by Devon Monk
His heavy-lidded eyes made him look like a sleepy cat. His hair was parted in the middle and combed down straight so it fell just above his dark eyes. His skin was iron-deficient white. He wore a T-shirt, the edge of which showed an image of an octopus with a piece of candy in seven tentacles and a gun in the eighth.
He sat forward a bit, adjusted something, then leaned back. Welton might look like a man with no ambition, but that wasn’t true. He was easily a match for my brother’s brilliance and was the youngest person ever to take over the position of head of House—in his case, the house that ruled technology.
“This won’t be traced, so you don’t have to worry. Matilda, you little devil, you. Digging around in files you have no right to be digging in. I do hope you found what you wanted. But if not, you’ll see I’ve cleared a path for you. Be quick about it. You’re welcome.
“Abraham, you have no idea the amazing shit storm you touched off. It’s . . .” He shook his head and then chuckled. “Oh, it is so good. Well, not good. But all the simmering, nice-nice backstabbing and bribery rules the Houses have been playing by for the past decade or so—gone. It is bare-knuckled business going on right now. You should have seen John Black when he stopped in to try to arrest Foster. It was . . . well, I’ll get to that. Most of the business the Houses are focused on is how to hunt you down and kill you.”
“Tell us something we don’t know,” Left Ned muttered.
I shushed him.
“Here are the basics: House Blue and House Red are locked in a struggle of who can yell the loudest and make the other Houses follow them. Hollis Gray has stepped up to take over House Gray, and he’s siding with House Red, who, if you asked me, is the House that put the hit on Oscar Gray to get Hollis into that position, though only the devil knows why.
“Speaking of the devil, Reeves Silver claims his galvanized, Helen, killed Oscar Gray without his knowledge. Reeves, as we all know, is full of shit. He has a bet on every side of the board and deals in the works with every House. I’m sure he’ll come out of this on the rising tide, no matter what fresh hell we land in.
“House Orange . . . that’s a little more troubling.” He paused. “They say you walked into Slater Orange’s bedroom and shot him in the head, Abe. If you did indeed do that, let me be the first person to thank you. Slater was a power-hungry, masochistic prick and the world is a better place without him.
“But I gotta tell you, buddy: killing a head of a House wasn’t your smartest move. House Black has issued orders to lock up all the galvanized until you turn yourself in. You know John Black and Oscar were close. He’s taking his death at Helen’s hands as you might expect: guns and grenades and assassins. Domek, interestingly enough, wasn’t his hire. I believe House Orange put that hit on you, which means your galvanized buddy, Robert, is out for your blood. You might want to cross him off your Christmas-card list.
“The rest of the Houses are waiting for John Black to bring you in. Alive or dead-ish—they don’t care. Most of them—Green, White, Violet—are waiting to see where the more powerful Houses align before setting their allegiances in the matter. Gideon Violet intends to keep Clara, his galvanized, under lock and key himself. He considers her innocent until your sin is declared a burden to be borne by all galvanized. And I don’t think any of the Houses have the balls to argue with House Religion about its moral stance.”
He laughed again, then clapped his hands together once. “Priceless. All right. So what you really need to know is that House Orange’s galvanized, Robert, is acting as head of that House, with Reeves Silver’s backing. It is a very strange coincidence that all the likely inheritors of House Orange died in the past three years or so. There’s a poor ten-year-old kid who has the most direct bloodline tie to the recently deceased Slater Orange, but because of his age, it puts into motion a lot of archaic rules of House succession that will take months to sort out.
“Robert seems to have learned very well from Slater over the years, which is a pity. I always liked Robert, and it’s a shame to see his temporary moment of power turning him into a dick.
“Kansas, which is where I assume you are going, will be tricky. I’ve done what I can from my side to scramble data on your whereabouts. John Black will fry my nuts if he ever finds out what I did to half his scout team.
