J. Mitchell - Midnight City

Above, dozens of figures were leaping from the platforms, scaling ladders, and running over bridges. Max barked up at them.

The large wing of sheet metal continued to lower… and finally passed into and under the water that was crashing down from above. The sheet metal wing shuddered under the impact, but it held together as it deflected the waterfall outward, shifting the flow a few dozen feet to the left.

With the falls diverted, a new tunnel that had been hidden behind the water was revealed. Mira raced into it, pulling Zoey along.

The Gray Devils reached the floor, and Holt raced after Mira and Zoey, signaling Max to follow.

Behind him, Holt heard a new sound that overpowered even the roaring waterfall: bells, all kinds and tones, ringing incessantly. The Gray Devils had raised the alarm; the entire faction would be waking now to hunt them down.

HOLT SPLASHED THROUGH THE NEW TUNNEL, noting that he was ankle deep in flowing water. “Where does this thing go?” he shouted at Mira up ahead.

“Nowhere, if we don’t outrun all the trouble you just stirred up!” she yelled back.

“It wasn’t my idea to leap off a ledge twenty stories off the floor!”

Behind him, Holt heard the cries of kids splashing after them. Ahead, the tunnel widened into a new room, and Holt raced after Mira into it.

It was huge and it wasn’t what he’d expected. Several other tunnels converged in this same spot, and they all contained flowing water. Where it collected sat a big crystal-clear pool that stretched from one end to the other, and branching out from it were more of the aqueducts Holt had seen in the main hall. They traveled in different directions, disappearing into tunnels that looked like they’d been cut through the rock by human hands.

Each aqueduct was labeled with large letters, which read things like, MAIN HALL, LOST KNIGHTS, CROSSMEN, LOS LOBOS, and MARKET HALL. Each went to a different part of Midnight City, Holt realized, and each had a large iron gate hovering above it, which could seal off the flow.

No wonder the Gray Devils had amassed so many Points: they could shut off the water supply to any part of the city with the turn of a handle.

Mira and Zoey didn’t stop to admire the view in the same way as Holt; they just rushed forward and jumped into the flowing water of a specific aqueduct, which flowed fast toward the other end of the room. They were quickly whipped under and out of sight.

“Hey!” Holt yelled angrily as he leapt in after them. The water ripped him forward. It was deep, probably up to his chest, and it was flowing fast. He tumbled and rolled a few times before he finally righted himself.

Ahead of him, he spotted Mira and Zoey again, right before they disappeared into a tunnel. Seconds later, everything went dark as he did, too. He felt himself sucked under and tossed back and forth against the rocky walls. Try as he might, he couldn’t reach the surface in the current, and he was starting to worry he—

He felt a hand grab him by the hair and yank him to the surface.

“Grab on!” Mira’s voice shouted above him. “Pull yourself out!”

Holt saw Mira and Zoey standing on the edge of another aqueduct, trying to keep him from sailing past. He grabbed the edge, started to pull himself up… when Max tumbled past.

Holt grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, and the dog coughed out water and inhaled. “Zoey!” Holt yelled. “Get Max out!”

The little girl reached for the dog, helping him scramble over the side of the structure. Holt did the same thing, and when he was out, collapsed on top of the aqueduct. His heart beat heavy in his chest as he breathed deeply.

“Come on, you can pass out later,” Mira said, leaping quickly down from the aqueduct.

Holt opened his eyes and took in the new cavern underneath the aqueduct. It wasn’t as big as the aqueduct hub or the residence hall, but it was still large. Half a dozen workbenches were dotted around the room, cramped with tools and supplies. The walls were lined with metal cabinets and cases, each of them filled with objects that glowed or sparked or hovered or flashed colors. On the room’s largest, flattest wall, a giant gray δ was painted, with the Gray Devils logo resting inside the round circle on its bottom.

Holt realized he was in the faction’s artifacts lab. He was surrounded by objects from the Strange Lands.

Next to him, Zoey and Max both climbed down from the aqueduct.

“Holt! Get down here!” Mira yelled under him, and he rolled off the aqueduct and landed on the floor.

Mira was near one of the cabinets, building something from the components there. As she did, Holt studied the room more closely. There was only one exit, and it seemed to head right back where they had come from. Other than that, he saw no other way out.

“This is a dead end,” Holt said in exasperation.

“Not according to Marcus,” Mira answered, hurriedly building her artifact combination.

Marcus? What did the Lobos member have to do with—?

And then it hit him. “The other secret tunnel,” Holt said, looking around.

“Yeah, and I need you to find it,” Mira answered, concentrating on her work.

Holt scanned the room again, trying to find any sign of another tunnel, but he couldn’t find anything. The walls were solid, there was nothing behind any of the workbenches that—

“Is that it, Holt?” Zoey asked from beside him. The little girl was pointing with a finger straight up.

Holt stared upward. Above them, a hundred feet or more, was a small black opening in the ceiling. It was also, of course, completely out of reach.

“Son of a…,” he started.

Mira looked over, following his gaze upward. When she saw it, her face dropped.

“Real nice work,” Holt said, echoing her tone from before.

And then, from the tunnel came the sounds of running feet and angry yells. The faction was almost on them again.

Mira sprinted for the tunnel entrance, holding her new combination. Holt saw it was made of a pencil, a D battery, and two dimes wrapped together with red string.

She reached the tunnel entrance, took the artifact, and drew a long line with the head of the pencil, starting at the floor, then up one side, along the top, down the other side, and back to where she’d started.

When the two lines connected, there was a bright flash of light in the air contained by the square. Everything hummed powerfully for a moment, and then the tunnel entrance was darkened by some kind of fluctuating, black energy.

Mira stepped back and away from it… as two Gray Devils rounded the corner at full speed and slammed into the field of black energy. They were tossed back as though they had just run into a wall, crashing to the ground and staring up at the field of energy in surprise.

Then the boys glared at Mira, realizing what she’d done.

More and more kids were appearing in the cramped tunnel. A few others slammed into the energy field before they all figured it out. They piled up next to it, kicking and punching, trying to break through. But for the moment, the shield was holding.

“How long will that thing last?” Holt asked.

“I used dimes, so not long,” Mira said, looking up at the hole in the ceiling. “We have to find a way up there.”

“Can’t you just… make another one of those gravity things?”

“I need magnet shavings for that, and there’s none here.”

“There has to be something, we’re surrounded by Strange Lands stuff!” he yelled.

“It’s not that simple!” she yelled back. “The combinations do very specific things—you can’t just make them do whatever you want!”

The kids continued pounding on the black force field, trying to weaken it. Holt shook his head in frustration, looking for anything that might help. “Well, what can you make?”