“Dinga would like to stop now,” the demon said again.
“I told you, Dinga, we can’t stop until we find Alayna. You know what Victor said. And keep the dagger out of sight. That’s one thing we don’t need these people to see.”
“How did Master Victor retrieve the dagger again?” Dinga asked me.
“Alayna left it behind when she came here, I suppose.” I shrugged. It was a good thing, too. Or we wouldn’t have been able to follow her to this place. Edwin had tried to volunteer, and we had almost come to blow over it until Victor elected me to fetch her. I looked down at him, clinging to the bar that separated him from the three-foot drop to the strange gray ground in this world. We weren’t going very fast, but he was still terrified.
And very blue.
“We have to find something to hide you under,” I told Dinga.
“Dinga still cannot believe mistress has land without Zespars.”
I shook my head. Up ahead, I saw a woman, dressed strangely with very short pants and bare shoulders. She was leaving a shop dragging a crying child behind her, who was also dressed blue pants that hooked over his shoulders. Another woman in even shorter pants and a towel thrown around her neck held the hand of a small girl child in a short pink dress with black legs.
It had been so long since I’d seen a child, I almost ran over the first woman crossing the road. She glared at me as I threw the gears up and over. Delilah’s brakes squealed as we throttled to a stop. Smoke billowed out the rear.
The lady in front of me was wearing so few clothes that even behind my goggles I averted my eyes. How improper. She threw up a finger on her left hand and glared at me.
“Master, what does that mean?” Dinga squeaked beside me.
“You’re polluting the environment, you know!” The lady screamed over the rumble of the engine.
“What is polluting, master?” Dinga asked.
“Shh, stay down. She’d get a fright if she saw you.”
I pulled over the curb in front of the shop where the two women had appeared with children. The sign over the top in garish red and blue letters read, “Shirts and Ladders.”
“I think they sell smaller clothes here.”
“Why would a shop sell only small clothes?”
I reached behind me and threw my father’s old quilt in his direction. “Cover yourself, and don’t move until I come back.”
“As you say, Master Sebastian.”
I shifted the knob into the still position and cut the steam engine with a click of the key. I jumped down and ran into the store, hoping no one was looking too closely at what I was wearing.
The store was overwhelming. Never had I seen so many fabrics of all shades of brightness. The shop in town carried one, maybe two, dresses at a time. Vests were a one-week delay. Mrs. Robbins didn’t have much time for sewing since her husband died last cycle. But this shop was hundreds, maybe thousands of glittering, flashy things. Handbags, makeup, dresses, pants, and much more lined the walls in every direction.
I felt sick and my head started to spin.
“Oh, badass cosplay,” a voice came from my left.
I turned and saw a girl about my own age, thin and short, but at least fully clothed, even in skin tight pants and a baggy shirt.
She rounded the corner of a large display with a fake child on it wearing a very inappropriate shirt and approached me.
I threw my goggles over my head and bowed. “Madame.”
She giggled, covering her mouth. “It’s so awesome when you stay in character.” She turned her head and yelled, “Mary! We got a cosplay guy out here going to the city! Some railroad man. You gotta see this!”
“If you please, I only need to purchase a few things for my, uhm.” I looked around the store at the abundance of feminine items. “Son?”
“Sure, boys clothes are over there.” She pointed. “But can you wait right there, dude?”
“Who is dude?”
She laughed at that. “Jesus you guys don’t quit, huh? I gotta get Mary, she loves this railroad stuff. Steam whatever you call it.”
I puzzled after her, as she jogged to a large white door in the back marked Employees Only. What were those? I shook my head and headed to the boy’s clothing.
The clothes were odd, with men crouched on boards with wheels. Contraptions of this world, no doubt, but they didn’t look like they ran on steam. I finally found a plain black one, small enough for Dinga’s frame, or so I hoped, and a pair of shorts that looked much too thin and long but appropriate. A long sweater at the end of the rack and hat would completely cover him. Drown him, even.
