“Use your phone,” Cinder said.
“Mind-to-mind is quicker.”
“Yeah, and it’s creepy as shit,” Cinder said. “Phone.”
I sighed. “Anyone ever tell you you’re kind of picky?”
The lift reached the top floor and I stepped out. Behind me, Cinder pushed the button to the basement; the doors closed and he disappeared from sight. Above the control panel, I saw the numbers counting down.
The clock was ticking now. Our cover story had gotten us inside, but the longer we stayed, the better the chance someone would figure out that we weren’t supposed to be here. I wasn’t worried about building security or police, but I was worried that Levistus might have a communications tap, or that the Council might pick up on an alert. The first thing I did was strip off my overalls and bundle them into a nearby closet. One nice thing about overalls: they’re so ill-fitting, people don’t notice when you’re wearing armour underneath. The set I was wearing was an imbued item of reactive mesh with solid black plates covering vital areas. It had been badly damaged when I’d taken the fateweaver, and it was only within the last couple of days that it had recovered enough that I felt comfortable wearing it. I could feel its presence around me, watchful and protective. Time to get to work.
The top of Heron Tower was a windswept jumble of smaller structures, crowded with ventilators, railings, and stored equipment. The data centre was a smaller sub-tower that reached up above the roof, its top a forest of aerials. For now, my goal was the longer, squatter structure on the tower’s east side which held the tower’s backup power systems. A few flights of stairs and some work with my lockpicks got me into the power room, which unsurprisingly was deserted. The generators stood against one wall, silent and unguarded.
Divination is powerful, but it has limits. The further ahead you look, and the more decisions you try to map through, the harder it becomes to follow a possible thread. Looking ahead to see what would happen if I left the van and got past the security guards at Heron Tower and made it all the way up to the top floor and bypassed all the other security measures and waited for Cinder to cut the power in the basement had been too difficult. Now that we were both in position, it was a different story. I took out my phone and called Cinder; he picked up on the second ring. “Yeah?”
“Get ready to cut the power. Don’t go without my signal.”
“Sure.”
And with that, I was ready. I looked ahead to see what would happen if I crossed the roof of Heron Tower, approached the data centre, and tried to force my way in. My future self felt a low-pitched, vibrating crump as the bomb went off, destroying everything of value inside. But if I cut the backup power, called down to Cinder to cut the main power, then crossed the roof to the data centre and forced the door open, then—
Crump.
Uh-oh.
“Hold on,” I told Cinder. I looked ahead to see what would happen if I tried a different way in. Crump. Call Starbreeze and have her give me a lift? Crump. Gating, picking the lock on the door, breaking a window . . .
Crump, crump, crump.
Shit.
I tried every route I could see and got the same result. Damn it, I was sure the defences were electrically powered. Now that I was this close, I could sense the gate wards on the data centre with my magesight, and they were far too weak to do any heavy lifting on their own. The place had to be running off mains. Why wasn’t cutting the power working?
Battery backups? If it was that, there might be some sort of delay before the cut-in that I could exploit. I tried searching for one . . . nope.
I checked the time. Fifteen minutes until Richard’s attack was due to start.
“We going or not?” Cinder said.
“Hold on,” I said. The problem was that I didn’t have any information to work with. Any attempt to get inside the building was setting off the bomb, and once it had gone off, the inside was too much of a wreck to learn anything more. If there was some future where the bomb didn’t go off, I could strengthen it with the fateweaver, but I wasn’t seeing one. I might be able to find one if I kept looking . . . but I had no idea how long that could take.
Time to go with plan B.
When Cinder had been telling me not to use mind-to-mind, he’d been referring to my dreamstone. It’s a shard of amethyst-coloured crystal that I picked up and bonded with years ago and which gives me the ability to step between our world and Elsewhere. Its core ability, though, was mental communication. It’s easiest with someone you know well, but with practice, you can do it with people you’ve never met.
Or with creatures that aren’t people.
I reached out through the dreamstone, probing delicately. Distance isn’t a barrier to the dreamstone’s mental link, not exactly, but it’s a lot easier for me to touch someone’s mind if I know where it is. Hello there, I said. Can you hear me?
A response shot back instantly, crisp and clear. Please specify the required data.
Oh good, I said. What’s your name?
There was a moment’s pause. That is not a valid request.
What, you like to shake hands first? I leant against the wall, folding my arms. Okay, how about you tell me how your day’s going?
That is not a valid request. Please supply a valid authorisation code.
I’d never tried linking to a synthetic intelligence before, and it was surprisingly easy. Trying to communicate with most humans this way is difficult: their thoughts are too messy. The synthetic mind’s thoughts were like smooth glass, precise and clear. Oh, I don’t have a code. I just wanted to chat.
I’m not a chatbot. Who are you?
My name’s Alex Verus. Yours?
Silence. I smiled slightly. Divination isn’t great for in-depth interactions—too many forks—but you can read off basic responses easily enough. I knew the machine intelligence recognised my name.
Why are you contacting me?
Well, I’ll get to that in a second. Sure you don’t want to tell me your name? Going to be a bit awkward just saying you all the time.
Another pause. My routing designation is November Epsilon underscore one one seven.
Great! November it is.
I must ask you to cease your communication. The synthetic intelligence’s thoughts were still clear, but noticeably disturbed. By contacting me in this manner you are placing us both at considerable risk. Should your actions be detected, you will be terminated and I will be subject to severe sanction.
Oh right, I said. I guess you only know the information that Levistus has access to, don’t you? There’s been a bit of a shift in the balance of power. Let’s just say that if Levistus could terminate me that easily, I wouldn’t be here.
Well, I wish I shared your confidence, November said frostily. I’m not in a position to be quite so cavalier about such matters.
Oh, come on, loosen up a bit. Tell you what, how about getting outside? Must get a bit boring being cooped up in that data centre all the time.