Gaslit Revolution

by Jason Gilbert

  “That’s insane,” Chris said. “That means they knew our entire plan.”

  “Which would explain the grenades,” Hoyle said. “They threw them at the walls, not us. They meant to take that tunnel out.”

  Kane nodded.

  “We’ve got to be prepared for the possibility that they might come down here to finish the job.”

  Chis shook his head. “They wouldn’t go that far. Come down here and shoot up the people of Hidden Valley? Civilians?”

  “I don’t think it’s farfetched at all,” Kane said. “I watched the police commissioner publicly execute nine men in the streets of Charleston for no other reason than to make a point.”

  “Plus they passed that new, reworded law once Frostmeyer got the Presidency,” Hoyle said. “All you have to do is accuse someone of being a Magician, and you stand a good chance of getting away with killing them.” He huffed. “Lord knows we’ve got a bunch of Magicians down here. Who’s to say everyone in this station isn’t a Magician? We’d lose the bulk of our firepower.”

  Chris groaned as he rubbed his eyes.

  “And they control the newspapers in New Chicago.”

  “Exactly,” Kane said. “Which means they control the narrative. We need to take a moment and accept the fact that we’re screwed to the wall here unless we can figure something out.” He looked around at the people settling in, parents talking to their children while others went from group to group checking on people. Bette and Tabitha worked with an elderly woman to make sure she was comfortable on her bench while Tabitha healed a cut on the woman’s forehead. The doctors and nurses tended to the people that had been evacuated from the hospital. Kane was glad to see that Antonia had made it into the station, but she was still out. Her hospital bed was set up next to a few others as Sandra and the girls helped with the patients who needed bandages changed.

  Kane looked at the tunnel, then up at the staircase that led to the streets above as he worked on the pieces of the puzzle in his mind. An ambush. Airships over Hidden Valley in reaction to the President’s death.

  His mind went back to the conference. Gentry had been watching him the whole time. Frostmeyer had been placed in the perfect spot behind Chesterfield to catch either a blast or a bullet. The Templar running the machine gun hadn’t been aiming at the crowd. He’d been aiming at the protesters. They’d come straight to Antonia’s home. Seekers. They’d been using Seekers. But even those devices had a certain range to them. He’d noticed in Charleston. Richard and the other Hunters had always been within a few hundred yards when their Seeker had detected Kane or Tabitha casting spells.

  Danwood’s men burned Antonia’s home. Chased them to the coal yards.

  “They knew,” he said under his breath. How could he have been so stupid? So blind?

  Chris looked at him and blinked.

  “What?”

  “They knew,” Kane said a little louder. He looked at the newsie. “They knew you were there to assassinate Frostmeyer. They knew I was back at Antonia’s place.” Kane saw Sandra look up as Kane said Antonia’s name. She looked between him and Chris. Kane stepped towards the newsie, his anger rising.

  “They knew about the plan to come down here,” he said, still stepping towards him. “They were only gunning down Magicians. They were herding the rest.” Wilhelmina stepped up behind Chris. Ralphie stood beside her, his muscles bulging and tense. Tabitha stepped up beside Kane, her hands glowing blue, her angry stare locked on Chris as he held his hands up defensively.

  “Wait a damned minute,” he said. “You can’t think I had anything to do with that!”

  “Looks awful suspicious, Chris,” Bette said from across the way, still sitting on the bench next to the elderly woman. Kane noticed for the first time that the station had gone quiet, all eyes on him and Chris.

  “This is nuts,” Chris said. “What—what do I have to gain by luring them here?”

  “That’s a good question, little boy,” Wil purred. She looked at Kane. “And him gonna answer.” She pointed at him, clicked her teeth. Chris fell to the ground, shouted in pain, slapping himself.

  “Christ! Get ‘em off me! Holy shit! Get ‘em off me!”

  “What’s wrong, boy?” Wil said, smiling down at Chris as he writhed on the ground, slapping at himself as he went. “We call ‘em Palmetto Bugs, but they nothin’ but just big damn roaches.”

  Chris looked up at Kane, his eyes pleading. “Make her stop!”

  Kane pursed his lips, scratched his head, mocking Chris as the newsie squirmed.

