Page 115 of Wings of Ebony
Bri talks first, as usual. “It’s basically a thin pin that you activate and it’ll record a 360 visual feed of everything happening in a ten-meter radius. Pretty simple to make. I have the stuff in my dorm.” She slips her glasses back on, jotting down something on a notepad. “I’d want to attach some sort of cloaking spell so—”
“So you have them?” I interrupt.
Jhamal bristles at her talking about using a spell.I should have warned him.
“Or”—Jhamal cuts in way more dramatic than he needs to—“you could just take a phototrifiter from here. We make them with auto-invisibility cloaking”—he looks Bri up and down—“ourselves.”
“Automaticcloaking?” Apparently making these things is a big deal because her mouth is wide open. “Y-you can do that?”
Jhamal nods.
“Wowww.”Bri’s used to being the know-it-all. Color fills her cheeks. “I-I didn’t even know those types of capabilities existed.”
“We also have nanosynthesizers”—he says, flipping a silver gadget from his pocket—“that workby magic.We’ve warped the frequencies to emit tiny bits of transmitter spells.…”
I’m pretty sure he’s just showing off now.
Bri gasps again and her jaw drops. “C-can I touch it?”
Everything in Jhamal’s eyes says he wants to say no.
“O-okay,” I cut in. “Well, the point is, yes, you do have it here?”
He meets my eyes and I can feel him thanking me. “We do, my Queen.”
“That’s settled. I’ll use yours. Bri, I want you to hack into the New Ghizon mainframe so that whatever I record plays on every single screen in the District. Can you do that?”
“I-I—”
She hacks into stuff all the time. Why she hesitating?
“I can. It’s a bit different. Instead of getting in and out, I’d have to stay there, monitoring the entire time to make sure the feed doesn’t cut out.”
“It’s risky,” Jhamal says, giving Bri side-eyes. “Mucheasier to get caught.”
“Yeah, well so is all of this,” I say.
He turns to Bri. “Are you willing to risk getting caught? You could go down for this.”
Silence.
I tap my foot, trying to be patient.
Bri sits there chewing her lip, calculating the risk, no doubt down to a science. If this is how she acts over the news of what the Chancellor’s done, how’s the rest of Ghizon gonna react when I out the truth? I bite my lip and it bleeds.
Jhamal must sense my irritation because he cuts in. “My Queen, I can do this too. You won’t find more advanced capabilities anywhere else.…” He bows his head. “Or a more loyal people.”
He’s laying it on thick and I don’t think Bri’s face could get any pinker.
Jhamal’s about to speak up, but Bri cuts in. “Y-yeah, I-I’ll do it.”
“Look, Bri, if you not down, don’t worry about—”
“N-no, really. Please, I-I w-wanna help. I’ll do it.”
She gon’ take a risk? Arealrisk? I guess we’ll see. I give Jhamal a look and it’s like he can read my mind, because he nods. I want him to monitor the feed too, just in case.
Always have a plan B.
