The Song of the Orphans

by Daniel Price

  Heath dashed back into the stairwell and looked to Mother Olga. “Can you save him?”

  Hannah was almost terrified to hear the answer. It seemed crazy to have hope on this awful night, but she needed something to hold on to. She had to believe that all her struggles were for something. Otherwise, what was the point?

  Olga put her ear to Theo’s mouth and listened to his breaths for a long, quiet moment.

  “Oh yes,” she told Heath. “I absolutely can.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  Mia looked out the window and saw the devil yet again. He grinned at her from the top of a twenty-story building, a colossal red demon with flaming horns and swordlike teeth. By now the taxi had flown forty-four circuits around the Via Fortuna skyway, enough for Mia to memorize all the casinos by their rooftop holograms. The Midas had a golden bull. The Infernal had a big red Satan. The Magellan had a ship that sailed repeatedly over the same five waves. It seemed the whole damn world was stuck in a playback loop. If Evan was trying to give her a taste of his madness, he was succeeding.

  She turned a cold eye on her driver. After bending Mia’s ear with a litany of monologues—“The Sickness in Hannah,” “The Hypocrisy of Amanda,” “The Short, Sad Life of Natalie Tipton-Elder”—Evan tried to engage her in friendly chitchat. He asked about her personal life with a disturbing amount of detail. He knew all about her sleep portals, the angry Mias, the increasing number of messages that spontaneously combusted upon delivery.

  “Burning notes.” Evan shook his head, tsking. “What’s that about?”

  Mia could tell from his mocking tone that he already knew the answer. He’d probably dangle it over her head until she begged him to tell her. Screw that. She wasn’t going to play his stupid games. She got enough psychological torment from her future selves.

  Evan scanned her surly expression. “Well, aren’t you the Chatty Cathy. You know, this isn’t a dream date for me either. I really wanted Zack to be here.”

  Mia’s heart dropped. Last she saw Zack, a tempic had knocked him fifty feet into dark waters.

  She looked at Evan, cringing. “Is he dead?”

  “Who, Zack? I hope not.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “How would I?”

  “I thought you knew everything.”

  Evan laughed. “I only know what I’ve seen, and I’ve never seen the Coppers kill Zack. It’s always Esis who does him in.”

  Blood pounded in Mia’s veins. She would have sold her soul to be back in the underland, drinking strawberry blenders with Carrie. Anything but this.

  Evan snapped his fingers. “Oh, hey. I almost forgot.”

  He reached into the backseat and dropped a bag onto Mia’s lap—the white leather shoulder pack that she had brought with her to Seattle.

  “Got it from your hotel room,” Evan explained. “Integrity’s gonna be all over that place. You don’t want them thumbing through your notebooks. Trust me.”

  Mia opened the bag and examined her two journals, the one she used as a personal diary and the one she reserved for the words and wisdom of her future selves. She hadn’t updated the latter book in months, not since the Mias went toxic on her.

  Evan tapped the hardbound cover. “You have some bad information in there.”

  “You read it?”

  “Skimmed it.” He snorted derisively. “You got me all wrong.”

  “I didn’t write them.”

  “She got me wrong. I’m not a bad guy. And before you say—”

  “You tortured Hannah and Amanda!”

  Evan palmed his face. “Sweet Holy Jesus.”

  “Are you saying you didn’t hurt them?”

  “I’m saying they’ve done far worse to me.”

  “When?”

  “You wouldn’t remember.”

  “Because it happened in another timeline.”

  “It happened to me.”

  Mia flinched at the change in his expression. At long last she could see the man behind the glib veneer, the first-draft Evan who screamed and raged at the universe. Now she knew exactly why Hannah and Amanda had nightmares about him. He was broken on a level she could barely comprehend.

  As Evan cut into a faster lane, Mia studied the markings on the back of his left hand: four nickel-size divots in a perfect square.

  “Zack has the same scars,” she noted.

  “Wow. Imagine the odds.”

