Stray

by Evan Fuller

  4.

  Rumors

  Emery tried not to panic. “Someone I know,” he asked, raising his eyebrows, “or guests?”

  “Both.” Lydia motioned over her shoulder. “They’re in the living room.”

  The living room was one of many spaces in the house that Emery rarely used. He preferred to spend his time in the studio he’d established in the basement, where there was nothing he couldn’t afford to ruin. Michael Garis had restored the aging property, and in doing so he had spared no expense in making it one of the finest homes in Rittenhouse. The living room was lavishly decorated and immaculately kept, with furniture worth as much as Emery spent on food in a year. It was into this room that Emery followed a trail of greenish-brown mud across the previously spotless woven white carpet to the far side where his guests awaited.

  The younger of the two was a boy of perhaps sixteen years, with a strong jaw, sullen expression, and an unkempt mop of thick dark hair. He added to his air of insolence by straining against the hand that held the collar of his roughspun shirt. He was big enough, about Emery’s size, but his escort sat almost as tall as he stood. The older man wore a filthy knit skullcap, leather boots still shedding clumps of mud, and a wool overcoat in surprisingly fine condition. His sharp rugged face broke into a smile as he rose to his formidable full height. “Hey, kid,” Green said, shoving the boy aside to extend his hand in greeting, “long time no see.”

  Emery accepted the gateman’s vigorous handshake. Green reeked of sewage, though he was less soiled than Emery always found himself after a trek through the sewers. “How have you been, Green?” He nodded toward the stranger. “I see you brought company.”

  “I’ll let the cretin introduce himself,” Green said with a jerk of the neck in the boy’s direction.

  The boy stepped forward and brushed the hair out of his face. He appeared to be mostly Caucasian, though sun-browned and with perhaps a bit of native blood. He was big, too, just about Emery’s size. His eyes brightened as he turned his focus from Green to Emery. “Name’s Salvador,” he said, smiling. “Pleased to meet ye’.”

  “The pleasure’s mine.” Emery shook his hand. “What brings you here?”

  Salvador began to reply, but Green cut him off. “Why don’t I give you the lowdown on that?” he said. “Got anywhere a bit more, how do you say, secluded where we can catch up?”

  “Sure. Lydia,” Emery called over his shoulder into the foyer, “could you please come show our guest Salvador around while Green and I are speaking?”

  “And don’t let him outta your sight,” Green muttered darkly as she entered the room.

  Emery led the way into his study, where dusty books and hand-drawn maps concealed every inch of the vast desk’s surface. “I never knew you were so damn literary,” the gateman said, raising one hardback and examining it sideways.

  “Most of it’s research for the tunnel,” Emery said. “I just haven’t had a chance to clean up in here since I finished with these, since we started digging right away. It’s hard to estimate, but I think we’re about halfway there.”

  Green cocked his head. “About that. The king wanted me to tell you to take it easy, says you’re being too hard on yourself and you’re gonna burn out. I told him you can take care of yourself.” Emery nodded, but the gateman continued: “But now I’m startin’ to think he was onto something. You’ve looked better, kid. Did you go and get shot again?”

  Emery put a hand to his brow. “Really, Green, you’re the last person I expected to lecture me on taking it easy.” He sighed. “So tell me about this new kid.”

  Green crossed the room and descended heavily into the leather chair behind Emery’s desk. “Wish I had better news about him, but the truth is he’s trouble. He comes from some no-name village out near West Sink. A little while ago he somehow got a job picking grapes in Belmont Arbor, but he got caught sneakin’ some product out under his shirt and had to make a run for it.” Green pushed himself backward, propelling the chair toward the rear wall, and threw his feet up to rest on one of the maps upon the desk. “The reason—”

  “Could you not?” Emery interrupted.

  “Oh, yeah,” Green said. “Sorry ‘bout that.” He leaned forward to brush the papers aside, very nearly pushing a scale model of Michael Garis’ fishing ship, the GGS Endeavor, off the desk. He then resumed his previous position; a clod of mud fell loose onto the desk. “Anyway, it’s your choice whether to take this kid on, and it’s probably better for you if you don’t. Only reason we’re helping him in the first place is because he offered some vital information in return for us saving his ass.”

  Emery nodded, resigned to wash his desk at a later time; he unfolded a smaller chair that had been resting against a bookcase and took a seat opposite Green. “And that, I take it, is why you came yourself.”

  “The Arbor is Zakarova’s back yard, so everything big comes through there.” New Providence had little in the way of formal government, and Leon Zakarova was the closest thing to a ruler most of its denizens had, exerting influence over everything from food production to drug markets. “This Salvador kid brought us a letter—and he didn’t forge it, ‘cause he sure as hell can’t write—giving orders to get a whole lotta security together to guard a big shipment being moved about six weeks from now.” He scratched his stubbly chin. “From Rittenhouse.”

  Emery leaned forward. “What do you think it is?”

  “Smuggling between here and the Arbor happens all the time,” Green replied, “but they’re calling for eighty guys. They’re looking into backgrounds and taking time to train them.” Green sat upright, reached into the breast of his wool coat, and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “Here’s the letter we’re working from.”

  Emery took the paper, a yellow-brown old bit of newsprint, and quickly scanned it:

  Z. HAS RAISED THE # OF GUARDS FOR ESCORT FROM 50 TO 80. INQUIRE INTO BACKGROUNDS OF ANY COMERS—NO THIEVES. MAKE SELECTIONS SOON, MUST HAVE TIME TO FULLY TRAIN BEFORE END OF MARCH. ESCORT WILL TRAVEL FROM ARBOR TO R.HOUSE & RECEIVE CARGO EXITING CITY THRU JACOBS LADDER. MORE INFO AS DATE APPROACHES.

