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surrounded by computer displays and other equipment. It’s a lab, but not the same one I was in before. The aches make it difficult to even think
about moving, but it doesn’t matter. All I have to do is tell the computer to contact the police. Or the media. Or everyone on the whole planet and beyond. I don’t get further than
opening my mouth.
    “You’d better not do that.” Minali, standing in the blind spot behind me, of course. I open my mouth again, but she keeps going. “No, really. I’ve implanted a
device near your larynx, and I’m activating it right now. Programmed with internal voice-recognition and a hyperdimensional transmitter. A pulse will be sent through the conduit substrata,
one specifically calibrated to disrupt the pattern cohesion of any living beings inside…not that you understand any of that. All you need to know is if you speak, your brothers die.”
    My hand goes to my throat. There’s no mark—she healed the incision perfectly—but I can make out a tiny, hard lump under the surface that shouldn’t be there. It explains
the odd tight feeling. The cold void inside me hits new depths beyond freezing, the emptiness echoing in my ears. Her footsteps approach, and I reflexively force myself off the table onto shaky
legs.
    “I’d really rather
not
kill them,” she says. “Conduit stabilization is a bit more certain if they remain alive. So please, mouth shut.”
    I look around at the equipment—next to useless without being able to use voice commands. Minali stands between me and the door. All I can do is glare, so I do it the very best I can.
    “You have to understand, it wasn’t supposed to be like this, Liddi,” she says. “If those incompetent mercenaries had done their job and gotten you implanted days ago, we
wouldn’t have all this attention pointed here. They were supposed to hold you at least until the Tech Reveal. You wouldn’t have been harmed; I just needed you out of the way until
I’m finished. The mystery of your kidnapping and your brothers’ coinciding disappearance would’ve been a perfect distraction. Then again, you gave me a reason to get more people
collecting data on the conduits, letting me run the simulation sooner, so there’s that. But I need time. Stabilizing the conduits, it’s like constructing a fifty-story building from the
ground up, knowing each girder is laced with explosives. I can’t do it overnight.”
    The tightness near my voice box intensifies alongside my urge to speak, to rage until that perverse look of regret is burned from her face. She sent those men with guns into my house, then acted
all concerned and helpful when I dragged myself into Pinnacle. The knowledge pulses through me, making it difficult not to scream.
    Something else she said is more important, though. Minali needs me out of the way for a while, at least until the Tech Reveal. The only threat I’ve posed is in trying to rescue my
brothers, so maybe that means doing so is still possible. Before the Reveal. Before “stage four completion.” The computer said that’s forty-five days away.
    The kidnapping ruse might’ve worked, but she’s lost all claim on sanity if she thinks she can get away with
this
. I try to figure out how to say so without saying anything
and spot a computer display that’s already running the right subroutine. Minali tries to cut me off when I step toward it, but I hold up my hand, rolling my eyes in an attempt to convey
I’m not going to
do
anything. Then I scroll through icons on the touchscreen until I find the one for a popular media-cast. I tap it and get exactly what I expected—vids of me
walking through the city barefoot, interwoven with studio commentators.
    “We still have no idea exactly
why
the Jantzen girl arrived in such a state.”
    “No, reports out of JTI have been less than informative. An unspecified ‘minor’ emergency, nothing to worry about? Come on, JTI, it’s not that ‘minor’ if
she’s