Division Zero: Thrall (56 page)

Kirsten rolled onto her belly and tugged at the elastic cord. “Please…”

It took Miranda a moment to gather the nerve to move. Eventually, she crawled over next to Kirsten. Droplets of warm blood patted on her back as Miranda knelt beside her. The elastic cord gave way with ease, and Kirsten stretched flat with a sigh of relief.

“Okay, now it’s your turn to stay still. This thing’ll go through your arm before I realize it.”

“Yeah, I know how Nano works.” Kirsten didn’t move as Miranda cut the cuffs off her arms. She rolled over and sat up, rubbing her wrists while Miranda worked the small blade through the binders on her legs. Streaks and smears of blood were all over both of them by the time she was free. Miranda held her right arm out and made a fist before the blades sank back inside, the faintest trace of a whirring motor audible. She slunk away and curled up in the corner, cradling her bleeding arm. Some seconds later, the blood stopped seeping.

“You okay?” Kirsten crawled over, examining the cuts.

“Yeah. It’s got nanobots to repair the skin. It didn’t do it all the way on account of me using it to cut so much. I tore the skin more than it would have just going on and off. Nano don’t usually make much of a hole, ya know?”

Kirsten held Miranda’s right hand in both of hers. “Thank you. I’m sorry you had to hurt yourself, but we are going to get out of here.”

Miranda stared in mute silence.

“Perfect. One step closer to out.” Kirsten went to the door. After a moment of stretching away the pain of spending hours stuck in a tight hogtie, the sense of being locked in a cage overwhelmed her. She tried to tear the bars down with her bare hands, thrashing and rattling the heavy barrier until she had to rest. Exhausted, she slumped against the cold metal, panting. “Well, now that I got that out of the way… we just gotta get this door open. Can you cut out a bar or two?”

Miranda whined. “No, they’re like an inch thick. The blade’s too short, and it will hurt like fuck.”

Kirsten paced. The need to get to Evan and the frustration at being trapped became painful. “You’re a thief, huh? Can you pick this lock?”

“Can you psionic me up something to pick it with? Oh, there’s some robes in the cabinet by where the mask was. They put one on the dude they had in here when they took him out.”

Where the mask was.
The spot of wall lay bare. She forced the image of a mask-wearing Konstantin hovering over Evan’s helpless body out of her mind. Kirsten was not sure if she wanted to waste the ten seconds it would take to put anything on. She had to get to him. She would streak the city if it would save Evan.
Streak the city…
She sat still and closed her eyes.
I’ll project and go to him. Wait, no.
I’ll just see them, I won’t be able to save him as a projection; all I’ll do is waste time. Calm down, K. Stay professional. Remember Shani. Get emotional and someone’s gonna die. If they grab him, he will project and come home. He can lead me right to the bastards.

Her sudden spin toward Miranda made the other woman jump. “You said something about a gag before?”

“Uhh… yeah. I thought you weren’t into―”

“I’m not!” yelled Kirsten. “What did you mean?”

“The creep they have watching us wants us to stay quiet. First day I was here, he said he’d gag or drug me if I didn’t stop screaming.”

“So if we make too much noise someone will come in here?”

“Yeah.” Miranda wore a face like a child about to be scolded. “But you don’t want ‘em to.”

“ Perfect.” Kirsten grabbed the cell door, and shouted at the top of her lungs.

ands clasped on the bars, Kirsten rattled the barrier. Ten minutes of shouting had thus far produced no effect other than echoes, and Miranda giggling at insults that ranged from juvenile to crass as desperation increased. Frustrated, she let go and paced for several seconds before flinging herself at the door for another try at tearing it down. Their prison was not getting any warmer, but at least fruitless exertion took the sting out of the chill.

Miranda put a trembling arm around her from behind, attempting a hug. “Hey, calm down.”

Kirsten tensed at the touch.
Oh, please don’t let Theodore find me now.

“Sorry. I’m just freezing.”

They huddled together against the wall, shivering.

“So, who are you to him?”

“What?” Kirsten glanced at her for an instant before attempting to stand for another round with the bars.

Miranda clung. “The old man. Konstantin, I heard him tell the guards you were not to be killed under any circumstances. He said something about keeping ‘it’ where he wanted it, and if you died, he’d have to go out and find the next one.”

How could he know that?
Kirsten blinked.
He doesn’t even know I’m a suggestive, or he would have blindfolded me.
“It’s a long, complicated story. Some entities from the next world want me to help them.”

“Oh.” Miranda shot her a look as if she was nuts.

“You don’t have to believe me.”
Shit, I can’t just sit here and wait.

Frustration at being separated from Evan manifested as tears. She had to do something other than nothing. Trusting him not to do something stupid, Kirsten concentrated on Dorian. The sense of power emanating from her mind unwound like a thread from deep within her skull. She beaconed, calling to the astral realm for him. After she was sure the message went out, she relaxed her power, but grew worried.
Please let him be careful.

“Umm, what the hell was that? Your hair just moved like there was a breeze and your damn eyes just glowed behind your eyelids.” Miranda disengaged from their share of body heat.

“I have a ghost friend. I just tried calling him.”

