Extracted

  ***

  Everything is going smoothly. Too smoothly, I realize. We’re creeping silently through the old cargo tunnel. As we turn the next corner, the hair on the back of my neck stands at attention. Journey’s earlier words echo again in my head. Too easy.

  “Guys, stop,” Sisson whispers harshly. “Did you hear that?”

  As if by unspoken command, we all douse our lights. Bruce nods, and Sisson doesn’t hesitate. Her mini Steam Cannon crackles in the darkness as she pulls it from her thigh holster. Donning her night-vision goggles, she takes off down the tunnel to recon, able to navigate her way through the pitch darkness easily.

  We hear the sound of her body hitting the ground… and then all hell breaks loose.

  The darkness becomes a war zone. A blast of air blows past my face, and I jerk to the side. Rapid puffs fill the tunnel. Then, a sound that is more familiar, tiny metal legs running in our direction, dirt crumbling from the walls around us.

  “Lights!” I yell, and the cavern around us illuminates as we reignite our lights.

  My mind races. Forward or back? Do we push farther into Tesla or retreat now with my team mostly intact?

  “Fall back.” I give the order even as Journey is running forward, into the line of fire. Journey is at Sisson’s side, pressing two fingers against her neck.

  “She’s still alive,” Journey yells back into the chaos. “She got hit with a tranq dart.”

  “Get her out of here,” I order. “Rift her back to Wardenclyffe!”

  Journey complies, dragging Sisson past our line and back into the tunnel. Bruce shoves a Contra into Sisson’s mouth.

  Journey pulls a Contra from a pocket on her shirt and swallows it quickly. The two girls vanish to safety.

  “Take cover!” I order to the remaining team.

  Bruce jumps behind a mound of rocks and packed dirt. Slap Stick kneels in the middle of the passageway and holds up a homemade pipe bomb, silently asking permission to light it. I nod as the first wave of Gear Heads crawl up the walls of the dirt cavern.

  “Do it!” I yell.

  “Good thing we packed the heavy artillery!” Bruce grins, tossing me a telescoping electric baton.

  I flick my wrist, and it expands to four feet long. A small ball at the end crackles with electricity. I mouth, “Thanks,” just in time to hear Slap Stick cry out.

  He slumps to the floor with the unlit explosive still in his hand. I don’t have time to think. I quickly slide to where he lies and press my index and middle finger against his neck. He still has a pulse.

  Ting, Ting, Ting, Ting. I look down and see what has taken out two members of my team. Four red, feathered darts have hit my machine leg. I pick one up and roll it between my fingers. Gear Heads don’t fire darts, I realize, looking up. There are two small turrets mounted in the tunnel, and both are firing rapidly. Without thinking, I grab two bricks of C-4 off Slap Stick’s belt and throw them at the turrets. They hit with a wet slap and cover the barrels. That threat is taken care of, but the darts are only part of the problem. There’s something a lot bigger than Gear Heads blocking our way. I catch a glimpse of it as it slips behind the next corner.

  “Nobel! Bruce!” I yell back to where the others are crouched. “Get over here! And bring Miss Liberty.”

  They hurry down the tunnel wall and cross over to the intersection where I still kneel.

  “Here, give me Miss Liberty,” I order, “And take this. Keep the Gear Heads off me.”

  I hand over the prod as Nobel passes me the sculpture. He and Bruce step forward in the tunnel and continue chopping away at the onslaught of Gear Heads.

  I break off the windmill, earning a horrified gasp from Nobel. “Oh man, why did you have to do that?”

  “Because we’re low on weapons, three members of our team are down, and this mission is circling the toilet in a hurry.”

  I take the small pipe and scramble over to where the darts fell after hitting my fake leg. Grabbing all four, I crawl back to the intersection, stuffing one of the feathers into the hollow windmill post.

  “Now we have a leg up,” I say, holding up my makeshift weapon and tossing the unusable body aside.

  I see the creature turn and face us. It’s carrying a syringe full of clear liquid. It’s only sort of a person. It’s wearing a long white lab coat and a mask of brass and leather. Bits of thin, brown hair poke out around the edges of the mask, not unlike Bruce’s. As a matter of fact, I have to glance over at him to see if he knows the strange creature. The stunned look on his face suggests he doesn’t. I leap forward, blowing on the small, hollow rod. Thup… I load another… Thup… reload… Thup. Finally, I load the last dart and wait. A hiss of steam escapes the clockwork gears in the center of its chest as the creature crumples to the ground.

  “Wow, nice shot,” Bruce says as he steps forward, kicking the creature with the toe of his boot.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  He shrugs.

  Just then, the room shimmers as Journey reappears. “I left Sisson back at Wardenclyffe. Figured you might still need me. So, what now?”

