Arbitrate or Die (The Exceptional S. Beaufont Book 2)

by Sarah Noffke

“That’s an actual thing?” Evan asked. “I thought it was science fiction.”

  The robot was getting closer. Sophia knew it was a risk using the device to take the security systems offline, and blowing out the camera had also probably been a trigger to send the guards down to this corridor.

  “Do you have ice magic?” she asked Evan, hearing the robot get closer.

  He huffed. “I’m a dragonrider for the Elite. What do you want? Snowballs? Icicles?”

  “We’re not creating a winter wonderland,” Sophia said. “Something that freezes large objects.”

  “How large?” Evan asked, fear springing to his eyes as he looked between her and the corner where the noise was coming from.

  A second later and a robot whose head nearly reached the ceiling materialized. It looked like a skeleton, covered in chrome, its red eyes scanning.

  “Whoa,” Evan said, backing up.

  This was exactly like the robots she’d faced before, which meant she knew how to take them down. Thinking it was probably better if she saved her reserves for taking down unfamiliar magical tech, she said, “Blast it with cold.”

  Evan held up his hand just as the robot went to do the same, a gun protruding from where its hand should have been.

  “Hurry!” Sophia urged, about to step in, but remembering what Lunis had said about encouraging Evan. “You can do this. Freeze it!”

  Snow and ice blasted from Evan’s hand, soaring through the air and hitting the robot. The machine held its ground as snow covered it quickly. Still, the effort seemed to immobilize the beast. Within several seconds, the entire robot was covered from head to toe in snow. Sophia didn’t know if that was enough to subdue it, but then its red eyes flickered and dimmed as a sound like it was shorting out sparked from the head.

  Evan relaxed, having also assumed that the robot was down. “Pretty awesome job on my part, huh?”

  Sophia let out a sigh. “Yeah, but next time, just freeze it. You don’t have to make it into a snowman.”

  “I like to do things with a bit of flair,” Evan argued. “So that was a robot, huh? What was that thing on its arm?”

  “A gun,” Sophia answered, listening for other robots.

  “Oh, so we nearly got blasted?”

  “Yes, so next time pass up the flair for efficiency,” she advised.

  “I didn’t see you stepping up with your magic to help,” he stated.

  “Yes, because if I deplete my reserves and we need them to battle unfamiliar magical tech, we’re screwed.”

  “Fine,” Evan said. “But then we should cut it to the eggs. Where do you think they are?”

  She nodded, knowing the device wouldn’t keep the security down for much longer.

  Lunis, are you getting any readings on the eggs? she asked in her mind.

  I’ve narrowed it down to the fifth level, Lunis stated. Take the elevators there. Then Coral will have a better radar through Evan since she’s actually there.

  Okay, thank you. Sophia strode forward, waving Evan along.

  “Coral can help us find the location of the eggs,” Sophia informed him. “But we have to go up to the fifth level.”

  “Where do you suspect the stairs are?” Evan asked, looking around when they came to the intersection of the hallway.

  “Today, you get to ride an elevator,” Sophia said, pointing to a set of doors.

  “Dude, I’m old, but I’ve been around since elevators,” Evan stated.

  Sophia touched the button for the elevator, making it ding too loudly in the seemingly deserted facility. It was strange how quiet the place was. Could its express purpose be to hide the dragon eggs? And why? What was Thad Reinhart’s grievance with the dragonriders? She knew from Hiker that he’d wiped out a huge amount of their numbers, but no one had filled her in on why, which suddenly seemed like a question she should have asked.

  The doors opened with a “shushing” sound, showing a small metal box.

  “Wait, we’re supposed to get in here?” Evan asked, hesitation heavy in his voice. “Doesn’t that seem like a trap?”

  Sophia strode forward. “And here I thought you’d experienced elevators.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  “I said that I knew about them,” Evan stated. “I didn’t say I rode around on them a lot.”

