I looked over my shoulder to see that Tate and Salome had been joined by Theo. I paused just at the edge of the bubble and looked at them, standing in the shadows of the main tunnel. I felt like a puppet with its strings being forcefully tugged in a dozen different directions. I didn’t like the sensation, and more importantly, I couldn’t tell which way I really needed to go as versus which way I should go, or even which way I wanted to go.
As I turned back to the way off the mountain, I saw a neat pile of weapons just where Tate had said they would be. I took a step and plucked up Mr. Stabby. There were a few other knives, too. A set of wrist knives very much like the ones that had taken out Theo sat next to where Mr. Stabby had lain. There was also a switchblade, a Swiss Army knife, and two steel daggers. (A girl had to be prepared, just as if she had been a Boy Scout.) I snatched all of them up and situated them where I could easily access them.
I also couldn’t help but notice that the pit trap had been re-covered and put back into deadly operation so that others might fall right in when they came charging up to one of the entrances of Cheyenne Jr.
Without further hesitation, I passed out of the bubble, and it was as if the air had suddenly returned to my lungs. I could see, smell, and feel again in a way that I had taken for granted. Delphine was singing “Let It Go” from Frozen as if she was fully cognizant of the message she was inadvertently imparting. Zizi hurried down the road, nearly tripping in her haste to get away. Craig glanced back at me, torn between staying with me and protecting the child. I motioned at him to stay with Delphine and Zizi.
A moment later, a whirlwind of iridescent shapes formed around Zizi and Delphine. The bright afternoon light made tiny wings reflect a dozen colors like little disco balls that moved, juddered, and zoomed. The firefly pixies had always shown a preference for Delphine, even before she’d been born. They’d liked Clora, too. They swirled around Delphine and Zizi. Zizi laughed and said, “Shoo, little fairies. Let’s get away from here.”
The firefly pixies streamed over to where I limped and circled me with a ferocious vengeance. I could hear Light chastising me in a broken combination of pixiese and English. “Stupid-Man-Thief-Stabby-Girl! Doesn’t listen to the sisters! The sisters should just leave Silly-Slicey-Pale-Hair! She should be dumped down a ravine with a troupe of centaurs!” There was also something about me being akin to butterfly poop, but Light was starting to mutter by that time, and I didn’t quite hear the rest of the insults.
“Sorry,” I said, and I knew it was insincere. The firefly pixies’ warning hadn’t been exactly coherent and clear. “Next time I’ll listen, I swear.”
Light landed on my right ear and thumped the side of my cheek with a club fingered hand. “Next time,” she agreed.
I glanced over my shoulder again. I sang to Light, “They still watching?”
Light sang back, “The opening has been sealed. No other humans from the underworld are here within the immediate area.” I relaxed, and my fingers caressed Mr. Stabby. The KA-BAR wouldn’t stop a bullet, but it still made me feel better.
Then I caught sight of one of the turtle-spiders. It chittered in the brush about ten feet away. Several of the firefly pixies hissed and dove toward it, causing it to retreat into the heavier bushes. It gave me pause, but I didn’t stop my movement.
“Light,” I said as I limped forward, “do you know anything about the humans that live in the underworld?”
“They’re dark,” she sang. I could have said, “Duh,” but Light wouldn’t have understood I was being sarcastic.
As I came around the bend, there was a group of people and new animals waiting for me. There was a second rush of relief as I saw everyone whole and healthy. Delphine was hugging everyone, including new animals. Zizi was making motions with her hands, and Craig had a leather bota bag in his hand as he stood next to Steve Archuleta. Steve was the train conductor to Craig’s train engineering gig.
There were others I was sincerely happy to see. Meka, a tall man with burnished skin and a wide grin and his friend the horse who wasn’t a horse, were a pair we’d met in the District. Prosper, another boy with a new animal connection whom we’d also met in the District, stood with his hippogriff, Oki. He wasn’t really a boy any more, but he was to me. He watched with a smile as Delphine hugged Oki. Nearby Henry and Ela looked at me anxiously. Once the pair had been some of McCurdy’s soldiers; now they were with us, and I didn’t doubt their loyalty. Hetta stood close by with crossbow in hand; from Alabama, she’d been another one from the first steam train we’d ridden on, and was always handy in a fight.
