Tinker (31 page)

Because they thought she'd understood. Because she didn't admit to her ignorance. It was bad enough when it was just her suffering the consequences, but others were now being dragged in.

* * *

Tinker leaned against the glass, eager for her first sight of Pittsburgh. For hours they had sailed over the unending green of elfin forest, gently rocked as the gossamer swam against the headwind. The crew had said that it would take six hours, and now at noon, the time of arrival was nearing.

Beside her the navigator had been peering intently through a spyglass, picking out familiar landmarks. "We're here."

She scanned the horizon, finding the glitter of a river, guessed it to be the Monongahela and watched it unravel westward through the forest. There was a clearing in the forest with a cluster of enclaves and a wide field thick with colorful tents, and then more forest, and another river. "What's that?"

"Oakland," the navigator said. "Bring her to a slow speed!"

Oakland? Tinker frowned, studying the onrushing buildings. Faintly she could see the Rim, its barren strip of no-mans-land, arcing through the forest. Yes, it was the elfin Oakland, but Pittsburgh wasn't there. No human streets, half-empty buildings, skyscrapers, or bridges. Just unending forest. "Oh no, it's Shutdown!"

"Of course it is," Sparrow said. "We've always thought it as an odd and awkward way of doing a Pathway, but that's humans for you."

Windwolf shot Sparrow a hard look, which gained a contrite half-bow and his assistant fleeing. "I am sorry. I had forgotten to check."

"It will be back tomorrow." Tinker shoved away her disappointment. They were all but home now. "The enclaves will be full tonight."

"Room will be found." Windwolf hugged her.

His presence distracted her from Pittsburgh's absence, to a realization of the date. "We met last Shutdown. Just twenty-eight days ago." Oh gods, the last three weeks had been the longest in her life. Immortality at this speed was going to drive her nuts.

"Time expands and contracts." Windwolf kissed her hair. "Sometimes a day can seem like a second, and sometimes it lasts forever. Certainly the hours that I lay helpless on Earth were the longest I've ever lived."

"Then we're even."

* * *

Prior to Shutdown, all the elves living in Pittsburgh shifted temporarily to either the enclaves or camps at the Faire Grounds, thus the collection of bright-colored tents crowding the meadow. Since the Faire Grounds doubled as the airfield for the massive airship, it took shouted negotiations, followed by careful maneuvering to accomplish a tethering.

While this was being accomplished, Tinker studied the flip side of Pittsburgh, the great circle of forest sent to Earth with Startup. Here on Elfhome there was nothing at the Rim but barren land. Back on Earth was a chain-link fence surrounding the forest—a great wall of China done in steel—to keep in dangerous elfin wildlife, and more importantly, keep out unwanted human immigrants. On Earth and in Pittsburgh, EIA patrolled the Rim. From the Observation lounge (having been politely scooted out for the already complicated tethering) Tinker could see elfin rangers moving through the trees, keeping close to the Rim but scouting for trespassers. The sole building within the forest was the legendary EIA lockup, an ugly squat cinderblock building whose only function was to hold prisoners until Startup returned them to Earth. At one time, Tinker lived in fear of it and its polar opposite, the glass castle of EIA headquarters in Pittsburgh.

Also from her high vantage point, Tinker could see that someone had managed to do some illegal logging of the virgin forest. The south shore of the Ohio, approximately where the West End Bridge crossed in Pittsburgh, had been stripped bare, although she couldn't imagine how anyone could cut down the trees and get them into the river without heavy equipment. Apparently the EIA's watch on Earth wasn't as legendary as she'd always heard.

Movement directly below caught her eye and she looked downward. Someone was waving at the gossamer, a short and plain figure among the tall, elegantly dressed elves.

"Oilcan!" she cried. "Oh gods, what is he doing here?"

After waving at her cousin to let him know she saw him, she went to beat on anyone who could get her down to the ground. Minutes later the elevator dropped her down, the door opened and he was there, waiting, and she pounced on him.

"What are you doing here?" She hugged him tightly.

"Waiting for you," he said. "Gods, look at you. You look wonderful."

"I still feel a little dorky in these clothes." She plucked at her skirt. "I had to be 'acceptable' at Aum Renau in case I ran into the queen in some dark hallway." She realized that she was rambling and hugged him again. "What are you doing here?"

