by J. Stone
Judging by the sign posted in the window, the shop had just opened up. She pushed through the door, causing a bell to chime overhead. A shop assistant smiled to her from behind the counter.
“How can I help you today, miss?” she asked.
“I’d like a bouquet of hellebore, please,” Erynn replied, stuffing her hands in her coat pockets and fidgeting uncomfortably.
“Right away, miss,” the clerk said before heading off to gather and arrange the flowers.
For an unknown reason, buying the flowers always made her nervous somehow. She’d chalked it up to taking over the role of buying the flowers from her father. Erynn still wished it was him buying the flowers for her mother and not her. The sight of her mother receiving the hellebore bouquets that her father brought home had been one she cherished greatly.
The shop assistant soon returned with the flowers and handed them to Erynn. “Here you are.”
She pulled from her pocket a couple of coins and handed it to the clerk. “Thank you.”
“Have a nice day,” the young woman called after Erynn, as she left.
Outside, Erynn took in a whiff of the hellebore. The familiar smell of the flowers was one capable of instantly transporting her back to that home. She wished that given enough willpower and focus, she could return to those days. Closing her eyes, Erynn wondered if she had enough stimuli from her childhood that she could somehow reform the world to those standards, and when she reopened her eyes, everything would be as it had once been. Opening them up once again, she was disappointed to find herself in the same location, though admittedly, she had long ago realized that such thoughts were but idle dreams. She clung to them nevertheless.
After visiting the flower shop, Erynn walked to the nearby graveyard. Entering it, she passed under an archway, and from there, took the gravel path to the back of the property. There she saw the painfully familiar plot of land marked with a single gravestone. Her family’s collective epitaph read:
Sweeney, Valerie, and Simon Clover
Beloved Father, Mother, and Brother
Erynn approached the marker and laid down the flowers next to it. She then crumpled to a sitting position on the soft and damp grass. Each year, she would come to this spot, and each year, she would recite to her lost family what had transpired since her last visit. She had a great deal to relate on this particular anniversary.
“Where do I start?” she asked herself. “I miss you. Maybe that’s obvious, but I do. Every day.” Erynn rubbed her fingers through the blades of grass, as she talked. “A lot has happened since we last spoke. Most of the year was pretty normal. I made stuff. Max lectured and resented his students. Germ tried to keep everything in order. But then everything changed.
“Just like you, big brother, I was chosen for the lottery. I had a plan to escape though. I programmed Tern to get me out, and despite the fact I told Max and Germ to not get involved, all three of them came and saved me. Afterwards, we had to escape to the west, cause they’d marked me as a heretic. Those towns certainly weren’t what I imagined they would be, but it was enlightening to see some of what they’d built there. It was a very different place.”
Erynn smiled, as her thoughts moved forward. “I met someone. Her name is Pearl. She’s wonderful. She calls me kitten. Got an adorable accent too. I’m pretty sure I love her.” Her eyes watered. “I know you’d all like her too. She’s helped take care of me since the lottery. I don’t think I would have made it without her, but I guess I’m getting ahead of myself.
“I decided to get involved with the Chromework Confederacy. Pearl introduced me to someone who knew them, and I planned to meet his brother. Before I could, a bounty hunter named Vincent jumped us. Luckily for us, but bad for him, he’d contracted the plague. The corps attacked and everything kind of went crazy. I wound up on a halftrack driven by Tern to Pendulum Falls with the bounty hunter as well as Max, Germ, and Pearl. Tern is perhaps a bit too literal with my instructions sometimes. Though, he always was, huh, dad?
“I finally met up with one of the rebels by the name of Hirim. He’s a good guy. Striving to improve the lives of everyone in the empire. He even convinced Vincent to join the cause. Though that might’ve had more to do with his sudden need for medical attention than any sense of altruism. We didn’t always stay on the right side of the law, though. Our first job together was to rob the bank in Ash Cloud. I gotta admit, it was pretty exciting, and we got away with a stash of coins bigger than I’ve ever seen… Oh. Dad, I actually disarmed a robot with an infinite loop.” She smiled and paused for a moment.
