by Ioana Visan
Dale would have felt insulted if he hadn’t spent so much time working on the new disguise.
“Okay,” Spinner said, “but she needs to take a bath before I get her into the clean room.” He rolled his eyes when Dale raised an eyebrow. “I’ll ask Cielo to do it. Meanwhile, I’ll wake up Rake. You stay here.” He reached for the prosthetic.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Dale said before Rosie could hiss again and possibly launch herself at the knife thrower.
Spinner blinked at the girl. “Ah, okay … I’ll leave it here then. You guard it for me. I’ll be right back.”
After Spinner left, Dale leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. No effort to make conversation was necessary because Rosie ignored him while she walked around the room, alert to any sound and never fully turning her back to the door.
A few minutes later, Cielo arrived, coming from the corridor leading deeper into the car. The sea-colored top and flowery skirt dancing around her legs looked very different from her working attire.
“Spinner told me I needed to prepare you for surgery.” She walked straight to the little girl and stretched out her hand.
Rosie’s deep brown eyes scanned her, and the young woman’s friendly smile seemed to convince her because she placed her right hand in the open palm.
“We won’t be long,” Cielo said to Dale. “The food quarter is open if you’re hungry.”
He wasn’t. He’d been left with direct orders to guard Rosie’s prosthetic, so he didn’t move. Sometimes he hated his military training.
23
When Cielo and Rosie returned, Dale was surprised to discover that, underneath all the grime, the girl had light brown hair and fairly white skin. The navy dress Cielo had somehow convinced her to wear was not too big for her, revealing Rosie wasn’t underfed, an unusual situation for a child living on the streets.
“We’re ready,” Cielo said. “I had brighter dresses but, when I told her she could keep it, she chose this one.”
Smart kid. Any bright color would make her a target in the streets.
“How long do you think it will take?” Dale asked Cielo.
She glanced at the girl’s hanging wrist. “About an hour. Then another hour for her to wake up.”
Aurore had been right. He was left with two hours to kill. Unfortunately, he was too far from the city to make a trip back worth it, and the fair was closed. Once again, he resigned himself to wait. How long would it take Spinner to wake someone?
Just as he was wondering that, the front door opened and Spinner appeared, followed by Rake. The taller knife thrower wore a grumpy expression and looked like he’d rather go back to sleep than perform any kind of surgery. Dale hoped they couldn’t afford any bad publicity and wouldn’t screw up the job, especially one commissioned by the Golden Lady, but he remained on guard.
Keeping the chatting to a minimum, Spinner plugged in the coffeemaker on a shelf and, when it was ready, poured Rake a cup.
Rake took a sip, twisted his neck to both sides, and settled his still hooded eyes on the “client”. “What’s your name, kid?”
“Rosie,” she answered in a tentative, but clear voice.
“Okay, Rosie,” Spinner said, taking a step closer to the girl. “Let’s get you to the production room and prep you for the procedure.”
“Wait.” Rake raised his cup. “Did you check her teeth?”
“What? Sweetheart, open up.” Spinner bent over to look at Rosie’s mouth.
The girl bared her teeth, but her jaw remained locked.
“Oh, shit!” Spinner drew himself back up in a hurry as if frightened by what he saw. “How long have you had those?” Rosie shrugged. “One year? Two?” Spinner insisted.
“Three.”
“What’s wrong?” Dale asked from his place by the wall.
“The stuff they used to reconstruct her face …” Spinner shook his head. “It reacts to our chemicals. Most likely, the anesthesia will melt half of it off.”
“So you can’t do it?”
“No, we can … We just need to find another approach.”
“Any idea?” Rake asked and drank some more from his cup.
“Well…” Spinner ran both hands over his face. “We could remove the metal parts and prosthetics, fix the hand, then redo her face.”
“Sure, if you want to finish by the time we arrive in Paris,” Rake said.
