Ink, Iron, and Glass by Gwendolyn Clare

Author:Gwendolyn Clare
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Imprint

11

IF WE LET GO OF THINGS, OUR LIFE IS GOING TO CHANGE. AND THE REALITY IS THAT WE ARE ACTUALLY MORE AFRAID OF CHANGE THAN WE ARE OF DEATH.

—Caroline Herschel

Leo sat on the floor of his lab, ripping out the section of hydraulic tubing with the bullet hole in it. He couldn’t help but think about how neatly Elsa had aimed and pulled the trigger when they’d first met, and the corner of his mouth quirked up at the memory. He hadn’t known whether to be annoyed or intrigued. When he thought of Elsa now, he still felt a little of both.

Leo wiped the hydraulic fluid off his hands with an old rag. He’d worked all afternoon, and he still hadn’t decided whether he should patch the bot into Casa’s network so the house could control it, or keep it autonomous and simply modify its programming to only attack strangers. Of the two machines, Casa had the best deductive abilities by far, and it therefore would be much less likely to falsely identify a delivery boy as a hostile assailant. However, there were arguments in favor of autonomy.…

Leo’s concentration frayed under the assault of an annoying sound—thunk, thunk thunk, thunk—until he was forced to look up. The source quickly became evident: the cleaning bots had ceased to clean and were twirling in circles across the floor, bumping against one another.

“Uh, Casa?” he said. “What in the world are you doing? Or perhaps I should say, not doing. The cleaning bots have gone insane.”

Casa answered slowly, the words stretching like molasses. “I am … otherwise occupied … at the moment.”

“What do you mean? Occupied with what?” He glowered at the malfunctioning cleaning bots.

“No need to … worry. You children … should not concern yourselves…”

“Concern ourselves with what?” Leo demanded. “Casa!”

The house finally relented. “Power surge. Several sectors … knocked out.”

Leo frowned. “But Gia just ran maintenance on the power distribution system last year.”

“The … origin of the surge was … not internal.”

Leo got that cold feeling in his chest—the one that meant he could stop anxiously waiting for the next catastrophe, because it had arrived. “Are you saying someone took down your security systems so they could get inside?”

With effort Casa managed whole sentences. “I can’t see enough to be certain we’ve been infiltrated. I am fighting, but my control of the rear sector is still patchy. The library remains entirely dark.”

Leo inhaled sharply. “Elsa’s in the library.”

He yanked open the laboratory door and sprinted down the hallway, praying he could find Elsa before the intruder did.

* * *

Elsa was reshelving the history book Porzia had given her to read when she heard the door creak open behind her. It must be Porzia returning from her study. She turned, saying, “Did you bring any—” but the words died on her lips. It wasn’t Porzia.

The figure in the doorway was swathed in black clothing, nothing left uncovered except his eyes. Something about the man’s posture made Elsa’s pulse jump, even before the gasoliers hanging from the ceiling flickered and went out, plunging her into darkness.

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