Worldweavers: Cybermage (3 page)

Terry flipped through the papers. The first page was densely covered with type, but Thea could glimpse plenty of blanks in the rest of it. Some pages were mostly blank, in fact; one of them had just a single line of text that went from edge to edge of the paper, as though it had got in the way of some slithering snail-like creature leaving letters for a trail.

“What is this?” Terry said, his attention caught. “Some of it looks…almost familiar.” His head snapped up suddenly. “Some of this looks like the code I’ve just been tweaking to get Twitterpat back online. I mean, Mr. Wittering.”

Humphrey laughed. “I know of the nickname,” he said. “You’re talking about the holographic image of your former computer teacher I saw when I first came here, right?”

“Yeah,” Terry said. “All I could get him to do back then was to ask you to repeat whatever it was you said to him, because he insisted his faculties were limited, but I found that there was a loop in the system. I’ll show you.”

He piled Humphrey’s papers on the edge of the desk and started typing something on the keyboard in front of him. Thea reached out curiously and
picked up the papers, riffling through them as Terry typed. It meant nothing to her, a mess of gibberish words, out-of-place punctuation marks, lines of what looked like mathematical formulae.

“There,” Terry said suddenly, dragging her attention away from the papers. “Look.”

On the other side of the computer desk, the air shimmered slightly and then snapped into an image. It was slightly blurred around the edges, but recognizably Twitterpat. Thea caught her breath.

“Good afternoon, Terry,” the image said in Twitterpat’s own voice.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Wittering,” Terry said. “We have visitors today.”

The image blurred and then re-formed, this time facing Humphrey and Thea. “Patrick Wittering,” it said courteously, apparently by way of introduction.

“Humphrey May, Federal Bureau of Magic. We met a number of times when you came out to Washington on Nexus consultations. And this is one of your former students at the Wandless Academy, Thea Winthrop.”

The image did its blur-blink-regenerate thing again.

“Why is it doing that?” Thea hissed into Terry’s ear.

“Processing,” Terry whispered back. “It’s capable of responding, but it doesn’t have independent vision sensors, so it can’t ‘see’ you. It can just be aware of your presence.”

“There’s something
wrong
with it,” Thea said.

“Hands,” Terry said briefly.

The characteristic hand motions that had partly earned Twitterpat his nickname were missing. The hologram’s appearance was perfect, and his voice was Twitterpat’s down to its nuances, but those expressive hands were still, hanging down beside him. The rest of him was almost enough to make anyone believe that Twitterpat was not, in fact, dead, but those motionless hands made Thea acutely aware that this was just a copy, a high-tech “living” puppet.

“Can I be of assistance in any way?” Twitterpat inquired, still facing Humphrey.

“Terry, is it possible for the entity to offer independent insight?” Humphrey said in a low voice.

“It’s…helped me with things, once I knew how to ask, and what to ask,” Terry said. “I’ve typed
in questions, or scanned in things—and there
is
an analytic ability.”

“Real intelligence? Rudimentary AI?”

“I am perfectly capable of answering those questions, Humphrey,” Twitterpat said. “When I was created, it was with cutting-edge holographic and fuzzy logic algorithms. I am very much ‘intelligent,’ if you wish to phrase it that way. It is what I was created for—interactive intelligence that might be useful for providing insight into machine logic, at a speed and precision that is still beyond an unassisted human brain.”

“Well, I’ll be,” Humphrey said. “I never knew that Patrick Wittering had fine-tuned it this far.”

“Can I be of any assistance?” Twitterpat asked again.

Terry glanced at Humphrey. “Is it okay if I let him at the disk?”

“Can’t hurt,” Humphrey said.

“Let me see those printouts again,” Thea murmured as Terry slipped the CD out of its case and fed it into the drive for Twitterpat to examine. She had noticed something in those incomprehensible pages that now tugged at her memory and
understanding, though she couldn’t quite put it into context. Terry glanced at Humphrey and passed over the papers; at the same instant the Twitterpat image began speaking again.

“The data is incomplete,” it said.

“I know. We are still trying to rescue more material from the tapes, but this is the best we can do right now. If you recognize any of it, perhaps you can fill in some of the blanks.”

“My own code has roots in some of this,” Twitterpat said. “I do recognize some of the algorithms. However, there is an anomaly.”

“What anomaly?” Humphrey said, his attention suddenly focused on the holographic wraith before him.

“The data is, as I said, incomplete, but I can begin to understand what the material behind it is about,” Twitterpat said. “Some of the working methodology appears to be obsolete. Some of it resembles what I know of the current state-of-the-art data on artificial intelligence and fuzzy logic. And the rest of it appears to be of unknown provenance. I would—” He blurred rapidly, and then blurred again. “I’d be grateful if you could rephrase the question. My
abilities are limited at this time,” it said after a moment, its voice gone oddly flat.

