---Chapter 6
They took the car to a place on the outskirts of town where it appeared there had once been a large factory or treatment plant. Old chain-link fence ringed a field of cracked cement and weed-grown gravel. I-beams, pieces of storage tanks, iron piping and sheets of rusted steel lay randomly spaced across this miniature wasteland. Nearby, factories and warehouses that were only slightly less ruined stood about, watching over the broken field like brooding monsters. Though the city of Ti-Gallin appeared modern and well-kept at its heart, this edge of it was a ragged junkyard.
“I thought that we might find something here.” Leaflow pulled the car to a murmuring stop beside the fallen entrance gate. “And no one will bother us for being 'different’ in this part of town.”
“You’re not different, are you?” Jax asked, jumping out with a crunch of boots on gravel. “I mean, your people all have glowing eyes and stuff, right?”
Leaflow just shook his head, shutting the car off and pocketing the keys. Lenny followed them through the hole where the entrance gate used to stand and onto a flat of concrete where most of the scrap metal lay. He paused for a minute beside an electrical box which jutted up out of the pad, wires hanging from its open face. He pulled a few of the longer wires out and, coiling them up, tucked them in a pocket. There was no particular reason he wanted them, but they might come in handy in the future.
Jax was still nagging Leaflow about what the rest of the people of this world were like, until the cloaked one admitted, “they are mostly much like you, him, human beings in general. But by having contact with people from other planets and entirely different races, I get by as an alien or freak.”
“How about this piece?” Lenny broke in, pointing out a triangular slice of metal laying on the ground. It was almost an inch thick and he knew that it was too heavy for their purposes, but he wanted to make his companions concentrate on the job at hand.
“Too thick.” Jax made a face. “And not quite big enough around for that thickness. We need something closer to sheet metal roofing.”
“Come over this way.” Leaflow beckoned to them and strode off in a different direction, leading them to a place where thinner, more flexible sheets were twisted, coiled and laying flat on the ground. It did not take them long to pick one out and drag it out of the enclosure. Securing it on the car was a little more difficult. Finally they got it into place across the back, holding it down with an ancient strap from the trunk of the car. Lenny also held on to an edge, as he was sitting in the back seat, to make sure that it did not go anywhere.
They drove back to the old, brick apartment building slowly, unloading the sheet of metal onto the overgrown lawn outside it. Leaflow put up the hood of his car afterwards and locked it, since they could not bring it with them.
Thumping up the stairs, they entered the apartment room to find a variety of food being laid out on the old desk, which had been drawn up next to the couch. Raggsy was standing next to it holding a pan full of something, arguing with Soleeryn.
“But look, crunchers are good! I found a whole nest full of them in that drawer and I’m not going to let them go to waste.”
“No one wants to eat them, Raggsy. We don’t like bugs.”
“I like bugs! I’ll eat 'em!”
“Then you can have them, but don’t put them in our food. Keep them separate.”
“Aw, you’re all so wasteful.”
“I’ve ate bugs before,” Patch volunteered, “weevils in the seabiscuit. An’ ye can have the lot of them, for all I care. Biscuit’s better without.”
Seeing the returned searchers standing near the door, Amber came over to ask, “did you find what you were looking for?”
Jax nodded. “Yep. Say, nobody made beets or rice for dinner, did they?”
“There is plenty of rice here for everyone,” Dansei told him with a smile, thinking that he was hoping for those things. “The rat brought it from my world.”
“Ick! Rice is so bland and pointless. You can have all of mine, Dansei.”
There was not enough room or eating utensils for everyone to sit around the table and eat at once, so they took it in turns, standing or sitting as they could.
As they were finishing, Patch said, “Do ye know, I’ve been thinking and have a little question to ask of all ye. Why don’t we just find out where this EX-2 thing is and attack it directly, instead of going from one planet to the next fighting all of the Power Cores?”
“How will we find out where it is without searching on the planets he has taken over? There are thousands of worlds out there to go to!” Jax exclaimed.
“There is another reason as well,” Leaflow inserted, “EX-2 is much more powerful as long as he has Power Cores under his sway. They give him added knowledge and energy by being connected to him. If we take them out first, he will be easier to defeat once we reach him.”
This answer, like many Leaflow had given them, was sobering. They finished eating quietly and then some went to sleep on the couch or wherever was comfortable around the other furniture (Leaflow gave them some doubtful blankets out of a drawer) while the ones who were not tired enough to sleep sat whispering quietly together.
