Crucible Zero

by Devon Monk

“Did you try to make any of them the same?” I asked.

  “Why bother?” he said. “Better to use what I have on hand and try to make the most viable creature. Reptiles are particularly hearty in all their shapes and forms.”

  “And they don’t eat the sheep—I mean, shabbits?”

  “They don’t have a taste for stitched things.”

  “Well, I, for one, am happy to hear that,” I said.

  His eyes strayed to Abraham, who was slouched back in his seat, his arms crossed over his chest, looking as relaxed and unconcerned as a man could be.

  “Most of them, anyway,” Quinten said.

  I could have asked him why he hated galvanized. Over the rumble and jostle of the vehicle, I doubted Abraham or Foster would have heard his answer. But this conversation between us about the sheep had been the first time he hadn’t been looking at me like I was an unwelcome stranger behind his sister’s eyes. And my questions—things Evelyn already knew—didn’t seem to make him angry.

  I liked the hint of trust that might be growing between us. We’d need it if we were going to take on Slater. So instead of pushing him for answers, I contented myself with watching the sunlight warm the edges of the world, happy here in the small peace of this moment before the storm I knew was coming.

  7

  I think something went terribly wrong for you, Matilda, back in our time. I am running out of time to find you. Are you alive?

  —W.Y.

  After all the talk about ferals, I expected the countryside to be filled with teeth and claws. Instead, it was a serene landscape made mostly of the occasional walled farm separated by wide, hilly fields and forests.

  The road we’d been rumbling along for a couple hours took us up past Pock cabin, and on past the small outcropping of House Brown families that used to live in what was now an empty field.

  We made it up a rise that offered a horizon-to-horizon view of the valley, roads, and hills beyond. Neds pulled to a stop just off the side of the road, where a little brook glittered a few yards away.

  “Good enough place to fill up,” Neds said, “and pick our trail into Compound Five.”

  Quinten took a deep breath and nodded. “Let’s stretch our legs.”

  “How much farther to the compound?” I stood. My legs were still vibrating from the miles we’d put in so far today.

  “Depends on which route looks open,” Quinten said.

  Abraham and Neds had already exited the vehicle. Quinten was next, and I glanced behind me to make sure Foster was coming.

  He was already on his feet, ducking a little for the ceiling height. He offered me a small smile and a wink.

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

  “I am happy. You were lost. We found you.”

  From his perspective, he’d lost me back in 1910. Three hundred years thinking a child you’d only just met was missing was a long time to hold out hope of finding her.

  “I’m happy you found me too,” I said.

  “I never lost you,” he said quietly.

  I wondered what he meant by that, but we stepped out of the bus thing and into clean, cool air, with sunlight slipping between clouds. He walked past me and down the road without another word.

  There were no sounds of distant engines, no airplane rumbles or whistle of trains. It was as silent as I’d ever heard it be. Only the birdsong, broken by the rattling of grasshopper wings, and the burble of a nearby brook filled the air.

  Near enough I could hit it with a rock rose a two-hundred-foot radio tower built on the other side of the road. It speared through the view across the low hills and fields ahead of us.

  If Abraham was right and everyone out here in the scratch communicated by shortwave radio, then this tower was a good bounce station that probably serviced a hundred-mile radius.

  “I thought you said ferals were out here.” I scanned the landscape separated by only a few two-lane roads, and with a disturbing lack of speed tubes to be found. From here, I couldn’t even make out any of the small, walled-off farms we’d come across as we’d traveled.

  “Only at night,” Quinten said.

  “What do they eat?” I asked.

  “Other nocturnal beasts and each other. Farm animals, if they can get them.”

  “I don’t see any farms.”

  “Not in this valley. Too many ferals to risk it,” Quinten said. “They move in packs of ten or twelve, but the scent of blood will set them into a feeding frenzy. They give off a pheromone, and then all the other ferals in a hundred miles will come for the feed.

  “House Brown does some planting and harvesting out here. If it’s in a day’s driving distance, they’ll work the land. Sometimes a little farther if there’s a bolt cabin. Orchards and such.”

  “Where did the ferals come from?” I asked. “Are they stitched?”

  “You said you had crocboar back in your time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was it stitched?”

  “No. Just a mash-up of critters that evolved or mutated, I suppose.”

  “Ferals are the same,” he said. “Never have gotten the straight story, but when all the power grids and communication systems went down, a lot of things collapsed. Things in cages and science labs broke out. Escaped to the wild. Thrived in a lot of zones too contaminated for humans. And eventually they bred. A lot.”

  “So there’s a lot of them?”

  He stared at me a moment. “Far, far too many. But since they are all nocturnal, we won’t have to worry about them until sunset. We should be at the compound by then.”

  Neds swung back into the bus and walked out with something that looked suspiciously like a picnic basket.

  “Jacinta made sure we had a lunch,” Left Ned said. “Since you’re the girl here . . .” He handed me the basket.

  I gave him a withering glare. “What? Only a girl knows how to unpack food?”

  “No,” Left Ned said. “I meant, since you’re the girl here, you should have first choice.”

