Quicksilver (14 page)

And the final page, carefully unfolded and scanned to crisp perfection, was the brochure for the local makerspace.

Great idea, Sebastian,
I thought sourly as I paged back to the beginning and began skimming over the specs again.
Wish I’d thought of that myself.
Sure, the electronics project he’d given me looked like an interesting challenge, but I’d need a better reason than that to—

A thousand watts of realization lit up the back of my brain. I scanned the pages again, mentally assembling the list of components into a single device. A high-power, long-range multi-band transmitter and receiver unit, to be exact. All that was missing was the antenna, but presumably Sebastian had his own ideas about that…

And now I knew why he’d been so certain I’d help him, once I’d read his message. From the minute Sebastian beamed into my bedroom the threat had been staring me in the face, but I’d been too busy sniping at him and resenting his interference in my life to notice. After all, he’d seemed so casual about the outcome of his confrontation with Mathis, so confident that the relay could be destroyed. Even when he’d sent that warning to Milo, part of me had wondered if he was just being extra cautious.

But I saw my danger clearly now, and there was no doubt in my mind what I had to do. No matter what my parents thought about me joining the makerspace, no matter how hard it might be to tackle such an ambitious project without getting noticed, I needed to start building this transceiver right away.

I closed my eyes and counted silently, giving my racing heart time to calm. Then I picked up my phone and texted Milo.

0 1 1 0 1 0

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Milo muttered as we got off the bus. It was seven o’clock on Tuesday, and the down town was a wasteland of closed shops, bored teenagers, and the occasional homeless wanderer. We’d left the worst behind by the time we got to our stop, but being surrounded by auto body shops and decaying factories wasn’t much of an improvement.

“You didn’t have to come if you didn’t want to,” I said.

“I didn’t mean it like that. I mean Sebastian and that list he gave you. If he needs some fancy high-tech communication device, why get you to build it for him? Wouldn’t it be faster to just order the stuff or rent it from somewhere?”

“Not with these specifications,” I said. “Among other things, he needs the transceiver to hook up with the relay, and I’m the only one who knows enough about the relay to make that happen.”

“I thought he was going to destroy the relay.”

“That was Plan A,” I said. “But apparently that didn’t work out, or he wouldn’t have gone to Plan B. Which is to send a signal to the computer that controls the relay and force it to shut down.” Which was oversimplified at best, and at worst downright misleading. But it was the safest way I could think of to describe it.

“What good’s that going to do?” Milo asked. “All the people at Meridian have to do is turn it on again.”

“It’s not that easy,” I said. “There’s a complicated process in getting the two devices to talk to each other, and once the uplink’s broken, it’ll be next to impossible to reestablish it. It has to do with the data encryption and decryption algorithm,” I added, in case he thought I was patronizing him. “It uses quantum entanglement.”

“Oh, of course it does,” said Milo, poker-faced. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that myself.”

I punched him in the arm, hoping to catch him off-balance. But his bicep had about as much give as rubber-covered concrete, and he didn’t budge a millimeter. “The point is,” I told him, “we can’t get rid of the relay until we’ve made sure it won’t activate again. We can’t risk some random person coming across it and beaming themselves who-knows-where.”

Milo looked unconvinced, but he didn’t argue. He matched my brisk pace as we turned onto a side street, the sounds of traffic receding as we walked along. We passed a long row of barn-shaped wartime houses and finally stopped in front of an old factory with rust-colored brick and metalwork, its closed doors offering no hint of what lies inside. Only the faded number painted over the entrance reassured me I’d found the right place.

“Wow,” Milo said. “Check out the picturesque old-world charm. What’s that sign on the door say? ABANDON … HOPE…”

“Very funny,” I said, walking up the steps and hauling the door open. “Actually, it says there’s a Tae Kwon Do studio upstairs. Are you coming or not?”

“Remind me to tell you about the year I spent taking Tae Kwon Do sometime,” said Milo, following me in. “Between that and the violin disaster, I could write a book on How to Fail at Being Korean—wow, those stairs are
really steep.”

“Good thing we don’t have to go up them, then,” I said. There was no visible sign for the makerspace on this level, but I’d read the directions on the brochure and knew where to go. “This way.”

