by Alex Wells
She shut the door to the cramped room Freki and Geri had laid the Bone Collector out in. There was a pause as they both stared at the one chair in the room, then Coyote shrugged and perched on the end of the Bone Collector’s bed. Relieved, Hob sank into the uncomfortable, rickety metal chair. “Comin’. Figure you got one hell of a report to give me.”
Coyote grimaced. “I wish I could disagree.” He gave her a surprisingly unemotional recitation of what had happened the night before, which echoed what she’d felt. Then he added: “I remembered a bit more, a few more snatches of how it had been, before I really lost my mind.”
Hob leaned forward, elbows resting on her knees. “What you got?”
“Have you ever seen a real well?”
Hob snorted. “Ain’t many of those around here.”
“Looked in a water barrel, then. Down onto some surface of water, where you can see yourself and the sky above reflected.”
She thought hard about that image, and recalled the underground lake where she, Freki, and Geri had first met the Bone Collector so long ago. She’d never found that place again, and still wondered if it really existed. “Something like.”
“Imagine instead of a reflection, the water was just a surface between you and some… mirror world. That’s what I saw. That this Well is the border between here and… somewhere else.”
She raised her eyebrows. It sounded like one hell of a fantastic proposition, but then again, she could form fire on her hands with the power of her will alone. “So, what’s that actually mean?”
A knock on the door paused Coyote’s answer: Maheegan with a battered plastic tray in his slender hands, precariously containing three plates of flapjacks and sausage. Hob relieved him of it and shut the door in his face.
Coyote went on between stuffing his face with bites of his breakfast. “I know you didn’t have much formal schooling, but have you picked up anything about the first Age of Stellar Settlement? Before TransRift.” Hob was weak on history, just knew scraps really, so she waved at him to continue. “Earth sent out massive generation ships, and then sleeper ships, that traveled hundreds of years to reach the worlds they settled. That’s why advanced technology is still a bit… unevenly distributed, between the worlds. The ships, which were state of the art at the time, could only go fractions of the speed of light, which was thought to be the absolute speed barrier of the universe. Then Tanegawa’s World happened. Or rather, the early settlers were somehow able to cobble together an engine that could do the impossible: circumvent space. From here to Earth in only a few months, most of that in-system maneuvering around gravity wells. Near-instantaneous travel. TransRift grew out from that.”
This part, she knew a little. “And only TransRift knows how.”
“They certainly aren’t sharing, and no one’s ever successfully copied one of their engine designs and gotten it to work. No one’s yet figured out the physics of it either. But what if it’s something unique to this world that allowed them to do that? To circumvent the laws of physics as we know them.” Coyote shrugged. “But if Tanegawa’s World is somehow connected to another… world… Oh, but this is quite silly.”
“Think we got beyond silly a long time ago,” Hob said dryly. “Say it.”
“If there’s another place out there, an entire other universe parallel to our own – which has been theorized, mind you, that there are really infinite universes, it gets very surreal and academic and that’s the part where I became bored and stopped listening. But if another universe is connected to Tanegawa’s World, perhaps in that universe, the speed of light is more of a suggestion rather than an absolute limit.”
“And… the blue stuff is… solid other universe junk?” Hob rarely regretted her lack of formal education, but right now she did. Maybe all of this would make more sense to her if she’d done schooling like Coyote had. Or maybe she’d know it was total bullshit. But she could cut through that confusion to modify her initial assessment to: it would be really bad if TransRift got its hands on this. That, she could work with.
A soft sound from the bed drew Hob’s attention. “That is… something close to the truth,” the Bone Collector said. “You were right, Hob. It is a discrete place, the world’s heart. But not one I can place on a map for you, for my own limitations.”
Hob wished she could take a moment to savor having been right for once, but there was too much damn else to untangle. “Glad you got around to tellin’ me that.”
“I had only just come to that conclusion when you called me.” He grimaced, scrubbing at his face with one hand. “It was there,” he said, voice hoarse. Hob had only heard him sound like that about the Weatherman, and the thought made her blood run cold. When the hell had a new one come in?
“Where? How? We killed him,” she said.
“At… the scar where you called me. And the vessel is different, but what it carries is always the same.”
Hob considered the implications there. “That’s a mite disturbing. Does that mean where we were was–”
“No. Merely a…” He looked down at his arm, the blue veins showing through pale skin, as if grasping for the words. “…a small vein as opposed to the capillaries. But… it touched the lifeblood of the planet. It tried to drink of that strength.”
“You think they’re gonna keep looking for the motherlode, if it was that bad?”
“Why settle for only a little world-altering power when you could have it all?” Coyote said.
“If it finds the heart, we will all be destroyed. That cannot be allowed to happen.”
Hob blew out a long breath. “Well. Nice of you to offer to hire us again. You were a fair enough employer before. But you better have a pile of fuckin’ credits left over now.”
The Bone Collector rolled up on one elbow, frowning. “I’m doing what?”
