Broken Dreams (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 5) (16 page)

“I’m not sure I would be comfortable going into town impersonating the other Mara. Everyone knows she the progenitor, and I’m just a—”

“A closet progenitor,” Sam said. “It’s time to throw open the door and show the world the real you.”

“Funny,” she said. “I want to talk to Ping before I do something like that.”

Dr. Lantern finished his toast, stood and kissed the top of her head. “Whatever makes you comfortable, sweetheart. If you decide you want a lift, just mider me and I’ll stop by.”

* * *

Mara found Ping sitting in one of the wing chairs in the study, reading a book. He looked up and smiled when she sat on the nearby couch.

“Why are you hiding out up here? Didn’t you even get breakfast?” she asked.

“I went down for some coffee earlier and decided to stay out my counterpart’s way. It’s a little disconcerting for both of us, and I thought some distance would be a good idea so we don’t accidently touch,” he said. “How is Abby doing?”

“I think she’s coming around. She needs time to get her wits about her. Dad thinks limiting her exposure to a strange realm might be a good idea, considering all she’s been through.”

“That seems like sound advice. Distance from me might help as well. At the hotel she kept mentioning the dragon, and I wanted to isolate myself from her back then, but no one else was there to care for her. I hope I didn’t make things worse for her.”

“She’s got a handle on the whole dragon thing. The other Ping has been caring for her, and she seems okay with him. We haven’t explained that he’s not you, at least not the version of you who she has met.”

“I’ll endeavor to make sure we don’t appear to her at the same time,” Ping said.

Mara shifted on the couch. “I’m not worried about that. I got a message today from the police chief in town, and it turns out the Aphotis is still around, attacking people.”

“Presumably trying to possess them.”

“Right.”

“It seems that I am expected to go into town and do something about it.”

“That’s why you crossed over to this realm. Isn’t it? To confront the Aphotis?” Ping asked.

“Yes, but that’s when I thought it was destroying this realm and killing thousands of people. Also I didn’t realize that I would have to do it out in the open.”

“I don’t understand your point.
Out in the open
?”

Mara sighed. “Everyone here knows that I’m a progenitor. They think I am responsible for their existence or at least their existence in this realm. How am I supposed do anything about the Aphotis with everyone standing around
expecting
me to do something? At least back home I had the advantage of anonymity.”

Ping chuckled. “You think being a progenitor in a Reality where no one recognizes your abilities, where you have to hide them, is easier than one in which you can use them openly to deal with something as dangerous as the Aphotis? Think back about the stress you felt in your own realm. How much of that was fear of being caught? Remember the video of you on the news, battling the dragon? Anonymity wasn’t an advantage. At least here you can do what needs to be done, no matter who witnesses it.”

“I suppose that’s true, but I think you are missing my point.”

“You’re not afraid of being seen. You’re afraid of failure.”

“Before the whole world. In a realm I’m not familiar with.”

“We’re all afraid of failure, Mara. Even those of us who don’t have metaphysical powers. You’ll be fine. I have faith in you.”

“Thanks for the confidence, but what I’d really like is your presence. I’d be more comfortable if you’d come into town with me to look for the Aphotis.”

He slapped shut the book and smiled. “Of course. This house isn’t big enough for two Pings anyway.”

“Speaking of a crowded house, did you know I have a fiancé in this realm?”

On her way to the first floor, Mara slowed her pace as the sound of grinding chains rose from below. As she passed the second floor landing, she crouched and peeked through the balusters to find what made the racket. She couldn’t see anything other than a blank wall, so she skulked down a few steps, keeping her head below the railing. After a half-dozen steps, the doors to the fabrication shop came into view. They were open. The metallic rumble came from beyond them. Now that she was closer, she heard Ping’s raised voice, still drowned out by the noise.

As she got lower, she could see Bruce, Ping and Sam standing in the doorway. Since no danger was apparent, she straightened and took the rest of the steps to the ground floor. Approaching them, she asked, “What in the world is going on in there?”

