The Inexplicables (Clockwork Century)

by Cherie Priest

  Houjin waved a hand in front of his own face. Behind his mask’s visor, his eyes crinkled into a frown. “It’s not always this bad,” he said.

  “I know. It wasn’t this bad the other day.”

  “I’m not sure what makes the difference. Maybe it’s the temperature, or how much rain we’ve gotten—or haven’t gotten. Or maybe it’s related to the air currents. We know Blight behaves differently from plain old air.”

  “I really couldn’t tell you,” Rector muttered.

  They stood on a street corner that wasn’t marked, but since Houjin seemed confident of his location, Rector didn’t worry about it. Not very much, anyway. He made a point to stick close, that was all—especially in the dismal not-daylight there in the too-quiet outer blocks. Sticking close was common sense, it wasn’t chicken.

  Thoughtfully, Houjin said, “Maybe I should study it.”

  “Do it on your own time, buddy. Which way’s the tower again? I can’t see for shit.”

  “This way.”

  “I don’t see it.”

  Houjin’s voice took on the tone of someone who is trying, in a calculated fashion, to keep from yelling. “I know you can’t see it, but I know where it is. Trust me, and be quiet.”

  Rector didn’t like being told to be quiet, but he knew it was a good idea, so with a mighty harrumph he managed to keep his mouth shut for another five minutes. At no point during those five minutes did he grab for the back of Houjin’s jacket, strong though the temptation became.

  When he feared he was falling behind, he said, “A guy could disappear in this stuff, and nobody’d ever find him,” assuming that Houjin would either stop walking or reply.

  Softly, Houjin said, “That’s why people come here, as often as not. To disappear.”

  Rector hustled to catch up to the other boy’s voice as it trailed through the gas. “Like that nurse?”

  Huey paused, and Rector came up beside him, trying not to wheeze, but glad for the brief break. “What? Miss Mercy? I don’t understand.”

  “You and Zeke said something about a train, and everybody disappearing.”

  “But all those other people didn’t disappear inside here. They just … disappeared. Except for her. She’s been trying to find them, trying to figure out what happened to everybody.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there were rotters. Outside Seattle.”

  “Rotters on a train?”

  Houjin’s words took on that tense, impatient quality again. “No, not rotters on a train. But rotters outside the city—all the way out in the Utah Territory, up in the mountains. Miss Mercy thinks they were made when an airship crashed down in Texas.”

  Rector had no idea how far away Texas was from Utah, or how far Utah was from Seattle. Quite a ways, he suspected, but he didn’t want to sound dumb, so he didn’t ask.

  Houjin resumed walking. Rector kept pace this time, since the way was wide enough to accommodate them both. The streets were not clean, but they lacked the usual thick, wind-heaped detritus of the busier blocks, so the boys’ boots made less noise than their chatter as they crept up the hill.

  “How does that work?” Rector asked. “How does an airship in Texas make rotters in Utah?” He was almost proud of himself for how un-dumb that sounded.

  “The airship was carrying Blight concentrate for processing down in Mexico. It crashed right on top of people, and turned them. Just like that. Just like the sap does, if you use it too long…”

  “Hey!”

  “What? I’m not accusing you of anything—only pointing out the connection. The sap kills people the same way as the gas, but it takes a lot longer. And Miss Mercy’s seen lots of drug users at the end of their lives, on the battlefields and in the hospitals. She probably knows more about it, from more angles, than anyone in the world. But when she tried to reach the people from the Dreadnought … it was like they’d never existed.”

  Rector didn’t like the sound of that, and he wasn’t entirely sure why. “Or like someone took them away?”

  “That’s one theory. That’s her theory, anyway. She thinks somebody important wants to keep the sap running, and keep the soldiers stocked up.”

  “Why the hell would anybody want to do that?”

  Houjin shrugged. “It usually comes down to money.”

  “Money,” Rector echoed thoughtfully.

  His companion drew up to a sudden stop, smacking him across the chest with his arm to get his attention.

  A faint hum rumbled overhead. Nothing too loud, nothing too close.

