Spellhacker

by M. K. England

  I nod. “Fortunately, they didn’t count on us having an amazing spellweaver like Remi to save our sorry asses.”

  A touch of a smile ghosts over Remi’s lips, but it quickly wipes away.

  “Did you figure out who set us up?” They ask.

  The glow of being right fades from my chest. “Maybe. This is where it starts to get weird and complicated. I walked here from the industrial district after everything went down—”

  “Diz!” Ania scolds, horrified.

  “I know, I know, I didn’t have any other safe way to get back, but listen. I had a lot of time on my hands, so I got to thinking. Who could possibly want us dead, and why?” I have their attention now. They stare, rapt, all traces of lingering anger suppressed for the moment. I push on. “We were lured there with a job to pull maz-15, which we’ve never encountered during any other job, just the one time in this one pipe. Seems like a bit of a coincidence that the first time we see it, we’re immediately given a job to get more, then nearly killed for it. You see where I’m going?”

  Remi’s eyes go wide. “Someone doesn’t want us knowing about maz-15.”

  “No one knows about maz-15, it seems,” I add. “No one but us, the guy who gave us the job, and . . .”

  “MMC,” Ania finishes, her hands flying to cover her mouth.

  “Got it,” I say. “They have control of this new maz, and control over information about its existence.”

  “And they’re willing to kill for it,” Jaesin adds. “It seems so out of character for them, though. Sure, they price gouge, and their hold on maz is way too tight, but other than that they’ve done a lot of good things.”

  Ania says nothing, but she stares at the wall over my shoulder, nodding vaguely. Reviewing the facts and coming to the same conclusion, no doubt. When she finally snaps back to the present, she meets my eyes and nods.

  “We need information,” she says. “I highly doubt they’re going to stop coming for us after one failed attempt, so we need to learn more.”

  “Agreed,” Jaesin says, finally on board. “Where is MMC getting this new strain? What’s so important about it that they’d be willing to kill to keep it secret? Once we know that, we can figure out if there’s any way out of this, something we can do to get them off our backs other than just . . . disappearing to live in the middle of the ocean or something.”

  He winces and braces a hand against his forehead, rubbing in small circles. “Ugh. Sorry, this is making my brain hurt.”

  I shake my head. “No, I’m with you. It’s a lot to take in.”

  The ensuing silence is broken only by my audibly growling stomach. I haven’t eaten since . . . wait, when did I last eat? Ania passes me her bowl of fruit with a sigh.

  “So, what now?” she asks.

  Remi taps their bottom lip with one finger, then . . . smiles.

  “We pay a visit to Kyrkarta University.”

  My heart leaps into my throat. Are they planning to accept the offer there, even though we didn’t get the money from the job? Are they really going to stay and . . . oh. No. Obviously walking into the admissions office to create a nice, easy-to-follow paper trail is a terrible idea for someone hiding from the police.

  “The archives,” I say, nodding.

  Remi pumps both fists in the air. “Yes, the biggest archive of maz research in the world! I can’t wait to roll around in Professor Silva’s research notes. Maybe literally. That’s how osmosis works, right?”

  Jaesin and I lock eyes, and for a second, it feels like we’re about to burst into laughter together, sharing in our adoration of Remi like we always have. But at the last moment, the mirth fades from Jaesin’s eyes, and he looks away, mouth tight.

  My heart sinks.

  I guess bringing back vital information doesn’t exactly erase the past twelve hours. Jaesin will probably stay mad at me for a while. Ania, too. Remi, though . . .

  “I think you and I should go alone,” I say to Remi. The others start to protest immediately, but I cut them off. “The university has a lot of random security patrols. The more people we take, the more obvious we’ll be. I can get us in the back way and bypass the security. Remi can look through the materials for the information we need. We’ll be quick and quiet.”

  “I’ve done tons of maz-related research work, I can—” Ania begins, then trails off at the stern looks she catches from Jaesin and me.

