by Jay Kristoff
He felt the heat fading. Calm slipping in to replace it, like cool water on sunburned skin. Holding his breath, he opened his eyes again, looking into Diesel’s compact for their color. Sighing with relief.
Regular dark brown once more.
“What the hell was that?” Diesel demanded.
Grimm shook his head, looking down at the layer of skin she’d left behind on his arm. “Forget me, are you okay?”
Deez winced, still clutching her wrist. “I think so.”
“Hold still, I’ma get the medkit,” Grimm said.
He scrambled down the rocky outcropping they’d climbed for the view, down to the jeep they’d hidden beneath. Fumbling with the door, he grabbed the kit from under the seat, then dashed back up the spur. Deez was on her haunches, injured hand held out in front of her. Grimm busied himself with the first aid, Diesel hissing as he sprayed on a shot of antiseptic.
“Bloody hell, mate, I’m so sorry,” Grimm murmured. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I know.” She winced as he smoothed on some numbing gel, her teeth gritted. “Has that ever happened before?”
“Never,” he said, feeling sick at the thought he’d hurt her. “But like I say, since the nuke…”
She sucked her lip, thoughtful. Neither of them had any idea what was happening to him, talking true. There was no such thing as an expert on deviation—how it worked or what the science of it all was. Absorbing that blast had…changed him somehow. But exactly how, or what it might mean, was anyone’s guess.
“Well, at least you’ve calmed down now,” Diesel said, scowling as he wrapped her hand in a bandage. “No more heroic charges into certain death, yeah? We tell Brotherboy to monitor the sat-feeds and squeal in girlish alarm if there’s any sign of Lem. Then we Rift in, snag her and Rift out. Agreed?”
“Yeah,” he mumbled, appropriately cowed.
“Agreeeeeed?” Diesel asked again, louder this time.
“Okay. Agreed.”
“Thank god.” Diesel rolled her eyes. “He can be taught.”
Grimm chuckled, weak and halfhearted. He looked across the wastelands to the Hive beyond, squinting in the sunlight as he sighed.
“I just…I like her, Deez. I mean, I really like her.”
“I know,” Deez said, squeezing his knee with her good hand. “We’re gonna get her out of this, Grimm. I promise.”
Her grip was firm, and he took her hand, squeezing tight.
“I like you, too, freak,” he smiled. “Just so you know.”
Diesel scoffed.
“I told you, Grimmy. Everyone likes me.”
“You could have told us we’d be walking through a damned sewer, Solomon.”
Ezekiel was marching along a length of filthy concrete pipe, stooped to avoid cracking his head. The walls were dark and damp, the heat oppressive. A trickle of disgusting slop was congealed along the bottom of the pipe, a few centimeters deep. Ezekiel steadfastly refused to look down, speaking through gritted teeth.
Up ahead, the spindly logika glanced back over his shoulder, his inane grin lighting up the gloom.
“DID I FAIL TO MENTION THAT?”
“You did, actually,” Zeke growled.
“HOW TERRIBLY THOUGHTLESS OF ME.”
“It looks like this place hasn’t been used in years,” Faith said. “Quit griping.”
“I like griping.”
“You’ll have to forgive Ezekiel, Solomon.” Faith smiled, patted the logika on his shoulder. “He’s a touch sensitive of late. I, for one, appreciate all you do.”
“THANK YOU, MISS FAITH,” the bot replied. “THE SENSATIONAL SOLOMON APPRECIATES YOUR APPRECIATION.”
Ezekiel shook his head, muttered beneath his breath.
“When’s the wedding?”
They’d pulled up beneath a broken Megopolis overpass around dusk and set off through the Rim on foot. The outer section of the Daedalus capital wasn’t so much part of the metropolis as a settlement that had gradually congealed around it, like a scab on an open wound. In their stolen Daedalus armor, Ezekiel and Faith were given a wide berth by most citizens, and Faith’s body language was enough to scare away anyone else. Ezekiel’s big sister radiated threat like a bonfire radiated heat. Gabriel was imprisoned somewhere in this city, after all, and they were close to him now—Faith wasn’t in the mood to let some cockroaches slow her down.
