Metaltown

by Kristen Simmons

  And then something sharp pricked her left side, just under her ribs. She gasped. It didn’t hurt, but it stole her breath. Like her body was a balloon being deflated.

  Jed used that moment to flip her on her back, and as he did she kicked out hard. His knee made a cracking sound, and he fell. With short, shallow breaths she prodded her side, and felt the handle of her knife, lodged up to the hilt.

  No.

  Her eyes welled with tears. She couldn’t feel it, even as her trembling hand pulled it out.

  Colin, help me.

  Her vision began to grow dark around the edges.

  Colin.

  Then Jed was on top of her. She forced one hard breath, and when she did, her throat filled with liquid and she choked. Bright red spattered across Jed’s shirt, and he looked down, not with disgust, but with victory in his black eyes.

  Then his hands reached for her neck, exposing his chest. With all her strength she swung her knife arm up in an arc. The bloody tip implanted just below Jed’s armpit. The metal hit something hard, and then gave way and slid all the way to the handle.

  Jed’s eyes opened wide with surprise. He leaned back, dazed, and looked down to where she’d stuck him. Then he fell backward onto the floor, dead.

  39

  LENA

  The moment Lena emerged from the building, she was searching for Colin. She knew she had to find her father, to convince him to end the riots, but she couldn’t help herself. Colin was out here, and while Jed Schultz was around he was still in danger.

  There was too much smoke in the street to see clearly. More explosions had ravaged the side of the Small Parts factory; great hunks were missing from the gray stone, and what was left behind was streaked with black soot. The street below the explosion sites had been reduced to rubble.

  Through the smoke and dust she could see a chain of people blocking the factory. They’d stretched beyond the alley leading to the employee entrance that the Brotherhood had previously been protecting, and blocked her path, reaching almost all the way to the opposite end of the building. Even as she watched, men and women thickened the line, pushing Schultz’s thugs back.

  Pride filled her, even above the urgency.

  “This way!” Liam called, leading her left, away from the entrance, up the street. “We’ll have to go around the riot!”

  She followed him, running behind the line, searching for Colin’s clipped hair, his broad shoulders, his stained thermal in everyone she passed. He could be anywhere. A quick glance behind her revealed that Ty had not yet left the building, and as the smoke grew black, her chest began to quake.

  Ahead, a boy had a trash can lid braced in front of him like a shield. He was thick through the torso, with such overdeveloped shoulder muscles that it seemed he had no neck at all. She recognized him immediately from the Small Parts Charter, and slammed to a halt.

  “Colin!” She lifted on her tiptoes to shout in his ear. “Have you seen him?” The searing pain in her arm, still tucked against her chest, was enough to bring a new wave of tears.

  Noneck nodded. “Down the line!”

  It was the only relief she was given, because Liam had doubled back, grabbed her shoulder, and was jerking her away. “Come on!”

  They raced to the end of the crumbling sidewalk, where the street sloped up on its path to the Stamping Mill. Bystanders were watching the riots with interest.

  “Look at that!” a man with a long scar down his cheek yelled. She and Liam both turned in the direction he was pointing.

  The police approached from the direction of the beltway, marching down the open street with their plastic shields and helmets. They held a solid formation, a block of soldiers all in black, with guns already drawn and lifted.

  “We’re too late,” said Liam.

  But she didn’t hear if he said anything else, because she was sprinting to the far side of the street, around the line, aiming toward them. Each labored breath scorched her lungs. Her muscles burned with fatigue.

  She ran toward the closest officer, lifting her good arm in surrender.

  Don’t shoot me. Please don’t shoot me.

  “Help!” she cried. “Help me! I’m Lena Hampton! I need to find my father!”

  She couldn’t see the police officer’s face through his helmet’s mask, but he faltered when she stepped in front of him, ten feet away.

  “Please help! I’m Lena Hampton! My father is Josef Hampton!”

  He lowered his weapon.

  Jaw tight, tears streaming, she let him approach and escort her to the side of the road.

