Ghost Town Page 0,39

God, she needed the restroom. Luckily, Myrnin had one very small toilet closet in the room; she got out of bed to head for it and groaned, because her legs felt like they'd been dipped in fire. The muscles were still trembling. She walked very carefully, bracing herself when she could, and while she used the toilet she took stock of how she felt otherwise.

Weak, sure. But it was so good to feel completely awake again.

Oh, and she also felt completely filthy. She needed a shower, a change of clothes, and about another week in bed, she decided. But since none of that was going to happen right at the moment, she splashed water on her face, finger-combed her hair, and went out to try the door.

It was unlocked.

The lab looked--well, exactly the same, except that there were more people there than usual. Myrnin, of course. Oliver had hung around, or come back; he was standing off to the side, arms folded, frowning with that "convince me" look on his long, sharp face. She recognized another vampire, too, although she didn't know his name; he sometimes stopped in to visit Myrnin, and Myrnin had never introduced him.

On the other side of the worktable stood Amelie, immaculately dressed in a sky-blue suit and high heels. Her hair was up in the braided crown again.

Claire felt even grubbier.

They all stopped what they were doing as she came out of the door, and for a few seconds, no one spoke. Then Myrnin smiled widely and stepped aside, and she saw that the machine they'd built was glowing with a soft, blue light.

Her eyes widened. "It's working?"

"It is indeed working," Myrnin said. "Very good work, Claire. I've connected it to the interface. Look!" He turned a computer screen around toward her, and her artsy, steampunky interface showed in rust browns and golds. Claire came forward to look closer. All the readouts she'd built in were measuring within normal levels.

She reached out and touched the STATUS button. A crisp computerized voice said, "Morganville barriers are activated and within normal parameters."

"But--wait. I didn't program it yet," Claire said. "The hardware is one thing, but you have to program it."

"Oh, I did that," Myrnin said, still smiling. "Technically, you accomplished the goal Amelie set you. I saw no reason to torment you further with some simple instructions."

"But . . . it needs to be tuned to a specific vampire brain, and you told me that--"

"It has been," he said. "It's been tuned to mine. Just as a template, mind you. I'll improve the programming as we go forward."

Myrnin's brain. Myrnin's brilliant, fiery, half-insane brain. Claire blinked and looked at Amelie, who was doing her best chilly ice-princess impression. "Myrnin is the logical choice," Amelie said. "He has the greatest natural talent of any vampire in Morganville for influencing humans, although he rarely elects to use it. He won't be directing the machine's actions, only providing a type of baseline reading on which it will base its own calculations and decisions."

Claire wasn't sure how to feel about any of this. Myrnin wasn't a programmer, and basing anything on Myrnin's brain seemed hinky to her. Still, the computer seemed pretty definite. Everything was working. The barriers were up. All the readouts were normal.

She was . . . finished?

It should have felt like a victory, but it felt instead like she'd missed something. Like something wasn't right, but she didn't know what it could be.

It was the voice, the computer voice.

It reminded her of . . . Ada. And that was extra creepy. It occurred to her that maybe Myrnin had done that deliberately to bring her back to him just a little bit.

It might have seemed romantic, if Ada hadn't done her level best to destroy them.

Amelie loosened up enough to smile at her, which was nearly a first. She looked a lot younger when she smiled, and even prettier. "You did very well," she said. "I know that I asked much of you, and I know that you may not forgive me for offering such a difficult choice, but I had the town to consider, and there were pressures you cannot imagine that forced us to take these drastic steps. I had every confidence you would succeed."

Claire felt awkward and a little flushed. She still resented being forced into this; she really hated the casual way Amelie had threatened her friends and family. And she didn't, at this moment, much care about being nice, so she said, "Don't