  Rector guessed, “Is that one of the pump rooms?”

  “No, look higher. It’s the Naamah Darling, see?”

  He couldn’t see a damn thing, so he grunted noncommittally.

  Huey continued, “I bet they’re testing out the steering repairs. That’s why they’re out here, so they can take the ship low without hitting anything.”

  “Except the wall.”

  “Captain Cly won’t hit the wall.”

  “Even if Zeke’s on board, getting in the way?”

  With a snort, Houjin said, “Probably not even then.” He might’ve added something else, but the noise up above changed suddenly, slightly. A loud clapping sound. An engine revving higher. A twist in the ship’s direction that brought it almost immediately overhead.

  “Is something happening?” Rector wanted to know, primarily because an airship falling on his head wasn’t high on his wish list of afternoon activities.

  “I don’t … I don’t know.”

  They both listened hard and wondered what was going on, without being able to see it. Everything beyond a few feet was yellow or gray, so they used their ears to track the big ship, neither of them admitting to themselves or to each other that the craft sounded distressed.

  “I’m sure it’s fine,” Houjin lied outright as the engine noise dipped closer.

  “I don’t even know where we’d run to. Should we … look for shelter?”

  The response was firm. “No. They’re not crashing, they’ve just—”

  With a whir and the hiss of hydrogen, the ship leaped upward, taking on another hundred feet in altitude—or so Rector guessed, as if he had any real idea. “You think it could’ve been snagged on something, then got itself free?”

  “That seems unlikely.”

  “But that’s what it sounds like.”

  Huey kept his voice level, but it was tighter than a drum when he said, “I’ll ask when I get back to Fort Decatur. Come on, let’s keep moving.”

  “How do you even know it was the Naamah Dar…” Rector lost track of his question, which trailed off and dissolved into the gas. “Huey?”

  Before Houjin could reply, something heavy shot down from above—not a ship, and not a pump tube … in fact, nothing man-made. It was something screaming, something plummeting with a roar and a crash, landing against something half crumbled, and crashing through it with a symphony of splinters, cracking timbers, and toppling masonry.

  And whatever it was, it kept moving.

  It thrashed and writhed, climbing steadily out of the house or shop or hotel in which it’d landed. Rector started to run. Houjin grabbed him by the arm but didn’t stop him; he ran with him, keeping Rector’s wrist clenched tight so they didn’t lose each other.

  “What?” Rector squeaked, “is … that?” But Houjin was running too hard, paying too much attention to answer.

  Besides, it was after them. The cracks and stomps of the big thing’s scramble were surely loud enough to raise the dead or bring them running. It was finding its footing, gathering its energy, focusing its attention, and listening to the Blight just like the boys had done.

  Houjin’s feet stumbled and he slowed, looking over his shoulder and then forward again, quickly. One direction, then the other. Trying not to fall. A worthy goal, in Rector’s estimation, but behind them something enormously tall was mumbling to itself. It sniffed the air—they could hear it, like a windstorm up two great nostrils—a
nd picked its direction.

  It tumbled out of the wreckage of its fall, and gave chase along their retreat path.

  “Shit!” Houjin gasped wetly. It was the first time Rector’d ever heard him curse, but this was a fantastic time to start getting the hang of it.

  Improbably heavy footsteps clomped hard against the smooth-packed streets and uncluttered avenues, making a beeline right for Houjin and Rector, who had wholly quit fighting Houjin’s attempts to guide him—by force, if necessary—farther up the hill and away from the thing behind them.

  In Rector’s head he was going over the possibilities. Perhaps some oversized rotter dropped in from the sky … maybe the giant captain? He was big, he was nearby, and the ship was right up there. Huey had made such a show of pointing it out, hadn’t he?

  Anything but the inexplicable.

  But he knew it was all wrong. The captain would’ve called out, certainly. He would’ve said their names and asked what they were doing; he wouldn’t have fallen from the sky only to scare them witless. The thing behind them rumbled a thick bellow that wasn’t quite a cry and wasn’t quite a call. Either way, it wasn’t human.

