Aristotle burst out of his laboratory like a man possessed, hair sticking up around the brass safety goggles shoved on top of his head.
His shaking hands clutched a roll of parchment which he struggled to spread open as he hurried over to throw himself into the seat across from Orin with no regard for the effect his flailing limbs might have on Orin’s lunch.
“I’ve got it. I have. I really have, this time. I-I-I-I found him! Look at this. Look!”
Orin cautiously lowered his gaze to the parchment, suppressing a wince at the loopy Core script scrawled haphazardly across. The notes had been written by an increasingly unsteady hand, the lines getting shakier toward the bottom of the parchment.
Ari watched him expectantly, the whites of his eyes visible all the way around. He leaned in excitedly.
“You see? The data from the samples gives away his location!”
Orin nodded slowly, trying to subtly push the parchment away from himself and closer to Ari.
“Yeah. Yup, I see that. Sure do. But, just for the sake of clarity, why don’t you break it down for me?”
Ari nodded like his head was on a spring, goggles sliding off the back of his head to land on the floor with a concerning crunch as he pushed to stand.
“Yes. Yes, of course. I’ll just fetch my pad, shall I?”
The question appeared to be rhetorical as he was already careening back down the hallway to the lab, returning in moments with only the sound of something falling with the echo of breaking glass left behind.
This time, he slid onto the bench beside Orin, the force of his enthusiasm alone enough to shift Orin’s bulk all the way to the edge.
His long, pale fingers trembled as he activated the pad, pulling up layers of projections, some of which, Orin was relieved to see, were written in standard block.
The pad rattled against the table as Ari balanced it against the edge with one hand, his entire body practically vibrating.
“As you can see here, I was able to retrieve samples A, B, and C from the site of the abduction. Sample B turned out to have been soil from Britannia, but I had been unable to properly identify samples A and C. Until today!”
Orin nodded, trying to fold himself smaller to make room for Ari on the bench.
“I was able to identify sample C after our initial foray onto the Verge, standard sediment from simulated iron ore, found on most man-made settlement structures on the Verge. But this”—Ari’s fingers flung projections left and right as he zoomed in on a baffling chemical formula—“sample A. It’s the key. Because I knew. I knew he had gone beyond the Verge. But where? That was the question. Sample A is the answer. Tantalum.”
Orin blinked. Ari took this as encouragement.
“Tantalum! Illegal in the Core, illegal to transport across the Verge. Because where does it originate?”
Understanding crept along the back of Orin’s mind like a thief in the night, bludgeon lifted to knock him off his ass.
Ari’s eyes grew wilder and wilder, green glowing with an unholy light as he continued.
“The Restricted Sector! Of course!”
Orin turned as much as he could in the limited space of the bench, resting his arm over the top, fingertips brushing against Ari’s vibrating shoulders.
He gave a disbelieving frown. “You think your brother was taken to the Restricted Sector?”
It would be generous to say Ari nodded when, really, he did his level best to fling his head from his neck by sheer force of enthusiasm.
“Yes! You see, the reason I could not properly identify sample A was because in my initial haste I had falsely identified it as niobium! I’m not a chemist, you understand; I’m a geologist. I merely minored in chemistry in my undergraduate studies. That’s why it took me so long to determine the minute but crucial differences. Niobium tells me nothing. Tantalum tells me everything!”
Orin tightened his lips against the sinking sensation in his gut. The hope on his little face was so bright, he had to squint against it. Damn, but he didn’t want to be the man to shut that hope down. He tried to speak clearly and quietly.
“I’m real glad you found a clue, sweetheart, but even if you know where he went, you still need to find the right exit point. We gotta listen for a song to lead the way out. Can’t just jump the Verge blind and hope we hit the jackpot.”
Ari gripped Orin’s arm, surprising strength in his delicate hands.
“So that’s what we do. We follow your loop to find the exit point, gather some more information to pinpoint his location. Then we jump the Verge and follow your navigational calculations into the Restricted Sector. This is why I engaged your services—to navigate past the Verge. You said you knew your way around the deep dark; now I just need you to get us through to the other side.”
Orin pulled his arm away, worrying the corner of his lip with his thumb as he frowned, a nervous habit he usually tried to keep better control of. Aristotle Campbell was proving to have a distinctly negative impact on Orin’s control.
“No, see, this is not what we agreed on. This isn’t some little trip past the Verge. This ain’t just dipping our toes in the deep dark and skipping back home. You’re talking about breaking into the Restricted Sector. Real restricted. The kinda restricted that means we’d be banned from the Core and sent away to rot in a Verge prison for the rest of our days. If we’re lucky.”
Ari shrugged, acting more like they were discussing what to have for supper than contemplating the possibility of making life-ruining decisions. “That’s only if we are caught.”
Orin couldn’t help his eyes going round as rivets.
“If we’re caught? Are you listening to yourself? Holy shit, Red. You’d think since I’ve gotten real close and personal with the area that I would’ve noticed those ten-pound balls you’ve been lugging around.”
Ari leveled him with a look Orin could’ve sworn he’d been too innocent to give just the day before, taking a tour of Orin’s body before landing back on his face with a lifted brow.
“Perhaps you simply haven’t been paying attention.”
Chapter Ten
Ari checked and rechecked his findings. There was no longer any doubt. Theo had been taken to the Restricted Sector. Theo’s sparse and hurried notes indicated he’d been abducted by an Outlier, but Ari had still held out hope that he’d misinterpreted the description.
He pulled up Theo’s clumsily scrawled notes on his pad.
Tattoos, bizarre clothing, Restricted tech, and now, traces of tantalum. Theo had not been mistaken. Some might have been preoccupied at this point by attempting to determine why an Outlier would have any interest in a linguist from Britannia, but Ari couldn’t begin to care.
The only important thing was for him to find his brother, safe and sound. The rumors and mystery surrounding the Restricted Sector and the Outliers who dwelled within did not inspire confidence in Theo’s safety. Whispers carried across the Verge and throughout the Core of slavery and forced augmentation, dangerous tech and moral corruption. Ari could only hope such rumors were just that and nothing more.
He was relieved that the confirmation of Theo’s destination did not increase his panic but helped him to focus. Ari had a goal now. A fixed target. He just needed to make his way there.
Orin had been understandably resistant to the change of plans. The only thing Aristotle could do was to alter their agreement. He had been prepared to get on his knees and beg or employ other newfound skills when Orin had reluctantly relented and agreed upon their new verbal contract.