Jamb (The Cornerstone Series)

by Misty Provencher

  I swing my gaze back to the blond. My hero. I figure he’s going to stand up and tell me he’s one of the good guys, one of the Ianua, but instead, he stands up and kicks the redhead’s limp body, growling, “I seen her first.”

  Uh oh.

  The blond turns to me, his gun still bumping at his thighs. A smile splashes across his face like Prom cologne. My stomach lurches.

  “Want to see the big Ball, pretty thing?” the blond asks. The real answer is: no, no I do not. But, because I feel like I’ve got chunks of my lunch stuck in my throat, I just nod, swallow the fear, and smile.

  “Okay then,” the blond exhales a happy puff. “Just you though. Leave your…escort…out here.”

  Milo’s about to object, but I cut him off.

  “Cool,” I say.

  “Not cool,” Milo says.

  “Cool.” The blond winks at me. He’s not a bad looking guy, but there is a current of something racing under his smile that makes me want to run away as fast as I can. He motions for Milo to sit on the stool and when he does, the blond goes into guard-mode with a smile, “Shoes.”

  “You want my shoes?” Milo points at his feet.

  The blond shoots me a grin. “Didn’t bring him for his brains, huh?” Then, to Milo, “Yeah, Einstein, your shoes.”

  Milo takes them off and hands them to the guard. The guy turns and whips them down the hall. The glass shards fly up where they land. The guy turns back to Milo and smiles.

  “Just stay put until we get back,” he says. Milo rests the balls of his feet on the top rung of the stool and smiles back dryly, as the guard fishes a key from his pocket and unlocks the door.

  “After you, pretty thing,” he says. I consider diving at him and trying to knock him out, but he’s got a gun. I don’t know if I could take him before he shot one of us, or both of us. He seems pretty with it, for one of The Fury. Instead, I hand Willow to Milo and step into the room. The guard slides in behind me, but stops me before I can get very far.

  “I’ll need your shoes too, sweet thing,” he says. There is a half moon of clear floor around the door, and beyond it, more glass that sparkles in the dim light, like ice. There is only more sphere of bare floor at the opposite end of the garage, and in it’s center is what I’ve come for. Zane’s enormous Free Ball sits in the clear patch, beyond the field of glass. The thing fills the space, from ceiling to floor, and nearly touches the walls on either side, but somehow, the Ball looks smaller than I remember.

  I hand the guard my shoes and he opens the door to the hall and throws them, like torpedoes. My shoes land close to Milo’s. The guard fist pumps and slams the door shut on Milo, who is craning his neck to peek inside at me. With all the glass in both directions, I see the reason for throwing the shoes so far. Neither of us are going to run anywhere, or get very far at all, with all this glass on the floor.

  “You didn’t really want to see this big ol’ heap of garbage, did you?” The guard spans out his hand on the door, as if I might try to escape.

  “Actually, I did want to see it,” I say.

  “Oh yeah?” The guard flips the lock on the door.

  “Everybody was right. I heard all kinds of rumors that there was a huge beach ball down here.”

  He doesn’t take his eyes off me. “Doesn’t look like a beach ball to me. More like a soccer ball.”

  “Yeah, I guess it does. It’s a weird thing. I wonder how it works.”

  “Why do you care?”

  “Because I’m into stuff like that.”

  “Oh yeah?” He raises his eyebrows. He swoops in, like he’s going to plant a kiss on me. I duck out of the way with a giggle. When he straightens up, he’s got a jagged smile on his face. He likes the game. “This kind of thing turns you on?”

  “You could say that.” I glance over at the Ball again. I need to be sure the Hydrohome is in it, so the Celare could pick up the signal and bring us back. But if we’re launched without it, we won’t come down until we crash and there’s no telling how that would turn out. From this distance, I can’t tell where the Hydrohome would even be, much less see it.

  I pout a little at the guard. “It doesn’t look like much from here. It’s hard to get excited about it at all, when I can’t even see it.”

  “Huh,” the guard says. “I could fix that for you, maybe.”

  “You’ll lend me your shoes?”

  “No, silly thing,” he laughs. “I’m going to give you a piggy-back over there.”

