by Ryan Graudin
“The landing on the Titanic gave you trouble, didn’t it?” Eliot asked.
“You could say that.” A frown. Slight side-eye. “What would you know of it?”
Everything and nothing. The rabbit hole became an abyss, yet Eliot pressed on. “What time were you aiming for?”
“Six o’clock in the evening. We landed around ten instead.”
Did the tear span all four hours? Eliot couldn’t count on herself to know. There was no plug-in formula for such growth… merely guesswork. What she needed was a point of reference, a coal-mine canary for the Fade’s spread. At 10:20 that evening she’d been talking with the boy on the settee. What was his name? What was his name? Panic spun through Eliot just a moment before the details landed. Charles. Charles with the baby-fat cheeks, nineteen years old. Sandy hair, bright eyes, over a century dead.
“Remember Charles,” she muttered, both as a reminder to herself and for Vera to record as a memo.
Gram glanced down at her. “Who?”
Charles. Charles. Baby-fat Charles.
“It’s nothing.” Which couldn’t be further from the truth. Eliot’s memories weren’t just an arsenal but a barometer. Once she started forgetting Charles…
“I’ve never seen anything like it before. The numbers…” The Engineer’s voice faded, then picked back up along a different line of thought. “I’ve spent my entire life learning about order, knowing how to keep it. What do you do when the world stops making sense?”
READINGS REMAIN 23% COMPLETE, Vera reminded her. REMEMBER CHARLES.
Water crashed all around Eliot, cascading from the ceiling’s edges, enough to drown in. The man at the blackjack table, who’d been counting on luck to toss him a bone, had instead been beaten by the odds. He threw up his hands and wallowed off.
“There’s nothing like the nihilist to bring out the hedonist.” Eliot gestured to the empty seat.
“We can’t. There’s too much reshuffling. The redistribution could—”
But she was already wading over to the table, cash produced seemingly out of nowhere, at the ready. Carpe the hazing diem. Make it count. Either Vegas’s gilded lifestyle was rubbing off on Eliot or she was just too tired to care. What she needed was a distraction, something to do besides worry herself into bits.
Even Nero had fiddled while Rome burned….
The cute blond dealer checked Eliot’s doctored holo-ID before exchanging her dollars for chips—a tidy sum. Eliot didn’t care if she lost it or not. The money of this era looked like play stuff, all green and papery, and the chips even more so. She placed the highest bet she could. The cards were laid.
Gram appeared beside her. “Far won’t like this.”
“Well, your captain isn’t here, is he? What’s the point of coming all the way to Las Vegas if you can’t toss around a bit of cash?”
“It’s irresponsible.”
Eliot shrugged. “We’re young. Isn’t that our job? If you don’t want any part in it, feel free to join Imogen.”
Gram didn’t move. The dealer was waiting for a decision, and so Eliot tapped the table.
“She’s pretty, don’t you think?”
“Yeah. I mean, I guess.”
Typical boys and their monosyllabic answers. “Why don’t you take her out on the town? Maybe to one of those Penn and Teller magic shows?”
“We’re crewmates.”
“That doesn’t seem to stop Priya and Far.”
Gram glanced back through the curtain of falling water—most of Imogen was blurred, but her topknot shone bright. He watched the green glow, something other than numbers flashing through his eyes.
“They’re the exception to the rule. The probability of such a relationship not ending poorly at our age…” The Engineer shook his head. “It’d make things too complicated.”
Everyone kept getting in their own way today. Must be something in the water.
It felt wrong to laugh, but Eliot couldn’t help herself. The sound was unhinged and hysterical and made the dealer do a double take once the cards were placed. Hit or stand? She was at a negative count, but odds mattered less than everyone thought, especially when you pushed back. Life was for the living. She wasn’t going to worry about wasting water or time slipping or Agent Ackerman or frozen readings or pivot points or redistribution or Charles or all the undoings she could not undo.
Time to take a fexing vacation.
“Hit me,” she said.
