A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Proposed Trade-Offs for the Overhaul of the Barricade Read Free Page A

the rest of the stack. Father had inscribed on it in an uncharacteristic scrawl: “Plans for new barricade. Analyze then suggest better trade-offs.” Ritter peered quizzically at Deck, whose eyebrows lifted in innocent curiosity.
    â€œGood news?” Deck’s mouth creased into a gentle smile when Ritter glared at him. “This is not how your father’s sense of humor—yes, he does have one—works. He’s quite serious about wanting your analysis.”
    Ritter leafed through Father’s plans. It was written in Father’s native language, dense blocks of equations surrounded by intricate diagrams. Anyone else might have expected to see this in translation, but Ritter had grown up with this language. Deck was undoubtedly right. Father expected him not only to understand this but have something intelligent to say about it. Ritter supposed that wasn’t impossible.
    The lone check mark stared at Ritter. Father would never be happy with Ritter merely understanding this design. With so many minds impinging on his, however, he’d never focus well enough to implement it.
    â€œFather doesn’t want just an analysis. He has always expected that his son would be an engineer just like him.” Ritter looked up at the archivist. “Please, Deck. You could fix my mind—”
    â€œJunior, you know your father loves you more than anyone else in the world, right?”
    From anyone else, that would have been a platitude. Deck, though, was Father’s oldest friend. Only duty ever kept them apart. Deck was sworn to recover and restore feral libraries. Father was sworn to defend the world against Turbulence.
    â€œI don’t want to disappoint him.” Ritter held out the stack of paper. “He wants me to build this with him and so do I. I understand what I’m giving up. If you won’t help me, I’ll find another archivist—”
    â€œNo. If anyone is going to do this to you …” Deck exhaled audibly, his mind blasting a reluctance that soon would no longer insinuate itself into Ritter’s mind. “Come on, let’s find somewhere private.”
    A loud shriek rent the air. Ritter jumped in his seat. Except for Deck, everyone else in the canteen glanced oddly at him, then returned to their conversations. Deck simply stared at him, concerned.
    No one else had heard it. Ritter closed his eyes and shook his head, trying to drive the shelves of other people’s minds out of his own. The barricade was about to fail. Fatigued gears and piston seals about to crack inundated his mind. He sprinted out of the canteen and headed toward the massive storm of Turbulence about to arrive.
    In the distance, skeins of Turbulence lashed at the barricade. Engineers clung on its girders, dark specks tumbling against a multicolored light show. Loud, sustained shrieks still rang in Ritter’s ears. He raced toward the barricade, leaving Deck, despite the archivist’s longer legs, in a trail of dust somewhere behind him.
    Father ran along the barricade, ordering engineers to retreat and then to erect a retaining wall behind him. Those dark specks slid down, pooling at the ground. They scattered back, finally distinguishable as people as they grew closer.
    Turbulence wore down the barricade. Bright tangled threads crushed gears and flayed open pistons as they squirmed through. Father was constructing some sort of machine on the barren ground, engineers still running past him. A low drone filled the air. Sparks danced around Father as he swung up and down the frame of girders he’d created, forcing gears into place, attaching tubing to pistons.
    No machine constructed by just one engineer, even Father, could possibly settle or divert this much Turbulence. As more of the machine coalesced into being, Ritter realized what Father intended to do. Ritter redoubled his sprint, his arms pumping furiously and his thighs burning. He shouted at the engineers in