Prosper turned and said something to Oki. It was a singsong language, not dissimilar to the firefly pixies’ language, but there were clicks and pauses. After a moment, I understood the words and Oki nodded.
“The top of the thing won’t be protected,” I said to the pair. “They won’t count on you trying to protect us.”
There was another whump and the not-so-distant sound of glass breaking. No screams followed, so I was okay with that.
Oki examined me with large eyes. “Climb on, Prosper,” she said.
Prosper clambered onto Oki’s back while I opened the car door. “Put a hole in the top, as large as you can, then meet us at the train station. Follow our trail. If we get separated, come to Sunshine, Colorado. All things given, we’ll wait for you. We’ll wait for everyone that we can.”
Lulu appeared beside me. She handed the KA-BAR to Prosper. “Use that. If it’s a blimp or a dirigible, it will be made of a very heavy material. If you slice it, it should start deflating immediately,” she said. “Don’t get near the bottom because if the gas is what they used to use, it’ll go up in flames once it hits their torches.”
I blinked at Lulu. “Read a book about it?”
Oki vaulted out of the door with Prosper leaning over her back; his form was molded along hers. Just a split second later, her magnificent wings spread out, and she didn’t even touch the ground. A whoosh of air sounded as it poured around her wondrous feathered appendages and then their bodies blasted upward so quickly it was a blur.
Lulu pulled another knife out from somewhere. It wasn’t as big as the KA-BAR but the edge looked just about as sharp. “McCurdy talked to me about some of the lighter-than-air vessels,” she said. “What now?”
I jerked my head to the last car. Landers scrambled ahead of us, both counting and throwing out instructions to everyone.
In the last car, Horse and Meka waited beside Clora and Ignatius. Ignatius said, “Put your arms around Horse’s neck, Clora.”
“That won’t work,” Meka said. He climbed on top of Horse’s back and reached out for Clora. Landers came in just in time to help them lift the woman into Meka’s arms. Clora panted like an out-of-breath dog. She caught my eyes and asked, “This…isn’t…about…me?”
“Not all of it,” I said. I didn’t have time for false platitudes.
I yanked the doors apart. This car had the largest set of doors for handicapped people. I knew that Stephen and Craig had chosen it for the large animals. Horse leaped out, a graceful shape showing that he was made for doing exactly that. Meka grinned like a madman; he was enjoying the thrill of something filling him with such an adrenalin rush. Or he was crazy. I didn’t think he was crazy.
Horse hit the ground, and his legs absorbed the impact with a cleanness that made it seem effortless. I murmured “Wow,” as they turned and galloped to the southwest, leaving bits of dust in the darkness. The flickering lights from our train illuminated the clouds his pounding feet left.
The train began to slow, and Ignatius didn’t even hesitate as he leaped out after them. I wanted to protest, but he needed to be right behind Clora. “Don’t worry!” the doctor yelled back. “I run a six minute mile and I do marathons!”
“Everyone off the train, the second it stops!” I yelled. “Pass the word!”
Landers rushed back up through the doors to the next car.
I turned and went for the last section and popped through. I stood on the rear platform, looking upward, gauging what was happening. I could see the thing turning slightly. Engines whined diffusely. The pitch went up and down, and the nose of the great beast dipped. Then I heard distant yelling of people who were abruptly very alarmed. The thing began to drop. I didn’t know what Oki and Prosper had done, but it had been very effective and very quick.
There was one last bowling ball shot. It came directly at me, and I knew someone had seen me come out, more than likely using some kind of night vision binoculars or whatever the man had up his sleeves. He’d probably been waiting for me to pop my head out so that he could avoid the big nasty trial. I heard the whump as the bowling ball was launched. Lulu gasped behind me.
I’d like to say that time halted for a brief smidge. It felt like it did. Again, I don’t remember moving, and my eyes shut for the length of a short breath. When I opened them again, the Japanese broadsword was out and held capably in a two-handed grip. The great silver tip quavered in the air, showing that it had impacted with something.
