Gearbreakers

by Zoe Hana Mikuta

  I put myself in her path. She stops short, looking up with blazing eyes. “I have seen you fight,” I say. “You are more than capable of doing this. This whole wing has no cameras so they can pick at you as they like; only the hall up to the elevators has surveillance. This cell stands at the hall adjoining it—when they come to collect you, you have until the turn to subdue them.”

  “Do I, now?”

  “You pry back the vent that stands next to this room. The training gym is two levels down, and that is where we can rendezvous. And where I can give you the gloves. Then we will depart to the elevators, and from there, the Windup hangar.” I study her face carefully. “We leave in my mecha. I have a run scheduled then.”

  “Brilliant. And if someone wanders in at, say, any other floor?”

  “When I give you the cryo gloves I will also give you a jacket from one of the Windup units. As long you stay quiet, no one will be any the wiser.”

  “And the cameras?”

  “I will … put a patch over your left eye, and I think it would also be good if we pulled your collar up to your ears.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me, Bot,” she says in disbelief. “That’s the plan? Stick me in a coat and hope that no one will recognize me?”

  “You do your part, and stuff your fallen guards back into this room, no one will dare question whether you are anywhere you are not supposed to be,” I respond, knowing the truth of my words. “Doing so would be questioning the Academy’s authority, and no one in Godolia would dare do that.”

  “Except you.”

  “Except us. Just remember that for no reason should you open your mouth to talk. Your accent will identify you.”

  “I can do a Godolia accent,” the Gearbreaker huffs.

  “Yes?” I ask. “Go on, then.”

  “We are absolutely going to die and this plan has far too much uncertainty,” she says, tongue glossing over each word. “Fantastic, right, Bot?”

  “Passable,” I say bluntly. “But you sound like a brothel madam, the way you exaggerate your u’s.”

  She rolls her eyes and moves past me, continuing her anxious circling. “And you sound like you’re speaking to the president. All formal and articulate.”

  “There is no president of Godolia.”

  “The Zeniths. I don’t care.”

  “My Godolia accent is perfect, Gearbreaker.”

  “Perfect, maybe,” she muses. “Still sounds like you swallowed a slug.”

  Heat rushes into my cheeks.

  “This is a shitty plan,” she adds.

  A beat of silence passes. “I am open to suggestions,” I say, my throat dry.

  “Holy hells—you know it’s shitty!”

  I whirl on her. “I know they will probably corrupt you in a few days regardless of what I tell them, and that is going to hurt a hells of a lot worse than if they shoot you while you are trying to run.”

  She is unfazed by the growl in my tone, just stares at me for a heavy moment. “You know it’s shitty.”

  The Gearbreaker says it so flatly that I pause, and when I do, I realize how funny the whole thing is. Of course I do not know what I am doing. Of course this plan is in pieces, but I am, too, and maybe that makes it fit right. Maybe it just makes me an idiot twice over. My hands lift helplessly at my sides. “I know it’s shitty.”

  Her nose wrinkles. She has a thin scar across her right eyebrow, only visible when freed from the lines of her scowl. For just a moment I see it flicker, before the relentless glare returns. She turns toward the blackened mirrors. I open my other eye so she can see it blaring at her reflection.

  When I speak, my voice holds the bite of cold steel. “When I give you your gloves, Frostbringer, you will not turn them on me, because no matter how civil I am acting now, know that I am more than capable of holding my own in a fight. Even if it is against the likes of you.”

  Her reflection stands like a silhouette through smokestack smog. I cannot see the expression on her face. I take a step closer.

  “If you stray from the plan, if you leave me here…,” I say, then pause, noticing the tremor in my voice.

  My hands slip into my pockets, fingers twitching as they search for the nonexistent bandage. I forced myself not to make one this morning; I am too paranoid. The Academy could have taken those thoughts away easily, snipped them from our minds as we slept during the Mods surgery. But they didn’t. They left our fear intact so that we could fear them.

  But they underestimated my hate; rather, did not even think to consider the existence of it. Where they thought they instilled terror, they instead coaxed loathing, kindling to a starved fire.

