Revisionary

by Jim C. Hines

  The entire tower was now on lockdown. It had taken close to an hour just to make it up to my office while evading security. Twice, people had opened my office door and looked around. I’d managed to keep out of sight behind my desk, or by dissolving into mist and flowing into the bottom of the half-full garbage can with the old food wrappers.

  I made a mental note to start storing a change of clothes in my office. It wasn’t easy trying to plan an escape wearing nothing but a hospital gown. I had nowhere to carry my books, and the draftiness was distracting as hell.

  Flying over the wall was out of the question. The wards over New Millennium allowed insects and birds to pass through, but would zap anything larger, or anything magical. I could try to hitch a ride out the main gates, but I lacked the books I’d need to counter the heightened security measures, and I wasn’t sure I could make it to the Library Tower without being seen.

  I’d come up with one option. I gave myself an hour to think of an alternative. When that hour passed, I added another thirty minutes, then fifteen more, like a kid hitting the snooze button on Monday morning before school. I really didn’t want to do this.

  Finally, hope and denial gave way to resignation. I turned back into mist, crept out of my office, and made my way toward the restroom.

  New Millennium was designed to be as self-sufficient as possible, but there were limits. Nobody had put together a magical sewage treatment plant yet, and it was more economical to tap into the city’s infrastructure than to try to build it all ourselves. The sink pipes in the bathroom should provide a way out.

  I flowed beneath the door. Before I could do anything more, I heard footsteps in the hall behind me. I hurried into the closest stall. The bathroom door opened, and a man’s voice called out, “Anybody in here? I saw smoke.”

  With one fire having broken out today, they’d be quick to respond to any hint of another. I remained silent, hoping he’d run off long enough for me to escape. Instead, he stepped in after me and pushed open the first stall, then the second.

  Aw, crap. Today just kept getting better.

  I pulled myself into the toilet. Water pressed around me, trying to break me into discrete bubbles of gas. I had to compress myself into a fraction of my usual size, which left me feeling both crushed and bloated.

  Also, the water was really, really cold.

  “What’s going on?”

  I froze. That was Babs Palmer’s voice.

  “Thought I saw smoke.”

  “In the bathroom?” Babs sniffed. “Get back to your rounds.”

  One set of footsteps left, and the bathroom door swung shut. I didn’t move.

  Eventually, I heard Babs’ boots clopping like hoofbeats over the tile. If she used magic, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to counter it in this form. Or she could simply toss one of those pearls into the toilet, and I’d . . . I wasn’t sure what would happen if I was forced back into my normal form while submerged in the toilet water, but it wouldn’t be pleasant.

  “Six, five, three,” Babs whispered.

  A short time later, she walked away. The door opened again, and the bathroom fell silent. Had she left, or was she trying to trick me into revealing myself?

  What the hell was six five three supposed to mean? It didn’t sound like any spell I’d come across. In the Dewey Decimal system, 653 referred to books on shorthand. It could also be a code word or command keyed to her jewelry. Maybe she was trying to tell me something, and didn’t want anyone else to overhear or understand. Or maybe she’d set a trap to petrify me the moment I emerged.

  I couldn’t risk it. The water burbled behind me as I burrowed down the pipes.

  Three very long, very cramped hours later, I was walking along the side of a road, barefoot and dripping and smelling of water purification chemicals and worse. I managed to flag down a passing car. The passenger window lowered, and the driver grimaced.

  “I know,” I said. “It’s been a long day.”

  He snorted. “Looks like a hell of a night, too. Sorry, man. I don’t know what you’ve been into, but I can’t let you in my car. You need me to call someone for you or anything?”

  “I don’t think so.” I looked around. “But do you think you could tell me where to find the nearest bookstore or library? What I really need is a book of fairy tales.”

  He didn’t miss a beat. “Let me pull it up on the GPS.”

  “Thanks.” I looked down at myself, then back at him. “You’re not going to ask about the hospital gown or anything?”

  He flashed a broad grin. “Buddy, I’ve lived in Vegas for twenty years. If there’s one thing I know, it’s when not to ask questions.”

