sorcery and science 04.5 - masquerade (16 page)

Holding to that thought, Marin gripped both hands to the bar and pushed off. Right above her head, the bar screeched and groaned as it slid down the rope. Wind rushed at her face, burning her eyes, but she didn’t even dare blink. If she wanted to land on that plate, she’d need to let go at just the right moment. Timing it with her eyes open was difficult enough; doing it with her eyes closed would have been outright impossible.

She looked down. Below her, the mud looked even thicker and more disgusting than it had from atop the platform. She let go, falling about a meter before she landed. She stumbled forward, and her hands smacked hard against metal. At least she’d landed on the plate. She would have survived landing in the mud, but it would take time to get out of that oozing pile of sludge. Time she didn’t have. She didn’t need to look up at the clock to know the seconds were slipping by.

She’d only just scrambled to her feet when the plate began moving. In fact, all of the plates were now moving. They slid across the mud, turning in and out like some sort of warped amusement park ride. Crouching down so she wouldn’t fly off, Marin watched the plates. Some of them got sort of close to the edge of the mud puddle—one even got really close to it. But not her plate. The only thing it brought her remotely close to was that stupid island.

Unless the island wasn’t stupid. It looked like just a hill with overgrown grass, but maybe there was something there she could use. It wasn’t a brilliant idea, but it was the best one she had.

When the plate brought her as close to the shore as she was going to get, Marin kicked off with all her strength, hoping it was enough. She landed like a pancake in a frying pan—except her feet. They sploshed into the mud, splattering her legs with thick oozing drops. She scrambled to her feet, stomping out her muddy shoes as she ran toward…she didn’t know what. But there had to be something there.

Marin nearly tripped over a silver metal box hidden beneath the long grass. She scooped it up and flipped open the lid, smiling with relief. The box was stuffed full of bomb components. She had a feeling bombs were the solution to the Incendiaries’ puzzle.

She’d put together the first few bombs when the island roared and spit out six walking machines. The box wasn’t the only thing that had been hiding under the overgrown grass. The newcomers looked like some sort of robot—and not the friendly, ‘how-may-I-help-you’ sort either. More the sort that would pommel her into oblivion if they got the chance.

Marin’s fingers slid and slipped the parts into place, racing against not only the clock now but also the advancing horde of angry robots. By the time she’d exhausted her supply of usable parts, they were close. She realized that when one of them back-handed her across the tiny island.

“That wasn’t very nice,” she told the naughty robot as she spit out dirt and grass.

Its red eyes pulsed at her. Of course they were red. They were always red. How unoriginal. If she were to create a robot, she would give it blue eyes. Or maybe green. Purple could also work.

The naughty robot and his band clunked forward, their steps heavy and forced. They were certainly big and strong—but they moved like a gang of amputated chickens. There were so many of them, though, that it didn’t matter. They formed a robot wall that extended across the entire width of the island. Unfortunately for Marin, her ride out of there was on the other side of that wall.

She pulled a bomb out of one of the pouches that dangled from her belt. She was really glad she’d decided against leaving it at home today. It was a regular accessory to her everyday wardrobe, super useful at work and apparently also when trying to survive crazy obstacle courses.

The moving plate was almost there. She could see it through the wall of skinny robot legs. Now was the time. It would either work or not work. Marin threw the bomb at the robots. It hit one square in the chest and exploded, taking out him and his two nearest neighbors in a burst of raining, clanging robot parts. She sprinted forward through the gap, running for the plate. It was already moving away, and if she didn’t make it off the island now, she’d have to wait thirty seconds for it to come around again. That was thirty seconds she didn’t have. The countdown had already dropped below two minutes.

Not to mention the company she’d have to keep while waiting. Behind her, the surviving three robots screeched and clunked, closing in. Marin’s abs were cramping up into a painful pulsing ball and her lungs were burning for air, but she didn’t stop and she didn’t slow down. She pushed off the island and sprang forward, wheeling her legs madly in the air then kicking them forward. She landed hard on her heels and butt, her shoulders scraping against the metal plate as the impact of the fall slammed her back. Wet, slimy mud slid down the back of her shirt as she moved up into a crouch. Considering the circumstances, Marin figured she could live with that.