“You’re hiring us again,” Hob said. Really, she should have thought of this a hell of a lot earlier, when she was fumbling around on her own. “If you can’t tell us where we’re goin’, then we’re gonna have to be up TransRift’s ass. We’re gonna have to follow ’em, and spy on ’em, and be ready so that the minute they find this ‘heart,’ we can jump in before the Weatherman gets there. And… I don’t fuckin’ know. Blow it up?”
“Certainly not,” the Bone Collector said. “You will bring me there.”
“If those’re your terms, fine. How many cash boxes you got left?”
He blinked. “Six or seven.”
“Bring ’em all here tomorrow and we’ll get started. That’ll be enough money to keep us goin’, since we’ll have to turn down all the other jobs while we’re workin’ on this, you realize.”
“I… hadn’t?”
It felt damn good to have turned the tables so for once, he was the confused one. This was something that would keep her warm at night if she lived to be even half as crusty and old as Nick had. “Well, that’s the fact of it and my final offer. Deal or no deal?”
A long pause as she could almost hear the Bone Collector trying to gather his scattered wits. “Deal?”
“That a question or an agreement?”
“Deal,” he said, more firmly.
“Deal, then.” She looked at Coyote. “You feelin’ a mite steadier now?”
“Everything looks better on the other side of breakfast,” he said, then tilted his head toward his half-finished plate. “Or from the midst of it.”
“Then get, and take it with you. Go finish it with Bala.”
“If I take it near him, I might have to fight him for it,” Coyote grumbled, already standing.
“Be good for ya. Build character.”
He flipped a hand at her, then shut the door on his way out. Hob turned her attention to the Bone Collector. Pleased as she was with herself now, she was also still mad as hell. “We ain’t done yet.”
The Bone Collector lay back down with a sigh, which grated directly across her nerves. It was almost a relief. “Oh, am I borin’ you?” she asked, voice dangerous an
d low.
“I’m not one of–” he began, with tired irritation.
“You ain’t mine to order around, but you’re my problem when you’re gonna get my people killed,” Hob cut him off. “That fuckin’ stunt you pulled at the camp, that ain’t ever happenin’ again or I’ll shoot you myself.”
He half sat up, expression dark. “I–”
Hob cut him off again. “You can walk off a goddamn cliff for all I fuckin’ care when you’re on your own. But when you’re in there with my people, you act like you understand the rest of us ain’t fuckin’ stone. Or you take one more walk, out that there door, and you don’t ever fuckin’ come back in.”
There was a long pause, while Hob bit back some more choice words. Let him say one fucking thing and she’d let them loose. His jaw worked like he was chewing on a few things to say himself, brows drawn in. Then his shoulders slumped, and the Bone Collector said in a shockingly small voice: “I am sorry.”
She really wished that he’d fought with her. She knew how to handle that. That’s all everyone ever did with her, was fight. It was how they communicated. But apology? It wasn’t natural. “Good,” she growled, for want of anything better to say, even though it didn’t feel right.
He lay back down, his eyes directed at the ceiling. “Will you come here?” he asked quietly.
She thought about that, how much she still wanted to just coldcock him. “Once I don’t feel like breakin’ your face no more, reckon I might.”
“All right.”
Silence fell on the room, just the two of them breathing. Hob took out a cigarette to give herself something to chew on, but didn’t light it. Staying mad was easy, once she’d gotten her temper twisted back up. Familiar. And she didn’t believe much in forgiving, let alone doing it quickly. Most of the time people apologized, they did it to make themselves feel better, get themselves out of trouble, not because they were really sorry. Hell, most of the apologies she’d ever spoken were like that. And maybe this was more of the same.
Well, she supposed, she might as well give him a chance to fuck up all over again. She’d gotten enough chances of her own like that in the past. And part of her, a much bigger part than she would ever admit out loud, wanted to go over there.
“Fuck,” she muttered, and levered herself out of the chair. She felt the Bone Collector’s eyes on her immediately. She sat down on the narrow edge of the bed, realizing now just how much her bones ached with the want to sleep. Maybe she was getting too damn old for all-nighters. At least ones that involved that much worry. “Scoot your bony ass over.”
He did, and she stretched out next to him. It felt less awkward this time, having her legs rest against his. His hand, cool and smooth, found hers, and she let him weave their fingers together, and tug their joined hands to rest on his belly.
“I’m afraid,” he said quietly.
“Means you’re alive,” she said. Her throat felt oddly thick, every inch of her too aware of where he rested.
He turned his head to look at her fully, and his nose brushed against hers, two blue eyes looking into her one. She felt his thumb move slowly over hers, and did her best to pretend she didn’t feel that simple, stupid touch echoing down her spine.
“What d’ya want from me?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Do you know what you want from me?”
To kiss him. To just put her goddamn head on his shoulder and fall asleep. To be a million kilometers away where she wasn’t thinking these stupid things. To not be always thinking about blood spraying a fine line on a ceiling, and the blackened buttons of burnt, melted short range transmitters pouring into her hand like an accusation. To fuck him until she could stop thinking about anything else. “I don’t know either,” Hob said. It was a lie, and wasn’t a lie, both at the same time. Because she knew, if she did give in to that want, everything would change. The thought should have been exhilarating, but just made her even more tired. She had too much shit to do.
