Shadowbound

by Gage Lee

  “Don’t listen to him, Kai,” Biz shouted. “He’s bluffing. Let him fall.”

  “Get on the roof,” I shouted. “I can’t hold you like this forever.”

  “No,” the man said. “Not until you promise to leave the gate for me, Sleeper.”

  Despite his demands, I didn’t believe this guy was here for the contest at all. He didn’t sound angry or greedy.

  He sounded terrified.

  But that didn’t make any sense. Biz was right. He was bluffing. And if he wouldn’t come up onto the roof, then he’d have to fall.

  “Last chance,” I said. “Get up here.”

  “You have to believe me,” the man said. “Lives depend on my getting through that gate. Don’t ruin this for me.”

  “You’re out of your mind.” I’d had enough of this guy. I wanted to kick his fingers off my arms and let him fall. And if it hadn’t been for all those people down there, parents and kids, normal people just out trying to have a good time, that’s exactly what I would have done.

  But the tourists were down there, and I wouldn’t let them get hurt if I had anything to say about it. I dropped onto my butt and crab-walked backward, dragging the lunatic’s arm over the rough fake stone at the edge of the roof. He was heavy, but he didn’t have any leverage to fight me. The man hooked his other fingers over the roof’s lip, taking some of the weight off my arm.

  Perfect.

  “Gotta good grip?” I asked him and pretended to be out of breath.

  “Yes,” he said and began to lever himself up onto the roof. Clearly, he was in no danger of falling.

  Even more perfect.

  “Good,” I ripped my hand out of his grip and scrambled back from him. He was safe from falling. Now it was time for me to run.

  “You can’t,” he started.

  “I can, and I will.” I jumped to my feet and raced for the tunnel. “Biz, grab my phone and get through that gate!”

  My sister followed my barked orders and snatched my cracked phone from where it had fallen. For a moment, her face was bathed in the app’s golden glow, and she no longer looked anything like my baby sister. The light made her eyes deeper, wilder, and showed me something feral and hungry lurking in my sister’s skin.

  A quick glance over my shoulder showed me the masked man had nearly dragged himself up onto the roof. I had a good head start, but if he ran like he jumped, I wasn’t sure I’d outrun him. A spike of adrenaline shot through my veins at the thought of losing at the last second, and I focused all my attention on the gate ahead of me. I took my breaths in a steady, even cycle and pushed myself right up to my limits.

  And beyond.

  My feet skidded on a layer of fine grit and I stumbled forward, my balance gone. I fell, skinning my palms on the rooftop, and landed hard enough to click my teeth together and set off a fireworks show behind my eyes. The pain knocked the air right out of me as I slid through the gate.

  “Get up,” Biz shouted. “Come on, he’s almost here!”

  “Let’s go,” I groaned and dragged myself onto my feet. My vision had cleared, though my knees and hands still burned where I’d skinned them. That was all right. We were in the tunnel. I could do this.

  The passage took a sharp left, then another right. We’d been heading down since we’d entered the tunnel, and I had a hard time imagining where we’d come out.

  Footsteps rattled down the tunnel behind us. I couldn’t see anyone around the corners we’d just taken, but I knew who it was. The masked man was almost on top of us.

  “There it is!” Biz stabbed a bony finger down the hall at a narrow gate in front of us. Its bars glowed so brightly it was hard to see anything beyond them.

  “You have to stop!” The man had nearly caught up to us. “There’s still time to fix what you’ve done!”

  But we’d already reached the goal. We’d won.

  “Give it up, man, you lost,” Biz shouted back, then choked. Her hands flew to her mouth as she doubled over, and a dry cough wracked her thin frame from head to toe.

  My sister needed her medicine, and a doctor, in that order. There had to be staff on the other side of the gate. They’d get her some help.

  “It was supposed to be me,” the man shouted. “You don’t stand a chance.”

  “I beat you,” I shot back.