I looked behind me, and Lulu was staring down at the platform. The torchlight from the last car revealed two pieces of the bowling ball spinning lazily around where they had landed. The ball itself had been sliced neatly into halves, and the round sides were on the bottom. The inside was grayish-brown and exposed the hourglass shape that was the core.
“I always wondered what was inside those,” I said and looked back at the big flying object that was plunging helplessly downward. “Where did McCurdy find that thing?”
“It’s a dirigible,” Lulu said. “It has a steam-powered engine. It dates from the thirties when the Hindenburg was destroyed. You remember the story about the Hindenburg? McCurdy told me that story. He likes to talk about history, as you very well remember.”
“It blew up,” I said. “They used flammable gas inside it.” The train began to slow more. The dirigible headed toward the earth, nose diving beyond all safe levels. There were vague sounds drifting to us as their engines began to scream.
A shape sped toward us doing a nap-of-the-earth, hugging the profile and making quicksilver adjustments for every impediment in its path. I smiled as Oki and Prosper exploded past us, the firefly pixies drafting behind them as they paralleled the tracks. Prosper screamed, “Yeah, baby! Showed them!” and then they were away.
“There’ll be no living with them,” I said.
* * *
We were halfway to the other train station before I realized the obvious.
If they knew about the first train station and they were doing flyovers on the train station on the far side of Omaha, wouldn’t they be waiting for us?
McCurdy wouldn’t want to destroy the steam trains. The bowling balls hadn’t been aimed anywhere near the engine. There were only so many of them, and the United States was going to need them. He wanted me. Dead or alive. Dead would be better. He could say what he wanted and that would be the end of that. However, he had an idea about the other tech bubble, and he probably wanted that, too.
“Landers!” I shouted.
His blonde-haired head twisted toward me. He was helping the girl with the broken arm. Everyone was jogging toward our destination.
“The guy at the other station! Whatshisname? Ralph!” I said. “Have McCurdy’s people taken over there?”
Landers had to stop for a minute.
I motioned at everyone else to continue. The girl with the broken arm frowned at me. “You can always go back to Asher,” I said to her. It wasn’t very nice, but it got her moving again. Her reaction made me make a mental note to kick Asher’s tuckus over the greater part of Nebraska at a later date.
“No,” Landers said, “but Ralph’s freaking out. They’re circling above him.”
McCurdy wouldn’t have direct communication with the other dirigible unless he’d come up with another Landers.
“There isn’t another one like you?” I asked Landers.
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. The distance is usually a problem, and I seem to be stronger than some of the others.”
Can you read my mind? I thought. I’m wearing a sequined thong.
Landers didn’t react. He had to be connected. He wasn’t like Leander from the Redwoods Group who could, and did, read minds upon occasion. Leander said that he usually got the stronger emotions and had trained himself to block out most of the rest.
If McCurdy didn’t have direct communication, then the other dirigible wouldn’t know he’d gone down. I didn’t doubt that McCurdy had been on the light-than-air vessel shooting bow
ling balls at me. I could practically feel his enmity beating down on me. If he survived the crash, he’d regroup his people and chase after us on foot. He might even come alone because he wanted to get to the other dirigible where he would have the tactical advantage.
“Let’s go,” I said to Landers and set off in a jog again. Landers huffed and followed. Not everyone was a runner like Ignatius, although it would have been a good idea in this world. I wasn’t one, but I was highly motivated.
Highly frickin’ motivated.
Chapter 28
I Am Prepared for Myself…
Horse carrying Meka and Clora beat us to the other train, but it was only by minutes. Ignatius was having Meka carry Clora inside one of the cars when the majority of the rest of us arrived. Certainly, they hadn’t been able to gallop the entire distance because of Clora’s condition.
Grimly, I told Craig and Stephen to lose as many trains cars as possible to lighten the load. They worked by the light of a fire pit that Ralph had lit. It was bright enough to do whatever they needed to do, and they proceeded along in an expeditious manner.