  Definitely not the captain, even as Rector’s racing brain tried to maintain the hypothetical option.

  “No way,” he wheezed. “No way.”

  “Hush up!”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I said, be quiet!”

  “Huey, for Chrissake, it already hears us!”

  “Underground.” He coughed. “Back to the underground.”

  Rector’s heart took a dip down to his stomach. There was no way they’d outrun the thing. They were at least three blocks from the nearest entrance he knew of … if, in fact, they were anywhere close to where he thought they were. This realization made him lunge all the harder to keep up with Huey, whose grip on Rector’s arm seemed terribly fragile.

  An unexpected curb appeared under their feet. Houjin jumped it, just barely and just in time. Rector caught it with his shin and went flying. Momentum snapped him free of Huey’s grip and he rolled off to the side, up against a wall that had held up a roof a long time ago, and now served entirely to make Rector’s head spin. Stars flashed and flickered before him, and he couldn’t see anything.

  Even his own hand, when he wobbled it forward in an effort to right himself, looked misshapen and alien. It was coated in stars and Blight like everything else, and the prospect of getting onto all fours felt insurmountable.

  Houjin was feeling around with his hands and feet, whispering, “Rector!”

  “Um…”

  A moment later, a very firm hand seized Rector’s ankle, pulling it out from under him. Rector’s heart nearly stopped.

  “Sorry; I’m sorry,” Huey said. “Get up, Rector. Get up! We have to…” And then he stopped talking.

  The thing was very close; they could feel it more than they could hear it—the nearness of something unfamiliar and large, its existence pressing against their fear like a tangible force. It shoved against their chests, and stuffed up the filters in their masks. Neither one of them could breathe anymore except in short, horrified bursts that fogged their visors and gave them scarcely enough oxygen to keep from passing out.

  The inexplicable—for what else could it be?—circled them and sniffed, always that disgusting sniffing as he tried to smell something other than the Blight. He homed in on them awkwardly, uncertainly. When he was within a few feet (ten feet? twenty?), someone shouted.

  “Over here!”

  The call was loud—almost as loud as the inexplicable’s roar. The call was accompanied by footsteps. Big, solid, certain ones.

  “Captain!” Houjin barked, though where he’d found the energy or breath to holler even that one word, Rector would never know.

  “Huey? And Rector, I expect,” Andan Cly added. “You two—run.”

  The inexplicable turned. They heard him pivot on his feet, seeking this new speaker.

  “Captain, no—”

  “Make for the Sizemore House!” he commanded.

  Easier said than done, Rector said, or that’s what he would’ve said if he could’ve said anything at all. So it was just as well that he was too stunned to do much more than stagger to his feet, which scarcely held him up.

  A moment of silence.

  Another scraping scuff of some large foot, someplace in the foggy air.

  Rector looked down at his hands and saw that his borrowed gloves were pocked with holes and his knuckles were oozing red. Everything smarted, including his knees, now that he had a moment to notice it.

  He should’ve noticed the puff of the inexplicable breathing, and the sordid, sticky sound of his lungs working against the Blight as he approached. The inexplicable had made up his mind. Two small things, or one big thing. He’d take his chances with the littler opponents.

  Rector knew it, but he couldn’t do anything about it. He could hardly stand, and could hardly tell that Huey’s grip on his forearm was now a grip on his sleeve. Huey’s fingers twisted into the fabric, securing their grip, but he was tired, too. Could either of them run?

  “Run!” the captain ordered again—a shout that shook even the inexplicable, who paused for a brief moment and turned back again. His long arms swam against the air. He was uncertain of Cly, but the boys were within its reach.

  The Blight wavered, pushed aside or blown that way by circumstance, and Rector caught a glimpse of the thing’s yellow-gold eyes surrounded by black. They flinched, squinted, and focused on Rector’s vivid red hair, which no doubt showed brighter than anything around it, a patch of color searing through the washed-out city air.

