She laughed again, and her hands gripped her legs, the nails digging into the orange fabric as she spoke the next few words, her head tilting slightly to the side as a crooked smile spread across her face.
“Go on, set them free. See what happens, see if you can contain them. They’re such good citizens.”
Then she stood, walking towards the camera until her palms were against the glass, and she started shouting, but the words were only slightly louder as they passed through the robotic filter.
“Set them free! Set them free!”
The video froze as it ended, leaving Siri with her mouth half open, her expression a mix of glee and rage. Roland turned back towards us, adjusting his badge and rolling his shoulders as he spoke.
“She’s been in solitary since she arrived—what you hear is coming from one-way speakers. Even the guards can’t communicate with her, unless she knows sign language, and we reviewed the tapes to reveal nothing of the sort. What this means is that there’s no possible way that she could have received intelligence of the Silver Tongue disappearance—yet somehow she knows that people like her are missing. Which means that whatever they’re doing, they planned it before she was taken in.”
“Or in case she was taken in,” I said. “It could be a plan B.”
“As a contingency,” Arial agreed, nodding. “Maybe they just need someone to replace her at the academy.”
“Like I said earlier, swapping one of these new recruits out for Siri would be like trading a blowtorch for a matchstick,” said Roland, his eyes still on the frozen monitor, studying Siri. “It just doesn’t make sense, and putting one of them in the open at an academy would be like a beacon for my officers. That’s more probable cause than they could give me on a platter. Again, makes absolutely no sense. What I want to know from you is if you ever overheard anything at the academy, any sort of plan or location where they might be keeping the Silver Tongues?”
One by one, we shook our heads, with Slugger the first to speak.
“We weren’t exactly privy to that information,” he said. “And we weren’t in the popular crew either. That Blake bloke you let scatter off, he might know. He was in the inner circle, you see. We were the peons, the little guys.”
“We didn’t let Blake free. Lacit let Blake free,” corrected Roland. “And before you say he was a police officer, I know. Our hands were tied. Blaming that on me isn’t going to help the situation.”
“How come that hasn’t happened with Siri yet?” I asked. “If she has enough friends near the top, why hasn’t she been set free?”
“Her kind prefers to move in the shadows,” answered Roland, and turned off his monitor. “That’s their strength. Out in the open, where they can be caught, they can be removed. They wouldn’t try anything nearly as risky as a prison break. But Blake—Blake was in a juvenile facility, he was a minor. His escape flew under the radar. If anything, it might even be classified as a successful reintegration into society.”
“Well, if you can get ahold of any of the other Uppers, it might be worthwhile to question them,” I said as we stood to leave. “Until then, you know where to find us.”
“Or you don’t, eh?” said Slugger with a wink.
“And we still need to negotiate prices Don’t think I’ve forgotten,” added Lucio. “Proper wages.”
“Results first,” warned Roland. “Then we can talk.”
We left the same way we had come, and as we passed the room of cubicles, an officer’s eyes met mine for a split second. Recognition flashed across her face as she froze, her one hand still mashing down the keys on the keyboard, her chair turned in a half spin. I nudged the door shut as we continued walking, giving us a few precious extra seconds to reach the street.
And despite her superhuman speed, by the time Larissa’s head poked outside the exit to confirm if our apparition had been only her imagination, the hallway was empty.
Chapter 18
Ennia leaned towards the open portal door, placing her pinkies in her mouth and blasting an ear-splitting whistle into the Amazon. In the distance, a roar answered, and a speck rose above the cliff face, rapidly growing in size with each beat of orange wings. With a snarl, Lilac’s padded feet touched down on the cliff, and in two bounds, she reached the portal, barreling through at full speed.
Catching her was like snagging a fast ball from a pitcher, relying on instinct rather than thought. My forearm muscles clenched as my hands formed fists, and I altered the gravitational potential on each side of the portal with dizzying speed, more like a rocket than an elevator. Lilac burst through just as I equivalated them, blasting a flurry of snow and frost into the subway from the minor potential difference, with icicles clinging to the tips of her fur.
