by Tania Hutley
Instead, I pull my gaze up and stare toward the top of the scraper, which isn’t quite as close as I hoped. There are still several stories to climb. At least the building’s exterior is covered with metal sheets and there are small ridges I can use to cling to.
It’ll be difficult to make my way up the building’s sheer, vertical outer wall, but not impossible. I hope.
“Go,” says Cale. “I’ll stay here and buy you some time.”
“What? No, you’re coming with me.”
“This Skin wasn’t built for climbing. It’s too heavy.” He flexes his hands as though they ache. “Even scaling the side of the elevator shaft was hard, and that had struts.”
“I won’t go without you.”
“You have to.” Though his face doesn’t change, there’s a weird kind of relish in his voice. “Truth is, I’m done with running. This Skin wants to fight. And I need payback for what the knights did to Doctor Gregory.”
“But there’s a whole squad.”
“My real body won’t be hurt, remember. I only wish I could say the same for you.” He glances down at my human body, sprawled on the floor. “I should have told Sentin that it was too dangerous to bring you up here. I hate that I can’t protect you. There are too many of them and I won’t be able to kill them all.”
“I’ll be okay.” I pick up my human body by the back of its coat and put my front paws on the lip of the window, ready to spring. The wind buffets me, roaring around my ears and making my human body swing in my teeth.
“Be careful, Milla. Get there in one piece.” Cale’s hands transform into claws as he turns toward the stairwell.
The stairwell door bursts open and knights pour into the room. At the same time, the first of them emerges from the hallway shaft, hauling themselves up over the edge.
Cale runs at them, claws extended, letting out a blood-curdling war cry.
I leap onto the side of the building, thrusting my front claws into the ridges between the metal sheets. Pushing off with my back claws, I haul myself up to the next ridge.
It’s awkward climbing with my human body in my jaws. It thumps against the metal, making it harder to catch the ridges with my claws. I’m trying to be as gentle as I can, and I wince every time my body hits the wall. Hopefully I’m not giving myself anything more serious than a few bruises.
As the top of the building gets closer, a shot rings out, the bullet grazing a furrow in my fur. Knights are leaning out of the window below, firing up at me.
Another gunshot, and pain erupts in my hindquarters. I’m hit.
My claws slip from the ridge I’m clutching, and I scrabble with my back legs, frantic to regain my grip.
Panic and terror lend me extra strength, and when my claws catch, I bound up even faster, ignoring the pain shooting through my flank.
The top floor of the building is just ahead. More shots ricochet off the metal around me, one nicking my paw and another grazing my back.
Three more jumps, then I can scramble onto a small ledge that gives me the purchase I need to propel myself at the top floor window, claws extended at the glass. I have time to realize that if the glass doesn’t break, I’m going to bounce right off and fall to my death, leopard and human bodies tumbling together. Then I smash into the glass.
The window crashes out of its frame and I land heavily on the floor in a shower of glass shards.
My human body is torn from my jaws. It lies in a tangled heap, but there’s no time to check if it’s okay. I leap to my feet, ready to face whatever might be waiting for me in Morelle’s private apartment.
The wind blowing through the broken window seems stronger than it was outside, almost storm strength. It lifts and swirls clothes and toys in what’s clearly a bedroom. Behind me, the curtains flap and billow. In front of me is a bed with a pink coverlet. My human body has landed on a pink fluffy rug on the floor. Against one wall is a large set of shelves, filled with toys, some of which have fallen onto the floor. Dolls and stuffed animals stare blankly down at me. Is this a little girl’s room? As a child, I would have killed for a room like this. Not that I ever had the imagination to dream of something so luxurious.
Morelle has no children. So whose bedroom is this?
Apart from the howling of the wind, the place seems quiet. I can’t hear any knights approaching, and the wail of sirens has stopped. Maybe the apartment is empty.
I turn back to my human body. My arm is sticking out at a strange angle and I must have a fresh wound in my upper thigh, because blood is soaking through the white trousers I’m wearing. It takes me a moment to figure out why. The bullet wound. My Leopard Skin was shot, so my human body is bleeding too.
