by Gwynn White
“You ready for a midnight run?”
“You know it, baby.”
“Okay.” Jazz slipped on a pair of leather goggles and fastened a safety strap across his chest. “You better put yours on too.”
A concussion blast ignited midair ahead of them, causing the glider to rock.
“Anytime,” Abby said. “Hey, I don’t have a belt. What do you need those goggles for?”
“I don’t have a belt back here either,” Leta said from the rear.
“Right,” Jazz said into the rearview mirror. “Well, hold on then.” His thumb vibrated above the console. “Four, three—”
Another concussion blew overhead then another beside them, then the glider burst forward, sucking Abby back into the curve of his seat, pulling his gut deep. The craft hummed, vibrated, then shook. The ziggurat windows to the side, a series of rapid dots a second before, were now an indistinguishable streak of light. Abby clenched his jaw to stop his teeth from chattering. He looked to his side. Jazz wore an ear-to-ear toothy grin.
“Are you crazy?” Abby yelled, barely able to hear himself above the vibration.
Jazz held up a single index finger and tapped away at the console. The heavy vibration receded to a dull hum. Abby stretched, moving his lower jaw side to side.
“You okay back there?” Jazz asked into the mirror.
Leta’s reply was faint. “Yeah. Why haven’t we hit anything?”
“Don’t worry,” Abby said in a disapproving tone. He rolled his eyes at Jazz. “If we come too close to the side of the ziggurat, the proximity stabilizers will kick in.”
“Yeah,” Jazz said. “That would be true. If there were any to kick in.”
“What do you mean?”
“The modifications I made. I took them out to increase the boost tenfold. Works pretty swell, don’t cha think?” He tapped the console and the glider accelerated even faster, this time with only a slight bump in the interior compartment and none of the vibration. “Does the same thing faster.”
“Are those interceptors still back there?”
“If they are, they’re way back. You’d have to be crazy to fly this fast through here.” Jazz smiled widely once more. “We’ll lose them after this turn for sure.”
“What turn?” No sooner had Abby asked than the face of a ziggurat appeared. “You have to slow down.”
“Relax. You’re really too uptight. Get ready, Dexy.” Jazz twisted the yoke then gently eased to the side of his seat. The glider began a slow spin to the side, correcting and going in a forward direction again at an almost perfect right angle from the one they had been flying.
“That was pretty good,” Abby said. Through the entire turn, he’d been squeezing the side of his seat with one fist and the end of the dash with the other.
“I’ve been practicing. Here’s another one.” Again Jazz twisted the yoke, this time the opposite way, and this time eased to the other side of the seat. The glider again began a slow spin to the side. This time, however, the glider didn’t correct, and as the wall drew closer, the glider continued to spin, flying with the same momentum toward the face of the ziggurat.
Abby sunk deep into the bucket of the seat. “Jaaazz.”
Jazz’s hand flew across the console as the spin of the glider increased in speed.
“Jazz,” Abby said again, louder. “We’re spinning.”
“What’s happening?” Leta yelled, the centrifugal force pinning her to the side of the compartment.
“I thought you said you’ve been practicing,” Abby yelled.
“I did. This never came up. Dexy, what’s wrong?”
“Jazzy, I’m sorry, dear. My side thruster seems to have been jarred by that last concussion.”
“Isn’t there anything you can do?”
“Sorry, Jazzy.”
Outside of the canopy, the immense mountain of a ziggurat flashed by, twenty meters closer with every rotation, closing in at a hundred meters. Eighty, sixty, forty, twenty. The two old friends turned to each other and screamed.
40
Abruptly, the screaming ceased, but from Dexy’s stereo, a French serenade played on. There was no collision, no slam and disintegration against the side of the mountainous ziggurat, no explosive end to the black chromium glider and her passengers.
The craft continued to spin. Before the canopy, a field of blackness gave way to billowing clouds of deep silver. Abby instantly recognized the hue of the new night sky. He shifted his gaze upward to still the blur, then let his eyes shoot upward to meet an immovable huge disc. The great moon. The one he’d seen when he and Leta had jumped just hours before.
