Crystal Keepers

by Brandon Mull

  Accompanied by patrolmen, Joe stepped off the monorail. Other patrolmen followed.

  The soothing female voice spoke again over the loudspeakers. “You may now exit the train for Canal Station. Thank you for your cooperation.”

  Passengers began to rise from their seats and move into the aisle, forcing the patrolman ahead of Cole to pause. Cole flattened himself against the seats at one side of the aisle to allow an older woman to pass. He stayed there, hoping the patrolman behind him might pass him as well, but the patrolman nudged him to continue.

  Cole stepped down from the train onto a bustling platform. Some people were boarding the train, others getting off. Looking compliant, Joe stood some distance away with four patrolmen. Jace, Mira, and Dalton were moving in Joe’s general direction, while also doing a decent job of spreading out.

  Joe briefly met eyes with Cole. Then he bolted, racing down the platform toward the front of the monorail. All of the patrolmen reacted. Most reached for their trapguns, then seemed to think twice about using them on the crowded platform.

  Though caught flat-footed, the patrolmen who had stood with Joe took off in pursuit, weapons in hand. Joe turned and raised his bound hands. In them he held a silver tube that Cole remembered from Skyport. Joe had pointed it at the legionnaires when he joined the fight to help Mira escape. Nothing had happened.

  This time it worked.

  A narrow jet of white material fountained from the end of the tube, staying in a focused stream until it hit the patrolman nearest to Joe and expanded into a dense cloud of foam. The foam only sprayed for a few seconds, but Joe managed to heavily cover two patrolmen and lightly got a third.

  The rich lather made Cole think of shaving cream, but as the men coated by the substance slowed down, it became clear that the foam was rapidly hardening. One patrolman tipped over, trapped in a pillowy cocoon, his arms encased in front of his chest, his legs stuck together above the knees. The foamy husk helped break his fall. Another patrolman froze up while wiping the lather off his face. Only his upper body was covered, but he ended up with one hand stuck over his eye, and the other against his neck. A third patrolman had his hand bound to his weapon and his elbow to his side by a large, creamy glob.

  Joe kept running, brushing by others in the crowd. As people saw him coming and made room for him, he swerved toward them rather than accepting the open space. Cole realized that Joe was using the crowd to deny the patrolmen a clear shot.

  Cole also abruptly realized that he was unsupervised.

  People were still going in and out of the monorail through the door he had just exited. The patrolman who had accompanied him was running after Joe, just like all the others. Taking his ticket from his pocket, Cole turned and boarded the train.

  No conductor monitored the door. After stepping aboard with his head down, Cole turned away from the private compartments where he had ridden with his friends. He didn’t want to walk by the same people who had watched the patrolmen march him off the monorail.

  Moving down the aisle, Cole raised his head and tried to appear casual. Anxiety boiled inside of him. He expected a patrolman to call out to him at any moment. He walked through two cars before choosing an empty seat in a vacant row with a view of the platform. He wasn’t sure if the seat required a certain ticket, but he figured he could act really polite and move if somebody called him on it.

  Peering out the window, Cole found it mostly looked like business as usual on the platform, though a few people had paused to stare toward the front of the monorail, necks craning, presumably watching the chase. Joe had been sprinting while Cole walked, so unless he got caught right after Cole stopped watching, he was probably a good distance down the platform. Cole couldn’t see him from his seat and didn’t want to make a show of looking.

  Could Joe still be running? Did he have any chance of getting away? There had been a lot of patrolmen present, but if the crowd interfered enough, maybe it was possible. The distraction had sure worked. Cole hoped Dalton, Jace, and Mira had also taken advantage of the opportunity.

  Cole silently willed the train to move forward. He didn’t think any patrolmen had seen him return to the monorail, but he couldn’t be sure. With the patrolmen chasing Joe, how much would they care that the kids who were with him had scattered? Would they bother to search the area?

  The nearest exit door slid closed, and the monorail glided forward. The soothing woman came on over the loudspeaker. “Sorry for the delay. Next stop, Rockford Station.”