“Next time, can you get her to slow down?” I asked, panting as Lilac circled Ennia, shaking off the slush.
“She’s just excited to see me,” Ennia replied. “Besides, how else will you learn to think quickly? Firefighting is an essential skill.”
“When I accidentally turn your tiger to seared steak, we’ll see,” I answered.
“You won’t,” Ennia said simply. “Lilac trusts you, which means I trust you.”
I shook my head, marveling as she walked away to collect her pack, and the others arrived carrying their own. Earlier, I’d given the order to prepare, while sending Arial to the library to print out false permission forms for my mother. In the early hours of tomorrow morning, we would leave. And now, I was searching for our destination among the labyrinth of options in Peregrine’s machine, using their onlooking opinions as my only guide.
“Alright,” said Lucio, spreading out ten books on the floor that Arial had retrieved from the library. “I’ve got the pictures ready! Scenes are set.”
Each was a travel guide, flipped open to a different country, displaying the scenery off regions from around the globe. But compared to the size of the world, their information seemed meager—Peregrine’s tunnels could have a destination of anywhere, and with the books, we’d be guessing at best.
“We’ll need to start by heading east,” directed Arial, and she pulled out a compass, laying it on a map she spread on the floor by me, then pointed off through one of the static portals. “Which is right that way. Can you just feel along in that direction?”
“I’ll try,” I answered. “They twist and turn, but we’ll see. Lucio, I need you prepared to cast some memories in case we barge into anywhere by accident. And Slugger, probably wouldn’t hurt to be carrying a big stick.”
“Always a pleasure. You know I like clubbin,” said Slugger, and he picked up his favorite weapon, a monkey wrench the size of his arm he had found deep in the subway tunnels. But the way he maneuvered it, swinging it back and forth with effortless twitches of his wrist, it might as well have been a whiffle ball bat.
“Preparing the first door,” I announced, reaching out to the inner workings of Peregrine’s machine. “Without Lola’s guidance, we could end up anywhere. And in one, two, three!”
Peregrine’s machine, Lola had explained, was stabilized due to its rooting between our own world and the world of Transients, the other side. These worlds exhibited a duality, a balance, and by manipulating that balance, stabilities could be achieved. It was how, Lola had said, her own grandmother was over a thousand years old—and it was how Peregrine, using methods unknown to us, had managed to solidify his power long after his own death, creating a switchboard of sorts for teleportation. A labyrinth of dark tunnels straddling realities, that branched as they extended, reaching hundreds of spots around the globe.
It was also linked, she had said, to how powers existed between us. That when we were born, the forces that kept the other side and our own world balanced left their mark upon us, changing our essence to match themselves.
And now, I connected Peregrine’s tunnels to the portal door in front of us, in the vague direction of Europe. Instead, ocean extended far in front of us without end, and a short beach circled around the bac
k of the door. Two palm trees swayed, and the remains of an old sailboat lay cracked in half a dozen yards into the waves. In the distance, a water spout rose into the air off the back of a whale and seagulls chattered.
“Now that is a tiny island,” exclaimed Lucio. “But we could go to the beach here whenever we want! It’s our own vacation spot, a private resort!”
“Not as private as you think, according to the evidence,” said Ennia, her eyes on the bottom left of the door, where a skeleton hand stretched out along the sand.
“I’m thinking he didn’t have a door out, and that was his sailboat,” I said as Lucio leapt backwards, shouting for me to close it. I pushed farther along the tunnel, assuming that it was somewhere in the Atlantic, and I still had hundreds of miles to go. The portal flashed, and instead of ocean, an enormous bell filled the door. Windows surrounded it on every side, the enclosure extended upwards, and I could just hear a clicking as I saw a set of gears turning.
“Oh, this is London!” exclaimed Arial, peering through. “Big Ben! We’re inside it. I can see the Thames through that window.”
“I think if this were across the ocean, Arial, you wouldn’t recognize James and Ben from all the way up a window,” said Lucio.
“*Thames*,” Slugger said, while Arial rolled her eyes. “Not even worth explaining. Alright, SC, move in that direction. I’m thinkin we’re getting closer.”
