“Nope. It’s the only way,” I answer, immediately activating a system-wide protocol that collapses all of the quantum states in our garnets to their base. The entire system stops.
“Fuck,” Kaz says, lifting his hands.
Justice looks over at me. “You think this’ll work?”
“I have no idea.” I type in a command to reboot and nothing happens. I pause and will the universe to do as I want. The entire system comes back online. As one, we all go for our keyboards, typing rapidly.
“Oh my God, it worked,” Justice says.
I look through the entire system, but all malware has been pushed out. It’s a fail-safe I inserted when I created the system. I had hoped never to use it.
“We won’t be able to track the attack back to its origination point now,” Justice says, looking over his shoulder again at me.
“I’m aware.” I stand and key in my code by the door before walking into the chillier room, looking at the flickering lights on the servers and the large garnet in the middle of the hub. I walk toward it. It’s full, red and sharp-edged . . . and I feel no connection. I reach out and touch it. The crystal hums beneath my hand, but it’s almost as if the diseased garnet is a barrier between me and this one. I wonder if I should smash the other to bits, or if that would end in my death as well. We may get to the point where I won’t have any choice but to try.
“Your best option is to somehow heal the diseased garnet and yourself,” Justice says from behind me.
I turn to look at him standing in the doorway. “Come here.”
He walks closer. My younger brother, the one person in the world I vowed to protect until I met Alana, and now I have the two of them. I jerk my head toward the garnet.
He reaches out and plants his hand over it. Nothing happens. “I’m not connecting with it either,” he says. “Its glow isn’t any stronger for me than for you.”
That’s because I’m still here. If death takes me, according to the history of our family, he and the garnet will connect. It’s a good thing.
“What did the doctor say?” he asks.
“Doc?” I roll my eyes. “He wants an MRI machine.”
“Where’s he going to put that?”
I chuckle, finally relaxing for the first time all day. “He thinks he can put it in the basement.”
Justice stills. “I’m not having an MRI done down in that creepy basement. We’d probably catch leprosy down there.”
“I don’t care. Might as well make Doc happy. He does keep us alive,” I mutter.
“Well, that’s true,” Justice says. “Who do you think created this attack?”
We have so many enemies, it’s hard to say. “The Rendales know we’re weak.” I’d read that in Sylveria’s eyes the night before, but she might just have good sources. Which doesn’t tell me who’s behind the attacks.
He nods. “I’ve been listening in on the devices you planted in their home the other night.”
I’m surprised they didn’t conduct a search-and-scan the second I left. “And?”
“Nothing. They haven’t admitted to anything. There’s some minor squabbling between the sisters on who’s going to marry you.” His lips draw back as if he just ate glue.
“I’m not marrying either of them.”
“You didn’t tell them that, did you?”
Of course not. “Not while we’re at war. I’m wondering if Sylveria Rendale is the one who infected our servers with the computer virus that is killing our garnet.”
“And you.”
“And me. She hinted that if I married one of her daughters, there’ll be a cure.”
He releases the garnet. “Then she’s the one.”
“Maybe,” I say. “She could be bluffing.”
He sighs. “You’re not going to like this.”
“I rarely do,” I say wearily, letting myself relax for the briefest second since only my brother is present.
“I think you need to go to the Silicon Shadows and Secrets Ball tomorrow night.”
My mouth drops open. That is the last thing on the entire earth I expected Justice to say. “Have you lost your mind? I don’t attend functions. I don’t even go out in public if I can help it.”
He crosses his arms. “I know, but this attack, it hurt us and we were already struggling.”
“So?”
He takes a step back, as if thinking I’m going to charge him. “We need to post a social media hologram event that people can join in and experience. One they dream about but can’t afford.”
“With me?” Has Justice been hit in the head lately?
“Yes, with you. You’re an enigma, a mystery. Every time Alana emotes on Aquarius Social about you, she gains twice the user interaction that she would attract otherwise. We need to harness that same power.”
