Dactyl Hill Squad

by Daniel José Older

  Magdalys nodded. She’d seen exactly how good Amaya was. It wasn’t just that she knew how to shoot — strategy and battle came naturally to her; it was obvious.

  “And I hated them all, but I loved the training. It was like finally getting to be what I was meant to be, somehow. Even though I was young and had no idea about the world. I just learned everything I could, all in secret. Then Lincoln got elected and there we were in South Carolina, a state in the middle of secession. Then the war broke out and we fled north so he could take command of a Union regiment and head right back down south to fight the very people he’d been training. He stuck me in the Colored Orphan Asylum. I guess he thought I’d be safe there. I don’t know. But I hadn’t heard from him since, and I … I didn’t know how I felt about it. Still don’t. But then Von Marsh said I had a letter from him yesterday and I … I just froze.” She sniffled, didn’t cry. “And now it’s gone. I’ll never get it back. And part of me doesn’t even care; the other part, it’s all the other part cares about. I don’t know if I love him or hate him, or if I want him to come back for me. I’m just … here. I don’t know what I want.”

  “What about your mom?” Magdalys asked.

  Amaya just shook her head. The silence grew long.

  “I got a letter from the front lines,” Magdalys said, when she was sure there was no more coming. “About Montez. He got hurt in battle. He’s … he’s unconscious.”

  She felt Amaya’s warm hand wrap around hers. “What are you going to do?” Amaya said eventually.

  Magdalys shook her head. “I’m gonna go to him.” She paused. “Somehow.” It didn’t seem like enough. “Soon,” she added, wondering if Amaya understood. Now, her heart screamed. Now!

  Just before Magdalys fell asleep, she heard Amaya turn over again.

  “Do you think they’re okay?” Magdalys asked. “The other kids from the Asylum.”

  Amaya sighed. “No.”

  MAGDALYS AND MAPPER rose before dawn with the rest of the newly named Dactyl Hill Squad. After fried eggs and coffee, they said their goodbyes to the others and headed off through the still-dark streets of Brooklyn. They caught a transit brachy down Flatbush Avenue toward the river, clinging to the side stirrups amidst grumbling morning commuters of all colors and classes. Around them, the city seemed to yawn and stretch, waking gradually as the sun rose over sauropods and swooping dacytls, brownstones and church steeples and municipal domes. Vendors set up their shops, hocking everything from oven parts to bicycles to dinofeed and saddles. The smell of freshly baked bread filled the air as they passed Atlantic Avenue, but it was soon replaced by the sharp tang of the giant brachy turds that hadn’t yet been swept away from the night before.

  At the crossing station, they waited in line, paid their fare from the pocket change Bernice had handed them, and watched as two lanterns emerged from the gray mist over the water, then the long neck of the sauropod between them, followed by its barge-covered rump.

  “All aboard for Manhattan docks!” a voice called out. Mapper’s hand wrapped around Magdalys’s as they shuffled up the gangplank with everyone else and stepped over the dark waters onto the ferry.

  “You alright?” she whispered.

  Mapper nodded. “It’s just …”

  He didn’t finish, but Magdalys knew. She felt it too: Manhattan.

  Even before the riots, the city felt like a cruel, unwelcoming place to be. Tragedy seemed to lurk around every corner, casting its shadow over any wrong turn or chance encounter. The buildings, gaudy superstructures and run-down tenements alike, all frowned out from their foundations; each presided over its lot of land like the old angry white man Magdalys had seen once, brandishing a shotgun in front of his little shack in the Claw to make sure no one stole the withered apples off a sad little tree in his front yard.

  The ferry sauropod let out a low, bone-chilling moan into the misty morning sky and then set off across the river.

  Mapper squeezed Magdalys’s hand.

  And now, the riots had given teeth to all those prickly feelings of discomfort. Thoughts of Manhattan now would always be a thin varnish on top of the image of Mr. Calloway’s boots dangling in the firelit night.

  They’d barely made it out alive, and already they were headed right back into the thick of it all: the docks.

