by eden Hudson
“Jeesh, what kind of shoddy rebuild work does the Guild do, anyway?” I huffed, grabbing her arm and dragging her back to her feet.
She didn’t answer. The Seraph dove at us like a huge bird of prey. Carina spun to meet him, her sword’s chain screaming.
“Hold him off!” I dropped my bag to the ground by the water’s edge and dug out two batches of explosives.
I blocked out the sound of grinding rock and sawing sword as I worked. I set the explosive to Radio Detonate, then tied the detonator around my wrist. My brain shrieked that this was a bad idea, that Carina and I would suffocate down in the darkness, but I beat it into submission. Maps of the Time Garden Caverns’ cave system flashed inside my skull, with the connecting tunnels and all three entrances. I could even see the labels with their year of discovery—Strode’s Entrance (1896), Wolfe’s Entrance (1899), Anders’s Entrance (1902). God, my mind is gorgeous.
The ground shook under my knees. I looked up in time to see Carina saw through a mud person’s neck, then spin around, whirling her sword in a high arc to deflect an overhead attack from the Seraph.
“Let’s go!” I yelled at her.
Carina sprinted toward me. I underhand lobbed the first batch of explosives into the crowd of mud people.
The Seraph seemed to realize what the bundle was. He darted toward the ceiling to get clear.
“Go under, count to three, take a drink!” I yelled as I grabbed my bag and Carina’s arm and dragged them into the water. “Now!”
I pitched the last batch of explosives at the Seraph, then dove.
Icy water pummeled my system, trying to drive me into shock, but I ignored it and kicked down into the darkness.
One.
I hit the detonate button. A whoomph hit the water.
Two.
Rays of bright orange light pierced the water around us. I could see the tunnel leading down, connecting this room to the rest of the cave system.
Three.
I took a drink and Time stopped.
TWENTY-FOUR:
Jubal
My escape plan relied entirely on our bodies not needing food, water, or oxygen while we were outside of Time. Also on the Seraph being damaged in the blast enough that, if it could move outside Time without consuming the Time-water, it wouldn’t catch up to us before we made it to Strode’s Entrance on the western end of the cave system.
Once Time stopped, I checked to make sure Carina was outside Time with me. She nodded at me to keep going, she was following. The water didn’t fill back in around her face. When I used the cave wall to turn myself over and pull myself up to the ceiling, the motion left a tunnel in the water. I wondered if the force of all the water we were about to displace falling back in would cause the cave to implode when Time started again.
We clicked on our wristpiece lights and pulled ourselves along the ceiling of the cave. Because I had the map of the system in my brain, I took the lead. Carina had the sword, so she kept watch for the Seraph.
I expected my body to start going numb from the cold—on previous cave-diving expeditions, while fully outfitted for frigid temperatures, it’d taken less than a minute for my fingers and toes to lose feeling—but the cold didn’t seem capable of sapping my body heat outside Time.
I took a sip of the water every now and then, to make sure I didn’t suddenly find myself back in the flow of Time without a source of oxygen. Carina caught on and did the same.
Every few hundred feet, I checked our surroundings against the layout of the cave system. In spite of being upside down and backward, I never took a wrong turn. My beautiful brain guided us all the way through the flooded tunnels to Strode’s Entrance.
No snowpack or ice was blocking us in—I could see trees on a sloping hill outside—but long ago, some First Earth asshole had fitted the entrance with thick iron bars. I left Carina guarding the edge of the water while I inspected them. They were anchored in the stone with rusty eyebolts. A human-sized door stood off to one side, locked with a corroded padlock.
I laughed.
A little dose of RustMelt and a couple minutes’ tinkering with one of the rakes from my First Earth lock kit, and the padlock popped open. With my fingers stiff from the PCM, the work wasn’t as fast or as pretty as I was used to, but I kept reminding myself it didn’t have to be pretty, and it didn’t have to set a record, it just had to save us from murderous speleothems.
