Burning Bright (Peter Ash #2)(62)

The space was small enough to set off the static, but Peter was starting to get used to the low level of discomfort, the pricking at the base of his brainstem.

Maybe Don was right. He could do this.

Then June opened the door behind him. “What the hell are you doing?” she hissed.

“Leo said he’d take a look at your laptop,” Peter said quietly. “Before he gets involved, I thought I’d take a look at him.”

“Leo’s harmless,” she said. “A pothead and a goof.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Peter said, and climbed the steps to the kitchen.

He opened the door to a gutted shell. The plaster was gone from the walls, exposing the two-by-four structure and the cracked bare planks of the exterior walls. A sheet of opaque plastic covered the wall to the next room. There were no cabinets, no fridge or stove. Just a small aluminum sink set into a piece of plastic laminate countertop, held up with scrap lumber.

“Wow.” June was peering over his shoulder. “I guess Leo was telling the truth. He really hasn’t done anything.”

“You don’t come in here?”

“Never. We signed the lease in my apartment.” He looked at her. She said, “Hey, Leo shows up at my place all the time already. I don’t need to encourage him.”

Beside the sink was a plain black mug and a cheap coffeemaker, both dirty, and a tiny microwave oven. A box of ramen noodles and a can of Folgers sat half-empty on the floor.

Peter didn’t know what he’d expected. A high-end espresso machine, maybe. An expensive fridge filled with restaurant leftovers. Not this.

He was used to unfinished spaces. When he was fourteen, his family’s own kitchen was torn out for a whole summer. He and his father had run the plumbing and wiring, then built the cabinets while they waited for the drywaller to get out of rehab. But this didn’t feel like a work in progress.

It felt more like a squatter’s camp.

“Did Leo’s trust fund run out?”

“He never mentioned it,” said June. “Although maybe he wouldn’t have. Leo’s a little weird, you know?”

Peter pushed through the plastic sheeting and stepped into what once was the dining room. It was gutted, too. The living room was the same, and so was the broad front entryway. Peering up the stairs, he could see that the second floor was just like the first.

Once, it had been a grand house. The interior would have been elaborately detailed, with coffered ceilings and lustrous paneling and built-in cabinets. Now the wind blew through the gaps in the sheathing, and the frames of the old windows were bare. The fresh paint on the outside was like a fine suit of clothes on a skeleton.

What did that say about Leo?

“I had no idea,” said June, behind him. “You really never know what’s going on in anyone else’s head, do you?”

“Maybe you should find another place to live,” said Peter.

“I can handle Leo,” she said. “You know how hard it is to find a cheap apartment in this part of town? With built-in tech support?” She tugged on his sleeve. “Let’s get out of here. We’ve got things to do.”

They walked back through the kitchen. But on the landing by the back door, Peter ducked down the winding steps to the darkened basement. June didn’t follow.

“Peter,” she called after him. “Let’s just go, okay?”

“I’ll be quick. I just want to take a peek.” He was already at the bottom, feeling around for a light switch. “If your landlord has a row of chest freezers stacked with bodies, wouldn’t you like to know?”

“No,” June called down from the landing. “I wouldn’t.”

Peter’s hand found the light switch, and flipped it.

It took his eyes a few seconds to adjust to the brightness. The basement was immaculate. LED strips hung from the exposed ceiling joists, eliminating every shadow. The joists and subfloor had been sprayed with brilliant glossy white paint, along with the patched concrete foundation, the center beam, its supporting posts, and all the visible conduit, plumbing, and ductwork. Peter couldn’t see a cobweb or mouse turd in the entire space. The washer and dryer and furnace and water heater looked like they’d been polished.

But that wasn’t the most unusual part.

The most unusual part was the Faraday cage.

This was no cigar box lined with tinfoil. Almost half of the basement had been made over into a large rectangular work space. The walls and ceiling were covered with layers of fine copper mesh that also appeared to extend under a new raised plywood floor. The entrance was a screen door covered with more copper mesh that extended past the jambs so that, when the door was closed, it would form a complete envelope, blocking all electromagnetic radiation.

On one long wall, wooden workbenches were strewn with electronic hardware and soldering tools and a magnifying lens and circuit boards and all kinds of other shit that Peter could never begin to identify. On another wall, an elaborate ergonomic chair faced a big modern desk unit with three keyboards and a wide array of computer screens. A sagging plaid recliner in the corner had a fleece blanket dropped over one arm.

It was homey, in a weird way. Especially in contrast to the empty shell upstairs.

Maybe this was where Boyle really lived, Peter thought. Down here. Working with this hardware and his online collaborators.