by Matt Ryan
“Just a gut feeling.”
“You dropped an insight stone, didn’t you, Mrs. C?” Jackie asked.
“Nah, that stuff rots your brain,” Mom said, and walked toward the door.
This “Mrs. C” stuff had to stop.
I followed, and Mark walked by my side, trying to look in all directions at once. I was holding a sticky bomb stone in one hand and a choke stone in the other. With all the people around me, I hoped Quinn was home.
We reached the door and I looked back. The others had already cleared out and were in some other part of the house.
My mom pulled on the door, but it wouldn’t budge. She kicked the bottom, then pulled out a stone. “Stand back.”
We all took a few steps back as she tossed the translucent yellow stone onto the door. It cracked open and a liquid poured over the door. The smell hit me and it burned my nostrils—a harsh chemical smell.
“Try not to breathe it in,” Jackie said through her shirt sleeve.
The door melted into a pool of gray goo. Behind the door sat another door. It had a slit down the middle and a couple of markings on it. Mom pulled the handles, and a loud crack sounded. Her body tensed and convulsed, then slumped to the floor, not moving.
I ran to her. She smelled of burnt hair and didn’t respond to my shaking. “Mom!” I screamed, and looked back at the door. It must be an electrical panel, but even then, it shouldn’t have shocked her like that.
Mom’s muscles loosened and she laid her arms on the floor. Looking around, she seemed surprised at her surroundings. “What happened?” she mumbled.
“I think you got shocked.” I looked up at Bridget. “You’ve got to take her back to camp and get her checked out.”
“No,” Mom said, and tried to get up. She fell back down and grabbed at her chest as she groaned.
“Bridget, portal her the hell out of here.”
“Why don’t you do it, Jackie?” Bridget said. “I want to see Quinn’s face when I shove this stone down his throat.” She held out a black stone with red speckles. I gasped at the thought of her even creating such a stone.
“Because Allie is going to need someone she can trust, not some second-rate slut,” Jackie retorted.
Bridget reeled her hand back with the black stone, then looked to me. Then she lowered her hand.
“Jackie,” I said. “Don’t ever talk to her like that again. She saved my life.” Jackie kept her eyes on Bridget and sneered. “Bridget, take my mom and get her help. Okay?”
Her lips thinned. “Fine, but you give Quinn this stone.” She dropped the stone in my hand and I quickly stuffed it into my stone bag. I didn’t want the thing near me.
“I can make it,” my mom squeaked. “Someone put an electrical stone on the door. You just need to short it out with a . . .” She fell limp.
“Bridget, go,” I ordered.
She knelt next to my mom and gave me a glance as she pulled out her portal stone. I watched as she lifted my mom’s limp hand, and I was thinking of going with her when Bridget touched the stone to her hand and they disappeared.
“We’re going to talk about your problem with Bridget later,” I said to Jackie. “Right now, we’ve got to get through this door.”
“I have a water stone,” Mark offered. “It should short out whatever electrical crap they’ve got attached to it.” He tossed a blue stone against the door. It shattered and spread a wall of water outward.
The door cracked and popped, putting an end to the hum of electricity. I stepped close to the door and reached out . . . but Mark shot his hand out and touched the door first. I winced as he smiled and pulled the door open.
There was blackness behind the door and a stale smell wafted into the hallway. Mark pulled out his phone and used the flashlight. A metal gate stood at the front of a tiny room.
“My mom was right,” I said. “There’s something in here.” I pulled the gate to the side and stepped into the room. It was an elevator, the smallest one I’d ever been in. As Jackie got in, I wondered if there was enough room for Mark.
“Where does it go?” Jackie asked.
“There’s only one button,” I said, looking at the single black button on the panel. No floor numbers or emergency telephone. Everything inside of me was telling me not to touch the button. “What do you guys think?”
“Let’s see where this puppy goes,” Jackie said. Mark crossed his arms, and I knew what he was thinking.
I took a deep breath and pressed the button. The metal gate slid closed. The lights went out and the small space fell into total darkness, making it feel exponentially smaller. I sucked in a breath and felt Mark pressed against my arm.
“It was probably the water stone I used. It shorted the power out,” he said.
Hearing his voice soothed my frayed nerves, and I closed my eyes. They were useless open and it felt better somehow to have them closed, choosing my own darkness.
The elevator jolted down and I gripped Mark’s arm. In my other hand, I held tight to a stone and faced what I thought were the doors.
“Get ready,” Jackie said. “Let me take out the first few and if crap hits the fan, you two get the hell out of Dodge.”
I searched for Jackie in the darkness and felt the elevator continue its plunge. How deep were we going?
The elevator creaked to a stop and I waited for the doors to open, hoping we weren’t dropping right into a trap.
“Get ready,” Jackie said as the doors slid open and blinding artificial light flooded the small cabin. I saw shapes and as I adjusted to the light, I saw many people.
Jackie jumped from the elevator, holding a stone in her hand, then stopped. She appeared to be taking in the scene around her. What was going on?
