“No. Don’t do anything.”
“Are you sure?”
Barkov nodded. His senses would alert him if danger awaited them. Then again, what had the concierge said about the elevator? “It is light, armored, safe.” Safe for who? Maybe it could block out his sense of danger too.
About ten seconds passed. The elevator stopped and the doors opened. Andrew saw a multi-colored flowerbed lit with the sun’s rays and surrounded with precision cut green bushes. Have they sent us down instead of up?
Leaving the elevator, he saw that they were in the penthouse. Sunshine filtered through the windows occupying all the space from the floor to the ceiling and through the glass roof. Around the bed on the marble floor there were some sofas and chairs made of light bamboo. The opposite wall was decorated with flowers in bamboo pots. Tightly closed compartment doors also trimmed with bamboo were located in the wall opposite the elevator. On each side there were two trolleys with trays filled with fruit and berries – apples, pears, peaches, strawberry and grapes.
“Let’s go back downstairs!” Emily exclaimed, her voice tight, forced.
Barkov looked back. She huddled in a corner of the elevator.
“Why?”
“I don’t feel well. This room is stuffed with electronics!”
Andrew grinned. “Electronics? It looks like a garden to me? It’s nice!”
The girl didn’t answer. She turned her gaze past Andrew.
Turning around, he saw a middle-aged woman. She was a short stout blonde with blue eyes and pink round cheeks, dressed in a multilayered green dress reaching down to her ankles, and wearing white moccasins. She had just entered through sliding bamboo doors, behind which Andrew could see what appeared to be an empty room; she went to the visitors quickly. There was radiant smile on her face. The doors closed automatically behind her.
“Welcome! I’m Rosalinda. You must be lieutenant Andrew Barkov. What’s your lady’s name?”
“Emi…,” Andrew almost blurted out the real girl’s name. “Her name’s Katherine.”
“Katherine, dear, why are you standing in the elevator? Come in, please, we don’t have savage dogs here!”
Saying that, Rosalinda gave a ringing laugh.
Barkov looked at Emily. She stayed in the elevator looking at the blonde cautiously.
“I’ve got it!” Rosalinda exclaimed. “Are you allergic to primroses? Or narcissuses? Poor girl! My cousin has the same problem. It’s okay, we’ll fix it.”
The woman took a mini remote control out of the folds of her dress and directed it at the flowerbed. The ground with flowers and bushes lowered and disappeared.
“What to replace them with?” the plump and ever smiling assistant continued. “We don’t want to see this hole in the floor, do we? A fountain will fit best, right?”
She pushed a button. It was strange that she used buttons instead of mind commands.
Soon instead of the flower bed there was a structure in the form of several bowls of successively decreasing sizes, fastened to a thin rod. The bowls resembled water lilies. A stream of water spurted from the top, the smallest one. Falling back, it soon overflowed and started filling the next bowl. Then the next.
Andrew turned toward Emily, speaking quietly. “Yes, there are electronics. But I don’t sense any danger.”
She sighed and got out of the elevator.
Rosalinda sat down on the left part of the nearest sofa. “Take a seat.”
Unlike Emily, Barkov felt no danger. Besides, Rosalinda seemed to be a nice, kind and absolutely harmless woman.
Emily sat down on the other part of the sofa and Andrew in the middle of it.
“I enjoy watching flowing water. And you?” Rosalinda said, then got down to business without waiting for an answer. “So, you want to see my boss. May I ask you why?”
“I… We would like to talk to him about it in person,” Barkov answered.
Rosalinda giggled. “You can’t. He’s chewing food now. He doesn’t talk when he chews. Besides, I’m his personal secretary and decide myself whether to admit strangers to him. If they seem to be dangerous, I show them the door.”
Barkov smiled. “Aren’t you afraid of dangerous people yourself?”
“A little bit. But I will always have time to shout ‘Danger!’.”
She really shouted the last word. At the same moment Andrew felt burning all over his head as if it burst into flame. He jumped up, grabbed his hands to his head trying to extinguish the invisible flame.
Emily did the same, crying out.
“Cancel!” Rosalinda commanded loudly.
The burning stopped.
Andrew and Emily stood, gaping at each other.
“What’s wrong with my face?” the girl asked, her shaking hands running over her cheeks.
Her skin was as white and smooth as before.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t worry, it was just a warning!” Rosalinda declared joyfully as she dangled her legs. “I forgot to warn you: if someone does me any harm, the system will burn them automatically. Microwave radiation, you know. Just like in a microwave oven! There are sensors and emitters all over this place. But you have nothing to worry about – you are good people, I can see that in your eyes. Well, will you tell me the purpose of your visit now or go back to the elevator?”
Andrew was amazed. The protection system she had used was quite advanced as it could discern people, otherwise Rosalinda herself would have suffered as well. Obviously the emitters were focused. But the biggest wonder was that he had not felt danger before it happened. Why? I’ve always sensed if someone meant me harm before… And then it hit him. It meant that Rosalinda didn’t even give a thought to causing him pain.
She is more dangerous to me than any killer!
Barkov sat down back on his place. “All right. I’ll tell you. Katherine,” he pointed at Emily with his forefinger, “is a representative of the President’s Secret Service. She has a job offer for Mr. Lorenzetti. He is being asked to find vulnerabilities in the President’s private communications system. That is, we need to see if he can obtain secret documents about the building of an asylum for the World Government and give them to me as a proof. The payment will be one hundred and fifty thousand credits in cash.”
That was exactly the sum on Barkov’s bank account – everything he had collected during his years with the police, intended for the purchase of a new house.
“How interesting!” Rosalinda shouted joyfully, clapping her hands. “Katherine, do you have a document proving that you are the representative of the President’s Secret Service?”
“Of course not,” Barkov scoffed. “She fulfills a secret mission and can’t have any documents with her. But I have my police badge.” He showed it.
“I already saw this when you showed it in the elevator. I’d like to receive evidence that Katherine is not a trickster. We can’t risk our reputation!”
“Being a public officer, I can confirm her credentials. I was called in by the President himself to escort her personally on this mission. Do you think I would risk my career without taking precautions?”
After