She pulled out two bombs and looked out at the moving plates. Like boats on a vast sea, they floated atop the mud. As one passed close to the shore, she launched a bomb at it. The smooth plate burst like a sack of confetti, shooting off of whatever under-mud belt that was propelling it. Twisted hunks of metal rained down and settled into a pile of debris that peeked up from the muddy surface. A second plate passed close to the pile, and she threw the next bomb. She took up the next two bombs and repeated. Again and again, she threw bombs at the plates until a path of debris extended all the way to the shore. She jumped off the panel, hopping along the stepping stones she’d made.

A big red button was waiting for her on the shore. She slammed her hands down hard on it. A satisfying buzz blasted out, echoing off the walls and rows of bleachers. Marin lowered her pounding body to the ground and sprawled out on the artificial grass. Above her, pulsing red numbers of the countdown clock remained frozen at fourteen seconds. A plastic water bottled landed on her stomach.

“Welcome to the team.”

STORY SEVEN

Masquerade of Technology

~ 1 ~

526AX May 15, Orion

LEONIDAS HURRIED DOWN the main street of Orion’s Industrial District, his umbrella bouncing off his calves. A heavy mist hung in the air, as gloomy as he felt. The last time he’d been in town, things hadn’t gone well for him. That was only a few months ago, just after being robbed by those two Elition thieves in Lear. He’d been summoned to SIN headquarters to explain how he’d allowed an advanced piece of technology to slip from his fingers. SIN was convinced it was Xenen in origin, which was why they were coming down hard on him about losing it.

They weren’t exactly tickled pink by his story of the Elition thieves either. And Leonidas couldn’t really blame them. People who could read minds and turn themselves into anyone else…even as he said the words, they sounded preposterous. But what if they weren’t? What if all those crazy stories about Elitions were true? If they could do even half of the things in the stories, the Selpes were in serious trouble. Elitions were too dangerous.

About ten seconds after Leonidas had finished recounting his experience with the Elitions, Aaron Pall and five of his Diamond Edges had barged into the room and claimed jurisdiction over the whole thing. From the muttered complaints of the SIN management team, Leonidas gathered that this hadn’t been the first time such a thing had happened. As soon as anything even remotely touched Elitions, the Diamond Edges swooped in and took it over. What became of the matter after that, no one could say. At least not anyone Leonidas knew. It reeked of the sort of thing they would kill you over if you came to know too much.

With the case out of their hands, SIN had sent Leonidas back to Lear. He hadn’t been punished per se, but all chances of a promotion for tracking down the stolen package had died then and there. Then again, they had died the second he’d lost it to the Elitions to begin with.

The Elitions. They’d made a real mess of everything. SIN might no longer be in the game, but that didn’t stop Leonidas from going after them on his own time. As soon as he was back in Lear, he’d put feelers out for leads. Months later, he’d gotten a bite. A mystery person had contacted him, claiming to offer a way to stop the Elition thieves. Leonidas wasn’t ready to break out the wine and do a victory dance yet, but the lead was worth a trip to Orion to see what the man knew.

People in rain jackets passed by, their necks bent over phones or their eyes angled up, lost in their own minds. One of these people tripped on a crack in the pavement as she passed him, ramming hard against him. Leonidas caught her by the shoulder—then froze as she turned her eyes up to him.

“Marin?” he asked. She sure looked like Marin, but so had that Elition impostor. And after that experience, he’d stopped trusting what his eyes thought they saw.

“Uh, hi, Leo. Sorry about that. I was lost in thought.”

As she took a step back, he looked her over. She really looked like Marin. Even her eyes had that signature distracted gleam, the sign that part of her brain was always working through something else.

“As always,” he replied.

