The Flux Engine (5 page)

Chapter 5

Criminal Mischief

Startled, John sat up. His cell was at the end of the row and all the others were empty.

The only other cell in the block stood apart from the rest. It had thicker bars that were anchored directly into the floor and a shocker box that sent an electric charge pulsing through them. This special cell was designed to hold Scrapstalkers, humanoid monsters of living metal that formed when too many scraproaches combined. John had only heard stories about Scrapstalkers. They hated anything living and existed only to kill; worse, they were clever. Few things in the territories were as dangerous.

John peered through the bars of his cell. Now that he was paying attention, he could hear the hum of the shocker box and smell the faint trace of ozone in the air. He’d never seen a Scrapstalker. What stared back at him, being careful not to touch the bars, however, was no Scrapstalker. It was a girl. She looked about his own age, with an olive complexion and ebony hair that fell below her shoulders. Her features were sharp and angular with almond shaped eyes that marked her as having Nipponic origins.

The girl smiled and John realized he was staring.

“Uh, hi,” he managed. “I’m John.”

“Robirah,” she said. “But you can call me Robi, everybody does.”

“Why are you in there?” John asked.

When Robi smiled, John noticed that her canine teeth were longer than the others, giving her smile an unsettling, vaguely predatory look.

“They’re afraid I’m going to escape,” she said, as if such a thing were natural for teenage girls.

John’s disbelief must have shown on his face because Robi’s smile disappeared.

“I’ve already escaped from four other jails,” she said in a disapproving tone. “I’m the best escape artist in the world.”

“This is one jail you won’t be getting out of,” Aaron Batts’ voice suddenly interjected.

John jumped, surprised by the sheriff’s sudden appearance. Robi, however, didn’t flinch.

“I heard you when you came down the stairs from your office,” Robi said, a bored tone creeping into her voice. “If that’s the best you can do, it’s a miracle you caught me.”

Batts’ face spread into a wide grin.

“And yet we did catch you, didn’t we?” he replied. “The daughter of Hiro Laryn, the world-famous Cat. I guess that makes you the Kitten.”

Robi’s smile slipped and her dark eyes hardened. John had heard the sisters at Saint Archimedes tell stories of the Cat, a famous thief who was said to be able to move through walls and steal any treasure no matter how well protected. The sisters seemed to think it was terribly romantic.

“Don’t expect your father to get you out, either,” Batts said. “I’ve got his likeness posted all over the city. If he so much as shows his face in Sprocketville, my men will have him.” Batts grinned with a very self-satisfied air. “You won’t be escaping from my jail, little Kitten.”

“Watch me,” Robi said. The smile returned to her face, but it seemed forced this time.

“I won’t hold my breath,” Batts said, condescendingly. “Despite your father’s reputation, you can’t walk through walls and I doubt you can escape from a cage you can’t touch.”

“Don’t bet on it,” Robi said. Her voice was defiant, but lacked the hard edge that comes from certainty.

“Whatever you’re planning, you’d better do it soon,” Batts said, his smile almost as wolfish as Robi’s. “Someone wants you bad enough to send an Enforcer from Salina to collect you. I came down to tell you that he’ll be here tomorrow.”

With that Batts turned and walked back along the cells to the outer door.

“Pleasant dreams,” he said before shutting the door and locking it behind him.

Robi stared after him for a long moment and then stuck out her tongue.

“Is it true?” John asked. “What the sheriff said about your father?”

Robi nodded. A sad smile traced the corners of her mouth.

“He’s the best,” she said. “He taught me everything I know.”

“Then how did they catch you?”

“I needed some cash,” she said with a shrug. “So I found someone with a few pearls he didn’t really need.”

The sisters at Saint Archimedes took great pains to teach their charges right from wrong. As a result, John didn’t approve of criminal activities, but he didn’t want Robi to stop talking, so he held his tongue. Still his disapproval must have shown on his face.

“I was only going to take a couple,” she said, defensively. “Just enough to get by.”

“What happened?”

“The sneaky bastard covered the floor in front of the safe with a little rug that had some chemical soaked into it.” Her expression darkened. “The safe was filled with a heavier-than-air gas that activated the chemical in the rug and turned it into glue.”

