by John Hulme
Luckily, this place also came equipped with its very own Doc.
“How long was he out there with a broken Head Case?” The pale man in the bifocals lifted the cracked helmet off Hassan’s head and listened to his heart with a beat-up stethoscope.
“Impossible to say,” answered Fixer Blaque, picking out sand from the ornate carvings on his Igbo stick. “After the storm hit, we got separated, and we weren’t able to locate him for, what, an hour or so?”
Blaque looked to Becker for confirmation, and #37 nodded. “When we found him, he was already out cold.”
Doc scraped some bluish sand off Hassan’s helmet with a scalpel and rubbed it between his finger and thumb. Head Cases had been protecting travelers from Brainstorms ever since the first Bandwagon trains had come this way, but once they lost integrity, you were out there on your own.
“Lotta Scratch got in there, fellas. Not a good thing.”
Doc held up his stained fingers at Emmett, who was boarding up the doors of the Far-Out for the second time today.
“Not a good thing at all.”
Ironically, the second team’s foray into the Middle of Nowhere had started auspiciously—those ominous clouds holding off as Becker and Hassan hand-pumped the old seesaw trolley and its passengers as far as the hidden tracks would go. In the deep valley of dunes featured on Casey Lake’s transmission, the team had found the same caboose, along with two additional items: Greg the Journeyman’s Toolkit and the cloth pouch that once carried Li Po’s precious speaking tiles. But when the tracks had suddenly disintegrated and blown away in the wind, so had their luck, for the tempest regathered and fell upon them with twice the wrath.
“How’d you fellas even find this place?” asked Charity, who’d been kind enough to assist Doc with his Smelling Salt and cotton swabs. “Surely ain’t on any maps.”
“It’s on this one.”
Becker held up the crinkled piece of parchment that Fixer Blaque had given him when they’d become hopelessly lost in the swirling sands. The hand-drawn diagram had been useless at first, the team unable to locate a landmark, but when they’d stumbled across a fork-shaped cactus that looked suspiciously like the one Blaque had sketched, Becker led his fellows on a last-ditch effort toward the town labeled “Who Knows Where.”
“Mind if I get a gander at that?” Hopeless snatched the sheet before Charity could even get a look, and when he studied its contours, his eyes glowed like they’d just seen gold. “Where’d you say you got this here map again?”
“He didn’t.” Fixer Blaque held out a hand, making it quite clear to the old prospector what he expected to be put in it. “It’s just a few pictures I drew last time I was here.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” Hopeless flashed a rotten-toothed grin and handed the map over without a fight. “To whom do I owe the pleasure?”
“You can call me Fixer Blaque.”
Up until now, there had been too much commotion for Becker to feel out the vibes in the saloon, but at the mention of the word “Fixer,” the tension became palpable. The patrons who had gathered around the injured Hassan quietly slinked back to their tables—keeping their eyes on the floor and their mouths shut—and it was pretty obvious why. Anyone who called the Middle of Nowhere home had something to hide . . . or someone to hide from.
“Tell your customers not to worry, Emmett.” Fixer Blaque sidled up to a stool by the bar. “We’re here to find a lost Train of Thought, not to make trouble for honest, hardworking people.”
“Mighty nice of you to say, Jelani.” Emmett reached across and shook the retired Fixer’s calloused hand. “And mighty nice to see you again.”
“Been too long.”
Blaque’s familiarity with this of all places caught Becker by surprise, and it was becoming increasingly apparent why the Powers That Be had insisted upon him as team leader.
“You and your men must be dyin’ of thirst.” The bartender wiped his hands on his apron and cordially handed out menus. “No offense, ma’am.”
“None taken.” The Octogenarian smiled, happy to finally be free of that dreadful helmet. “And make my Shot in the Dark a triple.”