  As the monorail picked up speed, Cole watched out the window, hoping for a glimpse of Joe, trusting the tinting to hide his face from any patrolmen outside the train. Toward the end of the platform, Cole saw a group of patrolmen gathered around a pair of people pinned to the ground by a ropy mass of gray webbing. Due to the increasing speed of the monorail and the presence of the surrounding patrolmen, Cole only caught a quick glimpse of the people beneath the webs. But he knew one of them had to be Joe.

  The train passed beyond the station, and once again Cole could see the sights of the city. But his gaze dropped to his lap. He felt guilty for escaping while Joe paid the price. He knew Joe wanted him to flee, but he still felt miserable. Why couldn’t Joe have gotten away? What would the patrolmen do to him?

  Cole stewed about his other friends. He assured himself they must have escaped. He couldn’t be the only one who had made it. Joe had led the patrolmen on a good chase. He had made it a long way down the platform. Dalton, Jace, and Mira should be long gone.

  From his current seat, Cole could see no patrolmen aboard the monorail. If he could make it past Rockford Station to the next stop, he could get off as planned and make his way to Axis. The others who got away would go there too. Then maybe they could contact the Unseen and figure out how to help Joe.

  Or maybe none of the others had escaped. Maybe Mira would be discovered. Maybe he had seen the last of his friends.

  Maybe he was alone.

  CHAPTER

  8

  AXIS

  Cole stepped off the monorail at Hanover Station, the fourth stop inside the city. The bustling station had a high ceiling and an enormous platform. Cole flowed with the crowd of disembarking passengers toward a wide stairway. Off to one side he saw senders as well.

  It felt strange to be alone. He had traveled as part of a group for a long time. There had been others to rely on. When Joe was with him, he hadn’t worried about navigation at all. Now he felt the true enormity of the city.

  He was an outsider. He didn’t know the places or the customs. He needed to fit in. He couldn’t afford to draw attention. For the moment, that meant staying with the crowd.

  Two patrolmen wandered the platform, trapguns dangling from straps over their shoulders. Cole avoided paying special attention to them, and they returned the favor.

  As he reached the top of the stairs along with a funneling mass of other people, a hand clamped down on his shoulder from behind. “You’re coming with me.”

  Cole jumped and turned, breaking the grip, and was ready to dash down the crowded stairs before he recognized Jace. “Not a great time for jokes,” Cole said hotly.

  “Seems like the perfect time,” Jace replied. “It’s the best I’ve felt all day.”

  They started walking down the stairs together. As angry as Cole felt at being startled, he was also relieved. At least somebody else had slipped away. He wasn’t completely on his own. Cole noticed Jace still carried the travel bag. “Good job keeping the bag.”

  Jace glanced over. “Did you expect me to leave it? My golden rope is always in my pocket, but I didn’t want to lose the Jumping Swords and whatever else Joe stashed in this.”

  “How’d you get here?” Cole asked in a hushed voice.

  “How do you think?” Jace replied. “On the monorail.”

  “Did you see what happened to the others?” Cole asked.

 
; “A little,” Jace said. “What do you know?”

  “Not much,” Cole said. “After Joe ran, I realized the patrol guys were distracted, so I hopped back on the train. As we pulled out of the station, I’m pretty sure I saw Joe glued to the ground by giant webs.”

  They reached the bottom of the stairs and walked out into a spacious lobby. The black tile floor darkly reflected the people walking on it.

  “When Joe ran, I saw you get back on the monorail,” Jace said. “Mira took off toward the nearest stairway. Dalton went diagonally to a different stairway. I headed along the platform in the opposite direction Joe had run. As I moved toward the back of the monorail, I decided you had a good idea, so I climbed aboard. The doors closed before long.”

  “Did you see what happened to the others?” Cole asked.

  “Looked like they got away down the stairs,” Jace said. “I was stupid. I should have found some other stairs and stayed with Mira to help her. I watched as best I could, and didn’t see any patrolmen tailing them. They all went after Joe.”

