The Kinetic Emperor: Reborn in a World of Iron

Chapter 8

The maintenance closet was small. It was very small. It smelled of old oil, wet dust, and the sharp tang of cleaning chemicals. There was no light except for the thin, blue glow of a flickering computer screen on the wall. The screen was cracked. The light it gave off made everything look like it was underwater.

Silas stood in the corner. He did not move. He did not breathe loudly. He was a shadow among shadows. He waited.

Outside the door, he heard footsteps. They were fast. They were light. They were the footsteps of someone who was used to running away.

The door creaked open. A small figure slipped inside. It was Ren. He was panting. His face was covered in sweat. He leaned against the door and closed it quickly. He locked it with a trembling hand.

"You're late," Silas said.

Ren jumped. He let out a small, sharp yelp. He spun around, his eyes wide. He held a small flashlight like it was a weapon. He shone the light on Silas.

"Don't do that!" Ren hissed. His voice was shaking. "You almost gave me a heart attack, Kian. Or Silas. Or whoever you are."

"The time is 03:00," Silas said. He stepped out of the corner. The blue light hit his face. His skin looked like pale marble. His eyes were dark holes. "We have twenty minutes before the next security sweep. Do you have the codes?"

Ren wiped his face with the sleeve of his hoodie. "Do I have the codes? Everyone is looking for you. The Discipline Committee is asking questions. They found the guys in the shower. They’re calling you 'The Ghost.' They think you’re working for an outside gang. If they catch me with you, I’m dead. Not expelled. Dead."

"They won't catch you," Silas said calmly. "Unless you keep talking."

Ren shook his head. He looked down at the floor. "I shouldn't be doing this. I should be sleeping. I should be minding my own business."

"Your business is theft, Ren," Silas said. It wasn't a question.

Ren froze. He looked up slowly. "What?"

"The medical scrap," Silas said. He leaned against a shelf filled with heavy industrial batteries. "Last week, three crates of expired bio-gel went missing from the Level 2 infirmary. Two days ago, a batch of experimental nerve-stiffeners vanished from the lab. You didn't sell them. You couldn't. Those items are tracked by serial numbers."

Ren’s face went white. Even in the blue light, he looked like a ghost. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You hid them," Silas continued. His voice was like a slow, steady drumbeat. "You hid them in the ventilation shafts of Sector C. You’re waiting for a buyer from the Undercity to give you a signal. You want enough credits to buy a fake ID and get out of the Citadel. You want to see the sun. Real sun. Not the LED lights in the ceiling."

Ren dropped his flashlight. It hit the floor with a dull thud, the beam rolling across the dirty tiles. "How... how do you know that? Nobody knows that. I was careful."

"You were careful for a student," Silas said. He walked over and picked up the flashlight. He handed it back to Ren. "But I have spent a lifetime watching how men hide things. You walk with a slight tilt to the left when you carry weight in your hoodie. You always check the vent covers when you think no one is looking. You are a good thief, Ren. But I am a General. I see the war before it starts."

Ren took the flashlight. His fingers brushed Silas’s hand. Silas’s hand was cold. It felt like touching a stone.

"What do you want?" Ren whispered. "Are you going to tell on me?"

"No," Silas said. "I'm going to give you a clean slate. Help me get to the Sump. Help me find what I need. When I am done, I will erase the logs of your thefts. I know the override codes for the security server. I will make it look like the items were never delivered. You will be safe. You will be invisible again."

Ren looked at Silas. He saw a boy’s body. He saw Kian’s thin arms and messy hair. But he felt something else. He felt a power that was ancient. It was the kind of power that didn't need to yell to be scary.

"Fine," Ren whispered. "Fine. But we have to move now. If the pressure builds up, we can't open the door."

They left the closet. They moved through the dark hallways of the Academy’s lowest levels. This was the "Gut" of the school. There were no chrome walls here. There were no statues of heroes. There was only rust.

The walls were made of heavy, dark iron. Huge pipes ran along the ceiling like the veins of a giant beast. Some of them hissed with steam. Others groaned with the sound of moving liquid.

"The Academy is a city in the sky," Ren whispered as they walked. He was leading the way, his sneakers silent on the metal floor. "People think the trash just vanishes. They think when they flush a toilet or throw away a broken droid, it goes into a black hole. It doesn't."

They reached a massive circular door. It looked like a vault. It had a heavy wheel in the center. Above the door, a sign read: PRIMARY WASTE DISPOSAL – SECTOR 9.

"Everything goes down," Ren said. He pointed at the door. "Food waste. Failed chemistry experiments. Medical waste. Even the bodies of people who die in the slums of the Academy. It all gets dumped into the Chute. Gravity does the work. The Chute is a vertical tunnel that drops five miles down. Right into the Sump."

Silas looked at the door. He put his hand on the metal. He could feel it vibrating. Deep inside, there was a roar. It was the sound of wind and falling debris.

"The Purge," Silas mused.

"Yeah," Ren said. He pulled out a small electronic tool. He began to plug it into the door’s keypad. "Every hour, the Academy releases a blast of pressurized air. It’s like a giant piston. It pushes everything down so the pipes don't get clogged. If we're inside when the air hits... we’ll be flattened into pancakes before we even hit the bottom."

"When is the next blast?" Silas asked.

Ren looked at his watch. His face was tight with focus. "In exactly four minutes. We have to enter right after the air stops. Then we have fifty-five minutes to slide down before the next blast. If we don't reach the filtration gates by then, we’re dead."

Silas nodded. He wasn't afraid. He was calculating. "The filtration gates. They catch the solid waste?"

"Most of it," Ren said. He tapped a few buttons. The keypad turned from red to green. "The gates are made of heavy mesh. They catch the big stuff. The liquid goes through to the sewers. We have to jump off the slide before we hit the mesh. If we hit the mesh at full speed, it’ll be like hitting a cheese grater."

Ren grabbed the wheel on the door. He looked at Silas. "Are you sure about this? The Sump is not like the Academy. There are things down there. People who were thrown away. Monsters that grew in the chemical pools. It’s a graveyard that never sleeps."

"I have lived in graveyards before," Silas said. "Open it."