  “Remi’s been obsessed with Professor Silva’s work forever. I’m pretty sure the day his obituary hit the news feeds was the second saddest day of their life. They should be the one to go,” I say, and Remi nods with an exaggerated tragedy face.

  Ania’s mouth clacks shut. She shoots one quick pleading look at Jaesin, hoping for backup, but he shakes his head. Yes. Blessing of the parents secured. Mission is a go. I turn to Remi with my hands clasped before me.

  “Can I maybe shower first? Please?” I beg.

  Remi looks me over head to toe, then wrinkles their nose. “Yes. You will not desecrate the late, great Professor Silva’s work with your filth. Also, please burn that shirt immediately.”

  I lift one arm with its formerly flowing sleeve. It hangs stiff and heavy with grossness.

  Honestly? No arguments here.

  “I’ll be quick,” I say, and meet their gaze for a long beat. “Get ready to break into your dream school.”

  Fourteen

  ON SECOND THOUGHT, NEVER MIND. Ania was right. Pairing Remi and me up for this little side quest was a terrible idea. Sure, Jaesin or Ania would have spent the whole time being angry at me, but that I can take.

  It’s the sheer, skin-crawling awkwardness that’s killing me.

  Kyrkarta University is about as far away from the Cliffs as it’s possible to get without actually leaving town. Wouldn’t want those sad little orphan kids getting any ambitious ideas. It’s strange, kind of like a mini city, a district all its own. Many of the buildings are plain and utilitarian, built or rebuilt in the wake of the earthquake that set off the plague, and named for wealthy donors. The Katheryn A. Sherrinford School for Business. The M. Ridings Social Sciences Building. The Park-Torres Department of Technical Maz Studies.

  A bit of the school’s original historic charm lingers in the older structures that have survived the last ten years of earthquakes, mostly fountains and other low-to-the-ground features. How were the builders supposed to know that this previously earthquake-free area, tucked away in the mountains, would suddenly become one of the most quake-prone places on the planet?

  Remi and I chose to wait until night to make our break for the archives. Honestly, I needed the day to clean up all the nasty footprints I’d left and to get some new clothes and other supplies delivered by drone, courtesy of Ania’s credit account. And sleep. So much sleep. Turns out the cure to my insomnia problem is walking halfway across the city, soaking in my own sweat and fear. Gross, but effective.

  Once full dark fell, Remi and I left Ania and Jaesin watching a movie on the couch and slipped out the same window I left through before. Though the cops still haven’t shown our faces or names on the news, we have to assume they have both, so we had to get creative moving through the city. Walking there and back was definitely not an option. Even with gliders, it would take all night.

  We ended up calling Davon. I hated to do it, but what other option did we have? Davon picked Remi and me up in a RidePod a few blocks from Ania’s neighborhood, and off we sped to the university district. Cue the awkward.

  The ride there is thankfully brief. I sit in between Remi and Davon, trapped as they make the kind of polite small talk I despise.

  “The Hawks are your glideball team, right?” Remi asks over my head. “Heard they made it to the finals.”

  Sports? Seriously, that’s what we’re falling back on here? I crane my neck to peek through the window at the streets far below. Too far to jump. Probably.

  “Yeah, they made it, then totally blew it. Too many key players injured,” Davon answers.

&nbs
p; “I’ll injure your key players,” I grumble.

  They quite charitably ignore me, carrying on with their chatting over, around, and through me while I sit on pins and needles. Any second now, Davon will ask what he thinks is a thinly veiled question about my and Remi’s relationship (or lack thereof). Or, Remi will make a politically charged comment about MMC and the people who work there. Either way, it won’t matter that we’re wanted for the pipeline explosion, because I’ll end up wanted for murder instead. Layer the weirdness of seeing Davon for the first time since I ran from him in the sewers and this is just . . . the best. I love it.

  But finally, blissfully, the pod begins its descent, and eventually comes to rest next to an old half-crumbled building near the archives. I thank Davon for the ride, but the memory of breaking down all over him last night has my cheeks growing hot, so a nudge with my elbow is all the affection I can manage. He catches my hand as I slide across the seat, though. He’s never been all that good at letting things go.