Mark and I walked from the elevator and looked at the people staring back at us. They were wearing ragged clothes and varied between male and female, young and old. One thing they had in common was their filthy appearance. Dirt covered much of their clothes and faces. The smell of body odor was strong, but the even more pungent smell of chemicals, ingredients, and powders was overpowering.
A few of the people kept their eyes on us, but most went back to their tables and mixing bowls. No one said a word.
“What is this place?” I asked, but I already knew.
“A sweatshop of sorts. A stone farm,” Mark said. “This is probably the replacement for Verity’s academy.”
One of the young girls, maybe sixteen, perked up at our conversation before going back to work. I saw the ingredients on her table. She was making a booster stone. I scanned the rest of them; they were all making booster stones.
Shocked, I turned to face Mark and found that he had the same expression. Booster stones didn’t last long. And what were they boosting?
The girl finished making her stone and picked it up with a black cloth. She went to a wall where a pipe stuck out. She placed the stone in a small tube and then shoved it into the pipe. It sucked the tube in with a whoosh of air.
I stepped into her path on the way back to her station. She came to a halt and stared at my chest. “Do you know who you’re making stones for?”
She stared blankly, like she was looking through me, and I wondered if she was under the influence of a stone. I waved my hand in front of her face and she blinked. Her lips thinned and she glanced at my face then back to my chest.
“What’s your name?”
She bit her bottom lip but didn’t answer.
“Allie, look at these people. They’re freaking zombies.” Jackie walked behind the people as they made their stones. Most failed at the mixture and dumped their ingredients into the grates below their chairs. Jackie waved her hands in one man’s face and then shook another.
A door creaked open and a heavyset man stepped into the room. I saw a bathroom behind him and at first, he didn’t notice us, but as he surveyed the group of drones, he spotted me staring back at him.
Jackie acted first. She had a stone out and thrown before the man got ou
t his first word. It hit his face and he fell to the floor, motionless.
“What did you hit him with?” I asked.
“Knockout stone. But I made it kind of strong, so maybe it killed him.” Jackie walked across the room as the people continued to mix as if nothing had happened—except for the girl standing in front of me. She stared at the man lying halfway out of the bathroom door.
Jackie felt the man’s arm, then pushed on him with her foot. “He’s still alive.” She sounded disappointed.
“Kill him,” the young girl said.
“What?” I asked, spinning to face her.
She walked behind a middle-aged couple sitting near us and ran her hand over their backs. “My name is Lupe, and these two are my parents.”
I narrowed my eyes and looked for any kind of response from her parents. Nothing. Another alchemist got up and put her successful stone in the tube, then went back to the table.
“Lupe, what the hell’s going on down here?” I asked.
“They brought me to this house.” She glared at her parents. “They thought offering me up to Quinn would help them move up quicker when Quinn gets the stone.”
“You know about the stone?” I asked.
She looked at me as if I were crazy. “Of course. What alchemist doesn’t know about the stone? And when my parents heard he was close, they made a move. But the day we got here, something terrible happened to their stone-making headquarters. Apparently, it was destroyed. That’s when Quinn grabbed all his guests, and anyone else he could, and sent us down here.”
I didn’t regret destroying that camp, and hearing her story made me hate Quinn all the more. I couldn’t let him keep doing this to people. I looked up at the ceiling of carved rock. The dungeon of sorts had the one door the guard had exited, and two more on each side of the room.
“What are they using on them?” Mark asked, nodding to the group at large.
Lupe looked over her shoulder and sighed. “Some kind of translucent stone with flakes of blue. It doesn’t affect me, for some reason, but I fake it so the guards don’t bother me.”
“How long have you been down here?” I asked.
“I have no idea. It feels like forever. You have no idea what I’ve been going through.” Tears built in her eyes and when she blinked, they ran down her face. “I’ve had no one to talk to. And thank God the guards don’t have a taste for Mexican women, because the things I’ve seen down here . . .” She couldn’t look at me.
“Are all alchemists freaking crazy?” I asked Mark.
“Most,” he said, and it seemed like an honest opinion.
“We’re going to get you out of here.” I tapped the stones at my side. I wanted to get Lupe out of that place right then and there, but I needed the seer stone first.
“Thank you so much.” Lupe hugged me and cried against my shoulder.
“Have you seen a stone down here that’s red with a yellow dot?”
Lupe shook her head. “We didn’t see much of this house, but I can possibly help you find the stone. If I do that, can we get everyone out of this place?”
A red light flashed on the ceiling and Jackie jumped back, holding a stone.
All the people sitting at the tables stood and walked toward the door at the far side of the room, forming a single-file line.
“Stone time,” Lupe said through a long sigh.
Jackie’s eyes widened. She ran around the tables and down the line of waiting people, reaching the head of the line as the door opened. She threw two stones at the smiling man holding a tray of stones. The first one struck his face and the next bounced off his chest, cracking open. Jackie turned her head from the bright light it emitted and in a second, it had gone out. She turned back and leapt through the doorway and out of sight. Mark and I ran after her and another bright light shone from the room.
I took a big step over the guard’s body and into the room.
Jackie was standing in the middle of the room, breathing hard. “There’s no one else.”