The Di-jump was still not cool enough to risk another jump, though the sun was starting to set on the dark city out of the window. Lenny looked out at the buildings and saw shades of dying orange and red stain the gleaming towers, before fading into a gloom lit by many colored lights. Somewhere in the distance, a siren blared briefly before falling into muffled obscurity. Things rustled and bumped in the apartment house, just far enough away through the walls so that you could never make out what they were. Lenny took it all in, his mind still frozen by a feeling of cold indifference.
---
When day dawned across Ti-Gallin the travelers went down to prepare for the warp to Amber’s world. They assembled on the piece of metal and all took a part of the long copper wire, holding it however pleased them. Dansei draped it nonchalantly across his shoulder, fiddling with one of his weapons which kept poking holes in his pants pocket. Raggsy clamped it in one paw, grasping his sack tightly in the claws. Most of the others held the wire in both hands, except for Jax, who had to have one free to operate the Di-jump. The traveler fiddled with it for a moment while his companions waited.
“Here we go, this looks right.”
He flicked his thumb down before anyone could comment, pushing the ‘jump’ button.
The world blurred and shifted, everyone blinked and they were opening their eyes on a new scene. It was not a park, like they had landed in last time on Amber’s world. It appeared to be a large building they were standing in, and one crowded with many people.
Swaying hoop skirts, stiff coats and folded umbrellas brushed by all around them, only a few people seeming to notice what had happened in their midst. Those were standing like rocks in the crowd, making it part around them as they stared at the travelers. Jax quickly pulled his friends away into the shifting mass, disappearing out of sight.
Up above their heads a huge dome arched in the air, echoing with voices and letting in light through panes of stained glass set in copper-colored panels. The glass distorted the color of the light, pouring it down on them in rippling hues. Footsteps, loud calls and hurrying men in blue uniforms swept all through the massive structure, while a whistle sounded outside. As soon as it did, there was more of a hurry among the crowd and it started to thin out towards a pair of large, glass doors on one side of the room. Lenny could not quite make out what was beyond the doors, as tall hats and parasols kept getting in his way.
“What is this place?” he asked Amber, who was looking around with an expression of recognition.
“Fortune Grand Station, one of the biggest railway stations on any of my father’s lines,” she explained, having to speak in almost a shout to be heard. “And it is packed today! But hundreds of people go through here every day on the normal schedule. It’s a busy place.”
“I can see that,” Lenny looked around again at the moving crowds, who were swiftly draining out of the doors. Now he could see a train, pulling a line of passenger cars, sitting beside the platform outside the station. There was a ticket counter inside the station for it and colorful advertisements hung on the wall. But the people, both employees and passengers, all had an air of tense expectation and anxiety that seemed to be more than the usual rush around a train station.
“Hey, are you with the rest of them, getting out?” a gruff, bearded man in a railroad uniform asked, stopping beside them with a large pocket watch held in one hand.
“No, we just came to see the station,” Jax improvised quickly, “we’re from out of town, you see, and we heard that it was the largest around.”
“It is,” the railroad man grunted, “but if you want to get out because of the 'Night Things’ you might want to go now. Next train west won’t be stopping by here until ten o’clock tomorrow, on the dot.”
“Is that why everyone is in such a hurry?” Amber looked up at him anxiously. “Because of the night things? But where are they going and how will leaving Fortune help them any?”
“I think I recognize you,” the railroad man returned abruptly, narrowing his red-rimmed eyes at her. “I just can’t quite...hmm. Haven’t you heard any news? It’s all over the country. Things are getting so bad, people are evacuating west, where it isn’t as rough. Here, in Dodgelake and Crumpeton, the Night Things are getting so bad a body 'most can’t walk around at night, nor sleep peacefully in his bed. You must be from far off if you haven’t heard of it. But Dodgelake is the worst: very few people stay there now and the trains haven’t stopped at the station the last few days. The gov’ment sent in soldiers, but they never were heard from again. President’s talking about calling out the whole army on it. Where are you from, by the bye?”
“We’ve been ranching in Central Amerland, near Portside,” Amber returned, “but, er, we had better be going now. Our carriage is waiting outside. Thank you for your time. I know how important time is to a railway man.”
She started to stride towards a door opposite the ones leading out onto the platform, beckoning the others to follow.
