A.J. was busy doing damage control from the Red Sox game debacle. From the sound of it, he had also booked several photo shoots and TV appearances that Kaira was going to give him hell for once she found out.
I did my usual security rounds, checking in with all of my people. I also hired two new security guards…after they passed the Sir Zachary sniff test. I figured since he wagged his tail instead of barking fire at them, it was a good sign.
We reconvened for a quick dinner and meeting. Then, while there were still a couple of daylight hours, we headed out to the location Diego had given me the night before. After our failure to find anything useful in California, we brought Charlotte and Sir Zachary with us for extra olfactory support.
We piled out of the van in front of what was left of MagLab. The ground was covered in a fine layer of gray ash from the Pyro’s fire that had freed fifty of the Super Mags…and killed sixty-five others.
The whole swath of ground was marked off with police tape and still carried the faint odor of something that was probably carcinogenic. Kaira illusioned all of into police as a precautionary measure, even though we were the only ones around.
We picked our way through the rubble as Smith’s GPS tracker led us to the exact coordinates.
Acutely aware of Diego’s reasoning for sharing the coordinates—that he thought I was going to bring the Agent S to him—I was on high alert for any hint of his presence.
I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting, but as we gathered amid the scorched rubble, my heart sank.
“Sexy Cinnamon Man screwed us,” Yutika observed.
“Either that,” Graysen said, “or this was the location we needed, but the fire destroyed whatever we were supposed to find.”
“It’s hopeless,” A.J. groaned.
“Not necessarily.” Smith, the pessimist of our group, held up a hand.
He closed his eyes.
“I can feel tech under here.” He tapped his foot on the ashy ground. “Working tech.”
“How far down?” Kaira asked.
“Hard to tell,” Smith replied. “There’s a lot of interference from the dirt and rubble.
“I’ll go down and check it out,” Charlotte said, her voice coming from the body of an overweight male cop.
Kaira dropped Charlotte’s illusion just as the little girl transformed into a furry mole. I thought it was cute, until I caught sight of its paws. They were too big for the animal’s body and looked like human skeleton hands…with nails. Yuck.
Sir Zachary gave the mole a tentative sniff and then wagged his tail.
“Be careful down there,” A.J. said, unperturbed by the freaky little monster animal.
The mole’s snout wiggled, and then it began to worm its way into the dirt.
I rescinded my earlier assessment of those creepy hand-paws when I saw how fast Charlotte-the-mole could dig. In seconds, all that was left was a small pile of dirt the mole had displaced.
The rest of us waited.
My legs were starting to cramp from standing in one place for so long, when Sir Zachary gave a happy little yip. Seconds later, a twitching nose emerged from the dirt.
There was a ripple of movement. Then, the furry mole with the creepy hands transformed into a little girl.
“Blech.” Charlotte spat out a mouthful of dirt.
A.J. handed over his polka-dotted hankie.
“There’s some stuff about ten feet down,” Charlotte reported. “I can see where there was an entrance from inside MagLab, but it’s all burnt and crumpled now.
“Can you show us where to dig?” Yutika asked, already sketching shovels on her pad.
In no time at all, we’d dug the hole. Yutika had even devised a pulley system so no one would break a leg coming in or out of the hole.
At the bottom, we found several blackened floor tiles and a metal hatch.
“It’s stuck,” Graysen said, his muscles straining as he fought to pry it open.
“Move aside,” I said with a wink, blowing on my fists.
The metal hatch groaned and snapped. I hauled off the covering, which must have weighed more than I did, and tossed it to the side. We all looked down into a black, circular hole.
Aside from the top of the ladder that was attached to the hole, it was impossible to see anything.
“Who’s going first?” Yutika asked, pressing a finger to her nose to indicate she wasn’t it.
I didn’t wait for anyone else to volunteer. I grasped the top rung and started lowering myself down.
Within seconds, I was surrounded by darkness. I couldn’t see anything except for the dull silver gleam of my own skin. The air smelled dank and musty. I got an intimate preview of the life of an earthworm.
I didn’t like it.
I heard voices and felt vibrations shimmy through the ladder as my friends followed me down.
I squeezed my eyes shut when a bright light flooded the hole.
“Yutika, you’re blinding me,” I yelled up.
“Oops,” she replied, before angling the flashlight toward the wall.
We climbed. And climbed.
Hundreds of rungs turned to thousands. I lost count as the air grew thicker. An overwhelming sense of foreboding crawled across my metal skin. I was just beginning to wonder whether I’d climbed down some Alice in Wonderland black hole and would keep climbing forever, when my foot hit solid ground.
I immediately turned so my back was to the ladder and held up my fists, but no one jumped me. I pulled out my phone and turned on the flashlight.
I was in a circular chamber about ten feet in diameter. There was a tall, metal door opposite the ladder and nothing else. I was about to yank the door open, when I noticed a black box next to the door. It had a red blinking light and looked like one of those key card scanners. If there was some kind of alarm system rigged to this door, I didn’t want to set it off by breaking in.
“Climbing back up is going to suck,” Yutika noted as we all gathered around the door.
