Prodigal

Prodigal

The Lost Imperials Book Two

Tyler H. Jolley and Sherry D. Ficklin

THIS book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the authors' imagination or are used factiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Prodigal

Copyright ©2015 Tyler H. Jolley and Sherry D. Ficklin

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-63422-048-4

Cover Design by: Mae I Designs

Typography by: Courtney Nuckels

Editing by: Cynthia Shepp

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Giant cogs and gears rotate

as no key does turn

Metal hearts are ticking clocks

no blood of man runs thick

Ticking clocks pound

loud and true do eardrums hear

Coal fuels and steam spews

mechanical limbs bending quick

Steam fills the atmosphere

bellowing smog obscures the night

Fueling bronze ships skyward

Climbing on flapping wings

Ships as towering titans

greasy hands cannot reach

Belly of the beast explodes

and rains metal through time.

~Brooke DelVecchio

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Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

About the Authors

Catherine leans calmly against the edge of the workbench. Tesla’s lab is a mess, but she’s confident she’s finally worked out all the kinks. Beside her, Nurse puffs along, his face completely obscured by the brass and leather mask allowing the creature to breathe. He wheezes, and it sounds like a dry cough. Catherine drops the screwdriver on the tray beside her and holds up the finished device. In the corner of the room, Tesla’s projection watches with hollow eyes as it billows on a stream of vapor.

It’s done.

Excellent. Tesla’s voice cracks through the speakers above them. Bring in the test subjects.

Nurse slinks away, through the massive bank vault door and into the hallway.

I wish Flynn were here to see this, she whispers to no one in particular.

He never had the stomach for such measures, Tesla responds, although his expression never changes and his lips don’t move.

And look where that got him.

It’s only been a few days since Kara returned to The Institute with a wild story about the Hollows, Flynn, and a paradox that nearly destroyed time itself. Though the bulk of the damage has been repaired, some things are still lost. Flynn is one of those things. Her oldest friend, the person she confided in above all others. He is gone. And they didn’t even have a body to bury.

This is why we can no longer use half measures to deal with the Hollows. We must escalate our plans. And above all, we must get the Imperial children back.

Catherine clenches her jaw, rubbing her teeth together. Ember. She was Flynn’s favorite and the one person above all others she held responsible for his death. She’d be only too happy to dispose of the girl entirely.

Why do we need them? With this device, none of the Rifters will be able to stand against you.

My plans reach beyond the destruction of the Hollows. They always have.

That pulls Catherine up short. I thought that project failed?

Tesla’s voice responds cryptically, All things in their own time.

She is about to ask something more but two guards walk into the room, each holding a badly beaten Hollow. One of the boys is nearly unconscious, the other glaring through one non-swollen eye. Both are bloody and bruised on every visible piece of exposed skin.

Nurse rolls up beside the first boy, who doesn’t even flinch as he plunges a syringe into his arm. The next boy squirms unsuccessfully against his captor as he’s injected. Soon, he’s screaming as the liquid burns its way down his arm, leaving a perfect, sun-shaped scar.

Have they told you the location of the Hollows? she asks the guards calmly.

No, ma’am. They haven’t said anything.

Pity.

Catherine glances at the wall where Tesla’s brain—all that’s left of the once-great man—floats in a tank of cloudy, green fluid, connected to the massive computer with wires and plugs. Though he projected his image into the room, it’s not those eyes that watch her. His eyes and ears are the hundreds of tiny cameras and speakers running throughout The Institute. Still, she nods to the brain in the wall before proceeding.

I call it the Geppetto Device, she says proudly, sliding the leather strap over her head and slinging it across her chest.

She flips a switch, and the machine buzzes to life. A shrill, static-like noise rolls through the room. Cringing, she adjusts the dial. The pitch of the noise changes until the sound vanishes. Only the slight vibration of the glass vials on the bench give evidence that there’s any sound at all.

One of the struggling boys freezes, his face falling into a neutral stare.

Stand up straight, Catherine orders. The now-calm boy obeys without hesitation. The other flips her off.

Thank you, guards. You may wait outside the door now.

The guards bow their heads and leave.

Take three steps forward, she demands. The glassy-eyed boy complies, and the other, looking confused, follows suit.

Try using the non-verbal commands, Tesla says.

Catherine slightly adjusts the knob, focusing on forming the words in her mind. The boy begins to jump like a frog.

How long will he keep doing that? Tesla asks.

Until I tell him to stop.

Good. Now, for a more serious test.

Catherine nods, stepping in front of the shorter boy. Stop jumping. Now, where is the Hollows base?

I don’t know its exact location. It’s at Wardenclyffe Tower, but I don’t know when.

Then how do you rift in and out?

The Contra. It takes us back.

Do you have any Contra now?

No. I lost it during the fight.

I see. She rounds the table, picking up two long screwdrivers as she moves closer to the boys. And what are your names?

Geoff. The boy she had made jump answers first.

The other frowns, a nervous sweat breaking out across his forehead. Slap Stick.

And are you friends?