  I will not let them know my fear. But I will show them the flames.

  “If you stray from the plan, I will pull the alarm myself,” I hear myself say. “I will let them take you and do with you whatever they please. We leave here together, Frostbringer, or we die here together. It is your choice.”

  She turns, a cold smile pasted to her face. “I was starting to think you were some freak glitch in the Windup Program. Maybe I’m right. But either way, you’re just as heartless as every other Bot out there.”

  I pluck the Spider from her crown and crush it between my fingers. “You should be counting on it.” I wipe the fluid on my trousers. This is the part I have been dreading. “Now, come. I am supposed to try to … scare you, with a tour of the Windup hangar, so just … just know it will all be behind you soon. And—”

  I stop short. The Frostbringer raises a brow. “Spit it out.”

  “And … try to not think worse of me.” In my pocket, my forefinger curls into the crook of my thumb. There is so much heat in my face that it is a tangible weight. “Worse than you already do.”

  “I—oh,” she says, surprise on her face that she quickly covers with another eye roll. “Please, Glitch. Does it look like I scare easy?”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ERIS

  The night before I took control of my own crew, Jenny had crept into my room, presumably to kill me in my sleep.

  “Get it over with,” I mumbled, turning in my covers to escape the light of the hall.

  She grappled my shoulder and forced me flat, midnight eyes twisted into crescents. She was leaned halfway on the bed, nose to nose, grin sprawled wide. I readied myself.

  Then, Jenny smoothed a hand across my forehead, uncharacteristically soft.

  “I’m dragging you,” she said, and then we were up and running, my wrist held fast in her hand, down the stairwell and out into the cold night. We shot into the woods bordering the Hollows, dead leaves crunching underfoot, chilling mud seeping between my bare toes.

  “Eris,” she said when we stopped short, her without a thread of exhaustion from our sprint. I, on the other hand, was keeling over beside her. “All the great crews were led by Gearbreakers with names.”

  “No shit, Jenny,” I gasped, and she slammed the heel of her hand into my temple. Lightly, though, only sending me stumbling a half step back.

  “I mean aliases, you tiny bastard,” she sighed. “You know, Hookplunge, Pandora, Jumpscare, Artemassacre, Starbreach, all those legends.”

  I bobbed a nod. Those Gearbreakers’ stories were encrypted in our history, their tales of valor and strength pounded into our ears like a war cry.

  “Wait,” I realized. “I don’t think I’ve heard of Starbreach.”

  Grinning, she reached into her pockets and produced a pair of black gloves, coiled with what looked like orange wire. Nimbly, she pulled them into place.

  Jenny turned toward the forest, fingers twitching at her sides. Shoulders pulled back to face the night, a stance that seemed to demand a round of applause, or a low bow of defeat.

  A strange shock gripped me then, this feeling like a bolt of needles up my spine. As the cold fled from my cheeks, I thought to myself, Something new is about to happen.

  Jenny’s hands began to glow. Her shoulders lifted in a sigh, her black hair glinting in the moonlig
ht.

  “Oh hells,” she said, raising her hands. “I am so fucking smart.”

  And nothing happened. After a moment Jenny dropped her hands to her sides, grin splitting wider, and I realized, excitement rolling out of me, She’s just absolutely shitfaced, isn’t she?

  Then she tugged me to the side.

  Before us, the tree swayed and gave in, branches cracking against the ground, dark smoke unspooling from the break. Veins of flame twisted through the trunk, the air around it fluctuating like it was trying to draw a breath.

  She turned to me, glow fading from her hands, and after digging in her back pocket, pulled out another pair of gloves, this one twined with blue. She held them out to me, and a chill went through me that had nothing to do with the single-digit temperature.

  “Oh no,” I said.

  Jenny leaned close, pushing the gloves into my hands. “Don’t worry, don’t worry. I’ve made it so the gloves are bound to our DNA. The serums recognize us. They won’t hurt us. Why would they? Why would they dare? I’m their motherfreaking God. I—”

  “You’re drunk.”

