by John Hulme
“Sorry, Jelani.”
Becker bit his own tongue and refocused his attention onscreen, where a massive figure was poking his head from beneath the abandoned caboose.
“Locking clamp snapped like twig.” As usual, the Sprechen-einfaches™ struggled to translate the Fixer known as Greg the Journeyman’s obscure Yakutsk dialect. “What could do such thing?”
“Smell that Scratch?” Casey sniffed the air, and the Journeyman did the same. “It’s London to a brick that a Brainstorm came through there.”
Fixer Lake tilted her eyes (and the camera) up to the roof, where the third member of the away team was sitting in the lotus position, eyes closed, arms extended.
“Po, you picking up anything?”
The inscrutable Li Po, #1 on the Duty Roster, silently shook his head no.
“Me neither.” Casey spat with frustration, then spoke directly to whoever might be listening to her broadcast. “If you’re getting this back home, we’re pretty much flying blind out here when it comes to the 7th Sense. Can only assume that stories about Middle of Nowhere are true, and will compensate accordingly—”
“Cassiopeia!”
The voice of an Englishwoman called out, and Casey turned the camera toward where the caboose would be heading if it were still attached to a train. A slender figure was emerging from a path that cut between the dunes.
“No more tracks, as far as my Trinoculars™ can see,” said Fixer #11, Lisa Simms. “But I do see puffs of smoke in the direction of the mountains.”
“Then that where we must go,” said Greg, and despite the shadow that came over Fixer Simms’s face, she agreed.
It was easy to see why the Powers That Be had assigned this particular group of Fixers. Casey was a shoe-in for team leader, and if there was any chance of 7th Sensing where the missing train might be, Li Po would be the one to feel it. Greg the Journeyman’s physical strength was the stuff of legend, while Lisa Simms was the only active Fixer to have entered the Middle of Nowhere and lived to tell the tale. With such a mighty collection of talent, Becker couldn’t fathom what went wrong.
He was about to find out.
“All right, mates.” Onscreen, Casey Lake was pulling a hand-painted Turf Board™ out of her Toolkit. “Let’s get after these whackers . . .”
But their departure was interrupted by the sight of Fixer #1 rising to his feet atop the caboose and extending a finger off toward the horizon.
“What’s wrong, Po?”
Casey and the others turned in the direction he was pointing to see a strange light emanating from somewhere on the other side of the dunes. Whatever the source, it was almost as bright as the sun shining over their heads.
“It is . . . werry beautiful,” whispered Greg the Journeyman, and when he turned to the increasingly shaky camera, there were tears rolling down his bearded cheeks. As if to confirm his opinion, Casey turned her gaze back toward the light, which was so bright now that it hurt to look at even in the screening room.
“Cover your eyes, people!” The broadcast was starting to flicker and skip. “Cover your eyes!”
Greg directly ignored her order, stumbling even closer to the source of the eerie illumination, while Lisa Simms had switched over to Night Shades™ and was desperately flipping to the darkest setting.
“Cassiopeia, I think we should—”
But the woman who was the first violinist for the London Philharmonic in her “real job” could not muster the strength to finish the sentence. Fixer Simms collapsed to the ground with her hands over her eyes and rolled into a little ball. And the light got brighter still.
“What is it, Po?” Fixer Lake shouted, and for the first time since they’d met three years ago, Becker heard fear in her voice. “What’s happening?”
On the roof of the caboose, Li Po was also wiping streaks from his eyes, but from the smile on his face, he appeared to be laughing, not crying. Then the unquestioned master of the 7th Sense turned toward the camera and did something he hadn’t done in almost thirty years.
He spoke.
“The Most Amazing Thing of All.”
The last thing Becker saw was Casey Lake digging a hole in the sand beneath her feet— as if she might claw her way to some refuge from the unbearable brightness. And then, in a flash . . .
. . . the video went white.
