Page 59 of The Space Between Stars

“Kretch. These are hardly defensive so much as they’re their own weapons.”

At that moment, the Azadonian boy pushed his head through the door, fingers rubbing at his temples. “You should have already known that, chikoto. Or are you oblivious to what the company you founded even produces?”

Niklaus shrugged. “I go to board meetings. We vote on things. The details are trivial.”

Calver was sure his heart stopped.

Niklaus circled a hand. “Founding investor.”

Dex snapped to face Calver, mouth askew. “You didn’t know? That explains why you were willing to strike a deal with this snake when you should have known better. Where have you been for the last year?”

In a cave in the Sharinash wilderness. In the void. Where he’d been so disconnected he couldn’t even remember that, over the course of ten years, he’d been using his blood for alchemy to alter distortion cores.

Calver only rocked in response. The creature shifted somewhere in his mind’s deep. No. No no nonono.

“To be frank,” Niklaus started, “I was equally confused when you referred to me foremost as a writer.” Calver had only ever read his articles. He hadn't known. “Regardless, I hardly know anything about these”—he gestured at the plate—“things you seem quite adept at.”

Calver felt its gaze upon him. He quashed it. Void. His fingernails bit into his palms. He sucked in a slow breath.

Dex was looking at him like he’d sprouted a second head. “Why deconstruct it? Are you removing it from its circuit?”

What was a bleeding circuit? Calver gulped and tried to act like he hadn’t, in fact, nearly sprouted a second head. Feign control. They know nothing.

he asked Niklaus, who repeated the question to Dex.

“Yeah. Each plate shield is tied into a larger circuit, set to activate remotely.”

If the ground had slipped clean away from Calver, it wouldn’t have been a surprise for the way his stomach lost its floor.

“Meaning that, while the activator there might turn the shield on, there is a separate universal activator that connects the shields into one, giant, ahhh…” Niklaus searched the ceiling for whatever word he was looking for. “Bubble. So that, were the recruitment to stand in a line, they would form a single barrier.”

Kretch.

He was in over his head.

He was an imposter.

Everything he’d done with distortion had been an act of intuition. He didn’t understand how Aetech used it any more than he understood how Ruxians spoke to trees. Whatever Fankalo had made as a replacement, it wasn’t that: a circuit with a remote activator.

Unless, of course, she’d found someone new to design them for her. Someone with an in at Aethertech Mechanics.

Someone like Roskaad Thyatira.

He slipped back into the spiral, familiar as the lines on his dry, cracked hands. Niklaus and Dex began to bicker about something, but Calver could hardly focus on it. How many times could he reasonably be surprised that Fankalo had chosen to act against his advice, knowing that her only lingering purpose for him was as a sacrificial weapon? After what he’d done, he was lucky to even have that.

And now he was fraternizing with the lead investor for the company she was Chaos-bent on toppling. What were the chances? If there was one thing that could be said for the luckless Calverous Curtaim, be it said that things could not get any worse.

Dex gave Niklaus a look like he’d presented him with the wrong end of a curried spoon. “What could he possibly think is wrong with them? They’re perfectly secure.”

“Why so defensive? Why so sure?”

“My sister was the lead engineer on this project. And she doesn’t get things wrong.”

Wrong again. This was definitely worse.

Niklaus tapped his chin. “I finally understand why you hate me: Aetech dependence. Your sister… What’s her name?”

“Attilatia Mitar.”