Chapter Eleven
A message from the past
Getting the mirror down the stairs took some time. Because Zi was inside, no one wanted to risk putting the mirror in a compression device for easier transport. They didn't know if doing so would have any negative effect on the material or the condition of the artifact. They put up special large sheets of bubble wrap, covered the sides with more protection and snail-paced down the stairs.
It took several minutes for the FRT agents to reach the first floor, tired and with cold sweat on their foreheads. Philip was also one of those helping, and despite being heavily muscled, he had to admit that the thing was not heavy in itself, it was light. But the weight of the worry of knowing that someone was inside was the heavy thing. They couldn't risk the mirror breaking or being damaged. The people who had brought the mirror to the apartment had been lucky enough, at least they had been able to use the elevator.
Prior to that, and at Oxy's suggestion, they covered the reflective surface with a special film containing a 4D projection of Sil Moore's room, taken earlier by the drones that had rendered the scene in search of evidence. That way the image that the surface reflected remained the same and Zi did not detect any change in the scene, except that now there was no person reflected in the scene.
But what she could sense was movement outside the mirror. While she was still, and the scene was still, she could feel the tremors and shaking as she was moved. It was the same sensation of being in an earthquake or tremor, only much more violent. That was more than enough for her to be suffering from vertigo.
[Ugh. I don't feel well,] she muttered, feeling dizzy.
"Calm down, we're here," Philip reassured her.
Fortunately, once it was taken out of the building, it was loaded and placed with the other mirrors in the FRT armor-truck and the movement ceased as the vehicle began its journey through the streets, escorted by three patrol cars.
Because of what had happened to the van carrying Sil Moore's decapitated body, Grant did not want to take any risks and had ordered the FRT team into custody during his absence. Aside from the fact that they were more than capable of defending themselves, and now Emmeline had joined the group, an extra layer of protection was not a bad idea.
The trip was short, and the team headed south. That part of the city didn't have much traffic and they covered the distance in just minutes following Emmeline's armored vehicle.
The building she had provided was located on Greendykes Road. It was a rather large and old building, with five floors, but SIGN had renovated it to convert it into a parking lot for vehicles that had already been decommissioned or needed repairs. The place had no human security, the whole site was guarded by an artificial intelligence, that controlled the five huge security robots that at that time were roaming around. These had the appearance of being huge black metal blocks with the SIGN logo on one side.
Although that day there was some movement in the place. There were several SIGN technical agents on site, who had been called by Emmeline to help in case something happens.
As the entourage entered the gates and began to climb up the spiral circuit to the second floor, Zi was talking to Philip and Oxy through the private channels. Oxy hovered around the place giving it the appearance of a restless ghost. The FRT members were seated on either side of the transport, while Philip was seated next to the mirrors.
[Are you nervous?] Zi asked.
[No? Why do you ask?]
[Emmeline is here. Is this another recruiting attempt?]
Philip, crestfallen, sighed wearily. He didn't want to accept it but there was a chance that Zi was right, it wasn't the first time Emmeline had tempted Philip with a job offer to return to the UK. Which he wasn't interested in the least.
At that moment Oxy's augmented reality avatar was sticking one of her fingers up Portman's nose. The other members could not see her so, she could do whatever she wanted with her avatar.
[Can you stop doing that?] Philip asked, grumpily.
[I'm bored,] Oxy sighed. Then finally putting her feet on the ground, she walked over to Philip and squatted down, with her face just a few inches away from his. [On the other hand, I don't think Emmeline's kindness is about luring you to SIGN this time,] she said as she puffed out her cheeks and pouted.
Philip leaned back and looked at her with an unfriendly look on his face. [Do you know what personal space is?] Then changing his expression he asked. [And what do you mean?]
[I think Emmeline is more interested in the artifact this time.]
Philip looked at her quizzically. [The mirror?]
[Yep,] Oxy nodded.
[It's our jurisdiction,] Zi said.
Oxy shrugged. [You know how all that interagency cooperation crap works. I wouldn't be surprised if at the end of this there's an order from The Council to relinquish custody of the mirror box to SIGN.]
