“Is . . .” Jo paused, regretting opening her mouth.
“Is, what?” Samson continued to move things around, though nothing actually seemed to get tidier. He just shifted the clutter, spreading it evenly again but in a new arrangement. “I’m sorry. Messy, I know. Want to get some order before I go. So I can come back and know what’s happening. With it. This. Happening with this. I usually don’t have it so. . . But. . .”
“Is everything okay, Samson?” she whispered softly.
His shoulders stiffened, nearly rising to his ears. He didn’t turn to look at her. His chin dropped to his chest, and all she could see were the large shoulders of the crafter and a tuft of fire-orange hair.
“Ever, ever since Nico,” he struggled to get out his name. “I can’t seem to make anything but food. And even that. . . Every time I try, nothing is right. Things keep breaking down. I don’t know why. I don’t know why it’s all so . . . fragile.”
“I should go,” Jo whispered. Either it was all fragile becausehewas fragile right now. Or it was because of her. Somehow.
The desk was back in her mind, the feelings about Wayne—about how she could break him if she could. That dark thought of using her magic on something living. She didn’t know what percentage chance all that was related to Samson’s dilemma, but she wasn’t going to take the risk.
“But . . . Oh, okay.” Samson spun, as if he was going to stop her. For a brief moment she saw him unfurl, unravel into a bright and bold banner. But the wind was sucked from his sails once more and he shrank again.
“It’s not you,” she said quickly.It’s me. How cliché. “I’m just going to get Takako.”
“Oh, yes, right, the wish.”
The wish was the furthest thing from Jo’s mind right now. “We’ll—”
Two quick knocks on the door, drawing both of their attention to the elf that stood in its frame. Without so much as waiting for a welcome, he said, “Samson, I wanted to know if—Jo?”
She gave a small wave from where she stood, just to the right inside the door.
“Was it you who was knocking earlier?” he asked.
“Yeah, Wayne and I just got back. We wanted to debrief with everyone in the common room, so I was collecting people.”
“Then there is no time to waste.”
They made a quick stop at Takako’s room, but no one answered, so they headed back down to the Four-Way and left. As expected, Takako and Wayne were already seated on the couch. They were whispering something, but stopped promptly the moment the rest of the team entered.
“Took you all long enough.” Wayne leaned back on the couch, spreading out his arms.
“It was only a minute.” Jo rolled her eyes, sitting on the opposite edge of the couch.
“Why don’t you both start from the beginning,” Eslar said, still standing while everyone else sat.
Wayne took the lead, filling in the group on what they’d found in the real world. Jo paid particularly close attention to see what parts he’d glossed over and how he’d smoothed everything out to make nothing seem amiss with the rest of the team. Needless to say, there was no mention of the desk.
“Right, then,” Eslar said, when Wayne had finally finished. “So we have an idea of what the Bone Carver’s next movements may be. We also know that while the police are closing in, this seems to have eluded them so far. How can we best use this to our advantage?”
Jo didn’t hesitate in taking the lead. She wanted this wish to run on her terms. “We’re dealing with an android, not a human, and the patterns have me thinking. . . even if the Carver functions as a human does, he’s still a machine. Samson, you’re the best we have when it comes to all things mechanical and constructed. Do you have any ideas?”
He winced slightly. How stupid could she be? He’d just told her about his issues constructing right now. Yet Jo had never seen him build a bobble so quickly.
“Well . . . If, if it’s a machine . . . It has to have some kind of logic. Some schematics, I mean. Some way its put together. Maybe I could—”
She’d needed a breakthrough, and Samson just handed her one. “Wait, yes, that’s it, Sam.”
“What is?” He looked up from his bobble in horror, as though he’d somehow done something wrong.
“What if we stop thinking of him as a he and more as an, anit?”
“Way ahead of you,” Wayne muttered.
“I’m not talking about rehashing the argument of sentience and the nature of humanity . . . What if we look at the mechanics of him rather than treating him like a human? At the end of the day, he’s based on a program. There’s likely modifications he made to himself in his sentience, but there’s got to be a core—a firmware system that was the foundation for all his learning algorithms. I’d bet that core is Primus Sanguis. Possibly it’s something he still backs up to.”
