Broken Dreams (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 5) (18 page)

Mara nodded. “Yes. I’m back. No more chasms.”

“We had a few wild days there with those chasms popping up without warning. This morning the crews finished disassembling the dirigible that crashed a few blocks over,” he said.

“Oh, that’s right. Its tail was sticking up in the air when we flew past town yesterday,” she said. “I had hoped to get a look at it. My father said that no one was seriously hurt in the accident.”

“Just property damage and a few frayed nerves,” he said, eyeing her. “Why would you want to take a look at the dirigible?”

Feeling like she had been caught telling a lie, she stammered, cleared her throat and shrugged. “Just thought I might help in some way, maybe chip in with repairs, offer moral support, whatever.” That seemed to be the right answer. The chief’s suspicions melted from his features.

“To the matter at hand,” he said. “We’ve been getting reports of this strange swarm attacking people around town. Four of them in the last twenty-four hours, and that’s just what’s been reported. About an hour ago, one of my officers saw what he thinks was the swarm amassing near the riverfront. People are getting worked up about it.”

“I can imagine,” Mara said.

“Is this related to your disappearance? Some conjecture has been bandied about that this thing made its way here through a chasm that appeared during your absence.”

Mara shook her head. “I don’t know of any connection.”

“What was it that caused your sudden disappearance?” he asked.

“A technical problem occurred with the receptacle storing my biological body. It lost its connection to the signal network that allows us to share our thoughts and experiences in this … here.”

“I see. That’s the first time that’s ever happened, isn’t it?”

“Yes. We were all taken aback. One minute I was here, and the next I was gone. Like someone flipped a switch. Very disconcerting,” she said.

“All the more reason for perpetuity to be established. We’re lucky to have you working on that. Our future depends on it.”

Perpetuity?
She nodded. “Of course, it’s always the priority.”

“And this isn’t one of your projects that got loose from the manor, correct?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Haven’t been working with any swarms lately. No.”

He looked disappointed. “It would have been easier if you had been involved with this thing somehow. At least then we would have a course of action to follow. Now all we have is a damned mystery scaring the community half to death. Not something we need with everyone’s nerves frayed so soon after the chasms.”

A loud
bing
ing, like a digital alarm clock, came through the office door. When they turned toward the sound, a red flash of light swept across the bottom of the door’s frosted glass. The sound and light repeated,
bing, bing, bing
, flash,
bing, bing, bing
, flash. The chief got up and opened the door. A mider with a tiny red strobe—a minisiren—attached to its body skittered across the floor, startling Mara. She gasped and lifted her feet as it passed. It hopped onto the desk and spewed steam at the back of the receiver pad, which activated with a whir and inhaled the steam.

“Sorry about that,” the chief said. “Some of them are still getting past Kaitlyn and coming directly to me.” He slid behind the desk and tapped the pad. His jaw flexed for a moment as he read his message, then he looked up and said, “The swarm is terrorizing the mill. I’ve got to go.”

“May I come along? I’d like to take a look at this thing. Maybe I can figure out a way to deal with it.”

“I was hoping you would say that.”

The chief pointed Mara toward the back of the building when they exited his office, but she stopped and said, “Mr. Ping and my cousin Sam are waiting out front. I would like them to come along, if that’s okay. Ping might have some insight that would be helpful.”

“Mr. Ping, the man who runs the manor? He will have insight into this swarm that’s running around?” the chief asked.

“Ping is not a butler, Chief Simmons. He’s a well-educated, astute observer of Reality, and I’m sure we will find his observations helpful. It’s important that he go with us,” she said.

The chief shrugged and said, “Fine, if you think it’s so important. We don’t have time to argue, but that means we must take two steam-peds. I’ll drive one, and you can take the other. Just stay close by. I know you invented the things, but you’re a little out of practice driving one.”

“Steam-peds?”

“Yeah, they are parked out back. Get your friends and meet me out there,” he said. He walked toward the back of the building without further comment.

She hurried to the front of the office and waved Sam and Ping over to the counter. Leaning over it, she whispered to them, “What the hell is a steam-ped?”

