by Ioana Visan
The metal arms picked up the device offered by Rake and inserted it into the keyhole on the side of the vault door. He handled the instrument with care, taking his time maneuvering it, while the metrics read by the scanner were recorded and he did all of the calculations. The old vault still needed a key, but not just any key, so Cole assembled a workbench in front of him on the transporter and set himself to work.
Meanwhile, Rake and Spinner installed two bright spotlights to provide perfect working conditions.
Dale paced the floor. He didn’t hear the fireworks exploding anymore, nor the Robot Girl’s theatrics. Soon, people would tire of the cold and get bored of the circus acts, no matter how much the performers insisted on getting their attention, and they would return inside. The menzataxor would keep them distracted for a while, but it wouldn’t take long until someone noticed the transporter’s absence. Then they would become aware more people were missing and start asking questions. There wasn’t much time, and Cole was moving in slow motion.
“How’s it going?” Dale asked, checking the time again.
Cole ignored him.
“Don’t rush him,” Spinner said, the lines of his mouth twisted in an unhappy grimace. With a piece of fabric, he wiped the perspiration off Cole’s forehead.
Underneath Cole’s once skilled fingers, the key took shape little by little, piece by piece. Spinner helped him with the welding machine when two parts needed to be welded together, and then he brought out the ice container to cool the metal off. Attaching the mobile parts took longer as they were small and delicate, and got stuck to the gel coating Cole’s fingers. He winced each time Spinner used tweezers to pry them off. To some degree, sensitivity must have returned to his hands. That was a good sign for the future, although a bother at the present.
“Will it take much longer?” Renard asked from the doorway. “The guards should patrol past this area soon.”
No one answered. If the guards came near, they’d have to stop. Security checks had revealed the vault room wasn’t inspected, but it was still a close call and, if nothing else, time they couldn’t afford.
A huff had Rake and Spinner stepping away, and Cole turned the transporter sideways to get closer to the vault. He held the key up for Spinner to spray a white substance on it that evaporated, taking away any trace of gel. With a steady hand, Cole inserted the key into the lock.
Dale held his breath, and even Renard turned to watch.
Cole’s wrist rotated at an odd angle, the motion bringing tension to his face as it twisted the mechanism that controlled the various parts of the key.
With each click, they watched more intently as if their concentration could somehow influence the outcome.
When no more clicks followed, Spinner asked, “Is it done? Is it open?”
Cole’s shoulders dropped. He pulled out the complex device he’d built to use as key. A deformed, tiny wheel dangled from a wire. By the look of it, some pieces might have still remained stuck inside.
“No…” Horror spread over Spinner’s face. “It’s broken!”
A collective sigh of disappointment echoed inside the room.
“Can you fix it?” Dale asked.
Cole answered with a slow blink but, other than that, didn’t move.
“What?”
Since it wasn’t a yes or no question, there was no blink either way. This was stupid. It wasn’t going to work.
“Does anyone have a pen?” Dale asked.
Three pairs of shoulders shrugged.
Dale stifled a groan and scrambled his brain for a way to make the dialogue work. “You can fix it, but…?”
Yes.
So, there was a but. “Are you in pain?”
A small hesitation. Yes.
“Too much to handle it?”
No. No hesitation this time.
So the pain wasn’t the problem. What then? “Will it not work?”
Yes. No.
That part was confusing. “Will you not be able to make it work?”
Yes.
Ah, discouragement after the failure. Some fine motor skill loss was expected after all he’d been through. “That’s all right. We’ll try again until it works.”
No. With obvious effort, Cole held up two fingers.
“We only get two tries?” Dale frowned.
Yes.
“And you’re sure you can’t get it right the second time.” That wasn’t a question.
Yes. Cole showed his hands, then made a gesture as if trying to get closer to the vault.
“Because you can’t reach it properly.” Dale groaned. The transporter was getting in the way. They hadn’t considered that. He rubbed his forehead. This was turning into a nightmare. “Can you take him off the transporter?” he asked Rake. “We can bring a chair …”
“Not in a reasonable amount of time,” Rake said, as calm as ever. “It would take over an hour to disconnect his spine from the transporter’s control system. If we unplug him, it will kill him.”
“Fuck!” Dale turned to Renard. “Can you blow up the door?”
The magician tilted his head as he eyed the vault. “No. It’s too taxing, and even if I did, the blast would destroy everything inside the vault and this room, including us.”
“What about the lock?”
Renard shook his head. “Sorry. I have no idea what’s inside. The door’s too thick. If I go in blind, I’ll only break it, make it unusable. The way it is now, you’ve still got one shot.”
“But if he’s sure he can’t open it,” Rake said, “maybe it’s wiser not to waste it. If only two tries are allowed and we fail, someone’s bound to notice next time they try to open the vault. If we leave it like this, you can return later with another specialist or when he recovers enough to do it right.”
“There’s no one else able to do this within a five thousand kilometer radius,” Dale said. “And if I don’t get it in seventy-two hours, there won’t be another time in...” He shook his head. Too long. And too many lives would be lost in between.
They stared at each other then, one by one, heads lowered.
