Abominations (38 page)

      The kids were little. Stevie who had just turned five, Sara three and a half, and Veronica only eighteen months. Ella wasn't exactly pretty, and looked a little run down, but she smiled bravely and seemed thrilled when both Gwen and Bethany turned out to be kind and gentle with the kids. Gwen wondered what the poor woman had expected, that they'd yell and insist the children be beaten into silence? From the looks she gave and the way she kept trying to shush what seemed to Gwen to be really well behaved rug rats, it seemed that was exactly what had been thought.

      James had borrowed a much bigger carriage, another black one, but not as nice as the one the Vernors used. Just as well, if they had snacks in there later, it would be easier to cover up the soda spills or whatever they had here for kids. Come to think of it, Gwen realized that she hadn't seen a lot of candy or anything like that so far. They probably had it, she knew people weren't that different from place to place, and they had sweets, cakes, ice cream and stuff. Having the kids around would make a good excuse to see what she could find, she decided. Especially since she didn't have to watch them later if they got a bit hyper from the sugar.

      The trip took about an hour, Stevie bounced into her lap at about halfway there and started asking her and Beth questions.

      “What's your name?”

      “I'm Katherine,” she said, very seriously, with a little smile on her face so as to not frighten the kid. She hoped that giving Katherine's name would be less confusing for him later, since her dad worked for the Vernors.

      “What's your name?” He asked next, looking at Beth.

      “I'm Bethany.”

      “Are you married? Do you have kids?”

      Beth looked at him and shook her head, so he put the same questions to Gwen.

      She shook her head too, smiling at the boy. Kids, she knew, were always the most overtly curious people. She'd always liked it better when kids saw her before their parents did, at the least the ones that didn't seem scared. They'd just come up and ask questions, instead of adults who as often as not tried to not look at her at all.

      “Why not?” He asked them both, looking back and forth between them.

      “Well, I haven't been living my life very well yet, too busy playing when I should have been working, and finding a husband, which slows down having kids, you know. It's really not a good thing, but I'm trying to do better now.”

      Bethany looked at the boy seriously, as if deciding something, then at Ella, who looked more than a little frightened. Beth winked at the boy.

      “With me it's a bit different. I've been part of a special government program all my life, since I was younger than you in fact, about Sara's age, so they've had a lot of say in what I do and who I meet. As part of that program they had to do things that made it so I couldn't have children of my own.”

      She left it at that, and the boy started asking questions about other things. What they did for a living, where they lived, did they think he could be a detective someday. One question after the next. Gwen tried to answer them all as honestly as she could. By the end of the ride Ella seemed convinced that neither of them was going to eat her children – at least not in front of her.

      The museum itself cost ten cents apiece to get in, one dec each, Gwen reminded herself, since she'd had full meals that cost no more than that here, she felt glad that she'd passed James the money earlier. That Mr. Vernor paid for it was even true, it came out of the money that he'd given Gwen, rather than directly from his hand, but so what? She knew the man would have pulled money from his own pocket if he knew about the outing, so it still counted as far as she was concerned.

      After the first five minutes, Gwen had to fight to act as blasé as the other adults did about everything.

      The whole place told her the story of how their technology worked. She felt a thrill after the first few seconds inside. It explained how a charged crystal passed power to special structures that did work, which were called radiatives. It sounded similar to electricity, though it could be converted directly to heat, light, sound, or motive force, as well as a mental force which could affect other people's minds.

      Freaking awesome.

      Models had been set up to explain how each facet worked in basic machinery, how a glow globe functioned, magical power run through a wire to a radiative, a small nodule of metal that turned it into light, made by workers that had learned how to do it at special schools.

      Gwen nearly passed out then. So that's what a radiative was? The little part of magic that told the energy what to do? It made sense but she wouldn't have guessed at it in a thousand years. So Doctor Professor Grainger taught how to make magic machines? Cool. She definitely needed to get with the man and pick his brain then. Really she should take classes or something, but since it would probably require starting at a second grade level that might just give away that Gwen wasn't from around here.        Next to the lighting display a small lorrie ran on a track, a little carved wooden driver on top.

      “Daddy!” Sara pointed at the figure and jumped up and down, making everyone smile.

      “That's right, honey. I drive for a living.” His voice sounded oddly proud of the fact. Given how rare lorries were on the street, maybe he had a right to be, Gwen wondered if that took a special school too?

      The sign explained how lorries needed large crystal arrays that provided energy to a large stone block, which was a giant radiative that provided motive force in the lead section, pulling the whole thing forward. The driver had to engage and disengage the power carefully to control the speed, as well as a special system for breaking, and steer, all at the same time.

