The Song of the Orphans

by Daniel Price

  Atropos.

  The building stood thirty miles north of the city, in a small and wealthy suburb on the Westchester side of the Hudson. The village had been known as North Tarrytown until 1996, when the name was changed to Sleepy Hollow in honor of the famous Washington Irving story that took place there. By strange coincidence, the same thing had happened on the Silvers’ native world in the exact same year. Sometimes the two Earths had moved in perfect rhythm with each other, as if their histories had never split.

  Peter broke away from the Pocantico Skyway and flew the Peregrine toward the river. No one in the van had spoken for minutes, not since Mia finished sharing the words and “wisdom” of her future selves. Of a hundred and eighty-six notes, only nine offered intel about the trials ahead of them. The rest were either too vague, too irrelevant, or too noxious to read aloud.

  The Peregrine stopped a hundred feet above the edge of Sleepy Hollow. Peter stared out the windshield at the structure in the distance.

  “There it is,” he said.

  His passengers leaned forward and studied their destination, a tortoiseshell complex of glass and steel that looked way too large to be a business office. Hannah figured it was a megamall. Mia assumed it was a stadium of some sort. Only Amanda guessed its true nature from its numerous launching pads. They graced the upper dome like a crown of roses.

  “It’s an aerport.”

  Peter nodded. “Atropos National.”

  Jonathan scanned the empty sky. There were no flights departing or arriving, no cars in the parking lot. Not even the hints of a skeleton crew.

  “Dead as hell,” he noted. “Is it closed for Easter?”

  “Closed for good,” Peter said. “Died last year in the cutbacks.”

  “You’ve been here before.”

  “Yeah. Ivy and I used to come here in our younger days, when it was still under construction. At night, we had the whole place to ourselves. It was like a playground for teleporters.”

  Amanda narrowed her eyes at him. Peter was waxing nostalgic about the woman who may have already slit Zack’s throat. “We’re wasting time. What’s the plan?”

  “The plan is we go in.”

  David eyed him skeptically. “No portals. No tunnels. Just walk right in through the front door.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes,” Mia echoed.

  The others turned to look at her. She raised a paper scrap in her fingers, the first of nine pertinent notes.

  It doesn’t matter which way you go in. The Gothams are prepared for every choice you make. They’re very, very ready for you.

  Peter gestured at the main entrance, the only one that wasn’t boarded up with plywood. “She’s right. Rebel’s an augur. He’ll see us coming no matter what we do.”

  “Then what’s to stop him from blowing us out of the sky right now?” Jonathan asked.

  “Bigger fish.”

  “What?”

  David understood. “Rebel’s not just after us. He wants Azral and Esis too. He’s laying a trap for all of us.”

  Hannah frowned at him. “The Pelletiers got us into this mess. What makes you think they’ll show up now?”

  “It’s not what I think. It’s what Rebel and Ivy think.”

  “I don’t care,” Amanda said. “Let them come. Let them kill each other. I just want Zack.”

  “We’ll get him,” Peter assured her. “But he’s still a hostage, so we have to tread carefully. If there’s talking to be done, you let me do it. And if it comes down to fighting . . .”

  Amanda caught his edgy look. She stared down miserably at her hands. She’d been stressing nonstop about Future Mia’s warning, the one that called her out by name:

  Watch Amanda closely. She’s an atom bomb right now, and the Gothams know just how to set her off.

  Peter sighed at the windshield, then shifted the Peregrine back into gear.

  “Just stay alert,” he told everyone. “This is gonna get messy.”

  —

  Walking into Atropos was like stepping into the throat of a dying dragon. The glass dome turned the entire structure into a hothouse, an unfortunate design choice that had forced the administrators to run the air conditioners eleven months out of the year. Now the fan blades slept beneath a blanket of dust, and the air was thick with heat and mildew. Mia nearly gagged at the fetid taste in her mouth.

  You signed up for this, she reminded herself. You don’t get to complain now.

