CHAPTER 20
We were at the exact location that Pruwist’s first set of coordinates had indicated…except we were hundreds of feet underground.
The metal door opened easily and without any blood sacrifices. We found ourselves in a tunnel that was so narrow even I couldn’t stand up all the way. Michael had to fold himself practically in half to keep from scraping his head against the rough ceiling. There were no lights in the tunnel because none were needed. The entire place was illuminated in a hazy green glow. The color came from the crystals gleaming in the walls and ceiling.
“It’s a mine,” I said.
“Magically dug by the looks of it,” Smith said, glancing around. “No normal construction equipment could have gotten down this deep.”
When I looked back, I could no longer make out the door we’d come through. It blended in perfectly to the dark stone surrounding it; no one would ever find it if they didn’t already know it existed.
“What have we here?” A.J. murmured, glancing around.
“Let’s find out, shall we?” Yutika replied. She dropped a sheet of paper on the floor of the tunnel. A few seconds later, she handed a small walkie-talkie looking object to Smith.
“What’s that?” Graysen asked.
“Mineral composition detector,” Yutika said. “I could probably sell it to space exploration companies for a cool billion.”
“Your sacrifice to our cause is truly noble,” Smith said as he fiddled with a knob on the detector.
Yutika stuck her tongue out at him.
“Huh,” Smith said a few seconds later. “This soil is almost completely metal dust.” He held up the detector. “It’s mostly titanium, but there are a whole lot of other metals.”
I brushed my fingers over the green crystals. They didn’t pop out of the wall and start molesting me like the liquid Agent S did, but I felt the same sense of familiarity around these stones as I did with the vials of Agent S.
“I think this is like the raw form of Agent S,” I told my friends.
Everyone except me moved farther away from the walls and pressed their arms to their sides. None of us knew whether the raw Agent S was as deadly as the liquid, but it was better not to take any chances.
“I think you’re right,” Smith said, staring down at the screen on his instrument. “I bet if I poison scanned them—”
“Don’t!” the rest of us said at once.
If Smith’s poison wand started screeching, we’d alert everyone within a hundred miles to our presence.
“Let’s keep going,” Kaira said. “See where this tunnel leads.”
We walked in silence for several minutes. The tunnel curved a few times, but there were no branches or other paths.
“Why does everything always have to be uphill?” Yutika panted.
“It won’t be when we’re headed back in the other direction,” Smith pointed out.
“Says you,” Yutika grumbled.
We all went motionless when a loud, unfamiliar voice echoed down the tunnel.
“Steel for Five!”
For several seconds, nothing happened. Then, I heard a rattling sound. It was faint at first but grew louder by the second.
“What is that?” Yutika whispered.
Graysen, who had gone ahead to peer around the corner, jerked back.
“There’s a cart coming this way,” he whispered urgently. “We have to get out of here before it runs us over.”
We all looked back down the tunnel the way we’d come. Judging from the sounds echoing through the tunnel, we wouldn’t make it back into the train platform in time.
“In here,” Michael said, shoving his shoulder against a wooden door I hadn’t even noticed.
The door gave way, and we slid inside just as a metal cart shot down the tunnel, narrowly missing Graysen’s arm. Michael gently slid the door back into place, enclosing us in darkness.
“That was a close one,” A.J. whispered.
The dark space filled with several beams of light as we turned on our phone flashlights. Dust particles swirled in the air, which carried an unpleasant, sour smell.
“Ouch,” Yutika hissed, hopping on one foot and grasping her knee.
I shined my flashlight down at whatever she’d walked into. My breath caught.
The floor was covered with caskets. They were wooden and roughly made, but there was no question that was what they were. They were spaced in neat rows, going back farther than the beam of my flashlight could reach. Just in my line of sight, I counted twenty-five. But that wasn’t the part that had turned all of our breathing ragged. We’d all made the same observation.
These caskets were too small to fit an adult. Every one of these caskets was child-sized.
I heard Graysen murmur something low and soothing to Kaira. Michael and Yutika were gripping each other’s hands. Smith was standing stock-still with his head bowed. A.J. started toward me, his face pale as a ghost.
“I’m fine,” I managed, before sinking to my knees.
My body couldn’t hold itself up anymore, and I sagged against one of the rough-hewn coffins. Only a single thought filled my head.
Lilly.
Lilly had been taken to this underground mine. Was one of these caskets hers?
The thought of her tiny bones disintegrating in a splintered box, miles below the ground and far away from the cemetery Sarah and Brent faithfully visited, was too much for me. I pressed my fist to my mouth to hold back a sob.
At that moment, I realized just how deeply I’d been hoping that Lilly was still alive. I’d known the odds in theory, but it wasn’t until this moment that it occurred to me how desperately I’d believed that she was alive and just…lost. Like she was just out of reach, and all I needed to do was hold out a hand and grasp her.
Now, staring at these rows and rows of coffins, reality crashed into me with the force of a physical blow.
I flinched at the sound of metal on rock coming from somewhere back in the tunnel. Whoever had come down in that cart was working nearby. I made the observation without reacting to it. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the child-sized coffins.
