by Steve Rzasa
Winch’s heart was somewhere south of his boots. “My notes. They’re gone.”
“Don’t be so gloomy.” Cope clapped Oneyear on the shoulder. “Relieve his anxiety, will you?”
Oneyear pulled something up into view.
“That’s your bag, Cope. What about it?” Winch frowned.
“Yes. Oh!” Jesca rubbed her forehead. “That was where I tucked your notepad. Just before we were discovered by the guards last night.”
Winch exhaled. “And the plates…?”
“None the worse for wear.” Oneyear handed back the notepad, which Winch accepted gratefully. “We can develop them back at the bookstore. We’re only a few blocks away.”
“Huh. Glad you have this all planned out.” Cope grinned.
“Someone had to have a plan,” Oneyear said casually. “And you gents didn’t seem up to it.”
“Don’t sass.” Cope turned them onto a side street. “And how to do I get back to the bookstore from here, by the by?”
“The far end of Joyce Lane. Next right-hand turn.”
“Lovely.” Cope glanced back. “And speaking of lovely, I hope you’re well and not mistreated, Jesca?”
Jesca grimaced. “I am. The Peace Branch inspectors were of the rough sort—but Winch took care of me.”
“Oh, he did, huh?” Cope’s bravado faded.
Winch blushed and occupied himself with reviewing his notes.
Cope turned the motorwagon onto Joyce Lane. Immediately Winch spotted a new problem. “Um, Cope?”
“Yes. I see them.” Cope swore. He slowed the motorwagon to a halt.
Jesca craned her neck. “Unwanted company?”
Winch nodded. “Two Peace Branch cars, a few blocks away. They look to be parked in front of Lock’s Book & Print.”
Oneyear sighed heavily. “So much for my arrangement with Franz Taube.”
“He likely decided to change the arrangement when he figured out who Winch was,” Cope said. “He also probably didn’t count on getting a rifle butt to the chin as part of the deal.” Cope drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Well. This poses a dilemma. I was really keen on taking you up on your hospitality, Oneyear, until we can get out of town.”
“Sorry I can’t oblige.” Oneyear looked over his shoulder. “Ideas?”
“We cannot return to the Primrose,” Jesca said. “Peace Branch has men stationed there. We heard so last night. If my cover has been blown, it will no longer be safe for me—and definitely not for any of you.”
“And I don’t have many acquaintances who welcome trouble,” Oneyear said gloomily.
Trouble. That was an understatement. Winch thought immediately of Lysanne and her nickname for him. If only she had some relatives here—her folk were from southern Galderica. Or if Cope had friends…
That stopped Winch’s train of thought cold. Cope did have a friend. Just not here. Winch dug into his rucksack.
“Uh, Winch?” Cope turned around in his seat. “Do you have something to contribute?”
“Wait. Get us off this street now. Please.” Where was it?
“All right.” Cope put the motorwagon into reverse and backed them onto a side road. “Anywhere in particular?”
Oneyear pointed. “Take us down Herold Street. It leads back out to Haupt Avenue. Hospitality Row should be getting well crowded by now.”
Winch ignored them. Ah. He pulled the map of Trestleway out. “Miss? Please unfold this.”
Jesca complied. The map crinkled as she spread a portion over her lap. “Here we are—the Old City.”
“Good. Now…yes! Here it is.” He handled the blue handkerchief gingerly. The gold traceries gleamed. That dragon looked to be smiling at him. Winch unfolded the cloth and revealed the red glass.
“Well, now.” Cope was uncharacteristically somber. “You’ve been keeping something from me.”
Winch met his eyes. “Sorry. Your friend Maddy asked me not to speak of it.”
“What is it?”
“I’m not sure, but I’ve a notion…” The motorwagon hit a rut in the road. Winch’s elbow jostled Jesca. “Sorry!”
“It’s all right.” She smiled kindly back at him and rubbed her arm. “It doesn’t hurt as badly.”
Winch blinked, and cleared his throat. “Oh. Ah, good.”
“The map?” Jesca asked.
“Right. The map.” He hoped to Thel he wasn’t still blushing. Winch held the glass over the map and peered through it. His eyes widened. “Great skies.”