  “Hey. You okay? Do you need anything?”

  Yeah, I have no idea what to say to him. I’m pretty sure your employer wants to kill me? I can never take that job you stuck your neck out to get me because I don’t want to die and/or work for attempted murderers?

  “Fine. All good” is what I manage. His mouth twists with skepticism, but he lets my hand go.

  “Call me if you need a ride home, no matter what time. Be careful, Dizzy.”

  I grunt an affirmative and back away from the pod, leading Remi across the street and onto the university campus.

  The former school of music building is nothing but three barely standing walls aboveground, but below is a different story. Before the earthquakes started, the school made use of an underground tunnel system for the winter months, when Kyrkarta gets unbearably cold. Above-ground isn’t feasible due to aircar traffic and the train lines running throughout the campus. Instead, a spidery system of tunnels—much nicer than the sewer systems we’re used to—extend beneath many of the school’s major buildings.

  Only problem is, many of them have collapsed over the past ten years, and the parts left are unstable at best. Fortunately, I’ve crawled through these tunnels dozens of times since I first learned about them, and I generally know what’s safe and what might crush us to death. At least, I did before the most recent quake. For the crushy parts, Remi has a shielding spell at the ready, just in case falling rocks try to kill us. Slight inconvenience.

  Remi and I are silent as we make our way through the rubble of the old music building and into the basement. The wreckage has long since been picked over by university cleanup crews and scavengers alike. There’s a bright flash of gold or a splintered piece of wood here and there, shining out from where a crushed musical instrument lies beneath rubble too heavy to move. It’s a painful sight. My father used to play clarinet, and he got me started young on recorder, as soon as my fingers were big enough to cover the holes. I kept his clarinet and played at school for a little while after he died, but by the time I turned twelve and was allowed to have a job, it just didn’t seem practical anymore. I sold the clarinet for sixty creds. A ripoff, apparently, but I was too young to know better.

  Once we’re underground, Remi draws closer to me and weaves a bit of sunnaz into a little ball, one for each of us to light the way. Their arm brushes against mine as they pass the little glowing sun to me, but it’s gone just as quickly. Is it my imagination, or are they standing farther away from me than before?

  They’re still mad, probably. Maybe? Are we fighting? Are we not fighting? After I told everyone what I had learned, I thought we were calling a truce over the whole me-storming-out, them-abandoning-me thing.

  I guess that was wishful thinking. I should have known better.

  Farther up the tunnel, the sound of a slamming door echoes through the cavern, freezing us both in our tracks. We pause for thirty eternal seconds.

  Epic Group Chat: We are SO UTTERLY SCREWED Edition

  Ania: How’s it going?

  Everything okay?

  The notification is so sudden I nearly shout in alarm. Ania and her awful timing, I swear she does this on purpose. But it does give me an idea. Remi won’t talk out loud, but maybe they’ll reply to a message.

  (private) You: Do you know anything about what’s in this archive?

  Nothing, not even a flicker of acknowledgment. Maybe they have their notifications turned off?

  Epic Group Chat: We are SO UTTERLY SCREWED Edition

  Remi: Fine so far. We’re being all sneaky though, so give us a bit before messaging again.

  You nearly gave Diz a heart attack

  Ania: Whoops

  Oh, okay, they were just replying to Ania first. They’ll reply to my message any second.

  Any second now.

  Any minute now.

  Okay, yeah, they’re definitely still mad. Really mad. Maybe I should have invited one of the others along as a buffer. It’s like an itch in the front of my brain. Obviously, there’s only one answer here.

  Ignore it completely.

  I put on a burst of speed and pull ahead of Remi, walking faster down the broken-down tunnel, taking far less care than I probably should around the crumbled remains. The whole place smells musty, mostly of dampness trapped in an enclosed space, but somehow a bit of that gym-sock dorm-room smell too, even after all this time. Wall-mounted screens with the university’s logo on the frame, dark and cracked, sit at regular intervals, and a few laminated student-made flyers for clubs and parties still litter the ground. A lot of things can decompose in ten years’ time. Apparently a lot can still be left behind too.

