“Take charge of Strauss’s team. Blanket the area in question. Detain the trespassers.”
“Yes, sir. It will be done.”
Goodwin clicked the intercom off.
“Strauss is a fool,” muttered a flat voice.
Goodwin glanced over to a fabric divider, a white hospital partition concealing the silhouette of a man. “Was,” the Chairman said as he approached the screen. “No matter, his mistakes will soon be corrected.”
“Were it me, there would be no mistakes.”
“Of course.” Goodwin smiled warmly. “But I have only one of you. The Dyad Project is still in its infancy.” He watched a group of scientists evaluate readouts from a bay of chirping monitors and check the diodes and leads attached to their subject. “How is he doing?”
One of the researchers checked the display. “Stable.” The man shrugged. “Perfect, really.”
“Perfect.” The Chairman nodded. “Did you hear that?”
The scientists unplugged their probes and retracted their cables. Goodwin watched the white divider as the man’s silhouette rose to its full height. Attendants flocked around it, strapping on a flak jacket and carefully securing long gloves.
Kaspar emerged, flexing and curling his fingers.
“Perfect,” the soldier agreed, devouring the praise and bowing low.
“So what of Jules?” Goodwin asked. “Anything to report?”
“Nothing yet.”
“He is unlikely to cooperate, but I believe with time we can convince him to give us what we need.”
“I can be very convincing,” Kaspar assured him ominously.
“Remember,” warned Goodwin, “Jules is a friend and a valuable asset, so this is still a hands-off directive.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good man.” Goodwin chuckled and clapped the soldier’s rippling shoulder. Kaspar’s face tightened into a sparse grin, and he bowed as the Chairman returned to his advisers at the control center.
“It’s decided,” one of the military executives proclaimed. “If we cut back on our exports by twelve percent for the next two weeks, we can meet Meridian’s military needs.”
“We are ready to make the adjustments.”
“Call off the lockdown,” Goodwin commanded. “Return our security status to Code Yellow and resume production.”
The trio of military executives stared at him blankly.
“What about the intruders?”
“And the reallocation? Meridian is vulnerable so long as—”
“The Foundry will not remain off-line for a couple of children.” The Chairman waved his hand. “They will be caught. As for the troops, we will not accommodate Meridian’s request.”
The advisers began to talk at once, their voices rising in an irritated crescendo that quieted the moment Goodwin spoke.
“I have heard your concerns, and of course, Meridian’s security is always our top priority. But what you fail to consider is that an escalation of forces combined with a decrease in output will be interpreted as an act of war by the Quorum. Would you really provoke Trelaine when they are already seeking confrontation?”
The military executives were listening.
“Not unless you want blood, and I for one do not,” he continued. “Every minute the Foundry remains on lockdown, we lose money. It has been nearly four hours now, and we must make up for these losses. I expect all sectors to double resource acquisition and distribution by the end of the week.”
“That’s preposterous!” one the advisers claimed.
“Mr. Goodwin, you’re being unreasonable.”
“On the contrary,” Goodwin argued coolly. “It is pure reason. Our enemies are organizing, gentlemen. And we know their demands all too well. More Foundry products, more Foundry metal.”
“So we’re just going to buckle and give the enemy what they want?”
“We are going to compromise and meet their needs before we find ourselves at a hostile negotiating table,” he corrected, “or engaged in another protracted war. And we will charge accordingly. Then, once Lavaraud calms down and Trelaine gets what they want? Once the Quorum is sated?”
The Chairman clasped his hands behind his back and turned to look up at the massive golden statue with sunbeam wings that dominated the control room. The menacing figure would have returned his gaze, Goodwin mused, had he not so carelessly lost his head.
“Business as usual.”
hoebe was bound tightly and dangling beneath her captor as they hurtled through the black pipe-work forest. Whatever carried her was frightfully agile, effortlessly zipping this way and that. It swooped and swerved to avoid impaling her on the branches, but she was still bombarded by jangling twigs and foil leaves that left red welts on her skin.