“Anyway, I want you to know something. I’m stepping down from head of House Yellow. I’m going to put my cousin Libra in my place, which should set off another bout of confusion among the Houses. Really wish I could be here to see it, but, you know.” He shrugged one thin shoulder. “I’ll have to catch it on the newsreels.”
“What else?” He stared at the ceiling for a moment, ticking off fingers one at a time. “Houses. John, Robert, Reeves, Gideon, me . . .” He was silent a second. “Oh yes. I think there’s something going on with the basic physics of the world. Time, specifically. The instruments in some of my . . . research centers—”
Quinten snorted.
I threw him a look. He just shook his head and pointed at the screen.
“—are kicking off readings that are very exciting. And odd. If Quinten Case is still with you, tell him I owe him a bottle of booze. He was right.”
Everyone looked over at Quinten, who was frowning at the screen.
“So, this isn’t good-bye,” Welton said. “This is just a short farewell. I’ll do what I can on my side to clear your way before I leave my station here. That is, assuming I am right about where your path is leading you. Oh, who are we kidding? I’m always right.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Until we meet again: good luck, and for fuck’s sake, delete this message.”
The screen went blank. I stared at it, then hit DELETE. The screen reset to the original display, except for a line of numbers rolling across the bottom.
“There’s something wrong with time?” Gloria asked.
Quinten nodded. “Very wrong.”
“Out with it,” Left Ned said. “What does Welton know?”
“I spent a year with House Yellow.” Quinten pressed his fingertips against his mouth, as if thinking through his time there.
“Welton Yellow wanted to know where my research was taking me. I never told him what I was looking for. I keep all my notes in my head. There is no paper trail, and I always vary my research with other random searches and reading. So, it was . . . impressive when he asked me what project I was really working on. Even more impressive when he guessed it was the Wings of Mercury experiment.”
“The rumors and history of that experiment are a hobby of his,” Abraham said. “He’s been fascinated by it for years.”
“So,” I asked, “what did he mean when he said you’re right?”
“I assume he means that I’m right about the time event closing in.” Quinten dug two fingers into his shirt pocket and pulled out the pocketwatch Reeves Silver had given me as proof that my brother was alive. It was an old family heirloom handed down from elder Case men to younger Case men.
He thumbed the edge of it and held the watch carefully while twisting the cover. He turned it toward us. The face of the watch was not a watch at all. It was a disk of softly glowing liquid in which five arcs were slowly converging on a central point.
I’d seen something very similar to that down in the basement of our farmhouse.
“That’s like the timetable you set up, isn’t it?” I asked.
“It is.”
“Is it counting down the seconds we have left?” I asked.
“Roughly,” he said.
“Is this any more accurate?” I turned the screen. A long line of numbers counted down there, while a second, shorter set of numbers counted up. I was no math genius, but even I could see that both those numbers were aiming toward a zero point.
“Welton,” Quinten breathed. “He really is . . . thorough, isn’t he? May I?”
I handed him the screen.
“What, exactly, are you hacking into?” Gloria asked.
Everyone looked over at me. I shrugged and re
gretted it. My arm still hurt.
“Matilda.” Quinten pulled his gaze away from the screen. “Who were you hacking?”
“Robert Twelfth.”
Quinten straightened, and I could see his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “Why?” he breathed.
I almost shrugged again but caught myself. “You implanted Slater Orange into Robert’s mind,” I said as evenly as I could. Even so, Abraham’s shoulders tightened and he clenched both hands into fists.
“He forced you to do it,” I said, “but he must have been planning it for a long time. At least as long as he held you prisoner. You told me he had Grandma’s journal.”
“I think he lied about that,” Quinten said.
“Or maybe not,” I said. “I think he’s thought this through. All the possibilities of his immortality and how to keep it. Now that he’s wearing the body of Robert Twelfth, he might not have access into Slater Orange’s most personal, valuable files.”