  “Stars forgive me.” His shoulders slumped, and he fell back against the wall. “Find Monitor. Tell him Narsk—”

  A klaxon’s blare drowned out the rest of his words. Red lights flooded the tunnel, only to be replaced a split second later by a green blaze so intense I had to shield my eyes. The ground jolted under my feet, and I grabbed Biz by the shoulder and pulled her closer to me. Born and raised in California, I knew an earthquake when I felt one.

  The masked man barked an angry word that I didn’t understand, and a flash of light erupted around me. Needle pricks of pain speared into my chest and arms like a swarm of sweat bees biting into my skin. The sharp scent of ozone filled my nostrils as a throbbing hum pounded through my head. I didn’t know what the maniac had hit me with, and I didn’t care. I had to get my sister out of the tunnel before the whole thing came crashing down on top of us.

  My biggest concern was no longer the game.

  It was survival.

  I shoved the gate open and dragged Biz through.

  >>>Akashik network interface implantation confirmed.

  Transfer commencing.

  Two Sleepers inbound.

  Constellation locks aligned.

  Gate stability near optimal.

  Discharge in ten seconds.<<<

  “What was that all about?” I asked Biz as we raced down the corridor past the gate.

  “What?” Biz glanced at me with worry on her face. We’d reached a corner and darted around it in search of our prize. “You must have really smacked your head. We’ll get you to a doctor as soon as we get out of here.”

  “I’m fine,” I lied. The voice had sounded like it came from above my head. I’d thought there was a hidden speaker in the ceiling. If Biz hadn’t heard it, though...

  Maybe I had knocked a screw loose.

  The ground jumped again, and the gate slammed behind us. The tunnel continued around a corner to the right and ended in a heavy metal door.

  It didn’t open.

  I banged my fist against it and shouted for someone to let us out of the tunnel before it caved in.

  No one answered.

  >>>Transfer in three...<<<

  I hunkered down over my sister, just like I’d practiced in a hundred earthquake drills. The sound of stone grinding against stone grew louder by the second, and Biz turned into me, hiding her face against my chest.

  Tremors rattled my bones and made my eyes jitter in their sockets. Small stones fell from the ceiling to pelt my back and skull.

  A slab of stone crashed down behind us. Its impact was followed a split second later by a boulder longer than I was tall, and then a hailstorm of bowling ball-sized rocks. Biz screamed and clutched me so tight her fingers dug into my spine.

  >>>Two...<<<

  The green light shifted back to red, then to yellow. A powerful tremor knocked me back against the wall. I braced myself with one hand and used the other to shield Biz. I had no idea how I could hear the woman’s voice over the incessant thunder of the earthquake.

  >>>One.<<<

  The light went out. The ground stopped moving. No more rocks fell. A deafening silence crashed down over me, broken only by the rapid drumming of my heart in my ears.

  >>>Akashik network interface transfer status report

  Transfer complete. Constellation dismantled.<<<

  I had just enough time to be thankful we hadn’t been crushed flat by the falling debris before Biz and I plunged into darkness.

  Chapter Two

  THE DARKNESS GAVE WAY to a brilliant turquoise light the instant before we crashed into a pool of icy water. The impact tore my breath out of my lungs and ripped Biz free of my arms.
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  It took every ounce of self-control I could muster not to open my mouth and suck a bunch of water into my lungs. I was desperate for air, and the shocking cold scrambled my thoughts. I clenched my jaw and searched for Biz.

  The pool we were in had to be thirty feet on a side. I couldn’t see the bottom, though, and the strange light threw confusing shadows in every direction. It took me long, painful seconds to find my sister.

  Biz had already started to sink. Her wide eyes stared up at me, and her hands were outstretched in a desperate attempt to reach me.

  Panic seized my heart in a cold iron fist.

  I’d always been a strong swimmer, even as a little kid. Biz, though, was terrified of water since the accident. She’d nearly drowned that day and hadn’t stepped into a pool since.

  I willed her to hang on and swam down and down, kicking and clawing in a furious drive to reach my sister before it was too late. Seconds ticked by, one deadly moment passing into the next, and rushing blood roared in my ears. I was out of air. I had to turn back.