Spinner hesitantly raised one finger. “We have the knowledge. We only need a pair of hands he can control.” His eyes turned to Rake, and he shuddered.
“It can be done,” Rake said, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
“I don’t follow,” Dale said.
“The Golden Lady…” Spinner said.
“You want to remove her arms?” The situation was desperate, but this was too extreme, even for Dale.
“No, no. God, no! Big Dino would have our heads if we touched her.” Spinner made an unhappy face and swallowed with difficulty.
“Then what?”
“I’m just thinking about delegating command for a short while, that’s all,” Spinner said and looked at Rake, pleadingly.
“It can be done,” Rake said.
“Here? Now?” Dale asked.
“Yes,” the knife throwers said.
“I’m not sure hurting Miss Aurore is—” Renard started.
“It won’t hurt her,” Spinner said. “I just don’t know how we can convince her to do it …”
“She’ll do it. She wants what’s inside badly enough.” Dale rushed to the door. “Get everything ready. I’ll bring her.”
“I’ll go with you.” Renard followed him.
45
Dale stopped at the bottom of the grand staircase. For a soldier used to the horrors of war, the amount of smiling faces in the main hall was overwhelming. Rosie’s happy giggles echoed across the hall as she ran after the menzataxor, who was jumping from one person’s arms to another, purring like a small turbo engine.
“We could end the war with this,” he said.
“If it worked on machines, yes.” Renard took off on the path left by the laughter, heading to its source.
“Are you sure there are no lasting side effects?” Dale walked in line with him, looking for a glitter of gold. Where was she?
/> “We never lost anyone, but I wouldn’t know.” Renard wiggled his gloved fingers. “I never touched it. I can’t afford to be happy.” He frowned and added, almost like an afterthought, “I’ve got a circus to run.”
Something in that statement didn’t sound right, but Dale didn’t have time to analyze it. A vault waited to be opened and a world to be saved. He didn’t find the gold, but spotted the sequins on Cielo’s costume. Once he took a couple of steps closer to the exit, he saw them all, Cielo, the Swan, and the tall aerialist, forming a triangle. From behind the swirling silver and obsidian that formed her mask, the Swan’s dark eyes followed their approach. She still stood frozen in place, like Cielo’s mask. The aerialist watched them all, helpless and a little lost.
Renard walked up to the ballerina and ran a hand on her waist. Dale couldn’t hear the whisper but read the words on the moving lips. Everything okay?
The Swan’s anguished eyes returned the question tenfold. No, everything wasn’t okay.
Dale shook his head and asked Cielo, “Where’s Aurore?”
“You called?” Someone tapped his shoulder.
Dale spun around. He hadn’t heard her approach. “We need your hands,” he blurted out. The pressure obviously affected his reason. There had to be a more tactful way to present his request.
Aurore glanced at her hands, then looked up at him. Instead of asking why, she asked, “How?”
“He can’t do it, but they think you can help.” Dale took her by the arm to pull her after him, and his hand landed on the uncovered part of her prosthetic arm. Once again, he marveled at how real it felt, except the color was wrong. He shook his head to clear it. He couldn’t get distracted. “Come.”
The urgency in his voice must have worked because Aurore’s body stopped resisting. They hurried towards the stairs.
“How’s Cole?” Cielo’s voice came from behind him.
“He’s fine,” Dale said over his shoulder without looking back. She clearly didn’t believe him since she came after them.
“Watch the kid!” Renard told the aerialist.
The four of them rushed across the upper floor.
When no more visitors were in sight, Cielo stopped and ripped her mask open with both hands. The abused pieces of golden tissue curled up like crumpled paper and retreated beneath her hairline. “Oh, much better…” She gasped for air. “I was suffocating. I’m never doing that again.”
Renard gave her a concerned look, but Dale burst into a run. No time. No time.
Aurore easily kept up with him, as he wasn’t pushing his strength to the limit. Still, her prosthetics held. Renard stayed close to Cielo, who was slower because of her limp.
They passed through the last series of rooms leading to the southwest tower. As the sculpted door appeared in the distance, footsteps echoed in an adjacent corridor. Dale stopped abruptly and pressed Aurore against the wall, moving in front of her. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, making sure her face was not hidden. Everyone knew her in the city so the guards would definitely recognize her. Since they were both panting, there was a good chance the guards would believe they had walked away from the crowd in search of a quiet place to be alone and couldn’t wait.
For realism, he pressed harder against her. His hand slipped between them, holding a gun he was prepared to use. Aurore’s quick breath brushed against his ear, her body rigid in his arms. Either the shock or the trust in him had prevented her from pushing him away. It was probably a combination of both.
Two guards appeared from around the corner and came to an abrupt halt, seeing them in that intimate posture. “Ahem,” one of the guards cleared his throat.
Aurore’s arm circled Dale’s neck and, in his mind, he could picture her cold, gray eyes daring them to say something.
“Excuse me, miss. You can’t be here …”
“We’ll be out in a minute,” Aurore said.
The guards hesitated and, even with Renard and Cielo running down the corridor, it might have worked if it hadn’t been for the loud thud coming from behind the vault room door.
The guard on the left reached for his gun.
