Gearbreakers Read online

  The engine revs, and the car banks past the Windup’s knee. We’re about to make the bend of the waist when the mecha shifts to drag an arm—absent a hand—from beneath its broken form, wires bleeding out of the jagged metal. The arm collapses across our path, and Nova swerves to the side to avoid a full-on collision.

  The Windup raises itself up on the broken wrist, heaving its other arm from behind its back. Someone to my left fires a shot, followed by someone to my right, and for a moment silence rips through my head, split by a feeble, hopeful voice—We’re okay.

  Both irises splinter, bleeding glass. The perfect shots fill me with a swell of pride, before I realize that the mecha is still moving.

  Its thermal cannon lands hard on the sand, quaking the ground beneath us, its opening wide enough to swallow the car whole.

  The Pilot probably only has a few more seconds to live, but they just need to send out a single, last thought.

  From within the void of the cannon, a small orange flame bursts to life.

  “Oh shit,” Theo screams.

  The flame roars, and hot air gusts over our faces. Dust swirls around us.

  “I’m not getting traction!” Nova shouts, and suddenly her door flings open and she’s dropping next to the tires. “The wheels are buried!”

  “Get the hells back in the car and get your visors on!” I yell, leaping to my feet. I summon my power back to my grasp with a simple press, allowing the cryo serum to flourish in its veins.

  Above us, the barrel of the cannon gapes wide like a mouth, an orange tongue swirling angrily within its confines. It thinks us its next meal, swallowing up as many lives as it pleases, just as Godolia has for decades now.

  I clasp my palms against each other, expelling the serum into my grip, and coil my hands into fists. Filaments of frost slip through the cracks of my fingers, its tendrils sparking across the air. My anger is not an entity that burns, like it does for so many others. But it is just as devastating.

  Winter’s got nothing on the Frostbringer.

  From between my palms jolts a pillar of blue energy, streaking across the air like lightning spilling out of thunderheads. It twists gleefully unrestrained for a single moment before connecting with the Phoenix’s flame, which accepts the serum in the same manner a balloon would a pin: bulging in a perfect swell around the point of impact and bursting apart.

  Steam screams up the cannon, hitting me with such force that I lose my footing and fall against Milo.

  For a few minutes, the air is opaque. I deactivate the gloves and rip off my visor.

  “Everyone better be alive,” I call, receiving only coughs in return.

  Milo’s familiar fingers find my palm and grip hard. I trace down his arm and onto his face, finding all the appropriate pieces to be intact.

  “Eris,” he says, “you’re incredible, you know that?”

  “Uh, yeah. I just took out a Phoenix blast.”

  “You’re making it difficult for me to compliment you.”

  “You have to earn the right to do so, soldier.”

  A pause. Someone shifts around in the front seat.

  “You guys making out?” Nova asks.

  “Yeah, pervert,” Milo says, even though he’s let go of my hand.

  I pat around to find Arsen and Juniper and Theo slumped against one another, all shaking with low chuckles.

  “What are you laughing at?” I snap.

  “I…,” Theo starts, taking a moment to draw in a breath. “I’ve never heard Nova freak before.”

  “You little punk!” she snarls. “If I could see you I’d kick your ass!”

  I ignore them, still patting around.

  “Xander? Say something. It can be quiet, if you want. I just have to know you’re here, kid.”

  Everyone goes as silent as the steam that drapes between us. I feel myself go cold.

  “Xander?” I say, voice suddenly amplified by panic. “Say something, anything, please. We just gotta know you’re alive, okay?”

  Silence. My heart stutters in my chest, stumbling to find its next beat.

  “He’s here!” Milo says, form nothing but a faint outline. I crawl over to him and tentatively reach a hand out, fingertips gracing Xander’s hollow cheek.

  “Holy shit,” I gasp, clutching his face. “X, why didn’t you say anything?”

  The kid remains still. I run my touch down his cheek, tracing over his jawline. His chin is listed toward the sky.

  I look up, too. Far above us, the sun has been reduced to a single glowing dot, rays barely breaking through the mist. Pressed against the clouded sky is the silhouette of a massive eagle, large wings spread wide and pinned against the air.

