Crucible Zero (26 page)

“Matilda?” Abraham asked.

“That's the watch,” I said. “It was Alveré's, and passed down from father to son in the Case family. I took it back with me. It was the only thing of modern time that traveled back in time with me. Maybe this is the relic.” I looked over at Abraham.

He bit at the stitches on the corner of his mouth. “I don't know. Was it a part of the machine?”

“No, but I took it back with me,” I said again. “It was a physical item that shifted through time. And if what Welt—” I paused. I didn't want to drag Welton into this. They didn't believe me about time travel, I didn't think they'd believe that the current custodian of House Earth was the head of House Yellow in my time. Nor that he had found a way to tell me that we needed to locate the time artifact if we were going to kill Slater.

“Well,” I said instead. “Well, if what we think is true, then I don't know if anything else exists that could be the relic. Plus, if this is it, there's an easy way to test it: destroy it and kill Slater.”

He didn't look convinced. “You don't know for certain that this watch is the item.”

“I don't know for certain that it isn't,” I said.

The others swore softly or shook their heads.

“But I will go to great lengths to see Slater dead. That”—I pointed at the watch I still hadn't been brave enough to touch—“is as good a start as any.”

“It's still a gamble,” he said.

“I'm not afraid of a little gamble. Are you?”

Before he could answer, there was a soft knock on the door. Oscar strolled into the room. “I thought I might find you here, Abraham, Matilda.” He paused and scanned the rest of the people in the room. “Hello, everyone. I hope the day is treating you well.”

“Binek,” Buck, and several others, said by way of greeting.

“Abraham, I have your information,” he said.

“Might as well say it here.”

Oscar raised his eyebrows. “Are all of you in on Abraham and Matilda's plans?”

“They are,” Abraham said.

“I see,” Oscar said. “This has been some years coming, hasn't it? Far be it from me to stand in the way of revenge rightfully earned. For the things he has put you all through, I hope this retaliation is sweet and swift.”

“Thank you,” Abraham said.

“You will need to be at the east entrance of House Fire before sunset. There will be a contact who will meet you there and guide you in behind the wall. Once past the wall, she will take you to a building adjacent to Slater's private office and residence. That's where you'll run into problems I can't solve for you.”

“Problems?” I asked.

“I can't be sure exactly where Slater will be in the building. It's fifteen floors. The entrances are under surveillance, with cameras and guards, and everything is run off an encrypted computer system of his own design. To get past the cameras and through the doors, you'll need passwords I can't obtain in a day. Maybe not in a week.”

“House Earth doesn't have a week,” I said. “There will be another bombing today, if there hasn't been already. I won't wait a week while innocent people die.”

January scoffed. “Seriously, Abraham. Where did you dig up that sweet little hero?”

I turned to her. “We get it. You're angry. Fine. If you want to bitch, take it somewhere else. If you want to fight me, you'll have to wait until I kill this bastard. In the meantime, keep your opinions of me to yourself.” I turned to Oscar. “I can hack the computer.”

“What?” he asked. I wasn't sure if he was startled by my snapping at January or that I had computer skills.

“I know computers. I can hack into any system. Get me close enough—the building next to where Slater stays—and I'll black out the surveillance system, spring the locks, and pinpoint Slater.”

“Where did you learn computer skills, Matilda? Your farm isn't wired.”

“I learned it a long time ago. I can get us past his security.” I glanced up at Abraham to see if he believed me.

He chewed on his bottom lip, his gaze steady on me. “Hollis was no help?” he asked Oscar.

“Slater changes the passwords every three minutes,” Oscar said. “Seems our friend has taken his paranoia to dizzying heights.”

Abraham inhaled, exhaled, and released his lip. “Matilda will handle the security.”

“That's what I call a vote of confidence,” Vance said. “A foolish, foolish vote of confidence.”

Wila chuckled, but no one else had any comments. “I'll leave it to your decision,” Oscar said. “Is there anything else you need?”

“Do you have a way to fill bullets with powder?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said, almost offended.

