Sherry Ficklin: Extracted

In seconds he’s out again, lolling like a rag doll and heavy as sin. We tie him to one of the steel crossbeams. I grab an ace of spades from my pocket and tuck it in the pocket of his wool jacket. I have to leave my calling card, just in case the Tesla crowd shows up.

Stein winks, tucks her hair into her top hat, and takes off like a squirrel along the beam. I don’t have to ask where she’s going. Her job now is to secure the meeting place so we can rift out unnoticed. We picked a theater in the heart of the Fair as our exit point. It should be emptying out after the last show, and it will be the perfect place to take a headcount and then get back to base.

I unclamp Nobel’s machine and scale along the beams until I make it to the edge of the building. Nobel reaches a hand up, helping me down the last few feet. After a quick glance over the plans to make sure we have the right blueprints, Nobel motions to the others to join us. Once we’re all together, he throws an arm around my shoulders. We head for the vestibule in front of the exhibit hall. Posters cover the walls. Flyers and trash litter the ground.

“Not bad, Lex,” Nobel says. “Maybe next time you could move a little slower.”

I shrug him off. “Whatever, dude. Your machine decided to take a lunch break. I thought Stein was going to have to punch it.”

“Was it my machine?” Nobel asks in a high-pitched voice. “Or were you just distracted by your girlfriend’s assets?”

I just roll my eyes, partly proud and partly irritated that he was mostly right. “I dare you to say that to her face.”

He holds up his hands in surrender. “Let’s blow this joint before VonWeitter wakes up.”

We are halfway to the theater when a familiar sound makes me pause. It’s a sound I recognize from too many sparring sessions with Stein—the sound of a body being hurled through wood.

Without a word, we break into a run. My pulse races as we head for the fight, cutting through the crowd of people.

That sound can only mean one thing.

The Tesla brats are here.

Nobel trips over some kid’s toy and stumbles. The gnawing feeling in my stomach is getting worse. It’s the unsettling mix of nerves and excitement. The cold air rushes over me as we reach the docks just in time to see a redheaded girl throw Stein into a snack shack. I don’t have time to wonder why she’s on the wharf—I just run for her. She’s still on her back as the Tesla girl reaches down and picks up a large chunk of door, hoisting it over one shoulder like a baseball bat.

“Stein!” I yell, ready to lunge, but before the Tesla girl can take a swing, Stein rears up and kicks out, catching the other girl in the knee and sending her rolling across the dock.

“The theater is compromised!” Stein gasps, holding her chest as she climbs out of the splintered wall. She’s moving slowly, hurt but not too badly from the looks of it. I want to rush to her side, but she levels a gaze at me and points toward the theater. People are screaming, and in the distance, the whistle of a fire truck cuts through the frenzy. I turn toward the theater, realizing that the smoke billowing up from the building is our signal that the fight has begun.

Stein screams behind me, and before I can turn around, someone has me in a sleeper hold and drags me to the end of the dock. I spot Nobel just as a Tesla kid pushes him to the ground. Whoever has me flips me over, a foot pressing into my ribs. I’ll say this about the Tesla kids—they can fight. Though not as scrappy as us, they’re obviously trained. But we aren’t above cheating.

I grab his foot as he tries to kick me again, and use the force of his weight against him. He slams into the ground. He’s down long enough for me to get up—mistake number one. Me on my feet isn’t something he wants to mess with. I lunge toward him, and he counters, punching me so hard I stumble. Footsteps pound against the wharf, and he looks away—mistake number two. I use the small lapse in his concentration to my advantage. Head-butt to the nose. Judging by the loud crack and the expletive that follows, I must have broken something. While the guy is disorientated, I uppercut him.

When he hits the ground, I run toward the center so I can see all the other Hollows. “Come on, guys. New plan. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em,” I yell. It’s our code for “this mission has gone to hell in a handbasket, so break off and rift out as soon as you can from wherever you can.” A few of them nod and reach into their pockets to grab the green Contra. As they swallow the pills, they begin to vanish, pulled into the time stream.

I run to the shore where the redheaded girl is on top of Stein, laying down blows, and a huge right hook puts me on my back. Groaning, I roll over and push myself up, but a big boot between my shoulder blades takes me back down.

“When did this become a two-on-one fight?” I ask, looking over my shoulder. A big guy, his ugly face smiling and dripping with blood, is looking down at me. A blond boy comes over and leans down.

“We gotcha,” he whispers as they pull me up from the ground.

I kick to no avail. The older guy, the only one I recognize, has grabbed one of my legs and the blond kid has the other and they are pulling me to the end of the dock. I keep kicking. I dig my fingernails into the wooden dock, but I’m stuck and there’s no way to stop them. Desperate now, I look for Nobel, but he’s holding his own against another new face.

I flip over on my back. The maneuver makes the older guy drop my leg. It’s just enough to help me, and I squirm free and jump to my feet. My shirt is soaked with my blood, and I start to move, but I see a girl. She’s running toward us, and the closer she gets…

I want to look away, but I’m frozen. The blond boy finds me again, holding me tightly. But I can’t make myself move.

In the back of my head, I hear sounds. A girl laughing. Gunfire. Screaming. Bright speckles explode like grenades in my vision, and for a minute, everything is white, but the white fades fast. It’s replaced by a wave of calm emptiness. The blackness creeps slowly into the periphery of my vision and flows like black ink across my pupils. Fighting against the darkness, I blink, shaking my head until I’m dizzy.

Someone’s on the two guys, pounding the one I tripped earlier and pulling the blond one off me. I know it’s my people—know I’m supposed to rift out after everyone else—but my head is swimming. I reach for the Contra in my pocket, feel it in my fingers, but then it slips from my grasp and falls between the slats in the dock.

I look over just before everything goes dark. Stein rolls away from her attacker—the blond boy she pulled off me. She quickly reaches into her pocket and swallows her green Contra. When she vanishes, I feel only relief. I might die here, and it’s good that she won’t be here to see it.

I fall to my knees. My mind is going blank. Nobel’s masked face is close to mine. He slaps me. I think he calls my name. His greasy fingers shove the smooth Contra pill far into my throat. My eyes close, and all I have to do is swallow.

EMBER

I will not die in this hideous dress. That’s my only desire today. Everything else is negotiable—icing on the cake.

Ignoring the too-tight bodice and itchy fabric, I take a deep breath, drawing my focus inward until I feel razor sharp. Now I’m no longer part of the crowd milling through the fair, but above it, outside it. The faces spin around me, but I’m disconnected from them. Searching. Slowly, the hyperawareness fades as my heartbeat calms and my breathing regulates.

“Tesla,” Ethan says, “time and date verification.”

The thick, not-quite-mechanical voice of our leader responds, “Location verified. Six point nineteen, eighteen and ninety-three, nine hundred hours.”