Crucible Zero (4 page)

“Slater,” I said.

His eyebrows slipped upward. “Ah. I see. Perhaps you are no longer the innocent.” He tipped his head down, fixing me with his brittle blue gaze. “Is that finally you behind those pretty brown eyes, Matilda Case?”

“What are you doing here? How are you doing this?”

“This?” He raised his hand to indicate the world around us. “Surely you aren't so conceited as to think you made no mistakes in your attempt to change the Wings of Mercury experiment? Your brother and Welton may have been brilliant, but time is a very delicate and contrary thing. Any slight adjustment, and worlds collide. Man was not meant to play with the toys of the gods, dear Matilda.” He
tsk
ed
.
“Look at the mess you've made.”

“This isn't real,” I said.

“But it is. This is the timeway you and I were born into. The timeway you nearly destroyed. Well, you and your brother. Here, the Houses rule as they have always meant to rule. Here, the galvanized are rotting away in prison for breaking treaty and murdering a head of House.”

“You were the one who murdered Oscar,” I said. “Not the galvanized. You tried to kill Abraham. You killed Robert and took over his body, and framed the galvanized. You have destroyed the world.”

“I repaired a broken and flawed world,” he snarled. “A world you never belonged to, Matilda. You should have died young, like all weak things.”

“No,” I said. “I should have killed you when I had the chance.”

“Ah, but you didn't. You and I are locked in this struggle. Until only one of us remains. And I shall rule. No matter who I have to kill. No matter which timeway I decide will become the set reality.”

I still had my gun on me. I pulled it from the holster.

The world went dizzy and I couldn't move, couldn't squeeze the trigger, as Slater was whisked away. The strong scent of roses lingered, and a ringing filled my ears.

*   *   *

I was in the hallway, still in front of Grandma's door. The gun was in my hand.

Holy crap.

I holstered the gun and pressed my fingers over my eyes, breathing until I could push the mix of panic, anger, and fear away.

Slater was alive. And he knew I was alive too. Or at least he knew I was alive in that . . . What had he called it? A timeway.

Too many questions crowded my head. How had he known about the timeway? What did he mean about choosing which one became a set reality? And why were he and I locked together in this?

I had no answers. And here, I didn't even know if anyone would believe me if I told them about it. Quinten thought I was hallucinating.

So I'd need to figure this out on my own. There had to be records left behind. There had to be information on the Wings of Mercury experiment that could give me clues.

Or maybe Abraham knew about the experiment. Maybe he knew someone—another galvanized—who had information.

It was worth a shot.

I took a deep breath to push away my nerves and knocked on Grandma's door.

“Grandma, it's Matilda . . . I mean, Evelyn. I'm coming in, okay?” I pushed open the door.

She was sitting in her rocking chair by the window, two little sheep—pink and blue—sleeping at her feet, a creamy white one cradled in her lap.

“Grandma,” I said, “how are you feeling?”

She was a small woman, her long hair white as bleached bones, her eyes wide and watery in her narrow face. She wore a faded blue dress with tiny, bright yellow flowers on it. In her hands was a cream-colored scarf that she was methodically knitting.

I remembered her arms around me, comforting my childhood bruises and scrapes, listening to my silly childhood dreams. She had always been there for me. Even after Mom and Dad died. Even after Quinten took to leaving me here on the farm for months at a time.

I knew her mind had been slipping for years. In many ways, it had become my turn to comfort her pains and listen to the silly dreams she chased between the sunshine and shadows of her memories.

“Evelyn?” she asked.

“Yes, Grandma?” She wouldn't understand I wasn't the sweet girl she'd raised in this body. She wouldn't ever understand I was someone else who had loved her dearly as she'd loved me.

I'd done everything I could to save this world. To save my family. But my family didn't know me. I'd become a stranger in their midst, an intruder in my own life. The life that was supposed to be mine.

I didn't expect them to instantly love me. But that didn't stop me from wanting them to.

She smiled, her eyes holding that hollow glitter of nonrecognition. “Is it time for us to go?” she asked.

“No, Grandma. It's not time to go.” I walked over, sat on the end of her bed, and petted the pocket-sized woolly sheep in her lap. It flicked its little sticky-out ears, and I scratched softly behind one.

“Quinten wanted me to tell you the Grubens are coming over.”

“Oh, my.” She chuckled. “They are fun. So fun. Are they bringing Floyd?”

“I don't know. Maybe.”

“They must. They must bring Floyd,” she insisted.

“I'll tell Quinten. I'm sure Floyd will be here.” I had no idea who Floyd was and hoped I hadn't just promised her something impossible.

