She arcs backward like a popping live wire, clawing at the choker, and hits the stone floor, oblivious to any pain except for the chained lightning arcing through her body.
A few seconds later she’s out cold, and Archibald is crawling to his feet. He holds his ribs while struggling for breath.
“That was too close,” he gasps.
Next time, he decides as he stumbles out of the cell and closes the plexi door behind him, he’ll bring guards. Lots of them. It’s going to take more than a little shock therapy to break her.
Oh, but she will break, and she’ll be so worth it in the long run. He takes out his lighter and gives it a flick. A weapon this powerful always is.
Chapter 17
Tengu Monastery, Noctis Labyrinthus
Zealand Prefecture
ANNOS MARTIS 238. 7. 24. 18:53
I don’t need you anyway, Ghannouj, I think as I struggle to stuff gear into the storage hold of my motorbike, which is parked in the shadow of the saffron yellow arch. I can rescue Vienne by myself. One-handed, if I have to.
“You have to,” Mimi says. “One-eyed, too.”
“No more jokes,” I warn her.
“I am not joking, cowboy. While you may heal more quickly than the average person thanks to technological advances in your armor and its organic support systems, you are not superhuman.”
“Stow it,” I say aloud.
“Yes sir!” Riki-Tiki bounds over to the bike and starts stuffing my gear into place. She adds a gunnysack full of wrapped rice cakes, cones of honey, and several water horns. “All stowed.”
Then she climbs into the driver’s seat.
“What’s this?” I say.
“You can’t drive a lick with a broken arm, so I’m taking over.” She twists the accelerator grip. “I’m an excellent driver.”
“Sorry, Riki-Tiki,” I say. “Ghannouj says you’re not allowed to help rescue Vienne.”
“But he never said not to help you search for Vienne,” Shoei says as she and Yadokai appear at the gate. “Hurry up, old man!”
“Hold your water, woman!”
They pile onto the motorbike behind Riki-Tiki, leaving me nowhere to sit.
“Don’t just stand there, Noodle Arms,” Yadokai snaps. “Vienne needs help! Get moving!”
Now they’re all hell-bent to save her?
“Questioning the logic of a monk,” Mimi says, “is the mental equivalent of biting one’s tail.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“Which is why you shouldn’t question the logic of a monk.”
“See ya!” Riki-Tiki yells, and takes off like a guided missile, leaving me standing in the dirt. Within a few seconds, the motorbike is a dot in the distance.
“What the hell?” I scratch my head with my good hand. “If this is an example of monk logic, no wonder Vienne is such a mystery to me.”
“I would explain their behavior to you,” Mimi says, “but I am too busy chewing on my tail.”
“Watch out for the hairs. You never know when they’ll bite back.” I remove my helmet and rub the top of my head. “Any bets on whether or not they’re coming back?”
“The odds are fifty-fifty.”
A minute passes.
“Seventy-thirty.”
Anger starts boiling in my chest, like the beginnings of a grease fire. As much as I like Riki-Tiki and her playful disposition, this is not the time for mischief. Then I pick up the sound of an engine in the distance.
On the same road where Riki-Tiki disappeared, another speck of dust appears.
“Here they come.”
“That’s not your motorbike,” Mimi corrects me when the speck is within her range. “The engine is smaller.”
She’s right. My bike sounds like a handful of cannonballs loose in a cement mixer: This engine is from a more refined machine, not a snowmobile on wheels.
Shielding my eye from the wind, I squint at the rider until a face becomes clear. “Oh no,” I say, “not him.”
Stain pulls up in an antique Munro-Davidson motorbike, the likes of which you only see in museums.
“The day is full of surprises,” Mimi says.
“None of them pleasant.” When Stain stops, letting the engine idle, I say, “You’re the last person I expected to own a motorbike.”
“It’s a hand-me-down,” he says, and doesn’t offer to explain more.
“Reckon I’m stuck with asking for a ride,” I say, choosing to stare at the high walls of the canyons instead of looking at him.
