by J. N. Chaney
“Hold it,” he said, grabbing my arm and holding up the restraints when I tried to walk past him.
“Is that really necessary?” I asked, giving him the beady eye.
“What do you think I am, stupid?”
Yes, I thought.
“Of course not,” I said sweetly. “It just seems a little overkill.”
“I’m not going to be the one responsible for you causing problems,” said Allan, not budging.
“Fine,” I sighed, holding my wrists out. “Lead the way.”
14
Allan put a guiding hand on my elbow, and I had to resist the urge to shake it off.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked lightly, trying not to be obvious as I studied our surroundings in my peripherals.
He gave me a sidelong look. “You really want to know?”
“Yes,” I answered honestly.
“Mario has the right idea, working with that Boneclaw. It’s for the good of the whole colony. A few now to spare the many.”
“So, you’re okay with offering up our people?” I challenged, incensed all over again.
“Not really,” he confessed. “But you saw what they’re capable of. Someone had to do something.”
“And how are the sacrifices getting chosen? It seems to me that anyone not falling in line is going, and that’s bullshit,” I said, ignoring the obvious jab at my father.
Allan didn’t have an answer for that, and we continued on in silence.
This part of the fusion core facility didn’t look too much different than ours except for the state of disrepair. Mario and his people had obviously been hard at work getting portions of it in working condition, but some areas looked untouched. Still, survival here would be impossible without the advantages our compound provided.
Janus had worked with more than a dozen generations of our people to create a sustainable place to live. Which, I realized, was likely why Mario had chosen to attack at the ceremony. Most of the community had been gathered together, relaxed and unsuspecting.
Between the missing food, people, and other resources, someone was bound to have eventually noticed. In order to avoid that scenario, he had made his move. Which, as it turned out, had been a smart one.
Having the “missing” hunters speak out with their concerns had been particularly clever for a few reasons.
Their sudden arrival had caused confusion and prevented any opposition. Their words held clout and surely swayed some of the community to Mario's side. It also had the added bonus of getting his men close enough to attack without arousing suspicion.
I hadn’t seen anything useful by the time we made it back to the lab from before. As he had then, Nero waited inside.
He looked up when we entered, and his lips turned up into a smug grin. “My father says you’ll be helping after all.”
In that moment, I wanted to punch him. “Is this some kind of game to you?”
Nero’s smile faltered at the venom in my tone, but he tried to save face. “Don’t be tetchy just because you lost, Lucia.”
“Tetchy?” I asked, incredulous. “People are dying and you think I’m being tetchy? No wonder Mario had to rig the Selection.”
His fists balled up at his sides and I thought he might actually strike out at me. Then he visibly relaxed and waved a hand at the table.
“Just get to work,” he grumbled, then stepped back and pointed to where the staff lay on the table.
It had been secured to the table with the barrel end pointed directly at where I’d be sitting.
“I can’t work on it if I can’t move it,” I told him bluntly.
“You’ll have to make it work. And this way we know you won’t be trying to activate it. If you do—”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, waving my still manacled hands and cutting him off. “I’ll just kill myself; I get it. It’s just impractical to do it this way, and besides, I’m going to need tools.” I said that last part thinking that he would have to send someone to search for some, thus giving me more time.
“Already taken care of,” he said with a smirk, dashing my hopes. “They should be arriving shortly.”
Allan came and fixed my restraints to the table with a long length of chain. I had just enough room to reach up and touch most of the staff, but not enough to make any type of escape.
By the time he was done, the tools had arrived. I recognized the bag as being one from Josef’s lab and figured they must have sent someone to steal it. If they were able to get into the lab that easily then Josef must have been somewhere else. I tried not to think of the possibility that he had been killed or taken prisoner in order to get them.
“I can’t make any promises,” I told Nero, still jockeying for more time.
“Oh?” He had the gall to look amused and I knew that he knew I was stalling.
“Josef helped me with a lot of this. If you send Mark to assist, it will get done faster.”
“No,” he said, drawing out the word. “I don’t think so. Good ol’ Jo couldn’t stop going on about how impressed he was with your work on it. Nice try though.” Nero turned to leave, then paused. “Luce, don’t take too long, okay? Lives depend on it.”
Oh, how I hated him in that moment. The statement had a double meaning. Instead of giving me a time limit he’d put everything in my hands. If I took too long, people would still die, offered to Tiberius as a blood payment. Smart bastard.
He left me staring daggers into his back, taking Allan with him. I was alone in the room but knew there were at least two people guarding the door.
I tested the limits of my restraints first, gauging reach. My estimate had been pretty close and I found it was easy to get to the parts I would need to work on.
The staff itself bore no visible damage from the cave-in, which I was grateful for. I tried a few different angles and maneuvers to see if it could be activated without blowing a hole in myself but couldn’t. Without being able to walk around the table, I was forced to lean over it in order to reach the energy core housing and put some part of my body in the line of fire.