I guess I could try to bandage the wound, but my paws would be clumsy, and it would take too much time. I’m afraid of being ambushed by Morelle or another squad of knights.
Leaving my human body where it is, I limp out of the bedroom. The bullet in my flank makes it painful to walk. Blood is trickling down my fur and the scent of blood is so strong, I can taste it in the back of my throat.
The bedroom opens into another large room filled with more toys. The wind from the broken window isn’t as strong in here, but there are still pieces of paper blowing around on the floor. The glimpses I get look like a child’s paintings, simple and colorful.
In pride of place in the middle of the room is a giant dollhouse, open at the front and sides, and full of miniature furniture. No, not just furniture. There’s a tiny family in there, and they’re moving around. The mother is rocking a baby, while the father is in the kitchen, serving a meal to three teeny children.
Next to the dollhouse is a full-sized dog lying curled up in a basket. It lifts its head to look at me as I walk past, and lets out a mournful whine. But it doesn’t smell like a dog. It smells mechanical. A robot dog.
The more I look around, the more wonders I see. Fantastically detailed planets are suspended above head-height, slowly spinning. Ultra-realistic holographs, perhaps? A colorful parrot flies across the room, lands on the hour hand of an ornate clock, then steps into a compartment above the clock face before freezing in place. An inch-high dance recital takes up one long shelf, with tiny mechanical ballerinas leaping and dancing in spectacular unison.
There’s too much to take in, and if I had more time I’d stop. Instead, I keep moving into a long hallway. The elevator is at the far end of the hallway, and on either side are several doorways. I limp cautiously to the first open doorway, and stop to peer into the room beyond. It’s a large living room with couches. My gaze snaps straight to the large picture window the room is centered around. The window frames an incredible view.
In spite of being worried someone might jump out at me, I stay rooted to the spot, gaping at the window. I’ve never seen Triton from this height. In fact, I doubt anyone but Morelle has, especially if all the other windows in her building are opaque.
New Triton stretches forever. The view over its buildings is dizzying. Its streets look tiny from up here, and I can see how they’re laid out in a grid pattern, with a hole in the center of each square to allow light to filter down to the city below. It looks like a loosely woven fabric, and I get glimpses of Old Triton through the weave. But some parts of New Triton are like a solid square with no hole at all.
Wait. What’s over there in the distance? All that green?
A big concrete structure runs in front of the green. It’s the Deiterran wall, so the green must be in Deiterra. This must be the one place in Triton where Deiterra is visible, and I could be the only person apart from Morelle to see what’s on the other side of the wall.
Could all that green be…?
I swallow as the realization hits me.
I’m looking at green fields. Miles and miles of green fields. Plants. Trees. Farms. I didn’t believe it was possible for farms to still exist, but there they are. Are the Deiterrans really growing their own food?
I’m so shocked, it takes me a second to register the noise tha
t comes from behind me.
I spin around too late. Morelle is standing in the hallway a short distance from me. She has a gun pointed at my chest.
“Milla, I presume.” Her voice is cold and her mouth drawn down. She looks as immaculately dressed as usual, in a navy suit and high heels. Her silky bob frames her face, not a hair out of place.
“Who else would it be?” I weigh up the distance between us, trying to calculate whether I can leap to the gun before she fires.
“I’ve always liked that Skin.” Her lip curls. “Of all the irritating things you’ve done, one of the worst will be forcing me to shoot it.”
Her finger tightens on the trigger and I spring sideways, trying to dodge in the narrow hallway. The bullet slams into my chest, knocking me backward. Pain sears through me.
She shot me.
Am I dying?
It hurts. Oh god, it hurts.
Forcing myself back onto all four paws, I lurch forward. I need to get the gun from her before she can shoot me again.
She steps closer, aiming carefully.
My legs are too weak; I can’t get to her in time. The next shot will likely kill me.
