CHAPTER TEN
There were no flashing lights, loud noises, or guards swooping in as Sebastian, Ren, and Rylan strode through the display room.
Sebastian still felt on edge. He trusted Jaime to get the job done, but he liked it better when someone was there to offer assurances that alarms were off and cameras befuddled.
Ren stopped in front of the case that held the necklace and looked over at him expectantly. Oh yes, the case with the impenetrable glass.
“In the original plan we were going to bring laser cutters.” Sebastian shook his head regretfully. “I liked that plan.”
“Stand back,” Rylan said, taking work gloves from his pockets and putting them on.
He eyed the case, squaring his body. His gloved right fist slammed forward, the glass cracking and falling to the floor in a glittering cascade. Rylan carefully reached through the jagged hole he’d made and lifted the necklace up.
Sebastian held his breath. Nothing happened, but he knew alarms could be silent.
Ren stepped forward, his hands shaking a little as Rylan carefully placed the jewel into them. It was a shame that something so important to Ren was contained in such an unattractive necklace, but Sebastian forgot all that when Ren lifted his eyes to him.
“Thank you,” he breathed.
“Say it again when we’ve actually made it out of here.” He’d meant the remark to be light, but somehow it ended up sounding caught halfway between a plea and a promise. Sebastian quickly turned away to look at the entrance. “We need to find Jaime and go.”
“Oh, he’s here.” The voice that spoke was not Jaime’s. It came from the side of the room, where a small, hidden door had opened. Jaime was standing in that doorway, and beside him was the slender form of Ebba.
Rylan started to move toward them, but Sebastian put out a hand to stop him. Something was very wrong. Jaime’s eyes were filled with warning, and he jerked forward in response to Ebba jamming something in his back. As they came farther into the room, Sebastian could see that she held a gun.
“I take it you didn’t persuade her to be rescued by us?” Sebastian said.
“I’m sorry Rylan, Sebastian—” Jaime said, but Ebba’s eyes were on the broken case. Sebastian had thought those eyes mischievous before, but now they had the look of a child who gleefully pulled the legs off insects.
“So that’s what you were after,” she said, alight with interest. “I could tell it was powerful, but I was afraid to test it. What does it do?”
Sebastian saw Ren clutch the jewel tighter, and he raised his own hands reassuringly. “We can discuss that. Perhaps even come to an arrangement? What is Graven paying you?”
Her laugh was as light and tinkling as the shattered glass. “Anil Graven paying me? Please. I’m the one in charge here. Graven’s the smarmy face of the operation, pretending to be the boss because even thieves won’t do business with our kind.” She directed this last at Jaime, and he turned to face her, ignoring the unwavering gun still trained on him.
“I told you not everyone is like that,” he said. “My crew — my friends — are different.”
“You’re a useful tool to them,” she scoffed. “Look around. How would they have gotten in here without you? And yet you’re following their orders.”
“We could have got in,” Sebastian protested. “There just would have been more explosives involved.”
“Captain,” Rylan muttered through his teeth, “shut up and let Jaime handle this.”
Sebastian thought that Jaime had got them into this mess, but he was perfectly willing to admit he might not have a great deal of rapport with Ebba.
“Please,” Jaime said to her. “It’s the same as I said before. Come with us. We’re offering you freedom. You may be controlling Graven, but you still have to hide. I know what that’s like, to be surrounded by people who are scared of you.”
Her lips curled as she looked at Jaime, and Sebastian began to doubt he was the best choice to deal with her. “Oh, you understand me? You grew up in a Commonwealth facility, like a pampered pet. I was sold on the black market. Graven thought he could use me, right up until I took his eye and showed him exactly who had the power. They should be afraid of us. That’s the only way to be safe.”
“Not on Arcadia.” Ren stepped forward before Sebastian could grab him. “People with your abilities are honored there. Come with us and see for yourself.”
Ebba looked at him with amusement. “That sounds like a very pretty lie. But let me tell you what’s true. Right now, Graven sees what I want him to, which is the false footage you’ve set up. All I have to do is think it and his eye will transmit to him what’s really going on in this room. He’ll immediately send a dozen armed guards.”
“Is there another option to explore?” Sebastian asked hopefully.
Ebba kept the gun pointed at Jaime, but she flicked a cold glance at Sebastian. “Tell me what it does, that jewel that you’ve gone to so much trouble to get, then leave it with me and you can all walk out of here,” she said.
“No,” Ren said.
“What he means,” Sebastian said hastily, “is that we’re willing to negotiate.”
“No,” he said again, voice more desperate than firm. “I would die before I let you have it.”
“He’s terrible at bargaining.” Sebastian began inching over, seeking to put himself between Ebba and Ren. “But we can discuss—”
“There is nothing to talk about,” Ebba said. “I don’t think I’ll have to shoot more than two of you before someone starts talking.”