“What?” Cope tried to look and swerved.
“For goodness’ sake, Cope, pull over!” Jesca snapped.
“Yes, dear,” Cope said with a smirk.
Winch waited until they parked. Then he took the map from Jesca. “Maddy said we could find help here. Well…watch.”
Winch slid the glass over the close-up map of the Old City.
Names appeared. At least three. Each one was printed, in some of the tiniest type Winch had ever seen, above an address. They barely fit into the blank squares of the city blocks.
Oneyear whistled low.
“That’s some wings.” Cope rubbed his chin. “So Maddy has some fellows she trusts here. That helps.”
“It certainly does.” Winch noticed that the glass also magnified a bit. “Which one is closest to us?”
Jesca peered over his shoulder. Winch tried to lean away, but the motorwagon door was in his way. “This one,” she said. “Two-Twenty-Two West Commonwealth. It’s a tavern, if I recall.”
“It says here ‘Saburo Sakei.’ Would that be the owner?”
“I don’t know.”
“If it’s on this map, and if Maddy told you we could find help, then the man must be trustworthy,” Cope said firmly.
“That’s an awful lot to assume,” Jesca said.
“I don’t know this Maddy any better than the next fella walking down Hospitality Row,” Oneyear said. “I’m not include to go running to some name she wrote on a map.”
“Anything’s better than staying parked here, twiddling our thumbs.” Cope glanced out the motorwagon. “We’re drawing attention of the unwanted variety.”
“So what should we do next?” Jesca looked at him expectantly.
Winch saw the same expectation in Cope’s face. They were relying on him…for what? The answer? The plan? Since when had he been considered the captain of their little army? Yet there it was.
He’d best not let them down.
Winch took a deep breath. There was one thing to accomplish first. “Jesca, do you have a way of communicating discretely with the Governor-General?”
“Uncle Jonas? Of course.” Jesca smiled slowly. “I think I see where you’re taking us.”
Winch returned the smile. “To the nearest telegraphy office, I should think.”
“Wait.” Cope frowned. “I thought you said we shouldn’t attempt to telegraph.”
“Yes, but there’s little choice now,” Jesca said. “We should send the message, in case we’re unable to get out of the city, even if the lines are being monitored. We’ll have to hope that my uncle’s code can keep our message safe.”
“I agree,” Winch said. “Cope, you heard Jesca.”
“Yes, thanks.” Cope settled back into his seat and cranked down on a lever. “Let’s all recall who’s driving, shall we?”
• • •
Cope let the motorwagon glide silently to a halt in front of the telegraphy building, a small stone structure at a narrow intersection by the canal on the east side of the Old City. A woman in a sunny yellow dress, along with a rather crestfallen balding man, hurried out the door just as he parked. Winch did a quiet survey of the street—a few motorwagons sputtered here and there, but it was nowhere near as busy as the part of the city they’d just left.
“So then…” Cope adjusted his cap. “What’s your preference?”
Oneyear chuckled. “Quickly and sternly. With a bit of brute force.”
“Good man.” Cope opened the
motorwagon door. “I knew you couldn’t be dissuaded.”
Their entourage entered a mostly vacant office. The three benches were empty, save for one befuddled older man who squinted through smudged spectacles at them. A doughy clerk with red cheeks and bushy brown hair scowled from behind the counter. Rows of telegraph machines clattered in the background, where two young women in identical blue dresses sat. Wide open windows let in a warm but pleasant breeze, plus ample light by which they could read the tele-type messages coming over the wire.
“Can I assist you, gentlemen?” The clerk sounded to Winch as if he’d rather throw them out.
Winch straightened his clothing—which was rumpled from when he’d been tied up and beaten—and put on his most serious fatherly expression. “We’re here on official business and need use of your tele-types. It’s a matter of Trestleway’s internal security.”
“I see.” The clerk’s beady eyes flicked to Cope and Oneyear’s uniforms. “Militia business?”
“Peace Branch, my good man.” Winch tried for haughty. Did Cope roll his eyes?
By now the two women at the tele-typers ignored their work. The clerk drew himself up to his full height—which brought him woefully beneath Cope’s chin. “Then I’ll see your badge, sir.”
