That’s why.
“‘My favorite sculptor couldn’t possibly rip off another,’ she said.”
“Sorry you had a bad time,” Aris says. “Give the app another chance. It might surprise you.”
After all, that was how she met Benja. Funny, it never matched them up before. Or maybe it did, and they just passed each other by. They get along great—that is, when they see each other. She has not heard from him since she helped him reveal the message on the crane. Maybe she should rethink the app.
“What are you doing tonight?” Thane asks.
She pretends to look at her watch. “Hmm . . . October twentieth. I’m going to Griselda.”
“You’re joking.”
She laughs. “Yeah, I am. I wish it were true though. That would have been hilarious. I’m meeting this guy later. He’s going to show me his sample of trinitite.”
“That’s what I call a hot date. How did he get it?”
“On a trek at the nature preserve near the southern border. He found it while digging a hole to do his business.”
“I read that atomic bomb testing was done in the Mojave Desert in the middle of the twentieth century. People used to sell the trinitite they found at test sites to tourists back then. Imagine that.”
Aris wonders if the world outside is one giant lump of trinitite. What would it have been like to witness the Last War? The Planner had seen it, and it sparked an ideology. It made him create a world where war is a thing of the distant past. Would going through a traumatic event change her?
“And how was your date at the park?” Thane asks.
“What date?”
“The writer?”
“Oh, Benja? That wasn’t a date. He’s a friend.”
“Really? He seemed awfully possessive for just a friend.”
“Nah. That’s just the way he is. He says whatever he wants. Not much of a filter, but I like that about him. You don’t have to wonder if he’s telling you the truth, you know?” She notices Thane studying her and remembers what Benja had said about him liking her. “Anyway, what’s your plan for the rest of the day?”
“Nothing urgent. Do you want to grab a drink before your date?”
“I actually have things to do in the Tomb.”
“That junk closet?”
Strewn around Aris are discarded old machines, left over from the previous cycles, some from even before the creation of the Four Cities. She has been devoting her spare time to fixing and studying them. To her, each is a puzzle and a history lesson.
On the worktable are computers she has arranged by size in a neat line. She runs her fingers over each as she passes. The smaller they are, the more power they hold. It’s a wonder how human minds come together to advance technology, and how helpless humanity has become without it.
Aris’s hand goes instinctively to her watch. Its hardness around her wrist was the first thing she felt after waking up from Tabula Rasa. In it is Lucy, her AI and constant companion. The access point to all her wants and needs. Her umbilical cord to the system.
She stops at the end of the table. Sitting on it is a copper helmet—her latest obsession. She picks it up and feels its substantial weight in her hands. The dull reddish-orange metal is covered in places by a green layer of verdigris. Attached to its top are colorful wires, like a plumed crest on a galea, the helmet Roman soldiers wore.
What it does is a mystery to her. It is the most complicated puzzle she has ever come across. It has been occupying her mind for the last few months.
She puts it on. Its heaviness presses down on the top of her skull. She finds a place on the floor against the wall and leans back. From this angle, she can see the entire room. Shelves line the walls, stacked next to each other like dominos. Each is filled with boxes—some labeled, and some not. Items too large for the shelves sit in crates in one corner of the room. Except for its content, the storage room is unremarkable.
The Tomb. A windowless room where things came to die and be forgotten. The first time she was here, it made her sad. Now she sees it as the best perk of working at the museum. A backstage pass to history. To the memory of time.
Aris closes her eyes. She thinks more clearly behind the darkness of her lids. What is the helmet for? She tells herself she should stop calling it a helmet because it implies its job is to protect.
Copper is a soft, malleable metal. It crushes easily, even with minor force. It is best as a conduit for heat and electricity. The wires on it make her think it transmits information. It reminds her of a neuroimaging machine used to map the structure of the brain. But she has a feeling it is more than that.
Under its surface is a network of complicated circuitry woven together like a spider’s web with material resembling thin golden silk threads. It is far more advanced than any machine she has ever seen in the Tomb. Why would anyone leave it here to fade into anonymity?
She decides to take it home. Thane won’t mind. He couldn’t care less about the past—what the broken things in this room represent. He will never understand her fascination.
An elaborate setup of glass bottles and tubes—a lab-grade distillation kit—sits on a large wooden table by the window. Next to it are scattered remnants of bell-shaped flowers, lemony green in color—hypnos, a hybrid designed for one purpose. They lay crushed and bruised, the oil having been extracted from the ovaries. This is the last batch of Absinthe he will ever make before handing over his responsibility to another and walking away. He watches as drops of liquid pool at the bottom of the receiving flask, his mind on
