No one saw Duncan launch the microphone onto the roof of the Corwin-Albir residence. Despite the security presence on the street – two trucks, four armed guards – the mic was no larger than a beetle, and it landed on the roof with little audible sound.
The microphone’s receiver had to be small enough to fly without notice, fired from Duncan’s car, while in motion. But it was enough to send a garbled signal back to him, sitting in the parked station wagon, three blocks from the relevant house.
The mic and the small, mostly-automatic launcher were two of the handful of devices he’d borrowed from the Outreach Base, before he’d left with the Maros brothers.
Duncan spoke into another borrowed device. “You’re sure they can’t listen in on this transmitter?”
“We think this is how the locals talk to people far outside the telegraph network,” Kol said. “But listen, this has to be precisely fixed on our locations so we’ll only have a few minutes, and there’s a lot to talk about.”
“It’s great to hear from you too,” Duncan said. “You really need to hear some of the weird shit they’re talking about. I’m only getting every few words, unless they’re outside, but it sounds like this Corwin woman blames the Hierarchia for her mother’s death. She genuinely believes some IHSA operative poisoned the local water.”
Duncan dialed up the Fly-on-the-Wall’s speaker.
“Kappa poisoned most of the nearby watershed.” Eloise Corwin’s muffled voice emerged into the station wagon. “We’re still not totally sure everything he put in the water supply, but I was sick for most of my childhood…”
“I can actually hear them because they’re outside right now,” Duncan said. “The house is under constant guard, and I haven’t even checked the Isodar since I got here.”
“Listen to me, Duncan!” Kol said. “I’m thinking about pulling you out of there. Sloan is unhinged, and Nine-flails… This whole Western Barony seems more like Divenoll and less like the Liberty Corps we decided to join, years ago. They’re looking for an excuse to butcher Littlefield. This isn’t about law anymore. They’re murderous, Duncan.
“In thirty-six hours, either Sloan destroys this town, or Orson and his crew massacre the entire war force, like they did that dropship crew Divenoll sent after them. There’s no third possibility. You need to be out of town before that happens.”
“That’s not possible.” Duncan dialed down his bugging device’s speaker volume. “I only just planted the mic a few minutes ago. You can’t delay him? Isn’t that the whole reason you came along?”
“They aren’t listening to me. You have no idea what this place is like. This is the kind of mob we imagined ourselves fighting against, after shutdown. This is like something from a backwater country with gangs who style themselves as soldiers. It’s that bad.”
“I hope you’re somewhere no one can hear you.” Duncan held the transmitter between his cheek and his shoulder. He reached into the duffle bag in the front passenger’s seat of the station wagon. He removed opaque sunshades for the windows and the windshield.
“I wouldn’t be calling otherwise. I don’t have a death wish. I’m serious. If you can’t be ready to leave tomorrow night, you should leave town now. Get out.”
“If we leave now, we might never catch the Aesir again. This is luck that Gregory came to see an old friend. He goes to other countries on the regular. If you want the Dreamside Road before our commissions are up, this might be our one shot.”
“That doesn’t matter if you stay in Littlefield and get bombed to death by Sloan.” Kol sounded different. He had the same agitated, fearful tone he’d had after the failed pursuit of the Aesir, after Divenoll’s accusations.
“Jesus,” Duncan said. “You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?”
“There’s a very real chance that the rover and my expertise fall under requisitions, and I need to ask you to pick up Max and get the hell out of here.”
Kol’s voice changed again, now a whisper. “I have to go. There are two more transmission windows before Sloan’s attack. Do you have the times?”
“Yes.” Duncan had stowed the paper somewhere in the duffel.
“Try to reach me through the comm too,” Kol said. “Just test it, text only. Keep checking in. Good night.”
The line went dead. Duncan was left in the abrupt silence.
Sloan would destroy the entire town? Duncan tried to picture all of the houses and yards and lives around him burned away. He imagined Mr. Lane, the manager who had arranged to pay for his stay – dead. He imagined the other scattered lives he’d observed – all gone. It was impossible.
Duncan flipped on the Isodar. It began to beep in a sustained pattern. It had a signal – very, very close.
He could distantly see the guard outside the Corwin-Albir residence. There was nothing he could do tonight, nothing to secure the Dreamside Road key or stay Sloan’s hand. All he could do was observe.
Duncan slid the sunscreens across the windshield and windows. He could not be seen from the outside. He switched on his Fly-on-the-Wall’s speaker and listened.
* * *
Kol shut off the portable transmitter and slid out of the makeshift soundproofed booth he’d made for himself from the Rover’s spare seat cushions.
“Your blanket fort is surprisingly successful.” Max entered their small, shared bunkroom. “I couldn’t hear you outside.”