“You think he copied it.” Quinten perked up a little, his eyes shifting, as if he could read something in my gaze.
“I would have. Wouldn’t you?” I said simply.
“Yes,” Quinten agreed. “I would have.” He handed me the screen. “Welton said to be quick.”
“Right.” I opened the screen again, and was amazed to get a signal. “Let’s see what’s what.” I tapped back into my crawler and whistled. “Nice.” I didn’t know how Welton had opened up a channel straight into Robert’s files, but I wasn’t going to sit around enjoying the scenery. I set the crawler on a new route, sending it straight into the depth of Robert’s files.
“How long?” Gloria asked.
“Until what?” I said.
“Until you find the copy?”
I glanced at the estimation of data that would need to be crunched and felt my stomach drop. Robert Twelfth had massive archives of data. Massive. Which I suppose wasn’t all that surprising, as he was more than three hundred years old.
I scrubbed my way out, leaving the crawler inside the archives, doing its work.
“I’ll need a few hours,” I said. “Or more. But I’ll find it. I’ll find it in time.”
Abraham stood, his arm pressed over his stomach, and stepped over to lie down on his cot.
Quinten was watching me. I don’t think he believed me either.
“Want to make a bet on it, brother?” I asked with a smile I did not feel.
He just shook his head. “No. I believe you.”
“Good. Because I’m not wrong. So,” I said, “does anyone know what Welton meant about Kansas? Sallyo’s waiting for us there, right?” I asked Neds.
“Sallyo?” Gloria asked, startled. “You aren’t really taking us to her, are you?”
Left Ned shrugged. “We need fast and we need discreet. Sallyo does both.”
“Why does everyone jump when that woman’s name is mentioned?” I asked.
“She’s practically a legend,” Gloria said.
“What kind of legend?” I asked.
“You haven’t heard of her?” she asked.
“No.”
“She’s been supplying House Brown with drugs while undercutting House Silver—and any other House, every chance she got—for years,” Gloria said.
“There’s another thing I would like to have known,” I said, giving Neds a look.
“Can’t believe there’s a person who hasn’t heard of her,” Left Ned muttered. “It’s not my problem you’re uninformed.”
“She does everything necessary to keep her deals quiet,” Gloria said.
Right Ned was holding my gaze. I could guess just exactly what everything necessary meant.
“She kills the people who talk?” I asked.
“No,” Right Ned said. “Killing’s too kind for her. One strike and your nearest dearest get their throats slit and eyes scooped out. And the rest of them are sent to your doorstep in little brown boxes tied up with string.”
“Lovely.” I took the water and swallowed some down. “So, why does she owe you favors, Neds Harris?”
Gloria was quiet, eating the last bit of the bread from her sandwich and watching Neds.
“We have . . . history,” Left Ned said, an echo of sorrow in his voice that I’d never heard before.
I raised my eyebrows, waiting for the rest of that story, but neither of them spoke. From the look in Right Ned’s soft blue eyes, I knew there was something more wrapped up in that favor. Regret. Maybe loneliness.
I wanted to ask him more, ask him what his relationship to Sallyo really was, but this train car was neither the place nor the time for me to be digging in my friend’s painful past.
Neds stood and made a noisy spectacle of stretching. “I’m gonna get some shut-eye,” Left Ned said, dropping back down into the chair by the wall. “Oh, and just to bring everyone up to speed, Slip will likely try to kill us when we set foot off his train.”
Terrific. As if we didn’t have enough problems.
“What other supplies did you get?” I asked Quinten, who was rummaging through the duffel.
“Some painkillers for you.” He handed me a bottle. “Take three. Also bandages and blankets.” He held up several silver rectangles about the size of a deck of cards. “That’s all we had time for. I’m sorry we couldn’t find any clothes for you or Abraham.”
“No, that’s fine. That’s a lot,” I said, “especially the painkillers. Are you sure they’re okay?”
“Yes.”