“Give me a couple minutes, Abraham,” I said. “I'll be right back.”

*   *   *

While Oscar watched me closely, I filled six bullets with Shelley dust, and still had a small amount left over.

“Waste not, want not.” Oscar handed me a medical syringe and needle. I filled the syringe with the remaining powder.

“I am more than a little curious as to what that powder might be,” he said as I loaded the six bullets into the handgun, then tucked the syringe into the breast pocket of the leather coat I was wearing. “Can I assume it will kill Slater?”

“Sure,” I said. “That's what I'm going to assume. If I can get close enough, anyway.” I stood away from the worktable he'd taken me to in a room that looked more like a bomb shelter than the basement of a church. “Thank you for all of your help, Oscar. I mean, Mr. Binek. I hope to see you again someday.”

“You will,” he said. “I'll need to come out to your farm to inspect that medical balm you'll be giving me seventy percent control over.”

“Fifty. Nonexclusive distribution.” I smiled.

“Is that what it was?” He grinned, his eyes twinkling. “You do know this is all going to work out, don't you, Matilda?”

“Nice of you to say so.”

“I am a man of some reputation. A man who never makes reckless bets. And I would stake my reputation that you and Abraham will see this through to the end. That you and he will be done with Slater once and for all.”

“I hope you're right,” I said, climbing the stairs. “If I don't see you again . . .”

“Which you will,” he said, climbing the stairs behind me.

“But if I don't, I want you to know I appreciate how much you've always gone out of your way to help others. To help me. Even when there never was much of a reason to.”

I knew he'd think I was talking about the information he'd given us in this time. While I was grateful for that, it was the other, generous-hearted Oscar from the other timeway that I wished I had one more chance to thank.

But this timeway and this Oscar were the best I could do.

“I haven't done much at all, really,” he said. “We'll have time to get to know one another better. I'm sure of it.”

We crossed the landing and paused there in the small private room at the top of the stairs. Just beyond this single door was the lounge where I'd last seen the galvanized.

“I will give you one piece of advice,” he said. “For free.”

I smiled. “I was under the impression you didn't do free.”

“This isn't business,” he said. “This is advice, and you may set your own value for it. Abraham and I go back a long way. Almost all my life. He has been looking for you for many years, Matilda. He has never forgotten that you saved his life. I know your hatred for Slater runs deep, and so does his. But understand, all that aside, Abraham intends to pay back your act of kindness. No matter the cost.

“He may be galvanized, but he is also a man who follows a certain set of morals. Old-fashioned in his loyalties. He is capable of great kindness and immense sacrifice. I would be very upset if he comes to harm. Any harm.”

“We're walking into an enemy camp,” I said. “I can't guarantee any of us are going to walk out of that in one piece.”

“I wasn't talking about bullets,” he said. “I was talking about you.”

Those words stopped me for a moment.

“You think I want to hurt him?”

“I don't know. But my advice”—he pressed his hands together like we'd just come to an agreement—“is that you should not use the advantage he's placed in your hands for wrong. Or you and I will be on much less friendly terms.”

“What advantage?” I was the one new to this world. I was the one who was having to sort through however many different timeways and versions of people and rules and threats. As far as I could tell, I was more at a disadvantage than anyone else. Plus, there was a madman who had made killing me his priority number one.

Then there was that whole thing Abraham had pointed out: if Slater died, would I die too?

“He cares for you. More than he shows.”

“Did he tell you that?” I asked.

“In many ways. He went with Sallyo to find you, stayed with you, brought you here, bartered my favor for you, took you to his home. You're wearing that jacket.”

I tugged at the edge of the jacket. “So this is more than him showing me common courtesy and also wanting me as his kill buddy?”

“It is much more.”

“Who did it belong to?”

“That's his story to tell,” he said. “Ask him someday.”

“If I get a someday, I will.”

The door to the room opened, and Abraham stood there. “Are you ready? We don't have much time if we're going to get there before sundown.”

