The Inexplicables (Clockwork Century) (24 page)

“You can come back and claim ’em anytime.”

The woman had a reach like an octopus.

He fought her just enough to keep one foot in the room, saying, “Let me get my bag, would you?”

She threw her hands in the air and said, “Fine. Get your bag. Just
go.
I’ve got notes to write up.”

“Notes about me?”

“
Notes
. And I write slow.”

She slammed the door behind him, which Rector thought was unnecessary. How many people came and went from this hospital room that was so inhospitable? He knew it wouldn’t be
his
first choice, but then, it probably wasn’t anybody’s first choice. He reckoned it was the only choice.

As he hiked down the halls he wriggled his feet to better fit in the shoes, then stopped by the washroom. Then it was down to the kitchen, where Angeline waited. Zeke and Houjin were already there, chewing on raisins and drinking weak, odd-smelling coffee.

“Good God, boy—you rise and shine slower than any night owl I ever did see.”

Confused by the comparison and too tired to argue with her, Rector waved and went to join the other two. He helped himself to a fistful of dried grapes and sat down heavily on the nearest stool. “What time is it?” he asked, in case the answer would absolve him.

“Eight o’clock. It’s ridiculous, being in bed at this hour. The sun’s up, and we’re heading out while the light is good. I’ve got extra filters, my seeing-glasses, and I’ve made these two bring a canteen apiece and a bit of food for lunch, so take whatever you find over there and stock yourself up, too. Water’s in the barrel by the door. We’ll find a sealed-off stopping point someplace along the way, and if we don’t, we’ll come on back.”

Following Angeline’s lead was the easiest thing Rector had ever done. She called the shots, and since she knew where she was going and what she was doing, he sat back and let her be in charge. It took the pressure off him to lead the crew, and it meant he didn’t have to follow Houjin around at all, if he didn’t want to.

He pointed down at her feet. “What’s that?”

“That? That’s a cage,” she said. “I’ll set this over by the wall, near where you saw that fox. Maybe we’ll catch him, maybe we won’t. Maybe we’ll catch something else.”

“Won’t catch no sasquatch with it,” Zeke grinned.

“Maybe a sasquatch foot,” she agreed. “We’ll need something bigger for him.”

Houjin asked, “A bigger cage? Do they make cages big enough?”

“Actually, I was thinking we might have to stick ’im in jail. That’s a cage just about big enough, wouldn’t you say?” She spun off the stool upon which she’d been sitting. “The old jail. You know, the famous one.”

“But the jail…” Rector fought to remember the old stories, hunting for a detail he’d never heard, or must’ve lost. “It was aboveground, wasn’t it?”

“Sure it was. But the basement opens up to the underground. It didn’t used to, but it does now—and the first floor is all sealed up from rotters, if not from the air. Downstairs there are a few more cells. The air will be much cleaner there, if not perfectly clear. Our experiment might have its flaws, but it’ll give us an idea of what to expect.”

Houjin thoughtfully stuffed some dried cherries and nuts into a small canvas bag. “It’s not a bad idea. If cleaner air improves the sasquatch at all, then
really
clean air might make him all better.”

“Or it might not,” Rector argued.

Zeke tried to have it both ways. “Maybe it’ll help, and maybe it won’t. But we should probably get it off the street nohow, don’t you think?”

Houjin remained dubious. “But how do we get it to the jail, even if we catch it?”

“We’ll start with a net.
This
one.” She indicated a large lump that bulged out of the oversized satchel she’d left on the table. “It’s a fishing net, but it’s clean and mended. It can hold a few thousand pounds of salmon, so it’ll hold a few hundred pounds of sasquatch.”

He was not yet convinced. “We’re going to tie it up in a net?”

“No, we’re going to
catch
it in a net, then we’re going to tie it up with regular old rope, which is also in that bag. I’m not a dummy, Houjin,” she said, almost crossly. “I’m not out to get any of us killed.”

Rector sighed. “So that’s all we’re bringing? A net, some rope, and…” He looked at her torso, strung with the two bandoliers of very sharp blades. “And your knives?”

“Guns make too much noise. We don’t want to attract rotters, and we don’t want to kill the creature, so we’re not bringing guns. But you boys keep the axes and clubs you picked up. I want you able to defend yourself, should the worst occur.”