  The entry was lined with bresin sheets and wooden scaffolding, a path of human cobwebs that only grew narrower. Peter asked David to scan the recent past for traps. The boy obliged him with a courteous nod, as if he hadn’t been doing that all along.

  After sixty feet, the corridor opened up to a huge and dusty mezzanine. The left and right pathways were sealed off with plywood barriers. The only way forward was to go down a dormant escalator, into the shadowy lower concourse.

  David squinted suspiciously at the wooden obstructions. “These are less than a day old.”

  “They’re leading us like cattle,” Amanda said. “We should make our own path.”

  Peter shook his head. “Not yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they’re leading us to them,” he replied. “That’s just where Zack will be.”

  He clutched David’s arm and jerked his head at the escalator. “Scan the area below. Just your hindsight. Don’t go too far.” He turned to the sisters. “Watch his back.”

  Mia wandered toward a wall mural, a painting of three ancient Greek women toiling on a skein of yarn. Their faces were lovely in a cold, austere way. They were just how Mia imagined Esis to look.

  Peter moved behind her and studied the image. “The old governor of New York was a nut for Greek mythology. When he approved the construction of three aerports in Westchester, his only demand was that they be named after the Moirae. You know who they are?”

  Mia nodded. “The goddess sisters of Fate.”

  “That’s right. Clotho weaves the threads. Lachesis measures the length of each person’s life. And Atropos—”

  “—does the cutting,” Mia finished.

  Peter smiled. “You never fail to impress, darling.”

  “Then why do you keep things from me?”

  “What?”

  She retrieved a slip of a paper from her pocket and held it up to him. He plucked it from her fingers.

  Merlin McGee’s real name is Michael Pendergen. There’s a lot Peter’s not telling you.

  Scowling, he crumpled up the message. Mia kept her stony gaze on the Fates. “You said he was one of your people. You never told us he was family. What is he, your brother?”

  Peter sighed over her head. “Not by blood. We’re just two Irish street rats who grew up together. When the clan took us in, we chose a new name for ourselves, a variation on Pendragon.” He snorted with dark humor. “We do love the Arthurian handles.”

  Mia wasn’t even remotely amused. “So Pendergen isn’t even your real name.”

  “It’s the realest name I ever had.”

  “You’ve had seven months to let us get to know you.”

  “You do know me,” Peter insisted. “I may keep things close to the vest, but I never lied to you and I never will.”

  He dropped his hands on her shoulders, his eyes fixed on the long shears of Atropos. “We’re travelers, sweetheart. You and I are linked. One of these days, when you’re strong enough, you’ll look inside my head and see exactly what you mean to me.”

  Mia’s expression softened. She supposed she was being a hypocrite. Seven months together and she never told him that her father’s name was Peter.

  “We found something,” Amanda called.

  Peter and Mia joined the others at the rail of the mezzanine. David flicked his hand at the shadows down below. A circl
e of light appeared and formed a twenty-foot ring around the base of the escalator.

  “There’s some kind of machine down there,” David said. “I don’t know what it does but they went out of their way to hide it.”

  Peter clenched his fists. “Son of a bitch.”

  “What is it?” Jonathan asked.

  “A tempic barrier.”

  Amanda’s brow wrinkled. “How is that a problem? It’s flat on the floor. It’s not even on.”

  “That’s exactly the problem,” Peter said. “When you remove all the safety measures, the thing becomes a guillotine. They could’ve cut us all off at the ankles.”

  Hannah reeled at the thought of it. “Assholes.”

  “And cowards,” David added. “I expected more from Rebel.”

  “So did I,” said Peter. He raised his voice at the ceiling. “We didn’t come here looking for a fight! We just want our friend back. No one has to die today. Talk to us.”

  A hundred yards away, in a boarded-up restaurant on the sunny side of the concourse, Rebel and Ivy listened to Peter through wireless speakers. They could have easily replied through the public address system, but there was no point. The foot trap was just a friendly hello. Their full response was coming.