“Good,” Oscar said. “Then I will see you on your farm, Matilda Case, if not sooner. Good luck to you.” He nodded to Abraham. “Stop by for a drink when you're done, Bram.”

“I'll do that,” Abraham said.

I nodded to Oscar, then stepped out of the small space toward Abraham.

“Did you take care of what you needed?” Abraham asked.

“I'm ready,” I said, “no matter how much time we have left.”

Does he think I'll lay down and die? That I won't find a way to tell you everything? To save you, to save Foster?

—W.Y.

W
e traveled in two cars across the open terrain. After driving for over an hour on rugged roads, our tires hit smooth highway and made twice the speed. Other vehicles whizzed past us, while heavy motorized equipment trundled more slowly on the right side of the road.

It was amazing how quickly the scenery went from dirt, scrub, and wilds to tended fields with rows of produce, and rows of workers harvesting and hauling.

The longer we drove, the more populated the area became. I thought that if the borders were still to be drawn in the old-fashioned manner of my timeway, we were a good deal more east and had crossed into the boundaries of the big city and metropolitan sprawls that had existed there.

After a steady blur of fields large enough to feed countless cities, we came down over a rise, and I got my first glimpse at House Fire's impressive skyline.

Abraham hadn't been kidding when he said House Fire was far more advanced than House Earth. This city looked so much like the cities from my timeway, I couldn't help but smile at the skyscrapers that spiraled up hundreds of stories, and the bridges and roadways that looped and stitched through the neon buildings, trees, and other structures.

There were no speed tubes, but there was no lack of trains, trams, cars, and motorcycles in this bustling landscape. It was big. It was busy. It was familiar.

The two things noticeably different from my time were the lack of airplane traffic—or really any traffic in the sky at all—and the massive metal wall that stretched out for miles and miles, surrounding the city.

Cameras reflected sunlight at regular intervals along the walls, and watchtowers built with heavy glass windows that allowed clear vantages of the city and its surroundings were set at equal distance along the top of the thick wall.

“That's not a city; it's a fortress,” I said from where I sat in the passenger's seat next to Abraham, who was driving.

“Both,” Abraham agreed.

Foster sat in the very back of the car, which was big enough to comfortably seat six. Dotty, Vance, and January filled the other seats. I was pretty sure January had only come along to watch me fail.

The galvanized carried weapons and watched the scenery go by with the casual confidence of someone who could kill their way out of any situation and had done so often enough that it had become routine.

In a way, I couldn't be among stronger allies. I couldn't be in a safer place than surrounded by these people.

But I didn't know them well enough to truly trust them. More than once I'd wondered if any of them would betray us, turn me in for the price on my head, or just turn Abraham and me both in to Slater for other reasons.

They'd lived three hundred years. I didn't doubt there had to be some hard feelings among them. I just hoped they all hated Slater the most.

Abraham appeared relaxed. He rested his elbow on the edge of the window, his blunt fingers propped against his temple. He chewed at the inner corner of his mouth, maybe nervous, maybe bored.

I decided to take it as nervous, since this plan—what there was of it—hinged on Hollis's arranging for someone to meet us to get us past the wall and the initial security, so we could take down the surveillance systems and pinpoint Slater.

It was making me nervous.

Foster still had the pocket watch. I had spoken to him briefly during the first part of our travel and told him not to destroy it, not to do anything other than carry it until we got inside the city and knew Slater's location. Then we'd break it, whether it was the key or not, and do our best to break Slater.

With every minute, the details of the city became clearer and clearer. But we still had a long way left to drive before we were anywhere near the entry gates of the wall.

My thoughts drifted to Quinten. He would know I was gone by now and had to be furious about it. The note I'd left explained that I was heading on to Coal and Ice with Abraham and Foster. I hadn't told him that we would be hunting Slater, since I didn't think leaving behind hard evidence of a murder plot was a good idea.

But he'd know exactly what my main priority was: stopping Slater, which meant he knew I was coming here to kill him.