I got several back slaps and a few hugs. Craig handed me the bota bag, and I took a slug of what was some kind of red wine. It tasted pretty good to me. I glanced over my shoulder at the road that led back to Cheyenne Jr. I didn’t think they were going to come after us, but I didn’t want to be caught unprepared, either.
The entire group had already begun to move. Zizi helped Delphine onto Horse’s back while the un-horse looked back at me with baseball-sized turquoise eyes.
Then Landers slid down the embankment. He’d been watching from above. His platinum hair trailed out as he went, and I took a breath. He wasn’t all that much taller than I was, but it didn’t matter because he was all lean muscles. Once, he’d said he was hiking the Appalachian Trail when the change had occurred. He looked like the kind of man who liked to hike. Louise had liked them tall and dark; Landers wasn’t tall and dark, but he was…
I bit my lip. Landers’s icy blue eyes settled on me. I knew very well he’d seen me from the top of the hill, but he was looking at me like he’d never before seen something as good as me.
Landers stopped about ten feet away. He examined me with his eyes, running from the top to the bottom. He probably didn’t think much about my pallor or the various bruises that showed on my arms. He wouldn’t think much of the ones that didn’t show that were worse. The shot from the Taser was going to be turning blue and green weeks from now.
I suppose it was my big chance to say something witty, but I was dumbstruck.
Light sang in my ear, “White-Haired-Moody-Man was worried about Lulu. The sisters think he likes Choppy-Man-Thief-Girl.” Light sounded smug. All the human’s interactions were like a big soap opera to them. They loved to gossip about who was doing what with whom and who was mad at whosit. At times it made me want to stick my fingers in my ears and yell, “Bub bub bub bub bub!” so that I couldn’t hear who they were discussing. (They talked about everything. The sisters were the queens of TMI.)
“I guess you’re not mad at me anymore,” I sang to Light. A vein on Landers’s forehead twitched. “Do you think Landers is his first name or his last?”
“The sisters wouldn’t know. Humans have such silly names. They don’t mean anything.” Light thumped my cheek with her clubbed hand again. The firefly pixies were still a little bit peeved with me. “Lulu? What does Lulu mean? Does it mean that one is good with a knife and inclined to steal men from other women? The sisters don’t think so. Lulu is just noise that sounds cute.”
“I’ll get you a bunch of butterflies,” I sang. “First field with flowers in it I find. I’ve got a net in my pack.”
Landers coughed in his hand as if he were trying to get my attention. “What the hell were you thinking?” he asked calmly.
Liked me? What was I thinking? He probably hated me because I forced him out of Sunshine on movie night.
“Just doing my job,” I said and went to limp past him.
Landers stepped in front of me. Some of the others paused in their movement to glance back at us. I stopped and took another slug from the bota bag. Then I offered a drop to Light. She tasted the wine and let out a series of extensive pixie curses that would have made most people blush if they hadn’t already heard them before. (Several times.) I inclined the bag at Landers. He took it and screwed on the attached plastic lid. Then he threw the whole thing at Steve, who caught it against his chest with an obvious wince.
“There are a thousand other ways you could have done this!” Landers yelled. “Instead, you’ve got a great hole in your leg, and people were kidnapped out of our backyard!”
Light made a noise and flew straight up. She sang something like, “Catch you later!” Then she added something that sounded like a very English, “Stupid.”
“We should go,” I said. “Theo isn’t patient. I expect he’s watching us. There were cameras mounted all around. The ones that are in the bubble probably still work, although he’s reserving power for…other things.”
Landers bit off whatever he was going to say.
“It wasn’t my doing that got Zizi, Craig, and Delphine taken,” I said. “There was nothing I could have done to prevent it.”
“I know,” Landers said, running a hand across his hair. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
I limped forward, leaning on the crutch. My underarm was already raw and my shoulder ached from using it. Then Landers stepped under my arm and wrapped it around his shoulders. He caught the look on my face, and said, “It’s either this, or I’ll throw you across my shoulders.”