Once we were out of the cave, we shouldered our packs and started jogging. With the extra weight, I couldn’t do more than a slow, chugging, fat man’s jog. The vibrant reddish blush faded from Carina’s mahogany skin as she ran, leaving her with a sick, ashy undertone, and she was practically dragging her bad leg, but she kept up with me.
As we ran, we listened for rocky footfalls behind us, or the whoosh of a Seraph cutting through the air, but none came. There was only the sound of our panting and the slap and crunch of our boots on the asphalt.
We made it past the intersection and back to the ice wall before we heard the remainder of the blast. The little Ferg and Gam creeps appeared and immediately began imitating our shuffle-run.
“You think that means it’s safe?” I wheezed.
“Hope so,” Carina said. “I can’t run on this leg much longer.”
“My flame kigao—” My mouth twisted with the strangeness of saying the words out loud. “—hasn’t said a word since the cave. We should be fine.”
“Then let’s walk.”
Carina didn’t walk so much as limp. You’d think the clubfooted Fergs would’ve been the natural choice to emulate that, but the tumor-headed Gams did it while the Fergs laughed. It was funny enough that I joined in a couple times.
The hike back to our rappel point took double what it had taken us that morning. Even though we were both exhausted, we started preparing for the return climb. Maybe the Seraph was damaged too badly to chase us, maybe he couldn’t get this far from the cave, but neither Carina nor I wanted to find out for sure. We buckled into our harnesses and started hauling water up.
When we and our bags were all safely back on snowy ground, we took simultaneous gulps of Time, then set off toward the dispatch station, knocking snowflakes and ice chips out of the way as we went.
TWENTY-FIVE:
Nick
Nick’s next few days dragged by in a haze of compulsion. Before they even left the rooftop, Re Suli ordered him to begin designing new bodies, limbs, and upgrades for the army of cyborgs. The colossal task of getting the factory operational went to the second wave of Tects. According to what Nick heard of the cyborgcromancer’s speech to them, they would receive their new bodies after helping the first wave with theirs.
It took Nick two days and six new body designs to make the witch happy. By the time he handed over the last schematic, he was so dead on his feet from lack of sleep that the release from the compulsion dropped him to his hands and knees.
“Now, don’t you go nappin’ on the job, sugar,” she said, grinning down at him. “The last a them components for Sol’s new armor just come in.”
Nick ground his teeth. He knew what was coming before she even said his name.
The next three days went to building the cyborgcromancer’s mech armor. Because his design required the armor to act like a true exoskeleton—both protecting the cyborgcromancer and supporting her inanimate body—this required casting molds directly against the cyborgcromancer’s skin.
Re Suli seemed especially tickled at watching Nick’s clumsy, exhausted hands smooth the wetcast over Sol’s naked body. If Nick could’ve formed thoughts about anything but the order he’d been given, he would’ve been glad for the compulsion for once. It kept the task from being any more awkward than it already was. The compulsion was also probably the only thing keeping him from hallucinating from sleep deprivation.
After Nick took the last piece of poly-alloy out of its mold and ran it through the sandblaster he’d rigged up, everything went black.
A bucket of cold water slapped him awak
e.
“This ain’t no time for shuteye, sugar. I need my cyborgcromancer outfitted so’s we can get goin’ on them amphibious tanks.”
Nick was so worn out that he didn’t hear Re Suli give the order, but he felt the compulsion hit. It was the only way he was able to drag himself off the ground and get back to work.
TWENTY-SIX:
Jubal
We were running on stopped Time when we made it to the dispatch station. We dragged ourselves and our gear inside—me giving Man Bun’s ear a flick as I passed—then plopped down on the couch while we waited for Time to resume its natural flow.
Man Bun’s screech woke Carina and I both.
“Ow!” He grabbed his ear. It was bleeding, a neat slice through the cartilage where I’d flicked him.
Obviously impact from outside time could do some serious damage. Probably a good thing I hadn’t flicked him in the forehead. The velocity on something like that had to be in the armor-piercing range, and I didn’t want bloody topknot hairs stuck to my last clean tourist shirt.
