Nothing they did could hurt me. They were also slow and awkward, like they were just learning how to function in their bodies. Their magic was powerful, but it wasn’t a part of them the way mine was a part of me. They were hesitant and uncertain, and I was steadily pushing them back, away from my friends.
The only problem was that my energy was waning. The Synthetics didn’t pass out as easily as normal people, and they weren’t afraid of pain. They kept getting back up for more.
I couldn’t hold my own against them forever. And every second I was fighting them meant I couldn’t go searching for Lilly.
The others were helping as best as they could. The coxswain’s waterspouts swirled around the room, drenching the more powerful Synthetics. Graysen’s Nat friends shouted curses and delivered blows tough enough to impress my old wrestling coach. They managed to distract the Synthetics, while the rest of the Seven threw everything they had at the creatures.
“Get back,” I shouted as a torrent of acid spewed out of one Synthetic’s mouth. I positioned myself in front of the others, wincing more from disgust than anything else as the gunk covered my torso.
“Blech.”
It smelled as disgusting as it looked.
“Get out of here,” I ordered the others. “Find Lilly.”
The Synthetics were stronger than all of us, but my magic would keep them from killing me.
I heard Smith shout something across my earpiece, but I was too busy trading punches with three of the Synthetics at once to pay attention. I wasn’t sure how much time passed, but my body was aching and my reflexes were getting slower and slower.
An icicle-blade shinged across my titanium skin, barely missing my eye. I ducked away from the next blow instead of trying to deliver one of my own. I was on the defensive, slowly being backed toward the wall. The Synthetics, sensing my weakness, closed in around me.
No, I thought desperately. Not yet. Not until I find Lilly….
The next thing I knew, people were crowding into the room with me. Magic surged through the space, making me feel a little drunk.
I was so worn out that it took my mind a few seconds to catch up.
The Super Mags…the real ones…were here.
The kids we’d left happily sleeping in their fairytale house in Boston flocked around the Synthetics. The Synthetics, already flagging from everything I’d done to them, didn’t stand a chance. There were fewer of them, and they were less powerful than the real Super Mags.
“Where did you come from?” I asked, confused and relieved.
“I’ve been trying to tell you,” Smith said across my earpiece. “They were waiting on the platform when the train got into Boston.”
“But why?” I asked, watching as the kids hurled their magic at the Synthetics.
“He convinced us to come,” one of the older Super Mags, who had never really taken to the Seven, replied.
“Smith?” I asked, not understand how he could have had time to go back to the mansion for a heart-to-heart with the Super Mags between ferrying the slaves from the mine.
“The Chameleon,” the kid said, frowning in irritation at my slowness.
The Chameleon. It couldn’t be….
“He said they had someone in your family,” another one of the Super Mags told me, “and that we should help you because you would do anything to help us.” The little kid shrugged. “He also told us there were fake Super Mags down here, and if we wanted to kill them, this was our chance.”
Diego. Diego had convinced the Super Mags to come.
“Go,” the kid told me. “We’ll take care of these things.”
“Thank you,” I managed.
With one last look in their direction to assure myself the Super Mags had everything under control, I leapt onto the elevator and went to the last unexplored level, where the raw Agent S was turned into a liquid. I’d saved this one for last because of Diego. If he hadn’t already gotten his vials out of the vault, he was out of luck.
My friends were already there. The Alchemists were helping to ferry the few children on this floor toward the elevator. Their glazed eyes kept straying to Michael. One of them even touched his elbow and asked, “Am I doing a good job?”
“She’s not here,” Kaira said, gasping for breath as she carried a large boy to the elevator. “She has to be in that locked part.” She motioned to the door at the other end of the chamber.
I noticed the titanium vault in the corner was open and empty. My stomach did something funny at the realization that Diego had most likely flown in, gotten what he’d needed, and left again.