[Well, once we get Zi out I'm going to wrap it up with a ribbon for them.]
Zi sighed. [Nothing good comes from playing with artifacts from the Other Side.]
Philip smiled incredulously [What do they think they can do anyway once they have it? Put it in the museum?]
[The last time they tried something stupid like an exhibition, it was stolen John Dee's Black Mirror and an entire collection of OOParts… I think there are still pieces missing on the black market,] Oxy explained.
[There's something she's not telling us... and I don't like it,] Philip affirmed.
The sudden movement of the tactical truck indicated that they were on wheels again and a few seconds later everything stopped.
[Here we are. At last,] Zi muttered.
The second floor was almost empty with the exception of a few old vehicles on the far side. The reason Emmeline made them go up was precisely because the place was almost deserted and it would be more comfortable, since the first floor was crowded with vehicles.
The two teams got down to work almost immediately and, under the instructions of Oxy who opened the communication channels with everyone present, they carefully removed the mirrors once again to proceed to assemble the box.
The joints of the mirrors appeared to have hinged joints and sockets. Each piece had a certain configuration that made the assembly work only one way and not the other, with all the reflective faces inward. The mirror with the most marks of deterioration on the wooden part was obviously the bottom part. That part was also about the least detailed of the six, while the mirror Sil purchased belonged to the series middle faces.
As it was assembled the engravings in the wood seemed to make much more sense. They seemed to relate a sort of battle between gigantic-looking creatures and vaguely anthropomorphic forms over a city depicted with pillars. The city seemed to be surrounded by what appeared to be an ocean of fire. On the opposite face to the city was something that resembled the shape of a black sun hiding in the ocean of fire, but whose rays almost seemed to extend in all directions.
[Philip approach that one, so I have a better resolution,] Oxy asked, pointing to the mirror with the sun. Philip noticed that the restless fey had been examining the backs of the mirrors for some time, as if she were looking for something.
Portman meanwhile took it upon himself to remove the sheeting from the mirror where Zi was trapped.
[This is worse than I thought,] Zi said.
As the film was removed, the scene changed and she saw how, in the space where she was, she seemed to be floating in mid-air, while mirror reflections repeated inside each other. The mirror frames were about the only thing that gave her a frame of reference for the strange scene that was unfolding before her eyes.
She wasn't sure if her sight and hearing were playing tricks on her or what, but she was sure she could see some sort of ghostly images moving in the reflections farthest away from her. They were more like some kind of furtive shadows that slipped. She thought she saw out of the corner of her eye, more than once, more stylized shapes of rooms and buildings. It could not be the reflections of the parking lot where she was, since their shapes and colors did not match.
And stranger still, on a couple of occasions she was almost certain she heard a kind of plaintive whimpering behind her. She wondered if the team was dragging something against the concrete, but the sound seemed much more natural than something caused by dragging something heavy.
The technicians placed the mirror with the sun in the corresponding slots, while three others sealed the lower parts with a steel nanomat, which molded to the shape of the screws and hinges after applying an electric charge.
The mirror that served as a lid appeared to represent a starry sky in its wooden part. Portman and three others activated their weightless boots and were in charge of putting on the final piece. Although they were distracted for a few moments examining the surface, they could not make out any particular constellations in the engraving. Perhaps they were simply random stars, but the diabolical technique that had been employed by the artisan made them doubt that all this was simply random.
To begin with, they couldn't even be sure that someone had actually made the box consciously. As with almost all objects that came from the Other Side, there was always the suspicion that certain artifacts just appeared as if by spontaneous generation on Earth.
Portman and the others sealed the lid with the nanomat putty and the box was finally assembled.
Emmeline, who until that moment had only been smoking a cigarette, sitting on the hood of one of the vehicles, finally approached as the two teams walked away admiring their handiwork. As she walked towards the box there was something that gave her a strange feeling of anguish. She couldn't explain it, but the monstrous box seemed truly otherworldly.
"It's bigger than it looks," whispered Emmeline.
"It's creepy," Philip agreed.
Philip, as a human, could feel it too, it was a sense of loneliness and sadness that he could not explain.