  Sophia pressed the button for level five. “Firstly, elevators don’t go round and round. Usually just up and down. And secondly, you need to see if Coral can sense where the eggs are. Inside the Institute, they shouldn’t be shielded since the water was doing that.”

  He nodded, his eyes drifting to the right. Sophia suspected that was what she looked like when talking to Lunis, as if she was deep in thought.

  “She says they are in a large lab,” he stated after a moment.

  The doors to the elevator sprang open, and immediately bullets whizzed by the compartment, making Sophia spring for the corner closest to the front. She indicated to Evan to take the other side.

  The sound of hydraulics was heavy in the corridor. There were at least a few magical tech robots on this level, probably guarding the lab where the eggs were held.

  Sophia gave Evan a sturdy look, holding up her hand beside her face like it was a gun and she was about to swing around the corner, barrel blazing. “You take the right, I’ll take the left. Send a fast, deadly blast straight at their heads.”

  He nodded. “You got it, Pink Princess.”

  “Ready, set…” She waited for the gunfire in the corridor to pause, maybe when the robots reloaded…hoping that they did. To her relief, the robot stopped firing, maybe wondering if it was a false alarm and there was no one in the elevator.

  “Go,” she mouthed, swinging around and sending a bolt of electricity from her palm. That seemed like the best bet. It hit the robot standing in the hallway and knocked it back several feet, making its head come off. The electricity wrapped around its body, sending it into convulsions.

  She whipped around to find Evan with both his hands extended and two frozen to the core robots lying flat on the floor.

  Lifting his pointer fingers up like guns, he blew on them. “That was a piece of cake.”

  Right then, something shook the floor under their feet as a loud sound thundered from the opposite side of the far corridor.

  His eyes swept to her. “What was that?”

  “I think it is the whole cake,” she said, hearing the hydraulics but making note that whatever was using them to move was much larger than the giant robots they’d taken down.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The robots they had just disabled seemed like skinny guys compared to the mech warrior that stepped around the corner. Huge cannons were attached to its thick arms, and its legs were the size of barrels.

  Simply shooting it with ice and electricity wasn’t going to do.

  Evan lifted his hand like he was going to attempt the same strategy.

  “No,” Sophia said quickly, noticing something different about the robot besides the fact that it was huge.

  “No, like, let’s call this our final resting place?” he asked.

  “No, like, look at the protective field encircling that thing,” she stated, pointing.

  He narrowed his eyes before they widened with recognition. Pulsing around the robot was an almost invisible armor, but the sparks shimmering every so often gave it away. And explained why the robot hadn’t fired at them yet. It wanted them to take the first shot, which would invariably ricochet and hit them. Why use unnecessary power when you could use your enemies’ attacks against them? Which gave Sophia an idea.

  “What are we going to do if we can’t attack it?” Evan asked.

  Sophia grabbed his hand and pulled hard. “Run!”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  “You get that as courageous dragonriders, we don’t run, right?” he asked, still hightailing it beside Sophia.

  “No, we don’t,” she answered, listening to the tell-tale signs of the weapons charging up behind th
em—a high-pitched threatening sound. Whatever that robot shot, it was powerful, not just some bullets. “However, we do run if we need to secure an advantage.”

  “Which is?” Evan asked.

  “Distance,” Sophia stated, rounding the bend of the hallway.

  “That strangely still sounds like a coward’s way,” Evan complained, looking over his shoulder. “What is that thing? A robot or a magician on steroids?”

  Sophia thought the latter was a more accurate description. This was just more proof that Thad Reinhart invested in offensive magical tech meant to protect and destroy like the robots that had guarded the slaves at the facility. Liv had questioned all of them, not learning much about how they were taken or by whom. It was cloaked in mystery and forgotten memories.

  “I’m certain that it’s more magical than tech,” Sophia related, turning to face the hallway where the mech demon would be coming from. “Help me create a thin sheet of ice. Something that is so transparent, it almost goes unnoticed, like glass.”

