Chapter 15
By the time I make it back to Vera’s split-wing, Lament has emerged again and is pulling a duffel bag from the trunk of his skimmer. He tracks my approach, his face partially obscured by the skimmer’s wing. I have a strong mental image of a rabbit watching the sky for hawks.
“Done,” I say.
His shoulders droop in relief. “Thank you.”
He doesn’t offer anything more than that, and I’m glad.
I don’t want Lament thinking I’m trying to step into Bast’s shoes, or be Bast, or replace him.
I don’t want to replace Bast, but I do want to be Lament’s partner, and I have this wormy sort of feeling (intuition?) that maybe Lament might be starting to want that, too.
Once Vera dismisses the reporters (“We’re done taking questions, and if you have a problem with that, you can take it up with the Legion”), Caspen unloads an overland rover from the back of the cargo craft.
It looks like an off-roader with four wheels and no roof, the glossy sides painted gunmetal green.
At Caspen’s thumbs-up, all ten Sixers pile inside.
It takes a bit of rearranging (Toph requires at least two seats, and Avi refuses point-blank to sit on anyone’s lap), but soon everyone’s situated and ready, and Vera gives Caspen the go-ahead.
We speed across the field toward the city of Soto, crashing through high grass, our elbows and hips jostling at every bump. I find myself clutching the doorframe—there aren’t any harnesses in this rover, and Caspen drives … how do I put this? She drives like she talks.
“Get’cha cartwheels in good use!” Caspen yips, throwing up a hand.
“I do not,” I announce over the drone of the engine, “want to do cartwheels in this thing.”
“She means hold on tight,” Avi explains from the seat behind me, grabbing my headrest and leveraging her face between Lament and me.
“I definitely heard the word cartwheel.”
Cartwheel means limbs, Jester says from Avi’s side, tugging her belt to haul her back into her seat. Like how you use—We hit a bump; the group gives a collective oomph—your limbs to do a cartwheel. So if you’re putting your limbs to good use, you’re holding on tight.
“You seriously got that from that?”
Avi and Jester exchange a look. “Of course.”
“Five and two ballots on the way!” Caspen howls.
Ten minutes until we arrive, Jester translates.
I turn to Lament. “Are you hearing this?”
He shrugs. “Seems pretty clear to me.”
“Speckled monster aboard!” Caspen.
“Watch out for the mud.” Vera this time.
“No,” I say. “Nope. You’re all definitely messing with me.”
Ten minutes takes forever, but at last the bumpy field gives way to paved city streets, and I’m able to release my death grip on the doorframe.
Soto is built like a bull’s-eye with rings of stone buildings rippling out from its center.
Some of the structures are freestanding, but many connect to their neighbors, leaving little room for pedestrians.
Of which there are a ton. It’s an eruption year on Venthros, which tends to drive people out of the villages around Mount Kilmon and into the cities.
Between the narrow roads and tight crowds, there’s barely enough clearance to fit our rover, but Caspen appears remarkably sanguine in the face of people scrambling to get out of our way.
Most citizens are on foot, carrying bags or tugging children, but some ride in hovercraft or open-top rovers like ours.
Caspen stops for none of it, blaring her horn as she shouts, “Scatter, or we’ll bowl ’er under! ”
Avi’s face reappears. “That means—”
“No, no.” I wave her off. “I got that one.”
We link up with the Fifty-Seventh in an urban park near Soto’s Capitol Building.
Their fleet is like ours, ten members, each with a specialty.
They’ve brought rovers of their own, though theirs are smaller closed-body four-seaters.
We do a bit of rearranging, and eventually Lament and I land in the back of one of the Fifty-Seventh’s overlands, which is manned by a navigator with chic bangs named Mira Turner and her partner, Beckly Van.
Beckly spins in the passenger seat to shoot Lament a smile. “Hey, Bringer.”
“Hello, Van.”
“It’s been too long.”
Though Beckly is dressed in his whites like the rest of us, there’s something about him that comes off a bit more … self-regarding? It’s his expression, maybe, his manicured hands. His uniform is so starched it looks like it could stand on its own.
“You’ve grown out your hair,” Beckly notes with a slightly feral grin. “It suits you.”
“Meanwhile you,” Lament replies, “look exactly the same.”
Beckly laughs. “Is that a compliment?”
“Hardly.”
“You took no issue with my looks the last time we met.” Beckly is still smiling. “Then again, it was dark.”
I realize quite suddenly that I do not like Beckly. In fact, I might very possibly loathe him. Would it be inappropriate, I wonder, to shove him out of the rover?
“Who’s your new partner?” Beckly asks, arching a brow in my direction. “Actually wait, don’t tell me. You’re Keller Hartman.”