Rector complained, “A gun would defend us better.”

And she retorted, “Spoken like someone who hasn’t fired one very often, or fired one down
here.
If I thought any one of you boys was a Texian sharpshooter, that’d be one thing. But I won’t have no amateur gunslingers shooting willy-nilly; you’ll hit each other as likely as anything else. Now make sure you’ve got everything you’re likely to need, and let’s head out while the sun’s up. We’re burning daylight, boys! And the weather’s not even half bad up there. I hesitate to suggest it, but I do think we’re starting to warm up for summer.”

All the way over to the carts, and on the ride up the hill, Rector worked hard to keep from thinking about Miss Mercy and the things she’d told him with that stern, almost-pretty face of hers. He fought against everything she’d said, even as some wretched, insistent little spot in the back of his head whispered that she was right.

It was the same little spot that used to hold Zeke’s ghost; it was the place where phantoms rested and waited, even without the sap to fuel them. As Rector rode in the rattling cart, pumping the lever up and down without thinking about it anymore, he wondered what else lived in that awkward, cobwebby corner. Zeke’s ghost was gone. Zeke himself sweated, puffed, and pumped like a champ directly across from him on the repurposed mining car; and that meant he’d never been dead, and had never haunted Rector or anybody else.

Sometimes he had to remind himself of this. And sometimes he wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

Oh, in a general sense he was glad Zeke was alive. It sure took the edge off all that guilt he’d worn around his neck. But all the same, and for all he’d been afraid of the specter … it had been one reliable presence in his life when there weren’t many others.

And now he couldn’t rely on that, either.

The trip up the hill felt faster this time, partly because Angeline was wearing the awkward polarized glasses, so they could keep their masks off most of the way. This prompted Rector to poke Houjin about how come, if he was so damn smart, he hadn’t thought to bring the glasses in the first place—to which Houjin responded that he didn’t spend all his free time riffling around through the storage rooms in the Vaults, so he hadn’t known about them. Then Miss Angeline had threatened to box them both on the ears if they couldn’t get along.

Close to the end of their trip, she abruptly pulled the brake, and a fierce, hissing spit of white fire and sparks kicked up from the track. When the cart came to a full stop, she ushered everyone into masks on the double. “It was free and clear up until a few minutes ago. Then I started catching hints of it in the glass. Maybe it’ll be all right for a while, maybe it won’t. I don’t want to take the chance.”

Once again, Rector reluctantly crammed his face into a gas mask. The rest of the way indeed felt longer, even though they’d nearly reached the Sizemore House. He hated those damn masks, but when he griped about them, Angeline told him, “If they bother you that much, maybe you’ve picked the wrong place to live. Or work. You could always go hang out at the Station, if you want.”

Carefully, he asked, “Why would I want to do that?”

“Because you’re a boy who’s been known to move sap, and that’s where it comes from, mostly. And besides, I heard tale you’d already been down there and seen it.”

“So … you heard about that.”

“I hear about everything.” With calculated casualness, she continued. “I know who you’re working for, don’t I?”

He thought about being contrite, and opted instead to be direct. “I expect you do.”

She nodded, and unloaded the cart, making sure everyone’s supplies were bundled up good and tight (including her own), and saw to it that the boys retrieved their weapons.

While she checked and refolded the fishing net, she was silent. But when she’d finished, she said, “It’s no surprise. These other two”—she motioned at Zeke and Houjin, who remained concertedly quiet—“know how I feel about Yaozu. Wouldn’t spit on him if he were on fire. He spent too many years propping up my murdering son-in-law down here. I can forgive it for my own peace of mind—but I won’t forget it.”

Rector didn’t believe for a moment that she’d forgiven anyone for anything.

“That being said”—she chose her words carefully, speaking more slowly than usual—“Yaozu is not an inventor, and he’s not some kind of scientist—but he understands how to run a city, or a business, or people … better than Joe ever did. So with that in mind, I will be as gracious as I can muster, and tell you that I don’t think Yaozu is the worst thing that could’ve happened to Seattle. I just hope he’s strong enough to hold it together against the sorts of men who are always trying to weasel their way inside these walls. If he isn’t, someone will take the city away from him, one of these days.”

“And better the devil you know, eh?” he said, more lightly than he meant to.

