Palatine First (The Aurelian Archives)

by Courtney Grace Powers

  “What—”

  “We’re never going to have this chance again, Gid.”

  “What chance? The chance to get ourselves dead? I dunno, I see lots’a opportunity for that in the near future. Don’t think we need to rush into it now.”

  “Well, I doubt you’re helping our chances any by talking so loud.”

  Gideon checked himself with a scowl and lowered his voice. “Don’t have to get snippy.”

  Reece made a noise—sounded like a muffled laugh. Gideon couldn’t make out the details’a his face, only the outline’a him walkin’ funny to keep the bottles on his person from chimin’. This whole ordeal was sourin’ Gideon’s stomach. He hadn’t strictly been keepin’ track’a time, but it felt like there was a big clock in his head, tickin’ off the seconds loud enough to bring the Vees runnin’ to investigate.

  Turned out there was a door in this corridor. It was the only one, and the hallway ended at its threshold, like it was presentin’ the great steel hatch to Gideon and Reece. It was open just a hair; scarlet light and a deep, lecturin’ voice both squeezed out into the corridor as Reece crouched at the foot’a the hatch and Gideon kept watch from behind.

  “…the time grows near, now. Our next task will be the last before the truth is drawn to light, once and for all. We will install the new order of justice. We will…”

  Gideon started as Reece tugged on his jacket, and crouched down beside him to see what he could see. The door was attached to an amphitheater, a great domed room that was the beatin’ heart’a the hive. There were no seats. The hundreds, maybe thousands’a Vees inside all stood shoulder to shoulder, jammed for space around the circular platform where the speaker Vee stood in a fall’a red light. There was nothin’ in particular that distinguished it from the rest’a the Vees. Gideon wondered if any one’a them coulda been the speaker, if there weren’t any ranks among the creatures. Or if there were…what rank’a Vee they’d left with Aitch and Mordecai…

  Catchin’ Gideon’s attention with a wave, Reece nodded back the way they’d come, and they hurried to put distance between them and the hatch and what it hid. Gideon’d seen a lot in his short twenty-one years. Nothin’ compared to lookin’ into that amphitheater and feelin’ like he’d stuck his head into a nest’a evil.

  They reached the outer terrace, and after checkin’ to make sure there weren’t no stragglin’ Vees about, climbed down into the cave and sprinted to the tunnel without worryin’ about the noise their bottles made.

  “Nivy?” Reece called softly into the tunnel. He glanced at Gideon, eyebrows bunched together. “She’s not here.”

  “Unless she got back and then left again…made a run for it…”

  Reece’s glance lengthened and hardened into a stern stare. “If she was going to run on us, she wouldn’t have bothered following us all the way here.”

  “Unless she wanted the serum.”

  “Why would she want the serum?”

  “Makes you stronger, doesn’t it? Faster, smarter, and all that? Who wouldn’t want it?”

  The conversation froze as together they spotted Nivy makin’ her way down from the upper terraces. The way down looked harder than the climb up. She had to let herself over the edge’a one terrace, hang, and then drop, catchin’ the railin’ below with just her fingertips—like one’a them street acrobats they have on Orpheus, that scale buildin’s and run on rooftops. When she reached ground level, she crouched in the dark, catchin’ her breath. Lookin’ straight at them, she nodded. She had it. The Crazy had the serum.

  Reece smirked at Gideon, who bristled.

  “Yeah, whatever. This only means she won’t have the chance to run off without us catchin’ her.”

  “No, this means you’ll have the chance to apologize to her.”

  “Aw, comon’, Cap’n…” Gideon gulped down his words as he glanced a bit’a movement outta the corner’a his eye. He looked up.

  On the dome’s topmost terrace, a lone Vee was standin’ at the railin’, starin’ out into the cavern. Dirt if it didn’t make Gideon feel like its creepy black eyes were right on him and Reece.

  Reece had gone utterly rigid—he had seen, too. “Stay put,” he murmured, barely movin’ his mouth. Gideon knew he wasn’t talkin’ to him. He was willin’ his words on Nivy, who across the cavern, was gettin’ ready to run.

  She sprang outta her shadow, flyin’ at them with a will. At the same time, a terrible siren started in the dome, an endless mournful wailin’. Nivy didn’t look back, just kept sprintin’, her face too focused to look afraid.

