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“How many soldiers of our own do we have left in the bunker?” Entrone asked.

“Two contingents,” said a scientist who seemed to be in charge—a thick-bodied woman in a white lab coat.

“And Metalblessed?” Entrone asked.

“None,” the woman said.

“That woman,” Entrone said, “is deliberately trying to leave me short-manned.” He started pacing. “While I’mforcedto support her, lest the worst option play out. I can’t believe I let it get this far. We need some kind of military presence to corral those alien soldiers.”

“Can we do that?” the scientist asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, putting his hand to his head. “I don’t want to rule ashes. Rusts, Edwarn’s plans were always superior. We should have been pushing for those, instead of Telsin’s idiotic bomb.”

“Yes, my lord mayor,” Labcoat said. “Speaking of Edwarn’s plans, did you… want to proceed with the test?”

He waved for her to do so, and Labcoat sent her two assistants to the far side of the room, the stone wall of the tunnel. Marasi had missed a thick door set into the rock—made of strong wood, with sturdy locks on the outside.

The assistants undid these, opening the door to reveal a group ofsome twenty people huddled in the darkness. They wore an assortment of different kinds of clothing—some expensive, others just common work clothes. All were grungy and rumpled. With pistols drawn, the assistants picked out a lean woman in a torn evening dress, her face streaked with makeup. She barely resisted, looking too exhausted for anything more than a token protest.

The door was locked again, and the assistants strapped her facedown to a table. Then one took out a silvery spike, long and thin. Marasi felt a chill, then nausea. Was this…

Oh, Ruin. Were they making an Allomancer? She’dread about the process in the book Death had given her, but she’dnever wanted to see it in person.

Labcoat took out a notebook. “We believe that we’ve isolated the technique Edwarn was on to,” she said. “Indeed, we’ve refined it. The process involves a very thin spike, my lord mayor, and, oddly, the right mindset.”

“Mindset?” he asked.

“You need to know what you’re doing and why,” the woman explained. “It helps to whisper a Command as you work, though we find it isn’t strictly necessary. Trauma on the part of the subject is helpful as well.”

At a nod from her, the assistants threaded the long spike through the skin of the woman’s upper back. Almost like they were sewing with a six-inch needle. The poor woman made a pained whimper, and the assistant doing the procedure mumbled something to himself, then pushed the needle slowly back through her skin, as if making two holes for some kind of piercing. The woman screamed louder as the process finished.

As soon as the spike left her skin, the holes started bleeding. The woman fell silent, and the assistant washed off the bloodied spike and handed it to Labcoat, who promptly placed it in a solution attached to a device and examined it.

“Roughly five percent Invested,” she reported to Entrone. “And as you can see, the subject is still alive. We’ve essentially excised a piece of the soul and stored it in the metal.”

Wait.

They’dmade a spike without killing the woman?

That was supposed to be impossible. Granted, Marasi hadn’t studied Death’s book in as much detail as Wax had, but she was fairly sure Hemalurgy always killed its subject.

“So?” Entrone said. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I don’t particularly care if these people live or die. Creating spikes without killing them is pointless. We need Metalborn in huge numbers.Thatwill impress Autonomy.Thatwill make her realize this planet is a resource, not something to be burned.”

“Ah, my lord,” the woman said. “This womanisn’tMetalborn. We’ve Invested a spike—a tiny bit, granted—using anordinary person.All people are Invested by Ruin and Preservation as part of our very makeup—and we have a little extra Preservation, blessed by the Shards upon our creation. We’re pulling some of that out.

“The percentage you get depends on the person. We think it might have to do with how likely they were, genetically, to be Metalborn. But they don’t need that extra if the powers didn’t manifest in them. It’s vestigial. We simply slice it off and use it in a spike. Fully Investing one takes between twenty and thirty people.”

“But can you makeAllomancersfrom those spikes,” Entrone said. “That’s the key part.”

The scientist glanced at the others. “Sir, this is a fantastic result. A huge step forward in—”

“Can you make me Allomancers?” he demanded. “Now. Today. To show Autonomy.”

“No,” Labcoat admitted. “We think we need to code this in some way to give a specific Metallic Art blessing. We’re working on that. We’ve had some few gain a power for a short time using one of these spikes, but it gives out soon after.”

“Damn,” Entrone muttered. “That means Edwarn’s Community project here is still valuable.” He folded his arms, looking worn down again. “But we have nothing to show Autonomy at the present. I’m going to have to do it. I’m going to have to let her army through. Call all of our remaining loyalists—those not working directly for Telsin—into the caverns.”

“But—” Labcoat began.