And I remind myself what I always knew growing up:
With Rafi, everything is complicated.
Through my field glasses, the Iron Mountain looks like all the others. There are no visible entrances, no signs that humans have ever touched it.
I suppose that’s the point. Corp data was meant to be kept safe and secret, like buried treasure.
Our recon party is on a neighboring ridge, seeing our target for the first time with our own eyes. Almost a week since I arrived at Boss Frey’s lair, and six days before we attack. We’re just waiting for a few more crews to arrive.
Yandre says we need three hundred fighters to take the mountain.
Listening to the rebels’ hushed talk, I can tell they have an almost-superstitious fear of what’s inside—the strangest, most inhuman of the Rusty legacies. As the saying goes, the corps are still in there, undead algorithms of surveillance and control, waiting to be reborn.
This is a chance to save Paz but also to burn the whole place down.
The clearing around me is full of rebels. Sixty of us on hoverboards, enough to scout the entire mountain. We’ll peek into every entrance, using seismic charges to map the tunnels inside.
I touch a little Focus and raise my field glasses, searching faces for any family resemblance.
What if our brother is already here?
He must’ve had surge, of course. He could be any gender, have any face. But it feels like I would recognize my own brother, somehow.
Rafi thinks he’ll make his own way to us, once he hears that we’re allies in the fight against our father. This attack will make her the most famous boss of the wildest crew—even if Seanan has sworn off our family forever, he’ll be drawn to see her for himself.
She can’t imagine someone not wanting to be an heir to notoriety and power. But I can.
A presence looms behind me, and I startle.
“Sorry, X,” I say. “You scared me.”
Too much Focus. I hit my Neutral feel.
“All this planning is making us jumpy.” Boss X waves at the mountain with disgust. “Ancient, crumbling defenses. We could have done this with a dozen good rebels.”
“Don’t be so sure about that.” I hand him the field glasses. “My father destroyed Paz with one old Rusty weapon.”
He shrugs. “Overconfidence is underrated.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Think about it harder; you’ll see it does.” X raises the glasses to his face, pulling them apart for his wide-set eyes. “When you wait too long for a fight, boredom breeds rumors and discontent.”
I frown. “Anything specific?”
“Some of us are wondering about your sister. Why she’s out here.”
Something coils tighter inside me. I’ve wanted to explain everything to X a hundred times, but my promise to Rafi still stands.
I sneak a little touch of Calm. “What do you mean?”
He lowers the glasses, his weather-worn eyes meeting mine. “When did you tell her about the Iron Mountain?”
“I didn’t. Until last week, we hadn’t seen each other since the Battle of Shreve.”
“And yet she arrived here two months ago—something of a coincidence.” He lowers his voice. “Almost as if she was sent here to watch over it.”
A familiar flicker of doubt goes through me, but I shake my head.
“Yeah, I know. But it’s just a coincidence. No one thinks she’s working for my father, do they?”
“No, because they think she’s you. But if they find out she’s the heir to Shreve …” Boss X looks around at the preparations. Scout drones are being tested, sounding charges armed. “Things will get ugly.”
“That won’t happen. My sister and I have been fooling people for a long time.”
“True,” he says. “But Boss Smith’s crew joins us in a few days—they know which of you is which. They’ll ask the same questions my crew has.”
He waits, expecting me to tell him more.
And I realize that I have to give X at least part of the truth.
“It’s not really a coincidence,” I say. “Rafi chose this place for the same reason the Rusties did—it’s the deep wild, the perfect place to hide something.”
“What, exactly?”
I look away. The rebel son of a dictator.
Back to lies. “Herself. She was sick of being Rafi. She wanted to be me.”
“And yet she’s very much Rafia of Shreve. The way she dresses. Throwing the best parties every night. That’s not hiding.”
“Because she’s …” I reach for my wrist again, needing my Calm, but X gently places a hand on my arm.
“Talk to me without those, Frey.”
I swallow. “They were an accident.”
“Yet you use them all the time,” he says. “When you think no one’s watching. Especially when you need to lie.”
He turns to face me, his eyes looming, lupine and huge. Freezing me like prey.
“You have every right to lie to your own heart,” X says. “But you need to stop lying to me.”
Something tears in me. You don’t lie to crew.
I’d thought Boss X hadn’t noticed my feels. Now I wonder if everyone has, including my sister.
“There’s a reasonable explanation, I swear.”
“Then give it to me. I can vouch for your sister with my crew and Boss Smith’s, but I have to know what’s going on. We’re all here, ready to risk our lives, because you told us about the Iron Mountain.”
“Of course.” I take a deep breath. “She’s looking for someone.”
X doesn’t answer. His face is unreadable.
“Someone who’s been hidden a long time,” I say. “Rafi thinks they must be out in the deep wild. That’s why she came here.”
The silence stretches between us, until there are shouts in the air. The scouting parties are heading off toward the Iron Mountain.
X nods, like he believes me at last. But his face stays grim.
“Not all that’s missing is lost,” he says, and turns to walk away.
I watch him go, my heart stuttering in my chest.