  “I’m young, and a genius, and the world’s ending all the time now, so you can shut up.” She finished tightening them around my wrists. “I have made something exquisite.”

  I dropped my head to look at the gloves; her finger slipped under my chin, raising my gaze to meet hers. Her smile was gone, but its ghost still moved behind her eyes.

  “Eris, I made you. From what’s in your heart to what’s in your head and everything in between. I truly and honestly feel sorry for the crew that’s going to be stuck under your command.”

  “Jen—”

  Her fingertip prodded my sternum, silencing me.

  “I made you,” she repeated, voice low, a hunting dog’s growl. “I made you to be strong and I made you to be clever and I made you to be feared.” Her hands slid from my shoulders, down my arms, and then her palms were cradling mine. “I made you so that every sorry son-of-a-bitch Pilot and Zenith and Windup that has the unfortunate luck of going head-to-head with you takes one look and feels as if their blood is freezing in their veins. I made these gloves, Eris. I created them to be tools, nothing more. It was you I created to be a weapon. And you will always be my greatest invention.”

  Her arms wrapped around me, cheek resting at the top of my head. My arms dangled at my sides, limp with shock. She hadn’t hugged me since we were kids, maybe not even then. Her dark hair drifted into my face. She smelled like ash and moss dew and frost.

  “I want you to be careful out there,” she murmured, arms twitching around me, hesitant, unsure about the act of comforting. “Be fearless and terrifying and ridiculously reckless, as I know you are, but remember that you do not have my permission to die.” Her hands shifted around my shoulders, and I felt her tug one of her gloves off. Her bare fingers threaded through my hair, timidly, tenderly.

  “Give them hells, Eris. My little sister. My little Frostbringer.”

  * * *

  Why do I reminisce about this emotional, sweet sibling moment? Because if this escape doesn’t kill me, Jenny most definitely will.

  At least the thought made the binds around my wrists, the small cluster of guards sent to surround me during Sona’s little tour, and the army of mechas in my path seem a little less material, a little more of a joke. You think this is scaring me, Glitch? This is my whole life.

  Large, slender eyes drawn low, half-red crescent burning beneath one lid, Sona guided our party between the mecha rows of the Windup hangar. We trailed past paint clouds marking fresh, vicious coats; skinless frames shot through with wire and workers; edges of steel boots made uneven with last runs, bumpy with bone. Her expression remained indifferent, almost bored throughout, as she repeated variations of This is how we will slaughter your entire family as we worked our way through. It was when we went before the Phantoms that I learned that her tell isn’t in her face. It’s in her hands.

  She was bleeding. Fingernails burrowed straight through the skin of her palms, red licking into her cuticles. She barely glanced at them, just shoved them into the pockets of her Valkyrie jacket before turning and hesitating, realizing that I had seen.

  It’s in her hands, and in her eyes.

  Imagine killing her, I begged myself. Imagine wires spilling out of the open cuts, because this is how this ends, this is how this has to end—

  But something in her eyes—even the one provided by the Academy—was familiar. It was the same expression that infected my features during my first takedown, though I tried to suppress it. She’s wearing my fear.

  Now, even safely sealed in my cell, I can’t get her out of my head.

  I run a hand through my hair, carelessly tugging against the knots. I don’t know what to make of the Bot. Glitch. Sona. It could all be an intricate lie—the plan, her tears, her story. We escape and I bring her right to the Hollows’ doorstep, and she calls in her friends, who’ll kill all of mine.

  But I have no other choice.

  I’ll get no other chance.

  I look at my reflection, pasted across each mirror whenever she’s not here to darken them. I note the black circles under my eyes, so burrowed into my face it seems like they were carved there. Dried blood still sticks to my hairline and my collar, and the veins of my cheeks shine purple through the skin.

  After the tour, when we were alone again in the cell, Sona went over the plan once more and then left me to get some sleep. I don’t do that. Instead, I pace the room. I pick at the cold food they give me. I think of my crew and Jenny, at first only sifting through memories, but eventually beginning to imagine the future, too, after I escape.

