Title: Mutable: Chapter Nineteen, Part Two
***
Chapter
Nineteen, Part Two
The tunnel let out underneath a
bridge two blocks away from Rone’s enormous house, in an area labeled “UNSAFE: DO
NOT ENTER.” It looked unsafe, at
first glance, the smooth rock of the interior of the tunnel giving way to
crumbly chalk beneath his feet, but Cas knew a well-preserved blind when he was
inside of one. Hells, there was another one of those goddamn murder circles
embedded at the exit of the thing. It was well-disguised, but again—Cas had
built these sorts of tunnels with his own hands, and he wasn’t going to be
fooled just because this one was high tech.
He pursed his lips, then slid out
the end of the tunnel before he could second-guess himself. Nothing except a
faint glow from the security device. Good. Now, to find the kids.
He was almost positive they’d
head for the arcade, a place of near-mythic proportions that Lilah couldn’t
stop talking about. “You can fly in there,
and there are good games there, not
dumb games like these ones, and the food is better, and you can pretend to be a
spider.” Cas didn’t get the appeal,
but he didn’t have to. Clearly it all meant enviable fun to Lilah and Shar.
The arcade was a little over a kilometer
away, along a route that Cas had traced out in the dark last night while giving
the phage a break. From here, he needed to go…up onto the main street, then
left for two blocks, then right for seven. That was the most direct route, the
one the kids had most likely taken.
You let his kids run away on your watch. You’re terrible at this.
“Shut up,” he muttered to himself
as he tied Lilah’s shirt over the lower half of his face and climbed up onto
the main street level. It was…
Loud. Cas had forgotten how loud a riot could be. There were shouts
and screams, the constant crackle of some sort of energy weapon that seemed
popular, the slow-burning sizzle of melting glass in storefronts where some
people were concentrating those weapons. The arcade would probably be
abandoned.
Fuck. That meant the kids could be anywhere.
He merged with the crowd, dodging
around people flying grotesque signs high above their heads and others firing
off bolts of energy into the air, ramping each other up with every step. Everyone’s
faces were covered, some with plain cloth but others with some sort of smart
fabric that looked electronic, shimmering and distorting their entire face. Cas’s
hands itched to grab one, but he had to focus. He had to look for the kids.
He started to push left, toward
the edge of the crowd, so he could get going in the right direction.
“Hey! Wrong way, asshole!” A
young man carrying one of the tri-pronged zappers clacked the triggers irritatedly.
“This is the fastest way to get around the park and to the prince’s gates.”
“I’ve got someone to find first,”
Cas replied.
“You’re getting distracted from
the fucking mission, man!” He clacked
the triggers again, this time in Cas’s direction.
Cas shrugged. “Not my mission.”
“It’s everyone’s mission!” He engaged the triggers, and Cas heard the
device prepare to discharge.
Faster than his attacker could react,
Cas grabbed the barrel of the device and twisted it up with one hand while
sliding in close and driving his elbow in the guy’s solar plexus. The guy bent
over, gasping, and Cas put his free hand on the back of the man’s neck and smashed
his head down into Cas’s rising knee. Crack.
Cas wrenched the zapper out of the guy’s hand, then let go of him.
Blood sheeted down Cas’s
erstwhile-attacker’s face, and he staggered away into the arms of two other
people, who were watching with wide eyes over their facemasks. “Bye now,” Cas
said, clacking the triggers mockingly, then made his way to the side of the
press of people and along the nearest building until he could turn right again.
The alleys were quieter, all
doors and windows closed off. They looked secure—for a place used to dealing
with falling ash or worse from volcanoes, they’d have to be. Cas went as fast
as he dared, looking for more signs of either child as he went. He needed to
know he was going the right way…but there was nothing. If they weren’t at the
arcade…
Panic later. He would find them. They were kids, not enemy
operatives. They had a goal in mind, they went for it. They could slip through
the crowd easier than an adult, and Lilah would never let herself be separated
from Shar, so they were together. They were
at the fucking arcade, and Cas was going to find them there. So get to it.
The arcade stuck out along the street—which
considering the weird, eye-poppingly strange ways of attracting attention these
buildings had, was saying something. It was taller than any of the other
buildings by an extra story, and festooned with the sorts of bright colors and
cartoon-like characters that Cas could remember watching on stolen media with
Beren when they were young. Just like he had thought, it was closed, every one
of those colorful doors shuttered. The glass was scuffed and dinged in a few
places, maybe evidence of someone trying to break in, but Cas doubted it was
the kids.
There were way fewer people to
contend with here—the arcade was pretty far from any official government
buildings or royal residences. Cas climbed halfway up the nearest lamppost—it connected
with a twin across the street, and would set the filament connecting them
ablaze with light as soon as dusk hit—and looked around for a small, safe
hiding place. Somewhere the kids would fit together, but people wouldn’t think
to look inside.
There were bubble-like pop outs
on one side of the arcade, hollow spheres that were probably usually lit up
with digital displays. Right now they were in what seemed like their sleep mode,
swirling, wavelike patterns in neutral colors. One of them, near the bottom of
the wall, was broken—maybe it had been hit by a car? Whatever it was, the
damage was new enough to be jagged and unrepaired, and it didn’t light up. It
was, however, fairly large. Large enough for…
Cas climbed down, darted over to
the side of the arcade, and crouched to look inside the sphere.