“It’s gone back into the loop,” Terry said, striding back to his main keyboard. “Whatever you fed it, Mr. May, you scrambled its brain again.”

“What’s this?” Thea said suddenly, pointing at the page with the single line of type. Humphrey glanced over.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” he said, shrugging. “That page, as it happens, was the product of one of the attempts to open up the cube—one of the better ones. The consensus is that we asked the thing its name, and it told us.”

Thea drew her finger along the line of type. It appeared to be a single word, repeated over and over:

SLATE SLATE SLATE SLATE SLATE SLATE SLATE SLATE SLATE

“Slate,” Terry said, peering over Thea’s shoulder. “The cube says its name is Slate?”

“No,” Thea said, staring at the page.

Humphrey turned sharply to look at her. “What?” he said.

Thea reached out for a pen that Terry had left lying on the computer desk and underlined five letters on the page:

SLA
TE SLA
TE SLATE SLATE SLATE SLATE SLATE SLATE SLATE

“Not Slate,” she said slowly, looking up at Humphrey. “Tesla. The Elemental mage who created the professor’s house. Nikola Tesla. It’s
his
cube.”

H
UMPHREY STARED AT THE
paper in his hand with an expression that was equal parts astonishment and furious indignation.

“I cannot believe I didn’t see that,” he said. “It goes a long way to explaining why we haven’t made much headway with the thing. Tesla was the only quad-Element mage in the history of the human race—the only one that we know of, anyway. It stands to reason that a uni-Element mage couldn’t even begin to make a dent in it, and even bi-Elementals were out of their depth.”

“Where’s the cube now?” Thea asked.

Humphrey glanced at her, his eyebrow raised. “In a safe back at the Bureau,” he said. “Why?”

“Have you tried taking it back to the professor’s house? The house, too, was Tesla’s doing. Maybe something in there could help unlock the cube.”

“That is not a bad idea at all,” Humphrey said. “I simply stopped at the professor—it never occurred to me that the
house
might be helpful.” He pulled a silver-gray cell phone from a pouch at his waist. “No good,” he muttered, staring at the phone screen, “no signal in this underground bunker. Thea, can you get us out of here? I need to make a phone call. Terry, I’m really sorry about screwing up your hologram, but if you can make anything of those scanned pages, I’d appreciate knowing about it. If I missed the obvious clue in
slate
, who knows what else I might have passed over.”

“Will do, sir,” Terry said, sounding mystified.

Humphrey glanced over at Thea. She nodded imperceptibly, and in the next moment they were back in the drizzly woods of the school grounds.

Humphrey immediately punched a speed-dial key on his cell phone and stood tapping his foot impatiently.

“Rafe?” he said abruptly. “No time to explain now, but get Slate and ’port immediately to Professor de los Reyes’s house…. Yes, in San Francisco….
Yes
, I know the professor is still in the hospital. Just do what I say,
quietly
. I have access to the house; everything is cleared at the highest level. If anyone
does try to stop you, tell them you’re acting on my authority—but avoid attention if you can, and most particularly try not to trip any of Luana’s wires. Certainly if I were Slate I would think twice about manifesting with her waiting to pin me out on an examination board like a rare butterfly. Yes,
now
, Rafe. I know it’s late. I’ll meet you there.”

He flipped the phone closed and turned back to Thea.

“What are you going to do?” Thea asked.

“I don’t have a clue,” Humphrey said frankly. “I don’t think we’re dealing with anything remotely familiar here. I might have to go back into the archives and read up on things that nobody’s needed to know in decades. I need to get to the professor’s house myself, in a hurry.”

“Can I help?”

“I’ve a car here; I can drive down to the nearest public ’port and I can—” He broke off as Thea lifted her wrist, her new gadget still strapped to it, and gave him an innocent smile.

“I can get you there faster,” she said.

“And then we’ll both get into trouble,” Humphrey said, chuckling. “I’ve no wish to add kidnapping to my list of sins.”

“But it wouldn’t be
kidnapping
, not really. You said that you had an idea about what I can do.”

Humphrey hesitated, but only briefly, then flipped his phone open again, and punched in another number.

“John?…It’s Humphrey May. Listen, something’s come up. I need to borrow young Thea for a couple of hours. Yes, off-campus.” He listened for a moment, and then sighed. “All right, sure. I can take Mrs. Chen with us. I’ll swing by the residence hall now. Could you alert her?…It’s on FBM authority. I can have a letter to you by the morning. Thanks, John. Good night.”

