Spinning Starlight (6 page)

Liddi’s plastic robot man needed to climb to the top of Metal Mountain, but he was only one inch tall. He’d need help. So she took the blocks from the tub in the
corner and started building a tower with steps. Robot-Man was good at climbing steps.

“Garrin, can you get me the schematics for the conduits?” Mr. Jantzen said. “I have a few thoughts.”

“Certainly, sir.”

Liddi’s fingers slipped, knocking one of the blocks off-balance, and the noise drew her father to the other side of the desk. “Liddi, I said you could play in my office. You
don’t need to bother Garrin.”

“But Walker-Man’s desk is better, Daddy,” she protested. “Yours is bumpy.” She couldn’t easily brace her tower against the wooden carvings on her
father’s desk.

“It’s no bother, Mr. Jantzen,” Garrin said. “And you’re busy. I can keep an eye on her.”

“All right. If she gets in the way, send her in. Durant will be by to pick her up this afternoon.”

Once Jantzen disappeared back into his office, Garrin peered over the edge of the desk at Liddi. “Nice tower. Try adding a few more blocks to the bottom before you start building
higher.”

EVERY CELL IN MY BODY ACHES,
and I’m not surprised. That’s a side effect of the neural incapacitator. There’s a sharper pain and
tightness somewhere on my neck, and again where my shoulder blades and hips rest against a hard surface. I open my eyes, knowing I won’t like what I see.

I’m laid out on a metallic table surrounded by computer displays and other equipment. It’s a lab, but not the same one I was in before. The aches make it difficult to even think
about moving, but it doesn’t matter. All I have to do is tell the computer to contact the police. Or the media. Or everyone on the whole planet and beyond. I don’t get further than
opening my mouth.

“You’d better not do that.” Minali, standing in the blind spot behind me, of course. I open my mouth again, but she keeps going. “No, really. I’ve implanted a
device near your larynx, and I’m activating it right now. Programmed with internal voice-recognition and a hyperdimensional transmitter. A pulse will be sent through the conduit substrata,
one specifically calibrated to disrupt the pattern cohesion of any living beings inside…not that you understand any of that. All you need to know is if you speak, your brothers die.”

My hand goes to my throat. There’s no mark—she healed the incision perfectly—but I can make out a tiny, hard lump under the surface that shouldn’t be there. It explains
the odd tight feeling. The cold void inside me hits new depths beyond freezing, the emptiness echoing in my ears. Her footsteps approach, and I reflexively force myself off the table onto shaky
legs.

“I’d really rather
not
kill them,” she says. “Conduit stabilization is a bit more certain if they remain alive. So please, mouth shut.”

I look around at the equipment—next to useless without being able to use voice commands. Minali stands between me and the door. All I can do is glare, so I do it the very best I can.

“You have to understand, it wasn’t supposed to be like this, Liddi,” she says. “If those incompetent mercenaries had done their job and gotten you implanted days ago, we
wouldn’t have all this attention pointed here. They were supposed to hold you at least until the Tech Reveal. You wouldn’t have been harmed; I just needed you out of the way until
I’m finished. The mystery of your kidnapping and your brothers’ coinciding disappearance would’ve been a perfect distraction. Then again, you gave me a reason to get more people
collecting data on the conduits, letting me run the simulation sooner, so there’s that. But I need time. Stabilizing the conduits, it’s like constructing a fifty-story building from the
ground up, knowing each girder is laced with explosives. I can’t do it overnight.”

The tightness near my voice box intensifies alongside my urge to speak, to rage until that perverse look of regret is burned from her face. She sent those men with guns into my house, then acted
all concerned and helpful when I dragged myself into Pinnacle. The knowledge pulses through me, making it difficult not to scream.

Something else she said is more important, though. Minali needs me out of the way for a while, at least until the Tech Reveal. The only threat I’ve posed is in trying to rescue my
brothers, so maybe that means doing so is still possible. Before the Reveal. Before “stage four completion.” The computer said that’s forty-five days away.

The kidnapping ruse might’ve worked, but she’s lost all claim on sanity if she thinks she can get away with
this
. I try to figure out how to say so without saying anything
and spot a computer display that’s already running the right subroutine. Minali tries to cut me off when I step toward it, but I hold up my hand, rolling my eyes in an attempt to convey
I’m not going to
do
anything. Then I scroll through icons on the touchscreen until I find the one for a popular media-cast. I tap it and get exactly what I expected—vids of me
walking through the city barefoot, interwoven with studio commentators.

