Unraveled (3 page)

TWO

I
’VE ONLY EVER SEEN ONE BLACKOUT—
when I was a child—but I’ve never forgotten it. The disappearance of the sky isn’t
something to be taken lightly, and past instances had been highlighted on the Stream
as part of cautionary programming. The message in those programs was clear: stay calm.
Blackouts lasted minutes at the most. At least, they were supposed to.

We had been warned about them during my training at the Coventry, the effect they
had on citizens. Being responsible for a blackout was a sure way to lose your position
at the loom. But a simple blackout didn’t require the attention of the prime minister.

“Take her,” Cormac commands Hannox, and he’s out the door before I can ask him what
I should do to help.

The gages are back over my fingers despite my protests and Hannox marches me out of
Cormac’s quarters.

“I don’t need these,” I say to Hannox.

“I’m in charge of your safety.” His response is even, but he doesn’t bother to look
at me.

“And how do these keep me safe?” I ask him.

“Cormac placed you under my guard. I’ve been studying you for years, Adelice. I tracked
you on the surface of Earth, and in that time I’ve come to one conclusion.”

This should be good.

“The person who poses the most danger to you”—he pauses and meets my eyes—“is yourself.”

I wish I could argue that point, but I can’t.

Around us, officers in various styles of tactical gear rush in and out of corridors.
Some carry weapons and others are in rappelling equipment. This is what a state of
emergency looks like. Cormac can lie about the severity of the issues in Arras, but
seeing this I know the situation is spinning out of his control. I wait for someone
to give me directions but instead I’m led to the aeroship’s observation deck, which
is full of bustling crew who push past me and around me without a second glance.

“What am I supposed to do?” I ask Hannox as he turns to leave me.

Hannox isn’t quite what I expected. I’d seen him before at the Guild mines on Earth,
but now that he’s up close to me, I don’t know what to make of him. He’s got a soft
face with large brown eyes that crinkle in concentration. He’s not smooth and polished
and slick like Cormac. But Hannox is deadly, I remind myself. I can’t trust his kind
face. It’s always Hannox that Cormac calls to handle his dirty work. He must be good
at it.

“Sit tight and let us observe you,” Hannox says to me.

“That’s it? I can’t … help?”

Hannox’s eyes stay soft but his words are cold as he checks the settings on the steel
cuffs that bind my fingers. “I don’t know what deal you’ve struck with Cormac, but
when we need your help, we’ll ask for it. We have a full-blown revolution happening
in the Eastern Sector. I’m not about to parade the queen of the rebels in and trust
her to help us out.”

“What if I escape?” I ask him, a burning resentment bubbling through me. But I immediately
regret my question. Hannox will certainly report it back to Cormac.

“I would love to see you try to escape with those on,” Hannox says, gesturing to the
gages, “but if by some miracle you do”—he turns my wrist and traces the control panel—“I’ll
blow your hands off. A Creweler isn’t much use without her hands.”

“No, she isn’t,” I say. I withdraw my hands and turn away from him so he can’t see
my face.

Hannox leans in to my ear. “And don’t forget we have your sister.”

I don’t respond. I keep my focus on the activity around me, trying to discern what
they plan to do once we get to Arras. We’re moving across the Interface faster than
I’ve ever seen before and in doing so we catch and rip at its strands, damaging many
of them in the process. To my right a man is barking coordinates, his head tipped
to the side, communicating via complant to someone far away. Men ascend the ship’s
overhead envelope, scaling its rungs with tethers and ropes hooked over their shoulders.

“Hold on tight!” The command comes from Cormac as he whistles past me. I follow him,
desperate for more information about what’s going on.

“Why?” I ask.

“Because we’re about to brake,” he calls over his shoulder.

“My hands are kinda engaged at the moment,” I remind him. This stops him and he turns
to stare at me, cursing under his breath. Before I can react, he flings his arm around
my waist and pulls me to him as his left hand grabs a nearby railing.

