There were no names or inscriptions on the coffins, or anything else to indicate who might be buried inside. I ran my fingers along the unsanded edge of the nearest one, but I couldn’t bring myself to lift off the top.
“Bri,” A.J. said, reaching out a tentative hand but not touching me. “We don’t know anything for sure, yet.”
“We need answers,” Kaira said, straightening her shoulders.
I was grateful for the way my friends were taking action. It helped ease the growing numbness inside me. It helped me get to my feet, when all I wanted to do was lie down on the hard ground and give up.
I felt weak in a way I never did in my titanium skin.
“I’m going to talk to whoever’s out there and find out what’s going on,” Michael told me.
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
We all gathered behind Michael as he eased open the door and stepped back into the tunnel. After the staleness of the tomb, the air in the tunnel seemed almost fresh by comparison.
“I’ve got us illusioned as worms,” Kaira’s strained whisper said from behind me. “No one will see us until we want them to.”
We silently stole back down the tunnel, closer to the clinking sounds I’d heard before.
I saw the metal cart first. At second glance, I realized it was plated in titanium. It also took up almost the whole width of the tunnel. If Michael hadn’t gotten us inside the tomb, the cart would have crushed us.
I started when something plinked into the cart. When I peeked in, I saw it was a chunk of the raw Agent S crystals that were embedded in the walls.
There was a little girl a short distance away. Her skin was metallic, and she was gently prying chunks of green crystals out of the wall and tossing them into the cart.
Even though she was short enough to stand at full height in the tunnel, her back was slightly hunched. Her clothes were filthy and full of holes that had been badly mended. Her hair was a tangled mess.
My throat felt like sandpaper. It was an effort just to breathe. Every time I looked at the little girl, my heart sank all the way to my toes.
The only thing that kept me from scooping her up and carrying her away was the knowledge that she wasn’t the only slave in this place. If the coffins in that tomb were any indication, there were more just like her.
“Bri,” Graysen whispered, putting his hand on my arm so I’d know where he was. “Is that kid a Steel?”
“Yes,” I whispered back.
“Then, how is her magic working right now?”
Excellent question. My skin was still titanium under Kaira’s illusion, which meant that the girl’s magic wasn’t cancelling out mine. Magic didn’t work when there was a higher-level Mag nearby with the same power. Since I was a Level 10, my power should negate any other Steels in the vicinity unless they had Super Mag-level strength, which this girl clearly didn’t since my magic still worked.
Now that I was thinking about it, I felt strangely weak. My skin was still titanium, but I didn’t have that take on the world attitude that came with my magic. Maybe it was a mental response to the sight of those coffins.
“I have no idea,” I told Graysen.
“Kaira,” Michael said in a low voice. “Can you make me look like one of them?”
A few seconds later, Michael appeared to be a small, dirty Steel dressed in rags. Even though I knew it was an illusion, the sight of his bony limbs and hollow eyes made me want to scream.
The little girl jerked to attention at the sight of Michael.
“I’m making quota,” she said in a tremulous voice that broke my heart.
“Don’t be scared,” Michael told her in a gentle voice. “I won’t hurt you.”
If the slave girl was surprised by a man’s voice coming from a child’s body, she didn’t say so. She let out a sigh as tension eased from her thin shoulders. She took a step closer to Michael.
“I don’t know you,” she said in a wondering voice. She poked his arm, her eyes widening in surprise. “You aren’t a Steel.”
“That’s right,” Michael replied gently.
“But then.” Her face scrunched up in a frown. “How can you be down here? Only Steels can work on Level 5.”
“And why is that?” Michael asked.
She displayed the chunk of Agent S in her hand. “Because if anyone else touches it, it explodes.” She had a slight lisp, so the word came out sounding like issplodes.
“Only Steels are strong enough to get it out.” The little girl puffed out her chest in a show of pride. “It likes titanium best, but any Steel can touch it for a little while.”
To demonstrate, she tossed the chunk of Agent S she was holding into the cart and then dug her nails into the rock wall for more. She grunted as her fingers chipped off pieces of rock until she had a fist-sized crystal of Agent S. She threw it into the titanium cart along with the rest she’d collected.
The green stones clung to the titanium walls of the cart instead of settling to the bottom. I felt a gentle, magnetic-like tug toward the crystals all around me. It was a less intense version of the attraction the Agent S seemed to have toward my skin in its liquid form.
“What kind of Steel are you?” Michael asked, pointing to the dull metallic gleam of her skin.
“I’m an iron Steel.” The little girl’s eyes widened, as though she was waiting for Michael’s reaction. When he didn’t say anything, her face fell. “It’d be better if I was made out of titanium.” She toed the wheel of her cart. “But there isn’t anyone down here who’s that strong.”
I knew from my own research that there were only a handful of titanium Steels on the planet. I was the only titanium Steel currently living in the Northeast US. I was also the only recorded Level 10 Steel.
I’d embarrassed Brent to no end as a child, when I’d gone around telling everyone—including random strangers—about how special my magic was.
