Numbers Ignite (8 page)

“Never you mind,” he said, taking the spoon in defeat. “Should’ve known you’d have no experience with such things.”

“Cooking may not be her thing,” Coltrane said from behind me, “but you gotta admit, the girl can eat.”

I whirled and stalked toward him. “That’s it. You’d better run.” Coltrane threw his hands in the air in surrender, backing toward the door.

“You’ll find your contribution yet, child,” the chef said. “Best be on your way, both of you. I’ve work to do.” He picked up the mixing bowl and dipped the spoon in, eyeing the brown goop like it was an alien species.

I followed Coltrane into the tunnel and stood aside for the people walking by. I barely noticed their stares anymore. “Thanks for your help in there. I hope you were entertained.”

“Oh, I wasn’t about to miss that. Best show I’ve seen in weeks.”

I punched him on the shoulder. “You keep talking about this contribution of yours, but so far you just follow me around. What are you, a professional stalker?”

“I’m an inventor.” He grinned. “I only stalk pretty girls in my spare time.”

I paused. “Coltrane—”

He jumped in. “But seriously, we need to find something you’re good at before you take the entire settlement down. Now that you can walk around freely, we’re all in trouble.”

“You’d better watch it.”

He grinned, revealing surprisingly white teeth. “Well, we tried the laundry thing…”

“Nobody told me the water needed to be sanitized first,” I said.

Coltrane pursed his lips as if trying not to laugh. “And doing inventory didn’t go so well, either.”

“I’ll figure it out eventually,” I said without conviction. So I didn’t know the difference between lettuce and carrots. That didn’t make me a horrible person. My ankle throbbed more painfully by the minute. Maybe it was time to rest and try again tomorrow.

“I have an idea,” Coltrane said. “I haven’t given you a tour of the southern quadrant yet. There’s something I want you to see.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “More brown tunnels and arched ceilings, with a vent here and there.”

“That, and something else. It’s exactly what you need. Trust me.”

Coltrane’s baglight started dying by the third corner, so he pulled another bag out of his pocket, dropped it, and crushed it with his foot. The passage instantly lit up with a golden glow.

“Can I hold it this time?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said, handing it to me. “Interesting, huh? My aunt invented them. Before that, we used solar gravel, but my mom was worried it was too easily seen.”

The bag was less heavy than I’d expected. I squinted at the light. It contained hundreds of tiny glowing pellets. They manufactured them down here, I remembered Coltrane saying. It was the reason traders came this way. They were lightweight, easy to recharge, and produced no heat. I still couldn’t believe how cool the clear bag was. “What’s the liquid inside these pellets?”

Coltrane smiled wryly. “Can’t tell. Not because of who you are, but hardly anyone down here knows the secret. It’s safer that way.”

“Because the secret would leak and jeopardize your economy or because you don’t want them to know the liquid is dangerous?”

A slow smile crept across his face. “Both.”

If only they’d let me take a baglight when I left. Vance would be fascinated, I was sure. “As long as it doesn’t give me two heads, you can keep your secret. I love all the tech down here. Some of it even rivals what NORA has. Your inventors would be set for life there.” I stopped. “If they wanted to live there, of course.”

“Don’t know why they would. Why anyone would, really.” His hand brushed mine as we walked, and I stepped sideways to put more distance between us. He continued as if he hadn’t noticed. “I feel bad saying this, but I’m kind of glad you don’t know how to do anything. It means you can live here for a long time, learning and settling in. You’ll have a great home here.”

“You have a great community,” I said, hoping he would leave it at that. We turned a corner and stopped at a door. Not a fabric curtain like every other entrance here but an actual door with a knob and keypad. I rapped a knuckle against the door’s surface. Metal. “What is this place?”

“The defense lab.”

I gave him a sideways look. “I thought weapons were banned here.”

“Our defenses aren’t weapons. Not in the true sense of the word, anyway.” Coltrane covered the keypad with his palm and typed in his code, then there was a click. He turned the handle and held the door open for me. The lab was dark, but the baglight I still held quickly flooded the room.

It was much larger than any room I’d seen down here. The walls and ceilings were lined with metal. Tables upon tables, all full of trinkets and piles of materials and who-knows-what were lined parallel to the doorway. Several chairs—actual plastic chairs, not the woven ones—sat stacked in the corner.

Coltrane let the door close behind him and headed to the far table. “You wanted to know what my contribution was. I’ve been working on this since I was eleven.” He picked up a long, slim metal device that was rounded at the edges and held it out for me to examine. A green light flashed at the top, and I caught a glimpse of wires protruding from the bottom.

I touched the smooth metal. “What does it do?”

He removed a section to reveal a black box with circuits attached. “This part here is the
low-inductance capacitor bank. It discharges into a single-loop antenna on the top, then
emits an electro-magnetic pulse.”

“What’s the pulse supposed to do?”

He shoved the square section back on with a click. “One push of this button and it can shut down any weapon or aircraft within half a mile or so, provided they’re electric.” He cradled it in his palm. “Pretty amazing, huh?”

“Got it. An EMP.”

His grin faded. “Does NORA have these?”

“No, no. Well, maybe, but I’ve never seen them use one. They need electricity too much. They use it for everything.”