“Your hands are engaged in more ways than one,” he says as the aeroship brakes hard
across the Interface, throwing me backward. But Cormac’s grip stays tight around my
waist, holding me to him. He presses me close to his chest. The ship makes a sharp
scratching noise as we are forced to a stop, and all around us, several men lose their
balance and crash into the deck of the ship. My eyes fly up to the men who were scaling
the envelope a moment ago and I find them there, clinging to the steel ribs of the
aeroship. As soon as the ship comes to a full stop, they spring into action, scrambling
higher, until they can touch the Interface.

“What are they doing?” I ask, extricating myself from Cormac’s too-eager embrace.

“No girls are working the looms in the Eastern Coventry, meaning we’ll have to enter
Arras in an undesignated space,” Cormac explains.

“Why not have another Coventry do the work?” I ask.

Cormac rounds on me. “This event must be contained. The less people find out about
it, the better.”

“But how will we get into Arras through the Interface?”

“The men will create a passage,” he says.

“A loophole?” I’d seen a loophole before, on an Agenda trip. The temporary tunnel
allowed refugees from Arras to escape to Earth, but on that occasion the loophole
had been created within Arras.

“Is that what your rebel friends call it?” he asks, beginning to walk the length of
the deck. I follow as he checks the crew’s progress. “
Loophole
—how poetic.”

I clench my teeth to keep myself from saying something I’ll regret. I won’t get anywhere
by reminding him of my ties to the Kairos Agenda, the growing rebellion intent on
separating the worlds.

“How can they do it?” I ask him, not letting myself be baited. “I thought loopholes,
er,
passages
had to be created within Arras. Doesn’t the Interface prevent us from tunneling through
it?”

Cormac doesn’t answer me. Instead he paces the deck, waiting for the loophole process
to complete.

“I can’t create my own loophole,” I remind him, certain he thinks I’ll use the information
to escape.

“I’ve seen you rip through a world to get away from me.”

“That was different,” I say. I know that the only reason my escape from the Western
Coventry worked was because we were already close to the surface of Earth there.

“Perhaps you’re right. You wouldn’t survive throwing yourself through an average passage,
and I’ve made certain there won’t be a similar incident in the future,” he says.

“We have a deal, Cormac,” I remind him. “I’m not running off.”

His eyes swivel to regard me for a moment before he relents. “They’ll use a machine
to create a temporary slub in the Interface between Arras and Earth and force a passage
through. The Guild has the only technology to do so.”

I know this can’t be true, because the Agenda has access to loophole technology. Cormac
removes the gages from my hands, but I barely notice. Before I can decide whether
or not to point this out to him, Cormac speaks again. “The Guild monitors all activity
passing through the Interface.”

If this is true, the Guild knows about every refugee who flees to Earth, something
the Agenda is unaware of. But it does explain how easily Valery and Deniel had infiltrated
Kincaid’s estate while working as Cormac’s spies. Kincaid might have been the most
powerful man on Earth, controlling the vital solar trafficking trade, but he had a
weakness for living toys. He collected refugees from Arras for his macabre theater
productions. Both Valery and Deniel had sought asylum with Kincaid under false pretenses.
Deniel had used his alteration abilities to find a place on the estate, but Valery,
my former aesthetician, had become Kincaid’s lover. Deniel had died before he could
fulfill Cormac’s orders, unwound by Kincaid’s men, but Valery fooled us long enough
to inflict serious damage. It was due to her that I was here now.

When the loophole is complete, we’re separated into groups as an officer barks warnings.
Given the circumstances, we have little time to get inside Arras before the loophole
begins to collapse.

“Passage will be based on priority clearance,” the officer shouts. “It is our mission
to get these priority personnel safely to the surface. If someone tells you to run,
run
! Remember, the tunnel lacks a permanent rivet to ensure stability. That means you
move fast and you move smart.

“A team has been sent in advance of group one to rivet the entrance into the Eastern
Sector,” the officer drones on as I half listen. “It’s approximately one mile between
the entrance and the exit. Move quickly, follow your leader, and get through.”

I’m in the first group permitted passage into the loophole, along with Cormac. Since
the advance team declared the passage safe, Cormac isn’t wasting any time. I’m not
sure if he’s unwilling to risk being caught in a passage collapse by going later or
if he’s eager to get to the problems in the Eastern Sector.

