by India Arden
Mr. Caffeine hauled over an industrial metal cart of some kind and presented it to me with a flourish. Man-Bun said, “Your carriage awaits.”
“And what is that?”
“Pallet jack.” He crossed his arms and waited for me to climb onto the filthy thing, and when I didn’t, said, “It’s the pallet jack, or nothing.”
“I’ll hobble. Thanks.”
“You might want to reconsider. It’s a pretty long haul.”
“That thing’s filthy. My dress—”
As I complained, he clamped his lips together to squelch his laughter, but Mr. Caffeine wasn’t quite so successful. He snorted.
I glanced down. The front of my dress was peppered with tiny holes rimmed in charred black, with pale dots of skin showing through.
Not funny.
I swung my legs over the side of the couch and tested my weight. My bandaged foot stung. Well, I’d always claimed to be pragmatic, hadn’t I? Grudgingly, I climbed on, and let Man-Bun and Mr. Caffeine haul me off to…wherever we were going.
Turns out, the estate where I’d grown up—the compound—wasn’t the only place riddled with warrens of hallways. The difference was, I knew the damn compound. This place, whatever it was? I felt completely turned around.
Utterly lost.
There was a sameness to the hallways here. Linoleum, cinderblock and flickering neon lights. Not just industrial, and not merely ugly, but hollow and abandoned, too.
We navigated a building easily as large as any I’d grown up in, one rusted wheel squeaking in a monotonous rhythm all the way. Just as I thought that sound would drive me absolutely crazy, we came upon an old steel door stenciled with the word Security. Man-Bun went in first, then came back with a rolling office chair. “Your throne, Your Highness.”
One-footed, I hopped over to it and sat down without comment.
He hauled me into the room. Mr. Caffeine followed with the armload of clothes.
The inside of the old security station looked even more dated and abandoned than the cinder block hallways. A bank of dead monitors dominated the room, and a computer older than me lurked on the desk, buried under a thick layer of dust. Metal lockers covered the far wall, their edges eaten by rust. There was a couch here, too. An ugly tweed thing with a tacky gold duvet thrown across the seat.
Man-Bun pointed to a door beside the lockers and said, “Washroom’s that way, but don’t drink from the tap. It’s rainwater—good enough to shower with, but definitely not potable. There’s soda in the last locker.” He planted his hands on his hips and looked around the room. “Anything else? Hungry?”
As if I’d trust anything they gave me to eat. “I’m fine.”
He shrugged. “Get some rest. You look like you need it.”
Mr. Caffeine waited by the door, fidgeting like ten pounds of energy in a five-pound sack. “She’ll be fine—you will, won’t you?—she just said so herself—so hurry up. Time’s wasting.”
“We’ll come check on you later,” Man-Bun said. When I didn’t acknowledge the threat, he gave me one last look, then pulled the door shut behind him. It locked with an audible clack.
I sat there in the decrepit office chair for a long moment, fighting off angry tears, before I realized there was a mail slot in the thick metal door—and through it, I could hear the two of them struggling to turn around the pallet jack.
“Just push it backwards.”
“It doesn’t steer that way.”
“Fine, then bring it around.”
“The wheel’s stuck….”
They bickered easily, like friends who’d known each other forever. Like brothers.
Or maybe not. Heaven knows I felt nothing for my own horrid sibling but loathing and dread.
“Seriously, this was the best you could come up with?” Man-Bun teased. “A pallet-jack?”
“Short notice! It was either this or a shopping cart—and I could only imagine how well that would’ve gone over.”
They chuckled together amiably, and Man-Bun said, “I don’t think you scored too many points anyhow.”
“Who says I was trying?”
“Dude…come on.”
More quiet laughter. “Well, can you blame me?” said Mr. Caffeine. “Wowsa.”
“No argument from me.” A clank. “Wait, hold on—there, you’ve got it.” A squeal of metal sounded, followed by the regular squeak-squeak-squeak of the single wonky wheel. Man-Bun said, “But watch yourself—we all know how you are once you get talking. Everyone is a product of their environment, so consider her thoroughly brainwashed. The minute she can walk, she’ll run right back to the Arcane Masters and repeat every last word you’ve said.”