Ping leaned closer so he could be heard. “I’m not sure I explained earlier, but Bruce, apart from being your counterpart’s fiancé, is the manager of the fabrication shop. He now understands the circumstances of your presence, and has agreed to give you and Sam a quick tour. He has also agreed to forego any overt acts of affection toward you but understand if he slips and seems too familiar.”

“I’ll try not to be defensive as long as he keeps his lips to himself,” she said, already craning her head to see what was inside. “Oh, I told Ping—the other one—we might be seeing the shop, and he wanted to tag along. I hope that’s okay. He said he would be right down.”

As if on cue, his feet appeared on the staircase.

The others watched his progress down the stairs and waited for him. Ping nodded to his counterpart on Mara’s right. Bruce stared at the scene with his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open.

Laughing, Mara walked up to him, slipped her arm into his and led him through the doors. “I’ll explain it to you while you show us around,” she said. Over her shoulder she added, “Come on, you guys. Let’s see what’s going on in here.”

Mara’s Ping turned to his counterpart and said, “Will you be joining us for the tour?”

“I should go upstairs and check on Abby. I’ll stay there in case she needs anything.”

“Don’t be surprised if she mentions something about a dragon,” Sam said.

Ping’s counterpart nodded. “She has already broached the subject, and I have assured her I am no danger to her.” His gaze shifted to Ping, and he said, “I would be interested in sitting down with you and learning more about that experience, in addition to others. You’ve definitely had a more interesting existence than I have.”

Ping nodded and looked around. “I’d be happy to, but I wouldn’t assume that my life has been more interesting than yours. After all, you’ve had a role in creating the realm in which you live. That sounds compelling.”

Sam took Ping’s elbow and said, “Sorry to bust up this mutual admiration society, but we should keep up with Mara and Bruce, or they might elope or something.”

The Pings chuckled in stereo.

As Sam and Ping entered the shop, Ping’s counterpart closed the doors behind them.

Mara and Bruce stood twenty feet away, looking up at a large steel vat, a bucket suspended above a metal-grated catwalk. When Sam and Ping got close enough to hear any discussions, Bruce pointed toward a vertical conveyor belt—the source of the grinding-chains sound—that scooped some black substance from a Dumpster-like container on the ground floor, hoisted it upward, dumping it into the vat.

“As you can see, it picks up the ore from the container and takes it to the smelter,” Bruce said.

“I don’t understand. Don’t you have to heat the ore first? Where’s the furnace?” Mara asked.

He shook his head. “No need for an open-flame furnace. The walls of the bucket are injected with a high-temperature steam brew that Mara came up with. The ore melts inside the smelting bucket in just a few minutes, then we add whatever elements are needed and blend it together. We can make a wide range of alloys.”

“That makes sense. If an open furnace were down here, the top floor of the house would be unbearably hot, not to mention a fire hazard,” Mara said.

Bruce smiled and said, “Ping swears you are a different version of Mara, but you think a lot like her.”

Sam scooted in closer and almost yelled to be heard over the rattling conveyor. “How do you dump—” The conveyor stopped, and Sam’s voice bounced off the distance walls and industrial fixtures that surrounded them. His face reddened, and he said in a normal voice, “I didn’t mean,
how
do
you
dump
, meaning you personally. I meant, how do you dump the bucket once the metal is melted and mixed up?”

Bruce pointed to a yellow rectangular box hanging from a heavy black cable running to the ceiling. “With the control box, we can move the bucket to wherever the mold is and pour the liquid metal into it. I’ll let you pour a batch once the alloy is ready.”

“Cool,” Sam said.

“If we have a production job, the bucket can be moved to the factory conveyors over there.” He pointed to their left, to the wall opposite from the double-door entrance. Almost two hundred feet away were two U-shaped conveyors that fed a third conveyor, leading toward a large bay door. “As a matter of fact, we’re getting ready to do a mider run. That’s always fun to watch.”

