by Jamie Davis
The spells running these pumps were supposedly permanent, but Tris had found fluctuations in the flows driving the sewage station pumps and magnified the electrical energy needed to power them. Something seemed to be interrupting the thick, cable-like threads comprising these powerful magical feeds, breaking them up into stuttering sections instead of long, unbroken flows, straining the electrical systems.
If they failed, so did the pumps.
Tris made it to the corner as the light turned green, then crossed with the other pedestrians before turning toward the pumping station entrance. She heard shouting as she crossed the threshold.
“We can’t stop it! The whole system is going to overload.”
“We have to leave, or we’ll die when this pump explodes!”
Tris rushed down the hall to the open door at the far end, and found herself looking over the pump room from a raised catwalk running above.
The shouting was from the other two techs already there, Jim Something or Other and someone else, arguing about whether to stay or run. She muttered a viewing spell and saw the problem. The normal flow of magic into the pumps was interrupted so completely that it looked like some sort of Morse code of dashes and dots. Without the continuous, uninterrupted flow, the pumps would back up and overload. An explosion was possible, and maybe imminent.
“You can’t leave the pumps like this,” Tris shouted over the whining machinery.
The two techs below looked up, seeming to consider for a moment. Tris swung her legs over the catwalk railing, then hurried down the ladder to join them on the deck grating below. A pool of water rushed beneath them, pumps drawing in the liquid and forcing it into the pipes that fed the city.
“When did this start?” Tris asked Maybe Jim.
“Around midnight. I managed to pull the flows back together, repair the breaks so everything kept working. I heard the pumps change pitch again when you arrived. It’s much worse this time.”
Jill, the other day-shift tech, squinted at the magic entering the station. “I’ve never seen flows with interruptions like this before. I don’t know if we can repair it. We might have to rebuild the spell from the ground up.”
“We can’t!” Tris shouted. “It will cut off the city’s water if this system goes down for more than a few hours. We need a patch.”
“A patch? For something this bad?”
“We have to try,” Tris insisted. “I have an idea, but I need you both to help me.”
“What is it?” Jill asked, moving to stand beside Tris.
Jim looked at the women, then joined them. “What did you have in mind?”
“We surround the point where the flows enter the pumps. Then each of us pours fresh flows into the stream. If we fill the system with enough energy, the spell should shift and repair itself.”
Jill cocked her head. Both she and Jim were older than Tris by about a decade; she was sure they were skeptical about taking orders from someone so young.
“Trust me, guys. We can do this if we hurry.” Tris pointed to a spot on the far side of the pump housing. “Jim, you go over there. Jill, position yourself between the two of us around the housing.”
Tris waited until they assumed their positions, then drew in the magical energy around her.
“Watch what I do and try to match me.”
Tris opened her senses, trying to draw as much as possible. She didn’t have the power of someone like Winnie, with her raw ability to gather and manipulate the magic around her. Tris’s skill lay in her ability to plan and see what each flow would do in the grand scheme of a large municipal project like a water pumping station. She set large sections of magical flows into gaps in the support stream powering the pumps. Soon, Jim and Jill were doing the same thing on their sides around the massive flow pouring into the station.
The machinery still whined, but seemed to be settling. Tris spared a glance at the pressure gauges and winced. They were touching the red zone on the readouts. If she couldn’t stabilize the interruptions, the system would overload and the station would experience a catastrophic failure. She and her colleagues would be killed in the explosion, or drowned when the water flooded the full city block, including their building.
Tris shouted to her co-workers, “Keep it up; it’s starting to work.”
“What do the readouts say?” Jill asked. “The pumps are making a terrible sound.”
“They’re still in the green,” Tris lied. “We’re fine. Just keep pulling in the flows and weaving them into the station stream. We can fix this.”
“I’ll try,” Jim yelled from across the platform. “But I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up. I’m starting to lose control.”
“Stay focused, both of you. If this fails, everyone in the city could be without water for days. Maybe weeks. After Boston, this could be devastating.”
Tris was exhausted. This type of brute force work was only done when launching a new public works project. Chanter techs lined up to step in and take over so each person could periodically rest throughout the construction and activation. They didn’t have that luxury here. There were only the three of them, with limited resources. When one of them lost the strength to continue, it would all be over. They had no one else to help them.
She refused to think about that, focusing instead on laying each new section in place to fill the gaps in her side.
Tris felt rather than saw her colleagues falter. Jim collapsed first. She caught his movement from the corner of her eye after sensing a cessation of magical flows from his side of their casting circle. She spared a glance and saw him lying on the floor, his back to the metal grate, chest heaving as he battled exhaustion.
Sweat beaded on her forehead, some running down into her eyes. She wiped at them, doubling her efforts to account for Jim’s loss. The repairs seemed to be holding, and there were fewer gaps in the massive flow powering the pumps. They might pull this off, even without Jim, if they could keep going.
Tris shouted encouragement to Jill — she’d shifted to a position directly opposite her to help fill the hole opened by Jim.
