“Climbing back up is going to suck,” Yutika noted as we all gathered around the door.
“Try doing it one-handed with a squirming dog in the other,” A.J. said, shaking out his arm after he put Sir Zachary on the ground. “Thank goodness I’m at the peak of health.”
“I can make a backpack carrier for Sir Zachary on the way back up,” Yutika offered, getting to work on her sketchpad to do just that.
My friends were all sweating and panting from the climb. It must be hotter than hell down here, but I felt only the cool metal of my skin.
I loved my magic.
I held my phone flashlight over the black box while Smith inspected it.
“Good call not trying to muscle the door open,” Smith said as he continued to examine the box. “This thing’s rigged to blow if it isn’t opened the right way.”
“Can you hack it?” I asked.
I was expecting one of Smith’s sarcastic and affronted replies. Instead, he frowned and peered more closely at the box. “It was designed by a powerful Techie,” he said, all of his attention directed at the box. “They weren’t as strong as me, but it would take days for me to find a back door.”
Days? We didn’t have days. I bit my tongue, knowing that Smith didn’t need to be reminded of that fact.
“So, what do we do?” I prodded.
“Gotta go in the front door,” Smith replied.
He pressed a button on the side I hadn’t even noticed, and the bottom half of the box flipped down to display a keypad with letters, numbers, and symbols.
“Can I get some fluorescent powder and a brush?” Smith asked.
I had no idea what he was talking about. Fortunately, he wasn’t talking to me. A few seconds later, Yutika handed over the items.
I should have been used to the way my friends operated by this point, but they never ceased to amaze me.
Smith carefully brushed powder over the keypad.
“Lights off,” Smith ordered.
When we complied, I saw that seven buttons were lit up.
“So awesome,” Graysen said, echoing my own opinion on the matter.
“Glad you think so,” Smith replied without emotion. “But that doesn’t tell us the right permutation.”
With that, he punched each of the lit-up buttons. A warning beep emitted from the black box. A message scrawled across the screen.
Attempt 1/4.
Smith tried a different ordering.
Attempt 2/4.
I held my breath when Smith tried another.
Attempt 3/4.
“What happens if he doesn’t get number four?” Yutika whispered.
“Kaboom,” A.J. replied solemnly.
“Everyone be quiet and let Smith think,” Michael ordered.
Smith hesitated, his fingers resting lightly on the keypad.
“Talk to me,” he murmured. He closed his eyes and tilted his ear toward the box.
Another digital message appeared on the screen.
System shutting down in 5…4….
Someone cursed.
3…2….
Sweat slithered down between my breasts.
Smith plugged in another sequence. There was a mechanical whine, and then a panel slid out from the wall beneath the keypad.
We all let out simultaneous sighs of relief.
“How did you know that was the right order?” Kaira asked in a subdued voice.
Smith lifted a shoulder. “Techie instinct.”
We all stared at the tiny table that had emerged from the panel. There was a long needle attached to clear tubing that disappeared into the depths of the wall.
“A blood sacrifice?” Yutika squeaked.
“I’ll do it,” Michael said, stepping forward.
“Wait,” Graysen ordered. He squinted at the needle, but I could tell he wasn’t really looking at it. He had his Level 10 Brainiac face on.
“I think—” he broke off.
I followed the direction of his gaze to Sir Zachary, who was lying at A.J.’s feet and licking the dirt floor.
“Oh,” I said, following the line of Graysen’s thinking. “Ohhh.”
“The dog is the key,” Kaira said in a quiet voice.
Those were the words Subject 6 had said to us four months ago. He hadn’t figured out what Sir Zachary had been the key to, but now, looking at this needle and the locked door, it was obvious.
Ex-Director Remwald had transferred some of his own DNA into Sir Zachary and done who-knows-what experiments on our dog before he died. That was why Sir Zachary had crazy super powers. It would also explain why his blood could give us access to a secret location…his blood was the same as Remwald’s.
“No way, José,” A.J. said, scooping up Sir Zachary and cuddling him protectively. “You are not poking our dog without his consent. Nope, nope, nope.”
“I can get his permission, if that would help,” Charlotte offered.
“We’re not stabbing my baby!” A.J. shrieked. His voice rose up in the metal silo and echoed back to us.
“It makes sense that Remwald would devise a system that only he could access,” Graysen told A.J. “And if that’s the case, Sir Zachary is the only one who can open this door.”
“Not happening,” A.J. said stubbornly.
“It’s just a little needle,” I said.
Normally, I was more sympathetic to A.J.’s animal obsession, but answers were waiting right on the other side of this door. We were so close.
“How about this,” Yutika said, already drawing on her sketchpad. “We’ll prick Sir Zachary this one time, and then I’ll make a tiny doorstop that no one will notice. That way, we’ll be able to get in and out without needing to hurt him ever again.”
A.J. sniffed. Sir Zachary licked the tear that was trickling down A.J.’s cheek.
Taking advantage of his hesitation, Kaira plucked Sir Zachary out of A.J.’s arms and brought him over to the small table. She snuggled him against her chest as Graysen picked up the needle and hesitated.
“Um, anyone know how to do a blood draw on a dog?” he asked.
