15
Mali
BY THE TIME THE Kindred supply shuttle docked on the aggregate station, every muscle in Mali’s body was strained. For the last eight days, she’d been pressed awkwardly against Leon in the ship’s insulated lining. His elbow shoved in her back. Her nose crammed near his armpit. Only puddles of condensation to drink and pilfered cargo stores to eat from. She figured she’d like him a lot better again when they had a few feet between them.
They listened in hushed silence as the Kindred officials unloaded the shuttle cargo hold, turned off the lights, and sealed the doors. Once she was certain it was clear, Mali pushed her way out of the ship’s lining, gasping for air.
“Couldn’t . . . breathe . . . ,” she said. “You’re too . . . fat.”
Leon stumbled out behind her, stretching his neck, sucking in deep gulps of air. “It’s muscle! Besides, it wasn’t a picnic having my face smooshed up against your hair, either. It kept getting in my nose.”
They went to opposite sides of the shuttle’s cargo hold, eager for some distance. Mali closed her eyes. She wiggled her toes and fingers, pumping some blood back into them. She opened one eye, glancing at him sidelong. Okay, it hadn’t all been terrible. One thought of that kiss and she felt herself going warm. Again.
Leon sniffed the air filtering through the shuttle’s vents. “Old air and rusted metal.” He made a face. “I didn’t miss that smell.”
The station’s smell, faint though it was, stirred unpleasant memories for Mali too: Being imprisoned in the enclosure. Learning Anya had been drugged. Fian’s betrayal.
“With luck,” she said, “we will not be here long. Cora saw Cassian in one of the interrogation rooms on the fourth level. We traveled there through the shipping tunnels before; we only need to follow our previous footsteps, locate the kill-dart weapons cache Cora told you about, and use them to free Cassian. Then we come back here, steal a shuttle that Cassian knows how to fly, and go to Drogane.”
“You say it like that’s easy,” Leon said flatly.
“You doubt my abilities?”
“No way. I’m not stupid.” He held up his hand in mock surrender as she went to the cargo door, pressed her ear against it, and then slowly eased it open. Beyond was the same flight room they’d departed from weeks ago, though spotless now. Someone had cleaned all signs of the battle that had raged here when they’d escaped.
She signaled to Leon that it was safe to exit, and they silently slipped out of the shuttle and made their way to the edge of the flight room. Mali knew the official modules and corridors of the station well, but those would be swarming with Kindred. It was Leon who knew the hidden interior tunnel system.
“I don’t see any entrances to the tunnels,” Leon said, jerking his chin toward the edge of the flight room. “We’ll have to go into the hallways and look for one there.”
Mali didn’t like the risk, but she nodded. She took a step toward the door, glancing at the sensor directly above it. She closed her eyes and concentrated. Telekinesis had never been her strongest talent, but the amplifiers built into the sensors would make it easier. She concentrated. The door slid open an inch. She redoubled her concentration. Two inches. Then . . .
“Shit!” Leon hissed.
Mali’s eyes flew open. The hallway beyond the cracked doorway was decimated. A crater three feet across scarred the metal floor. Damaged lights flickered on and off eerily. Smoke still rose from the wreckage.
She blinked in incomprehension. “An explosion. It happened recently.” She twisted around to Leon. “What caused this?”
He shrugged one shoulder.
They both listened keenly, but except for the flickering lights, there was no other sound. No footsteps. No battle calls. No blaring alarms. They eased open the doors and tiptoed into the silent hallway. Mali went to the edge of the crater and peered down. It cut straight through to the level below, and even the level below that. Stains of dark blood were smeared on the edges. Kindred blood.
“A gas main blow?” Leon offered.
“There are no gas mains,” Mali answered. She crouched to inspect the burn marks. “This had to have been intentional. Biosynthetic chemicals would be the only ones strong enough to do this. They are kept in the science chambers, which are only accessible to Kindred officials. The Kindred must have set off this explosion themselves.”
“Why would they blow up part of their own station?” Leon asked.