  —

  The command center had once been a four-star kitchen. But the juves were long gone, the refrigerators had been resold, and there was nothing but grime where the ovens used to be. Only the stainless-steel countertops remained, all of them loaded with military-grade computer equipment. Ivy had stolen the devices from a DP-8 armory, along with some weapons and tactical armor. All it took was a pushcart and a portal to rob the Deps of their nicest toys.

  Gemma worked her surveillance console from a bar stool, her field armor painstakingly altered to fit her tiny frame. She zoomed in on Amanda and watched with amusement as her tempic fists made short work of Rebel’s tempic barrier.

  “Smashy smashy,” Gemma joked. “The redhead sure loves to break things.”

  Jinn Godden glowered at her from the neighboring workstation. “You said she’s their weak link.”

  “She is. Patience, girl.”

  “You know how zizzy you sound when you call me that? I’m twice your age.”

  “You know how stupid you sound when you use words like ‘zizzy’?”

  “Quiet,” said Deven Sunder, the swifter known as Bug. “Both of you.”

  He was the only one in the room who looked natural in Dep armor. Between his feathered black hair and his neatly trimmed beard, he might have passed for one of the Bureau’s top directors. Only the fear in his eyes revealed how truly out of his element he was.

  Bug looked at his twin sister. “I don’t get why you’re toying with these people. You have the firepower. You could kill them right now.”

  Ivy leaned against a pantry door, her hand clasping Rebel’s. Like the rest of their crew, the two of them had come dressed for war. If everything went according to plan, they wouldn’t see a moment of combat. And if things went south . . . well, Rebel and Ivy had prepared for that, too. They’d recorded detailed instructions for their chosen successors. They’d made love an hour ago like it was their very last time.

  “We only have one chance to hit the Pelletiers,” Ivy told Bug. “We’re not going to waste it.”

  “You don’t even know they’ll be here.”

  “They’ll be here,” Rebel said. “They always come for the Silvers.”

  Gemma smiled at her father’s smoldering indignation. Bug couldn’t stand playing second fiddle to his brother-in-law, this ill-bred Jew from the lower houses. But what could he do? Rebel was the clan’s big hero, the one who’d thrashed Esis within an inch of her life and exposed the limits of the Pelletiers’ power. They weren’t all-seeing and they weren’t invulnerable. Now they had four solic cannons, three grenade launchers, and six mounted machine guns waiting for them in the concourse. Should those fail, Rebel had installed enough explosive charges to bring half of Atropos down on their heads. The demons weren’t getting away this time, and neither were their pets.

  Except there was already one of them who got away in advance.

  “Where the hell is Maranan?” Rebel asked. “Makes no sense for them to come without their augur.”

  “Maybe he’s guiding them by radio,” Jinn offered.

  Rebel shook his head. “Can’t see the future through someone else’s eyes.”

  “They don’t need him,” Gemma said. “The Pelletiers are giving them all the guidance they . . .”

  Her eyes rolled back. She shuddered on her seat. Though Gemma’s twitching spells never failed to unnerve her father, Rebel and Ivy welcomed them. That meant her older self was coming back from the future with fresh new intel.

  Her convulsions stopped. Ivy held her by the shoulders. “You okay, sweetie? What did you see?”

  Rebel smiled at the girl’s savage grin. “The glass,” he guessed.

  “The glass,” Gemma confirmed. “They’re about to lose their wonder boy.”

  —

  David proceeded carefully down a bulb-lit corridor, a rickety enclosure of plywood, tape, and nails. The concourse was teeming with these ramshackle constructions. There was no way across except through the maze. A quick scan of the past revealed its hasty creation: dozens of Gothams working tirelessly over the last forty-eight hours. While tempics hammered and swifters sawed, a team of lumics filled the upper dome with ghostly storm clouds. They were deliberately hiding something far above, as if Rebel had looked to the future and saw David looking back.

