Sherry Ficklin - Extracted

The prosthetic grinds and hisses as I stand, but it holds up. I take a step and fall over, and I end up kissing the floor with my face. With renewed purpose, I haul myself upright and limp into the main room. All the rage, all the pain, I funnel it into a single thought.

Getting Stein back.

“It’s the best I could do,” Nobel says, pointing to the leg. He isn’t apologizing and he doesn’t need to. He saved my life, whatever that’s worth.

“I know, Nobel.” I try not to look sad about it. “Stein is dead and I have a pressure cooker for a leg.”

Nobel wipes his hands on the grimy towel over his shoulder. “You made quite a scene when you rifted back. You were lying in a pool of blood—you and your detached leg, with bits of metal embedded in it.”

“Gear Head shrapnel,” I growl.

“I’m so sorry, Lex.”

I can’t stand the look of grief on his face, so I put my head in my hands. I can still smell Stein’s lotion on them. It’s enough to start the tears up again, and I’m glad Nobel is the only one around.

“Has Claymore said anything yet?” I ask, exhausted by the idea. I’ve been on the receiving end of Claymore’s wrath before, but not for anything as serious as this. The last thing I want right now is to get lectured.

“I’m sure he was waiting ‘till you woke up to talk to you.”

Great.

Usually I go to Gloves for our missions, then he reports to Claymore. I suspect these missions always come from Claymore, but Gloves is the buffer, the middleman. It’s the chain of command. Now, however, I have to go talk to Claymore directly. Something about the thought of sitting in the same room as him makes my skin crawl.

“What happened in there, Lex?” Nobel asks. He tries to look like it isn’t a big deal, but I know better.

I shrug, mostly because it’s too excruciating to put into words. But I know I’m going to have to. All that thinking, all that playing it over and over in my mind, and I still can’t find any mistake on our part. “Did you know it was the third time we went to the Amber Room?”

Nobel’s eyes widen and his jaw muscles slacken a little bit. “I didn’t know that.”

I shake my head. “Exactly. So why risk it?”

“Gloves just has some fascination with the Amber Room. You know it was built in Russia in 1701? Then it just vanished. Poof. But it’s still not worth going in three times.”

That’s how the Gear Heads found us, I realize. They followed the weak spot and came through it. That’s why the mission went bust. That’s why Stein’s dead.

“Did you at least get what you were after?” Nobel asks.

I reach into my vest pocket and pull out an old amber hairbrush. I thought it was beautiful when we lifted it, but now it’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. All I can think is how little it’s worth. Not worth Stein. Not worth her life.

I want to chuck the brush across the room, but I don’t.

Twisting the beautiful, jewel-studded amber brush in my fingers, I take a deep breath and recount everything that happened up until the moment I let go of Stein’s hand. Nobel listens intently.

“I just couldn’t hold onto her anymore,” I say, failing to blink back tears.

“I’m sorry,” Nobel says softly, putting a hand on my shoulder.

I swallow, massaging the handle of the brush with my thumb. I feel sick and sad and pissed all at the same time. “I want to go back and get her,” I whisper.

“You can’t go back because you’re already there. The paradox would be catastrophic, Lex.”

He’s right. The rational part of me knows that. But that tiny, rational part is quickly silenced when the memory of her smile floats like a ghost to the front of my mind.

Nobel sits down and slides onto the edge of the trunk. He stares at me thoughtfully, tugging the grimy mask down around his neck. “There might be something. The Institute has a whole vault of tech that Tesla created. I’ve heard rumors about it.”

“What have you heard?” If there is any chance of saving Stein, any at all, I’ll gimp through hell itself to get to it.

“Supposedly, there’s something there, like a temporal Band-Aid that can repair a paradox. It might just be a rumor, but…” He trails off with a shrug.

Just the thought of it gives me hope and makes the tension in my chest melt away like a snowflake landing on the surface of one of Nobel’s steam machines. I know I’m grinning like an idiot, but I can’t help myself.

“If anyone would know, it would be Claymore,” Nobel adds finally.

“I’ll just have to convince him to let me go get it, then,” I say, knowing that when I make my mind up about something I tend to get my way. And there’s nothing I’ve ever wanted more than this.

“If we can get Gloves to sanction it, then maybe Claymore would be on board,” Nobel suggests.

He’s right. Gloves is only motivated by tech and expensive, rare objects from the past. Since we don’t have tech he doesn’t already have access to, we’ll have to bribe him with something from the Amber Room.

It dawns on me. “During my first rift to the Amber Room, I took more than just the pendant we were supposed to steal.”

I limp to my room with Nobel close at my heels. I manage to fall twice before we get there. Reaching under my bed, I pull out a small, brass box.

“This should buy me some leverage,” I say, reaching my hand inside.

I place a small, Egyptian scarab-shaped brooch in Nobel’s hand.

“It looks like it’s made of honey,” Nobel says, holding it up to the light. “Why will this be a good bribe?”

“Because. Hold it up again and look at the head.” I wait while he holds it up to the bare bulb on the ceiling. “That amber has liquid in it. The last time Stewart Stills was here, I asked him to look at it. He said it might be some kind of organic rifting serum. As much as Gloves wants all the stuff from that room, we can’t send in another team thanks to the Gear Heads. So I bet he’d do just about anything to get his hands on this.”

“Why didn’t you turn it over when you took it?”

I stare at the brooch. “Honestly? I’m not sure. Insurance, maybe?”

“Kleptomania, maybe,” he mutters.

I can’t help but smirk. Standing up too quickly, my leg lets out a large burst of steam and I pitch forward onto my hands and knees.

“Whoa,” Nobel says, offering me a hand up. “Are you okay?”

“I guess I’ll need a lot of practice,” I mutter.

I brush off his hand, struggle to one knee, and drag myself toward the old Victorian chair in the corner of the room. When I start to fall again, Nobel comes to my rescue.

He reaches under my armpits and helps me into the chair. The springs are long gone and the seat is worn to threads. I sink in and rest against the once-plush backing of the purple velvet chair.

“Thanks,” I say, more bitterly than I mean to.

“You are welcome,” Nobel says without hesitation, ignoring my sarcasm. “Wait here for just a minute.”

“Okay,” I say with a sigh. “Where would I go, anyway?” I don’t expect an answer. I sit waiting, watching the steam from the geared hinge moisten the purple chair. That spot probably hasn’t been steam-cleaned in a century.

While I wait for him to come back, I start to think about Stein again. How could I just let her go like that? Why couldn’t I have been stronger? Why did they send us back there, knowing the risks? My heart is racing and I almost start to tear up.

“Here, this should help,” Nobel says, carrying a cane. “I was hoping you wouldn’t need it, but I wanted to be sure I didn’t set you up for failure.”

“I was hoping I wouldn’t need this,” I point to the booby trap on my leg. Nobel looks away sadly.