Mali touched the edge of the crater. A familiar smell hung in the air. She leaned closer to a puddle of mystery liquid and sniffed. She drew back sharply. “One of the incendiaries was peach liqueur.”
Leon raised an eyebrow. “They only keep that in the Hunt menagerie. Trust me, I know every bar on this station.”
Shots rang out down the hall, and he spun around. Mali went rigid. She knew that sound: laser pulses. Pulses could be strong enough to either kill or stun, depending on the setting, and these sounded especially deadly.
“Quick.” She pointed to where the explosion had shattered through the wall to reveal one of the tunnels. They crawled into the tunnel as the laser pulses fired closer.
“We need to get to the Hunt,” Leon whispered. “And get Dane’s kill-dart guns. Whatever’s going on here, we need weapons of our own.”
Footsteps approached, followed by the shouts of Kindred and then more shots. Mali pressed a finger to her lips. The tunnel was shallow, and Leon reached out to pull her closer.
“Careful.”
He hugged her tightly so that she wouldn’t be visible from the hallway. His chest against her back. His breath on her neck. She felt her heart starting to beat faster. For all she’d acted like she’d been annoyed by the days pressed uncomfortably close together in the supply ship, she had to admit, she did like the feeling of his arms around her.
Trusting someone this much, she thought, is dangerous. And yet, perhaps, a danger she was willing to face.
More footsteps approached, stiff and regimented. Cloaked Kindred. But the other sets of footsteps were looser and quick, more like how uncloaked Kindred would fight.
“The Kindred are fighting one another,” Mali whispered. “Cloaked against uncloaked.”
“Why?”
Mali’s lips parted to answer, but she wasn’t certain. Her mind turned to what Cora had told her about Cassian’s secret organization, the Fifth of Five. If anything went wrong with the Gauntlet, the Fifth of Five planned to rise up and forcibly take control of the station.
“The Fifth of Five must believe that the Gauntlet plan has failed,” she whispered. “They do not know that Cora is preparing to run a different Gauntlet. That there is still hope. This complicates things significantly. We must find Cassian, quickly.”
Another explosion went off on a nearby level, shaking the whole station.
“We gotta get out of here first,” Leon said, eyeing the creaking beams overhead, “before this whole level collapses. Come on. I know where we can go.”
They crawled deeper into the tunnel, away from the sounds of laser pulses. The chalked navigation marks Leon had made weeks ago were dusty but still there. At every turn, he consulted his old marks until he found the symbol for Bonebreak’s lair—a masked face—and led Mali down two more levels and through winding passages, pointing out the cleaner traps along the way and showing her how to avoid them. At last, they reached a grate at the end of the tunnel.
“This level’s practically forgotten,” he said. “It’s where Bonebreak used to house his smuggling operation. We’ll be safe here.” He elbowed open the grate, and they climbed out into a dimly lit room. Mali drew in a lungful of fresh air, studying the room. A warehouse. Lit only by a pair of flickering wall lights, the rest long broken.
A huge figure suddenly lurched from the shadows.
Mali tensed, ready to fight.
“Wait!” Leon said. “Look.”
And then she recognized, as the creature emerged into the lights, four legs like a horse, a ridiculously l
ong neck, and brown and yellow spots. A . . . giraffe? Here? Behind it were two zebras and a lioness, tethered to the wall.
“Bonebreak traded in animals?” she said.
Leon shook his head. “Uh, I think I’d remember if those had been here before.”
Mali took a hesitant step forward. The lioness turned to her with lazy eyes, flicking her tail. Recognition flared in Mali. “They’re the animals from the Hunt. Someone must have brought them here.”
“Mali?”
Both of them spun at the sound of Mali’s name. A girl stood in the doorway, too far from the nearest light to be seen clearly. But Mali recognized her outline. The strong, lithe dancer’s body. The way she favored one knee. The hair twisted into balls.
“Makayla?”
Makayla ran up and, before Mali could react, threw her arms around her. “I can’t believe you’re here! I thought you left the station!” They had never been the best of friends—Mali had kept her distance in the Hunt—but she’d observed Makayla long enough to know she was trustworthy.