  Evan shot her a confused expression. “I don’t get it.”

  “Reinforce it so that it has a reflective quality,” Sophia went on, working fast to create the barrier between them and the approaching robot.

  Evan might have been confused, but he was still doing as he was instructed. “Reflective…I don’t…oh, wait. You want the…”

  “Exactly,” Sophia said in a hushed voice as the sheet of ice materialized. Sitting in the stainless-steel hallway, it went almost completely unnoticed, like a cobweb stretched across a path. One wouldn’t even know they were about to pass through it until it knocked them in the face. And Sophia hoped that the mech wouldn’t notice it until it was too late.

  “How’s that?” Evan asked, adding a touch of something using his magic that reinforced the barrier, adding double protection between them and the robot.

  “Good thinking,” Sophia said, looking over her shoulder. They had come to a dead end. There was only one door at their back, which meant that this better work or they were trapped.

  “Now what do we do?” Evan asked, recognizing the situation they’d gotten themselves into.

  “We wait,” Sophia said, hearing the mech magician approaching. It wasn’t as fast as the other robots, but she didn’t think it needed to be. It was meant for one purpose—to protect and destroy—and it was about to try and fulfill that.

  “You know, with you, this dragonrider business is a whole lot less glamorous,” Evan whispered tensely. “It’s all strategy and not a lot of fistfights and swordplay.”

  “Why get your hands dirty if you don’t have to?” Sophia asked, stiffening as the mech charged around the corner, its eyes red and weapons glowing hot.

  “So, we just stand here and do what?” Evan asked.

  “Don’t shoot at it,” she warned.

  He gave her a pursed expression. “Thanks, I sort of got that, Sherlock.”

  “I don’t know.” Sophia shrugged. “We want it to shoot at us, so taunt it.”

  “But doesn’t it want us to shoot at it?” Evan asked from the corner of his mouth.

  Sophia nodded. “It’s sort of a standoff.”

  “I’m supposed to resist my very nature and just wait for it to make the first move?”

  “Yes, let’s hope that between you and it, the robot has more testosterone,” Sophia joked, scowling at the machine.

  Unlike many of the magical tech robots she’d encountered in Liv’s shop, this one appeared empty, like a soulless piece of technology. That was the thing about electronics when they were paired with magic. They were supposed to take on a new life with personality and a unique flair that was often uncontrollable to a degree.

  But Thad Reinhart’s magical tech was different. It was almost as if it had been manufactured to have all the reliability of technology with the added power of magic but none of the personality that went along with it.

  “Hey metal brains,” Evan said to the robot that seemed to be studying them as it halted just feet from the barrier both magicians were working to reinforce. “You look like you have a screw loose.”

  “What are you doing?” Sophia asked from the corner of her mouth.

  “I’m taunting it,” Evan said with satisfaction.

  “It’s a robot,” she argued. “I don’t think it can be offended.”

  “Everything can be. You just have to find the right button,” Evan stated.

  Sophia rolled her eyes so hard it nearly hurt her head. “That was the worst pun ever, and I’ve heard some bad ones.”

  “Why thank you,” he whispered, throwing his arms out wide to the mech. “Oh, look at you with your big guns and armor, but you’re still afraid to shoot.”

  “This isn’t going to work,” Sophia said.

  “It will,” Evan whispered to her, puffing his chest out wide to the robot. “Come on, Pink Princess. We should go. This hunk of metal doesn’t know what to do. Just goes to show you can give a robot a weapon, but that doesn’t make it a man.”

  “Really?” Sophia questioned in a terse whisper. “Male jokes?”

  “It will work,” he replied in a hushed voice. “Now, follow my lead.” Evan turned around, pulling Sophia. “Let’s go and do what we came here for since nothing is going to stop us.”

