Ghost Town Page 0,12

a fact that since you got better, you haven't--" Well, did she know that, actually? Was she sure? "I'm pretty sure you haven't."

He smiled, and it was a sad, sweet smile, the sort that broke her heart. "Oh, Claire," he said. "You think me a far better man than I am. That's kind, and flattering."

"Are you saying that you--"

"Doughnuts!" Myrnin interrupted her, and darted away, to zip back in seconds with an open box. "Chocolate glazed. Your favorite."

She stared at him, helpless, and finally took one. They were fresh, so he'd actually gone out and gotten them. She could imagine how that had gone over at the local doughnut shop, especially given what he was wearing today. "Myrnin, have you been hunting?"

He raised his eyebrows and bit into a jelly-filled doughnut. Raspberry jam oozed out, and Claire swallowed hard.

After he licked his lips clean, he said, "Let's look at your latest breakthrough, shall we?"

She followed him across to the back of the lab, where her own much saner-looking circuitry was sitting on another table, under another sheet. He'd made some . . . additions, she saw, in his usual nontraditional style. She couldn't imagine how copper pipes and old-fashioned springs and levers were supposed to improve her work, and for a second she felt righteously angry. She'd worked hard on that, and like a bratty little kid, Myrnin had ruined it.

"What did you do?" she asked, a little too sharply, and Myrnin turned around slowly to stare at her.

"Improved the design," he said, and this time his voice was cool, and not at all amused. "Science is collaboration, little girl. You are no scientist at all if you can't accept improvements on your theory."

"But--" Frustrated, she bit into her doughnut. She'd spent weeks working on this, and he'd promised he wouldn't touch it while she was gone. She'd been so close to making it work! "How exactly did you improve it?"

For an answer, he reached over to the power cord--still modern, thank God--and plugged it into the outlet at the side of the table.

The computer monitor--LCD, perfectly good--had been given the Jules Verne treatment, too. It was almost invisible in a nest of pipes and springs and gears . . . but it came on, and Claire recognized the graphic interface she'd designed for him. She'd made it steampunky, of course, because she knew that made him happy, but with the ornaments on the outside it looked half-crazy.

Perfect for Myrnin, then.

She went through the touch-screen menus rapidly. Town security, town memory control, town transportation . . . Transportation and memory control had been the two things that hadn't worked, but now, at least according to the interface, they did. She pressed the on-screen button for town transportation, and a map popped up, with glowing green spots for each of the stable doorways--like wormholes--that ran between Founder Houses in town, and throughout most of the public buildings. There were two at TPU, and two at the court-house, one in the hospital, some in places that she didn't recognize.

But just because they were green on the screen didn't mean they actually worked, of course.

"Have you tested it?" she asked.

Myrnin was finishing his doughnut. He wiped red from his lips and said, "Of course not. I'm far too valuable to waste on experiments. That's your job, assistant."

"But it works?"

"Theoretically," he said, and shrugged. "Of course, I wouldn't recommend a first-person test just yet. Try something inorganic first."

Despite herself, Claire felt a little thrill of excitement. It's working. Maybe. Transportation and memory control had been two impossible problems, and maybe, just maybe, they'd actually solved one of them. That meant the second wasn't insurmountable, either.

She tried to keep that out of her expression, nodded, and walked to the wooden cabinet that covered the doorway that led to the lab. She tried to slide it. It wouldn't budge. "Did you lock this in place or something?"

"Oh, no, I just stored some lead inside," Myrnin said cheerfully, and with one hand he slid the heavy beast out of the way. "There you go. I forget you can't actually move mountains; you do such a good imitation of it. I'll move the lead to another location."

She wasn't sure if that was meant to be a compliment, so she said nothing, just focused on the portal in front of her. He'd put in a new locked door to cover it, and she had to go in search of the key to the padlock, because of course it wasn't