“Damn it, Max.” Kol exhaled. “You need to announce yourself. I didn’t know who was coming in here.”
“Did you pull him out?” Max came to a stop beside Kol. He spoke in a soft voice. “If he leaves tonight, we can all be gone by the morning.”
“We’re still gathering intel,” Kol said. “We need to determine if our mission is still viable under the circumstances. We need…” Max reached forward and gripped his arm.
“I may need to break my promise to you,” he said. “I may need to speak openly about the Liberty Corps. Is there anyone to whom you can report Sloan’s actions? You know this Hawthorne – can you contact him? Do you truly trust this man?”
Kol thought about his interactions with the leader of the Liberty Corps, years ago, before the Czar’s isolation, when Kol’s only concern was rebuilding the broken world. “I don’t believe he would agree to demolishing the town.”
“You have two moral choices open to you.” Max gripped his other arm. “Only two, maybe only one. You are the best positioned person to stop the people of Littlefield from being butchered.”
“Sloan won’t listen to me. He…”
“Even if you believe that the Liberty Corps is the true ruler of our homeland, do you believe every person in Littlefield deserves to lose their homes or die in its defense?”
Kol remembered the fires rising from the Treasures from the Clouds to the Sea. He saw, in his mind, Enoa’s rage. He remembered the last, lost words of love from Sucora Cloud, words Enoa had never read. He saw the attack from Divenoll on the derelict town. He thought of Mrs. Greco homeless, of the skeletons left in the automatons, and now the prospect of an entire town wiped away.
“No,” he said. “I don’t believe that.”
“And if you believe this to be wrong,” Max said. “And you have the power to stop it…”
“Then I have to stop it… but I don’t have that power!”
“You have two choices,” Max said again. “Either you report Sloan to a superior who would command him to stop, if there is such a person. Or you can warn Captain Gregory and Littlefield, so they can prepare for battle.”
* * *
“Did you guys hear anything?” Orson walked out onto the back porch. He pulled on his coat. It had been a long day, on edge, and there would be three more long days until the Pacific Alliance could arrive. Eloise sat with Carlos and Alec on the porch. Enoa and Jaleel sat on the ground, Wesley between them. Jaleel was in the process of assembling what looked like a very large birdcage. “I was running through some frequencies…”
“As every paranoid adventurer should,” Eloise said.
“Yeah, and I picked up a weird signal, just now. It’s on the electromagnetic spectrum, but I don’t know what it is.”
“Orson has his Halloween costume on!” Alec pointed at him. “You look like one of those kids who can’t pick a costume so they wear parts of five or six. Orson the robot-cowboy-pirate is here to save us!”
Orson held up his hand. “Hold on, okay? I still hear a really weird whining, like a tracking problem on an old tape player.”
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Jaleel reached into his backpack and removed a pair of headphones. He put them on. “I don’t hear anything.”
“I don’t know what it is.” Orson walked along the edge of the porch and then into the yard. “It doesn’t seem to change with me moving around. Maybe somebody’s sending out interference from somewhere in town. I don’t know… but it’s weird. I’ll have to stay aware of it.”
“How do you live this way, all the time, Orson?” Carlos asked. “Always looking over your shoulder – it seems awful.”
“It’s almost never been this bad.” Orson still thought he heard the whine, but the sound had diminished. He might have imagined it. “This Liberty Corps shit has been nonstop since Enoa and I fought them in her hometown.”
“The water’s okay here now, right?” Jaleel asked. “Orson, we were talking about that Kappa.”
“We run constant tests.” Alec sounded suddenly serious. “That was my first job out of college. I always thought I’d do some work in a city, before I came back here, so I got an apprenticeship in the compliance office. It seemed like a good path, after everything that happened.”
“Everything was set right after Kappa was exposed,” Orson said. “But the Hierarchia ruined everything it touched. I don’t doubt their factory, in my own hometown, hurt people too.”
“Did you ever find any proof about that factory?” Eloise asked. “Do you go back home, ever? Do you visit your dad?”
“I go back when I can. I just… For those of you who don’t know, my mom died when I was a kid. She… had a stroke, and she was only thirty-five, but she did bookkeeping work for that IHSA factory in our town. They purged their records, but I know they did something. I know it. They always did something. Everything wrong in the world today starts with them. I’d forgotten how bad they were until the Liberty Corps started looting their corpse.”
Orson pulled down his visor. “I, uh, I know if my mom lived I would never have been thrown out… My whole life would’ve been different. It’s almost too much to think about.”
“Without the Hierarchia, none of us would have met.” Eloise ran from the porch and threw her arms around Orson’s neck. “We had our little Aesir family! It would be awful if none of us met and you never did all you do to help people.”