I study the silvery web of protection patched over the Interface as we wait for clearance
to enter the loophole. The mouth of the passage hovers next to the deck of the ship
and a plank has been placed to allow us to enter the vortex. I only have to walk up
the plank and into the tunnel, which sounds easy enough, though it looks terrifying.
The officers leading us through carry a giant stack of metal hoops at least eight
feet in diameter. When they reach the end of the plank, they pop the hoops apart and
then back together. This time they aren’t stacked, but fitted into an open sphere.
A brass globe hangs in the center. It doesn’t touch the rings. It merely floats as
if suspended by air.

I’ve never traveled through a loophole before, and I have a million questions.

“What’s that?” I ask Cormac, pointing to the strange contraption the officers are
setting up.

“A bodkin.”

I stare at him, waiting for a better answer.

“It’s an armillary sphere. It maintains the loophole as we pass through,” he says.
“Stop asking questions.”

A hundred butterflies take flight in my belly as we’re led up to the mouth of the
loophole.

We’re released into it in our groups, one surging after the other, like great waves.
The leader of our group guides the bodkin via remote control as we enter the loophole.
Its hoops orbit in a whirring blaze of motion, cycling continuously to create a clean
tunnel for us to pass through.

At first it’s hard to keep my balance. A swirling kaleidoscope of colors spins, creating
a sense of vertigo. Cormac curses as he stumbles, but I stay upright. When I stop
looking at him and concentrate on the brilliant colors of the tunnel, walking becomes
second nature. If I wanted I could touch the weave, change it. But that might cause
the temporary passage to collapse. There’s enough clearance for us to pass through
without skimming the surface.

I wonder if I slipped off my boots whether my feet would feel the tingle of electricity
present in the warped strands.

This is the universe in its full glory. As we make our way through, the coarse, colorful
strands grow finer and begin to blur to pure light and I know the Arras rivet isn’t
far off. When I arrive at the rivet, it occurs to me what I’m about to do. I’m going
back to Arras. I left devastation in my wake when I escaped this world. I’m not safe
here. I hesitate in the mouth of the rivet, trying to absorb what lies on the other
side.

A crippling darkness gathers and spreads along the sky, tainting the metro with gloom.
It’s unnatural, like everything in this world, but I know this isn’t the work of a
Spinster’s hands on the loom.

It’s the lack of them.

THREE

T
HE BLACKNESS YAWNS ACROSS THE SKY,
extending like a floating abyss above us. I thought I knew darkness on Earth, but
this is all-encompassing. Allia, the capital of the Eastern Sector, is rendered skeletal
in the glow of emergency lights. It’s a sketch of a metro that can’t be real. If I
reached out now to touch it, I’m sure my hands would meet with paper. Only the flicker
of emergency lanterns gives the metro depth and dimension. I stop in the rivet, hesitant
to enter this place, but Cormac grabs my arm and pulls me through.

“The power grids are offline, sir,” an officer informs Cormac as he hands him a pair
of goggles. “These are night optical devices that will allow you to see as we travel.
They are equipped with infrared technology and will display heat signatures in orange.”

“Heat signatures?” a young officer pipes up.

“Humans. Animals. Anything that’s alive,” his superior explains.

I take a deep breath, wondering what we’ll find in the streets. The officer passes
out goggles to each of us. I’m fastening mine over my forehead when Hannox snatches
them off me.

“Sir,” he barks at Cormac. “I think Miss Lewys should stay behind with the guard.”

“I should come along,” I butt in, even though I’m not sure why I’m arguing. I’m not
exactly eager to explore the dark corridors of the Eastern Sector. Maybe it’s that
I don’t like being told what to do.

“That sounds like an excellent idea,” Hannox mocks. He moves toward me and jabs a
finger at my chest. “Let’s take the
rebel
Creweler in to meet the
rebel
Spinsters.”

“I didn’t bring my
rebel
handbook to distribute, so I think it will be okay.” I cross my arms over my chest,
and we both turn to Cormac for his opinion on the matter.