“I did leave. We came back.” Mali introduced Leon and explained why they had returned. Makayla nodded along, a serious expression on her face.
“Tessela is going to want to hear this. Hang on. Shoukry!”
Another face popped around the corner. Mali recognized the Hunt bartender’s kind dark eyes, which lit up in surprise when he saw her.
“Shoukry,” Makayla said, “tell Tessela we have company.”
He nodded and disappeared down the hall.
Mali looked over the animals in the dusty warehouse, taking in Makayla’s dress, which was now torn and dirty, as though she’d been in a battle. “What happened?”
“Not long after you escaped, all hell broke loose. Kindred started fighting against Kindred. I’ve never seen anything like it. Tessela came to free us and the animals—as many as we were able to get out of there. She’s leading a group of rebels against the Kindred Council. They’ve stormed a flight room and loaded most of the animals and the other kids on a ship to Armstrong. We’re leaving in minutes. You should come, too.”
“Armstrong isn’t the paradise the Kindred told you it was,” Mali said, exchanging a look with Leon. “And now the sheriff there is dead. It’s even more unstable than ever.”
Makayla took this in for a moment, scratching her ear, and then sighed. “Any place has to be safer than here. They’re bombing every level. Sooner or later they’ll find us.”
Shoukry returned, exchanging a few words with a Kindred woman in a form-fitting gray uniform, her straight dark hair loose around her shoulders.
“Tessela,” Mali said in relief.
“Mali?” Tessela shook her head. “You two are fools to have returned to the station. You’re lucky Makayla found you and not Arrowal’s troops.”
Tessela’s eyes were clear and her movements were fluid—she was uncloaked. Tessela had been Cassian’s second in command after Fian, but now that Fian had betrayed them, Tessela was the only Kindred left who Mali knew they could trust.
“We had to return,” Mali said. Shoukry stepped forward to hand her a flask of water, which she guzzled and then handed to Leon. “We came back for Cassian.”
Tessela shook her head in regret. “We’ve had no luck trying to free him. We thought three hundred Kindred were sympathetic to our cause, but only half that rose up with us. We’re using tactics developed on Earth: guerrilla warfare. We’ve lasted this long, but we can’t fight much longer. Arrowal set off an electromagnetic pulse that rendered all our guns useless. We only barely managed to flee down here. Cassian’s two levels up and they have every hall closed off. There’s no way to reach him.”
Mali turned to Leon. “Could the tunnels get us there?”
Leon scratched his chin. “You and me, yeah. The Kindred can’t fit.”
Tessela wiped an arm over the grime on her face. “That’s brave of you, but without weapons, it’s impossible.”
“We do have weapons,” Mali said. “Or at least, we know where to get them.” She glanced at Makayla and Shoukry, who had known the Hunt menagerie even better than she had. “Kill-dart guns that Dane used to control animals. They work with low-tech mechanics. The electromagnetic pulse won’t have affected them.”
Tessela’s eyebrows rose. She glanced at Makayla, who nodded. “It’s true. Once they arrested Dane and made me Head Ward, they told me about them.” She looked at Mali. “You know the code to access them?”
Mali nodded. “Cora told us.”
Tessela still looked doubtful. “Even with functioning weapons, it would be dangerous to go after Cassian. The ship for Armstrong leaves in moments. It’s a cargo vessel, slow but safe. It will arrive in fourteen days. You should be on it now, or you might not get another chance.”
Leon snorted. “Sorry, lady. We aren’t leaving without Cassian.”
Makayla grabbed Mali’s arm. “This is good-bye, then. Shoukry and I have to get on that ship with the last of the animals.”
“Our friends are on Armstrong,” Mali said. “Nok and Rolf. Ask for them—they will help you.”
“We will.” Makayla pulled her into another embrace. “Good luck.” She and Shoukry turned and ran down the hall toward the flight room.
“Come,” Tessela said. “We must hurry.”
