by S. D. Stuart
He gripped the claw around his neck with both hands, lifting himself up to relieve some of the strain on his spine. “I was selected because I’m the chosen hybrid leader, not because of Nero.”
The Tin Man did a very strange thing.
He laughed.
“All of the information we have on this weapon, its origin, its purpose, what it can do, everything we know, comes from a single source. Nero. His loyalty was always in question. And since your loyalty is aligned to him, your loyalty is in question. And you do not have the best track record.”
He struggled against the claw as it tightened around his throat. “I’m not doing this for Nero. I’m not even doing this for the hybrids.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I’m here for her. I’m here to help Dorothy.”
The claw relaxed slightly and he coughed as he gasped for breath.
The Tin Man did not release him, but eased up the pressure on his throat a little more. “Explain.”
“Nero and the Southern Marshal, they asked me to help. I was going to say no until I found out Dorothy was going coming along. I came to protect her.”
“And you’ve been doing such a wonderful job. You expect me to believe you have no interest in the weapon?”
He could barely shake his head, it was pressed so tightly against the bulkhead of the airship. “No. I’m only here because of her.”
“If she were no longer part of the equation, would you still want the weapon?”
“No.”
The claw tightened around his throat. “I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true.”
“Prove it.”
“I don’t know how to prove it.”
The unblinking amber eye came within inches of his face. “I do.”
The Tin Man pointed his other arm at Dorothy. The claw shot out, trailing a rusted chain. She did not have time to react before the claw clamped on her head, covering her face. The Tin Man yanked his arm backward and the unmistakable sound of Dorothy’s neck splintering as it shattered from the twisting force echoed in Caleb’s ears.
It took him a moment to realize the person screaming was him.
“Nooooo!”
The Tin Man retracted his claw from the lifeless Dorothy.
“Dorothy is no longer part of the equation. Do not follow me. I will not spare your life again.”
He released Caleb and used his claws to tear through the side of the airship, and then he was gone.
Caleb stumbled across the uneven floor and picked up Dorothy, cradling her in his arms. Her head flopped awkwardly to one side, her eyes staring off into the blank space.
He slowly swiped his fingers across her face and shut her eyelids to let her sleep one last time. He cradled her head in one hand and held her close. Everything he had done to keep her safe. Everyone he tried to protect her from. But the one she needed protection from the most, had been by their side the whole time.
From outside he heard the reports of gunfire followed by screaming. And then silence.
The Tin Man had claimed more victims.
Chapter 29
The Southern Marshal instructed her pilot to land the airship a hundred meters away from the crash site.
Surrounded by twenty armed men, she picked her way through the dead bodies and up the hill to where two-thirds of the airship still stuck out of the cave at an awkward angle.
One of her soldiers vomited when his foot nudged a rock that turned out to be a severed human head. She looked more closely at the bodies scattered about. These were not victims of the crash. They had been killed after.
She’d never seen this kind of brutality before. Not even at night on a full moon. Whoever had done this clearly deserved to be in OZ.
A chilling thought ran down her spine. Whoever had done this might also have the weapon.
She gave the soldier with the weak stomach a stern look. He wiped his mouth and stood up straight. “Won’t happen again, ma’am.”
She bent down and rolled the head over to get a look at the face. The dead out here wasn’t anyone she knew. They also didn’t look like any of Levi’s soldiers.
She pointed to several strategic points around them. “Set up a perimeter. I don’t want anyone sneaking up on us while we inspect the crash.
Several soldiers barked a firm, “Yes, ma’am!” and ran off in different directions. It paid to have a well-oiled machine.
The soldier closest to the wreckage called back. “Survivors!”
Guns pointed at the airship as an access panel popped out from the side of the gondola and clattered to the ground.
The first person to drop out of the access panel was Levi. His shoulders dropped with a heavy sigh as he raised his hands. “I know, I know.”
In three large strides, she was in front of him. “What happened here?”
He lowered his hands and shrugged his shoulders as he looked around. “This is what you get when you put a cat in charge.”
“What?!”
“We caught up with your friends and captured them. Somehow, they managed to take control of the airship from my crew. I tell you, you can’t get good help these days. Maybe when this is all over, you can tell me where you train your people.”
He was acting more like a friend than a prisoner at gunpoint as he continued.
“Nero put that cat creature in charge, and the first thing he did was ram the ship into the side of a mountain. Nearly killed us all.”
So, everyone was on the ship. “Where is he now?”
He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Probably knocked out in the command room. Idiot.”
Without saying a word, her team understood her nonverbal commands and hauled Levi to the side, putting him with the rest of his soldiers as they climbed out of the airship. With so many guns pointed at them, they knew better than to try anything.
She had to get inside and talk with Nero.
She clambered up, grasping the handholds on the side of the gondola, and pulled herself up through the access panel.
She worked her way through the twisted wreckage until she reached the opening to the control room.