“Good,” she said. “Good. Such a sweet girl. Sweet Matilda.”

I paused, surprised that she had spoken my name. Then I pressed my hand gently on the back of hers. “You remember Matilda?”

“Oh yes. Things were so different then. Poor thing. Poor thing gone away.”

“When she was little, right?” I asked. I knew she must mean she still remembered Matilda's death. I wanted to tell her I was Matilda and I was happy, I was alive and fine, but her mind was fragile and forgetful. I never knew what might worry or upset her.

“Aren't you Matilda?” she asked.

I held my breath, my heart thumping hard in my chest. “Yes.” I breathed.

“I thought so, dear. I thought so. Are you sure it's not time for us to go?”

“I'm sure,” I said.

“Promise you will tell me. When it's time to take care of it all.”

“I promise.” I had no idea what she was talking about.

“Good,” she said, patting my hand fondly. “Case women must stick together. To the very end.”

“Yes,” I said. “And we will.” But she had already drifted off, her eyes unfocused, her hands reaching for her knitting needles.

I leaned forward to kiss her on her forehead.

“Thank you,” I whispered. “I love you.” I didn't really think she thought I was Matilda. But it was nice to hear it anyway.

“Yes, dear. Yes,” she said thinly. “Is Floyd here?”

“I'll find out. Do you need anything? Tea? A nap?”

“Oh, I'm just fine. Fine.”

I gave her hand an extra squeeze, then left her room, pausing a minute outside the door.

What had I gotten myself into? What had I done? Saving the world had tipped the frying pan of my life right into the fire.

So many people's lives were on the line. Even if we did turn ourselves in to Slater, like his letter told us to, I knew he'd show us no mercy.

He'd just told me he wanted me dead so that he could rule the world.

Which meant I needed to warn House Earth that he intended to bomb them. And then I would find a way to get to Slater and kill him before he made that threat a reality.

The trials have concluded. The madman walks free while the others pay for it with their lives. The galvanized should not die this way. They should not die at all. If there is a place or time out there for them, I'll find it. And I'll find you, Matilda.

—W.Y.

N
eds were taking Foster and Abraham to the old nursery down the hall, where I remembered tending Abraham's wounds when he'd first come knocking on my kitchen door, telling me people were out to kill my father and me. I guessed they were going to be staying with us tonight.

Quinten saw me walking out of Grandma's room and waved a hand my way. “In here.”

I followed him into his room.

His room was big—really, two smaller bedrooms that had been opened up to make a larger space. It was as neat as I ever remembered it to be, though the items that filled it were a little more worn, scuffed at edges, or meticulously repaired.

“There's only one person who knew what I was doing,” Quinten said in a loud whisper as soon as I shut the door.

“Who? Doing what?” I asked, not following his train of thought. The time twitch with Slater was still rolling through my brain and making it hard to concentrate. And so was Grandma's odd insistence that she and I had something to do. To the very end, whatever that meant.

“This.” He held up the letter that was crumpled a bit from his fist. “There is only one person who knew what I was doing. One.”

“What were you doing?” I asked, taking the letter out of his hand and scanning it.

“Mining information and medical reports out of House Fire and House Water so I could find a cure for the damn plague.”

Oh, hell. I knew he'd been lying.

“And did you?” I gave the letter back and walked through his room. It was set up a little differently. The bed was on the wrong side, blocking a clear shot line from the open doorway. The chest of drawers was a different style. Stacks of books lined wooden shelves around the room and his closet, which was open only a small crack, seemed to contain a lot more flannel and sturdy work clothes than the white dress shirts and tweed vests I remembered him preferring.

There were other things here. Not knickknacks, exactly, but things he had collected. Several jars of bones that probably belonged to rodents and birds; a human skeleton the size of a doll, carved out of fine balsa wood; metal clamps of various sizes, many broken and laid out as if for parts; and the most delicate set of brass crochet hooks I'd ever seen, carved in the shape of birds and carefully wrapped in a velvet case.

Quinten hadn't said anything while I wandered. I finally looked away from the stack of books overflowing the chair and side table, all of them medical journals.

“Quinten,” I said. “Did you find a cure for the plague?”

He nodded.

That was bad.

“That's good, right?” I said. “Why are you worried? People need a cure, and you've found one.”

“This cure will change the world,” he said.

“Well, we're Cases. We apparently are all about changing the world.”

A wan smile shadowed his lips as he paced over to his bed. He folded down, suddenly all the restless, angry energy gone, the letter still gripped in his hand.

