Feed the Machine (31 page)

“What have you made my lovely one?” she asked, brushing her hand on Silver’s neck.

“I modified the shocker so you don’t need the stick.”

Silver pressed the button and felt a tingle run through her body.

“Oh that’s—”

Miss Honey touched her and fell to the ground, her teeth clenched and feet kicking.

Ed and Michael looked up from the laser in shock.

“Follow me. Take the gun and find somewhere safe to hide in Cago.”

“Why why why did you do that?” Michael said.

Silver looked down at Miss Honey. She was unconscious. On her hand she had a small burn mark from where she touched Silver. The power must be a little higher than she estimated.

“We’re the good ones. They’re the bad ones. We can be better. Now follow me or bad things will probably happen to you.”

Ed picked up the gun. Michael took it from him and a second later shot the ceiling in a flash of red. The gun made a cracking sound, like a bone snapping. He dropped the gun on the table and looked at the smoking hole in the ceiling.

“Take the gun Ed! Don’t touch me. Follow. Now.”

Silver rushed for the door and her two friends followed.

Outside there were two guards. Zap zap and they were down before they could react.

Down the corridor and another around the corner. Silver ran at him and hugged his leg. He toppled forward, nearly falling on her. The next guard heard the noise and came around the corner, shockstick in hand, but Silver was too fast. She dodged it and tapped him with her palm. He dropped in a shaking heap.

Two more beside the door to the outside world holding shocksticks, ready to fight.

An enormous explosion that shook the ground and distracted them.

Zap. Zap.

You killed your brother.

Silver pulled the door open and stepped out into the street, blinking in the light.

“He’s fine. I sent him a bug.”

“Over here!”

Hello squawked and swooped down from a rooftop. Silver ducked him before he could land on her shoulder.

“Don’t touch me, it’s dangerous!”

Hello landed on the ground instead.

“Some thanks I get,” he muttered.

“Where’s the tablet?”

“Over there.”

Silver turned the shock bracelet off and scooped Hello up.

“I’m wearing a shock thing that could kill you. It’s off now.”

“Okay, fine,” Hello grumbled but then rubbed his beak against her face. She let him go and he fluttered to the ground.

Another explosion, this time from inside one of Fat Man’s warehouses. A gout of fire plumed into the sky.

Ed screamed and threw himself on the ground, the green laser in his hands.

All around them was chaos. Guards were running and shouting—none of them seemed to care about remaining at their posts. Kin and Raj had done well stealing the bombs from the Collector. It seemed they were far more powerful than she thought.

She turned around to Michael. He was helping Ed up.

“Find somewhere on the far side of Cago to hide. The slums. Look for a house with a blue door. Don’t. Come. Out.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Michael said. He and Ed took off.

Silver followed Hello to a nearby building. Under it was a small bag with her tablet inside. She searched for Nola and found her. She wasn’t far away. Then she searched for the collars. They were still locked in the same place. She put the tablet back in the bag and slipped the slice of gold in there too before sliding it back under the house.

“Don’t touch me from now on,” she warned Hello.

She turned the shock bracelet back on and ran to find her sister.

Chapter 49

Nola

It had taken twenty minutes of pulling at the knife, swearing, begging, threatening, pleading before it came free from Garrick’s chest.

It had slipped out all at once and Nola fell backwards, thudding to the ground. She got to her feet and looked at the wound. It was wet and red and bloody.

Then it glimmered silver and closed over.

Nothing happened after that. Garrick hung there like a dead piece of meat. Nola went to the wall and found the mechanism to lower him but it was locked. It took breaking the tongs and the knife to disable it so she could get him down. He fell on the floor, still.

Nola rolled him over and pressed her ear against his chest. Silence.

“Shit,” she swore, sitting back from him. His body was cooling rapidly.

Nola left him on the floor and explored the back room. It was empty, only used for holding the torturer’s griddle. The knife and tongs were broken. The only things useful in the room were the griddle (battery flat), two chairs and the chains she took off Garrick (still welded to the wall).

Nola picked up the broken knife blade and tried it in her hand. She couldn’t hold it for it to be any use. Fat Man’s chair was soft and fabric-covered but she couldn’t get enough weight on the blade to cut into it.

She was pondering stripping off her uniform to hold the knife when the first explosion hit. The room shook, dust motes falling from the ceiling. The guards outside started talking but stayed put. Then there was another explosion. It sounded closer. The guards started arguing. See what it is versus stay here.

Nola went over to the door and bashed on it.

“Hey, let me out! I killed him!”

“Shut up,” one of the guards said, his voice muffled.

“Let me out! Something bad is happening! We could all die!”

The guard didn’t answer. She heard one of them say something and then there was a heavy thud.

“Nola?”

“Silver? Is that you?”

Fear shot through her heart. They’d dragged her little sister here to torture her some more. Nola gripped the knife blade in her hand. It didn’t matter if it would hurt her—the people who had her sister were going to die. Hopefully it was Candle and Gardner.

The lock disengaged. She heard Silver grunting.

“Silver, are you okay?”

“I can’t get the door open.”

Nola dropped the knife and grabbed the door. She heaved it as hard as she could. It barely moved.

“Pull together,” Nola grunted. “One, two, three!”

They heaved again. A centimeter if they were lucky.

And again. Again. Again.

The door gave way, sliding open. Nola and Silver both fell over. Nola was up in an instant, hugging her sister.

