The Technomancer's Secret

I saw her from across the club, duel blonde braids swaying in the strobe light.  She was a shining light. She didn't look like she belonged; she was too good to be in this club, on this night when unspeakable things were meant to happen. I wanted to walk up to her, to tell her she should just go home, but as I strained my eyes through the fog machine's haze, she had vanished, melted from the spot on which she stood. Maybe that's her trick, I thought. Maybe that's why she is here.

I pulled out my phone and checked the text again. Tonight you will find her and you will find more than you could possibly dream. It had to be a joke. Some prankster at the office found my phone and thought I'd look hilarious at some club downtown. I never went to places like this. I meant to delete the message.  I should have deleted it. But each time I opened the message, something compelled me, something bigger and stronger than me. Maybe it was just curiosity. But I had to know who this "her" was.  Maybe it was that innocent looking blonde who appeared just in time to raise my curiosity.

As I walked to the place where she'd been standing next to the bar, I expected Gregory or Jim or one of my more obnoxious coworkers to spin around from a barstool, laugh at me and spray me with cheap beer. Or maybe they drink expensive beer. But there was no one near the bar when I got there, mere feet from the place the blonde girl had been standing. I looked at my face in the wall length mirror behind the bar. My black hair, which I'd gelled back, was starting to come unstuck. I was not cut out for this. My usual Friday evening was spent in front of a computer screen, just like my days at the office. I pushed it back as I leaned over the bar.  

I don't know what I expected to see, but I didn't expect a giant storm drain behind the bar. What need would this club have for drainage? How much of whatever fluid they drained here would need to coat the floor several inches deep to require this hula-hoop-sized hole in the floor behind the bar? That should have been my first sign that something was wrong. I should have dropped my phone down the drain and bought a new one. But it wouldn't have done any good. The Wizard would have sent me another message the next week. I needed to find her even if I didn't yet know why.