by John Hulme
4
Trans-Seemsberian Express
The Black Market, The Outskirts, The Seems
On Saturdays and Sundays between 9:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m., a normally muddy field in the thinly populated area on the edge of The Seems is transformed into a thriving metropolis of tents, tables, and vendors displaying wares of every shape and size. Most of the trinkets and keepsakes found here are of the perfectly legal (though often junky) variety, but for those who dig a little deeper, the Black Market offers items of a different sort.
“Seven Bucks?”15The crusty, gold-toothed merchant angrily pushed away Fixer Blaque’s coin-filled hand. “I couldn’t buy my grandmother a dazzleberry pie for seven Bucks!”
Fixers Blaque and Drane stood before a foldout table stocked with jars, glass bottles, metal pots, and tins, each containing a powder, oil, or extract from some far-off corner of The Seems. Becker even recognized an unused ounce of Sleep, which only underscored the truth of the handwritten banner that hung above the merchant’s head:
“Man of Substance(s).”
“I didn’t know your grandmother liked dazzleberry,” Blaque needled the merchant, then took another look inside the tarnished locket in his hand. “I’ll give you eight.”
“We’re talking the essential building block of Reality here, my friend. Be reasonable. The lowest I can go is a Bill.”16
Fixer Blaque closed the case, then handed it back to the merchant.
“Maybe I’ll just go see Powderfinger. He knows how to treat a customer.”
Blaque threw a subtle wink at Becker, as if to say, “Sometimes you have to be willing to walk away,” and started to do just that.
“Hey! Where you going, buddy? I’m just trying to make a living here.” The Man of Substance(s) threw up his hands. “Since it’s for a good cause, I’ll do it for nine—but that’s my final offer.”
“And a very generous offer it is. I shall accept.”
Fixer Blaque handed the coins to the vendor and the locket to Becker, who packed it into his Toolkit, along with the battery-powered Calling Card they’d purchased in case their Bleceivers malfunctioned in the Middle of Nowhere. The small metal square allowed users to project holographic images of themselves across great distances, usually to another Card holder.
“Your uncle’s a real skinflint!” the Man of Substance(s) crankily called out to Becker as he and Blaque walked away. “Tell him money only grows on trees in A Better Place!”
The Black Market totally reminded Becker of Englishtown—this outdoor shopping extravaganza in Jersey where he and his grandfather used to go— except much bigger and more exotic. There were endless rows of tables and booths, where shady characters hawked used Fixer Tools, pirated copies of the Plan, hubcaps, and square-cut french fries in brown paper bags. There was even an old Tinker selling T-shirts that read: “Stem The Tide: Bring Back Samuel!” And judging from his half-empty cart, business was booming.
“How many more stops do we have, sir? The Trans-Seemsberian should be done switching over from coal to electric in about ten minutes.”
“Plenty of time, son. Only one more item on the list.”
Jelani Blaque hobbled forward on his walking stick as a group of licensed Bargain Hunters toting nets and coupons passed by.
“I know you won’t believe this, Becker, but I signed that petition for your own good.”
Becker wasn’t going to bring it up, but now that the proverbial elephant in the room was out in the open, he wasn’t going to avoid it.
“So everyone keeps telling me.”
“Take my word for it, when you start Fixing for yourself instead of The World, it’s a slippery slope. That’s how Hadley Eure lost her way, and Zachary Lake, and of course you know the story of Sir Reginald.”17
“I think I’m starting to catch your drift, sir. But imagine if you had to unremember Sarah or your kids. Even if you knew it was justified, would it make it any easier?”
“No, it wouldn’t.”
The two Fixers strolled silently for a while, cutting down a dark and trash-strewn alleyway. There were no tables here, only shadowy figures in dark alcoves, whispering of Fantasies and Frozen Moments stolen from the people of The World. Becker made eye contact with a woman in heavy makeup and costume jewelry who claimed to be a member of the Future Oriented, and she waved him toward her parlor. With a gentle tug from Blaque, he kept walking.
