Broken People (24 page)

With a nod, Serioja signaled the stilt men
to follow him. Dressed only in a yellow vest over his flesh-colored
costume with muscles painted on it, he stepped out into the cold.
It was time for the backup plan.

Millimeter by millimeter, Anya rotated her
head to the left to be able to look out the window. Serioja was
already up on the bar held by the stilt men, jumping, flying, and
catching the bar with his bare hands. The height, twice as high as
what they used at the circus, brought a frown to Anya’s mask. Too
high. A strong wind would send either him or the stilt men flying
to the ground, and a fall from that height … Anya didn’t want to
think about it. Even Rake and Spinner couldn’t fix him after such a
fall.

Several people had gathered to watch him,
more lining up along the windows facing the yard. It looked similar
to the show earlier in the evening, except the music, fireworks,
and extra lights were missing. Too dark. A shiver spread down
Anya’s spine. Serioja was turning too quickly, putting on a show.
The magnets in his wrists would prevent him from missing the bar,
but all of that effort was wasted on an audience unable to
appreciate the act’s beauty.

Anya would have shaken her head if it hadn’t
been for her need to keep still. She made a mental note to scold
him for his theatrics. She didn’t need to worry about him, too. The
situation was bad enough as it was, and it became even worse as the
audience was getting bored, despite the clowns juggling glowing
balls.

Serioja must have felt it, too, because he
clapped his hands while still in the air before doing another flip
and hanging by one hand.

The public parted on the right side to make
room for Fei Lin. She stopped next to the closest stilt man and
looked up. After the third revolution, she jumped. The robot
couldn’t fly, but a good impulse would bring it over the bar and
land it on the other side. During the second jump, she found time
to slap hands with Serioja, then do a flip of her own.

Show off.
Anya rolled her eyes.

But it worked. The guards had stopped to
watch. Too bad the diversion couldn’t last. Someone was bound to
notice they had gotten lost on the way and call them back to
order.

Meanwhile, Serioja went on with the show. He
became bolder, flying around the bar as if preparing for the end of
the routine, which culminated with him sitting
on
the bar.
What was the fool doing? He wasn’t trained for this.

The clowns had dropped the balls and
watched, their mouths open.

Serioja bowed at the crowd, waved in Anya’s
direction, and let himself fall.

Fei Lin jumped a second later, in a
desperate attempt to catch him. Serioja turned in the air, and she
missed him by a fraction.

Anya closed her eyes so she wouldn’t see him
crushing against the pavement. The crowd’s roar confirmed that he
had. Her mute cry passed unnoticed, and the mask sucked in the warm
tears trickling down her cheeks. She didn’t move. Nothing could
touch the Swan. The guards were busy, dealing with the injured man,
but that couldn’t last, either. She needed to be there, ready to
reveal herself if needed.

All the color had run out of Aurore’s face.
She stared inside the safe, her lips parted, not saying a word.
Next to a sphere the size of a man’s head that was chained to the
wall sat two sets of transparent, rectangular boxes.

Dale felt bad for her. She had obviously
waited for this moment for a long time. The disappointment must
have been crushing. “Do you still want them?”

Aurore looked at him like she didn’t
understand the words.

“Do you
want
them?” Dale asked.

She started. “Yes, of course I do. This is
not the right place for them.”

Those were no treasures. Sure, they were one
of a kind, but like she’d said before, they were not valuable to
anyone but her. And now, not even to her. They were nothing more
than a painful memory. Dale nodded and picked up one of the smaller
boxes. It weighted more than expected. He stepped away from the
safe.

The knife throwers were making their way to
the back of the vault, so he handed the box over to Spinner. “Take
it to the transporter. There are three more inside.”

An arm floated gently in the green liquid
filling the box. Through the transparent wall, the perfectly formed
arm was visible—a child’s arm.

“Wow…” Spinner glanced at the contents of
the box, then at Aurore, his eyes lingering on her hands. He shook
his head and placed the box under his bulky arm. “Give me the other
one, too.”

Rake picked up the boxes containing the
legs.

“I can’t believe Big Dino screwed up this
badly,” Spinner said while they walked towards the exit.