He grinned. "I just had this feeling that you'd be coming back during Shutdown, and I'd been kicking myself for not going with you, so I asked Maynard to get me permission to ride out Shutdown on Elfhome." He glanced back at the wall of trees beyond the Rim. "It was weird watching Pittsburgh vanish, though. I've had this creepy feeling all morning, like it wasn't coming back and I'd be stuck here. I was starting to think I'd made a big mistake."

"By the very nature of humans and elves, the gate will close while you're alive." 
 

She glanced around at the single cluster of enclaves and the handful of tents—no electricity, no computers, and no phones. Oh gods protect her, she'd go mad.

13: Crow Black Shroud

"Tinker! Tinker!"

Tinker had learned to ignore her own name, since anyone not calling her "
domi
" only wanted to interrupt her with stupid questions. She wasn't listening: 546879 divided by 3 equaled 182293.

"Alexander Graham Bell!"

Tooloo was right; anyone knowing your real name gained power over you. Tinker flipped up her welding visor and looked down through the tower's trusses to the ground far below. Lain glared back up at her. A quick check showed Lain's hoverbike parked alongside Tinker's and Pony's, which explained how the xenobiologist got to the remote building site, but not why.

"What?" Tinker shouted down.

"Come down here." Lain tapped the ground with her right crutch.

"Why?"

"Young lady, get your butt down here now! I am not going to scream at you like a howler monkey."

Sighing, Tinker turned off the welder. "Pony, will you kill the generator?"

He paused, sword half-drawn. "Kill what?"

"Hit the big red switch." She pointed at the purring generator.

"Ah." He slid his sword back into its sheath. "Yes,
domi
."

She stripped off her welding visor, and pulled off the heavy gloves.

The carpenters' foreman realized that she was leaving, and hesitantly asked, "
Domi
, what should we do next?"

Good thing she'd planned for this. She searched her blue jean pockets until she found her printouts for the current phase of work. "Please, do as much as you can of this and then take a break. Thank you."

She climbed down the tower calling out instructions to work crews as she spotted problems.

The cutting crew waited for her at the foot of the ladder. "We cut to the survey marks,
domi
."

"Good, good, thank you." She scanned the ten acres of cleared hilltop. "The stumps in the area of the foundation need to be removed. I'm not sure how that's done. I suppose we could blast them out."

"No, no, no." Strangely, they seemed anxious for her not to use explosives. Too bad—it would have been fun. "There is magic to excise roots. We'll see it done."

"Thank you, thank you."

Lain stood beside the board tacked heavy with technical drawings, floor plans, and concept pictures. "What do you think you're doing?"

Was that a trick question? "I'm creating infrastructure." Tinker drew Lain's attention to the board. "Phase One was to choose an appropriate building site. Phase Two was to commandeer a work crew. Phase Three is to clear the building site." She waved a hand at the denuded ridgeline. The topology maps were correct—this was one of the highest hills in the area. "Phase Four is to secure the building site." She paused to check off item one of the Phase Three schedule posted on the board. "Phase Five is to create an energy source. Based on an article I read once, I've designed a wind turbine using rear brake drums from Ford F250 trucks. See." She found the concept drawing. "This is really beauty in simplicity. I can adapt old electric motors into these 'inside out' alternators common on small wind turbines—which eliminates the need to build a complicated hub that attaches the blades to a small-diameter shaft. See, this simple plywood sandwich holds the blades tightly in the rotor and the entire assembly is mounted directly to the generator housing: the brake drum. It should churn out three hundred to five hundred watts per turbine."

"Per turbine?"

"Roughly." Tinker realized watt output wasn't Lain's question. "Oh, I'm hoping for at least five to start with along this ridge. I originally thought I could install them near the Faire Ground and then realized since it doubled as the airfield that wouldn't work."

"Tinker . . ."

Tinker held up her hand, as she hadn't really come to the heart of the plan. "Phase Six will be to create telecommunication abilities not relying on Pittsburgh resources. Phase Seven will be to develop the Tinker Computing Center. Scratch that. Tinker
domi
Computing and Research Center."

Tinker paused to note the name change and Lain snatched the pen from her hand. She eyed Lain, tapping her pen-less fingers. "What are you doing here?"

