I slid down my rope and hit the forest floor, crunching dried leaves. Ahead of me, the door to the hole finally started moving again. With a yelp, I dashed toward the opening in the ground and jumped in, skidding a short distance down a shallow ramp as the door closed with a final grinding sound behind me.
I was in. Also, likely trapped.
So…yay?
Faint emergency lights running along the walls revealed a sloping tunnel that was rounded at the top like a giant’s throat. The incline wasn’t very steep, so I climbed to my feet and started inching down the slope, gun at my shoulder. I switched my radio, carried at my hip, to a different frequency—protocol for whoever made it into the Foundry, to let me focus. The others would know how to reach me.
The dimness made me want to flip on my mobile, which could double as a flashlight, but I restrained myself. Who knew what kind of backdoors the Knighthawk Foundry might have built into the things? In fact, who knew what the phones were truly capable of? They had to be some kind of Epic-derived technology. Phones that worked under any circumstances with signals that couldn’t be intercepted? I’d grown up in a pit underneath Newcago, but even I realized how fantastical that was.
I reached the bottom of the incline and flipped on my scope’s night-vision and thermal settings. Sparks, this was an awesome gun. The silent corridor stretched out before me, nothing but smooth metal, floor to ceiling. Considering its length, the tunnel had to lead under the Foundry walls and into the compound; it was probably an access corridor.
Contraband photos of the Foundry interior showed all kinds of motivators and technology lying around on workbenches down here. That had enticed us to try this all-in plan. Grab and go, hope we ended up with something useful.
It would be technology built, somehow, from the bodies of Epics. Even before I’d discovered that Prof had powers, I should have realized how much we relied on Epics. I’d always dreamed that the Reckoners were some kind of pure, human freedom force—ordinary people fighting an extraordinary foe.
That wasn’t the way it happened though, was it? Perseus had his magic horse, Aladdin had his lamp, and Old Testament David had his blessing from Jehovah. You want to fight a god? You’d better have one on your side too.
In our case, we’d cut off pieces of the gods, trapped them in boxes, and channeled their power. Much of it had originated here. The Knighthawk Foundry, secretive purveyors of Epic corpses made into weapons.
My headset crackled and I jumped.
“David?” Megan’s voice, dialed into the private radio line. “What are you doing?”
I winced. “I found a drone access tunnel in the forest floor and managed to sneak in,” I whispered.
Silence on the line, followed by “Slontze.”
“What? Because it’s reckless?”
“Sparks, no. Because you didn’t take me.”
An explosion shook somewhere near her.
“Sounds like you’re having plenty of fun,” I said. I kept moving forward, my rifle up and my focus ahead, watching for drones.
“Yeah, sure,” Megan said. “Intercepting mini-missiles with my face. Loads of fun.”
I smiled; the mere sound of her voice could do that to me. Hell, I’d rather be yelled at by Megan than be praised by anyone else. Besides, the fact that she was talking to me meant she hadn’t actually intercepted any mini-missiles with her face. She was immortal in that if she died, she’d be reborn—but she was otherwise as fragile as anyone else. And because of recent concerns, she tried to limit using her powers.
She’d be doing this mostly the old-fashioned way. Ducking between trees, lobbing grenades and taking shots while Cody and Mizzy covered her. I imagined her cursing softly, sweating while she sighted at a passing drone, her aim perfect, her face…
…Uh, right. I should probably stay focused.
“I’ll keep their attention up here,” Megan said, “but be careful, David. You don’t have a full infiltration suit. You’ll have a heat signature to those drones, if they look closely.”
“Groovy,” I whispered. Whatever that meant.
Ahead of me the tunnel started getting lighter, so I turned off the night vision on the scope and slowed my pace. I crept forward and stopped. The access tunnel ended at a large white corridor that stretched to the right and left. Brightly lit, with tile floors and metal walls, it was completely empty. Like an office when the shop down the street has free donut day.