The portal flashed again, and again, revealing a set of scenes that slowly narrowed inwards. We saw the Mediterranean from above a lighthouse, Paris from a beam on the Eiffel Tower, and an old pub with patrons so drunk that the emerging portal failed to disturb them. And after three more tries, with Arial flipping through the reference books to recognize the clock tower of Prague and mosques of Istanbul, we arrived, as the expanse of the Roman Colosseum opened wide before us.
Chapter 19
“I, for one, petition that all future trips be this close to our destination,” said Lucio as we finished inspecting the section of the coliseum the portal led to. “Remember the Amazon? We walked miles to find a city, then miles more just to get to the hotel! You’re welcome for paying for that hotel, by the way, not that anyone thanked me.”
“Paying?” Arial scoffed, brushing off some dirt that had tracked on the side of her shirt from brushing against the wall. “You mean stealing?”
“Right, but I stole it, so I provided it. You still owe me for it,” said Lucio, sticking out his chest and his tongue simultaneously. “You’re welcome.”
“Just like this money, after I forced you to return that camera you lifted,” I said, and slapped an envelope stuffed full of cash against the side of the colosseum wall. “We’re lucky the shop owner bought that you fixed it, instead of realizing that you just tricked him in the first place.”
“Even gave us an extra hundred bucks for that, so again, you’re welcome.” Lucio said, then peered over the edge of the arch that led into the center, careful to avoid the crumbling floor near the edge. We were on the fourth story, in an alcove just large enough for all of us to fit laying down with our packs piled in the corner. In front of us the walls of stretched away in a circle, the ruins at this height looking as if they might crumble at any moment, and the city of Rome visible just beyond. The corridor leading to our alcove was barricaded away from the general tourists that milled around two stories below, so we’d need to use Slugger’s weight-altering abilities or Arial’s flight to travel to and from the room. But other than that, we had everything we would need—quick access to food and supplies back home, a place to sleep, and a quick exit if necessary.
“So now that we’re here, what’s the plan?” asked Slugger. “Barge into Italy and start shoutin for Silver Tongues until she pops out of the sidewalk cracks like a daisy? The sun won’t be waitin for us to set, will it?”
“First we find the target,” I said, looking over the city. “Which shouldn’t be too hard, if she is as famous as Roland says. She’s one of the few Silver Tongues left, so if the Instructors are going to capture her, it will be soon. We catch them in the act, then we tail them back and figure out what they’re up to.”
“So we just let them nab her, eh?” Slugger asked, and I nodded.
“Yes, we do,” I said as Arial whipped around, her face furious, and I cut her off before she could speak. “Look, last time we tried to stop them, it didn’t work. They had the element of surprise and caught us off guard. That was for the daughter of a pizza chef, this is a celebrity. I can guarantee you that they’ll come with more firepower. Even if we stop them once, they can keep trying, and eventually, we’ll lose. But if we let them catch her in a controlled manner, well, we can piece together what’s happening.”
“And if she gets hurt?” Arial demanded. “Or they do terrible things to her?”
“Then they’re doing the same to dozens more like her,” I said. “We need to save them all, not just one. There’s a good chance she’ll lead us back to the Instructors, and we’ll pull this out by the root, not the leaves.”
“And what if we lose her again? What then?” asked Arial, still trying to brush the dirt off her side while glaring at me, Lucio stepping away from her.
“Then we pack as hard of a punch as we can before they go,” I answered. “Look, we need to be strategic here. We can’t just keep beating them to every Silver Tongue. Arial, even if we protect half of them, think about how many we lose. Are you prepared for that?”
Pain showed in her flattened eyebrows, and my gut wrenched as the memory of Amelia came to my mind. But we had to fight to win, not just to stave the Instructors off. After a moment, Arial backed down, shaking her head and leaving the dirt stain on her shirt.
“I’m not happy about it either,” I said, then addressed the group. “Now, let’s get moving. Slugger, can you make us all light?”
“Done and done, lad. That part’s easy,” he said, extending out his hands.