  “Nah,” he said. “I’m gonna see where this goes. Personally, since I can’t see any bugs, I’m thinking you’re just seeing things.”

  “I’ll tell you where it go, Kane Shephered,” Wil said, not looking at him. “I’m gonna ask him some questions, him gonna answer. I’ll start with the obvious.” She leaned forward, her eyes filled with hatred as she clawed her fingers. Chris tensed, staring at her, face stricken with fear. “Where. Is. My. Conjure baby?”

  “Conjure baby?” Chris said, shaking his head. “I don’t know what you mean!”

  “You mean Lexi?” Tabitha asked.

  “Damn right I do,” Wil said, her eyes still locked on Chris. “You smart, girl. Smarter than that man you love. Done taken her under my wing. She ain’t got nobody.” Wil clawed her fingers again, and Chris grunted and groaned, tried not to move. Kane couldn’t tell what was happening, but he imagined Wil’s imaginary roaches were having a field day. “Her parents were killed by that shooter-man. So I take her.” Wil snarled, the sound guttural like a rabid wolf. “Where is she?!”

  “I don’t know,” Chris said, his voice panicked. “Chesterfield took her.”

  “Now you listen to me,” Kane said. “Chesterfield will kill her. They don’t care about killing children. You’d better talk, otherwise Wil’s gonna kill you.” He knelt down next to Chris. “And I’m gonna let her.”

  Tabitha’s voice echoed in the station.

  “Kane!”

  “I swear, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Chris said. “I’m trying to get the Revolution going. Why would I mess that up?” He looked around the station. “They’ve declared war on us. It’s not because we’re poor. It’s because we’re a threat.” He looked back at Kane. “Any risks I’ve taken, any decisions I’ve made, all of it has been to keep these people from getting killed. Writing stories, exposing the Oligarch corruption. All of it. Why would I jeopardize that?”

  Kane stood, looking around again. The people of Hidden Valley stared at him, terrified and hopeless. He knew that look. They were looking to him to make a decision, to act.

  To lead.

  He didn’t want that. It was too much. What if he led them to destruction? He’d gotten others killed. He had so much blood on his hands. The thought of more blood, the blood of women and children, made him cold. It made his skin go to gooseflesh.

  “Make a decision, Shepherd,” Wil said. “Him not gonna talk otherwise.”

  Kane looked at Tabitha. She looked up at him, her eyes wide, her jaw set. He could hear her voice in his mind.

  “Kane, what are you doing?” she said. “Stop this.”

  He looked back down at Chris.

  “I want to see them.”

  Hundreds of large, black roaches appeared on Chris, swarming on his arms, legs, and chest, crawling over each other, exploring as they went, shiny in the dim gas lights as they moved over his body. The sound of them moving about was like whispers in the air, filling the room, the noise enough to make one’s skin crawl.

  “Help me,” Chris breathed. “Oh God, they’re biting me.”

  Something flashed in Kane’s mind. The Walking Bridge. Bodies strewn all over, riddled with bullets. Men. Women. Elderly.

  Children.

  Kane nodded to him, took in a large breath, let it out slowly. He looked up at Wil.

  “Make them eat.”

  Wil grinned evilly as she looked back down at Chris.

 
“Gotta do it, sweet boy,” she said. “Him the boss.”

  “Stop!”

  Kane looked around at the sound of Tabitha’s voice. She looked at Wil, then at Kane.

  “Stop this,” she said, her voice stern, hard. “Kane, this isn’t you.”

  Kane pointed at Chris, his face flushed with anger.

  “People are dead,” he said. “Children. Hidden Valley is under attack. All because of him.” He turned back to Chris.

  “Not because of him.”

  Kane blinked as Sandra made her way through the crowd and up to the group. She looked at Kane, her eyes pleading.

  Fearful.

  She looked at Wil.

  “Let him go. Please.” She sighed, her voice small. “I know why they came to Antonia’s.”

  Sandra reached down into her skirts and pulled a small device from her pocket. It was brass, the glass face covering a small dial with an arrow in it. It looked like a compass, but it glowed with an ethereal light, pointed directly at Tabitha. East.

  Not North.

  “A Seeker?” Tabitha said, her voice barely audible.

