Codex Born

I grabbed the pliers, tightened them carefully around the insect’s head, and twisted it free of the body.

The ladybug went dead. The spring jumped free, followed by a sprinkling of gears and rods. No way was this Humpty Dumpty getting put back together again. I set the body on the desk and studied the head through the eyepiece. Inside, tiny silver prongs held an oily sphere in place, like a jewelry setting designed for the world’s smallest engagement ring.

I used the paper clip to pop the sphere free. It landed on the desk without bouncing or rolling, despite being perfectly round. I touched it with my finger, and it stuck to my skin, allowing me to study it under the lens. I placed the tip of the paper clip to the sphere, and it clicked onto the metal like a magnet. When I tugged it free and set it on a piece of paper, it clung there just as easily.

“What is it?” Normally I would have enjoyed the way Lena’s body pressed against mine as she peered over my shoulder, but now I barely noticed.

“It’s called a boson chip.” From what I remembered, it would stick to just about anything through a kind of subatomic static charge. I felt a sense of magical pressure, like a balloon inflated to the bursting point. “Harvested from the brain of a fictional silicon-based hive mind. This little thing could store every book in the Copper River Library, and it would still have space for Nicola Pallas’ music collection.”

“You’ve seen them before?” asked Nidhi.

“I’m the one who pulled them out of a bad space opera.” I stared at the chip. “Victor Harrison had requisitioned a batch for one of his pet projects.”

Victor was a legend among the Porters. He had the amazing ability to make magic and technology play nicely together, and had built everything from a telepathic coffee maker to a database server that transformed would-be hackers into various reptiles. He had also jinxed my telescope so that every time I looked at Mars, Marvin the Martian popped up and threatened to destroy the Earth with an explosive space-modulator. Victor was more than capable of putting together a set of pseudoliving metal insects.

Rather, he would have been capable of doing so, if not for the fact that Victor Harrison had been murdered earlier this year.

5

For as long as Frank and I were together, I never questioned my actions. I never asked why Marion Dearing wept when she thought nobody could hear. I gave her husband happiness. How could she object to that if she truly loved him?

I saw nothing wrong in fanning the embers of Frank’s lust. He wanted to be seduced, pushed over the edge until nothing existed but desire and satisfaction.

For myself, I knew only joy. I lived for those moments when my body entwined with his, the urgent grunts of his exertions blending with my quiet moans, but there were other pleasures as well. The burn of my muscles when I was out working the farm. Devouring the meals Marion prepared for us.

In the beginning, the other farmhands tried to flirt with me. I tolerated their overly familiar comments and “accidental” touches. Frank wanted others to appreciate what he had, but he was unwilling to share. So when one man tried to take things further, I broke his arm in two places.

I knew I was stronger than the others, but that was the first time I had used my strength against another person. Through that confrontation, I discovered that violence could be just another source of pleasure.

Only years later, long after I had buried Frank in the dirt, did I begin to recognize what I had done. What I had become.

Only then did I begin to understand how dangerous I was.

I SPENT THE NEXT hour on my laptop, lost in Porter databases and old research reports. I rarely used the laptop, which might have been why the insects spared it. Magic provided an amazing connection with the Porter network, but even magic couldn’t force the outdated hardware to process information at a faster rate.

In one window, I scrolled through various weapons we had cataloged over the years, looking for ideas to clear the rest of the bugs from Lena’s tree. I found nothing that looked like it would destroy metal while leaving her oak intact. The sonic screwdriver from Doctor Who might have worked, having been canonically established as being ineffective on wood, but nobody had ever figured out how to use the controls on the blasted thing.

I was also reading abstracts of every paper and report Victor Harrison had ever filed. I didn’t expect to find a description of a secret self-destruct code that would blow up his six-legged creations, but I had hoped to find something that might help us.

“You’re a librarian. Can’t you do some sort of keyword search to speed this up?” Nidhi stood by the window where she could peer out at Lena’s tree in the backyard. Lena had returned to the garden, asking to be left alone.

“Sure, and that would help if he’d filed his paperwork correctly.” I fought the urge to throw the laptop against the wall. “Even if he had, the real problem is figuring out what he didn’t document. Half the things Victor built could have gotten him kicked out of the Porters.” He had won twenty grand one year by betting on the outcome of the Super Bowl, a game he had recorded on his illegally-modified VCR a week before it aired.

“He was as bad as you are in some ways,” Nidhi said. “Rules were never a priority. Once you start playing God, nothing else matters. You’re incapable of walking away from an idea, no matter how bad an idea it might be.”

I glanced away, thinking of certain reports and experiments I had failed to file with the Porters. “I know, I know. ‘If you really want to kill a libriomancer, hook a bomb up to a big red button and tell him not to press it.’”

For the first time that night, Nidhi almost smiled. “That sounds like Doctor Karim.”

“She knows her clientele,” I admitted. Regular appointments with a Porter-approved shrink were one rule you didn’t get to break. Even Gutenberg had his own personal therapist, though rumor had it she was a hundred and thirty years old and preserved on a heavily fortified computer system, courtesy of a brain download performed using a Richard Morgan cyberpunk novel. “Doctor Karim’s worried about post-traumatic stress after the mess downstate. I’m pretty sure she’s also screening me for signs of bipolar disorder.”

“A manic period is normal after magic use.” She looked pointedly at my legs, and I forced myself to stop drumming my heels on the floor. “Lena has been worried about you. She says you’re not sleeping well, and when you do, you have nightmares.”

I shoved the laptop away and rubbed my eyes. “What other things has she shared?”

“That Doctor Karim has prescribed stronger pills to help you sleep, and you’ve gone through two refills already.” She sighed. “Are you surprised that Lena and I talk about you, Isaac?”

I was, a little. My relationship with Lena had brought Nidhi Shah into my life in a new and unexpected way, but I found it easier not to think about that when I was with Lena. “What else does she say?”

“That you’ve been cutting back on your work at the library, and you spend hours locked away in your office. She says you and Gutenberg haven’t had the smoothest time working together. No surprise there. Anyone with his centuries of experience will have trouble making allowances for those of us with mere decades.”

“I am but an egg,” I said ruefully. She just stared at me. “Don’t tell me you’ve never read Stranger in a Strange Land?”

“Heinlein?” She made a sour face. “No thank you.”

I had reread several Heinlein titles earlier this summer, trying to get a better framework for our three-way relationship. Unfortunately, the free love fantasies of Heinlein’s work hadn’t provided much insight into making such a relationship work in the real world. I had tracked down a few nonfiction titles that were more useful, though my boss had given me a very odd look when she saw my interlibrary loan request go through.

“Those computer chips have to be important,” Nidhi said. “Could you use an EMP to wipe them clean? Even a strong enough magnet—”