“It’s okay.” Orson returned the hug, until she stepped back. “The Liberty Corps threatening your home, like this, just brings it all back. But I appreciate your support.”
“You’re family, Orson.” Eloise returned to the porch. “You’ve been the lonely drifter for too long, and you shouldn’t be.”
“I know.” Orson adjusted the visor so the earpieces were angled up toward him. “And I’m sorry.”
“I wonder.” Enoa passed a small cob of corn to Wesley who began to tear into it, in quick bites. He cooed in satisfaction. “I wonder if my aunt’s sickness, if her cancer was also… I don’t want to say caused, but if it moved faster because of her time in the Dreamthought Project.”
“There are a lot of things that cause cancer,” Orson said. “We lived in a pretty toxic world. I bet we’re actually less polluted now.”
“Don’t dismiss her concern,” Eloise said. “Remember how extremely comforting I was to you, a minute ago? That’s how you should be now. Your crewmate is having this difficult revelation and you’re over there being geezer man.”
“I’m not dismissing her. I’ll live with the Hierarchia’s crimes forever, and I don’t want her to have that burden.”
“I’m just thinking out loud,” Enoa said. “Maybe I’m just swayed by what the two of you were saying. That’s the only… death in my family from cancer. Both of my parents passed away in a car accident when I was very little, nothing Hierarchia related about that.”
“I didn’t know what happened there,” Jaleel said. “I’m so sorry.”
“It was a long time ago,” Enoa said.
The whine issued from Orson’s visor so loudly he could hear it with his earpiece down at his throat. He gingerly pulled the visor back over his eyes and ears. The whine had decreased, but not by much.
“You mainlanders.” Carlos shook his head. “Even after Thunderworks, there’s something wrong going on up here with three of the five families represented having dead parents. We’re all pretty young people.”
“I’m a mainlander and my parents are alive,” Jaleel said. “My whole family is alive except my dad’s dad and he’d be over one hundred if he was alive. He was almost fifty when my dad was born.”
“Pff.” Alec made a noise with his lips. “Look at this nerd, with his alive, nuclear family.”
“Hey, did you hear something else?” Eloise turned back to Orson. “Or are you just bored and listening to music in there?”
“Same weird noise,” he said. “I don’t know what it is, but I don’t like it. I’m going to mention it to the guards.” He walked through the group and around the Aesir.
The moment he exited the gate, the whine stopped entirely.
He stepped back onto the property, but the sound did not resume. The four guards had turned toward him. They were dressed in vintage police uniforms, with heavy vests and gloves.
“Everything alright?” One of them asked.
“I think so.” He stepped between the fence and the property, several more times. The sound did not return. He looked around the street, but there was no sign of anyone, except a vintage station wagon, which quickly drove out of sight. Then there was nothing to be seen.
“I heard a weird noise,” he said. “It was like some kind of interference. Did you hear it?”
“No,” one of the guards said.
“I don’t hear anything,” said another.
“I don’t hear it anymore either. Sorry about that.” Orson returned to the yard and closed the gate.
* * *
Kol did not sleep that night. He went for two walks through the empty camp. He hoped to practice the strange energy Shaping he’d wielded to save his life, in the fight against Gilford, but he didn’t know where to begin. He failed to Shape, and he failed to sleep.
He heard Max’s heavy breathing in the bunk beside his, but his brother had always been the ideal soldier. Plan and act and fight when needed. Rest when possible. Find peace when nothing can be done.
Kol had no such gift. His mind was occupied by a thousand thoughts and hopes and impossible, conflicting loyalties.
There was no way out, no perfect solve-it-all answer. This riddle had no neat solution. All he could hope to do was find the least bad option.
He was no closer to an answer and no closer to any sort of resolution, when his comm chimed – Brielle.
The Partizan will join the war force at 1300. I hope you’re okay and I’m sorry we didn’t part on the best terms. I’m really looking forward to seeing you. –G
Kol couldn’t, didn’t respond. He stared at her words in silence until the sky out the window began to lighten. In twenty-four hours, Sloan would attack Littlefield.
Would the town be prepared in the case of a surprise attack? Would Orson Gregory be prepared? He remembered how the Aesir’s captain had responded to the deaths in the derelict field, his lethal ferocity.
And Enoa Cloud, trained from childhood to be a Shaper – what had she learned since Nimauk? Or would she die, die and never read the letter from the woman who raised her, never read the letter because it was stolen at the command of Kol Maros.
He pictured the destruction of the dropship, its crew howling as the magnet-charge from Gregory blasted its hull apart. He pictured the same done to the Partizan, the airship exploding as Brielle and the Outreach force attempted to fire their iron barrage at the Aesir.
