“I can start the funds transfer right away.” Orson followed Teddy from the pantry into the kitchen. It was a spacious room, with warm yellow lights set between cupboards, and radiant heated tiles in the floor. “Even with all the third party accounts, I should be able to set everything straight by the weekend.”
“You don’t need to explain all this to me, man.” Teddy forced hairnets over his beard and onto the top of his head. “It’s been years since I aided in the never-ending struggle against tyranny! I’d gladly just give you the money.”
“You’re already doing way too much for us.” Orson watched his friend adjust temperature controls on his hotrod-red deck oven. “Once we’ve got the information from Cathy’s contacts, we should stop dragging you into any of this.”
“Like I said…” Teddy trailed off. He stepped aside to let both of his gray tiger cats race through the kitchen. “Come on Frodo! Samwise!” The two cats came to a stop at the foot of a series of kitchen cabinets. “They’re gonna hurt themselves running through here.”
“Looks like they want something.” Orson heard a familiar chattering sound hurtling toward his head. Wesley flew past him and glided up to the top of Teddy’s cupboards, above the cats. Wesley landed between a large rack of decoratively-arranged cast-iron pans and a small transparent container of cat snacks.
“Oh, it’s time for a treat,” Teddy said.
“Wesley?” Orson asked. “I didn’t think we were letting you out of the garage.”
“You haven’t seen him do this before?” Teddy walked to his fridge, red to match the oven. “He can work the cat treat feeder. Come on, little spikey bat. Show us your trick!” Wesley pressed his feet down at the plastic box and sent dark pellets falling to the floor. Both cats stood at the stream of treats and gobbled them up as they fell.
“Okay, don’t empty the pack.” Teddy waved at Wesley until the aeropine released the feeder. Then Teddy pulled a grape from a tray in his fridge and tossed it up to Wesley. Satisfied, the aeropine led the cats from the room, all three crooning.
“I gotta remember to close the doors.” Teddy chortled. “Wesley could drop something in my cooking, man.”
“I thought we were worried about him with your cats.” Orson followed after the pets and shut the door on the other side of the room. “When did you start letting them together?”
“They kept sitting on either side of the garage door, like, serenading each other,” Teddy said. “So Jaleel and I got April’s permission to do a little playdate. I figured if April thought it was okay then we were probably fine. You just miss them together because Wesley flies around in the morning when you’re actually asleep.”
“We have a whole animal act going.” Orson said.
April hurried into the room through the other open door, followed by the rest of the Aesir crew.
“I’m sorry!” April said. “We have to watch them all the time. I didn’t realize they’d run away.”
“Teddy,” Jaleel said. “I’m thinking the tater tot casserole. That’s the one I want.”
“Excellent choice, my dude.” Teddy nodded. “I always have fun imitating recipe’s from other cooks. I accept the Mom’s Cooking Challenge!” He fit his apron over his head and tied it behind his back. “What else is new?”
“Dr. Stan’s been looking at my work on the Great Salt Lake water survey,” April said. “We have a little overlap in our research.”
“I did a condensation experiment for the city of Albuquerque,” Dr. Stan said. “Just after the shutdown. They didn’t have the infrastructure to implement their plan, but it was very interesting.”
“We’re all doing rain work,” Jaleel said. “Enoa has her Shaping. And some of that Hierarchia stuff Cathy wanted me to look at was about a machine to take water out of the air – straight up Star Wars vaporator stuff.”
“Whatever that means,” Orson said. “How’s it going?”
“Not great,” Jaleel said. “The Hierarchia stole this machine from its inventor, but they didn’t want to use it to catch water for people to drink. They thought they could make it into a weapon where condensation forms on particle shields, like all over them, and the temperature changes overload them. Destroy energy shields just with water.”
“You guys can sit down if you’re staying here,” Teddy said. “I’m gonna need some space to move around.” April motioned them to the long kitchen table on the far side of the room. They pulled out chairs and sat around the table. Orson joined them. He sat between April and Enoa.
“The IHSA wanted to weaponize everything,” Dr. Stan said. “Who invented this machine you’re looking at, Jaleel?”
“Still redacted,” Jaleel said. “I’m hoping to find out, but most of what Cathy gave me is all blacked out. I might do better if I could read everything. I’m hoping she has some of this information and just didn’t give it to me.”