Their voices grew so faint, I almost missed his reply. Almost. “Don’t worry. I’ve got the perfect way to keep her quiet.”
They laughed. The wheel squeak faded, faded…and was gone.
My blood ran cold. These men were as sociopathic as my brother. In fact, they’d kill me without a second thought and then stand there snickering over my corpse.
How stupid of me to think I was any safer here than I was back at the estate with Chad and Gus. I’d thought the newscasters were spinning their stories, but no. The Rebels were just as cold-blooded and ruthless as they’d been made out to be. And now, I was truly alone.
Unshed tears stung my eyes. I blinked them back, took a deep breath, and wheeled around the room to take stock of my surroundings. Door? Locked. Weapons? None. Not unless I wanted to papercut someone to death with a fifteen-year old takeout menu.
Facilities? Unfortunately, yes.
I’d never been in the proximity of a urinal, but the white porcelain fixture on the wall couldn’t have possibly been anything else. I recoiled in disgust and wheeled myself away.
There was a toilet in a metal stall—no door—and beyond that, showers. Group showers. The type I’d only seen in a horror movie with a high school locker room scene. Multiple shower heads were set in a tiled wall, separated from the rest of the room by only a waist-high half wall. The tile was white, but the grout was vivid with rust. Even so, it looked like the showers saw regular use. A huge pile of mis-matched towels was stacked on a bench in the corner, and four robes hung from hooks on the wall.
I spotted embroidery on one of the robes and wheeled myself closer. Monogrammed. It would be a relief to think of the Rebels as something more than their nicknames, but when I pulled down the robe to get a better look at the lettering, I saw the stitching was distorted and half-finished. I pulled down the next robe and found another partial embroidery. Everything, in fact, had a screwed up monogram. Every last robe and towel. More department store returns.
I dropped the robe I was holding on the floor. Who cared if I knew their real names, anyway?
My head sagged. I caught a whiff of my dress and decided that as horrid as the shower might be, the burnt-hair smell of fried silk was worse, if only because it reminded me of my brother. My brother who now had a glowing sigil on his body. And an extractor in his arsenal.
Made from the components I’d smuggled him.
When I tried to unzip the scorched red dress, it saved me the trouble by splitting right down the front. I grabbed a monogrammed gym bag off the floor and dumped out the contents. Normal things. Underwear, socks, cheap shampoo. Nothing I could use as a weapon. No razors. Not even a nail file. But I could use the bag. I zipped it over my bandaged foot, then hobbled over to the shower and turned on the tap.
Fine jets of water sprayed from the pathetic shower head. It was tepid. And no matter which way I turned the tap, the temperature stayed exactly the same. It smelled like rust. But since that was better than what I currently smelled like, I grudgingly eased myself under the spray.
My panties were the only thing that hadn’t been ruined. I slipped out of them (shuffling the gym bag briefly off my foot) and started rinsing them out.
How had it come to this—where all I had left of my old life was a single pair of panties, and the haunting memorie
s of the people my brother had maimed or killed?
I couldn’t have done anything about the Greek Fire, but the extractor? It wouldn’t exist, if it wasn’t for me. My fault. All of it. A few larger drops within the needle-like shower spray pattered onto my hands as they clutched the silky wet fabric.
It was a relief to finally stop fighting the tears.
I didn’t wallow long. When the shower stream began to sputter, not only was there no time for conditioner, but I barely rinsed the shampoo from my hair. I stood there with a gym bag on my foot, dripping, forlorn, and exhausted, but all the wishing in the world wasn’t going to make water magically spout from the shower head. Sighing, I dropped wetly onto the decrepit office chair and wheeled myself back into the security station to get dressed.
One of the returned bras almost fit me, and the utilitarian cotton panties were fresh out of a plastic pouch. The gray T-shirt had a snag, marked with a square of blue tape, down by the hem—and one leg of the stretchy yoga pants was about an inch longer than the other. When I pried open a rusted locker and discovered a small mirror, I expected to find myself looking like a laughingstock. Strangely enough, though, I didn’t. I just looked pale, and tired, and scared.