Sebastian didn’t doubt her; Ebba had the hard look of someone used to spilling blood, but she was still a small person with a not particularly big gun. It would be an easy matter to take her out once she stopped pointing that weapon so closely at Jaime. She was looking at Sebastian and Ren now, the gun starting to follow the angle of her gaze—
Rylan’s arm whipped out in a sudden blur of speed. He was too far to reach Ebba, but there were pieces of glass on his gloved hand. The force of his movement sent them shooting at Ebba, and she cried out, lifting her hands to her face, even as Jaime dropped to the ground and rolled away.
Sebastian dove for Ren, pushing him behind a display case. The two of them set their backs to the case, looking at each other and then around. Sebastian could see Rylan crouched nearby and past him, Jaime, shielded by another case.
“Nice move,” Sebastian said to Rylan.
“That was Jaime working the arm,” Rylan said. “I wouldn’t have risked it.”
“Where’s Ebba?” Ren hissed. “And the gun?”
Sebastian stayed low and craned his head around the case. He couldn’t see Ebba. He was going to have to risk moving to another vantage point and hope she’d lost her weapon. But before he could move, Jaime jerked his head up as though scenting the air.
“Oh, no,” he said. “There are power cells under the display cases.”
Sebastian didn’t have any sort of mutant powers, but he had years of experience being around power cells starting up and he could feel their faint hum against his skin. “The weapons. Those laser guns.”
“Damn it.” Rylan got up, staying low and scrambling toward the case that held them. Sebastian felt a brief flare of hope as he followed. If they could get to the weapons first they had an excellent chance of being able to fight their way out of the building. Also, he really wanted to shoot one.
But Ebba had not been powering up the lasers.
They all spun around at the sound of breaking glass and gears whirring into life. Sebastian stood frozen in shock as the robot rose from its sleeping crouch and stepped through the wreckage of the case that had contained it.
It stood head and shoulders above them, its wide metal body speaking to unimaginable strength. The head swiveled on a long neck column, and a featureless face turned to take them in, round eyes glowing red.
“Fuck me,” Sebastian breathed.
Ebba came around to stand beside the thing. She was bleeding from cuts on her cheek and above her eye, but she was grinning.
“Do you see why they should be afraid of us?” Ebba said. “Machines destroyed civilization, but we control the machines.”
“Jaime?” Rylan asked, never taking his eyes off the thing.
Sebastian could see that Jaime’s eyes were squeezed shut, his face covered in a sheen of sweat. “I can’t hold it!”
The robot took a step toward them, more smoothly than Sebastian would have expected from a hundred-and-fifty-year-old machine. He didn’t want to find out more of what it could do.
“Run,” Sebastian yelled. “Now!”
They sprinted toward the front of the room, Rylan pulling Jaime along. The robot lumbered behind them, crashing into display cases and sending their contents clattering to the ground.
“Weapons,” Ren said, diving off the side toward one of the broken cases. He tossed something from the floor at Sebastian, and he caught it reflexively.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Sebastian said, because Ren had not thrown him a gun or any of the sleek high-tech tools, but an actual sword. A likely thousand-year-old piece of metal that some pre-Singularity citizen had probably hung on their wall to impress dates while their computers secretly plotted to murder them.
Ren had one of his own in his hand, a thin, shining blade. “It’s better than nothing.”
“The splinters when it shatters will likely be very deadly,” Sebastian agreed. They’d reached the entrance with its closed and heavy door. “Rylan, the door!”
Rylan was putting his full weight against it, but the door wasn’t budging. “I’m gonna have to try and punch through.”
Sebastian looked from the slowly advancing robot to the thick door. “Jaime.”
Jaime swayed. The door immediately swung open, but in that moment Sebastian appreciated how much work Jaime had been doing in slowing the robot down. It sped up on its metal legs, lunging forward with one jointed arm swinging out toward Sebastian, clawed fingers outstretched.
Sebastian ducked under it, and the robot slashed the painting next to the door, leaving the ancient humans depicted on it in tatters. Ren yanked Sebastian through the doorway just before Rylan slammed the door shut.
“Think it’ll hold?” Rylan asked and then jumped back as a blow jolted the door.
“We need to go,” Jaime said, forehead creased in concentration. “It’s not stopping.”
To prove his point there was another loud slam against the door. The metal bulged outward.
Rylan threw Jaime over his shoulder and started running down the corridor, Ren and Sebastian following, the two of them still holding those stupid swords. Sebastian looked back at the sound of another blow against the door in time to see the edge of it bend and twist, with a metal hand reaching through.
“Run faster,” he yelled to Ren.
