by Devon Monk
I was glad it was dark and foggy and that the dock was secluded. But security cameras could be anywhere. We needed to be gone fast.
Quinten took the driver’s seat, a stocking cap on his head, covering his curls. He was already rolling away from the dock before I got the side door closed.
Neds rode in the back, sitting on the floor next to Abraham. I decided that might be a good place for me to stay out of sight too.
“Gloria’s?” Quinten asked.
“End of the world, she’d be top of my list of safe harbors,” I said. I didn’t know why he had to ask me. He’d spent time with her. I’d never even met her in person.
“I think,” he said, “well, it may be an end of the world, but there could be a fix. We can fix it. Us Cases. You and I. That’s what I need to tell you. I think I know how. Brilliant, actually, but we don’t have all the pieces yet, so there are some challenges involved.”
“Pieces to fix Abraham?” I asked. “Or save the world?”
“No.” He glanced up in the rearview mirror, and I wasn’t sure quite how much sanity shone behind his eyes. “Time. We need to fix time.” The way he said it made me feel like I was a second-grader who hadn’t learned to count yet.
“We can do that? Fix time?”
“I think . . . yes.”
Impossible? Probably. But, then, it wouldn’t be the first impossible thing my brother had done. I was living proof of that.
“All right,” I said, “We’ll fix time. But first we need to get to Gloria’s for Abraham, right?”
“Yes,” he said. “Of course, yes.” He turned his attention back to the foggy road, taking us away from the harbor and toward Newport Avenue.
I stared at his reflection in the rearview mirror. He carried a tightness around his eyes, and in every line of his body, really. As if he expected something to jump out at him from each dark corner we passed. I just hoped captivity hadn’t rattled his brain too hard. It had been three years since I’d seen him, and his imprisonment could not have been easy.
Gloria’s place was about thirty minutes away, a squat, square building crammed between an antiques shop and a restaurant space that constantly rotated through owners, unable to stay in business long enough for the new layer of paint to dry.
The faded sign above her shop windows said she sold books and odds and ends. While I knew she did do that, she also had one of the most advanced secret medical facilities known only to House Brown beneath her shop. We made sure it remained secret and advanced by sending her monetary support, equipment, and tech whenever we could get our hands on it.
Because of that and Gloria’s skills, a lot of people in House Brown had received care the other Houses would never have provided.
I’d never been here, but several years ago, Quinten had spent a year working with Gloria, learning basic and maybe even some advanced doctoring from her.
He’d never told me why he’d decided to leave her tutelage. That was not long after our parents had died, when he had been intent on absorbing the best on-the-road education House Brown could scrape together for him.
He parked the van back behind the shop. “I think this is bad . . . well, not the worst idea,” Quinten said, “but it might not be a good idea.”
“Fixing time?” I asked.
“No.” He frowned at me and shook his head slightly as if he couldn’t understand why I wasn’t following his mental leaps. “Coming to Gloria,” he said. “She’s . . .”
His voice faded and his eyes went distant.
This was no time for him to check out.
“She’s what, Quinten?” I asked.
He shook his head again, and this time his eyes cleared. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. We do have wounded, and some of us are House Brown. All right. Stay here a second. I’ll make sure she wants to see us.”
He got out of the van, and Neds and I sat in silence a bit, the engine ticking off heat in the cooler air of the night.
“This might be a strange question,” Left Ned said. “But how much do you trust your brother?”
“Completely,” I answered truthfully. “Why?”
“Besides I don’t know the man?” Right Ned answered. “He just seems like he’s got an awful lot of things buzzing around in his head and not a lot of it making sense.”
“He’s been gone for three years. A prisoner.” I had to pause so I could swallow down my anger. “Might take him more than one night on the run to pull himself into civilized manners.”
“It’s not the manners so much that bother me,” Left Ned said. “Does he seems . . . right to you?”
“Not to say your brother’s a problem,” Right Ned amended. “We just want to know you think he’s in his right mind. That he’s the same man you could trust when you last saw him three years ago.”
“He is,” I said. “I trust him.”
“Good,” Left Ned said. “Because if I were thinking of turning us in, it’d be here, now that we’ve reached the mainland. And it’d be at a House Brown safe house like Gloria’s.”
“Really, Neds Harris? You were a spy for House Silver.”
Left Ned winced at the tartness of my tone, and I regretted letting the words carry anger. I was tired. I was worried.
Abraham was as near to dying as a galvanized could be. My brother wasn’t wholly himself.
“Ex-spy for House Silver,” Right Ned said quietly.
“I know,” I said, drawing my fingers through my hair. “I’m sorry. I trust you. You did just drag our butts out of the fire. I don’t think any of us should be doubting our motives. We’re pretty much all in this together. Unless you want out, which I’d totally understand.”
“No,” Right Ned said. “My point is that we were spying on you and you trusted us. Just like you trust your brother now.”
“He’s saying you might not be as good a judge of people as you think you are, Tilly,” Left Ned said.
“I got that,” I said.
I stared out at the dark edges of buildings against the night sky, thinking. Quinten had always been a little distracted when he had his head in books too long.
