The Charm Runner (Broken Throne Book 1)

by Jamie Davis

  “That was creepy,” Morgan said, breaking the silence. “What is this place? I know you said you’ve never heard of it, but how could something like this exist without anyone knowing about it?”

  “I don’t know. I guess if security is tight enough, anything’s possible.”

  “Be careful, Victor. This doesn’t feel like a normal meeting with the Director. It’s the middle of the night and we’re in a secret facility. This is how people disappear.”

  “It will be alright, Morgan. The Director can be trusted. You’ll see.”

  Victor was trying to reassure himself as well. Because Morgan was right. Everything about this place felt wrong. He was a high-placed Red Legs officer in the city. How had he not known about this place before now?

  The designated lot and marked spaces were exactly where the voice had described. Victor parked in a visitor’s space. Theirs was the only car in the lot. He killed the engine and the interior light. Street lamps overhead lit the parking lot like daylight. He nodded at Morgan and handed her the ID card. Then they exited the vehicle and stood beside the car, looking around.

  Victor shrugged. “I guess we wait.”

  “That will not be necessary, Constable.” The voice behind him caused Victor to jump again. He spun around to see a female Red Legs officer with a constable’s tabs on her tunic collar, too.

  He nodded and gestured to Morgan. “This is Cadet Bennett. I didn’t get your name?”

  “I didn’t give it. If you would please follow me.” The woman turned and started towards the nearest building, the largest one of the group he could see. Ancient lettering covered the door, paint fading on old red bricks: Beth Steel.

  “I thought all the old steel mills had stopped operating years ago,” Victor said. Morgan followed them to the closest steel door.

  “No talking. Please hold your questions for later. I’m sure the Director can answer them all.”

  Victor closed his mouth and followed her into the building. He held the door for Morgan, then resumed his place behind the other constable as she led them deeper into the building.

  The short hallway turned into a metal catwalk, then the building opened into a large, cavernous space. The floor was several stories down. On it loomed a massive, humming machine with cables thicker than his arm, leading from it to giant floor-to-ceiling tanks that lined the walls. Technicians moved around the bus-sized device, making adjustments or repairs. For every technician, Victor saw at least one Red Leg.

  He’d fallen behind their guide and rushed to catch up. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw Morgan wide-eyed, staring around at everything.

  They reached the far wall after crossing above the machinery, then down a set of zig-zagging stairs leading to the floor below. Nearing the lower level, Victor recognized the Director, dressed in his usual black suit, standing with a horde of technicians in white lab coats and pointing at the machine. One of the technicians — or maybe a scientist — shook his head then shouted something at a nearby group and sent them scurrying about.

  The machine’s hum was more than a sound. It resonated inside him as they approached the Director and lab coats. Victor pressed a hand on his stomach to throttle his nausea.

  The female constable tapped him on the shoulder and shouted in his ear. He could barely hear her over the machine’s racket. “Stay here. The Director will be with you shortly. I will return later to escort you out.”

  He nodded, watching her cross the floor and exit via a door on the far wall, near the machine’s front end. At this angle, he could see eight examination chairs arranged in a row before the machine. They resembled dentist chairs, save the straps where a person’s limbs might be tied down. About six feet above each chair was something resembling a small, inverted satellite dish, pointed down over the chair’s head. Each dish was about eighteen inches across with one of those thick cables leading to its back. Victor fought a fresh round of chills.

  He felt Morgan step up behind him, her chest pressing into his shoulder. He didn’t admonish her. She felt great so close in this place, her contact reassuring.

  Everything else felt somehow wrong.

  Director Kane finished his conversation with the lab coats, dismissing them with a wave, then turned and walked over to where Victor and Morgan were standing nearby.

  “It’s fabulous, isn’t it?” the Director shouted over the noise. “It took years to develop the technology from initial concept to working prototype.”

  “Yes, sir,” Victor said. “What is it, sir?”

  “This is Project X. Our final solution to managing the chanter problem and their unnatural control over the world’s magic. I wanted to show it to you and your young companion here, since it was your involvement in breaking up the sting operation with Justice Harriman’s granddaughter that finally garnered me the Assembly support required to pass the final resolution.”

  “Resolution 85, sir?”

  “No, 85 was a public front, laying the groundwork for Resolution 86.”

  Morgan started to say something. Victor shook his head to stop her.

  “You have a question, young lady?” the Director asked. “It’s alright, Constable. This is a momentous evening and her help was instrumental to moving this project forward.”

  Victor stepped aside so that Morgan could move up next to him.

  “What do you mean by saying it’s a ‘final solution,’ sir?”

  “Simple, my dear,” said the Director, as the first group of people were led in and strapped into the waiting chairs in front of the machine. “Once we’ve extracted all the magic from the chanters using this machine, they’ll serve no purpose and thus must be disposed of once and for all.”

  Victor froze at the older man’s words. Morgan looked from the Director to him, shock blighting her eyes.

  The machine hummed louder.

  Then the screaming began.