  The wicked twinkle in his innocent eyes told me otherwise.

  “Don’t give me those doe eyes, Harris,” I said. “I have matches, and I know where you keep your porn.”

  He inhaled, shocked by my response. Probably Evelyn wouldn’t have said something like that. Then he laughed so hard, both of him were howling.

  Quinten just shook his head and sighed at me.

  “Good God, Matilda,” Right Ned said, catching his breath, “remind me not to get your dander up.”

  “Here’s an idea,” I said. “Try being nice, and your smut might survive the week.” I gave him a sweet grin, then started unpacking the basket onto the grass.

  “Think I’ll fill the tanks,” Left Ned said. “Try not to spit in my sandwich.”

  “Too late,” I said without looking up.

  He was still chuckling as he walked over to the back of the vehicle. He pulled a long hose out of a small door in the back and dragged it behind him as he trudged down to the creek.

  Abraham and Foster were out of hearing range, walking down both directions of the road, guns in their hands.

  “Where do you suppose they’re going?” I asked Quinten.

  “To see if the mercs who have been following us are going to start a fight.” He pulled out a pair of binoculars and scanned the horizon.

  “Mercs? We’ve been followed?” I glanced around, looking for any sign of movement in the grasses or trees.

  “Since just after we left our property.”

  “I didn’t see them.”

  “They stayed a good distance behind us.”

  “How?”

  “Motorcycles.”

  “I didn’t hear engines.”

  “Like I said, they stayed a distance back.”

  He pivoted north, his eyes still behin
d the binoculars.

  The basket contained sliced bread, plump green apples, cheese, and cured meat.

  “Hungry?” I asked him.

  He hmmed, still scanning the horizons. I cut a hunk of cheese with my pocket knife, pressed it and an apple into his hand. “Eat something.”

  Then I cut up the rest of the cheese—a pale, buttery yellow—and split it five ways. Jacinta had included cloth napkins in the basket, so I spread out five and filled each one with a serving of everything.

  I held one of the napkins in my hand and paced a bit while I bit into the tart, juicy apple. “Did you bring everything you needed for the cure?” I asked.

  “Of course I did. Why would you even ask me that?”

  He finally pulled the binoculars away from his eyes and noticed he had a hunk of cheese in his hand. He took a bite. “Why are you pacing?”

  I shrugged. “Other than there are mercenaries after us and ferals in the shadows and we’re out in the open like sitting ducks for flybys?”

  “Flybys?”

  “Aircraft? Jet, helios?”

  “Airplanes?” he said. “Trust me—no one is going to waste fuel flying over the countryside, looking for us.”

  “I should be comforted by the fact that they’ll just put mercenaries after us instead?”

  “No, but you can stop pacing. We’re safe here. We’ll see them coming if they make a move.”

  Three quick blasts of gunshot rang out. A flock of birds rattled up out of the trees.

  I grabbed the gun at my thigh, drew it.

  Quinten and Ned had done the same, though they didn’t look nearly as twitchy as I felt.

  Abraham came walking up the road. I half expected to see him dragging a dead body behind him.

  “Did you talk them out of following us?” Quinten asked.

  “For now.” Abraham scanned us and the space around us, his eyes flicking down the opposite end of the road, where Foster had disappeared.

  “Were there more?” Quinten asked.

  Foster strode up the road, his pace steady, looking like a tank that could break through any barrier set in front of it.

  Abraham flicked a few fingers his way, and Foster responded with a gesture.

  “There was one other,” Abraham said. “He has been encouraged to report to Coal and Ice and tell them that killing us is not a job worth the pay.”

  Quinten made the hmm sound again.

  “Coal and Ice?” I handed Neds his portion of the meal and then gave Abraham his share.

  “It’s the center of criminal activity and information,” Left Ned said. “Abraham and Foster here probably frequent the place quite a lot.”

  “We do,” Abraham said, not rising to Ned’s taunt. “All jobs come and go through Coal and Ice; all information is gathered there.”

  “So it’s like a House?”

  “No,” Quinten said.

  “House of villainy,” Right Ned said.

  “It is efficient,” Abraham took a bite of the meat and bread together. “And if it were not exactly what it was, Quinten would not be interested in either Foster or me.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “They’re my ticket in,” Quinten admitted.

  Abraham nodded.

  If they had come to some kind of an agreement, it must have been when I wasn’t around.

  “Into Coal and Ice?”

  “Exactly,” Quinten said.

  “I thought we were going to House Brown. I mean Earth. House Earth.”

  “We are,” Quinten said. “Then we are going to Coal and Ice. For information. And to hire a few people.”

  So, Coal and Ice was a hub of mercs and spies. Killer central. “To take out Slater?” I asked. “I mean, telling people you want to storm House Fire sounds a little crazy, don’t you think?”

  “Crazy doesn’t matter,” Abraham said. “All that matters is what it pays.” He was giving Quinten a look, studying him while they both ate. Foster stepped up beside us, and Abraham handed him the remaining share of food.

  “I am curious as to what you will be paying for the job,” Abraham said.

