Crucible Zero (5 page)

“Stitching,” I said.

“That's right.”

“You do a
lot
of it?”

“I am the most-sought-after stitcher on the continent.”

“So you're famous for this for making . . . beasts?”

He shrugged and pushed his way back into the shadows, where an old shortwave radio station was set up. “I guess.”

I walked that way with him, drawn by the familiarity of it. We used to have all our other, much higher-tech communication equipment back here.

“How many people come out here to get stuff stitched?”

“Not many. I work through middlemen and only supply the House Earth people, who pay in trade. Fire and Water want a stitched, they can do it their own damn selves.”

“And what kind of things do you make?”

He pulled out the wooden chair, sat, then flipped the toggles and adjusted the dials in the faces of the heavy gray metal boxes.

“Work beasts for fields, guard beasts for the ferals, egg-laying beasts, herder beasts, and whimsies.”

“Anything else?”

“Medicines,” he said. “I put up a fair share of medicines. Scale jelly, especially. Our soil has some unique properties and makes strong compounds.”

“Devilry in our dirt.”

He smiled. “Something like that.” He turned the dial and thumbed the microphone. “CQ, CQ, CQ, this is W-three-QNT, standing by for a call.”

“W-three-QNT, this is W-three-GBR, Gruben family. This is Todd Gruben. What can I do you for, W-three-QNT?”

“Todd, I wonder if a few of the Grubens have any free time. I need to handle some things away from home, and Grandma will need watching over.”

“Of course! You know we love stomping the dirt off our heels. Need us before sundown?”

“Tomorrow morning, bright, should do it,” he said.

“We will be there.”

“With Floyd?” I asked. “Grandma wanted to see Floyd.”

Quinten thumbed the toggle. “Todd, can you see if Floyd can come along too? Grandma would love to see him.”

“Hi-hi that, my friend. We'll bring Floyd and all the fixin's.”

“Thanks, Todd. Seven-three. This is W-three-QNT clear and QRT.”

“Seven-three. This is W-three-GBR clear and monitoring.”

Quinten sat back from the microphone, then rubbed his palm over his mouth.

“So, are you going to go to House Earth to warn them?” I asked.

“No.” He turned the dial, pulling up a different frequency. “We can warn them from here.”

“Then why are the Grubens coming over?”

“Because I'm going to go to House Fire with you to kill Slater.”

That surprised me. “That's . . . reckless,” I said.

“That's direct,” he replied. “And it's the best way to handle him wanting us dead. CQ, CQ, CQ. This is W-three-QNT, standing by for a call.”

“W-three-QNT, this is W-three-TAN, Earth Compound Five, returning. Name's Jamie,” a man said in a pleasant bass. “Back to you W-three-QNT.”

“Jamie, it's Quinten,” he said. “Is Paxton around?”

“Hey, Quinten. He's . . . he's on watch. You need something?”

Quinten flicked his gaze my way at the man's pause, and frowned. “Is Riva there?”

“She's busy too.”

“I need to talk to one of them, Jamie. If not Paxton, get me Riva.”

Again the pause. “There's someone else who needs to talk to you. Give me a second.”

“Who's Riva?” I asked.

“Paxton's wife.”

“Who's Paxton?”

“Second in command, House Earth, Compound Five.”

“Why aren't you talking to the first in command?”

“Because he and I don't really get along. And Paxton will be the one who takes care of getting this information out anyway.”

We waited a little while longer before a woman's voice came over the line, which sounded farther away and static laced.

“Hello, Quin. Is everything okay out there?” she asked.

Everything in Quinten went tense. Even I recognized her voice.

“Gloria?” he said. “What are you doing there? What's wrong?”

“There's been an outbreak,” she said. “I'm doing what I can to make the infected comfortable.”

“Is it One-five?” he asked.

“Yes. It's been resistant to everything we've thrown at it.”

“What does One-five do?” I asked.

His thumb hovered over the toggle. “The infected go through all the other stages of One-one through One-four plagues, and then they fall asleep. When they wake up, they aren't human anymore.”