  Oh great. “You’d do that for me?”

  “Sure. Get on my back for a ride, and then, you can get on yours and give me a ride.” He grins. I hold back the vomit. I smile.

  “Sure,” I say. “Turn around so I can hop on.”

  And the minute he does, I club the pervert as hard as I can, right on the neck where Garrett showed me, and the guy drops like a brick house. I locate his Cavis and swipe it like a credit card, buying myself all the time I need. Then I take off his boots, sling his gun over my shoulders like a messenger bag, and crunch my way over in the guard’s huge boots, to the Free Ball.

  The first thing I notice is that someone’s been working on it. The Ball isn’t all mangled like it was. There is a small pile of tree branches off to one side and a bunch of gummy, orange rubber patches have been stuck all over the zillion puncture sites that happened when we landed in the tree. There’s a huge generator-looking thing attached to the side, a quarter of the length away from the base. Thick hoses, attached to huge tanks of gas, snake across the floor behind the Ball.

  The second thing I notice is that there is a solid, gray ceiling on the garage. This isn’t Zane’s barn. And there’s no way The Ball is going to bust through a cement ceiling like it did through the wood one.

  And there’s something else. The harnesses have been modified. There are strange rubber scars around the outside of the Ball, where the harnesses used to be. They’ve all been moved. In the dim light, the harness buckles hang down inside the Ball like grizzly, black shreds of skin. I don’t know why someone would move them.

  I climb up inside, pulling myself through the bars that have also been changed. A few are still in the process of welding, but most have been covered over with fresh, squishy rubber. Then I see something even stranger. The base of the Ball isn’t on the floor. The entire Ball is tipped at an angle.

  I look at the bottom, and then up to the top. My breathing seems loud in the silent garage. I finally see what I am looking for. The odd little arrowhead of the Hydrohome, poked out from the rubber, at the very crown of the Ball. And that crown is aimed at the ramp, where the light is coming from.

  The light filters through the warped, wood planks. Planks so thin, they are like balsa wood. Or thick potato chips.

  And as the epiphanies continue to fire through my head at turbo speed, I realize two more things.

  One—this Ball is being prepped for a launch up that ramp. And,

  Two—somewhere, in The Fury’s own Cache, we’ve still got friends who mean to launch it.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The door to the garage bursts open, slamming the unconscious guard in the head and I grab the gun. I aim it at the opening, my finger ready to hit the trigger, until I hear a semi-familiar voice. I am still not a hundred percent sure of who it is, until I see the brim of his hat.

  “So, how doya like it?” Trig calls to me. He shoves the guard’s body out of the way with the heel of his cowboy boot.

  Milo’s standing beside him, his own shoes on his feet and mine in his hands. Willow’s wedged under his arm. The redhead’s boots are knotted and hanging from his shoulder. Trig closes the door and locks it, slipping his own key into his pocket. I climb out of the Ball and crunch back across the glass to the two of them.

  I don’t know Trig real well, but he was at my first Impressioning when I had to be accepted by the community and he was at the Totus after my mom’s Memory ceremony. He’s in Mrs. Reese’s inner circle and in this place, where everything is so different,
seeing him feels a little like home. When I get close enough, his smile is warm and genuine, but I stop feet from him and I still don’t lower my gun.

  “You can put that down,” Milo says, but I don’t listen to him.

  “How do you know?”

  “You can’t tell from looking at the Free Ball?” Trig asks. His smile is still in place, even though he’s staring into the barrel of the fire arm I’ve got pointed at him.

  “I saw you modified it. Why?”

  “Because we’re all going to ride it on outta here.”

  “So, you’re telling me that The Fury just let you come down here and fix your getaway car, no questions asked?” I keep my finger close to the trigger.

  “Not The Fury. The Mastermind,” Trig says. “He agreed to let me reconstruct the Ball, in case he needed an emergency get-away.”

  “So you and him, the Mastermind, you’re good buddies.”