A few people were gathered at the end of the stone corridor, peering curiously at the commotion, but Rylan simply barrelled through. They burst out into the main part of the mansion — there was the dramatic canyon view in front of them, expensive furniture all around, and several guests, with their private security details, staring at them. Belatedly, alarms started to sound — clearly the time for subtlety was over.
Graven strode forward, usually amiable face set in hard lines, with dark-suited guards on either side of him, hands at their sides, ready to draw weapons. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Sebastian glanced behind him. “Getting the fuck out of the way,” he said and shoved his people to the side just as the robot crashed into the room, its wide shoulders drawing sparks against the stone corridor.
Sebastian was sure that most of the people in the mansion were career criminals, used to death and mayhem in all forms. But when faced with a creature out of the history books and their childhood nightmares unexpectedly come to life, they did what anyone would do. They panicked and ran.
The robot ignored the scattering people, swiveling its head around the room until it located Sebastian and his crew against the back wall.
“It’s locked on us,” Jaime said as they edged along the wall. “Targeted to tear us apart.”
“Can you change that to something more friendly?” Sebastian asked.
“Not so far.”
“Slow it as much as you can. We need to get out of here.”
“How?” Ren gasped. “We’re on the side of a cliff.”
Sebastian flung his sword at it, but that was apparently not how swords worked because it just clattered off the robot’s metal body. “Outside,” Sebastian yelled. “The landing platform.”
They ran to the front entrance of the mansion with its wide metal platform hanging above the canyon. Outside, the evening sky was empty and dark against the brightness of the mansion, with only a few small messenger drones zipping about, but Sebastian jumped up and down, waving his arms.
“Kaz! Bring the ship! Now! Is this enough of a signal for you?”
He had to hope they were scanning the mansion and that he didn’t look like an especially deranged speck in the monitors. There was a shattering sound behind him, and he turned to see the robot striding through one of the wide windows of the mansion and onto the platform with them.
There were very few options that Sebastian could see, but maybe they could scramble past the robot and back into the house. He saw Rylan step in front of Jaime, fists clenched.
“Ren,” Sebastian said, thinking to get the other man’s sword and somehow use it to give him a chance to run for cover.
Ren turned to stare at him, eyes wide and desperate and then dropped his eyes to his other hand where the necklace was still clutched. He stepped toward the robot, his hand with the necklace starting to reach out, but then he hesitated. The robot, though, did not.
“Ren!” Sebastian cried.
Rylan caught the robot’s hand just before it could slam down onto Ren. The dull thunk of metal striking metal echoed across the platform. Rylan held his ground, right hand locked onto the robot and the rest of his body braced. The thing raised its other arm, fingers spread like talons—
The arm dropped and red light in the robot’s eyes dimmed slightly. Rylan stumbled into it from the lack of resistance, but the robot simply stood there looking huddled and smaller.
“I started a complete reboot,” Jaime gasped. “We’ve got less than a minute.”
Rylan stared at it. “To do what?”
“Something destructive,” Sebastian urged.
Rylan leaped up and drove his fist into its head. The robot’s face crumpled in a satisfying way.
“No!” Jaime yelled. “The main system’s in the torso, beneath the chest.”
Sebastian reached out toward Ren. He blinked and then pressed the sword into Sebastian’s hand.
Sebastian stepped up to the sleeping robot, eying it carefully and then plunged the sword under the metal breastplate of the thing, twisting upward. There was a grinding of metal and a shudder along the blade and into Sebastian’s arm. The dim red eyes went out entirely, and as Sebastian pulled the sword back — the end of it broken off — the robot toppled over onto its side.
He felt a thrill of fierce pride. It didn’t exactly make up for the Singularity killing billions of people, but it felt good to strike back.
“There is a certain elegance to a low-tech solution,” Sebastian grinned.
Rylan touched Jaime’s shoulder. “Is it dead or… broken, I guess?”
Jaime nodded, running a hand through his sweaty curls. “No power, no computer activity.”
Sebastian started to relax, but Ren was staring urgently past him. Sebastian followed his gaze to see Ebba standing just inside the ruined windows. Not far away Graven was watching them as well, two men beside him with guns drawn.
The blood had dried on Ebba’s face, staining one cheek a rusty color. “Graven,” she said. “Call for more guards. We need that necklace back and at least one of them alive.”
The men flanking Graven started to point their weapons toward the platform, but he raised a hand. “Hold,” he said to them, his face coldly calculating. “I’m curious to see how this plays out. Fortune may finally be on my side.”
Ebba snarled. “Fuck you, Graven.”
He cried out and bent over, clutching at his eye. One of his men turned his gun toward Ebba, but he was unable to fire — an electronic safety mechanism in place.
“Fall back, you fools,” Graven said, half-groaning. “We need the guns she can’t control.” His men pulled him back inside the building.
