Spinning Starlight (5 page)

MINALI SENDS MESSAGES
to the top technologists at JTI, anyone who’s ever worked on anything related to the conduits, right down to the
communication interlocks. Everyone’s reassigned to the new project, but she asks me not to mention my brothers, just sticks to a general story that the conduits
may
have
malfunctioned, someone
might
be stuck, so we need to collect and analyze all the data possible. She doesn’t want news getting out and starting a panic, which makes sense. The whole
building thrums with people murmuring into their earpieces, and images I’m not familiar with flash across wallscreens.

They work all that day. And the next, and the one after that. I go home just long enough to sleep each night, and only when Minali shuts everyone down because sleep-deprived brains don’t
do great work. Except, thinking of my brothers trapped in a hyperdimensional state just outside our reality makes sleep impossible.

I try to keep up with the technologists. I try to follow along and offer suggestions. I try to dig in and find the missing pieces, because these aren’t just the top technologists in the
Seven Points who need help. These are
my brothers
. Even if they never touch another piece of technology again, I need them. The eight of them are all I have.

Half of what I hear makes sense, but the other half is missing a connection. Someone states a fact about the conduits. I ask why it’s so. Their explanation feels as useless as saying,
“Because it is.”

Just like when I try to come up with something for the Tech Reveal. I’m a step behind.

Worse. I’m in the way. That much is obvious when Minali finally pulls me aside.

“Liddi, you’re exhausted. Maybe you should get some rest.”

I get the message. “Tell me something first. Where do we stand?”

She smooths a hand over her hair. “Hard to say. The conduits are failing. We have time, but if we don’t do something, they
will
collapse and each planet will be left
isolated. As for getting your brothers out…I’m not sure we know enough about how the conduits really work. Designing them in the first place was guesswork with half-understood energies, and
failing conduits aren’t the right ones to study. We’ll keep looking. But we still have you, and it’s more important than ever that you take care of yourself, okay?”

I nod, because I don’t want to hear any more. Definitely not anything that hints at me being the only Jantzen left. Minali ushers me toward the door, offering to arrange a hovercar home,
but I decline.

I don’t want to rest. So I wander. There’s been no further sign of the gunmen, making the attackers look more and more like some opportunistic ransom-takers. With the security-cam
keeping an eye on me, freeing my brothers is a much bigger concern.

Regular vid-cams notice me quickly enough, but I don’t pay any attention to them. My feet carry me in random directions. Away from JTI, away from home, away from the entertainment
district. If it were night, I’d try to see my brothers, hope that they could give me some clue. Knowing exactly how they got trapped would help so much in getting them back. But it sounds
like sunlight is too bright for them to be seen, so that’s not an option, and I keep walking.

The last Jantzen. The only one left. The one everyone has been counting on.

The world presses on me, crushing with its weight. Maybe all seven worlds. I find a bench on the side of the road and sit, hoping if things settle, a solution will pop out of the ground like
it’s been waiting for me to notice the obvious. The first ten minutes aren’t promising—nothing obvious yet—and my still silence is so boring that the vid-cams following me
back off and try to find something more interesting in the vicinity.

I don’t know if it would count as “interesting” to the computer algorithms, but something is happening in a schoolyard across the street. Several little kids are playing with a
skip rope, including the rhyme everyone learns around the time they begin to walk:

Each child takes a turn calling out one of the Points and jumping as long as they can according to the matching rule. Sampati means jumping with a fast left-left, right-right pattern. Yishu has
to dance and spin. For Pramadam, the twirlers move onto a low wall or curb so the jumper has just a few inches of width to stand on. Erkir jumps gently, Tarix jumps backward while the twirlers move
across the playground, and Neta does the opposite, with the jumper moving forward so the twirlers have to follow. Banak is the favorite for show-offs, with the rope swinging at knee-level off the
ground. Most kids don’t last long on that round.

The Eighth Point is Ferri—Death. Not a real Point, no planet to match, just the mythical afterlife ruled by the Sentinel and the Wraith. When a kid chooses Ferri, the twirlers have to drop
the rope and everyone runs from them. Anyone who gets caught within a minute is dead and out of the game.

During the brief time I attended school, we got bored with the game pretty quickly. Not so with this group. Round after round they go, laughing at the silly dance moves of a boy who chooses
Yishu, cheering on a girl who manages to complete fifty Banak-jumps.

Portals. Not conduits. I remember Fabin telling me something about portals, the natural phenomena the conduits were based on, the original connection between the seven worlds. There’s a
reason the rhyme goes the way it does, about
finding
portals. They had to be found every time you wanted to use one, because they don’t stay in place. Anyone who looked hard enough
seemed to find one, but they’re unreliable, unsafe, and unpleasant, from what Fabin said. That’s why technologists developed the conduits—artificial, stable, and simple.

Except the conduits are failing. Emil says mimics are never as good as originals, in anything. It seems especially true in this case. And my brothers got trapped trying to repair those mimics.
The originals are better, somehow, but they’re still similar. Maybe similar enough and better enough to help.