Just inside, Nero, Jasper, and Caleb stood over the body of Dorothy.
Caleb heard her come in and looked up briefly before lowering his head again. She could see the grief written in his face.
Nero’s face was puffy and bruised. Nobody else looked as bad as he did, so his injuries were probably sustained prior to the crash. She would have to thank Levi for that later in her own special way.
She approached the small group. “Where’s the weapon?”
Caleb moved so swiftly, she didn’t have time to react before he had an arm under her chin and pinned her to the floor. “Is that all you care about?”
She struggled against him. “That’s all that matters.”
He fought back and held her down. “If you haven’t noticed, one of the pieces of the puzzle is gone, forever. It doesn’t matter where the weapon is now.”
“Where is the weapon?”
“I think the Tin Man took it.”
She stopped struggling and stared defiantly into his eyes. “Where is the key?”
Jasper spoke up. “The Tin Man said it would be safest with him.”
She craned her neck to look over at Jasper. “And you gave it to him?”
He nodded.
She wanted to scream and lash out at the stupidity of everyone in the room. Instead, all she said was, “Then it’s too late.”
Caleb frowned at her. “Too late for what? Nobody can open the box without Dorothy, and she’s dead.”
She closed her eyes and imagined the worst. “There’s something you don’t know about the Tin Man.”
Chapter 30
The Tin Man pulled the box that contained the ancient hybrid weapon deep into a cave, miles from the crash site. He set the box in a corner of the cave and settled down in front of it, illuminating it in the darkness with his amber eye.
A loud clunk echoed from deep inside the Tin Man, followed by a rush of steam that spewed from the crevice made when his back split open down the middle.
The steam quickly dissipated and human hands reached up to grab a pull bar situated just below the back of Tin Man’s neck.
The arms flexed and the bar snapped down with a click. The occupant’s helmet rose up, allowing a lock of soft curls to unfurl out the back of the Tin Man.
Dorothy stretched, flexing her upper back, first one way, and then the other. Her back responded with a series of pops.
Dorothy used her arms to pull herself out through the back of the Tin Man suit and dropped to the ground.
Her legs wobbled and she leaned heavily on the side of the Tin Man for support. Against the warnings of her father, she had stayed in the suit too long and her mind had adjusted to how she moved with the suit. It was like having to adjust to walking on dry land after having lived on a boat for a year.
She reached back up into the operator’s compartment and withdrew the key Jasper had given her.
She stumbled around the front of the Tin Man and knelt in front of the box, casting a shadow over it when she came between it and the single point of dim amber light.
She spun the concentric circles embedded in the puzzle key until the letters spelled her last name in ancient Greek.
Needles protruded out from the handle with a snap and she gripped the key, grimacing slightly as they punctured the flesh of her hand.
She twisted the key in the lock and heard it engage, triggered by the blood running through her veins.
The lock sprung open and the lid popped up slightly with a faint hiss.
She rested her hand on the lid and felt heat emanating from the opening. She lifted the lid and peered into the dark box. For some reason, she had expected it to be glowing, much like the emerald heart her father had given her a lifetime ago.
Inside the box, was only darkness. She shifted slightly to allow the light coming from the Tin Man to reveal the contents of the box.
In the faint light, she could just make out the tip of something inside the box. She reached in and pulled out a tiny pyramid that rested lightly in the palm of her hand.
It was much smaller and lighter than she had expected, considering how big and heavy the box was that held it. She really hadn’t known what to expect, but for some reason she thought it would be bigger. At least it should have been heavier.
She positioned it closer to the light and inspected it. It was a perfect little pyramid, complete with its own tiny gold capstone. All four sides leading down from the capstone were polished to a smooth finish except for a single groove closer to the bottom that ran along all four sides. Flipping it over to the bottom revealed the only stylized etching anywhere on the pyramid.
She angled it slightly to let the shadows fill the etched design. It revealed the picture of an eye with lines shooting out of it in all directions.
She traced the etched eye delicately with a finger. The center of the eye was made from a different material and looked like it could open with a spiraling motion like the iris of a picture camera. She dug at the center of the eye with her thumbs, but it refused to open. There must be a switch or lever somewhere on the pyramid.
With the exception of the etching on the bottom, the rest of the pyramid was as smooth as polished marble. The only thing different was the gold capstone on the top.
She gripped the capstone with the tips of her fingers and slowly twisted it clockwise. It refused to move. She twisted harder, but the capstone didn’t budge. Maybe that wasn’t the switch to open the eye. Or, maybe she was turning it the wrong way.
She gripped it again and twisted counterclockwise. It resisted slightly before starting to turn.
Intense pain shot through her other hand, the one spread across the base of the pyramid. She roared out in pain and dropped the pyramid, the capstone springing back to its original position. She had stupidly held her hand across the eye as she opened it.
She inspected her injured hand in the light. Her glove had deteriorated at the center of her palm. Despite being a new leather glove, it looked to be a hundred years old and was peeling apart.
