Parched (15 page)

“That's right,” I say.

A ripple of understanding filters through the room.

Achilles taps his fingers together, looking fascinated. “Will it look like a person?” He has a clipped, quick way of speaking.

I shake my head, feeling my confidence grow every second. “That would require human cloning, which has never been done successfully. Plus, it's against the law. Aevum will almost definitely be human-shaped, with a head and arms and legs.” I flash on the cold piece of bone-shaped metal I picked up in Abel's basement lab. I wish I'd studied it more carefully. Was it leg or arm bone? Was it much bigger than my limbs or the same size? I refocus and add, “But there's no scientific benefit to creating an artilect that is overly human.”

“Why not?” asks Kissy, sounding almost offended.

“Human bodies are weak,” I reply simply.

“Speak for yourself,” quips Achilles, flexing barely-there muscles. Everyone titters, even me.

“We bleed, we bruise, we break,” I explain. “They'll make something harder to destroy.”

“But not impossible,” announces Ling. “Which brings us to Simutech.”

Ling nods to Achilles, who pulls up a holo of Simutech's main entrance. Six floors of undulating dark glass, wider than it is tall. Ling gestures at the holo. “Aevum is being developed at Simutech itself, which is located in the Hive.” The holo cycles through the building's entire exterior, showing loading docks and side entrances.

“Tess?” Lana raises her hand politely. I hide a smile and nod at her to ask a question. “If this artilect is so powerful, and we don't know what it's like, isn't it a bit dangerous to try to destroy it?”

Now I can't help smiling. “It's more than ‘a bit' dangerous. That would be crazy dangerous. I don't think we should destroy Aevum.”

“You don't?” Ling says, momentarily horrified.

“We should destroy its power source.” I address the whole room. “Mirror matter.”

“Mirror matter?” Achilles repeats the words, half confused, half excited. “What's that?”

I turn to him. “Can you bring up the security stream for Innovation Lab C? It's part of the Innovation Department on Level Six.”

The tech king frowns. “I can,” he says cautiously. “But I don't want to lurk too long.” He gestures to the holos of Simutech's exterior. “Outside is one thing, but inside is risky. They sweep for bugs and viruses more often. Can't have my identity as a Peeping Tom discovered.”

“I just need a minute,” I tell him, a little disappointed. It would have been helpful to watch the security streams for longer; maybe we would've found Aevum itself.

“Okay.” His lithe fingers swish in the holo and the loading dock is quickly replaced by the lab. It actually looks more like a factory floor than a laboratory. The ceilings extend to the top of the whole building, maybe thirty feet. They need to be that tall to house a dozen tall, silver cylinders.

“What are those?” Ling frowns.

“I assume they're Aevum's processors,” I reply. “Same ones they used for Magnus.”

“But they're huge,” Achilles says wonderingly. “And there are so many of them.”

I nod. “Even though it's supposed to be a living thing, Aevum would still be the most powerful machine created by humans,” I explain. “And those are what a powerful machine needs to run.”

Achilles swishes through different angles of the spacious lab until I see what I'm looking for. “There.” I point, stopping his flow. “That's mirror matter.”

I'm pointing to a small glass case surrounded by a larger one. It's lit overhead by a bright white light. In the case is a baton-shaped cylinder, about six inches long. It lies lengthwise, seeming to float inside the glass box. But it's what is inside the baton that silences the room.

A glowing, brilliant silver liquid. Without a sound, it seems to hum, to vibrate, to beckon. Tiny sparks ebb and flow inside it. It looks like a million tiny mirrors that have been poured into the cylinder.

“It's . . . beautiful,” Ling murmurs, sounding surprised.

“
What
is it?” asks Achilles.

“An extremely powerful, concentrated form of energy,” I explain. “It fits into an artilect's singularix—“

“Its brain,” Achilles reiterates.

“And charges it up,” I say. “Think of mirror matter as an artilect's heart. Rather than it being inside their body all the time and powering them like our hearts do, artilects only need their hearts for a few hours a day. The rest of the time, it's recharging here—”

“And waiting for us to steal it,” Achilles finishes, getting it.