“Our Super Mags locked the Synthetics up in some kind of barbed wire thing,” A.J. said across our earpieces. “They’re all exhausted, though. I’m sending them back.”
“Any idea how long the Synthetics will stay out of commission?” Graysen asked.
“Not long,” A.J. replied grimly. “They’re very…determined.”
“Once we find Lilly, Smith’ll start the malware,” Kaira said. “We just need to keep the Synthetics contained until we can bury them along with the mine.”
“Get everyone to the train,” I said, leaving my friends to finish loading the elevator as I went straight for the locked door.
I wrenched it hard enough that the hinges groaned and cracked. The door fell inward and slammed onto the bare floor.
The room was empty. There were some lab tables and shattered glass beakers, but no Agent S, and more importantly, no people.
“Lilly’s not here,” I said in a broken voice.
“Bri, I sense some tech behind the wall on your right,” Smith said. “Elevator, I think. It’s on the move. Worth a look.”
I ran over to the far wall, which as far as I could tell, was just more steel.
I was about to punch my way through, when I caught sight of a small keyhole. There was no handle or any other indication that this was a door, but Smith had never been wrong before.
I hooked my titanium pinky finger in the keyhole and gave it a mighty tug.
A door-shaped panel came away from the wall to reveal a huge, open area. I experienced a moment of vertigo as I found myself in the midsection of a giant metal cylinder. It was at least thirty feet in diameter, and it reached above and below me farther than I could see.
“I found the supply shaft,” I announced. My voice sounded strange as it bounced off the metal walls and came back to me.
A crude kind of ladder, which was really just rusted metal rungs nailed to the wall, climbed up the closer side of the cylinder. Naked bulbs were spaced at regular intervals along the metal wall. A yellow light was flickering.
I gripped the side of the wall and looked down, but I couldn’t see the bottom. It seemed to go down forever.
I looked up. What appeared to be an elevator without sides was moving slowly away from me. It was crawling up the far side of the supply shaft, leaving at least twenty feet of space between it and the ladder on my side of the cylinder.
The elevator.
“Bri, talk to us,” Kaira commanded.
“Smith, stop that elevator,” I said before quickly describing what I was seeing.
The elevator ground to a halt far above me.
“I fried the electric motor,” Smith said, “so that baby’s not going anywhere.”
“Bri, don’t go for it until we get to you,” Kaira said. “We’re headed your way.”
My earpiece filled with my friends’ voices, but all of my attention was on the elevator. I couldn’t say how I knew, but I just had a feeling Lilly was on it.
I jumped off the edge of the floor where I was standing and grasped the nearest ladder rung on the wall. I began to climb.
The elevator platform was about a hundred feet up and as many metal rungs away. I had no idea how I’d cross the twenty feet of space between my side of the shaft and the nearest edge of the platform without jostling it hard enough that Lilly might fall off. I’d figure that out later, though.
I climbed quickly, my titanium
limbs making short work of the task.
“That’s enough,” a sharp, male voice called out when I’d covered just about half of the distance. His voice echoed through the cylindrical shaft rather than coming from my earpiece. “Stop what you’re doing.”
The elevator was close enough now that I could see it was just a long platform with flimsy handrails. Naked cables attached to the sides were hauling it up to the surface. There were no walls to prevent whatever was on the slow-moving elevator from falling off.
Clearly, safety inspections weren’t a priority down here.
Six Synthetics stood motionless around the railing, blocking the rest of the platform from view. They moved aside to reveal the man who had spoken. Felix Remwald.
His white hair gleamed in the light, contrasting sharply with his black suit. The foreman stood beside him. There was a large crate at his feet. Cowering on the platform beside it…was Lilly.
“Lilly,” I gasped. And then, louder, “Lilly!”
My niece’s head jerked up. She was too far away for me to see her face, but I knew it was her. She was curled into a ball, as though she was trying to make herself smaller. She glanced fearfully from Felix, to the foreman, to the Synthetics towering over her.