For a few moments everyone stood quietly admiring the box. The sound of the rain that kept falling was the only thing that could be heard for a few seconds, until Zi's angry voice brought everyone out of their reverie.
[I can't see shit in here!]
By the time Portman had put the final lid on, the most desolate darkness enveloped Zi. It didn't matter that she knew that, just a few steps away, they were all there. Being in there was terrifying. When the last light was extinguished she stopped feeling the ground at her feet, and everything was replaced by a feeling of weightlessness that made her nauseous. She wasn't sure if she was looking up or down because her sense of direction had completely disappeared. On the island she had done sensory deprivation training, but inside that box it was far worse than any experience she had ever had before.
Zi had nerves of steel, but she couldn't deny that she felt incredibly terrified at that moment. Was she still inside the mirror? Was she really still there? Or was she in the box now? She touched her chest and could feel her heart pounding and her breath hitching. The sound of the rain felt incredibly distant at that moment. She wasn't having a panic attack, but she couldn't be sure she wouldn't if the stay in there went on much longer.
Her nerves started to become more obvious when out of nowhere she felt something touch her on one of her legs.
[Seriously, guys. Try to get me out of here now! What was that?] She had actually felt as if something had brushed against her, although it might as well have been suggestion. The loss of orientation could be playing tricks on her.
She was wishing for that, when she felt something slimy crawling across her cheek. Then it moved on to her nose and was crawling up her septum.
A bloodcurdling scream nearly knocked everyone out of their senses as it reverberated horribly through the Neurowire.
Zi whipped and twisted several times trying to fight off an invisible enemy. She tried to shake off the thing she had felt crawling, but it had disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. It had not been a hallucination. On her face she could feel the wetness and something slimy like a drool.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
[Get me out of here, damn it!]
[What happened?] Oxy asked, alarmed.
[Something just licked me in the face!]
"What do you mean, something?" Philip asked.
[There's something in here! Get me out of here now!]
Emmeline took a few steps away again and so did almost everyone else present, with the exception of Philip.
Oxy remembered the old antique dealer's words, about the noises he said he heard in the mirror. Maybe there was something after all. Whatever it was they had to get Zi out first and then see what could be there.
Oxy approached the face where the sun was depicted and examined it more closely, looking at the edges especially. If she was right, that face was the key to freeing Zi. She had been looking for it ever since the agents and technicians had been putting the box together. Well, this box has one, after all.
[Phil come here, I need you to do something.]
Philip walked over and looked at the surface Oxy was pointing at. The sun didn't seem to be anything special. It was just a perfect circle surrounded by the rays. "What do you want me to do?"
[I want you to carefully touch the edges and see if you can get it out.]
"The what?"
[The sun.]
Philip looked at her quizzically "Why? What's wrong with the sun?"
[All mirror boxes, or at least most of them, have a place where the light must enter, this can't be the exception. To extract something from inside, you have to shine a light through a hole.]
"Do mirror boxes work like a prism or something?"
[Not exactly, more like a cube with colored patterns. Each of the sheets has a type of color even though we can't see it.]
"The light going through to the inside has to break down into a pattern of colors if I'm not wrong, right?" Portman asked.
[Exactly.] Oxy nodded.
"I don't understand, there's something that has to be in this sun then?"
[Yes. Some of the boxes on one side have a hole through which light passes into a prism enclosed in the glass. When the light passes through that prism it breaks down to the inside and bounces back. That's what you need to do to extract something.]
Philip ran his hand over the sun detecting nothing at first, then with both hands he searched the edges trying to find something that looked irregular. He found nothing at first attempt, but as he pressed his palm against the circle he suddenly felt it had moved of its own accord. He pulled his hand away quickly, as he felt the circle slowly turning counterclockwise.
The next moment everyone looked on in amazement as not only was the sun spinning by itself, but the engravings on the huge cube were changing. The scene of the fight against the creatures changed and for a second everyone watched as the ocean of fire engulfed the city with its pillars. At the same time the monsters and terrified running creatures also disappeared in the flames.