He snarls, his tongue piercing clicking against his teeth. “Are you waiting for an invitation?”
With all the excitement of feeding my hand to a wood chipper, I throw a leg over a seat behind him. I refuse, however, to hold on to to his waist, so I squeeze the body of the bike with my legs and pray that I don’t get cramps.
From here, I can see bulges along his spine and on his shoulder blades—more metal implants. This fossiker must love pain.
“Why’re you helping me?” I yell as he pulls onto the highway.
“Because I don’t wish to forsake Vienne.” He pauses, and I think for a second that he’s going to add again.
“What’s she to you?” I shout. “From what I hear, you’re the reason she left the monastery.”
“Why I left the Tengu is complicated.” He guns the engine. “What she is to me is simple. Vienne and I share the same father. She is my sister.”
It’s early evening when Stain and I reach the copse of banyan trees near Outpost Tharsis Two. The master and mistress are waiting at the rendezvous spot, and Riki-Tiki is nestled in the branches of a tree, keeping watch.
She hops branch by branch to the ground. “What took so long?”
“It’s his fault,” Stain says.
Vienne’s brother, huh? It’s hard to see the resemblance.
Like before, we hide the motorbikes deep in the foliage and use a leafy branch to scratch away tracks. This time, I’m keeping my armalite, and I put Vienne’s in the bike’s storage box, wrapped in burlap, ready to return to its owner.
“That is assuming,” Mimi says, “that Vienne is in Tharsis Two.”
“Affirmative,” I tell her. “That’s exactly what I’m assuming.”
Raindrops the size of bullets start falling, making dents in the loose dirt. A deep bass roll of thunder shakes the tree leaves as I lay out the master plan, then brief each of them on their jobs.
“Got it?” I ask them when I’m finished. “There’s some wiggle room built in, but if things go fig-jam, we abort the mission, right? Nobody gets hurt if we can help it.”
“Shah.” Shoei waves off the suggestion and points a thumb at Yadokai. “Thirty years I’ve been battling this knucklehead, you think I’m worried about a few little boys with guns?”
“Right,” Yadokai agrees. “You survive this woman for just a week, and you know you have stones of steel.”
“Me?” Shoei gives his ear a hard torque. “What about you?”
“See what I mean?” Yadokai says. “I am battle tested.”
“And I’m bored,” Riki-Tiki says. “Can we go get Vienne now?”
The sun is setting, and the clouds have opened up with a long downpour that soaks us to the bone. Sloshing through the mud makes the going slow and miserable, but better cover you couldn’t ask for.
Two hundred meters from the gate of the outpost, we find a swallow gully and take cover. In the purple darkness, the guard shack shines like an orange flare. The rest of the compound is as pitch-black as a Draeu’s heart.
While the three others move to position farther down the gully, I squat beside Riki-Tiki, showing her the route through the sewer lines on the electrostat.
“Sure you’re up to this?” I ask her. “It’s dangerous.”
“And stinky! I can handle it, though. I’m tough.”
“But you’re just an age six.” It’s the same age I was when I became a Regulator. Back then, I thought I was grown-up, to
o. Now I realize that an age six is nowhere near old enough to take on the job of soldiering. I’m barely old enough for the job myself.
“So what, I’m young?” She pushes her rain-soaked pink hair out of her eyes. “That means that I’m the only one small enough to make it through the lines into the main building. We’ve been through this, like, a hundred times already.”
“You’re exaggerating. It’s only been six, max.”
Mimi pipes up. “Twenty-seven to be more accurate.”
“Who’s counting?” I ask Mimi.
“I am. Obviously.”
“Since you’re kibitzing, how’s that security sweep going?”
“I finished it a hundred years ago.”
“Now you’re exaggerating, too.”
“How would you know?” Mimi says. “I am the only one who keeps count.”
Riki-Tiki taps my shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, Riki-Tiki. I’m just thinking.”
“Why do you move your lips when you’re thinking?”
“I, erm, like to talk to myself?”