  “Do not concern yourself with that,” Quinten said. “Concern yourself with the business at hand.”

  “It’s all the same business,” Abraham said.

  Neds scoffed. “All you care about is getting paid,” Left Ned said. “Stitch.”

  Abraham finished his bread and cheese. “Mostly. But if that was all I cared about, shortlife, I would have dragged Quinten and Matilda in for the reward.”

  “Like Sallyo would let you do that,” Left Ned said.

  “Sallyo couldn’t stop me.”

  That resonated with the Neds. It was true, after all. Galvanized were built stronger than humans, even mutants like Sallyo and Neds. If Abraham, Foster, or, hell, I got it in our heads that we should make a stand or take someone down, those who stood against us would be quickly stopped or killed.

  Which reminded me.

  “What kind of bomb?” I asked.

  Quinten brushed the crumbs off his fingertips. “What kind of a bomb what?”

  “Slater said he’d begin bombing House Earth compounds in ten days . . . well, nine days now. You told me he had the weaponry and technology to do that. So, what kind of bombs can he lob at the compounds?”

  “It depends on which compound he targets,” he said.

  “Are they all on this continent, or are they around the world?”

  “Most are on this continent.” Quinten settled into the history-teacher tone he always used when he knew more about a subject than I did. “After the cataclysm, cities and countries fell as the power complexes fell. The disasters that followed made many places untenable, though a few roughs and stragglers scratch out a sort of living even in those zones.

  “The richest soil, the cleanest water, drew the major cities of House Fire and House Water. Between those cities, where the water isn’t always as plentiful or the soil as sweet—”

  “Don’t forget the ferals roaming free,” Left Ned added.

  “—and the ferals are out killing every night is where House Earth built their strongholds.”

  “How many?”

  “Twenty-three.”

  Twenty-three was an awful lot of targets; nearly a month’s worth of killing, if Slater wasn’t stopped.

  “The other thing I don’t understand,” I said, “is why the Houses are at war with House Earth. Self-sufficient people shouldn’t have any reason to get in the way of the more powerful Houses.”

  “Who said the Houses were at war with Earth?” Right Ned asked.

  “Aren’t they?”

  Quinten shook his head, then went back to peering through the binoculars. “There are disagreements, skirmishes, fights, and accusations. So far there haven’t been any wars.”

  “Except for fifty years ago,” Abraham said quietly.

  Every muscle in Quinten’s body tensed.

  “What happened fifty years ago?” I asked.

  “The One-one plague hit,” Abraham said.

  They were quiet, as if expecting me to pick up on some important detail.

  “And?” I asked.

  “It brought new scarcity and disagreements between Houses,” Abraham said. “There were raids on House Earth. A lot of people were angry.”

  “A lot of people were killed,” Quinten said flatly. “And not just fifty years ago. Much more recently. Much more.”

  “Unintentionally.”

  Quinten shook his head. “You will never convince me of that.”

  “Who did the killing?” I asked. But just as I said it, it came to me. “Galvanized?”

  “It was a time of upheaval,” Abraham said. “Galvanized were the only people who weren’t falling to the disease. Some made regrettable choic
es.”

  “Some never stopped making regrettable choices. Do you know who killed your parents, Matilda?” Quinten asked.

  Everything in me went sick and hot. “Did you?” I whispered to Abraham.

  “No.”

  Quinten didn’t say anything, but the hatred radiating off him was a heat wave. “Only the galvanized attacked that road. Only the galvanized dragged the living off to House Fire and House Water. Who else would you like me to blame, Abraham?”

  “Those who are responsible,” Abraham said. “Those who ordered the caravan to be stopped and seized. Those who ordered the innocent people brought in for experimental treatment.”

  “You killed innocent people.”

  “I,” Abraham said, “was not there. There was only one galvanized on the road that day, and he belonged to House Fire.”

  Quinten stood at his full height, his hand cocked back in a fist. The brother I knew would ask who was that galvanized. The brother I knew would put his anger aside and deal with facts before he took action.

  This brother, this Quinten, swung and hit Abraham square in the jaw, knocking the bigger man back a step. Quinten pulled his gun before Abraham had a chance to return the blow.

  I jumped in between them, pushing them apart, my back to Abraham as I shoved on Quinten’s chest, forcing him to walk back and back.

  “Lying stitch!” he spat over my shoulder.

  “That’s enough,” I said.

  Quinten made a move to push past me, but I grabbed his arm and pulled, halting him in his tracks.

  Like I said, I am a very strong girl.

  He half spun on his foot and squared to me, and I yanked the gun out of his hand.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Abraham was standing, arms crossed over his chest, head tipped down, eyeing Quinten over Neds, who was standing in front of him.

  Foster stood to one side and behind Abraham, chewing on his apple and looking positively unconcerned about the entire situation.

  “Let go of me now,” Quinten snapped.

  “So you can get yourself killed?” I said. “I don’t think so. You are picking a fight with a galvanized, Quinten. If Abraham wanted to, he could crush you with one hand.”

  “He killed them!”

  “He said he wasn’t there.”