Ralph, who turned out to be one of the five men I had seen before at the Omaha station, was short and round and reminded me of an actor from a movie with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. My mother had really liked that movie. Something about a romance wrapped up in a treasure hunt with a lot of comedy thrown in. Anyway, Ralph looked like one of the treasure hunters except he was a lot shriller. He asked about a thousand questions about McCurdy, us, the flying thing, and about the future security of his neck that no one bothered to answer.
Above us I could see the distant shape of the dirigible. Its engines whined faintly, vaguely heard above the rumble of the second steam train. Whoever was in charge up there didn’t seem to be in a hurry to come and get us. I could only assume they were waiting for McCurdy to show up and take charge. When McCurdy didn’t show up, things would come to a blistering head. Throw in the fact that the train was going to pull out in a few minutes, and we’d have a real spine chiller.
Would they try to stop us? My guess was hell to the yes.
Some of the people were throwing backpacks on board, filled with stuff they had grabbed along the way. There was a lot of junk food, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. I stopped next to the car where Ignatius was examining Clora. I could hear Clora moaning, and it made my stomach clench into an uncomfortable knot.
Meka and Horse waited outside. Meka had blood all over his shirt and his pants and I knew it was Clora’s. “That girl going to make it?” he asked, brushing sweat from Horse’s coat.
“I don’t know,” I said lowly. I didn’t want Clora to hear me, although she probably couldn’t.
“Why aren’t they—” he jerked his head toward the second dirigible “—shooting something at us, too?”
“Think they’re waiting on McCurdy,” I said. “I believe he was in the first one.”
We’d seen it plunge to ground and there had been the crashing noises of things breaking on impact, but there hadn’t been the fireball explosion that I’d been expecting. McCurdy probably had used a type of gas that wasn’t flammable for his re-creation. He was dogged, but he wasn’t stupid.
“All that business just to get to you,” Meka said, half a question.
“I don’t know what McCurdy’s thinking,” I said, except that Landers had given me his message that was a big hint, AND I had done something nearly unthinkable in the previously unchanged world of the United States of America. “McCurdy said that he understands why you did what you did but that it doesn’t make you innocent.”
Me. Only me.
“Get aboard,” I told the pair. I turned and sprinted for the front of the train.
The firefly pixies surrounded me, intent on keeping up. Spring latched herself to the hair above my ear and sang, “What is Soophee doing now? The sisters feel that something is going to happen!”
“You should go with the humans on the train,” I sang back.
Spring didn’t respond except she swiftly kicked my ear with one of her tiny feet.
Craig and a man I didn’t know were moving as swiftly as they could. “Kick it in the guts, NOW!” I yelled into the engine compartment.
“Right now!” Craig yelled back, and the train abruptly lurched.
I looked back and saw people and animals dashing to get on board. The train lurched forward again, and people reached out hands from the train to pull up humans and new animals alike. The three men from the second train station, including Ralph, didn’t argue. They went along and climbed on, too. It was going to be a tight fit for the next however many hours, but with a little bit of luck and a lot of prayer, they’d get to Sunshine in time. They wouldn’t have McCurdy riding their backsides and shooting things at them.
The people were too occupied, too scared to notice my absence. Everyone was looking up and back.
Then there was no one left but me.
Well, the firefly pixies were there, too. Sometimes I forget about them, but I guess that’s because I’m human and they’re so itsy-bitsy. (Don’t tell Spring and the others.)
I moved to the lit fire pit and waved my arms in the air, trying to get the attention of the dirigible. That was accomplished without a lot of fuss.
Sorry, Zach.
* * *
I sat in a lawn chair that someone had left next to the fire pit and waited. After a while, I got a water bottle out of my pack and chugged it. Spring and the other firefly pixies orbited me angrily, trying to talk me into running while I could.
The dirigible took a while to come in for a landing while I waited. It had to line up just the right way. Then gas had to be let out. The people on board weren’t very practiced. I watched and stopped to eat a can of Vienna sausage. The little sausages hit the spot.
