Tessa and the other captured were pushed through the dark halls of the Grand Spire, the sounds of fighting could be heard as pockets of resistance tried to hold out. Guns and small cannons punctuated the screams and war cries. Tessa thought she could feel the vibration of the steam-powered attack boats closing in on the area. Eventually, they were separated into smaller groups and deposited into a series of rooms. Tessa found herself along with several others tossed into one of the staterooms, the furnishings and tables all had been shoved to one side, a fire had been started in the marble hearth in one end of the hall.
Several lamps were the primary source of light aside from the fireplace. Many other guests were already in the room in varied conditions. Most appeared fine with superficial injuries, but others looked as though they were in serious need of medical assistance. As the Boomers organized them all into manageable groups, Tessa noticed that several of the armed assailants were wearing servant uniforms. She realized that some of the servants and workers under Higgins must have been in league with the Boomers, and sympathetic to their cause. Jeremy's warning suddenly made far more sense. He wasn't warning her about Meriwether but rather the attack. She considered just how bad things had to be for them to go to such lengths as to align themselves with these radicals.
Tessa was forced to sit down with another clump of prisoners under armed guard. Next to her, Diana clung to Meriwether's side like a frightened schoolgirl.
One of the armed servants, a larger fellow with a half-skull mask, chomped on a cigar clenched between his teeth. He looked at Gray with a tilt of his round head, before pinching his smoke between two fingers and raising his gun.
"Well, lookie here, boys. We have ourselves a V.I.P." He gave a wicked smile, "Mr. Meriwether, it is a pleasure to have you with us. If you would." He motioned for the inventor to step forward.
"Don't worry," Gray tried to reassure Diana under his breath before standing.
The cigar man snapped with a gruff voice, "No, on your knees."
Another one of the masked renegades grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and shoved Gray over, pressing a muddied boot to the back of his head. "That's right! Who's the dog now?"
The one with the cigar discouraged, "Come on, Carp, simmer down now. No need for that just yet."
"Ah, come on, Chief! I know we are supposed to take 'im alive, but you know that he deserves it!"
Sticking the pungent-smelling thing back into his mouth, the large man called Chief chewed on the cigar's end with a thoughtful glance at the other Boomers. "I know that the big man wanted this one alive, but he didn't say what condition he should be in." He looked back down at Meriwether with a wicked smile. "So, what should we do?"
"I say screw the Kigezan! We should kill him now!" a third Boomer said with a shrill voice, clearly wanting to do so herself.
"Kill him now?" The first called Carp sounded surprised. "But why kill him when we can just torture the bastard. That way the Kigezan don't kill us instead."
The man with the cigar laughed heartily. "True that, but I wouldn't mind taking my chances killing him, neither. Why don't we be democratic about this? All in favor of breaking his limbs?"
"I say we put a shell between his goddamn eyes!" the woman snapped stepping forward and pumping a round into her shotgun.
"No!" Diana cried, tears streaming down her cheeks as she begged, "Stop! Please! Why are you doing this?"
"Why indeed?" Chief smiled. "Tell them Mr. Meriweather. Tell them about the Twentieth of December. Might as well come clean, seeing as it's your funeral."
Tessa could see the look in Gray's eyes. She knew that look, one of fear and shame.
Diana must have seen it too because she asked, "What are they talking about?"
Meriwether tried to move but being pinned, gave up on such notions as he admitted, "After the swamp villages were destroyed, we...had trouble with some hired workers."
"Tell it like it is. They were forced laborers!" the masked man called Carp interjected.
Chief reiterated taping his gun, "Let him talk."
Gray glared up at his assailants as he spat, "Protests were organized. A general strike was conducted. They started a march to demand a trade union, equal rights and a limitation of the power of the landlords. But things got out of hand. The protesters were attacked by a host of concerned property owners."
"You mean Loyalists! You and your boss Charles Higgins, along with a slew of your lackeys!"
"It was Higgins who organized the whole anti-protest! Not me! The other property owners were the ones—
"Don't try to shoulder the whole blame on them. You're nothing but a spineless worm!" the masked woman shouted as she spat on Gray. "You were just as against us having the same rights as Higgins! You are no better than the nobles!"