Mimi laughs. “Busted! I warned you about getting sloppy. Just talk to me—no need to mime our conversations to the whole prefecture.”
“Hush and give me the sweep readings!” I make sure to subvocalize with my mouth clamped shut.
“Readings indicate multiple biorhythmic signatures in close proximity to the guardhouse. In addition, sensors detect a significant mass of signatures clustered in the south corner of the main building.”
“How many is a significant mass?”
“Your eye is just a common ocular prosthetic, not a highly sensitive telemetry device.”
“Take a guess.”
“Indeterminate. The sensors in your suit are not capable of—”
“That tears it. Next time we go shopping, I’m getting an upgrade.”
Riki-Tiki taps my shoulder harder. “Can I do my job now? It’s boring just sitting here watching you think.”
Busted again. “Okay. Are you sure you know the plan?”
She rolls her eyes. “Go through the sewer tubes. Bear right at the split. Climb the access ladder to the plumbing service area. Slip into the electrical service room next door and throw all the main breakers. Meet you at the rendezvous mark. Voila!”
“That’s the plan. Go.”
Riki-Tiki moves down the gully to Shoei, Yadokai, and Stain, who lifts a storm grate for her. She slips inside and with a shake of her head is gone.
“Move up!” I say.
The four of us climb out of the gully and move quickly to outpost. There, we flatten ourselves against the wall, out of the view of the catwalk. I listen for footfalls, but all I can hear is the falling rain.
A quick look.
No guards on the catwalk and just one in the gate shack.
Good.
I signal Stain—move to position.
A heartbeat later, the orange glow in the shack disappears. Everything is shadow now. “Control, we got us a blackout at the gate,” the guard says into the radio. “Please advise.”
My turn.
I duck beside the shack, close enough to touch the guard.
“System-wide failure,” Control responds. “Stand ready.”
“Copy.” He lets go of the mic switch. “Stupid lights are fig-jammed. Ack!”
I drop him with a rabbit punch.
Stain grabs the radio and mimics the guard’s voice perfectly. “Control, need some relief out here. Gotta use the head.”
“Negative. Remain at your post.”
“Have it your way,” Stain says. “I’ll do my business in the shack.”
“Relief is on the way,” Control responds. “But this is going on my report. Archibald’s not going to be happy.”
Stain stomps the radio into bits.
“You could’ve just unplugged it,” I say.
He smiles, the piercings in his lip giving him an eerie expression. “My way was more satisfying.”
Smashing the mic. That’s a page right out of Vienne’s manual. Maybe they really are related.
I wave Shoei and Yadokai forward to our position. The four of us crouch in the shack, waiting for Riki-Tiki to hit her mark.
“Alert!” Mimi says. “I have picked up an approaching signal.”
I slip outside, and Stain follows.
A guard approaches the shack. He taps on the window.
Whap!
The door slams open. The guard staggers back.
Thap!
Shoei sweeps his feet, and Yadokai drags him inside.
“So far, so good,” I tell Mimi.
“Do not get cocky, cowboy.”
“Follow me,” I whisper and move toward the rendezvous.
A quick sprint up metal stairs to the catwalk. Down the long, deserted walkway to a door marked “Control.”
We stop, catch our breath, and wait.
Right on time, Riki-Tiki skips down the catwalk.
“This is fun!” she whispers. “When we rescue Vienne, she’s definitely taking me as an acolyte.”
I put a finger to my lips and reach for the door handle.
Stain grabs my arm. Shakes his head.
He opens the pouch tied to his belt and kneels down to the crack under the door.
“What’s in the pouch, Mimi?”
“I detect only inconsistent biorhythms.”
“Really? What could it be?”
“I am not psychic,” she replies. “Even a dialectical of genius has her limits.”
Stain spins his staff. The air fills with a whistling thrum. Bees crawl out of the pouch and under the door. A few seconds later, we hear screams inside the room, followed by heavy thumps as bodies hit the floor.