  BLACKROOT

  “I don’t suppose,” Green said, “any of that means anything to you.”

  Emery shook his head, impressed, and handed it back to Green. “Must be something serious, though. They even found a literate person to write this, and presumably another one to read it.” Though it was attributed to Blackroot, one of Three Dogs’ lieutenants, Emery guessed he’d dictated it to a scribe.

  “This is something huge, bigger than anything they’ve smuggled outside before. We debated what it could be for a while, and the king thinks that if they’re going to all this trouble it might be some kinda medicine.”

  Emery tried not to let his excitement show. “Really? I mean, it could always be something else, right?”

  Green shrugged. “Could be, but there’s not too many things worth the trouble of this big an escort that we can make use of outside. Batteries, maybe, if it’s a damn lot of them. Besides that, probably not something electric: anything you have to plug into a wall don’t do us much good. Same goes for automobiles. No one’s figured out how to build something like the king’s palace, and your flimsy autos don’t last long in the wastes.”

  He was right; automobiles would be useless to Zakarova. The double-decker bus that served as the king’s fortress had been a miraculous find, a pre-extinction vehicle that had somehow survived the years between its construction and its rediscovery. It was powered by solar panels on its roof, a technology that Rittenhouse’s recovery agents had never even found on their forays into New Providence. The steam engines that powered the city’s trains and automobiles were quaint by comparison. And the palace’s superior build allowed it to navigate the treacherous roads of the wastes, roads that could dash the finest Vorteil auto to pieces. Even on the oft-traveled path to Ambler, stranded cars sometimes had to be abandoned. Besides the palace, the only vehicles that could traverse N
ew Providence safely were the three massive crawlers used by Rittenhouse’s recovery agents, and those were always accounted for.

  “Okay,” Emery said. “So probably medicine.”

  “No way of knowing till we get our hands on it,” Green answered, grasping an imaginary object between yellowed fingernails. “But that’s the most likely thing. All we know is it’s something important, and a whole load of it. Could be the antibiotic kits you were looking for a few months ago, or something else entirely. But one thing’s for sure.” He flashed his wicked grin. “Whatever it is, we can put it to better use than our friend Zakarova can.”

  Emery had been waiting for that. “So we need to steal the shipment before the transporters meet their escort.”

  Green looked wounded. “I’m in the employ of the king,” he said. “His Majesty has never stolen a thing. We reclaim for the good people of New Providence.” He grinned again, more widely than before. “But yeah, that’s pretty much the gist of it. Problem is, we also don’t know who’s moving the shipment, where from, or even an exact day and time.”

  “And once it gets far enough beyond the city walls that the escort can protect it, I guess we’ve missed our chance.”

  “Exactly. I mean, I could take ten armed guys easy,” Green added, tipping his chin upward, “but eighty’s a bit of a stretch even for me.”

  “So I take it you need me to figure out these details in time for us to intercept it.” At Green’s nod, he said, “That’s going to be a bit of a problem. See, my only underground connections are you and your people.”

  “Well, time for you to make some new friends. I’m going to be working on the other end, trying to find out what I can from the outside, but I can’t exactly prance in here and start shakin’ hands. With all your dead cousin’s loot, you’re rich enough to shop the black market,” the gateman offered bluntly. “Take a break from digging your hole and get out a bit more. While you’re at it, keep your ear to the ground. An easier way in and out is a big deal for us, but this is huge.”

  “I guess I can try that,” Emery said. “I really hope my gaining access to the inner workings of underground trade over the next six weeks isn’t our only hope of making this work, though.”

  “I just need you to gimme whatever info you can find. Maybe you hear a name or find a route someone’s using to get things out of the city. Even if that’s all you turn up, hopefully it’ll come in handy on my end.”

  “I can manage that.”

  “Good. We wrote ourselves a copy of the letter, so keep this one. Maybe you’ll be able to get something out of it that we missed.” He tossed it onto Emery’s desk. “So what do you want to do about this kid? I can take his sorry hide back out with me when I leave.”

  “He can stay,” Emery answered. “I’ll watch him closely.”

  Green raised his eyebrows. “You’d better. He’s a sly one, and if we didn’t have a deal I’d have left him to rot.”

  They made their way to the kitchen, where the gateman discovered a bag of sliced beef in the refrigerator and devoured a quarter pound of it before Emery could blink. “Well,” he said after washing it down with a long swig of pinot straight from the bottle, “I got some other obligations to attend to. I’ll be by in a couple weeks to swap info. It’s been a real treat.”

  “Would you like to see how the tunnel’s coming?” Emery asked. “I can show you on your way out.”

  Green shook his head. “Only reason I came in that way was because I had the kid with me,” he said. “By myself, it’s less trouble to lose the blood than to spend hours shit-paddling down there. It’s a short jump anyway, with your place right up against the outside wall and all. Walk me out, would you?”

  Emery accompanied him out back, all the way to the estate’s rear wall. He extended a hand in parting. “Be safe, Green. I’ll see you soon.”

  “Here’s hoping,” the gateman said. “Try not to get tossed outta the city while you’re snooping around, eh?”

  Emery kept himself from cringing as Green pulled up the sleeve of his coat, baring his left arm. The other hand produced a jagged shank that he drew across the skin. It was a shallow cut; when Emery next saw him, the mark would doubtless be lost among the layers and layers of scars. He wondered which of them had been made on his account.

  “Only a trickle this time, see? I get better at this every day. Take care, kid.” He made a quick gesture with his left hand, and a moment later he blew into the winter sky in a cloud of ash.