  “What if they try to snatch us?” Mapper asked, not even bothering to hide the shiver in his voice.

  Magdalys shook her head. “We’ll jack ’em up, just like Miss Cymbeline would do if they tried to snatch her.”

  That gave Mapper a slight smile, but then he frowned again. “But we don’t have a shotty like Miss Cymbeline.”

  Magdalys made a throwaway sign with her hands. “Who needs a shotty when you got dinos? You know they pay special attention to me.”

  Mapper nodded.

  “I’ll sic a few raptors on anyone trying to snatch us and that’ll be that. And anyway, don’t forget we part of a crew now. And not just the Dactyl Hill Squad …” She turned in toward Mapper and made the V and C sign against her chest. “Remember?”

  Mapper smiled widely now, made the sign back.

  “You really think those cats would let us get shipped off down south?”

  “Uh-uh. They got a whole organization in place to make sure that’s not what happens.”

  “Exactly,” Magdalys said. Case closed. Still, she thought as the shadowy Manhattan docks emerged from the mist. Still …

  The ferry sauropod navigated between huge armored warships and around a steamboat before docking alongside an ancient wooden frigate with cannons poking out of either side.

  “Think that’s a pirate ship?” Mapper asked.

  Magdalys shook her head. “If they are, they got a lot of nerve docking in New York Harbor looking all pirate-shippy like that.”

  They followed the crowd down the gangplank and onto the pier. Hundreds of people swarmed the docks, even at this early hour. A fish market was coming to life along the avenue, and the shouts of merchants mixed with the caws of seagulls and rumble of steamboats coming in to port.

  “Lispenard Street,” Mapper said, squinting at the wild, ever-changing atlas of New York City he had stored inside his brain. “Lispenard Street.”

  Magdalys could tell that just having a task to do made all his earlier worries seem to fade away. She concentrated on keeping an eye out for any of Riker’s Kidnapping Club goons and followed along as he guided them away from the docks and into the hustle and bustle of downtown Manhattan.

  They headed up Church Street, a wide avenue crowded with businessmen in top hats and beggars and fancy ladies in wide skirts. “Victory at Gettysburg!” a newspaper seller yelled. “The Rebs routed all across the south as Vicksburg falls to Grant!” (Was Montez there somewhere … somewhere … ) “Lincoln declares that the father of waters again goes unvexed to the sea! The Mississippi is in Union control! The Confederacy is cut in half and the New York rioters were routed overnight by federal troops!”

  Magdalys wasn’t sure if she believed him entirely — the man sounded like he was trying to sell her an aging dino as if it were a newborn — but the streets bore no sign of the rioting aside from a few covered-up windows that had been smashed and one burnt-out pharmacy. Other than that, everyone was milling about like it was just another day downtown.

  Which, Magdalys figured, it pretty much was if you hadn’t watched your only home become a charred wreckage and seen someone you cared about swinging from a noose just a day and a half ago.

  They passed the Municipal Trade Bank, a huge, elegant fortress with marble pillars and an iguanodon-mounted guard on either side of the mighty doorway. A beggar shuffled in front of it, then dove out of the way as a dark purple stegosaurus trundled by, nearly trampling him, bags of mail and packages flapping at its flanks. A flock of microraptors chased a rat across the street, which was then scooped up by a policeman’s knuckleskull and gobbled.

  “Should be … here!” Mapper said triumphantly. They’d turned onto
a smaller side street and now stood in front of a large wooden door.

  “Nice work, man!” Magdalys said. She’d been lost in thought again, hadn’t even been scanning their surroundings like she should’ve been. She glanced around, saw no sign of any lurkers, and then stepped up and knocked twice with the big brass ring.

  A few moments later, the door creaked open and Louis Napoleon peeked out and looked around. He squinted at Mapper for a few seconds, then broke into a huge grin. Magdalys glanced over; Mapper was making the V and C signs over and over on his chest, mouthing out the letters, and wiggling his eyebrows like a fool.

  “Kids!” Louis said in a raspy, laughter-tinged voice. “Come on in!”

