I’ve come this far, and there are only a couple of wires left. We have to at least check.
Who knows how many answers could be hiding behind those blank screens?
The last cable gives me another zap as I connect it, hard enough that I shake my hand and let out a few more curses. So I’m already irritable when I stand up and poke at the controls on the console.
Nothing happens. The screens stay dark, taunting me for my useless work.
I glare at them, a growl slipping from my lips. The skin along my neck and shoulders prickles with fur itching to spring free.
This whole thing is garbage. I might as well smash the console all for the good it’ll do us.
Riva’s even voice breaks through my rush of frustration. “Technology never works the way you want it to when you want it to, does it?” She wrinkles her nose at the controls. “I think artificial intelligence already exists, and it thinks it’s fun to mock us.”
Hearing her echo my annoyance takes the wind out of my own anger. I swipe my hand across my mouth. “Yeah.”
Bashing it up would only be satisfying for a few moments while I’m letting out the rage. After, I’d feel rotten about it.
It’d make me even more like the monster the guardians turned me into.
Did this Engel woman intend for my weird powers to emerge so blatantly and physically once I got older? Did she have any idea how I’d turn out?
What was the point of any of this?
I hunker back down on the floor, gritting my teeth against the turmoil inside me. I know I’m more than a monster.
Ihaveto be more than that.
“There could be something else I missed,” I say, peering at the other cables and the panels of circuits.
A couple of the panels look scorched to my untrained eyes, the green surface marred with black and grey smudges like miniature storm clouds. Is that normal wear and tear or a sign thatthey’vebeen fried beyond functioning.
I scoot over to gaze through the unbroken side of the console to get a different example for comparison. The circuit boards on that side look pretty similar, which isn’t helpful.
Which part of the console do we know for sure is working? Whatever connects to the backup generator and the controls for the entrance to the facility.
I move even farther to crouch by the area beneath the spot labeled for the backup generator. There is some circuitry there too, and a cluster of cables that aren’t at all melted.
I stare hard at the circuit boards through the shell enclosing them, but it’s too hard to make out the details when it’s all so dark. Grimacing, I crack open that part of the console as well and let the light spill in.
There. Glancing back and forth between that panel and the other ones I’ve exposed, I can see that the scorched-looking marks aren’t necessarily normal after all. The circuits for the backup generator don’t appear to have them. And the details of the little bits and pieces look… sharper somehow, like the other panels have melted a tiny bit too.
Did the people who worked here fry the rest on purpose to make the system inoperable? Why would they have bothered if there was nothing to see if we got in anyway?
It seems too strange thateverythingwould be significantly damaged except for a couple of key controls that have stayed pristine. They must have been worried there was some kind of data still retrievable inside this thing.
But I don’t think I can unmelt circuits. I sure as hell don’t know how to unscorch them.
I frown at the messed-up panels. “If we could find enough functional circuit boards, ones that look the same, maybe we could swap the panels out…”
“We can’t take anything that’s working with the generator,” Riva reminds me. “Nothing will work if it shuts off.”
Right, of course. I eye the area of the console near the entrance controls, but I don’t think it’s wise to fiddle with those either.
What if the door closes and then we can’t get the circuits hooked up properly to re-open it? Riva can scramble out through the vents, but the rest of us would be stuck.
I suck in a breath, grappling with a fresh surge of frustration.
Okay, so I don’t have the materials here. Think it through, Zee. You have a brain in the middle of all those muscles somewhere, right?