The Good for Nothings

by Danielle Banas

  I wrenched a large rock off the wall beside me and hurled it down. It fell toward the river and then, right when it should have made contact, it disappeared too.

  I looked up at Blair. “We have to jump.”

  “Are you crazy? I know you loved that bot, but self-sacrifice isn’t the answer!”

  “No, idiot! The lava is a hologram!”

  The stuff sliding down the walls around us, causing the stifling heat, was undoubtedly real, but the river below was a mirage. It made me think of the treasure chest I’d seen. Was that real too, or another illusion?

  I supposed it was time to find out. I hoisted one leg over the edge of the rock tower. Blair followed, looking sick to his stomach. Then, right as the real lava from the ceiling started gushing like a waterfall in a final attempt to kill us, I let go, tumbling through the air to reunite with Elio on the other side.

  25

  Up close, the lava hologram looked like a line of orange static. The illusion rippled as Blair and I made contact, and then the rumbling rocks faded as we were thrown down a steel chute into the bowels of Verena’s compound. We crashed into each other as the chute curved sharply in a frenetic spiral, his foot accidentally kicking me in the back of the head, my fist not accidentally hitting him between the shoulder blades. The darkness pressed in on my eyes like a blanket. I had been correct—the glimmering chest I’d seen for a split second had been fake too.

  The chute spun in two more tight circles before spitting us out into an open room. I flew through the air, smacking the wall while my eyes struggled to adjust to the bright lights surrounding us. Blair smashed into my back before falling to the ground with a groan. Behind us, a door slammed shut.

  I whirled around. We were in a wine cellar. I’d heard a door, but I didn’t see one—just an expanse of shelves along the wall filled with old bottles. Were those more holograms? I touched them, finding them solid and real with no hint of a secret door behind them. Whatever passageway we had been shot through had somehow closed itself off.

  “Elio?” I called out. He wasn’t down here. But—he should have been. He should have been alive and safe, as we were.

  “There might be multiple chutes out of the lava room,” Blair said. “He probably got thrown out somewhere else.” He pointed to a ramp leading upward and we climbed it, exiting into the kitchens. The eastern tunnels into the labyrinth where Wren and Anders had ventured were supposed to be beneath this very room—in the wine cellar. But I hadn’t seen an entry down there. Wherever they were, hopefully they hadn’t run into their own room full of lava. Or something more sinister.

  Blair swiped a tea sandwich off a tray, weaving through a line of mansion employees as we exited the kitchen and emerged into one of the staff corridors. For the first time since entering the labyrinth, I looked down at my clothes. The lace on my jumpsuit was shredded along my ribs and caked with dirt. No longer good attire for Verena’s fancy party, but I guess I should’ve just been glad the whole thing hadn’t burned to ash.

  “Where do you think Elio is?” I asked. We pushed through a door and entered the back side of a music room packed with guests. I attempted to activate my VED only to find it dead, along with my comm and Blair’s too. Must have been all the heat from that room. I hoped Elio made it out okay.

  “I don’t see why you care so much about that little thing,” he said. We backed into an alcove in the wood paneling where no one would see us.

  “He’s my best friend,” I growled. “Which I know means nothing to you, so let me explain it in a way that you might actually care about: Elio is holding one of Teolia’s keys.”

  Blair’s skin paled even more than normal. “He’s what?”

  “The key we took from the Andillians. He has it stashed in a locked compartment in his arm. Even if we find the last key and the treasure chest, we’re screwed without him. The warden still has key number four in his office in Ironside, but it’s pointless for us to break in there and take it if we don’t have the rest of them.”

  Blair tilted his head. “Evelina stole that from the warden yesterday.”

  “What? No, she said she was going to wait.”

  “I don’t know. I’m just going off what she said. She posed as a ship mechanic or something. I saw the key. It’s half the length of my arm, looks like a hook, has some sparkly things glued to it. Ringing any bells?”