Sam and Ping gave each other a vacant look, turned back to her and shrugged.

Hearing the stress in her voice, Ping said, “Perhaps you could give us a little context. Is this something the police chief asked you about?”

“The Aphotis has been spotted at the mill, and we’ll travel there using something called a steam-ped. The chief expects me to drive one—since apparently I invented them.”

“So it’s a mode of transportation,” Ping said.

Realization crossed Sam’s face. “I think I saw a cop riding one the other day. It isn’t like anything I’ve seen before—sort of a cross between a scooter and a Segway, I guess.”

From the back of the building, the chief’s voice called out. “Mara? I need to get going.”

She felt along the edge of the counter, trying to find the partition to allow Sam and Ping into the back of the office. Not able to find it, she groaned in frustration.

“What’s the matter, ma’am?” Kaitlyn the receptionist asked from her seat a few feet away.

Mara’s first impulse was to tell her not to call her ma’am, but she got straight to the point. “Can you let Sam and Mr. Ping past the counter? We are going out with the chief on a call.”

“Absolutely,” she said. She walked over and thumbed the latch under the counter, allowing them into the office.

Mara directed them to the rear of the building, not sure where the back door was. She spotted a band of light coming from an alcove and guessed it was sunlight streaming in. As they stepped into the short passageway, they could see a windowed door leading outdoors.

Outside, the chief stood on a wheeled platform with a set of handlebars at the front and railings that ran along the sides. Sam was right; it looked like a Segway but constructed of dull brownish metal, and it had a longer platform to accommodate two people. Three of the devices faced the back of the police building.

The chief pointed Mara to the one next to his. “You take that one,” he said. Looking at Sam, he added, “Young man, you ride with me, and Mr. Ping can ride with Mara. That should distribute the weight between the two steam-peds equally.”

Sam said in a lowered voice, “Yeah, I think I want to ride with the guy who knows how to drive one of these things.” He stepped up behind the chief, grabbed the railings on each side, and said, “Hi, I’m Sam.”

The chief nodded and stomped on a pedal mounted to the left of the column that held the handlebars.

A cloud of steam erupted from the back of the vehicle, and it rumbled for a moment, quieting to a buzzing whine that reminded Mara of an electric hedge trimmer. She watched as the chief pulled back on the handlebars and turned them to the right. The steam-ped rolled in reverse, its back end swinging to the left. It came to a stop when he pulled a lever mounted on the handle bars, she noted.

“What are you waiting for?” the chief said. “We have to go now.”

Ping leaned toward her and whispered, “Do you think you can drive that thing?”

“He says I designed it, so a part of me hopes it’ll just come to me,” she said. “Let’s go.”

She jogged over to the steam-ped, waited for Ping to step up behind her and repeated what she had seen the chief do. She stomped the pedal, and the vehicle roared to life. Over her shoulder she called to Ping, “Keep a tight grip on those railings. This might get a little bumpy.”

“It’s unclear to me why you would design a motor vehicle with no seats or seat belts. We’re not even wearing …” The steam-ped jerked backward, hurtling Ping forward into Mara’s back. The collision caused his head to snap forward, striking hers. “… helmets.”

“Ouch,” she said, reaching back to rub her crown. “I told you to hold on.” She successfully pulled away from the building but missed hitting the chief’s steam-ped by inches.

Standing less than an arm’s length away, Mike looked startled and mildly irritated. “Are you sure you can operate that?” he asked.

Mara nodded, trying to look more confident than she felt. “It’s been a long time since I’ve ridden one. You lead the way, and I’ll keep up with you.”

Sam grinned back at her as the chief pulled away.

She pushed forward on the handlebars and trailed after Mike as he circled the police office. They took what looked like a main thoroughfare toward the center of the low-slung skyline on the rise ahead. By the time they crested it, Mara had pressed forward as far as the handlebars would go, reaching a top speed of what she guessed was fifteen miles per hours.

From behind her, Ping leaned forward. “You seem to be getting the hang of it.”

