“No.” Diego typed in the code again. He’d gone over it in his head. This was definitely it.
Still nothing.
Lucy huffed. “What a bore.”
“Try it slower,” Petey said, “in case the buttons are sticking, or a number isn’t registering.” He gazed back over his shoulder. “But, you know, hurry. Mr. Nelson could come by any second.”
Diego typed the numbers again, and when the door still didn’t budge, he slammed it with his palm.
“Knew you were all talk,” Paige said.
“We should just head back,” Petey added.
“No, wait,” Diego said. “Just . . . hold on.” He closed his eyes and tried to block everything else out. He placed his hand on the keypad. Imagined only the door, the inner workings of the lock. How the keypad mechanism might work . . .
Images flashed in his mind: the pins of the lock, the gears that would twist them into the right shape, the connections to the keypad—
Diego’s fingers found the numbers flashing in his mind. He tapped them in.
A click. He opened his eyes and pushed the door. It yawned into the stairwell.
“Okay, let’s hurry.”
Diego stepped through the doorway, then looked back to find Petey, Lucy, and Paige staring at him.
“That was weird,” Lucy said. “What did you just do?”
“Nothing, I just had the numbers reversed in my head.”
“You did it with your eyes closed,” Paige said.
“I had to remember them from the other day. So are you coming or what?” He held the door and motioned for them to go by.
They filed through, and Diego pushed the door shut but paused. “Ah,” he said, studying the door controls.
“What is it?” Petey asked.
“There’s no lock on this side. We have to leave it open if we want to get back up this way.”
“But if someone notices the door open . . . ,” Lucy said.
“It will be fine,” Petey said. “Won’t it, D?”
“It’s no problem,” Diego said. He closed his eyes again, tried to clear everything and see the door. There had to be a way to make this work—
“This is what you call a plan?” Paige said.
The comment distracted him. Diego breathed deep, trying to shut out the world again.
“I knew this was rubbish,” Lucy said.
Diego lost it again. He spun around. “What are you all afraid of? No one comes down here during the day, and the door will look like it’s closed. I’m going anyway.” He brushed past them and started down the stairs, stopping after a few steps. He turned back to see the three looking from one to the other.
“I’m not letting him call me a coward,” Paige said. She took Lucy by the arm and started down the stairs.
Petey glanced at Diego, then shoved his hands in his pockets and followed.
“I feel like they’re watching us,” Lucy said, glancing from side to side.
Diego felt like there were eyes in the dark too, but Lucy sounded terrified. As if she thought one of these creatures would come alive and devour them all on the spot.
“Hang tough, girl,” Paige said, squeezing Lucy’s arm. “You got this. Remember, these things are dead and stuffed.”
Lucy nodded. “Of course they are.”
They passed through the hall and out into a wide rotunda. It was brighter in here, the morning sunlight casting angular beams through round windows in the domed ceiling. In the center of the room stood the giant T. rex.
“Say hello to Wendell,” Diego said.
“Whoa,” Paige said. “Now that’s a carnivore.”
“Largest tyrannosaurus ever recorded in the wild lands,” Petey said.
“He’s majestic,” Lucy said, but she stopped a few feet from the felt ropes that ringed the specimen.
Paige jumped right over them and stepped around one of the dinosaur’s thick legs. She moved under the creature’s chest, running her hand along its skin. “Wait, what,” she said, “this thing has feathers?” She brushed her fingers over soft, scalelike feathers around the creature’s leg. The pattern extended up around the underside of its neck.
“That’s going to be Wendell’s big surprise to the world,” Diego said. “She’s a species of T. rex never before seen.”
“She?” Lucy said. “But . . . her name’s Wendell.”
“She’s actually named after Wendy Dykstra,” Petey said, “the game warden who found the body out beyond the perimeter wall. She knew how important a specimen this was, so she hot-wired a class-four loader robot to get her over the wall before scavengers could.”
“But Wendell is a boy’s name,” Paige said.
“The museum wanted the dinosaur to have a boy name since the skeleton upstairs is Sue, so they changed Wendy to Wendell.”