  CHAPTER 45

  The serpentine trip back through the sewers took them on a winding route through the city’s bowels with Tris leading the way. At one point, they emerged through a maintenance access door into one of the city’s subway tunnels. The crew had to flatten themselves against the walls as an underground commuter train roared by. At another point, the tunnel had partially collapsed and they were forced to climb into the cold sewer water, wading through the city’s waste and refuse for several hundred yards.

  After an hour and a half, Tris scratched some debris covering a wall placard, read the letters and symbols, then turned to the group.

  “We’re here. That access tunnel leads to the basement level of the old Beth Steel Mill.”

  Danny stepped forward to move up the passageway. Cait grabbed him from behind and halted him with a jerk to his collar. She wasn’t gentle. He turned to complain but she held a finger to her lips and stepped past him before closing her eyes to mutter a spell while her fingers wove a complex pattern in the air.

  Winnie cast a view magic charm and tried to follow the weave, but it was unfamiliar ,and she got lost in the twisting flows as magic spread into the passage.

  After a few moments, Cait opened her eyes. “Multiple security measures have been deployed in the passage ahead, all installed in the last year or two and very sophisticated. I think I countered them all with some misdirection spells, but we should go slow and stay careful from here on out.”

  Winnie nodded. “Cait, you take the lead with Danny following to point you in the right direction. Then me, Tris, and Joey, you bring up the rear to watch our backs. Cool?”

  “Got it.” Joey smiled.

  Winnie exhaled. “Then lead on, Cait. We’re right behind you.”

  The group fell in line with careful, watchful steps, slowly approaching the steel mill above. After a bit, Tris said, “Can you hear that?”

  “What?” Winnie stopped. “I don’t hear anything.”

  “It’s more of a vibration, I guess. There’s some large equipment of some sort running ahead. This is supposed to be an abandoned
industrial complex. I think we found Project X.”

  Winnie nodded. They had been as sure as a hunch could get them. The fact that Tris could detect the hum of machinery ahead in a place that was supposed to have no activity, coupled with the advanced security measures, all pointed to this being the right place.

  Now, their plan had to work.

  They walked up a bit farther. Winnie could feel the vibrating hum beating back through the floor and walls. Cait held up a hand to stop them, waving them to stand flat against the wall. She moved up to a crossing passage ahead, peered around the corner, then backed up and returned to the group.

  “There’s a pair of Red Leg guards ahead, watching a door set in the wall.”

  Tris leaned forward and whispered, “That’s the door we want. It’ll take us into the main mill building above.”

  Cait nodded, looking around, thinking before sharing her plan. “Joey and Danny, come with me. I’m going to try a spell I learned in the army. It should disorient them for a few seconds, no more. When I finish the spell, you’ll see a flash from around the corner. That will be your signal to rush forward and tackle the guards. Grab their weapons and radios before they come to. I’ll be right behind you in case one of them wakes early. Got it?”

  Danny and Joey nodded, then the three of them advanced to the branch in the passage ahead. Winnie watched as Cait started casting her spell. There was a bright flash from around the corner, almost like someone had opened a window to a sunny day in a darkened room. She saw Danny and Joey disappear around the corner, followed closely by Cait. She and Tris moved up to the corner, peeking around it to see Danny and Joey wrestling on the ground with a pair of Red Legs.

  Cait waded into the fray and, with an expert blow to the base of each guard’s skull, knocked them unconscious. At least, she hoped that was all her friend had done. Winnie hated the Red Legs, but didn’t want any deaths on this raid if they could avoid it.

  She and Tris moved up to join the others while Danny and Joey used the guards’ cuffs to secure them to pipes along the wall. One of the two groaned as they were moved to the wall. She was thankful that they were alive. Awake or no, once secured, they wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

  Tris squeezed by the others, walked up the two concrete steps, and examined the heavy steel door. A security keypad was set in the wall beside it. Winnie wished they’d left one of the guards awake to grant them easy access.

  Tris leaned over to look at the keypad before taking a small container from her shoulder bag. She sprinkled a powder on the keys, letting the fine dust settle on the edges, then whispered something, stroking the keys with her fingertips. The dust glowed, hovered, then settled on only four keys. Grinning, Tris tapped out a combination with the four illuminated buttons.

  The steel door separated from its frame by a few inches with an audible click.

  Cait stepped up after Tris made way and poked her head through the narrow opening. She pulled back and gripped the heavy door, swinging it wide to make room for them to go through.

  The vibration they’d been feeling through the concrete floor now sounded like the end of the world as a louder machine hummed from the other side. Cait stood guard while Tris took the blueprints from her bag and conferred with Winnie and Danny. Joey leaned over and looked on.

  “Okay, we are here.” Tris pointed to a passage and door on the plans. Her hand followed it to the right and her finger stabbed a small room at the end. “This should be the main utility room for the building. From there, in theory, we can control power and maybe even some of the building’s security systems.”

  Her finger moved the other way in the passage to a spot where it split into stairs and another passage opening into a cavernous basement space.

  “These stairs go up into the main mill floor. That would be the logical location for a large piece of equipment. Power and utilities would connect there.”

  “Right, so we take the control room, then move upstairs to find Project X and stop it.” Winnie looked into her friends’ faces. They nodded.

