but things need to happen. Lila will finish up the final part of her project today, while Ian has work and meetings.