“Try doing it one-handed with a squirming dog in the other,” A.J. said, shaking out his arm after he put Sir Zachary on the ground. “Thank goodness I’m at the peak of health.”
“I can make a backpack carrier for Sir Zachary on the way back up,” Yutika offered, getting to work on her sketchpad to do just that.
My friends were all sweating and panting from the climb. It must be hotter than hell down here, but I felt only the cool metal of my skin.
I loved my magic.
I held my phone flashlight over the black box while Smith inspected it.
“Good call not trying to muscle the door open,” Smith said as he continued to examine the box. “This thing’s rigged to blow if it isn’t opened the right way.”
“Can you hack it?” I asked.
I was expecting one of Smith’s sarcastic and affronted replies. Instead, he frowned and peered more closely at the box. “It was designed by a powerful Techie,” he said, all of his attention directed at the box. “They weren’t as strong as me, but it would take days for me to find a back door.”
Days? We didn’t have days. I bit my tongue, knowing that Smith didn’t need to be reminded of that fact.
“So, what do we do?” I prodded.
“Gotta go in the front door,” Smith replied.
He pressed a button on the side I hadn’t even noticed, and the bottom half of the box flipped down to display a keypad with letters, numbers, and symbols.
“Can I get some fluorescent powder and a brush?” Smith asked.
I had no idea what he was talking about. Fortunately, he wasn’t talking to me. A few seconds later, Yutika handed over the items.
I should have been used to the way my friends operated by this point, but they never ceased to amaze me.
Smith carefully brushed powder over the keypad.
“Lights off,” Smith ordered.
When we complied, I saw that seven buttons were lit up.
“So awesome,” Graysen said, echoing my
own opinion on the matter.
“Glad you think so,” Smith replied without emotion. “But that doesn’t tell us the right permutation.”
With that, he punched each of the lit-up buttons. A warning beep emitted from the black box. A message scrawled across the screen.
Attempt 1/4.
Smith tried a different ordering.
Attempt 2/4.
I held my breath when Smith tried another.
Attempt 3/4.
“What happens if he doesn’t get number four?” Yutika whispered.
“Kaboom,” A.J. replied solemnly.
“Everyone be quiet and let Smith think,” Michael ordered.
Smith hesitated, his fingers resting lightly on the keypad.
“Talk to me,” he murmured. He closed his eyes and tilted his ear toward the box.
Another digital message appeared on the screen.
System shutting down in 5…4….
Someone cursed.
3…2….
Sweat slithered down between my breasts.
Smith plugged in another sequence. There was a mechanical whine, and then a panel slid out from the wall beneath the keypad.
We all let out simultaneous sighs of relief.
“How did you know that was the right order?” Kaira asked in a subdued voice.
Smith lifted a shoulder. “Techie instinct.”
We all stared at the tiny table that had emerged from the panel. There was a long needle attached to clear tubing that disappeared into the depths of the wall.
“A blood sacrifice?” Yutika squeaked.
“I’ll do it,” Michael said, stepping forward.
“Wait,” Graysen ordered. He squinted at the needle, but I could tell he wasn’t really looking at it. He had his Level 10 Brainiac face on.
“I think—” he broke off.
I followed the direction of his gaze to Sir Zachary, who was lying at A.J.’s feet and licking the dirt floor.
“Oh,” I said, following the line of Graysen’s thinking. “Ohhh.”
“The dog is the key,” Kaira said in a quiet voice.
Those were the words Subject 6 had said to us four months ago. He hadn’t figured out what Sir Zachary had been the key to, but now, looking at this needle and the locked door, it was obvious.
Ex-Director Remwald had transferred some of his own DNA into Sir Zachary and done who-knows-what experiments on our dog before he died. That was why Sir Zachary had crazy super powers. It would also explain why his blood could give us access to a secret location…his blood was the same as Remwald’s.
“No way, José,” A.J. said, scooping up Sir Zachary and cuddling him protectively. “You are not poking our dog without his consent. Nope, nope, nope.”
“I can get his permission, if that would help,” Charlotte offered.
“We’re not stabbing my baby!” A.J. shrieked. His voice rose up in the metal silo and echoed back to us.
“It makes sense that Remwald would devise a system that only he could access,” Graysen told A.J. “And if that’s the case, Sir Zachary is the only one who can open this door.”
“Not happening,” A.J. said stubbornly.
“It’s just a little needle,” I said.
Normally, I was more sympathetic to A.J.’s animal obsession, but answers were waiting right on the other side of this door. We were so close.
“How about this,” Yutika said, already drawing on her sketchpad. “We’ll prick Sir Zachary this one time, and then I’ll make a tiny doorstop that no one will notice. That way, we’ll be able to get in and out without needing to hurt him ever again.”
A.J. sniffed. Sir Zachary licked the tear that was trickling down A.J.’s cheek.
Taking advantage of his hesitation, Kaira plucked Sir Zachary out of A.J.’s arms and brought him over to the small table. She snuggled him against her chest as Graysen picked up the needle and hesitated.
“Um, anyone know how to do a blood draw on a dog?” he asked.