Then the ocean disappeared and the patterns on the edges of the faces grew more geometric for a few moments, and then gave way to something else. On three of the faces of the cube appeared in relief three vaguely anthropoid faces with anguished expressions. They were incredibly realistic and one could judge that they had been rendered in a kind of mute cry of despair and resignation. On the face containing the image of the sun, it grew larger and in its center appeared a tiny hole no more than a centimeter thick. Then the rays adopted meandering grooves instead of straight lines.
If anything had changed for Zi, she never knew, she was still plunged in pitch darkness, trying to stay alert in case whatever had licked her face came back.
They all looked at each other without understanding the strange transformation. Oxy cursed not knowing more about the function of the damn boxes. But the truth was that the same went for everyone who had ever studied the subject. Like hundreds of others, who had tried over the years, there were hundreds of thousands of objects whose function was unknown. Simply missing pieces from some remote place and with no instructions on how to understand their strange wonders.
"What do we do now?" Philip asked.
[We need to get a light through the hole.]
"And then?"
Oxy made a crooked grimace and looked at Philip. [I think that's it.]
"Really?"
[Yes, that's the whole procedure. Whatever's inside should appear once the light penetrates.]
"Any light will do?" Emmeline asked, who returned to stand near the car.
[It has to be white light or sunlight. The depiction is pretty obvious.] Oxy spat back.
Philip took a small flashlight he kept in his pocket and turned it on. "Are you sure this is going to work?" he asked as he moved the beam of light closer to the hole.
[I don't see why not. At least it has worked in the labs that way.]
The light from the flashlight illuminated the small hole and almost instantly the change took place. Zi watched as the inside of the mirror lit up, and she could see her reflection move inside. Suddenly she fell with all her weight on the lower face of the mirror and had to squint her eyes due to the almost blinding effect that was taking place inside. Not only that, this time she felt something light fall on her back. She turned around quickly, remembering the sensation of a few seconds before.
But she couldn't see anything. As quickly as the light had entered, everything went dark again. "What the fuck?"
The spot she was lying on suddenly changed its tilt. It was lifting to the side. As if from the outside someone was tilting the box.
"Stop doing that!!!" Zi shouted, as her body now slammed against another one of the mirrors. She didn't know what was going on, but the only thing she was missing was for the mirrors to break at that moment and start digging into her body.
Although those outside didn't understand what was going on either. Oxy especially didn't remember any of the mirror boxes that were guarded by Nevermore ever exhibiting that kind of behavior before.
After the beam of light penetrated through the hole, the motif of the sun changed almost instantly and once again the engravings on the box shifted, becoming even more detailed, albeit with much more geometric and abstract shapes. This time there were no scenes, only patterns in the same baroque style that multiplied and changed again and again.
[Uh-oh,] Oxy said.
As if the box had a kind of will of its own, it lifted a few centimeters off the ground and leaned over one of its edges, while it began to spin as if it were a kind of gigantic spinning top. It made a series of quick turns, and then stopped for a second, and repeated the operation. Every moment it stopped it was changing its shape. As if it was some kind of configuration that was unfolding with each spin.
Zi, meanwhile, dizzy and bouncing from side to side inside the box tried to find a point to hold on, when it stopped after one of its turns. She spread her legs apart, leaning on the edges of the mirror frame, and did the same with her hands. She couldn't shake the feeling that she was in a training aerotrim. But, at that moment, something else made the feeling of nausea almost disappear immediately. The light had returned to the interior. This time not through the slit, but the whole interior seemed to be illuminated by a light of its own.
At first she thought it was due to the feeling of nausea but, when the sound reverberated in the chamber, she knew something else was going on. In the reflections of the mirrors she could now see herself, but she was not the only thing being reflected. Her reflection disappeared and the images on the faces of the mirrors were replaced by something else. On the other side of the mirror she was now seeing the reason they came to the apartment in the first place.
Sil Moore's image was dancing around the mirrors.
Without a doubt it was her. There she was in her swimsuit dancing underwater with her hair flowing.