As soon as they stepped back into the light, the duo found themselves in the Tamishantery, a district on the edge of the market where men in brightly colored robes did battle to offer the latest in Seemsian hat wear. Bee Bonnets, Chrome Domes, Big Wigs—even an old World-Beater baseball cap— were all hanging from hooks and ready to be placed upon prospective heads. But when Fixer Blaque approached an old man too wrinkled and hunched over to even hold up a sign, Becker could tell he was looking for something that wasn’t on display.
“What is your pleasure, oh mighty Fixers of the World?”
The old man’s skin was the color of brown that can only be painted by a lifetime under the unforgiving sun, and his eyes were the milky white of blindness. Yet the unmistakable gleam of a born salesman was still behind them, a gleam that brightened considerably when Fixer Blaque began to speak to him in a language Becker had never heard before. It was harsh and guttural, one that the old-timer clearly understood, for it was only a matter of seconds before he flashed a toothless grin and called out in the tongue common to all Seemsians.
“Grandsons!”
Two teenagers sending text messages on their Seems Berrys snapped to their feet, and with a whisper from their grandfather, disappeared behind an ornate tapestry. When they reemerged, the boys were juggling four brass helmets that looked like they belonged on an old-fashioned deep-sea diving suit. One by one, Becker plopped them into his Toolkit—which, although it had plenty of extra Space, didn’t have unlimited weight. It was starting to get awfully heavy.
“What kind of helmets are these, sir?”
Fixer Blaque checked his Time Piece™, which indicated their train would be departing for Obscurity in less than three minutes.
“Let’s hope you never find out.”
“Next station stop: the Sticks! All aboard for the Sticks, Seemsberia, and the End of the Line!”
As the wellness colony of Obscurity slowly receded into the distance, Becker and Fixer Blaque retired to their sleeper cabins to sort through the gear they’d scored in the market. Meanwhile, Hassan and the Octogenarian were finishing up light lunches and watching the landscape shift from rolling green hills to marshlands and thicket. The crowd in the dining car had noticeably thinned since they’d left the Outskirts—most of the remaining passengers congregated on the stools around the lunch counter— leaving the two Fixers a booth to themselves.
“Why do you think Blaque selected you for this Mission?” Hassan asked his counterpart, mouth half full. “I understand why he took the boy genius— but with all due respect, you’re not exactly in your prime.”
The Octogenarian had already finished her grilled cheese and was happily knitting an afghan from balls of multicolored yarn. “Actually, I was wondering the same thing about you.”
“How so?”
“Honey, the only way we’re going to survive the Middle of Nowhere is if every member of the team knows they can count on one another.” Fixer #3 switched colors from larkspur to huckleberry. “Considering no one on the Roster trusts you as far as they can spit into the wind, I find you to be an even more unlikely selection.”
“Touché.”
Hassan didn’t need to be stabbed by a knitting needle to know this was a dig at his life’s work. The Fixer had been born to a proud and storied people whose beliefs and customs were contained within an ancient book. But over two thousand years ago, the thirteenth and most critical chapter had mysteriously vanished, leaving the text tragically incomplete. In the centuries that followed, a tribe that once stretched across the face of The World dwindled to a few thousand . .
. and could soon become but a footnote in the annals of History.
“It’s been years since I turned down a Mission to pursue the chapter, Sylvia.”
“All I’m saying is, some of us wonder what comes first: your worldly Mission or your Mission to save The World?”
The only answer was the steady and hypnotic click-clack of wheels against rails.
“And as far as my age is concerned, let me just say this.” The Octogenarian held up the afghan, frowned, then got back to work. “Every year on the third Wednesday of October, I take a trip to Canaima National Park in Venezuela, climb to the top of Angel Falls, and tell myself the same thing: ‘Sylvia, if you can’t bring yourself to base-jump off The World’s highest freefalling waterfall, parachute down the eight-hundred-meter drop to the bottom, and still dig the rush, then you’ll know it’s time to hang up your handbag.’”
Since the third Wednesday in October had already passed, Hassan assumed she still dug the rush.
“What of Blaque?” The Persian steered the conversation away from himself. “I had no idea he’d returned to active duty.”
