No one was there.

Sherman realized that he needed to take a shit. Being in someone else’s home was uncomfortable, but he had to go.

He put the pad in the backpack and sat on the toilet.

There was only one set of towels. That was odd. Usually, people with this kind of money lived with someone else. There was more than enough for a single person. There was even more than enough for a couple. But the place looked too clean for there to be kids.

Not that he was messy, but Mother always complained that there wasn’t time enough in the day to pick up after him, keep the house in order, and still have dinner ready, clothes laundered, and have time to relax and read a novel at the end of the day.

There were enough bedrooms for a family, but he hadn’t seen any that looked like a kid slept in one. No fun bedspreads. No toys. No children’s books.

The sink was made of stone, as was the shower. The bath was large and had nozzles along the upper part.

He finished and went back to the kitchen. The deck door was locked, but that was easy enough. He went out on the deck and looked around. He could see down into the gorge where the creek rushed along. The water looked like it was far away, but he knew that it was running deep here. Narrow and deep and fast.

He leaned around the corner of the house and called to Smitty.

A gate opened on the side of the deck. A folding ladder allowed access to the ground.

Smitty came running around the corner. He limped a bit, but he seemed glad to see Sherman again.

Sherman let the ladder down so Smitty could climb up.

“You can stay up here for now.”

He patted Smitty on the head, pulled up the ladder, and closed the gate.

“Not many dry spots up here, but let’s see what we can do.”

A table was off in one corner. It was one of those plastic deck tables with holes and an umbrella. It might offer protection from the constant rain, even if nothing would dry out until the sun came out.

Sherman dragged the table towards the door. It would make it easy to check up on Smitty and give him food.

He opened the umbrella.

“There,” he said. “A small area away from the rain.”

Sherman went back inside and looked around for a small bowl. He filled it with water and set it out the back door for Smitty.

He drank a few glasses of water as well.

Now, he needed to find a power plug for his pad. It was a common type, so one or two should be around the house somewhere.

One of the back bedrooms had been converted into an office. The desk was covered with piles of paper, pushing a computer screen to the edge.

He looked behind the desk for an adapter. Nothing that couldn’t be traced to the screen or the computer.

He opened one drawer after another, looking for one.

Nothing but the usual pens, papers, clips, and such.

He leafed through the piles of paper on the desk in case an adapter had gotten lost. Whoever lived here had the same filing system as Father: the oldest stuff on the bottom.

No adapter.

There were some papers with the old logo of the BioInformatics Research Division, one of the groups that used to be in the area. He had heard Gramps talk about it.

He pulled them out and took a closer look. They had some diagrams and maps. A few places were noted as possible spots for developing a research facility. If the area had been good enough in the past, it must still be good for something now.

The date at the top was a few weeks ago. These were recent plans. He wondered if Gramps was in on this. If so, what was the connection between this place and Gramps? Perhaps he needed to take another look around the place. It seemed innocent enough, but there was a basement. It had windows, so the owner wasn’t trying to hide it. Still, just because the owner wasn’t trying to hide it didn’t mean Sherman should be going and trying to find it.

Sherman tried to put the papers back where he had found them.

In this day of pad and pen, he wondered why people still used paper. Gramps would sometimes carry a briefcase filled with the stuff.

So that people wouldn’t be able to trace what he was doing, he’d say. If it was on the computer, people could find it.

So this lab that someone was considering building must be serious and secret. It was on high ground, so no worries about flooding, unlike the basements of the homes in town. They would be flooded for days now.

Sherman thumbed back through the stack of papers and pulled out the ones he had tried to stick in. Best to take a picture for Gramps.

The pad had enough battery but no signal.