I smiled to myself because inside I could feel the train getting further and further away. I hoped that Lulu wouldn’t pitch a bitch once they figured it out. Or anyone else for that matter. I didn’t think McCurdy would go screaming after them. Ignatius would tell the rest on the train about the tech bubble. Clora would survive, albeit trapped, and they could make their way and perhaps, negotiate with McCurdy. McCurdy might be a judgmental ass, but he was better than Maston who had been an active sociopath.
Why, oh why, did people have to make it so hard to do what they needed to do?
I could hear Spring singing, “Humans! Dratted humans! Can’t live with them! Can’t kill them!”
Taking another swig of water, I mentally agreed. But I had killed. I thought about the Burned Man. There had been a moment in time where I should have killed him. I should have because he wasn’t stable. Wherever he was at the moment, he was likely a threat to the humans and the new animals around him. Maybe the turtle/spiders had caught up to him, but I thought the Burned Man was a little too sly for that.
It turned out that the dirigible didn’t really land. It came to within twenty feet of the ground and floated. It was a grand affair, something out of a steampunk novel. The majority of the beast was balloon or canvas and it was grayish-black with brass fittings. The brass had been polished to a glowing sheen and outlined parts of the dirigible that I couldn’t identify. There were three gondolas below the larger floating part. I could see the steam coming from the forward and aft gondolas, so I guessed that was where the engines were located. The gondola in the middle was a passenger compartment. Everything was decorated with brass that curled and curved, and the glass was antiquely blue. More brass ornamented the props at the sides and the tremendous rudder. It was a smashing thing that would have had people staring at it no matter what the world was like, and I would have been thrilled to ride in it. Normally I would have been.
Instead of being thrilled, I sat there and watched men systematically rappel down from the sides of the dirigible. They wore uniforms and used the lines to descend in a professional manner as if they had practiced repeatedly. Some of them had crossbows and others had swords. Once they hit the g
round, two men secured the dirigible with large metal screws that were secured into the ground. Three others stalked toward me, and I crossed one leg over the other while I waited.
My collarbone was still throbbing from all the exertion, and I wished to God that I had some aspirin or ibuprofen or something, but I didn’t think that was going to happen.
So instead, I waited. I didn’t want to be shot while trying to escape to get an over-the-counter pain medication.
I suppose it could have been worse, but it wasn’t good. Mister Mirrored Sunglasses was the one who strode up to me. Mario wasn’t wearing them at the moment because it really was too dark. He was as big as I remembered, and suddenly my cheek stung where he had hit me several days before. There was a bruise there, but it had paled in comparison to the pain of a gunshot wound. I hadn’t thought about it until Mario reappeared.
He had been the President’s bodyguard until I done him out of a job. Bad, bad me.
“Water?” I asked, tipping the bottle at him. I was willing to overlook the whole cooties thing for the moment.
“What happened to McCurdy?” Mario demanded.
“I assume he was in the other dirigible,” I said. The operative word was “was,” but I don’t think Mario noticed that right away.
“What did you do?” Mario snarled. His hands snaked out and caught the arms of the lawn chair. He shook the aluminum and one arm broke off in his fingers.
“Me? Nothing. I think the floaty thing developed a hole in it,” I said as casually as I could.
One of the other men was Jack, another of the President’s bodyguards. He wasn’t wearing a sports hoodie anymore. And he looked pissed off, too. “We should just pack her up and take her back with us,” he said. “We can deal with her in D.C.”
“Hey,” I protested mildly, “what happened to due process?”
While I was looking at Jack, Mario smacked me again, pretty much putting his entire body weight behind the strike.
I missed a whole subdivision of moments there, and the next thing I knew, I was looking directly at the ground because I had somehow become horizontal. The land beside the tracks was full of ping pong ball-sized gravel and smelled like the oily substance they used on the railroad ties. I don’t think my head actually hit the ground because one of my hands was in the way. The entire left side of my face was numb, and I could hear buzzing from my left ear. Mutedly I registered that Mario was shrieking with pain.
Mountains of Dreams Page 28
