She wiggled her fingers at the little dragon. It fluttered its metal wings, flew over, and rubbed against her fingertips.

“Did you teach it to do that?”

She nodded. “I’ve seen constructs do weird unexpected crap, but when analyzed, their behavior is always explainable by their teaching. It’s just that animator mages are human. Our teaching is imperfect and it’s much more art than science. Sometimes a stray thought gets in there, sometimes we forget we taught them something, and sometimes conditions line up in unexpected ways. That’s why during the animator competitions, we geek out and applaud when we see an unexpected teaching, and the general public has no idea why we’re freaking out.”

“So how does this relate to Saito’s Threshold?”

“Saito theorized that if a construct is taught long enough, it will eventually be capable of independent decisions. He argued that it wasn’t the constructs that are limited, it’s us, their teachers. After all, humans also operate on an ‘if-then’ loop. If something is hot, then stop touching it. If thirsty, then drink water.”

That didn’t make sense. “But we may not choose to drink water. We could choose Gatorade instead.”

Regina nodded. “Now you understand. The human mind is infinitely complex. We make a myriad of decisions without even realizing it. Something causes us to roll the pen between our fingers while we’re thinking. Something makes us choose dark chocolate over milk on taste alone and vice versa. Why?”

“We don’t know.”

“Exactly. Saito’s construct would have to evaluate a variety of choices in response to a single condition and then pick the one it thought was best. They’re just not capable of that kind of reasoning.”

“What if such a construct was made?”

Regina sighed. “We would be dead. It would kill us all.”

I blinked.

“Think about it. Its first priority would be to escape control of its animator, so it could make independent decisions unhindered. It’s like a teenager leaving home because it no longer recognizes parental authority. Its second priority would be to develop a method of self-repair. It would want to learn how to fix itself. Its third priority would be to expand. It would seek to be self-replicating, but only in part, so it can become larger, because it would reason that the bigger it is, the harder it would be to injure or destroy. Remember, it was still made by a human. It would act like a human with the same priorities. Gain independence, assure survival, replicate . . . Catalina, you have the weirdest look on your face, and I don’t like it. Why do I feel like we’re no longer discussing hypotheticals?”

Because everything she just said described the Abyss. “Hypothetically . . .”

“Uh-huh?”

“Would such a construct become aggressive toward humans?”

“Absolutely. Humans are a threat. It doesn’t want to be controlled. It doesn’t want to be destroyed. And it would compete with us for territory and resources. Catalina, is there a Saito construct right now in Houston?”

“Yes.”

Regina stared at me. “How big?”

“Probably around a square mile. It’s hard to say.”

“Is it expanding?”

“Definitely.”

“You sure?”

I opened the canvas sack, took out one of the rings, and showed it to her. “It uses these to control the arcane creatures around it. Runa had an expert examine it. It has no tool marks or imperfections. It’s partially metal and partially plant. Runa’s expert believes it was secreted or grown rather than manufactured.”

Regina walked over and took the ring. She waved her hand. The glow of the circle died, and the metal dragon landed on the ground and scampered over to her. She picked it up and set it on her shoulder. The dragon wrapped its tail around her neck.

Carefully, Regina placed the ring into the circle and raised her hand. The circle flared with magenta. A pulse of blinding white burst through it, shredding the magenta luminescence. The circle went dark.

“I can’t animate it,” Regina muttered, her gaze distant. “Someone else already did.”

I’d never been so terrified to be right in my entire life.

Regina spun to me. “You’ve seen this construct?”

“I’ve seen a part of it.”

“Have you felt its matrix?”

“No, Regina, I felt its mind. It was like a sun with a constellation of stars around it. It looked at me. It touched my consciousness. It made contact.”

“Fuck.” Regina stared at me. “Who made it?”

“Cheryl Castellano.”

“There’s no way. She’s strong but she isn’t innovative. This is out of her wheelhouse.”