Shiny haphazard vines grew more prevalent as they ascended, knotted in loose clumps like exploded balls of yarn. The interconnected treetops grew so dense that they blotted out the night sky, and the wind whipping through the hollow branches sounded like a haunted chorus.
She was whisked around a massive, knotted trunk, and little columns of flame flickered into view, torches illuminating a village in the trees. Dozens of bulbous woven huts hung from the pipe-work boughs like oversized wasps’ nests, linked together by a chaotic network of silvery vines. The night was thick with noises, like a fleet of squeaky wheels in desperate need of grease. There were figures too, hundreds of lithe shapes swinging and tumbling toward her.
Whatever held Phoebe dropped her. Her stomach lurched as the world turned over, but she didn’t fall far. She landed on a springy surface, and Micah thudded beside her. They struggled to roll over and sit up, but the gags in their mouths kept them from talking.
A dull clang rang out, and a perforated cylinder jutting from silvery petals began to smolder. It grew bright, then burst into flames. These were not torches—they were fiery blossoms attached to metal stalks.
The kids froze. In the light of the torch blooms, hundreds of oily, eager eyes leered back at them.
They were surrounded by a mob of strange deadly machines that were almost as tall as Phoebe. They had long limber arms, stout hind legs, and two small appendages tucked in at their midsections. Their bodies were a rippling complex of intersecting segments and plates, perfectly camouflaged in this pipe-work forest. Mounted in the center of their chests were cylindrical spools of fine cable.
Slick black eyes glowered deep beneath jutting brows. Long faces stretched into pointed snouts like the muzzles of baboons, and pleated vents flared out around their nostrils. Flat, saberlike appendages arched back from their heads, twitching and swiveling like the ears of a jackal.
She had never seen anything like them. Not in her wildest imagination. And yet, there was something familiar about them, though she was too racked with fear and wonder to pinpoint exactly what. The feeling haunted her, like a dream.
A series of clangs sounded out as their captors struck the torch blooms, and a dozen flaming lights flared to life. Phoebe and Micah could see that they were on a small, suspended platform made from metal branches that were woven together with cables. She peered down through its loose mesh and saw only darkness below. A wave of vertigo hit her as she realized they were up so high in these treetops that the light did not show a hint of ground.
The squealing sound, which now mixed with scraping and chittering, grew in intensity. It was coming from the surrounding machines. There was ferocity in their gaze, a vitality that the dead-eyed Watchmen lacked. They had no consistency to their size or shape—some appeared large and broad, some slight and frail. She saw tiny ones staring innocently and hanging from others like infants clutching their mothers.
Mothers? That made no sense. Why would the Foundry make machines that looked like babies?
She swallowed hard and looked at these things anew. They were all decorated diff
erently, with bundles of metal fronds, headpieces made of braided cable, colorful strips that looked like feathers, and wires beaded with trinkets. Many had scars and dents, and there were even some with damaged or missing limbs. The vents around their nostrils exhaled jets of hot air that condensed to white mist in the brisk night.
Impossible.
They weren’t machines. Or at least nothing made by the Foundry. Unlike the Watchmen, these things were breathing. And as their staccato squeaking and grinding filled the air, she realized something else.
They were speaking. Not a language she could understand, but Phoebe was sure she was right. It was a harsh, grating sound, like sand crunching through gears, but there was a definite pattern. The noises rose and fell with meaningful enunciation, sometimes marked by simultaneous tones at different pitches. She watched as a group of the metal creatures exchanged heated, emphatic bursts of dissonance—a conversation, or more like an argument.
One of them wrenched open its terrible maw and shattered the night with an earsplitting mechanical shriek. It then lunged at the kids, coming so close that they could smell its foul breath, a hot wave of rust and rot. Rows of interlocking teeth and six-inch jagged metal fangs flashed in the torchlight. Inside the creature’s mouth were throbbing veins and flexing membranes that shone like metal but pulsed like living flesh. Pistons around its muzzle strained as its slathering jaws opened wide, preparing to crush flesh and bone.