Thea grimaced at him as he put the phone away. “Mrs. Chen?”

“Well, I didn’t
think
he was going to let me just whisk you out of here on my say-so. There’s a limit to how far FBM’s writ runs, and he’s responsible to your father. Now come on, we need to get going.”

“No, we don’t,” Thea said, grinning. “If you’re worried about getting there in time to meet Rafe—who’s Rafe, anyway?—I can get us there at whatever time you want, remember?”

“Raphael Wynn. One of my assistants. He’s an intern at the FBM. You’ll like him. Let’s go.”

“Um…” Thea said, hanging back.

Humphrey, who had already taken a few long strides, paused to turn and look at her. “What’s up?”

Thea lifted her wrist again. “Do you want anyone
else
to know about this thing?”

“Point,” Humphrey said. “She has a computer in her office, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah.”

“We’ll use that, then, for this time,” Humphrey said. “Sooner or later you’ll have to let the cat out of the bag, but I’d rather it was later, under the circumstances.”

“Are you
sure
you want to leave it with me?”

“I think it will prove useful. But for the time being, let’s follow the rules.”

Twilight had started to shade into full dark by the time they got to the residence hall. Mrs. Chen flung open the door to her office almost before Humphrey had a chance to knock.

“The principal just called,” she said. “What’s going on now, Thea? Mr. May…?”

“We need Thea’s help with something that turned up last summer at Professor de los Reyes’s, Mrs. Chen. I promise we won’t keep her long.”

“Fine,” said Mrs. Chen, in a tone of voice that
signified that it was anything
but
fine. “I’ll just get my coat….”

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” Humphrey said, ushering Thea past Mrs. Chen and stepping into the office. “Time being of the essence…if we could borrow your computer…?”

Mrs. Chen rolled her eyes but stood aside. “I might have known.”

“You might want to lock your office,” Humphrey suggested, as Thea, receiving a reluctant nod of approval, began pecking at Mrs. Chen’s keyboard.
The Elemental house
, she typed in, and then added,
just in time to fling open the front door as Humphrey’s assistant ’ports in
.

She glanced around, saw the other two waiting on the other side of the desk, and hit
ENTER
.

The great tiled hallway of Professor de los Reyes’s Elemental house in San Francisco suddenly blinked into existence around the three of them, and Margaret Chen clutched at her shoulders with both hands.

“I don’t know how you do this on a regular basis,” she said to Thea.

But Thea had already turned to the door.

“He’s here,” she told Humphrey.

Humphrey reached over her shoulder and pulled open the door.

On the front step, one hand half-raised to knock and the other curled protectively around the handle of a reinforced security-locked briefcase, stood a young man with dark hair falling a little untidily over his collar and eyes of such incandescent blue that Thea found herself staring.

“Good timing,” Humphrey said easily. “Don’t just stand there; come inside, we have work to do. This is Margaret Chen, from the Wandless Academy, and Thea Winthrop. Margaret, Thea, this is Raphael Wynn.”

“Raphael,” Mrs. Chen said graciously, extending her hand.

“Rafe,” said the angelic young man, stepping inside and allowing Humphrey to close the door behind him. He shook Mrs. Chen’s hand and then turned to nod companionably at Thea. “Hi.”

“Um…er, hi. I’m Thea.”

“So I understand,” Rafe said, smiling.

Humphrey reached for the briefcase. “All clear back at the office?”

“If you mean Luana, she’s long gone. She had a hot date or something. In any event, nobody was in
the way. What’s up? You found something new?”

The two of them fell into step, leading the way to the professor’s office, with Humphrey turning to signal Mrs. Chen and Thea that they should follow.

“Um, hi, I’m Thea,”
Thea muttered furiously, mimicking herself, staring at Rafe’s back. “What a wonderfully intelligent thing to say.”

“He does have striking eyes,” murmured Mrs. Chen, smiling.

Thea glared at her, and Mrs. Chen quickly schooled her features into a serious and serene expression.

“Mr. May…Is that you, sir?”

Madeline Emmett, the housekeeper, came hurrying out of the dining room.

“We need access to the Nexus, Mrs. Emmett,” said Humphrey. “I don’t think we will be too long.”

“I see. Will you be requiring anything?”

“No, we’re fine. Thank you, Mrs. Emmett.”

The others had come to a stop outside the closed door to the study. Humphrey approached the door and laid a gentle hand on the handle; after a moment, the door made a small clicking sound and swung open a crack.

“The keys in this house,” Humphrey said, looking up to meet Mrs. Chen’s raised eyebrow, “are a
little different from other keys.”

“Do
you
have an Elemental gift, Mr. May? I never knew that.”