What did he—
Col skims up beside me on his board. “You ready? We have to get to the other side of the mountain by noon. Full body armor.”
My mind is reeling. I can’t speak.
Col frowns. “What were you two talking about, anyway? That little chat looked … intense.”
I can’t answer at first. Does Boss X know something about my family?
Finally I reach for my wrist—not Calm.
Steadfast.
“It was nothing,” I tell Col. “Let’s go.”
He glances at my fingers on my wrist. “You’ve been using them less lately. Only when you’re upset.”
“The mountain makes me nervous,” I say.
Not a lie at all.
Boss Zachary has put me with the Vics’ scout group—Teo and Col, Zura and Veron. There’s no rebels, so I don’t have to worry about giving myself away.
As we move into position, Boss X’s mysterious words twist inside me. Did he actually guess what I was talking about? Or was it just one of his usual brain-spinning pronouncements?
I want to ask Rafi, to admit that I’ve broken my promise a little. But she’s back at her lair, welcoming more crews as they arrive. Checking faces for any hint of family resemblance.
But I don’t have time to think about my brother—I need to Focus.
The Vics and I approach the mountain on our boards, staying below treetop level. No one knows how far out the Rusty defenses start, so we ride slow toward the slope, pushing aside pine branches with our hands.
“Nothing pinging us,” Teo says, his eyes glued to a handscreen.
Zura points down. “See those wolf tracks? I doubt this place goes to red alert every time an animal wanders by.”
“Wolves?” I peer down into the shadows. “Seriously?”
“There’s five of us—big predato
rs will keep clear,” Col says. “It’s snakes we have to worry about.”
Snakes. I add a little Vigilance to my Focus.
Near the base of the mountain, the trees grow fewer, and moss-covered scree dots the ground below.
Zura sends a recon drone ahead—it touches down lightly on the stone. Then bounds away up the slope.
The mountain doesn’t care.
“See?” she says. “Nothing to worry about. But let’s get off the boards. Magnetics are noisy.”
Stepping off onto the stone is nervous-making, the Focus and Vigilance making me twitch. With every footfall, I expect Rusty war drones to pop up and open fire.
“Are you okay?” Col asks, his eyes on my feels.
“I’m fine.”
The mountain stays silent and still as we climb the gentle slope. Our boards hover where we left them, ready to come get us.
An unworried rabbit hops by, making my nervousness feel silly.
Of course, there are wolves around …
“You have no clue, rabbit,” I mutter.
Our comms crackle to life—Boss Em’s voice.
“Set your seismics. Soundings begin in five minutes.”
I reach into my pack, pull out my seismic wand. With a flick, it telescopes out to half a meter. I find a patch free of stone and thrust it deep into the earth.
The others do the same, spreading them out across the slope.
Minutes later, the booms of sounding charges rumble in the distance, the rock trembling under my feet. Shock waves are echoing through the whole mountain, prizing out the secret spaces inside.
I draw my pulse knife. Nothing like a few explosions to wake up ancient war machines.
The rumbling lasts for long seconds, but after it fades away, nothing stirs on the mountainside.
“What if this place is dead?” I slip my knife back into its sheath. “Could be just rumors.”
“Or maybe it’s the wrong mountain,” Col says. “All we’ve got is old stories.”
“Not anymore!” Teo calls from higher up. He’s kneeling, clearing away brush.
I climb closer—a metal plate is set into the stone. There’s a triangle logo stamped onto it, and the words Iron Mountain Corporation.
“Huh,” I say. “They put a corp in charge of making sure all the other corps would last forever.”
Teo laughs. “Classic Rusty move.”
“Data’s coming in,” Col calls, looking at his handscreen. “There’s an entrance a hundred meters up!”
Zura points. “See that pattern in the slope?”
Above us, almost weathered away, are the zigzag remnants of an old switchback road. Rusty groundcars must have used the entrance to deliver their cargos.
We climb toward the entrance. As we cross the worn-away road, chunks of ancient asphalt crumble beneath my leather boots.
“Anything pinging us?” I ask Teo.
He glances at his handscreen, shakes his head.
Maybe after three hundred years, the mountain isn’t so dangerous anymore.
The entrance is half-hidden behind a loose pile of stones, the result of some bygone avalanche. Past them, a huge steel door sits askew.
It’s half a meter thick, partly fallen out of its frame. Torn along the bottom, the opening is maybe big enough to squeeze beneath.
Blast marks scar the metal there.
“Someone already broke in,” Col says softly.
I climb over the fallen stones, kneel, and take a sniff of the black marks. No hint of explosives tickles my nose.
“A while ago.”
“Decades, maybe,” Col says. “Back in the pretty regime, runaway uglies used to explore Rusty places.”
Zura turns to Veron. “Take point. See what’s in there.”
Veron climbs up to join me at the steel door. But when he tries to crawl underneath, the gap is too small for his muscle-bound Special frame. He pushes and strains but can’t force the door any higher.
“Might fit if I take off my armor,” he says to Zura.
“You won’t,” Teo says. “But I will—it pays to be small.”
Col shakes his head. “Forget it.”
