The Right Question

By A. C. Williams

Ronnie wedged his armored fingertips under the heavy stone concealing the control box. He yanked and the slab cracked apart, the noise thunderous in the tomb-like corridor.

“Oops.”

Not that he felt bad about breaking anything in Emperor Thallia’s creepy castle, but the louder he was, the better chance the mechanical samurai patrolling the torch-lit corridors would find him. And he couldn’t be found, at least not until he deactivated the jamming signal.

Gently, Ronnie lowered the cover stone pieces to the floor and paused, listening. No footsteps. No clanging armor.

Huh. So much for their high-tech auditory sensors.

“Must be my lucky day.”

An unsettling tingle fluttered at the back of his mind. Apparently Sora, his samurai armor, disagreed. But that wasn’t unusual. Sora always disagreed with him. For being only semi-sentient, his armor had a lot of opinions—and never hesitated to express them.

Ronnie slipped his fingers into the rat’s nest of fiber optic threads inside the control box, prying them apart to reach the crystal motherboard at the back. Eerie green and blue light spilled into the darkness of the stone chamber.

The quivering sensation in his brain returned, like the bubbles in a carbonated drink. Sora thought something was funny.

He scowled. “What?”

Sora didn’t answer. No surprise. Of all the Reishosan Armors, why did he have to get stuck with a surly, unhelpful one?

A mental image of a finger pointing formed in his mind.

Sora would think he was the surly, unhelpful one. This armor had a major attitude problem.

Ronnie pushed the scintillating fiber optic cables out of his work area and narrowed his eyes at the multicolored control crystals inside.

Six columns. Six rows. Thirty-six crystals.

“Oh, crap. It’s a Euler Square.”

He rested the brow of his helmet on the edge of the control box and heaved an exasperated sigh.

On one hand, if Thallia’s security was math-based, Ronnie wouldn’t have any trouble disabling the systems he needed. He was a math genius. A five-by-five square would have been doable—but a six-by-six Euler square was a mathematical puzzle that hadn’t been solved in over two hundred years.

“It’s impossible.”

Sora twittered sharply at the back of his brain. Ronnie knew it wouldn’t have anything useful to add, so he closed his mind to the sparkling psychic sensations that tickled up and down his neck.

He chewed his bottom lip as he picked through the crystals and traced their connections to the different systems. If he pulled the wrong one, he’d set off the castle’s security systems and alert the soldiers to his location.

If they caught him, say goodbye to any chance of sending a radio call for rescue. And sticking around wasn’t high on his bucket list.

He reached for one of the crystals, the electricity inside it sparking against his armored fingertip. A droning warble in his brain made him jump, like a foghorn blaring in a closet.

He bashed his fist into the side of his helmet. “Sora, would you stop? That ain’t helpful.”

The warbling sensation turned sour, shaking in his mind until the skin on his scalp crawled.

“Drama queen.”

The droning stopped abruptly, accompanied by a dizzying telepathic shove—was Sora turning away in a huff?

How was he supposed to work in these conditions? Ronnie rocked back from the control box and sank to the floor of the dark chamber, resting his arms on his knees.

They’d have to find another way. Admitting defeat wasn’t something he was good at, but he knew when he was in over his head. He couldn’t do it.

Except, there wasn’t another way. If he didn’t shut off the jamming signal, he couldn’t call for help, let alone tell the rest of his team where to find him. He’d be stuck in Thallia’s castle until a soldier caught up with him, and then he’d just be dead.

A psychic whine made him clench his jaw. “Knock it off. Why don’t you help me find a way out of this, huh?”

Sora shivered around him, a trilling sound in the earpiece inside his helmet.

Again, goodheart.

Ronnie sat up and shifted on the ground, peering into the darkness. Had someone spoken? He’d heard the mechanized voice plain as day, but he was alone in the chamber.

The bubbling feeling in his mind came once more.

Laughing? Sora was laughing at him?

Stupid armor.

The bubbling went flat with another whining sound in his ear.

“Okay, fine, fine, fine. Stop.” He shook himself. “Was that you?”

Try again, goodheart.

Ronnie rolled his eyes. “Why? I’m good at math, but I can’t solve an equation that ain’t got no answer.”

New try.

Ronnie scowled and glared at the control box, still glowing in the darkness of the chamber.

Sora had been part of his life for years, but the whole talking to each other bit was new. Nobody told him the armor had a mind of its own.

“New try.” He scratched his chin. “New try.”

He got to his feet and peered at the control crystals. “Sora, you’re a computer, aren’t you?”

Sora’s warbling telepathic response felt supremely offended.

“Can you give me the different mathematical permutations we need to shift these control crystals around?”

The bubbles were back, happily trilling and squeaking in his helmet. The visor concealed inside his helmet dropped over his eyes as Sora launched into rapid computations on the heads-up display.

“Look at you go.” Ronnie smirked. “You just needed the right question, huh?”

Sora ignored him.

“After we get this done, how about you order me a pizza?”

Sora warbled angrily in his ear, loud enough to make him wince.

“Fine. Forget I asked.” He shook his head fondly and waited for Sora to show him which crystals to pull.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A.C. Williams is an author and entrepreneur who loves cats, country living, and all things Japanese. She’d rather be barefoot, and if she isn’t her socks will never match. A proud Hufflepuff, she takes her coffee with cream, her pizza with pineapple, and her stories with spaceships. Follow her travel adventures with Hermes the Frog on social media.

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