"That's not true at all!" Meriwether protested, struggling under Carp's boot.
"Really?" Chief leaned down, blowing a smoke ring into Gray's face before sticking the ember into the soft of his cheek. Meriwether cried out in pain as the Boomer withdrew the smoke from the side of his face. "Indigo appealed to the state courts, but they were stacked with former Imperial Loyalists. He tried to go to the higher courts of the land, but the more aggressive of your kind moved while he was gone."
"That was not my fault!" Gray pleaded.
"It turned into a massacre!" Carp pressed harder on Meriwether's face with his boot, shouting. "Three-hundred-and-twenty-five people were murdered in front of the courthouse! Women, children, my wife!"
"Not to mention the state officials trying to help us!" the female Boomer interjected. "But did you do anything?"
"I couldn't!" Gray pleaded, trying to push the man's foot off his face.
"Couldn't? Or wouldn't!" the shrill woman accused. "This whole thing is your fault! You and your machines!"
For once, Tessa was glad that Gray had stolen all the credit for her ideas; otherwise, she very well could be there beside him. But it was in no means worth watching him about to be unceremoniously executed.
"So, should we end him?" Chief asked.
"It's better than he deserves," Carp hissed, "We should hand him over to the Kigezan. They will find a fitting punishment, what with their old ways—"
"No!" Taking aim, the female Boomer leveled the sights of her shotgun to Gray's head. "I don't care what the Kigezan leader does to me, I want justice!"
But Diana leaped forward from off the floor, putting herself between the gun and Gray. "Don't. Please have mercy!"
Shaking the shotgun, the Boomer shrieked, "Out of the way, She-Devil!"
But Diana shook her head. "You can't! I love him!"
The Boomer hit the tied Oni away with the butt of her gun as she spat, "You? A horn-head? How could you love a bigot like him?"
Gray surged from under the second Boomer's boot, red in the face as he shouted, "Don't you touch her!"
But the cigar man kicked him in the face, sending Meriwether sprawling to the floor. The other Boomers jumped in as they beat the inventor senseless.
"For heaven's sake, have some pity!" one of the prisoners stood before the masked assailants. Tessa recognized Marvin Wooster, the representative of the New Albion government to the Oni tribes. He stood stoically with his slicked black hair askew from mistreatment. Beside him his counterpart, the red-skinned Oni, Carlyle Xo-Xing, crawled to his feet as well, his tail lashing back and forth as he stared down the Boomers.
"Hey, none of that now! Set your asses back down while you still got 'em," one of the other Boomers who had been watching from the side said, training his rifle on the new threat.
"This is absolutely preposterous!" Xo-Xing said with defiance, "Do you honestly believe that this will somehow make things better for your people? Fighting the colonists only makes matters worse."
"Shut up, or you'll regret ever sticking that forked tongue out," the Boomer with the rifle threatened. "Now, sit down, or do you want me to start shooting these fine people to make my point?" He pointed the gun at a group of women huddled together.
Seeing an opportunity with everyone distracted, Tessa reached for her boot and slipped from it a small knife. Donny had taught her the importance of always having at least one blade on hand, because in their line of work, things could go south quickly. Tessa had protested having a weapon on her person, but the twins convinced her that a blade was as much of a tool as a means of defense. That, and if used correctly, a blade could be a far superior implement to any other device for getting out of a tight situation.
Silently, and with subtle movements, the red-haired woman worked at her bindings. She noted her surroundings and what she had to work with. There were seven Boomers and twice as many prisoners. There was little that could be used against them, and the exits were limited to the two doorways at either end, or the few windows on the far side of the room.
As her eyes scanned over the far wall, something out of place caught Tessa's eye. Sticking out at an odd angle from a vent on the far wall above the door was a feather, a particularly unusual yellow one that Lonny fancied for her hat. When Tessa saw it, the plume danced back and forth three times.
Tessa couldn't believe it. The twins were there. Giving a nod, she watched as the plume disappeared.
