Chapter Seventeen

The impossible had happened, and there was no telling what else could go wrong—Viktoriya, locked in her home, secured from the outside. The darkness engulfing their large house would usually be enough to send her into a state of panic, but with her breathing techniques and great effort, she remained calm.

She wondered what made the lights go out, but when she looked out the window at the overcast evening, she couldn’t navigate the outside.

The girl felt fear coursing through her veins, the inevitable thoughts of just how many ways things could go wrong, but she didn’t cave into the chaos. Instead, she flipped through ideas on what she could do to fix the problem.

Things may go the way most of those cliché movies she and Choe sometimes watched when she visited and chose some cheesy, scary films.

She wasn’t scared of the monsters under her bed or even the fact that they were not real. What scared her the most was that she needed to do something about the darkness, but she wasn’t sure how. Uncertainty was what scared her the most.

She raised her arms in front of her, walking around in the darkness. Viktoriya envisioned all the furniture in her room. The glass table between the bed and the television, the wardrobe standing on the other side, and the drawer beside her bed where the light droid rested.

Her fingers rested on the cold metal, then she wrapped her hand around it, feeling the edges.

She vividly recalled the manual she had read in her father’s office about droids, and if she was right, there would be a small amount of stored electrical power in the battery.

* * *

Eva could no longer bear the thought of her daughter trapped in their home behind closed doors. Viktoriya could be fast asleep already for all she knew, but even that thought did not diminish her worries.

“I’m working as fast as I can,” James had said repeatedly as he continued dismantling the droid which he had spent the entire morning working on.

Edmund did not bother to say anything. Instead, he had slumped into his seat, his hand serving as a pillar for his chin to rest on while the rest of the group racked their brains.

He always felt utterly useless and out of place in situations like this. That was one reason he had developed a sort of loathing for the team.

Zho paced from end to end, trying to work her way through the phone, occasionally trying voice commands with the AI in her phone, but she knew better.

Portal was way past its limits.

She had not made it for that purpose; it was merely an off-grid intelligence to hide her private accounts and create a secure channel that was impossible to spy on or hack.

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* * *

Viktoriya closed her eyes, visually pulling up the imaginary framework of the droid. She clumsily unfastened the screw with a nail file, which she fumbled off her bathroom sink tray.

That was a simple task. Now, the actual goal was to identify the wires that her tiny, slim fingers felt running from one point on the board to another.

She had to feel around and get the board oriented to the correct angle and direction. Then, she visually recalled how the inside looked, as she frequently took apart toys, droids, and other items. She often found it fascinating to see how they all looked inside, how they worked, much to her parents’ frustration.

Her finger ran across the edge, counting the number of soldered points and the angles at which the wires ran, until she took a grip of one wire, trailing it toward the end where it connected.

Black and red are power… Black is the fourth terminal, and red is the sixth.

She raised the small droid to her teeth, pulling the excess bit of wire out, biting it to strip the insulation back. She then touched the bare wire to another solder point on the battery module.

The droid illuminated the room with a snap of electricity as the wire touched, almost causing her to drop it.

She figured she had about one hour before the illumination faded from the droid, and she would be left in the dark once again. She made her way to the door’s control panel, unscrewing it with her nail file.

* * *

James finally finished with their door, requesting help from the rest of the team, as they joined strength in manually pushing the door just wide enough for a person to pass through.

“We have to go to the server room now,” James said, with Aura and Zho following behind the rest of the group.

“You all go get it set. We need to get to our daughter,” Eva said, taking the other direction with Rosa.

“You don’t know what is going on out there, guys. You probably wouldn’t even get your car to move. Your best bet is to stay and help us bring the server Collective back to life,” Edmund protested.

He was about to continue toward Eva when she turned to him with eyes burning with anger.

“Don’t even get me started,” she demanded.

“We are leaving now,” Rosa confirmed.

No, Eva would not bring herself to think about the countless ways things may have gone wrong.

Viktoriya was strong. She could survive anything, and she would survive her parents not being there for her again.

The thought of it broke Eva’s heart. All she ever wanted was to not end up like her own parents, not to be that parent that was never there for her child, that could not provide the most important treasure for them.

Time. Time dedicated to Viktoriya.

But with everything she did, circumstances kept moving them further and further apart, being the hero parent who saved the world, having to attend all the many meetings upon meetings, explaining and smiling at the cameras.

“Rosa, Eva, Go! We understand.” Aura said, taking a step toward them, her hands caressing Eva’s shoulder.

The pair turned without even seeking approval from Edmund and made for the exit.

They stepped into the secured parking area. The road outside was quiet. They had never seen the district that dark, people terrified for their lives, racing for shelter where they hoped to find help, others banging on their doors almost as though waiting for someone inside to open up.

They all depended on technology, relied on Artificial Intelligence to make their daily lives easy, but now, with one event, their world was in chaos.

The street was void of any autonomous cars in poetic motion, as would have been the case on any other day.

There were only stalled vehicles left stranded, and a few legacy autos belonging to those who had not given their lives over to the systems and made their way out with their primitive fossil fuel-powered contraptions.

But the rest remained stuck.

On the opposite side of the street, a woman gripped her two children, trying to keep them from panicking while she trembled herself.

The people stuck outside turned their cold, frosted gaze toward the tall building where Eva and Rosa had emerged.

A gaze that was very unbecoming.

A gaze that was angry.