Chapter Seventeen A Song, a Ball, and a Catastrophe #3
“You made a beeline for me,” said the woman.
“And to be honest, I’ve thrown enough of these events to know that going entirely incognito is more work than it’s worth.
I suppose it has its benefits, though, since it does make me rather more available to daring young people like you looking to make their mark on our world. ”
“Ah,” said Zada, feeling very faint. Her careful count of measures and music fled her mind completely.
She had no idea how much time had passed.
She threw a frantic glance around the room, and although she couldn’t see any guards, that didn’t mean she wasn’t about to be thrown out, the entire plan ruined for her lack of stealth and her lack of skill—
“Let me venture a guess,” continued the woman, who was certainly Mozelle, “you’re a terribly skilled programmer, and your life’s ambition is to work on Heartsong.”
“That’s—uh, a lucky guess,” said Zada.
“So?” Mozelle raised an eyebrow so high, the top of the arc was visible behind her mask. “You have my attention. Make your pitch.”
When would Daphne’s distraction steal focus long enough for Zada to stealthily acquire what she needed? Had Zada managed a long enough period of time in front of Mozelle’s SmartGem to clone the Heartsong data? The only thing to do was stall for time.
“Oh gosh,” she said. “I’m so nervous.”
“Don’t be,” said Mozelle. “Remember, everyone was a prospective hire at some point.”
To construct a lie while performing the steps as choreographed and waiting for Daphne to make a move felt like trying to juggle while flying a starship.
“I’m very bright,” Zada ventured. “I work hard.” A strange calm swept over her.
She had already ruined her chances at applying for a job she didn’t even want.
Nothing was at stake, except making Mozelle believe Zada cared.
“I’ve always been interested in programs and devices.
My second year at school, I so wanted the effect of a string quartet that I rigged up a program on my cello to create loops of sound that I could layer in live.
I call it a triple cello. That was the year before our programming unit. I wanted to learn to do it, so I did.”
“An admirable quality,” Mozelle murmured. “And how would you say you respond to stress?”
Zada bit her lip, fighting to contain a peal of wild laughter. Judging by the last few weeks, she responded to stress by engaging in all manner of illegal activity.
“I don’t admit defeat easily. I examine the problem from every angle, I strategize, and then I act.”
Mozelle nodded thoughtfully. “How about this then, Mademoiselle Pirate? My partner has expressly forbidden me from bringing my Gem onto the dance floor, something about not taking my work everywhere with me. But if you stay right here, I’ll dash up to my room and fetch it, and take down your contact information in a wink before anyone notices. ”
The pit of Zada’s stomach dropped out. All of that time wasted on the dance, and now Daphne’s distraction would come too late.
Mozelle must have sensed her distress, because she added, “Oh, not to worry, my rooms are straight above this one! I’ll just slip through the back door. It really will only take a second or two—”
And then, from the atrium, there was a terrific crash and a chorus of screams.
“What in the world,” said Mozelle, whipping around as the music came to a screeching halt. Half the dancers froze. The other half ran toward the screams, Mozelle rushing to join them, shouting for order. Every guard in the room streamed after her, abandoning their posts at the entrance and exit.
This was her chance. Zada bolted for the back door, up a set of winding marble stairs, past several maintenance bots that beeped confusedly at her, and up to the largest and most ornate door in the hall, which she could only hope was the main bedroom of the mansion.
There was an elaborate lock on the door, but thankfully it wasn’t a bioscan.
Zada made quick work of it, her hands hardly shaking at all as she repeated the motions Daphne had taught her.
There was another bot inside, inert in the charging hub. A massive bed. An antique pianoforte. No immediate sign of Mozelle’s SmartGem.
There was no time to simply toss the enormous bedroom for an object the size of her thumbnail. If Mozelle really did work all of the time, then she likely kept her Gem somewhere readily accessible. Zada walked to the nightstand beside the bed.
Lying on top of a pile of paper letters was Mozelle’s SmartGem, winking bright blue in the light. It looked strangely small not set into a necklace or a ring. Zada snatched it up and dropped it into the pocket with her clone-scanner. She’d only need a moment.
She didn’t have a moment. Distantly, Zada could hear the thunder of booted footsteps heading up the stairs, and getting caught in Mozelle’s room was the same as surrender.
There was a balcony at the window. Zada pried open the glass, clicked it shut behind her, and half climbed, half jumped down the trellis hanging from the balcony.
