The Inexplicables (Clockwork Century)

Home > Science > The Inexplicables (Clockwork Century) > Page 24
The Inexplicables (Clockwork Century) Page 24

by Cherie Priest


  Angeline told him, “We could. We will.”

  “Good, good. We’ll need to educate a few chosen people about the terrain.”

  “Only a few people?” Lucy O’Gunning asked.

  “For now, only a few. And if possible, we should send out a party this afternoon. We can’t waste time.”

  “But then what?” Lucy pressed.

  He paused. “It depends on what we learn. If we can take a few days to gather ourselves and ready our defense, so much the better. If we can’t, then we rush our plans and hope for the best.”

  “So you do have a plan?” Houjin sounded positively hopeful.

  Yaozu gave him a chilly smile. “Yes. But it’s not a plan I can enact alone. I’ll need the whole underground to assist. And that’s only fair, isn’t it? Since it’s the whole underground we mean to save. They’ll come for the Station first, yes, but they’ll come for the rest of you eventually. Or the Vaults will collapse upon themselves without my people—and my finances—to restore them.”

  Grudgingly, Briar Wilkes said, “That’s true.”

  “Thank you, Sheriff Wilkes,” Yaozu said with carefully presented deference. “We all must agree to work together, and we must understand that the solution will not be clean, tidy, or peaceful.”

  Kirby Troost, one of the men from the Naamah Darling, said, “I think we’ve got that part figured out. I, for one, am tickled pink at the prospect of dirty, untidy, and violent. So what do you intend for us to do, anyhow?”

  Cly nudged the little man gently, as if he was concerned that too much had been said. But Troost stood his ground, and stared levelly at the Chinese man on the bar.

  “Mr. Troost. You’re an engineer, aren’t you?”

  “Close enough.”

  “I’ll want a word with you later. You, too, Houjin. I have a team of my own at the Station, but I’ll need all the mechanical heads I can put together.” Then he concluded, “Between us, I believe that we can best them. Entirely.”

  Twenty-two

  The city mobilized. Houjin was carted off with Yaozu—he didn’t leave with Cly’s permission, exactly, but the captain didn’t attempt to stop him. Angeline disappeared out the back of Maynard’s as soon as Yaozu had finished speaking, as if she’d forgotten something and only just remembered it, but Rector suspected that she was trying to avoid the man altogether.

  The remaining crew of the Naamah Darling went up to Fort Decatur to prepare the ship for launch and reconnaissance—and a potential supply run as well, if it could be made quickly enough. Zeke vanished with the captain, as if the boy could replace Houjin (a thought that made even Rector laugh), and Briar Wilkes left right behind them. Lucy O’Gunning began cleaning the bar, Swakhammer and his daughter went out the back door chatting, and there was nobody else left who Rector knew well enough to ask, What should I do? Where should I go?

  Everyone ignored him, so he went back to the Vaults. It was either that or the Station, and he didn’t know anyone there except for Bishop and Yaozu, and neither one of them seemed too likely to take him under their wing. Or even give him the time of day, without duress.

  But the Vaults were easy, and not very far away. He’d figured out the path by now, and while he’d been jaunting through the facilities with Zeke he’d spied a room that nobody seemed to be using. Since he doubted that Mercy Lynch would beat him back, he let himself into the sickroom, gathered his belongings, and relocated to the other space on the next floor down.

  This new room was dark, but all the rooms were dark. It was scantily furnished, but again, none of the rooms were poshly appointed as far as he knew—except maybe out at the Station, where Yaozu had enough money to appoint whatever he pleased.

  Rector wondered if he ought to find his way out to the Station, after all.

  The Doornails had been pretty nice to him, so far as nice went. Except maybe the nurse, who hadn’t been nice, but she’d saved his life. And maybe Cly or Briar Wilkes, who’d been none too welcoming—but hadn’t chased him out of the fort, either. But Zeke was all right, same as ever. And Houjin was tolerable, once you figured him out. And Angeline was fine by him, if you ignore the fact that he’d never expected to call a woman old enough to be his grandmother some kind of friend.