“And because we can see it here,” I add, “we know that it's powering a singularix somewhere. Aevum might not be finished yet, but it's finished enough for us to destroy it by destroying the mirror matter.”

“Sorry to ask a dumb question,” Achilles says. “But isn't there, like, an exit program? Some easier way to shut it off?”

“Yes, but it wouldn't be permanent,” I say. “This is the only way we could destroy it for good.”

“Mirror matter is life,” Achilles muses. “Destroy mirror matter. Destroy life.”

“Exactly,” I say.

“And how do we do that?” It's Naz, sounding slightly less surly than before. “Destroy the mirror stuff?”

“Extreme cold works,” I reply. “So does extreme heat. Over two thousand degrees Fahrenheit.”

“Fire,” Bo says, and I nod. He smiles at his girlfriend. “Burn, baby, burn.”

Ling nods back, eyes shining.

“But wait, if we steal that”—Achilles points to the mirror matter in the holo—“can't Simutech just make more of it?”

I shake my head. “If we destroy that mirror matter, or if it ever runs completely dry, the singularix stops working. Permanently. Like a human brain without oxygen.”

Achilles whistles. “So they'd have to make more mirror matter
and
a whole new artilect.”

I nod. “I know. They're just not planning for anyone to destroy it or for it to ever completely run out of charge. Artilects,” I add for emphasis, “are
living
machines. They can be killed.” I point to two small boxes set into the side of the glass. “Unfortunately, we can't just open the case. You need two separate security swabs. I only have one. My uncle's.”

Benji squints at the case. “I suppose we could smash it open?”

Ling frowns in disapproval. “Noisy. And dangerous.” She glances at Naz. “Can we cut something like that quietly, without it breaking?”

Naz studies the stream for a second, then nods.

“So we're stealing the mirror matter, then destroying it with fire,” Ling announces. “Tess, when's the quietest time to hit Simutech?”

“I'd say late on a Sunday,” I guess. “Even the workaholics aren't usually there then.”

“Perfect.” Ling nods. “Now we just need to work out how to get past whatever's guarding the building.” She turns to Achilles. “What's our best access point?”

Achilles spins in his swivel chair. He seems relieved to switch the stream from the Innovation Lab to one of Simutech's back entrances. “There are only three subs on this loading dock. It's mostly access for sanitation and cleaning.” His fingers wiggle in the air and holos of the three substitutes on guard fill the room. Even in the dappled afternoon light, they look ominous.

Quicks. Just like on the Northern Bridge.

The substitutes' gleaming black-and-silver bodies look brand-new and intimidatingly powerful. Their red eyes sweep the loading dock entrance in alternating patterns: a fast sweep, then a slow one, then another fast whip around. Each Quick is set to a different cycle of movement: a strangely cold ballet.

“I don't recognize that kind,” Achilles says, glancing at me. “Do you?”

“I'll tell you what kind they are,” Naz answers for me. “The kind that go to robot hell after meeting Big Bad.” She picks her way through the sitting bodies to slam a chunky razer onto the table. It's the size of
a tree branch. “Did all the modifications myself. This'll take out a substitute in no time—wham, bam, thank you robot.”

I sigh. “Wait a second—”

Naz speaks over me. “So, five on the ground team, right?” She turns to Ling. “I'll arm everyone prior to action—”

“Those are Quicks!” It's my turn to interrupt her, and I do it loudly. “That razer won't work on them.”

“It will,” Naz counters. “razers work on subs, and these babies could take out half of Eden.”

“They're not like regular subs,” I say loudly. “They're Quicks.”

“Never heard of them,” Naz retorts.

“Well, I have.” My voice is tight. “They're made from this super-strong casing called aluminum oxy-something.”

“So?”

“It absorbs laser power and turns it into energy,” I tell Naz. “Shooting them would make them stronger.”

“How do you know that?” she asks incredulously.

“They used the same material for a layer of Magnus,” I reply, burning with irritation.