  “Several.” I clenched my teeth. Why had Evelina deviated from the plan I’d given her? I supposed it didn’t matter. A key was a key, no matter who stole it.

  “So your robot actually has some use after all,” Blair mused. “And here I thought he was only good for setting the kitchen on fire. When we find him, we get all the keys, correct?”

  “When we find all the keys, then you get all the keys. Until then, they’re safer with Elio.”

  “Okay, fine,” Blair conceded. He stood on his toes to scan the room. “Too bad he’s so short. Kinda gets lost in a crowd. What about those friends of yours? The ones everyone is looking for?”

  “What about them?”

  “I’m guessing they don’t know that you’re double-crossing them. What will happen to them without the keys? Will they get arrested again? Executed?”

  I shoved him back against the wall. “Does it matter?”

  “Not to me.” He reached out and tweaked my nose. I had the sudden urge to bite his fingers off, but just thinking about what might become of Anders and Wren without the treasure took the fight right out of me.

  “Looks like you’re finally fitting into this family after all, Cora. You’re ruthless.” He stepped out of the alcove, swiping a glass of champagne off a server’s tray before merging into the crowd. “I’ll find the others and tell them about Elio. You keep looking for him. Meet us outside in an hour. Oh, and one more thing…”

  “What?”

  Blair nodded at the alcove next to ours. “Tell your friends the Saros family says hello.”

  “What are you talking about?” But he was gone.

  The stretch of panels near us was totally empty …

  Except for Wren.

  She was using my phaser, standing half in and half out of the wall. Her clothes were just as dirty and ripped as mine from wherever she and Anders had gone; judging by the lack of a hologram surrounding her, her VED was broken as well. But that didn’t matter. All I could see was the look of stunned betrayal hardening her eyes as an amethyst cloud of anguish spread out around her.

  She’d heard everything.

  “Wren!” I rushed toward her, but she stepped back and deactivated the phaser, sealing the wall shut. Saturn’s rings, not now. Not this.

  Blair had known she was there. When he scanned the room, he had seen her. I was sure of it. With the phaser in her possession, she could have disappeared to anywhere in the mansion. I had to find her. I had to find Elio. And I had to do both without the hundreds of people in this house recognizing me.

  Head low, I pushed through the crowd back into the foyer. My fingers itched to pull the pins on my flash bombs. But if I forced everyone outside, it would be that much harder to get back in and find the key. No, I had to stay here. I had to find a way to work this out.

  Elio couldn’t have made it far on such tiny legs. I searched the entryway, looking along the walls and underneath the shadow of the chandeliers. The partiers had multiplied since the last time I came through. I could hardly take a step without accidentally standing on someone’s toes.

  I was edging across the room to the ramps leading up to the higher floors when the front doors blew open and slammed against the wall.

  “FIND THEM!” a voice bellowed. I ducked on instinct. I knew that voice. It gave me shivers up my spine. The warden.

  An army of guards spread out around him like a tidal wave. Verena’s own guards didn’t seem to know what to do about them. They retreated into the corners as the Andillians invaded the crowd, causing guests to scream and cower against the walls.

  The warden tapped his comm, projec
ting our photos into the air. “We are not here to harm you,” he said to the revelers. “We’re searching for a few escaped convicts. Help us find them, and you will be rewarded. Stand in our way … and you will suffer the same fate as them. Any questions?”

  No one dared to object. Groups rushed across the foyer, excitedly discussing their potential reward. That was the thing about rich people: they loved to get even richer. Those who decided not to partake cleared the way for the warden and his guards. They crossed the foyer, heading for one of the doors leading to the staff corridors.

  “Their trackers are glitching,” the warden said to a woman at his side. “I can’t get a good read on their location, but they’re definitely in here somewhere. Evelina said that whole blasted family would be here.”

  They passed right by my hiding spot at the foot of the ramps and disappeared from view. Legs shaking, I stumbled to my feet. Blair said Evelina robbed the warden yesterday, not that she had spoken with him. What was going on?