I pulled our maps, such as we had, from my pocket and checked them. Didn’t say much, though one of the photos looked a lot like this corridor. Well, somehow I had to find useful technology in here, steal it, and get out.
Prof or Tia could have come up with a way better plan, but they weren’t here. So I picked a direction at random and continued walking. When the tense silence was broken a few minutes later by a quickly approaching sound echoing through the corridor, it was actually a relief.
I dashed toward the sound; not because I was eager to meet it, but because I spotted a door up the hall. I reached it in time to pull it open—thankfully, it wasn’t locked—and slip into a dark room. My back against the door, I heard a group of drones zip past outside. I turned and looked through the little window in the door to watch them buzz down the white corridor, then turn into the access tunnel.
They hadn’t spotted my heat signature. I flipped my radio to the open line and whispered, “More drones are going out the way I came in. Cody, status?”
“We’ve got a few tricks left,” Cody said, “but it’s getting frantic out here. Abraham did manage to get in through the roof though. The two of you should grab what you can find and get out ASAP.”
“Roger,” Abraham said over the line.
“Got it,” I said, glancing around the room I’d entered. It was completely dark, but judging by the sterile smell, it was some kind of lab chamber. I flipped on my night-vision scope and gave the place a quick once-over.
Turned out I was surrounded by bodies.
I choked back a cry of alarm. Rifle to my shoulder, I scanned the room again, my heart thumping. It was filled with long metal tables and sinks, interspersed with several large tubs, and the walls were lined floor to ceiling with shelves packed with jars of all sizes. I leaned in to get a better look at those jars on a shelf near me. Body parts. Fingers. Lungs. Brains. All human, according to the labels. This had to be a laboratory where bodies were dissected.
I shoved down my nausea and focused. Would they keep motivators in a room like this? Anything I found that used Epic technology would need a motivator to work—the mission would be useless unless I found a stash of those.
I started looking for them—they’d be small metal boxes, about the size of a mobile’s battery. Sparks. Everything was bathed in the green of the night vision, and through the tunnel view of my rifle’s scope, the place took on another level of eerie.
“Yo,” Mizzy’s voice said on the line, and I jumped again. “David, you there?”
“Yeah,” I whispered.
“Fighting on my side has moved over toward Megan, so I’ve got a breather,” Mizzy said. “Cody told me to see if you needed anything.”
I wasn’t certain what she could do from such a distance, but it was good to hear someone’s voice. “I’m in some kind of lab,” I answered. “It has shelves full of body parts in jars and…” I felt nauseous again, swinging my gun to get a better look through the scope at the tubs nearby. They each had a glass lid, and they were full. I gagged and recoiled. “…and some vats filled with floating chunks of something. It’s like a bunch of cannibals were getting ready to go bobbing for apples. Adam’s apples, at least.”
I reached out and opened a cupboard, where I found an entire shelf of pickled hearts. As I moved onward, my foot touched something that squished. I jumped back, gun toward the floor, but it was only a wet rag.
“Mizzy,” I whispered, “this place is super creepy. Think I’m safe to turn on a light in here?”
“Oh, that’d be waaaay sma
rt. The people with a hyperadvanced bunker and flying attack drones aren’t going to have security cameras in their labs. Nope. Not a chance.”
“Point taken.”
“Or they’ve already spotted you and a squad of death-copters is heading your way. But in case you’re not trapped and about to be executed, I’d err on the side of being careful.”
She said it all in an upbeat, almost excited voice; Mizzy could be perkier than a sack of caffeinated puppies. Usually that was encouraging. Usually I wasn’t on edge from sneaking through a room full of half corpses.
I knelt, touching the rag on the floor. That it was still wet might imply someone had been working in here overnight, and had been interrupted by our attack.
“Anything you can swipe?” Mizzy asked.
“Not unless you want to stitch yourself up a new boyfriend.”
“Ew. Look, just see what you can grab and get out. We’re already over time.”
“Right,” I said, opening another cabinet. Surgical utensils. “I’ll hurry. It— Wait a sec.”
I froze, listening. Had I heard something?
