The Boiler Room was deserted. When they arrived, they found the bar unlocked but empty; throughout the city, crowds alternated between milling and panic. Those with families rushed to go check on them; those without made their way towards or away from the havoc, trying to find answers on what was going on. Nobody paid them any mind as they hurried through the streets, and there was no one to stop Bill as he reached behind the counter and snagged a bottle of whiskey.
As far as Jeremiah could see, none of them were seriously injured by the blast; though only time would tell what would become of their hearing. The notebook was brought back out, slid back and forth across the table as the whiskey bottle made its rounds.
We’ll need to lie low… probably for the next few years, Julie wrote, her handwriting as neat and precise as every other part of her. They read it, then Bill grabbed the pen and added underneath.
Grabbing Mirabeth and getting out of town. Not sticking around to be forced onto whatever they build next. He looked to Jeremiah as he finished writing, eyes dark with emotion. ‘Don’t try to stop me and don’t try to follow’ is what his expression said. Jeremiah nodded, then reached out and grabbed the non-mechanical arm – he was going to miss the old rhino.
Gliridae took the pen next. His tongue poked out the corner of his mouth as he wrote, and somehow Jeremiah wasn’t surprised at the smaller man’s flowing cursive.
Junior- time for a Lockup break in? Silvers are going to be anywhere but there. Too much going on everywhere else. Junior grinned and nodded, and Jeremiah leaned forward to signal that he’d go join. Julie Matthes pursed her lips and shook her head, miming throwing up: out of all of them, she’d had the worst reaction to the blast.
Bill pushed himself to his feet, the recorked the whisky bottle. He moved to put it down on the table, then paused. Jeremiah saw his lips form the familiar what the heck, and then the entire bottle disappeared into a jacket pocket. He and Julie left out the front door; Gliridae led Jeremiah and Junior through the staff and performer areas behind the stage, and then back out into the night.
-
Gliridae had been right: Lockup was deserted. There was a solitary guard out front, who waved them in once Gliridae flashed the Silver badge. Jeremiah recognised him from the other day, and figured he probably recognised them. That was lucky: it lent an air of legitimacy.
Once inside, Gliridae turned and gestured out a series of lefts and rights. Jeremiah blinked in confusion, but then he gestured out a number: Viola’s cell number.
The tiny musician had memorised the way.
Exhausted and aching as he was, the memories were harder to fight back this time. The smoke wafting over the city stung the back of his nose, even in here, and the ringing in his ears reminded him of the deep resonance of the fire bell. Another life, another disaster, another fight to get people out; the scar tissue between his shoulder blades ached from the blast. He swallowed down a sudden wave of panic.
It’s different, it’s different, it’s different- no one’s going to die this time he repeated to himself.
The reached Viola’s door.
Junior got through the locks easily, finding an alarmed Viola Davies on the other side. There were bruises around her face, and she glanced between them all fearfully. Her lips were moving, but he was distracted by the nausea that rolled through him.
What had the Silvers done to her?
“I heard an explosion,” he managed to make out as he stepped closer. The ringing in his ears was finally starting to subside, and the same seemed to be true for the others. “What’s going on? What are you doing here?”
“Leaving,” Gliridae replied, before pausing. For the first time in what felt like an age, he grinned. “Don’t forget these,” he said, scooping a pile of books off the ground as Junior made steady progress through her chains.
She looked between the books and the tiny musician, before sagging with relief and returning the smile.
“Okay, leaving.” She climbed to her feet and rubbed her wrists where the chain had been. “Leaving is good.”
“One more pit stop, though,” said Jeremiah, peering into the corridor to orient himself.
Lockup didn’t have a directory detailing where all the different inmates were kept- that information was on a strictly need to know basis. Even though Jeremiah had been a Silver for many years, they still should have had no idea where to start.
However, Jeremiah had been assigned to Bill – the only other wilding with that sort of size and strength. He had a good idea of where they needed to go.
In Bill’s former cell, Mr Morrow’s glare at the sight of Jeremiah and Gliridae turned into unbridled joy as Junior barrelled past them and straight into his father’s hairy arms.
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“We’ve come to spring you, Pa,” Junior said, voice thick with emotion. Mr Morrow didn’t say anything, just wrapped his arms tightly around his son. If he was crying, well, Jeremiah was happy to pretend he hadn’t seen.
They made a rag tag group, slipping out of Lockup. Even the lone guard was gone, perhaps drawn away from his post by the mounting chaos of the city. Seeming to sense their injury and exhaustion, Mr Morrow took the lead and showed them to a safe house in Lowtown. There, a freshly washed but still exhausted looking Julie Matthes was waiting for them.
“Took you long enough,” she said, but then passed them food and water. “Beds are upstairs. No talking until we’ve all had some rest.”
There weren’t enough beds, so Jeremiah slept on the couch. He could have slept on a stone floor at that point and not been disturbed. For the first time in years, no dreams came to bother him.