  I started climbing the main ramp to the second level when voices rang out behind me. “There’s one!” an android guard of Verena’s shouted.

  “Get her!” screamed an Earthan woman.

  But I was already moving, pulling out both flash bombs and yanking the pins. The grenades hit the wall above the front door, exploding in a stream of light, shaking the mansion, knocking paintings from walls, food from trays, and guests from their feet.

  I fell to my knees on the second floor, crawling into a staff corridor as my pursuers screamed and ducked. But this hallway was still crowded, some people running up a level to reach higher ground, while others pushed downstream to get to the front doors and the safety of the streets outside. I pulled my hair forward to hide my face just as another group of searchers rounded the bend.

  And then I felt a hand clamp across my mouth and pull.

  “Easy there! Easy!” The figure held me against the wall as I struggled. “It’s just me.” Anders’s skin flashed from his Earthan disguise to red scales, then flashed back.

  “Yoostangningtonmyfoo,” I garbled beneath the pressure of his fingers. Anders removed his hand, flushing pink.

  “Say again?”

  “You’re standing on my foot.”

  “Oh! Right. So sorry.” He hopped back. “You look like a mess, Cora.”

  “Thanks. You look terrible too.” His dress shirt was shredded to tatters, his hair knotted and filled with brambles.

  “Verena is keeping some awful critters in the labyrinth’s eastern tunnels. The giant hungry spiders did this.” He gestured to his clothes. “What about you?”

  “Molten lava waterfall.”

  “Delightful. No sign of the key?”

  “None. You?”

  He shook his head. This didn’t make sense. Why fill rooms with lava and man-eating arachnids if you weren’t protecting anything inside?

  “Have you seen Elio?” I asked him. “We got separated.”

  “I haven’t seen him since we split up,” said Anders. “But he’ll be fine. He’s tough.”

  “Normally I would agree with you, but not today. Your father is here.”

  Anders’s skin flickered, briefly turning red with anger. “Here? Now?”

  “And a group of guards.” I filled him in on our trackers glitching and the warden announcing our bounty to Verena’s entire party. “And my VED is broken and Elio is gone and … and…” My chest and my mind filled with so much panic I couldn’t even remember how to breathe. “I can’t do this anymore, Anders.” Tears welled in my eyes. “I can’t. I—has Wren talked to you?”

  “Not since we escaped the tunnels. Why?”

  “Because I—”

  Another blast shook the mansion. Screams echoed off the walls. Anders pulled me around the corner to another upward-sloping ramp. Servant bots rolled past us, following human staff who ran for cover just as a cluster of the warden’s guards entered the hall.

  They were nearly on top of us, shouting orders to each other in harsh Andillian.

  “Come here,” Anders said. “We have to hide you.” He pressed me against the wall, blocking me with his Earthan disguise. But even though he looked inconspicuous, surely the guards would find it strange if they turned the bend and saw the two of us just standing here staring at each other.

  “May I?” Anders asked me.

  “May you what?”

  “Sorry, we don’t have time. Slap me later if this offends you.”

  Then he leaned down, blocking my face just as the guards appeared in my peripheral, and kissed me.

  I didn’t know what I had been expecting, but it wasn’t this. The heat of his body pressed into mine, my fingers slipping through his hair, his lips crushing but also so gentle—warm and urgent and wanting. There were too many words to describe the sensation, like the endless stars in the sky, the endless galaxies in the universe. Even when we pulled apart, I knew I would carry this moment, this brief little flash of existence where time and space held still and there was us—only us—with me for infinity.

  I vaguely heard the guards grumbling something about Earthans and their sick need for public displays of affection before they continued down the corridor, leaving me and Anders completely alone.

  He leaned his forehead against mine. Our chests heaved, bumping into each other. “We don’t kiss on Andilly,” he said. “I’ve never done that before. I…” He wet his lips. “I think it gave me heartburn.”

