Kilroy Owns the Night: Day 25 (
I picked up the alloy container that was about the size of a cellphone box. Inside was a crystal. Could’ve been hexagon-shaped. Maybe octogen. Again, D in geometry. A rainbow of color streamed through it like a prism. My brain nanotech kicked in unexpectedly. When I first heart the phrase “Encyclopedia of Potentially Dangerous Things,” I had no reaction. But now, holding it, something triggered the nano and a flood of information rushed into my consciousness like a bottle of soda being opened after you shake it.
“Holy shit,” I whispered, overwhelmed. “Talk about sensory overload.”
“What’s wrong?” Mercury placed a steadying hand on my shoulder. Were it not for the data dump I was experiencing, I probably would’ve felt electricity from her touch.
“This thing is old. Like, really old. Infinity old.”
“What is it?”
“It’s like…well…an encyclopedia.” I held it out to her. “My brain nano says it contains information about objects around the known universe. Things that could be a real problem if they fell into the wrong hands.”
We looked at the device and then each other. Mercury Quasar’s eyes glowed in the dim cargo light. They were the color emeralds. Fierce. Alive. They also conveyed that what we were holding could put us in deep shit.
“Sounds to me like that thing could be a real problem in the wrong hands,” she said. “And Herpezoids are definitely the wrong hands.”
My stomach knotted. A voice cut through the tension as I shoved the Encyclopedia into my pocket.
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