Once they were at a safe distance, she let out a deep breath. “Whew. I didn’t want him to recognize me: that’s Ulysses B. Pock, stationmaster at Fortune Grand. We were introduced on one of my father’s tours, a few years back. Luckily, I was wearing a dress and looking a lot more respectable then. And it was before my hand had been injured.”
“Where’s Dodgelake?” Lenny asked, with a feeling in his stomach that he already knew the answer.
“The town you first met me in.” Amber gave them all a look over her shoulder, brushing the hair out of her face with a swipe of her left hand. “Mendo Drann has been busy. But everyone is starting to notice. Fortune is only a few day’s travel from Dodgelake, so--”
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Not looking where she was going, Amber almost ran into a woman hurrying the other way before Lenny could warn her. There was a gasp from the woman, then Amber turned her head about and stared as if she had seen a ghost. After a moment she jumped forward with a little cry, “mother!”
“AmberRose, Mayflower Pamelia Pyncheon,” the woman gasped, holding her with white-gloved hands and pressing her bronze hair against a mauve, lacy shoulder. “Where have you been? Your father and I--”
She was taller than Amber by a few inches and thinner, with a spare, angular grace. But her face was much the same shape, though set with many more lines, and her eyes had the same coppery sheen. Her hair was much darker, almost black, struck through with gray lines.
“Oh, mother.” Amber choked and laughed at the same time, standing up straight to look her in the face, though she could not get her hands free. “I’ve been on adventures to many places, most of them entirely unladylike. But what are you doing here? Where is father?”
“At home waiting for me, I expect.” Mrs. Pyncheon gave her daughter a severe frown. “You do look untidy. When was the last time you had a bathe? Never mind, dear, that can all be set to rights at home. Who are all these people with you?”
All of the dimension travelers had been standing around during this interview, looking awkward. Raggsy had immediately dropped his sack and gone to hide behind Patch, keeping a safe distance from the lady.
“They are on a quest with me,” Amber explained, though she shied away from telling its point and cause. “They have been very kind to me and are good friends. Did you come to catch the train, mama?”
There was a pair of porters or manservants behind her, carrying a large suitcase and various smaller baggage. But the train was already pulling away from the station, steam chuffing out and wheels clacking.
“It’s too late for today,” the lady observed, before her face softened into less harsh lines, “but we’ve been so worried about you, since you disappeared! No telegrams, no sign of your train anywhere on the lines, no word of you from any of the friends or relatives that you have stayed with before. Why couldn’t you even send word to us before going off like that?”
“I’m sorry.” Amber truly was contrite, hanging her head and holding out her hands palm-up. “We had to leave in a hurry and...I’m sorry. I hope father hasn’t been too anxious about me?”
“You know your father,” Mrs. Pyncheon said gently, “he lets you run wild and pretends to laugh at your adventures, but gnaws his beard inbetween every telegram. He will be very glad to see you safe and sound.”
Amber shook her head, backing away. “You’ll have to tell him how much I miss him, for me. I can’t come back right now. Tell him I’m fine, I have good friends to watch over me and...everything will be alright in a little while. Then I will return.” “AmberRose, you can’t go off like this. You must come back with me tomorrow.”
“Sorry, mother, but I’m still in the middle of an important quest.”
“I won’t stand for this!”
“You’ll have to.”
“Please, be a good girl for once.”
“Good-bye, mother!”
Amber beckoned to her companions and hurried away, leaving Mrs. Pyncheon grinding her parasol into the floor and calling after her uselessly.
Outside, Amber crossed a busy street and dashed around a few buildings out of sight of the station, before finally coming to a stop to let her friends catch up. When Lenny looked at her face, he saw that there were tears in her eyes.
But a few minutes later she had shook them away and was saying briskly, “what next?”
The travelers looked at each other, shrugged and looked back at her. Jax said, “flying machine, remember?”
“Oh, yes.” She frowned thoughtfully. “the problem is, I was expecting to return near where we had left from. But the jumping is more random than that. The man who has those machines lives in Dodgelake.”
“But th’ stationmaster said that no trains are stoppin’ there now, and we don’t want to, er, run into your mother again anyway,” Raggsy said, “so how will we get there?”
“We’ll have to go cross-country,” Patch suggested, “are there roads between?”
“Yes, of course.” The expression on Amber’s face showed that she was finally putting her mind to the problem at hand again. “In fact, we could rent a vehicle here to drive us to Dodgelake. If I remember right, there is a place to rent steam vehicles not far from the station. I would suggest hiring a coach, but no driver would take us there with everything that has been happening. And I can’t drive horses, but I know how to drive a car.”