“You and what army?” I snapped.
Landers chuckled. “I could do it, if you wouldn’t stab me someplace with your great big Marine knife.”
Horse waited for me. Meka spoke to Zizi and Delphine as they sat on Horse’s back. Delphine giggled at Meka when he made a face.
“We’ve got regular horses down below, but we need to get you down there,” Landers said. “Horse, can you carry Lulu, too?”
“Of course,” Horse said with his big blue-green eyes settling on me. “She doesn’t weigh much. Unlike Meka, who needs to stop eating ice cream every night.”
“And your ass hasn’t spread because of the extra corn you’re getting,” Meka said promptly.
“More comfortable ride,” Horse defended himself. Zizi scooted forward, and Landers lifted me up. My injured leg slipped across Horse’s back, and Delphine accidentally kicked it as she shifted around. My vision went gray for a moment.
Zizi reached back and touched my good leg, anchoring me in place for a moment. “You all right, Lulu?”
Then Zizi froze while touching me. She froze like the temperature had instantaneously dropped a thousand degrees. “Oh dear God,” she prayed. “That can’t be true.”
Landers stared at Zizi, and then his gaze followed her hand resting on my thigh. He looked at me with horror in his eyes as he clearly tapped into Zizi’s thoughts.
Chapter 19
Lulu Makes a Decision
The Present – Colorado
Sunshine’s doctor examined my leg with a critical eye. Ignatius Taggert had once been a coroner, and now he was a general practitioner in a tech bubble. How the world turned. Landers had brought the M.D. along because he knew I was injured, and he’d thought that perhaps some of the others were, as well. They had waited to break out the physician until we’d gotten away from the side of the mountain.
We’d stopped about five miles from the entrance to Cheyenne Jr., with both people and new animals ensuring that we weren’t being followed. The remains of Colorado Spring lay off to the southeast. To the north were the decaying buildings that were once Manitou Springs.
The silver-haired physician poked at my wound with a scalpel. He really wasn’t that old, perhaps only in his mid to late forties, but his hair had gone that silver color for which old ladies would have given up their social security monies. “A stake,” he said in a way that made it sound like a criticism.
I nearly slapped his hand away because Ignatius wasn’t exactly being gentle. “It wasn’t like I said, ‘Look, there’s a pit with stakes in it! Let’s cannonball!’”
“They gave you antibiotics,” Ignatius said, not really a question because I’d already volunteered the information. He peered closely at the wound. He’d become a preeminent expert in scrapes, cuts, and broken limbs. There had been one memorable appendectomy, and two other births since Delphine had come along, but his was primarily the genteel practice of everyday post-change life. (Colds, boils, and hemorrhoids, oh my.)
“They said it was antibiotics,” I said. “Probably at least two years old, and no, I don’t know how they were kept.” Everyone sat in the shade of a grove of oak trees. Most of the rest sat away from where I had shucked my cammi pants to show the good doctor the wound du jour. He’d also taken a look at where I’d been tased and given a shot of whatever tranquilizer they’d used.
In the meantime, the horses ate at the meadow grass while the firefly pixies hunted for an early evening snack, and the other humans made themselves busy, obviously trying to ignore what the doctor was doing. “I didn’t exactly get to verify them,” I muttered.
“Lovely and sarcastic as ever,” Ignatius said. “I’m going to give you a shot of our antibiotics, but it looks like it’s healing up fine. Don’t kick anyone in the head with that leg for at least a month. Plus, come back and see me once a week. Also, if it starts getting red and painful, well, you know the drill.”
Yes, I knew the drill. Ignatius liked to remind all of us that it was his sincerest wish not to ever have to use the extensive collection of bone saws he’d obtained from a Denver hospital. (That was actually too late because he’d had to use them on Clora when he’d needed to fix the end of her arm; it had apparently been a bad spot for the impromptu tech bubble amputation.)
I looked over Ignatius’s shoulder and watched as the others set up tents in preparation for spending the night. I guess this was the spot. We were as far away from Theo and Cheyenne Jr. as we could get before the sun set. I needed to look at the map he’d provided me and judge what I was going to have to do to get the codes. I was also going to have to persuade several people that it wasn’t a bad idea. (People being chiefly one: Landers.)