When the lights came up, Becker leaned back in his chair, shocked by what had taken place onscreen. Not only had Li Po broken his vow of silence, but the most experienced Fixers on the Roster had been reduced to stumbling shells of themselves by some unknown force. And judging from the faces of the others at the table, they were just as disconcerted by the transmission as he.
In addition to Eve Hightower and Sylvia (aka the Octogenarian), Becker was joined by a dashing Persian man. Shahzad Hassan was a professor of literature at Tabriz University, and was best known for having spent his entire life searching The World for an ancient artifact. But though Becker hadn’t encountered #19 in over a year and knew almost nothing about him, it was the presence of another colleague in the room that put him decidedly more on edge.
“I suggest we begin with questions,” said Jelani Blaque, rising to his feet with the help of his famed Igbo stick.
“That mysterious light . . .” Hassan gathered his jet black hair and pulled it back into a tight ponytail. “Could it be Hope?”
“That’s what I thought at first.” Blaque rewound the broadcast to the moment before it was shut down. “But look at the color and texture of the light. Hope is softer, more yellow . . .” Onscreen, the light that overwhelmed the first team of Fixers was harsh and white, and having seen and felt a Glimmer of Hope firsthand, Becker could not argue with his mentor’s assessment. “I fear we may be looking at a weapon the likes of which we’ve never seen before.”
“Po had a theory about what it was,” suggested the Octogenarian, raising a curious eyebrow.
“Fixer Po was also under great duress. But I concur, it cannot be ruled out.”
This piqued Becker’s interest. “The Most Amazing Thing of All” was the answer to an ancient riddle—“If The Seems is building The World, then who’s building The Seems?”—and some thought that answer could be found in the Middle of Nowhere. Many more, however, believed it to be a myth.
“What about Dr. Thinkenfeld?” asked Hassan. “Do we have any idea where she could be?”
“Negative,” said Second in Command Hightower. “At last report, she was assisting in the Thought harvest—but we haven’t been able to raise Contemplation either.”
Fixer Blaque grabbed the clicker and rewound the tape all the way back to the discovery of the caboose.
“As for the culprits, this may be premature, but I see no evidence that The Tide was responsible for the theft.”
Everyone leaned forward for a closer look, for they all bore scars from their battles with the followers of Triton— especially in the last few months, when it seemed like every day brought a new Tide assault upon the machinery of The Seems. But nowhere on the body of the caboose was painted their dreaded symbol of a black wave cresting and about to crash upon the shore.
“Then who?” pressed the Octogenarian. “The Time Bandits are behind bars, and this is way beyond the capacity of a few Idea smugglers.”
“That’s what we’re here to find out.”
As Becker’s mind began to speculate who besides The Tide would steal six weeks worth of Thought, and what they wanted to do with it, his own thoughts were overwhelmed by a host of strong emotions. Things like anger and hurt and disappointment, all of which drove him to slam his fist down upon the conference table and shout in a voice much louder than he’d intended.
“Hold on a second!”
When everyone snapped their head around in his direction, Fixer Drane had little choice but to ask the one question for which there seemed to be no viable answer.
“I get that this is a serious crisis and all, but what am I doing here?”
All eye
s in the conference room turned back to Fixer Blaque.
“The Powers That Be asked me to come out of retirement and put together a second team to go after the lost Train of Thought.” The lead instructor at the Institute for Fixing & Repair turned to arguably the greatest student he’d ever taught, and smiled. “I’d like you to be on it.”
“You’d like me to be on it? After you and every Fixer on the Roster sold me out in court?”
As Blaque nodded, Becker fought to hold himself back from saying all the things he wanted to say (but knew he shouldn’t) since the verdict came down. Unfortunately, he lost.
“I’ll tell you what you can do with your second team . . .”
Central Shipping, Department of Thought & Emotion, The Seems
As the elevator descended from the Administrator’s office to the shipping room floor, Becker’s hands were still shaking from what he’d just done. Just like his dad and his brother and particularly Uncle Ferdy, when Drane men got going, boy, they really got going.