Carina, of course, got up to see if Man Bun was all right.
His mouth dropped open when he saw her, then me. He stared as if we were the Amazing Three-Dicked Wonder.
“You’re back?”
“You can start apologizing for doubting our cold-weather survival skills now,” I told him.
“You’re back!” He took off running. “Farrelli, wake up! They’re back! They’re alive and they’re back!”
I looked at Carina. “If he didn’t already deserve to be dragged behind a festering garbage truck full of gangrenous limbs and rotten genitals for wearing his hair like that, I’d say that level of disbelief in us merits it.”
She gave me a tired smile, but didn’t weigh in on the subject.
“Aha!” Farrelli shouted, hustling out of her room in a billowing cotton nightgown. “Good to have you back, damned good to have you back!”
Carina put up with the shoulder-pounding from the bulky woman, but didn’t try to match her tone this time. She was tired, I told myself. We could both do with a hot shower and someone to fuck us off to sleep.
“You must be frozen to your bones,” Farrelli crowed. “And you look half-starved! A pot of stew—that’s what’s in order.”
I’ve never had sex with any woman twice my weight, but when Farrelli said that, I seriously considered making her the first.
“And hotbread,” she added, banging around the kitchen. “Can’t have stew without hotbread.”
“Woman, if you’re not careful, I’m going to mount you right here in front of everybody,” I told her.
She let loose one of those rolling belly laughs. “Such a card! Damn glad to have you back.”
TWENTY-SEVEN:
Nick
Nick climbed the metal steps to the office overlooking the factory floor. He could see Het up on the landing, chubby hands flattened over his ears, staring down at the Tects working the machinery.
If Nick’s arms hadn’t been full of mech suit pieces, he might’ve covered his ears, too. With the compulsion sharpening his focus, the noise those First Earth machines made was unreal.
A drop of sweat rolled into his eyes. Nick shifted his load slightly so he could wipe his face on his shoulder. He hadn’t been squeaky clean when he got to the factory, but working around the clock for days at a time with three of the furnaces and all the machinery running—on top of the tropical climate of the Soami jungle—he needed about a month’s worth of showers, and his shirt and jeans needed an incinerator.
Het took one hand off his little ears long enough to wave at Nick, then opened the door so Nick didn’t have to set everything down to do it himself.
Nick nodded thanks at the kid, too tired to dredge up anything resembling a smile, and went inside. The machinery’s noise dropped to tolerable levels as the door shut behind him.
The cyborgcromancer lay on the office floor in front of an ancient rusted-out desk, naked, frameless, and motionless. If her eyes hadn’t been moving, the cyborgcromancer could’ve been a corpse. A heavily sweating corpse. Her usually pale skin was flushed red in the heat.
For a second, Nick was glad he’d thought to include bioregulating climate control in her mech armor. When he realized he was thinking that about the leader of the army that had just last month crucified six unarmed Guild aid workers and burned alive every pagan who wouldn’t become a Tect, he scowled. Maybe the lack of sleep was driving him insane. He dropped the last load of mech armor onto the desk.
Re Suli was on the floor, trying to stuff the cyborgcromancer’s foot into one of the exoskeleton boots, either because she hadn’t read the final schematics or hadn’t understood the implications of this build. No piece of this armor could be pulled on or off. It was skintight.
Nick took the boot from the witch and triggered the release. The front half sprang open like a lid, exposing the thin layer of Comfort Geloam inside. He knelt beside the cyborgcromancer and got to work fitting the pieces together around her.
Twenty minutes later, when the last piece of the mech armor locked into place, the compulsion lifted. Nick rocked back on his heels, heart pounding fit to burst with the relief. He couldn’t believe he was still conscious.
Re Suli stood up and hooked her thumbs in the empty belt loops of her cutoffs, waiting.
The cyborgcromancer blinked. A soft hum came from the suit as it powered up in response. Blue system indicator lights flickered. Nick watched for any that flickered red, indicating a failure.