"It is the sad truth that anyone that knows you well also knows that I have some influence with you. I have had Oilcan, Nathan, Riki, Director Maynard, four human agencies, and five elfin household heads call me in the last hour. I even had my first ever telephone conversation with Tooloo, not something I ever want to repeat again. Honestly Tinker, what in the world do you think you're doing?"

Tinker glanced at the plan-covered board and back to Lain. Strange. She thought Lain was fairly intelligent. "I told you. Creating infrastructure."

"You've commandeered workers from all the enclaves, and I'm sure you're working them without pay. The EIA director is in a froth about missing evidence, the department of transportation supervisor complained that you've hijacked one of their dump trucks, and the police say you've taken a Peterbilt truck from the impound."

"I needed a lot of stuff."

"Why are you doing this?"

Tinker jabbed a finger at her plans. "I'm creating
infrastructure
!"

Lain caught her hands, held them tight. "Why?"

"Because it's not there. Twenty years of Pittsburgh being on Elfhome, and everything is still in Pittsburgh. Elfhome has the train and some boats, and that's it."

"That is not why. Why are
you
doing it, in this manner?"

"Because obviously no one else is going to do it, or it would already be done."

"Have you considered that the reason why might be because the elves don't want it on Elfhome?"

"I don't care what they want. I want it. I'm not going to spend another day without a computer, let alone three weeks, or a century, or millennia. Maybe this is why I'm the damn pivot. I say 'enough already, get with the program' and when the oni comes, my Elfhome Internet saves the day."

"Tinker, you just can't do this."

"Actually, yes I can. See, I've learned something in the last three weeks. When the queen says 'you're dropping everything and flying to Aum Renau
,
' you go. And when the queen says 'you're staying at Aum Renau
,
' you stay. And when the head of household says 'we're all moving to Pittsburgh,' you move. And when the clan head says 'I need all the rooms in this enclave, please find other lodgings,' you do. Well, I'm Tinker
domi
! I can make a computing and research center."

"Where is your husband?"

"Oh gods, don't say that." Tinker fled her, ducking into the commandeered tent of Wind Clan blue.

Lain followed close behind, despite the deep ruts churned up by the heavy equipment. "Don't say what?"

"Husband." Tinker peeked into the wicker lunch boxes sent from the enclaves until she found some
mauzouan
. "You want something to eat?"

"No, thank you."

Tinker scowled at Pony until he got himself some food. "A male gives you a bowl and suddenly you're married? Please. Okay, the sex is fantastic, but is that any basis for a relationship?"

"Of course not." Lain sat down in one of the folding chairs purloined out of the gossamer. "But I can't imagine Windwolf committing himself to marriage solely for sex."

"He says he loves me." Tinker settled herself at the teak table, also from the airship. "I don't know why."

"Tinker!"

"I mean . . . he didn't know me. I still barely know him. We spent the twenty-four hours of Shutdown together. I saw him once the next morning—oh, wait, make that twice—and then he proposed to me. Elves don't fall in love that fast—do they?"

"I suppose it could be a case of transference."

"Mmm?" She mumbled around a hot
mauzouan
.

"It's not uncommon for patients to fall in love with their doctor."

"You stitched him up."

"Yes, but you moved houses and fought monsters to keep him alive."

"Is this supposed to make me feel better?"

"Tinker, we can't know other people's hearts. Humans fall in love at first sight, and only time tells if that love is true. There is no reason that elves can't do the same. Certainly while Shutdown was only twenty-four hours, they were quite intense ones."

"Yeah, I suppose," Tinker murmured, remembering what Windwolf had said to her. "Certainly the hours that I lay helpless on Earth were the longest I've ever lived." 

"If nothing else," Lain continued, "you showed the depth of your intelligence and grit."

"Grit?" She popped another
mauzouan
into her mouth. "What does sand have to do with it?"

"It's a way of saying your strength of character; your courage under fire."

Tinker snorted at that. "Lain, how do you know when you're in love? How do you recognize it?"

"Sometimes you don't. Sometimes you mistake lust as love. And sometimes you only know after you've thrown love away."

Trust Lain to say anything but words of comfort. Tinker dropped her head on the table and considered banging it a couple of times. "Argh," she groaned into the wood.

"Give it time," Lain said.

"If someone says that one more time, I think I'll scream."