At the Sensational Solomon’s direction, they made their way through the seediest red-light district Zeke had ever clapped eyes on and, finally, to a run-down warehouse district. Looking up at the distant barrier that separated the Rim from the Hub, Zeke began to have misgivings about their chances of getting into the important part of the city—it was obvious Daedalus Technologies took their security seriously.
The Wall was fifteen meters high, topped with razor wire and manned by a small army of CorpTroopers. The gates were guarded by heavy machina piloted by Daedalus jockeys. The only way past them was with a Daedalus CorpCard, and while Zeke and Faith did have cards stolen off the troopers who attacked Miss O’s, the bio-signatures and holoprints didn’t match. Trying to fudge their way past those checkpoints was suicide.
Their only way into the Hub was Solomon.
Fortunately, the logika had proved good to his word, and after waiting for a patrol of sec-drones to sweep overhead, he led Zeke and Faith into a collapsed building in the warehouse district. A gang of urchins had taken over the place since Solomon was last here, their tags painted on the walls, their shadows flitting among the ruins. But a few blasts from Faith’s rifle sent them scattering, and with the coast clear, Solomon showed them how his former owner had smuggled his contraband.
The hatchway was set in the floor, hidden under rubble and rusted shut. They descended into the dark, dropped into the aforementioned pipe. Faith was right—it looked like this section had been abandoned long ago. But even though Zeke’s helmet kept out the worst of the smell, he wouldn’t have been too thrilled at the thought of trudging through yet another sewer, if not for the thought of who was waiting for him at the end of it.
Ana.
In times past, he’d have waded through hell to see her again. Two years he’d searched for her across the wastes. Two years of ashes and dust, of aching days and nights filled with dreams of finding her. He remembered the words he’d spoken the first night they spent together. Looking into her eyes and realizing he’d finally found a home, that whatever else he became, he’d always be hers.
All I am.
All I do,
I do for you.
He pictured her floating in her cryo-tank now, still and cold and empty. Blond hair framing that beautiful frozen face. Eyes closed in endless sleep. The hands that had held him forever still. The lips that had kissed him forever sealed.
God, what am I going to do?
“Keep up, Ezekiel,” Faith warned. “Those rats look hungry.”
His sister’s voice shook him out of the dark places in his head, back to the darker place they were trudging through. The sewer line was long neglected, the walls dangerously cracked in places. He had no idea how long it had been since any human had ventured down here, but some of the rats trailing them were as big as dogs. The vermin followed at a distance, gathered in tumbling mobs. Their eyes reflected the glow of Solomon’s optics, the floodlights in Zeke and Faith’s armor, burning orange in the gloom.
There were hundreds of them.
“How much farther?” Zeke asked.
“AROUND A KILOMETER, I SHOULD IMAGINE,” Solomon replied. “THERE’S ANOTHER HATCHWAY THAT LEADS UP TO A STORAGE FACILITY BEHIND MY— OH DEAR.”
Zeke glanced away from the hungry eyes behind them.
“ ‘Oh dear’ what?”
Solomon pointed ahead. “OH DEAR, THAT?”
Looking past the logika in the glow of the
ir floods, Ezekiel saw the “that” in question about a hundred meters farther down the pipe—a row of stainless steel bars, thick as his wrist, running floor to ceiling. He could see they were rigged with a proximity sensor, security cams and, worst of all, a pair of robotic automata equipped with motion-activated assault cannons.
Squinting in the gloom, he saw a filth-encrusted sign on the bars.
DANGER: NO ENTRY BEYOND THIS POINT
“Crap,” Ezekiel breathed.
Solomon glanced down at the muck he stood in. “QUITE.”
“You said this sewer ran clear through to the Hub,” Faith hissed.
“APOLOGIES, MISS FAITH, BUT THIS BARRIER WASN’T HERE BEFORE,” Solomon said. “THEY MUST HAVE ERECTED IT AFTER I WAS SOLD INTO CAPTIVITY.”
Faith sighed, hands on hips. “Marvelous.”
“Those cameras are thermographic,” Ezekiel said. “The automata are motion-activated. Anything that gets within fifty meters is going to get blasted into next year.”