Zi watched in amazement at the speed of the young woman moving. The images followed one after the other in rapid succession and each mirror was offering a different perspective of the moment. How could that happen Zi ignored it. Not to mention the sound that invaded the box at that moment. She had never heard anything like it in her life, not even in her wildest dreams or nightmares. If she had not been in such a strange situation her sensations would have been different. It was a music with a thrilling harmony.
But just as it had begun, it suddenly stopped. And she watched as the water disappeared and Sil Moore fell to the ground and stood up. Then that reflection of the past stared at Zi with an expression of joy and amazement at the same time.
[Save all the progress,] Sil Moore said.
And then it happened.
Zi saw a kind of black shadow and an electric blue glow cross Sil's neck from side to side. Her head dropped and rolled with a thud on the floor and, a second later, her body collapsed.
It had only been for a split second but Zi had caught a glimpse of a shadow behind her.
But that shadow did not disappear. The shadow became more defined, as Sil Moore's eyes stared into the void in an expression of horror. Then slowly they closed and the shadow took on a more human form. She approached the lifeless body and carefully picked up the head.
It was a fey girl. Or at least she must have been because of her ears. She was dressed in black pants, shirt and dark vest. On her head she wore a fedora hat somewhat out of date. The darkness of the room did not allow at first to see her features, but the mystery did not take long to reveal itself.
The young woman sat up and embraced Sil Moore's freshly severed head.
[I'm sorry, hold it for a little bit,] she said in a sad voice.
Then she looked up and looked directly at Zi.
Or at least that's what Zi interpreted. Each of the mirrors returned the gaze of that young woman. She was a girl with Asian features, but with somewhat messy platinum-gray hair and yellow eyes that seemed to glow in the dark.
Then the young fey girl approached the mirror and, as if that reflection of the past was talking directly to Zi, she said, [It's just a ripple in time,] then she brought her face close to the mirror and smiled. [Please take care of all of them,] she said in a melancholic voice.
What did she just say? It was impossible what was happening. Did the that woman know that Zi would be trapped in the mirror? She was the murderer. She had cleanly cut off Sil's head, even though she never showed any weapon. What is going on here?
The young woman stepped back and said, [Until we meet again, please take care of him too,] pointing a finger downward. All the mirrors seemed to return the gesture as if it were an arrow.
Take care of what? That's what Zi wondered when she looked down at her feet and saw a small lump staring up at her. Darkness returned to reign inside but the infernal spinning had stopped.
Outside, those present watched in amazement as the box, although it had stopped, was taking on a new configuration, and what was more alarming, it was growing. The wood was almost adopting fractal patterns without rhyme or reason. The baroque style had given way to plain and simple geometry that seemed to be taking on the hues of a hyperbolic cube.
https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/42dd80f9-5ac6-42d5-8ccc-bcea020b6152/dfkx7a7-2c98fe47-707d-4f3e-9b7a-6bb08b20de8b.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzQyZGQ4MGY5LTVhYzYtNDJkNS04Y2NjLWJjZWEwMjBiNjE1MlwvZGZreDdhNy0yYzk4ZmU0Ny03MDdkLTRmM2UtOWI3YS02YmIwOGIyMGRlOGIuanBnIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmZpbGUuZG93bmxvYWQiXX0.OmNm93HJjTnGd9UMKzTYvvHi0PuBYQts36qpjEHb-Mc [https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/42dd80f9-5ac6-42d5-8ccc-bcea020b6152/dfkx7a7-2c98fe47-707d-4f3e-9b7a-6bb08b20de8b.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzQyZGQ4MGY5LTVhYzYtNDJkNS04Y2NjLWJjZWEwMjBiNjE1MlwvZGZreDdhNy0yYzk4ZmU0Ny03MDdkLTRmM2UtOWI3YS02YmIwOGIyMGRlOGIuanBnIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmZpbGUuZG93bmxvYWQiXX0.OmNm93HJjTnGd9UMKzTYvvHi0PuBYQts36qpjEHb-Mc]
A unfolding in dimensions. This looks like a fractus, Oxy thought.
And that was the last they could see for a few moments. Interested as they were in the strange transformation, they did not notice that the box had grown to a size that was over five meters tall. The box crushed the pipes in the ceiling, where the wiring that supplied electricity to the building was located, and everything went dark.