  But I kept swimming, deeper and deeper.

  Finally, my fingers brushed against Biz’s. A stream of bubbles slipped through her lips, and she flailed her arms to try to grab me.

  My hand curled around her wrist. I had her.

  Biz’s mouth opened. She breathed in a lungful of water.

  Adrenaline set my blood on fire.

  The fear of losing my sister again filled me with unexpected strength. I kicked and clawed at the water to drag Biz, slowly, far too slowly, back to the water’s surface. A dark circle closed in around my vision and tightened with every thudding beat of my laboring heart. My oxygen-starved brain cells lost track of any rational thought. I’d become a simple machine whose only function was to swim, up and up, even as it ran out of fuel and its systems went dark. It wouldn’t be long now before I lost consciousness.

  That would be the end of me. The end of us both.

  My hand sliced through empty air and crashed down on a hard lip of stone. The surface was so slick my fingers couldn’t get a grip, and I slipped back into the water. Every survival instinct screamed at me to let go of my sister and use both hands to save myself.

  But the edge of the pool was so slick, I didn’t think that would work.

  Instead, I dragged my sister up to my chest and got both hands under her armpits. She weighed almost nothing in the water, but when I tried to lift her out of the pool, I sank beneath the surface. It was hard to believe someone so small could be so heavy.

  I kicked, again and again and again, desperate to lift Biz onto the pool’s edge. If I could get her out of the water, even if it cost me everything, someone would find her. She’d be okay, no matter what happened to me.

  One more kick shoved Biz’s skinny body up and out of the freezing pool. I pushed her forward and prayed I’d gotten at least her upper half safely on the stony edge of the pool.

  And then I sank.

  The adrenaline leaked out of my body, leaving my muscles trembling with exhaustion and hypothermia. The water’s cold embrace drained the life out of me, and I didn’t have the energy to fight it. I’d given everything to save my sister. With that mission accomplished, I slid down into the darkness. The light had almost entirely faded from my surroundings, and soon it would go out of me. My eyes drifted closed, and...

  Cold bands of metal locked around my wrists. Something ripped me out of the water so hard that, for a moment, I was airborne.

  I landed with a rough jolt that left bruises up and down my left hip and arm. Something that felt like a metal ping pong paddle smacked into my back. The shock jump-started my lungs, and I sucked in a huge gulp of air.

  Nothing had ever tasted so sweet.

  My eyes landed on Biz before I’d exhaled. She was sprawled on her side, motionless, facing away from me.

  “Help her,” I gasped.

  “She is fine.” A hollow metallic voice came from behind me. “I am more concerned about you.”

  Another smack on my back forced a bark of surprise out of me. I gulped air again and scrambled forward to put space between me and the maniac before he could hit me a third time.

  When I turned to get a look at my aggressive rescuer, my lungs threatened to seize up on me again.

  He, it—I really wasn’t sure—was a short, skeletal creature that appeared to be made entirely of metal. Its head was wide, more like a football than a human skull, and its eyes were covered by a pair of glass lenses that shone with a steady blue light. A grill took up the space where its mouth should have been. Its joints were studded with glowing, faceted studs that could have been carved gemstones. A larger stone, polished smooth and filled with a golden radiance, occupied the center of its chest.

  “Do not be alarmed.” It raised its metal hands and slowly stood from where it had been crouched to tend to me. “I am Monitor—”

  “We need to get back to the park.” I moved to put myself between Monitor and my sister. “I don’t know if you’re a robot or some kind of remote-control rescue drone, but you have to help us.”

  “I am a soulforged servitor.” Monitor crossed his spindly metal arms over his chest. “And you are not Narsk Alaush. This is a most distressing turn of events.”

  That was an understatement. I looked around for an exit and found only a single door, behind Monitor. The rest of the room’s circular walls were utterly featureless. There wasn’t even an opening in the ceiling. That last was extremely confusing because Biz and I had fallen quite a ways and the top of the room was only a few feet above my head.