He continued to look her over, trying to pinpoint anything that would give it away that she wasn’t Marin. Since that night in Lear, he’d replayed the encounter over and over again in his head, scouring the memory for any hint that something was off. And looking back, there had been things that should have clued him in that the woman wasn’t Marin. Her clothes. The way her hair was done. Her boldness. Even her tech-talk had been a bit off. But Leonidas had been too busy flirting with her to use his brain. Well, that was a mistake he wouldn’t be making again.

“So, what are you doing here?” Marin asked.

“Just here for a little time off,” he said, purposely vague. If this person turned out to be another impostor, she wouldn’t get anything from him. “What are you doing here?”

“I work here remember.” She smiled. “At Orion Explosives. Just two blocks back.”

There was something too authentic about that smile. Like it was so real, it couldn’t be real.

“Surely, you remember. You were the one to suggest I take the job.”

“I remember,” he said.

The smile faded a tad. Better.

“So, maybe you’d like to do something while you’re here? There’s a neat exhibit of Xenen artifacts at the Technology Museum. They have this small cylinder there, about the size of a pack of gum. They think it’s a super-mega-crazy power source. Or at least it used to be. It doesn’t work anymore. Just imagine it! No larger than a pack of gum, and packing more energy than one of our latest and greatest fusion generators can produce in a whole day. And the Xenens were making them seven hundred years ago.”

Leonidas watched her talk, her arms waving to and fro just like a conductor. Just like Marin. Whenever she got caught up babbling about something she found really fascinating, her arms did that. The fake Marin in Lear hadn’t done it. That was one of the signs he’d noticed later. So, maybe this really was Marin. Or maybe the Elition had gotten better at impersonating her. There was only one way to find out.

“Marin, how does an airplane wing work?”

Her mouth opened immediately, the words gushing from it like a waterfall. “Wings are constructions of light metal—or fiber, as in carbon—that are pointed at the back. You know, they split the air into lower and upper streams. Think of an egg. Then imagine you cut a slice out of the middle of it. If you were to cut a thin strip out of this slice, then stick the other two halves together, the shape you’d get looks pretty much like if you’d look through a wing.” Twinkling with the typical Marin spark, her eyes drifted up. She said nothing more for a few seconds, and then the words broke out as fast as before, as though she’d never stopped talking. “In any event, the airstream has a longer path to go around the bulkier top. That means that the air pressure is lower on the top. Logically, that creates the uplifting force.”

Either this really was Marin, or Elitions knew a whole lot more about technology than they let on. Still, Leonidas had to be sure.

“Marin, what color was Nightstalker?”

It was an obscure question, unlikely one that an impostor would know—even one who had extracted memories from his mind.

“Black with white paws,” she said.

“And what did you always call him?”

“Mittens, of course,” she laughed. “That was
obviously
his name, Leo. But as always, you had to go and disagree.”

Leonidas stepped forward—then back again. She really was Marin, and that was almost worse than an impostor. He’d
kissed
her. Well, no, that had been the impostor actually. But he hadn’t known that at the time. He’d thought he was kissing Marin.
Marin
. He wasn’t sure what to do about that. If he told her how he felt…no, that really wasn’t an option. She wasn’t like other women. She was…well, Marin. She was too important to screw this up. She’d probably laugh in his face. Kind of like she was doing now.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” she chuckled. “So, what do you say?”

“To what?”

“To checking out that museum this afternoon. I have the day off.”

She wanted to spend time with him. That was good, right? He could meet with this mystery contact and still have time to hang out with Marin afterwards.

Yeah, and then what?
he asked himself.

Then you tell her how you feel.

Right. Because I’m so good at that.

There’s no need to get sarcastic.

Do you even understand me at all?

I am you. So I know you’re scared. Scaredy cat.

Leonidas looked at Marin. “I’ll have to pass. I’m quite busy.”

“I thought you were here for some time off.”

“I am. And I already have plans to meet someone,” he finished, even as his mind called out,
lame! lame! lame!

“Then I’ll see you around, Leo,” Marin said quietly.