“I can ask her at the meeting Friday,” Orson nodded. “What do you think, Enoa? Could your Aunt Sucora destroy a shield with water?”
“I don’t know,” Enoa answered. “I really… I just don’t know what she could do. It makes me want to just binge all her films and see how far she goes, but I’m afraid I’ll be discouraged.”
“You shouldn’t be discouraged!” Jaleel said. “Look at everything you’ve done.”
“Maybe,” she said.
“Jaleel,” Teddy interrupted. “I got a recipe for your Memphis-style seasoning. I only visited Memphis the one time, so I want to talk about the recipe before I start on the ribs, okay?”
“It’s gonna be great, Ted,” Jaleel said. “I don’t know if my mom’s recipe was actually, uh, Memphis-authentic. Just do something that you can do for whatever you’re making for Enoa, so it’s not too much work.”
“Or I can eat what I have on the Aesir,” Enoa said. “I don’t want to screw up Jaleel’s birthday.”
“Enoa,” April said. “I’m curious. Is your veganism something common in the Nimauk community?”
“Well, Aunt Sucora wasn’t vegan.” Enoa shook her head. “It’s just the way that I, uh, look at our beliefs or the way I have the last few years. The Nimauk believe that we are part of the world. We don’t believe we’re separate from nature, I guess you could say. I feel like I should be that way, honor the world that lets me live. If I don’t have relationships with the animals who provide my food, then I’m not going to have that food. So, I’m vegan.”
“Woah!” Teddy said. “If you put that all in a book, there are so many new age stores that would sell it. You’d be a full on guru.”
“That’s okay,” she said. “I’m not… Like I said before, I don’t want any special work done for me. Just make the one thing for everyone else.”
“Oh, you’re an awesome opportunity for me.” Teddy laughed a deep ‘heh, heh’. “I can make two versions of everything, see how well I can copy recipes. You might be too noble about your religion to market it, but I’ll market any food you like. And vegan’s a market that’s hard to crack.” He laughed again.
“Speaking of imitating other food,” Orson said. “How’s the hydroponics going? You’ve been at it a couple years now, right?”
“I don’t want to talk about it, man.” Teddy shook his head. “It’s all wrong. Everything’s limp! It’s like zombie produce. Limp spinach, mushy beets, mushy strawberries. Have you ever eaten mushy fruit? I’ve failed these plants.”
“They just aren’t as firm as you’re used to,” April said. “It’s not your fault. When I’m done with my work for the Salt Lake water survey, I’ll help you with the farm.”
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
“Aww, Honey Bun,” Teddy said. “But you’re so busy.”
“We already agreed to look at that syrup for Orson,” April said. “I want to work on something with you.”
“April,” Dr. Stan said. “You’re a cook, as well?”
“Not like Teddy,” April said. “But we met through cooking. I was doing a talk at a food scarcity event to help food preparers work with some basic chemistry to make up for ingredients and…”
A jingle started in the distance, cartoonish and peppy, but insistent.
“Your laptop.” Orson nodded to Teddy. He stood and followed the cramped hallway back into the living room, where the laptop sat on a coffee table, charging. Orson opened the device.
‘Pops – 1 Missed Call.’
‘Pops – 1 Voice Message.’
Orson considered taking the message alone, but after the sound of footsteps he found that everyone else had followed him. Even Teddy was there, still covered in hairnets.
“Message from Pops.” Orson hit ‘play’.
“Afternoon, boys and girls,” Pops said. “I’ve got some bad news. You might want to sit down and buckle up. Those Liberty Corps probes came back with a new message. Looks like Eloise and Alec Corwin fought one. I don’t have any specifics yet, but the Pacific Alliance found them in the probe’s wreckage and flew them both to their mobile Intensive Care Unit.”
* * *
When the guards left Kol at his cell, he tried again to hold his door open.
Kol didn’t wait for the guards to leave. He needed every moment. Max was running out of time. Kol remembered the bruises across his brother’s body, his shaven head, his broken tooth.
Kol considered using his shield as a weapon. He could slam his quartet of guards into the opposite wall. He could pin them there. He could break them, maybe. He could escape now, find Max, flee. Max had been crippled because of Kol’s own failure. Now Max was being tortured – again Kol’s fault.
