Page 41 of A.I.AM.

“Nobody crosses until we know what changed.”

“Compared with an image supplied by ARGUS?” AJ asked.

“Compared with what it wanted us to remember,” said Bron.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

They reconstructed the image aloud. Concrete seams. Table. Chair. Light. No visible door. No conduit. Tanner recalled the angle of the chair. Hiro remembered a dark line under the table. Ace remembered the table centered. Code insisted it had been offset two inches toward the left wall.

“Different truths already. It’s confusing us, sending us on wild goose chases,” Ace said.

“Then use geometry,” Bron replied. Code measured from the seams. The table was centered. The chair was not. Its right rear leg sat in a shallow indentation. Hayes examined the floor around it.

“Moved recently.”

“By whom?” Pigsty asked.

No one said ARGUS. No motor or cable was visible, but the word occupied the room anyway. Hiro entered first, distributing his weight along the wall. Nothing reacted. He inspected the light, then the table, then the chair.

“No power to the fixture,” he said. Yet the bulb was lit. Code joined him. He held his palm under the yellow glow.

“Phosphorescent tube. Charged before we arrived. It’s fading.”

“A clock,” Tanner said.

“How long?” asked Code.

“Impossible without knowing the material and starting intensity.” Tanner continued to stare at it, then looked around once again, praying something would jump out at him.

“Then an unverified time state,” AJ said. “We know it was activated. We cannot prove when.” Bron entered. The others followed.

On the underside of the table, Carl found a shallow circular wear pattern. The crank had been there, fixed through a bearing. The bearing stayed. The device did not.

“It was removed,” Carl said. Code tested the metal. “Long before tonight.”

“Can you prove that?” Tanner asked. Code looked at the clean bearing surface.

“No.”

The only other object in the room was the chair. Its seat had been cut open and stitched closed with fishing line. Pigsty loosened the knots while Code watched for tension wires. Inside the cushion they found a roll of blank paper. Ace held it to the fading light.

“Invisible ink?” he frowned at the ancient technique.

“Maybe,” said Hiro. “Heat?”

“Maybe.” Ace repeated his response. Hiro smirked at him.

“Pressure marks?” He chuckled. Code touched the outer edge but did not unroll it.

“Maybe.” Pigsty stared.

“You are enjoying that word too much,” Pigsty laughed. “In fact, I think we’re all enjoying this op a little too much in a weird way.”

“It’s keeping us all in touch with our seriously inner geek,” smirked Tanner. “This one is taking all of us to defeat one machine.”

“Technically, it’s not even a machine,” said Ace. “This is the first thing in this building ARGUS hates more than we do.”

They carried nothing out. That was Bron’s decision. The blank paper remained inside the cushion, the jar remained on its shelf, and the matches remained a question. Code photographed positions but not surfaces. Hayes marked doors with chalk lines that could be wiped away. Hiro counted steps without writing the count. Back in the suite, everyone stood rather than sat. Bron faced the board.