  “What did the Pelletiers do to you?”

  “Zack didn’t tell you?”

  “Zack won’t talk about it.”

  “Then why the hell would I?”

  He unwrapped another hard candy and popped it into his mouth. Mia could see from the packaging that they were Calmamels: the “Relaxing Candy.” Each one contained twenty milligrams of apasticine, an alkaloid opiate that was nearly indistinguishable from nicotine. Mia had already watched Evan go through a bag and a half of the stuff. He gulped them down like popcorn.

  “I know your next question,” he said.

  “I don’t have a next question.”

  “I have no idea why they let me go. There was no parole hearing. No threats or warnings. Not even a slap on the ass. They just opened up a portal and boom, I was free.”

  He let out a shaky laugh. “Guess they looked to the future and knew I’d be a good boy. No more messing with their precious Silvers.”

  Mia glared at him. “You’re messing with me.”

  “You’re not one of their precious ones,” he told her. “You’re down at the bottom with me and Zack.”

  The cab flew on in frosty silence. Mia could see the Infernal’s red devil on the horizon again. Their forty-fifth loop was about to begin.

  “I love this city,” Evan said. “Most honest place in America. You won’t find any of that Leave It to Beaver ‘yes, ma’am,’ ‘sure, ma’am,’ ‘everything’s fine and dandy, ma’am’ bullshit. Seattle caters to the people we are, not the ones we pretend to be.”

  Mia groaned and rubbed her face. “How much longer are we going to do this?”

  “What, you’re not enjoying yourself?”

  “No!”

  “Well, shit, hon. You should have said something sooner.”

  He dipped down to the exit level, then pulled the taxi into a chargery. The station was tucked beneath a highway overpass, far removed from the garish spectacle of the casinos. The only hologram in view was the temporal ghost of a service attendant. He tipped his cap at Evan and thanked him for choosing MerryBolt.

  Mia watched Evan carefully as he fed a ten-dollar bill into the spark hydrant. “What are you doing?”

  He plugged a cable into the cab’s charging port. “Filling up. What does it look like?”

  “You know I could just make a portal and leave.”

  “All right.” Evan gave her a sardonic wave. “See ya.”

  Mia looked around and weighed her options. The underland was far out of teleport range, and she sure as hell couldn’t go back to the Poseidon. She supposed she could try a memory jump to the Wallows, but that place would also be crawling with Integrity agents. She had no good escape route, and Evan damn well knew it.

  But maybe . . .

  She drew a deep breath, then opened a six-inch portal behind her back. She could only hope that Peter was out there looking for her. Maybe he’d feel her presence in the network, a tiny, flashing blip on his radar.

  Mia leaned against the taxi and looked across the roof at Evan. “Why did you save me?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Because you hate us.”

  “I hate the sisters,” Evan countered. “I’m not particularly fond of David. Theo I just feel sorry for. And Zack’s one of my favorite people on Earth.”

  “And where do I fit in all this?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “
That’s why I appreciate you.”

  He walked around the vehicle and leaned on the trunk. Mia turned to hide the portal behind her.

  “I’ve played this game a whole bunch of times,” Evan said. “Round and round the mulberry bush. I’ve watched your friends follow the same damn script over and over again, like clockwork.”

  He shook a finger at her. “But you, you’re a wild card. You’re a bouncing ball on the roulette wheel. I can barely count the different Mias I’ve seen you become. The wristcutter, the asskicker, the chain-smoking nihilist, the born-again Catholic—”

  “What?”

  “I know, right? As if the group needed another one of those.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not lying. I’m not even finished. There’s Celibate Mia, Lesbian Mia, Pansexual Orgy Mia—”

  “What?”

  “Hell, there’s even a Mama Mia,” Evan proclaimed. “I’ve seen you have a baby.”

  “Bullshit!”

  Evan shrugged. “You don’t have to believe me, but it’s true. You keep on changing and I love you for it. There’s only one thing you do the same way every time.”