“Figured you’d like that. Not everything went to plan though. I guess we were sloppy when we left. I think we got a boy and his father killed. There was an operative on my trail. Followed me out west. Didn’t think I was that important, but it was my fault they died.”
Erynn paused, as she considered what had happened to Wiley and his dad. She hadn’t really thought much about their deaths since Alice had interrogated and tortured her. They’d been innocents. They didn’t deserve that fate.
“Anyway,” she eventually continued. “We found some extra stuff stored in the vault. A scientist had a safe deposit box that we split open. Turns out the empire had a cure for the Sweeper Bot Plague. They’d had it for a long time. Could’ve save you both if they hadn’t been so greedy and controlling. I had to make them pay for what they’d done. Best way we could think was to eliminate the plague. They’d been making so much money off the treatments, we thought taking that away from them, and publicizing their knowledge of the cure would do the trick.
“Max, of course, was able to figure it out within a second of looking at the formula. Don’t even know how that man’s brain works sometimes, to be honest. We figured out that we needed to hijack a train to get the supplies and a skyship to disperse it. Had to split up to do it. Max, Germ, and Hirim went off to grab the skyship, while Vincent, Pearl, and I intercepted the train with the medical supplies.
“Definitely didn’t get on board like we planned. Another bounty hunter picked me up and delivered me to the operative that had tracked me to Willow Switch. Tortured me… Then she injected me with some awful thing called a genotoxin. Could’ve done without that, I’ll admit to that one. I got free though, after they took me aboard the train. Turns out the bounty hunter that nabbed me was Vincent’s wife. Small world, huh?
“I paid the operative back with a bullet to the head, but she simply refused to die. Followed me, as we prepared to unlatch the car with the supplies. We all almost died, until someone else showed up. So, when I was back in the C.E.R., I guess they injected me with some experimental drug that linked me to another woman’s mind. She was more than a little delusional and followed me out west. Her name was Fiona Newton. Barrels of crazy, that one. Though I certainly didn’t want anything to do with her, she did save my life. She killed the operative and vanished almost as quickly as she’d shown up.
“We met up with Max, and he was able to throw the cure together like it was nothing. Years without a cure, and then, bam! There it was. Using the skyship, we sped around the empire, dropping the cure on the cities and eliminating the plague nearly overnight. It took you guys from me, but it’ll never take anyone again. I helped make that happen. Hopefully, you’re proud.
“After the cure, I thought things might settle down for a while. Us Clover’s don’t have that kind of luck, I guess. I was still working with the confederacy, and we got involved in a huge battle with the empire. During the commotion, Pearl was taken by a mercenary. I mentioned what she means to me. Guess it’s obvious what I did. Yep, chased her down.
“I followed the mercenary back to Cultwick. Not exactly a great place to be for a heretic, as it turns out. Short version - caught a ride from a smuggler, met some sky pirates, partnered with the mercenary who took Pearl, stopped an assassin, freed that same assassin from slavery, went to a private inspector for help tracking Pearl down, got caught by some corpsmen, questioned by a councilor, all while hav
ing that horrible genotoxin running through my system. Max was working on the cure, but it was a nasty thing, while I had it.
“I guess Fiona had been causing every kind of trouble for the empire all the while. So much so that they actually turned to me for help. They thought with my connection to her, I could get close enough to inject her with something to help save everyone. Didn’t quite turn out that way, but it worked out in the end. I was on top of a tall building though. You know how I feel about heights. Had to jump off the damn thing to get to safety. The smuggler was there to catch me, along with Germ and Max. They gave me the cure to the genotoxin, and I finally was able to go get Pearl.