Phoebe and Micah recoiled.
A deep, quaking thoom interrupted the confusion, and the snarling beast halted. The gathered creatures fell silent. Then the crowd parted to reveal one of their ranks, a huge loping thing pounding on a colossal hollow tree trunk. Silvery bark flaked off like confetti, and chime leaves clashed with each blow. The creature rose on its back legs, a full nine feet tall, and its ear appendages splayed out like a halo of scimitars. It emitted a series of forceful barks. Screeching and rumbling broke out, punctuated by snarls and snapping jaws.
Phoebe looked over at Micah. His eyes registered the terror she felt. Whatever fate was being decided for them, it didn’t bode well.
At last, a unanimous agreement appeared to have been reached. The creatures yanked the kids into the air once more, carrying them deeper into the village, followed on all sides by the screeching mob. Phoebe watched with fascination as the long-limbed creatures leaped from cable to cable. Before, she had thought they were flying, but in fact these creatures slid effortlessly along zip lines as if they knew every strand by heart. Their strange clamp hands cinched seamlessly on to the cables, and they sped along with barely a whisper. Occasionally, one of the creatures would unspool a new cable from its chest and launch the line with its spring-loaded secondary limbs, forging a new path through the pipe-work treetops.
Torch blooms glowed throughout the canopy, lighting the way. She saw more bulbous nests and angry mechanical faces staring from oblong windows. A great number of the huts were little more than burned-out shells dangling askew from pockets of bent and splintered trees.
Phoebe and Micah were deposited onto a gnarled tree limb. The rest of the horde gathered around, perching high in the foliage and leering down at their captives. The creatures snapped the cables that bound the kids, and immediately Micah was on his feet.
“That’s it, Ugly! I’m done gettin’ tossed around, ya hear? You need to back it off, or so help me, I’ll—WAAH!”
A creature shoved him backward with a whip-fast jab. Micah teetered, pinwheeling his arms to keep from toppling into the dark abyss. Phoebe grabbed his overalls and pulled him back to safety.
The crooked limb the kids stood on was one of many massive splinters jutting from the largest pipe-work tree they had seen. A jagged crater had been blown through the rusted giant, and cables had been wound around the craggy wreath of fragments to patch the pulverized trunk. This woven funnel formed a walkway that led up to a hollow at the center. It was a gloomy and ominous den, decorated with grisly totems and dark, viscous splatters.
The growling mob pressed in and gestured toward the dark opening.
“I ain’t goin’ in there!” Micah fumed.
Phoebe looked at the creatures closing in, some of them baring their jagged, razor-sharp fangs.
“I don’t think we have a choice,” she said, taking his elbow.
They shuffled along the shattered limb and took a tentative step onto the woven walkway. It was like trying to balance on a wobbly net. A profoundly low tone moaned from below. As it traveled upward and became more pronounced, the kids could feel it buzz through their bodies. A gust of fetid, moist air huffed out of the hollow and blew a discordant note, dispersing a cloud of drifting particles.
Behind them, the mob was growing loud and impatient.
So they climbed. Phoebe went first, grappling up the shaky spiral walkway. Micah followed her, his feet slipping awkwardly through the cable mesh as they scrambled into the wretched hollow. As soon as he had stepped through the opening, he turned back to face the creatures.
“Fine! We’ll go in your stupid hole. But I ain’t gonna forget this! Micah Eugene Tanner, that’s me. Remember that name. ’Cause when I come back—”
A woven steel flap slammed shut.
They were sealed in.
“That’s what I thought!” he shouted and shoved at the unyielding door. “You better run, you little yellow-bellied tree turkeys! I OUGHTA—” His voice cracked, skipping up an octave. He cleared his throat and tried to play it cool. “Anyway, I’m pretty sure they know the score.”