John was impressed. The man’s trap was simple but effective and all he had to do to avoid it himself was to pick up the rug.

“Where was your father during all this?”

Robi’s smile slipped for the second time and her eyes looked right through the spot where John sat.

“He’s dead,” John guessed. “Isn’t he?”

Robi looked away but he could see the tears that suddenly filled her eyes. She seemed to tremble for a moment, striving to bring her emotions under control, then nodded.

“I’m sorry,” John said, not really knowing what to say. He had no memories at all of his own father. Robi’s pain was much more recent.

“Never work for someone else,” Robi said softly. “That was his first rule. He used to tell me that the minute you bring on a partner you have to sleep with a knife in your hand. Partners are nothing but trouble, he said.”

“What happened?”

Robi wiped her eyes and turned back to face him. Her eyes regarded him with a hard flat stare, regarding him skeptically. John shrugged.

“Who am I going to tell?” he said. “Who’d believe me anyway?” That made her smile again for a brief second before she continued.

“A man approached my father about acquiring something out of a secure Alliance Lab. The money was enough for two lifetimes, so my father agreed. He wanted to settle down on a little homestead somewhere and raise goats.” She chuckled to herself, a hollow, humorless sound. “Can you believe that?” she asked. “The world’s greatest thief raising goats? Mostly, I think he just wanted me have a normal life,” Robi went on.

“What happened at the lab?”

“Nothing.” Robi shook her head. “Everything went like clockwork. We were in and out in thirty-eight minutes.” She paused and took a deep breath, steeling herself for the rest. “We were supposed to meet the buyer in a warehouse to make the exchange, but Dad didn’t like it. When we got there, he told me to hide. Turns out his instincts were right.” Robi drew a great shuddering breath. “The buyer never intended to pay us. When he arrived, he walked right up and shot my father dead, without any warning.”

John didn’t know what to say. He’d heard that there was no honor among thieves, but this was shocking. It was as if the senseless nature of the act rendered it even more immoral. It felt irrational that such men existed in the world.

“What did he have you steal?” John asked before his better judgement could silence him.

“Sand,” Robi said, shaking her head in disgust. “A bag of red sand.”

“What’s so special about a bag of sand?”

“I don’t care,” Robi said, the tenor of her voice turning cold. “Someday I’m going to find that bastard and when I do …”

Robi squeezed her eyes shut, and turned away again.

“You’ll kill him,” John finished for her.

“No,” Robi said, her voice barely more than a whisper. “My father taught me that the dead feel no pain. When I find him, I’m going to take everything—everything he loves, everything that’s important to him. I’m going to destroy it all and leave him with nothing. Just like he did to me.”

John had heard people swear vengeance before. Usually the words were meaningless expressions of frustration wrapped in hollow threats. Robi’s declaration sent shivers down his back. She had considered those words carefully, and she meant each and every one.

“I’m sorry,” she said after the silence between them had stretched out to fill several minutes. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“It’s all right,” John said, automatically. “Doctor Shultz, my mentor, says that it can help to tell your troubles to someone.”

“So you’re training to be a surgeon?” Robi asked.

“What?”

“You said your mentor was a doctor.”

John laughed. It had been a while and it felt good.

“He’s not that kind of doctor. Doctor Shultz has a PhD in Thurgery, you know, crystal growing. I’m his apprentice.”

“So, what’s an apprentice Thurger doing in here?” Robi asked.

“It’s complicated.” John shrugged.

“Hey, you owe me,” Robi said. “After all, I told you mine.”

He sat down on his cot and sighed, wondering where to begin.

“Well, I sort of sent most of the Tommys in Sprocketville on a rampage,” he said. He didn’t realize just how crazy it sounded until he said it out loud. Robi gasped.

“That was you? What are you, some kind of Architect or something?”

John had always been told he was smart, but no one had ever accused him of being Architect smart. Architects were geniuses and usually more than a little crazy. As his brain briefly considered the possibility, he decided it really wasn’t much of a compliment.