Spinner grimaced. “Right, it takes too long … We could remove the whole arm, fix the hand, then reattach it. We have about a week left here. It should be enough to make sure everything is in order.”
“And how do you solve the pain problem?” Rake asked. “Do you disconnect her head completely?”
“Hmm … Yeah, too complicated,” Spinner said.
During the silence that fell between them, Dale wondered why the kid didn’t look horrified and start throwing up already. The facial reconstruction must have been a terrible experience for her, making her believe she could survive anything. Maybe she could.
“Okay, the way I see it, we have two options,” Spinner said. “Either we get Nicholas to put her in a light state of hypnosis, or we have the Nightingale sing to—”
“Or we use the menzataxor!” Cielo interjected.
Spinner frowned, then reluctantly nodded. “That might work.”
“And we freeze the arm. She’s too young to use anything else.” Rake put the cup down. “I’ll go and get the cooling system running.”
“Damn, my joints ache each time we use it,” Spinner grumbled to himself. “All right.” He rubbed his hands together. “Cielo, bring the menzataxor while we get her ready. Come with me, little miss.”
Once he picked up the prosthetic and took it away with him, Rose followed Spinner out of the room like a puppy.
“Can you help me bring it here?” Cielo turned to Dale with a shy smile. “The cage is heavy.”
Dale nodded for her to lead the way.
24
“What’s a menzataxor?” Dale asked while they walked along the tracks, heading to a car at the end of the train.
“Oh, there are no words to explain it!” Cielo laughed. “It’s better if you see it for yourself. The menagerie is over there.” She pointed at the yellow car at the end of the train.
“Just one car?” Dale’s eyebrows showed his surprise.
“We had to cut back on regular animals.” Cielo climbed the steps in front and placed her hand on the door. “Times are tough, and the feeding costs were getting too high. What’s left … well, you’ll see…”
The door opened.
Rows of cages spread along the entire car, separated by narrow aisles. Dale didn’t recognize any of the animals, but paws of various colors, shapes, and sizes stretched out to greet Cielo, and she answered with playful tugs.
“Where are the dogs and the monkeys?” he asked. Were those toys by any chance?
“They share the car with their trainers.” Cielo squeezed easily between the cages, proving she’d practiced this many times. “They don’t get along well with these guys. Here it is.” She stopped in front of a rectangular cage made of metal bars doubled by transparent plastic walls. “This is Uffi.”
The creature she called Uffi resembled a horse with a beautiful flowing mane … only the horse was missing. Long tresses of pink, light blue, and shiny white hair swirled around, constantly on the move, hiding an elastic, narrow body the length of a man’s arm underneath.
“I feel pretty dumb here, but how are electric shocks going to help Rosie?” Dale asked after he read the warning attached to the front of the cage. At the same time, part of him wondered whether they were all insane.
“Ignore that.” Cielo waved a hand. “It’s for the public so they keep their hands off. This little guy is the source of a strong hallucinogen. The drug is perfect, with low addiction and toxicity rates. Unfortunately, it’s also impossible to harvest. The only way to get the drug is by touching Uffi, and if we reveal the source
, there’s bound to be someone foolish enough to try and steal it. So we can’t commercialize it. The whole experiment was a bust, but we can’t kill him.” She sighed. “The poor thing loves to be petted and cuddled, but … well, we obviously can’t.”
“You don’t … use it?” Dale detached the clasps that kept the cage connected to the ones around it.
“Did you see the kind of life we live?” Cielo helped him by catching a furry paw that extended towards him from a cage at the right, and gently pushed it back through the bars. “We can’t afford to let our guard down and … be happy!” Her laughter sounded less serene this time. “But if you care to hear colors and chase smiles for a couple hours, be my guest. I’m sure Rosie won’t mind having a playmate. I heard people can even experience the same things.”
Smiling, Dale shook his head and picked up the cage. His muscles strained. It was heavy, but not too heavy for him. With Cielo walking ahead and clearing the way, they made it back to the factory in no time.