“That’s how they reward her for her heroics?” Lucy said.
“There’s going to be a plaque by her that explains it,” Diego said. “Everyone will still know about her and what she did.”
“A plaque?” Lucy said. “Well, I guess the Time Collision didn’t change everything. It’s still a man’s world.”
“You got that right,” Paige said.
“Actually, Diego’s mom was part of it, too,” Petey said.
“Yeah,” Diego said, “she caught a glimpse of her on a training flight. She didn’t quite know what she’d seen, but she gave the coordinates to Wendy.”
“Your mom’s a pilot?” Lucy asked, turning away from Wendell. “Is she an explorer, or a bush pilot, or what?”
“She flies search and rescue for the air corps, but she used to be a fighter pilot. She fought against the Aeternum in their raids against New Chicago.”
“A famous fighter pilot,” Petey added.
“You—” Lucy’s mouth fell open. “You’re not talking about Siobhan Quinlan, are you? Not the famous fighter pilot, the hero of Dusable Harbor?”
Diego couldn’t help a wide grin. “Quinlan-Ribera now, but yeah. One and the same.”
“That’s—” Lucy shook her head. “Your mother is my hero. A woman who went well beyond her station in the Victorian world. But hold on . . . did you say Ribera? Like Santiago Ribera?” Suddenly her eyes narrowed. “You’re messing with me, aren’t you?”
“No,” Diego said. “Those are my parents. What’s it to you?”
Lucy kept peering at him. “So . . . you’re saying that the fact that your mother is Siobhan Quinlan, my hero, and your father is Santiago Ribera . . . the purported genius engineer whose own steam converter was found wanting and had to be replaced by my father’s superior Goliath steam converter . . . you’re saying those two things are just coincidence?”
“What do you know about my father?” Diego said.
“Your father is the entire reason we’re here,” Lucy said. “It’s his inadequate steam converter that’s the reason I’m stuck in New Chicago for half a year. So that my father can save your city.”
“Wait,” Diego said. “You’re saying that your father is that Emerson guy my dad was talking about?”
“He’s not some guy; he’s George Emerson, the world’s preeminent steam engineer, who will be knighted by the queen herself, I’ll have you know.”
“Right, him,” Diego said. “We’re only using his old-fashioned steam tech out of pity.”
“Pity?” Lucy nearly shouted. “How dare you? My father is a genius. His converter design is superior to your city’s. Everyone says so.”
“Who’s everyone?” Diego said. “Everybody still living with gas lamps and locomotives? Maybe that’s nice by your standards, but you should open your eyes around town. My dad is a visionary.”
“How much of a visionary could he be if his son is such an arrogant fool?”
“You tell that wannabe,” Paige said.
“Okay, okay,” Petey said. “How about if we rejoin our classes before someone gets hurt?”
“Oh, I’d hate to miss that opportunity!”
The voice echoed out
of the darkness. The four whirled toward the hallway they’d come from.
A match was struck, lighting four figures.
Fish sucked on his cigarette, the end glowing, as he and his gang stepped out of the shadows.
“Get out of here, Fish,” Diego said. He tried to sound tough, but his heart was racing. This wasn’t a public place like the exhibit hall.
“Can’t do that,” Fish said. He plucked his cigarette between two fingers and waved it in their direction. “Have to rescue the damsel.”
“What are you talking about?” Petey asked.
“It’s a classic tale, really. Damsel in distress and then along comes a hero and his mates.”
“That punk better not think he’s talking about me,” Paige muttered.
Fish scowled. “Not you, love. That one.” He pointed at Lucy.
“Oh, I’m in no need of a rescue, thank you very much,” Lucy said.
“Sure you are. Look at ya: led into associations with a Mid-Time colored girl and a half-breed clock mongrel.”
“Shut up, Fish!” Diego shouted. “What happened to you anyway?”
“I wised up.”
“Sounds like the opposite,” Petey said.
“You need to step off before you step in it,” Paige said.