Looking back at the first person standing in line, waiting for their stone, it hit me. This whole place reeked of Verity. I knew she must be behind all of it. Although she’d made improvements. These people didn’t argue or put up any resistance; they just made stones.
Lupe was standing at the doorway, looking at the guard and then at us.
“Looks like a rec room for the guards,” Mark said as he touched the back of a couch that faced a TV. “Lupe, how many guards are there?”
“I don’t know how many at any given time, but there are four different ones I’m aware of.”
“Then why didn’t you warn us about this one?” Jackie said. “You could have gotten us killed.”
Lupe started crying again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about it.”
“Is there anything else you’re forgetting to tell us?” Jackie demanded.
Lupe cowered and looked at the floor. “Quinn comes down here through the elevator you took, maybe every few days. He always goes through the door across the room and never comes out. None of the guards ever go there.”
“Show us.” Jackie stomped over the guard and back into the room.
Mark and I left the rec room and went past the waiting line of people. Lupe kept next to us and pointed to the door on the opposite side of the room.
Jackie grabbed a metal bowl off the table and tossed it at the door. It bounced off, spilling its contents onto the floor and the door. “This one isn’t electrified, at least. But I bet it’s not just a simple door, either.” She pulled a sack from her pocket and loosened the string. Pulling a stone from the sack, she moved closer to the door, and pushed the stone onto the metal surface. The stone dissolved into the metal and the door swung inward. “I knew it.”
“What?”
“Things are worse than we thought.” Jackie swore under her breath. “Your mom pretty much invented that locking-and-unlocking stone. If Quinn had made his own, it would’ve been unique to him.”
“What are you saying?” I asked.
“The stone used to lock that door came from your mom’s batch. We have another mole, and this time, it’s someone with great access.”
I closed my eyes and sighed. “For now, let’s concentrate on getting the stone. Lupe, when we leave, drag those guards into the bathroom and use this locking stone on the door.” I handed her one of my mother’s locking stones. “If you don’t see us again, take that elevator up.” I gave her instructions on how to get to Quinn’s office and past his secret exit.
“Thank you,” Lupe said.
I nodded and touched her shoulder. “Wish us luck.” Then I turned and walked past the doorway and into the narrow passageway. Everything in me told me this would lead us to the seerer stone. This was where my mom had wanted to go, and maybe she had some insight.
Mark turned and rubbed his chin, looking as if something terrible had crossed his mind. “Lupe?”
She was standing at the doorway. “What?”
“When’s the last time Quinn came through this door?”
She smiled. “A group went in there an hour ago. They’re expecting you.” She tossed a stone to the ceiling and a waterfall of goo fell and expanded to the ground.
“That little bitch!” Jackie said. “I knew something was off. I should have stoned her, like my gut told me to.”
I stepped back from the expanding foam, the betrayal hitting me hard. I had trusted her. She’d cried on my shoulder. Had she been waiting down there for us? Those people probably weren’t her parents, either. My heart pounded and I turned around, looking down the dimly lit passageway.
It was a trap, and we’d willingly walked into it.
“We should portal,” Mark said. “They know we’re coming.” He brought out his purple stone.
Jackie was standing next to the foam wall Lupe had created. I watched to see if it was growing, but it appeared to be still. The room we were trapped in felt smaller with the exit closed. A single light was wedged into the st
one wall, with a wire running along the ceiling. The wire could be followed down the narrow room and into the darkness beyond. At least the darkness felt like an option. Not the best option, but better than nothing.
Jackie gazed ahead. “We keep moving. Getting the seer stone is the most important thing.”
“Keeping everyone alive is my top priority,” Mark said. “I’m not losing Allie again.”
I looked from Mark to Jackie, then down the dark hall. Somewhere down there was the next step toward freedom. If we didn’t get the seer stone, Quinn would only be weeks away from getting the stone, and then all of this wouldn’t matter. “We’re going to move forward and get this stone.”
“We could portal, get some help and be right back,” Mark said.
“Get who?” Jackie threw her hands in the air. “They’re all somewhere in this building.”
I interrupted the argument. “Listen. Get your stones ready. Jackie, you take lead, since you’ve turned into some freaking ninja stone thrower.”
She smiled and held three stones between her fingers. “Fastest in the west.”
“Mark, we need to do this because it’s all or nothing at this point. We need that stone, so don’t hold back.”
“You don’t need to tell me twice.”
I turned and got into place behind Jackie, fingering the two stones in my pocket. I tried to keep my hand from shaking and my walk from staggering, but my whole body felt on edge. Jackie, on the other hand, looked to be enjoying herself.
She pulled out a glow stone and rolled it along the stone floor. Its green light gave life to the back side of the long room. I watched it bounce and send the sharp edges of the walls into dancing shadows. Then the stone’s path came to an end at the far wall. A fresh panic, the feeling of being trapped, filled me.
“Now what?” Jackie asked.
“I bet there’s a side hall, like in the endless hall,” I said.
“What should we do then?” Mark asked.
“There’s another way out, I bet,” I said. “Jackie, you take the right side and I’ll take the left. Glide your hand along the wall and find the spot it falls through. Mark, you stay here so we know where we started.”