Slow Burn Dark

by A. B. Keuser

  “Only the three of us know that, right? Let’s shove something under there anyway.”

  Putty shook his head. “I’m going to have to get under it… unless those plans tell us something different.”

  Drea let out a long breath and sat on the nearest crate, scrubbing her hand across her forehead. “I always knew the mines would kill me one day. Didn’t think they’d take everybody else at the same time.”

  There was an uneasy laugh in her voice and Putty stared at her for a long moment, before he straightened, turned his gaze on Giuseppe, and walked to the man.

  Flynn started to say something but Putty waved him off and stepped between Giuseppe’s legs.

  “You’re going to start talking, or I’m going to make you wish you’d never heard of the Lazarai.”

  Geo snorted a single laugh. “That doesn’t seem sufficient incentive.”

  “You know what… you’re an ass. Maybe we should take everything below that off.”

  Putty punched him, and Giuseppe jerked backward, blood pouring from his nose.

  He hit the floor, ass first, catching himself with his hands before he knocked backward into the wall. “What the hell?”

  Flynn stepped forward, but stopped. Putty wasn’t going to do any real damage, and if it got Giuseppe talking….

  Putty kept him down with a boot to the front of that million dollar suit. “We’re going to play a game. It’s called tell me what I want to know, or learn that I don’t make idle threats.”

  For half a moment, Giuseppe did look scared, and then his lips curved into a dark smile. “You can’t do anything to me.”

  “Want to bet?”

  Putty rummaged through his refilled pockets and pulled out a reel of unstick tape.

  Flynn tensed, forcing himself to keep back. Putty’s temper wasn’t boiling over, and his brother had never done anything—accidental moon destruction aside—that caused irreparable damage.

  He unraveled the tape and tore it in two, slinging it over each of the man’s suit-clad kneecaps.

  “Is that supposed to scare me?” Giuseppe asked as Putty pressed down to make it adhere.

  “Oh, I don’t plan to just ruin your suit.”

  Rolling his tattooed eyes, Giuseppe looked across the cavern at Flynn. “Please call your lap dog off. All he’s doing is setting himself up for a bill for material damages.”

  Flynn looked at the bandage-like mass of tape. “If you knew what that was, mine isn’t the mercy you’d be looking for.”

  “I can give you an example,” Putty pulled a tiny piece of the tape off. And put it back in its case before rolling the piece up into a ball. “It’ll be fun, I promise.”

  He spit on the ball, waited half a second, and then tossed it into the air.

  The burst was a pop and flash, nothing like the destruction of the moon facility’s door, but it was enough to illustrate Putty’s point.

  Unzipping another of the pockets on his pants, Putty pulled out a small water bottle, and shook it at the now-pale man.

  “Putty…” Flynn said, hoping the warning in his tone was enough to make him cautious.

  His brother didn’t seem to hear it.

  Flynn bit his tongue to keep from telling his brother to stop again. Putty’s bluff was excessive, but they were running out of time.

  “You’re going to tell me what the disarm code is.

  “Remember that kid you tried to kill?” He jerked his head toward Drea. “That’s her kid. Would you rather she was the one holding the water?”

  Giuseppe looked at Drea, and then he looked at Flynn.

  What had started as what Flynn would have called a silent plea for sanity quickly changed to real fear.

  Flynn had thought he was hiding his concern better than that.

  “Hey! Shit-for-brains,” Putty slapped him, then unscrewed the bottle cap. He kicked Giuseppe’s left knee. “Now I’m giving you ten seconds.”

  The man blinked up at him as though Putty hadn’t been speaking standard.

  “Ten.”

  “You are completely insane.”

  “Nine.” Tossing the water bottle’s cap aside, Putty took a swig.

  Giuseppe glanced between Flynn and his brother, then everyone else, clearly hoping for interference.

  “Six.”

  Giuseppe struggled to sit up… to get away.

  “Please, I’m begging you, don’t. I don’t know.”