  “I don’t want to h—”

  “You get angry,” Evan told her. “You get very, very angry.”

  Mia felt a soft twinge in the back of her mind. Peter’s voice brushed against her thoughts like a tinny radio signal.

  Hang on, darling. I feel you. I’m coming.

  Evan’s head snapped back as if he just remembered something. He scanned the wooden fence at the edge of the chargery, then yanked the power cable from the taxi.

  “Well, that’s my cue. It’s been real, my dear.”

  “Wait. Why do I get angry?”

  “Tell Hannah she doesn’t have to worry about me anymore. The Pelletiers got their point across. I won’t bother her again.”

  “Why do I get angry?”

  Evan opened the driver’s door and gave her one last look. There was something in his eyes that rattled her to the core—a brand-new sincerity, a sympathy.

  “You’ll find out very soon.”

  He hurried into the cab and started the ignition. The vehicle lifted off the pavement with a loud, airy hiss before the wheels folded inward and the liftplates roared to life.

  Evan had just risen out of view when a portal bloomed open on the fence. Peter burst through the surface and took a frantic look around.

  Mia ran to meet him. “Peter!”

  He hugged her tight. “Oh, thank God. Are you all right?”

  She nodded weakly. “I’m okay.”

  “What happened to you?”

  Mia wasn’t sure how to explain it. She didn’t even know what to think. She’d been so determined to keep Evan from messing with her head, but now he towered over every thought, a huge grinning devil. In her mind, he still had her flying in circles.

  “Just get me out of here,” she said to Peter. “Take me home.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The vivery was a uniquely American establishment, a product of loopholes in temporal technology regulations. While hospital revivers were restricted to the treatment of life-threatening injuries, private clinics were free to offer twenty-four-hour rewinds to anyone who could afford one, for any reason they wished. Broke your arm but don’t want to spend weeks in a cast? Go to a vivery. Want to undo that new tattoo? Unscrew the cad you met last night? Go to a vivery. Regret was the lifeblood of the chronoregression industry. In 2006, a famous young actress confessed to Gab magazine that she’d had her virginity restored 115 times. She died of an aneurysm the following year, a grim reminder to everyone that time was not a toy.

  No one knew that better than Olga Varnov, the primarch of the turners and the matron of the Gothams’ sole vivery. Her clinic was unique on several fronts, not the least of which was its lack of reviver technology. All temporal manipulations were performed by human beings, cost-free, and with every bit of prudence that the hospitals used. Anyone who wasn’t facing death or dismemberment would have to heal the old-fashioned way. There were no paper-cut reversals on Mother Olga’s watch.

  The calamitous events of late Tuesday night left her with more medical emergencies than she had ever seen—nine injured souls from the battle in the clock tower, two from the wayward mission in Seattle.

  Only four of the wounded were healthy enough for traditional care. Amanda was given eye drops for her corneal flash burns. Carrie received stitches and a blood transfusion. Heath was treated for electrical shock. Hannah got the standard Gotham remedy for power strain: an aspirin, a sedative, and sixteen hours of uninterrupted sleep.

  The remaining seven patients—Theo, David, Jonathan, Zack, Harold Herrick, Duncan Rall, and the Mayor—were clear-cut cases for reversal. Only one of them died in the process. While Dunk’s young body moved backward in time, an electrical surge in his brain caused his power to activate. He dropped through the floor and was gone before anyone could even scream.

  Ironically, it was Jonathan, the other dropper, who had the smoothest recovery. He emerged from the temporis in perfect health, with little to show for his trouble but a four-hour memory gap. The others were saddled with reversal sickness of one kind or another. Harold was delirious. The Mayor was blind. Zack couldn’t move or bend his fingers. Theo couldn’t keep his meals down. Their maladies would heal over the next few days, though Zack would never again draw as quickly as he used to.

  The real concern was David.