The voices of alarm and the curses of Philip and Emmeline could be heard beyond.
A few seconds later the emergency lights came on, bathing the entire floor in a spectral green.
The box had opened.
The mirrors floated away from each other as they returned to normal size. Then with astonishing speed they fell to the ground. Shattering into thousands of pieces, along with the splintered pieces of the frame that were flying everywhere. Philip rushed to the side and dodged one, at the same time looking around for his companion. She was nowhere to be seen.
He sat up and with the green lights twinkling in the distance, he looked at what was before him. Although he did not understand it in the first few seconds.
There in front of him was his reflection staring at him dumbfounded. But it was different. It was a broken, shattered image. Like looking into a broken mirror.
What the hell is this?
[Get back! Everybody back!] Oxy's shout, through the Neurowire, made Philip immediately jump backwards as a reflex action, while he felt something tearing the air a few centimeters from his face.
So did almost everyone else present and immediately there was the sound of weapons being drawn and safeties being unlocked.
"What is that?" asked Emmeline.
In the place where until a few moments ago the box had been spinning, there was now a huge lump in which everyone could see themselves reflected. It was like a gigantic ball of broken mirrors. But the word ball could not be accurate either. It had an oblong shape at least two and a half meters high and three and a half meters long.
The stupor lasted a second, when that mass of sharp glass moved and rose up on its four legs. Turning on itself, the thing leapt into place and moved swiftly into place.
Philip watched at that moment as a lump rolled to the side from below that sharply mass and jumped up with lightning speed. Zi was free.
"Don't shoot it!" she shouted.
But at that moment the creature turned one more time and everyone could see how on one of the elongated sides of the mass of mirrors a sort of flattened face was formed.
Whatever the creature was, it looked towards the outer openings of the building and produced a sort of metallic barking sound, as it sped towards the balconies. Everyone moved out of the animal's way. But not so did Emmeline, who at some point had drawn a sword, whose blue crystal blade produced a faint glow and cut off the animal's flight.
The huge beast stopped and looked at Emmeline. The woman, who was now with the animal closer to the street lights that illuminated the interior of the building, could see that the face reminded her of something, but she could not be sure what it was.
It was a rather stocky animal despite its size. But it was covered all over with shards of broken mirrors. As if it were her own skin. That's what she was thinking when she saw the animal shaking its head. Something made the hair on the back of her neck stand up and she screamed. "Everyone take cover!!!" She herself thrust the sword into the ground and, from the hilt, a translucent shield appeared and covered her.
The rest took cover behind the pillars of the plant or the vehicles.
The huge beast began to shake as if it had just come out of a bath and wanted to shake off the water. Pieces of mirrors were flying in all directions and were sticking into the walls, vehicles and concrete as if they were made of butter. Emmeline didn't know if it was an attack or not, but her instinct had saved her from being turned into mincemeat by the sharp mirror shards.
While everyone was still in shock at what had just happened, the animal, huge as it was, slipped through the opening, broke off parts of the structure and leapt out. There was a clatter of breaking glass and the sound of rushing. Everyone ran to look and looked down, only to see the animal quickly gain the road and make a mad dash to the west. In its mouth, it was carrying one of the huge security robots of the place. These not had time to react, before the animal with a few jumps left the place.
The sound of glass behind them made them turn around and, once again, they all dropped to the ground as a shower of glass shot outwards. The cloud of shards flew across the air and raced after the animal. They were the pieces that the animal had shaken off.
"Didn't they have a force field in the building?" Philip asked.
Emmeline was about to blurt something out but kept quiet. It was possible that the box or the animal itself had broken something.
[That thing has a skin like it can move from the inside out,] Oxy said.
Like a fractus?
[Yes. Or at least it looked that way to me.]
"Was that a dog?" Portman asked.
"It is a dog. I saw it only for a moment in its real form, but I'm sure." Zi affirmed.
"What kind of dog?" Philip asked.
"A pug," she said, with a serious face like an Easter Island moai.
Everyone turned to look at her.
"You're kidding, right?"