“What? What are they?”

He ignored me and toggled the mic again.

“How many people are infected?”

“In this compound? Six.”

He took a breath, and I knew what he was thinking. He didn't have nearly enough of the cure made yet.

“What do you mean, not human?” I asked.

“After the One-five puts you to sleep, you wake up hungry, mindless, feral. And violently strong.”

Does he mean zombies? That's just stuff of old horror stories, isn't it?

Yeah, well, so is time travel.

While I tried to wrap my head around the idea of feral living dead, he hit the toggle again.

“How quickly is it spreading?”

“We've kept it contained so far,” she said. “But, Quin . . . Listen, this isn't good news. I've been infected.”

Quinten sat there, silent for a long stretch.

Finally, he licked his lips. When he spoke, his voice was calm, belying the grief that pressed his face into grim lines. “How long ago?”

“Today. If I follow the same progression rate as the others, I have only five days left to live. I'm sorry, Quinten. I'm so very sorry.”

After a few minutes of Quinten doing nothing but staring at the wall in a daze, I took the microphone out of his numb hand. He didn't seem to notice.

“Gloria?” I said. “We'll be there as soon as we can.”

“Who is this?” she asked.

“A friend.”

“Is Quinten still there?” she asked.

He seemed to rouse at his name. Anger shifted across his face when he saw I'd taken over the communication.

He held his hand out, palm up, and gave me a stern scowl.

I dropped the microphone in his hand and mouthed,
Fine
.

“I'm here,” he said, his voice rough.

“Under no circumstances should you come out to this compound,” Gloria said. “The chance of the plague spreading is too high.”

I folded my arms across my chest and gave my brother an expectant look. He had his thumb off the microphone, so Gloria wouldn't be able to hear us.

“If she is close enough to you that you blanked out from the grief just hearing that she's sick, then there's no choice,” I said. “You have to take the cure to House Earth. You have to take it to Gloria.”

“It's untested.”

“Then we'll test it.”

“We?”

“I'm going with you. You aren't thinking straight, Quinten. Not with Gloria at risk. I'll help make sure nothing goes wrong. I'll help you get this cure to her in time.”

“The compound is a bomb target,” he said. “You are staying right here, where you're safe.”

“Where I'm sure Sallyo or Slater will send people to try to drag me in? It's not safe here. Not anymore. No. I'm done hiding. I go with you to that compound and try to save Gloria. Then I'll find a way to stop Slater. What are the armaments at the compound?”

“Jesus, Matilda,” he said. “Just stop! Stop . . . being that. Stop being
you
. I have enough problems on my hands not to have to deal with some stubborn girl who won't do what I tell her to do.”

I knew my cheeks were reddening up from that scolding, and I had to bite my tongue not to yell back at him. How dare he tell me I wasn't worth listening to. How dare he imply that Evelyn was just a sweet, obedient child he could do all the thinking for. He had just insulted both of us. And I was in a mood for a fight.

But we had a bigger battle to deal with, and very little time. People were going to die. A lot of people, either by bombing or plague. And us arguing about it wouldn't save a single damn soul.

“Quinten? Do you copy?” Gloria asked. “You will not approach this compound.”

“I heard you,” he said, his words still tight with all the yelling he was holding back. “But I am coming your way, Gloria. Tell the watch to look for me before sundown tomorrow.”

“Quin. Don't. Please don't.”

“There's something else you need to know,” he said. “What I originally called for. We got news, Gloria. Bad news. House Fire is going to start bombing House Earth compounds.”

There was a stretch of silence. Then she asked, “Do you know who and when?”

Just like in my time, when I'd known her as a doctor and Quinten's ex-girlfriend, she took terrible news with level calm. She didn't even ask why; she just got down to dealing with the situation.

“Ten days from now should be the first attack,” he said. “Unless we can stop it. I don't know which compound will be hit. It could be any of them.”

“All right,” she said. “All right. We'll spread the word, keep our eyes out, and hunker down. You need to stay where you are. Promise me.”

