Kazstone nods toward the other two open computer hubs. “They transfer data faster than anything I’ve ever seen, and I’m just digging in to what they can do. I want to trace that virus that’s killing you back to its source, and they’re giving me the best chance.”
The blood starts to thrum through my body—hopefully warming me. It has taken me a decade to find alexandrite that size, and the fact that I did it by robbing Mathias Beaumont makes the moment all the sweeter.
Justice vibrates in place. “Do you think we can stop the freezing?”
“I hope so,” Kazstone says.
“We’ll find an answer,” I say grimly. For now, I can feel the servers weakening. It’s odd I’m so in tune with the garnet crystals running our system. I walk past the center computer hub, having placed a leather thong bearing a heavy garnet around my neck, which pulses against my bare skin. The stone has been imbued with the raw energy of the earth. Most people don’t know that they’re standing on the biggest electromagnetic field in the solar system. But my people do. We’ve learned how to harness it, and the garnets are how I do it.
Justice watches me key in the code to the main hub. He doesn’t know it yet, and hopefully he won’t ever need it. “I can come with you.”
“No.” The door slides open and I move inside, waiting until it shuts behind me. He can’t completely charge the main garnet until I’m dead and buried.
I walk to the heart of the server and see the three garnets now taking the place of the main one, which is icing over too quickly. I kneel and place a series of garnets from my pocket around the mainframe, creating a Celtic pattern that starts to sing and hum on its own.
Closing my eyes, I place a hand on the central three rocks and let the silence of them fill me. They begin to glow and their crimson light reflects off every surface.
Power flows through my arms, down to the floor, and then back up to the garnets, charging them. A pleasant hum fills the room and electricity arcs through the space as I spend fifteen minutes charging.
I step back and look at the silicon brains and cable arteries. For a moment, I stagger. I’ve given the servers all the energy I have available right now. Ignoring the pain, I walk out of the little room, back into the main hub where Kazstone and Justice wait for me.
“All good?” Justice asks, his gaze shuttered.
“Yeah,” I mutter.
Kazstone looks at his screen. “Agreed. We’re charged at least for the next week, but that took you longer than it should have, and I can tell the exchange abnormally exhausted you. We have to find a cure for this virus.”
“Viruses don’t have cures,” I say, trying not to be glum, but we all know the truth.
“Yeah, but this is a virus caused by a curse.” Kazstone throws his hands up.
I need a cure, not an explanation. “I’m being frozen from the inside out, or rather from the outside in,” I mutter. “I already know what it is.”
“It’s called the fatal freeze,” he says, shifting on his chair. “I found references to it back in an old code. Basically the target’s body gradually lowers in temperature until, well, your heart freezes to death.”
“I’m well aware.” My heart was never all that warm to begin with. “Come on, I don’t have all day.” I move to the computer bank to the right as Justice heads to the other one. I’d like to get back to Alana.
“Okay, here you go,” Kazstone says. “The alexandrite crystals are already plugged into each of the computer hubs, and I’m hoping they act as a turbo and speed up my algorithms.”
I sit at the keyboard and start to type, my mind on Alana. I actually love the computer. I’m a better fighter than programmer, but in another lifetime, this could have made me happy. Hunting data in real time is a gift. That is the lesson of this century and what we’ve discovered by using the internet. Before, it was rumors and gossip and songs. Now it’s raw, hard, sharp data that we can read.
Soon there’s nothing but the sound of the three of us typing as we write algorithms to fix our servers.
Finally, I’m typing faster than the other two men as I take the lead. Hours go by. At some point, Kazstone puts coffee by my hand and I think I drink it. Finally, I reassemble all of the data. “I have it.”
Kazstone and Justice stand and walk over to stand behind me. “What did you find?” Justice asks, his voice low.
I click a button and data starts scrolling across the screen.
“Is that a video?” Kazstone asks, leaning forward.
“It is.” I click on it and a video comes up of Alana being interviewed on Malice Media by some influencer named Jackie. I recoil and then settle. “Alana infected our servers with the curse that’s killing me?”
Kaz scrolls through his phone. “The influencer is a Jackie Lamberts, twenty years old, who died last week of an overdose.”
Right. So either Alana, somebody at Aquarius Social, or an unknown actor uploaded the virus with this video. “Alana lacks the skill to create code,” I murmur.
“If she didn’t create the virus, then we have a problem,” Justice says. “The only reason to use her like this is because . . .”
Somebody knows of my obsession with her.
Either way, this is fucked.
FIFTEEN
Alana
Today I dress in a longer blue skirt with strappy sandals and a pink quartz belt beneath a white tank top and pink cardigan. I’m surprised by the sheer amount of jewelry available to me, but even so, I choose a simple earring and necklace set of aquamarine. It matches the one I wear all the time, and I feel more grounded almost instantly.
It’s a feeling I need. Desperately. I spend my morning wandering around the castle trying to find passageways, but once again come up empty. It’s quite frustrating, really, since I know there have to be some around here. For some reason, I also can’t find Mrs. Pendrake. While I doubt she’ll become my ally, I’m going to give it a shot. If I can just find her.
I can’t believe Thorn is planning on a forever kidnapping. My shiver runs through my entire body.
I haven’t looked at a screen or posted on Aquarius in too long. I wander through the kitchen and glare at the counter. There’s no phone in sight. I’m not receiving notifications, and I long for my phone. Sure, I’m probably addicted to social media, like most people, but it’s my freaking job. How many users have we lost since my abduction?
Finally, around lunchtime, I dig into the crisper and make myself a sandwich and eat it like a jonesing rabbit before looking out at the rainy day to see Dermot emerge from the moat dressed in full scuba gear with several chunks taken out of his suit.
My heart leaps. Thorn let him live. Then I wince. The poor guy. It looks freezing out there.