  “My father,” she whimpered. “Please get me away from here.”

  “I’ll take you to him,” he said finally.

  He escorted her through the block of policemen.

  * * *

  Josef Hampton was stationed behind a full battery of his private security detail, buffered by another layer of police. He stood beside a long, tapered electric carriage—one of the many vehicles he stored in the estate’s garage. His driver—the man Darcy had used her defuser on—was nowhere to be found.

  Though the pain in Lena’s arm had dulled to a pulsing throb, she still kept it locked in the center of her chest. Now that she had slowed, she felt how it affected her gait, making one step longer than the other.

  As she was ushered through the sea of black, she thought of Jed Schultz, and how her father had contracted the leader of the Brotherhood to hurt Colin. She focused on the people of the Small Parts Charter, and all the wrongs her father had done to them.

  As she approached, she saw that Josef Hampton wasn’t alone. He appeared to be arguing with a woman with a long, dark braid that hung down the center of her back. Her oversized gray slacks and shapeless, hand-knit sweater told Lena she was from Metaltown.

  An officer, who had been standing a few feet away, stepped forward and grabbed the woman’s arm. She shook out of his grip. “Please,” she begged. “She’s down there. I swear, I saw her.”

  “You don’t know what you’re saying,” said her father. “You forget yourself.”

  Lena felt the cold then, a stiff breeze, blowing straight to her bones.

  “Father?”

  At the sound of Lena’s voice, the woman turned. The emotions flashed on her face. Surprise. Anger. Relief.

  Shima.

  Her old nanny half walked, half ran toward her, and shuddered as she wrapped her arms around Lena’s shoulders. Lena squeezed her back, feeling stronger, less afraid. She wasn’t alone. Not when Shima stood beside her.

  She thought of Colin, of the workers who surrounded him. Of Astor Tyson, and the child, Chip, getting kicked in the street. Of Cherish and Ida. Of street codes and safeties and watching each other’s backs, and it became as clear as the shouts ringing out from Metaltown: blood didn’t make family, love did, and sweat did, and loyalty.

  A wave of dizziness took her, and she rested her head on Shima’s shoulder. Her nanny pulled back slightly, leaving a small slice of space between their bodies, and revealed the small rope doll in her fist.

  “You left this at my house.” A sob wracked through Shima, and she lowered her head. “I saw you by the factory. I feared the worst.” Lena remembered the woman’s voice, calling her name, just after she’d arrived on Factory Row.

  The officer grasped Shima’s sweater behind her neck, hoisting her up like a cat carrying its young.

  “No!” shouted Lena. Her father had already sent Shima away once; he would not do so again.

  The officer paused. Shima placed one tentative arm around Lena’s shoulder.

  “She stays with me,” Lena told both of them.

  Her father crossed his arms over his chest, looking out of place in his sharp black suit on this weathered, empty beltway. “You look a little worse for wear.”

  Lena stepped forward out of Shima’s hold. She lifted out her broken arm, and fought the nausea when it bowed just below the elbow.

  “Jed Schultz couldn’t find Colin,” she said. “Appa
rently I was his second choice.”

  His face flashed with surprise, then hardened into a grimace.

  “What?” she asked. “Didn’t you think someone could come after your daughter? At least I’m not a child, like Astor Tyson was.”

  He lowered his chin, challenge exuding from every feature. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a little busy right now.”

  “Did her parents really die of the corn flu, Father?” Or did you just get rid of them, like everyone else who stands in your way?

  The corners of his mouth twitched.

  “Careful,” he warned. “My patience runs only so deep.”

  She felt her body grow hard as the steel in their factories. She felt nothing. Not pain. Not fear.

  “End this,” she said. “Call off your dogs.”

  “I’m afraid it’s too late.” They squared off, him, tall and slender, ever perfect. Her, so like him in appearance, so different within. How long had she wanted to be like him? To gain his approval? Now the thought revolted her.

  “It’s not too late,” she said. “People will die. People are already dying.”