“He hasn’t.” Sylvia concentrated her energies on a particularly difficult section of drop stitching around the blanket’s back edge. “I guess because of Hope Springs Eternal, the Powers That Be felt he was the appropriate choice.”
In fact, Sylvia was worried about the entire second team. How were a convicted child, a crippled instructor, a cutthroat treasure seeker, and a resident of the Gordon’s Bay Retirement Community going to accomplish what a team of The Seems’ most formidable Fixers could not? As was her nature, she pushed those negative thoughts aside, preferring to concentrate on the way Hassan’s fingers idly found their way to the amulet of a winged sun around his neck.
“Are you any closer to finding it, Shahzad?”
“Almost there, Sylvia.” Hassan smiled sadly and tucked the necklace back beneath his shirt. “Always almost there.”
The Trans-Seemsberian Express didn’t have much in common with New Jersey Transit, but just as when he occasionally hopped the Trenton Local from New Brunswick to New York’s Penn Station, Becker leaned his head against the glass of his sleeper cabin and watched the world go by. Instead of Metuchen, Elizabeth, and Rahway, the Fixer was treated to the Sticks—a forest of tall yellow reeds that stretched as far as the eye could see. Somewhere out there was a utopian settlement founded by dropouts determined to escape the rat race of The World project, and when the train pulled to a stop, a handful of travelers—with all their Seemsly belongings strapped to their backs—got off.
The Sticks put him into a gloomy state, mostly because it reminded him of the time he and Jennifer Kaley went to a corn maze outside Toronto. They got intentionally lost and found a dead-end corner where the stalks reached high enough that they could hide and listen to the kids laughing and the parents running out of breath. When it was over and he got back to Highland Park, he could smell Jennifer’s bubble gum lip gloss on the collar of his flannel shirt, and he couldn’t bring himself to wash it for weeks.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
“Come in!”
Becker expected to see the ticket taker, who often checked the sleeping cars for stowaways or hoboes, but it was Hassan’s ponytailed head he saw instead. “Briefing in Blaque’s compartment. Five minutes.”
“On my way.”
Fixer Drane splashed some cold water on his face, then hoofed it over to Blaque’s cabin, where the rest of the second team had already coalesced.
“The Powers That Be have asked me to reiterate that this is not a rescue Mission.” Fixer Blaque was reading from a message on his Bleceiver. “As much as we want to find our friends, our first priority is making sure the Unthinkable doesn’t happen.”
Everyone nodded their assent, though the way he tossed his Bleceiver onto a pile of clothes said he had no intention of leaving anyone behind.
“I also wanted you to know that I put in a request to have extra Twinkle and Refreshment added to our Good Night’s Sleep packages tonight. Considering the likelihood that tomorrow we will have to enter the Middle of Nowhere, I thought it prudent.”
“As long as I get my Snooze.” The Octogenarian smiled widely. “It’s the key to a long and healthy life.”
“Last but not least.” Blaque turned his gaze toward the window, where the first hints of snow were scattered on the rocky ground outside. “Be advised that this train is going to be making an unscheduled layover at Seemsberia station.”
“For what purpose?” asked Becker, in no hurry to spend more time in that awful place than he had to.
“I have arranged a brief meeting with one of the inmates. It shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes and the conductor has kindly agreed to hold the train for that duration.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, sir.” Hassan crossed a curious leg. “Which inmate?”
“Thibadeau Freck.”
For the second time today, the team gasped in perfect harmony. But Becker’s was just a little bit bigger than the rest.
“You’re meeting with Thib?” he whispered. “What for?”
Fixer Blaque placed a hand on the cold glass and looked as if he were a million miles away.
“That’s between me and him, Mr. Drane.”
Seemsberia, The Seems
Before the TSE even pulled into the Seemsberia station, Becker donned the cool-looking Hot Head he’d picked up as a parting gift from the Tamishantery. Hassan buttoned up his sheepskin coat, and Octo (as her friends and fellow base-jumpers called her) wrapped herself in the thick wool afghan she’d been knitting the whole way. Temperatures in Seemsberia routinely dipped fifty degrees below zero.