Stain nods, and I swing the door open. Six guards lie prone. Stain opens his pouch, and the bees fly into it.
Yadokai and Shoei follow me inside. They look around and shake their heads.
“Don’t say a word,” Stain warns them.
Except for a shared sigh, they don’t.
Interesting.
“Indeed,” Mimi says.
Riki-Tiki bounds in after us. “Holy paskaa! Look at all the vids!”
“Tie the guards up,” I tell the monks. “In case they wake up.”
“They won’t,” Stain says.
“Do it anyway.”
As they begin the task, I take a seat in front of the multivid control panel and start pulling up camera feeds. “Mimi, tap into the network and use the control panel’s sensors to scan the rest of Tharsis Two for more signatures. I’m not seeing any other guards on the video feeds.”
“There are no other signatures,” Mimi says. “Only a mass grouping in the south corner of this building.”
“Any sign of Vienne?”
“Negative.”
“Wà kào! She has to be here.”
The Sturmnacht neatly trussed up, the monks gather around the control panel. Riki-Tiki rests her chin on my shoulder. “Where’s Vienne?” she says. “You said she would be here.”
I flip through the feeds.
Nothing but empty rooms and hallways.
Empty.
Empty.
Stop.
It’s Mimi’s south corner room. It’s filled with dozens of walking corpses in tattered clothing. They all look emaciated and filthy, their eyes bulging and hollow, pupils glowing pink.
“Rapture,” I say. “My god.”
“Is Vienne,” Riki-Tiki’s voice cracks, “in there?”
“No.” I pat her hand.
Then a moment later, I freeze frame on one of the prisoners, a small girl. “She’s not there now, but she must’ve been before.”
“How do you know?” Stain asks.
I tap the screen, where a silver pendant hangs from the girl’s neck. In the center of the pendant is a lotus. “I have tea leaves of my own.” I insert a memory chip into the data port. “Mimi, scan every scrap of data you can get. Vienne was here—that necklace proves it. Th
ere must be traces of her somewhere on the video feeds. We have to find them.”
“We?”
“We meaning you.”
“As long as we know who is doing the heavy lifting.”
I stand and face the monks. “I can’t locate Vienne. It looks like Archibald pulled out of this facility. Which means they might have taken her along. I’m going to find out where.”
Stain steps in front of me. “You’re wasting your time. She could be anywhere by now, if she’s even alive.”
“Until I know she’s dead, she’s alive.” I lean forward so that my jaw is almost touching his. “Got that?”
“Do you always grasp at straws, dalit?” Stain says.
“When it’s all that’s left to hold on to? Carking-A.” I turn to Shoei and Yadokai. “Those hostages need help. Is there someplace we can take them? Hospital? Sanitarium?”
“Here, there is only us,” Shoei says. “Take them to the collective. We will nurse the ones who live and bury the ones who do not.”
Stain sneers again. “Another waste of time! None of them will ever recover from Rapture. It is a death sentence!”
“You don’t know that!” I shout, thinking of Vienne. Then I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Riki-Tiki, please get the power restored. Mistress and Master, please, lead the hostages outside to the grounds. I’ll rendezvous in a few minutes.”
Shoei bows. “Of course.”
“Stain!” Yadokai barks. “You help, too.”
The tone in the master’s voice preempts any discussion, but Stain leaves a scalding look of contempt in his wake.
When they’re gone, I ask Mimi, “How’s the search?”
“The facial recognition program’s algorithm found four hits on the video feeds.”
“Display.”
“I love when you go into boss mode.”
“I’m really beginning to wonder about you, Mimi.”
The multivid display blinks, showing a five-second feed of Vienne tossing the overcharged blaster.
“Nothing here I haven’t seen before. Next.”
The multivid shows a Noriker pulling through the destroyed gate. The familiar faces of Franks and Richards unload my unconscious body, then unceremoniously dump me onto the pavement before Archibald, who raises a heavy boot and curb stomps my arm.
My stomach chunders. “That explains the compound fracture.”
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