Luca by Jacob Whaler

air to Qaara.
    More by instinct than intention, her hand darts up and tries to snatch it mid-arc. From all appearances, its surface is rough and wet, like fresh mud. But when it makes contact with her fingers, she can’t feel it. All she senses is the resistance of a hard object, like glass covered in oil. It slips through her fingers, and she gropes for it with the other hand. It seems to pass through her skin before falling to the floor with a loud thud. No bounce. It simply hits the floor and sticks like a magnet.
    Bending down to retrieve it, she looks up at Mercer. “Sorry. It seems to have slipped through my hands.”
    He shakes his head. “It’s not you. This stuff isn’t easy to catch or hold. Like a beautiful woman.” His gaze follows Qaara as she tries and fails to pick the rock up from the floor.
    Each time, it slips from her fingers like a live fish.
    “Allow me.” Mercer gently scoops up the lump with two hands. “I’ve had years of practice with slippery things. The trick is to get your fingers under it and keep it balanced. Don’t grip it. After a while, you get used to not being able to feel it. Just trust that it’s there, in your hand.” As he holds it out in his palm for her to get a closer view, the twin mirrors on his face focus intently on her.
    Feeling his stare, she bends forward, and her head goes into the space occupied by the holo. “Looks like a lump of wet coal.” Her eyes meet the neon mirrors, still staring at her. “I’m confused. Why are you showing this to me?”
    Mercer takes a step back and sits in the chair behind him. His gaze goes to the holo floating between them. “After my father found this rock, he took it back to the company’s R&D lab for analysis. They confirmed that it was harder than any known substance. It had snapped twenty drill bits and didn’t even leave a mark. It got his attention. He figured that, if he could replicate and manufacture it, it would be worth billions of IMUs. And that would only be the beginning.”
    Qaara speaks in a near whisper. “Your father never did figure it out, did he?”
    “How did you know?” Mercer shows a hint of a smile.
    “I studied materials science at MIT. Nothing has ever been published about what you are describing. If it’s true—” She pauses after making such a bold statement. “It would have been nearly impossible to keep such a monumental discovery a secret.”
    Mercer leans back, purses his lips and brings his fingers together in a steeple. “Very perceptive. And completely accurate. My father spent twenty-five years and billions on the project but never discovered what this was made of.” He bounces the lump a couple of times in his hand. The index finger of his other hand strokes its black surface, as if it were alive. “To his dying day, my father dreamed of solving this riddle.” The lenses on his glacier glasses slowly turn transparent. One of his eyebrows rises half a millimeter.
    As their eyes meet, Qaara feels a stab of cold move down her spine. She returns to the holo, still showing a barren plain in South Africa. “And so—”
    “And so I continued the project after my father’s untimely death.” Mercer’s fingers cradle the black lump. “Three years ago, we made an astounding discovery. Everything fell into place.”
    “Discovery?” Qaara takes a step forward. “What sort of discovery?”
    Mercer smiles, and heavy footsteps move across the floor outside the door, like a herd of small elephants.
    More by instinct than design, Qaara picks the slate off the desk a couple of feet away and runs her finger across its surface. A fisheye view of the outside of the office appears on the clear plastic.
    She sees men in black combat gear flanking the door, six on each side. In unison, they raise their pulse rifles and load. The sound of crisp clicks floats through the wall.
    “Don’t be alarmed. It’s just a precaution, to protect both of us,” Mercer says. “I’m about to disclose