“Try and stop me.” Teo pushes past Veron and rolls through the opening, body armor and all.
Col rolls his eyes. Strange—when the two of them disagree, even on a dangerous mission like this, it seems so simple and light. Not like me and Rafi.
“I’ll get him,” I tell Col, crawling down into the gap beneath the door. But my armor catches on jagged steel halfway through. I can’t see much inside—just Teo’s suit lights flickering across the cracked concrete floor.
“Anything in there?” I call.
“Not really.” Teo’s voice is steady, only a hint of nerves. “Some brush has blown in over the years. The walls look shot up, like there was a firefight.”
“Anything on your screen?”
“Nothing. I’m going to—”
His voice cuts off, followed by a sudden cry.
“Teo?” I yell. When he doesn’t answer, I use a voice command on my armor. “Fire evac!”
My armor pops open, flying in all directions.
Jagged metal scrapes at my borrowed rebel skins. But I can just squeeze through into the echoey concrete tunnel. The floor is marked like a road, leading away into the darkness.
Teo stands there, staring down at his feet.
When I see what he’s looking at, my fingers reach for Calm.
“It’s okay. He just got startled …”
… by the bodies—half a dozen of them spread out across the concrete roadway.
They must have died a long time ago. The corpses are desiccated—their hair dry and brittle, the skin of their faces drawn tight across their skulls, all of it lit garishly by the lights on Teo’s body armor.
“By what?” Col calls.
“They were rebels,” I say. Their leather clothes are cracked and dry, with crew badges pinned to them.
I look around—whatever got them, it isn’t coming after us. Maybe it used its last ammo to take out these unlucky intruders.
The badges are circles of crudely beaten copper, green with age. I don’t recognize which crew. But someone will know who they were.
Kneeling beside one of the bodies, I take a badge and pin it onto my own chest.
“Frey,” Teo whispers. “Why are they so intact?”
I turn away from the grisly sight to face him. “What do you mean?”
“Animals could get in here easy, but none of them look like they’ve been … picked at.”
“Thanks for that image.” I turn back to the bodies.
He’s right; there are no teeth marks in the dead rebels. The only visible wounds are scatterings of bullet holes in the old leather. Low caliber, automatic fire.
Then I see something next to one of the corpses—the body of a rat. It’s almost fresh, the blood in its single bullet wound still glistening.
My hand reaches for my pulse knife, and I hit my Neutral feel, flushing the Calm from my body.
“Get out of here, Teo,” I say softly. “Move slowly.”
The lights from his suit waver, making the shadows dance. The tunnel stretches away from us, empty as far as we can see.
“Why, Frey?”
“Whatever got them,” I whisper, “it’s still around. Just get—”
A rattling sound echoes from the tunnel, and I freeze.
Something rickety and squealing with age is scraping its way toward us from the darkness.
Ancient servos shriek and shudder.
When it emerges into the light, the machine looks vaguely humanoid, like a spindly marionette yanked along by not enough strings.
I don’t move, hoping its sensors are as decrepit as its gears.
Maybe we can get out of here without waking up more of the mountain’s defenses.
“Teo,” I whisper. “Back out slowly. I can handle this.”
“You’re not wearing armor, Frey—just like those rebels!
”
Good point.
I want to reach for Courage, but any movement might give me away.
Col’s voice calls through the opening. “What’s that sound?”
“Stay back,” Teo hisses. “And keep quiet!”
The machine has lurched into the light now. It wobbles on two feet, cradling some kind of projectile weapon in its arms.
My military tutor once told me that Rusties built their drones to look like people. Robots, they called them, from an old word meaning slave.
Typical.
The thing’s head has two sensors mounted on it, like eyes. The lenses look cracked and dusty, and make little whirring sounds as they try to focus.
I gently squeeze my knife, cycling it up to half pulse.
Lightning fast, the sensors twist around to point straight at me.
“Hey, drone!” Teo shouts, switching his armor lights on and off.
But the robot ignores him, swinging up the projectile weapon to aim at my hand. It only cares about the buzzing energies of the pulse knife.
Three things happen at the same time—
I throw my knife.
The robot opens fire.
Teo hurls himself in front of me.
A fusillade of bullets pounds at his armor, sending him staggering back into me, shattering his lights. We flail in the flashing darkness, projectiles whizzing all around us.
An explosion—the robot’s head torn into a thousand hot fragments by my knife.
Somehow its gun keeps firing. Teo wraps his arms around me, and I curl into a ball within the shelter of his armor. Every impact travels through him into me, like I’m inside a drum that someone’s beating hard and fast.
Finally the robot’s weapon expends itself.
The gunfire echoes in the chamber. Smoke and the dust of shattered concrete chokes my lungs. Teo rolls from me with a groan.
My pulse knife flits back into my open hand, feverish and humming.
Col squeezes in through the gap, his armor discarded, his rifle leveled at the headless robot. When he sees his little brother, he runs to us.
Teo still lies on the ground, his armor battered, blackened. His breathing sounds wrong.
Col kneels beside him, checking for wounds. “Teo!”
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