One thing was certain: he wasn’t at the home in Las Vegas. That presented an opportunity, one Adeline wasn’t going to miss.
She threw off the photomosaic quilt of her family, rose from the bed, and got dressed. In her black V-neck T-shirt and faded blue jeans, she slipped out of her room and down the stairs. In the kitchen, she stood at the touch panel for the home automation system. The security system was armed. She typed the code to disable it and carefully left out the back door. She would be back before dawn and would arm it again, ensuring Daniele was none the wiser.
In the darkness of the night, she walked the few blocks to her home and retrieved her bike from the garage. She had left her phone in her bedroom at Daniele’s, but she retrieved her backpack with the burner phone and once again checked the BuddyLoc app. Hiro’s location still wasn’t registering.
On the bike, Adeline proceeded at slow speed through the streets of Absolom City, which were mostly deserted. On the highway to Las Vegas, she opened the bike up. It had a governor, but it still hummed in the night, the wind the only noise, hissing by her as she carved into the darkness.
She realized then that the feeling of movement was its own kind of progress. Moving from one place to another felt like an accomplishment. Was that hardwired into the human brain? A learned trait from thousands of years of tribes trekking across unknown land to find fields and forests with less competition?
Probably so.
On the horizon, the bright lights of Las Vegas loomed, an oasis in the night calling: we have answers, come to us, don’t let off the accelerator.
And she didn’t. Not until she reached the quiet neighborhood with the two-and three-car garages and stucco exteriors and red clay-tiled roofs.
Adeline parked the bike three doors down from Hiro’s house and hung her helmet on the handlebar. She checked the BuddyLoc app and still didn’t see Hiro’s phone on the map. She casually strode down the sidewalk, the streetlamps buzzing above her, glancing at Hiro’s house. It was dark inside, and the curtains were drawn. There was no car in the driveway.
In front of the home, Adeline bent over, studying the fa?ade as she took a thin ziplock plastic bag from her pocket and reached down, into the grass, as if picking up dog poop her pet had dropped earlier during a walk. It was the best cover she could come up with on short notice （the bags had been in Daniele’s pantry）。
There was no movement inside the home.
Adeline walked around to the side, looking, listening. It was utterly still.
In the home next door, someone was either playing a video game or watching a movie. The window flashed like a strobe light through the thin curtain. The lot lines were tight but wide enough for her to make her way to the back, where a pool lay in the middle of beige stone decking.
Adeline moved quickly to the door that led to the living room.
Locked.
The door to the breakfast nook overlooking the backyard was locked too.
At the closest window, she put her palms on the glass and pushed up. It didn’t budge.
She tried the next one. It was locked as well.
Adeline’s heart rattled in her chest. She was heaving now, the nerves and exertion overtaking her. She planted her feet and pushed up on the window again. Her palms slid across the glass, screeching. She dried them on her pants and pushed again. This time, she heard a pop, like plastic snapping. The window shot up, jamming her fingers into the small crack where the double-hung sashes met.
She was in.
She let the window down and quickly examined her fingers. The nail under her middle finger was already filling with blood, turning purple, almost black. It throbbed with pain, all the way into her hand. The other fingers hurt, but they were only red.
She lifted the window again and high-stepped into the home, her foot landing on marble tile.
What she saw shocked her.
Nothing.
The home was completely empty. No furniture. No paintings or pictures. The floor and walls and counters were bare. Like a house waiting to be sold.
Or a trap.
Adeline’s every instinct told her to turn and run.
But she if she did, she would be right back where she began that night: with no answers.
She listened a moment. There was no sound anywhere.
The kitchen off the breakfast nook opened onto a living room with no fireplace, only two receptacles on the wall: one for data, one for power.
Adeline walked down the hall, past an empty bedroom on the right. The front door loomed ahead. To her surprise, she saw a straight-run staircase descending on the left. From the street view, this looked like a typical ranch home. But it had a basement. The open rail staircase down to it was ominous, like the mouth of a monster waiting for her.