The First Book of Ore: The Foundry's Edge (6 page)

“Take her to the pen,” he said. “Wait for further instruction.”

Her flickering fear congealed into something more definitive—a cold and sickening dread. Her throat constricted, and she couldn't breathe. It was as if the Watchman were choking her all over again. Reality finally sank in.

There was no escape.

The two Autos rolled down the driveway, leaving Plumm Estate shrouded in silence behind them.

Then the bushes rustled.

Micah stumbled out from the shrubs, scratching furiously after sitting still for so long. He had been wandering out front, trying to dodge his chores, when the Autos pulled up. As soon as those creeps in the hats appeared, Micah hid.

But he hadn't been expecting this.

What should he do? Going to the cops was a waste of time. And sure, it would take a while for those two Autos to wind down the switchbacks of Shimmering Crest, but not that long. The Doc needed help
now
.

Micah raced around to the servants' quarters at the back of the estate and peered through the window of the Tanner cottage. There was Ma, passed out on the couch with a half-drained bottle of cherry wine in her hand, snoring like a wildebeest. Fat lotta good she'd be.

Should he go find Randy? By the time his brother got through popping his zits, slicking back his hair, and putting his stupid cadet uniform on, the Doc would be long gone.

Micah ran to his work shed and flung open the doors.

A lopsided smile spread across his face.

He snatched his jacket off the hook and slipped it on. It was a souvenir replica of a real-life MIM pilot's jacket. When this was all over, and the Televiewer news crews came to talk to him about his daring rescue of Dr. Jules Plumm, Micah wanted to look the part.

A thrill rippled through him, and his mind started to race. He was going to be famous. He was going to be a hero. They'd probably let him into cadet school early just for the publicity!

Of course, what he was about to do would put him in a whole new category of trouble, earning him a kind of punishment that hadn't even been invented yet. It was stupider than anything he had ever done in his entire life.

Micah tore away the tarp.

For safety reasons, the drive motors on Cable Bikes came installed with a limiter bolt that capped their speed. No good if he wanted to catch those Autos. Micah ripped off the bolt with a wrench and slid the tool into his back pocket.

This bad boy was the Doc's only hope.

Just like Maddox. No guts, no glory.

 

icah jogged alongside the Bike, leading it out of Plumm Estate. The hair on his arms rose as he listened to the muted whir of its segmented platinum wheels. The kidnappers were probably still zigzagging down the hill. If Micah could just get to the Link-Way hub around the corner, he'd be able spot them from the air. Piece of cake.

He tried to mount the Cable Bike, but his leg wasn't long enough to swing over. It took him a few tries, and he repeatedly cursed his size. Finally, he had to lean the Bike against a tree to climb aboard.

Once he was settled, Micah cranked the starter gear on the handgrip, and the Bike growled to life. He gunned the throttle, thrilling to every rumbling vibration. It was like having an electric panther on a chain. Micah had practically memorized the entire manual for the Bike, but in his excitement it still took him a minute to figure out how to pop the clutch and put it in gear.

The machine blasted forward like a rocket. He flailed for the handlebars and clung tight. This thing was way too fast. Way too dangerous. Way too perfect.

Micah squealed as the Bike shot down Shimmering Crest. He had to stand to reach both the handlebars and the footholds, and the wheels wobbled as he struggled to keep control. The Link-Way hub around the corner was lit up with a bright blue spotlight, and it was vacant. He pulled into the mounting niche, then he hit the release button and pushed the handlebars into their upright “flight” position.

With a hiss of perfectly balanced hydraulics, the back runner boards slid out, swung overhead, and snapped together to form the swoop of the cable arm. The two halves of the torpedo-shaped winch head joined around the ascension line that led to the Link-Way high above. The street wheels retracted into the frame with a soft purr, and the Cable Bike hung there, suspended just off the ground.

Micah strapped himself into the harness. His finger quivered above the silver switch that would engage the Bike.

Then he hit it.

With a jolt, the ground dropped away, and the Bike screamed up the ascension line and onto one of the many parallel cable lanes. Before he knew it, Micah was whipping past caution signs sixty feet above the ground.

It was like being strapped to a missile. The air felt sharp and wild as it whistled through his nose and mouth. He looked down at the winking night-lights of the city and the sparkling bay on the horizon. It was everything he had dreamed it would be. He had never felt anything like it.

