We stand at the open blast door, nineteen rebels and me.
‘A fraction of the force Em and Zach wanted,’ Yandre says.
X’s eyes gleam in the darkness. ‘And twice what we need.’
His lance buzzes to life, and I put my hand on his shoulder.
‘No pulse weapons till absolutely necessary, Boss. They make the drones in the mountain angry.’ My own knife is in its sheath. ‘But they’re perfect if we need a distraction.’
‘I’ll do more than distract them,’ he grumbles.
We head deeper into the tunnel, climbing over the shredded remains of the robots. Metal spikes from Zura’s splinter mine jut from the walls, like we’re inside some medieval torture device.
As we leave the opening behind, darkness envelops us.
I blink for night vision, and the rebels shift into shimmering heat blobs, like dull red planets orbiting the hot sun of X’s animal metabolism.
I keep waiting for a twinge of fear to hit me, here in the dark. But nothing stirs my blood except a readiness for battle. Not my usual frenzy, but smoothed out by my explosion of feels into something cold and steely.
And only a glimmer so far.
The tunnel slopes downward, deeper into the cool stone. I can sense the crushing weight of the mountain above us, but claustrophobia doesn’t settle in. Maybe it’s been burned away along with my feels.
It will take Col and the Vics hours to reach Rafi’s base—a long time for a field dressing to hold.
I reach for Hope.
It’s gone.
‘The seismics found a big chamber.’ Yandre’s face is ghostly in the light of their handscreen. ‘About a klick from here. It’s the deepest part of the whole complex. All the tunnels lead there, like a traffic junction.’
‘At least this isn’t a game of hide-and-seek,’ Boss X rumbles in the dark.
No, but what kind of game is it?
We’ll find more Rusty defenses, of course—crude, brutal, still deadly after three hundred years. But also whatever tricks the city of Paz left behind.
The darkness seems alive around us.
I reach for Focus, but nothing’s there.
Before the feels, how did I force my brain to concentrate? These shadows are just a blur of darkness around me. My brain refuses to catch hold of anything.
We walk for five minutes. Nothing happens.
My feels itch like a phantom limb, and I’m not even sure which one I need.
‘Why’s it so quiet?’ I mutter in the dark. ‘Boss Zach said the whole mountain was waking up.’
‘Licking its wounds,’ Yandre says. ‘A lot of the mountain’s drones went into those nanos.’
Helpful, but it also means a lot of good rebels have lost their boards, their equipment, which is everything a rebel owns.
That should make me sad.
Beside me, Boss X is scenting the air.
‘Anything?’ I ask.
He doesn’t answer, just raises a fist. We halt.
He stands there, motionless for ten long seconds—then suddenly leaps into the air, his pulse lance buzzing to life, sweeping across the ceiling. Sparks and stone-dust swirl around us.
A drone the size of a house cat falls from above, sliced in two.
I kneel to look at it. ‘That thing was quiet.’
‘In sleep mode,’ X says. ‘But it had a definite scent.’
The machine is covered with tiny arms, each with a different tool.
‘Just a repair drone,’ Yandre says. ‘But that means there’s something around for it to fix.’
X kneels beside me, his sharp eyes staring at each of the tools. Finally he pries one free and sniffs it.
‘Kerosene,’ he says.
I nod. ‘Could’ve been fixing one of the flamethrower drones we—’
X grabs my arm, and I hear it too.
A scraping sound, like an ancient door opening. Then the clank of mechanical legs.
‘Take cover!’ X cries.
My frenzy stirs at last.
A tongue of flame leaps from the darkness, fills the corridor with sudden heat and light, bouncing off the walls, coiling around us.
We scatter, spilling cries of pain and shock. The flames flow like liquid into every space. The smell of burned hair and skin and clothing fills the air.
Flamethrowers are deadly in closed spaces.
Boss X’s pulse lance ignites again, roaring through the burning dark. Before I can even draw my knife, I hear the flamethrower being cut to pieces.
‘Careful!’ I shout. ‘Don’t hit …’
The lance cycles down, and X stands there among the scattered pieces of the drone. All six legs lie on the ground, nothing moving except shadows. A last dribble of fire trails from the drone’s body to the amputated maw of the thrower.
‘…the fuel tanks,’ I say.
X gives me a disdainful look in the flickering light. Behind him, the tanks are perfectly intact.
‘Everyone okay?’ Yandre asks.
The answer is a rueful laugh or two, and the hiss of medspray.
I become aware of something pulsing through me. A burned patch on skin on my shoulder. My fingers reach for Painless …
I’ve forgotten how annoying pain can be. But at least it keeps my heart going. My battle frenzy is real now.
Yandre hits my shoulder with medspray. It’s not as good as Painless.
‘Where’d that thing come from?’ I ask.
X points. Behind the fallen six-legged machine is an opening. Perfectly flush with the tunnel wall, the door is engineered to disappear when closed.
‘Still half a klick to go,’ I say. ‘How many more of these hidden doors, you think?’
‘They won’t use fire near the center,’ he says. ‘Not if that’s where the data’s stored.’
I squint in the flickering light—his fur is singed away along his left arm, right where feels would be. The bare skin is red and mottled.
‘You should spray that.’
He smiles, all wolf. ‘Why? It focuses the mind.’
A thought flashes through me—what did he look like before the surge? Maybe his desire came from some part of him, something lupine in his eyes, his brow.
Or did he look normal and boring?
Maybe it came from who he was, not what he looked like.
I’ve been avoiding these questions since his strange words this morning. But somehow it’s easier to have these thoughts with my feels burned away. Nothing rushes up to push them down.
Before his wolf surge, he might have looked like my sister and me.
‘Boss—’ I start.
He holds up a hand for silence. His ears are twitching.
‘Small things on legs. From all directions.’
‘Your pulse lance,’ I say. ‘They spotted it.’
‘Boss!’ Yandre shouts, eyes on their handscreen. ‘Motion sensors are giving me hundreds of pings …thousands!’
X and I stare at each other. The Iron Mountain is still awake.
‘How much ammo do you all have left?’ I ask.
X shakes his head.
Both of us turn to the flamethrower.
‘Yandre,’ I say, ‘do you have any bombs?’