  ALL AROUND THEM, Manhattan stretched out in rowhouses, great majestic cupolas, church steeples, and glowering government domes. The fierce July sunlight streamed in over a gray cloud bank and lit up the New York Harbor like a fire was rising from its depths. Magdalys took it all in with a sigh. It was beautiful, this city, but the weight of all she was about to do heavied up her thoughts and sent her heart racing.

  Louis Napoleon had led them up a flight of stairs, down a corridor past a room alive with the thunk, hum, and tremble of a printing press, then up another flight and then another.

  “There’ll be a few dactyls up there,” he’d said, opening a door to the bright rooftop. “We made sure of it. Aren’t many of the bigger ones on this side of the river, but they’re around here and there. You shouldn’t have a problem getting from building to building.”

  Magdalys and Mapper thanked him and headed out into the sunlight.

  “And remember, eyes open,” Louis called before closing the door.

  “Shall we start?” Mapper asked, walking up beside Magdalys and taking in the rolling rooftops around them.

  “Which way is Mulberry?” Magdalys asked.

  “Huh?”

  “893 Mulberry, Mapper. That’s where we’re going.”

  “I thought —”

  Magdalys hit him with her this-is-not-a-joke glare.

  “You didn’t just insist on me coming with you because we’re friends, did you, Mag-D?”

  “I mean, that was definitely part of it!”

  Mapper shook his head. “David said no messing around! No unnecessary risks!”

  “Mapper, look —”

  “We sposta watch the docks. That’s it. Sweep the chimneys and watch the docks. How you gonna have a whole address you planning to go to and you didn’t even tell no one?”

  “Mapper.”

  “Don’t Mapper me, Magdalys. The whole thing is we supposed to trust each other. We a squad. You think that was a joke?”

  “No, I —”

  “How I’m supposed to trust you when you can’t even tell me what the super secret side mission we on is about?”

  Magdalys blinked. Mapper didn’t want to disrupt the scheme, he just wanted to be in on the scheme. And anyway, he was right: They were a squad now, and she was going to have to start taking that seriously. Super secret side mission or not, it wasn’t fair to make people come along on some shenanigans they didn’t even know they were signing up for. She nodded, making a face. “You right, Mapper. I’m … I’m sorry.”

  Mapper stared. “And?”

  “And I’m trying to bust into the house of a man named Harrison Weed who brought me to the orphanage and took my sisters back to Cuba so I can find out more about my family.”

  Mapper pumped his fist in the air. “That’s what I’m talking about!”

  “Whoa. I wasn’t expecting that response.”

  Mapper was already heading for the nearest dactyl. “What are you waiting for? The 800 block of Mulberry Street is this way!”

  “Whewee!” Mapper yelled as they landed their dactyls on a tar rooftop a few blocks away. “These Manhattan dactyls don’t mess around.”

  “You really think that was any different than the Brooklyn ones?” Magdalys asked, cracking her neck and stretching her arms out.

  “Maybe it’s just a different feel because the city’s so much denser and doesn’t have all that open space like in Brooklyn. I dunno. Anyway, should be” — he closed his eyes, took a few steps in one direction, stopped, walked over and then forward a few more steps — “right about … here!”

  “So, that chimney?” Magdalys asked, her heart rate kicking up again.

  “I think so … Yeah. Definitely. I’m sure of it.”

  “Okay, I’m going in.”

  Mapper held up both hands. “Hold up, sis. We need, like, a … a plan or something, right? I mean, we’re not only breaking and entering into some random rich guy’s fancy Manhattan apartment, we’re doing it against the direct orders of the awesome club of awesome folks that we just joined. So, like, let’s not mess this up?”

  “Right,” Magdalys conceded. There she went again already, not thinking like a team player. She would have to do better. “Okay. I go in, snoop around, find what I need, and if I’m not back out in, let’s say, twenty minutes, you come in too. Yeah?”

  “No offense, but that’s a really basic plan, Mag-D. I mean, do you know what you’re looking for?”

  “Info … about … my family?”

  “Right, but like, a file? A map? A guy who you’re going to hang out the window till he tells you what you wanna know?”