Zizi had convinced them that things were bad and probably going to get worse. The only thing she would say was that she couldn’t “see” me in the future. What that meant was that I was no longer there. Then the woman had shut down, visibly shaken from what she’d experienced. I knew she had seen things about me and others before.
Ignatius packed the wound, stitched the edges where he didn’t approve of Theo’s doctor’s work, and gave me a shot that I didn’t like much. He clucked his tongue at the bruises he’d exposed and took a deep breath. “Did they—” he said and trailed off because it was evident he didn’t know how to finish the question. (Coroners didn’t have to talk to their patients, and I was overwhelmingly aware that it had been his primary specialty before the change.)
“No,” I answered shortly because I didn’t have to be psychic to know what he had been trying to ask. “They wouldn’t have any testicles left if they had, and I’d be wearing a necklace with them on it.”
Ignatius broke out the bandages and went to work making a pretty bow on my thigh. “Is there anything else you need to discuss with me?” he asked.
Maybe I was being dense, but I didn’t follow the physician, and then I suddenly got it. “Did Landers ask you to play shrink with me?” I finally asked. “Oh, I don’t think so.”
“He said you ran into…an old friend,” Ignatius persisted. “The same one who gave you all the scars on your back.” He’d been one of the few people who’d seen them. Sinclair, the other doctor, had, and Ignatius had treated a bite wound I’d gotten from a Kludde who had jumped on me somewhere around the Kansas/Colorado border. (A Kludde was a large black dog with blue flames around its head. It didn’t like people trespassing on its territory, and it hadn’t liked me trespassing, either, but we’d come to a mutual agreement. It wouldn’t bite me again, and I wouldn’t slice off parts of it.) Now Landers had seen them, and I wasn’t sure what he thought about them.
“I like you, Ignatius,” I said, “so please don’t tick me off.”
“They just let you go,” Ignatius went on.
“No, they didn’t just let me go, as all of you are well aware.”
“What do they want?”
/> “Our gold, all our women, and maybe all of our Lego toys,” I snapped. “Are you finished?”
Ignatius brushed his hands together. “You need a good meal, a good night’s sleep, and to get a grip on whatever it is that’s bothering you, Lulu. We need you. We want to support you. Don’t be—”
“What?” I interjected. “Don’t be what? A bitch?”
“Precipitous is what I was going to say,” Ignatius said gently. “Put your pants back on. Keep an eye on it.”
I awkwardly pulled my pants up and refastened them watching as people continued to try to ignore me. Ignatius went off in the direction of a group of people that included Craig, Zizi, and Landers. I yanked the pack Theo had provided toward me and opened it. The map was right on top to include notes and commentary. I carefully sat down on a nearby log, and arranged the injured leg so that it wasn’t cramped.
Oh, Ignatius was right. I should just be locked in a little room with an opening for food and water to be inserted until I calmed down. Sure Theo wanted me to do a little something for him for what was purportedly a good reason. (It was a good reason. Stopping the world from ending was always a good reason.) But he was still Theophilus, even under the auspices of being Martin in the tech bubble, who was probably as sane as he’d been before the change. The problem was that I hadn’t known Martin before the change, and I didn’t know if he had been sane before the change. I hadn’t known Tate, either, but he wasn’t the psycho he’d been when he’d tried to feed a ten-year-old boy to the turtle-spiders.
The reasoning of all of it hadn’t escaped me. The thing some Cold War scientist had conceived was still ticking away in the tech bubble. It would go off if I didn’t do something. Fine, I get the codes, and they turn it off, but then they had the potential to turn it back on any time their knickers got into a twist. They couldn’t be allowed to keep that very deadly potential. I could work out some kind of deal with them if they agreed to certain contingencies. They had to know from their spies that we had worked out similar deals with other tech bubbles. (Perhaps not to that extreme, but deals of shared commonalities all the same.) We weren’t monsters like the former President of the United States or his Navy lackey, McCurdy.
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