My blonde pigtails were probably the only reason I’d ever gotten away with all the bragging.
“We have gold Steels, too,” the little girl was telling Michael. “And silver Steels and ’luminum Steels and nickel Steels—”
Michael pointed at the green crystals accumulating in the girl’s cart. “Is this Agent S?”
The child looked at the green stones and then back at Michael.
“We just call it stuff, but sometimes Foreman calls it Agent Steel.”
Agent S…for Steel.
I’d never wondered what the S might stand for before.
“Do you know what’s being done with the stuff after you take it out of here?” Michael asked in a patient, unhurried voice.
“We bring it to the other levels for processing,” the girl said. “We smush it.” She clapped her iron hands together. “And then it becomes like water. No more issplosion.”
“So, the raw Agent S is highly unstable,” Graysen translated. “It stabilizes when it’s in its liquid form, even though it’s still deadly for non-Steels.”
“Michael,” Kaira said. “Ask her what the people here want with the Agent S.”
Michael leaned close to the girl and repeated Kaira’s question.
“Some of it gets put into the glass jars and sent away.” The little girl shrugged.
Those were the vials that ended up buried in graves all over Boston.
“And the rest?” Michael asked.
“It gets put into them.”
“Who’s them?” Michael pressed.
“Monsters,” the girl whispered.
She shuddered but didn’t elaborate, and Michael didn’t press her for more.
“Steel for Five!” a loud voice called from somewhere up the tunnel. The sound reverberated all the way down to us.
“Quick!” the little girl squeaked. “That means another worker is coming down. She dragged her cart into an enclave in the tunnel that I hadn’t noticed before because it blended in with the wall. She gestured to Michael to get into the enclave with her.
“I see ano
ther one over here,” Kaira whispered. She released her illusion just long enough to point out the carved-out section of wall, which melded into the rest of the tunnel so completely it was almost invisible. Together, we squeezed into the enclave.
“There are five levels,” the little girl was telling Michael. “We’re on the lowest one.”
“What happens on the upper levels?” Michael asked.
“Lots,” the girl replied sagely.
She didn’t have time to elaborate. There was a whoosh of sound and air, and then another titanium cart came rushing down the tunnel.
The little boy perched inside hauled on a lever, bringing the cart to a screeching stop. He jumped out and immediately began carving out Agent S crystals from the wall and tossing them into his cart. From the color of his skin, he looked like a silver Steel.
“It’s okay,” Michael said, as he emerged from his hideout and the boy caught sight of him. The little girl glanced at the boy and hurriedly got back to work filling up her cart with the green crystals. “I’m a friend,” he told the boy.
“Friend?” the boy asked, like the word tasted unfamiliar on his tongue.
My heart felt too big for my chest as I looked at these wraith-thin children with haunted eyes. I couldn’t stop thinking about how these children’s families believed them to be dead.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Lilly.
Was this how she had died…down here in a dark tunnel, with no idea she was being mourned by a family who loved her?
Someone was gasping softly. It took me several seconds to realize the sound was coming from me.
I felt A.J. reach for my hand and squeeze. Someone else—Yutika, I thought—rubbed my back.
“What are your names?” Michael asked the children.
“641,” the boy replied immediately, like he’d been rehearsing the number in his mind. He even straightened and linked his arms behind his back when he said the number.
“622,” the girl said, linking her arms behind her back in the same way.
No names, just numbers. Just like the children kept in cages in MagLab.
“And we really gotta hurry,” the girl continued, her worried gaze straying up the tunnel. “If we don’t, Foreman’ll put us in isolation chambers.”
Both children shuddered in tandem.
Whoever this foreman was, I couldn’t wait to get my hands around his neck. My whole body was trembling with the need to do violent damage to the one responsible for enslaving these children.
“Michael,” I said, unable to hide the emotion in my voice. “Ask her about Lilly.”
Kaira changed our illusions so our disembodied voices would be less strange. Instead of wriggling earthworms, we became dirty, bone-thin children in rags.
Just the sight of us like this made my stomach turn over.
“Do you know anyone by the name of Lilly Hammond?” Michael asked.
“She’d be five years old,” I added, my voice coming out sand-papery and thin. “She—” I stopped myself before I started to describe her, realizing that I had nothing to say.
I’d seen my niece exactly once, and it was through the glass window of the neonatal unit in the hospital. I didn’t know if she had Brent’s smile or Sarah’s freckles. I didn’t know if she’d inherited my brother’s stubbornness or my sister-in-law’s kindness.
Both children looked at each other and shook their heads.
“Sorry,” the boy told Michael, seeming crestfallen to be letting Michael down.
Both kids returned to their work, clawing out crystals and tossing them into their carts. I snapped out of my horrified stupor and began to help.
It was no easy task. It took a lot of finesse to claw the Agent S away from its natural metal cocoon, especially without shattering the crystals. It took me several attempts to get the lump of Agent S out of the wall without it disintegrating into dust. When I finally managed it, I was surprised to find how heavy it felt in my hands.
