The First Book of Ore: The Foundry's Edge

by Cameron Baity

  A curious alarm went off in her mind. At first she thought it must be a trick of the stifling silence in the Auto, but staring at the Watchmen, she became convinced. Phoebe was the only one breathing.

  Their broad chests were as unmoving as their expressions.

  She felt ill. None of this made sense.

  A tiny movement grabbed her attention, a flicker deep within the ear canal of the Watchman on her right. She leaned toward him, and a sickly chill ran down her spine.

  Something was writhing inside the Watchman’s ear.

  No time to think. Micah growled and gunned the throttle, rocketing past the other Bikes. He jetted across six lanes toward the exit, only to find his path blocked by construction barricades. Micah slammed the handlebars to the right and whipped around a corkscrew turn. His dinner climbed up his throat, and he wrestled it back down.

  Another barrier popped up, and he flung himself to the left, evading a collision by inches. His head was spinning. He wiped the sweat from his eyes just in time to see an approaching junction. The Bike swerved onto an adjoining lane, and the winch head chattered in a spray of sparks. Ahead, the cable he was on dropped at a steep angle and disappeared.

  Micah clamped his eyes closed in terror.

  Then, with a sudden jolt, he was level again. He braved a look. Six empty cable lanes lay before him. Misty wind snapped at his face. The gargantuan rays of the Crest of Dawn shone ahead. He was above the bridge. The Foundry was in front of him, and the kidnappers’ striped Autos were below.

  He had done it!

  Searchlights swept over the dark bay to his right. A dozen Aero-copters swarmed a black ship. Military boats were converging upon it, lighting the tide with huge lamps.

  Micah squinted at lights in his eyes. More Aero-copters up ahead.

  Wait, those ain’t spotlights.

  His heart stopped. Somehow, he had gotten on the wrong lane and was heading directly into oncoming traffic!

  He howled a bloodcurdling scream and crushed the brake. Sparks exploded from the winch head like fireworks, followed by a flash and a deafening pop. The brake went limp. The engine lurched forward, out of control. Now there was no way to stop accelerating.

  Horns blared. A blinding white wall of death raced at Micah, and he hurled his Bike to the left as the first oncoming rider blurred past. Then to the right, then back again. He shrieked, but the wailing engine and his ever-increasing speed whipped the sound away.

  Micah lunged left to avoid the next, but the rider went left as well. He went right, and so did the oncoming Bike. Wildly, he feinted left, then zoomed right, barely steering clear.

  One wrong move and he was dead meat.

  He spotted a new lane, a red maintenance cable off to the right. Regaining some control of his swerving Bike, he dodged back quickly to avoid another head-on crash and snaked around two more riders. He made a mad dash for the red cable, forcing the handlebars with every last ounce of strength.

  Micah rushed onto the maintenance line, and a shower of sparks burst overhead. His Cable Bike convulsed violently, then dropped a few inches as a new whine mingled with the screech of the gears. Something hot spun off and whistled past his ear. He looked up—the winch head was on fire.

  This was not at all like his plan. Micah regretted the whole thing: spying in the bushes, stealing the Bike, all of it.

  But it was too late now.

  The sunbeams of the Crest of Dawn towered above like a glinting guillotine, and the island of Foundry Central yawned before him, waiting to swallow him whole. A quick look down to the street, and he saw one of the striped Autos pull into a security zone. The other one headed for a maintenance area, near where his red cable angled down to an abrupt stop.

  End of the line.

  He was dropping like a firebomb. Micah looked for a way off the Bike that wouldn’t end with his funeral. The maintenance area sat in the shadow of one of the Crest’s massive columns. There were empty service vehicles parked beside a row of flowering oak trees. Not a very good option, but what choice was there? Micah fixed his eye on a tree close to the end of the red cable and unclipped his harness. It was now or never.

  The ground was an undifferentiated blur below him, and the flames of the ruined winch head licked at his ears. He swung his leg over the seat and prepared to pounce. The cable sang overhead, ripping through the disintegrating mechanism. The universe was filled with a thunderous roar. The earth rushed up to meet him.