A blue-clad little foot lashed
out at him, barely missing his head.
Cas leaned back far enough to be
out of the line of fire. “Hey, Lilah. Hi, Shar.”
Shar’s face peeped around the broken
edge. He smiled wide, looking a little relieved.
“Are you okay?”
“We’re fine!” Lilah’s voice was a
little muffled, and decidedly not
fine.
“Are you sure?” Cas went ahead and
sat down on the ground next to the bubble, taking himself out of the sight line
of any wanderers as possible. “You sound a little upset. I know I am.”
“Why are you upset?”
“Well, there were an awful lot of
people out here. Way too many for me. I don’t like when it’s so crowded.”
There was a pause, and then, “Me
neither.”
“Plus, some of them were shouting
nasty things. I didn’t like hearing it.”
“They were shouting about Daddy
and Uncle Amiru. And they had mean pictures of them.”
Oh…oh, she’d seen some of the…fuck those graphics, it was an atrocious
thing to hold above your head and display so anyone could see it, twice as bad
when children could see it. Ten times as bad when the kids looking at drawings
of their dismembered parent were Rone’s kids.
“Yeah, those were awful,” Cas
agreed. “I didn’t want to see them, so I stopped looking up. I kept my eyes on
the ground, looking for clues.”
Lilah’s face joined Shar’s. “Hey,
that’s my shirt!”
“I know, I needed to borrow it.
Sorry.”
“Hmmph.” She frowned at him for a
moment, then reluctantly asked, “What kind of clues?”
“Clues about where you guys would
be. You were really sneaky getting out of the house.”
Lilah nodded. “Daddy showed us
how.”
Oh, I know he did. “Well, I’m lucky I found you.”
“Are you a detective?”
Cas smiled. “Not really.”
Although there was a lot of investigative work ahead of him. “I guess I just know
you guys a little bit by now.”
“I guess…”
“So.” Cas leaned in a little
closer. “Do you think you guys are ready to—”
“Hey, fucker!” One of the signs
that had disturbed Lilah so much crashed against the wall next to his head. Cas
instantly jumped to his feet and moved away from the broken bubble where the
kids were hiding.
It was the idiot from the other
road, along with two of his friends. They had already broken into a run, each
of them holding some kind of weapon. Seeing them coming at him like this, eager
for it, unwilling to negotiate…it made a tension release inside of Cas.
If they were going to try and
kill him, then he didn’t have to hold back.
They were all wearing facemasks, but
he could smell the blood from the broken nose he’d already given the one in
front. Cas slipped under the metal pole that the man swung at him, drove his
palm up and into his attacker’s nose—he felt it break in another spot—and swept
his foot out from under him at the same time, sending him flying onto his back
in under two seconds.
He didn’t bother with the zapper,
he didn’t bother picking up the pole. Cas moved like a striking eel, gliding up
to his prey and snapping up the guy’s nearest limb, controlling it and reeling him
in, then disabling him joint by joint—elbow, shoulder, neck—not quite hard
enough to break it, although he was tempted. He ran the second attacker over
the first one’s body, dropping him on top, then leapt over both of them to
confront the third, who was charging his own zapper and trying to keep his
distance. Cas wouldn’t reach him in time to avoid taking a hit with that, so he’d
have to—
“Hey!” A blue shoe hit the man in
the side of the head, distracting him. Lilah was outside the bubble, barefoot,
hoisting her other shoe in her hand.
If Cas could have spared the time
for a heartfelt “Fuck!” he would have
right then. Instead he took advantage of the guy taking the time to change his
target to a little girl—and Cas had
never been so sure another person deserved to be maimed—and closed the distance,
kicking the zapper out of the man’s hand before stomping down on the top of his
foot. Half a dozen little bones shattered under his heel. The man had just
enough air to scream before Cas rammed the blade edge of his hand into his
hyoid bone, dislocating it. The man dropped, both hands clutching his throat.
Eh, he’d live. Cas took a deep
breath, checked the make sure the phage was still up, then collected Lilah’s
shoe and brought it back to her. “Thank you,” he said, handing it back. It wasn’t
like it would help to get mad, anyway. “I think we should make our way home,
don’t you?”
Shar came out and joined his
sister. The pair stared at him with wide eyes. “How did you do that, Beren?”
Lilah whispered.
“It’s a secret, special thing I
can only do when someone is counting on me,” he said. “Like you and Shar.”
“And only us know?”
“Only you.” Cas set a hand on
each of their shoulders. “Can you help keep my secret?” They both nodded
eagerly.
Thank goodness the surveillance systems are still out. It didn’t
really matter if the kids talked about it, Rone probably would just attribute
it to overenthusiasm on their part, but anything that encouraged a little
bonding between them was good. And frankly, Rone deserved to be left in the
dark after neglecting to tell Cas about the damn escape route in his kids’
bedroom. “Okay then. Let’s get back.”