  As he sat on the edge of the dry, uncomfortable bed, he asked himself what he really wanted and found no answer except a dull pang of hunger for sap, which he’d effectively concluded that he couldn’t have anymore, regardless of how much he wanted it.

  (Something about the dismembered pile of bones and meat. Something about the moaning, lonely grunts and wails of the rotters. Something about being so close to it all, and Yaozu running an operation with no use for users, now or ever.)

  All right then. No more sap. Not for now.

  He considered sharing this unhappy conclusion with Zeke or Houjin, or even Mercy Lynch—since she was so keen to hear all about sap and its effects—but he wasn’t certain he could stick with the resolution, if in fact this was a resolution at all. He didn’t know. He’d never made one before.

  All he knew was that he’d gone a stretch without sap and he was thinking clearer than he had in a very long time, and feeling better than when he’d been on the outside—persistent Blight gas be damned. He was hungry more often than not, but he’d always been hungry outside—and now he knew where to find food, and no one would swat him with a belt if they caught him taking any. He was tired, but he’d often been tired before, and now he had a place to sleep that he didn’t share with anyone else. Maybe it didn’t lock, and maybe it didn’t belong to him in any concrete way apart from possession being so much of the law down here, but it was his and no one was fighting him for it.

  If he were to try his luck at the Station, he might find the population less accommodating, or more competitive, which was his true worry. Bishop had suggested that the Station would be filled with men more like himself, inclined to crime, drug use, and cheating behavior, and that sounded tricky. It was easier, he suspected, to be the only person of his sort. Better a big fish in a small pond.

  But when he looked around the tiny, dingy, dark, and utilitarian room … it did not feel much different from the orphanage. It felt like a lateral move, and not a step up. Even if it was his, and his alone.

  He was mulling this over when he heard a violent clatter and a keening, simpering sound that made his ears want to close up. He hopped to his feet and poked his head out into the hall, and there he saw Angeline wrestling with something that was too large for her to easily carry.

  When she saw him, she smiled and set her burden down with a grunt. “Red!” she exclaimed, panting roughly as she caught her breath. “Come give me a hand with this, would you?”

  “What … what is it?” he asked, coming closer only because she was so unafraid—and it wouldn’t do for him to cringe away like a coward.

  “Silly boy—it’s the cage we set out the other day. And inside it…” She drew aside a moth-eaten blanket that’d been covering the cage. “I’ve got Zeke’s fox.”

  The creature snapped and hissed, crawling in a circle as if trying to create a smaller and smaller ball of fox—something tiny enough to fit through the mesh and escape. Angeline dropped the blanket again, and the persistent fuss of the animal’s crying tapered off.

  “Why is it Zeke’s fox?” Rector asked.

  “Because he’s the one who wanted to save it. Him and me, I guess, but I don’t plan to look after it, and I expect he will. Help me carry this,” she directed.

  Rector did so, but he made sure to grab a good handful of blanket before putting his fingers anywhere within potential biting distance.

  He needn’t have worried. The fox cowered away from both of them.

  “Where are we taking it?” he asked as he lumbered beside her, walking sideways to keep from dropping the cage and fox both.

  “I thought one of these extra rooms down here might do the trick. Same as you, I expect,” she said. “You picked one out? Is that what you’re do
ing down here?” She sidled as they walked, the cage held between them.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he admitted. “Miss Mercy threw me out of the sickroom.”

  “You ain’t sick no more.”

  “Sure, but I didn’t have noplace else to go.”

  She stopped beside a half-open door. “Here—this room over here ought to be fine for the fox, for now. You didn’t see anybody else around? Not that I think anyone’d need the space, but you never know.”

  “No, I think I’m the only one down here. But we can always shut the door and … um … and put a sign on it.”

  “Not sure how much good that’d do.” She pushed the door open with her hip and backed into the room, drawing the cage and Rector along behind her. “Half the folks down here can’t read. But if the idea of a snarling fox who’s all sick with Blight doesn’t keep ’em out, they deserve to get bit. I’ll pass the word around upstairs.”