  “Burn it!” Gideon shouted, the siren gobblin’ up the volume’a his voice. “She ain’t gonna make it!”

  Half a dozen Vees were spillin’ outta the base’a the dome, runnin’ so fast they were blurs’a black jumpsuits and pale white skin comin’ up hard on Nivy’s heels.

  “Cover her!” Reece barked, aimin’ his hob and fannin’ its hammer with his left hand, sendin’ bullets singin’ over Nivy’s head. Two’a the Vees staggered.

  Fingers curlin’ into their familiar restin’ places on the revolver’s three triggers, Gideon took a step outta the tunnel and picked out three targets. Left, middle, right. The gears’a the gun worked, pullin’, pushin’, clickin’, and the barrel rolled on its ball three times, to three angles. The recoil ran down his arms as revolver jumped in his hands and the bullets fired.

  The two Vees that Reece had started on collapsed and skated to stops on their stomachs. A third, on the right flank, twisted on a leg he suddenly found a lot less functional without its knee.

  Nivy was almost in the clear, about twenty yards out from the tunnel, when she suddenly surged forward, thrown by the extra momentum’a somethin’ hittin’ her in the back. Gideon couldn’t tell if it’d been a bullet or somethin’ else, but it hurled her onto her stomach and left her unmovin’ and wide open. He and Reece ran outta the tunnel in tandem, shootin’, reloadin’, and duckin’ under what must’a hit Nivy, small, blue electrical projectiles that fizzed as they were shot from the terraces above.

  Reece swerved between Nivy and the gunfire, planted his feet, and kept up a steady discharge’a bullets as he ordered, “Get her up!”

  Without slowin’ down, Gideon slid to one knee and started grabbin’ Nivy around the middle.

  The weirdest thing happened. She was movin, tryin’ to help him help her up, and he could’a swore…she spoke. Looked right at him and said in a liltin’ kind’a accent, “I’m fine!” And, odd as anythin’, she looked as shocked about it as he felt, with her eyes goin’ as big as saucers. There wasn’t time to make sense’a it. Reece had gunned down the rest’a the first batch’a Vees, but more were startin’ out from the hive, and the sizzlin’ blue bullets were fallin’ like rain.

  Nivy’s legs wouldn’t hold her weight, so Gideon stooped and brought her up across his shoulder roughly. They ran for it, him and Reece takin’ turns shootin’ and rechargin’.

  At first, it seemed they might make a clean if narrow escape. But comin’ up on the end’a the tunnel, Nivy was startin’ to feel mighty heavy, Reece was lookin’ green in the face from sprintin’ the whole way, and Gideon had his doubts.

  “This…should be…good…” Reece panted, reachin’ into his jacket as they dared to slow to a gruelin’ jog. He pulled out an egg-sized silver contraption with a corkscrew-shaped stem. A burstpowder shell.

  “Where the bleedin’ bogrosh did you get that?” Gideon growled at him, shiftin’ Nivy’s bony body over his shoulder.

  Reece grinned and used his forearm to scrub sweat outta his eyes. “Mordecai…left it in my…coat pocket. Thinks of…everything.”

  Gideon rolled Nivy off his shoulder. She staggered dizzily, and he and Reece grabbed her arms and pulled her up against the wall, where they crouched.

  “How close are they?” Reece asked, thumb propped under the curled pin, ready to pop it off.

  “Few more seconds,” Gideon guestimated. “Wait…”

  They held their bre
ath, trustin’ their ears to infiltrate the dark before their eyes. Gideon counted four seconds off before the first echoes’a footfall reached them. Not a heartbeat later, a spray’a blue electric charges struck the wall above them.

  Windin’ back his arm, Reece pitched the burstpowder shell into the black ahead. The pin pinged as it hit the ground.

  “Heads down!” Reece shouted, then yapped, “Bloody—” as a streak’a blue struck his raised arm.

  The shockwave rolled under their feet, a second ahead’a the white flash that shook the tunnel. Dust curled around them in the sudden burst’a hot air, and Gideon and Reece coughed into their sleeves while Nivy tried to guard her eyes against the driftin’ dirt.

  They waited a long minute for the air to settle before helpin’ each other stand.