I was used to his nonlinear trains of thought. But he was my brother. He’d done everything in his power to save me when I was hurt and dying as a child. He’d spent his life protecting me. I knew he was easy to laugh, had a hell of a singing voice, and hated losing at board games.
And I knew without a doubt that he loved me and would never betray me.
“No,” I said quietly, “I don’t think I’ve ever trusted anyone like I’ve trusted my brother. I like you, Neds, even after I found out you’d been keeping an eye on me for Reeves Silver. But my brother . . .” I pushed my hair back behind my ear with one hand, the stitches that lined my wrist glowing with mercurial light in the darkness.
“I’ve always trusted him. Looked up to him. He’s a force of genius in my life who never got anything wrong.”
“He got captured and imprisoned,” Left Ned noted. “Not a lot of right about that.”
“I know,” I said. “He’s made mistakes, but morally he’s solid. I still trust him. I always will.”
Neds nodded. “That’s good enough for me,” Right Ned said.
Left Ned didn’t say anything. I was pretty sure he didn’t agree. But it was nice of him not to say so.
And, ultimately, we didn’t need trust. We just needed to save the world.
2
HOUSE ORANGE
Slater Orange knew his enemies, these heads of Houses who gathered in this small, private, fortified chamber. He had once been one of them.
They were mortals who wielded the power of their station, their Houses, and the world. Mortals looking for the key to eternal life—a key he had found.
Slater wore the galvanized body that had once belonged to a servant of his named Robert Twelfth. He was almost used to Robert Twelfth’s stitched body now that it had been carrying his mind, his thoughts, his life for more than a day. And while the body wasn’t born of
House Orange bloodline, it had bestowed upon him the one thing all the other heads of Houses would never be strong enough to claim: immortality.
When he had been Slater, head of House Orange, he had changed the laws that ruled his House. Now the power he had once wielded as the head of House Orange was his, even though the other Heads of Houses thought him to be the lowly galvanized Robert Twelfth.
“This meeting will now come to order,” John Black, House Defense, said.
All the heads of Houses sat at the curved table that edged the chamber, a wall at their back and a clear view of the other people in the room. The heads of Houses had never trusted one another, though they hand in hand and more often knife in back, ruled the world together.
Slater—or Robert, as he must be called now—stood at the other side of the room, four of John Black’s men next to him and unseen laser-locked weapons aimed at his head. He was the enemy here, the other, the galvanized.
But not for long.
His gaze ticked over the gathered: four women and four men. Troi Blue, House Water; Aranda Red, House Power; Kiana White, House Medical; Feye Green, House Agriculture. Troi Blue, who appeared to be twenty but was decades older than that, carried the most power of them all. She looked just as angry and on the edge as the rest of those who were gathered here today.
Of the remaining heads of Houses—Gideon Violet, House Faith; Welton Yellow, House Technology; John Black, House Defense; and Reeves Silver, House Vice—Slater was only remotely concerned about one of them: Reeves Silver.
Reeves Silver was the snake in the apple orchard of this world. He had appeared upset over the killing of Oscar Gray, who had been the head of House Gray, and shocked at the murder of Slater Orange, but Slater knew that was a ruse. Reeves Silver had been making deals, connections, and bribes within the Houses for years on end.
He was, in his own way, positioning himself to rule them all. And only Slater had the brains to see through Reeves Silver’s lies.
He played the stage, patient as a spider, waiting for the strings of his web to tremble with the struggles of his foes. Years of blood stained Reeves Silver’s hands, though he had kept his brutality carefully hidden and blamed on others.
Yet now he sat with all the eyes of the Houses upon him, to hear judgment on the murder of Oscar Gray perpetrated by his galvanized, Helen Eleventh.
That shooting, along with Slater’s own false murder at the hands of Abraham Seventh, had terminated the treaty between the galvanized and the Houses.
To say that the Houses teetered on declaring open war upon each other was not overstating the tension in the room.
Slater had his stake set in that conflict too. He was the only person in position to rule House Orange. He had made sure of that before he was transplanted into the galvanized body.
In time, he would have the power of all the Houses. He would rule and see Reeves Silver deposed, killed, and buried.
“It is clear from the treaty between Houses and galvanized,” John Black continued in his low voice, “that the murders of Oscar Gray and Slater Orange have made said treaty null and void. This leaves us with the decision of punishment. House Black will hear from each House. House Black will also note that House Gold, Money, has exempted itself from these proceedings, citing their noninvolvement in galvanized ownership. House Blue, please begin.”
Troi Blue wore a pale blue dress that made her coal-black skin glow with a youthful sheen. Her hair was braided away from her temples to reveal flawless, innocent features.
Slater knew she presented herself in such a manner to flaunt her manufactured youth, the formulas of which she had bought at heavy cost from House White, Medical.
“It is House Blue’s stance that all galvanized shall remain imprisoned, bodies separated from brains, for fifty years,” she said. “At such time, we shall reassess their use to the Houses.”
“House Red agrees.” Aranda Red, Power, was quick to echo House Blue’s decree, which wasn’t like her. It was no secret that she lusted to replace Troi Blue as the most powerful House leader. Why side with her now?