“I don’t think I’m ready to take it on the interstate,” she said.

Ahead, the river came into view, and the terrain sloped downward. Now confident enough to drive and also look into the distance, Mara noticed the buildings grew denser as they got closer to the river. Roads spread out like spokes from a single point on the river, which she was sure was the Willamette. Though she saw no familiar man-made landmarks, Mount Hood stood in the distance.

Pointing to where the roads converged and a ribbon of something crossed the river, she asked, “What is that there, crossing the river?”

“If I had to hazard a guess, I would say it is a floating bridge,” Ping said. “Look on the far bank. It appears they are building a conventional span.”

Mara felt her throat go dry. “I hope the mill is on this side of the river. Driving this scooter thing across a floating bridge bobbing up and down on the water is not cool at all.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Ping said. He pointed south along the river and said, “See that large wheel on the water, next to those buildings?”

“Yeah. So?”

“Unless I’m mistaken, that’s a water mill. Since I don’t see any windmills ahead, I’d bet that is our destination. The mill.”

“I hope you’re right.” She stressed over the concept of a floating bridge for a few minutes, then decided to let it go. No point in freaking out about it now.
Cross that bridge when you come to it
. “Things seem awfully spread out. I didn’t realize we were still this far from the river.”

“You are accustomed to traveling by automobile. When you get around using a horse and cart or a scooter with the speed of a golf cart, your perspective on distance changes. I suspect it’s only five miles from the police office to the mill.”

The slope of the road steepened, and the steam-ped rumbled beneath them, as if it fought against gravity.
Must be a feature to keep it from running out of control downhill.

Ahead, Mara watched the chief maneuver around a horse and buggy on the right side of the road. Following his lead, Mara turned her handlebars, but the front of the vehicle stuttered and the back end bucked into the air, threatening to fling them into the road.
Too sharp a turn going downhill
. She straightened the handlebars, and the ride smoothed out as they passed the buggy, someone waving to them from inside.

Mara waved back. “You still back there?” she asked Ping.

“Yes, for the time being. I am maintaining a tight grip on this railing, so it will take quite a bit to shake me loose,” Ping said.

“I like a challenge.”

The massive wheel—attached to an aluminum-sided rust-streaked building that looked like an abandoned barn—turned in their direction, dumping water back into the river, as they approached from the north on a road that paralleled the Willamette. A block before they reached the wheel, the chief took a right, away from the water, and traveled two blocks alongside a narrow building before taking two more lefts.

Mara executed the turns without incident, now feeling confident in her steam-ped piloting skills. When the chief pulled to the side of the road, she came to a stop next to him. Dismounting from the vehicle, Mara looked up. They had parked in front of the building attached to the water wheel, its three-story circumference looming, turning, over the adjacent two-story structure.

On either side of the central building extended two narrow wings, like army barracks, forming a long, deep courtyard before the water mill. Beside the barracks to the left stood byzantine stacks of lumber, organized discretely, like a narrow maze. Near the barracks to the right, beige burlap bags—filled with flour if the dust on the ground was any indication—lay in mounds on wide pallets.

Mara and Ping walked to where the chief and Sam stood next to their steam-ped, with Mara assessing the area.

On the way, Ping whispered to her, “It might be prudent for me to ask any questions. I suspect you are supposed to already know the answers around here.”

“Maybe you’re right. Go ahead,” she said.

When they approached, Sam had already started his own inquisition. “What kind of mill is this?” he asked.

The chief waved them toward the central building and said, “The water mill provides power for both the lumber mill and the grain mill. I think the grain mill does mostly flour, but they do corn meal as well.”

“I’ve never heard of a single mill processing lumber and grain at the same time. The procedures and technology are completely different, even if the source of energy is the same,” Ping said.

The chief scanned the buildings and the sky above them as they approached the wood stairs that led to the double doors at the front of the main building. “To be honest with you, I don’t know enough about mills to comment,” he said. “Maybe the mill supervisor can answer your questions. He’s supposed to meet us here in the power plant.” He slid aside one of the aluminum doors and stepped inside.