“You don't let insurmountable troubles worry you, do you, Matilda?” he asked.

“Oh, I don't know,” I said, trying to sound upbeat. “When we have some, I'll let you know.”

I thought about telling him that I'd slipped into the other timeway, but he was picking at his fingers, staring at the floor.

“Do you know . . . do you know what happened to Evelyn?” he asked, his eyes still on the floor. “Was she hurt? Afraid? You said you went back in time to change the Wings of Mercury experiment. Does that have something to do with Evelyn not being with us anymore?”

I leaned against the chest of drawers, pressing my palms into the edge of it, my elbows out. He still wasn't over the loss of her. I didn't blame him for that, even though it meant I was probably on my own with the timeway thing.

“From how I experienced it, I was back in 1910, trying to keep Slater from killing Abraham and all the other galvanized, and then the Wings of Mercury device was set off.

“A . . . bell rang out, only it was a huge, world-smashing sound. Physical and alive. I felt it ringing in my bones and rushing over my body like I was caught in a wave and trampled to death. I thought I was dying. I didn't feel Evelyn in pain. I didn't feel her fear. There was just the dying. And then I was standing here, in our kitchen, washing dishes. I was so happy to see you and Neds alive. . . .” I stopped. I hadn't meant to tell him that part.

He tipped his head up, though he still leaned arms on his knees. “We died in your time?”

I nodded. Maybe he did need to hear the truth. “Soldiers from the Houses overpowered us. They had weapons. Bombs. Everyone died. Neds, Grandma, Foster. You died too.” I held my breath against tears as the memory of my brother being ripped in two flashed behind my eyes. If that's what existed in the other timeway, I didn't want it to come true.

“I thought I'd never see you again.” The words came out a little shaky, but I cleared my throat. “But here I am. And I don't want to waste that. What day is today?”

He lifted his hand and pulled at his hair again. “September thirteenth, 2210.”

“That's the day I went back in time. That's the day the Wings of Mercury experiment triggered. Evelyn leaving this body must have something to do with that moment. I am sorry, Quinten. I really am. I would have told her to stay if I knew what was happening.”

“It's not . . . it's not any of our faults,” he said. “Things happen. I was the one who tried to transfer your mind into Evelyn's body. If I hadn't done that, I would never have known her. If the experiment had been successful, I would never have known her.”

“The experiment was successful.” I shrugged. “I'm in here now.”

He nodded. “Tell me how you know Slater.”

I paused. Wondered if I should tell him everything.

“He was the head of House Orange in my . . . um . . . timeway.”

“Timeway?”

“That's what I think it's called.”

“Is this a timeway?”

I nodded.

“Go on.”

“The Houses were separate of the others, working for their own interests. Slater was human, not galvanized.”

“Abraham said he's galvanized.”

“He wasn't born that way. But he is that way. Now.”

My brother was smart; he could put the two and two together. “I did it, didn't I?” he said. “I transferred his personality into a galvanized body.”

“Robert's body. Yes. Under the threat of death—mine and your own. Slater was here when I went back in time, his mind in Robert's body, just like mine was in Evelyn's. Slater was thrown back in time, just like I was thrown back in time. Or, rather, he was inside Robert's mind and body, just like I was inside Evelyn's mind and body, and we sort of woke up back in time. In them.”

“Are you sure it was him? Slater?”

I remembered the boy's cold gaze as he held the gun on Abraham, intending to kill him and as many galvanized as he could find.

“Yes,” I said. “I'm sure it was Slater in Robert's body.”

I waited. Didn't have to wait long.

“He remembers your time . . . timeway,” he said. “He remembers what I did in that timeway, what you did in that timeway. I take it we were not his friends?”

“He imprisoned you. He killed our parents. He murdered heads of Houses and killed galvanized. We were not friends.”

“So he knows I have a medical and stitching background. If one of my contacts mentioned my name, I could see how it might draw his attention. It makes a little more sense as to why he focused on me. I was very careful.”

“Taking data from the Houses is illegal?”

“Very. Which means I trusted the wrong people.”

“Someone in House Brown—shoot. Earth—betrayed you?”

“I think so.”

“How much of the plague cure have you manufactured?” I asked.

“Only one dose. I have the formula. I think it's right. But I haven't had a chance to test it.”

“Do you have the supplies to make more?”

“No. But House Earth should.”

“What will it take to make the cure available to all the Houses?”

“I'd need to partner with House Earth. Pool resources, medical equipment, staff.”

“I suppose whoever has the cure could gain a lot of power in this world,” I said.

“I wasn't doing it for power.”