“That’s what I figured. Although I’m not a hundred percent sure it works. Since my mom destroys every weapon we come in contact with, I can’t test it effectively. I’m pretty sure it’ll do the job, though. It’s shut down Domingo’s wave shield over there several times.” He pointed to a tall machine standing at the other end of the room. “Makes him so grumpy. I love it.”

I looked around at the other inventions. Some were covered, but not all. “Are you sure we should be in here? I doubt your inventor friends would be okay with me seeing this stuff.”

He shrugged. “What are you going to do? Run back and tell NORA we’re trying to block their weapons?”

“I already told you. I would never do that.”

He looked me right in the eye, his usual humor gone. “If you’re worried about what people think, why not take out your implant? Find a contribution and present it to the elders. Then they’ll have to accept you. I didn’t bring you here to show off. I just wanted you to see that everyone has something inside them to contribute. You just haven’t found yours yet. Once you do, I think you’ll be really happy here.”

He shoved his hands into his pockets and clamped his mouth shut as if he’d said too much, and the familiar pink in his cheeks returned.

If he was fishing for a promise, I couldn’t give it. Removing my implant was the logical thing to do. But it also signaled that I wanted to be a part of all this. I was fascinated with this place and these people, but I wasn’t one of them. My implant was the divider, the reminder that I didn’t belong. The tether that kept me grounded to my goal.

A series of clicks sounded outside the door, and it opened to admit a guy of eighteen or nineteen. He had a tall, slender build and wavy blond hair that hung past his ears. He grinned when he saw us and leaned casually against the door.

A girl about ten years old with the same hair color trotted in behind him and gave me a shy smile.

“You know the security code?” Coltrane exclaimed. “Maxim, you’re going to get in such big trouble.”

“I have clearance now,” the guy said. “And you don’t see
me
bringing girls in here for make-out sessions. Who’s the digit?”

Coltrane’s cheeks burned a bright red. “I was showing her my project, and don’t call her a digit. Amy, this is Maxim and his little sister, Mandie. He developed an intelligence line for his contribution a few years back. He gets news from traders passing by and reports it to my mom.”

“And Coltrane
pretends
to work in here,” Maxim said, striding closer. “Are you the girl he found in the desert?”

“That’s me,” I said, forcing a smile. Mandie stayed by the door, eyeing me curiously.

“Was it as dramatic as Cole made it sound?” Maxim asked, standing over me. “He said he fought off a brushfire, two dozen rattlesnakes, and an entire NORA unit to get to you.”

“You are such a liar,” Coltrane said, but he finally broke into a grin. “There were a dozen snakes at most. And for your information, my project is very important. It’ll save lives someday.”

Mandie must have decided I wasn’t a threat because she stepped into the room and let the door close behind her. “My dad says Coltrane’s invention doesn’t work.”

Maxim and I burst into laughter as Coltrane threw his hands helplessly into the air. “It does too work. If your dad would get me what I need, I could prove it.”

“Doesn’t look like that’s happening, man,” Maxim said. “I’m sorry, I really am. But don’t you think you should spend your time on something else? Something you can actually demonstrate in front of the elders? I mean, we have a ton of people working on defenses. But there are needs in other places that need to be met.”

Mandie moved from one table to the next, touching everything she could. She reached an empty bowl and peered inside. “Do you want to be an inventor?” I asked her.

Maxim frowned. “Mandie’s training to play the violin. She’ll be a musician, like our mom. And it’ll be easy enough for her to find a husband, considering there are five boys for every girl her age.”

I watched Mandie move to the next table, only half listening. “Do all the kids go to the same school here?”

“School?” Maxim looked confused. “You mean a single place for everyone to get the same education? That’s an outdated way of thinking. Each child has different skills and interests, and those should be groomed in the home. Our parents taught us what we needed to know, right, Mandie?”

His little sister nodded and put down the coil of metal rope she’d been holding.

I bent over so we were the same height. Her cheeks were dotted with freckles, and her eyelashes were long and delicate. “Mandie, have your parents taught you how to read?”

“This is ridiculous,” Maxim said. “Mandie, time to go.”

“There’s so much I have to learn about your community,” I said, “but I’m wondering if that’s something I can help with. Seriously, Mandie. Did your parents teach you mathematics—geometry, calculus, trigonometry? And science—biology, chemistry, geology?”

Mandie blinked at the onslaught, then shook her head. “I can read a little. But my mom taught me to play the violin. She said I’ll be good enough to present before I’m fifteen.”

An idea had begun to form, and I felt excitement pulsing through my body. “That’s great.”

Coltrane frowned, watching Maxim stride toward the door. “I’m not sure what all this is about, Amy. Intelligence isn’t a contribution. I’m sure you’ll find something that adds to the community.”

I raised an eyebrow. Intelligence wasn’t important? Then what about all these inventions? What room was there for Mandie and her young friends, if they weren’t pushed to think?

“If all else fails,” Maxim said, “you can sell us a few NORA secrets. That may be worth something. C’mon, Mandie.”

I ignored Maxim and nodded to the girl as she followed her brother out. “Hope I get to hear you play the violin someday.” She beamed back at me.

When the girl and her brother left, I handed the baglight to Coltrane. “I know what I’m going to do.”

“What’s that?” Coltrane asked warily.

“I want to be a teacher,” I said. “Let’s go talk to your mom.”