The Last Silver

The testing chamber had gone completely silent.

Dinraal and Isolde stood at its center, their hands clasped together.

The Silver armor covered them both.

Dinraal's crown burned with pale light.

His gauntlet pulsed.

Isolde's bracelets glowed brighter with every second.

The two sets of armor were no longer behaving independently.

Silver energy moved between them in an endless loop.

Asha stared at the instruments.

"Increase sensor sensitivity."

Eve, seated beside her, shook her head.

"They're already at maximum."

"Increase it anyway."

"I can't."

"Then bypass the limiters."

Eve hesitated.

"That's dangerous."

Asha looked at the readings.

"Everything about this is dangerous."

Eve sighed.

"Fine."

She entered the override.

The instruments immediately began climbing.

Then they stopped.

Not because the energy had stopped increasing.

Because the sensors had stopped measuring it.

Asha stared.

"What happened?"

Eve checked the system.

"They've saturated."

"All of them?"

"Every sensor."

Asha looked toward the testing chamber.

Dinraal and Isolde remained completely still.

The Silver around them had become almost transparent.

Not dimmer.

Denser.

The light was folding in on itself.

Asha whispered:

"The output is incalculable."

Eve looked at her.

"Literally?"

"Literally."

Dinraal opened his eyes.

"Is something wrong?"

Asha immediately answered.

"No."

He looked at Isolde.

She was staring at her own hands.

"I can feel you," she whispered.

Dinraal smiled.

"I can feel you too."

"More than before."

"Much more."

The Silver pulsed.

The entire testing chamber disappeared.

For a brief instant, everyone inside the observation room saw something impossible.

Stars.

Millions of them.

Galaxies.

Nebulae.

Planets.

Then something else.

A network.

Silver lines connected everything.

Asha stumbled backward.

"What was that?"

Eve stared at the empty chamber.

"I don't know."

Dinraal looked around.

"What happened?"

Asha shook her head.

"You tell me."

"We just thought about using the armor together."

"Then what happened?"

"I don't know."

Isolde looked at her.

"Neither do we."

Asha stared at the two of them.

"That's the problem."

The Numbers That Didn't Exist

The next several hours were spent trying to understand what had happened.

Asha and Eve went through every piece of data the testing facility had collected.

They checked energy output.

Force.

Mass displacement.

Radiation.

Dimensional distortion.

Temporal fluctuations.

Quantum activity.

Nothing produced a usable number.

Eve brought up the primary analysis.

"Combined armor output."

The screen displayed:

ERROR — VALUE OUTSIDE MEASURABLE RANGE

She tried another sensor.

The same result.

Then another.

Same.

Then a completely different measurement system.

Still the same.

Asha rubbed her forehead.

"Try measuring the effect on the surrounding space."

Eve did.

The computer displayed a graph.

Then the graph disappeared.

"Why did it disappear?"

"The software couldn't render the scale."

Asha stared.

"Try logarithmic."

"Already did."

"Exponential?"

"Already."

"Scientific notation?"

"Same problem."

Asha sighed.

"Wonderful."

Eve leaned back.

"Maybe the problem isn't that the power is too large."

Asha looked at her.

"What do you mean?"

"Maybe we're measuring the wrong thing."

Asha considered that.

Eve brought up the original readings.

"Look at this."

Asha leaned closer.

"The energy isn't increasing."

"Exactly."

Eve highlighted several points.

"The sensors interpret it as an increase because the armor is affecting the measurement itself."

Asha stared.

"So the armor isn't producing unlimited energy."

"We don't know."

"But?"

"But it might be accessing something."

Asha looked at the readings again.

"Another energy source?"

"Possibly."

"Another dimension?"

"Possibly."

"Something else entirely?"

Eve nodded.

"Possibly."

Asha sighed.

"Very helpful."

Eve smiled.

"We're scientists. 'Possibly' is one of our favorite words."

What Is Silver?

Eventually, Asha changed the subject.

"Let's start with something simpler."

Eve looked at her.

"The material."

"Exactly."

A small fragment of Silver armor had been collected during one of the earlier tests.

It wasn't really a fragment.

It was a microscopic piece.

The armor had shed it automatically when Asha requested a sample.

The sample floated inside a sealed analysis chamber.

It looked like silver.

Asha examined it under a microscope.

"Density?"

Eve entered the command.

The machine ran the test.

"Unknown."

Asha frowned.

"Try again."

"Same."

"Mass?"

"Unknown."

Asha stared at the display.