  Rector accompanied her to the far wall, where they deposited the fox.

  Angeline drew the blanket back all the way, and the light from the corridor cast a wide shaft into the room. She scared up a lantern, lit it, and drew it close enough to the animal so she could get a better look.

  Rector said, “That’s about the most pitiful thing I ever saw.”

  “I have to agree with you there,” she nodded.

  The fox’s ribs stuck out through its patchy fur, and its eyes were glassy and gold. They had an odd orange tinge to them—something unnatural and unhealthy, like the crows … except the fox did not appear otherwise well. Its tongue lolled, its eyes bugged, and its ears drooped sadly.

  The princess put her hands on her hips. “First things first, then. I’ll get it some water and some food, and we’ll see if it don’t improve.”

  In half an hour they’d managed all of these things, and even arranged the old blanket into something like a bed. It’d be more comfortable than the metal mesh, at any rate, and when the door was closed the room was dark and quiet. Once the fox was as comfortable as its human handlers could make it, Rector turned to Angeline and asked, “If it does get better, how long do you think that’ll take?”

  “Don’t know. But Zeke’ll be pretty patient with it. That boy’s still finding his way. He’s trying to decide who to be, and how to become it, and that’s a difficult thing for anybody … but he’s got a kind heart in him, and that’s more than a lot of people start with.”

  Rector scratched at his wrists, which still smarted dully from the Blight burns. “Well, he got picked on a lot, on the outside. It might’ve made him a little soft.”

  “That’s not always how it works, you know. Or maybe you and I have a different idea of what soft means. Soft don’t always mean weak; the trees that bend are the ones that weather the storm, after all. You’re a boy from the Sound. You ought to know that. Now come on—let’s leave this little fellow alone and hope for the best. Maybe he’ll take that food and water, and maybe the air down here will clear him out.”

  “It don’t work on people.”

  “That fox ain’t people.” She ushered Rector out of the room and shut the door behind them both. “Peace and quiet, that’s all we can do for it.”

  As if on cue, Houjin came bounding down the corridor, shouting. “Rector, are you down here? Rector?”

  “Shh!” Angeline hissed.

  Houjin drew up short and stopped himself with a skid. “Sorry, ma’am. I was looking for Rector.”

  “So I gathered. What do you want with him?”

  “It’s not me, ma’am … it’s Yaozu. He wants him for outside work. Since he knows some of the people out at the tower, and all. Besides, he says he’d rather give Rector a job than wonder what he’s up to.”

  Angeline laughed, which surprised both boys. “I never said the man was a dummy, did I? You two run along and make yourselves useful.”

  As the two boys ran down the hall to the stairs, Houjin asked, “What was all that about? What were you doing down here?”

  “Setting up a room for myself,” Rector said. “And while I was at it, I ran into Miss Angeline, carrying that cage we put out. She caught the fox. We gave it some food and water, and left it in that empty room with the door shut.”

  Houjin shook his head and reached for the stair rail. Up he climbed, and he said, “Waste of time. But it’s nice of her to try—and Zeke’ll be glad she caught it. It can be his project, when he gets finished up at Decatur.”

  “Why aren’t you up there? Why’d you leave with Yaozu? Is that air captain boss of yours scared of him, or what?”

  “Cly’s not scared of him,” Houjin snapped. “The captain’s trying to do what’s best for the underground. Zeke can carry things and move things up at the fort as easy as I can; but he can’t make things like I can.”

  “What are you making?” Rector asked, partly because he was curious, and partly because he didn’t feel like managing Houjin and his bad mood.

  His small question worked. A smile spread out over Huey’s face. “Yaozu had a great idea, but he didn’t know how to make it happen. So I figured it out—it was easy as pie.”

  “Well, what is this great idea?” They reached the first floor, and Houjin was nearly at a run, so it must be something good.