“You stay here, Lilac,” Ennia said to Lilac, pressing down on her nose with a finger before walking over to clasp hands with us, the tiger’s ears flattening across her head. “I left you water, and we’ll go out when it’s dark. Besides, tigers and coliseums have a history. Connect with your essence.”
Then our weight was wicked away as we turned light, absorbed by Slugger’s power as he remained the only one among us to keep his mass. For though he could alter the weight of objects around him, his own body could not be affected through his power.
“Ennia, relax,” instructed Slugger, his hands still clasped in ours. “Power won’t work unless you have some faith.”
“I’m trying,” she said. “I’d just much rather take Lilac down. I have empirical evidence that would work.”
“Out of the question, can’t have a flying tiger out in daylight,” I said as she closed her eyes, nodding.
“Close enough,” Slugger said, and Arial stepped forwards, hooking her arms under his armpits.
“Hold on tight,” she said. “We’ve only got to go one story. SC, are we clear?”
Peering over the edge, I saw a tour group turn around a corner on the far side, with only a single straggler near us. “Lucio,” I said, nudging him and pointing. “Got him covered?”
“The ole dropped car keys trick,” Lucio said, narrowing his eyes in concentration as the man started frantically panting his pockets, then took off down the stairs. “You’re good!”
Slugger led us forwards at a trot, taking three brisk steps towards the edge, then out into open space. Arial strained as we jumped behind him, her power of flight the only force keeping us upright. Holding on to us like a bent daisy chain, she rapidly lowered us downwards, Ennia’s and Lucio’s feet touching first at the edges. At this speed, it seemed more like falling than flying, requiring a full crouch upon landing to avoid snapping an ankle against the hard coliseum stone. Then we stood, dusting each other off, and adopted the slow walk of dazed tourists in the hot sun as we followed the exit signs, double checking that we had not been seen. In a few min
utes, we reached the street, filled with concessions and massive crowds all vying for the perfect spot to take a picture. Lucio pulled a face as we passed by one couple just in front of the gates, joining their picture just before the camera flashed, before his head spun on his shoulders and his nose tilted into the air.
“SC,” he demanded, holding out his hand with his eyes glued to a small shop two streets down, the smell wafting over the rest of us. “I provided the cash. Now it’s your turn to provide the pizza.”
Chapter 20
We stopped at a cafe, ordering several slices each and planning to ask for information.
“We’re looking for someone,” I said, leaning over the counter. “An actress named Francesca? We’re in town a few days looking for autographs.”
She looked us over, scoffing before gesturing, and shouting something in Italian to the cook in the back, who peered over the edge of the counter to laugh.
“You and the thousands of other tourists,” she replied, her English surprisingly good. “Head on that way. Remus opera house; you can’t miss the signs.”
“See, this is why I had us prepare costumes last time,” said Lucio, destroying his slice in three bites and speaking with his mouth full. “Maybe you should put me back in charge of plans again so we can blend in.”
“There’s enough tourists here that we could look like chimpanzees and fit in,” said Arial, moving her shoe just in time to miss a splotch of tomato sauce falling from Lucio’s pizza, barely keeping it stainless. “Far less expectations that way than pretending to be locals.”
We continued walking, moving deeper into the city, the crowds carrying us along like a current. We passed a restoration of an old church, teams of Timebackers and Diffusers scurrying over it like ants, leaving trails of gleaming marble behind where it had been chipped and dull only moments before. Both powers were local to the region—Timebackers, with the ability to anti-age, though the effects were purely ascetic. Born near sites of artifacts and art restorations paired with olive fields used for oil, Timebackers often frequented beauty shops, offering to remove wrinkles and lines —but the effect caused aging to occur more quickly in the long term, requiring their customers to return more and more often like an addiction. Diffusers bore the power to spread materials like butter and were often known for their art—creating sculptures ranging in materials from wood to steel molded by their bare hands and often born in areas with high clay concentrations. Together, these teams were particularly effective at restorations. The Diffuser served their part in making materials stretch over cracks or fixing uneven surfaces, while the Timebacker would bring back its luster from the dead. That is, until the next year, when both would have to return.
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