A quiver, far different from the familiar boost of DMT, flooded his system in a sudden full-body rush. His eyes darted down to his fist, still clutching the side of the dash. The bright muscle tissue was already dissolving, revealing the iridescent webbing beneath.
This time he was aware of the subtle tingling, no, ripping, of the flesh.
This time, the fuchsia and pink swarm appeared to quicken then ignite into the glowing vapor rather than fade.
Other things were the same. The same euphoria returned, racing up his neck to his skull in a wave then out through his body in a series of warm gushing waves, a force of every emotion. The music wasn’t the same, the music was what Dexy had been playing, the sweet saxophone, the singer, French, a song of love. Again, snapshots sped into his mind, except this time before he became caught up, he turned them off, and this time he focused on his awareness of Leta and Jazz. He could sense them in a way he’d never sensed anything. His eyes darted toward what had been, or what truly was, Jazz. In the glider’s driver’s seat, the ethereal form of a being, not a mortal, slowly scanned the webbing of his own arms as they turned to vapor. Abby tilted around toward the back of the craft. Leta was in her ethereal form, floating above the small cocktail bar, no longer pulled by the centrifugal force. Around her, the glider began to fade as well.
Abby peered down. Far below was the same city he and Leta were above before, except this time they weren’t falling. They were at the southern tip of the island hurtling toward the harbor. If that was the Meg, the glider had gone the length of the island in a matter of seconds.
The last time, earlier in the evening, the trip was brief.
Abby raised his head. The ethereal Jazz, no longer serene, was frantically waving the arms he’d been inspecting seconds before. Words filled Abby’s head, like the chin chip, except purely in Jazz’s voice. What just happened?
Abby answered without speaking. I’ll explain later. Then he added. Just pull up. We need to be clear before we get back.
Jazz didn’t grab for the yoke. Rather, he continued to wave his translucent tangerine and pink forearms between the two. Fuko, what happened to us? To me?
Pull up, Abby repeated.
Jazz stopped waving his arms and held them before where his face had been.
Abby didn’t wait for Jazz to realize that they were going to rematerialize, and that when they did, they were in danger of materializing in the center of a ziggurat. There was no way Jazz could know. Abby himself was confused by what was happening. Twice didn’t make him an expert. Fortunately, the surge that had so warmly filled him infused a confidence that, along with the experience of having gone through a jump once before, allowed him to focus on survival. He reached past his friend, grabbed the yoke, and pulled.
The spin slowed.
The wide disc of the moon slid to the nose of the glider, surrounded by a million tiny points of brilliant light. Another surge flooded him with the sight of the stars. He thought hard to capture the moment, the image of the night. He’d only seen the stars on other planes, never in the Homeland. If this was his sky, even from a different time, he wanted to know.
Thoughts of the Homeland flooded his mind in a series of rapid-fire still images. Images more visceral than visual, the rancid aroma of the mist of the Low, the illumination of the Bubble, the throngs of the populace.
A thick milky cloud materialized, enveloped the craft. The white pillow hugged all sides of the translucent glider, a murky swirl of light and shadow hiding the moon and the stars.
Where are we? came Jazz’s voice.
I don’t know, replied Abby.
Abby’s body felt constricted, no longer euphoric. Something else replaced the warmth that was flooding him—a fear, a horror. Wherever they were, they shouldn’t be. From the billows of the milky mist, a shadowy form abruptly appeared. Jagged stalactites, the mouth of a cavern, collapsing. Abby’s mind raced. No, not collapsing. No, those were teeth, the mouth of a gaping jaw, a mammoth jaw, a behemoth of a creature hidden in the mist. The jaws slammed down toward them, another quiver, another full-bodied rush, and the mist was gone, replaced by the no-longer-translucent console. The only view to the outside that remained was through the canopy, and beyond the canopy was the low ceiling of the NorEast Meg skyscape.
The skyscape of the Alpha Plane, the Homeland.
41
The console whirred. Digital dials spun then stabilized.
“Are you okay, Dexy?” Jazz was speaking aloud, not into Abby’s head, and he was back in mortal form.