“I’m sorry about my behavior up there, Madame Second. That was very unprofessional of me.”
“It’s understandable.” Eve Hightower put a hand on the shoulder of her youngest Fixer. “You’ve been on quite an emotional roller coaster lately—and I don’t mean the one at Awe-someville.” 11
“I appreciate that, ma’am. It’s just . . . yesterday I’m public enemy number one and now, because you need me, I’m supposed to drop everything and put my life on the line again?”
The muzak that piped over the elevator’s speakers was a Seemsian cover of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” but the song he kept hearing in his head was Johnny Paycheck’s classic anthem, “Take This Job and Shove It.”
“First,” the Second in Command confessed, “let me say it gave me no great pleasure to side with Judge Torte in imposing such a harsh sentence.”
Just hearing the name of the Administrator of Legal Affairs brought Becker’s blood back to a sauté, but this time he restrained himself.
“However, if you’re honest with yourself—and from what I’ve heard, Fixer Drane, that’s one of your finest attributes— then I think you’ll agree that your conviction and punishment were richly deserved.”
“With all due respect, ma’am, I beg to differ.”
As the elevator dinged to a stop, Eve patiently waited for the doors to slide open.
“Let me show you something.”
When Becker and the Second in Command stepped into Central Shipping, they were immediately handed hardhats and goggles. All around them, raw Thought was being pressed into pokerlike chips and stacked for easy shipment, while Ideas were strung with a filament of Mind and wrapped in blown-glass bulbs. Even bottles of Emotion—brought up from the wells in wicker Basket Cases— were rolled onto palettes destined for The World.12
But things were far from business as usual in the Department of T&E.
“Since the new delivery hasn’t come, we’re being forced to tap into our reserves of Idle Thought.” She motioned to the floor, where the Brain Trust was scraping resin off the sides of empty hoppers. “But we only have enough to last for three days.”
Becker’s mouth suddenly got a little bit drier.
“We’re not talking about a potential Ripple Effect here, are we?”
“Let’s hope not. But it’s possible the Unthinkable could happen.”
Becker didn’t even want to think about that. Without the higher faculty of Thought, there would be nothing to keep the baser Emotions from raging out of control. The collective Jealousy, Anger, and Frustration of millions of human beings would boil over and it wouldn’t be long before the people of The World literally tore themselves to shreds.
“Why can’t we just keep everybody happy for a while?” asked Becker. “Pump a little extra Love into the air?”
The Second in Command smiled as if she wished it were all that easy, then plucked a random Thought from a hopper. In its unrefined state, it looked like a sticky clump of tree sap, and she held it up next to a jar of Sadness.
“We here in The Seems have the power to do anything we want with these. With one Thought or Emotion, we can push people left or right, up or down, toward a good day or bad. But the people of The World weren’t meant to be controlled by joysticks.”
She replaced the items and continued down the walkway.
“It’s the Rules that keep us from playing with that joystick, Fixer Drane, and it’s the Rules that keep us from tampering with the Plan.”
“I understand all that, Madame,” Becker interrupted. “It’s just . . . it’s hard to see the line sometimes. When we’re allowed to help and when we’re not.”
“It is.” Eve smiled, as if she’d wrestled with that same issue many times herself. “At the end of the day, I guess it comes down to one thing: do we believe in the goodness of that Plan, with all its mysteries and imperfections? Or do we not?”
A young Mind Blower approached, clipboard in hand.
“Sorry to bother you, ma’am, but since Administrator Thinkenfeld’s MIA, could you sign off on a Head Trip for Sector 109?”
“Certainly.”
While the Second in Command initialed the order, Becker fired up the replacement Bleceiver that the Toolshed had sent down for him and flipped through the Cases that would be affected should the Unthinkable happen. His hope was that in one of them, he could find a Mission Inside the Mission that would give him the inspiration to get back in the game. But he still couldn’t stop thinking about his own troubles.