  Then it tips, and the feathers gleam with the luster of metal.

  It’s not a bird.

  It’s a delicate pattern of iron flakes, peeled away from the sharp brow of a knight’s helmet. The sun disappears completely, and from behind the curve of a grated visor glow two red eclipses.

  “Valkyrie,” Xander breathes.

  Something cuts across the air above us, dark as hells and easily twice the length of the truck, stealing the mist as it glides past. The Windup emerges into full view, iron-etched sword hovering above the ground in a steady hand, strands of silklike steam clinging to its black blade. It stares down at the earth, at the mortals who have the audacity to look back.

  I draw a shaking breath and rise. I level my gaze at the Valkyrie’s face, where inside, a Pilot stands with cords coiling through their bloodstream. Forgetting how small they truly are.

  I step over the hood of the car and then onto the Phoenix’s handless arm, my landing vibrating across the metal skin. Milo is already shaking his head when I look back down at the crew.

  “Eris,” he says softly, “don’t.”

  “Gearbreakers,” I say, but the word is mangled, fear clotting my throat and splintering my breath. “Gearbreakers, this is an order from your commanding officer. Milo is your acting captain now. Try to be as good as me, okay?”

  “Eris—”

  My name on his mouth, soft when it leaves his lips, it’s … ridiculous. So ridiculous that warmth floods my cheeks, heat welling up heavy in my head.

  “I…,” I murmur, voice cracking. I want to go home. I want to be in the common room, be buried in that dusty, disgusting furniture with the fireplace roaring and my family crowded around me, bickering like idiots, swallowing my threats like no one else could.

  But there isn’t time for it. There isn’t time for me to be anything but cold.

  “I am going to kill this fucking thing,” I say, because hate is easy, and my hate is bigger thing than me. It makes me straighten my spine and the words slip jaggedly from my tongue, barbed instead of broken, and that’s what they need to hear. “I don’t need an audience for it. Nova, get them out of here.”

  A pause. I meet her green eyes from behind the filthy windshield, letting my glare burrow into hers. She nods once.

  “You got it,” she whispers, wrapping timid fingers around the wheel.

  The tires churn the sand for a few moments before escaping their burial, and the car rolls back. The Windup breaks its amused, cocky stillness and swipes the sword through the air. Nova twists their path, and the iron point scratches against the paint job, nearly tipping them over, and cuts into the forearm of the Phoenix. I jump back, splaying the cryo gloves wide and sending a bolt of frost to seal the sword to the skin, if only for a few crucial moments.

  Milo clings to the lip of the truck bed, face white as a sheet.

  “Go!” I snarl, and then the dust is streaking behind them.

  The Valkyrie turns with terrifying speed, faster than any other Windup, claws reaching for the truck. I raise my hands and land a blast to its left shoulder. It only staggers back a single footstep, but it’s enough time for Nova to make it past the train.

  And then they’re gone, and they’re safe, and that makes it easier to turn away.

  Or to die, I think drily, f
acing the Valkyrie from its own shadow, but, you know, semantics.

  I imagine the minuscule, weak person suspended inside the false form, drunk on their own distorted sense of power, the fantasy that they could be anything more than human.

  “You want me?” I yell, clenching my hands.

  The serum drips from between my fingertips, rolling across my skin as harmless teardrops. The frost knows better than to harm me.

  “Try to get me.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  SONA

  The limb clatters to the floor, and I twist to cut through the neck.

  Broken wires sparking in protest, the headless practice Auto drops to the ground. I wipe the gear oil from my blade with a fingertip and roll my shoulders back, sweat slicking my shirt to my spine.

  “Next,” I say to the room, and the mirror on the far wall splits open. Another Auto emerges from the dark gap, one hand gripping its sword. It bows, and I do not, an unpleasant feeling untucking in my stomach as the featureless face tips toward the floor, programming bleeding subservience. It straightens and lunges as the door behind me slides open.

  “Damn, Steelcrest, you know these things are expensive, right?” calls a voice.