A dark figure flies out of one of the doorways, moving so fast I can barely see what it is. It leaps at Morelle. She fires at me an instant before the figure hits her, but the bullet blasts through the wall behind me.
The figure slams into her so hard, any other creature on Earth would have been knocked flat. Morelle staggers backward, the gun flying from her grip. It hits the wall and lands on the floor a little way in front of me.
Her attacker grabs hold of her, wrapping his body around her. It’s the Reptile Skin, his scales a dull, dark black. Sentin’s long fingers dig into her throat while his prehensile toes curl around her arms, holding them down.
She staggers sideways and slams him against the wall. The impact must break his grip, because somehow she manages to wrestle him off and hurl him at me. He hits me hard and I go down. Winded, I gasp for breath.
Sentin gets straight back up, his movements fluid, while I have to force myself onto my paws. I’m swaying, but when I stiffen my legs, they don’t feel quite as weak as just after she shot me. My flank and chest both hurt like hell, but now I’m over the shock, I don’t think my injuries will kill me. The bullet in my chest feels like it buried itself in muscle. It’s painful, and I don’t have a full range of movement, but I’m pretty sure I can still fight.
“I’m stronger than both of you.” Morelle’s tone is surprisingly even. Her gun is between us, but closer to Sentin than to her. She’s not looking at it, so I’m pretty sure she’s considering lunging for it.
“You are.” Standing on two legs in front of me, Sentin sounds just as calm. He reaches down and pulls a weapon from a holster that’s strapped to one of his bent hind legs. It’s a weird-looking gun with a cone at the end. “Do you know what this is?” he asks.
She nods. “I think so.”
“Then you know I can destroy your Skin with it.”
I stare at the gun trying to figure out what it might be. Something more effective than a regular gun, I guess. I’ve never seen anything like it.
“I’m faster than you know. I can get to you before you can use it.”
President Morelle’s voice is matter-of-fact, and I believe her. After all, if I were creating a bunch of Skins, I’d give myself the one that could beat all the others.
“Perhaps.” Sentin’s aim doesn’t waver. “Felicity is nearby, isn’t she? I can hear her.”
I don’t understand. Morelle’s first name is Felicity. Is he talking about the person operating her Skin?
Now he’s brought it to my attention, I can hear breathing. It’s fast and panicked. Human ears couldn’t hear it, much less tell where it’s coming from, but I think it’s from somewhere inside the next room.
“Ungrateful boy,” spits Morelle. “You could have had everything. I gave you the Reptile Skin. I allowed you access to my empire, including my most important research. I did what you asked, and we could have shared it all. This is how you repay me?”
“You made some mistakes,” Sentin says, as though he’s talking about a chess game.
Her mouth twists. “Surrender now and I’ll let you live. If you don’t, my knights will kill you.”
“You’d allow your knights onto this floor? Even knowing they might uncover your secret?”
She gives a tight smile. “They watched the leopard climb up here. They’re bound to follow.”
“Not until the elevator is unlocked.”
“That won’t take long.”
“If the knights step foot on this floor, I’ll make sure they all see Felicity. You won’t be able to explain her away.”
Morelle’s lip curls. “I’ll kill her myself before she’s exposed.”
I wish someone would explain what Sentin and Morelle are talking about, because I’m not following any of this.
“You’d kill her to save yourself?” Sentin does a slow blink, his eyelid coming up from underneath. The blink is his reptile equivalent of a double-take.
Morelle stiffens, and her fists clench as though he’s delivered a major insult. “Even after working with me, you still can’t understand what I’ve achieved. I’ve built so much already, and now I’m reshaping our entire world. Even if Felicity dies, millions of others will benefit.”
Though I don’t understand their conversation, her arrogance makes my anger flare. “What good have you done?” The words come out as a growl, more leopard than human. “Your factories are slave pits. You’ve brainwashed hundreds of children and made them into killing machines. Old Triton is suffering more than ever, thanks to you.”
She shoots me a disdainful look. “Old Triton is the engine driving us into the future, and all engines need tuning. I can’t achieve great things without sacrifice.”