“It was an experiment. It had never been
done before,” Rake said with a shrug, and the edge of one of the
boxes clattered against a drawer. “There were bound to be a few
glitches.”

“That’s a big glitch!” Spinner said.

Like a five or six centimeter long glitch.
Big Dino had regrown the limbs from close to nothing, having them
reach the exact state as the ones destroyed, but they hadn’t aged a
day since. They couldn’t replace the golden prosthetics. They were
unusable.

“Bring the plasma cutter!” Dale yelled after
them.

“This is what you came for?” Aurore frowned
at the sphere made of a material she didn’t recognize, covered in
rusted bits of metal. “What is it?”

“It’s a power source.” Dale pulled on the
chains. They didn’t budge. He needed fancy gas powered bolt cutters
capable of slicing through titanium diamond steel links. “It’s
supposed to be able to power a small city.”

“Supposed to?” Aurore arched an eyebrow.

“Up until recently, it was believed to be a
myth,” Dale said. “Then we heard a rumor there might be something
similar inside the Hrad. We had several talks with the mayor, but
he never admitted its existence.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“The European United Nation Council.” There
was no point in hiding anymore. He was here. The proof lay in front
of him. “The martial law hasn’t been instated here, so we couldn’t
barge in and take it. We had to find another way.”

“Steal it…”

“If that’s what it takes…” Dale shrugged.
“It’s not like he’s using it.”

“That’s … not entirely correct,” Spinner
said on his way back to them. Neither he nor Rake carried the
plasma cutter.

“It’s powering her prosthetics.” Rake nodded
at Aurore. “You can’t take it.”

“Big Dino will have all of our heads if you
do,” Spinner said.

“I would listen to them if I were you, Mr.
Armstrong.” Ternchiev’s voice came from along the aisle, preceding
his slower body. “Now…” He stopped to huff and pressed a hand
against the left side of his chest. “Will you be so kind as to join
me outside for a proper conversation? It’s suffocating in here.” He
took one look at the empty space in the vault and pushed the door
closed. “Now, people! I’ve had enough of your games.”

Rake and Spinner took a step backward.
Aurore fixed her uncle with cold eyes.

Dale didn’t move. This couldn’t be. Why was
the mayor here? How did he know?

“Mr. Armstrong, I’m running out of patience
here. I’ve got one hundred policemen outside, so don’t even think
about resisting.” Ternchiev pointed at the exit and herded them all
back to the vault room.

Six men in uniform surrounded Cole, Cielo,
and Renard, who had regrouped by the window. Hands hovered near
holstered weapons.

“Mr. Renard, I believe you’re needed in the
yard,” Ternchiev said. “One of your crew members has been injured.
My people will make sure you get everything you need.”

Four officers herded Renard to the exit. He
exchanged a look with Cielo, patted Cole on the shoulder, making
him wince, and left the room with an easy stride.

“You should have told me!” Aurore said as
soon as they were left alone.

“My dear, you saw them. They’re no good,”
Ternchiev said in a fatherly tone.

“All those years, you let me hope when you
knew
it was all a lie!”

“Yes, I knew. And I was heartbroken for
you.” The old man sighed. “But it’s better to hope for something
than have no dreams at all. Besides, you’re perfect the way you
are.”

“Fuck perfect. I want my arms and legs
back!”

“
These
are your arms and legs, my
dear.” Ternchiev reached out to touch her arm, but Aurore shrunk
from the contact. His shoulders dropped. “I’m sorry you’re upset.
In time, you’ll see I was right, even if I didn’t handle the matter
in a manner of which you approve.”

The dark glare Aurore gave him let everyone
in the room know she didn’t think such a time would ever come.

Ternchiev turned to Dale, his fingers laced
behind his back. “I’m not happy with you, Mr. Armstrong. When I
first saw you with my niece, I hoped you were here for a different
reason. I’m disappointed to be proved wrong. And for such a trivial
reason.”