I didn’t know how to draw blood from a human. It seemed to me that getting the needle into Sir Zachary, with all that fur, would be even more difficult.
“I’ll do it,” Charlotte offered.
“Have you ever done this before?” A.J. asked, his voice an octave higher than usual.
“No,” she replied calmly. “But I know how his body functions. I promise I won’t hurt him.”
A.J. made a strangled sound. I put my arm around his shoulders, half for comfort and half so he didn’t grab Sir Zachary and race back up the ladder.
Sir Zachary didn’t make a peep as Charlotte pricked his paw. From the way he was busy nosing the table’s surface, I didn’t think he’d even noticed. I covered A.J.’s eyes as blood began to flow into the clear tubing.
I held my breath as the blood disappear into the wall.
A harsh beep made all of us jump. Then, the red light on the keypad turned green. The metal door in front of us swung inward without a sound.
CHAPTER 19
We stepped into a room that looked like some kind of futuristic train platform. A trolley-like vehicle was hovering over a dark hole in the ground next to the platform. It was like the vehicle had been expecting us.
The vehicle was bigger than a normal tram and made out of some material that looked like glass but was obviously far more durable. It was boxed in on either side by solid metal walls, which meant the only direction it could go was down.
“This was what I was sensing from the surface,” Smith said in a reverent tone. “What a beaut.”
“I guess the most pressing question is where will it take us?” Graysen asked, giving the train car a skeptical look.
“Only one way to find out,” Yutika replied, pressing a button on the front of the cart.
The door slid to the side, revealing a wide entrance.
“Yutika, I think—” Michael began, but she just
waved a hand at the worry on his face and settled herself on one of the long benches.
“I could have made these seats comfier,” she said, squirming around on the flat bench. “But it’s tolerable.”
Shaking his head, Michael went after her.
Smith was next. He studied a panel at the front of the vehicle that had several buttons, levers, and gauges.
“Take Sir Zachary home,” Kaira was telling Charlotte. “And can you tell Ma we won’t be home in time for dinner, but that she shouldn’t worry?”
I smiled at the way Kaira so seamlessly gave the little girl a job that made her feel important while ensuring she wouldn’t be walking into whatever danger we were about to face.
I paused with one foot inside the vehicle. In addition to the smells of metal and dirt, I thought I caught the faintest trace of cinnamon.
It faded as quickly as it had come, convincing me that I seriously needed to get whatever this Diego thing was out of my system.
As soon as we were all inside, Yutika pressed another button to shut the door.
“I’m about to start this thing up,” Smith said, still studying the panel. “And I have a feeling it’s going to go fast.”
There were no seatbelts or anything else to hold onto, so we just waited with baited breath.
It didn’t take long. There was a shrill whistle, accompanied by a blast of steam from the vehicle’s rear. And then, we were off.
The cart dropped straight down, leaving my stomach behind.
“Oh my God!” Yutika moaned.
I whooped.
Kaira shrieked. A.J. was holding onto my arm, like that might somehow slow his descent.
Down, down, down, we fell.
My racing pulse began to slow as the train car came to a gentle stop. We were all gasping.
“Well,” Graysen said. “That was—”
The vehicle shot forward without warning. It went from zero to fuck you in half a second. Multiple screams filled the air as we hurtled at breakneck speed.
My head ached, like my brain was being sucked out from the sheer speed. My friends’ shouts were overpowered by the rushing wind sound that filled my ears.
We were speeding through some kind of transparent tube, but there was nothing to see outside the clear walls except darkness.
We were hurtling through the earth. I had no concept of time or space.
As we continued to shoot along some pre-determined path, I began to relax. It was like a roller coaster…except so much better. It was like flying with Diego, except horizontally…and without Diego’s arms wrapped around me.
All too soon, the vehicle began to slow. Lights filled the tunnel ahead, illuminating another platform that looked like the one we’d come from.
“What a rush,” I said as we came to a gentle stop.
My friends gave me looks that ranged from incredulous to Are you brain damaged?
Since I seemed to be the only one in a good mood, I pressed the button for the door and hopped onto the platform. According to my phone, we’d been on the train for half an hour. Longer than I’d thought…since I was pretty sure I hadn’t taken a breath the entire time.
Yutika tottered out after me, moving like she had sea legs. She bent over and promptly threw up. Michael held her hair and rubbed her back.
Graysen, Kaira, and A.J. were holding onto each other as they came onto the platform. Smith looked almost as thrilled as I felt.
“Do you people have any idea what kind of a feat this is?” he asked, motioning to the vehicle. “The technology and magic…it’s unbelievable. I can feel the magnetic levitation. And then there’s the technology countering the g-force. Do you know what would have happened to our bodies without it?! At that speed—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Yutika groaned.
“Where do you think we are?” Graysen asked, looking at the metal door that was the only way out of the chamber.
“California,” Smith said.
“Very funny, Smith,” Kaira said. “But seriously.”
The train had been fast, but there was no way it had gotten us all the way across the country in half an hour.
We all turned to look at the Techie, but his attention was fixed on the GPS tracker in his hand. “We’re in California.”
