Margaret froze. “What countdown?”
Nadia squinted. Was Margaret being obtuse on purpose? Was this part of her trick? “The countdown. Embedded in VERA’s subliminal code. Terminating at midnight. Tonight?” Every time Nadia added a statement, she expected to see recognition dawn on Margaret’s face. But it never came.
Instead, Margaret sat down on her vine.
“That’s the bug. The same bug we saw before Crédit France, and before Times Square.” Margaret looked up at Nadia. “And it’s happening again? Tonight?”
“System-wide,” Nadia confirmed. “We assumed it was VERA herself. Or you.”
Margaret shook her head. “VERA’s incapable of that, even after you added the CodePhage in our office. We made certain of it. We’re not trying to be Ultron.”
Nadia stepped forward, cautiously. “Can you shut VERA down while we figure this out?”
“No!” Margaret leapt up again, and the vine vibrated. “No. We can’t. We’ll lose millions if we shut our network down, even for an hour.”
Nadia launched herself into the air, Margaret a moment behind her, ready to fire a Wasp Sting. “There won’t be anything left to lose if we don’t stop it whatever this is. There’s no user base if they’re all hurt.” Nadia zoomed toward Margaret, grabbing her by the arms before she had any idea what was going on. The two tumbled to the floor. Nadia hit the button on both of their suits—same place on each, Margaret hadn’t bothered to redesign—and they hit the floor hard, full-size.
Both of them sat up gingerly, rubbing their spines where they’d slammed against the hard floor of the planetarium.
“If it’s not you,” Nadia said, wincing, “and it’s not VERA…then who?”
Margaret looked…devastated. “I told you, we were forced to take venture capital.” It was more of a statement than a question. Nadia bobbed her head. “There was one firm that offered more than the rest. Substantially more. Enough to keep us going for the rest of the year, at least. But they asked for access to our code. And our servers.”
Nadia slid back from Margaret. She knew what was coming—and she didn’t want to believe it.
“Thanks for that, by the way,” came a man’s voice from behind them.
They both turned to find a man in a nondescript gray suit walking toward them. The remains of Priya’s plant blockade hung from the top of the stairwell. Nadia squinted, and realized she recognized him; it was the same dour, middle-aged white man from Margaret’s finance meeting, the first day they’d met. The one with the hair and beard so black it shone almost blue in the light.
And behind him trailed Monica Rappaccini, her pupils so wide Nadia could no longer tell the color of her eyes.
“Roger Bain,” Margaret spat, standing up. “What are you doing here?”
“A.I.M. has come to collect on its investment,” the man said. He offered Nadia a hand. “Nice suit.”
Nadia stood up without taking the assist, piecing it together. “You’ve been altering people’s brains using Margaret’s subliminal code.”
The man Margaret called Bain shrugged and dropped his hand. “She’s a genius, isn’t she?” Three more A.I.M. lackeys in their black hazmat suits filed up the staircase.
The Goth Devo reunion no one asked for, Nadia thought bitterly.
“We barely had to touch VERA’s systems at all,” said Bain. “She was already in thousands of homes; after tonight, we’ll be able to make people do whatever we ask of them.”
“Like fight your wars,” Nadia said disdainfully. To her shock, Bain laughed in her face.
“No, my little bug.” Bain looked at her the way a father looks at a child he thinks is incompetent. Pitying and condescending. Nadia’s least-favorite combination. “We don’t need a zombie army. We’re not in a movie. We play to people’s strengths. We need money, we have the employees at a credit union give us money. We need power, we have Monica here build us a test Teleforce.”
“Death ray,” Nadia said under her breath.
“We need access to the quantum realm,” he continued calmly, “we enlist the folks at Pym Labs. It’s that simple.”
“You do seem simple,” Nadia shot back.
Bain tutted. “Too bad. You would have been good little agents. Monica?” He waved to the woman, and passed his men on the way down the staircase. “I’m going to make sure this is finished. HoffTech and VERA are ours.” Margaret seethed.
“Nice to see you again, Nadia,” Monica said, stepping in front of the two women with wings.
“Wish I could say the same,” replied Nadia. And she really did. But unfortunately, Monica was still evil. Now more evil than usual. Double evil! The worst kind.