She donned her bag and started for the stairs that led up out of the cellar. “That’s one way to put it. He’s smarter than Joe, and that’s either good or terrible, depending on how the cards fall. I’m hoping for good, because I care about this place and I want it to hold together—even if he’s the glue. But I’m worried about the bad, because if he put his mind to it, he could do a lot more damage than Joe did. This city is worth saving. It’s worth fixing, however we have to go about it. But it shouldn’t be saved at the cost of making that drug, and all the people it kills. And that’s all I’ve got to say about
that.
”

The cellar doors parted with a shove of her shoulder.

Rector reflexively held his breath—the Blight looked like smoke, and his body rebelled against the idea of inhaling it—but he beat the instinct down.

Back into the curdled air they climbed, adjusting their gear and their garments to cover all the skin they could. Rector had hung onto Fang’s gloves, and now he felt prepared to poke around inside the dead city, whether or not he enjoyed it.

“Which way’s the wall?” he asked.

“That way,” Houjin answered, pointing.

Rector faced in that direction and waited for Angeline to take the lead. She paused to turn around and remind them, in a soft but penetrating voice, “From here on out, we whisper. And unless it’s real important, don’t even do
that.
Just keep your mouths shut. We’ll work our way along the wall, same as you were doing yesterday, and if the sasquatch comes out to watch us, so much the better. If it doesn’t, then we’ll keep looking for holes.”

She left the trap near their starting point, baiting it with a piece of horseflesh she unwrapped from a packet of paper. The meat wasn’t terribly fresh, and Rector was glad he was wearing a mask so he couldn’t smell it. They covered the whole setup with some dead, brittle brush, but kept the camouflage light. The odds weren’t great that any creature inside the wall would know a trap when it saw one, or that it’d necessarily care.

And from there, they returned their attention to the wall.

Seventeen

The farther up the hill they explored, the harder it became to hug the Seattle wall.

When it was built seventeen years previously, it had been thrown up as hastily as possible, using whatever was at hand and cutting through anything in its decided path. Houses were severed; trees were knocked over; buildings torn down and left in pieces, their exposed foundations jutting out from the wall’s base. Whereas before Rector had grazed the structure with his fingers to keep tabs on it, now he could keep to it only so closely without falling into an open cellar or climbing over a crumbling old home.

Rector tried to contain his revulsion at the dank, sick press of the air. He kept hoping he’d grow accustomed to it, but familiarity bred only more contempt. He didn’t like the darkness, the constant shroud that hung over everything. He loathed the revolting fog that dripped off every branch of every dead tree, like tattered ghosts or decaying moss. He would have preferred anything else to this, even the muddy tunnel beneath the root cellar. At least he could scratch his nose in the root cellar.

But onward they climbed, and upward, because Angeline told them, “I’ve heard a lot of animal noise and whatnot a little ways from here, at the northeast edge of the wall. Maybe we’ll find our breach there, maybe we won’t. But it’s worth looking.”

Beyond simply breathing in the masks, they also worked against the steep angles of Denny Hill. It was easy to keep from talking. No one had the stamina for it.

And everywhere they went—foot by foot, yard by yard—the wall was intact and imposing. It disappeared up into the fog, its top lines reaching well beyond their field of vision. Occasionally it jutted out through the toxic air, its silhouette a shadow shaped like castle ramparts; usually it wore its halo of fog as thickly as a winter cap, and nothing but a dim suggestion of its shape could be seen.

When they paused to rest they huddled furtively, watching the ever-shifting screen of Blight conceal and reveal the city’s details at its capricious leisure. Once or twice they thought they were being followed, but nothing appeared from the alleys. Nothing leaped forth from the empty homes or shuttered businesses. Nothing joined or harassed them.

They listened, because it took less effort than speaking.

They pulled forward in a nearly vertical crawl, using their hands to hold the streets, which were eroded badly from years of rain and neglect.

For a while they heard the
whoosh, drag,
and
suck
of the farthest northern pump room, and they saw its great yellow tube poking up into the sky to reach the clearer air. The dull rumble of machinery somewhere beneath them felt like tremors under their feet. But this comforting, rollicking noise faded, and they couldn’t hear it even if they ignored the sound of their own lungs hauling air back and forth.