“Some bastard had abducted her, tried to rewire her brain and make her think that she was his wife. She fought it, tough as she is, and even managed to get herself free. Turned out that she hardly even needed saving. Don’t think I’ve ever been so happy, as when I saw her though. I even got a pardon from the new empress.
“It wasn’t all good news though. Germ had been slowly dying too. Whatever serum Max had come up with to create Germ was running out. Guess he couldn’t figure out how to recreate it and didn’t know what else to do. He’s stored him in a horrible place from what I can gather. It was for a good reason, but I… don’t know. Hopefully he brings him back soon.
“What else? Turns out Pearl is magic… literally. She can cast spells. Don’t ask me. I play with metal and grease and oils and code. Beyond that… I’m out. Whatever though, she seems to understand it.”
Erynn paused again, rubbing her hand against the grass. “I really miss you guys.” Tears began to streak down her cheeks, and she couldn’t stop them. Not bothering to wipe her eyes, she just cried.
Hours passed before she finally decided to go home again. The sun had risen and fallen. Her birthday was nearly at an end, when she finally entered the foyer of the mansion again. Greeting her with a concerned face was Pearl.
“Ryn, I was so worried,” she said. Pearl rushed toward her and hugged her tightly. “I thought something might have happened to you.”
“I’m fine, Pearl,” Erynn replied.
“Where’d ya go today?” Pearl asked, letting her go and giving her some space. “Ya weren’t in yer workshop. Ya left before we could have our breakfast together. It’s not like ya. What’s goin’ on?”
“I went to visit my family’s graves,” Erynn answered.
“On yer birthday?” she asked.
“How’d you know my birthday was today?” the chromesmith asked.
“I kinda had to pull it outta Max,” Pearl explained. “He said ya always vanished on yer birthday, but that he never knew where ya went.”
Erynn nodded. “My birthday marks the anniversary of my parent’s deaths. They both died within a couple hours of one another. It doesn’t make for a day worth celebrating.”
“That’s awful,” Pearl replied. “I had no idea.”
“I don’t talk about it much,” she said with a shrug.
There was a bit of a pause.
“I’d like to go with ya next time,” Pearl said. “Let ya introduce me to ‘em.”
“I’d like that…” Erynn said with a smile. She suddenly realized she wasn’t the only one in that situation. Pearl had lost her own family and in an equally tragic way. “Do you know where your parents and sisters are?”
“I haven’t found where they put them to rest yet, but I will,” Pearl replied.
“When you do, you’ll have to bring me along too,” she said.
Pearl nodded. “Well enough of that. C’mon, I made ya a cake.”
“You made me a cake?” Erynn asked.
Smiling, Pearl replied, “‘Course I did. It’s yer birthday, kitten.”
“Pearl Hicks,” Erynn said, placing her hands on the small of her companion’s back and pulling her close. “I absolutely do love you.”
Chapter 25. Rowland’s Pocket
He thought he had been brilliant when he came up with the idea for the Pocket in his younger years. A private repository for everything he had accomplished over the years, away from prying eyes, the Pocket was a dimension tethered to his own through a replicated version of his mansion. Helping him manufacture this realm was his friend and close colleague, Henry Brodie.
Before either Germ or Erynn had come to live with him, Rowland and Brodie had worked on his various experiments and relegated the failures or dangerous ones to live in the Pocket. This went on for years without nary a second thought on the subject. One day, however, Brodie began to be plagued with uncontrollable mood swings and asked the professor for help. His colleague had been experiencing blackouts, where he would do things normally he would not. As best as they could understand, it was as if there were two sides to him, and the socially responsible version was having great difficulty in controlling the impulsive and instinctually driven side.
The two of them worked for weeks on separating the baser desires from Brodie’s psyche with only little success. In the end, however, Rowland found that while he had successfully separated the two parts of the man’s personality, he had also given the darker one full reign over Brodie’s physical body at set schedules. Neither would cooperate with the other, claiming to be the dominant half.