Fish shook his head. “It’s like there’s this barking and yapping, but I can’t quite understand what it’s saying. Come on, damsel. Before things get ugly.”
“I think the ugly’s already here.” Paige slapped a fist into her palm and glared at Fish.
“Ooh,” Fish said. “I normally wouldn’t hit a lady, but you don’t count.”
“You’d do well to pay her mind,” Lucy said. “And just because I’m a Steam Timer doesn’t mean I’d want anything to do with you hooligans.”
“I see how it is.” Fish flicked his cigarette aside. “Tommy, Seamus: get Ribera and hold him down for me. Billy, grab the skater girl. She’ll be next. And make sure that Petey-boy sees stars!”
“Run!” Diego shouted. He curled his fingers into a fist as the boys advanced.
“Yeah, right!” Paige replied. She’d already dropped her backpack and skateboard. Billy was just reaching for her arm when she darted toward him, grabbed him by the forearm, and judo flipped him to the floor.
“Whoa!” Petey said.
The move made Fish and the others freeze for a second. Diego saw his chance. He lunged for Paige’s skateboard, grabbed it with tingling fingers, and slammed Fish across the face with it.
Fish crumpled to the floor, rolling back and forth, holding his nose and cursing. Tommy and Seamus rushed over to him.
“Okay, now we might want to run!” Lucy said.
“Let’s go!” Diego darted for the hallway, Petey, Lucy, and Paige right behind him.
When they reached the dark corridor, Diego glanced back and saw Billy staggering to his feet, the other two crouched beside Fish.
“Let’s keep moving,” Petey said. They hurried back to the stairs and up to the service door.
Diego shut it and then punched in the key code, but the lock didn’t engage.
“Are you sure it’s the same code to lock it?” Petey asked.
“Please tell me you thought to check that beforehand,” Lucy said.
“Nah, it’s the same,” Diego said. He had no idea. “Just gotta get it right.”
Footsteps thundered up the stairs from below.
“Hurry up!” Lucy said.
“I’m trying.” Diego glanced through the window and saw Tommy and Seamus coming. “Grab the door and hold it shut!” Diego shouted.
As they crowded around him and grabbed the handle, Diego closed his eyes again. Had to push everything out, had to focus. Just the door. Just the intricacies of that lock . . .
Fists pounded on the door, breaking his concentration.
“We . . . can’t . . . hold them!” Petey shouted.
Diego took a deep breath and held it. Sank into his head. Nothing but the lock. Flashes exploded in his mind. He let the visions reach his fingers, tapped at the keypad, and the lock slid shut.
“Mongrel!” Fish shouted, his face pressed against the window, steaming up the glass. Diego could see the blood dripping down his nose. “You’re gonna pay!”
Diego stepped back, panting, and offered Fish a wordless smile and shrug. Angry muffled shouts and thuds continued behind them as they stepped away.
Once they rounded the corner, they stopped to catch their breath.
“Where did you learn to do that?” Petey asked, gazing at Paige.
“One of our neighbors is a jujitsu master,” she said. “My brother . . . and I used to practice with him.”
“Thank you,” Lucy said, her breath still short. “For getting us out of trouble.”
“No problem,” Diego said.
“She meant me, fool,” Paige said. “You’re the one who got us in trouble.” She took her skateboard back from Diego. “You’re just lucky you’re so . . . lucky. And that I was there to bail you out.”
She and Lucy started across the hall.
“But . . . ,” Diego said, “you have to admit: not bad, right? For a couple of kids?”
“Whatever,” Paige said, not looking back.
Lucy glanced over her shoulder but didn’t say a word.
Diego and Petey wound their way through the Ice Age hall looking for their class.
“So?” Petey asked.
“So what?” Diego replied. “I wish I could’ve hit Fish again for what he said.”
“Ah, don’t listen to him,” Petey said. “Fish doesn’t know nothin’, and his people are ignorant. You just gotta ignore it.”