Panic punched straight through my gut.
“What do you want me to do?” Smith asked me.
At almost the same time, the foreman said to Felix, “Want me to toss her off, Boss?”
The question echoed in the circular chamber.
“No. Don’t do anything.” My hoarse words were for both Smith and the foreman.
I couldn’t risk Felix hurting Lilly.
I continued to climb slowly so I wouldn’t spook Felix.
“I just want my niece,” I called, my voice coming out muffled from behind my gas mask. Clinging to the metal bar with one hand, I pulled the mask off and looped it around my arm. I repeated what I’d said before, and this time, my voice echoed off the metal walls.
“You and your friends have ruined more than two decades of work,” Felix called back. “You have taken everything from me. Why shouldn’t I do the same to you?”
“Please.” I climbed faster. I reached for the next rung. In my haste, I grasped it with too much force.
The metal tore away from the wall. I fumbled, momentarily losing my balance. I dangled by three fingers.
I steadied myself against the lower rung and dropped the useless piece of metal.
It struck off the metal wall. For several seconds, the echo of its descent carried up to where I was perched. I listened for the sound of it striking the bottom. What felt like forever later, I finally heard a dull clunk reverberate back up through the walls.
“It’s a long way down,” Felix said, sensing my thoughts. “Even with your powerful magic, I don’t think you could survive that kind of a fall.”
I didn’t disagree. Worse, Lilly couldn’t become steel at all. With my magic interrupting hers, she was completely vulnerable.
“She’s takin’ my magic away,” the foreman growled to Felix. “Kill her. Kill her right now.”
“No,” Felix replied in a bored voice.
The foreman spat a stream of brown juice off the side of the elevator. It missed me by inches.
“What do you want?” I asked Felix. I didn’t bother with the foreman, since it was clear who called the shots around here.
I yanked myself up to the next rung.
If I’d been in my regular skin, I’d be sweating bullets. As it was, nervous energy was shooting through me like electrical jolts.
“I want your Mag friends to return my slaves and leave my operation in peace, for starters,” Felix said.
“They already left,” I lied. “I’m the only one who’s still here.”
Felix’s chuckle sounded even more evil with the way it ricocheted through the metal chamber.
“One of my Super Mags tells me that he can sense the heat of other bodies heading this way.”
“If I tell them to leave,” I said, “will you let me have my niece?”
“No,” Felix replied. “But I’ll agree not to throw her to her death. For now.” He put a hand on Lilly’s shoulder, making white bursts of fury explode across my eyelids. “This elevator is very crowded, after all.”
“Fine,” I said quickly. I stopped climbing and wedged my toes into one of the rungs. I measured the distance, trying to decide whether I’d be able to catch Lilly if she fell from the elevator.
It was possible, if she fell just right. But even then, I wasn’t sure the rickety metal rungs would hold me with her added weight.
I held up the small microphone clipped to my shirt, making a show of speaking into it.
“The Synthetics can feel your body heat,” I told my friends in the calmest voice I could muster. “I need all of you to leave. Give me those ten minutes.”
I held my breath, silently praying my friends would understand what I was trying to tell them.
For several seconds, there was silence in my earpiece.
“You want Smith to initiate the malware, don’t you?” Graysen asked.
“That’s right,” I said loudly, awash with relief. To Felix, I said, “They’re leaving now.”
All I had to do was get Lilly. Then Felix and his creations could go down with the rest of the mine.
“I can’t stop it once it starts,” Smith told me. “Are you sure?”
“Go back,” I said into my mike, conscious of the fact that Felix was listening to everything I was saying. “I’ll be able to get out of the mine through this supply shaft.”
Translation: Take the train back to Boston so the Synthetics won’t have another way out of here once the mine collapses.
Only two people were making it out of this supply shaft…and it wasn’t going to be Felix and the foreman.
“We’re not leaving here without you,” Kaira said.