Somewhere, scattered through Kol’s assorted mess of records he kept from Newtown Division, was a series of potential contact channels to put him in touch with the Lost Park Office. There were many logistical issues involved with sending a tight-beam request to Central Command, but what would it earn him? Could he halt the attack? Could he force Sloan to accept a diplomatic solution? Would Central Command reassign Sloan somewhere he couldn’t install himself as a petty dictator?
Kol was still staring at his comm and portable terminal when the messages arrived from Duncan. He got fifteen in total, the first eleven of which contained nothing but a mess of nonsense letters, like Duncan had been trying to send him word search puzzles.
Then, he received four more.
Did you get? Encrypt bad. Let me know. Gregory can hear. Will try to call at window 1.
Kol looked at the terminal’s screen and the time. He had less than two hours until the clear communication window that would allow him to coordinate with Duncan. What would he tell him? If he pulled Duncan out, it would surely mean the end of his Aesir pursuit. It would mean abandoning the Dreamside Road to the whims of Gregory and his crew, without any manner of governmental oversight.
But would the oversight of a man like Sloan be a better choice?
He had no words, so he crept from bed. He showered and shaved. He prepared his uniform and tied his hair in its immaculate bun. He dressed himself in his full uniform and armor, the captaincy he’d earned. That much he could control – how he lived his life as Captain.
Kol crept from the prefab cabin which he’d been assigned, walking across the muddy ground, through the haphazard cluster of prefab buildings, mobile lodging and tents, scattered throughout the lot Sloan had repurposed for his own uses.
He saw a crew of gray-clad techs servicing two tall, bipedal robotic figures, similar to the Thunderworks automatons, but with clear open cockpits and space enough for a seated pilot.
He saw a dozen-strong Rifle Corps team loading heavy mortar shells, of a type Kol couldn’t recognize, onto the back of a truck. Two heavy guns also waited to be loaded. This group stopped when they saw Kol. They stood at attention until he spoke to them.
“At ease. Your captain has you working very early this morning. I hope you’ve had a good breakfast.”
“Yes, sir,” one of them said. “We’re almost halfway done, sir. We need to be ready to bring justice to the outlaws.” This trooper was young. Kol didn’t think he could be out of his teens, and Sloan’s catchphrase sounded hollow without the Governor’s bravado, a frightened echo.
Kol nodded and left them to their work, winding his way deeper through the war force, past many smaller encampments. He saw a squad with a bastardized version of the Wisconsin flag – they had traveled thousands of miles.
He came to a stop at the telegraph station. He didn’t know nearly enough about how the equipment worked or how widespread the technology still was.
He watched the wiring trailing from the roof of the building, angled toward a series of support posts. The supports guided the cable between the camp and the rail-side telegraph line, a half-mile away.
“Am I supposed to fight with my fists?” A man shouted. He was dressed in modified Rifle Corps armor, non-standard, unacceptable under Kol’s command. He wore his armor over black clothing with silver stripes down the arm. The rifle in his hands was loaded in imagery. Kol saw multiple flags, most almost impossible to distinguish, but the man’s hand partially covered a decal that appeared to bear the tilted arms of a Nazi swastika.
“No non-Corps insignia.” The Lieutenant who faced the man kept a level tone. “You may remove the non-Corps insignia or you may cover it up.”
“I drove all the way from Florida to help with this…”
“These are the Governor’s orders,” the Lieutenant said. “Cover it, find another rifle, but a weapon with non-Corps insignia will not go with us to Littlefield.” He walked away from the man when he caught sight of Kol.
“Captain Maros, sir,” he said. “I was told to retrieve you from your bunk. Governor Sloan plans to reconvene his tactical discussion. He wants you there.”
“I plan to attend,” Kol said. “Once I’ve dealt with some matters from my own mission.”
“I will tell him. He’ll be very pleased. He wants your input, especially with his building plans approved.”
“Building plans?”
“The base that will be built once the Littlefield settlement is demolished,” the Lieutenant said. “Baron Helmont’s office sent word. The blueprints are approved, and the demolition can began as soon as the outlaw threat is neutralized.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant.” Kol said nothing more to him. He retraced his steps, back through the camp, past the ragtag legion, all arming and preparing for the destruction of Littlefield.
When he arrived in the cabin, he found Max in his wheelchair, dressed. He was paging through his notes and eating an energy bar from the stores they’d packed for the trip.
“There you are…” Max began.
“You can use a telegraph machine, right?” Kol interrupted.
“Yes?” Max said. “I was trained after our satellite grid went down.”
“If I can get you into the communications station, how long would you need to send a telegram to Littlefield?”