"How can mass be unknown?"

Eve pointed toward the readings.

"The scale can't determine whether it's behaving like ordinary matter."

Asha looked through the microscope.

The sample appeared perfectly solid.

"Run spectroscopy."

The machine scanned it.

The results appeared.

Then vanished.

Eve frowned.

"What?"

The machine tried again.

The same thing happened.

Asha shook her head.

"Run every known elemental test."

Eve began the sequence.

Hydrogen.

Negative.

Carbon.

Negative.

Iron.

Negative.

Silver.

Negative.

Gold.

Negative.

Platinum.

Negative.

Every element on the periodic table.

Negative.

Eve stared at the results.

"It's not silver."

Asha nodded.

"We knew that."

"No."

Eve pointed at the screen.

"We thought it wasn't chemically silver."

Asha looked at her.

"But?"

"It isn't an element at all."

Asha's eyes narrowed.

"Then what is it?"

"I don't know."

She ran the test again.

The result was identical.

NO ELEMENTAL MATCH

Asha leaned back.

"Interesting."

Eve looked at the sample.

"Very."

They began testing its molecular structure.

The first scan produced nothing.

The second produced an impossible structure.

The third produced something completely different.

Eve stared at the screen.

"It changed."

Asha stepped closer.

"What changed?"

"The molecular structure."

Asha frowned.

"Without external stimulus?"

"Yes."

"Do it again."

Eve repeated the scan.

The structure changed again.

Asha watched.

"Does it respond to thought?"

Eve looked at her.

"How would we test that?"

Asha called Dinraal.

Dinraal entered the laboratory.

Isolde followed.

The sample floated between them.

Asha explained.

"We've discovered that the Silver isn't chemically silver."

Dinraal nodded.

"Okay."

"And it isn't any known element."

"Okay."

"And its molecular structure changes."

Dinraal looked at the sample.

"How?"

"We don't know."

"Can I touch it?"

Asha hesitated.

"Please don't destroy it."

Dinraal smiled.

"I'll try."

He reached out.

The sample immediately changed.

Eve stared at the monitor.

"It's reacting."

Dinraal pulled his hand away.

The sample returned to its original form.

Isolde stepped forward.

The sample changed again.

Asha's eyes widened.

"Both of you affect it."

Dinraal looked at Isolde.

"Together?"

They touched the sample simultaneously.

The entire laboratory went dark.

Every instrument shut down.

Then the sample illuminated.

It wasn't silver anymore.

It was pure white.

Asha whispered:

"That's new."

Eve looked at the readings.

"Very new."

The sample began rotating.

A three-dimensional structure appeared on the screen.

Asha stared.

"It has no fixed molecular arrangement."

Eve nodded.

"It's responding to them."

"Like the armor."

"Exactly."

Asha smiled.

"We've been thinking about it backwards."

Dinraal frowned.

"What do you mean?"

"The armor isn't made from a material that happens to respond to you."

She pointed toward the sample.

"The material itself may exist to respond."

Isolde looked confused.

"So what is it?"

Asha shook her head.

"That's what we're trying to discover."

The Impossible Material

For the next several days, Asha and Eve worked almost continuously.

They tested everything.

Density.

Conductivity.

Thermal resistance.

Radiation absorption.

Energy conversion.

Magnetic response.

Gravitational response.

Dimensional stability.

Regeneration.

Self-assembly.

Memory.

The results became stranger with every experiment.

The material could become rigid.

Then flexible.

Then liquid.

Then something that behaved like light.

It could conduct electricity.

It could absorb electricity.

It could generate electricity.

It could become transparent.

Opaque.

Reflective.

It could absorb heat.

Then release it.

It could survive temperatures that should have destroyed any known substance.

And perhaps strangest of all—

it remembered.

Eve discovered that when the sample was separated into two pieces, both pieces behaved as though they were still one.

Asha watched the readings.

"The pieces are communicating."

Eve nodded.

"There's no known mechanism."

"Could it be quantum entanglement?"

"Not exactly."

"Then what?"

Eve shrugged.

"Something deeper."

Asha smiled.

"That's becoming a theme."

One evening, Aurelius entered the laboratory.

Asha was surrounded by displays.

Eve was asleep at a workstation.

The First Weapon was asleep beneath another one.

Aurelius looked around.

"How's it going?"

Asha didn't look up.

"Terribly."

Aurelius raised an eyebrow.

"That bad?"

"We know more than we did."

"That's good."

"We know enough to know how little we understand."