Slater frowned. He had been perhaps too concerned with getting rid of his disease-riddled body to pay attention to the shifts in allegiances among the Houses this past decade.
“House Silver also agrees,” Reeves Silver said. “With an option to free the galvanized before the end of their sentence if their skills are needed.”
“I agree,” Feye Green said. “House Green agrees,” she amended. “With a further modification. We will allow reassignment of galvanized to the Houses when and if they regain their freedom.”
“Yellow is opposed,” Welton Yellow said. “Just because Reeves Silver’s galvanized shoots someone in the face doesn’t mean all the galvanized have gone crazy. One mistake should not be a debt all the galvanized pay.”
Of course that boy would be opposed to locking up the stitched. He treated his own galvanized, Foster First, as if he were a robot toy built for his amusement. Welton Yellow had never taken ruling his House seriously. Unfortunately, there were very few other members of House Yellow stable enough to be put in charge of all the technology in the world.
“It is how the treaty is written,” John Black said. “If one falls, they all fall.”
“House Faith also opposes galvanized imprisonment,” Gideon Violet said. “And further suggests that we each, as individual Houses, decide and carry out the punishment of the galvanized under our keep.”
That wasn’t a surprise from the head of the House that ruled all faith and faithful activities in the world. Gideon was showing his age, and perhaps his favoritism for Clara Third, the galvanized who had served his House since even before the beginning of the treaty.
“Medical opposes body-removal imprisonment,” Kiana White, head of House Medical, said. “Removing their brains from their bodies will lead to mental instability. If we want the galvanized to remain viable for our use, we will offer them the same imprisonment conditions as humans.”
“House Defense also opposes,” John Black said. “There is language in the treaty that can be argued against a combined sentencing. Which means this decision rests four to four. I move we incarcerate the galvanized in humane prisons while we sort through the matter. We will reconvene on the issue when Houses Gray and Orange are in possession of ruling members to put forth a voice.
“Is there a claimant to House Gray?” John Black asked.
“I claim head of House Gray.” A man stepped forward into the room. Hollis Gray, Oscar Gray’s younger brother.
Slater had seen the smooth-faced, snake-thin man many times and knew, as all the Houses knew, that he had stabbed and slandered his way up the ladder in House Gray, positioning himself to take over when his brother stepped down.
But what Slater had never noticed before was the satisfied smirk Aranda Red hid away at the sight of him. She wanted him in place as head of the House. She might have even been behind Oscar Gray’s killing.
Wasn’t that interesting? He had thought Reeves Silver had killed the soft old man, but perhaps Reeves had been hired to do so.
Reeves did so like a game.
“Hollis Gray,” John Black said. “You are the next in line to succeed House Gray. Are there any objections?”
It was only a perfunctory question. The Houses had long ago decided it was best to let each house choose their own successors. After a moment of silence, John Black continued. “Welcome to the head of House Gray, Hollis Gray.”
Hollis simply nodded once, putting forth a cool smile that did not reach his dark eyes. “It is my honor to fulfill the duties of House Gray,” he said. “All contracts currently in place between Gray and other houses shall remain so for ninety days. After which term they can be negotiated.”
Also standard procedure. Hollis Gray strode to the table and took the empty seat there, next to Gideon Violet.
“Now we must move on to the issue of House Orange rulership,” John Black said. “Robert Twelfth, please step forward.
”
Slater crossed to the center of the room and stood under the gaze of those who had just hours ago been his peers. No: his inferiors. They all thought they were above him now. But they were so very wrong.
“The records of House Orange clearly state Slater Orange intended for you to speak as the head of House Orange. Permanently,” John Black said. “In light of the recent deaths—both Oscar Gray and Slater Orange—at the hands of galvanized, we are reluctant to allow you to stand as head of House, no matter what Slater Orange signed into law.”
“I assure you, I have only the interests of House Orange in mind,” Slater said.
“You have not been asked your opinion,” Troi Blue snapped. “Stay silent until you are asked to speak, galvanized.”
Slater tipped his head down, hoping it might look like obedience, even though he was fuming inside. How dare she speak to him as if he were nothing? He had done something none of them had dreamed to achieve: transferred his mind into a body that would never die.
He was immortal.
Troi Blue and the others would die, no matter how many chemicals they injected to keep their false youth. He was above them. He had always been above them.
John Black continued. “Unless another House wishes to assume the debt and responsibility for Robert Twelfth as head of House, we shall place House Orange and all dealings with and from House Orange on hold until such time as a new head of House is in place. Will anyone stand with Robert Twelfth of House Orange?”
Slater knew the answer to that question. None of the Houses would stand by a galvanized acting in a human role. And yet the law within each House was not within another House’s control. Lawfully, by House Orange laws, he was already head of that House and it was a mockery to think they could take that away from him.
“I will stand with Robert Twelfth.”
Slater turned, surprised, and gazed at Reeves Silver.
The man was lean, tanned, and wore his white hair as a sort of prize, even though he didn’t appear to be much older than thirty. His gaze was unreadable, self-satisfied, and brief, before he turned his full attention to the other heads of Houses.
