"The machine has detected something."
Shit!
Emily released her weight from the panel set into the floor and the wall that had begun to retract, rose again to the height of the ceiling with a clatter of gears, concealing her from sight. She pressed her eye against the slim crack between the hydraulic walls, watching the creepy clockwork soldier's head swivel this way and that, looking for whatever it had thought it heard.
She couldn't afford to be seen by the machine. For all she knew, they would react like human guards and alert the whole household to her presence. Then again, Jindosh had proven himself so arrogant that he hadn't even alerted his human guards after their brief meeting at the front of his house. Behind the walls, she'd overheard plenty of bored conversations between guards that never would have taken place if their boss had told them who was lurking around the house. But Jindosh loved his little games...
The clockwork soldier muttered something about going back on patrol, an indication Emily had learned from crawling in the ductwork for hours meant that it was no longer alert for an intruder.
Emily waited, heart pounding, until the clockwork soldier was further away, then pressed against the panel again. Anton Sokolov was further inside this Assessment Chamber, and if she could just figure out these stupid walls, she knew she'd be able to get to him.
The new configuration didn't seem to help much. There was still two walls separating her from Sokolov. She crept forward and peered around one of the new walls. There was another panel just a few feet away. Would that be the right one to finally let her into Sokolov's prison?
CLANK.
Emily let out of muffled yelp as the clockwork soldier stepped into view behind her. It spread it's wing-like swords, focused on her. She rolled backwards to give herself some room, hand fumbling for the pistol at her hip. But as she came to her feet, she realized she was on the panel she'd spotted earlier, and new walls were now rising from the floor.
The clockwork soldier's parts groaned and sparked as the wall crushed it against the thick glass ceiling.
She released the breath she'd been holding and her grip slackened on the pistol. A year ago, she would have been disappointed not to test herself against thee mechanical monstrosities, but today she was grateful to escape. More than ever she was cognizant of the risks she took on her mission to get her kingdom back. She needed to be alive and unharmed for the sake of her people. Injured, she would have to rest up and heal on the Wale for days, weeks maybe. It was time that she didn't have. Too much time had passed already.
"Em... Emily?"
She turned. Anton Sokolov stared at her blearily from a cot behind her where a wall had lowered while she was facing down the clockwork soldier.
"Anton."
"What... what are you doing here?" he asked, as she approached. He tried to sit up, winced, then laid back down. She tried not to look horrified at the wide bruises and scrapes on his face as she knelt by his bed.
"I'm here to get you home, old friend."
Anton collapsed shortly after she got him to his feet, and with a grunt, she hefted him over her shoulder, feeling her knees creak at the old man's weight.
Emily looked at the scattered parts of the soldier as she headed toward the exit of the Assessment Chamber, feeling oddly regretful. Not for crushing the clockwork soldier, no. But sad at the knowledge that her craving for adventure had at last found a leash... at the expense of her kingdom.
Sokolov groaned, so she kept moving.