Remembering the tool bag, I snatched it up thinking they might have been careless enough to leave something inside that would help me take off the restraints.
The contents were delicate, made for precision work on small components, though I did find a datapad. I pulled it out without much excitement since they hadn’t slipped on anything else so far.
As I’d anticipated, it had been heavily modified. I spent some time digging through it but couldn’t send any messages or access anything besides the diagnostics program for the staff.
Deciding to at least pretend to work while I worked out a plan, I synced the pad to the staff and did a basic system check. Everything came back clean, with no errors, not that I’d expected any.
Though I knew exactly where to alter the algorithm for the biometric lock, I went through it all, line by tedious line. Even if there was no way around eventually making the staff usable for Mario, maybe I could alter something else in a more subtle fashion.
The hours slipped by as I worked, largely uninterrupted except when nature called. Once, I thought I heard the thumping start again but I tuned it out.
My stomach growled audibly after a while and I realized that I hadn’t eaten since the ration meal, which now seemed like days ago. My mouth felt pretty dry too, and I was considering the merits of making a racket to get the guard’s attention when one of them entered carrying a tray.
It was Nell.
“Hey,” I said in a friendly voice.
She strode over to me without meeting my eyes and set the tray down without answering. On it there was another vacuum sealed ration meal, a bowl, a napkin, and a cup of water.
“Can you at least tell me why you’re going along with this?” I asked, still keeping my tone casual.
“Just eat your food, Lucia.” Then in an act completely unlike her, Nell knocked the water over. “Oops.”
I cursed and jumped back, sto
pped short by the restraints. Nell left without saying if she was going to bring more and I was left to clean up the sopping mess, which had gotten on everything.
The napkin wasn’t nearly large enough to soak up all the water and most of it went onto the floor.
“What a bitch,” I grumbled, still surprised at her antics, then I picked up the ready-to-eat meal.
As I was about to open it, something on the plastic wrapping caught my eye. They were usually blank except for the use by date. This one had a strange marking on it. Curious, I studied it a little closer and saw that it was a message.
Be ready in ten minutes. P.S. eat the food.
I read it again, just to be sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. Someone had written it using hydroink. When Nell spilled the water on it, the message had appeared.
Nell. Of course. The spill had been no accident. This made me feel better. While Nero’s behavior hadn’t been much of a surprise, the knowledge that Nell was part of the rebellion definitely was. I didn’t know what prompted her assistance, but I was glad all the same.
Eat the food.
Why would that matter? I didn’t want to waste any of the ten minutes but decided to eat while there was an opportunity.
The message became clear when I tipped the bag into the bowl and a piece of metal fell out. Fishing it out of the food, I discovered it to be a key. Using the soggy napkin, I cleaned it off and inserted it into the keyhole on my cuffs.
They sprang open, and I let them drop to the floor with a surge of excitement. I started working on getting my staff free from the table.
The room was mostly bare, and I couldn’t find anything that would help me break the metal bindings that had been drilled into the table’s surface.
There was a sudden commotion outside, and I whirled around, ready to fight. The dull thud of landing blows and grunts met my ears, then it went quiet. When the door slid open, Nell poked her head inside.
“Here,” she said, holding up a hammer and a screwdriver. “Don’t know if it will work, but it was the best I could find. We have to hurry though.”
“Okay,” I replied, taking the tools gratefully.
Together, we worked on one of the bands until it finally cracked under the onslaught. With one half of the staff free it was a simple matter to rotate it and pop the other band off.
“Thanks,” I said.
“You’re welcome. Now let’s get the hell out of here. There are a few others, but I suspect they’re gone already. Mario is drunk with power and a lot of people are scared.”
“They should be,” I said gruffly. At Nell’s pained expression, I softened a little. “We have to free the others first, you up for that?”
“Of course.”
“Good. Wait, do you have a working datapad?”
She shook her head. “No. Mario is too afraid one of us will try to contact the compound.”
I snatched the hobbled one from the table. “Maybe Mark can do something with this one,” I said, stuffing it in a pocket. I followed her out, watching as she snagged a short spear from one of the fallen guards.
We took off at a run down the empty corridor toward the prisoners. We hadn’t traveled very far before two rebels blocked our path.
Angie Davis, an older hunter, and Roric Abernathy. I didn’t know Roric very well, only that he worked in the greenhouse with Jodi. “We’re not letting Visaro get away,” Angie said, taking a step forward and lifting her hunting spear.
Roric took up the same stance. Neither had a gun, which I was glad to see. Mario had probably been too paranoid to give them one.
“Use the staff,” Nell whispered.
I gave a little shake of my head. “I don’t want to kill them.”
“The floor,” she said urgently.
Getting her meaning, I pointed the staff at the ground in front of them and loosed a bolt of blue light. The small blast sent up a shower of sparks and they jumped away.
It gave us the distraction we needed to rush them. I took Angie, who was closest to me, and swept the staff low, trying to knock her off her feet. She danced away and sneered at me.