I approached the counter in the middle to look for that strange girl again. She was smiling brilliantly at me. Just behind her hurried an even smaller, thinner girl, who pushed thick glasses up her nose. Her hair was shaved on one side and long on the other, and both her shirt and pants were ripped.
“Excuse me, madame,” I was concerned she’d walked in from off the street, “but if you need clothes, I’d be happy to oblige.”
She laughed and snorted, which startled me. “You’re right, Lisa, he’s totally in character. Awesome!”
I shook my head at her, but I didn’t say anything. What if these girls knew Alayna? I didn’t want to spook her into running again. But what if they knew where she lived? This new world was very different, and I already wanted to be home.
I pushed the clothes across the counter. “Say, do you know a girl about...” I realized I’d never asked Alayna her age. I just assumed she was eighteen cycles like myself. Did they have cycles here? Didn’t everyone tell time the same way? Of course, they did. “Eighteen cycles, with long, dark hair and eyes of ebony?”
“Huh?” Lisa just stared at me.
“His accent rocks,” Mary said, still staring at me.
“Is that British?” Lisa asked Mary.
This world had some very rude people, I decided. I sighed. “Never mind. How many gold pieces?” I asked the girl, who ran a strange wand over the clothes. It clicked every time it reached the bottom, and she typed into a metal box after the click.
“Thirty-nine ninety-five, please,” the one called Lisa looked at up me.
I couldn’t believe it. For a minute I fumbled with the gold coins in my pocket. I didn’t know Alayna’s world would be so expensive. I cursed not asking Victor for more. “Excuse me? Thirty-nine gold coins?”
Lisa looked at me and shook her head. “No, dollars. Are you from Canada or something?”
“What is this Canada?” I was now utterly confused. “Do they take gold there? I shall perchance to visit them, then, if you might point me in the right direction—”
“Oh, shit, you see what’s parked outside?” Mary let out a squeal right next to me. “Lisa, is that his car? What a sweet mod! You gotta check this out!” She ran up to the wide store windows and pressed her face against it.
“You gonna pay or what?” Lisa’s smile had gone. Her eyes were narrow as she looked me up and down.
“Um,” I stuttered. I didn’t want to steal, I’d never stolen in my life, even in the mines when survival was essential. But this was Alayna, and I had to get her back. If someone discovered Dinga, our mission would be lost before we even found her. “Thank you!” I scooped up the clothes. “I’m sorry!” I yelled as I ran towards the door.
“Mary! Stop them, this dude just stole stuff!” Lisa called behind me.
“Hey, mister, you have to pay for that!”
“Sorry!” I yelled again. There was a lot of fabric in that store, I told myself. They probably wouldn’t miss it.
I jumped over the bar and Dinga’s blanketed form pressed against the seat. I threw the clothes to the tattered tin floor and cranked Delilah to life. Lisa and Mary were at the entrance of the store, and just as they reached Delilah’s side, a plume of smoke erupted from her tail and we jetted forward. I left the shop owners choking and coughing in my wake.
Dinga hissed next to me, throwing off the blanket. He
looked up at me, his bulging eyes wide and glassy. “Master? Is everything alright?”
“Put those on,” I motioned to my pile of illegal goods.
“Did you trade for these, master?”
“There was an arrangement,” I assured him. I just hoped those young women could find some clothes, and soon. It was so sad they worked in a shop without the ability to wear clothes that weren’t shiny and new. I wondered if Alayna’s world had slaves. I didn’t see any shackles, but it was still concerning. What kind of world allowed girls to work in a shop without their father, and barely dressed as they were?
“Master, behind us.”
I chanced a look away from the crowded streets as another red contraption swerved from behind me and threw up the same finger the lady with the small boy had a short time ago. I saw the short pants were so long and wide on Dinga they almost covered his clawed feet entirely. Well, that would be beneficial. Dinga tucked the dagger in the belt of the short pants and pulled the coat over it.