  I arrived in Michigan wearing a brown wool tunic and a pair of seven-league boots, with an old library book tucked under one arm.

  I’d gone to the Copper River Library first, but it was locked and empty. I checked Lena’s oak tree next. She wasn’t there, but when I touched the tree, the roots shifted to reveal a folded square of paper with a Grand Rapids address on it.

  A short time later, I was back in the Lower Peninsula, double-checking the note against the blue-gray ranch house in front of me. A flat ceramic bumblebee hung beside the door, the word WELCOME arching over its wings. I stepped onto the porch and knocked.

  Jason opened the door and immediately covered his mouth, trying to hide his laughter. “You look like you just climbed down from a beanstalk.” His nose wrinkled. “And you smell like—”

  “I know what I smell like.” I held up the book. “Don’t let me forget to send a check to Sunrise Library in Las Vegas for the book and the broken window.”

  “Isaac!” Lena nudged Jason out of the way and grabbed my arms. She was moving a bit stiffly, and I could see the edge of a bandage peeking out from the neck of her T-shirt, but she was alive. The mere sight of her lightened the tension and anger I’d been carrying since I woke up.

  “Damn, I’m glad to see you.” I pulled her into a hug, careful to keep my arms low and away from where she’d been shot. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how fast Kiyoko was. I didn’t—”

  “Shut up. I’m all right.” She ran a hand over my scalp. “I’m not sure you can pull this ruggedly bald look off. You’re cute, but you’re no Vin Diesel.”

  Smudge crawled from her shoulder to mine. The slight irregularity of his gait broke my heart. “I’ll fix you up, buddy. I promise. I’ll regenerate that leg as good as new, and if that fails, I’ll make Charles build you a new one. A bionic leg. What do you think? Is the world ready for a bionic fire-spider?”

  Jason reached past me and shut the door.

  I forced myself to stop babbling long enough to ask, “Where’s everyone else?”

  “Sleeping,” said Lena. “Talulah and Jeneta were both exhausted after hacking into your head. Especially Talulah. She spent more than a day lost in her laptop, and none of us knew what was happening until they were ready to break you out. Nidhi finally raided the medicine cabinet and started handing out melatonin and Nyquil to make people sleep, but I couldn’t.”

  “Wait, Nidhi’s here? She’s okay?”

  “She’s fine,” said Jason. “I talked to Agent Steinkamp, and he confirmed that Nidhi was only supposed to be brought in to be interviewed. It sounds like there was a mix-up in the system, and she was put into detention by mistake.”

  His face wrinkled. He didn’t buy the “mistake” bit any more than I did. “Thank you, Jason. You may have saved her life.”

  Jason blushed and turned away. “Shower is down the hall on your left. First door. I’ll get you a towel and some real clothes.”

  Lena traced the curve of my ear with her right hand. “Grab two towels, please.”

  I shook my head. “I need to talk to everyone before—”

  “Let them sleep,” said Jason. “You’ve been gone almost three days. Another hour won’t hurt anything.”

  With that, Lena was dragging me down the hallway and into a bathroom decorated with fish and other sea creatur
es from Finding Nemo. Any awkwardness I felt about showering with Lena in a strange home faded quickly as Lena yanked my tunic over my head and tossed it into the plastic garbage can next to the toilet. I turned on the water, then helped Lena peel off her shirt. I ran my fingers gently over the skin at the edge of her bandages. “Are you sure . . . ?”

  “You’ll need to be gentle.” She tugged the bandages loose. The bullet holes underneath were dark and scabbed: one on her stomach, the other on the inner curve of her left breast. Two other bullets had struck her left shoulder. Tiny lines bulged around the edges of the wounds, like the roots of a plant. “Not too gentle, mind you.”

  I unbuckled her jeans and slid them over her hips, kissing my way down her body and carefully detouring around her injuries.

  Her hands tightened around the back of my head. She groaned, then pulled me up and kissed me hard, her tongue seeking mine, our hips pressing together.

  “I’ve missed you,” she whispered when we broke away.