“Careful I have a shocker on my arm,” Silver said, trying to pull free.

Nola let go. The two guards who had been arguing were unconscious. Silver lifted her arm to show the device to Nola.

“It shocks people. Don’t touch me now.” She pressed the button on it.

Nola picked up one of the shocksticks and turned it on. The end began crackling.

“We need to leave.”

Silver shook her head. “No, we’re getting the collars.”

She turned and ran back down the corridor. Nola looked back at Garrick. He wasn’t moving. She clenched the shockstick in her hand and followed her sister.

They ran into one guard on the way out—he must have been returning to his post. Silver ran into him and he dropped to the ground. Nola shocked him again for good measure.

Outside it was a sunny and beautiful day—bright and clear and warming.

People were yelling and running around and thick black smoke rose from spreading fires.

“This way!”

Nola followed Silver down a street and around a corner to another of Fat Man’s nondescript buildings. The door was ajar and there were no guards. They rushed inside into the gloom. It was poorly lit—something wrong with the lighting—and cold. Silver led the way, moving down the darkened corridors without hesitation. They ran into four guards all at once and Silver threw herself at them. They collapsed on top of her and she had to turn off her shock bracelet so Nola could pull her free. They turned the last corner. At the end was a solid metal door guarded by two men. They held their sparking shocksticks and came down the corridor.

Nola felt the blood pulsing in her head. The rage overcame her. She ran at them, brushing aside their attacks. Both of them hit the ground, shaking and gritting their teeth.

The metal door was unlocked.

“Fat Man must have thought all those guards were enough,” Nola said to Silver.

“I need to go,” Silver replied.

“What?”

“Get the collars.”

Silver bolted around the corner and away.

Nola nearly went after her but then stopped herself. She couldn’t tackle Silver to the ground when she had that shock thing on her arm. And with that she’d be fairly safe.

Another explosion, somewhere distant. A thud, a gentle rumble.

“Fuck it,” Nola said and pushed the door open.

A small weak light flickered to life as she entered the room. The walls were covered in collars. They were labeled with multiple paper notes tied to them.

There were hundreds of them.

Nola rushed to the wall and grabbed as many as she could. It wasn’t much. Then she realized she could loop them over the shockstick and carry them out that way. She turned it off and began dropping them over the stick. The collars were lightweight and she nearly cleared an entire wall before they grew too heavy. She held the stick upright, clenching her fists on both ends and carried the collars out.

There were no guards between her and the exit (none conscious anyway). She pushed the door open with her foot and walked outside. She spotted a huge plume of smoke, over near the Machine, and took off towards it.

The rage that had risen in the corridor facing those two men hadn’t faded away. If anything, finding the collars, finding
proof
was helping it burn even hotter. She didn’t want to run into Gardner or Candle until she had a good weapon in her hands but part of her did want that. She wanted to leap at them with clawed fingers and tear their eyes out.

There were no guards around as she left Fat Man’s district. She found herself collecting citizens as she approached the Machine, all of them staring amazed at the collars, yelling questions.

“Where did you get them from?”

“Fat Man has been killing our people and holding them!”

The same questions came over and over. By the time she reached the Machine the crowd had swelled to at least two hundred people. More were in the surrounding streets. People were running to the fires, away from the fires, getting out to see what was happening or running home to hide.

Nola saw Sheriff Toll yelling out for calm, his hands up in the air. The crowd around him wasn’t listening.

Then they saw Nola and the collars and grew quiet.

She made her way through them and dumped the collars on the ground. They clanged as they hit the stone, some of them rolling away. In the light Nola saw some of them were still encrusted with dried blood. People started picking them up, reading the attached labels.

Sheriff Toll grabbed one.

“This is Gustav Nott’s collar,” he said.

He moved closer to the Machine and held it out. Gustav’s name flashed on the screen. The bin opened and Sheriff Toll threw the collar in. Gustav’s name vanished and his family quota appeared. His named faded away on the screen. DECEASED flashed for a moment and disappeared.

“Where did you get these Nola?”

Nola pointed back to Fat Man’s district. Her blood boiled in her veins.

“They’re in Fat Man’s compound. Hundreds of them! This is all I could carry. He kills people and takes their collars so you have to pay. He makes you become his slave. He has traps set all around Cago. My brother was caught in one!”

She screamed it out in one long burst of fury. It swept over the crowd and gained force. The low murmur of a hundred people talking grew angry.

“If you have a missing family member their collar is still in Fat Man’s possession. Come with me to get them back! Then we kill Fat Man!”

The crowd roared. They’d picked up all the collars, were yelling out names. People were rushing forwards, claiming their dead. The anger crackled outward, leaping through the streets, carried by voice and murderous chant.

“Take us there Nola,” Sheriff Toll said.

“Make way for her!” he called out.

The crowd divided and then joined behind them. Nola led Sheriff Toll and the people down the street and back the way she came.

The chant was growing.

Kill Fat Man.

Kill Fat Man.

Kill Fat Man.

Sheriff Toll signaled his deputies to follow but that was all they could do. They were outnumbered. At best he might be able to talk the mob down, stop them exacting their bloody justice on Fat Man.

They entered his district unchallenged. No guards with shocksticks to stop them. Emboldened, the crowd pushed forward, urging Nola on. She was sweeping forward on the crest of a giant wave. Soon it would crash down and destroy the entire world.