“I’ve driven horses before,” Soleeryn said quietly, “with a wagon behind.”
And Jackal reminded them that he had once been a wagoneer bringing supplies into his own town. But they all agreed that a steam car would be better, as horses might bolt or get injured when they ran into any Night Things.
Fortune was a much larger city than Dodgelake and not yet entirely overtaken by the purple corruption. It had stained walls and cracked bricks, but there was no moss or fungus in the sidewalks. Looking around for the first time, Lenny saw large buildings with plastered brick walls painted in bright colors, balconies overhanging the street draped in streamers and banners. Bright railings gleamed copper and bronze, while the glass windows sparkled in the sunlight. People in frilly, fullblown clothing strolled the streets, men carrying canes or umbrellas while the women supported parasols over their heads. Almost everyone wore a hat, large and flowery or tall and somber. The cobbled streets had a trolley line set into them, with a cherry-red trolley zipping along it, ringing a cheery bell. Steam vehicles and gilded carriages clanked by, everyone too busy to notice the group of strangers in their midst.
Despite this, Lenny could tell that there was not as many people about as there should have been in such a large town. Many tidy shop-fronts were boarded up, with signs hanging over the doors advertising the owner’s absence. Houses had curtains over the windows, the door locked and no streamers on the balcony. The people in the street often paused to look around uncertainly, or hurried by with an anxious air of concentration. A person from almost any dimension could have seen that something was wrong. Even the huge, dome-roofed theater had red letters painted on the door, 'CLOSED’.
The copper-colored tiles of the buildings gleamed under the sun. Flocks of pigeons fluttered from one to the other, calling to each other. Amber led the little group down one street, through an open square where an old woman in gray fed the birds grain from a bench, and across into another street where the smithy, wheelwright and other practical trades were set up. A carriage with a broken wheel was being refitted on the edge of the street, the men looking around suspiciously every time someone walked by. They were using a noisy air-powered drill, which had a tube running into the building to an air tank, pressurized once a day by a steam engine. Amber started past them, heading for a picket-fenced area at the end of the street.
“Hey, you,” one of the men called, standing up and pointing at them. “You there, at the end. You look like one of the Night Things.”
They realized he was pointing at Leaflow, who stepped a little away from his companions and fixed his green gaze on the man. “Oh?”
The two other men on the carriage also stood up and stared at the group. One of them commented after a moment, “yeah, you all look a little strange. Where are you from?”
“Central Amerland,” Jax called back to them, using the fictitious past that Amber had constructed for them earlier on. “We’re on our way to rent a car now. You guys have any pull with the owner, to bring the price down a little?”
“Ha, funny,” the first worker said, bouncing a wrench thoughtfully in his hand. “Where are you taking the car, once it’s rented?”
None of the travelers were stupid enough to admit that it was to Dodgelake, the center of the purple contamination.
Amber came up with a safer answer. “Just out to the Rummy river, to see the bridge and enjoy the sights. I used to live around here, but my friends are all from foreign parts and have not seen the highlights. If we seem a little odd, it is only from long travel and rough living.”
“Yeah,” Jax agreed, unable to resist helping their lie along, “our friend Leaflow, here, is part of a peaceful cult of tree-worshipers. That’s why the funny name and green eyes. We picked him up in the wild lands of Central Amerland, near our ranch.”
“Hm, I see.” The wheelwright still looked suspicious, but after another bounce of the wrench he turned back to the coach, calling over his shoulder, “well, if I hear of any trouble nearby, I’ll know it was you.”
The travelers hurried on, while Leaflow slipped quietly up next to Jax, giving him a look from under his hood. “‘Peaceful tree-worshipers’ hmm?”
“It’s a great excuse for you.” Jax gave him a grin. “Haven’t you ever had to use one like it before, on your adventures on other worlds?”
“Not exactly like it. It is quite...unique to its teller.”
“Well, it got us through. Otherwise we might have had to fight those guys off.”
“Yes, all three of them. With a measly nine of us.”
Meanwhile they were making their way towards the white picket fence, which had a wide gateway opening on the street. Over the entrance was an arch with the words transcribed on it, ‘Rent-A-Rig’.
Amber walked through the gateway, looking over her shoulder once to make sure that everyone followed. The drive leading into the place was worn to rutted dust, with only a few handfuls of gravel left lying on it. Dust puffed up under their feet as they stepped off of the cement onto the worn earth.