“Oh, and in case you were wondering”—Eve returned the clipboard and led the young Fixer back toward the elevators— “regardless of whether or not you accept this Mission, your sentence is set in Stone.14 The suspension will take effect as soon as you return, as will the unremembering.”
Becker knew the Second in Command wasn’t a Mind Reader, but it sure felt like she was leafing through his.
“I hope you’ll look past your own concerns and join the second team. But if not, don’t let it bother you—it’s only the Unthinkable, right?”
The elevator doors again slid open and the Second in Command stepped inside.
“It’s not the end of The World.”
Trans Central Station, Beyond, The Seems
Forty-five minutes later, a man in a blue hat and red tie scanned the platform one last time, then pulled a pocket watch from inside his blazer. “15:59.” Oh well. Time to get the old girl going . . .
“All aboard the Trans-Seemsberian Express!”
A throng of excited travelers hopped off the wooden benches and up the steps of the train. Most, the Conductor figured, were headed out to the Black Market— which at this time on Sunday was just rolling out its best bargains—but he was quite sure the man with the old Air-Conditioner’s belt and his family were headed out to the Sticks.
“This is the local train, making the following station stops: the Outskirts, Obscurity, the Sticks, Seemsberia, and the End of the Line!”
By the time he announced the last stop, the only people left in the station were three owners of a Badge with a double-sided Wrench, none of whom seemed anxious to board the train just yet.
“All aboard!”
“Any chance we can get you to hold it for five more minutes?” asked the Octogenarian, still sitting on her handbag-style Toolkit.
“Sorry, ma’am.” The Conductor was unmoved by Sylvia’s famously sunny disposition. “The Trans-Seemsberian hasn’t been a single minute late since MJGVXXIII, and I’m not going to be the one to break the streak.”
“What’s the point?” Shahzad Hassan lifted his twin attachés. “Clearly, the child is not coming.”
The Octogenarian nodded sadly, and even the mysterious Hassan was disappointed at the fact that Becker Drane was nowhere to be found in this moment of need. But Fixer Blaque seemed more surprised than anything else.
“It appears you are right, Hassan.”
Blaque threw his weatherbeaten Toolmaster ’45™ over his shoulde
r, then leaned on his walking stick and headed for the crowded train.
“Don’t we need to call in someone for backup?” asked Sylvia, following him up the steps.
“I planned for this eventuality, although I hoped it would never come.” Blaque slowly led his colleagues through the train car, searching for an empty three-seater. “Fixer #2 has been living in Obscurity for quite some time now, and he’s agreed to meet us should the need arise.”
The Octogenarian looked at Hassan, who was as intrigued to hear that the reclusive Mr. X might be joining a multi-Fixer Mission as she was. But there would be plenty of time to discuss this and other developments on the long trip out to the End of the Line. The first order of business was finding a seat.
“Perhaps there is room in the dining compartment?”
As the three Fixers stepped between cars, the Trans-Seemsberian dragged itself into motion. The chandeliers jingled as they had for nearly a century, and the red velvet walls and sepia-toned photographs told stories of a long-vanished era. Unfortunately, every high-backed dining booth was full— all except for one, that is, where a single head leaned against the window.
“Excuse me.” Fixer Blaque approached the lone traveler, who was lost inside a dog-eared text. “Would you mind if we joined you?”
The teenage boy put down his copy of Agatha Christie’s The Orient Express, took another sip of his iced Certain Tea, then turned to face the three weary Fixers. They were a strange lot to be sure, but for a Mission to the Middle of Nowhere, Becker Drane figured they would do.
“What took you guys so long?”
11. The most popular amusement park in The Seems, featuring an Awesome Place to Eat, Awesome Things to Do, and the Most Awesome Ride Ever.
12. 99.9% of all Thought and Emotion is shipped in its raw form for people to do with what they will. The remaining .1%, however, is reserved for Case Workers to offer their clients Helpful Hints, Emotional Rescues, Songs You Can’t Get Out of Your Head, etc.
14. The hallowed piece of marble onto which all Court of Public Opinion decisions are irrevocably engraved.