X's for Eyes Read Free Page A

were mature when the technicians embedded them in Nancy. Which means they should be heavier, fuller. Then there’s the internal composition. The discoloration indicates data saturation.”
    “I saw. It’s hard to comprehend. A mistake—”
    “My father designed the system. His schematics are unimpeachable. I’ve studied them at length. Get those tubes under a scope and I’ll prove you can trust your lying eyes.”
    Mac’s pinched expression only became more severe. “The voyage was—is—scheduled for an eighteen-month loop around Pluto and back. A peek over the edge of our solar system and into the void. Even if Nancy collected data without interruption from every onboard camera and sensor, the crystals possess redundant storage capacity to function for many decades. Saturation should not occur. It defies reason.”
    “Correct, Master Macbeth. What do you deduce from these clues?”
    “Two impossible conclusions. The first being that Nancy has somehow violated the theory of relativity and traveled faster than light . . . and through time. Secondly, she has, despite the apparent paradox, been out there for much longer than our scientists calculated.”
    “Eureka,” Arthur said dryly. “Judging by the data storage consumption, the probe has traveled for several centuries.”
    “Makes sense when you put it plainly. However, I refuse to accept the hypothesis.”
    “Oh?”
    “I dislike where it leads me.” Mac patted his friend’s massive arm. “This is why you do the thinking and we do the overreacting. Convince me, Art. And make it palatable.”
    “After I convince myself.”
    Dred said to Arthur, “Hang on there, pal. You weren’t tracking Nancy?”
    “Not conventionally. My telescope and radio are superior to what you’ll find in most households. Regardless, spotting Nancy would have been statistically more difficult than isolating a grain of sand on a beach. I resorted to an unorthodox strategy. A smidgeon of intuition and a stroke of luck and it came together.”
    “Well, if this was supposed to be an ocean splashdown, I’m missing the plot. You told Mac to hang around Woolfolk Valley tonight, and bam, sure enough, Nancy almost drops on our heads. What gives? Heck, for that matter, why don’t we take this back to HQ? Sure, Nail will let us have what-for. Granddad’s eyeballs will pop, though. We’re sure to get a reward for salvaging the probe before Labrador or the mystery goons made off with her.”
    “To take your queries in reverse order—it is premature to return our find to HQ. There are . . . complications. As to how I narrowed the landing site—Little Black predicted five reentry zones. Woolfolk Valley was the most likely.”
    “You mean Big Black?” Mac removed his glasses. “Art, please tell me you didn’t swipe your old man’s pass card again.”
    “No, I mean Little Black. Give me a few moments and I’ll demonstrate.”
    Big Black was the supercomputer Sword Enterprises scientists and engineers had developed and refined over the past seventy-five years. Its mainframe occupied a massive subterranean vault beneath corporate HQ in Kingston, New York. Dr. Amanda Bole, director of R&D, and Dr. Navarro had tinkered with BB to the point the machine had evolved into a rudimentary form of artificial intelligence. Big Black, a proprietary technology, like so much of Sword Enterprises’ tech, operated within an insulated network. Granddad and Dr. Bole severely restricted access to the computer. When it came to intruders (industrial spies, foreign provocateurs, and meddling kids), the vault guards maintained a shoot-to-kill, ask-questions-later protocol.
    “Oh, boy,” Dred said. “Security has no sense of humor. That’s begging to get dusted.”
    “Or worse.” Arthur smiled enigmatically. “Dr. Bole has a eugenics fetish and not enough volunteers.”
    Mac observed Arthur and his team unloading various tools from the truck and readying the lab equipment. “It’ll require an