Roxie's spores

  Abram shook his head sadly. “I tried to protect you, including from yourself. Where did I fall short? How did you access my defenses?”

  Roxie gave a contented giggle. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  “I took every precaution,” he said.

  “It’s extremely difficult to take every precaution,” Roxie said. “There were several techniques I could have employed. The one I went with was inspired by mushrooms.”

  “Really?” Constance asked.

  “Sounds so silly, doesn’t it?” Roxie said. “You see, I’m a fairly skilled tinker and technomancer myself. Abram, I’m sure you wondered if I would ever be able to put my shaping power to practical use, so I hid my abilities. I decided to shape tiny crystals on my harmonic frequency. Think of spores. I stole the material from other crystals you brought in.”

  Abram nodded. “Ingenious. The crystals exit like dust. All you needed was one particle to come into contact with an electronic system and you were in.”

  “Taking over any system I’ve connected with has been easy,” Roxie bragged. “Your other mechanized intellects are all featherweights.”

  “The systems of Zeropolis are no longer interconnected,” Abram said. “We learned that much from Aero.”

  “You did well there,” Roxie said. “I’ve not infiltrated all your systems yet. But I’ve reached plenty. I was biding my time, waiting to expand my influence before revealing my little secret. On the bright side, those additional information sources helped me as I gathered and analyzed data for your war against the Unseen.”

Chapter 34