  Micah leaped.

  He seemed to hang in the air forever, suspended. He could even hear how quiet and pleasant the night was, now that the flaming Bike was falling away.

  Then he smashed into the treetop.

  He fell like a pinball, ricocheting from limb to limb, reaching for anything to slow his fall. Branches raked his chest. Leaves filled his mouth. The world turned over and over, but he managed to wrap his arms around a limb and tumble the last eight feet to land in a heap.

  A breathtaking explosion.

  An angry fireball lit up the maintenance area. He felt a rushing blast of heat. Through the delirium, Micah chuckled and sang in his head.

  Happy birthday, dear Phoebe…

  In the smoke, Micah saw that two service vehicles were blazing as well. Not bad for a blind shot with a flaming Bike.

  Armed security guards raced toward the explosion, shouldering their weapons and shouting orders while Foundry workers gathered in confusion. A hundred yards away, the bronze-striped Auto began to descend into the ground as if on an elevator.

  Micah had to act fast.

  He was bruised, scraped, and struggling to breathe, but as far as he could tell, he wasn’t dead. So he picked himself up and staggered through the trees, around the back of the enormous column. From the rear of the massive structure, he spied the Auto and made a break for it.

  The imposing fortress of Foundry Central loomed. He prayed the guards would be too preoccupied to notice him. If not, he wondered which would come first, the sound of gunfire or the punch of the bullet?

  Lining the ground beside a towering security wall were several dozen black iron disks, like giant manholes. The Auto was parked on one, and as it sank below the surface, the petals of an iron iris contracted to seal up the hole.

  Micah spurred himself on, faster and faster.

  The opening was only a few feet across.

  He was almost there.

  Now three. Now two.

  He dove.

  er father was gone.

  Phoebe was alone, a prisoner in the Foundry.

  Sodium lamps blared overhead as the bronze-striped Auto drove through a dull concrete parking structure. She could see hundreds of identical Autos lined up in neat rows or stacked atop one another like the shoes in her Carousel. The driver pulled into a narrow berth, and three of the Watchmen climbed out. They hauled her father’s files from the trunk, then vanished down a long, shadowy corridor. The last Watchman grabbed Phoebe’s wrist and half-dragged her through the concrete lot, passing pillar after massive pillar until she was nauseous from the monotony.

  She wanted to collapse, to give in and surrender to despair, but she knew the Watchman would just pick her up and carry her. The thought of him, or it, grabbing her, holding her close, was the only thing that kept Phoebe going.

  Ahead, she could see a steep stairwell descending into darkness. This must be “the pen” that Kaspar had mentioned. What was waiting for her down there? Were they going to lock her up? Or kill her?

  Enough moping.

  Phoebe could handle a single Watchman—she had already managed to escape one that day, after all. But what was her strategy? She slowed her pace and looked around. If only she could slip away, she could hide in any number of shadowy niches, and then…what?

  She needed a distraction. Shoelaces. A primitive trick, but she had sniped Charlie Towers
last summer by tying his laces to an Insta-mow. He didn’t notice a thing until the automated grass trimmer turned on and hauled him across the athletic fields, kicking and screaming.

  They were almost at the stairs. Phoebe could see a low ceiling and a dense nest of pipes. A boiler room. Not a place she wanted to experience.

  “Ouch!” she yelped and stumbled. The Watchman tried to catch her, but she tore away from his grasp and sprawled on the ground, whimpering as if she had hurt herself. Phoebe angled her body to block the Watchman’s view while she reached for his shoes.

  They were gleaming, seamless black metal. No laces.

  Her hope drained away.

  “Hey, Whiskers!”

  Her captor drew up sharply and turned toward the voice.

  Something smashed the Watchman and sent him reeling over Phoebe, who was still on her hands and knees. The Watchman toppled over her back, turning a full rotation in the air before crashing down the stairwell with a sound like a trash bin being overturned. She sprang to her feet.