“It’s not that easy,” Diego said. “Clock mongrel.” The words made him clench his fists. The name was vicious and hateful. He wanted to believe that Joe didn’t really mean it deep down, that he was only imitating his father and his brothers. But Fish had changed.
“Well, you showed him. And you’ll show him again. But hey . . .” Petey draped an arm around his shoulders. “Besides, that’s not even what I meant.”
“Huh?”
“I meant, what do you think about Lucy?”
“Oh,” Diego said. “I’m trying not to.”
The school day passed in a blur. Diego and Petey decided not to fly the gravity boards at lunch, worried that Fish and his gang might be waiting for a chance at payback, and instead stayed in the cafeteria. Diego kept an eye out for them in the halls after lunch too, and also for Lucy.
After school, Petey drove the Goldfish, delivering Diego to the ferry station.
“What’s up?” Diego asked over a new cassette, this one by another of his dad’s favorite bands, U2. Petey had been quiet all day since the fight with Fish.
“Nothing,” he said.
“Come on,” Diego said. “Something’s bugging you.”
Petey grimaced. “I don’t know, D. You were kinda reckless this morning, that’s all.”
“What do you mean? Hitting Fish? Come on, he was going to pound us.”
“I know, but, like, before that. The way you taunted him? It’s like you were trying to pick a fight.”
“I wasn’t trying to. They were being jerks. They got what they deserved.”
Petey shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s your birthday, or if it was just having a couple of pretty girls around.”
“My birthday doesn’t have anything to do with it,” Diego said. “Come on, what’s so wrong with giving punks like Fish a bit of their own medicine?”
“You sound like Paige,” Petey said.
“Well, she knows how to stick up for herself.”
“Yeah, well, I just don’t want to spend the rest of the year having to watch my back. You know Fish won’t let it go.”
“Let him try,” Diego said.
“Great,” Petey muttered.
They were silent for the rest of the ride.
Diego hopped up onto the dock. A steady breeze whipped at his hair. Gulls circled overhead, m
aking shrill calls. Diego looked out over the harbor and saw dark clouds on the horizon.
“Get her home safe, okay?” Diego said, slapping the side of the Goldfish. “Stay ahead of that storm.” He was second-guessing the idea of leaving such a prized invention, not to mention the pair of gravity boards in the trunk, in Petey’s not-always-sure hands, but he didn’t have time to get the Goldfish home and still make the ferry.
“Sure thing,” Petey said. “I got it. See ya tomorrow.”
As the Goldfish puttered off, Diego made his way through the crowds of people and cargo. Different languages tumbled over one another, and Diego caught a hundred smells: the sour sweat of livestock, the sweet burn of frying food, a burst of exotic spice, a flash of citrus.
He made his way between piles of crates and around break-dancers and a brigade of Napoleonic soldiers playing cards, carts heaped with furs. A band of Algonquin warriors inspected a caged beast: something like a rhinoceros but with three horns.
He boarded the hulking ferry as its horn sounded across the harbor.
CHAPTER FIVE
Serpents and Soldiers
“Diego!”
Diego was surprised to see a young man standing on the dock, waving in his direction. As he stepped down, he tentatively waved back.
The man smiled and put out his hand. “I’m George Emerson Jr., but you can call me Georgie. It’s great to finally meet you!”
Diego shook his hand, wondering if Georgie was going to be anything like his sister. “Nice to meet you, too.”
“Splendid that our fathers get to join forces, wouldn’t you agree?” Georgie said as they crossed the busy platform.
“Pretty cool,” Diego said.
“I’m looking forward to seeing this retrofit completed,” Georgie said. “It’s been painstaking work out here, that’s for sure. But more interesting than hitting the books back in London. I hear they brought you in to drive the bot. You must be an ace operator.”
“I’m okay,” Diego said. This Georgie wasn’t half bad.
“I appreciate your modesty,” Georgie said. He lowered his voice. “But if you want my advice, don’t sell yourself short to my father. He can be tough to take, especially when he smells uncertainty.”
“Thanks,” Diego said. “Actually, I’m really good.”
Diego and the Rangers of the Vastlantic Page 5