There were no names or inscriptions on the coffins, or anything else to indicate who might be buried inside. I ran my fingers along the unsanded edge of the nearest one, but I couldn’t bring myself to lift off the top.
“Bri,” A.J. said, reaching out a tentative hand but not touching me. “We don’t know anything for sure, yet.”
“We need answers,” Kaira said, straightening her shoulders.
I was grateful for the way my friends were taking action. It helped ease the growing numbness inside me. It helped me get to my feet, when all I wanted to do was lie down on the hard ground and give up.
I felt weak in a way I never did in my titanium skin.
“I’m going to talk to whoever’s out there and find out what’s going on,” Michael told me.
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
We all gathered behind Michael as he eased open the door and stepped back into the tunnel. After the staleness of the tomb, the air in the tunnel seemed almost fresh by comparison.
“I’ve got us illusioned as worms,” Kaira’s strained whisper said from behind me. “No one will see us until we want them to.”
We silently stole back down the tunnel, closer to the clinking sounds I’d heard before.
I saw the metal cart first. At second glance, I realized it was plated in titanium. It also took up almost the whole width of the tunnel. If Michael hadn’t gotten us inside the tomb, the cart would have crushed us.
I started when something plinked into the cart. When I peeked in, I saw it was a chunk of the raw Agent S crystals that were embedded in the walls.
There was a little girl a short distance away. Her skin was metallic, and she was gently prying chunks of green crystals out of the wall and tossing them into the cart.
Even though she was short enough to stand at full height in the tunnel, her back was s
lightly hunched. Her clothes were filthy and full of holes that had been badly mended. Her hair was a tangled mess.
My throat felt like sandpaper. It was an effort just to breathe. Every time I looked at the little girl, my heart sank all the way to my toes.
The only thing that kept me from scooping her up and carrying her away was the knowledge that she wasn’t the only slave in this place. If the coffins in that tomb were any indication, there were more just like her.
“Bri,” Graysen whispered, putting his hand on my arm so I’d know where he was. “Is that kid a Steel?”
“Yes,” I whispered back.
“Then, how is her magic working right now?”
Excellent question. My skin was still titanium under Kaira’s illusion, which meant that the girl’s magic wasn’t cancelling out mine. Magic didn’t work when there was a higher-level Mag nearby with the same power. Since I was a Level 10, my power should negate any other Steels in the vicinity unless they had Super Mag-level strength, which this girl clearly didn’t since my magic still worked.
Now that I was thinking about it, I felt strangely weak. My skin was still titanium, but I didn’t have that take on the world attitude that came with my magic. Maybe it was a mental response to the sight of those coffins.
“I have no idea,” I told Graysen.
“Kaira,” Michael said in a low voice. “Can you make me look like one of them?”
A few seconds later, Michael appeared to be a small, dirty Steel dressed in rags. Even though I knew it was an illusion, the sight of his bony limbs and hollow eyes made me want to scream.
The little girl jerked to attention at the sight of Michael.
“I’m making quota,” she said in a tremulous voice that broke my heart.
“Don’t be scared,” Michael told her in a gentle voice. “I won’t hurt you.”
If the slave girl was surprised by a man’s voice coming from a child’s body, she didn’t say so. She let out a sigh as tension eased from her thin shoulders. She took a step closer to Michael.
“I don’t know you,” she said in a wondering voice. She poked his arm, her eyes widening in surprise. “You aren’t a Steel.”
“That’s right,” Michael replied gently.
“But then.” Her face scrunched up in a frown. “How can you be down here? Only Steels can work on Level 5.”
“And why is that?” Michael asked.
She displayed the chunk of Agent S in her hand. “Because if anyone else touches it, it explodes.” She had a slight lisp, so the word came out sounding like issplodes.
“Only Steels are strong enough to get it out.” The little girl puffed out her chest in a show of pride. “It likes titanium best, but any Steel can touch it for a little while.”
To demonstrate, she tossed the chunk of Agent S she was holding into the cart and then dug her nails into the rock wall for more. She grunted as her fingers chipped off pieces of rock until she had a fist-sized crystal of Agent S. She threw it into the titanium cart along with the rest she’d collected.
The green stones clung to the titanium walls of the cart instead of settling to the bottom. I felt a gentle, magnetic-like tug toward the crystals all around me. It was a less intense version of the attraction the Agent S seemed to have toward my skin in its liquid form.
“What kind of Steel are you?” Michael asked, pointing to the dull metallic gleam of her skin.
“I’m an iron Steel.” The little girl’s eyes widened, as though she was waiting for Michael’s reaction. When he didn’t say anything, her face fell. “It’d be better if I was made out of titanium.” She toed the wheel of her cart. “But there isn’t anyone down here who’s that strong.”
I knew from my own research that there were only a handful of titanium Steels on the planet. I was the only titanium Steel currently living in the Northeast US. I was also the only recorded Level 10 Steel.
I’d embarrassed Brent to no end as a child, when I’d gone around telling everyone—including random strangers—about how special my magic was.
My blonde pigtails were probably the only reason I’d ever gotten away with all the bragging.