I didn’t know how to draw blood from a human. It seemed to me that getting the needle into Sir Zachary, with all that fur, would be even more difficult.
“I’ll do it,” Charlotte offered.
“Have you ever done this before?” A.J. asked, his voice an octave higher than usual.
“No,” she replied calmly. “But I know how his body functions. I promise I won’t hurt him.”
A.J. made a strangled sound. I put my arm around his shoulders, half for comfort and half so he didn’t grab Sir Zachary and race back up the ladder.
Sir Zachary didn’t make a peep as Charlotte pricked his paw. From the way he was busy nosing the table’s surface, I didn’t think he’d even noticed. I covered A.J.’s eyes as blood began to flow into the clear tubing.
I held my breath as the blood disappear into the wall.
A harsh beep made all of us jump. Then, the red light on the keypad turned green. The metal door in front of us swung inward without a sound.
CHAPTER 19
We stepped into a room that looked like some kind of futuristic train platform. A trolley-like vehicle was hovering over a dark hole in the ground next to the platform. It was like the vehicle had been expecting us.
The vehicle was bigger than a normal tram and made out of some material that looked like glass but was obviously far more durable. It was boxed in on either side by solid metal walls, which meant the only direction it could go was down.
“This was what I was sensing from the surface,” Smith said in a reverent tone. “What a beaut.”
“I guess the most pressing question is where will it take us?” Graysen asked, giving the train car a skeptical look.
“Only one way to find out,” Yutika replied, pressing a button on the front of the cart.
The door slid to the side, revealing a wide entrance.
“Yutika, I think—” Michael began, but she just waved a hand at the worry on his face and settled herself on one of the long benches.
“I could have made these seats comfier,” she said, squirming around on the flat bench. “But it’s tolerable.”
Shaking his head, Michael went after her.
Smith was next. He studied a panel at the front of the vehicle that had several buttons, levers, and gauges.
“Take Sir Zachary home,” Kaira was telling Charlotte. “And can you tell Ma we won’t be home in time for dinner, but that she shouldn’t worry?”
I smiled at the way Kaira so seamlessly gave the little girl a job that made her feel important while ensuring she wouldn’t be walking into whatever danger we were about to face.
I paused with one foot inside the vehicle. In addition to the smells of metal and dirt, I thought I caught the faintest trace of cinnamon.
It faded as quickly as it had come, convincing me that I seriously needed to get whatever this Diego thing was out of my system.
As soon as we were all inside, Yutika pressed another button to shut the door.
“I’m about to start this thing up,” Smith said, still studying the panel. “And I have a feeling it’s going to go fast.”
There were no seatbelts or anything else to hold onto, so we just waited with baited breath.
It didn’t take long. There was a shrill whistle, accompanied by a blast of steam from the vehicle’s rear. And then, we were off.
The cart dropped straight down, leaving my stomach behind.
“Oh my God!” Yutika moaned.
I whooped.
Kaira shrieked. A.J. was holding onto my arm, like that might somehow slow his descent.
Down, down, down, we fell.
My racing pulse began to slow as the train car came to a gentle stop. We were all gasping.
“Well,” Graysen said. “That was—”
The vehicle shot forward without warning. It went from zero to fuck you in half a second. Multiple screams filled the air as we hurtled at breakneck speed.
My head ached, like my brain was being sucked out from the sheer speed. My frien
ds’ shouts were overpowered by the rushing wind sound that filled my ears.
We were speeding through some kind of transparent tube, but there was nothing to see outside the clear walls except darkness.
We were hurtling through the earth. I had no concept of time or space.
As we continued to shoot along some pre-determined path, I began to relax. It was like a roller coaster…except so much better. It was like flying with Diego, except horizontally…and without Diego’s arms wrapped around me.
All too soon, the vehicle began to slow. Lights filled the tunnel ahead, illuminating another platform that looked like the one we’d come from.
“What a rush,” I said as we came to a gentle stop.
My friends gave me looks that ranged from incredulous to Are you brain damaged?
Since I seemed to be the only one in a good mood, I pressed the button for the door and hopped onto the platform. According to my phone, we’d been on the train for half an hour. Longer than I’d thought…since I was pretty sure I hadn’t taken a breath the entire time.
Yutika tottered out after me, moving like she had sea legs. She bent over and promptly threw up. Michael held her hair and rubbed her back.
Graysen, Kaira, and A.J. were holding onto each other as they came onto the platform. Smith looked almost as thrilled as I felt.
“Do you people have any idea what kind of a feat this is?” he asked, motioning to the vehicle. “The technology and magic…it’s unbelievable. I can feel the magnetic levitation. And then there’s the technology countering the g-force. Do you know what would have happened to our bodies without it?! At that speed—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Yutika groaned.
“Where do you think we are?” Graysen asked, looking at the metal door that was the only way out of the chamber.
“California,” Smith said.
“Very funny, Smith,” Kaira said. “But seriously.”
The train had been fast, but there was no way it had gotten us all the way across the country in half an hour.
We all turned to look at the Techie, but his attention was fixed on the GPS tracker in his hand. “We’re in California.”
Steel for 5 (Mags & Nats Book 3) Page 14