He waved them forward. As they walked toward the distant conveyors, Mara scanned the vast room. It felt more like a factory floor or an industrial warehouse. She had a sense of the logic of the place, of this strange manor, and its design—a design she could imagine coming from her own mind, given the right circumstances. This side of the mansion focused on hardware, while the steam laboratory produced the software. The steam not only powered devices, it gave them their marching orders. She began to understand.

To her right, a long straight counter, littered with hand tools, ran the length of the room. Beyond the bench were larger devices, like lathes, drill presses, pipe cutters, grinders and sheet-metal rollers. She would enjoy working here. Strange though, her counterpart seemed more involved with the steam lab than this place.
One of the ways we’re different
.

“You said a mider run?” Ping asked. “As in you manufacture those little spider devices here in the manor?”

“Exactly,” Bruce said. After they arrived at the floor-level conveyors, he walked to another yellow control box hanging from the ceiling and punched a large red button with his thumb. “First we have to lower the assembly line.”

A loud
screech
rang out from the ceiling, causing everyone to cringe.

“Sorry about that. I should get up there and lubricate the deployment arm.”

The
screech
morphed into a hum broken up by several
click
s and
clang
s as a brass framework fringed with dangling metal wires lowered from the ceiling and stopped three feet above the conveyor belts. Bruce pressed a second button, and the conveyors rolled to life, and the framework jigged back and forth above.

Little brass pods appeared in a line on the conveyor, fed from a compartment at the far end. As they arrived below the jiggling framework, the strands of the now-swinging fringe attached themselves to the pods, seemingly at random, but, by the time they reached the end of the conveyor, each pod had eight new attachments.

“You’re putting on their legs,” Mara said. She eyed the newly assembled miders. They unfolded their legs and lifted their pod bodies off the belt, moving up and down in a regular pattern, as if doing knee bends. When the bay door at the end of the conveyor rolled up, Mara expected to see a truck or a packing crew, ready to receive the new messengers. Instead she saw nothing but a short driveway that led to an open lawn.

The miders jumped off the end of the conveyor belts, scampering through the large door and into the grass, as if making a break for their freedom.

“Where are they going?” Sam asked. “Don’t you deliver them to stores or something?”

Bruce chuckled. “They don’t need help getting to where they are going. They’ll wander around until someone gives them a message to deliver. That’s what they do.”

After the process continued for ten minutes, pods stopped appearing on the conveyor, and Bruce punched a third button on his control box. “That’s the batch for this week.”

“You do this every week?” Ping asked.

“A week is long enough for the miders to get to where they should be, and it seems to be the necessary replacement rate,” Bruce said. After he punched a fourth and final button and released the dangling control box, the bay door rumbled closed. He turned to Sam and said, “You want to pour some hot metal from the bucket?”

“You bet,” Sam said. He and Bruce jogged to the far end of the room while Mara and Ping took their time, looking at various pieces of equipment.

Ping pointed to a washing-machine-size box in the corner behind the work counter. “That could be a kiln. Pottery or statuary?”

“My guess would be specialized tools or maybe fabricating things that resist corrosion. I can image that combining steam and metal for some things might be problematic. Ceramics might provide a more durable alternative material in some cases,” she said. Her gaze shifted to set of colorful cylinders with hoses attached to their tops. One of the hoses connected to a device like a blow torch. “Now I’d like to give that a try. I bet some of the steams in those cylinders do some funky stuff.”

“I’m not sure how advisable that would be,” Ping said. “Might be a better idea to see what your brother is about to pour.” He tilted his head toward the far side of the room where Sam reached out to grab a yellow control box.

* * *

By the time they got there, Sam walked back toward the mider assembly line. The giant vat suspended from the ceiling creeped along with him, moving above the catwalk and toward a large platform.

“Nice and slow, just keep your finger on the button until you get to the end,” Bruce said, following Sam. He glanced at Mara and winked at her.

She and Ping fell in line behind them while all watched the progress of the vat until they reached the middle of the shop floor. The giant vat came to a stop.

“Okay, we’ve got the bucket where we want it. Now let’s go upstairs to pour the metal. You’ll get a better view of what’s happening up there,” Bruce said.