“Then I suppose that’s all right,” the Bone Collector said. Awkwardly, like he wasn’t quite sure how the motion should go, he slid his other arm around her shoulders and pulled her more snugly against his side. “You look tired.”
“You look more tired,” Hob said. She rested her cheek on his shoulder.
“Will you sleep?”
“Reckon I might, if you shut up.”
He laughed softly, enough to bounce her a little on his shoulder. She laughed too. That felt the best out of anything. He smelled like sun and sand and a little bit like blood, but all of those things were old friends. With his hand resting on her back, with their breath mixing, with the sound of his heartbeat echoing in her ear, she did the impossible and fell asleep.
Chapter Thirty
22 Days
It was a quake, a shaft collapse, rumbling death under the ground. She saw Papa strap on his harness, slip a coil of rope over one shoulder and smile at her. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
No, she thought. No, you won’t. You won’t ever be back. That rumble was also the sound of an automatic rifle, firing from the deck of a helicopter, and Papa fell. And the rumbling continued, the shaft collapsing in on itself infinitely, until the earth under her feet buckled like the synthcrete slab in the TransRift lab basement, swallowing her down.
Mag thrashed, trying to swim out of that rumbling maw of sand and rocks. One arm hit something solid, something not right, and she realized she was laying down, she was in bed, she–
She’d just hit Anabi. She sat up quickly, sucking wind. “Oh no. I’m sorry.”
Anabi sat up as well, the blanket falling away from the curve of her shoulder, a graceful line in the thin light of dawn that slipped between the curtains. She cautiously put her arms around Mag, pulling her in close after a moment, and rocked her like a child.
The ghostly feeling of the world shaking beneath her, of something that shouldn’t be anything but solid shifting and squirming like an animal trying to cringe away, still echoed through her. But it couldn’t be a shaft collapse, Mag reminded herself. The mine had been silent for over twenty-four hours. After the first two, the pit boss had shut down the drive chain. The absence of that sound had made getting to sleep even so late, after a long day of organizing people and chasing down stragglers, strangely difficult.
“Do you feel that?” Mag asked. “Something wrong. Something… I don’t know.”
Anabi rested her hand over Mag’s heart briefly, and she felt her nod. But even as she tried to find a way to describe it more, the feeling drained away. A shared bad dream, perhaps. Maybe that was the hazard of sleeping with someone who could read minds.
Mag leaned back more solidly against Anabi’s smooth, flat chest, one hand finding the woman’s hair as Anabi rested her cheek on her shoulder. Her breath tickled Mag’s neck. It made her feel better, anchored, but her skin still itched with that strange feeling. Something was wrong, outside the shelter of the room.
“Don’t think I can go back to sleep,” Mag said. “Might go check on people. Just make sure everythin’ is still OK.” She felt Anabi nod again, then the woman released her. Rather than curling up back under the blankets, Anabi slid out of bed and started picking up their scattered clothes, parceling out which bit belonged to each of them.
That made Mag smile, at least, knowing that she wouldn’t be going alone. It eased out some of the tension.
The eerie sense of quiet pervaded the streets. People were up and about, going everywhere in twos or threes, but no one talked above a whisper. There were two greenbellies at every corner, glaring at them all like they were scum, or just looking bored, like none of this had meaning. The miners glared back, shoved their hands in their pockets, and kept moving. Anabi kept tight hold of Mag’s hand, her palm damp with nervous sweat.
Most of the houses she passed by had their doors closed tight, but a window open at least a crack. Mag had done the same at Clarence’s house, making sure the windows were open so they’d b
e able to hear any shouting. Most of the houses also had a red handkerchief or scarf hanging from the window, the color they’d settled on as their own. Close to opposite of green and blue as they could get, really. And red stood for anger, for the blood they’d all spent in the mines, for the blood spilled by the fists and guns of the security men.
The feeling of wrongness still in the back of her head drove Mag slowly toward the warehouses. They’d hidden a few supplies there; maybe re-counting the water and food set aside would reassure her that disaster wasn’t fully on their doorstep.
“Where do you think you’re going?” a guard demanded as Mag and Anabi walked past.
“Walkin’,” Mag said.
“You can’t be out,” her partner said, moving to block them.
“We ain’t workin’ right now,” Mag said evenly. “So we can be out if we want.”
The first guard spit. “This town doesn’t belong to you.”
Arguing would be stupid. The Mariposa guards were trying to pick a fight. But they needed to push against this, because it was their town, they’d built it and paid for it and it ran on their backs. But she also felt pitifully small against this. Two against two, but she and Anabi didn’t have guns and god knew what other weapons. She could lean on two guards. She’d done it before. But that wouldn’t fix it for anyone else the greenbellies harassed.
There weren’t just two of them, Mag reminded herself. There were the other miners going quietly about their business, and even more in their houses. Why hang back like prisoners? If they let the guards be all through the town like this, then it was easy for them to divide the houses up, or harass miners like they were doing now.
This had to stop.
She squared her shoulders, her fingers curling into fists. “Yes, it does.”
“The fuck did you say?” the second guard snarled, taking a step forward.