  Gideon strained to see if the rubble and wreckage had properly clogged the tunnel mouth behind them. “Think we managed to kill a few?” he asked hopefully, keen on the thought.

  “As long as they can’t get through, I’m happy,” Reece muttered, massagin’ his throwin’ arm. “Those blue charges pack a sting. I feel like I’ve stuck my finger in a panel feed fixture. Nivy?” She looked at him, her face smudged with dirt. “Do you have the serum?”

  Nivy considered for a moment, pattin’ her trouser pockets. She suddenly went still, the way a person goes still when they realize somethin’s gone terribly awry. Her eyes widened in confusion; she flushed bright red. Then, without so much as a warnin’, she lunged at Gideon and shoved him hard in the chest.

  “What?” he snapped, and would’ve shoved back if Reece hadn’t caught his arm.

  Shakin’ her head furiously, Nivy pulled her fist outta her pocket to present the splintered remains of a glass capsule that would’ve been about the size’a her little finger. Purple liquid stained the palm’a her hand, bled outta the broken beaker.

  “How’s that my fault?”

  Takin’ a step towards him, Nivy demonstrated heavin’ somethin’ over her shoulder, simulated crushin’ it with her arm.

  Now it was Gideon’s turn to go red in the face. Mindlessly reloadin’ his revolver, he growled at her, “Well, you could’a said somethin’!” She made an exasperated face, wrinklin’ up her nose. “Hey, I ain’t stupid, I heard you!”

  “Heard her?” Reece interrupted, cuttin’ between them with his hands raised. Well, one raised. The other kept fallin’ down on its own accord. “What—”

  “In the chamber! She bleedin’ spoke! Looked right at me and said she was fine! Now, tell me that don’t sound like she’s been playin’ us like a couple’a burnin’ fools!”

  Even though Nivy looked like she wanted to shake her fist at him, she looked at Reece, whose face had darkened, and appealed to him with a gaze to make a fellow feel like he’d just been hit with one’a those blue charges. All big-eyed like.

  Maybe Reece bought it, maybe he didn’t—it was hard to tell. He’d been takin’ leaves outta Nivy’s book when it came to hidin’ his thoughts lately. Frownin’, he said slowly, “Let’s save that particular explanation for later. We’ve got to get to the garbage disposer.” With a glance at his watch, he started joggin’ backward towards the stairs. “Post haste.”

  Gideon grouchily picked up his revolver to eye level and followed. And tried to keep a good safe distance between himself and Nivy, who was still lookin’ mighty hostile.

  XV

  The Longest Day in the History of Longest Days

  Reece could list everything that’d gone wrong with the heist. Nivy, the serum, making it back to the garbage disposer by the skin of their teeth...but he was just too tired. Besides, there wasn’t room in the cramped cargo bay for another bad attitude. Gid was grumpy enough for all three of them.

  The garbage disposer landed on Atlas just as the grey and yellow dawn started outshining the stars. Reece and Gideon’s bims were parked in the vehicle stables next to the massive white building that was the midway point for garbage disposers on their way to collect new batches of dumpsters. Reece’s legs felt like flimsy wires supporting his body as he and his companions climbed the stairs to the bims, and he yawned a yawn that stretched the already too-tight muscles in his face. None of them spoke, just doggedly climbed onto the bims, Nivy doubling with Reece.

  Mordecai was waiting for them outside the shop, smoking a cigar. His bright Pantedan eyes twinkled as the bims’ engines roared and then sputtered to a stop on the pedestrian walkway before him.

  “Lookie there! Not a bullet hole to be seen in one’a you!”

  “Only because they weren’t using bullets,” Reece told him dryly, stretching. “They preferred some kind of…I don’t know. Appendage-frying electricity.”

  “Eh. Lightning caps. They would.” Mordecai paused, chewing on his cigar and watching them lift their sorry selves off the bims. “Hayden’s already left for The Iron Horse. He’ll be sad he missed ya…don’t think he slept more than two winks. Left you all breakfast, though.”

  Gideon paused, glanced around with a frown, and asked suspiciously, “Who’s watchin’ the Vee?”

  “No one. Fella’s been out cold for about two hours now. Hayden managed to get some water in him, but he ain’t doin’ so good. Likely will be needin’ that serum before another day goes by, elsewise we’ll have a dead body to account for. You got some you can give him?”