  “I missed you, too.”

  She flashed a mischievous grin. “I can see that.”

  I stepped into the shower. “Give me a few minutes to wash up, and I’ll show you just how much I missed you.”

  I woke up early the next morning. Between changing time zones and spending two days in a coma, my schedule was utterly wrecked. I tiptoed past the lumpy sleeping bags in the living room where my brother was snoring away next to Lex and Angie. Talulah was on the couch.

  Lena had explained that this was the home of Jason’s ex-husband, a revelation that made me realize how much I didn’t know about my former boss, while simultaneously adding an additional layer of awkwardness to the whole shower sex thing.

  Once people began materializing in his library, Jason had gotten on the phone to search for a safer location. When he learned Rich was on a business trip for the week, Jason had loaded everyone up and taken a road trip downstate. I wasn’t clear about whether he’d asked permission, first.

  I entered the kitchen to find Smudge and another fire-spider playing in a large frying pan in the middle of the kitchen. Jeneta was watching over them. She’d lined the pan with a layer of cooking oil and popcorn kernels.

  “Popcorn for breakfast?” I asked.

  Jeneta jumped, then beamed up at me in a rare, unguarded show of emotion. “Nkiruka’s been teaching Smudge how to pop corn. He didn’t like the oil at first, but as soon as he ate his first piece, he was hooked.”

  Nkiruka was Jeneta’s fire-spider, a gift from me a year ago. Nkiruka and Smudge were currently chasing each other in circles around the pan.

  As for Jeneta, a year had done wonders for her. She looked whole again, healthy and . . . not necessarily relaxed, but she no longer had that hunched-over, shadowed look, like she was constantly preparing for an assault.

  I sat down across from her. Smudge skidded to a halt, finally noticing me. He scrambled out of the pan and raced over to climb up my leg, leaving tiny oil spots on my borrowed khakis. He perched on my knee, either inspecting me to make sure I was all right or else waiting to see if I’d brought him a snack.

  “Thanks for helping me get out of there, Jeneta,” I said.

  She shrugged. “You did the same for me.”

  I brought Smudge to eye level and studied the quarter-inch stub of his foreleg. The stump had healed over. Fire-spider wounds were self-cauterizing, and I could see the remnants of someone’s magic—either Talulah or Jeneta, probably—where they’d tried to heal him. A second layer of text ran deeper. This was the curse from Kiyoko’s enchanted bullets. I brought a finger toward Smudge, trying to separate the curse from his innate magic.

  Red waves of flame rushed over his back. I yanked my hand away.

  “Can you help him?” Jeneta asked, her eyes on Nkiruka.

  I lowered Smudge back into the frying pan, just as the first kernel popped. I felt sick to my stomach. “I could use his original book to restore his body. It would essentially reset his physical form.”

  “But . . . ?”

  “I can’t do it selectively. It would reset his mind, too. He wouldn’t be my Smudge. He’d be the Smudge I created back in high school, confused and frightened. He wouldn’t know me. He wouldn’t remember anything.”

  She pursed her lips and exhaled softly. “He’s got seven legs left. The missing one doesn’t seem to slow him down much.”

  I watched him pounce on a fresh-popped kernel. “I thought I’d be able to fix this.”

  “That’s how I felt when my mom and dad split up.”

  Paige and Mmadukaaku Aboderin had never forgiven me for the months their daughter had gone missing, possessed by a thousand-year-old necromancer. We’d saved Jeneta, but the strain of those months, combined with the stress of their daughter’s libriomancy and the revelation of magic, had broken their marriage. Last I’d heard, they were in the midst of a trial separation, with Paige on sabbatical back in England. “Is your father here?”

  “Guest room in the basement.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  She shrugged one shoulder. “Depends on the day. He doesn’t like you very much.”

  “Yah, he can join the club. I don’t imagine that’ll change soon.” I listened to the sizzle of the oil in the pan as the two spiders danced around, dodging exploding kernels. “It’s good to see you again.”

  She shrugged again and watched the spiders play. “You too.”