None did.
Gears and hydraulics buzzed and whirred as the cyborgcromancer’s armor bent at the knee, then hips, then waist. She sat up. With the suit, her movements were smooth and natural, not jerky and robotic like they’d been on her metal frame.
Since it didn’t seem like he was going to be allowed to pass out, Nick took mental notes. The cyborgcromancer wasn’t having any trouble working the mech suit even though she’d never used one before, which probably meant that her type of magic, like technomancy, didn’t require any education with the technology, just access to it. Unfortunately, he’d built the suit to withstand any electromagnetic pulse, so there wasn’t much hope that she could be disabled that way. The only thing that would take her out now that she was in the suit would be a bullet to her main processor—her brain—and he had also designed her a bulletproof helmet that locked tight to the shoulder pieces.
More buzzing and whirring as the cyborgcromancer lifted her right hand in front of her face. The armored fingers of the right fist closed, the poly-alloy clicking gently against itself. She opened and closed her hand, one finger at a time, then wiggled them all at once, staring as if fascinated.
Nick watched the fine-point articulation for any signs of weakness. He didn’t hear any grinding. No surfaces appeared to be wearing on any other. Everything was working just as he’d designed it.
The jaw piece that supported the cyborgcromancer’s head and facilitated movement of the mouth for speaking buzzed as she turned to look at Nick. Her face was stony and blank as always.
Nick was so focused on the armor’s performance that it took him a second to realize the cyborgcromancer’s eyes were full of tears.
“Thank you,” she said.
TWENTY-EIGHT:
Jubal
With the help of some lucky icebreaker scheduling, and a few privately chartered flights, Carina and I made it back to the Crystal Lakes in three days. It was a quiet trip, filled with meaningful glances, but no tension. After our trek back to the dispatch station, we still had thirty-six gallons left. Based on the estimates from our experiences on the ice cap, a mouthful of water equaled about one hour. That meant I’d stolen close to forty-eight days. It wasn’t a lifetime, but it was forty-eight more days than every other beautiful-corpse-riddled bastard out there had.
I had done it. I’d stolen real, physical Time. Maybe just as good, Carina’s and my realities were getting closer to lining up every day. Tons of messages had come in for her wh
ile we were in the crevasse and afterward—from the Guild, from Nickie-boy’s family—but when I sent them through, Carina didn’t bother responding to a single one. She only wanted to be with me.
When we made it back to my lake house, I shut off the Culebra and got out, practically glowing with accomplishment. I stretched, feeling the calcification grinding in my joints. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d checked my countdown app, but that didn’t matter. I was the best thief in history, and now I had the Time—and the partner—to find a cure.
On the passenger side, Carina’s door banged shut. I grinned at her over the hood.
“I’m thinking from here on out, I only use the Time for sleep and any travel I can accomplish myself,” I said. “That’ll cut an insane amount of waste and leave me with twenty-four hours most days. We’ll figure out how to get you wherever I need to be.”
Carina nodded, unscrewing the water bottle she’d picked up at one of our layovers as she followed me to the trunk to get our bags.
I grunted as I hauled mine out and hooked it over my shoulder. “Don’t worry, they didn’t get any lighter on the drive.”
Then I pitched off balance as if somebody had shoved me. Quick reflexes were all that saved me from sprawling on my ass in the dirt.
“The electricity is about to go out!” my flame kigao shouted.
That’s when I realized I wasn’t holding my bag anymore.
I looked up. Carina was standing at the front of the Culebra, our empty bags at her feet. A pile of filled bladders lay on the hood beside her.
In one hand, she held a bladder. In her other, a glass throwing knife.
My blood turned to an icy slush. “You sneaky bitch.”
“Where’s Nick?” she asked.
“You filled your water bottle full of Time at the last layover,” I guessed.
“I gave you every chance, Jubal.” The throwing knife caught the dull afternoon light as she raised it toward the black plastic of the bladder. “You could’ve told me what happened to him at any point over the past week. I didn’t want it to come to this.”