  I laughed. “I think that’s how you’re supposed to feel.”

  “Truly? In that case, perhaps we should try it again. In the interest of science, of course. Just to make sure that I don’t have some type of underlying medical condition…”

  He pulled me closer, and I didn’t protest, and I felt like the most selfish person in the universe because of it. He ran his hands over my hips, fingers skimming the tears in the sides of my jumpsuit. I lifted my arm to brush a strand of hair from his eyes, and then—

  I was suddenly met with the cold pressure of his blaster against my temple.

  In a blur of motion, he ripped my own blaster from my hip and slammed my arms against the wall above my head.

  His skin bubbled, his true form rippling back into view. And, stars, he looked mad.

  “Wren told me. Everything. She found me before the first explosion went off. I lied.”

  “I can explain—”

  “Can you?” His claws came out and punctured the wall, caging my wrists. “Are you going to feed me more lies? That’s apparently all you’ve been doing since we met!”

  “It’s not—”

  “No.” His finger tightened on the trigger of his blaster. “It is. Were you ever going to tell us the truth? Or were you just going to give the keys to your family and then disappear forever?”

  I didn’t answer, but that was all the confirmation he needed.

  “I could kill you right now,” he snarled. “You know I could.”

  “It that why you just kissed me? Wanted to get it out of your system before committing one more murder? That’s sick.”

  “What’s sick is that you were going to abandon us to the warden! I trusted you. We both did. No matter what you thought about us, we trusted that you were on our side.”

  “But she’s not.” The wall next to me blurred and Wren stepped through, phaser in hand. Her eyes filled with tears. “How could you do it, Cora?”

  “Listen, Wren. You wanted to be part of my family? Well, here’s your great big welcome. We aren’t good people. We will lie to you and stab you in the back just to get what we want. Isn’t this what you asked for?”

  “To be a distraction, like you?” she choked out.

  That word, that horrible word. Distraction. It stole the breath from my lungs.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “A distraction. That’s what your mother called you. She’s using you to get the keys, if you haven’t figured it out. I heard her talking to the warden. They’re going to split the profits of the t
reasure. Then she’s going to hand you over to him, and he’s going to drag all of us back to Andilly and make an example of us. I don’t know how, but I’m sure you can use your imagination.”

  “But Evelina wouldn’t…” I had to stop myself. Of course she would. Of course she would sacrifice me to get what she wanted. Every time she looked at me like she cared, it had been a lie. She only cared about the money.

  “Well, we can stop them—”

  “We aren’t doing anything ever again.” She nodded to Anders. “We’re leaving. As long as our trackers keep malfunctioning, they won’t be able to follow. Do what you want with the key. Give it to your mother and get screwed, swallow the star-forsaken thing. I don’t care. Just tell Elio that I’m sorry it had to end like this.”

  They both turned and started down the corridor. Wren didn’t look back. Anders did for less than a second, his face expressionless, his aura pulled as deep down inside as the day I met him. He still had my blaster clutched in his fist.

  This had all been for nothing. I couldn’t give Elio Wren’s message because I didn’t know where he was. Evelina probably already found him. We would both be handed back to the warden. He would never get a new body, never get a second chance at life.

  And I would have to sit in a cell in Ironside while I watched him fade away.

  No. I wouldn’t do it. To hell with Evelina. To hell with my whole star-forsaken family. I was a Saros too. I could play their game.

  And I would win.

  “Wren! Anders! Wait!”

  They didn’t. I sprinted to catch up with them and blocked their path. “Hey, wait a second.”

  Wren scowled. “Go back to your family, Cora.”

  “I will. If you help me.” She scoffed and they both started walking again. I wriggled between them and pushed them back against the wall. “Hey. Look, I feel bad about what I did, but I can’t apologize. Not where Elio is concerned. And until recently, I honestly didn’t even like you guys that much.”

  “Wow, thanks,” said Wren.

  Anders shrugged. “Honestly, I didn’t like you guys much either.”