  If I could stand to slow down for a second, I’d have my little drone fly the tunnel to make sure it’s stayed clear of major debris since the most recent earthquake, but oh well. We’ll go as far as we can, and if we need to pop above ground, so be it.

  We’re lucky, though. We turn one last corner, following my mental map of the university, and the tunnel opens up into a small foyer with a branch tunnel marked by a half-fallen metal sign: THE PARK-TORRES BUILDING, jointly named for the families that funded the original department and the new building. We’re here. I glance quickly over my shoulder to make sure Remi is still with me, then continue on.

  No message from them. Not a word.

  This is fine.

  Fifteen

  THE DOOR INTO THE MAIN building looks like it hasn’t been disturbed in at least a year. Heavy dust has settled over the whole thing, and broken links and sections of chain still lie in front of it, like the door keeps getting broken into and whoever maintains it just shrugs and slaps a new chain on each time. Super effective, obviously. Once we’re inside, the archives are only a few doors down, and Remi’s anticipation is like a third presence in the hallway with us, peeking over my shoulder.

  Okay, breaking into the archive, step one: make sure no one else is in the room. I can’t tell for certain—not like I have access to camera feeds from here or anything—but I can query the door’s locking system and see if anyone has entered since closing time. The answer is no. There’s always the possibility some professor or student came in before closing and simply stayed to work after hours, but we’ll just have to take that risk. When I finally pop the lock, Remi sucks in a nearly inaudible breath beside me.

  I crack the door slowly, carefully, my eyes doing one quick sweep of the room, followed by a slower one to look for things I missed. Nothing. Open the door wider—still nothing. The air vibrates with the force of Remi’s restraint as they graciously refrain from shoving me out of the way and bull-rushing the precious manuscripts. I slip inside and to the left to make way for them before they lose their patience, closing the door after them and relocking it. When I turn back to the room, though, the look on Remi’s face steals my breath.

  They stare up at the shelves and shelves of books, files, and old data storage media as if seeing the face of a goddess, awed and humbled and glowing with some inner light.


  As determined as I am to keep up my end of the passive-aggressive silence, I just can’t. Not with them looking like this is the best day of their life. I need to share it.

  I step to their side and shift my weight just a hair closer. “Is it everything you thought it would be?” I ask, silently begging them to just look at me.

  And they do, turning to offer a shadow of their usual beaming grin. My own half-mustered smile fades too. Have I really gone so far as to ruin this for them, something they’ve been wanting for years?

  They turn back to the stacks with a hum and nod. “Yes. It’s . . . a lot. I’m going to hit up one of the search terminals and see what the database can turn up about maz-15 and the spellplague. We might be here all night. I hope you brought something to entertain yourself.”

  I roll my eyes. “I don’t need entertaining. I can help, you know. I wasn’t as good in school as you, but I can still read and stuff.”

  They don’t rise to the bait, only turn and stride toward the nearest terminal. I stare at their retreating form for a moment longer, nursing the disappointed ache in my chest. What will it take to get back to normal?

  While Remi types away, scribbling down call numbers on the provided scraps of paper, I take to wandering. I think I was expecting dusty shelves with ancient paper books, maybe, or a clunky old early model deck with barely functioning computer files. Instead, the shelves are completely free of dust, and reading stations along the outer walls hold boxes of white gloves for handling delicate objects. Heavy-duty dehumidifiers churn away, keeping moisture levels low, and UV lights glow from inside the air vents, where they kill off mold spores before they have a chance to enter the room.

  My eye catches on a map on the back wall, focused on the southern part of our continent. Jattapore features prominently, a bright coastal city with stylized dolphins cresting in the sketched ocean. A plaque next to it explains the date and provenance of the map and includes a note about the shape of the coastline, which apparently does not reflect the present day due to sea-level rise and the hurricanes that slam into the city every few weeks.