  “I hope he thinks so. I’m a spy, little girl. I may not really know the Mastermind now, but who the Mastermind once was? That man and I go way back.” Trig frowns.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means, the Addo enlisted me to keep track of the folks in our Cura. Our Addo Larry is a lot more savvy than he seems, I’ll tell you what. He knew there was a traitor in our ranks, and because I’m an ace at technology, he asked me to use my skills to help root out any traitors. Me and him was the only ones that knew what I was up to. Even Ruka didn’t know.”

  “Mrs. Neho?”

  “My wife,” Trig says evenly. “Do you know if she was okay when you left the Hotel?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “There was too much chaos in the ambush. The lights were out.”

  Trig’s entire expression buckles for a moment, but only a moment, and then he continues. “After the first ambush, I wired all of our phones and monitored the transmissions. The traitor came to the surface pretty quick. Unfortunately, I found him in a good friend. I never expected in a million years that Dale would go to The Fury.”

  “Dale,” I repeat. The blood drains from Milo’s face as I say it. “Dale VanWeider? My old principal?”

  “That was him. But he’s not Dale VanWeider anymore. Now he’s The Mastermind,” Trig says. “Pompous goat.”

  Milo drops my shoes on the ground and shoves Willow into my hands. He backs up to the furthest edge of the sparkling glass, turns away from us, and pukes.

  ***

  I drop the gun from Trig.

  He’s talking about Principal VanWeider, who apologized when the kids at school tattooed my locker with The Waste, but could never quite stop them.

  Mr. VanWeider who brought Milo in, betting the black sheep would be so weak that he would remain true to his disloyal Cura.

  Van, who was a trusted member of our Cura’s inner circle, who didn’t allow Garrett to follow his father into the ambush that took Mr. Reese’s life. Maybe he held Garrett back because Garrett could’ve saved his father after all.

  There are angry, spiny teeth in my stomach that rip at my soul and drag it down deep inside of me. My heart sinks and my stomach grabs it in a rancid death roll.

  Milo finally stops retching. He stands up, spitting. He wipes his mouth on his arm before he turns back to us. Trig walks over and pats him on the back.

  “Get it all out, son? ‘Cause we all need to pull it together so we can get everybody out of here.”

  “Everybody who?” I ask, stepping out of the guard’s boots and slipping into my shoes. I scoop up Willow. I’m not sure what to do with the heavy boots, so I knot them and Trig slings them over his shoulder before he starts ticking off on his fingers who is coming with us.

  “Us three, Mark, Garrett, Nok…”

  “You’ve seen Nok?”

  “Sure, but you’d never know ‘im. The only thing that gives ‘im away is that he had to use some kind of make-up that’s reacting to his skin. He’s itchin’ like a beast.”

  “Itchy? Nok is the Itchy Contego?”

  “I guess you’ve seen ‘im.” Trig chuckles. He holds out a hand to estimate height. “’Bout yay high, skinny, awkward guy?”

  “He came with the ambush from the Hotel,” I say.

  “Yep, he sure did. He’s been right up their nostrils and The Fury has no idea. He came and Van left, which is a very good thing. We’ve been able to get all kinds of things done without Van gettin’ all his minions to come sniffin’ around. Turns out, Fiskers ain’t ambitious at all. At least so long as she’s gettin’ treated like a queen.”

  Fiskers. Ms. Fisk would die if she heard him call her that. She’s want to be called Madam Fiskers, at least.

  “Wait,” Milo says. “What do you mean Van left?”

  “He left out of here the day you all arrived. He went on a wild goose chase to the Core.”

  I shake my head, confused. “The Veritas’ Core?”

  “One in the same. We’ve been baitin’ him and sendin’ him in every direction, every chance we get. He needs to find that Core, and get our Cornerstone to complete his collection, so he can stop the Reset.”

  “He won’t find the Cornerstone,” Milo says and Trig cocks an eyebrow with interest. “It’s buried in the collapsed tunnels under the Celare.”

  “I’m hoping that’s not the case,” Trig says. “I’m hopin’ it’s in a safer place. Like your pants.”

  “My…my pants?” Milo stumbles. Trig strides forward and hooks a finger on the knotted sock connected to Milo’s belt loop.

  “Kid, it looks like you’re growin’ a dang cotton-blend tumor under there. I could see the thing when you bent over to put on your shoes.”

