Maxine's laboratory was a chilly, intellectual, out-of-place kind of spot right in the middle of the Carver's Quarter's admin area. The sweet, rotten-smelling air from outside had been replaced with clean, sharp-smelling odors and a lively atmosphere. The walls were covered with charts of god anatomy, and the jars contained body parts soaked in some kind of liquid, most probably still in their dreams.
Lucien Gray was like a shadow and he did not touch anything but observed everything. Your work on the pancreas nerves is awesome, he said. You do not treat nerves as something sacred, you treat them like wires. I like that.
Maxine didn't raise her eyes from the microscope. She was observing a piece of god-brain illuminated with a trapped light. It *is* wires. Real wires. Calling it holy stuff is the reason why harvests go wrong and cause Echo-quakes. What do you want, Lucien? Ever since you became a ghost in the archives, you haven't been seen around.
I study bodies. Ghosts don't have bodies, so here I am, Lucien said sarcastically. He approached her workbench and looked at the concealed panel which Maxine thought was her secret. I heard that you are preparing for a mind-meld. Some kind of transplant, isn't it?
Maxine ceased her movement. She slowly got up and faced him. His dark eyes were not intimidating, only extremely inquisitive. Rumors are like spit, she said.
I checked the spit. Your ideas are excellent, but very dangerous. There is a chance of you losing your mind, like, 82% probable. However, the information that you could get... He groaned like a nerd. You could create a direct map of pain. You would be able to predict the reactions almost 100% of the time. What you could do is getting hold of the one thing every Carver has dreamed of since the very beginning: The Core Memory Lobe.
The word was "The Lobe".
The Lobe is a lie, Maxine said very quickly.
It's where the god's brain and pineal come together, as hard as a rock from dying dreams. Behind the Pituitary Gate. It's not fake. It's the big prize, Lucien moved forward. What Sebastian Wilder wants to do with it is to melt it down. Totally wasting it. Melting a library isn't the same as reading it.
And you want to read it.
I want to know, Lucien said, becoming more and more excited. What did a god know before it was food? What is the code for reality? It's in the Lobe's crystal. But if you take it out...the mind-shock would be like touching absolute sadness. It would destroy anyone who is not prepared.
Maxine understood. He saw her as a mere instrument - a sharp knife to do the impossible cut.
Are you telling me to do my experiment quicker? As a protection, use the transplant. Turn myself into a human shield for that shock,
If we shot the shock where we want, it would be a shield. You could manage the shock, figure it out, and stay mostly sane if we carved the right runes into your enhanced nerves. He was taking a data-crystal out of his robe. My math. Better transplant plans. They'll help your nerves live 30% longer.
She looked at the crystal. It was everything she needed. It was also a pact with Satan who was only interested in knowledge. One part of her wanted it. The other part, the sad woman who once shared a god's pain, was frightened.
Why give it to me? You could find someone more desperate, and give it to him.
No one else sees the god's scream as 'data', he said. They either worship it or fear it. You are the one who cuts it open. That's the only way to survive the Lobe. You're the one.
The insult was also a compliment. Maxine took the crystal. It was warm.
Wilder can't know, Lucien warned. He just wants to eat it. After you have taken out the Lobe, he would be the first to throw it in his pot. We have to keep it quiet. The order to get into the Vault will be coming soon. Be prepared.
He left quietly, leaving Maxine with the beating brain and the crystal.
With the crystal plugged into her computer, she turned it on. Plans came up in the air - incredible, wrong, beautiful. They showed where the transplant would be made: the C7 bone. They wrote down the stuff to soak the god-nerve in, so that it would work with humans. They talked about mind exercises to make her strong, her brain would be like a maze where the Echo could be trapped and studied.
It was a masterpiece. It was also a plan to lose herself.
She pulled up another file: the Vault plans. She zoomed in on the Lobe. The scans revealed it to be a hard knot of crazy shapes, sending out mind-energy that made the scanners blurry. Things meant to protect it were there: the Thalamic Wardens, which could drive you mad; the Amygdalic Reflex, a trap that filled you with the god's fears.
And there, in an old note, was a line:
The Lobe works with the Quiet in the storm. A mind that is absolutely silent can get close without waking the Wardens.
A perfect silence.
Maxine looked at the hidden chamber where her god-nerve beat. She thought of the god's question. Why do you take my sweetness and call it love?
To get the answer, she had to become something different. Something more and less than human. A silent tool.
She opened the panel. The nerve glowed, a tiny star of someone else's memory. Her hand, steady, reached for the knife.
The experiment started now.