“Yeah, you totally scared them off,” Phoebe said as she lit up her Trinka.
“For real?” he asked. “Or you just tryin’ to be funny?”
“No, you pretty much saved the day…Eugene.”
“Look here, Little Miss Perfect, I don’t care what you—”
“Save it.” She looked around the slimy passage strewn with cables and jutting scraps of tree. “We need to find a way out of here.” But even a cursory glance told her that there was no way to go but onward, deeper down the rank and dreary hollow.
Micah gave the door a couple of swift kicks to blow off his remaining steam. “Well, at least I did somethin’,” he grumbled. “I stood up to ’em, least you could do is gimme that much.”
“Not like it did any good, but sure, I grant you that.”
“Now that’s more like it,” he huffed, content with her consolation. Micah peered into the darkness and let out an exasperated sigh. “I tell you what, though. I’ve about had it up to here with creepy, dark tunnels.”
“Tell me about it,” she agreed.
“And dang, this place stinks!” he said, wafting the air.
She touched the seeping walls of the hollow and smelled the reddish brown goop that smeared on her fingers.
“Egh! It’s like rotten sap,” she said, wiping the stuff off her hands.
“So…about this place,” Micah started, biting his lip as he tried to piece together the words. “Like, are we…I mean…this ain’t some weird Foundry thing, is it?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Metal forest, flamin’ flowers, crazy monkey machines that wanna kill us…What the heckles is goin’ on here, Plumm?”
“I don’t know,” she said, looking him in the eye, “but we have to find out.”
Micah nodded. “I bet your pa knows.”
“He probably…” She trailed off as something burbled deep within the cave.
“What was—” he began, but the sound grew harsh, a buzzing and hacking like someone trying to saw through a metal beam. Then, all at once, they knew exactly what it was.
Laughter.
His mouth hung open. “That ain’t good.”
“We gotta move quick and quiet,” she said. “Let’s find a way down to the ground and get back to those train tracks. Just…” She licked her lips, but her mouth was tacky and
dry. “Just stay alert.”
“You too.”
Trying to act bold, she marched ahead, but her shoeless foot sank into a mushy puddle of slop. She cringed, and a chill ran up the back of her neck.
Phoebe really didn’t want to know what she had just stepped in.
he woven surface beneath their feet was unstable, forcing them to cling to the slimy walls for support. The feeble light from Phoebe’s Trinka did little to keep her from stubbing her exposed toes, so she stepped carefully to avoid any jutting metal slivers.
They soon found their path blocked by a membranous curtain stitched together from tattered sheets of translucent foil that might have been some kind of hide. Bracing herself for something lurking behind it, Phoebe whisked the curtain aside. Beyond it was another drape of the same material, and past that another. As they crept through the tunnel of veils, the stench became overwhelming, like boiling blood and burning garbage.
At the end of the seeping passage, their legs turned to jelly.
The opening looked out upon the pipe-work tree’s cavernous heart. Every creak and drip was amplified with a tremulous echo. They could feel a steady draft of warm, pungent air wafting up from the depths with a low ambient drone. A cable bridge was strung across the chasm, leading to a nest suspended like a spiderweb in a smokestack. It looked ancient and distressed, a cocoon constructed from fragments of shattered trunk, bound together by tangled cable. Bent branches and shards were lashed around the outside of it, curving to form a dome.
“Not good,” Micah mumbled.
Phoebe gulped hard. “Come on,” she whispered. “Let’s find a way out.” She searched around the opening of the hollow, but the inner walls of the tremendous tree were featureless and slick with sap. There was nowhere to climb, up or down. The only way was across.
She steeled herself and took a step onto the narrow bridge, clinging to cables along the sides. Phoebe kept her eyes locked dead ahead, willing herself to not look down into the perilous void, and though it only took her a dozen cautious steps to cross, it seemed to take forever.
The First Book of Ore: The Foundry's Edge Page 10