“I’m fine, Jazzy. Why do you ask?”
“No reason. Slip us into a lane. We’re going to—”
Leta interrupted from the back. “The Bureau.”
“The Bureau,” Jazz said.
The glider slid down and into a lane heading back uptown.
Jazz eased back into his bucket seat. He stretched his arms to his sides, tilted his head either way as he did, then in a flash of realization, pulled his forearms to his front. “That’s nuts,” he said. “We just jumped to—” He paused and stared out of the canopy for a few long seconds. “Where did we just jump?”
“The Meg, I think,” Abby said, “and then someplace else.”
“To another plane? How’s that? That was another plane. We shifted past the spectrum right to the next plane. Was that the next plane? We jumped to another plane.”
“No, yes,” Abby said. He wobbled his head. “I don’t know, really. It was the Meg. Twenty-first, maybe twentieth century, I think.” He recalled the stars. Here in the Homeland, he could access historic data, sky maps. The sky had been late twentieth century.
“Merdo, you could’ve killed us,” Jazz said. He slapped Abby’s belly with the palm of his hand, then frisked him. “Where’s the quant?”
“No quant,” Abby said, shoving his hands away.
From the back seat, Leta said, “No quant.”
Jazz spun toward her. “Hey,” he said, adjusting the rearview, “how come you’re not freaking out?”
Leta was silent.
Jazz shook his index finger toward the mirror. “You knew about this?”
“And you didn’t?”
“Whaddaya mean? Nobody can do this. Unless you get one of those Jaspers Bronson was talking about, I guess. I’ve never seen anybody bounce out without a quant, and what was with all of the glowy glowy?”
“I don’t know,” Abby said.
Jazz slapped his hands on the yoke. “Woot! Buddy! No wonder they’re looking for you. Who else knows about this?”
“Yeah,” Leta asked. “Who else?”
“No one,” Abby said.
“Hey,” Jazz said. “Quants are iffy. How’d you know?”
“I did the math.”
“You said that before,” Leta said.
Jazz added, “And your timing. Perfect. We were almost paste.”
“I just—”
“So did I,” Leta said. “Saw the wall coming. Mortals can’t do that.”
Jazz slapped his hand onto Abby’s shoulder. “Well,” he said, “this one can.” Jazz reached up to scratch behind his ear, pulled his hand up to inspect his fingers, then went back to scratching. “So why are we going to the Bureau? You know we can’t say much about what happened at the Marquis, and I don’t expect Abby will pick up any protection.”
Abby tilted his head back. “I want to get back to Arcadia. Before the trail goes cold.”
“We’ll need reinforcements,” Leta said. “Director Lin can get them for us.”
Abby and Jazz shared a knowing glance.
“Have you even tried to explain?” Jazz asked.
“Sort of,” said Abby.
“You know,” Jazz raised his voice toward the back again, “that’s not a bad idea.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Abby asked.
“Well. I see it like this. You have a price on your head and you’re as good as dead if you try to get back to the Low, and now, I’m not feeling so comfortable myself. The only choice we have is to go to Arcadia, muscle your Elite into telling us where to find a Maro general turned syndicate boss, then take out said boss and possibly the entire clan of Arden Mortuus before we can go on with our day-to-day endeavors without fretting over getting sliced up at dinner. That about right?”
Abby sucked a gulp down his throat. “You make everything sound not so simple.”
“Yeah. I think any help we can pick up from Yun would be dandy.”
Abby nodded his head.
“Unless you want to go this alone?” Jazz added.
Abby didn’t bother to answer. Jazz was right, they should ask. The job belonged to Yun to begin with. But this was a case of being careful what you asked for. There weren’t many Bureau Boys left, and a corrupt new school Bureau shmuck could just as easily deliver them to Valon on a tray. Bureau help wasn’t always something you wanted.