With his raised, Dale turned in time to see Cielo opening her mouth.
In an instant, Renard had one hand squeezing Cielo’s throat. “Now is not the time.” His other hand pointed at the guards.
Muffled explosions made them drop their guns while smoke rose from their radios. They groaned, clutching their heads, and collapsed to the ground, motionless.
“They’re not dead,” Renard said, releasing Cielo, who glared at him and rubbed her throat. “They’ll be out for a couple of hours then, hopefully, wake up with no recollection of what had happened. It’s not an exact science.” He grimaced, and his face took on a paler shade.
“Go ahead,” Dale told the girls. “We’ll hide the guards and join you.”
46
The transporter was picking itself off the floor on wobbly legs when Aurore opened the door. She arched an eyebrow and stepped away to let Cielo enter, then asked, “What happened?”
Cielo rushed inside and froze, confronted with the sight of Cole’s bare arms. She kept her hands to herself while she looked questioningly at Spinner.
“Just a glitch. Nothing to worry about,” Spinner said, twisting around a handful of wires.
Aurore folded her arms. “That’s not reassuring enough to convince me to lend you my arms.” Her fingers twitched at the thought of parting with them.
“We don’t need your arms.” Rake got up from in front of the vault door where he had been digging into the lock with a long metallic tool. He tossed a tiny, ridged piece into the drawer open on the side of the transporter. “We only need to have control over them for a short while.”
“And how do you plan to do that?” Aurore asked.
Spinner held up the wires. “With these.”
“You want to connect my arms to his …” Aurore frowned as she tried to think it through. To his arms? No, that wouldn’t work since his nerves were shot. “Brain?”
“Not exactly.” Spinner shifted uncomfortably. “We want to connect your brain to his. He doesn’t know how to use your arms, so he’ll run the commands through your brain first.”
“You want to turn me into a relay.” Wonderful. First Dale’s hug and now this. This night couldn’t get any weirder.
“Technically, yeah…” Spinner winced and pulled so hard on the wires, one of them snapped. “But it’s not as bad as it sounds,” he added quickly. “And it’s only for a few seconds, under a minute …” He threw Rake a glance, but he was busy signaling Cole to step back, turn around, and move closer to the vault.
Rake held both hands out and lowered them, guiding the transporter to do the same, and then he raised one palm up. “That’s good. It seems to be the right height. Sit here,” he told Aurore and patted the top front of the transporter.
“It will be fine,” Cielo said with an eerie smile. “I’ll make sure nothing happens to you.”
Spinner sucked in a breath and stepped away to make room for her.
The long, metallic legs got in the way, but Aurore navigated around them and hopped onto the hood. She looked over, imagining her legs being crushed against the door if the transporter had another glitch, and pulled them up under her. Once settled, she removed her gloves, then paused and looked at the others. Why was she doing this? She didn’t want to relinquish the control of her arms to them.
“Any metal in there?” Spinner pointed at her hair. “It can disturb the signal.”
With precise moves, Aurore removed all of the hairpins that held her hair back. She still didn’t want to do this, but she couldn’t stop. Someone else controlled her moves.
“Right. Now, this is going to sting a little.” Spinner approached her with a scalpel in one hand. “Don’t worry. I’ll make two small incisions behind the hairline so there won’t be any visible marks.”
Aurore glanced back over her shoulder. Rake was already working
on Cole’s head, attaching wires connected to long needles to his scalp. Cielo’s encouraging smile was guiltier than ever, and Dale and Nicholas had just entered the room. Too late to pull out now. She turned around and looked toward the vault door, determined not to move.
Her hair was parted, and Spinner’s scarred fingers glided over her scalp. He sprayed a cold liquid that numbed her enough to turn the cuts into faint pinches. More wire went in, pushed with a force that could have cracked her skull instead of just drilling a hole if Spinner hadn’t been careful.
“You good?” Spinner asked, but he wasn’t talking to her.
Rake answered with a grunt.
Pieces of hardware or tools exchanged hands outside her field of vision. She only saw the shadows of their arms moving on the wall.
“Some tingling now,” Spinner murmured, hovering over her.
Aurore’s teeth clenched together. That was no tingle. It was lightning splitting her skull, and her arms were on fire. How could that be? Her prosthetics didn’t have pain sensors. It took her several seconds to figure out it wasn’t her pain. It was Cole’s. Somehow, it trickled through the wires and, boy, he was in a lot of pain. But once it became clear it wasn’t hers, she managed to shift her attention away from it before it fried her brain.
“See if you can move her arms,” Spinner murmured to Cole.
Nothing happened.
He adjusted the wire on the right side. “Now?”
Still nothing, though something tugged at the edge of her conscious mind.
“You have to let him through,” Rake said. “It’s the only way. He’s too weak to take over.”
Of course he was with all that pain he was in. Aurore gritted her teeth. If she let him through, the pain would return.
“It doesn’t hurt,” Cielo whispered in that sing-song voice of hers.
And it didn’t. The pain vanished like a veil that had been taken away from her brain. Not only on her side, but Cole’s, too. She felt him become alert and was ready to proceed, so she drew in a deep breath and released control of her arms.