There were no longer guards outside at the door; they must have bolted inside at the sound of Daphne’s distraction.
She had no time to catch her breath. If Mozelle discovered her SmartGem was missing, she would immediately ping it and trace the gem to Zada’s pocket.
All Zada could do at this point was run, make her copy as fast as possible, and hope she and Daphne could return the real Gem before Mozelle could check for it.
Zada sprinted through the door, past the rooms filled with artifacts, and back into the library, where Daphne stood waiting. Her hands were in her pockets and she wore an enormous smile on her face.
“Do you have it?” said Daphne.
Breathing hard, Zada slid to the floor and retrieved the Gem and the clone-scanner from her pocket.
“How did you get ahold of that?” Daphne asked breathlessly, joining her to sit on the polished hardwood. “And why? And is it cloned yet?”
“It needs a moment,” Zada said. “I had to improvise. What did you do?”
“Ah,” said Daphne, grinning again. “I was going to go with one of our wilder plans, the one involving setting all of tonight’s dinner lobsters free to wreak havoc in the atrium, but then, right there in the kitchen, I saw a water sparkler.”
Zada could feel the cloner humming as it processed and packaged the data. “One of those machines that instantly carbonates—?”
“That’s the one. You know how the floating fountain is held aloft by the force of its own water?”
“Yes?” Zada could feel her smile growing to match Daphne’s. “Are you saying—”
“I carbonated the fountain,” said Daphne. “It smashed into the roof skylight—no one was hurt, I made sure nobody was close by—and now I think it’s wreaking merry havoc in the garden outside. Or, who knows, it could be halfway across the city by now.”
Zada laughed, eyes still locked on the stolen SmartGem. “I wish it good tidings on its journey,” she said.
“Good tidings and a glad tomorrow,” said Daphne. “I hope it meets a simple garden hose and falls in love.”
“What would the children—” Zada started, but she could feel the device quiet and still. “It’s done,” she said.
“Wait, why clone it at all?” said Daphne. “If we’ve got the original, why can’t we just—”
Zada shook her head. “Opening the program and finding whatever we’re looking for, it’ll take too long. We need to return the real one before Mozelle notices it’s gone.”
“Allow me,” said Daphne.
“There’s guards on the residential floor. It’s too risky to go back the way I came.”
“That’s fine. I’ll just leave this in the ballroom. Someone will find it. I don’t think our scheme will be their first thought.”
“Thank you,” said Zada. “Be safe.”
“Shake on it not to open it till I get back?” Daphne asked, extending her hand.
“Shake.”
The moment their hands entwined, Daphne used the momentum to tug Zada in for one quick kiss, a soft press of lips that felt like a prelude to more.
It felt like an eternity before Daphne slipped back through the door, cheeks slightly darker from exertion. In actuality, it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes.
“Well?” said Daphne. “Want to do the honors?” She held out her ring for Zada to use with the cloned SmartGem.
Zada deftly popped out the ring’s SmartGem and clicked their cloned SmartGem into place. She slid the ring onto her finger, activating it. Instantly, fifty or so glowing windows popped up all around her and Daphne.
“For goodness’ sake, close your tabs, Mozelle,” Daphne muttered. They got quickly to work, navigating through the various screens and minimizing anything that was obviously a dead end.
“This might be something,” said Daphne, pulling down a folder simply labeled work.
From there, they were met with a dizzyingly complex menu of branches. Keenly aware that the seconds were quickly ticking down, Zada navigated the architecture of Mozelle’s system.
“Hang on, what’s that?” Daphne leaned closer, the glow of the windows illuminating her face in the darkness of the library.
Zada read the file name. “Less than three.”
“Strange name for a file.”
Something about the name pinged in her memory. The display they’d passed on the way into the ballroom. Mozelle seemed to love collecting relics from the past. Zada knew what this meant.
“Emoticons in the past. You typed them out. Less than three—it’s a heart.”
“A heart for Heartsong.” Daphne shrugged. “A tad on the nose, but sure.”
Her own heart thudding through her whole body, Zada double-blinked, and there it was: the backdoor into the code for the program that dominated the lives of everyone in New Ionia.
“I’m in,” said Zada, hope blooming in her chest.
The rush of so much information at her fingertips went to Zada’s head faster than any champagne. As the administrator of Heartsong, Mozelle had access to so much more than Zada had even imagined. It was no wonder the lock on her bedroom door had been so complex.