“I'm headed your way early tomorrow. Sorry, Gloria. I have to. W-three-TAN, seven-three. This is W-three-QNT clear and QRT.”

Another long pause interrupted by the static of a mic switching on, then off again. Then Jamie's voice came on the line. “W-three-3QNT, seven-three. This is W-three-TAN clear and monitoring.”

Quinten set the equipment aside.

“I'm going with you,” I stated. “And after that, I'm going to kill Slater.”

“Then you'd better pack,” he said, not looking at me.

I nodded and stared at the ceiling a minute. He was angry. He wanted some space. I understood that.

But it didn't give him any right to be an ass.

“That's two, Quinten,” I said. “Two times you've treated me like a child or worse. I'll give you one more; then I'm not going to be quiet and take that kind of condescension from you. Do you understand? I know Evelyn was sweet and kind and perfect, and I'm none of those things, but I think even she would be disappointed in how you're treating me.”

“Don't talk about her,” he said. “You didn't know her. You'll never know her.”

He was still sitting. Not looking at me, his hands fisted.

I started toward the stairs. Paused at the bottom. “You lost a sister, and I'm sorry. But I lost my entire world. Everything I knew is gone or so different, it's unrecognizable. If I can deal with that, and, believe me, I can, then you are just going to have to deal with me being me.”

I walked up the stairs. Before I closed the door behind me, I heard him swear and throw something against the wall.

So far I was doing just a bang-up job of fitting into this world.

Neds were where we'd left him, down the hall, leaning in the doorway, where he could keep an eye on every wing of the house. I didn't think he could hear what Quinten and I had been talking about. The basement was too well insulated.

“I'll take over not doing anything useful in the hallway for you,” I said. “You can go fix the pump now.”

Right Ned grinned. “What I'm doing is all kinds of useful. I'm guarding us from the mercs in the nursery, since our life has just turned into crazy town.”

“Thanks for bringing the crazy, by the way,” Left Ned added.

I could tell from the curious glint in their eyes that they were just joking. “Anytime.” I leaned on the wall across from him. “Just so you know, this”—I waved one finger around in the air—“is going exactly to plan.”

“Which part?” He settled to better face me, his hip propped against the wall.

There was something pleasing about those boys. Sure, he wasn't built like your average man, but those blue eyes of his, the breadth of his shoulders, the way Right Ned was almost always smiling while Left Ned rolled his eyes or scowled at him, made him approachable and interesting.

And I knew how very kind and loyal they could be.

They'd saved my life. They'd done so at great risk to their own.

“The whole I'm Not the Sister My Brother Wants Me to Be and the World Is a Thousand Times Weirder Than What I Remember thing,” I said.

“Weirder?”

“Plagues. Bombs. Mercenaries. Time troubles.”

“They didn't have those things in your world?”

I pulled my hands back through my hair and tried to tuck it behind my ears. First chance I got, I was going to either cut it short or braid it to get it out of my way.

“Sure, we had those things. But there were technology and medicine and plenty of resources to deal with it all.”

“Sounds like easy living.”

“Not at all, really.”

“Quinten coming back up here?” he asked.

“I think he needs a little time. He just found out Gloria is infected with One-five.”

“Well, shit,” Right Ned said. He eyed the basement door, looked me over again. “That pump needs to be fixed before nightfall. You've got a piece in your holster.”

“I know.”

“Do you know how to use it?” Left Ned asked. “Have you ever fired a weapon before?”

“Yes and yes. Ran the farm, remember?”

“Thought you said your time was filled with rainbows and rabbit's feet,” Left Ned said.

“You know how you get a lucky rabbit's foot, right? You cut off the rest of the rabbit.”

Right Ned chuckled. “So, you're comfortable shooting those two clanks if you have to?”

“Shooting them wouldn't do much good.” Then, at their looks: “I can hold my own if they get out of hand.”

They both glanced down at the basement door again, and from how they held themselves, I had a moment to wonder if they could hear each other's thoughts.