  “That’s the wonderful, terrible thing about Metaltown,” he answered. “There are always more people to fill the void.” He stared at her nanny.

  Frustration stoked Lena’s anger. He was blinded by his own arrogance. She would have to appeal to him in the only way he understood.

  She straightened, and put on her calm, cool exterior. Her Hampton mask.

  “You’re going to lose everything. Your factory. Your workers. Your family.” She closed her eyes, fighting the pain radiating through her shoulder. “You’ve lost hours of labor. Halted production. And worse, shown your employees that they’re expendable. Why wouldn’t they fight you?” She pointed behind her, to the smoke rising from Factory Row.

  “I don’t need my own daughter telling me how to run my business.” For the first time, Lena’s father raised his voice.

  “You’re right,” she said dryly. “You have your son. Otto. Who is nothing if not dedicated to Hampton Industries.”

  He shook his head, his perfectly groomed hair falling loose around his eyes. His hands came to rest on his hips, and suddenly he looked old, older than she’d ever seen.

  “You want weapons?” she continued. “You need Division II. Without the Small Parts factory, you’re missing the necessary pieces to complete an explosive device. You have an empty shell of metal, with no mechanism to blow it up.”

  “I know what they do,” he said.

  “Then you know how important they are,” she said, stepping closer. “You have deadlines. Shipments that will soon be overdue. There are soldiers waiting for weapons.” On this side and the other. “Wasting time and money to stop a press is less lucrative than giving the charter what they want. They will still work for you, just as hard as before, if you bend just a little. If you don’t, they won’t be the only ones out of jobs; you will be too.”

  He looked past her, toward Metaltown, where more smoke filled the sky with every second that passed. Shima gripped her hand. She held on to it like a lifeline.

  “Choose your war, Father. The one inside this Federation, or the one outside of it.”

  He faced her slowly, a curious, heavy expression weighing down his features.

  “It was never supposed to go this far,” he said, and whether he meant with the press or the Advocates, she didn’t know.

  He waved his hand to summon the chief of police.

  40

  COLIN

  Colin pushed on. The Small Parts Charter and those who had chosen to fight beside them had thickened the chain before the factory until they were a giant, pulsing mass, unstoppable in strength. They pushed the Brotherhood into the street, across the street, straight to the sidewalk on the opposite side.

  His pulse hammered in his ears. They were going to win this. The Brotherhood couldn’t take the pressure.

  A great cheer erupted near the front of the lines as Jed’s men scrambled away. Colin jumped to see if others had followed, and when he found they had, he was filled with such a sense of triumph that he pumped his fist overhead and whooped right along with them.

  We did it, he thought. We beat the Brotherhood. We beat Jed Schultz.

  He was light as a cloud. Everything they’d wanted, everything they’d fought for, it all was worth it now. They’d shown a bunch of sellouts that they could not be pushed down or ignored.

  He searched for Ty, wanting to see her face now. Wanting her to know that this, right now, was for her. With a sinking sensation he remembered that she’d gone after Lena.

  He grabbed the nearest shoulder, which turned out to be Henry’s. “You seen Ty?”

  He shook his head.

  Colin found Noneck, but he hadn’t seen Ty either. Not since she’d gone into the factory.

  He was just about to go in after her when he heard shouts to his right, fearful cries, in the direction of the beltway. The line collapsed near the employee entrance; the charter scrambled to escape whatever approached from the bottom of Factory Row. It couldn’t be another explosion; there was no smoke, no quake. But all the same, he hadn’t seen Matchstick in some time.

  Colin stood as tall as he could and squinted, and then saw what had jarred the others.

  A battalion of black uniforms, moving together as a unit, the way he’d always imagined the soldiers did on the front lines. They had gray shields and black guns, and were close, less than fifty yards away.

  His ma kept by his side, unwilling to lose sight of him since they’d linked arms. She studied his face, searching for the answer.

  “Cops,” he told her. But it didn’t matter, because the message was already being carried back. Some were running. Others were looking to him.