“Station stop: Seemsberia! Next stop, End of the Line.”
The Fixers followed Jelani Blaque onto the granite platform, where icicles hung off a solitary ticket machine and sparse wooden benches offered little comfort from the cold. All they could see for miles upon miles was frigid, unforgiving snow, interrupted only by the occasional glacier of ice, and the one unforgettable contrast. Far in the distance, a sprawling, high-walled prison made entirely of stone.
As Becker watched a medley of convicted felons negotiating their shackles and stepping onto the platform single file, he could only imagine the chills that were going down their spines. He himself had narrowly averted a stint in Seemsberia during his own trial, and he put himself in the soon-to-be prisoners’ shoes—emerging from a sealed car after a long ride and glimpsing for the first time the storied penitentiary where their rehabilitation and reintegration into mainstream society would take place.
“I’ll be back in thirty minutes.” Fixer Blaque joined two Corrections Officers who stoically waited to transport him to the main gates. “Be sure to hold the train.”
“I agreed to twenty minutes, friend,” the Conductor quickly corrected him. “One second longer, and you should think about where you’ll be sleeping tonight.”
Fixer Blaque didn’t argue with the Conductor, just handed him a business card, upon which was printed a single name and number. “If you have any problem with my request, I suggest you contact Madame Hightower on her direct line.”
The Conductor had no idea who Jelani Blaque was or why he was here—keeping his beloved TSE on schedule was his sole reason to be—but the Second in Command was an entirely different matter.
“On second thought, I’m sure the boys in the coal car could use a little Pickmeup.”
As Jelani Blaque commandeered a jeep and disappeared into the tundra, his fellow Fixers huddled together and watched a host of uniformed personnel board the caboose. Standard operating procedure for the Department of Corrections was to scour the train for contraband every time it arrived, and today was no exception.
“Why do you think he wants to see Freck?”
Hassan pointed to the distant gates of the prison, which were slowly opening to admit the vehicle bearing Fixer Blaque.
“Who knows?” The Octogenarian pulled the afghan tight
er. “Maybe Jelani thinks The Tide stole the train after all.”
For Becker’s part, he was just trying to stay warm and keep cool. Thibadeau Freck had been the most talented Candidate in Becker’s class at the IFR (not to mention Becker’s best friend) until he’d faked his own death and resurfaced as a prominent member of The Tide. Now he was serving a thirty-year sentence in Seemsberia for his role in the devastation of Time Square18— and Becker swore he’d never speak to the young Frenchman again.
“I hope he rots in there.”
Even though Hassan and the Octogenarian were shivering, they could feel Becker’s white-hot rage.
“Don’t worry,” the Persian again glanced toward the windowless complex. “He’s as much a pariah in there as he is out here.”
“Sergeant Linney, over here!”
The Fixers turned to see a gaggle of guards and dogs come running down the platform, all gathering around something a Corrections Officer had thrown from one of the storage cars.
“I think we’ve got something, sir.” The Officer showed his square-jawed staff sergeant a long printout filled with item descriptions and serial numbers. “This wasn’t on the requisition list.”
It was a large suitcase—more like a chest, actually— one of those steamer trunks that Becker imagined merchant marines would carry on their voyages across the seven seas. Upon hearing the commotion, the Conductor, the crew, even the lady who ran the newsstand crowded around the bulky antique.
“Everybody stand back,” Sergeant Linney said as he warmed up his baton. “I’m gonna crack this thing open.”
As the inspector got ready to bust the lock, Becker had the strangest feeling that he’d seen this chest before; not on imaginary ocean voyages or underneath the cot of one of his bunkmates at Camp Walden, but in a dorm room at the IFR. The sloppy carving of a double-sided Wrench on one of the sides confirmed his suspicions, as did several others that said simply “I ♥ CL/#23.”
Crack!
The lock split open and everyone who’d been told to stand back pushed forward to see what was lurking inside. But of all the people on the platform, the only one who could positively ID the illicit cargo was Becker Drane himself.