She hated this feeling of being out of control. Last night, they had sat up waiting for Startup. Elves had little need for wristwatches, so it was without warning that Pittsburgh had flashed into existence, a dark sprawl of buildings washed in moonlight. From the enclaves up and down the street had come shouts of approval, as the elves cheered the return like a magician's trick. And in that moment, Tinker had realized that she would probably never see Earth again; elves stayed on Elfhome during Shutdown.

Like a cascade, realizations spilled down on her. She wasn't going back to her loft—Windwolf and Pony wouldn't fit, let alone the rest of the household. There was no reason for the viceroy's wife to work. Leaving Pittsburgh now wasn't just a matter of convincing Oilcan to come with her, but also leaving Windwolf and Pony behind.

It wasn't that Windwolf had taken away
all
her choices, but the ones left were dubious. Insist on living alone? Continue to spend inventing time on the scrap yard when Windwolf had money to burn? Betray the elves who loved her to leave everyone and everything she knew?

Desperate to snatch control of her life back—and yet not totally wreck everyone's lives with stupid decisions—she came up with the computing center. So maybe she went a little overboard.

Tinker sighed. "Let's get it over with. Give me my lecture."

"I don't know what to say," Lain stated, getting up. "And I'm not sure it's my place to say anything. I suggest you go talk to Windwolf."

"Run to my husband and get permission for what to do with my life?"

"No, go discuss with the viceroy what future the two of you are going to build for your people."

"Ouch," Tinker said.

"I never said being an adult is easy." Lain squeezed Tinker's shoulder. "But I have faith in you. And I'm fairly sure Windwolf does too."

* * *

After Lain left, Tinker glumly finished her lunch. She had no idea how Windwolf might take this scheme of hers. Would he think she overstepped her bounds, as Lain obviously did? Or would he be pleased at her initiative? Oilcan had gifted her with her datapad the evening before and she'd spent the night communing with it, laying plans, and barely noticed when Windwolf left in the morning. She eyed the denuded hillside, the conscripted elves, and the commandeered equipment; wherever Windwolf was, it couldn't be nearby.

"Pony, where is Wolf Who Rules?"

"He and Sparrow are looking for oni. The queen wished verification that the oni are not using Pittsburgh to access Elfhome."

A jolt of fear went through her. "They went out alone?"

"No, they have the
sekasha
, the EIA, and the rangers with them."

It sounded like a small army. She had been more wrapped up in her own plans than she realized. If the EIA were with them, then finding them would only be a matter of a phone call. Of course there was the problem that she'd apparently ticked off Maynard by misappropriating the smugglers' high-tech goods.

Then again, a small army shouldn't be too hard to spot.

The road up to the work site was just raw dirt, already growing deep ruts. She'd have to get it properly graded and graveled before it turned into a mud slalom. There was no way they could drive the Rolls up and down it without fear of tearing out the undercarriage. She'd pulled her old Gamma out of storage early that morning and coaxed Pony into trying the hoverbike.

He'd been dubious at first, but he smiled now as she headed for the bikes. "Ah, good, we're going flying again."

"Yeah." She swung her leg over her Delta's saddle. "I want to find Wolf Who Rules. Do you have any idea where he might be?"

"Sparrow was to search between the Rim and the rivers." Pony pointed down the Ohio River. The Rim arced along the Ohio's bank, clipped above the confluence of the Allegheny and the Monongahela, and then ran roughly parallel to the Mon, leaving odd slices of Pittsburgh without bridges. "Wolf Who Rules chose to search the bulk of the area, beyond Mount Washington."

Yes, Windwolf had more land to cover, but Sparrow actually had the thankless job. Between the three major rivers, the numerous smaller rivers and larger streams, Sparrow's team would be backtracking often to navigate over water or sheer hillsides. Pittsburgh had been the city of bridges—unfortunately, most stayed on Earth.

"You up to a long ride?"

"Very much so." Pony mounted up, thumbprinted the lock, and hit the ignition button of the Gamma. The bike's lift drive rumbled to life. Pony eased down on the throttle until he was at cruise level, and retracted his parking studs. "Come,
domi
, let's find Wolf Who Rules."

* * *

They went down the steep muddy road hacked through the forest until they hit the Rim. There, they crossed onto the abrupt start of I-279 North—six lanes heading into downtown with no traffic. There, to Pony's delight, she opened up the throttle and soared along the wide even pavement, gaining altitude. He was a good mix of fast learner and yet still cautious.