  Cringing, Reece heavily sat back down on his bim so that it bounced on its wheels. Bed and breakfast were going to have to wait. He needed to fetch Hayden and put him to work on the serum before the Vee keeled over…though, truth be told, he didn’t feel so far from keeling over himself.

  “Here,” he grumbled, shoving handfuls of bottles at Nivy and Mordecai as he pulled them out of his pockets. “Get down there and try to get the Vee lucid. But don’t let him get his hands on any of these. And don’t leave him alone anymore. Stay put till I get back.”

  Mordecai and Gideon both opened their mouths as Nivy raised her hand to be heard, but Reece was already kick starting his bim and switching into second gear. He peeled off the walkway, spraying pebbles in his wake.

  In the distance, The Iron Horse’s kettle-like whistle sounded, and he grouchily stomped on the clutch to shift up again. He could see the locomotive chugging into the distance, a mile or two ahead of him, too far gone to be stopped now. It looked like he had a half hour drive back to The Owl to stay awake for, and nothing but a splitting headache to keep him company on his way.

  Steering with one hand, he reached into the leather satchel slung behind his seat to retrieve his wireless earpiece. As he let it cuff the rim of his ear, he caught the crackling sounds of the morning public wireless wave, and settled back to listen, hoping the brisk morning wind would be enough to keep him conscious.

  Guy Clark was heading the broadcast this morning, in a smooth, chipper voice that made Reece mash his molars together irritably.

  “Day two-hundred and eleven of the Epimetheus’s solar cycle promises to be lovely. The Honoran Airway Sentries ask for your caution flying in Caldonia today, as it is the biannual equestrian march, and access to ground roads will be limited. In addition to our daily log, today we will be hosting an exclusive interview with Hester Knight, event planner for the Grand Duke’s upcoming masquerade. This interview is sponsored by Mister Mortimer’s Old Thyme Carriages, and…”

  Reece made it back to The Owl in record time, though not entirely on purpose. His foot had been heavy without his help, heavy like the rest of him, particularly his eyes.

  The Owl’s oak trees and picket fences were swathed in mist; students hurried along under shared parasols, teeth chattering. Guy Clark’s weather predictions apparently didn’t cover Honora’s moons.

  Aware that he was entertaining stares from all directions, Reece looked down at himself, and in spite of how bone weary he was, snorted. He was still in his heist clothes, dark and filthy and stinking of garbage. And he could feel that his crop of brown hair was standing on end, sticky with sweat and slicked with rain. Oh we
ll. If he had a reputation to look after, he might care, but as it was…

  He beat The Iron Horse to its station just east of the Airship Command Center, parked his bim, and sat sideways on it to await Hayden’s arrival. The rain didn’t bother him. By this time, he was so tired that someone could have turned a bucket of water over his head, and he would have thanked them for their contribution.

  There weren’t many people on the platform—mostly just girls who were painfully obvious about waiting for some boy or another to return from a night spent in Praxis. They milled about restlessly in their prim black uniforms…Reece’s eyes started to close as he listened to the soft chhh of the rain…there was one girl in brown, one out of a dozen in black, walking towards him…

  “Reece!”

  The buoyant voice startled him. He rocketed up off his bim, slightly frantic, swallowing hard, and looked around. Someone giggled.

  “Well, that’s what you get for sleepin’ on the platform,” Po gently admonished.

  Reece sat down again. “It wasn’t my first choice, believe me,” he told her as he shook out his rain-dappled hair.

  “I do.” Po tipped her head to the side. She leaned across his handlebars to look him in the face. “Everythin’ alright? I was kinda worried, you just up and disappeared yesterday.”

  Reece navigated carefully. “I had some business in Praxis. What are you doing here?”

  “Oh. Me and Gus are shoppin’ for undulator parts.” She waved a dirty hand at a man in a jumpsuit with a mop of bleached hair and a small, clever face, sitting on one of the platform’s black benches. Too young to be her father. He had to be one of her brothers. “What are you—”

  “Waiting for a friend.”

  Teeth catching her bottom lip, Po considered him. “Don’t know what it is,” she said after a moment of thought, “but you’ve just got a look about you today. Somethin’ that wasn’t there yesterday. You’re all…feverish.”