The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year - Volume Eight by Jonathan Strahan [Editor] Read Free Book Online Page A

mollified now. "Enjoy your study." He kissed her goodbye.
    As Latifa dismounted from her bicycle she could see that the staff car park was empty except for the cleaners' van. If she could bluff her way through this final stage she might be out of danger in a matter of minutes.
    The cleaners had unlocked the science wing, and a woman was mopping the floor by the main entrance. Latifa nodded to her, then walked in as if she owned the place.
    "Hey! You shouldn't be here!" The woman straightened up and glared at her, worried for her job should anything be stolen.
    "Ms Daneshvar asked me to prepare something for the class. She gave me the key yesterday." Latifa held it up for inspection.
    The woman squinted at the key then waved her on, muttering unhappily.
    In the chemistry lab everything was as Latifa had left it. She plucked the memory stick from the port on the furnace, then switched off the power. She touched the door, and felt no residual heat.
    When she opened the furnace the air that escaped smelt like sulfur and bleach. Gingerly, she lifted out the crucible and peered inside. A solid grey mass covered the bottom, its surface as smooth as porcelain.
    The instruments she needed to gauge success or failure were all in the physics lab, and trying to talk her way into another room right now would attract too much suspicion. She could wait for her next physics class and see what opportunities arose. Students messed around with the digital multimeters all the time, and if she was caught sticking the probes into her pocket her teacher would see nothing but a silly girl trying to measure the electrical resistance of a small paving stone she'd picked up off the street. Ms Hashemi wouldn't be curious enough to check the properties of the stone for herself.
    Latifa fetched a piece of filter paper and tried to empty the crucible onto it, but the grey material clung stubbornly to the bottom where it had formed. She tapped it gently, then more forcefully, to no avail.
    She was going to have to steal the crucible. It was not an expensive piece of equipment, but there were only four, neatly lined up in a row in the cupboard below the furnace, and its absence would eventually be missed. Ms Daneshvar might – just might – ask the cleaners if they'd seen it. There was a chance that all her trespasses would be discovered.
    But what choice did she have?
    She could leave the crucible behind and hunt for a replacement in the city. At the risk that, in the meantime, someone would take the vessel out to use it, find it soiled, and discard it. At the risk that she'd be caught trying to make the swap. And all of this for a grey lump that might easily be as worthless as it looked.
    Latifa had bought a simple instrument of her own in the bazaar six months before, and she'd brought it with her almost as a joke – something she could try once she was out of danger, with no expectations at all. If the result it gave her was negative that wouldn't really prove anything. But she didn't know what else she could use to guide her.
    She fished the magnet out of the pocket of her manteau. It was a slender disk the size of her thumbnail, probably weighing a gram or so. She held it in the mouth of the crucible and lowered it towards the bottom.
    If there was any force coming into play as the magnet approached the grey material, it was too weak for her to sense. With a couple of millimetres still separating the two, Latifa spread her fingers and let the magnet drop. She didn't hear it strike the bottom – but from such a height how loud would it have been? She took her fingers out of the crucible and looked down.
    It was impossible to tell if it was touching or not; the view was too narrow, the angle too high.
    Latifa could hear the woman with the mop approaching, getting ready to clean the chemistry lab. Within a minute or less, everything she did here would take place in front of a witness.
    A patch of morning sunlight from the eastern window fell upon the