Page 134 of Even Robots Die
I push my door and it opens without resistance. This time there is no gasp. It's as if every one of the prisoners can’t believe what is happening.
I turn to the guy who tried to warn me about the electricity between the bars and fry his lock too.
“What’s your name?” I ask him as I remove one of my gloves and open his door.
“Ariël,” he says before adding. “You’re human.”
I think it was supposed to be a question, but … well, not so much.
“Well, Ariël, wait for the click and then move to the next door,” I tell him as I hold my glove up for him to take. I don’t even bother acknowledging the comment about me being human. It shouldn’t have taken him so long to guess. Shifters can smell what species they are after all. But with the stench in the cells, maybe that impeded his sense of smell, who knows.
The man doesn’t answer but I see his heat signature move to the next cell and Milton turns up the power in the gloves in tandem and two-by-two, we fry all the locks.
It takes us only a minute for it to be over, but we don’t have a second to spare.
“Do you know how to get them out,” I ask the man when he comes back over to me. We’re just next to the exit door and I can’t take care of everyone if I have to go find Brice.
“Anne knows the way. I’m coming with you,” he tells me. “But we can’t just go like that with so many of us. There is no way we’re going to make it.”
It’s hard to gauge what the shifter thinks without my sight. Relying only on heat sensors is definitely not something I want to do every day. How do I read his face and determine the tone I can use with him? It’s very unsettling.
I don’t know who this Anne is he is talking about, but it might be safer if I don’t go alone anywhere in this damn palace. Not that I think the birds are going to notice us anyway. They’re most likely very busy at the moment.
“I might have orchestrated a teeny, tiny distraction,” I tell the man, but because I still want them to be prepared for what they’ll be greeted with once they get above ground I add, “There’s a battle going on in front of Versailles’ palace, and above it too.”
“Still coming with you,” the man says before walking to another heat signature that looks like she has muscle built on muscle, and telling her to get everyone out of the castle.
He walks back to me.
“There are two other dungeons. I bet that’s where you want to go?” Ariël asks me.
I nod. He seems to see me just fine, so I don’t bother with big sentences.
Without me asking, he gives me my glove back and I deactivate the last lock keeping us all here.
“Ready?” I ask everyone.
I bet they’re ready to be free, but I hope they’re also ready to run and maybe fight back too. We could use the manpower.
On a collective murmured “Yes,” I open the door and run without looking at the people I just freed.
78
Florentine
The only salvation for my eyes is that this dungeon was very much underground and that even with us through the first door, there are still multiple flights of stairs to go up before we reach the light of the day.
“Want to tell me what this is all about?” Ariël asks me while we’re running. The bastard doesn’t even sound breathless.
“Why, is it an extraction?” I ask in answer, and I sound a lot more winded.
We get up the first flight of stairs and instead of orienting me the way I know Brice’s heat signature to be, Ariël makes us turn in the opposite direction. I don't argue with him. We need to free everyone anyway, so it serves Brice right to wait a bit longer. He wanted to be inside after all. I might as well let him enjoy this time. I know I’m being petty, but he was so obvious in his wanting to be taken with me that I almost thought that he would ruin everything.
I should have known Raphaël wouldn’t see through our little scheme, though. He’s no Michaël. He hasn’t been trained to lead for war or to use spies. Everything was thrust upon him when both the newlyappointed Michaël was killed, and Gabrielle was gravely injured and has been in a coma ever since.
“Surely, Michaël won’t take that well,” Ariël says and I realize he must have been in this cell for quite some time.
“He’s dead,” I tell him as we turn a corner and find ourselves faced with three birds.
