Chapter 8
Ver

Many natural venoms work by breaking the complex electrical circuit that is their victim’s nervous system. They seal off ion channels so that the cellular conduits can no longer conduct sparks of sensation or send signals to act.

The fifty-something detective from the Lucent City Police explains that this is what happened to Cal. The chipped digital badge adhered to his uniform reads Detective Roderick Xenon. He is burly and round, with an asymmetrical mustache and beady, shrewd eyes. He does not look like he has gotten any more sleep than I have. He reclines in Cal’s office chair, which bothers me, even though Cal barely used it. Cal was always in lab with me. Still. That chair is Cal’s.

“After a careful examination, we’ve concluded that Calyx Eppi died of tetrodotoxin injection,” Detective Xenon says, rubbing his mustache.

“TTX?” I say, blinking. “A potent nerve block derived from pufferfish.” I visualize toxin molecules sitting like plush pillows atop the sodium channels in Cal’s neurons. “We do not keep that in our lab. We have no use for it in our studies of cellular aging.”

Aryl lets out a slow, measured laugh. I start at the sound. Her ladderlike abdominal muscles contract under her tight, sweat-stained dance clothes. Before Xenon can ask her what is so amusing, Aryl says, “True to form, Ver. You didn’t lose a second to show that you’re the smartest one in the room.”

My nose wrinkles in distaste. Aryl blows sandstorms of insults at people she dislikes. Despite that, she is one of the most popular second-years at the Institute—probably because people’s spirits bow down to her before she even opens her mouth. She has luminous bronze skin and mahogany ringlets that fall to the middle of her back. Her face is oval, with a wide nose, full lips, and large catlike eyes. The tallest girl on the Institute’s dance team, she can fold and extend her limbs in heart-stirring ways that make me ache to inhabit a functional body. When I am around her, I am not sure where to look because it is all so perfect.

Xenon speaks with an eerie calmness. “Miss Fielding, please focus. To answer your question, Miss Yun, some of the Institute’s neurobiology labs would have TTX in stock. But that leaves me with a bigger question.”

He takes a sip of his caffeinated lychee juice and gives us an impossible-to-read smile.

“I asked myself today: How would a healthy, competent thirty-two-year-old man have died by TTX injection? Surely not by chance. Murder is a possibility I cannot rule out. Murder committed by the only other people in Eppi’s lab last night.”

I glance from the detective to the two chunky security robots flanking him—yellow-eyed stacks of metal on wheels. They are less intelligent than your average lab mouse, but far more obedient. Sentient enough to follow simple orders but not smart enough to think for themselves. After an AI rebellion decades ago, the Senate banned the manufacture of corporeal robots capable of reprogramming their kin. So we have domestic AIs like Charles, who have brains but no bodies, and server robots with bodies but rudimentary intelligence. Xenon’s could not pick up sarcasm if you hit them in the face with it. But they will cuff me the instant Xenon says the word.

I clear my throat. “Sir, do you have security footage of the lab during the incident?”

“Not of the lab itself,” Xenon says. “As you know, investigators don’t allow independent holo recordings of their work. We’ve reviewed the outside corridor footage, though. No one entered or left Cal Eppi’s lab between when Miss Fielding arrived at 0:34 in the morning and when the alarm blackout began at 1:12. By the time the blackout ended at 1:15, Calyx Eppi was dead.”

An asteroid drops in my stomach. All my muscles—the ones I can control and the ones I cannot—harden into stone. The police do not just suspect us of murdering Cal. They are sure.

My eyes dart to meet Aryl’s. Hers are bulging with panic. She tugs on one of her ringlets and begins chewing at the end of it.

“If you’re wondering who caused the death of your beloved mentor, girls,” Detective Xenon says, “keep looking at each other. Because at least one murderer is sitting in this room.”