Yes, they answer in unison.

Nodding, she sets the screwdrivers on the workbench beside them and steps back. Good. Geoff, I want you to pick up that screwdriver. She steps back to where Tesla’s image hovers. Geoff immediately falls forward and catches himself with the edge of the table. She watches as he picks up the tool with a trembling hand.

Catherine slowly pushes a button on the cross bar, and Geoff stands up straight. He is at full attention. The other boy stands stoic. She gives him the unspoken command.

Kill your friend.

Fast as a flash, Geoff lunges, slashing wildly at the other boy. Slap Stick dodges and blocks, trying to keep the frenzied boy off him. From the corner, Catherine silently commands the boys, puppets under her control, to fight to the death.

Finally, Slap Stick kicks Geoff into a table. When he reels back, Geoff dives forward, plunging the screwdriver deep into Slap Stick’s chest and retracting it with one smooth motion. Then he turns, as his friend slumps to the floor in a pool of blood, and stares at Catherine, waiting for her next order.

Very nice, Catherine says, a satisfied grin tugging at the corners of her mouth. It’ll take a little tweaking. We had them both injected with a small receiver, but the device is only able to connect with one receiver at a time. To control them in greater numbers, we will need a way to link the receivers. To unite the Rifters as a group.

Yes. Well done, Catherine. What is the range of the device?

Approximately fifteen feet. Though I believe, if we can find a way to link the group through one main subject, we will be able to transmit using one central receiver that can send a signal to multiple others, regardless of distance from the actual device.

We will need to begin work on that immediately.

She nods, looking to the boy left holding the bloody tool. Do we want to keep this one? He is completely devoted to us now, Catherine asks.

No. This one is weak—a throwaway. I won’t have lame sheep in my flock.

Catherine steps forward. Geoff, I want you to stab yourself in the heart with that screwdriver. Understand?

He nods. Turning the screwdriver on himself, he hesitates only a fraction of a heartbeat before plunging it into his own chest and crumpling in a bloody heap at Catherine’s feet.

Stein

Though I’ve never been here before, the darkness is familiar, comforting. Above me, the moon reaches its apex, the soft, full glow illuminating the sky so the stars are barely visible. I nestle against the bark of a large pine tree. There’s no snow on the ground yet, but the air is heavy with the promise of a coming storm. The smell is crisp and clean and not at all like home.

Home.

The Hollow Tower.

Subconsciously, my hand goes to my arm, gently stroking the device wound around my wrist. The Tether is a Tesla invention, something the Hollows aren’t supposed to use. But there was no way was I going to try to get permission for this little trip, so I made an exception. Ember brought a few Tethers with her when she defected from The Institute. I doubt she’ll even be upset when she figures out that I pinched one from Nobel’s lab. He’s working on re-creating them for us, a welcome alternative to the stomach churning Contra we normally use. In the past few weeks, things have changed rapidly in The Hollow Tower, and one of those things is my newfound friendship with Ember—a girl I’d been all too willing to kill just a few short weeks ago.

The enemy of my enemy and all that.

No, this was better. Getting permission would mean going to Gloves for Contra, and he would want to know why I needed it. I’m not ready to face him—or the others—just yet. Not until I’m absolutely sure.

During my last mission, I’d found one of Tesla’s old journals. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, if not for the emblem sketched on the first page, the symbol so like the mark I carried below my naval.

As a rule, Rifters don’t remember our pasts; it’s all part of the process, the washing away of our memories. Lex and Ember are the only ones I know who recovered those lost years, who know who they are and where they come from. For them, it is a mixed blessing. It brought them back together as brother and sister, but also brought back the truth about everything they lost.

And they lost so much.

I was never curious about my past before that. The Hollow Tower had been my home since I was only a few years old—much younger than most of the others when they were brought in. I always assumed there was something tragic, some dark reason I was taken so young. And unlike Lex, I was perfectly content not remembering.

Until now.

I creep through the woods to the dirty window of the cabin, stepping carefully in my tall, black leather boots. The slightest noise will alert the paranoid man inside to my presence. Luckily, I have plenty of practice sneaking up on people. Inside, Tesla fiddles with a rat’s nest of antenna wiring that drops through a duct in the roof. Crouching down, I blow on my hands and rub them together. Being at fourteen thousand feet elevation smack in the middle of the Rocky Mountains isn’t exactly my idea of a good time. I have a major headache, my toes are numb, and my nose is running like a leaky faucet. I sniffle hard and my ears pop from the pressure building in my sinuses. It’s going to take a week’s worth of hot showers just to get warm again.

I watch through the glass as Tesla gets frustrated with the wiring, throws a handful of tools against the wall, and begins pacing back and forth, running his hands through his jet-black hair and down his face, yelling at the wad of copper filament on the wood floor. Finally, he slumps into a chair facing a chalkboard on the wall. Pouring himself a drink from a half-empty bottle of amber-colored liquid on the table beside him, he rests the glass against his forehead.

This is one of the few times I’ve been able to catch him alone. For a recluse, he somehow manages