I jumped a little when the girl yelled in a shrill voice, “Steel up from Five!” She gave me a small smile of thanks, and then she began to lug her cart back up the tunnel.
The boy finished filling his cart with my help and then repeated the same call. I took the cart’s handle for him and began to pull it up the tunnel in the direction the little girl had disappeared. The slave boy and my friends fell into step behind me.
As the cart creaked and groaned its way up the tunnel, I channeled my willpower into keeping my footsteps steady. All I wanted was to tear this place apart with my bare hands.
But we still didn’t know what we were up against, and if I did something rash, I’d put all the kids in even more danger. So, I gritted my teeth and concentrated on pulling the heavy cart up the tunnel.
CHAPTER 21
Ihadn’t thought this place could get any worse…until we reached the end of the tunnel.
We stepped into a cavernous room with high ceilings. The walls were cement, and harsh white lights dangled from long chains overhead. There was a large, printed sign on the wall that read, Level 5: Agent S Extraction and Processing.
Everything was controlled chaos. Dozens of carts full of Agent S came out of various tunnels and headed for an open elevator on the far side of the room. The elevator transported the carts to the upper levels of the mine. But none of that was the reason why my feet were rooted to the floor.
I estimated there were a hundred people working in this one room, and all of them were children.
“I knew Remwald was a monster,” Yutika said, “but this is so far past monstrous there isn’t even a word for it.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
“We have to get them out of here,” Kaira whispered, her voice tight with fury.
Desperation to do something boiled inside me.
The children worked at a feverish pace. They scampered to and fro, exchanging full carts for empty ones.
All around, the call of “Steel for Five!” rang out as more carts were sent down the mine tunnels.
The clanging, creaking, and shouting were enough to make even the sanest person crazy.
“Don’t let him see you resting,” a Steel kid hissed as he hurried past me with an armful of raw Agent S. “You don’t want to go to the isolation chambers.”
The little girl down in the tunnel had said something similar to Michael. I couldn’t imagine how awful the isolation chambers must be if it was worse than this.
“Thanks,” I managed, but the boy was already gone.
A piercing whistle cut through the other sounds. I felt a sudden urge to run and hide. Or at least to cover my ears.
The children stopped their work and hurried to the center of the room. They lined up shoulder-to-shoulder, leaving a few inches of space between them.
None of the slaves spoke. Without the movement of the elevator and carts, it had gone eerily quiet in the high-ceilinged room.
“This can’t be good,” A.J. murmured.
“Nothing about this is good,” Smith hissed back.
“I hate to say it,” Michael said, “but we should get out of here before we’re noticed. We can come back with the police, and—”
“No.” The word came out more forcefully than I’d intended. “I’m not leaving until I find out what happened to Lilly.”
Whether she was buried in that tomb or not, I had to know what had happened to her. Brent and Sarah needed to know the truth, even if that truth would force them to begin their grieving process anew.
“Then neither are we,” Kaira said in a firm voice.
No one else argued.
“I can bring reinforcements to us,” Smith offered.
“Who would come?” Yutika said.
Graysen, illusioned to look like a wraith of a child, nodded in agreement. “We’re not in Boston anymore. Alliance laws don’t apply. If we try to bring in Boston cops, we’ll have an inter-territory incident on our hands.”
Graysen was right. And since California was essen
tially lawless, that wasn’t a fight we wanted to start. We were on our own.
“We’re sticking out like sore thumbs,” A.J. whispered.
A.J. was right. We might look like the other slaves, but we weren’t acting like them. The others were all standing in a line, while we were huddled at the mouth of the tunnel we’d come out of.
“I’m too worn out to do any more animal illusions,” Kaira said. “The lack of natural light down here is making it harder for my magic to adjust, so this is the best I’ve got.”
“Blend in,” A.J. ordered.
My friends and I hurried to join the line. We got a few strange looks from the children on either side of us. I glanced to the side, and then linked my arms behind my back like everyone else.
I felt every kid in the line go stiff with fear as a set of heavy boots clomped across the floor.
“Did we meet quota today, kiddos?” a harsh, raspy voice asked.
“Yes, Foreman,” the children chorused.
The man stopped at the other end of the line. He was large and barrel-chested. His metal skin had the rusty varnish of a Steel who was made out of copper. His matted hair and beard were the same color as the dirt floor—whether that was natural or due to lack of grooming, I had no idea.
Even from my spot at the other end of the line, I could see the bulge in the man’s hairy cheek from what must be a wad of tobacco. His beady eyes roved up and down the line of children as he swung a titanium baton around his hand.
The foreman spewed out a stream of brown liquid onto the ground, inches away from the nearest kid. The slave didn’t so much as blink, making it clear this was typical behavior.
My muscles quivered with the need to turn this man into pulp.
When the foreman stepped to the side, I noticed there was another adult standing behind him. The person wore a long cloak and had a hood drawn over their face. I couldn’t see anything about them, but I could feel their magic. It wafted off them, just like it did around the other Super Mags I’d encountered.
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