I frown. Does everyone know my name?
Beckly must interpret my expression, because he says, “Oh, come on. Don’t act like you aren’t aware of your reputation.
The best gunner the Academy’s seen in decades.
That’s what they’ve been saying in all the recent draft coverage.
NewsNet’s having a field day with it. Of course, there was that whole scandal with your admission test, and the rumors about your—ah—involvement with the Academy’s president. Not that I believe any of that.”
“Van,” Mira warns.
“You’d have to be more than a little desperate to sleep with that old potato,” Beckly prattles on. “Unless—oh wait. Maybe you’re into that sort of thing?”
I can feel Lament’s eyes flick in my direction. I wait, hopefully, for Mira to crash the rover. She doesn’t. “No.”
“Right, of course not. Still”—Beckly gives another winning smile—“it does bring up some interesting questions. How did you pass the entry test anyway?”
“Would you like,” I ask coldly, “a demonstration?”
Mira, with the honed sense of a mother redirecting a troublesome child, nudges Beckly in the leg. “Am I going the right way?”
Beckly side-eyes her. “Don’t know, doll. You’re the nav.”
“I’m also driving. Check the map for me?”
A gusty sigh from Beckly. “You’re lucky to have me, you know that? I don’t mind picking up your slack, I really don’t, but anyone else would complain.”
“So to be clear, that’s not what you’re doing now?”
I choke back a snort. This time, Beckly’s smile is tight. “Of course not.”
We round a corner and nearly crash into a man brandishing an ice cream cone like he intends to duel someone with it.
Mira slams the brakes (Caspen could take some pointers), and not a moment too soon—ice cream man isn’t alone.
The street is packed. Or, well, more packed.
There must be thousands of people here, plus a smattering of extraterrestrial species, many of whom are waving yellow flags and holding signs that say things like THE FUTURE IS KNOWN and HE SPEAKS, WE HEAR.
Beckly gives a low whistle. “The Determinists are really showing up in force today.”
“And the Randomists,” Mira adds, pointing to a similar yet distinct segment of the crowd on the park’s opposite end. All their signs say the same thing: SHOW US THE SIMULATION.
We exit the rover, and I’m instantly glad I have my ray gun, even if it isn’t my ray gun.
The crowd isn’t aggressive per se, but there’s an energy that brings to mind thoughts of fire and gasoline.
One spark is all it’ll take. People are talking, chanting, jumping up and down.
There’s a magmor (a scaly, goblin-like species) standing on a platform with a loudspeaker, smacking his lips and grinding his teeth.
Magmors don’t have tongues, so their language relies heavily on grunting and facial gyrating.
“What’s he saying?” I ask Lament.
Lament frowns. “How should I know?”
“Because you know everything.” When he just looks at me, I halt. “Hang on. You mean to tell me that you—Mr. You-should-be-glad-I-care-to-study-beyond-my-required-field—don’t speak magmorian?”
He seems put off. “Magmorian is a non-lexical dialect. Of course I don’t speak it. Also, stop looking so delighted.”
“I’ll ask Jester,” I say. “He’ll be able to translate.”
When Jester and Vera find us in the throng, Jester does indeed translate, running the audio through a program in his visor. He’s saying, six hundred and five, six hundred and four. It’s a countdown.
“Hear that, Lament?” I motion magnanimously. “Jester says it’s a countdown.”
“A countdown to what?” Lament asks Jester.
Jester scratches his neck. I don’t know.
Lament glances at me.
“Hush,” I say.
“You hear that?” Lament mocks. “Jester doesn’t know.”
The rest of the Sixth arrives in groups of two and four, accompanied by the remaining members of the Fifty-Seventh.
As a group, we push toward the front of the crowd and begin doing reconnaissance.
Lament asks a random passerby what everyone’s waiting for, but she only says, “It’s time,” in this eerie I’m-telling-a-prophecy voice before scuttling away.
“Well, that”—Lament looks perplexed—“was a thing that happened.” He stops another person. “What’s going on here?”
“It’s time,” the man replies.
“Time for what?”
“He speaks,” says the man, “we hear.”
Lament and I cross stares. In the background, the magmor is still on his loudspeaker, gnashing and clattering.
One hundred and sixty-seven, Jester translates. One hundred and sixty-six.
“Should we be worried?” Vera asks.
“We’re Legionnaires,” Beckly scoffs, managing to sound at once pompous and offended. “We don’t worry.”
“I do,” I say coolly in Vera’s defense. “I worry all the time.”
Beckly laughs like I’ve just told the funniest joke. “Well, of course you do.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’ve accepted a haunted position.”
I blink. “Excuse me?”