Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy #1) - Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,109

mouth of the tunnel. “Hum. This could work. I think we’re next to the storage bays. But I’m not sure—and I would really prefer to be sure.”

“Why?”

“Well, we could be next to the water reservoirs—which means the tunnel would flood and we’d drown.”

“Crap. Hold on.” Sancia slid off a glove, placed her hand to the bricks, and shut her eyes.

The wall was thick, at least two to three feet. She kept letting it pour into her mind, telling her what it felt, or at least what was on the other side…

She opened her eyes. “It’s just wall,” she said. “Nothing on the other side.”

“Is it thick?”

“Yeah. At least two feet.”

Berenice grimaced. “Well. Maybe it will still work, then…”

“Maybe what will work?”

She didn’t answer. She reached into her pocket and pulled out what looked like four small bronze spheres with sharp steel screws on their ends. She examined the wall, sucked her teeth, and started screwing the bronze spheres into the wall in the shape of a square, with one ball at each corner.

“Can you please just tell me what this is?” asked Sancia impatiently.

“You know about construction scrivings, right?” said Berenice, adjusting the bronze spheres.

“Yeah. They glue bricks together to make them think they’re all one thing instead of separate things.”

“Yes. But lots of foundries use the same kind of stone, or something close to it—which makes it a lot easier to twin.”

“Twin with…what?” asked Sancia.

“With a section of stone wall that’s back in my office,” said Berenice, standing up. “One that has a big hole in the middle.”

Sancia stared at the wall, then at Berenice. “What? Really?”

“Yes,” said Berenice. She scrunched her nose, reviewing her handiwork. “If it works, it should convince this section of wall that it’s the same as the one in my office. That’d then weaken all the Candiano construction scrivings in a circle, and basically carve a hole for you. But…I’ve really never tested this in the field before. Especially not on a wall this thick.”

“And if it doesn’t work?”

“Frankly, I don’t have a damned clue what will happen if it goes wrong.” She glanced at Sancia. “Still feeling experimental?”

“I’ve done dumber shit in the past few days.”

Berenice took a breath, and twisted the tops of all four brass spheres, one after another. Then she stepped back and slowly moved away, like she was preparing to run.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then the color of the brick changed, ever so slightly, growing just a tiny bit darker. Then came a creaking sound. The bricks shuddered and rippled—and then, suddenly, the wall fractured in the middle in a perfect circle, like someone had carved it with a saw.

“It works,” said Berenice. “It works!”

“Great,” said Sancia. “Now, how the hell do we get that big plug of stone out of the way?”

“Oh. Right.” Berenice pulled out yet another trinket from her pockets: this one appeared to be just a small iron handle with a button on the side. “Just a construction scriving. It’ll stick to the plug’s center.” She placed the handle in the center of the stone plug, confirmed it was stuck, and gave a mighty heave.

Nothing happened. She tugged again, her face turning pink, and stopped, gasping. “Well,” she said. “I didn’t quite anticipate this.”

“Here,” said Sancia. She knelt, gripped the handle, placed one foot against the wall, and pulled.

Slowly, with a low grinding noise, the short stone column slid a few inches out of the wall. Sancia took a breath and pulled again, and it finally fell to the tunnel floor with a plunk, leaving about a two-foot-wide hole in the wall.

“Good,” said Berenice, miffed. “Well done. Can you fit?”

“Keep your voice down. Yeah, I can fit.” She crouched and peered into the hole. The room on the other side was dark. “Do you know what that is over there?” she whispered.

Berenice turned up her scrived light and stuck it through the hole. They glimpsed a wide room with a steel walkway running around the edges, and a huge heap of twisted metals in the center. “It’s the waste bin, essentially—all the castoff bits of metals go here to be melted down and reused.”

“But I’ll really be inside the foundry—yes?”

“Yes?”

She shook her head. “Goddamn. I can’t believe we just broke into a foundry just with some random shit in your pockets.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment. But we’re not there yet. This is the basement. The administrative offices are on the third floor. If you want to find out what’s going on