  “Did you see him go down?” Cole asked.

  “He was too far away and the station was too crowded,” Jace said. “Since I went to the back of the train, I was farther from him than you were. When the monorail pulled out, I saw a couple of guys stuck to the floor. The way the patrolmen had gathered around them, it must have been Joe.”

  Cole and Jace exited the station through a pair of double doors. Outside, a wide sidewalk gave way to a glossy, black street composed of tightly fitted panels. Heavy traffic zipped up and down the street, the cars hovering roughly a foot above the ground. They were all rounded like Volkswagens, but a little longer and sleeker. The windows were tinted almost as much as the monorail’s, keeping the drivers and passengers mostly hidden from view.

  Watching the hover cars zoom along, Cole flinched as they swerved aggressively, weaving in and out of close gaps. Time after time, right when a crash seemed inevitable, the vehicles corrected enough to avoid the collision. Cole had thought driving on the Arizona freeways looked intimidating, but that was nothing compared to this!

  Along the edge of the street, at intervals, dark gray boxes sat atop metal poles. They looked kind of like parking meters, except nobody was parked. A woman approached a pole box and held up her ID card. A green light flared to life atop the box. Seconds later one of the hover vehicles glided to a stop near the woman. The door facing the sidewalk opened. Peering inside, Cole saw that the vehicle was vacant. No driver.

  “Check it out,” Cole said, nodding toward the lady getting into the car. Without a driver, there was room for six passengers—three in the front, three in back.

  “I am,” Jace replied.

  The woman held up her ID card to a sensor inside the car. The door closed, and the vehicle darted away, deftly blending in with the rest of the traffic. As Cole and Jace continued to watch, more cars were summoned to pole boxes, while others stopped to drop off passengers. The hover vehicles accelerated briskly and braked abruptly, all without touching the ground or causing a wreck. They were almost totally silent except for the air whooshing around them.

  “I think it’s completely automated,” Cole said.

  “Fancy word,” Jace said.

  “There aren’t any drivers,” Cole rephrased.

  “I noticed,” Jace said. “How could that work?”

  “It must be computers,” Cole said. “Machines. Like the robots we saw.”

  They stood watching the frenetic parade of near misses. Even when an accident looked certain, it didn’t happen.

  “This many cars should be causing a traffic jam,” Cole said. “It’s a cool system. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Me neither,” Jace said wholeheartedly. “Should we go?”

  “I wish I had an ID card with credits on it,” Cole said. “I’d love to go for a ride.”

  “You heard Joe, right?” Jace checked. “We need to ditch our IDs.”

  “I heard him,” Cole said. “I was just wishing.”

  “Might be smart to get moving,” Jace suggested. “Who knows if those patrolmen are searching for us? We should get away from the station.”

  The reminder helped snap Cole out of his fascinated trance. Just because they had made it a couple of stations away from where Joe got arrested didn’t mean they were safe. There would be time to pay more attention to the amazing technology of Zeropolis later.

  Tearing his gaze away from the interweaving parade of hover cars, Cole noticed the park on the far side of the road. Tall trees presided over neat hedgerows, wide walkways, lush lawns, and splashing fountains. Beyond the borders of the park, Cole could see a variety of buildings.

  The street was much too busy to cross without making a scene. Cole wondered if the vehicles were programmed to avoid a person on the road, or if they’d just mow him down. He didn’t want to be the guinea pig for that experiment.

  Picking a random direction, Cole followed the sidewalk, Jace at his side. Before too long they came to a flight of stairs that gave access to a pedestrian tunnel under the road. “Should we cross?” Cole asked.

  “Sure.”

  They started down the steps. “Look,” Cole said, pointing at a sign. “Zenith Park. Joe said Axis is across the street from there.”

  “Then it could be on this side of the street,” Jace said.

  “What street did he say Axis is on?”

  “Leaf?”

  “Is this Leaf Street?”

  “Do I seem like a local?” Jace complained.