“What’s he gonna do? Scare the bars open?”

“No, but he can take a message to my captain.” Kirsten tolerated idleness for less than twenty seconds before leaping to her feet. “Oh, goddammit! I can’t take this. Wait, I got an idea.”

“What?”

“Something an old spirit once annoyed the shit out of me with. When I was little, I tried to ignore them so I didn’t get punished.” She grabbed a fragment of the handcuffs and raked it back and forth across the bars while shout-singing Henry the Eighth.

“Stop it, that’s annoying.” Miranda covered her ears.

After two verses, a distant slam echoed from the basement. Kirsten got louder. Stomping approached, and Randall Morris rounded the corner of the boxes and stared down the short hallway to the cell. His missing arm had been replaced with a common civilian prosthetic. Flesh-toned plastic approximated the shape and contours of an arm, separated into visible panels by gaps that left the black metal interior visible. He froze.

“Hey, what the hell are you two doin’ loose?” He pulled a pistol off his belt and aimed at them. “Put those damn cuffs back on.”

Kirsten dangled the broken thing. “Sorry, we broke your toys. Now be a good little boy and
Unlock the door.
”

Randall recoiled as if punched in the head. The gun clattered to the ground as his arms went limp. He tottered around the stacked crates out of sight. Miranda ran up behind Kirsten, clinging to her from behind. Kirsten sucked air through her teeth, tensing at the awkwardness of a naked hug.

“Was that some kinda psionic shit?”

Kirsten’s knuckles went white on the bars. “Yeah.”

Miranda clamped tighter, resting her chin on Kirsten’s shoulder. “I swear if that psionic stuff gets us out of here, I’ll stop hating ‘em.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Where’s he going?”

Kirsten shifted left to try and get a better look at the shadow creeping across the ceiling. “To get the key, I imagine.”

“Oh.”

Miranda’s grip forced much of the air out of Kirsten’s lungs when Randall appeared at the corner, zombie-walking to the cell with his right arm held forward. He stopped, six feet away when he stepped on his pistol. He looked down at it and broke out in a cold sweat. Veins rose out of his forehead as his face turned purple. He bellowed and threw the key behind him. Kirsten stared at the gleaming metal, tracking its bounce into a patch of shadow by a wooden crate painted with Cyrillic letters.

“Bitch!” Randall fell on his knees, seizing the pistol in both hands.

Kirsten planted her feet in a wide stance, still holding the bars. Her overwhelming need to protect Evan coalesced into the energy of a mind blast. Disgust at Konstantin and humiliation at her current incarceration added to it. She may have tried to say something coherent, but the noise that came out of her was more akin to a roar.

Randall Morris twitched, his eyes rolled back into his head, and he fell over backward like a plank. A rancid smell wafted by a few seconds later. Kirsten set her forehead to the cold metal bars, trying to ease the throbbing migraine forming in the wake of so much power. Her legs went slack; Miranda’s arms around her middle held her up for a moment before letting her slump to kneeling.

“You’re bleeding!” cried Miranda, wiping her hands at Kirsten’s face.

“I never had so much power go through one blast before. I feel like I got hit in the face by a PubTran bus.”

“Pretty sure he got the worse end of the deal.” Miranda went up on tiptoe to peek for a second, then sat on the floor next to her. “I think you killed him.” She shivered. “I smell shit. Umm, remember when I made fun of you when you said you weren’t helpless. You know, when you were rolling around. I take it back.”

“Thanks,” said Kirsten, not bothering to conceal the sarcasm.

“So, yeah. Asshole is dead and we’re still a pair of locked-up bitches. That worked.”

“You know, for a psionic-hating religious idiot, you sure don’t have much faith.”

Miranda pouted.

Kirsten rubbed her eyes, shook off the headache, and crawled back to the bars. When her vision adjusted to the light, she stared at the key and focused on the want of it to come toward her.
I can pull grenade pins, so I can drag a damn key across a concrete floor.
She slid a hand through the bars, reaching for it.

“What”―Miranda’s words stalled as the key twitched and pivoted to point at the cell. She leapt on Kirsten’s back, head right next to Kirsten’s to watch. “Are you doing that?”

“Thanks for drilling my skull into the bars. Yes, I’m doing that. Don’t shake me, I suck at telekinesis, but I should be able to move a key.”

“What’s uhh, telekinesis?”

Kirsten, holding onto cell door, glanced at her. “You are terrified of psionics to the point you hate them, but you don’t even bother to learn what they are?” She scowled. “Typical.”

“I’m sorry.”

Kirsten focused on the key again, willing it toward her.

Miranda squeezed Kirsten in bursts of fleeting joy as the key moved closer in a series of sporadic jerks and skids. When Kirsten thought about Evan screaming for her, it sailed into the air and went over their heads. Miranda let go and scrambled after it, not caring it landed in the tray of kitty litter. She ran back to the door, reached through the bars, and after a moment of fiddling, unlocked it.

Kirsten shoved the door open and vaulted Randall’s body. Miranda stopped to grab the pistol and tugged at the dead man’s coat, too weak to move the cybered-up corpse to get it off him.