Free Golem in My Glovebox by R. L. Naquin

movement I’d seen.
    “Okay,” Riley said. “Stop here.”
    “There’s nothing here.”
    He didn’t say anything. A few seconds later, a crow flew across in the same spot.
    I narrowed my eyes and glanced at Riley, and his lips curled in a half smile. We waited another minute. The crow crossed again in the same direction, same altitude.
    “It’s got a bubble around it, like my back yard,” I said.
    Riley grinned. “Yes.”
    “So how do we know where to drive into it without bashing our car into the fence?”
    “We don’t know. That’s what makes this place so secure.” He hit a button on his phone. “Art. We’re here.”
    “I had no idea,” I said, amazed. The only time I’d been here before, I’d flown in and out. I’d never driven it. No wonder Bernice kept trying to get me to relocate. It wasn’t only about alarms and defense. It was about disappearing completely.
    Two crows later, a gate swung out in midair, seemingly connected to nothing. A disembodied arm waved at us to come through.
    Passing through the bubble in my car was no different than going into my backyard. Moving forward was an act of faith, knowing something was there you couldn’t see, but also believing you wouldn’t smack into something the minute you crossed the threshold.
    We passed through the membrane without detecting so much as a change in air pressure. A man stood next to the car, his face impassive. I stopped the car and rolled down the window, mostly because I figured it was part of the procedure.
    “Please proceed to the compound.” His eyes were disconcerting—empty and vague. I knew that look. Nobody was home. This was one of Bernice’s constructs. She created golems out of who knows what, and they ran the day-to-day tasks for her.
    The road led around and ended in a circular compound surrounded by small, rickety buildings. We parked and slid out of the car, groaning and working out the kinks in our abused, cramped muscles.
    The front door to one of the buildings swung open, and Art stomped down the steps. “Thank God you’re here,” he said. “We have a new problem, and Bernice is going out of her mind.”

Chapter Five
    Art’s sweaty, balding head shone like a beacon in the dwindling light. He wasn’t as round as I remembered, and his clothes were far more casual than the vacuum-cleaner-salesman look he’d sported the last time I saw him.
    “We’re great. Thanks for asking,” I said. “More importantly, how are you ?”
    He frowned at me. “Still just as flip and dismissive of authority as the last time, I see.”
    Still just as humorless and dead inside , I see. You old fart.
    “Lighten up, Art. It’s been a long drive.” Something about that guy set me on edge every time he opened his mouth. To be fair, something about me did the same to him. When he needed help, though, he’d called me. And I came. That said a lot about both of us.
    Riley pulled our bags from the car. “Let us get settled, Art. Then we’ll be all ears.”
    Art waved an arm, and another nondescript man appeared. He took the bags from Riley and headed into the building he’d come from. None of the buildings in the circle were what they appeared to be on the outside. I knew this from my last visit to the compound. This one, in particular, looked like a dilapidated, cracker-box house.
    “There,” Art said, nodding toward the front door. “You’re settled. Follow me.”
    I rolled my head back and groaned, mimicking Maurice from the night before. “Fiiine.”
    We trailed behind Art, and he led us through the front door and down the hall. It was the same building I’d been in the last time. Impossibly big on the inside, the elaborate decorations, tall staircase, and exotic carpets made no sense when compared to the cracker-box, single-story wreck on the outside. More magic. More disguises. If I hadn’t known it was warranted, I’d think the entire Board throughout history had been paranoid.
    Of course, it’s not paranoia if