“It’s not a trivial reason,” Dale said. He
shouldn’t have wasted time arguing with the mayor. If only he could
take the power source and run. But he had a feeling the knife
throwers wouldn’t be on his side, and he couldn’t fight one hundred
policemen, the knife throwers, plus people with talents like Renard
and the Nightingale had, and expect to survive. So he tried to
explain. “There’s a plane leaving soon and heading east. It’s
loaded with bombs. It will try to nuke the enemy’s defense line. If
it passes through, it will go as far as possible and, hopefully,
reach one of their bot factories and destroy it. We have intel on
several locations we’ve never been able to reach before.”

“Before?” Aurore asked.

“There were other attempts,” Spinner said
quietly, realization twisting his features into a grimace.

“Several. We send the planes as soon as
they’re out of the factory. Unfortunately, it takes months to build
navigation systems resistant to their electric pulses, and the
shields never last long. The power source would help with that,
too.” Dale glanced at Ternchiev. The mayor hadn’t said a word.

“How come we never heard of any of this?”
Aurore asked. “It should have been all over the news.”

“We don’t advertise our failures,” Dale
said. “The population needs to feel safe. This war has been going
on for years, and it will continue like this if we don’t put an end
to it.”

“Plus, it’s a suicide mission,” Rake said.
“The planes don’t return.”

“They don’t?” Cielo gasped.

“No, and we never heard from the pilots
after the crashes, but that’s not a guarantee they’re dead,” Dale
said. “They could be held prisoner. That’s further reason to get
there.” He gave Ternchiev an insistent look. “With that power
source, we can ditch the fuel and fill the plane with bombs fitted
with navigation systems of their own. Imagine such an invasion. The
enemy will never see it coming. I can hit at least a couple of bot
factories—”

“Until you’re shot down,” Spinner said.

“If I survive, at least I’ll find out what
happened to the other pilots.”

“It’s not a question of
if
you’re
shot down, but
when
…” Rake said.

“
You
are going to pilot it?” Aurore
asked Dale.

“If I get the power source, yes.”

Aurore’s fingers twitched.

“So, you see—” Dale turned to Ternchiev,
“—we
need
that power source. Big Dino can fix her
prosthetics to work without it.” He gestured vaguely in Aurore’s
direction.

“That’s a compelling argument, but no,”
Ternchiev said. “She needs the power source, and even if you cut
her prosthetics off, we need it for the town, too. Tough times are
coming. I won’t have my people freeze to death another winter.”

They stared at each other, but Ternchiev
didn’t budge. His bonhomie and laissez-faire look was gone. He was
all business.

“Now, what am I going to do with you?”
Ternchiev clasped his hands. “You’ll go to jail, of course,” he
told Dale. “Don’t worry about it. I don’t expect you to be there
long. I’ll inform the European United Nation Council we have you in
our custody, and I’m sure we’ll come to a mutually satisfactory
agreement prior to your release. As for you…” He eyed the knife
throwers. “I know better than to try to detain you. Go and tell Big
Dino I expect compensation for all the trouble you caused.” He
pointed at Cielo and Cole. “These two will stay.”

He barely finished getting the words out
when Cole grabbed Cielo with the back arms of the transporter, set
her on the platform in the back, and rushed down the corridor.

“No, wait!” Spinner and Rake ran after him
before the guards could flinch.

Everyone else followed, but they didn’t have
to go far. Cole stopped at the first window facing south and broke
the glass with the front arms. When he couldn’t fit through, he
used the mechanical arms to break off chunks of the wall, too.

Rake and Spinner stood with their knives
ready, but they didn’t try to stop him.

The transporter climbed through the hole and
dove.

They made it to the edge of the hole in time
to see the Robot Girl flying down, the transporter grasped in both
arms, and landing it with a loud screech of broken glass and
twisted metal. The transporter wobbled, two of its deformed and
unresponsive legs dragging on the ground, but managed to pick
itself up, leaving a puddle behind.

Aurore gasped. The cryo boxes had
broken.

“Damn, we haven’t thought to make it
resistant to such impact,” Spinner muttered. “And I had made it so
pretty …”

“Well, you’ll have to pay for this, too.”
Ternchiev pursed his lips.

The knife throwers took off down the
corridor.

“Let them pass!” Ternchiev told the
guards.