As Becker perused the drink list and wondered if they checked IDs in this joint, he took another covert glance at the three robed men. When Blaque mentioned the lost Train of Thought, everyone in the bar did a double take—but the Bedouins hadn’t reacted at all. Becker leaned in for a closer look and noticed that one of them appeared to be injured— the bottom portion of his robe was soaked with blood— and his friends were forced to prop him up lest he fall out of his chair.
“I think he’s coming around!”
Doc put the Salt shaker back into a black bag that still bore the faded symbol of the Department of Health, and all attention turned to the man on the floor, who was starting to emerge from his trance.
“What happened?” Hassan tried to sit upright, but quickly abandoned that idea when the sudden rush of blood forced him to grab his temples in pain. “Where am I?”
“You’re in Who Knows Where, son.”
Doc eased the Fixer’s head onto a velvet pillow, and Becker dragged his Toolkit over to his fallen teammate.
“You look like you could use a Breath of Fresh Air™.”
Hassan sat up on his elbow and helped himself to the Binaca-like blast.
“Don’t mind if I do.”
“Listen, son . . .” Doc leaned in close, gravely concerned. “You didn’t happen to see nothin’ . . . strange out there, did you?”
“Like what?”
“Oh, I don’t know . . . somethin’ you wish you hadn’t?”
Unlike earlier, when every man, woman, and child in the saloon was pretending to be invisible, now they were transfixed. Hassan looked toward the front door, which was still being pounded by the wind and rain.
“I remember nothing except getting lost in the storm, my visor breaking, and a suffocating blueness . . .”
Everyone eyed the Fixer skeptically, but it was Emmett who said what was on their minds. “You’re sure now, mister? ’Cause some real bad things come to life in a Brainstorm.”
The Persian’s steely brown eyes revealed little of what was behind them.
“I said I saw nothing.”
“Hassan is a liar!”
A deep and throaty voice called out from above, and all looked up to see a huge, half-naked man standing at the top of the stairs. His flesh was sunburned and his hair sizzled, and judging from the ban dages that covered his eyes and hands, someone had been giving him a great deal of medical attention.
“Sweetheart, I told you to stay in bed!” Charity scrambled up the stairs and hastily tried to lead him to his room. “You’re still burnin’ up with fever!”
The waitress pulled at a heavily muscled arm, but even in his weakened condition Greg the Journeyman was not an easy man to move.
“Hassan has always been a liar!” The giant Fixer looked directly at Hassan, as if he could see right through the blindfold. “Most of all to himself.”
Becker couldn’t stop himself from checking to see how closely the Yakustkan’s comment had struck its mark. But Shahzad Has-san only squeezed the rain from his long black hair and started up the stairs.
“It’s good to see you, Greg. We feared the worst.”
The first of the missing team of Fixers to be found by his brethren reached out a mighty paw and blindly shook Hassan by the shoulder.
“Fear not, brother. For I have seen the—”
And then Greg the Journeyman crashed to the floor.
“Help me get him back to his room!” cried Charity, and two more Fixers bounded up the stairs. But when Becker joined Blaque and Hassan in lugging the more than three-hundred-pound man down the hallway, he was surprised to see that the burn on Greg’s torso was not caused by the sun at all.
“Is that what I think it is?” Becker pointed toward the seared flesh, where an oversized teardrop and lightbulb had been seared into Fixer #6’s chest
like he was a branded steer.
“It is. But there will be time to discuss it in the morning.”
Fixer Blaque seemed to know exactly what was on his pro-tégé’s mind. Of course there were other possibilities, but chances were that way out here in the Middle of Nowhere, there was only one place that this proud icon could be found at a temperature sufficient to cause such a wound. It was on a steam-powered juggernaut whose black smokestack was emblazoned with just such an icon, and whose precious cargo provided the raw materials for The World to ponder, ruminate, and muse . . .
A Train of Thought.
By the next morning, the winds had died, the sun shone brightly, and seeing that no crawling eye or swarm of giant roaches had shambled out of the storm— as they had during Brainstorms Mathilda and Persephone— it was business as usual in Who Knows Where. The Snake Oil salesman shilled his latest tonics, Back Scratchers sifted the sand for specks of blue, and the Idea Smugglers stuffed their saddlebags for another illicit run to the Black Market.