We headed through a fire door into a narrow hallway with grey-white walls and no windows to be seen. Most of the doors we passed were shut, but the open ones gave glimpses of sagging ceilings, exposed wiring, and debris-littered cement. From somewhere upstairs came a steady pounding, and the whole place smelled like wood shavings mingled with incense or possibly marijuana smoke.

“This is fantastically squalid,” said Milo. “We may never get out of here alive.”

“You have no sense of adventure,” I told him sternly, but deep down I was glad he was with me. All these empty hallways and closed doors reminded me uncomfortably of what it was like to be Mathis’s prisoner, and it would have been hard to get through this place on my own.

We turned the corner and there was the sign for the makerspace, with a large friendly arrow pointing to the right. My pulse quickened with anticipation—but at the same instant my feet came to a stumbling halt.

“Niki?” asked Milo. “What’s the matter?”

I’d stopped three meters from the junction, staring into the middle distance. My throat had closed up, and my lips were dry. I couldn’t move.

“Hey.” He stepped in front of me, waving a hand through my line of sight. “Earth to Niki.”

Weak as the joke was, it snapped me out of my paralysis. I focused with an effort and said, “Milo, I asked my parents if I could come here weeks ago, and they said no. If they find out…”

“They’ll do what? Hello, you’re a teenager. This can’t be the first time you’ve gone against—” He broke off as he saw the look on my face. “You’re not serious.”

“I couldn’t. I mean, I didn’t want to. Not really.” I’d argued Mom and Dad into changing their minds sometimes, and now and then I got around them on a technicality. But I’d never disobeyed a direct order from either of them, for reasons I couldn’t explain even to myself. “And now … I don’t know if I can.”

Milo frowned and pushed his glasses up his nose. “Why did they tell you not to? Don’t they want you to go into engineering?”

“That’s not the problem,” I said. “They just think it’s too much, too soon. And maybe they’re right, but—”

“The alternative’s worse. Yeah. I get it.”

“So do I. I just can’t get my body to cooperate.” I leaned forward, trying to force myself to take the next step. But my feet stayed rooted to the floor.

Milo frowned at me, his head tilted to one side. Then he broke into a slow, wicked grin. I didn’t even have time to brace myself before he ducked down and swept me, literally, off my feet.

I spluttered a curse and tried to wriggle free, but Milo didn’t falter. He marched down the hallway, executed a military turn, and carried me over the threshold of the makerspace.

“Oh no,” he said in mock dismay. “Look where you are. How did that happen? Clearly, it was all my fault.”

I wanted to be irritated with him, and part of me was. I didn’t like being touched without permission. But he hadn’t put his hands anywhere he shouldn’t—in fact, he’d been a positive gentleman about it. It was hard not to be impressed by how easily he’d picked me up too. So I collected what was left of my dignity, and said, “You can put me down now.”

“Uh, hi,” said the young man at the desk as Milo lowered me to my feet. “Can I help you with anything?”

Milo made an
over-to-you
gesture, and I realized to my relief that his ridiculous strategy had worked. The panic that had gripped me in the hallway was gone, and I could move again.

“We’re here for the Open House,” I said, giving the man my most winning smile. “Is it okay if we come in and look around?”

0 1 1 0 1 1

Not only was Front Desk Guy happy to see us, he even gave us a tour. The makerspace wasn’t that big, just two modest rooms with a small lounge area between them. But it had plenty of equipment. First, we wriggled through a curtain of clear vinyl strips to visit the woodshop and heavy tool room. They had lathes, sanders, a miter saw, and a couple of drill presses—most of them old and battered but still in good working condition. A scarred wooden worktop ran along the far wall, and in the middle of the room two men were arranging bits of scrap metal on a table, chortling and elbowing each other like old friends as they worked.

After that we came back out into the lounge, a rough square of old sofas and armchairs with a coffee table between them and a wall of bookshelves behind. Among the books on programming and electronics I glimpsed a complete set of
Monty Python
DVDs, a Yoda-shaped coffee mug, and a stuffed bison with six legs that caused Milo to break into a grin. Up a slight ramp we found the clean room, which had a soldering station even better than the one I had at home, four computers in various stages of disassembly, a plotter, a laser cutter, three different kinds of printers … and, to my immediate interest, an oscilloscope.