  The charge of the weapon grew suddenly louder. Sophia spun to see the radiant blast just as the mech shot it. At first, she worried their shield wouldn’t hold, and they were about to be hit at close range by an attack they wouldn’t survive. But then it ricocheted off the barrier, going straight back at the mech warrior. Its protective field reflected the attack, which bounced off the shield again, like a pinball in a machine. This happened several times until the protective field around the robot failed—thankfully before their barrier. If Sophia had made it alone, it wouldn’t have withstood the force.

  The blast hit the shield once more before rebounding at the robot, sending it back with a furious force and exploding it against the far wall. The barrier broke a second later, sending shards of ice everywhere and a gust of wind that was both cold and hot over Sophia and Evan.

  She shielded her face with her arm as another explosion came from the mech robot, sending flames into the air. For a moment, she worried that the robot would rally as it tried to lift its cannon arm, aiming it at then.

  She grabbed Evan’s arm, preparing to drag him to the nearest door, their only escape. The weapon glowed faintly.

  If they made it through the door, the blast would hit the dead-end behind them, and again, the robot would be blasted by its own attack. She was just about to tug Evan for the door when he stepped forward, out of her grasp.

  The cannon shifted to a red glow as if the robot had unlocked a set of reserves, bringing it back.

  Evan lifted his hand and sent a blinding attack at the robot that froze it on the spot. It was such an intense blast that the robot cracked all over at once before exploding into a thousand pieces of frozen bits, sending debris all over them.

  Sophia and Evan both ducked, covering themselves as metal ripped past them, scratching at them but doing no real damage.

  When the chaos had settled, Sophia rose alongside Evan and looked at the mech’s guts strewn all up and down the hallway. The only part of it that still seemed alive was a section of its face with half of a glowing eye, looking up from the floor.

  Evan stepped forward and crushed the piece with his boot until the light was extinguished. “Not today, Satan. Not today.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  “I was going to let it destroy itself,” Sophia said, having explained her idea to Evan.

  He shook his head. “I can play your strategy game only so much. Sometimes I just need to blow some shit up.”

  She looked around at the hallway full of destroyed magical tech. “And so you did.”

  “And hopefully that won’t be all of it,” Evan said, striding back the way they came. “Coral said to look for a lab. Maybe it’s this way.”

  Sophia gla
nced over her shoulder at the one door standing at the end of the hallway. “Actually, I think I’ve found it.”

  “Why is that?” Evan asked, doubling back.

  Sophia nodded at the sign next to the door. “Because it says, ‘Aiden’s Lab.’”

  “Who is Aiden?” Evan asked.

  “Beats me,” Sophia answered, hovering her hand just over the button for the door. “Let’s hope he’s not another robot.”

  To her relief, the security device was still working, disabling most of the locking mechanisms around the Institute. The door slid back at once, making a shushing sound.

  The lab was dark, save for the light illuminating a glass case similar to an aquarium in the center of the large room. The five dragon eggs appeared quite strange, hovering in midair behind the glass of the case.

  Chapter Forty

  The various colored eggs were exactly as Sophia remembered them. They were all about the size of a small cantaloupe, their shimmering surfaces reflecting the light.

  Evan rushed over at once.

  “No,” Sophia warned, stopping him from touching the case. “It’s got to be protected.”

  Evan searched the area. “By what?”

  “I don’t know,” Sophia said. “But there has to be some sort of protective field keeping them suspended like that. I bet if we try and grab one, they all drop.”

  “Aren’t dragon eggs pretty tough?” Evan reasoned. “Maybe they won’t break.”

  “I don’t think we can risk it.” Sophia used her magic to reach out to the eggs in the case, trying to grab them. Strangely she could get to them, pulling all five up a few inches.

  “Whoa, that’s you?” Evan asked, looking between her and the eggs.

  “Yes, but I can’t get them out of the case.” Sophia gritted her teeth, trying to get around whatever security measure was blocking her. “There’s something preventing them from being released.”

  “Is this when I get to smash stuff?” Evan patted the axe at his side.