CHAPTER 20
We were at the exact location that Pruwist’s first set of coordinates had indicated…except we were hundreds of feet underground.
The metal door opened easily and without any blood sacrifices. We found ourselves in a tunnel that was so narrow even I couldn’t stand up all the way. Michael had to fold himself practically in half to keep from scraping his head against the rough ceiling. There were no lights in the tunnel because none were needed. The entire place was illuminated in a hazy green glow. The color came from the crystals gleaming in the walls and ceiling.
“It’s a mine,” I said.
“Magically dug by the looks of it,” Smith said, glancing around. “No normal construction equipment could have gotten down this deep.”
When I looked back, I could no longer make out the door we’d come through. It blended in perfectly to the dark stone surrounding it; no one would ever find it if they didn’t already know it existed.
“What have we here?” A.J. murmured, glancing around.
“Let’s find out, shall we?” Yutika replied. She dropped a sheet of paper on the floor of the tunnel. A few seconds later, she handed a small walkie-talkie looking object to Smith.
“What’s that?” Graysen asked.
“Mineral composition detector,” Yutika said. “I could probably sell it to space exploration companies for a cool billion.”
“Your sacrifice to our cause is truly noble,” Smith said as he fiddled with a knob on the detector.
Yutika stuck her tongue out at him.
“Huh,” Smith said a few seconds later. “This soil is almost completely metal dust.” He held up the detector. “It’s mostly titanium, but there are a whole lot of other metals.”
I brushed my fingers over the green crystals. They didn’t pop out of the wall and start molesting me like the liquid Agent S did, but I felt the same sense of familiarity around these stones as I did with the vials of Agent S.
“I think this is like the raw form of Agent S,” I told my friends.
Everyone except me moved farther away from the walls and pressed their arms to their sides. None of us knew whether the raw Agent S was as deadly as the liquid, but it was better not to take any chances.
“I think you’re right,” Smith said, staring down at the screen on his instrument. “I bet if I poison scanned them—”
“Don’t!” the rest of us said at once.
If Smith’s poison wand started screeching, we’d alert everyone within a hundred miles to our presence.
“Let’s keep going,” Kaira said. “See where this tunnel leads.”
We walked in silence for several minutes. The tunnel curved a few times, but there were no branches or other paths.
“Why does everything always have to be uphill?” Yutika panted.
“It won’t be when we’re headed back in the other direction,” Smith pointed out.
“Says you,” Yutika grumbled.
We all went motionless when a loud, unfamiliar voice echoed down the tunnel.
“Steel for Five!”
For several seconds, nothing happened. Then, I heard a rattling sound. It was faint at first but grew louder by the second.
“What is that?” Yutika whispered.
Graysen, who had gone ahead to peer around the corner, jerked back.
“There’s a cart coming this way,” he whispered urgently. “We have to get out of here before it runs us over.”
We all looked back down the tunnel the way we’d come. Judging from the sounds echoing through the tunnel, we wouldn’t make it back into the train platform in time.
“In here,” Michael said, shoving his shoulder against a wooden door I hadn’t even notice
d.
The door gave way, and we slid inside just as a metal cart shot down the tunnel, narrowly missing Graysen’s arm. Michael gently slid the door back into place, enclosing us in darkness.
“That was a close one,” A.J. whispered.
The dark space filled with several beams of light as we turned on our phone flashlights. Dust particles swirled in the air, which carried an unpleasant, sour smell.
“Ouch,” Yutika hissed, hopping on one foot and grasping her knee.
I shined my flashlight down at whatever she’d walked into. My breath caught.
The floor was covered with caskets. They were wooden and roughly made, but there was no question that was what they were. They were spaced in neat rows, going back farther than the beam of my flashlight could reach. Just in my line of sight, I counted twenty-five. But that wasn’t the part that had turned all of our breathing ragged. We’d all made the same observation.
These caskets were too small to fit an adult. Every one of these caskets was child-sized.
I heard Graysen murmur something low and soothing to Kaira. Michael and Yutika were gripping each other’s hands. Smith was standing stock-still with his head bowed. A.J. started toward me, his face pale as a ghost.
“I’m fine,” I managed, before sinking to my knees.
My body couldn’t hold itself up anymore, and I sagged against one of the rough-hewn coffins. Only a single thought filled my head.
Lilly.
Lilly had been taken to this underground mine. Was one of these caskets hers?
The thought of her tiny bones disintegrating in a splintered box, miles below the ground and far away from the cemetery Sarah and Brent faithfully visited, was too much for me. I pressed my fist to my mouth to hold back a sob.
At that moment, I realized just how deeply I’d been hoping that Lilly was still alive. I’d known the odds in theory, but it wasn’t until this moment that it occurred to me how desperately I’d believed that she was alive and just…lost. Like she was just out of reach, and all I needed to do was hold out a hand and grasp her.
Now, staring at these rows and rows of coffins, reality crashed into me with the force of a physical blow.
I flinched at the sound of metal on rock coming from somewhere back in the tunnel. Whoever had come down in that cart was working nearby. I made the observation without reacting to it. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the child-sized coffins.
Mags & Nats 3-Book Box Set Page 84