  “I mean, all of the above?”

  “And secondly, what if you go down there and someone shoots you, and then what? I go down and get shot too? Bad plan.”

  “You got a better one?”

  It was Mapper’s turn to concede the point, but he did so as if he’d somehow won the whole argument. “Nope! But I’ll figure one out while you’re down there, I promise!” He flashed a winning grin.

  Magdalys just shook her head as she climbed into the chimney. “I just hope you don’t actually think you make any sense, Mapper. That’s all.”

  “Good luck!” Mapper called as she lowered herself into the darkness.

  NO ONE HAD cleaned this chimney in a long time, Magdalys decided. She felt the thick layers of ash coating her hands and knees as she worked her way along down the narrow chute. As usual, the whole world became an eternal darkness soon after she got on her way. There was always a terrifying moment of emptiness when that happened: What if she got trapped in there and no one came to get her? What if some fool decided to start a fire and she got smoked out or burnt to a crisp? Then she’d take a breath — not too deep or she’d end up coughing till she heaved — and remind herself that every chimney let out into a fireplace and if she had to she could haul butt back up double time and be out of there.

  This particular one did seem extra long, though. She tried not to think too much about it, just kept climbing down and down and down until finally a shard of light appeared beneath her.

  She allowed herself a long exhale and then scaled the rest of the way down, landing with a muffled thud in the fireplace.

  The dining room she stared out into was one of the most elegant places she’d ever seen. Fine linen cloth covered the table, which displayed eight porcelain dishes with perfectly placed silverware and folded napkins on either side. Even the curtains were magnificent! They were great, shiny, royal-looking ones with golden trim and tassels.

  Magdalys stifled a gasp. Who was this Harrison Weed, with his fancy Manhattan apartment and strange dealings with Cuban orphans?

  Whoever he was, he almost certainly had an office somewhere in here, and in that office would be his personal papers. And there, hopefully, Magdalys would get some answers.

  She brushed as much soot off herself into the hearth as she could and then crept out of the fireplace, through the dining room — careful not to touch anything — and out into the carpeted hallway. Paintings of old white men adorned the walls, and here and there an ancient-looking bust of someone with a beard stared emptily from an inlet. The next room was a bedroom; beyond that was a washroom and a sitting area of some kind. At the far end of the corridor was a closed door. There was no
way to open it without getting the shiny golden doorknob covered in black soot, but Magdalys hadn’t come all this way just to give up because she was going to dirty up a rich man’s apartment. She wiped her hand a few times, then turned the knob and walked in.

  Bingo.

  Thick books lined all the walls and cluttered a mantelpiece overhanging another fireplace. An elaborate wooden desk took up almost half the room, papers covering it like autumn leaves. She crossed the length of the room at a run and, not even bothering to try and keep them clean, started rifling through the stacks and stacks of documents.

  Within just a few minutes, Magdalys had gone from irritated to disappointed to bored to furious, and now she was sliding quickly toward despair. The man had so many papers and none of them made much of any sense at all! There were records and info sheets full of scratched-out numbers and random words that didn’t seem to have any rhyme or reason. It could be a code, Magdalys figured, but it wasn’t one she’d be able to figure out any time soon, if at all.

  She kept digging, frustration gnawing away inside her, until a single word on a folded-up parchment caught her eye.

  It had clearly been delivered by microdact; those telltale claw imprints gave that away. And someone had written it hastily, that was for sure. Ink splotches speckled the edges of the paper, and the handwriting looked like it had been scribbled on dinoback.

  Orphans was the word that brought Magdalys’s frantic paper shuffle to a sudden halt. At the top, an elaborate circular seal glistened off the page. It had what looked like rays of light bursting out of a roaring tyrannosaurus in the center, and the words “K of the G C” were scrawled around the circumference. It was the same insignia that Riker had on the medallion he wore! And it glared off the tops of a bunch more of Weed’s papers too. But what was the K of the G C?” Magdalys read:

  My Brother Knight — I trust all is well with your endeavors and I write you with the utmost urgency.