“We’ve almost got it, Jill. Keep going. The repairs are holding.”
“I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up. I’ve never channeled energy like this before.”
“I know, but if we fail, the entire city could be affected.”
Jill simply nodded and kept working the flows. Tris did the same.
It seemed like it took forever, but then, all of the sudden, there were no gaps to fill and the flow of energy powering the station was steady.
Tris stumbled backwards to rest against a railing. Jill crumpled to the grating, hands to her head. Tris knew how she felt. Her headache was the worst of her life.
The three techs rested for several minutes before moving to the control room where they all sat in chairs scattered around the small room, staring at the readouts. Everything looked normal again, the pumps operating within their normal, safe ranges.
Tris leaned forward, picked up a phone on the panel, and dialed a number on the printed list beside it. After a moment, it began to ring.
“Who are you calling?” Jim asked.
“We need to report the system’s near-failure. If this is happening here, what about the other main tech project centers around the city? We need to warn central control and tell them to schedule extra techs at every station in case they need to run repairs like we did.”
The phone rung for what felt like an hour before Tris hung up, puzzled by the lack of response. That primary line was supposed to be manned twenty-four hours a day. “There’s no one there. I’ll send an email, but one of us should stop in the central office to make an in-person report. Any volunteers?”
Tris didn’t want to do it. She thought it was more important to tell Winnie and Cait about what was going on. They might want to report this up to Artos as well. She looked at her co-workers, hoping one would raise a hand. But they looked at each other, then back at her, both of t
hem shaking their heads.
“You should tell them, Tris,” Jill said. “You were the one who rallied us to make the repairs.”
“Then you should both stay here until I get back. Jim, you’ve been here all night. Are you good for a few more hours?”
Jim’s sunken eyes belied his fatigue, but he nodded with a half-smile.
“Alright, I’ll go right now and come back as soon as I’m done with my report. I’ll call in when I arrive to see if anything’s changed here. Have any updates ready, including any recent readings from the pump control panel.”
Jill nodded and picked up a clipboard to record a set of panel readings for Tris to take with her. Tris stood. The sooner she reported to headquarters, the sooner she could finish her shift and find Winnie and Cait.
She took Jill’s paper and left the station, her brain occupied with potential disaster.
CHAPTER 17
Artos Merrilyn welcomed Winnie into his office, offered her a chair in front of his desk, and then sat himself. She had much to tell him and didn’t know where to start, so she chose the previous night’s initial encounter with Cricket and the other three members of Cleaver’s gang.
“I didn’t finish last night’s run. It was interrupted by Cleaver’s men, just like they warned me.”
“I assumed as much when you didn’t return with the cash.”
“You don’t seem surprised. Did you know they were going to kidnap me and take me to meet Cleaver?”
“I suspected he might want to meet the girl who took on Nils Kane and lived to tell about it.”
“How does he know about what happened? You didn’t tell him.”
Artos shook his head with a smile. “I’m sure Cleaver has his own sources inside the Assembly, or among the Red Legs. They’d have fed him information on the Harvester and Kane’s plans. I’m sure there was a shakeup at the upper levels of the Assembly and the DMC. Cleaver’s operatives would’ve given him a report. Of course he’d want to meet you.”
“Why didn’t you warn me, then? It would have been nice to be prepared. I could have brought Cait, or you could have lent me some of your security team.”
Again, he shook his head. “If I had intervened or warned you, the odds of someone getting hurt would have risen dramatically. That kind of direct confrontation always ends badly in our line of work. I didn’t want you or anyone on your team getting injured while trying to prevent the inevitable.”
“So, you’ve no intention of resisting Cleaver’s push into claiming Baltimore’s Sable trade and charm running operations?”
“I’ll resist, but not through direct confrontation. That kind of fight is precisely what Cleaver wants. It plays to his strengths, and that’s never good. People I care about will get hurt. People you care about, too.”
Winnie was getting annoyed, wanting more from Artos than what he seemed willing to share. “You seem to know a lot about Cleaver Yorke.”
“I do. He’s not a person to cross lightly. I’m sure that was your impression, too.”
“He’s scary. We met when the Boston disaster was being reported, so he was a bit distracted. But when it came down to business, he was direct. And forceful in his arguments around why I should work for him rather than you.”
“Cleaver is the way he is because of his upbringing, and how he came to power. The man hasn’t had an easy life. I prefer finesse; he chooses brute force.”
“I guess that makes sense for someone with the nickname of Cleaver.”
“Cleaver’s not a nickname, entirely, although he does appreciate the additional connotations his name brings to mind. ‘Cleaver’ is his mother’s maiden name. He took it when he was twelve in her honor. A sad story, but it tells us why he became the man he is today — one of this country’s most feared Sable bosses.”
“Did she die in some tragedy? Cleaver vowed vengeance on the people who killed her?”