The dichotomy of his existence became too much to bear. In the end, the pair of them decided to lock Brodie inside the Pocket, where he could do no harm to anyone. That had been the last time that the professor had used the separate dimension. After being unable to save his friend, which he saw as one of his greatest failures, Rowland stored the apparatus that housed the gateway and chose to simply go without its use.
Though he had spoken of it over the years since then, the professor had never shown anyone how it worked or discussed the idea with colleagues. As he often did, he chose to speak of it only to Erynn. He feared that the device he had cobbled together would eventually break down, allowing the portal to once again be opened. With her greater knowledge on chromesmithing, she built the thermos-like device that still housed the Pocket’s gateway. She alone understood what Rowland and Brodie had built, and she was terrified by it. The idea that he had opened a portal to another world seemed quite dangerous to her, and she built something that she felt would maintain the gateway to the Pocket for lifetimes.
Since then, the device had been kept in a closet in Rowland’s room. With Germ’s sickness, however, the professor had decided it was finally time to use the Pocket once again. One thing he had never done though was to devise a way to pull something back out of the alternate reality once it was in there. This meant finding what he was looking for on the other side and then pulling it through.
In a way, his real mansion and the one in the Pocket existed in the same space, though it wasn’t exactly to scale. What this meant though was that when Rowland was ready to pull Germ from the Pocket, he would have to find the exact location of the rat on the other side. Whatever he devised to open the portal would need to be mobile.
To that end, Rowland had been tinkering with an additional property to the various chemicals that flowed through his gauntlet and allowed him to harness elemental powers. He thought that it could be further augmented to allow him control over the Pocket’s gateways. Sliding a needle into the vial of the substance he’d created, Rowland was ready to test his new serum. The professor sucked the contents into the vial, pulled it back out, and injected himself, just above where the metal of the gauntlet met the skin of his forearm.
The gauntlet that he had worn for many years now was configured to collect anything injected into his arm and find a way to harness it. Though it had certainly not been built for this specific purpose, he believed that the serum would be of a compatible nature to harness the Pocket’s gate. The sensation Rowland felt, as the substance accrued in the device was not unfamiliar. The feeling was much like what injecting his special biojunk felt like, though there was something colder to this. He had modified the junk so much over the years that he had nearly forgotten that its original purpose was t
o help deal with the gauntlet’s power needs. Fleetingly, he wondered if his recent overuse of the substance might have impacted how the gauntlet worked or how it affected what remained of his hand encased in the metal. He hadn’t seen the flesh of that hand in quite some time. He ignored such thoughts for the moment and focused on the goal at hand.
Flexing the metal fingers of his hand, Rowland ensured that the serum had completely made its way through the contraption before beginning any testing. Once he was satisfied that it was ready, he raised his hand, palm outward, aiming it at a rat that he had managed to recapture after his explosion and place inside a cage on one of his work tables. Like mentally flipping a switch, Rowland attempted to open a portal around the test subject.
An amorphous misty blob roughly the same black color as the portal he had been experimenting with appeared around the rodent. Rowland could hardly see through the void, only glimpsing reflections of whatever was sitting on the other side of the window. He released his mental grip on the portal, and the black blob dispersed immediately, taking with it the rodent and even the cage it had been in. The table had somehow missed the grasp of the Pocket, perhaps due to some subconscious command by the professor, but he wasn’t certain.
Walking closer to the table, he reached out his hand, rubbing his fingertips on its wooden surface. The texture felt no different than what he would have expected. Perhaps he had finally met with a measure of success in bringing Germ back after all. Taking a few steps back, Rowland again raised his gauntlet toward that same spot. Willing a new portal to open, one that would bring something from the Pocket rather than send to it, he watched as a new blob appeared in roughly the same spot. This second one differed from the first in that it was not a black void. This portal was blindingly white and looked like a vacuum, pulling into his world rather than into the Pocket.