“What sacrifice have you ever made?” I snarl.
“I’ve lost more than you know.”
Sentin nods. Of the three of us, he’s easily the calmest. “You’re talking about your daughter and granddaughter?”
I have no idea what he means. President Morelle doesn’t have a daughter, let alone a granddaughter. If she’d ever been pregnant, it would have been such a big news story, even I wouldn’t have been able to miss it. Besides, she’s using a Skin.
Unless the person using the Skin isn’t who I think it is.
Maybe the Skin’s operator isn’t really President Morelle.
It’s my turn to do a double-take as I realize what that means. Somebody’s using the Skin to impersonate Morelle, and Sentin knows who it is.
All this time I’ve assumed Morelle’s the one using the Skin, but if somebody’s taken her place, then who is it that’s been waging war with the Fist and Deiterra?
The elevator at the end of the hallway lets out a loud ding, and the light above the door comes on. Morelle glances toward it and in that instant, Sentin lunges at her. Though his reptile legs don’t straighten, he’s still taller than she is. He grabs her around the neck and presses his weird gun to her head.
“If they attack, I’ll shoot you.”
The elevator doors open and five knights spill out. Almost a whole squad of soldiers against the two of us. They stop when they see Sentin holding the gun to the president’s head.
“Find cover,” Sentin snaps at me. “Come out when I call you.”
I hesitate for only a second before doing what he says. Sentin’s brain works a hundred times faster than anybody else’s. If anyone can get the better of Morelle, it’s him.
I limp into the toy room, past the dollhouse and into the bedroom. Wind buffets me as I crouch next to my crumpled human body. Despite the wind, the smell of human blood is even stronger in here now. There’s a new bloodstain in the middle of my human chest. So much blood, it shocks me. How much blood can I lose and still survive?
Then I hear something loud and so high-pitched it set my teeth on edge. Wincing, I clap my hands over my ea
rs. A moment later, it stops, and I hear a muffled shout. “Milla!”
I limp as fast as I can back to the hallway, past the toppled dollhouse.
Sentin’s weird gun is on the ground, and three knights lie near it, not moving. He’s struggling with the two knights he didn’t manage to kill, and they already have him on the ground.
I leap onto one of the knights. We tumble across the floor and I manage to sink my teeth into its neck. The back of its neck is where its chip is and all the sensors that keep it going. When we hit the wall, I shift my grip, trying to move my fangs into the right spot.
The knight’s claws tear into me, gouging my flesh. I can’t bear to think of my human body, what must be happening to it, but instead of letting go, I bite down harder. My fangs can’t break through its armour, but I hope I’m doing some damage.
A loud crack of gunshot deafens me. Then more shots ring out. Have more of Morelle’s forces come up in the elevator? With my teeth buried in the knight’s neck, I can’t see what’s happening.
The claws that were raking through my flesh turn into fists instead. They pound into me with incredible strength, tearing my jaws off the knight’s throat and hurling me across the hallway. I slam against the opposite wall. Dragging myself to my feet, I turn to face the knight. It swings at my head and I dodge, my wounds sending sharp agony searing through me.
Sentin appears behind the knight, holding something awkwardly in his long, reptilian fingers. He presses it to the back of the knight’s neck, and it crumples to the ground.
My sides heaving, I scan the hallway. The floor’s littered with the five Knight Skins, and the elevator’s been destroyed. At least no more knights will be able to come up that way. But where’s Morelle?
I turn to Sentin. His Reptile Skin has several deep cuts carved into it from the knights’ claws and the scent of his blood is heavy in the air. Morelle’s gun is in the holster on his thigh, and the thing in his hand looks like a much smaller version of the hand scanner Doctor Gregory used to reprogram my chip. It’s about the size of a plastic, disposable razor.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
Instead of answering, he bends over and picks up his weird gun with the cone on its end. He examines it for a moment, then makes a disappointed sound. “Unfortunately, it’s beyond repair. Let’s hope no more knights manage to make it up to this floor.”