“At least Dinga not cold,” he mumbled, pulling the sweater on. “Why it so cold here, master?”
“Well, at least it’s not...”
Raining, I was going to say, as the first drop splashed on the copper hood of Delilah’s steam engine. I pulled my goggles down over my face.
“I spoke too soon.” Could this awful world get any worse, that we had to enter their pikel season of dastardly weather? I cursed softly as I saw the thunder-head on the horizon to the east.
The rain came hard and heavy and I knew we needed shelter. I made a mental note Delilah needed some kind of plastic shields above the engine; I wish I had thought of that before we left. But the travel to the thin place, the only place we could cross over with Delilah, had been dangerous as it was. Beside me, I could hear the large rumble of Dinga’s stomach.
“Master, it’s been hours, but there’s no ishies here that Dinga can see.”
My stomach was rumbling, too, and I cursed again. We hadn’t even brought provisions; Victor was in such a haste to get us to bring Alayna back, and with good reason. Delilah rumbled past a strange store with little stands hooked to a roof, outside the actual store front.
The shiny red wheeled invention that passed me earlier was pulled up next to a stand. I slowed Delilah and briefly watched as a man got out of the front, odd flat goggles on his head that refracted light somehow.
He grabbed a wide black hose on the stand and poked it into the back of his red traveler, pulling up a lever on the black hose handle. What a strange practice where people had to pump things into their engines? Was that to make them shiny, possibly?
“Look, master. There are meat sticks.”
Dinga was pointing at the store. The sign in the window read, All beef, $1.99 and had a picture of sausages, bundled together somehow, next to the wording. It didn’t look like any drawing of sausages I’d ever seen before.
“They don’t look like ishies,” Dinga admitted sadly.
Where the hell was I supposed to find insects for Dinga? They didn’t sell those in the shops at home, so I doubt they would here.
“We’ll find something,” I assured him.
The roof over the stands in the middle looked dry enough, however, so I slowed and turned Delilah between yellow lines on the side. I saw enough cars parked there by the clothing shop and figured this was their custom.
“Stay here,” I told Dinga.
He frowned but obeyed.
I threw my goggles back on my head and approached the store. A loud beep startled me as the doors disappeared to either side to greet me. I stepped back, not sure if this was a trap. When the glass doors remained open, I stepped through slowly, waiting for some automaton or slave girl to meet me.
No one was in sight. Even the middle area with the same metal box was empty. No more slave girls in this shop?
Considering this world wouldn’t take my gold coins, this was probably to my benefit. I hated the thought of stealing again, but I had to find something for us to eat. I ducked down one of the metal shelves that stored more food than I had ever seen in my lifetime. At the end of the shelving, there was a plastic case with perfectly round pastries topped with chocolate. I hadn’t had chocolate in years. Not even Bailia could come by it since the Keeper took the palace. I snagged one in a little white bag and tucked it into my vest.
Turning around, I saw a wall of shiny bags, each one with brightly colored thin potatoes on the cover. The shiny wrappers proclaimed they were cheese, something called BBQ, and “fully loaded,” whatever that was. Near the bottom, “salted snap peas” were tucked in one corner. I snatched the small bag.
I knew Zespars often ate grass and vegetables when bugs weren’t available, so this would have to work for now. At least it was something. In a small round cup hooked next to the potato bags hung slender wrapped meat sticks, but not the ones on the pictures out front. Original, nacho, and hot were stamped on the narrow front. I grabbed a handful and stuck them next to the snap peas.
Pastry, dried vegetables, and dried meat sticks covered under my coat; I slowly stuck my head around the corner of the shelves. Still no one. The glass doors were shut now, but I hoped there was some mechanism that opened them automatically like before. Maybe it was hidden under the rubber rug on the floor, I didn’t know.
Before I could edge around the shelf and make my daring escape, the doors sounded their alarm again and flew open.
Dinga came flying through.
“Master!” His shrill voice screamed. “Master, there are army men looking at Delilah! They have red and blue lights on their inventions! Master, where are you?”