“I know.” I wasn't thinking about Quinten trying to rule. I was thinking about Slater. “But Slater wants power. He always has. He wants to rule the Houses, rule the world. And he knows as long as I'm alive, I'm not going to let that happen. Do you know anyone in House Earth you trust to help manufacture the cure?”

“I think so. But from my previous judgment?” He held up the paper. “I don't know.”

“Well, it's a risk we have to take, isn't it? Putting the cure for the plague in Slater's hand won't do anyone any good.”

“He could claim it as his own, deliver it to the masses as if he were their savior,” Quinten said.

“No. He doesn't save people. He breaks them and forces them to serve him. If he allowed the cure to be released, it would be given only to the people whom he decided deserved it. And he loves no one except himself.”

“Which rules out House Earth and all of House Water,” Quinten said.

“Okay. Plan. You take the cure to House Earth, get busy producing it so we can distribute it through House Earth, and maybe House Water, if they'll work with us. While you do that, I'll take the fight to Slater and remove him from the equation.”

“Not the plan,” Quinten said. “We travel to House Earth together—end of story. I'm not going to let you stand alone against a head of House.”

“It's not like I haven't done it before. Besides, Slater is a personal problem I intend to personally solve.”

“Why?”

“He killed people I care about. Friends. Family. I know he'll do so again, given the chance. So I'm going to make sure he's dead and buried before he gets that chance.”

Quinten just stared at me and shook his head. “Evelyn would have never said such a thing.”

“I know,” I said.

I was getting tired of apologizing for being alive.

“I think,” I said, “the best thing you can do right now is warn House Earth that they're about to be bombed so they can take necessary actions. Do we have a communications system of any kind? Computer, network, satellite?”

He scoffed, on the edge of a laugh. “Things haven't been like that for a hundred years. Computers—the ones that work—are House based and are a closed network in the major cities. Satellites went down disastrously in the meteor shower of 2100 . . .”

I shook my head.

“. . . which devastated two-thirds of the communication and energy resources in the world, including most of the World Wide Web, and very quickly led to the mismanagement of resources and to wars, a downfall of borders, countries, and powers.”

Things had certainly played out differently in this timeway.

“We must have some way to reach House Earth. Telephone? Telegraph? Smoke signals?” I asked. “People always find a way to communicate. What do we have, Quinten? How can we contact House Earth?”

“Radio. Did we have that in your time?”

“We had everything in my time. We ran the communication hub for House Brown and did our best to keep one step ahead of the Houses trying to take away homes, land, and freedoms.”

“Huh.”

“We don't do that now, do we?”

“No. Well, the compounds all look after each other, and we do our part.”

“House Earth people are living in compounds?” That didn't sound good.

“Strong walls make for safe cities,” he said. “I need to pack a few things anyway. Come with me.”

We left the room.

Neds stood leaning in the doorway to the kitchen. “I let the rest of the lizards out, so we shouldn't have any more people showing up at our door,” he said. “But the pump house is still down. Want me to take a look at it or keep my eye on the stitched?”

“Watch the galvs while I contact the Grubens,” Quinten said. “Then I'll take over guard duties.”

“I can fix the pump house,” I said.

They both gave me an odd look.

Right Ned shook his head. “You got handyman skills, Matilda?”

“I ran this farm on my own for three years,” I said. “Well, I hired you after a year, but there was nothing on this farm I couldn't handle.”

“You hired me?” Left Ned asked with a grin. He nudged his chin toward Quinten. “You figured her out yet?”

“It's a time-travel thing,” he said.

“Those things exist?” Right Ned asked.

“They apparently did,” Quinten said. “Watch the galvs. We'll be right back.”

Quinten slid a key into the basement-door lock, then stepped through into darkness. I was right behind him.

The familiar cool and dusty smell of the basement reached me and triggered a parade of memories. But when Quinten pulled the chain on the single lightbulb, I knew this basement wasn't anything I'd ever seen before.

“I'll call the Grubens from here.” He started down the wooden stairs.

The room was much more rudimentary in makeup. Basic dirt floor; wooden tables and shelves. But in the center of it all were two metal operating tables, scrubbed and clean and shining like knives in the dull light.

And while the tables were eye-catching, what really drew my attention were the shelves that covered the walls, and what was on those shelves.

Jars of clean cloth squares, cotton rolls, needles, blankets, and an array of medical hardware, all of it neatly hand labeled, filled half of the room's shelves, while the other half was stuffed with jars of animal parts and bits floating in gel. Wooden crates stacked up in an organized jumble, holding, I assumed larger parts.