“Come on, Daddy’s girl. Is that all you got?” She twirled the spear expertly in her hands and began to circle me.
I grinned back and raised the staff again. “No.”
Angie stopped spinning her weapon in response and we exchanged a flurry of strikes. The older, more experienced hunter was fierce and jabbed the spear at my face. I knocked it aside, but she pulled it back and drove it at me again.
I countered again and again as she tried to slice me open, her spear bouncing off the more robust staff each time until she grunted in frustration. Angie slowed her attacks and I took the opening, bringing the staff down hard. It must have been what she intended though, because she sidestepped and used the shaft of her spear to connect with mine then performed a circular motion where her spear tip hooked the barrel of my staff and pushed it into the ground momentarily.
The move allowed her to get close and kick out at my knee. She connected and I grunted, stumbling back. Angie, thinking she had me, took her spear off my staff and lunged forward. I jerked my arm back and let the staff slide through my grip, then thrust it at her. It struck her in the chest, and I delivered a miniblast that sent her lurching backward and collapsing ungracefully to the floor.
When Angie didn’t get back up, I turned to check on Nell, mostly spent from our short altercation.
She was handling the other man pretty well, at least in my opinion. Nell didn’t have the man’s height or muscles, but he was soft from working in the greenhouse. She ducked his unpracticed swings easily, delivering short jabs of her own and dancing away before he could react.
The technique worked for a little bit, but Roric soon caught on. The next time she came within reach, he snagged part of her jumpsuit and yanked her back before she could bound away.
He brought an arm around her neck, yanking Nell to his chest. Roric lifted her off the ground in a headlock as she kicked out wildly and tried to loosen his grip.
I stepped forward, ready to strike, when Nell reached into one of her pockets and produced a stick. No, I quickly realized. It was her bow. She swung her arm up, the grip turning blue in her hands, and extended it, and hit Roric in the face, just above the eye.
He cried out and let her go, clutching the spot that would soon become a bruise.
“You bitch!” he snarled, reaching into his back pocket. The handgun he produced made every muscle in my body tense and I activated the staff on reflex, but Nell beat me to it.
Her bow glowed with power and she set an arrow to it.
She released it, and the projectile struck Roric in the hand. He dropped the weapon with a howl, backing away slowly before turning and running in the opposite direction.
Nell retracted the weapon with a questioning look in her eyes.
“Let him go,” I said. “We’ve got more important things to deal with.”
She was breathing heavily, her blood pumping from the fight.
“You did well,” I continued.
“Thanks. Wasn’t sure if it would go that way,” she said. Her gaze focused on Angie. “Is she…”
“Dead? No, just knocked out. She’s still breathing.”
We began moving again, heading for the makeshift prison in good time. There was no one to stop us. Not yet, anyway, and I was glad for that.
I put my hand on the door pad, but it didn’t open. Doors at the compound were hardly ever locked, so I wasn’t quite sure what to do. I felt a rush of panic but tried to calm myself. When the pad beeped angrily at me and went red, I realized the rebels must have modified it. Maybe they’d done so from the other side. I hadn’t even considered the possibility of them re-coding it.
“Here, let me,” said Nell.
I stepped aside and let her try, a little nervous she too would be locked out. Then the pad blinked green, the door slid open, and I stepped inside with a short-lived sigh of relief.
15
“Where the hell did they go?” I demanded, staring at the vacant room.
“I don’t know,” replied Nell, looking just as shocked as I felt. She kept looking around the room as though the missing prisoners might reappear out of thin air.
Unsure of what else to do, I walked around the space, looking for any clue as to where they might have gone.
“Maybe someone else let them out,” Nell suggested, though she sounded doubtful. “We should go to the compound and get help. Maybe they are on their way there.”
I didn’t answer, mulling the idea over in my head. It had its merits, but I sincerely doubted it was the case. “But what if they aren’t? Then maybe Mario kills them all before we can come back.”
Nell shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. But we can’t exactly stay here.”
Knowing she had a point, I cast a final glance around the room. The cots were still there, along with a few ration wrappers, but not much else. I went over to where Mark and I had sat, thinking he might have left me some breadcrumbs to follow, but it too was bare.
“Alright,” I started to say, then stopped when the glint of something shiny on the floor caught my eye.
I bent down and picked the object up, studying it in the weak light. My eyes widened when I realized what it was. “I don’t think they’re at the compound,” I announced.
“What did you find?” asked Nell, coming closer.
“Prime Lambert’s pin,” I said, holding it out to her.
“What, are you sure? He never takes that off. None of them do.” She took the pin from me and inspected it.
“It’s his,” I confirmed. “He would never leave it on purpose. I think it’s a message. Mario wants me to know he has him.”
Understanding bloomed on Nell’s face. “Oh, shit.”
We both exchanged a glance, then spoke at the same time. “The cavern.”
It was a small thing, but in the moment I was reminded of Karin. Pain filled my heart, but I couldn’t allow myself the luxury of grief.