Sebastian looked around at the sky above and the cliffs below. They were on an open platform, and their resources consisted of a broken sword and a dead robot. “We need to get out of here before they start shooting,” he said.
“How?”
“Maybe we can climb onto the cliffs. Rylan—”
Rylan reached out with his right arm and yanked at the robot, metal screeching. He ripped the robot’s arm from its body and held it like a club.
Sebastian stared. “That wasn’t what I was going to suggest but not bad.”
Rylan ground out through clenched teeth, “That wasn’t me.”
“Ebba.” Jaime’s face was lit with fury.
“Help me to escape, and I’ll let you all go,” Ebba called.
“And get shot in the process?” Sebastian said. “That’s not much of a deal.”
“Otherwise I make your friend beat you all to death,” Ebba replied. “Is that enough of an incentive for you?”
Rylan gasped, and the piece of metal he was holding clattered to the ground. Jaime faced Ebba, whole body radiating anger.
“You don’t touch him.”
Ebba blinked in surprise before shifting back to contempt. “You’re doing a good job of blocking my control. But I don’t think you’re used to fighting dirty. How about I blow up every single nano processor in his arm? Or scramble the interface to his brain. Can you stop everything I come up with?”
They stared at each other, faces intent, while Rylan looked grimly at the arm hanging stiffly at his side. It seemed to be a standoff. There was a battle being fought on a level Sebastian couldn’t understand, and he had no idea how it would turn out.
He pushed the sword into Ren’s hand. “On my signal, throw this at Ebba,” he whispered.
“What? What signal, Sebastian?”
Sebastian might not grasp the ways of wizards and computers, but he did know about high-stakes games. Sometimes with a bad hand, the only thing to do was upend the table and hope for the best.
He ran at Rylan, catching him around the waist. The two of them tumbled against the low railing around the platform, Sebastian’s momentum carrying them over the side. He heard cries behind him, but then they were falling — the river white and churning far below and the cliffs, black in the dim light, rising up to meet them.
His whole body jerked, and he held tighter to Rylan as their fall stopped abruptly, the two of them sliding and scraping against the rough rocks. Sebastian looked up from where his face was mashed against Rylan’s hard stomach to see that they were hanging from an outcropping on the cliffside, with Rylan’s right hand digging deep into the rock.
“Captain,” Rylan groaned, “I hate all your plans. Just hate ’em.”
“In my defense, this wasn’t so much a plan as an improvisation. But I got you your arm back, didn’t I? Though, and I realize I shouldn’t be complaining right now, that thing brings you no end of trouble. Have you considered something more low-tech? Like maybe a hook?”
Rylan used his other arm to swing Sebastian closer to the rocks and they both braced themselves better against it. “Hooks are for pirates, Captain. We’re smugglers.”
“Ours is a more respectable profession,” Sebastian agreed. In the moonlight he could see that dark blood was trickling down Rylan’s arm from where his fingers were buried in the rock. “Damn it, how badly are you hurt? I’ve got a good foothold here, so you can let me go—”
“I’m fine. Jaime shut off all the pain receptors in my arm once Ebba started with her tricks. We need to get back up there.”
Sebastian scanned the shadowy rocks for a way to climb when he saw something else.
Descending from the sky, like the gods in the old stories — or, in this case, a crew with delayed timing — was a flat-bottomed cargo basket attached at all four corners to a long cable. The cable itself snaked upward, well above the canyon, to the open belly of The Wayward Prince.
“You need to work on better signals, Sebastian,” Simi said as soon as the basket hauled them up into the ship.
She was working the controls to swing them around so that the cargo lifter was level with the deck. Bo reached out to secure the basket.
“Criticize me later and at great length,” Sebastian said, striding forward onto the deck of the hold. “Right now, we need to get Ren and Jaime.”
Mags’ voice crackled over the comm. “They’re not on the platform anymore; they’ve gone back inside.”
Rylan flexed his hand. He had torn through the glove and the skin beneath it so that metal fingertips were visible. “Give me a gun and lower me back down.”
“So Ebba can make you shoot yourself?”
“She caught me by surprise,” Rylan said, “but I’m trained for this. It won’t happen again.”
Sebastian started to get weapons for both of them, but then Mags spoke. “You caused a lot of chatter on the comms. Local law enforcement is arriving.”
“Fuck.”
“We’re not leaving them there,” Rylan said. “Captain. Sebastian.”
Sebastian yanked a hand through his hair, trying to think even though his thoughts were beating out Ren Ren Ren, in time to his racing heart. “Of course not, but we can’t start trading bullets with the police. He — they could get shot.”
Bo looked up hopefully. “You need bombs?”
“No, I’m calling in the big guns.” Sebastian spoke into the comm panel. “Mags, alert the Arcadian ship in orbit that Ren’s in trouble.”