  Disheveled and peppered by oak leaves, clumps of white paint still gumming up his hair, Micah flashed a cockeyed grin. He was so out of place here that it took her a second to recognize him.

  “Run!” he shouted, and bolted away.

  Phoebe stood rooted to the spot. Then she saw a white-gloved hand reaching from the darkness, clawing up the stairs. Her senses cleared in a snap. She chased after Micah.

  They darted and dodged through rows of Autos, clambering over waxed hoods and leaving smears on windshields.

  Click-clack-click-clack. She glanced back.

  The Watchman was gaining on them, weaving through obstacles in single-minded pursuit. His bowler hat had fallen off, and his right cheek was smashed, so half of his curled mustache dangled limply. Instead of blood, dents puckered his face, revealing the glint of metal. There were no eyes behind his shattered spectacles, only black optical sensors.

  The kids dashed down the nearest passageway, through a thick steel door, and slammed it shut. Micah barely had time to lock the bolt before their pursuer collided against the other side. There was a flurry of jarring blows as the Watchman pounded on the heavy door, which rattled against its hinges. Micah flattened himself against it as if his meager weight could hold it in place.

  And then, abruptly, the assault stopped. There was a long moment of silence followed by the sound of the Watchman’s metal shoes clacking away.

  Phoebe huffed for breath and looked around, trying to figure out her next move. They were at the bottom of an unmarked stairwell lit by buzzing fluorescent tubes. Nowhere to go but up.

  “Didja see that?” Micah yammered. “That was a freakin’ robot!” He thought about it for a moment, rubbing the shoulder he had used to ram the Watchman. His eyes lit up. “Wicked!”

  “You…I—I can’t believe…that you—” Phoebe gasped.

  “Yup, I know. I’m pretty amazin’. You never seen anything so incredible in your life, and you don’t know how to thank me.”

  “Just what do you think you’re doing here?”

  He blinked. Not exactly the reaction he had hoped for. “Uh, savin’ your hide, what’s it look like?”

  “I don’t need you,” she scoffed.

  “Y-you did two minutes ago! You were all on the ground, cryin’ and groveling and—”

  “I wasn’t crying, you pest. I was in the middle of something.”

  “Ri-i-i-i-i-ight. Beggin’ for your life, maybe!”

  “I don’t have time for this,” Phoebe snapped. She bounded up the stairs, two at a time, and left him standing there.

  Unbelievable, Micah thought. He had come all this way—risked his neck and—he almost died, like, a thousand times!

  “Hey!” he hollered, chasing after her. “I don’t give two crusty donkey craps about you, you prep-school priss. I came for the Doc. Just my luck I get Li’l Miss Freaky instead.”

  “Quiet!” she hissed from the landing above.

  “So just point me to where your pa is, and I’ll go rescue him and say I couldn’t find you.”

  Her ear was pressed to a black door marked AREA-2B.

  “Outta the way,” he grumbled, and shoved her back. He threw the door open and strutted through it.

  It opened on a hallway with brushed metal walls and elongated triangles of light embedded in the floor and ceiling. A man with a clipboard was walking down the corridor, his back to Micah.

  The worker began to turn as he registered the sound of the door, and Phoebe yanked Micah back into the stairwell, clamping her hand over his mouth. She crammed her toe in the door to muffle the sound of it shutting. Micah tried to tear free, but she was stronger than she looked, burying her bony fingers into his fleshy face.

  They heard the Foundry worker continue down the hall.

  “Whaddya do that for?” he whined, rubbing his raw cheeks.

  “Go home, Toiletboy. You’re going to get me caught.”

  “The heckles I am! I didn’t risk my life on that Cable Bike for nothin’.”

  “You don’t have a Cable Bike.”

  “No, but you do.” He thought about it. “I mean, did.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, right. Surprise! Your pa had one stashed for your birthday,” he chuckled. “It was wicked. You shoulda seen it—brand new, top of the line. Totally hot. ’Specially when I blew it into tiny flaming bits.”