  I tuck myself under the Auto’s jab and slam my shoulder to its middle, taking a glance in the mirror as it stumbles back. Three Valkyries are stepping into the room, military jackets crisp.

  “Good evening,” I call. The Auto takes the opportunity to snatch my ankle, dragging me to the floor and planting one foot on my shoulder. I tilt my chin up to look at the Pilots—Victoria, Wendy, Linel—as the Auto raises its sword.

  It drops to my neck, steel tip carving nothing but a cold kiss to my skin before the Auto pauses, remembering it is not allowed to kill me. I knock its blade away and slide my own into its chest.

  I heave it off me and stand, rubbing the oil from my cheek with my shoulder.

  Separating me from the other Pilots are the remnants of the evening’s activities: parts of training Autos scattered across the ground, gear fluid seeping into the floor mat, and the occasional hiss of severed wire. They pick their way gingerly over the mess, making their way toward me.

  “Sweetie, this eye patch,” Victoria gasps, red and green eyes splaying wide. She pokes a white finger at my temple, where the fabric stretches, torn from my bedsheets in the new hours of the day. “What’s with it?”

  I pull the cloth away from my face, shrugging as the world dips back into red. “Used to training with color, is all.”

  Wendy snorts, scrunching her sharp nose. “And bad depth perception, apparently.”

  I gesture vaguely around us. “Apparently.”

  Victoria laughs brightly and throws an arm around my shoulders, squeezing me to her side, and I let her, though I know the gesture is anything but friendly. A few weeks have passed since my test run, and not all the Valkyries have taken kindly to me. Most had to work their way up into the unit, and they dislike the notion that I am one of them despite being fresh out of the Academy.

  I dislike how they think I am one of them at all.

  “Ah, Bellsona,” Victoria sighs, “you’re an odd one.”

  “You are digging your nails into my side,” I note, worrying at a spot of gear oil on my sleeve.

  “You’re not going to last very long if you can’t take a little pain,” Linel sings, and kicks a spare Auto head across the room. Wendy grapples two of the Autos by their necks and flings them to the side of the room, clearing a space.

  I watch them, allowing Victoria to work bruises into my side that I cannot feel. This is not pain. Wendy takes my wrist and hauls me onto the cleaned mat, Linel’s cloying laughs bouncing around the room. He grabs a sparring sword and tosses it to Victoria, who snatches it from the air and levels its tip toward me with an expert hand. You cannot begin to imagine pain.

  “We are fighting?” I ask.

  “Gold star for Bellsona,” titters Victoria, taking her stance.

  “Why?”

  “Why?” She glances at Wendy and Linel, snickering from the sidelines.

  “Yes, why? What is the reason?”

  “Just want to see how the Academy’s top student holds up,” she says, though it sounds insincere.

  “Are you lacking confidence?” I lean forward, and say in a hushed tone, “Do you need me to let you win?”

  It was a joke; I thought it was funny, but none of them crack a smile. Victoria’s smirk vanishes from her lips entirely.

  “En garde,” she growls.

  I stare at her blade. The ring of my eye is the only clear reflection in the smoothed metal.

  The Academy allows us to retain some strands of our humanity because with passion, we can ignore what makes us falter, branch past logical thought.

  Usually, Victoria is an accomplished swordsman, light on her feet, fluid through her changing stances. But emotion makes her sloppy in her strikes, her expression smudged with anger. A blunt deflection causes her to stumble, and before she can straighten, I bring my fist to her cheekbone.

  When Victoria is sent out to massacre a place, she does so efficiently. She has no emotion toward the Badlands people, none of the rage she harbors now; she hardly thinks of them at all.

  She drops to the mat with a gasp of frustration, cheeks burning redder, and only looks up when the tip of my blade is beneath her chin.

  In this form, her death would be painless.

  “Thanks for the fight, sweetie,” I say, lowering the blade.

  As soon as the threat is peeled away, Linel and Wendy step forward and grab both of my wrists, forcing the weapon away from my grasp. They twist my hands behind my back while Victoria composes herself and touches a fingertip to her chin. When she pulls back, blood has worked its way underneath the nail.