I hoped Gloria was recovering. I hoped Quinten and Neds weren't doing something dumb, like trying to get to Slater before us. I rolled that over in my head, wondering if my brother—well, this brother of mine—was the sort who would leave his dying love behind and run off half-cocked to try to save me.

Crap. He just might.

But they couldn't travel in the night, so that gave me a six-hour jump on him. If he had set out to Coal and Ice at dawn, he was probably just arriving there. I hoped Oscar wouldn't let him drive through the night to House Fire.

Or there was the chance Quinten was still at House Earth, tending Gloria and making more cure for the plague, like he should be. There was a chance he hadn't found my note.

I thought there might be enough sensible people there who could talk him into staying: Neds, Gloria, Welton.

Well, Gloria and Neds were sensible people anyway.

The day was sliding into evening by the time we joined the line of cars, wagons, and other vehicles waiting to be admitted into the city, the heavy cloud cover tamping out the sun. Oscar had told us to enter through the east gate. He had said there would be someone there to meet us.

If he was wrong, if Hollis hadn't found a way around House Fire security, we were rolling toward our own prison.

Or death.

The vehicle in front of us was waved through the gate by the guard who wore a uniform of red and orange. We were next.

Two guards walked up on either side of the car, and Abraham and I rolled down our windows.

“Identification,” the guard on Abraham's side asked.

Abraham pulled a tag Oscar had given us from behind the visor and handed it out the window.

The guard straightened, studied the tag for what felt like forever. “Wait here.”

He turned and walked toward a door set into the wall, pulling a walkie-talkie out of his belt.

There were cameras everywhere. The guard next to my window watched us, his gaze flicking over Foster, Dotty, and January, hand casually resting on the gun he had strapped to his thigh.

I didn't say anything, and did my best not to look nervous or like a criminal. Or like a nervous criminal.

The first guard paused at the door in the wall, and it opened. Vance in the seat behind me softly whispered, “Son of a bitch.”

Through that door strolled Sallyo, her dark hair pulled back to somehow make the angles of her face even sharper, her snake-slit eyes widened with heavy black eyeliner, her slacks and shirt both the military-cut uniform of burnt red and orange.

She looked like an official House Fire guard, except for the stripe of black across her shoulder and the deference the other guards paid her. Which meant she was more than a common guard.

I thought she was a mercenary, not a guard on House Fire's payroll. Now I had no idea what she was.

She stopped by Abraham's window. “Just this car?” she asked.

“And the one behind us,” Abraham answered.

He didn't look surprised to see her. He didn't sound surprised.

“It looks like everyone came out to play,” she said. “Isn't that nice?” She flashed her sharp teeth. “It is so good of you to respond to our invitation. Exit the vehicle and follow me.”

She moved away from the door, and Abraham rolled up his window. I followed his lead.

“Tell me you're not trusting her,” January said from the backseat.

“I never have,” Abraham said. “But she's our contact. I don't have to trust her once she gets us in the city.”

“Out in the open where everyone will see us?” Vance said, cracking his knuckles. “I hate this.”

“Oh, you love it,” Dotty said. “Just smile for the cameras and try to look human.”

“I'd rather shoot her,” Vance said.

“Don't fret,” Dotty said. “You might get your chance.”

We all stepped out of the car, and Abraham signaled for the others behind us to leave their car too. Then we followed Sallyo, beneath the cameras, beneath the curious gazes of at least a hundred people waiting in vehicles or moving about on the streets and sidewalks inside the city near the gate.

I should feel vulnerable, exposed.

But walking with half a dozen nearly immortal killers beside me, all of us joined in the mutual task of killing a man who had destroyed our lives and the lives of too many others, and who would only continue destroying lives, made me feel the opposite of exposed.

I felt powerful with these people. My people. It was my place to fight beside them and for them. In my own way, I was doing a lot more than killing Slater. I was avenging the lives and rights of each of these people who had been forced to be criminals in this world, and slaves in the other.

It felt right.

The sky was rapidly losing light as we made our way down a narrow strip of sidewalk, concrete wall on one side, metal chain-link fence on the other, a metal ceiling above us.