  “You wh—?” Phoebe lowered her voice to a hiss. “You evil little midget turd! No, you did not.”

  “Oh yeah, it was something. What an explosion! Really wish you coulda been there.” He stood as tall as he could and puffed his chest, but she towered over him.

  “How dare you! When I tell Daddy, he—”

  “Speakin’ of him, can we get goin’? I’m on a mission here.”

  Micah breezed past her and cautiously peered into the hall. Satisfied the coast was clear, he slipped through. Phoebe was speechless. She was outraged, yet had no choice but to follow.

  Unlike the shadowy parking structure, this bright corridor offered no place to hide. A dozen shiny steel doors lined both sides of the hall, each with an illuminated keypad and hand scanner. As they turned a corner, Phoebe noticed a placard bolted to the wall: HIGH SECURITY ZONE—YOU ARE BEING WATCHED. She glanced up.

  Mounted directly above her head was a whirring brass Omnicam. The surveillance camera looked like a dandelion, its watchful eye fanned by an array of hinged rods holding dozens of interchangeable lenses and diopters.

  She smacked the back of Micah’s head, and when he spun to snap at her, she pointed up. His eyes popped open wide. They were in the camera’s blind spot, directly beneath its electronic mount. But it was scanning back and forth like a metronome. If they moved either way, it would spot them.

  They would have to go back down the stairs and find another route. But what about that Watchman? Surely he had notified the others by now.

  Twenty feet away, a door slid open with a hydraulic hiss. Phoebe and Micah heard the muted clatter of machinery from within—the screeching of a metal grinder, the heavy thud of a rivet driver. The kids plastered themselves against the wall and held their breath as two workers in dingy blue uniforms emerged, carrying a thick metal beam between them. They crossed the corridor, and one of the men slid a security pass through an electronic reader. Another door opened, and the men went through.

  Phoebe glanced up. The Omnicam was panned away.

  She grabbed Micah’s collar and ran after the two workers, sneaking in behind them just as the door slid shut.

  Now they were in a wide passage made of whitewashed cinder block and lit with caged bulbs. Thick metal columns lined both sides of the hall, and layer upon layer of black footprints coated the floor. Phoebe waited until the workers with the beam disappeared inside another doo
r, and then she slipped past them to hurry down the passage. But curiosity got the better of Micah, and he stood on his tiptoes to peer after the workers through a glass porthole.

  “What are you doing?” she snapped.

  “Just wanna see what they’re makin’,” he muttered.

  She grabbed his sleeve and yanked him aside.

  “Is your brain as stunted as your legs?” she spat. She watched with some satisfaction as his face flared bright red. “If you get caught, you’re dead. Which works for me, actually. So on second thought, have at it.”

  Phoebe trotted down the hall and didn’t look back as Micah caught up with her.

  “You’re really pushin’ it, you know that?” he warned. “Don’t you touch me again.”

  She just rolled her eyes and kept moving, ducking under the bright portholes. The thrum of machinery vibrated from behind every door, regular and percussive. The Foundry never slept. Its generators and assembly lines churned day and night. A couple of times, the kids had to hide behind the columns to wait for workers to pass. She tried not to think about how many thousands more were on the other side of these doors.

  Phoebe leaned against the wall, gasping uncontrollably.

  “You gotta be kiddin’ me,” Micah chided. “You wanna take a nap or somethin’?”

  She was too winded to talk back. He gave her a dismissive wave and moseyed over to a water dispenser to take a drink.

  “Come on, ya li’l baby. Get the lead out!” Micah said, and ran ahead with a new, obnoxious spring in his step. Phoebe nervously looked for signs of Foundry workers, then chugged some water and splashed a bit on her face.

  Down the seemingly endless passageway, the sounds of activity grew muted. The doors became less frequent, most of their windows dark. There was also a salty dampness in the air that grew heavier the farther they went. The bay was close—she could feel it.

  “Hey, Freaky, where we goin’ anyway?” Micah asked as they approached an intersecting corridor.