“No,” he said. “I had this special crystal …” He paused, not knowing if he should go on. He’d never talked about his mother’s crystal before, but now he just—needed to. It felt as if he had to talk about what happened in Doc’s lab or it would drive him mad. He wanted to talk to Hickok, the Enforcer, but he knew he couldn’t risk it. Robi, on the other hand, wasn’t going anywhere.

“What kind of crystal?” Robi asked, prompting him to go on with his story.

“Nobody knows,” John said. “My mother gave it to me before she disappeared and as far as anyone can tell, it’s one of a kind.”

John took a deep breath and plowed ahead, telling Robi the whole story of his mother and the crystal and how he’d tried to contact her with the handler box. Robi whistled when he was done.

“I thought I had problems,” she said, her wolfish smile shifting into a crooked grin. “Why don’t you tell that enforcer?” she asked. “It sounds like he knows you’re not guilty.”

“If I tell him the truth, I lose the crystal,” John said. “If I don’t tell him, then Batts will keep me here until I confess or blame someone else.”

Robi had been sitting cross-legged on her bunk, resting her elbow on her knee with her head in her hand. After a moment, she cocked her head to the side and a smile spread across her face.

“I think we can help each other,” she said.

“I thought you didn’t believe in partners.”

“Do you want to get out of here or not?” She fixed him with a level stare.

“You mean escape? How?”

“You said you were a Thurger, right?”

He nodded and she went on.

“What do you know about shocker boxes?”

There weren’t many in Sprocketville, but John had seen one or two before. It was a First Order device. Simple. Just an energy crystal with a flux reservoir set to drip onto it regularly. As long as it had flux, the crystal would maintain a charge that would stun anyone touching it.

“How long does it take the box to recharge after it shocks someone?” Robi asked.

“A couple seconds, maybe three,” John said. “It’s not very long.”

Robi reached into her mouth and pulled out a small ring. With practiced precision, she tapped it on the end of an iron nail that protruded from the frame of her cot. The ring made a sound like a tiny bell, then began to twist in Robi’s fingers, uncoiling and straightening on its own. A second later, it had changed from a ring to a long, slender tool with a hooked tip.

“Memory metal,” Robi said with a smile. “It looks like a ring until I tap it on something hard, then it changes to a lock pick.”

“How long have you had that in your mouth?” John asked.

“Ever since I got captured,” she said with a shrug. “About a week.”

The thought of holding something in his mouth that long made John a little sick. He wondered how she kept from swallowing it when she slept. He wondered how he would catch the tattooed woman now that she had a week’s head start. The thought made him sick and he pushed it away.

“I think I can pick the lock in under three seconds,” Robi was saying. “But I need you to disable the shocker box. Can you do that?”

John doubted it highly but he peered through the bars at Robi’s cell before answering. The little box attached to it was missing its faceplate and John could see the mechanism inside. The purplish-blue energy crystal sat in a copper collar with wires running to the cell bars. A glass bottle of iridescent-blue flux hung from the top of the box with a brass tube running down over the crystal. A rubber-handled valve at the tube’s end controlled how fast the flux dripped onto the crystal. John guessed the rubber valve was the only part of the box that was safe to touch.

“I don’t see any way to disrupt it,” John said. “You can’t even touch the box without getting shocked, and the only way to disable it would be to turn off the flow …”

The words faded from his lips as John stared at the open box.

He had an idea.

A wonderfully devious idea.

It was so simple it just might work. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t touch the box; he didn’t need to. If he could stop the flux from dripping on the crystal, it would lose its charge in a few minutes.

“If I disable the shocker box, will you take me with you?”

Robi’s face split into a devious grin.

“You figured it out, didn’t you?” The excitement was plain in her voice. “If you help me get out of here, I swear on my father’s grave that I’ll take you with me.”

“Deal.”

He crossed his cell to the corner and reached out for the old broom. It was an ancient thing with a crooked handle, polished black by the oil of countless hands. At the bottom, it had a mass of broken and twisted straw, bound together to form the brush. He took hold of the brush and, passing it through the bars, held the broom handle out toward Robi’s cell. Moving slowly, he eased the top end of the handle into the open shocker box, pressing it against the brass tube that delivered flux to the energy crystal. All he had to do now was bend the tube, just a little, and the flux would stop dripping on the crystal.