Inside was a large, dirty lot with perhaps a dozen vehicles parked in it, spread out in no particular order. They all reflected the mechanical tastes of Amber’s home, with large gears showing, huge levers to work the vehicle with and of course, the steam boiler that it ran on. Most of them had been painted in bright colors once, with gilded accents. But now the glow of the paint had faded.
On one side of the lot, a young man was tinkering on a car. He was dressed in practical clothing, with a leather apron on over it. On his head was an old-fashioned leather pilot’s helmet, with the goggles pulled down over his eyes. In his hands was a huge wrench, which turned a matching bolt on the car. Beyond him was the low, whitewashed office building.
“Hello, Wishon!” Amber called to him, weaving around the vehicles. The young man stopped what he was doing and turned towards her, pushing the goggles up to the top of his head.
“Why, miss AmberRose!” he exclaimed with a grin, his round cheeks brightening. “What are you doing here?”
“Come to rent a car, of course.” She waved a hand at the people behind her. “One large enough for all of us, if possible. How are things for you?”
“Oh, the usual. Pay’s low and days are long, but I love my work,” Wishon returned cheerfully.
“You could ask for worse. Is Mr. Dribble in?”
“Smoking a cig’ at his desk, waiting for the next victim.”
“Well, we’re on our way.”
Jax had been looking around the car that Wishon was working on, poking at the tires and prying at the gears. Now he popped his head up over the other side and said, “you go on, Amber. We’ll wait out here until business is settled. As long as you can handle it on your own?”
Before she could answer, both Raggsy and Dansei offered to go with her as escort. The others spread out to look at the different vehicles, while Jax stayed behind chatting with Wishon and looking over the car.
Lenny inspected all of the vehicles from a distance, picking out one that had a long, covered body almost like a van, but with the boiler on the back, out in the open. He walked up to it and looked over the little half-doors into the interior to see how much room was inside. There was a bench seat in the front that could hold three, followed by another behind it. Beyond that was a wide open space meant for cargo, with a wooden floor and sidings. People could sit back there too, in a pinch, though they would get jostled around some.
Moving around to the back, he inspected the engine arrangement. There was an upright boiler set against the back of the cargo space, with a fire box on the bottom and a tall, thin stack on top. It had a coal box next to it and a velvet-padded seat for the fireman. The whole vehicle was painted black, with faded gold letters on the side advertising where it had come from.
The three buyers came out of the office a moment later, with a small, plump man in their midst. He was exactly pear shaped, with two legs on the thick end and a pair of arms at the shoulder. This was Mr. Dribble, owner of Rent-A-Rig and Wishon Bree’s boss. He had a half-burnt cigar hanging from his mouth, just as the young mechanic had foretold, and spoke around it with a nasal twang.
“Yes, yes, a rig for nine people all at once. Hm, let me see...” he gyrated around the yard a few times, suggesting vehicles that simply would not do, before striking on the one Lenny had been inspecting. This all seemed to be part of a game, as he then fell into bargaining as if he had known that was the one they wanted all along. Finally they got it for a fairly good price, daily, without the added insurance, driver, fireman or anything else Dribble tried to foist on them.
Amber rented it on her father’s tab, letting the price run up and him pay for it on credit whenever he would. Lenny wondered if they would ever get back with the vehicle in one piece, or if Mr. Pyncheon would have to pay a never-ending debt on his daughter’s car.
Eventually, they found themselves piling into the car, three in front, three in the next seat and two in the back, while Raggsy was the fireman. Amber was the driver, slamming the great levers back and forth to get the car going and steer it. All along the dash, pressure gauges flicked their needles as the Ratperson piled the steam on. They rumbled out of the renting lot, down the street and through the wide, lavish streets of Fortune.
Outside the city Amber turned onto a dusty, dirt road leading across an open, lightly wooded countryside. It might have been a picnic, with Patch and Dansei arguing in the back at a shout, Leaflow telling some long (and highly doubtful) story in the rear seat and Jax exclaiming excitedly over the motion of the car up front. Lenny sat next to Jax, holding loosely onto a strap that was slung next to the end of the chair, peering out of the flat windshield. As they passed by trees, he noticed that some of them had purple branches, the leaves stricken and black. He thought that he saw something move further off in the woods, something with black wings outlined in silver, but he could not be sure. He only knew that it was no picnic they were going on.