“Got the badge right here, sir.” Oneyear brandished his carbine and leaned heavily on the last “sir.”
The clerk’s eyebrows leapt up. His stern countenance melted into one of pale shock. “Rusted spikes! There’s no need for weaponry!”
“Then comply, fella.” Cope leveled his Rattler pistol at the man’s chest.
Oneyear swiveled to face the old man on the bench. “Office is closed, sir.”
The man adjusted his glasses and smiled. “Good day!” he said in a shrill voice as he left.
Jesca shut the door and adjusted the curtains across the windows in the lobby. Cope kept his face on the clerk, but gestured beyond the women to a pair of doors flanking the tele-typers. “What’s back there?”
“One is the washroom. The other is a locked supply closet—rolls of paper, inks, machine parts.”
“Huh. We’ll have you join the ladies in the supply closet, then.” Cope waved his gun. “Give me your keys.”
“You’re no Peace Branch!”
“Astute fella, aren’t you?” Cope cocked the lever. “Closet. Now.”
The clerk fumbled with a ring of keys dangling from his belt. He held them out, his hand shaking so much it sounded like he was playing a tambourine. “The…the silver one.”
Cope found the key. “Thanks, kindly. Now, in you go.”
“Sir! I am a married man!”
“Then behave yourself.” Cope opened the door to a dark and rather dusty closet. He gave the clerk a shove betwixt the shoulder blades. Cope turned on his flashiest grin for the women, who stared in astonishment. “Ladies, if you’d please…?”
They trundled into the closet. But the second woman turned abruptly and slapped Cope hard on the cheek. “Brute!”
Cope slammed the door shut. He locked it and rubbed his cheek with the palm of his hand. “I don’t reckon I deserved that.”
Jesca gave him a peck on the wounded surface. “Of course not. You were rather chivalrous, locking them in a closet in the dark.”
Cope made a face.
Winch found one tele-typer that was silent. “This one looks like it will do. Jesca?”
“I’ll compose the message quickly. Please guard the entrance.” She sat down in front of the tele-typer. A pad of paper lay on the wooden table, along with a pencil and several neatly organized strips of paper.
Oneyear positioned himself to one side of the door, his carbine ready. Cope took to pacing across the lobby, twirling his pistol on his index finger. Winch couldn’t watch that for long—his mind conjured up horrid fantasies of the gun going off and Cope shooting himself in the foot. He busied himself by watching Jesca, who had produced a small brass disc from somewhere on her person. “I didn’t see you carry in a purse,” he said.
Jesca raised an eyebrow. “Who needs a purse?”
“Oh.” Winch blushed furiously.
“But I do need your help. What does your wife call you?”
“Excuse me?”
Cope snorted. Winch shot him a dirty look.
“She must have a pet name for you,” Jesca said. “Come along, I don’t have the entire morning.”
Winch frowned. He didn’t see how that was any of her business…
“‘Trouble,’” Cope said. “She calls him ‘Trouble.’”
Winch groaned and rubbed his face with the heel of his hand.
“Good. I needed a key.” Jesca turned the little wheel nimbly with her left hand as her right scribbled out a message in code. Her eyes darted from disc to paper and back again like a hummingbird in the brambles.
“Why Lysanne’s name for me?” Winch folded his arms.
“Because I fear that it won’t be safe to send this directly to Uncle Jonas.” Jesca’s eyes stayed fastened to her work.
“Then why risk interception over the wires?”
Jesca sighed. “Because we cannot wait to hand-deliver your notes to Perch. We have to warn them about the invasion army, Winch. And we have to do so now.”
Winch nodded slowly. She was right, of course. Even flying, it would take hours to get back to Perch—assuming they could get Cope’s biplane out of the aerodrome. He glanced at Cope: He was still pacing, still twirling his gun. He appeared supremely confident.
If only.
“Notes. I need your notes.” Jesca tapped her pencil expectantly on the table.
Winch fumbled for his notepad. He flipped the pages. “Which?”
“The dates for this action. What did Ehrlichmann say? Oh, I wrote it down with these very fingers, and it’s slipped from me.” Jesca rubbed her eyes.