I stepped out from the thin potato shelf. “Dinga, hush!” I urged him. “We need to—”
“Dinga?”
I froze. That voice.
A dark brown door opened behind the metal box on the shelf in the middle of the shop. “Dinga, is that really you?”
“Mistress!”
His hat flew off his scrawny head as he clawed into the side of the wide desk and leapt on top of it. He flew into her arms and she caught him.
“Alayna?” I stepped away from the shelves and blinked at the woman behind the counter.
Her hair was shorter now, trimmed to just above her shoulder, and flipped out at the edges. Gone was her long braid that hung down her back. Her cheeks were the same rosy red but her gray eyes were ringed heavily with kohl and her lips a bright pink. White, puffy sleeves escaped the edges of the blue apron with Stop and Shop embroidered in red. She looked more like a slave girl than the princess she really was.
It was her. She took my breath away, even after all this time apart. She was beautiful.
She stared at me, frowning. “Sebastian, what are you doing here? I told you, I am not...”
“Our hero, I get it,” I interrupted. I shook my head, reminding myself we were here on official Order business. “But you are, don’t you see? We came all this way!”
“Mistress, something’s happened,” Dinga interrupted me, looking up at her. “The queen—”
“Stop right there, young man!”
In hearing Alayna’s voice, I had forgotten about Dinga’s outburst. A man in dark blue burst through the door, a square black weapon in front of him. I had never seen that weapons before, but I didn’t want to take a chance. I glanced at Alayna, who was as frozen in shock as I was. Dinga scrambled under the metal box next to Alayna.
Another man followed on his heels. “He matched the description Lisa gave us,” he told the first man.
“Hands up!” The first man said.
I threw my hands up, and as soon as I did, the snap peas and meat sticks tumbled out of my coat. Alayna gasped softly, and I groaned. The knights of Clock City would throw you in the Quod, the place for criminals. What did they do in Alayna’s world? Did they have Quods like we had been imprisoned in back in Clock City? Did they kill thieves like me on sight?
“Larceny,” one of the muttered.
“What is that thing out th
ere?” The other uniformed man said. “You build that?”
I nodded. I didn’t want to speak. I was afraid I’d confess to more than I should. I looked at Alayna, frozen in shock with her mouth in a “O” shape. Dinga was out of sight, thank the God of Gears for that.
“You can’t be driving that around, it’s not up to DMV standards.”
I shrugged, my hands still in the air. I didn’t even know what he meant.
“Larceny and driving an unregistered vehicle,” his partner said as he pulled out a pair of shiny, narrow shackles from the belt on his waist. “We’re going to have to take you in. Turn around and give me your hands.”
I did as he instructed. Better to leave Alayna and Dinga out of this, at least they’d be safe. The shackles clamped around my wrists, and I fought for control. I could punch one of them, grab Alayna and run. We could make it back to the green sign where we’d come across. But Delilah wasn’t fast enough for the inventions in the world, the ones that sped around me with their driver’s middle fingers held high. We’d never make it, and she’d be caught, too. I couldn’t risk it.
But those shackles.
It was like going back to the mine all over again.
I felt the familiar tingle of my power shoot down my arm and burn into my fingers. With my hands behind me, I couldn’t focus my power at them. I was helpless.
“Come on, buddy,” the second man gripped my shoulder and pushed me toward the door. His friend approached Alayna.
“Ow!” I heard Alayna gasp behind me.
“You all right, ma’am?” The first man said.
“Just a little shoulder pain,” Alayna admitted.
“We’ll need a statement from you,” I heard him say.
The door slid open and I dug my heels into the rug. “The Keeper has your mother!” I shouted behind me.
I heard Alayna gasp, but the man’s grip burned into my shoulder. “Come on, delinquent,” he barked at me.
“I’ve never seen him before in my life,” Alayna’s voice was quiet now. “Maybe he’s on drugs or something?”
My heart fell at her words. Was she trying to save herself or me?
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