“We have gold Steels, too,” the little girl was telling Michael. “And silver Steels and ’luminum Steels and nickel Steels—”
Michael pointed at the green crystals accumulating in the girl’s cart. “Is this Agent S?”
The child looked at the green stones and then back at Michael.
“We just call it stuff, but sometimes Foreman calls it Agent Steel.”
Agent S…for Steel.
I’d never wondered what the S might stand for before.
“Do you know what’s being done with the stuff after you take it out of here?” Michael asked in a patient, unhurried voice.
“We bring it to the other levels for processing,” the girl said. “We smush it.” She clapped her iron hands together. “And then it becomes like water. No more issplosion.”
“So, the raw Agent S is highly unstable,” Graysen translated. “It stabilizes when it’s in its liquid form, even though it’s still deadly for non-Steels.”
“Michael,” Kaira said. “Ask her what the people here want with the Agent S.”
Michael leaned close to the girl and repeated Kaira’s question.
“Some of it gets put into the glass jars and sent away.” The little girl shrugged.
Those were the vials that ended up buried in graves all over Boston.
“And the rest?” Michael asked.
“It gets put into them.”
“Who’s them?” Michael pressed.
“Monsters,” the girl whispered.
She shuddered but didn’t elaborate, and Michael didn’t press her for more.
“Steel for Five!” a loud voice called from somewhere up the tunnel. The sound reverberated all the way down to us.
“Quick!” the little girl squeaked. “That means another worker is coming down. She dragged her cart into an enclave in the tunnel that I hadn’t noticed before because it blended in with the wall. She gestured to Michael to get into the enclave with her.
“I see another one over here,” Kaira whispered. She released her illusion just long enough to point out the carved-out section of wall, which melded into the rest of the tunnel so completely it was almost invisible. Together, we squeezed into the enclave.
“There are five levels,” the little girl was telling Michael. “We’re on the lowest one.”
“What happens on the upper levels?” Michael asked.
“Lots,” the girl replied sagely.
She didn’t have time to elaborate. There was a whoosh of sound and air, and then another titanium cart came rushing down the tunnel.
The little boy perched inside hauled on a lever, bringing the cart to a screeching stop. He jumped out and immediately began carving out Agent S crystals from the wall and tossing them into his cart. From the color of his skin, he looked like a silver Steel.
“It’s okay,” Michael said, as he emerged from his hideout and the boy caught sight of him. The little girl glanced at the boy and hurriedly got back to work filling up her cart with the green crystals. “I’m a friend,” he told the boy.
“Friend?” the boy asked, like the word tasted unfamiliar on his tongue.
My heart felt too big for my chest as I looked at these wraith-thin children with haunted eyes. I couldn’t stop thinking about how these children’s families believed them to be dead.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Lilly.
Was this how she had died…down here in a dark tunnel, with no idea she was being mourned by a family who loved her?
Someone was gasping softly. It took me several seconds to realize the sound was coming from me.
I felt A.J. reach for my hand and squeeze. Someone else—Yutika, I thought—rubbed my back.
“What are your names?” Michael asked the children.
“641,” the boy replied immediately, like he’d been rehearsing the number in hi
s mind. He even straightened and linked his arms behind his back when he said the number.
“622,” the girl said, linking her arms behind her back in the same way.
No names, just numbers. Just like the children kept in cages in MagLab.
“And we really gotta hurry,” the girl continued, her worried gaze straying up the tunnel. “If we don’t, Foreman’ll put us in isolation chambers.”
Both children shuddered in tandem.
Whoever this foreman was, I couldn’t wait to get my hands around his neck. My whole body was trembling with the need to do violent damage to the one responsible for enslaving these children.
“Michael,” I said, unable to hide the emotion in my voice. “Ask her about Lilly.”
Kaira changed our illusions so our disembodied voices would be less strange. Instead of wriggling earthworms, we became dirty, bone-thin children in rags.
Just the sight of us like this made my stomach turn over.
“Do you know anyone by the name of Lilly Hammond?” Michael asked.
“She’d be five years old,” I added, my voice coming out sand-papery and thin. “She—” I stopped myself before I started to describe her, realizing that I had nothing to say.
I’d seen my niece exactly once, and it was through the glass window of the neonatal unit in the hospital. I didn’t know if she had Brent’s smile or Sarah’s freckles. I didn’t know if she’d inherited my brother’s stubbornness or my sister-in-law’s kindness.
Both children looked at each other and shook their heads.
“Sorry,” the boy told Michael, seeming crestfallen to be letting Michael down.
Both kids returned to their work, clawing out crystals and tossing them into their carts. I snapped out of my horrified stupor and began to help.
It was no easy task. It took a lot of finesse to claw the Agent S away from its natural metal cocoon, especially without shattering the crystals. It took me several attempts to get the lump of Agent S out of the wall without it disintegrating into dust. When I finally managed it, I was surprised to find how heavy it felt in my hands.
I jumped a little when the girl yelled in a shrill voice, “Steel up from Five!” She gave me a small smile of thanks, and then she began to lug her cart back up the tunnel.
Steel for 5 (Mags & Nats Book 3) Page 15