  The inexplicable surged forward, his leathery, hairy hand snapping out in a move so fast Rector might not have seen it in broad daylight in the Outskirts … and then it snapped back. It retreated violently, immediately—and without meaning to. Even in the soupy atmosphere, Rector could see that much.

  Something had him by the throat. Something hauled him backwards.

  Someone.

  “Captain!” Huey shouted, and the big man tumbled with the inexplicable in tow, locked against him—one long arm winched around the thing’s throat. The white flutter of his shirtsleeve flashed through the viscous air and Rector watched it, following the action with mute fascination.

  “Go!” the captain replied in a muffled, frenzied grunt, but Houjin wouldn’t have it.

  The boy scrambled forward. Briefly Rector thought, Jesus Christ, what’s he going to do?—a thought that Houjin caught up with just in time to keep him from getting within grabbing distance. He tripped over himself, hesitated, and leaned back to get out of range.

  “You heard the man!” Rector said, reaching forward and taking Houjin by the shoulder. “Let’s go!”

  “Do it!” Cly ordered.

  As Rector staggered up to his proper footing, he hauled Huey with him until they were both upright, but neither could take their eyes off the weird ballet that flickered through the gas.

  The inexplicable’s preposterous, hairy limbs swayed and stretched, grabbing for purchase. His feet turned, his body doing an uneven pirouette as he fought against the weight of the man who held him. The man was a true giant, but still not as big as this thing in the mist. He had the inexplicable by the neck, but his grip was being shaken, battered, and knocked free. Still, the lanky heft of his body held the thing back from the boys, just far enough that his hands couldn’t grab them.

  The inexplicable shook himself like a wet dog. Once, twice, a third time.

  And the captain fell backwards with a crunching smash into something just out of sight. His feet stuck up from wherever he’d landed, but only for the briefest of moments. With a leap he was up again, and coming again—a massive, bald shape in a gas mask and suspenders. Not quite a match for the thing in front of him. Rector knew that in a heartbeat … the very same heartbeat that caught in his mouth when the glittering amber eyes of the sasquatch streaked from left to right, judging his attacker. They s
hot through the bleak, uncertain air like two small fireworks.

  They flashed and were gone, and a stomping leap launched the creature somewhere else.

  In the span of a few long strides of the creature’s scrambling retreat, the city was quiet again, sullen and empty even of the rotter moans and bird calls that usually scratched across every stone.

  Captain Andan Cly let his torso fall forward. He put his hands upon the top of his knees, hung his head a moment, and worked hard to breathe. Huey ran to his side, fretting about a bloody smear on the back of the captain’s head, but Cly waved the young engineer away. “It’s all right. I’m fine. It’s the filters—you know how it goes. Let me … let me get some air.”

  “What happened?” Rector wanted to know. “How did you find us?”

  After another ten seconds of deeply drawn gulps of air, he said. “Didn’t find you. Didn’t know you were here. Found it. We were doing low trainers, checking that new thruster. The damn thing jumped up and grabbed us.” He shook his head, stretched his shoulders, and stood up straight again. “Goddamn, it must outweigh me by a hundred pounds, and I’m no slouch.”

  Houjin agreed, “No sir, absolutely not.”

  “I opened the bay door to see what we’d picked up, and there it was. There he was,” he said, a marvel in his words. “There he was, hanging there like a kid from a tree house. I swear to God, there he was.”

  It took the Naamah Darling less than half an hour to find the lot of them, and a fraction of that time to return everyone to Fort Decatur, just for now. The captain wanted to visit Mercy Lynch to see about the big, hard gash in the back of his head. Houjin could scarcely contain himself for worry, and he couldn’t be stopped from recounting the fight to everyone who’d sit still long enough to listen, so he came, too.

  And Rector … well, Rector’d had enough excitement for one day.

  He went back to his room, because it was his room, and he could sleep there if he wanted to.

  Twenty-four

  The trip to the northern quadrant of the walled city was getting easier for Rector by virtue of familiarity; but the next morning it still took nearly an hour for him and Houjin to reach the gas-filled, fog-obscured blocks near Millionaire’s Row on Capitol Hill.