“What a difference a day makes,” observed the Octogenarian, joining her fellow Fixers on the bench outside the General Store. “And what a charming little town.”
Though Sylvia always looked on the bright side, she also knew that this was not the moment to indulge her favorite hobby of scoping out exotic travel destinations. The Brainstorm had cost the Mission precious Time, and while Hassan was getting a final once-over at Doc’s Apothecary, the rest of the team anxiously waited for Greg the Journeyman to awaken from his slumber.
“Here he comes now.”
Becker pointed to the swinging doors of the saloon, where the Yakutskan strongman was stretching his huge arms. He seemed to be in a good deal of pain, however, and Charity the waitress emerged to give him a shoulder to lean on as he made his way onto Main Street.
“Those two are awfully cozy, don’t you think?” The Octogenarian peered across the street from behind her copy of this morning’s We Know Where Gazette. “I wonder how she feels about him resuming his duties?”
“I think we’re about to find out,” said Fixer Blaque, spreading a smear of Seems Cheese on an Anything bagel. After a few heated words were exchanged, Charity headed back through the swinging doors, and Greg lumbered across the street to meet his comrades.
“Dobraye ootra, my brothers and sister!”
The Fixer’s eyes were still covered with a blindfold, and it took both Becker and Blaque to guide his massive frame over to the bench.
“Good morning to you, Greg.” Fixer Blaque patted him on the back. “I take it you’re feeling better.”
“Much better. Doctor say fever break.”
“And your eyes?”
When Greg removed his blindfold, even Blaque found it hard to stifle a wince of horror, for the once hazel irises had been scorched white.
“What was it, Greg?” asked the Octogenarian, gently reaching up to touch her comrade’s wounded face. “What did this to you?”
“Something more beautiful than you could ever imagine.”
As the Journeyman recounted everything that had happened since the coming of the strange light, a childlike wonder graced his weather-beaten face. Becker had assumed the first team (as well as the staffs of Contemplation and the End of the Line) had been eradicated by some sort of secret weapon, but Fixer #6 told a different tale.
“Everything Gregor fear, as soon as light wash over him, gone. So into light he walk—straight toward mountain— until he find it . . . half buried in sand.”
“Find what?” asked Blaque, though he hoped he knew the answer.
“Lost Train.”
A silent satisfaction settled over the General Store’s front porch.
“What about Casey and Lisa and Po?” asked Becker, worried for his friends.
“Do not know, Becker Ferdinanovich. Others go separate way, as we must all in life.”
“#6, this is Fixer Octo talking.”
“Is great pleasure not to see you again, Sylvia.”
Both Fixers laughed, and the respect Greg had for his elder was evident.
“I was curious if before you lost your vision, you were able to ascertain the identity of the thieves.”
“Yes, when find train, robbers digging out from nasty Brainstorm.” Greg ripped open his shirt to reveal his badly burned chest. “Perhaps Gregor should buy ticket instead of hold on to smokestack, but pain of burn nothing compared to glory of light.”
The Journeyman’s smile bespoke the truth of that statement. “Can you describe them?”
“Men, robed in black from foot to head. Was they who threw me off train— but not before I throw three of them first. Is only by grace of Plan does Gregor survive and end up Who Knows Where.”
Becker’s heart jumped. The teenager had suspected the black-robed figures in the Far-Out Saloon from moment one, and kept a watchful eye on them all night. The party of three never said a word, and never got up from their table until Emmett had unsealed the doors at six a.m. Even then, they had only requested some bandages for their wounded comrade, whose injuries surely could’ve been caused by a fall off a moving train.
“If y’all are wondering about them Nowherians, they done skedaddled out the back door ’bout an hour ago.”
From the alley behind the General Store, a voice with a definite Middle of Nowhere twang rang out, followed closely by an old codger with a ’49er hat and a long piece of straw between his yellowed teeth.