“Can we enter?” Cielo asked from the doorway.
“Yes, she’s locked in,” Spinner said. “No need to worry about infection hazard.”
He fussed over Rosie, who sat on a half-reclined armchair. Her left arm disappeared from the shoulder, trapped inside a one-by-one meter rectangular, glass box. Two pairs of gloves built into the box provided access on opposite sides. The frosted wall facing her forced Rosie to look the other way, and her eyes zeroed in on the menzataxor. She tilted her head, a pale smile twisting her lips.
Rake placed a low table at her right and elevated it to her level. He signaled Dale to put the cage there. Leaning over his shoulder, Cielo lifted the glass panel from inside the bars.
“Okay, she knows it will hurt when it’s over,” Spinner said, “but it won’t be too bad.”
Rosie nodded, her gaze fixed on the swirl of colors inside the cage.
“We injected her with the coagulant agent, and now we’re waiting for the freezing to complete,” he told Dale.
Meanwhile, Uffi had pressed himself against the bars and tried to get as much of his fur out as possible. Given the way the fur moved, all that hair wasn’t hair at all, but a mass of long, fine cilia.
A whiff of sweet-scented air reached Dale’s nose, and he blocked his air paths so his system could isolate the toxin before it entered his blood stream. The others continued their work, undisturbed. They had to be used to it since they paid no mind. So it wasn’t the drug.
Rosie’s fingers twitched, but she didn’t dare make any move towards the menzataxor.
“You can touch him,” Cielo said with an encouraging smile. “Uffi loves to be petted.”
Hesitantly, but full of curiosity, Rosie stretched out her right arm and her fingers brushed the cilia. The colors sparkled brighter wherever she touched them, and a low rumble vibrated the cage. Uffi was purring.
Instead of getting a glazed look common for most drug users, Rosie’s entire face lit up. So this was how she looked when she was smiling.
On her other side, Spinner and Rake slid their hands into the long gloves. Rake picked up a needle and pricked the girl’s upper arm. No blood flowed out. “Did you feel anything?”
Rosie shook her head. Her eyes followed something that wasn’t there before returning to Uffi.
“We’re good to go,” Spinner said.
Cielo brought over a chair, and with her elbow propped on the table and her chin in her hand, she watched the interaction between the child and the menzataxor.
From his elevated position, Dale supervised them all. On one side, Rosie played with the manzataxor, chuckling quietly to herself from time to time. On the other side, Rake and Spinner cut the lifeless limb’s wrist open and stripped it bare. Inserting the prosthetic and aligning it with the bones was tedious work, and the entire process lasted forty-five minutes. Dale timed it. Putting everything back together and closing the incision took another half-hour.
“It’s done,” Spinner said with a satisfied grin. “We need to wait for her to defrost so we can test it, but then she can go. I predict a full recovery.”
Rake grunted in approval and removed his hands from the gloves. At his press of a button, the floor of the box loaded with surgical instruments slid out. They collected them and went to clean them in the sink. Rosie was too engrossed with her new pal to notice the time passing.
With Rake’s help, Spinner dismantled the freezing box, releasing Rosie’s arm, and then Rake gave her another shot. Several moments later, her little finger twitched. The tiny, metal clasps holding the skin together looked better than stitches, but there was an eeriness to them.
Spinner tapped her wrist with a black stylus fitted with a power cord plugged into the wall. “Try to move it.”
At first, nothing happened. Then Rosie rolled her shoulder and brought her arm into her lap. While holding it up with the other hand, she tentatively flexed each finger independently. The movement was slow, but they reacted as intended.
“Wonderful,” Spinner said. “No hard exertions until the skin heals, and then you have to practice every day to strengthen the muscles and regain the ligament elasticity. Other than that, you’re all set.”
“Take these twice a day for the pain.” Rake gave her a handful of small vials filled with a green liquid. “They’re mint flavored.”
“And that’s sugar glass on the outside so you can chew them whole,” Spinner said.
