Hopefully, with the flightwing being black, no one will see us.
I enter the hall and seal off the cockpit so no light will leak. Then I sit on the cold floor and lay out the heart, the pocket light, and the freshener sticks. I could sniff my way through the box, but the names are straightforward, so I start there.
Metallic Seafron, Sweet Nightsnip, Burnt Ash.
I flip the switches in the base of their tall cylinders, and wait.
Nightsnip kicks in first. Too sweet, almost sticky. I swap it for Pale Pretty, which promises sweet floral undertones. The Seafron’s spot-on, though, and the Ash. Pale Pretty kicks in, and the hall smells like nothing so much as blood.
Yonni’s heart lifts, literally lifts out of its little box. Rises until it reaches chest level, where it hovers and glows red.
Then Mom sits crossed-legged before me, heart hanging from her neck. “There you are.”
She is concentrated light and scan lines. Almost solid, but breaking into dots as she moves. Her hair is still swept high, but little ribbons have fallen over her ears and face. Her purple blouse is open at the neck, her bright eyes tired and a little red.
This recording must have come after the others. She looks human. Normal.
I trail my fingers through her digital cheek and feel nothing.
“Mom.”
She smiles. “I’m assuming you followed the clues. Sorry for the protracted trail. It is surprisingly difficult to leave a secret message for one person alone. I miss the days when we could simply hide things in trees. Hollowed, of course.” The corner of her mouth bunches, bitten, a little wistful. “You never had the experience, did you? I never took you to the woods to play. Or anywhere really, did I? Not that you will ever know my woods. Those are long, long since gone.”
The words trail, tired. She looks tired and old.
I cross my arms. “What do you want?”
The scan lines of her face bounce, blink, her body freezing a beat too long before the humanity kicks in. She doesn’t move or answer but is still somehow present—eyes distant, lips pressed, not glitched but silent.
“The question is, what do you want?” she says at last. “I don’t know, so you’ll have to tell me. You can do that through precision.”
“That makes no sense,” I say.
The scan lines fuzz again, and this time Mom shifts position between one blink and the next—back straighter, hands in her lap. “I made this program on the fly, in between my central project, so there will be glitches. Also, I haven’t the time for a full-voice map structure with a broad response range. I will try to answer the most pressing questions, and have recorded some nonrelevant material, but I am not a computer or digital intelligence who can respond to all words and phrasing. This is me, Kit. Just me. You have to be precise.” Her smile slips through the exhaustion. “You’re smart enough.”
Games and more games.
“Really?” I cross my arms, nails digging sharp. “How you figure?”
Fuzzed lines, blinked light, Mom. “I made this program on the fly, in between—”
“No, stop,” I say.
She does, frozen between frames.
We face each other, both crossed-legged, knees almost touching. Yonni would sit on the floor with me, just like this. She’d do my makeup or braid my hair or tell me secrets.
Mom and I never swapped secrets. We aren’t now. Info from a light-scanned cutout doesn’t count.
“Precise.” I rub my temples, fingers stiff, head aching. “Right. And what precisely was your goal with this?”
“Simple,” says Mom. “Retribution. Annihilate the House of Galton as we have been annihilated. Gut them from the inside out. And what better way than through their centralized digital core.”
The assurance, the smugness, the self-righteous undercurrent of every clipped syllable—
There’s lead in my stomach and gauze in my throat. “The power’s gone for good, isn’t it? Not just here, but House-wide. That’s what the virus was about. You’ve somehow managed to burn the whole system.”
Mom smiles, a truly beautiful thing. “That’s my girl. Though, there’s more than one virus, and more to it than power—of the electronic kind. Remember, be precise.”
I almost throw Niles’s satchel at her. “Quit with the games, already! This isn’t funny. Do you care at all what’s at stake? Who’s at stake?”
Fuzz, blink. I brace for the lecture in map structures and response ranges.
“The question is, what do you want? I don’t know, so you’ll have to tell me. You can do that through precision.”
She’ll tell me what I want to know, only if I know to ask.
“I hate you,” I say.
“I know.” Quiet, absolute, and real. Entirely too real. She could be flesh and bone, with her offer of secrets.
I am not going to cry. I’m going to think.
“So there’s a second virus?” I ask.
“Yes.”
No elaboration. Of course not.
“And it’s not about power?”
Fuzz, blink. “I made this program—”
“Stop!”
She does.
I’m going to kill her.
She’s already dead.
My chest twists too many stupid ways, and I press my fists to the floor.