Quickly Tessa formulated a plan. With a fire poker at hand, the long, most likely flammable drapes hanging above the hearth, and the proximity of two of the Boomers to it, Tessa began to see how she could create a substantial enough advantage for them to turn the tables on their assailants. She managed to work her bindings free, covertly handing off her knife to Diana. The Oni grasped it with a deep breath, conviction filling her eyes.
One of the Boomers struck Xo-Xing in the gut, several others cheering their comrade on. Seeing her opportunity, Tessa rolled to her feet and sidestepped the nearest distracted guard. As quickly as a cat, she ripped the drapes down on top of two of the Boomers. The other masked marauders beating on Meriwether, Wooster, and Xo-Xing turned just in time to see the nimble woman push them into the fire with a cry. One of the masked men tried to shoot Tessa, but the bullet went wild. Simultaneously from the vent, a series of popping sounds proceeded the Boomer who shot at Tessa hitting the floor in a pool of his own blood.
Before the rest of the Boomers could properly respond, Tessa grabbed the fire poker, and grasping it with both hands swung with all of her might at the next nearest assailant. She could feel from the brutal impact the masked woman's face cave with a bone-chilling crack.
Diana, freed from her restraints, sprang into action, stabbing another renegade in the leg. With a cry, he dropped to his knees. Before the cigar-chomping man realized what was happening, the Oni had withdrawn the knife from his leg, and had plunged it into the base of his neck. He fell to the floor with a choking sound grasping at the wound with little effect at stemming the blood loss.
Hands still bound, Xo-Xing, Wooster, and Meriwether threw themselves at the remaining Boomers as the Marlow twins burst through the door, helping to finish off the remaining fighters.
For a moment, Tessa took in what she had just done. A fire poker lodged in the skull of the Boomer lying dead at her feet, gore splattered across the floor in an arc away from the impact. A sudden revulsion filled her stomach with a sickening feeling. But Tessa reminded herself that the woman was about to kill Gray and probably several others. Even so, it did little to help the uneasy feeling in her the pit of her stomach and the image of the woman's broken body.
"Are you all right?" Lonny asked Tessa, drawing her attention.
"I'm...I..." She shook her head, forcing herself not to look at the body anymore. "I didn't mean to hit her that hard."
"You did what you had to, love." Lonny forced Tessa to look her in the eye. "She would have done far worse to you."
Losing her composure, Tessa embraced her friend.
After a moment more of gasping for air, Tessa shivered, forcing aside her anxiety long enough to ask. "H...how did you two escape capture?"
"We had a little help from your toys," Lonny said, giving Tessa a few of her inventions from their room, including her shock glove, compact compressor, and the grappling hook gun with several lengths of cord, "We couldn't grab everything, but we got a few of the best ones before blowing up the rest, along with a good number of Boomers."
"They certainly went boom!" Donny said with a smile, cutting the bindings from several of the other prisoners, including Wooster and Xo-Xing.
Lonny rolled her eyes at her twin's painful remark as she said, "Needless to say, we made a bit of a mess upstairs. But really, dear, we must be going post haste. We don't have much time before more of these skull-faced freaks make it here."
Tessa looked around at the others, particularly the wounded. There were twenty in all. "Can we get by them with so many people? Wouldn't it be better to stay here and send only a few for help?"
Handing Meriwether one of the Boomer's shotguns before untying the last of the prisoners, Donny pointed out, "They practically obliterated the poor sods that Higgins hired to guard the place. We saw a few of them trying to hold several of the halls on our way down. It wasn't pretty. It's only a matter of time before the attackers find them and make their way down here. Never mind the others coming from below."
Xo-Xing agreed, "Your friends are right. We should all get out of here as soon as possible. Any ideas?"
"We can make for the maintenance passages and try to sneak past," Gray suggested as Diana tried to clean a particularly bad gash on his face with a handkerchief.
Rubbing his wrists, Mr. Wooster asked, "What good will that do us? Wouldn't the passages below be already flooded?"
"It's better than sitting around here waiting to be caught again," Xo-Xing said, dusting off his suit jacket. "All right, Mr. Meriwether, lead the way."