“You have to go,” I said. “If you don’t, he’ll kill Lilly.”
“We’ll wait in the train and have it ready to go as soon as you get down here,” A.J. said.
“No.” I glanced up at the cloaked figures clustered on the platform above me and thought about the dozens of Synthetics still on the lower level of the mine. “I don’t want the Synthetics to get you.”
Or get out before we collapse the mine.
“Synthetics?” Felix chuckled darkly. “I suppose that’s an accurate description. Have you figured out what I’m doing down here, then?”
“You’re trying to make Super Mags,” I said, slowly resuming my climb upward.
Felix nodded. “Agent Steel is truly a remarkable substance. When it’s distilled and combined with other ingredients in just the right way, it creates a solution that removes magic. But if the undiluted liquid is injected directly into a Mag’s spinal cord, it enhances magic.”
“It also makes them look like zombies,” I pointed out, trying to buy time while I inched higher.
Felix hmmed. “Yes, well, there are adverse effects on the subject’s epidermal layers. I was working on a potion to rid them of that discomfort before you disturbed my entire operation.”
“Just out of curiosity,” I said. “Did these Mags know what you were doing to them?”
Felix and the foreman shared a laugh at that.
The foreman was the one who answered. Even though I was too far away to see his face, I could hear his sneer. “I ’pecifically found Mags who were down on their luck and didn’t have nobody to miss ’em.”
“And the Agent Steel spinal injections have a secondary effect of warping memories,” Felix added. “It’s rather beneficial, as it makes my creations’ minds pliant and submissive. Combine that with the addictive properties of Agent Steel when it’s injected into the spinal fluid, and I’ve found a recipe for ensuring they obey me and no other.”
So, that was why the Synthetics didn’t respond to Michael’s Whispering.
“I guess after enslaving children, taking away adults’ free will must be no swe
at off your back,” I said, unable to stop myself.
I knew I’d be better off if I didn’t goad him, but I couldn’t help myself.
“An unfortunate consequence of needing Steels for my work,” Felix said. “Sacrifices must always be made for the sake of progress. The same has been true throughout history.
“I need Steels to extract the solid form of Agent Steel, since it is volatile. And only Steels can handle the liquid safely.”
“Also,” the foreman said, letting out a raspy chuckle. “Us Steels are the only ones strong enough to work a mine.”
The pride in his voice, as well as that word us, made me sick.
“Eight minutes,” Smith said into my earpiece.
I started to climb faster, the rungs blurring as I got into a rhythm. Reach, reach; step, step. Repeat.
“Forgive me,” Felix said, his voice completely devoid of apology. “But I think that’s quite close enough.”
I couldn’t be more than twenty feet from Lilly. So close. So damn close.
I was near enough to watch Felix take a small, metal box out of his pocket. The foreman bared his rotten teeth in a feral grin as Felix overturned the box’s contents over the side of the open elevator.
White dust sprinkled down and then dispersed, creating a cloudy haze as it filtered toward me.
“Bri, what’s going on over there?” Kaira demanded.
Instead of answering her, I fumbled for my gas mask as instinct told me I was about to need it. I had just wrestled the mask over my face when the first specks of powder touched my bare arms.
I hissed as my titanium skin was immediately engulfed by a tingly, burning sensation. It wasn’t unbearable, but as I watched, my titanium body turned back to normal skin.
I reached for my magic. Nothing happened.
“Alchemy really is the most potent of all magic,” Felix boasted as he observed my distress. “And Agent Steel is so versatile.”
“What have you done to me?” I demanded, even though it was obvious.
“Magical Reduction Potion,” Felix replied. “It’s very concentrated and starts with the surface of the body. It is quite effective in a place filled with Steels.”
Felix ignored the foreman’s growl.
Terror clawed up my throat. He hadn’t said whether it was permanent. What if I’d lost my magic…forever?
Mags & Nats 3-Book Box Set Page 102