“So why don’t those rats set the guns off?” Faith asked.
Ezekiel peered down the tunnel, saw a couple of rats scampering around the gate, well within firing range of the automata. He shrugged.
“The automata are probably calibrated to activate when something beyond a certain size and temperature comes into range.” Zeke waved at the smaller vermin scampering around their ankles. “But if we get any closer, we’re made.”
“We could shoot the cameras out?” Faith offered.
“That’d set off the proximity alarms for certain.”
“Is there another route?” Faith asked, looking at Solomon.
“NOT THAT I’M AWARE OF, I’M AFRAID.”
“Yeah,” Ezekiel growled. “You’re the Sensational Solomon, all right.”
“I BEG YOUR PAR—”
“We need to get through here, Ezekiel,” Faith said.
“I know that, Faith,” he spat.
“So get us through!” she hissed. “You were the one Monrova trusted to work security details in Babel. I was stuck minding his wretched daughter. Plaiting Ana’s hair and listening to her whine about how unfair life was all day.”
“Ana wasn’t like that,” Ezekiel said, his temper flaring.
“Oh, spare me,” Faith sighed. “Trudging around in a sewer is nauseating enough without having to listen to your lovesick-puppy routine.”
“And it stinks bad enough down here without your bullshit,” Ezekiel countered. “Ana saw the best in life, not the worst. She loved it. And she loved you, Faith. She saw you, me, all of us as people. You were her closest friend. And apart from me, you were the one who knew her best.”
Faith’s lip curled. “Knew her well enough to loathe her.”
“How?” Ezekiel shook his head in wonder. “How can you hate her so much? When all she ever did was care about you?”
Faith stepped forward until the pair of them were chest to chest, a sneer at her pretty lips. “It’s not my feelings you’d best concern yourself with, little brother.”
“…Meaning what?”
“Meaning you know what has to happen once we get inside that tower, don’t you? You know what needs to be done?”
The words were a knife, slipped clean through his ribs. He could almost feel it twist inside his chest. Taste the blood in his mouth.
“I—”
“Daedalus Technologies cannot be allowed access to Myriad,” Faith said. “Ana Monrova is their key to all her father’s secrets. All trace of her needs to be wiped away from Daedalus records. All trace, Ezekiel.”
His sister looked at him, flat telescreen eyes glittering in the dark.
“That’s not going to happen,” Ezekiel breathed.
“She’s not even alive anymore,” Faith said. “You said it yourself. She’s just a shell of the thing you loved. And if you cannot summon the courage to do what must be done, I will.”
Zeke grabbed Faith by the throat just as her own fingers closed about his. Drawing the pistol from his belt, he pushed it against her cheek just as she pressed the muzzle of her own handgun to his throbbing temple.
“Showing some backbone at last, little brother?”
Ezekiel looked into Faith’s eyes. Wondering how she’d got so lost. He tried to remember what she’d been like before the Fall, before she lost herself so completely to the rage and hate inside. But in that moment, the thought of Ana hanging in the air between them, all she’d been and all she was, he couldn’t recall.
Because as awful and agonizing as what Faith had said was…
Part of you knows it’s the truth.
Ezekiel’s finger tightened on his trigger. But of course he didn’t squeeze. Faith met his eyes without blinking. Finally, Solomon made a noise like he was clearing his throat, breaking the leaden silence.
“I DON’T WISH TO INTERRUPT THIS TOUCHING FAMILY MOMENT. BUT THERE’S STILL THE MATTER OF THIS RATHER IMPOSING OBSTACLE TO OVERCOME, YES?”
Zeke hung on to Faith’s throat a moment longer, pressing his pistol into her cheek a little harder. Looking into those flatscreen eyes, he realized he couldn’t recall anymore the person she’d been. All he saw was the killer she’d become. Cold. Remorseless. Utterly ruthless.
But if it comes down to it…
Aren’t I going to need someone like that?
He pushed the thought away, released Faith’s neck and shoved her backward. She smiled at him, lopsided, as if somehow proud of his display of rage.
