His pulse quickened. The old house was as close as he could get to this mysterious phantom settlement, but it was still at least a few miles away. What could he do once he reached it, to help the Haberson Map find his real target? Would this really work?
He gripped the steering wheel, anxious. It always had succeeded before. Traffic, weather, crime, practically any question he had—he could find a data stream in the Haberson Map to show him the answer. The greatest map in the world, a map that could achieve a level of accuracy and detail that was nearly unfathomable, but would it be able to explain what was actually going on this time?
Would it be able to show him the way better than a cheap, old paper version could?
A rumble of thunder startled him. Above, the deep navy clouds were curdling with the first hints of rain. Felix rolled up his window just as the gentle patter began against the roof of his car.
His phone dinged again, more urgent.
Please be there, Nell, Felix wished. Or at least have left me a clue about how to find you.
A moment later, the automated navigation voice advised him to turn, and then suddenly in front of him, he saw a long gravel driveway leading up from the road to the right and a rusted mailbox posted at its start. Felix eased onto the brake and guided the car off the asphalt and onto the damp path. The trees closed in overhead, unkempt. The way sloped slightly, and he took the corner slowly so as not to skid.
“You have arrived at your destination,” the Haberson Map announced.
At the top of the driveway, the trees opened up into a small clearing—where a house should have been but was no longer.
Felix stopped the car.
“You have arrived—” his phone started to say again, before he canceled the route, and silence fell back over him again.
This was it.
The place where Nell had lived when her parents and their friends discovered the Agloe map. Where whatever happened that summer had changed them all forever.
He waited for a moment and then climbed out of the car, even though it was raining. His shoes squished in the thickening mud as he went forward, to what remained of the house.
A great, black expanse stretched before him, a mixture of fine silt much darker than the greenish-brown earth beyond, where no weeds grew. And atop it, a mound of old, forgotten ash and scarred concrete foundation.
“Where are you, Nell?” he whispered.
He was so close to her. He could feel it. She, and the town, couldn’t be more than a mile or two away from him, in any direction.
He just had to find it.
Suddenly, the sound of footsteps on gravel broke the quiet patter. Felix turned quickly as a shadow emerged from the trees behind him and into the early morning gloom.
“Nell?” His heart thudded with hope.
But it wasn’t Nell.
“Felix,” William Haberson said.
Felix took a step back, surprised.
How did William know where he’d gone?
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” William remarked, opening an umbrella. Behind his boss’s form, Felix could now make out the dark outline of another company car, much farther back. He’d pulled into the driveway without noticing it parked there in the rain.
“How did you find me?” Felix asked.
“You were using the Haberson Map to navigate. We’re all on the same system.”
“Oh,” Felix replied, feeling silly. “Right.”
“I know how much Nell means to you. I figured you might not wait for the police.”
Felix felt his phone buzz in his pocket, indicating a text message.