As she led them down the hallways, she described where Cassian was being imprisoned and explained in quick bursts about the Fifth of Five’s uprising: how as soon as Cassian was arrested and Cora escaped the station, they stormed the station’s control center. Cloaked Kindred soldiers fought back, led by Arrowal, but members of the Fifth of Five managed to free two menageries of humans and animals and were preparing to free a third.
“Arrowal’s troops outnumber us three to one,” Tessela said. “The odds are against us, but we’re staying strong. Be cautious—even if you free Cassian, this level might soon be overrun. And there’s nowhere else to go. We’re at the bottom of the station.”
Mali opened her mouth to speak.
Before she could, a volley of laser pulses ricocheted on the level just above them.
All eyes turned toward the ceiling.
Tessela’s face was heavy with foreboding. “They’ve found us. All we can do now is hold out as long as we can, and hope they can’t get through.”
16
Cora
ON DROGANE, CORA SOON learned what Bonebreak meant when he said days there didn’t pass the same way as they did on Earth. In the darkness of the hollow mountain, any hint of the exterior sun was gone. Instead the Mosca counted time by the throbbing of the glowworms, which pulsed consistently for what Cora calculated, using the time conversion clock the Mosca children made for her, to be around fifty-seven Earth hours, and then shut off for twelve.
Cora spent every day practicing her training. Levitation with Anya and solving mental puzzles with Willa, as well as keeping to a strict physical regimen: push-ups until she collapsed; agility until her toes went numb; running up and down the ramp that circled Ironmage’s building twenty laps a day.
She reached the tenth floor—Ironmage’s home—just as her leg muscles threatened to give out. Twenty. Done. Her forehead was slick with sweat. She walked onto the suspended balcony outside Ironmage’s door and collapsed on the terrace, chest heaving as she caught her breath. Around her, eerie white plants that got their nutrients from the air hung from the balcony railings, overlooking the dark subterranean city of Tern.
She checked her time against the conversion clock. Four minutes faster than the day before.
Better.
Chest still heaving, she forced herself to sit up. Training wasn’t over yet.
She adjusted her goggles and took out Lucky’s journal. She’d spent time each day after her physical regimen going through it, soaking up Lucky’s words, remembering him.
Everything that’s alive must die. If you can, give it a good life first. . . .
Lightweight, nearly inaudible footsteps sounded behind her and she put do
wn the journal. Willa approached across the balcony, goggles knotted behind her head. For the last week they’d run through intellectual drills every afternoon, multiplying by fractions and rhyming difficult words, but Willa still hadn’t said anything about her own experience in the Gauntlet. The chimp swung herself up to perch on the railing in a way that made Cora’s head spin, but Willa only looked down calmly at the hundred-foot fall. Willa pointed to Lucky’s journal.
“Yeah,” Cora said. “I practically have it all memorized by now. I wish you’d known him. His granddad taught him a moral code. Not like the Kindred’s code—it doesn’t have anything to do with logic, but rather kindness. Listen to this.” She read, “‘Don’t make anything suffer just because you can’t stomach what needs to be done. Be true to the soul of the world.’”
Willa nodded. She reached out a hand, touching Cora’s heart, and Cora nodded back.
“That’s right,” Cora said. “Heart. That’s what Lucky was all about. That’s why his words are going to help me in the Gauntlet.” She frowned as she tucked the journal back into her pocket. “You know, I keep thinking about Rolf and Nok. And all the people we left behind on Armstrong. It was chaos. What if another bad sheriff took over? They could be enslaved again, or worse.” Cora tried not to think about all those dead bodies under the tent.
Willa handed her a note.
. . . Or they could be thriving. They were strong. Believe in them.
Cora smiled. “Thanks. I needed that.” She sighed. “Time for more multiplication tables?”
But Willa shook her head. She jumped down from the railing and waved Cora over to one of the low benches on the balcony. She patted the seat next to her and then held out a note.
We have only eleven human days left. It’s time to practice something real.
Cora looked up in surprise. “You mean a real intellectual puzzle from the Gauntlet?” She dropped her voice. “One of the ones you solved when you ran it?” A thrill ran through her, thinking about getting real information at last.
Willa nodded.
The Gauntlet Page 11