      In the next room, there were explanations about requirements for various jobs. There was even a device that tested your ability to produce magical energy. It had a flat metal plate in a wooden frame, about the size of the palm of Gwen's hand. The sign told them to focus on the gray metal in the frame as hard as they could, which would lift a small stone, that looked to weigh a few pounds, inside a thick glass tube that had percentages on it.

      Stevie wanted to go first, and seemed disappointed at how little the stone moved. It had gone up to about the forty percent mark.

      “That's good though!” Beth told him, her voice friendly and a bit excited. “You'll get about twice that strong by the time you're fourteen or so, maybe a bit more if you keep practicing now, which will put you right up there in the top sections. Lots of good jobs up there.”

      There were too, in fact, what jobs you could have with a given level of ability were clearly marked near the various percentages. She noticed that lorrie driver was at seventy-three percent, which sounded pretty high to her.

      Stevie insisted that everyone try it, being a child he wanted to share in the fun. Ella topped sixty-eight percent on her effort, which marked her in the top third, a kind of barrier it seemed, since most of the high paying jobs were above that line.

      James came in at slightly higher than his current job, at about seventy-seven. Meaning that both the parents were kind of special, both in the upper crust of magical society. That was interesting. Really, did she even know anyone here that wasn't? Even to be a detective you had to have a rating of sixty-seven according to the scale on the machine. Well, it said that was for government work, but that was probably the same. After all, they might have to fight against magic, so it stood to reason they'd need some of their own.

      Bethany just glanced at the metal plate, not even staring like the others had done, the block making a small click when it hit the top, then it settled a few seconds after she looked away. Stevie clapped and Emma seemed to turn a little pale.

      “You do it now, Katherine, you do it!” Stevie pulled on her hand to move her in front of the device.

      “OK... Let's see here.”

      She didn't want to get too poor a score, but didn't know if she could even make the thing move really. This wasn't exactly something she'd done before, so she focused as intently as she could, hoping the intensity of concentration would make a difference. Recalling the meditation work she'd done in a few of her martial arts classes, she quieted her mind and focused on a small point right in the center of the plate and pushed a bit, like she tried to do when she made the stove work.

      After a moment Bethany put a hand on her arm.

      “That's good enough I think. No need to push their device to destruction, dear.” Her voice came out calm, relaxed even. When she stopped both James and Ella stared at her.

      Looking up she saw that the stone pushed into the ceiling of the glass chamber, and hovered there, not coming down for nearly ten seconds after she stopped. Stevie clapped again.

      “Yay! You did it!” the boy enthused.

      Blinking a little she forced a smile. It seemed she had done it after all. What that really meant she didn't know, but apparently with enough training she could find a decent job here? Good to know.

      The rest of the day they walked from demonstration to demonstration, all of it fascinating to Gwen, so much so she really didn't want to leave and had to fight not to clap her hands and squeal like Sara and Stevie did.

      The museum had a small restaurant, the first place she'd encountered with booths here, done in deep red leather and fairly divided with wooden privacy screens from the other diners, where they ate lunch. Like all the places here did, this one served a multi-course meal, tiny sandwiches, the only thing Sara would eat right now anyway, seemed to be what they served as a main course. This worked for Gwen, who had a little peanut butter and jelly sandwich, fresh ground peanut butter and strawberry preserves, like the kids did. The dish before it had been a salad, the one after being small fruit slices. It came with tea, even for the kids.

      The other adults, who all had the roast beef sandwich meal smiled at her, Bethany actually laughing as she ate her PB&J with no crusts, since that was the way Sara had wanted hers. Gwen smiled and told them that it was only wise to go with an expert's opinion. At about two-thirty Veronica started to get a little fussy, so they all decided it would be a good time to leave. The baby cried a little on the way back, but nothing too bad. It was a little annoying, but poor Ella kept looking at her and Beth like they might just kill them all because of the little girl's crying or something. Beth finally took the child and held her, singing softly for a while until the girl calmed. Her Mother stood by, smiling, but a weak thing that looked close to panic, staring the whole time.

      It took Gwen a while to remember that whole Westmorland thing. Right. Well, Beth wouldn't hurt a child and Ella should learn that. So should the kids. Nothing would change if people couldn't see things for themselves.

      At the lobby door of the apartment James very carefully gave her the remainder of the money, over eight mets even after the meals and admission and asked her to thank her Father for the day, which she promised she would, the very next time she saw him. Then she winked at him. People did that a lot here, so she made a point of doing it too.

      “Please let Ella know that we both had a wonderful time, would you? I think we should all get together soon and do something, a dinner party perhaps?” The woman had been nice, if a bit subdued around them both.