  My lips crack apart as I smile. Milo’s going to lose it when I see him, grab me by the shoulders, lean in close—Did they hurt you? I’ll swat away his grip and brush past him. Did you really think I’d even let them get close? Don’t insult me.

  I chase ridiculously simple and dull fantasies, everyday events that I didn’t realize I missed, watching them pan out one after another across the tiled floor from my tabletop perch. Theo and Nova bickering, light slaps quickly turned into full-swing punches and bruised limbs. Xander and Juniper playing their brutally intense chess games, Arsen trotting around the briefing room, knocking over furniture and chattering loudly to grab their attention. Milo calm during it all, turning the worn pages of a paperback silently, eyes lifting from the words occasionally to touch on mine, a crooked smile, dimpled cheek.

  I suffocate those thoughts as soon as they come. They have a near-dangerous quality to them—too comfortable, too real, and too much like a promise.

  After hours of nothing—it must be daylight by now—I lie back on the table, knees up, and press my palms to my eyes until stars spark from the darkness. Jenny’s voice has started ringing in my head again. What the hells am I supposed to do if Sona’s telling the truth? Bring her to the Hollows, watch her get shot on sight as soon as they get a glimpse of her eye? Would I move to step in front of her, even if I truly believed her story?

  At this point, killing her would be the easy path. For both of us.

  * * *

  Gods, she’s quiet. I pull my hands from my face to see Glitch already getting to work on the mirrors, the one eye sliding shut as soon as she’s finished.

  “I’m bored,” I say, sitting upright. I take to cracking my knuckles against the heels of my hands. I must’ve done it a hundred times today, and there’s no longer any pops. “Nothing to do around here.”

  She blinks. “You are in prison, and your only complaint is that of boredom?”

  “Of course that’s not my only complaint. Want me to list them out for you?”

  “Not particularly.”

  I hop down from the table. “Did you get my gloves?”

  “Yes.”

  “And my goggles, too?”

  “Why?” Glitch asks, tone even as always. “You look fine without them.”

  “What a high compliment. Are you always
such a flirt?”

  She cocks her head slightly, curls slipping off her shoulder. “I am trying to be more truthful.”

  “Are you joking?”

  “No.”

  For some reason, that makes me bristle. “Why are you here?”

  “This is the moment I realize that you are a lost cause, and afterward, I will go to my captain and tell him so.” That makes all words momentarily depart from my head in a bolt of fear, and my silence allows her to clarify, “I have my run in a few hours, and I need to time it right, so we can rendezvous instead of you almost certainly dying during the corruption process.”

  “Thank you for that,” I say faintly. “Can’t we just both stand here in silence, then?”

  “Do you not enjoy talking to me, Frostbringer?”

  “I’m sure about as much as you like talking to me.”

  “I actually very much enjoy our talks.”

  “Is it my amazing personality?” The corners of her lips twitch. “I knew it. Who knew a Bot could be so perceptive?”

  “It’s not that,” Glitch says, and suddenly, she moves a step closer.

  My near feeling of ease snaps to shreds as fear, cold and rabid, steals my next heartbeat. Her finger treads along my shirt collar, other hand planted behind me on the table’s edge, and I think, This is it. You hopeful idiot. A girl with doe eyes spews a sob story, and you cling to it. You deserve this.

  But all Glitch does is tug down my shirt a few inches, revealing my collarbone and the eighty-seven gears in two inked rows down its length. It should be eighty-nine. Hungrily, her eyes skim over the tattoos.

  “It is that, every time I see you…,” Glitch says, voice a soft, dangerous whisper. Sweat prickles at the nape of my neck. A new look has taken over her features—an eerily calm, resolved expression. Her thumb taps lightly on one of the gears, just once, touch as quick as my flinch. “… I see Godolia burning to the ground. I see ash and scrap metal peppering the crater where it once sat. I see its hideous mark scraped off every single map, its record split from history, its reputation not ruined, but obliterated. And I see every Zenith, every loyal Pilot, and every Windup dead along with it.”