Breaking the Wheel

Chapter 7

"Hey, Hiroshi," Takumi's voice was a coarse whisper through the wall of his cell. "They're moving the Triad members out. It's time."

Sure enough, the noise of booted feet and low voices carried up from the courtyard outside.

Hiroshi hadn't really been sleeping, just resting his eyes, his arms folded behind his head. The older he got, the less sleep he seemed to need, and prison had only accelerated the process. "I like how you assumed I would get the locks," he grumbled.

"Course I did." On the other side of the wall, Takumi blew air through his lips. "It's like my gran-gran always said; everyone's got something they're good at. All the time you've been in here with me, have you ever asked me if I can take a bender down? I think not." The chi-blocker paused. "Though I've got a hacksaw if you can't."

"That won't be necessary," said Hiroshi, pulling the glove and his improvised plasma saw from their hiding place under his bed. If the locks had been mechanical, it would have been an easier task, but Republic City Penitentiary had been designed with metalbending guards in mind, making brute force his only option. Shielding his eyes with one arm, he pointed the saw at the lock and pulled the trigger. The lock hissed as he burned through it, and his door gave a satisfying metallic clang as it was cut free. Flicking his saw off, he stepped from his cell, glancing down the walkway to check for guards. Takumi was stood at the back of his cell, looking through the bars of his window, the moonlight striping his silver hair white. He had armed himself too, a kama in each hand.

Hiroshi crouched by Takumi's door, applying the plasma saw to his lock. "Are those metal?" he asked, nodding to the chi-blocker's weapons as the door sprung open.

Takumi grinned a mad wolf grin as he turned. "Bone," he replied, spinning them casually round his thumbs. "They hold an edge well enough, don't worry." The chi-blocker turned sharply, frowning at him. No, not at him, Hiroshi realised, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. Behind him.

"Get down!" Takumi cried, grabbing Hiroshi by the shoulder and pulling him to the floor. Cables whipped past, close enough to part Hiroshi's hair, and Takumi was on his feet again in front of him. The cables snapped back, and Takumi grabbed hold of them, letting them pull him feet first into the chest of the metalbender guard. He kicked off, twisting midair and landing behind his opponent, delivering two solid hits with the hilts of his kama, one at the metalbender's heart chakra and one at the root. The guard span, his arms outstretched in a bending pose, but found himself facing a grinning Takumi, the metal in his bracers stubbornly immobile. The chi-blocker swept his legs from under him, casually kicking him from the walkway in the same movement.

The walkway twisted and buckled under them, and Hiroshi looked behind him to see three more guards; two metalbenders and a waterbender.

"Move!" the chi-blocker snarled, his grey-blue eyes wide. "Get the others!"

Hiroshi scrambled to his feet, his heartbeat uncomfortably loud in his chest. The walkway screamed as it sheared behind him, and Takumi's shadow flickered large across the floor of the mess hall below as he jumped for his opponents. He moved between them, and there was a scream as the waterbending guard hit one of the metalbenders with a poorly aimed jet.

Hiroshi's torch shuddered in his hand as he cut through the equalist cell locks. With the triads outside and Takumi making a distraction in the mess-hall, the guards were nowhere to be seen, and the men he had freed formed a crowd around him, shielding him from view as they moved down the wing.

On the furthest door, the torch sputtered and died, and Hiroshi stifled a grunt of annoyance. The failure was hardly surprising- the thing was made of parts scavenged from the prison laundry- but disappointing nonetheless. Hiroshi turned it over in his hands. The men around him shifted impatiently, talking in low voices as he pried the cover from the side of the torch. He might have burned his fingers, but years of working in his lab had given him some useful calluses. The problem was easily apparent- the heat from the torch had melted the connection to the capacitor. He needed a bigger wire. Hiroshi looked around at the equalists. Many of them had weapons; small knives or clubs, but none were wielding anything that used wire, and they couldn't waste time searching for one, not with Takumi fighting for his life. With a sigh, Hiroshi removed his glasses, snapping off one of the arms and jamming it in the place of the broken connector.