Aurelius smiled.

"That's usually how science works."

Asha finally looked at him.

"We may be able to make more armor."

Aurelius's expression changed.

"Really?"

"Maybe."

"How many?"

"That's the question."

She brought up a display.

"We have enough material from the weapon to potentially reproduce portions of it."

Aurelius stepped closer.

"Portions?"

"We don't know if we can create the complete substance."

"But?"

"If we can figure out what makes it respond to Dinraal and Isolde, we may be able to manufacture it."

Aurelius understood immediately.

"For the others."

Asha nodded.

"Exactly."

He looked at the sleeping scientists.

"Who?"

Asha brought up a list.

"Gilgamesh."

"Alexander."

"Julius."

"Cleopatra."

"Johanna."

"Aramaeis."

"Tiamat."

"Rhiannon."

Aurelius smiled.

"And me?"

Asha looked at him.

"If we can make enough."

He nodded.

"Then do it."

Asha hesitated.

"There is one problem."

"What?"

"We don't know if anyone else can use it."

Aurelius looked toward the sample.

"Could it be dangerous?"

"Absolutely."

"Could it be uncontrollable?"

"Possibly."

"Could someone be injured?"

"Yes."

Aurelius nodded.

"Then we test carefully."

Asha smiled.

"That's what I wanted to hear."

The following morning, Asha and Eve stood before the main laboratory display.

A schematic appeared.

At the center was the Silver.

Around it were dozens of equations.

Eve pointed toward one.

"I think I've found something."

Asha leaned closer.

"What?"

"The material doesn't have a traditional chemical composition."

"I know."

"No."

Eve shook her head.

"We're still thinking of it as matter."

Asha stared.

Eve continued.

"What if it isn't?"

Asha looked at the sample.

"Then what is it?"

"Information."

Asha's eyes widened.

Eve pointed toward the changing molecular structure.

"The Silver doesn't have a permanent physical arrangement because it isn't defined by one."

"It changes according to information."

"Intent."

"Thought."

"Need."

Asha looked toward the testing chamber where Dinraal and Isolde had stood.

"And the armor?"

"The armor is the physical expression of that information."

Asha slowly smiled.

"So the Silver isn't a metal."

"No."

"Not a compound."

"No."

"Not even conventional matter."

Eve shook her head.

"Not in the way we understand it."

Asha stared at the sample.

"Then if we want to make more..."

Eve finished the thought.

"We don't need to manufacture the armor."

"We need to manufacture the Silver."

The two scientists looked at each other.

Asha smiled.

"Now that's a project."

Eve nodded.

"But we're going to need a lot more data."

Asha looked toward the door.

"Then we'll start with the people who already have it."

That afternoon, Dinraal and Isolde were summoned back to the laboratory.

Asha explained what they had discovered.

Dinraal listened carefully.

"So you want to make more Silver."

"Yes."

"For everyone."

"If possible."

Isolde looked toward the sample.

"Can you?"

Asha smiled.

"Not yet."

Dinraal laughed.

"That's becoming your favorite answer."

"Probably."

Isolde looked at him.

"Would you trust the others with armor like ours?"

Dinraal thought about it.

"Yes."

"Even Gilgamesh?"

"Especially Gilgamesh."

Asha laughed.

"That is exactly who I'm worried about."

Dinraal smiled.

"But if you can make it..."

He looked toward the laboratory.

"Make enough."

Asha nodded.

"We will."

Dinraal looked at Isolde.

The two crowns on their heads began glowing faintly.

Asha noticed.

"Did you do that?"

Dinraal shook his head.

"No."

Eve looked at the sample.

It had begun glowing too.

The material inside the containment chamber slowly rearranged itself.

Asha approached the display.

"What's it doing?"

Eve stared at the readings.

"I don't know."

The sample separated.

One portion moved toward the left side of the chamber.

Another moved toward the right.

Then both formed the same symbol.

Asha's face became serious.

"What is that?"

Dinraal looked at it.

His expression changed.

"I've seen that before."

"Where?"

He pointed toward the screen.

"In the weapon."

The symbol pulsed.

The laboratory lights flickered.

Then the sample transmitted a single burst of information.

Every monitor displayed the same message.

THE SILVER CANNOT BE CREATED.

Asha stared.

Another line appeared.

IT CAN ONLY BE AWAKENED.

The room went silent.

Dinraal looked toward Isolde.

Isolde looked back.

Asha slowly whispered:

"Then our next experiment just got a lot more complicated."

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