  “Two….”

  Flynn held his breath, hoping Geo wouldn’t call his bluff. They’d have less ground to stand on once Putty proved them all liars.

  “One.”

  Geo’s whole body tensed then began to deflate. “Fuck you, I should have known—”

  Putty flicked water to Giuseppe's right.

  A loud burst followed by a scream and the sickening smell of burnt flesh.

  Flynn grabbed Putty by the arm, the water bottle flew away and, Flynn threw him away from Giuseppe as the man pitched sideways, one of his legs no longer fully connected at the knee.

  “What the hell?” Flynn kept his voice low.

  Giuseppe probably couldn’t hear them over his own screams, but he didn’t need to risk it. “I thought you were bluffing.”

  Putty shook free of his grip, glaring at him with blood spattered across his face.

  The sounds behind him died, and Flynn hurried to the man’s side.

  Drea was already there. She’d pulled a tourniquet tight around his thigh.

  Dropping to his knees, he checked Giuseppe’s pulse.

  Still alive.

  He’d just passed out. And that was probably better for them all.

  “How the fuck are we going to explain this to Sophia when she gets back?”

  Shaking her head, muttering something under her breath, Drea scrubbed the blood off her hands with the loose dirt from the ground. She stood and turned back to Putty.

  “I know you’re not an idiot, so what were you thinking?”

  “He did this… he’s done who knows what else. No one can tell me he didn’t deserve that.”

  And maybe he did. “But that doesn’t mean you should have maimed him.”

  “I don’t think he had the code.” Drea had stood, staring down at the man with both hands on her hips.

  Putty’s face hardened and he looked back at the machinery. “No, after that, I don’t think he did either.”

  “So what are we going to do when Sophia gets back?”

  Shrugging, Putty grabbed the radio Flynn hadn’t seen Henri leave behind. “Chad, we need you down here. Sooner rather than later.”

  It took a minute, but Chad broke into the cavern. "I was already on my way." He looked to the body.

  “What did you do?” Chad looked at him like he’d turned green with boils over his face and insects had replaced his eyes.

  “It wasn’t me.” He pointed to Putty, and this time, Chad pulled back, disgusted, and set to work.

  “Is he going to live?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know how long he can go without surgical intervention before that leg’s a complete loss.”

  “Get him as stable as you can and we’ll see about getting him out of this mess before we get him on a table.”

  “Flynn—”

  Flynn cut off Chad’s censorious words with a raised hand. “I can’t let you take him out of here.”

  Putty moved beside him. “And I need those hands, Doc, or you’re not going to be stitching up patients any time soon.”

  Chad and Drea helped Putty while Flynn checked Geo’s pulse once more. Laziness and greed stood to kill them all.

  He couldn’t find it in himself to feel bad that the man was likely going to have to buy himself a fancy prosthesis if they made it out alive.

  Echoes of approaching bodies, running toward them from the north. Pulling his gun, he moved to place himself between them and Giuseppe.

  He’d need to keep Sophia out of a direct line of sight from her brother, until they had what they needed from
her.

  Flynn let out a long breath and turned back to the Refuti tunnel, setting his jaw, and watching the two return in the opposite order he expected.

  The scowl on Banks’ face told him they’d argued more than they’d agreed while they were gone.

  Gripped tight in her hands, a pair of physical architectural plans caught the harsh overhead lights. The flash was almost as bright as the determination in her eyes.

  Flynn might have been impressed if he wasn’t so pissed.

  She looked around the cavern until her eyes fell on her brother’s slack face.

  “What the—”

  “He was problematic…” Flynn said with a shrug of one shoulder. “But he’s alive… just unconscious..”

  Sophia’s glare was suspicious, but she held out the plans toward Putty. “There are notes. They should help.”

  His brother hurried over and Flynn reholstered the gun, but he didn’t snap the clip over it. Banks hadn’t looked away from Giuseppe since they’d arrived. His suspicion was only a problem if he said something before Putty got his hands on those plans.