Artos’s eyes grew serious, to match the lines around his mouth. “You shouldn’t discount such an event in someone’s life so easily. The death of a loved one at a young age can have a significant impact on a child’s life. Such has shaped many of our most powerful leaders. Director Kane’s own origins stem from the death of his mother at the hands of those who sought to harm him. Cleaver’s mother was the mistress of the former Sable boss in New Amsterdam, Grim DelTorio — a brutal man, known for his terrible treatment of women. He took Cleaver’s mother when he was only a boy.”
Artos leaned back in his chair and continued.
“Being such a hard and brutal man, Grim beat Cleaver’s mother, and the boy himself whenever he tried to rescue her. Eventually, Grim apparently beat her to a pulp, raped her, then cut her throat while the boy watched. Ever since, Cleaver’s been known by that name. He’s made vows and threats that forever change a person’s path through life.”
“Who took care of him? He must have been traumatized.”
“Cleaver freed himself eventually, started working his way up as one of DelTorio’s runners, working small-time charms for a local captain until he’d learned the ropes. Then he claimed that man’s area by murdering every lieutenant in his way, one by one, drawing others to follow until the captain saw the writing on the wall and sought early retirement in Florida. Cleaver took over.
“Grim thought it was amusing and applauded the boy’s initiative. But that was a foolish mistake. Cleaver continued to gather influence and power through brutal displays of blackmail or violence. Soon, he controlled all of the captains. He was only a couple years older than you when he finally took over the entire operation. The story goes that Cleaver just strolled into Grim DelTorio’s office and beat the man to a pulp in front of the other captains. No one lifted a finger to stop him. He destroyed his former boss in body, mind, and soul before leaving him for dead on his own office floor.”
Winnie shuddered at the brutality of it all. She’d stood in front of this man and faced him down. It might’ve been the most foolish thing she’d ever done, given what she knew now. “Aren’t you scared he’ll do the same to you? Kill you in front of your crew here in Baltimore?”
“No. I’ve never wronged him, and have always treated Cleaver with the respect due to someone in his position. If he moves in here, I will counter him in my way, but violence would be a foolish way to cross Cleaver Yorke.”
Artos leaned forward, picked up a folder, and flipped it open.
“I did find some information for you about your friend, Daniel Barber. Seems he was held under a special warrant from Kane himself. I don’t know where they were holding him, but it appears he was recently released from confinement.”
“He was released? He said he escaped.”
“So you’ve seen him?” Artos looked down at his folder and flipped through the pages. “Says he was released from custody the day before yesterday. No mention of any escape. Where did you see him?”
“New Amsterdam. He told me — well, it doesn’t matter what he told me. It’s good to know he’s out. Thanks for looking that up.” Winnie was grateful, though it was a little too late. She wondered why Danny had told her about an elaborate escape. She hoped it wasn’t a lie.
Artos cleared his throat. “I’d like to get you and your team back out on the street. You need to recover your losses from that last unfortunate run.”
Winnie nodded. “I’m ready, though I need to check in with Cait and Tris.”
“Cleaver will try to take our night clubs in the Fells Point district. That’s his preference, taking over the smaller operations one at a time, setting things up so the owners will think they can only get their magical charms from him. We need to spend a day reaching out to each of the local business owners, invite them to a central meeting, let them know we have their backs. I’d like you to do that. There are rumors in the community about the girl who stood up to Kane. Now we shall add a shout to those whispers.”
“I don’t want that kind of attention on me.” Winnie shook her head. “I don’t want people thinking I’m an
ything special.”
“It’s too late for that, my dear. You are special. Cleaver knows it. I know it, and so do you. People need a figurehead to believe in. You’re our best option. Business owners will take our side and resist Cleaver’s intrusion.”
“That might work in the short-term, but a confrontation is coming. You can’t hide behind me.”
“I assure you, Winnie, I hide from nothing. There are specific things I need from you. Don’t mistake the splinter of information I’m sharing for my final plan. There are things happening that you do not understand.”
“Then tell me what I don’t know. I don’t like being put in the middle. You’re playing me and I’m the one with her neck on the line!”
“My dear, all of our necks are very much on the line. You know what Director Kane is capable of, and how far he’s willing to go. A turf war between two Sable bosses is nothing compared to finding a way to foil the Director’s end game. That is where my focus shall remain. Cleaver Yorke is the least of my worries.”
Winnie didn’t like the way Artos downplayed the influence of New Amsterdam’s Sable boss. Kane might be their ultimate problem, but Cleaver’s plans for incursion into Baltimore was a significant, short term challenge. She would hear out his plans for the upcoming meeting with the owners of the Fells Point clubs, but Winnie’s mind was on her encounter with Yorke. She couldn’t stop thinking about Artos’s description of his mother’s death and his subsequent takeover.
It didn’t bode well for anyone allied with Artos.
CHAPTER 18
“I don’t give a damn about Baltimore, Cricket. I need Durham on my side or New Amsterdam is going the way of Boston. The world will follow.”
Cleaver punctuated each sentence with a jab at the heavy bag dangling from a chain in one corner of his office. Cricket winced with every punch. He was on the other side of the bag, steadying it for his boss, feeling the power with every hurl of his fist.