The portals must still be around, even if it’s been centuries since anyone used them.

My thoughts are interrupted by the children screaming. Someone called out Ferri, so everyone’s running from the two twirlers.

I have some running of my own to do, but that’ll draw the attention of the vid-cams to me. Instead, I walk as quickly as I dare. I have to get back to JTI.

Minali’s assistant rapidly becomes my least favorite person.

“Ms. Blake isn’t in her office. She’s busy,” he says.

“And I need to make her even busier. She’s here somewhere, so tell me where.”

He says something about appointments and makes a show of having the computer list available times. With his attitude, I’m not going to get anywhere with the nice approach, and this is too
important to let him brush me off. Time for the approach I never use.

“Computer, voiceprint override. Identify Liddi Jantzen.”

“Liddi Jantzen, identified,” says the electronic voice. “How may I help you, Miss Jantzen?”

I ignore the way the assistant glares. “Locate JTI manager Minali Blake.”

“Minali Blake is in Lab One on the thirty-eighth floor.”

In a last-ditch effort to assert his authority, the assistant physically blocks me from the door. “You have no right to interfere with daily operations here.”

“I have every right. I may not have taken control yet, but this is still my family’s company.” I shove past before he comes up with another futile argument.

The lab is easy to find. It’s also locked—standard for all the upper-level labs at JTI—but that’s no problem with my voiceprint logged in. Minali is inside, working a
bank of equipment with several wallscreens running. She turns, startled to see me. Her assistant must not have commed ahead, but I’m too excited to apologize for the rudeness.

“Minali, I had an idea about the conduits.”

Her startled expression fades, smoothing to a curious one. “What kind of idea?”

“The old portals are still out there, right? It’s been ages since anyone studied them, centuries at least, and even then, we didn’t have the technology to really understand
them. Like you said, barely enough to model the conduits after them. But maybe now we do. And if we do, maybe we can figure out what’s going wrong with the conduits, and how my brothers got
trapped. Come at the problem from the side instead of head-on.”

“That’s good thinking. I’ll get—”

“Simulation complete,” the computer interrupts. “Summary: eighty-two percent chance of success under Variant A. Thirty-three percent chance—”

“Pause results,” Minali says. “Tell me more, Liddi.”

On the surface, it makes sense that she stopped the computer to be polite and hear out my idea. But a moment of clarity slices through the cloud of worry and helplessness that’s been
surrounding me. That clarity punches right to my gut and says no. Says there’s something tiny in Minali’s face that I don’t like. Microexpressions…Ciro studied them so
he’d have a better idea who to trust, with all the people wanting to use our family to their advantage, and particularly regarding some of the girls Anton dated.

“What are you working on?” I ask, forcing curiosity into my voice rather than accusation.

“Just a few theories, nothing solid.”

No, that’s a lie. I glance at the wallscreens, which she hasn’t bothered to blank. Each shows a waveform I’m not familiar with, though they all look related. Something at the
corners catches my eye. Identifier icons. I recognize all eight. They’re my brothers’.

“Explain it to me,” I insist. “You have something about my brothers.”

“Just some readings on the conduits.”

“But you’ve isolated waveforms for each of them. Do you think you can use those to locate them? And you ran a simulation—on what?”

“Random ideas, a bit complicated. I really
am
busy, Liddi.”

She probably is, but I’m tired of being put off, tired of being told to wait, that I’ll understand later. “Computer, resume results summary and disable pause.”

Minali glares—there’s a familiar impatience in it—but I just listen. The computer details the results of the simulation. She was right about the complexity. I don’t
understand all of it, but I get the idea.

And I don’t like the idea I’m getting.

“Conclusion: hyperdimensional stabilizing using biological catalyst remains feasible with multi-stage implementation. Stage one complete. Time to stage four completion is forty-five days,
with levels of success greatest for Variants A, F, and C.”

A cold void forms inside me, numbing everything. The simulation has projected possible results of an experiment…an experiment that’s already in progress. “My brothers are the
‘ biological catalyst,’ aren’t they? What have you done?”

Minali smacks a workstation with her palm, sending me back a step. No mere microexpressions now. Her eyes are bright with panic. “You don’t understand. First your brothers, now you.
The conduits are
failing
. The Seven Points won’t survive if they do. Without resources from the other Points, Sampati will crumble, and without leadership from Neta, the others will
fall to chaos. Not one of the planets can survive alone, not without being set back centuries, even a millennium.”

Yes, the conduits’ failing is a problem, but this is wrong.
Minali’s
wrong, something’s sick or broken in her mind if she thinks sealing
people
inside is the
solution. “So you trap my brothers? Even if that made any kind of sense—which it does not—they’re our best chance at fixing everything!”

“No, they’re not. They refused to acknowledge what it’ll take, refused to move forward and act. And you…nothing
ever
goes right with you, does it? Computer, execute
primary contingency.”

I have no idea what that means until a column of blue light shines on me, and then it’s too late. The computer emits a signal calibrated precisely to my brain waves, and everything goes
black.