  When banks shifted his attention to Flynn, he knew the guard had seen enough….

  Putty studied the plans, and then glared up at her, and Flynn knew he recognized the handwriting. The glare Putty sent Sophia’s way was censorious, but he didn’t grill her for the details like Flynn knew he wanted to.

  When Putty snatched the plans away, Flynn tried to will his brother to walk away, to go back to the machine as quickly as possible.

  The Great Mother wasn’t kind enough to let that happen.

  He saw the change in her face the moment Sophia realized something was wrong. “Why are you covered in…”

  She pushed Flynn out of the way.

  And when he stepped forward, Banks was immediately between them, brows raised in warning—or maybe a challenge.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Sophia’s hands were at her brother’s throat, she stood a moment later and he was surprised that she didn’t tear Banks’ gun from his holster.

  “Okay, it might not have been the only thing we could do, but he’s fine.”

  “Fine!?”

  “He’s stable,” Chad corrected from the other side of the machine.

  “What the fuck did you do?”

  Flynn forced himself to keep his eyes on her. Jaw clenched, he searched for an excuse she’d believe.

  Putty didn’t give him the chance to find one.

  “Your brother didn’t understand the severity of the issue. I made sure he knew how dire our situation is.”

  When Sophia went to step forward, Banks held her back, but where her focus was on Putty, the man’s glare never left Flynn.

  “I guess we were both lying about what type of person we were.”

  Putty, for all that Flynn knew he loved to argue paused for only a moment before turning back to his work. “I guess we were.”

  She pushed Banks’ hand away and glared at him too. “Don’t make me fire you again.”

  Flynn considered stepping in to stop her, but like Banks, he let her go. She wasn’t armed, and Putty might deserve the few hits she could get in before Flynn would be able to intervene.

  “You could have killed him.”

  “Should I care?” Putty shot her a glare that would have sliced deep, were it a blade. “If we can’t stop this, he’s murdered all of us. What’s one leg on balance with millions of lives?”

  Sophia, for all that he imagined she wanted to, didn’t say a word.

  Her brother officially no longer his problem, Flynn moved to Putty’s side. “What can I do?”

  I need someone to crawl under this thing…” Putty grimaced, and looked him up and down. “You’re not going to fit.”

  A small argument echoed behind them, and Flynn turned to see Sophia balling up her too-expensive coat and shoving it into her bodyguard’s chest. She turned back to them, rolling up the sleeves of her shirt. “Where do you need me?”

  Setting his jaw, Putty nodded to the panel on the side closest to Flynn. “Shimmy under there. You’ll need to see if you can find a bundle of cables you can sever. But do not do anything to them until I say so.”

  Sophia dropped down into the dirt—a sight he suspected her shareholders, if they’d had the advent to see, might have fainted over—and wiggled her way under the machine.

  Banks was eerily still, and Flynn wondered if she actually had fired him. Either way….

  “You can’t do anything for her playing coat rack.” He jerked his head toward the tunnels. “Giuseppe said something about his goons coming for him. Let’s block up the tunnels so they don’t have an easy shot at us, and so there’s less chance one of them does something stupid… like shoot the bomb.”

  “What happened there?” Banks asked as he picked up the first crate, his gaze travelling over the collapsed tunnel.

  “Giuseppe happened there.” Flynn knocked the lid off the box closest to him and sifted through the packing material. “Let’s make sure there aren’t any more focus charges or other explosives hiding out in them first.”

  A silent nod was all Flynn received in response.

  “Think you’d be able to call them off?” Flynn shifted another crate on top of the first.

  Banks shook his head as Flynn picked up a third, and he paused mid shift, the crate’s continued momentum making him stumble.

  If the other man noticed, he was kind enough to not say a thing.

  Flynn tried to be polite enough to not stare, but the scars behind his ear could only mean one thing, and if he’d had the deadblock removed—he was no longer going to turn Slag when someone killed him—he’d been one of the Colarium’s soldiers.