  As we wait for Slap Stick to wake up, I try to fix Miss Liberty. Not my best work, we’ll have to manually crank it, but believe it or not, it actually works. I hand it to Nobel, hoping his payback won’t be as bad now. Bruce hunches over Slap Stick, who is beginning to stir. He then comes to, wildly swinging his fists. Bruce has to dodge a few punches to keep from getting slugged.

  “What happened?” Slap Stick asks, bringing one hand to his head. Once Bruce helps him sit up, Slap Stick retrieves a piece of unused blast cord from the floor, wipes it off on his pant leg, and inserts it into the corner of his mouth. He begins to chew on it like it’s a straw.

  “You got tranqed,” Journey says.

  “Am I permanently damaged?” Slap Stick says.

  “No, I don’t think so,” I say, clearing away the last of the dead Gear Heads from our path. “You’ll probably be woozy for a while, but we have to get into Tesla.”

  Nobel cranks Miss Liberty, and the arrow shows us which way we need to go at the intersection.

  “What do we do about that thing?” Journey asks, pointing to the fallen creature.

  Bruce kicks Tesla’s Frankenstein again, in the fleshy part. The creature doesn’t move.

  “Leave it,” I decide. “We are in a hurry now. If those things know we’re here, someone else might, too.”

  We navigate as quickly as possible, relying mostly on Journey’s memory of the map rather than Miss Liberty. It’s risky, but it saves us some time.

  “Here it is!” Journey says finally.

  We’ve arrived at a rusted metal grate. When I kick it, it practically disintegrates. We duck through the opening. I know we’re inside Tesla now. The walls are smooth metal, polished like steel. There are red floodlights overhead and doors that open up on either side of the long corridor. “Which door is it?” I ask. They all look the same. Each has a small keypad at eye level on the right, but there are no markings.

  “Third door on the left, according to the maps,” Journey answers with total confidence.

  Slap Stick doesn’t hesitate. He jogs over and places small bits of clay around the corners of the door. As he works, the blast cord wags back and forth in his mouth.

  “Ready?” he asks, jogging back to us as we all crouch down once more. I give him the signal, and the blast echoes through the chamber. After a few heartbeats, the door falls in with a thud.

  We file inside, leaving Bruce to guard the door. As the dust settles, the room becomes clearer. The walls are a warm copper color with elaborate designs carved into the metal. Some are just swirls of shapes, but some, I realize, are numbers and signs. Formulas.

  “Alchemy,” Nobel explains looking at the designs. “An archaic combination of magic and science.”

  Shelves of dark wood form lines down the middle of the room. It’s like a library, only with less books and more tec
h. In the far corner is an old-fashioned elevator. Even though it’s tarnished with large flecks and streaks of green, it’s still very elegant. It sits there as a majestic symbol of what once was. Nobel immediately moves to check the functionality of the old machine. The gears haven’t turned forever, and the elevator probably hasn’t delivered anything to Tesla for over a century.

  “It’s not here,” Journey says, her voice small and confused.

  “What do you mean?” I demand.

  “It’s wrong. I think we are in the wrong place.”

  Bruce looks in, rolling his eyes. “This is the vault. Look at all this tech. Grab what you can and let’s get out of here.”

  I look at the objects on the shelves. They’re pieces, not complete machines.

  “No, she’s right. This is like a parts room or something.”

  Trying not to let my frustration show, I set Miss Liberty on the ground and give her a crank. Her beam of light bounces off the ceiling above us.

  We all look upward. She has clearly answered our question. We have to go up.

  “Then it’s a good thing I got this old elevator working.” Nobel smirks and hits a button with his elbow, making the ancient machine grind to life. Tesla must know we’re here by now. All we can do now is get what we came for before his troops arrive.

  We heave the doors open. One by one, we enter the rickety elevator. The old brass cage is going to deliver something to Tesla one last time.

  Tesla Journal Entry: October 2nd 1892

  I have traced Helena’s family to a unique fork. A royal bloodline from the earliest rulers of Great Britain. There is record of the royal family suffering from all manner of blood diseases, the most notable of these being hemophilia, a disease that Helena and her brother share to a very mild degree. I cannot help but speculate that this might be the root of their abilities. To confirm the theory, I have enlisted Leonard to help me, in the guise of a family history research center, locate those who might share the same ability.

  Also, I have been pondering the method of traveling. The science—ah! The blasted science tells me such a thing is not possible. And yet, I have proof. Perhaps it is unwise to continue using such large currents to trigger the traveling. I plan to create a device that can replicate the results, in a safer way. I believe poor Garrison will be greatly relieved. Just yesterday, we lit his last good jacket on fire.

  Furthermore, there is the question of whether it might be possible to travel backward in time. The possibilities, (and potential complications), stagger the mind. The trick would be to find a way to leash them to the present, so that they could travel, forward or back, and return to this same moment from which they left. Perhaps a magnetic anchor of sorts.

  Ah! How I wish I could travel with them! To see for my own eyes the stream of wind of which they speak! To stand witness to the discoveries of the future!