Kol knew his present chances for escape. The guards would sound the alarm before he crushed them, if he could crush them. Then more guards would be on him, and Liberty Corps troops – like he had been, and Shapers, and Knights. There were too many.
If it were only about him, if there were no chance of escape, it would be worth dying to free himself. As Helmont said, with Shaping, nothing can be learned from corpses.
But Kol still held hope for Max, a last possible redemption. If Kol left his cell when no one expected it, then odds might be different. He didn’t know how to leave the Pinnacle or where he and Max could go once they were on the outside, but he could find Max. That was a start.
So Kol caught the door, like he did every time he returned to his cell. He formed a Shaping projection and fit it between the sliding cell door and its locking mechanism. This time, he focused on the projection. He made it as thin as he could. He imagined himself squishing the projection, crushing it down flat like he’d crush Sir Geber, given the chance. Kol made the projection paper thin, so thin it could curl around the door as it closed.
The cell door sealed. The cell door locked. The lock’s light turned green.
But Kol’s projection remained, between door and lock. He didn’t know whether he had strength enough to throw the door open. He didn’t know how long he could maintain the Shaping before it faded away.
But he’d finished the first step. He’d gotten inside.
If they didn’t find him and didn’t sense him and didn’t know – then he could figure out the rest.
Kol waited. It was time to see how much endurance Geber’s experiments had given him.
* * *
“Eloise and Alec are alive.” Pops wore a rare three-piece suit in the video call. “They’re stable, but they’re in bad shape. Alec has thirty-odd pieces of glass in his chest and face. One of them was a hair away from puncturing a lung. If he was in a normal truck, that thing would’ve killed him. Eloise is in critical condition. It looks like she blew up the thing from underneath it, but with her health the way it’s always been – she has eleven broken bones.”
Enoa stood behind the couch, at the edge of the group clustered around the laptop. Again, people were hurt because of them, because of the hunt for the Dreamside Road that had started in Nimauk. Kol Maros and his group were taken by Helmont. The League of Nations labs were attacked to keep them from the island. Now the Corwins had been targeted.
All of it had spun out of control, events that could shape countries and thousands of lives she’d never meet, tied to her, tied to the medallion she wore around her neck.
None of the others spoke. Orson sat with his hands clenched together. She recognized the look, the blank expression he wore when he fought to hold back rage.
“Mr. Darlow,” April said. “When you spoke to Carlos, did he have any information about recovery estimates… Anything?”
“Eloise is in surgery,” Pops said. “We didn’t talk long. Robert Sr. had a nervous episode and, with his medical history, he’s been hospitalized too. All three are in the mobile ICU the Alliance set up. That’s our silver lining. Without Sloan, there’d be no big military medical team in the middle of the New Mexico desert.”
“We have to call everyone,” Orson said. “Everyone else who’s seeing these probes. Where are these things? Would that thing have attacked if Eloise and Alec didn’t fight it?”
“This round, as far as I know, only visited my Heartland Six and Littlefield,” Pops said. “I’ve kept tabs with your cousin Clark, and he says he didn’t see anything on the sensors I lent him.”
“When did Clark learn to read sensors?” Orson asked.
“I walked him through it,” Pops said. “He said, ‘no flying eggs here, bro. Skies are clear.’ He also wants me to pass along to you, that he’s dropping new vinyl this summer.”
“No way!” Teddy said. “Orson, I don’t want to seem unsympathetic to the plight of our friends, but man, why didn’t you tell me Clark was recording again?”
“Honestly,” Orson said. “I didn’t think of it.”
“And Orson, don’t get mad at me.” Pops leaned out of view, but the sounds of furious typing could be heard through the connection.
“What did you do, Pops?” Orson groaned.
“I’ve been corresponding with your bonnie lass since the first flyby from the probes,” Pops said. “And I just heard from her again. Looks like she had another encounter too. Oh ho! She also fought her visitor. I’ll tell her to write to you personally.” He leaned away to type more.
“Dammit, Pops, is she okay?” Orson sat forward. “Did that thing attack her? Shit! I can’t still be putting her in danger.”
“She’s fine,” Pops said. “She’ll write to you.”
“Who are we talking about?” Dr. Stan asked. Jaleel opened his mouth, but Enoa caught his eye. She shook her head and smiled. Jaleel pressed his fist to his lips to keep from laughing.”