She bit the tips of the fingers on her glove, and tugged it off her hand. The skin in her palm had blistered as if she had touched the business end of a white-hot fireplace poker.
She had barely turned the capstone. If this was what the weapon could do in the matter of a single second, when it was only partially opened, what could it do when it was fully opened?
She picked up the weapon again and turned it around in her hand. She had seen something that matched the same size and dimensions as the bottom of the pyramid before.
She turned around and stared at the small square panel set into the front of the Tin Man suit.
Now she knew where she had seen the exact same picture of the pyramid’s eye before.
Inside the suit was a button with that same picture. She had pushed it before, but nothing happened.
She held the base of the pyramid up to it. It was exactly the same size.
With her gloved fist, she pounded on the faceplate. It popped off, leaving an inverse pyramid depression in the front of the suit.
She rotated the pyramid until the eye was oriented correctly.
She pushed the pyramid into the front of the suit and it nestled in with a click.
It was a perfect fit.
If she pushed the button inside the suit now, something just might happen.
Something bad to whoever, or whatever, she pointed it at.
She should rest and spend the night in the cave.
But life was all about taking calculated risks.
And she had waited long enough.
It was time to get her father, and finally get out of OZ.
Chapter 31
The flight back across OZ felt like it took no time at all. The last thing Caleb remembered was abandoning the automaton body of Dorothy in the wreckage of the crashed airship. The next thing he was aware of was stepping out of the Southern Marshal’s airship onto the landing platform of her castle in the Southern Territories, hundreds of kilometers away.
The last several hours were nothing but a blur. He had been unable to hold on to any single thought for longer than the moment it took to think it.
As he stepped onto the platform, a frail old man in a wheelchair blocked him. He tried to step around the wheelchair, but the old man was surprisingly agile for being so thin and fragile. He spun the wheelchair around and blocked him again.
Enough with people always trying to get in his way. “Is there something I can do for you?”
The man looked up at him, sadness written on his face. “You have to help my daughter.”
“Sorry. I’m out of the hero business.”
He tried to step around the wheelchair again, but the man rolled over his foot and stopped him cold in his tracks. He yanked up on the wheelchair and pulled his foot out.
“What is your problem old man?”
“My problem is, you’re the only one who can help me and you just told me no. I don’t accept that answer.”
“I’m not the only one who can help you.”
“Yes you are.”
“And why is that?”
“Because you’re the only one who can get through to my daughter.”
Caleb sighed. The only way to get rid of this old man was to appease him. He looked around at the other individuals on the platform. He didn’t see a girl anywhere. “Okay. Fine. Where’s your daughter?”
The man in the wheelchair gave him a quizzical look. “I was hoping you could tell me.”
Caleb finally looked the man in the eyes. The eyes that looked back at him were familiar. They were the eyes of someone else he knew in the face of a man he had never met before.
The man pleaded with him. “That’s right. Dorothy is my daughter. And only you can save her.”
Caleb laughed at the absurdity of his comment. “
Save her? She’s an army of one in that suit you built. Nobody, and nothing, can touch her. What could I, possibly, save her from?”
“Herself.”
Chapter 32
Less than an hour after speaking to Dorothy’s father on the platform, Caleb stood on the highest balcony he could find at the Southern Marshal’s castle. His hands gripped the railing and he closed his eyes as the wind ruffled the fur on his face.
His sense of loss was replaced by anger.
Anger at the Southern Marshal for lying to him.
Anger at Dorothy for lying to him.
Anger at himself for being distracted enough to believe the lies.
He should’ve been able to tell, by smell alone, the scarecrow version of Dorothy was not the real Dorothy. But he had spent so much time trying to get back to her, that when he finally did, or at least he thought he did, he eagerly accepted it as the truth.
He had been so lost in his self-deprecating thoughts, he hadn’t noticed the Southern Marshal coming up behind him. He jumped a little when she spoke.
“I come up here often to ponder life’s imponderables. I find the peace and quiet enables me to do my best thinking. Don’t you agree?”
He wasn’t happy with the intrusion into his private time, even by the Southern Marshal. “Yes, when it’s quiet.”
She either didn’t pick up on his hidden subtext, or didn’t care. She continued on in her easy conversational manner.
“I’m not in the habit of apologizing, and I’m not going to start now.”
He didn’t bother to mask the sarcasm in his own voice. “You sure do have a funny way of apologizing.”
“Everything I do serves a purpose.”
He turned on her. “What was the purpose in giving me a fake Dorothy? You didn’t think I was going to figure it out sooner or later?”
She shrugged. “Given enough time, you would have figured it out. But the time we had was short, and you were distracted with the quest. I fully expected all of you to return. I would have disposed of the scarecrow Dorothy, and you would have been reunited with the real one, under the claim that her memories were restored. You quite possibly might never have found out.”