  The guilt poured through him like hot, liquid metal. It was one thing to take on Schultz’s men, but another entirely to face the police. The Brotherhood fought with muscle and blades—they had to get close enough to scrap. But cops … It didn’t matter how hard you hit or how fast you split, they could pick you off from a distance and you’d be done.

  “Run,” his ma told him, iron in her tone. “They’ll come for you, Colin. You have to run.”

  She placed her body in front of his, even as the fighters before her began to bolt. Standing solid, she looked ready to take on the whole lot of them, and in that moment he loved her more than ever.

  But he wouldn’t abandon his post. That wouldn’t be right. He’d started this. The right thing was to finish it.

  For the hundredth time he glanced back at the main entrance to the building. The smoke had slowed; the building wasn’t going to burn after all. Lena was safe. Maybe she and Ty had gotten out when he wasn’t looking. Telling himself this didn’t make him feel any better.

  He took a deep breath, and pictured Ty, and her face, and every nightmare she’d had to endure because of the Small Parts factory.

  “Hold the line!” he roared.

  His ma didn’t turn around, but her body grew stiff, and she lowered, ready for a fight from any angle.

  “Hold the line!” shouted Gabe. Colin nodded to him gratefully.

  The word spread, and soon the running had stopped. The Brotherhood had disappeared, slunk away. All that remained were the good men and women of Metaltown who had faced them, who now waited in silence to see if the police would fight, or gun them down.

  A tense anticipation blanketed them. Factory Row grew silent as a graveyard. Colin attempted to swallow, but his heart was lodged high in his throat, and he couldn’t push it down.

  Please don’t be here, Lena.

  He glanced around for Ty, wishing above all else that she was beside him. There was no one he’d rather have his back in a fight.

  The army stopped. Colin and the others braced for them to discharge their weapons, but the shots never came.

  A metallic hiss, then static, like the sound of Minnick’s speakerbox in the factory. And then a booming male voice filled the taut
space between them.

  “The owner of Hampton Industries is ordering all factory workers to cease and desist their protesting until he can meet with charter leaders.”

  Colin heard the words, but they took a long moment to sink in. Cease and desist. Another meeting would occur, and this time Hampton was requesting it.

  Their front line—men with helmets and long plastic shields—held their position, but those behind them turned and marched away. Those fighting watched in awe as the entire group retreated up Factory Row.

  We’re alive, Colin thought. But he almost couldn’t believe it. He didn’t understand what had happened, why the police had stopped. Did Hampton really want to end the press?

  He couldn’t help wondering if this was just a stunt to get him alone—to throw him back in food testing for what he’d done to Otto.

  For a moment, no one knew what to say. It was Chip who spoke first, his high voice calling above the silence: “That’s what I thought!”

  And then there was cheering. Colin found himself at a loss for words, and gaped at the others, who slapped him on the back and offered their congratulations. His ma kissed him on the cheek, then disappeared to find Hayden. Henry embraced him so hard he thought his ribs would crack. Any confusion he felt, any doubt, was forced into the ground beneath his feet. The joy took him over like a tidal wave, and soon he was grinning and laughing and dancing, just like the others.

  “Colin!” It was Martin who grabbed his shoulders and turned him away from the party that had erupted in the street. His face was pale as death, and for a moment Colin didn’t understand why. Then he remembered that Zeke had said the Brotherhood had gone after his uncle.

  “Hayak. Is he all right?”

  “He’s fine,” said Martin, pulling Colin toward the building.

  “Then what is it?”

  There was a small crowd near the doors, and through their feet, he could see a body, lying out on the walk.

  His ears began to ring; the sounds behind him disappeared. He didn’t remember running over, or pushing the others aside. He didn’t remember falling hard to his knees, and scraping his hands on the rubble as he crawled closer. All he knew was that he was suddenly crawling up beside his best friend, and she was bleeding from a great sopping wound in her chest, and her ribs were rising and falling, rising and falling, too fast. Her skin was white, and around her busted eye the blue twisted mass of skin was pulled taut.