Micah whooped in exhilaration.

There was a cluster of Bikers ahead of him, puttering along on the right. Micah waited for the next crossover, the links between cables that allowed riders to switch lanes. He leaned his weight to steer left, his Bike slid over, and he whizzed past the slowpokes. No sweat!

Micah glanced down to see if he could locate the bronze-striped Auto-mobiles, but he was going too fast to see anything. Just as he squeezed the brake, they came into focus. The Autos were in close formation, about to merge into downtown traffic.

He pumped his fist in a victory salute but quickly grabbed the handlebars when the Bike began to wobble.

The Link-Way junction leading to downtown was dead ahead. He hit the turn too fast, and the winch head let out a grinding squeal. The Bike fishtailed violently under the taut, twanging cable. The world around him spun and shuddered, and for an instant, Micah was sure he was going to fall.

But when he released his sweaty hand from the shifter, the Bike steadied, and the blinding smear that was Albright City sprang back to normal. He noticed that the winch head was climbing in pitch, like a violin string being tightened.

Maybe yanking off that limiter bolt wasn't such a swell idea after all.

He risked a glance back at the road—the Autos were gone!

The steel canyon maze of Albright City closed in. Bikers raced above and below him, a chaotic horde speeding in every direction. Their headlamps tore streaks across his eyes. No way he could search the streets below for the Autos and keep an eye on the crazy cable traffic at the same time. He blasted past skyscrapers, his reflection flashing back at him from lofty office windows. Micah was eye level with massive statues of golden eagles and dancing maidens mounted atop the mirror-polished buildings. It would have been wicked if he weren't dead numb with panic.

He released the brake, and his Cable Bike accelerated like it had a mind of its own—a psycho mind that clearly wanted to kill him. Apparently, that limiter bolt he had removed also kept the Bike from constantly speeding up on its own. Must have skipped that page in the manual. This meant that he had to keep one hand squeezing the brake. Which was bad.

Micah spotted them, the two Autos dodging in and out of traffic below. He felt a charge and released his grip on the brake. The Bike roared. Not gonna lose them again.

He had already worked out what was going on with the kidnappers. These were spies from Greinadoren (or another one of those sneaky little countries), and they were going to hold Dr. Plumm ransom until he gave up some kind of vital Foundry secret. Now Micah would swoop down, free the Doc, and pound a few spy noggins in the process.

The Cable Bike was accelerating so fiercely that every turn of the handlebars threatened to throw him off balance. He squeezed the brake again and was met with a shriek and a hot blast of acrid smoke. Must have burned through half the brake pad by now.

Glancing down, he watched as the Autos turned onto the suspension bridge that led to Foundry Central. That was weird. Why would those spies drive up to the Foundry's front gates? It didn't make a lick of sense. Unless…

Micah's insides churned. What was supposed to be the best night of his life was starting to look an awful lot like a suicide mission.

Had the Doc been kidnapped by the Foundry?

He searched desperately for the junction across the bridge, but hundreds of Bikers were merging and breaking away, darting this way and that, following patterns he couldn't decipher. A big sign pointing toward the Foundry loomed out of the darkness. Micah cranked the handlebars, but there were too many riders cutting him off from the exit.

He was going to miss the stupid bridge!

Wedged between two Watchmen, Phoebe wriggled forward to get a glimpse of where they were taking her, but it was hard to see anything out of the Auto's narrow window slits. With her initial terror receding, she felt anger rising up in its place. It was time for a new tactic.

Phoebe hitched her breath, working up a convincing sob.

“P-please,” she whimpered, “I'm scared. I want my daddy.”

They didn't so much as glance at her.

“I—I feel sick. And I have to go to the potty.”

Nothing. Their faces remained fixed straight ahead, eyes hidden behind those irritating black spectacles.

The Auto-mobile slowed. Traffic. Phoebe perked up—this was her chance.

When it stopped, she leaped across the Watchman to her right and forced the door open. For an instant, she could taste the pungent air of Foundry Bay and hear the bleat of horns. The choppy shudder of Aero-copter blades thundered overhead. She was swinging her leg outside when the Watchman yanked her back in and slammed the door. Phoebe glared at her captors, huffing and heaving.

