Extracted

THIRTY-ONE

LEX

For a minute, I can’t make any sense of what I’m seeing. It’s dark, with only the light from the moon glowing off the thing moving toward us. From the waist up, it looks like a man—the holographic image of Tesla made of flesh with his pencil-thin mustache and greased black hair. Skin drapes over its shoulders like a caveman’s fur. As my eyes focus in, I take an involuntary step back. Large, square bolts pin the pieces of flesh to the metal framework beneath. Pieces of steel and copper peek out in places along its neck and hands. Bright blue currents crawl along the length of its body, through the piece of machinery in the center of its chest that looks like an oversized metal heart. Bolts of electricity arc from one side to the other. Sparks shower down from the tips of its pincers as the monster snaps its claws together at the dark, smoke-filled sky, and sparks shower down from the tips.

“Kara!” Ethan yells. “You traitor!”

“There are only two traitors I see, and they are standing with a couple of lowlife Hollows,” she says, her expression stern and unyielding. From the ground, Ember stares up at her, a mix of disbelief and disappointment on her face.

“That’s enough, Kara,” the man with the whip says. “Ember, Ethan, we don’t have to do this. Hand over the Dox and come back to the Institute with us. No one needs to get hurt here today.”

I just grin. The muscles in my legs and arms are coiling for the fight. “My sister isn’t going anywhere with you.”

“My name is Flynn. I was—am—a friend,” Flynn announces, holding the whip idle at his side. Kara rejoins him, standing proud to be on the wrong side of the fight. I shake my head.

“Who invited you to this party, anyway?” I ask, honestly wondering how they found us.

It’s Kara who speaks. “You guys, Tesla built that thing.” She points to the Dox. “You didn’t think he’d know what you’d do with it? You tore the whole world to pieces with your stupidity. Now it’s time for you to hand it over and let the grown-ups clean up the mess.”

Flynn pushes Kara behind him and reaches a hand out to Ember, who is still lying on the ground. “Ember, I don’t want to hurt anyone. But this has to be fixed. Please, let me help you do that.”

For a second I think she’s considering his offer. Then he continues, “Time is bleeding, Ember. It’s dying. And we can stop it. Here, in this time, we can fix the mistakes of the past. You and your brother can join us. It’s where you were always meant to be.”

Her face goes rigid and she slaps his hand away. “What do you think we’re trying to do?”

“Enough talk,” the Tesla monster orders with a booming metallic voice. “Keep the Romanov children alive. The others you can dispose of.”

Kara rushes our way while Flynn stands back and cracks his whip. Without warning, Stein rushes ahead and tackles Kara. I’m sure she has been waiting for this moment. Payback from the wharf.

The Tesla automaton rears forward, spitting up chunks of dirt. From the waist down, any scrap of humanity is lost. Its front legs are hinged and attached to tank-like caterpillar tracks and four spindly legs in the back aid the rotating tracks as they move. Flynn has to slide out of the way. The monster rushes at the two girls and starts pelting Stein with hot white bolts of energy. She keeps throwing punches until she’s lifted off the ground by a web of energy. I can smell the burning ozone from the static electricity.

It all happens so fast, I don’t have time to react. The Tesla machine hurls her through the air and she crashes into a tree twenty yards away. I watch her fall to the ground, my heart stuck in my throat. As soon as I see her move, I turn back to the fight.

Sprinting as fast as I can, I jump against the time field that surrounds the house. When I ran into it before, I noticed that it had some give, almost like a trampoline. So this time I use that idea to propel me through the air. I spring off perfectly. Olympic officials would be proud. Tens across the board.

Landing, I find myself behind the Tesla automaton. With no weapons and a Dox to protect, I kick out one of the spider legs with my prosthetic. This works brilliantly. The leg I attack breaks off like a dried wishbone on Thanksgiving and it gives off angry blue sparks. I have to quickly roll out of the way before I get pierced by the other stomping legs. The monster maneuvers itself to where Flynn is standing.

While on the ground, I see Kara approach Ethan. “I don’t want to hurt you, Ethan. Just stop this now. Come back to the Institute with me. We are your family. Not them. Come home. Please.” She holds out a hand to him.

Ethan slowly approaches, his arm outstretched.

I hesitate where I am, ready to rush him and rip his head off.

“Kara, I’m so sorry if we hurt you, but you have to know that what Tesla’s doing is wrong,” Ethan says with an outstretched hand. She takes it, and with one quick motion, Ethan wrenches her arm behind her back. She screams in pain. “And I’m really sorry I have to do this.”

Not stopping there, he pushes her forward, slowly at first. Right toward me.

I remove Kara’s only weapon, some sort of pistol with a tank of red liquid on it and a coil of tarnished copper tubing down the barrel. It looks dangerous. I don’t care what it does, as long as it stops the fast-approaching Flynn and the Tesla monster. As Ethan pushes Kara to the ground, I see Ember rummaging through the grass between them and us. Finding the key, Ember says, “Lex, here. Take this.”

She tosses it to me and I pocket the key to the Dox. Then she leaps to her feet, putting herself between Tesla and me. I have no shot now, so I can only watch as she dodges a barrage of electrical currents and grabs onto one of the spindly legs. She snaps the leg backward, putting Tesla off-balance. When he dips to the side, she climbs on his back. She reaches around, holding onto his neck with one arm while struggling to get a grip on the tubes running to his artificial heart. The machine lets out a metallic scream and flails from side to side in quick, sharp bursts.

Ethan pushes past me, running for her, but he is too slow. The tube that Ember has a death grip on breaks and starts to flail wildly. Steam and red liquid pour from the exposed ends. Ember falls to the ground. Tesla spins around, and with a flick of his hand a bolt of electricity lifts her up and throws her through the force field and into the building.