  Cole waved at a young guy coming up the stairs. “Excuse me. What street is this?”

  “Grant,” the guy said.

  “Which way is Leaf?” Cole asked politely.

  “Far side of the park,” the guy said, not slowing.

  Cole picked up his pace. “Thanks.”

  He and Jace passed through the pedestrian tunnel, then climbed the stairs at the far side. They emerged into the park. The sun was getting low but wouldn’t set for a couple more hours. Cole could smell the nearby lawn. Birds twittered in the trees. It was too pretty of a day to be on the run from patrolmen. Frisbee golf seemed more appropriate.

  “This feels too much like home,” Cole said.

  “You live in a park?” Jace asked.

  “I mean everything. This city.”

  “Your home is like this place?”

  Cole studied the buildings beyond the perimeter of the park. Some were skyscrapers. Some were apartments. Some looked like banks or museums. There was a nice variety. It all felt modern.

  “Where I’m from is way more like this than Sambria or Elloweer,” Cole said. “We have public parks and big cities. We have trains and even some monorails. We have tall buildings. We have cars, but people drive them.”

  “You drove one of those?” Jace asked, pointing back at the road.

  “I wasn’t old enough,” Cole said. “My dad drove. He let me steer a couple of times, but not on busy streets.”

  They strolled toward a plaza with a multitiered fountain at the center. After spouting up in the middle, the water flowed from level to level in a series of broad cascades.

  “Must be nice to feel at home,” Jace said.

  “I don’t know,” Cole replied. “I’ve never been alone in a big city like this. That much is unfamiliar. Some of the technology is pretty different from what I know. And back home I was never a wanted fugitive.”

  Jace took a deep, cleansing breath. “Cities are the place to be. You can find so much without going very far. Places to eat. Things to do. Sights to see. People to meet. And this is the biggest city in the Outskirts.”

  “Which can also mean lots of bad guys,” Cole said. “Lots of people who want to find us. Lots of criminals. Lots of danger.”

  “It can also mean lots of places to hide,” Jace said. “C
rowds to blend with. Bargains to make. Allies to find. Don’t be such a wimp.”

  “Sorry if I’m not doing cartwheels after the patrolmen took Joe,” Cole said. “Makes the city seem a little less safe. I’m sick of being chased.”

  “Then you’re hanging with the wrong crowd,” Jace said. “Mira’s going to be chased until her dad is off the throne. And that day is a long way off.”

  “Duh. I’m not new here. But so far, we’ve never been in a city long before we’re running for our lives.”

  “It looked bad back there,” Jace admitted. “But we’re in the clear now. Be glad we got away. Joe pulled off a great diversion. I’m pretty sure Mira and Dalton escaped too. It’ll take them longer to get here without money. The monorail took us a good distance from Canal Station. But sooner or later they’ll turn up, then we’ll figure out how to help Joe.”

  “I hope so,” Cole said, though he didn’t feel very optimistic. None of their powerful items worked here. How were they supposed to take on a huge police force like the patrolmen? Their only chance was if the Unseen could aid them.

  With its name inscribed in flashing neon on the side of the building facing the park, Axis was not tricky to find. Cole and Jace took a pedestrian tunnel under Leaf Street and emerged near the front doors. Checking up and down the bustling road, Cole noticed trees lining both sides as far as he could see.

  “Let me take the lead in here,” Jace said.

  “Why?” Cole replied. “Because you have so much experience with arcades?”

  “We might have to look streetwise,” Jace said.

  “I wasn’t a prince in my world,” Cole said. “I know how to stand up for myself. And I’ve been to places like this.”

  Jace shrugged. “I like the confidence. Let’s go.”

  Cole led the way through two sets of doors and into the sprawling arcade. The high, black ceiling almost made it seem as if the room extended up into a starless sky. Cole wondered how the room could look so dark when there were so many lights pulsating in a wide array of colors. The gaming hub wasn’t too crowded, with only about half the games occupied and short lines for the more popular attractions.