Turning away from her, he looked over the automata on the barrier. Working the puzzle through in his mind. The bars themselves might not be too difficult to deal with—among the gear he and Faith had taken off the dead assault troopers was a bundle of thermex charges that would burn hot enough to perforate the steel. But he needed a way to get close enough to drop the thermex near the bars. Throwing them would just trip the motion detectors. And anything bigger than a rat within fifty meters would set them off.
Bigger than a rat…
“Waitaminute,” he whispered.
Zeke thumbed the release controls on the lower half of his armor, heard a soft hiss of releasing pressure as the steelweave encasing his legs eased open. Faith watched him as he reached down into his pants, her eyebrow rising slowly.
“What in the name of god are you doing?”
Ezekiel made a small sound of triumph, fished out a torn plastic packet from his pocket, held it up so Faith could read the label.
BACON!™
Faith’s stare was growing more withering by the second. “How can you possibly be thinking about food in a place like this?”
He tore off a strip of meat(?), tossed it onto the ground behind them. It floated on top of the little river of scum as the crowd of rats gathered at the edge of their floodlights. Finally, a big brute with a missing ear and a tail as thick as Zeke’s thumb took the plunge, dashing out into the mire and seizing the treat in its razor teeth.
Ezekiel was quicker.
His hand flashed out, and the rat squealed as he hauled it out of the muck, teeth flashing, tail whipping in fury.
“Ezekiel, stop jackassing about with that thing, and…”
Faith’s voice faded out as Zeke uncoupled the thermex charges from his belt with his free hand. Realization dawned in her eyes, her lips curling in a faint smile.
“Well, well,” she purred. “Aren’t we a clever one?”
“Help me tie them on.”
Faith complied, propping one filth-encrusted boot up on the narrow pathway and pulling out her shoelace. Taking the thermex off Zeke, she tied the lace around the charges, then the charges to the rat. It tried to bite her, fangs flashing, black eyes filled with rage. When she was done, she pressed the arming stud on the explosives, and a tiny red light lit up. Nodding to Zeke, she stepped aside, and the lifelike tossed the furio
us creature and its stylish new attire farther up the pipe.
It landed with a splash in the muck, squealing and flopping about on its back under the weight of the charges. But in a moment, it righted itself, the thermex still tied securely to its back. It shook the filth off itself, aiming a furious squeal at Ezekiel. The lifelike offered another torn strip of BACON!™ by way of apology, tossing it up the pipe, a little closer to the barrier.
The big rat huffed and spat. But after a moment, it turned and scampered toward the meat. A brief scuffle ensued, the bigger rat fending off two smaller compatriots, seizing the food in its claws and scoffing it down.
Zeke tossed another. It was a long way up the pipe to the security barrier, but his aim was exceptional, his arm like steel. He threw yet another chunk, drawing the big rat closer and closer to the bars. As he’d guessed, the automata motion sensors and thermographics didn’t trip—they were calibrated to ignore something so small. And with a few more tossed BACON!™ scraps, the rat and his explosives were sitting right below the barrels of their autocannons.
“How far from here to the exit into the Hub, Solomon?” Ezekiel asked.
“THE SAFEST IS PERHAPS EIGHT HUNDRED METERS FROM HERE. IT OPENS INTO AN ALLEY BEHIND MY FORMER OWNER’S ESTABLISHMENT.”
“How far from there to where they’re keeping Gabriel?” Faith demanded.
“THE SPIRE IS LOCATED IN THE HEART OF THE HUB, PERHAPS FIVE KILOMETERS FROM WHERE WE’LL BE SURFACING. ITS UPPER LEVELS ARE STUDDED WITH TRANSMISSION TOWERS AND UPLINK DISHES. IT’S RATHER STRIKING. YOU CAN’T MISS IT.”
“Once we blow this barrier, we’re going to have to move quick,” Zeke said. “The explosion is bound to set off an alarm somewhere.”
“Eight hundred meters?” Faith scoffed. “We’ll be up and out of this hole before they know what’s happened.”
“Can you run fast enough? Your legs…”
“Gabriel is up there, Ezekiel,” Faith said fiercely. “I’ll fly if I need to.”
