“I know you do.” I shoved my hands into my pockets and frowned. “I just need a few more days to figure out what this all means and how to deal with it. Branston performed genetic experiments on me, and now they want me to help them steal scientific secrets to take over the world. I think you can see where I’d need some time to figure it all out.”
She joined me at the door and kissed my cheek. “I know, honey, and I’m sorry. You know where I am if you want to talk.”
I nodded. “Thanks, Mom.”
A few minutes later, I heard the front door shut, and Dad’s car revved to life. I paced toward the window and watched her drive away. The September wind rattled the windows, and a flurry of leaves whirled down the street. Maybe a change of scenery would help. I was kind of craving a pumpkin spice latte from Coco’s, and the fresh air might clear the cobwebs from my brain.
I turned away to grab my tablet when it suddenly all snapped together, like finding you’d turned a puzzle piece the wrong way.
If QT was trying to build an Einstein-Rosen bridge, my calculations were definitely the ones they should be using, not Avery’s. But Avery hadn’t been trying to create a wormhole.
His calculations were for a machine that could destroy the world.
25
I stared at my numbers. At the final equation that joined these two things together. The truth crashed around me, and I clutched the edge of the table.
Avery had found a loophole, some way around the known laws of physics. Instead of the intensity of ultraviolet radiation dropping off like it should, he’d found a way to make a true ultraviolet catastrophe. His machine would increase the energy and wavelength of photons and create an explosion that would rip a hole in the center of the earth.
The letters and numbers swam on my tablet and I sat down hard.
Someone had built a mini-catastrophe in the basement of QT. Someone was using Amy to spy on us. Someone had killed Avery.
The whole situation made my head spin, and I squeezed my eyes shut.
There were too many connections, too many ties in every direction. I needed someone to bounce ideas off of. As much as I hated to admit it, I needed Max and Zella and Asher.
They agreed to meet me the next morning in the QT library. The building still smelled faintly of smoke and chemicals as I pushed through the front doors. I groaned at the line snaking through the security checkpoint. Protocols were even tougher than before, so it took me an extra fifteen minutes just to get through. I sprinted through the building, panting by the time I made it to the library.
Max, Zella, and Asher were already there, clustered around a table. They fell silent as I approached. The kind of silence that meant they’d been talking about me.
The weight of their gazes felt like a heavy cloak, and I ducked my head under the pressure as I slid into the chair next to Max. I forced my chin up. I wasn’t going to cower any more.
Zella smiled at me before glancing away. Across the table, Asher had his head buried in his tablet, but I bit back a smile at the t-shirt he wore: “My other car is on Mars,” with a picture of the Mars Rover.
I clutched my tablet in my hands. “Thanks for coming, you guys.” I hadn’t been sure they actually would.
“What’s going on, Lexie? Did you find something?” Max asked.
I dropped my gaze to the scarred table. I didn’t want to see their expressions as the words tumbled out in a rush. “While we were searching Avery’s office, I found a brochure for the Branston Academy tucked into Avery’s files. There was a phone number scribbled on the top of it. I called the number to see if it would help us figure out who killed Avery and why.” My throat went dry, and I swallowed so I could get the words out. “Amy answered.”
Across the table, Max’s jaw dropped.
Zella shook her head. “That doesn’t mean anything. Maybe she was working on homework or something with Avery and that was the first thing he grabbed to jot down her phone number on.”
Trust Zella to be practical. I shrugged. “Yeah, it could be as simple as that. But what if it’s not? What if she’s been working with Branston?”
Asher laughed and relaxed, lounging back in his chair. “I know you and Amy aren’t exactly best friends, but there’s no way she could sabotage us. We would have seen something odd or suspicious.”
“If she’s the traitor, don’t you think she’s good enough to fool everyone? Even you? And who better to hook up with than the son of a QT director?”
He turned to face me, his voice suddenly cold. “Are you suggesting she’s been using me?”
“I don’t know what she’s been doing — only that it’s suspicious we found her number on a Branston brochure in a dead man’s office. And with what I discovered last night, it all fits.”
Asher raised an eyebrow. “And what did you discover?”
I searched my tablet until I found what I was looking for. “The truth. The machine they created isn’t to build a wormhole. It’s creating photons where there shouldn’t be any. It’s taking the ultraviolet catastrophe and making it happen.” My voice broke on the last word.
Three pairs of eyes widened, and Asher snatched up the tablet. “That’s not possible. You can’t change the wavelength or intensity of radiation to create new photons. That was the whole point of the ultraviolet catastrophe hypothesis in the first place.”
“Evidently, with Avery’s machine you can. The simulation we created wasn’t wrong. It was supposed to explode,” I said.
Asher pushed the tablet toward Max. His eyes found mine, his eyebrows drawn. “I’ve been tracking some of the network scans, and I found out why we got wiped. Someone installed a program to search for Lexie’s equation and delete it. Someone didn’t want the truth found.”
Zella shook her head. “Son of a bitch.” She slammed her hand down on the table. “The ass**le was laughing at us this whole time. Why else would he have assigned us that project?” She pushed her hair out of her eyes. “But why would Avery want to create an ultraviolet catastrophe? It could destroy the world.”
Asher’s face was grim. “Oh my god, it all makes sense now. I had a hit on one of the traces on the wipe. It led me to an off-site machine in Oak Ridge.” He raised tortured eyes to look at us. “It was Amy’s IP address.”
Zella let out a gasp. “No.”
He nodded. “She could be the one who installed the security scan. She knew Lexie was working on the calculations and knew right where we’d be in the network. It was only a matter of time before she found our data. Oh my god, she was covering for Avery.” Asher clenched his hands together in front of him until his knuckles whitened.