Cielo pulled open one of the pockets in Rosie’s dress, and Dale helped her put the vials in.
Rake and Spinner checked their watches. The circus would open soon.
“Right, we should go,” Dale said, then hesitated. Did Rosie still have enough drugs in her system for him to risk coming in close proximity to her teeth? There was no need for her to leave the train on her feet, and they had a car waiting for them at the train station. “How long will the prosthetic last?” He leaned over and picked Rosie up. The kid weighed as much as a feather and, other than tensing, she didn’t protest.
“With some tweaking, about four years,” Spinner said and turned to Rosie. “You should come when we return next fall to have it recalibrated. Free of charge!”
Rosie nodded, but she was staring mournfully at the menzataxor.
“You can come back to visit him.” Cielo slid the glass panel back down, sealing Uffi inside the cage. “We’ll be in town for at least another week.”
Rosie smiled and laid her head on Dale’s shoulder, holding her hand protectively against her chest. She was still smiling when they passed by the trampoline jumpers, and became more alert at the sight of Rocket Girl demonstrating her flying abilities, but she had fallen asleep by the time they reached the car.
25
People said night was a good adviser. Nicholas begged to differ. For as long as he could remember, bad decisions had been made at night. Most recently, they included him pretending to be the circus owner, accepting to put on the show at the big theater hall, and deciding to break into the Hrad. The last one was particularly insane. He didn’t see how they could achieve that. No one needed that much money. Nicholas, who had grown up with money and liked his comforts, appreciated his freedom more. And this little adventure could go wrong in so many ways, it gave him nightmares.
He rubbed his eyes, tired from staring at the blueprints for so long, and leaned back in his chair. The fair had closed at midnight, and a heavy silence surrounded him, broken only by the random cries of the beasts in the menagerie. Focused on his work, a quiet knock on the door startled him.
“Yes!”
The door opened, and Anya slid in, carrying a tray with a pink porcelain bowl on it. She danced on the tips of her toes towards his desk, where she set it down.
“Pink?” Nicholas arched an eyebrow, holding back an amused smile. He wasn’t one of those men who felt threatened by a girly color, but he liked to tease her about it.
“That’s what you get for not showing up for dinner.” Anya slid the tray towards him, careful to avoid the blue
prints. “It was the only one left.”
“I don’t care that much for pudding,” Nicholas said, just to be difficult. Besides, the brown crust didn’t look appealing at all, and he had a headache. “It’s a British dish.”
“Good. Because it’s crème brulée.” She handed him the spoon.
Well, that he could eat. And the sugar overload might give him some new ideas. With that in mind, he dipped the spoon into the bowl. He suppressed a sigh, disappointed to discover it tasted good. The cook was worth her weight in gold, and that was a lot of gold.
Anya let Nicholas enjoy his snack as she strolled around the room, pretending to study everything in sight. When he first arrived at the circus, Nicholas couldn’t afford to rent an entire car like some members of the crew. He settled for one cabin that he split in half with a velvet curtain, separating the sleeping area from the rest of the room, which he mainly used for storage as his acts required plenty of props.
Magic didn’t pay well, not even close to what the aerialists and gymnasts made, and whatever he gained each month went toward designing better numbers, hopefully more appealing to the audience, and requiring less use of his power. He’d get there one day, but he still had a long way to go. After years of practicing, he was confident it wasn’t an impossible task, but he was also aware of how hard it was. As Anya flowed from one shelf to the next, near-pirouetting as she avoided one item after another on the floor, Nicholas couldn’t help feeling inadequate.
He neglected his personal space, and other than a wide, comfortable armchair, a sturdy table with steel legs that also served as workbench, and a huge dresser, there was nothing valuable in the room. The tricks were worthless if you didn’t know how to do them, and while his fancy clothes might be worth something, these people wouldn’t be caught dead wearing them. Anya’s short skirt swayed gently as if it agreed with his deprecation.
“Don’t you like it?”