  Clever, thought David. He’s not a complete idiot.

  Peter reached the corner and watched him nervously. “Don’t stray too far, son.”

  David never failed to bristle whenever Peter called him “son.” It was not an affectionate endearment, like the “sweetheart”s and “darling”s he lavished on Mia. It was just a vain man’s way of reminding David who was in charge.

  He tapped his fist against the roof boards. “We need Amanda to open up the ceiling.”

  Peter shook his head. “There could be trap triggers.”

  “Actually, I think the danger’s higher.”

  “I’d rather not chance it.”

  David spun to face him, his face mottled with sweat. “Would you just listen to me for once?”

  Amanda turned the corner and splintered the roof with a tempic punch. If recent mistakes had taught her anything, it was to always heed David’s warnings. Always.

  The Gothams followed their progress on the thermal scanner. While the sisters and Mia were easy to tell apart by silhouette, the men were all six feet tall and athletically built. Ivy could see one of them standing on the digital “X” that Gemma had marked for the glass trap. She squinted at his orange frame. “Is that Dormer?”

  Gemma nodded her head, grinning. “Yeah. Just wait.”

  Rebel’s eyes hardened at the image of David. The boy had killed one of his soldiers last year, and then threatened Ivy at gunpoint while she was still pregnant. The kid had earned his own special death.

  “Drop it,” he ordered Jinn.

  “But the others aren’t in range.”

  “I don’t care. Do it. And get ready.”

  Jinn shifted into high speed, pressed a button on her console, and then gripped her weapon triggers. She had six gun turrets and five rocket cannons at her command, plus a lightning-fast reaction time. If the Pelletiers were coming to save David, they were in for a rude awakening.

  A hundred small putty charges exploded on the roof of the aerport, each one strong enough to take out a support bolt. The noise was just a rumble to the Silvers down below. Nobody heard it in the din of Peter’s and Amanda’s shouting.

  “Goddamn it! I told you to follow my lead!”

  “You’re not leading!” Amanda yelled. “They are!”

&
nbsp; “You want to see Zack again?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Then stop acting rashly and start—”

  “Look out!”

  Everyone turned to Jonathan, whose wide eyes remained fixed on the ceiling. Mia craned her neck and gasped.

  A hexagonal pane of glass had broken off from the dome: twelve feet wide and three inches thick. The explosions that freed it had filed away its edges, leaving sharp, jagged protrusions all around it.

  By the time Hannah saw it, it was already halfway down to the concourse. She jumped into blueshift, just as Amanda threw a tempic canopy over everyone around her.

  Only Peter caught her mistake. The glass wasn’t coming at them. It was falling on the one person outside the shield.

  “David!”

  Hannah made a fevered dash for him but it was already too late. The glass fell edge-first into David’s shoulder blade and then kept on going. Mia screamed in horror, her hands pressed over her mouth. The whole thing played like a slow-motion nightmare. And yet something . . .

  “What?”

  Something wasn’t right. It took three seconds for everyone to realize that David was still alive and standing. The glass had cut right through him, yet he hadn’t shed a drop of blood.

  Hannah de-shifted in time to watch the last of the pane disappear. It vanished through the floor as if it was nothing but painted air.

  While David stood in blinking stupor, the sisters, Mia, and Peter all slowly turned around.

  Jonathan crouched motionless behind him, his arm raised high, his face red and sweaty. A trickle of blood dribbled out of his nose.

  “Holy shit,” he said through panting breaths. “It worked.”

  —

  The Gothams in the kitchen fell silent. None of them had expected the guitarist to be much of a threat. In fact, they were amazed he still existed. Droppers were rare and tragic beings, children doomed by fate to die falling through the earth. Now here was a full-grown one, walking around without a tempic catchnet, wielding his curse like a superhero.

  Ivy screamed and swept a keyboard off a countertop. The Pelletiers would never show up if their minions kept saving themselves.