Harmony bomb

 “Do you guys have any other special weapons?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What have you heard?”

  “Nothing,” Cole said. “I love the warboard and the battle suits. The bots are great. You guys are so high tech, I just wondered if there is anything else.”

  “Some of our more hawkish members would like us to deploy a harmony bomb,” she said.

  “What’s that?” Cole asked.

  Nova stared at him as if gauging the sincerity of his question, then gave a nod. “It’s a theoretical weapon of enormous destructive capacity. Your world has atom bombs. You’re familiar with them?”

  “I know the basics,” Cole said. “I couldn’t build one.”

  “A harmony bomb would have a similar destructive impact,” she said. “In fact, the strongest models I have conceptualized would have more punch than any nuclear weapons your world currently has developed, but without the radiation. A clean explosion of gargantuan power.”

  “Could it take out the whole city?” Cole asked.

  “A big one would destroy a large part of it,” Nova said. “And leave a lot more of it damaged.”

  “Do you have any?” Cole asked.

  “A harmony bomb has never been detonated,” Nova said. “Not even as a test out in the empty wastes. But together, Googol and I have the capacity to make one. He has the know-how to engineer the physical device, and I can provide the power.”

  “Is that your shaping ability?” Cole asked.

  “I’m a sparker,” Nova said.

  “It matches your name,” Cole said. “Nova.”

  “An exploding star. Since a harmony bomb has never been tested, we can’t be sure it would work. But in theory, if you properly prepare a harmonic crystal, and then overload it with a sudden influx of energy, it should blow apart in spectacular fashion.”

  “How would you use a harmony bomb?” Cole asked.

  “That’s the problem,” Nova said. “Such a weapon is a hammer, not a scalpel. We don’t know how to make a small-scale harmonic explosive. It would take so much energy to detonate even the tiniest model that the blast would be devastating. We couldn’t take out City Patrol Headquarters, for example, without also demolishing the city for dozens of blocks all around it. We’re champions of the people, not terrorists.”

Chapter 22