19
WIZIZARDS
FAR AND PRIYA TOOK THE LONG way back from the Invictus. They strolled hand in hand, stopping by the iconic Las Vegas sign for a picture, hitting up happy hour at the Cosmopolitan, pausing to watch the song-and-spray number in front of the Bellagio. It was the reprieve Far needed. Big-picture problems fell away when he was with Priya, the world strung together with small joys. An extra side of truffle fries. A kiss enveloped by fountain mist. Jokes and stories and laughter with rubies spilling through it—for Priya’s was an outside-in, inside-out beauty. He wanted to be enough for her, and he hated—hated—that Eliot had brought this into question. Eliot. Ugh. There she was, under the skin again. A vampire-leech-mosquito taking not blood, or simply pride, but control.
Far wrested these thoughts and sent them splashing into fake Venetian canals. Was it too much to ask for a worry-free walk? Couldn’t he stay in this spell of normality they’d woven?
The post-sunset city grew frantic around them—the crowds on the Strip’s sidewalks quadrupled, adverts flashed with growing desperation. It was the sort of energy Far thrived on, but he kept his pace leisurely, even pausing to toss some coins to a haggard-looking man whose cardboard sign claimed ALL I NEED IS WEED.
At least the guy was honest about his motives. Unlike some people…
Eliot, again. Far’s shoulders cramped up, ten pounds of tension returning with visions of the girl who’d bested him thrice now. No Rubaiyat, no lead. How were they going to get back to Central to tap the Ancestral Archives without Lux tracking them down, demanding what could not be given? Ice in the desert, this prospect, seizing every muscle.
“What’s wrong?” Priya paused.
“Is it terrible that I’m thinking about running back to the Invictus and hightailing it to a remote tropical paradise where no one will ever hear from us again?”
“Yes.” Priya arched her eyebrow—all playful—because she knew it was a pipe dream. He did, too. The only place the Invictus could go without Gram was Central time, where remote tropical paradises were few and far between.
“How about Woodstock?” Far fished. Celebrating his eighteenth year of existence reminded him that their anniversary was on the horizon. One-upping genuine BeatBix would take effort.
Her expression lit—a definite yes. “Who’d have thought this crisis would make you amenable to vacations?”
“I like vacations.” Though he probably should take the crew on more of them. He would, if this mess ever got straightened out. Parisian streets and New York fields and wherever Gram wanted to go.
“You like going places to accomplish things,” Priya told him. “There’s a difference. We’ll figure this out, Far. We will. But right now there’s nothing we can do except take the night off and go to the pool—”
“The pool?” It was well past dark, but Far couldn’t spot a single star when he looked up, just a thick haze of light pollution that reminded him of home. “At this hour?”
“Caesars Palace pool. I got an interface message from Imogen telling us to meet them there. Dance party. Epic proportions. Remember?”
How could he forget?
Far felt the bass rumble at least a minute out when they wove through the casino—which looked nothing at all like the actual Domus Augusti, in its ruins or its prime. The closer they got, the more Priya’s steps started to bounce. The DJ would be hard-pressed to play a song she didn’t know; most were probably already on her “Golden Oldies” playlist.
The pools were a sight—waters lit, patterned floo
rs shimmering—dancers in and out, splashing, flashing. Far scanned the crowd’s rhythmic mill of heads. Imogen should’ve been easy to spot, but it seemed she was in her natural habitat: GLOW. Several girls sported hair just as phosphorescent as hers—orange, blue, pink, green. Watching them dance was like will-o’-the-wisps gone wild. There were glow sticks, too, bobbing with wrists and necks.
Far felt very underlit. He let Priya take the lead. Together they skirted the crowd, music buzzing so loud it was almost hard to see. It was Eliot he spotted first. They were worlds away from the mirrors and pastels of Versailles. The night glittered neon, and electronica music clashed about them, yet she was every inch Marie Antoinette—girl at the center of the party, a fixture the crowd gathered around. When she caught Far’s stare, he felt his old failure afresh, as if a wormhole had opened up under his feet and slipped him right back into his old skin. He smelled the roses mixed with bergamots. He heard her whisper…I know an outlier when I see one.