There were a few other people scattered around—a grey-haired woman frowning over her laptop, a pair of gangly college students poking at an old PC tower, and a little boy playing with a flight simulator. In the back corner a young man with a ponytail and a skull earring was building a sculpture from laser-cut plastic, while an older man tinkered with a 3-D printer. None of them spoke: most barely glanced up as we walked through. But I wasn’t offended—I knew the feeling of being so absorbed in a project that nothing else existed, and I was happy to leave them to it.

“So,” said Front Desk Guy, when we returned to the lounge. “Any questions?”

I glanced at Milo, but he only shrugged. It was up to me, then—but I hadn’t really expected anything else. “I’m working on a surprise for my dad,” I said, with a hint of bashfulness. “He’s into amateur radio, and he’s always wanted to do a moon bounce. So I … I’m hoping to build him a transceiver for his birthday.”

“Wow,” said FDG—I had to call him that because he wasn’t wearing a name tag, and despite his enthusiasm, he’d forgotten to introduce himself. “That’s awesome, good for you. So were you looking for some help with that? You should talk to Barry. He’s our radio expert.”

“That’d be great,” I said, keeping my expression humble and a little nervous. Just an ordinary teenaged girl with an interest in electronics and a few modest projects under her belt, nothing extraordinary here. “But I was wondering, could I maybe bring the kit here to work on it? Because our house is pretty small, and I don’t want my dad to see it until it’s ready.”

FDG blinked. “Uh, well, we only have Open House twice a month. You have to be a member to get in any time you want, and that takes—”

“I know,” I said. “I’m new, and you’d want to get to know me better before you could vote me in. But I only found out about this place a few days ago, and Dad’s birthday is coming up fast. I’d be glad to pay a month’s membership up front, if that would help. And I’ll bring my own supplies, and only work when the regular members are here. I mean, it’s not like I can get in the door otherwise, right?” I gave him a hopeful smile.

“Hmm,” said Front Desk Guy, sizing me up. “How old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

“Give me a sec, okay? I need to talk to somebody.” He galloped up the ramp to the clean room.

Milo flopped onto the sectional sofa, and after a minute I sat down in the armchair on the other side. A set of interlocking wooden hexagons sat on the table next to a sign reading PLAY WITH ME, but I wasn’t in the mood. I was trying to make out the conversation from the next room, as the Desk Guy’s chirpy tenor alternated with a deeper rumble that sounded ominous.

What would I do if they decided not to let me in? I needed that oscilloscope, for one thing, and I could hardly build the whole transceiver in my basement. I’d be ordering all kinds of new parts and supplies, and there was no way I could expect my parents not to notice…

“Hey,” said Milo, nudging my foot under the table. “It’s going to be fine. They’ll love you. This is what they’re here for, and besides, you offered them money.”

I leaned forward, breathing into my hands, then bolted to my feet. FDG had reappeared at the top of the ramp, with 3-D Printer Guy beside him.

“Hi there,” said the older man, walking to meet me. “I’m Len.” He gave me a brisk handshake and said, “I hear you’re building a transceiver for your dad. And you’re on a tight deadline.”

“Yeah,” I said, reminding myself to bring out the shy smile again. “His birthday’s in a couple of weeks, so I’d really like to get it ready as soon as I can.”

“Understandably. And we’d like to help you. But we have a strict Health and Safety policy for insurance reasons, and we can’t allow anyone under eighteen to work here without direct supervision. If you had someone older with you, like a parent or guardian—”

“What about me?” interrupted Milo. “I’m eighteen.”

It took all my concentration to keep smiling, and not whip around and stare. Keeping me company on my first visit was one thing, but to come back here day after day? I’d never expected Milo to make such an offer.

And yet if he was serious, how could I refuse?

The two makers exchanged glances. “Well,” said Len. “We can’t guarantee anything. But we’ll discuss it with the board at our next meeting.”

“When will that be?” I asked.