Gabriel looked around, contemplating her warmly lit apartment with a speculative expression. It wasn’t hard to guess what he was thinking.
“It’s kind of scary to realize that everything can suddenly stop functioning in a heartbeat, isn’t it?” she said.
“It’s an eye-opener, that’s for sure,” Gabriel said. “Makes me think about what it must have been like for the First Generation when they realized the Curtain had closed and they were stranded with Old World technology that was crumbling in front of them.”
She shivered. “Yes.”
She went back into the entry hall, set her pack on the floor, and slipped off her leather jacket.
Gabriel followed her and took off his own pack. His grim expression worried her.
“What?” she asked.
“I’m thinking that what happened tonight makes you realize we may have become too dependent on rez amber to operate everything from our cars to our refrigerators.” He shrugged out of his jacket. “The city-states need to consider developing alternative sources of power.”
Lucy sat down on the hall bench and went through the process of removing her boots. “Resonating amber has always been cheap, available, and nonpolluting. Pretty much the perfect energy source.”
“It’s also been extremely reliable. I’ve never heard of an incident like the one we witnessed tonight. Rez amber has to be tuned periodically. It can melt if you push enough energy through it, but a city’s power grid is fueled by thousands of expertly tuned amber bars. They’re designed and installed in an alternating sequence on a chain that makes it impossible for a large number of them to fail simultaneously.”
“You know what they say—there’s no such thing as impossible.”
“True.” He sat down beside her and unbuckled his scarred and scuffed boots.
“Are you wondering if this might be a problem that will require the Guild’s attention?” she asked.
He set one boot neatly under the bench and went to work on the other. “Yes.”
“Seems like a problem for engineers, not the Guild.”
“You said it yourself, Lucy. Something destroyed the Dead City eons ago. What if the mining operations down in the Ghost City have unleashed that force again?”
She sat back, lounging against the wall, and thought about all that had happened in the past twenty-four hours. “You know, we suddenly have a lot of mysteries tangled up here.”
“Yes, we do. And it strikes me that, viewed from a certain perspective, they all involve you.”
“Me?” She snapped to an upright position on the bench. “You think I’m to blame for the fact that someone tried to kidnap and murder you? And for the missing clockwork doll? And … and those guys who attacked us down in the Ghost City? And the lights going out on the Strip tonight?”
“No, I don’t think any of those things is your fault. I’m just saying that in one way or another you’ve been in the picture, starting with the kidnapping two months ago.”
She slanted a long glance at him. “I sense a conspiracy theory.”
“At this point it doesn’t amount to a theory, just an observation.”
“You can’t possibly connect me to that power outage tonight.”
Gabriel didn’t answer. He put the other boot under the bench, got to his feet, and went to the jacket he had hung up in the closet. Reaching into a pocket, he took out one of the two amber pendants he had confiscated from the men who had confronted them in the Ghost City. He studied it as if he was trying to read cryptic runes.
“Gabriel?” she said.
He looked up. “I have to find whoever tuned this amber. It’s the key.”
The cold determination in his eyes told her everything she needed to know.
“You will find the tuner,” she said.
His expression softened a little. “You sound very sure of that.”
“I am certain of it.” She smiled. “You and I may have our differences, but I don’t doubt for a moment that you will fulfill your mission. You were born to be a Guild boss—the old-fashioned serve-and-protect kind of Guild boss, not the mobster kind.”
“Thanks. I think.”
“I was teasing you. Sorry. Couldn’t resist.” She pushed herself to her feet and started toward the kitchen. “Let’s get something to eat. And a glass of wine. Maybe two glasses of wine.”
Gabriel got up from the bench. “Lucy?”
She stopped and turned around to face him. “What?”