  “It’s going to be even more distressing when our mom shows up to get us and we’re not waiting for her at the gate,” I said. “Show us the way back. My sister needs her medicine. She’s sick.”

  “Your sister is Sleeping.” I actually heard the capital letter inflection Monitor put on that last word. “No harm will come to her. But I must know where Narsk Alaush is.”

  The first name dredged up a memory of the last minutes before the earthquake. The guy who’d tried to steal the win from me had said something about Narsk and that he had a message for Monitor. He hadn’t gotten a chance to finish the thought, though.

  “I think your guy’s back in the park,” I said. “Where you need to take me and my sister right now.”

  The robot’s responses to me were too specific for an animatronic. It had to be a cast member in a costume or, more likely, a remote-controlled feature. There had to be a human somewhere operating it. They’d send help.

  They had to.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about a park,” Monitor said. “I was expecting Narsk Alaush. He was to return with allies to help us rebuild, but—”

  I eased down to one knee to check on Biz while the robot—no, he had called himself a soulforged servitor—squawked about all the ways our arrival had screwed up his plans. None of that mattered to me. My sister hadn’t moved since I’d crawled out of the water. I had to be sure she was all right.

  She wasn’t breathing.

  “No.” I rolled Biz onto her back and grabbed her wrist. “No, no, no. We have to help her!”

  My sister’s wrist was warm to the touch. Her cheeks held a faint blush with no sign of the hectic red splotches that always appeared during her fits. Her lips were pale pink, without a hint of blue. She looked like she was taking a peaceful nap.

  But she didn’t have a pulse.

  “Your sister is fine,” the burring mechanical voice insisted. “While she Sleeps, no harm can befall her. But you mustn’t push yourself.”

  “She needs her medicine.” I bolted upright and whirled to face Monitor. “We need an ambulance. Call one. Now!”

  “Please don’t exert yourself,” the soulforged cautioned. Monitor raised his oversized metal hands as if that would calm me. “Your core is fragile at this stage. Allow me to—”

  Anger, frustration, and fear warred inside me. Biz needed more help than I could give her. The metal man had to be connected to so
meone or something back at the park. I had to make him understand this was a matter of life or death. Before I could stop myself, I’d stomped up to Monitor and grabbed hold of his shoulders. I shook the soulforged as hard as I could.

  Which, it turns out, was not very hard.

  The strength leaked out of my muscles the instant I put my hands on the soulforged. My legs collapsed under me. I couldn’t even raise my arms to stop my fall. If Monitor hadn’t caught me and eased me to the floor, I’d have cracked my skull open on the stone edge of the pool.

  >>>Low ghostlight levels. Core collapse imminent. Commence circulation exercises immediately.<<<

  This was the end, then. I’d taken a nasty knock on the head during the earthquake or given myself brain damage during my swim in the blue waters. That voice was the last delusion of a dying brain. Nothing it said made any sense. Core collapse sounded like something that would happen to a nuclear reactor, not a human, and I’d never heard of circulation exercises. This was a terrible way to die, and not just because it seemed so pointless. I’d failed my sister.

  Again.

  The world faded to black.

  >>>System reset in five...<<<

  “No.” The mechanical voice barged into my dying moments. “This is unacceptable. I warned you not to exert yourself. There’s no reason for such foolishness.”

  >>>System reset in four...<<<

  “Your core is unblemished,” Monitor mused. “Have you ever even tried to circulate your ghostlight?”

  >>>System reset in three...<<<

  “Of course, you haven’t.” The soulforged’s voice was so low I could scarcely hear it. “I warned the League of Explorers it would be difficult to find any suitable targets. And they sent Narsk anyway. Fools.”

  >>>Akashik network interface engineer exchange and recovery report

  Searching for viable exchange targets...

  No viable exchanges within ghostlight reserve limitations.

  Recovery codices unavailable.

  Final cryptblocks generating.

  System reset in two...<<<

  “We’ll just do this the hard way then,” the robot fussed. “I do apologize for any pain you experience. I’ve been told it can be quite intense. I wouldn’t know, of course, being a soulforged servitor, but—”