42
The agents moving about the hangar all appeared to be the same age as Abby and Jazz—young. Abby’s mother had mimicked the slogan from the adverts when she received her mod. “Age is only skin deep,” she’d said to him. “If you look young, you are young.” He knew better. Except today he certainly didn’t feel anywhere near the fatigue he had in, well, decades. He felt as young as the day he first entered the hangar, or at least the early days of serving in the Bureau, and along with that energy he felt the same trepidation. As he and Jazz sauntered across the front of the limo, the passing black uniformed agents—each a handsome carbon copy of the other—nodded with the same confident, knowing smile.
The tightening in his chest, the short breaths, the repetitive returned nods were a bit more than Abby had expected.
Missing his fedora, he kept lifting his hand to pull at the hair that draped from his brow or to shield his mouth from a passing agent as the two of them spoke.
“Is it just me?” he asked Jazz.
“The uniforms,” Jazz said.
Abby nodded. “We’re not wearing uniforms.”
“That means rank.”
They nodded at the next passing agent. Despite his unease, neither had reason to hide in the Bureau, this was another building in the Meg where, somewhere, Abernathy Squire’s portrait hung alongside all of the original Bureau Boys. Still, the two clung close, huddled anachronisms, as the agents of a newer generation moved about the hangar around them.
Abby was relieved when the side hatch of the glider opened and Leta stepped out to join them. The new Bureau was her element and he was far more comfortable with her leading the way.
“Ironic,” Jazz said.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Somehow that uniform of yours is suddenly a bit…” He curled his lip. “I dunno, dressed down.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” she said, pressing past him.
Abby fell in behind her. Though he hadn’t been in the hangar in decades, he’d spent a good portion of his life following the same blue line along the floor. The same emblems were painted in the same places on the same walls. The monitor stations, small glass kiosks, appeared no different. All was the same, fresh paint for the wall and the line on the floor.
He wondered how many times they’d been repainted.
The cruisers parked in long rows across the ziggurat were all new models. Several models had come and gone.
The motto on the wall was
new, though not the words, they were the same. It was the font that was new, faster, wider, tilted: To Watch, Serve, and Protect.
He felt the jitter of a cadet. Perhaps the words triggered a tactile sensation, he wasn’t sure. Either way, his belly fluttered.
Crossing the threshold of the hangar into the offices of the Bureau was a trip he’d made countless times, but one he’d not made in years. Before he entered the corridor, his gaze was pulled to the Bureau poster framed at the side of the door. This poster, one of the many that peppered the Low, pictured two agents, a man and a woman in body-hugging leather, standing together on a rock, waving the golden key banner. Printed in glowing letters across the top and bottom, the unofficial motto of the Bureau We’re fighting to secure your Freedom… in the Homeland… and the Planes Beyond.
He remembered when the posters had the words Join the Fight printed across the bottom. That was before the Bureau became an invite-only operation.
The Bureau offices and hangar were separated by ten meters of solid stacked granite. The Bureau HQ was a bunker, as was every other Bureau office in the Homeland. The entrance the three accessed was a narrow corridor that rose at a forty-five-degree incline, a multipurpose architecture designed as both a blast gate to the heavily fortified Bureau and the housing of an invasive sensor array. In the event an explosive were to somehow find its way into a cruiser and past the outer sensor field, the device, compound, or individual would be neutralized within the thin shaft. As the three strutted up the hall, rays of rapidly fanning light crisscrossed the entirety of their bodies. Inlaid panels along the walls illuminated with flashes of three-dimensional physical contours of their bodies, skeletons, and weapons. Rectangles blinked red above images of their weapons then upon verification of the agent’s identification switched to green in a fast cascade, ending at the ruby-lined doorframe. The doorframe at the end of the corridor faded to a deep emerald then flared to a bright green. They were authorized to enter.
Abby sucked in a lung full of Bureau air. His chest popped forward. The great white hall of the Bureau proper sent a shiver across his shoulder blades. The feeling of being a cadet passed, a mere transient sensation. As much as he despised parts of his past, there were parts he’d loved. There was adoration for the great hall before him, the huge banners, the swarms of agents, all now in white, and the knowledge that every doorway would flash emerald for him. He was home in a way that he wasn’t at home in the Low, a different home. “Once a Bureau Boy, always a Bureau Boy,” was what Yun had said, and maybe there was some truth to that.