“And b’lieve you me, once they get back into the desert, might as well be huntin’ Dust Bunnies without a broom.”
Nowherians? Where had Becker heard that name before? He looked at the Octogenarian but she seemed just as perplexed as he was. Fixer Blaque didn’t seem to have the same problem, though.
“Let me guess.” Blaque threw Hopeless a wry grin. “You’re the only fella in town who can help us find them?”
“Dang tootin’!” The grizzled prospector winked. “Alls I ask in return is a few minutes with that map you got there.”
Blaque unfolded the twelve-year-old piece of parchment and dangled it in the air.
“It’s yours.”
“Whoo hoo!”
“After you take us where we need to go.”
“Done!” Hopeless jumped into the air and clicked his worn-out boot heels together. “Lemme just roust my partner, Zebulon, and we’ll head for the mountains!”
While Hopeless skipped off toward the stables, the second team busted out Turf Boards and Cross-Country Skis™ for the journey that lay ahead.
“Put these on, Greg.” Fixer Blaque pulled a plastic case from his Toolkit and offered it to his old friend. “I think you’ll find blindness as a handicap is overrated.”
“Is not necessary, Jelani. Gregor will not be coming with you.”
The team stopped in their tracks, and wistfulness filled the crags of the Journeyman’s face.
“Gregor has had long and fruitful voyage in this life. From town in middle of nowhere to Middle Nowhere itself, and always he move on. But today he finally know where journey end.”
“But what about the train?” Becker knew what Greg’s strength could do for this Mission, and hated to see it wasted.
“Plan will provide, boychik.” The Journeyman placed a leathery paw on the shoulder of his youngest comrade. “Never has Gregor known that more than he does now.”
As Greg bid his fellows good-bye, none among them could deny he had earned the right to choose this ending. For three decades he had served The Seems’ cause, and his mighty shoulders had literally carried the weight of The World on several occasions. But even Atlas had to shrug.
In the doors of the Far-Out Saloon, Charity nervously gnawed at her fingernails, searching Greg’s body language for whether or not he was planning to stay. But when she let out a holler and jumped into his arms, Becker knew she’d gotten the answer she’d been hoping for instead of the heartbreak that had passed through town so many times before. Heartbreak that Becker himself began to feel— for he’d
given someone else a different answer— and he pushed it from his thoughts as fast as he possibly could.
“While I’m young, boys.” The Octogenarian affixed her umbrella to one of her ski poles and opened it high and wide. “Time to saddle up.”
The second team fanned out onto Main Street, heading for the Apothecary to round up Hassan. But halfway there Fixer Blaque stopped, as if some important task had somehow slipped his mind. He turned to face the Far-Out Saloon, and when he shouted out to the blind man who sat on the steps, Emotion that can only be felt by those who have shared a higher calling was dripping from his voice:
“Live to Fix, Greg the Journeyman!”
The red-haired giant clenched a fist and raised it proudly over his head.
“Fix to live, Jelani Blaque!”
22. Brainstorms in The Seems, like hurricanes in The World, are given alternating male and female names.
8
Au Contraire
Protective Custody, Seemsberia, The Seems
“Wake up, Simly!”
“Just five more minutes, Mom!”
Simly Frye tucked a pillow over his head and tried to hustle back to dreamland.
“Simly, wake up!”
Someone gave the mattress beneath him a swift kick.
“Who? What? When?” The lanky Seemsian sat up like a shot, banging his head against the ceiling. “Where am I?”
“In my cell.” A soothing French accent calmed his nerves from the bunk below. “They’re about to do the count, so make sure you’re dressed and ready to go.”
“Thanks, Mom. I mean, Thib.”
Simly wiped the twinkle from his eyes and thought for a moment he might be dreaming, and that he really was back at the Frye family compound in the Seemsian suburb of Everywhere. But when he saw the bars on the window and realized his Jinx Gnomes comforter and allergy pills were nowhere to be found, the reality of his situation came back with force.