  Each assumed their position, then Cait turned right and started down the basement hallway to the control room. The floor was lined with linoleum tiles; the walls appeared to be drywall, painted white. The ceiling was unfinished, with exposed pipes, conduits, and wires. At the end of the hallway was a door with a large glass window.

  Cait opened it and rushed inside.

  They heard a cry of alarm, then a whimpering shriek.

  The rest of them entered the room to find Cait standing over a cowering man in a filthy lab coat. He looked up as the group entered.

  “I didn’t do it. I’m just an electrical engineer. I swear I didn’t know what they planned to do.” The man kept repeating himself over and over, looking to them all and pleading his case.

  “I don’t care about you,” Winnie said, stepping toward him. “Where’s the machine? Where’s Project X?”

  “Upstairs. You have to believe me, I didn’t know what they wanted me to do or I would’ve said no. Now it’s too late. They’re already using it against the detainees.” The man buried his face in his hands.

  “There are people being held here?” Winnie looked around at her friends before turning back to the man. She lowered his hands from his eyes. “Where? Tell me now.”

  “Down the hallway. The way you came. Go to the stairs and turn left. They’ve created cages of a sort in the old basement storage room.”

  Cait grabbed him by the arm. “How about guards? How many guards on the detainees?”

  “Usually two or three, but they’re taking groups upstairs for processing now, so there’s probably only one staying down here with two escorting a group up … to the … ”

  Again, the man broke down.

  Winnie turned to her friends. “We have to hurry. They’re obviously using the machine on the chanters they’ve arrested. People are dying up there. Joey, you, Cait, and Tris need to free the people down the hallway, then get upstairs to find me and Danny.”

  “What if you run into guards?” Cait shook her head. “No way, I’m coming with you. Danny and Joey can handle the detention area guard.” She looked at the guy on the floor then to Joey. “This guy’s about your size. Put on his lab coat. You and Danny try to get close to the guard using his coat as a disguise. Then jump him. Can you do that?”

  Danny looked at Winnie — he clearly didn’t want to leave her side. He said, “Joey and I can do that. Tris should go with you two. You’ll need her tech knowledge to disable the machine, right?”

  Winnie nodded.

  Danny continued. “Great. So, we’ll get people down here out of the cages or cells or whatever, then send them on their way back through the sewers until they can get out. Once they’re all free, we’ll come upstairs and help you three.”

  They had a plan. The man on the floor had already doffed his lab coat. He handed it to Joey. “Are you going to kill me?”

  “No, but we can’t have you sounding the alarm.” Winnie closed her eyes and drew her magic, feeling the familiar thrill of the Sable magic as she reached out to use an unfamiliar flow. She sent a stab of force into the man then opened her eyes, the exhilaration of forbidden magic coursing through her.

  The man’s eyes rolled back in his head as he slumped backward and sprawled on the floor.

  “Winnie, what did you do?” Tris asked. “That’s forbidden, even for Sable users.”

  “It had to be done. We’re running out of time. I’m fine. Now let’s go.”

  Winnie led the group out of the room and back down the hallway until they reached a set of stairs. They stopped, then Danny and Joey split off to the left down another hallway. Joey led the way. Winnie watched them leave before turning her attention to the stairs.

  The machine was even louder now. She could hear its heartbeat pounding. And she heard something else over the noise. It took her a while to realize what it was.

  Winnie looked at Tris and Cait. They heard it, too.

&
nbsp; The trio started up the stairs, climbing toward the screaming above them.

  CHAPTER 46

  The stairs ended at a door with a small window.

  That was the first they saw of the Project X machine.

  They were careful not to be seen, but it was difficult not to burst through the door and end whatever was happening on the other side. Winnie tried to understand what kind of mind was capable of conjuring such a device.

  Eight chanters were strapped into chairs. When Winnie enabled her magical sight, she saw the thick ropes of magical flows pluming from their heads, captured by the shallow dishes above. Six of them seemed catatonic, showing no signs of a struggle. Two others were fighting hard — their flows were thinning, drawing back as they screamed in agony, violently shaking their heads while trying to flee the machine stealing magic and life from their body and soul.

  Winnie fell back with a gasp, looking up toward the catwalk, above the machine and its victims to Director Kane and Constable Holmes. But it was the person beside them, clinging to the constable, whose presence caused Winnie to cry out in pain and betrayal: Morgan, in Red Legs’ clothing.

  Cait looked over in alarm and stood to peer through the window. She must’ve seen Morgan, too. “That bitch.”

  “What?” Tris was last on the stairs and had yet to get a good look through the window.

  “It’s Morgan. She’s standing in there watching people die like she bought a ticket.” Cait pounded a clenched fist against her leg. “I’m going to kill her.”

  Winnie growled, “Not if I kill her first.” Then, “Before we take care of her, we have to stop that machine and destroy it.”

  “Let me up to the landing so I can see it better.” Tris muttered a viewing spell as she squeezed past the two of them, then stood to one side so she could look through the window without anyone seeing her from the other side. After a moment, she crouched down with the other two. “I think the control panel is key. If I can direct an electrical charge into the interface, I might be able to overload the internal computer circuits and initiate a shut down.”