According to the punch-clock on the wall, it was nearly dawn. I’d been awake for twenty-four hours. I wasn’t sleepy, though. More like nauseated and strung-out. I attempted to sleep on the ugly tweed couch—for maybe five minutes—but I couldn’t drift off without knowing I’d exhausted all my options.
There was still power in the building, judging by all the buzzing fluorescents, so I set about seeing what else in the security station still worked. The old computer was bricked. The land line was dead. A dusty, tangled wad of wires and cables hung from the desk-mounted monitors like they’d been ripped out ages ago. But modern electronics were so much easier than the weird fittings I was used to.
It was a tight squeeze, but I wedged myself under the desk and took a good look at the backs of the monitors. I did my best to avoid thinking about the extractor as I matched the cables with their jacks in a thoroughly joyless game of concentration. The component I’d ripped out of Blaze’s gun—was it something scarce, something that would take time and finesse to replace? Or was it just a simple and interchangeable wad of tubing?
I’d just about given up on the monitors when one of the screens flickered to life. It was nothing more useful than a shot of an empty hallway, but what it meant was huge. The security system was still online.
Filled with renewed purpose, I shoved myself back under the desk and started plugging cables for all I was worth. Some of them had the ends torn out and would need to be rewired, but some of them worked. In all, I got about half of the monitors up and running.
And one of those monitors was trained right on the ringleader.
He was seated in a bland white kitchenette, pondering the decanter on the table in front of him. Man-Bun and Mr. Caffeine—the guy who’d cheerfully proposed killing me to keep me from talking—lounged on a pair of cheap, shabby chairs. Man-Bun’s feet were propped on a cardboard box. My would-be murderer had his feet pulled up on the seat and was hugging his knees, talking animatedly.
He really didn’t look like a murderer. But does anyone, really?
A glint of motion on another monitor caught my eye. An outdoor shot—a guy on a bike, riding up an overgrown path beside a really generic-looking cinderblock building. The building might’ve been unmemorable, but the guy in black wasn’t. Goth Boy was back. Finally. He wouldn’t let the other guys do away with me…would he?
Maybe I didn’t want to know the answer.
My excitement at being able to spy on the Rebels was short-lived, once I realized I had no idea what they were saying. Frankly, it was frustrating. A bunch of talking I couldn’t hear. When my eyelids started to droop, I planted my elbows on the monitor station—directly into a keypad.
Static sounded from a tiny speaker, and I jerked upright, suddenly very awake.
The sound wouldn’t play all at once, not like the monitors. I’d need to figure out how to toggle through them. I jabbed frantically at the keypad until, just as Goth Boy walked in, I activated the speaker in the break room where the guys were hanging out. “About time,” Mr. Caffeine said. “Edward insisted we couldn’t start without you—but two more minutes and I would’ve worn down his resolve.”
I gasped out loud. I had the ringleader’s name, now: Edward. In the grand scheme of things, it hardly made any difference. Except…it somehow did. The name made everything real.
Edward gestured toward the decanter and said, “It’s clear we need to deal with this Arcanum so no one can take it away from us. We’ve all sacrificed. We’ve all dedicated ourselves to studying the manuscripts. We’re all worthy of the Arcanum. No single one of us can make a claim that we’re more deserving than any other.”
Was it weird of me to be choked up by his little speech? Because if my brother or any of his awful friends said those words, they’d be nothing more than lip service. But Edward obviously believed them.
“I propose we choose randomly,” he said. “Do you all agree?”
One by one, each of the other guys solemnly nodded, and murmured, “Aye.”
“Then it’s settled.” He grabbed a box of dry spaghetti from the kitchenette cabinet, broke off four equal lengths, and shortened one by half. He held them out, and at once, all four drew.
The short stick was his.
“Two out of three?” he suggested, and the other guys rolled their eyes. Mr. Caffeine said, “We’ve known each other forever, and we all know you’re so painfully honest, you wouldn’t steal a bottle of water if your ass was on fire. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. Just pour out the Arcanum and see if there’s enough.”
