Mothbreaker's Arc

Chapter 5 of 9

Mothbreaker took the stairwell two steps at a time. The copper strip still warmed her palm through the pocket lining. She had the underground locked to the reserve line, but that meant nothing if the council put her against a wall and cut her key from her hand. The plant had one door left she could reach before the boots did, and it was not a door meant for people. She keyed the channel as she climbed. "I'm coming out through the pump room. Neon, tell me what's on the south side." Neon Sentinel answered in her ear, flat and quick. "Four on the south fence. Two at the outflow. They know about the pipe." Mothbreaker stopped on the landing. The pipe was the only way she came in. If they had it staked, she was going to swim into a rifle. She pressed her back to the wall and thought. Jolt Jinx cut in before she asked. "How many at the outflow?" "Two," Neon Sentinel said. "Give me a minute," Jolt Jinx said. "I'm three roofs out. I can put a jar in the water on the north drain and pull them." "Which jar," Mothbreaker said. "Scream," Jolt Jinx said. "They'll move." She did not explain and Mothbreaker did not ask. Storm Grit's voice came in low and rough. "I'm at the boat. If you make the water I can get you clear. If you don't, I come in after you." "You don't come in," Mothbreaker said. "You wait." A pause. "Fine." She went down to the pump room in the dark and crouched by the grate. Above her the lab door took a hit and held. Another hit. She heard boots on the second floor. Then she heard something else, farther off, a sound that punched through the concrete and made the water in the sump ripple. It was not a scream she could name. It came again, and again, and kept going. Neon Sentinel came back. "Both outflow guards are moving north. You have maybe forty seconds." Mothbreaker pulled the grate, took a breath, and went under. The pipe was black and cold and longer than she remembered. She came up under Storm Grit's boat with her lungs burning and copper still in her pocket. Storm Grit hauled her over the side by the back of her jacket and pushed off before she was flat. Behind them the plant sat lit up with truck lights and shouting. Mothbreaker lay on the deck and breathed. She had the underground. She had the key. She had also just spent every favor she had left in one night, and Omaha would hear about the council's failure before morning and want to know what it cost. The grid was hers in a corner. The rest of the city was not, and now the council knew her face.