  Milo blushes, but Trig whacks him on the back with a grin. “It’s good thinkin’. Just be sure it’s always concealed. You’re as unlikely a person to have it as any of us, so it might as well stay with you.”

  “When is Van coming back?” I ask.

  “Dunno. Could be soon, could be never. I keep hopin’ he’ll go completely scutter-brained and that’ll be the end of this mess. Trouble is, I don’t see him doing that. And he can motivate folks, I’ll tell you what. He’s a dangerous one.”

  “How is he organizing them?” Milo smoothes down his shirt. “The Fury’s never stayed on track, but he’s got them attacking in groups.”

  “Sure is. What he’s doing is called The Program. He gets a few of the lunatics, the ones that have gone half off their nut already. He picks the ones that don’t want anything too crazy or the ones that he can convince to take what he wants to give ‘em. And he spoils ‘em rotten. Gives ‘em more than what they even ask for. Then he goes and makes an example of ‘em, trotting ‘em out whenever he can, showing ‘em off.

  “Fiskers is one of ‘em, but he’s made a right-hand-man outta her, since she’s crazy about him. He dangles himself like a carrot for her and she eats it up. These ones that he spoils, he picks ‘em real careful and makes sure they’re the kind that talk a lot and like to tell everybody else that the Mastermind is giving them everything they want. The Fury are just crawling over each other to do what they can for him, to get as much or more than what his ‘examples’ get outta him.

  “But what he’s really doing is using people up and when they fall even a hair short of doing what he wants, he kills ‘em. They disappear and he puts out the word that he’s given ‘em some luxury island far away, for serving him so well. The Fury are just stir crazy to do better for him than anybody else, so they can each have their own island.”

  “That’s nuts,” I say. Trig does a slow nod to emphasize the point.

  “They sure are,” he says.

  There is a knock at the door. Trig doesn’t even have to raise a finger to his lips; Milo and I are already silent and wide-eyed, the gun ready in my hands, even though I have to drop Willow to do it. Trig motions for us to stand back behind the door hinges and once we’re there, from the side of the door, he says in a deep, angry voice, “What?”

  Someone raps twice and then Mark’s voice whispers through the do
or, “Knock knock.”

  I see Trig’s exhale in his shoulders, as they relax. He unlocks the door and opens it. Mark slips in fast and the door is closed and locked again before I can even blink.

  “Oh hey,” Mark says when he sees us. “Nice teddy-gun, Nali. I saw the redhead you guys left laying around out there. It looks like he’s passed out, except that he’s missing his shoes, but then, I figured anybody that sees him would just figure somebody stole his boots. It’s logical. That’s the great thing about The Fury. Every crazy thing makes sense.”

  “So what’s the word?” Trig asks.

  “Things are stirring up again.” Mark’s playful expression disappears and is replaced by a serious one.

  “You mean the fit’s about to hit the shan,” I say. Mark’s grin flashes.

  “Exactly,” he says. “I think I might have a bug too. I’ve got two of The Fury following me around, snooping, so Garrett sent me to make sure you got the harness done for Grace. And he told me to tell you, Pralines.”

  “Pralines?” I swing around to look at Trig.

  “He’s lettin’ me know that stuff is aimin’ to go nuts.” Trig mops his face from forehead to chin with one hand. “When stuff goes downhill ‘round here, it goes fast. We got to get movin’. Good thing I got Grace’s harness done last night. I made sure it’s attached real tight to Teagan’s.”

  “Teagan?” Milo interrupts. “Teagan’s with The Fury. You’re not planning on taking her with us?”

  “I am. She’s the mother of Sean’s baby. We’ll bring her back and have Ruka put her in the rings. See if we can’t turn her around.” The rings. I saw Mrs. Neho put a man from The Fury in the rings before. Inside them, a soul has a chance to see their path more clearly and they have a choice to either straighten out or pass on. It was too much for The Fury man I saw. He passed on.

  But I see why Trig thinks Teagan has a chance. She has Grace to live for, so I can’t imagine her not making the right choice. It seems right and makes me feel like something happy could come out of this if we take her with us. Milo nods, seeming to recognize it now too.