Eliot stilled. The masses kept moving around her, but she was her own point of gravity. Instead of winking, her eyes held him solid, turning Far’s heels leaden. All of his fears fell on him at once, taking and taking.
You don’t belong here.
“Farway! There you are!” Imogen blazed into view—green hair, both arms sheathed in glow sticks. She had to scream at his ear to be heard. “You missed lotsa sun! And stuff. You ’n Priya good?”
“Never better,” he yelled back. “Where’s Gram?”
“Being a wallflower over there!” Imogen’s arm streaked— yellow, pink, blue—toward some cabanas. “We rented one…. He’s watchin’ the bottle!”
“Bottle?” That explained his cousin’s breath, though it raised a whole other set of questions. “You rented a cabana?”
“Me? No. ’Twas Eliot! She got a lil’ too distracted and won a bunch of cash at swim-up blackjack.”
“Eliot gambled?” Oh shazm. How many futures had she changed on Far’s watch? He should’ve known better than to leave her out of sight for so long.
The party suddenly felt more ominous than before, darker gaps between bodies and glow. Far looked over both shoulders, as if Corps operatives were about to leap out of the crowd, armed with stunrods and warrants. All he saw was the thorn in his side herself. She’d gone back to dancing—eyes closed, channeling French royalty at a rave.
Multitudes indeed.
“You’re too dim!” Imogen tore a blue glow stick from her neck and placed it on his head. “There. Now you look like a wizizard!”
“A what? Imogen, how much have you had to drink?”
She held up her thumb and forefinger. “Just a lil’ liquid courage!”
“You’ve never been afraid to dance,” he pointed out.
“No.” Her frown was a borderline pout. “Not for dancing. For… other things. Like talking.”
“About wizizards?”
Priya appeared. Somehow she’d already acquired two glow bracelets. “DJ Rory knows his stuff! This beatmatch is butter smooth! And did you hear that last fade?”
He hadn’t. He offered two thumbs up anyway. “I’m going to check in with Gram!”
Both girls wheeled off, and Far wound his way to the cabanas. He found Gram under a tented area, watching the sea of dancing light.
“Hey, Far.”
“Guarding the goods, I see?” Far nodded at the ice bucket, which held a bottle of something clear and strong. There was frost on the glass when he tugged it out. Belvedere. He recognized the brand from the shipments Lux’s other TMs came back with. Top-shelf spirits. In the Central market, it went for two thousand credits a pop. A third of the stuff was already gone. Not as much as he’d suspected. Then again, Imogen was about as lightweight as pigeon down.
The Engineer shrugged. “Figured this was the best place to plant myself. Least likelihood of getting trampled by stilettos.”
“I’m more worried about Corps stunrods.” Far looked around the cabana. Lounging cushions, fans, a tray full of snacks… Eliot certainly hadn’t skimped on expenses. “All this was bought with table money?”
“The girl can count cards,” Gram said. “She made the right bets, pulled in a bundle. I told her you wouldn’t approve.”
“I’m sure that only encouraged her.” Far grabbed two glasses from the tray and started pouring vodka straight up. “At least no one’s showed up to arrest us yet.”
“Any ripples her actions caused must’ve been minor.” Gram frowned. “Though there was one odd thing….”
“What?”
“She was asking about our landing times on the Titanic. When she first appeared, I thought she could be the cause of the aberration. Now I’m not so sure. The events are definitely linked, but it’s possible she’s here as a result of the disturbance as opposed to the disturbance being the result of her.”
Far handed a glass to his Engineer before downing his own. So cold, so burning. “You’re making my head spin.”
“Yours isn’t the only one. Trust me.” Gram took a healthy swig, coughing as he set the drink down. “It’s all conjecture at this point.”
“What isn’t?” Far poured another round. “Girl’s a no-show in the digital sphere. I’m starting to wonder if she’s a figment of my imagination.”
“A mass hallucination? That’s highly unlikely.”
“It was a joke, Gram.”
“Ah. I didn’t think you were in a humor.”