Sallyo strode in the front of us all, like she was leading a damn parade. Six armed guards marched behind us. After three blocks, Sallyo turned and then stopped.

“I'll take them to the holding room,” she said to the guards. “You are dismissed.”

The guards paused. They obviously didn't think it was a good idea to leave one woman, even if she was a mutant, to try to control all the galvanized in the world.

“Dismissed,” she commanded.

The guards saluted, then walked back the way we'd come.

“It's real nice of you seeing us in like this,” Dotty said.

“This doesn't have anything to do with you, Dot,” Sallyo said. “I'm just doing the job.” She opened the door and stepped inside a room.

We all walked in after her.

The room was dark, and my eyes couldn't adjust to it quickly enough.

“Fuck,” Buck, behind and to my left, breathed.

The door slammed behind us and we were plunged in total darkness.

“Down!” Abraham yelled.

A body slammed into me—maybe Vance; maybe Buck—and I tumbled to the floor, grunting as I hit hard.

Buck swore, probably feeling that fall, since he was touching me.

The room broke apart into staccato flashes of light and darkness as gunfire filled the room.

Sallyo had led us right into an ambush.

“. . . bitch!” Vance yelled over the rattle of guns.

Dotty, Wila, Vance, and January threw some kind of glow bulbs impervious to bullets that stuck where they landed. Light arced a trail up to the ceiling and the walls, and rolled across the floor, crackling with the pop of electricity snapping to life.

I was crouched on the floor, behind some kind of storage crate, trying to get my bearings on the room.

The place was big enough to park fifty cars inside; concrete floor, walls, roof. Metal stairs at the far end led up to a metal walkway that hung over the far wall and halfway out to the walls on either side of us.

I spotted dozens of soldiers up on that metal walkway, firing down at us. Most of them wore goggles—hopefully, night-vision goggles that were useless now that the room was ablaze in globe light.

The galvanized were already firing back, weapons they'd kept hidden suddenly in their hands.

Vance and January rushed the stairs, both of them yelling as Wila, Dotty, and Vance laid down suppressive fire.

“This way!” Abraham grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet.

I ran with him. Between one step and the next, a bolt of pain lanced my shoulder.

I'd been shot. I yelled, then reached for my gun, but didn't pull it. It was loaded with the Shelley dust, and there was no way in hell I was wasting those bullets on these guards.

Abraham swore and pushed me ahead of him, twisting to fire as we ran.

It wasn't until we were nearly at the far wall that I realized Foster was pounding behind us, covering our escape.

Abraham opened a door and shoved me through it.

I stumbled, caught myself.

Other than square and enclosed, I didn't have any clue what this empty room was originally intended for.

Foster slammed the door.

“Lock it,” Abraham ordered, striding my way.

Foster spread his feet, then gripped the metal handle in one hand. He twisted, and I could hear the wrenching scream of metal crushing and collapsing in his hand.

I was a strong girl. And Foster was a frighteningly strong man.

“Are you all right?” Abraham dropped a clip out of his handgun and slammed a new one into position. He handed me the gun. “You're bleeding.”

“Shoulder hurts like hell. I'm fine.” I took a moment to get the heft and feel of the gun.

He'd already pulled a second from somewhere under his jacket.

And I'd thought Neds carried a lot of heat.

“Why didn't you fire?” he asked, striding across the room to the metal stairs that jagged up to the second story.

“I filled the bullets with Shelley dust,” I said, climbing behind him.

He stopped and glanced over his shoulder. “How many?”

I pushed at his back to make him move. Foster had destroyed the door handle, but that didn't mean there wasn't another way into this place.

“Six.”

“Good.” He jogged the stairs, and I jogged after him.

“Do you know where you're going?” I asked.

“Should be a control room this way.”

“How do you know?”

“I was a guard here many years ago.”

“You could have warned me that we were walking into an ambush.”

“Didn't know. Things have changed. This way.”

His knowledge of the layout was handy. Although I didn't know why we needed Oscar's info if Abraham knew his way around.