  “We’re going to take their dynamite, and use it against them.”

  Houjin stopped and faced him, and held out his hands like he could make his point better if he could gesture. “How much do you know about dynamite?” he asked.

  “It blows things up.”

  “Right. It blows things up, but you don’t want it to blow things up while you’re standing there holding it. You want to be a long way away when it goes off,” he said patiently. He’d lapsed into teacher mode.

  Rector didn’t care for being talked down to by somebody younger than him, but he was the one who’d asked, and now he had to take the explanation however he could get it. With a minimum amount of disdain, he said, “Obviously.”

  “Obviously, yes. You obviously knew that.”

  “Just tell me, would you?”

  “Fine. In order to control it, you have a couple of choices: You can either give it a very long fuse, and light it, or you can take a very long wire, and use that wire to send the dynamite an electric spark. It’s usually generated by one of those pump boxes: You shove the plunger down, it makes a spark, the spark goes down the line, and boom! But we don’t want to use wire, and we don’t want to use a fuse.”

  Rector tried to look like he was following, but he was lost. “Then what would you use?”

  Houjin beamed, with a tiny, unnerving edge of mischief that was made sharper by Rector’s irritation. “Time!” He took off again, Rector trailing behind him.

  “Time?”

  “You heard me! Don’t ask me to explain yet, ’cause it’ll be easier to show you. But for now, you’re on dynamite duty with me—and you have to listen. I’ll show you how to take care of it without blasting yourself to pieces.”

  Since this qualified as a noble goal so far as Rector was concerned, he listened hard and promised to do what he was told. Ordinarily he’d make no such vows, but the prospect of blowing himself to Kingdom Come made him infinitely more responsive to instruction.

  “But why are we in such a rush?” he asked, and asked it quickly, when Houjin paused to take a breath.

  “Because we’re going to the tower.”

  “You told me that already. Why are we going back there, when all the action’s at the Station?”

  Houjin pushed all his weight into moving the big Vault door, then stepped outside into the main body of the underground. “Because, like you said—all the action’s at the Station. Yaozu just gave the word: His spies are watching the Station and all its entrances, keeping track of the men who are planting the explosives.”

  “They ain’t stopping them?”

  “No, just watching for now,” he said. From out of his pocket he pulled two scraps of glass the size and shape of spectacle lenses. “Take one of these. T
hey’re polarized. I don’t want to wear those glasses—they look crazy, and they’re too small for me. So I went back down to storage and picked up a different set.”

  “Good idea.”

  “Thank you.”

  Slipping the scrap of glass into his pocket, Rector asked, “Why the tower, though? What are we supposed to do there?”

  “Get inside, get a look around, and steal as much dynamite as we can carry. But no more than that,” he added. “We want to leave plenty inside.”

  “But why me?”

  “Why you?” Huey stopped and turned around, as had become his habit when he wanted to make sure Rector was paying attention. “Because if you get caught, there’s a good chance you can talk your way out of it. You know some of these men, and they know you—they might assume you were sent along by Otis Caplan or one of his people. If I were you, that’s what I’d tell them, anyway. If we get caught, that is.”

  “And what would I tell them about you?”

  “Tell them…” He thought about it. “Tell them I don’t speak English, but I hate Yaozu and I’m here to kill him. Or something like that.”

  “You think they’ll believe it?”

  Houjin shrugged and resumed his trek up the underground version of Commercial Street. “Why not? Plenty of people hate Yaozu and want to kill him. Plenty of Chinese, even, because of how he helped Minnericht be so bad to them those first few years he was inside the wall. But we won’t have to worry about it … as long as we don’t get caught.”

  Twenty-three

  Out in the city proper, Rector and Houjin struggled against the gloomy, curling, coiling air. Rector found that it gave him headaches if he stared too long, his eyes straining to catch every shape, every scrap of light or shadow that made it past the Blight. He grew tired from the stress of being so persistently alert. Then again, how long had it been since he’d had any sap? He’d count the days, if he could only remember them.

 

‹ Prev