Yes, a kind of rattling. I tried not to imagine a corpse rising out of one of those tubs. The sound had come from near the door I’d entered through, and a tiny light flicked on suddenly near the floor in the same area.
I frowned, inching toward it. It was a small drone, flat and round, with whirring brushes along its bottom. It had come in through a little flap near the door—kind of like a cat door—and was buffing the floor.
I relaxed. “Only a cleaning bot,” I said over the line.
The bot immediately went silent. Mizzy started to reply, but I lost the words as the little cleaning bot reengaged and zipped back toward its door. Throwing myself to the ground, I stretched out a hand and barely managed to grab the little drone before it could scoot out through the small hinged flap.
“David?” Mizzy asked, anxious. “What was that?”
“Me being an idiot,” I said with a wince. I’d knocked my elbow on the ground as I dove. “The bot recognized something was wrong and made a break for it. I caught it before it got out though. It might have warned someone.”
“Might anyway,” Mizzy said. “It could have a link to the place’s security.”
“I’ll be quick,” I said, climbing to my feet. I set the cleaning bot upside down on a shelf near a rack of blood pouches hanging in a small cooler with a glass door. Several more were lying out in the open on the counter. Ick.
“Maybe some of these body parts are from Epics,” I said. “I could take them, and we’d have DNA samples. Could we use those?”
“How?”
“I dunno,” I said. “Make weapons out of them somehow?”
“Yeaaaah,” Mizzy said skeptically, “I’ll staple a foot to the front of my gun and hope it shoots lasers now or something.”
I blushed in the darkness, but I didn’t see the need for the ribbing. If I stole some valuable DNA, we could trade it for supplies, right? Though admittedly, these body parts probably wouldn’t do. The important parts of Epic DNA degraded quickly, so I’d need to find frozen tissue if I wanted something I could sell.
Freezers. Where would I find freezers? I checked one of the tubs, lifting the glass lid, but the water inside was chilly, not frozen. I let the top back down, scanning the room. There was a door at the rear, opposite the one that led out to the hallway.
“You know,” I said to Mizzy as I walked toward the door, “this place is exactly like I’d expect it to be.”
“You expected a room full of body parts?”
“Yeah, kinda,” I said. “I mean, crazy scientists making weapons from dead Epics? Why wouldn’t they have a room full of body parts?”
“Not sure what you’re driving at with this, David. Other than creeping me out.”
“Just a sec.” I reached the door, which was locked.
It took a few kicks, but I got it open. I wasn’t too worried about the noise—if someone nearby was listening, they’d already have heard me struggling with the little drone. The door swung back, revealing a dark corridor, smaller than the hallway outside and completely unlit. I listened, heard nothing, and decided to see where it went.
“Anyway,” I continued, “it makes me wonder. How do they make weapons out of Epics?”
“Dunno,” Mizzy said. “I can fix the stuff once we get it, but motivators are out of my league.”
“When an Epic dies, their cells immediately start to break down,” I said. “Everyone knows that part.”
“Everyone who is a nerd.”
“I’m not a—”
“It’s okay, dude,” Mizzy said. “Embrace your nature! Be yourself and stuff. We’re all basically nerds, only about different things. Except Cody. I think he’s a geek or something…can’t remember my terminology. Something about eating chicken heads?”
I sighed. “When an Epic dies, if you’re fast enough, you can take a sample of their cells. The mitochondria are supposed to be important. You freeze those cells, and you can sell them on the black market. Somehow, that becomes technology. Problem is, Obliteration let Regalia perform surgery on him. I saw the scars. They made a bomb using his powers.”
“So…”
“So why surgery?” I said. “He could have just given a blood sample, right? Why did Regalia call in some fancy surgeon?”
Mizzy went silent. “Huh,” she finally said.
“Yeah.” Honestly, I’d assumed that an Epic had to be dead to make technology from their powers. Regalia and Obliteration proved me wrong. But if you could create technology from living Epics, why hadn’t Steelheart made a legion of invincible soldiers? Maybe he was too paranoid for that, but surely he would have created hundreds of versions of Edmund, the Epic who powered his city.