“I’m not.” Far looked out at the crowd. Their lights were blurring too fast for him to pick apart. Even so, he could see Eliot: lightless and shining. Her white jumpsuit stood out in the whirlwind of color. She doesn’t belong here. You don’t belong here. Anger and fear, back to back and back again.
Far knew he was being drained. He knew he should stop it.
But how?
He slammed his second drink.
“What’s your next move?” Gram asked.
Priya materialized from the revelers—a welcome relief. When Far looked to her, the rest of the crowd seemed to crystallize, unmoved in their motion. Her grin called him over before her wave did.
“Dancing, apparently.” He set the barware back on the tray, next to the Engineer’s unfinished drink. “Have you had enough booze to join the grind yet? Imogen is accusing you of being a wallflower.”
“Is she?” The look on Gram’s face was pained and determined. He donned his fedora like a helmet as he stood. “Right, then. Let’s get this over with.”
Three drinks, four drinks, five. The night melted into itself—moments without seams, becoming one syncopated blur. Like Gram, Far never went out of his way to seek a dance floor, but he found that once he started moving he didn’t give a shazm anymore.
Imogen came by with shots of something that tasted like a candy-shop display. Priya shouted the name and artist of every single song DJ Rory played. Gram tried to make a graceful exit at the five-song mark, but Imogen caught him by the vest and whispered something that made his eyes go wide. The Engineer stayed on the edge of the dance floor, feet shuffling in a way that was too tight to really be called dancing. Eliot flitted in and out of the crowd, always on the edge of Far’s consciousness. She was a moving marionette. Weightless limbs, delicate with hints of broken. The metaphor fell apart with her expression—unpainted. Yes, the eyebrows were sketched, but Far now saw how staged everything else had been, such curated smirks. Collected winks. This face was a good deal younger. It actually dared to smile.
Seven drinks. Eight. Far didn’t normally imbibe this much, but they were in Vegas and it was his unbirthday. If there was ever a time to let loose…
Party all night, dance into the dawning light.
Tick-tock, wind the clock, we can’t stop.
We can’t stop.
We can’t stop.
Priya brought a round of water, which the group guzzled down. Eliot did everything right: grin, laugh, thank you, drink, and was she actually aiming to become part of the crew? Far spent a good five seconds staring
at his cup, marveling at the way the plastic crumpled against his palms. No no no. The Rubaiyat should be on the Invictus, in his hands. How could she make a whole book go poof? Maybe Eliot was a magician? Or an honest-to-goodness wizizard…
Hades, I’m drunk. The realization washed over him, accompanied by dizziness. Everything turned blue—the glow stick, in his eyes. The plastic link snapped off when Far tugged it, the circle becoming a line. He dropped the cup and the shine, watching both get stomped to bits by dancers’ frantic feet.
Once the beat fades, we fall apart.
We can’t stop.
Tick-tock.
Far stood still, watching everyone else spin around him. Imogen. Gram. Priya. Stranger after stranger. Everyone was covered in sweat, despite the dry air. How long could the night go on? It felt like forever already.
A hand on his arm. Far wasn’t surprised to find that the firm grip belonged to Eliot. Her countenance had gone stark… something to match the clench of her fingers on his sleeve.
“What’s the first thing you remember about the Titanic?” Her question was loud enough to pick out over the music, but Far struggled to keep up.
Remember? Everything was a blur, thanks to that bottle of Belvedere. He could barely recall the past few minutes, much less the finer points of his last mission. “Um. Crates?”
“How did you get to those crates?” Eliot was cutting off his circulation. Far’s fingertips buzzed; pins and needles pulse. BOOM sting BOOM. “Do you remember the exact route?”
Far frowned, thoughts spinning too fast to track. He remembered the plans: ship’s schematics flashing across Imogen’s screens and Bartleby standing by, looking dapper in a swallowtail coat. He remembered tossing said coat overboard before he descended into the cargo bay. But when it came to his actual jaunt through first class?
Nothing. The space was blank.
Shaking his head only made him dizzier. “Too much vodka…”
“Fex!” Far had never heard the word before, but he was pretty sure it was a curse for how hard Eliot spat it. “Fex! Fex! Fex!”