A curious alarm went off in her mind. At first she thought it must be a trick of the stifling silence in the Auto, but staring at the Watchmen, she became convinced. Phoebe was the only one breathing.

Their broad chests were as unmoving as their expressions.

She felt ill. None of this made sense.

A tiny movement grabbed her attention, a flicker deep within the ear canal of the Watchman on her right. She leaned toward him, and a sickly chill ran down her spine.

Something was writhing inside the Watchman's ear.

No time to think. Micah growled and gunned the throttle, rocketing past the other Bikes. He jetted across six lanes toward the exit, only to find his path blocked by construction barricades. Micah slammed the handlebars to the right and whipped around a corkscrew turn. His dinner climbed up his throat, and he wrestled it back down.

Another barrier popped up, and he flung himself to the left, evading a collision by inches. His head was spinning. He wiped the sweat from his eyes just in time to see an approaching junction. The Bike swerved onto an adjoining lane, and the winch head chattered in a spray of sparks. Ahead, the cable he was on dropped at a steep angle and disappeared.

Micah clamped his eyes closed in terror.

Then, with a sudden jolt, he was level again. He braved a look. Six empty cable lanes lay before him. Misty wind snapped at his face. The gargantuan rays of the Crest of Dawn shone ahead. He was above the bridge. The Foundry was in front of him, and the kidnappers' striped Autos were below.

He had done it!

Searchlights swept over the dark bay to his right. A dozen Aero-copters swarmed a black ship. Military boats were converging upon it, lighting the tide with huge lamps.

Micah squinted at lights in his eyes. More Aero-copters up ahead.

Wait, those ain't spotlights.

His heart stopped. Somehow, he had gotten on the wrong lane and was heading directly into oncoming traffic!

He howled a bloodcurdling scream and crushed the brake. Sparks exploded from the winch head like fireworks, followed by a flash and a deafening pop. The brake went limp. The engine lurched forward, out of control. Now there was no way to stop accelerating.

Horns blared. A blinding white wall of death raced at Micah, and he hurled his Bike to the left as the first oncoming rider blurred past. Then to the right, then back again. He shrieked, but the wailing engine and his ever-increasing speed whipped the sound away.

Micah lunged left to avoid the next, but the rider went left as well. He went right, and so did the oncoming Bike. Wildly, he feinted left, then zoomed right, barely steering clear.

One wrong move and he was dead meat.

He spotted a new lane, a red maintenance cable off to the right. Regaining some control of his swerving Bike, he dodged back quickly to avoid another head-on crash and snaked around two more riders. He made a mad dash for the red cable, forcing the handlebars with every last ounce of strength.

Micah rushed onto the maintenance line, and a shower of sparks burst overhead. His Cable Bike convulsed violently, then dropped a few inches as a new whine mingled with the screech of the gears. Something hot spun off and whistled past his ear. He looked up—the winch head was on fire.

This was not at all like his plan. Micah regretted the whole thing: spying in the bushes, stealing the Bike, all of it.

But it was too late now.

The sunbeams of the Crest of Dawn towered above like a glinting guillotine, and the island of Foundry Central yawned before him, waiting to swallow him whole. A quick look down to the street, and he saw one of the striped Autos pull into a security zone. The other one headed for a maintenance area, near where his red cable angled down to an abrupt stop.

End of the line.

He was dropping like a firebomb. Micah looked for a way off the Bike that wouldn't end with his funeral. The maintenance area sat in the shadow of one of the Crest's massive columns. There were empty service vehicles parked beside a row of flowering oak trees. Not a very good option, but what choice was there? Micah fixed his eye on a tree close to the end of the red cable and unclipped his harness. It was now or never.

The ground was an undifferentiated blur below him, and the flames of the ruined winch head licked at his ears. He swung his leg over the seat and prepared to pounce. The cable sang overhead, ripping through the disintegrating mechanism. The universe was filled with a thunderous roar. The earth rushed up to meet him.

Micah leaped.

He seemed to hang in the air forever, suspended. He could even hear how quiet and pleasant the night was, now that the flaming Bike was falling away.

Then he smashed into the treetop.

He fell like a pinball, ricocheting from limb to limb, reaching for anything to slow his fall. Branches raked his chest. Leaves filled his mouth. The world turned over and over, but he managed to wrap his arms around a limb and tumble the last eight feet to land in a heap.