Edward shook out his arms and huffed out a cleansing breath. “Okay.” He nodded, as if convincing himself. “Three drams?”
“Three drams,” Man-Bun confirmed. He pawed through a cabinet full of mis-matched glasses and mugs and managed to come up with a tempered glass measuring cup. “Three-eighths of a fluid ounce.”
“Maybe we should double check.”
“I’d stake my mixologist reputation on it,” Man-Bun said. “So, stop stalling, and start pouring.”
A far cry from the ceremonial words my father would have spoken. But then, Edward was a far cry from any of the Aspirants at yesterday’s ceremony. All eyes were on him as he decanted three drams into the measuring cup…
…and kept right on pouring.
One by one, the guys made sense of what they were looking at. Man-Bun fiddled anxiously with his beard. Goth Boy’s eyes widened. Mr. Caffeine tried to stifle a gasp. And when he’d emptied the steel bottle, Edward took in the situation, then straightened up and announced, “Looks like we don’t need to choose after all.”
14
“No!” I screamed at the monitors, but of course they couldn’t hear me. “It’s too much! That’s not Arcanum! It can’t be!”
Maybe these guys had managed to appropriate the Arcane Masters’ readings and studies, but unless you’ve seen the vast distiller for yourself, you have no idea what sort of prep and effort it takes to make a single drop of the precious liquid. No way could that much Arcanum exist all at once. No freaking way.
It was a trap. It had to be. My brother had filled the bottle with elemental mercury to ensure the Arcanum remained under his control.
While the guys painstakingly divvied up whatever was in that bottle, I fought down the urge to be sick. Acid licked at my throat at the thought of watching them all swallow a deadly decoy. Probably the only reason I didn’t vomit was that I hadn’t eaten since just after Flood’s ceremony. And that felt like an entire lifetime ago.
After what happened to Fathom, I couldn’t bear to see anyone else die. I pounded on the steel door and screamed myself raw, but it was no use. Whatever this building was, wherever they’d stashed me, I was just too far away to warn them. By the time they stood around the table w
ith their four shots, I was sobbing. “Fine! Poison yourselves. I don’t care.”
Except, I did. For two of them, at least. Goth Boy had bandaged my foot with such tenderness, and Edward could’ve ditched me back at the estate…but he hadn’t. I might not entirely trust them, but I couldn’t stand the thought of them imbibing a dangerous metal—or, worse, watching them disintegrate. I wrapped my arms around myself tightly, and chanted, “It won’t happen. It’s not real. It’s not real.”
But, of course, I was terrified that it was. The thick, silvery liquid in the measuring cup had started to tremble, just like the Arcanum that turned my brother into the monster, Blaze.
Scratch that. He was already a monster. But now he could throw fire.
On the tiny black and white monitor, the four guys hefted their glasses, and looked around the table. “Well,” Edward said, “this is it. For the good of the people.”
“Here, here,” they all murmured. And as one, they bent their heads to the elixir.
Alone in the security station, tears rolled freely down my cheeks. “It’s not real,” I repeated yet again, not to convince myself, but as a way of begging the universe not to destroy them in their hubris.
I almost thought I’d gotten away with it—that Blaze had tricked me into risking my life for a flask of water after all—when the four of them stiffened. Not water, then: poison. A solvent with the boiling point of a human’s body temperature. Something that would vaporize and eat through all their mucous membranes, the ultimate screw-you to anyone bold enough to “deprive” my brother of something.
A huge sob rocked my body, just as the Rebels threw back their heads and inhaled in a great, loud roar. The sound was eerie enough coming from one throat, but four at once? It made a haunting harmony.
Mr. Caffeine was the first to metabolize the effects. He clutched at his belly and doubled over. I held my breath and my heart stuttered. When he straightened up, he wasn’t poisoned, not at all. He yanked up his shirt—and glowing there on his solar plexus was the double-circle symbol. The sigil of Air. “Zephyr,” he said, laughing with pure joy. “That’s my name. My true name.”