I reached a corner in the dark hallway. Using the infrared on my scope, I peeked around it and scanned for danger. The night vision revealed a small room filled with several large freezer chests. I didn’t see any distinctive heat sources, though the timer on my scope’s overlay warned me I should turn back. Except if I left, and Abraham didn’t get anything either, we’d be ruined. I needed to find something.
I crouched there, worried I was running out of time—but also bothered by what I’d seen. Beyond the question of making motivators from living Epics, there was another problem with all of this. When people talked about Epic-derived technology, they implied that all the devices came from a similar process. But how could that be? Weapons were so different from the dowser, which let us detect who was an Epic. Both seemed hugely different from the spyril, the piece of Epic-derived technology that had let me fly on streams of water.
I was no nerd, but I knew enough to realize that these technologies were all in very different disciplines. You didn’t call a gerbil doctor to work on a horse—yet when it came to Epic technology, it seemed that one expertise was enough to create a variety of items.
I admitted the truth to myself: these questions were the real reason we were here at Knighthawk. Prof had kept secrets, even before succumbing to his powers. It felt like nobody had been straight with me about any of this, ever.
I wanted answers. They were probably here somewhere. Maybe I’d find them behind that group of robotic war drones that were extending their gun arms from behind the freezers in front of me.
Oh.
THE drones’ floodlights turned on as one, blinding me, and they opened fire. Fortunately I’d spotted them in time, and was able to pull back around the corner before any shots hit me.
I turned and took off at a run, retreating down the corridor. Gunfire drowned out Mizzy’s voice in my ear as the robot drones chased me. Each had a square bottom with multidirectional wheels, and a spindly body topped with an assault rifle. They’d be perfect for maneuvering around furniture and through hallways, but sparks, it felt humiliating to be running from them. They looked more like coatracks than machines of war.
I reached the door to the lab with the body parts and ran thr
ough it, skidding to a stop, then slammed my back against the wall next to it. The tap of a button patched the view from my scope into a small screen on the side of my Gottschalk rifle, which let me lift the gun around the corner and fire without risking a hit.
The robots scuttled like a group of sparking brooms on wheels. Personally, I’d have been embarrassed to create such stupid-looking robots. I fired in burst mode without much aiming, but the corridor was narrow enough that it didn’t matter. I gunned down several of the robots, slowing the others, which had to push past the wreckage. After I dropped a few more, they retreated to take cover around the corner, in the room with the freezers.
“David?” Mizzy’s frantic voice finally drew my attention. “What’s happening?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “But they spotted me.”
“Get out.”
I hesitated.
“David?”
“There’s something in there, Mizzy. A room that was under lock and key, guarded by drones—I’ll bet they moved in there as soon as our original attack happened. Either that, or that room is always guarded. Which means…”
“Oh, Calamity. You’re going to be you, aren’t you?”
“You did just tell me to, and I quote, ‘embrace my nature.’ ” I fired another salvo as I caught motion at the end of the corridor. “Let Abraham and the others know I’ve been spotted. Pull everyone out and be ready to retreat.”
“And you?”
“I’m going to find out what’s in that room.” I hesitated. “I might have to get shot to do it.”
“What?”
“I’ll be radio silent for a moment. Sorry.”
I dropped my radio and headset, then tapped a button at the side of my gun that extended a small tripod on the bottom. I set it pointing into the tunnel at an angle, hoping to ricochet bullets off the metal wall toward the robots—but really setting up a distraction. The gun could remote fire, using the slightly melted controller I popped out of its alcove on the side.
I hurried through the room, triggering short bursts of fire to make it seem I was still exchanging shots with the drones. Their floodlights were bright enough that they reflected off glass and metal in this room, giving me enough light to move by. I snatched the little cleaning robot off the shelf, its wheels still whirring frantically, then grabbed a pouch of blood off the counter and a roll of surgical tape I’d spotted in a drawer earlier.