“We still have no idea exactly
why
the Jantzen girl arrived in such a state.”

“No, reports out of JTI have been less than informative. An unspecified ‘ minor’ emergency, nothing to worry about? Come on, JTI, it’s not that ‘ minor’ if
she’s shredding a new Igara skirt.”

“The Jantzen boys are all off-Point and reportedly unavailable for comment. We contacted Reb Vester to see if he had news on his girlfriend, and even
he
doesn’t know
what’s going on.”

I hold back a growl at that last bit—Reb only wishes we were dating, because gorgeous or not, he’s been hit in the head by too many laserballs for my liking. I point at the display
as it switches to vids of me at various parties and raise my eyebrows at Minali.

“Ah, you think your sudden silence will tip off the media? Liddi, after all these years, surely you know how easy it is to spin. With your brothers attending to pressing matters off-Point,
you’re finally taking a more serious, substantial role in the company. You’re ignoring the media because they’re a distraction.”

This passes beyond madness. I want to explode, to scream, or at least to break Minali’s neck, but I can’t. Not without endangering my brothers further. Instead, I mime stabbing
myself and shrug.

“Why not just kill you?”

I nod.

“Your brothers will serve their purpose alive or dead—the simulation results just look better if they’re alive. Killing
you
, however, isn’t an option. I
can’t have those useless thinkers on Tarix getting control of the company.”

Oh, right, the implant I got when my parents died. I didn’t understand until years later when the boys explained. A safety measure for an inheritor not yet of age, just a simple thing that
does nothing but monitor my vital signs and send a signal to Tarix if they cease.

But I remember something else, too. My brothers have similar implants. Not with my priority level, but they have them. Maybe I can use that. Maybe I can find the monitoring codes for them. Maybe
a lot of things, but none of it while I stand here listening to this null-skull who’s attacked my family.

“Liddi, stop,” she says warningly. “I see the plotting in your eyes. This
has
to be done to save the Seven Points. I know you don’t understand what we’re
facing, and that’s not your fault. Your parents put a check on your genes to ensure you wouldn’t be as smart as your brothers, so you would still need their help. If you ask me, it was
cruel of them, but there’s nothing for it now, is there?”

Checked genes. Not as smart.
The words echo and ricochet in my head, leaving dents and gouges in their wake, trailing down into my lungs so I can’t breathe. But my parents
couldn’t have done that. They wouldn’t have.

Then again…All these years with no debut at the Tech Reveal, never meeting my family’s standard, hitting a thousand walls with every attempt…

I miss Minali saying something, but it’s not to me. One of the company drivers is at the door to take me home.

I look to Minali, but she spares me the barest glance before returning her attention to the console. Like I’m beneath her notice now that I have no way to threaten her. There’s
nothing I can do.

“Officer Svarta cleared the grounds and tightened security measures on the perimeter of the country estate, so you won’t need that noisy security-cam anymore. You’ll be safe
there now.”

I bet. I bet I’ll be as safe as a caged dog. Those men weren’t meant to kill me, after all. Just to hold me hostage until it was too late to save my brothers, until they were locked
in as a permanent part of the conduit infrastructure. Maybe Minali even had elaborate plans for “rescuing” me, and I’d have been too grateful to question whatever tragic story she
gave for my brothers’ demise. Even the botched kidnapping didn’t matter, though. I came running straight to her with my theories about my brothers, full of naive trust.

I’m an idiot. Checked genes is right.

The driver either knows I can’t talk or isn’t inclined to make conversation. Whatever the reason, the ride home is silent except for the faint hum of the car’s
hover-struts.

Tears don’t make much noise.

Everything on the outside of the house looks completely normal. The door is on its hinges, no windows are broken, and even the flowers are tidy. I remember the noise of the attack. I expected
more destruction, but Minali must’ve had it repaired.

“Welcome home, Liddi,” Dom says as I walk in. “Has there been a change to your schedule? I could update it if you like.”

The tears press harder, and the pressure to cry out becomes unbearable, but the tiny extra weight at my throat reminds me I can’t. I can’t use my voice, and I can’t respond to
Dom.

Dom figures out after three more tries that I’m not going to talk. Still achey and tired from the neural incapacitator, I curl up in bed, hoping the silence won’t suffocate me in my
sleep.

“Liddi, do I assume correctly that you don’t wish to hear the usual messages in your queue?” Dom asks two days later.