“Ah…here.” Winch found the page. Jesca’s flowing handwriting stood out in his pages of scrawl like an orchid among ferns. “Early morning Sunday. And remember the part about Condor’s action? That was from their earlier conversation—the one we heard underground. It made it sound like Condor was someone in Perch, someone deceiving them, who was in on some kind of incitement to violence.”
“Good.” Jesca continued her scribbling.
Cope ambled over to them. “Are we finished?”
“Patience.” She spun the disc and continued through a few more lines. Finally she set the pencil down and sagged against the chair. “There. I have it. Winch, be so good as to set the outgoing switch to the Perch wire.”
“All right.” Winch found the relay box, a wood-framed collection of levels and labels mounted on the wall near the still-clattering outgoing tele-typers. Under the “Outgoing” sign were the names of several city-states and a few more names Winch figured had to be locations in Trestleway. Yes—there was one for a hotel he’d seen on Hospitality Row, and there was the switch for the Peace Branch headquarters. Winch found the large breaker for Perch and threw it.
The gears on Jesca’s tele-typer rattled to life, adding to the cacophony from the others. “Good. Now, let me be for a bit.” Jesca’s fingers danced across the keyboard.
Cope joined Winch again. He holstered his gun, much to Winch’s relief. “Is that really necessary, for her to send it to Lysanne?”
“Not to Lysanne,” Jesca answered before Winch could speak. “To Gil Davies, editor of the Perch Gazette, and ‘trouble columnist Lysanne.’”
“But Gil wouldn’t have another cipher wheel hanging around, even if he did see the sense in the code.” Cope raised an eyebrow. “Would he?”
“No,” Winch said. “You don’t see Gil as subtle enough to be a spy, do you?”
Cope chuckled. “Good note.”
“But he’ll know enough to contact your wife, Winch, and enough to contact the mayor-general,” Jesca said. There was that schoolteacher’s tone again.
“Don’t worry, Cope,” Winch said. “It will work.”
“Hate to bre
ak up the doh-see-doh, gents,” Oneyear said softly. He peered through the blinds, one finger crooked between them. “But that old man we showed the exit? Well, he has acquired some acquaintances.”
Winch brushed by Cope as they both hustled to his side. “Those other men? They aren’t police, are they?”
Oneyear pursed his lips. “Look a mite doughy ’round the middle for Peace Branch,” he said. “Probably merchants.”
One of the men seemed to look intently toward the office. Winch backed from the window. Then the man scurried off down the street. The old man continued talking to the others around him. His smile never wavered. He gesticulated firmly.
“Branter dung.” Cope made a sour face. “I knew I should have trussed him up with the rest. Jesca, are you through?”
Her constant typing ceased. “Almost was, until you provided interruption.”
“Then get the engines running, sweetheart, or you’ll be back in your lovely cell.” Cope checked the cartridges in his gun. “Oneyear, get the motorwagon ready. And act all official-like in case the neighbors become too nosy.”
Oneyear slipped out the door. Winch was impressed by the glare he summoned. He started up the motorwagon’s engine. The people across the street started walking away from the telegraphy office. Oneyear posted himself by the driver’s side entrance of the motorwagon and rested his carbine over one shoulder. “He plays a good soldier,” Winch said.
“He is helpful, but I’d rather we had our own platoon.” Cope fidgeted with his gun. “Really, Jesca…”
“Finished.” She snatched up her disc and the notepad on which she’d scribbled the coded message. She hurried between Cope and Winch to the door. Her red hair blasted by like the flare of a rocket. “Whenever you’re ready, boys…”
Cope stood there, face blank. Then a grin spread. “You see, Winch? I told you she’s grand.”
“You can exchange love letters with her when we’re all safely away.” Winch gave him a push. “Get to the motorwagon.”
They crossed the street under the gaze of the old man and the merchants and piled back in to the vehicle. Winch ducked his head—no sign of any authorities. Yet.
Oneyear drove this time. They made it to West Commonwealth, which turned out to be in the northern end of the Old City. It was a quiet street—Winch counted only three motorwagons and a cart drawn by diprotodon as Oneyear drove slowly down the road.
