Pouring her consciousness into the ConSynth had its advantages: she could appear and disappear in a room whenever she wanted, and change her appearance by simply imagining a different version of herself. A single thought could change her hair, shirt, or height in seconds. Her physical presence in the room was just a projection of her own imagination—a hologram cast from the ConSynth’s glowing green depths, which stored the electrical composition of her former brain. It was like she’d put her soul in a box.
Sage rapped her knuckles on the chambers’ door.
“Come in, darling,” Miranda called. Sage hurried into the room with a package and plopped it down hard on the desk. Miranda cocked her head to the side. “Heavy, was it?” Sage nodded.
Miranda sprawled herself across the room’s chaise lounge, then took one look at the box before shaking her head. “Just shove it under the desk, darling. I don’t need it after all.”
Sage poked a finger at the box. “What is it?”
“Now?” Miranda smiled. “It’s just a hell of a paperweight.” She was lucky the blind girl was so dim—the poor thing had no idea what she’d carried down the hall, the power and possibilities that could be found within the machine’s depths.
Miranda watched as Sage rubbed her fingers against the green ConSynth’s surface, the oils from her fingertips leaving a filmy resin. Miranda pursed her lips—she hated when people touched the ConSynth. It was too close to them cupping her actual soul.
Miranda decided she’d had enough of Sage. The girl had been useful for a time, but now it seemed she was beginning to develop her own ideas—helping Charlie try and escape, for example. She was becoming bold and restless, and Miranda simply couldn’t afford the risk any longer. The girl would need to be executed, and soon.
Next month, she decided. That would leave her enough time to train a new girl. She would start with a younger one this time. The younger ones were always better workers. Not as ornery, and more willing to accept another’s authority. Miranda would have Hackner take her to H.E.A.L. in a few weeks, after the Lost Boys had been tried and executed, and she could find a suitable replacement there.
Miranda looked up and found the blind girl staring at her, her glazed eyes hard and relentless. It was unnerving. What was she thinking?
Not much, Miranda decided.
Sage chewed her lip and rubbed the ConSynth. “It’s another one, isn’t it?”
Miranda flew across the room. What had the girl said? What did she know? She tried to brush off the question with a laugh. “What did you say, darling?”
Sage’s eyes widened and she shook her head. “Nothing.”
For a split second, Miranda thought the girl was on to something—that she knew about the ConSynth. About both of the ConSynths, now. Maybe she was scheming. Planning a way to kill her.
“The box is another paperweight,” said Sage quickly. “Isn’t it?”
Miranda released a sigh of relief—the girl had no idea. She was far too dim. Delightfully so. “Yes, darling… another paperweight. You’re so clever!”
Miranda thought she saw the girl let out a deep breath. Perhaps, she was on to her, after all? Miranda would have to accelerate the execution—maybe in a week or two.
“Unfortunately, darling,” she said, smoothing the edge of her sapphire suit, “I don’t think the paperweight is going to be to my liking after all. I’ll have Maintenance take it tomorrow.”
Sage reached for the box. “I can take it.”
Miranda cleared her throat. “That won’t be necessary. You’ve already done so much. I’ll let Maintenance get it in the morning, don’t you worry.” Sage nodded. “You should probably be off, darling. I’m feeling exhausted.”
The girl turned to the box once more before nodding and exiting. Oh, yes—something needed to be done about her, and soon.
Miranda would have Hackner schedule a trash pickup with Maintenance for tomorrow morning. She wouldn’t need the extra ConSynth now that the Lost Boys had been found. There had never been any real threat. She’d just been overly cautious. The extra ConSynth could be safely destroyed. After all, she couldn’t have anyone getting any ideas, trying to pour their consciousness into an orb and achieve immortality like her.
She sighed. She had to admit, a part of her was disappointed. The Lost Boys had fallen more easily than she’d expected. She’d hoped for a bit more blood, maybe a few more bombs. They always needed extra justification for the Ministry of Defense & Patriotism’s exorbitant budget.
She eyed the papers sprawled across Hackner’s desk and reminded herself she was lucky the girl was blind, or else she could’ve learned the truth. The Indigo Report was not the first of its kind—not by a long shot. There were always idiots in R&D who figured out the system— people who put two and two together and realized what was really happening. They were always killed, of course. Except for Neevlor—the one who got away. Found Phoenix and the pesky Caravites and started this whole mess. The other ones hadn’t been so lucky. They’d found their ends in the megalodons’ mouths instead.
Miranda was lucky the beasts were always hungry.
Well, not lucky really, but genius. After all, she’d had them engineered to be that way.
Chapter 38
We were still standing in the kitchen when the first wave of bombs dropped. The first thing I saw through the window were helicopters swarming on the horizon, and then the window’s glass pane shattered into a hundred pieces from force of the explosions. Mila shoved me down, but Phoenix remained standing in the doorway.
“It doesn’t make sense,” I said as my chest hit the ground.
He pulled me up. “Of course it doesn’t.” Another bomb exploded on the beach. “Sense would imply that what I’ve told you is both reasonable and comprehensible, and I’m personally of the opinion that it is neither.”
The ground shook as the Feds dropped another round of bombs on the island. I imagined the plastic shoreline breaking off in pieces.
Phoenix flicked a speck of dirt from my shirt. “Have you ever entertained the possibility of a world without aluminum cans?” He’d lost it: the Feds were bombing the island and he was sitting here musing about aluminum cans.
I shook my head and glanced at the shattered glass on the floor. “Uh, not really?”
“And do you know approximately how long aluminum cans have been around?”
I shrugged. “Do you?”
“No idea,” he said, nodding excitedly, “and that’s precisely my point. We, as a society, have managed to invent television screens that can bubble, fizz, froth, shimmer, and sparkle like a bottle of champagne, but further innovation of something as common and simple as an aluminum can has evaded us.”
Mila glanced nervously out the window, scattered glass crunching underneath her shoes.
“What’s your point?”
“And the common cold? Let’s consider the paradox surrounding the common cold—a virus as old as mankind itself—and our inability to create a vaccine to eradicate it in even the loosest sense. We pride ourselves on maintaining the highest health and research standards—yet we’re completely unable to eradicate even the most common of viruses.
“And despite all that, the Feds expect us to believe that one day we were confronted with a wholly new and unfamiliar enemy—radioactive Carcinogens—and that they were able to concoct a mixture to stave off its effect in record time! Rather remarkable, don’t you think?”