  “Do you think”—she huffs, hand constricting around the sword—“that you’re better than us? Just because you’re younger, and take cheap shots?”

  She motions to her cheekbone, which is sprouting what I imagine is a lovely deep violet. I glance at the two holding my arms.

  “Forgive me. I fought unfairly,” I say drily, and pause, realizing I forgot to eat dinner. “Do you know if the commissary is still open?”

  “You know we can break your arms anytime we like, right?” snaps Linel.

  I shrug as best I can. “It will not hurt.”

  Victoria opens her mouth to spit something venomous, but then from the hall comes the sound of approaching footsteps.

  “Drop her,” she orders, and they do.

  I start wringing my hands, massaging feeling back into my fingertips, when Rose’s freckled face appears in the doorway. Her Valkyrie jacket sits loose on her elbows instead of over her shoulders. Her name matches the ringlets that gather around her face, each curl deep red even when I do not have both eyes open, paired with the natural flush in her pale, dimpled cheeks.

  “Holy shit, what happened to you?” Rose says, gawking at Victoria. She shakes her head. “Probably deserved it. Anyway, Jonathan’s on his way back. He said over the comms that something … something happened while he was responding to a distress call. You guys better come check it out.”

  * * *

  The rest of the Valkyrie unit is waiting for us in the Windup hangar, in front of the floor-to-ceiling hydraulic door set into the east wall. The door is peeled open, revealing the underground corridor that expands underneath Godolia, allowing mechas to enter and exit the Badlands without disturbing the city. From inside its concrete mouth we can hear thundering footsteps, vibrations shaking the ground beneath us.

  Rose nudges a Pilot with his jacket slung over his shoulder. “Hey, Jole, any idea what’s going on?”

  He shakes his head, gaze leveled at the door. “No word on comms for ten minutes now.”

  Riley, the girl standing next to him, pinches Jole’s arm. “Shut up for two seconds,” she snaps. “The rest of ya, too! Shut it. Listen…”

  She cocks her head to the side, a strip of hair coming loose from behin
d her ear and falling to rest against her dark brown cheek. The rest of the Valkyries go silent at her demand, making the approach of the Windup infinitely more apparent.

  I know the sound of my own footsteps. These do not come anywhere close. Which means that something is broken within Lucindo’s Windup.

  “It’s the legs,” Riley announces, giving a sharp nod. “Jonathan’s puttin’ more weight on his left than his right.”

  Victoria laughs. “You know what mecha unit we’re in, right?”

  “I know what I hear, Vic,” Riley mutters, and then points down the corridor. “Here he comes!”

  Again, we all fall silent. The Windup rounds the corner, the distance reducing its figure to nothing but a thin sliver that wavers as it nears. Rose puts her hand above her brow, shielding her face from the harsh light of the fluorescent overheads, eyes pinching into a squint.

  “What the…,” she murmurs. “Is that … ice?”

  The Windup enters the light’s reach. Or, rather, stumbles into it, the entire mecha listing to one side, favoring its left leg as Riley predicted. But the fluorescents could not glint so wickedly off her steel skin; the light scatters against jagged fissures of ice that entwine her. Fingers of frost claw the metal like a rot, nestled up against shrivels of puckered metal and the yawning trench that splits her right greave. The sword, attached magnetically between her shoulder blades, glistens with ice crystals that jut viciously from the black iron.

  A sole ignited eye peers down at us from behind a fissured visor.

  “He’s about to collapse,” Jole states, and, realizing his awe has dwindled his voice to a whisper, turns to the other Valkyries and cups his hands around his mouth. “He’s about to collapse! Get back!”

  Lucindo manages a single, pained step into the hangar before the right leg splits beneath his weight. The Valkyrie drops to her knees, catching herself on her palms before she can crush the Pilots who did not heed Jole’s warning quickly enough.

  The other hand reaches up, quivering fingers dipping between where the visor’s grate has been cleaved away, and rips it free. A construction worker dives to the left as the metal bars clatter to the ground, splintering the concrete where they land. The mecha’s hand slides down its forearm, signifying that inside, Lucindo is plucking back the cords that bind his nervous system to the Windup. The lone eye sputters out.