I popped three in my mouth, swallowed them down. “How did you pay for everything?”
He stopped rummaging, glanced up at me and then away. “The charm bracelet.”
I suddenly knew why he had paused when looking through the duffel earlier. That had been Mom’s bracelet. I’d packed it for my trip to House Gray, maybe as a memento, maybe as a valuable item I could barter with.
Quinten hadn’t seen it in years. I’d found it in Grandma’s things only a couple years ago.
“Pure silver, some nice little diamonds, and the heart charm was a nice-sized ruby,” he said, as if listing quality real estate. “Unmarked. Easy to break up or melt down. Valuable.”
“Quinten, I’m sorry.”
“No. It was smart of you to pack it.” He finally looked over at me. There was old, familiar pain in his expression. “Besides, she would have been proud of how practical you were,” he said. “You know how she wasn’t one for frippery.”
“True,” I said. Although I suppose that made the charm bracelet all the more rare and sentimental. It was one of the only pieces of jewelry she ever wore, and she was always delighted when Dad found or made an new charm for it.
“Maybe you should get some rest,” I said, squeezing his arm gently.
“I’m not the one who was shot,” he said. “Give me the screen. I’ll let you know if anything pings.”
I hesitated.
“You might be a better hacker, but it doesn’t take any special skill to stare at a screen,” he said with a wry smile.
“You’ll wake me?” I asked, holding out the screen but not letting it go yet.
“Yes.”
“Promise.”
“I swear by all my swearables.” He said it with a straight face, but it was something we used to say to each other as children.
“You’d better.” I let go of the screen.
He settled back in his chair, his foot propped on the duffel.
“Matilda?” Abraham said softly from where he’d been lying on the cot.
He shifted onto his side, his back against the wall. That opened up a sliver of room on the cot next to him. He lay there, his hand in that empty space, offering it to me.
End of the world, right? A girl who was running out of time shouldn’t waste a single moment.
I walked over and lay on my good side, my back pressed against him, his arms wrapped around me. It felt safe. Warm.
“Do you think we’ll make it home in time?” I asked him quietly.
“Yes,” he li
ed.
It was nice of him.
I closed my eyes, inhaled the smoke and spice scent of him, and wished this, right here, would last forever.
17
I don’t care what the others said. This is my fight too.
—from the diary of E. N. D.
Abraham and I stood shoulder to shoulder, waiting for the door to open. Abraham carried my revolver with our remaining bullets, and I had two little glass bottles full of something Quinten told me not to shake too hard.
The latch clacked and the seal popped. Then the door slid to one side.
Slip stepped back a pace and narrowed his eyes at Abraham and me. The bruise from Abraham throwing him against the wall was black and red and spread up over his jaw and cheek and down beneath his collar.
“Don’t get in our way,” I suggested.
He paused, his hand on the gun in his thigh holster. That was such a bad choice.
“Back down now, while you’re still breathing,” Abraham said.
Slip’s eyes were wide with anger.
“Get out,” he croaked. Sounded like his throat was nothing but raw meat on the inside. “Get the hell off my train.”
I stepped out first, scanning the platform. If there were assassins staring us down, I’d never spot them in the throng of people crowding the place.
Abraham stepped out next, and then Neds followed, with Quinten and Gloria behind him.
“If I ever see you again,” Slip said to Neds, “I will kill you.”
Ned reached out and patted Slip on the shoulder as he walked past him. “I can’t say it’s been good doing business with you, Slip.”
Slip pushed out from under his hand and stormed off, yelling at someone from his crew.
So far, it didn’t appear that he had turned us in for the reward on our heads. That was something, at least.
The station at San Diego had been a faded beauty, but the station here had long gone to seed. Patchwork and cobbled, the walls were covered in faded canvas posters, behind which we could see brick, metal, concrete, and rotted wood. The staircases that lead upward on either end of the platform were missing several steps and looked like they’d tumble down if a hard breeze hit them.