  Sophia was in too public a position for the man to have been a deserter, and the marks were subtle enough, he knew no post-market surgeon had pulled the deadblock free.

  If he’d been anyone else, if they’d been anywhere else, Flynn might have asked how he got out…. That was not a contract easily severed.

  Gunshots in the distance, pushed Flynn back into action, and they got the crates stacked just as Henri and Nika came around the corner. Slipping through the space they’d left—enough to step through sideways.

  Henri shot their temporary wall an approving glance. “It won’t stop anyone who’s truly determined, but it’s something.

  She grabbed a few more crates and made herself a staircase so she could see over the slim opening at the top. “We should be able to hold here.”

  “How bad is it out there?”

  “Nothing we can’t explain away later… if we walk away from that.” Nika said, half doubled over, breathing in gasps.

  Flynn handed over his breathing mask.

  “Do we need to board up the other one?” Henri asked, looking at Banks, not him.

  The bodyguard shook his head. My people know to detain anyone with a yellow cuff. Geo isn’t much liked by anyone who legitimately works here, they’re not going to be sympathetic to those who play lapdog to him.”

  “Good, because we’ve got a half dozen coming from this side, and they’re no slouches when it comes to wielding those guns.”

  “The question now,” Flynn said, checking the charge on his gun, “Is whether or not they’re willing to die for whatever Geo’s paying them.”

  Setting his jaw, Flynn did his best to keep emotion from his face. This was not what he had in mind, but sometimes war called for drastic measures; they had a planet to save.

  Forty-Four- Sophia

  The underside of the machine was cleaner than she’d expected. Not just that it was free of the dirt and debris she was currently laying in, but also in the smooth steel panels and intricate seems where they joined.

  From her new perspective, she could see the underside of the egg-like bomb, could tell that the tube currently held it had been meant for digging the hole… a hole that was far smaller than she expected.

  Wriggling under, she listened to Putty and Drea argue abou
t something and pulled out the small light she’d stolen from Putty’s tools. In its cradle, the bomb was visible from outside the housing, she’d seen it displayed like in some jeweler’s shop. From beneath….

  She was not an expert on mining equipment, but Drea wasn’t there and she was going to have to do some guess work.

  “What do you see?” Putty’s voice was muffled, filtering down through all the pieces.

  “It looks like someone jury-rigged the drill attachment as a sort of… support for the bomb.”

  “There should be a quick release.” Drea’s words were distant enough, Sophia couldn’t hear their tone, but she didn’t think the woman was asking her to get things rolling quicker.

  “Is there any open facing on the underside of the bomb?” Putty’s shadow shifted over the portion of the bomb she could see.

  “No. It’s a pretty smooth sphere down here.”

  “Damn.”

  Putty couldn’t do anything with the bomb until it was out of the machine. Getting it out was going to require more time than they had. And while Banks would have tried to counsel her toward caution….

  The quick release was more of a lever than a button.

  “It won’t be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done…”

  “What?”

  She didn’t answer. Didn’t want to say out loud what she was going to do… because she might talk herself out of it.

  With a deep breath, she shoved the lever and prayed to the Great Mother that the thing didn’t weigh more than it looked.

  She caught it before it fully left the barrel and ignored Putty’s panic as she exhaled.

  There wasn’t room to hold the thing in front of her, but she wriggled forward enough that she could pull it down and all the way out. Then, she kept a death grip on the thing. There was no way she was going to get this far, only to be the one who dropped the damn thing and killed them all.

  “Can someone please pull me out of here?”

  A muted argument later, someone grabbed her ankles and pulled her free.

  Blinking at the bright lights, Sophia didn’t loose her grip on the bomb when she thanked Drea for the ride. Didn’t let it go when the Doctor pulled her to her feet.

  And she certainly didn’t let it go when Putty finally came over to take a look.