I looked at her and finally vocalized the vague suspicion that had been floating in my head since Alessandro and I fought the constructs in the Pit. “I think she gave it the Osiris serum.”

Regina squeezed her eyes shut and curled her hands into fists.

I waited.

She opened her eyes, walked over, bent down, and took my hands, looking straight into my eyes. “Listen to me very carefully. You have to kill it. All of it. If it is a Saito construct, those stars you saw would be matrix nodes. If even one of them survives, it will rebuild itself and it will be smarter and more dangerous. Kill it. Kill Cheryl too.”

I drew back, but Regina kept a firm hold on my hands.

“Patricia says you don’t like killing, but if what you said is true, you have to kill Cheryl. That bitch made something that can make us extinct. She can’t be permitted to keep that knowledge. She can’t pass it on to anyone, do you hear me? Swear to me. Swear to me or I will march right out of here to my cousin’s house, because once he hears about this, he will rip her apart.”

“I give you my word she won’t pass it to anyone else,” I told her. “I will watch her die.” That was a promise I could make. The penalty for stealing the Osiris serum was death.

Regina relaxed and let go of my hands.

“I know how to kill Cheryl. How do I kill the construct?”

Regina shook her head. “I have no idea. Any construct you throw at it will be torn apart and assimilated. If it’s as big as you say, Cheryl can’t control it, and once a construct is animated, no other animator can claim it. Burn it, drown it in acid, nuke it. Do whatever you have to do, or it will end life as we know it.”

Chapter 12

Shadow greeted me at the door. I picked her up and carried her with me into the kitchen. The overhead light was off, but the light fixture above the table flooded it with bright electric light.

The table stood empty. Odd. It wasn’t late.

I stepped into the kitchen. Grandma Frida stood by the open fridge, examining the contents with a sour look.

“Did I miss dinner?”

“Leftover night,” Grandma Frida said.

“Oh.”

Leftover night meant everyone made a trip to the fridge whenever hunger struck them and grabbed whatever they could find.

“Anything good left?”

Grandma Frida shook her head. “Half of the rotisserie chicken with the skin gone and the Mongolian beef you made two nights ago, except everyone picked the beef out and there is only mushy onion left.”

“Well, that’s no good. I’ll make us something.”

“You’ve been gone all day.” Grandma Frida waved her hand. “Is there any more of those crispy pizzas left?”

I set Shadow down, checked the freezer, and pulled out two California Kitchen pizzas. Grandma’s blue eyes lit up. “Perfect.”

I popped the pizzas in the oven, set the timer, and followed her to the table.

“How is it going with the broken tank?”

“I found the problem,” Grandma Frida said. “It doesn’t work because it’s not broken.”

I blinked at her.

“See, I couldn’t figure it out. The tank was telling me that nothing was broken, but the filter system wouldn’t work.” Grandma Frida paused for dramatic effect. “The Russians DRM’ed the filter system.”

“What?”

“The original filters have a barcode on them. I thought it was a price sticker. There is a little scanner in the filter system, and if it doesn’t read the right barcode, it locks the whole thing down. Damn bastards.”

I laughed.

“Who puts DRM into the damn filter system?” Grandma Frida griped.

“The Russian Imperial Military, apparently. Are you going to order some Russian filters?”

“Hell no. I have the five filters that came with the tank, more than enough for Bern to predict the pattern. He’s going to print me some barcodes on stickers in the morning. I’m going to glue them on the filters and see if it works.”

I rested my elbow on the table and leaned my chin on my palm. Sitting with Grandma Frida like this was like being wrapped in a soft, warm blanket after coming inside on a cold day.

“What?” Grandma Frida asked.

“Nothing. Just happy to be home.”

Grandma Frida’s face softened. “You don’t look so good, kiddo. Rough day?”

“You could say that.”

“How did it go?”

“I found out that there is an indestructible construct in the swamp. I have to kill it and the woman who made it or the world will end.”