  “They promised protection,” Sandra said. “They came to me before you got back to New Chicago. Miss Antonia was away. They told me they’d spare us. Keep us safe. Make sure we got out of Hidden Valley before things got messy.” She looked up at Kane. “They told me they’d spare your life. That I was the one keeping you alive. Just so long as I made sure they knew what the Revolution was up to.” She shook her head, tears flowing. “None of this was supposed to happen. I should’ve spoken up, but I couldn’t.”

  “What is that?” Ralphie asked.

  “It’s called a Seeker,” Kane said, his eyes locked on Sandra. “It’s used to track Magicians.” He stepped closer to her. “Do you know what you’ve done?”

  Sandra nodded, tears in her eyes.

  “I didn’t want this,” she said. “I didn’t want any of this.”

  Kane’s anger boiled.

  “Well, it’s what you fucking got.” He reached out and grabbed the Seeker from her. He looked down at Chris. His body swarmed with Wil’s roaches. “Let him go.”

  Wil grunted and waved her hand. The roaches disappeared, and Chris let out a loud breath as he got to his feet. The Marsh Witch approached Sandra.

  “Where is my Conjure baby, you pasty bitch?” she spat.

  Sandra shook her head.

  “Wherever Chesterfield is. I know he has a base of operations in City Hall, but I don’t know if they’re there right this minute. Find Chesterfield, find the little girl. That’s the truth. I swear.”

  Wil put her face an inch from Sandra’s.

  “I’m gonna get her back,” she said, her voice low, almost a growl. “And if one hair on her head hurt, she got one scratch, even a red spot, I’m gonna hang you up by your thumbs and peel the skin off that bony little body of yours.”

  Kane put his arm between them, gently pushing Wil back.

  “Not yet,” he said. “Wil, back off. We’ll find Lexi. Now we have an idea where to look. Hoyle, take Sandra and find somewhere safe to keep her until we can figure out what to do with her. We’ll question her again in a bit.”

  Wil rounded on Kane.

  “You was gonna let me torture that boy, but you sparin’ a skinny little trollop?!”

  “I have my reasons,” Kane said, standing his ground as the angry Marsh Witch glared at him. “One of which is that she’s got a Seeker. It means we have a Seeker. Until we make a plan, figure out how we can use her to our advantage, we need to keep her locked up and unharmed. They find her roughed up, it could go bad. They find her clean, it’s business as usual, and we need them to think that.”

  Wil took a step back, her eyes flashing as she kept them locked on Sandra. She turned away, then spun on her heel and spat in Sandra’s face. Sandra jumped as if Wil had physically struck her.

  “If that the worst I do to you, you gettin’ off lucky,” she snapped as she walked away.

  Sandra wiped the spit off her face as Hoyle stepped up to her.

  “Come with me, ma’am,” he said. He put his hand on her arm and guided her away.

  Kane shook his head. What next?

  Tabitha approached him.

  “We need to talk.”

  Kane rubbed his temples, trying to fend off the approaching headache.

  “Now isn’t a good time.” He held up the Seeker. He hadn’t seen one up close before. He looked it over, wondering why Sandra would’ve had one. What did it mean? Was she giving away locations? She would’ve had to have a way to contact the Special Forces or the Templars.

  Just some of the questions he planned to ask her.

  “Kane,” Tabitha said. “You scared me. You were about to let Wil torture Chris. Maybe kill him.”

  “I thought he was the leak,” Kane said, still looking the Seeker over.

  She stepped in front of him, put her hand on the Seeker, pushed his hand down. He looked at her, her expression hard.

  “I don’t know you,” she said, motioning to him. “This…this person in front of me. This isn’t you. This isn’t Kane Shepherd.”

  Kane raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said. “Tabitha, you’re not making sense.”

  “Kane Shepherd is compassionate,” she said, her voice rising, strong. “He cares. He’s only ever killed in self-defense. But you?” She pointed to the spot where Chris had laid. Kane saw the newsie walking away, looking over his shoulder at Kane as he went. “He was begging for mercy, and you were torturing him!”