“No, that is not my talent. But this house has been instructed that I am allowed access to this room. Come on in. Rafe, put that thing on the desk.”

Curious to see the white cube again, Thea watched Rafe carefully pass a hand over the briefcase’s complicated locking mechanism. He placed it on the leather desk pad so as not to scratch the gleaming wood of the professor’s desk and flashed Thea a quick, friendly smile. Once again she found herself struck dumb, and was barely able to smile back as Rafe flipped open the final catch manually and lifted the lid of the briefcase. Inside, nestled in a padded cocoon of protective dark blue velvet, the white cube seemed to glitter with a light of its own.

Thea said the first thing that came into her head. “I’d forgotten it was so white.”

“From what I heard of the commotion when it arrived, I’m surprised you remember it at all,” Rafe said easily.

“Doesn’t look any different than at the office,” Humphrey grumbled, coming over to take a closer look at the cube. “Thea, what do you think?”

Rafe looked a little startled, and Thea flushed a bright scarlet. What was she doing here with these adult mages, all trained in their craft? What could she possibly achieve here?

She reached out toward the cube with one hand.

“Hey,” Rafe said softly, “look at that.”

Thea’s hand, hovering over the top face of the cube, made it brighten just a little. And a symbol came swimming to the foreground: a small equilateral triangle.

She snatched her hand back, startled.

“Fire,” Humphrey said. “That’s the symbol for Fire. There are other Element symbols on the other faces.”

He gently took the cube out of its nest. “Fire,” he repeated, pointing to the faint outline of the symbol visible on the cube’s top face. “And then, going around, the next face has two wavy lines—Water. The next one has two straight lines, like the Roman numeral II—Air. The next one is a circle with a dot inside it—Earth. And that’s the circuit around the edges: four Elements.”

“What’s on the top and the bottom?”

“
Which
is the top, and
which
is the bottom?” Humphrey asked, turning the cube in his hands.
“All I can tell you about the two remaining faces is that one of them appears to be blank, and the other has a symbol that isn’t used to identify any Element that we know of: a five-pointed star.”

“Can I…hold it?” Thea asked diffidently.

“That’s why we’re here,” Humphrey said, and held out the cube.

Thea heard Mrs. Chen draw in her breath sharply somewhere behind her. She was dimly aware of Rafe, watching her with close attention. She reached out for the cube; Humphrey released it; and then the smooth, white, glowing thing rested in her own cupped palms.

It weighed almost nothing. She felt as though she held empty air. But air with a light inside it, as the cube brightened in her grasp and light spilled between her fingers. The uppermost face held the triangle sign—Fire again—and that edged itself into a white brilliance. Thea could also see that the bottom face, which represented the Element of Air, was pouring brightness between the crack of her cupped palms. The other two Element faces glowed, but did not shine. However, one of the mystery faces had brightened also. It was the one with the star symbol, which she had held facing inward toward her body,
and it shone bright enough to make the folds in her clothing cast sharp shadows of themselves.

“You
are
an Elemental!” Humphrey said, and his voice was triumphant. “And a poly-Elemental, too. Look at those Fire and Air symbols!”

“And the star?” Thea whispered, rapt in the wonder of what she held.

“Damned if I know,” Humphrey said. “But you’re young; we have your entire lifetime to find out. At least we have an answer for what you are.”

“Actually, what we have is another question,” Mrs. Chen said. “I’m
far
from certain that this should have been done in this way, Mr. May. If Thea is indeed not just an Element mage but one with poly-Element abilities, and you had any inkling about this, it should have been done under controlled conditions so we could establish parameters.”

“Mrs. Chen,” Humphrey said, looking up with a wide grin, “the whole point of Elemental magic is that it functions under its own rules. What parameters? No two Elementals that we have today—and we have precious few as it is—function in quite the same way. And now we’ve got a brand-new one to learn from.”

“And do you realize that you could have lost her
by doing a stunt like this?” Mrs. Chen said. “Even if you knew she was going to pass this test, she could have had a combination of Elemental gifts that might have been wholly incompatible with the cube. It could quite easily have killed her in the backwash. I’ve seen Elemental magic at work, and it’s not something to treat lightly. Not at all.”

“I can take care of myself,” Thea said, finally lifting her eyes off the cube. “What
does
the star mean? You really don’t know?”

“Yes, and that’s another thing,” Mrs. Chen said. “That star. That was a wild card, even for Elemental magic.”

“There is indeed truth in what you are saying,” Humphrey said, suddenly serious. “But there is more riding on the possibilities of this cube than you realize, especially now that I’m aware that it might be Tesla’s own work. And what we
have
done here, after all, is found the needle in the haystack that Thea’s gift has always been. Why was Thea not tested for Elemental magic long ago?”