  “What’s been happening out there while I was sleeping?”

  “Violence. Death. War. The usual.” That was Talulah. She smiled at Jeneta before taking a seat at the small table in the corner of the kitchen. “Glad to see you made it out of there.”

  “Thanks to you and Jeneta.”

  “Does this mean I can get a raise?”

  I snorted. “I’ll see what I can do. Any word from McGinley or Vanguard?”

  They looked at one another. Jeneta’s face went blank.

  “Vanguard, or someone speaking in their name, issued an ultimatum last night,” said Talulah. “If the world doesn’t grant full legal equality and protection to magic-users and inhumans, they’ll make the atom bomb look like a cap gun.”

  “Not any time soon, they won’t,” I said. “I shredded the Gateway Project’s magic before Kiyoko shot me. Even if she siphoned the knowledge from my head, they don’t have the ability to put it back together.”

  Jeneta’s eyes were wide. “You got shot?”

  “I got better. I’m assuming Babs fixed me back up, or maybe Kiyoko swiped some healing magic from the hospital. I guess it’s harder to scan someone’s brain if he’s dead.”

  “So you think the threat is a bluff?” asked Talulah.

  “A bluff doesn’t make sense. Assuming McGinley and his crew are behind this, they know damn well nobody’s going to give in to their demands. The only reason to put this out there is as the groundwork for their next move, to make sure Vanguard takes the blame.” McGinley and Potts didn’t want equality. They wanted an attack so horrific it would unite most of the world against people like us. “We’ve missed something. I’ve missed something.”

  I stood up and rubbed my eyes. I’d lost my glasses, and the charred spots floating across my vision like tiny stormclouds were both distracting and destined to give me a headache before too long. “Talulah, can you run a search to see if the numbers six, five, and three mean anything?”

  “It’s one of my project numbers. The International Alert System. Why?”

  I closed my eyes and gently thumped my head against the wall. My chest felt as if I’d been put through an industrial press. My body wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. “Because I’m a damn fool. A blind, arrogant fool.”

  Talulah moved closer. “Isaac?”

  “I thought they meant to use Gateway.” My words sounded distant. My pulse drummed in my ears. “We need to wake everyone up right now.”

  Talulah closed her eyes. I heard only the edge of her telepathic wake-up call, but it was enough to shock my nervou
s system. “They’re awake.”

  Minutes later, we’d gathered everyone in the living room. I sat on the old loveseat next to Lena, while Nidhi perched on the end. Talulah and Jason were on the floor. Jeneta plopped herself down on an old beanbag chair, while her father stood beside her, his arms crossed. Lex, Toby, and Angie sat on the couch, where Lex munched sleepily on a strawberry Pop Tart. Deb sat in the corner, chewing her thumbnail.

  I was tempted to send Lex away. To send all three of them to another room. Jason, too. This wasn’t their fight.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” said Toby. “These people threatened my daughter. We’re not leaving.”

  I nodded. “Talulah, can you please explain the IAS Project?”

  She stood up and began to pace. “The International Alert System was a proposal for sending emergency warnings via TV, radio, cellphone . . . pretty much anything with a speaker. Charles and I had been working on a way to predict natural disasters. We were hoping to tie the two projects together. It would let us warn people sooner, giving them more time to reach shelter.”

  “How far did you get with that proposal?” I pressed.

  “It was ready to go. I had a list of texts to use, and a plan for compiling their tech into a single program.”

  “Enough of a plan for another libriomancer to complete your work?”

  “Possibly . . .”

  None of her answers came as a surprise, but each one was an additional weight, crushing any remaining hope that I was mistaken.

  ‹What are they doing with my work, Isaac?›

  Lena swore under her breath. “The sirens.”

  Talulah paled.

  “Lawrence McGinley sent the USCGC Kagan and two other ships to capture a group of sirens,” I said. “They were transported to a facility in Virginia to be tagged and cataloged. Lena, Deb, and I tried and failed to rescue them. If McGinley were to broadcast the sirens’ song through the IAS, he could kill thousands of people.”