“Bill and Mirabeth are safe,” Julie Matthes told them over breakfast the next morning. “I ended up going with and helped get her out. They left immediately. Headed into the countryside, but I said not to tell me where- it’s better if none of us know. Although…I don’t think even they knew where they were going.” She snickered. “I got the impression that he’s never going to hear the end of this.”
“I’m getting out too,” said Gliridae after a pause. He was sat cross-legged on his seat, apple in one hand and a slice of toast in the other. It was strange seeing him without his saxophone: in some way, it was almost like seeing him without his trousers. “I’m sick of this city and its constant attempts to murder me.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Viola immediately. “There’s no life for me here. Even if I’m not sent back to Lockup, I have no job and apparently too many morals.”
As one, the table swivelled to look at Jeremiah, who hesitated. He’d have to hide from the law for the rest of his days if he stayed here: the Silvers wouldn’t rest until they found him. They disliked criminals, but they abhorred traitors, and that was what they’d see him as. Every hour of every day, he’d have to watch his back. Even if he finished his medical training, he could never practice as a regular doctor. His life would be that of a fugitive.
And yet.
The city was collapsing from the inside out, its toxic tendrils wrapping around the throats of those who couldn’t leave while those in power profited. He thought of Gliridae and of Bill: running like their lives depended on it, because they did. He thought of Viola, and the treatment she’d received for trying to fight the injustice. He thought of Doc Claude’s last words to him.
You don’t have the keys and you don’t have the strength; get out and leave this to me.
“I’m staying,” he said, sounding more confident than he felt. Gliridae looked aghast; Julie Matthes grinned. “Boravica’s not seen the last of me.”
Epilogue:
Jeremiah never managed to finish his medical training. After getting Gliridae and Viola onto the boat out of town, he snuck back to his apartment and grabbed what he could before moving into a safe house in Lowtown organised by Julie Matthes. He had enough money for more than a year of hiding- a thousand clips went even further when there was nothing to spend it on- but he couldn’t seem to sit still. Instead, he started working with the Mattheses, doing odd jobs here and there; never under Julie’s command, always as an equal.
His reputation grew and he began his own private investigation company, the Silver Bullet. Rather than working on petty crime, he looked into the Silvers, the Foundry, and all the levels of corruption the city council was immersed in. Junior helped out when he wasn’t studying or working with his dad, and they over time got to be friends.
One day, Julie Matthes handed him a check for a few hundred clips.
“Someone needs to pay the vigilante,” she told him, her small smirk widening into a genuine smile. “Besides, the people of this city are going to snap sooner or later. You’re pretty much the only one I trust to lead the revolution.”
“I don’t want to lead anything,” he replied. She shrugged, but the checks kept coming and he didn’t bother arguing.
Two years in, he received his first letter from Bill, delivered via Junior and addressed to a hopefully free man. The note wished him well, and talked about how Bill’s new life: his friend had moved to a small cottage on the far side of the farmland and had finally married Mirabeth.
After the first, his letters came every few weeks: about the wildflowers outside of the city, and how nice it finally was to have some damn peace and quiet. Mirabeth was expecting their first child. Everyone around them called him Sweet William. Life was good: Jeremiah should come visit sometime.
I’ve been giving it a lot of thought read one of the letters. Some days it seems like all I do is sit in the garden and think. Am I getting old? But the mouse was right: no more fighting. Not from me, not ever again. If they come for me, I’ll go in and I’ll serve my sentence, however long it is. I’ve had enough fights to last me a lifetime.
One evening, during a break in their set at a Midtown bar, the clarinet player for a lively swing band hopped off his barstool and made his way to Jeremiah. The man was wilding of some kind, but Jeremiah couldn’t place what- just that the bright blue eyes and pointed teeth weren’t human.
“Are you Jeremiah?” asked the musician. Jeremiah nodded, and he pulled out a small white envelope, devoid of any markings except for the wax seal. “Gliridae sends his regards.”
This letter was brief and to the point; the paddleboat had taken them three cities upriver before the captain got sick of his talking and left them ashore. There, Gliridae had met a well to do lady who turned out to be a headmistress of a prestigious ladies’ finishing school. He presented himself and Viola as expert professors, and both were now gainfully employed. He taught 8- to 13-year-olds music and drama, while Viola Crest instructed the older ones in maths, physics, and basic engineering principles.
It took us four days to get here, you know. Four days. The world is a lot closer than Boravica’s government makes it seem, and I want to see it all.
There was a return address at the bottom, and an invitation to come visit if Jeremiah ever had the inclination.
He folded it up, and looked to the clarinet player on the stage, performing their second set. He wondered how many of these Gliridae had sent, to musicians across the city, to make sure he got it. Then he smiled, and bought the whole band a round of beers, and two for the clarinet.
Save me a seat at the table and some whiskey, he replied to them both. There’s some unfinished business in the city, but I’ll come once it’s done. You’ll be seeing me soon.