  He came out of reversal looking sicker than ever. His body twitched in restless slumber while his vital signs diminished by the hour. Though Olga assured his friends that he’d pull through, the other turners didn’t share her optimism. They feared David would be the first of the breachers to have his name carved on the Requiem Wall.

  Then, in the middle of the night, his health took a miraculous turn. By sunrise, all the color had returned to his skin. By eight A.M., he was sitting up in bed and eating breakfast with savage zeal. Yvonne had never seen anyone make such a feast of water and bell peppers.

  She sat with him in the recovery room, stroking his hair as she filled him in on everything he’d missed.

  “Amanda and Hannah barely left your side,” she said. “Zack and Theo kept coming in to check on you. Olga threatened to chain them to their beds.”

  “They still here?”

  “No. They were discharged. It’s just you and my dad now.”

  David crunched into another pepper, his thoughts smoldering with self-rebuke. After everything he’d been through, all the dire perils he’d survived, he’d nearly let himself get killed by a psychotic ten-year-old. It was shameful. Humiliating. How could he have been so foolish?

  Yvonne saw his expression and sighed. “You have every reason to be angry. I’m angry. That horrid girl was in my kitchen. She poisoned you with my food.”

  “Where is she now?”

  Yvonne looked away. “You don’t have to worry about Gemma.”

  The previous morning, as dawn rose over Quarter Hill, Irwin Sunder barged into his granddaughter’s bedroom and found her lying face-up on the carpet, catatonic. A brain scan revealed the full extent of the damage. Gemma had been stripped of all cerebral function, a jet without a pilot. The doctors gave it a month before her body shut down as well.

  David had a good guess what had happened to her . . . or who had happened to her, specifically. He couldn’t decide if the girl got more or less punishment than she deserved.

  He threw his pepper stems into the trash. Yvonne squeezed his arm and rested her head against his. “You won’t remember it, but we were having a very nice date before the trouble started.”

  He forced a wavering smile. “You’ll have to tell me all about it.”

  “Oh, I’ll do more than tell you,” Yvonne said. “When you get better . . .”

  She and David peeked up and s
aw Mia standing in the doorway, looking every bit as exhausted as she felt. Her hair was limp. Her shoulders were drooped. She had yet to change out of the sweater, jeans, and sneakers she’d been wearing for two days straight.

  “Hi.” She backstepped into the hall. “If this is a bad time—”

  “No, no.” David stared at her, gobsmacked. She’d been a ghost in his life for three weeks running. Now here she was, looking right at him.

  Yvonne jumped to her feet with a courteous smile. “I’ll let you two catch up.”

  She clutched Mia’s shoulder on the way out the door. “My cousin says you were amazing in Seattle. Totally fearless in the face of danger.”

  “Oh. I don’t know about that.”

  “Well, in any case, I’m glad you’re back. If there’s anything you need, just ask.”

  “Thank you. That’s very nice of you.”

  Mia didn’t mean to sound as surprised as she did. She’d let jealousy and Carrie color her opinion of Yvonne. Clearly that was a mistake. She should have known that David wouldn’t fall for just a pretty face.

  “When did you get back?” he asked Mia.

  “A half hour ago. I just found out about all of this. Jesus.”

  “You’re not too far behind me.”

  Mia stepped inside and took a closer look at his pulse monitor. His heart seemed to be beating just fine. “How are you feeling?”

  “Embalmed. You?”

  “Same.” She settled into a folding chair. “I just saw Hannah. She looks . . . different somehow. Older.”

  “She’s one of the few people who remembers the fight.”

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to help.”

  “I’m sorry we couldn’t help you,” David said. “I’ve only heard bits and pieces about the mission. What happened?”

  Mia dragged her chair closer and filled him in on her misadventures. Though she’d only planned to give him a broad-strokes summary, she ended up walking him through every beat of the story, from the bright casino holograms to the hard, desperate look in the eyes of the Coppers. David fell into hysterics when she told him about the half-naked showgirl she accidentally teleported at the Poseidon.