“Tess is right.” Achilles glances up from a stream featuring spinning images of smooth sheets of gray. I'm impressed he found it so fast. “If it's aluminum oxynitride, then direct energy weapons will just charge them up.”

“So we use straight-up fire. Toast 'em like marshmallows,” Naz snarls.

“These guys are fire-, gas-,
and
waterproof.” I can feel my face getting hotter. “Plus, we'll draw a lot of unnecessary attention to ourselves trying to blow some Quicks to smithereens. Forget a stealth entrance, we may as well throw a damn parade!”

“Don't tell me how to do my job, Rockwood!”

“I'm trying to not get us all killed!”

“Guys!” Ling shouts. “Stop! We're all on the same side here, okay?”

Naz and I are both on our feet, breathing hard.

“Sit down,” Ling orders. I do so reluctantly, but only because the order came from Ling. “We're going to brainstorm a way to get in without using razers. Everyone,” she adds, glancing around the crowded room. “I want to hear from everyone.”

I slouch in my seat, focusing on the Quicks in the stream in front of me. I'm determined to come up with the answer before Naz.

“Is there somewhere the Quicks aren't guarding that we can climb over?” Benji asks hopefully.

Achilles shakes his head. “I already checked. The entire perimeter is being watched.”

Everyone starts throwing ideas around, voices rising.

Gem: “What about some sort of distraction?”

Henny: “Can we forge security swabs?”

Bo: “Is there a way we could tunnel in?”

Think, Tess. What are their weaknesses?

“If only there was a way we could just walk straight in.” Lana sighs, smiling at Benji. “For once, I wish a mission could be that easy—”

“Wait, that's it!”

“Everyone, shut up,” Ling orders, staring at me. “What do you mean?”

“Quicks' vision is based on movement, like an animal's,” I say, trying to keep the words from tumbling over each other in my excitement. “If you freeze, they can't see you.”

“You just said Quicks were the biggest, baddest subs in the world,” Naz says incredulously. “And all it takes to beat them is not moving?”

“Once they have reason to be alert,” I say, “like after they've identified a threat or been programmed to do something, their vision changes to infrared, which is a more conscious form of cognition. But if they're just guarding a back entrance for hours on end, their vision would be motion-activated.” I point to the Quicks in the holo confidently. “All we'd have to do is move when they're not looking at us and freeze when they are.”

Ling nods. “We could literally walk right past them, as long as we stay completely frozen when they're looking our way.”

“Exactly!” I grin.

“But it looks like they're moving randomly.” Bo frowns. “We'd have no way of knowing when there'd be a blind spot.”

“I doubt it's random,” I say, watching the uneven ebb and flow of the Quicks' red eyes. “Machines aren't known for their spontaneity. There must be a pattern.”

Achilles perks up. “Give me a minute.”

He starts tracking the substitutes' movements. The room waits. No one talks. I catch Lana's eye and she smiles at me hopefully. I try to give her an equally hopeful smile back.

Achilles records each Quick individually, creating different-colored
paths of movement for all three of them. The paths spread out in front of them as their eyes move, appearing as a holo above the meeting table. It looks like an oddly beautifully piece of contemporary art. Just as Ling breaks the silence by asking whether we should try a different approach, Achilles pumps his fist in the air triumphantly. “There!”

I gaze at the mess of moving color. “Where?”

He freezes the holo and points to what looks like a thin river of white between two of the Quicks, off to the far left. “They're on a cycle. And every one minute and twenty-three seconds, there's a two-second gap when this field of vision is totally clear.”

“So that means every minute and twenty-three seconds, we can move, unseen, for two seconds,” Ling clarifies.

“Bull's-eye!” Achilles grins, and the room breaks into scattered applause.

Ling glances over at Naz. “What do you think?”

Naz shrugs, unmoved. “I think it's risky as hell. One sneeze and we're all goners.”

“They can't kill us,” I remind her.

“I know,” she says witheringly, “but they can nab us and deliver us to the Trust.”

“I still think this is the best plan we've got.”

“We can practice here,” Achilles says. “And I can talk you through on the day. I like this plan.” He looks right at me and smiles. “Smart.”