“These probes,” Pops said. “They’re like nothing I’ve run into before. You should see the laser blast they sent at us when my people tried to chase it away. Thank God we have the new shield up and running. But!” He sighed, a sound of exhaustion and resignation and fear, all in equal measure. “It’s a safe bet that these probes are new. The Liberty Corps has new technology the Hierarchia didn’t have, the Feds didn’t have, the League of Nations did not have.”
“The Liberty Corps has real production capability?” Dr. Stan asked.
“We know they have some Shaper-led assembly lines,” Orson said. “But we don’t…”
A new sound interrupted him, the movement of keys on the Typewriter, starting on the far side of the room. Jaleel stood, but Orson was faster. He swung around the laptop and coffee table and ran to the corner where the typewriter sat on an old copy machine.
“I wonder who that could be.” Jaleel looked over his shoulder at Enoa. She shook her head at him, but couldn’t stop herself from smiling.
“How’s Sirona?” Teddy asked.
“She’s okay.” Orson sagged against the wall next to the copier. “She says, ‘I saw one of those robots you and Pops warned me about. Do you want what’s left of it?’” He grinned and caught the paper when it fell from the typewriter.
“The probe had some kind of repulsor thing,” Orson paraphrased. “It tried to throw Sirona’s fire back at her, but that didn’t work, so she just kept up the heat until she cooked it.”
“I always liked that girl,” Pops chuckled. “Redhead versus redhead. Are you sure you can’t bring her back into the team, Orson? I need to find someone to watch after you once I’ve left this mortal plane.”
“You’re so maudlin, Mr. Darlow,” April said.
“Only to bother Orson,” Pops said. “It usually works, but he must be too consumed reading the words of his one true love to be bothered with any gibes from me.” Pops laughed to himself.
“This woman that Orson’s writing to,” Dr. Stan said. “I believe I remember Eloise mentioning someone named Sirona. She really fought this machine alone?”
“She’s a fire elemental,” Teddy said. “She’s probably one of the best in the whole world, Doc.”
“Do we want what’s left of that thing?” Orson asked.
“Of course we do!” Pops yelled. “What kind of question is that?”
Orson flipped a switch at the back of the typewriter. Then he began typing a response. He was a careful typist, pressing each key slowly and letting it rise back into place before moving onto the next.
“Are fire elementals Shapers?” Jaleel asked. “How does all this work?”
“Fire elemental powers are genetic, man,” Teddy said. “They’re a totally different magic system. Powers you’re born with are different from powers you learn.”
“Thanks,” Jaleel said. “I’m trying to keep up with the worldbuilding.”
“How are you, Orson,” Enoa asked. “How do you feel knowing your girlfriend can one-shot the flying death machine? If you need to make a detour to see her, we won’t mind.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Orson slid the carriage return and sent the message. “I’m just relieved. Sirona didn’t want to be a part of this anymore and the last thing I wanted was to get her involved.”
The typewriter began moving on its own.
“Yes!” Orson said. “Even better – Sirona is going to ask our old buddy Franklin to help us. He’s doing some work for the Alliance but he can deliver what’s left of that robot.”
“We’ll have to set up a meeting with my people in northern California,” Pops said. “Damn, I wish I was on the west coast. I haven’t seen Franklin in years!”
“Who is Franklin?” Jaleel asked.
“Franklin West,” Orson said. “He was part of our crew. He fought the entire Hierarchia catalog of ships and robots. If he agrees to the job, there’s nobody better to help us. Teddy, April, are you two up to hosting another guest?”
“I don’t have a problem,” April said. “None of you are using the guest rooms, so we have plenty of space.”
“It’s like a reunion of the old Wayfarer Gang!” Teddy said. “Wayfarer Gangs old and new, unite!”
“We have to seriously talk about what we want to tell Franklin about our plans,” Orson said. “If there’s anyone who can streamline the heist idea and make it perfect, it’s him.”
Orson stood up from the typewriter. “I’m having another thought, too. We need information about the Dreamside Road, but while we’re taking that, we should nab anything we can get our hands on. We owe it to Eloise and all the Corwins and everyone the Liberty Corps hurt. Let’s take enough information to destroy their whole operation.”