  Kane started to speak, to argue, then stopped himself. The image of Chris covered in Wilhelmina’s cockroaches flashed in his mind. He’d been ready to let Chris get eaten alive. Would it have brought back the people killed by the Templars? Would it have changed the fact that they were trapped underground? Or that Sandra had been the one who’d betrayed Hidden Valley?

  Kane didn’t know what unnerved him more: the fact that he’d been willing to torture someone to get answers, or the fact that part of him had known the entire time that it wouldn’t have made any difference.

  “I—I’m sorry,” Kane said, shaking his head. “I was just…I don’t know.”

  “You’ve got to control your temper,” Tabitha said, her tone softening. She kissed his cheek, put her arms around him, and whispered in his ear. “Especially if you’re going to be a father.”

  Kane blinked, pulled back, looking down into her eyes.

  “Wait,” he said. “What?”

  “I had the vision when I got down here. Before you showed up with Hoyle. It’s been so crazy,” Tabitha said, giving a small laugh. “Coming from me, that hurts.” She looked up at him. Her lower lip trembled as she smiled a small, bitter smile. “I’m pregnant, Kane.”

  Who knows how long they’d been down there in the station. Hours? A day? Tabitha had gone to help the Magicians who were healing the injured, leaving Kane to his thoughts. He’d told Hoyle to keep watch, make sure everyone who was able was ready to defend the refugees in the event of an ambush. They were cornered. It would be nothing for the Special Forces and the Templars to show up wipe everyone out.

  Kane wasn’t surprised that Chris was avoiding him.

  Sandra had been taken to a small ticket booth near one of the platforms and locked inside to keep her separated from the rest of Antonia’s girls. Kane planned to question her, figure out what her motive was. What did she have to gain? Something about her story didn’t add up. Sandra loved the other girls, took her responsibility to them seriously. Why jeopardize that?

  He’d decided to wait until the shock of Tabitha’s news had settled down.

  Pregnant. Tabitha was pregnant.

  He couldn’t blame her for being terrified. She’d already lost one child. He looked at her, watched from across the platform as she healed a little girl’s cut arm, singing softly in Icelandic as she held her hand over the abrasion. A knot formed in his gut.

  He wasn’t ready to be a fathe
r. He couldn’t.

  He looked the Seeker over again as Tabitha came over and sat down next to him.

  “Hey,” she said, breathing out a loud sigh.

  “Hey,” Kane said back, looking up at her. “How’s it going?”

  “We’ve got a lot of injured people. Lot of sick people. All the rest are just scared. Even the ones who say they’re ready to fight.”

  Kane shook his head.

  “Getting walled in down here wasn’t part of the plan. I can’t really blame them.”

  She gave him a playful slug on the shoulder.

  “Hey, you’re about to be a daddy,” she said. She clapped her hands rapidly. “Oh! I’ll be we could go back to Jimmy Catch’s place when this is over! He’s really nice! I like Georgia. Hotter than this place, but it’s nice outside.”

  Kane rubbed his face.

  “I just don’t know how all of this happened,” he said, putting the Seeker in his pocket.

  Tabitha blinked at him.

  “Odin’s Beard, Kane, do I really have to explain this to you?” She sat forward and took his hand. “Okay. So I really like you, and you really like me. So when two people really like each other–”

  “Not that,” Kane said as the headache he was trying to fend off made another attempt at a comeback. “I know how that happened.”

  “Oh, good,” Tabitha said, sitting back and grinning. “Then it shouldn’t be hard to talk you into Round Two when this is over!”

  Kane shook his head.

  “I’m not ready to be a father.” He looked around, looked up at the ceiling, knowing the streets of New Chicago were alive above him. The city never slept, a vast and thriving metropolis that was home to the powerful, the wealthy, and the corrupt who ran the entire country. “I’m definitely not ready to raise a child in this.” He stopped and looked back down at her, mentally slapping himself. He knew how it sounded, like he didn’t want the child. He didn’t have a choice. The child would come whether he was ready or not, whether he wanted it or not. He wasn’t ready to start a family, even with Tabitha. He’d already lost one family, his mother and father. He’d lost friends. No matter what, people he cared about got hurt. Got killed. The very idea of losing Tabitha made his chest hurt. The idea of losing his own child was something he couldn’t bear. He laughed, bitter.