The Inexplicables (Clockwork Century) (16 page)

He wandered in the direction he thought the lobby might be in, but turned out to be wrong. He tried another hallway and learned he’d made another incorrect choice, and soon it became woefully apparent that he was lost.

He was not alone, though.

Men came and went around him, past him, and sometimes bumped right into him. Rector was absolutely not interested in a fight, but conversation might get him somewhere—so he looked for someone who might be friendly … or at least not actively hostile.

With no idea where Houjin was or if the kid had even stuck around, he was short on allies—but eventually he found an oversized room at the back of the Station line.

More like a hangar than anything else, the vast, open space was filled with balloons. They weren’t flying balloons, and they weren’t the sort that worked with an airship: They were collection balloons, stuffed fat and round with Blight. The balloons stretched and rolled, the seams of their treated canvas straining and squeaking as men bundled them up like bales, then stacked, shoved, and pushed them into a holding corner. They lumbered together like barrels, ready for processing.

At one end of the room, a small clot of workers wearing oversized gas masks moved swiftly and smoothly, driven by the confidence of long habit, despite the dangers of the substance they managed.

Rector fiddled with his gas mask, but didn’t put it on yet, in case he didn’t have to. He didn’t draw any closer than was necessary to call out, “Hey fellows…?”

Three of the five men turned to look at him. One of those failed to show any further interest and went back to his task, but the other two kept staring at him, so he went ahead and asked the rest of his question.

“Where can I find James Bishop?”

One of the masked workers nodded and said, “Next hallway down. Try the second door on the right.” He gestured with one thickly gloved hand, then turned back to the valves at his station. He drew one of the bulbous bags into position and located its release stem before hooking it onto a set of pipes.

Rector was fascinated. If he’d had any more energy, he might’ve stuck around to ask questions. These were the source sacks, their contents almost certainly collected from the deepest Blight-hole, down by the old financial district. Every pathetic little powder-runner knew that much. Rector also knew there was some system, or apparatus, or device … something that concentrated that soup-thick air down to something thicker still, until it could be poured like water.

Raw, unrefined Blight.

He’d never seen it before, and a lingering curiosity made him want to. But no, the exhaustion wouldn’t let him. He struggled to recall the directions he’d been given mere seconds ago and remembered enough to find that other hall, and the second door on the right. There wasn’t really a door there at all, which was fine by Rector, who knocked on the wall beside it to announce himself.

A dark-skinned man looked up from a desk covered in small glass vials and pots, many of which were bubbling effervescently. The lower half of his face was covered with a blue cotton bandanna, but even with this treacherous work, he didn’t bother to put on a gas mask.

“Hey there, Bishop. You look like you’re ready to take up train robbing.”

James Bishop pulled down the bandanna so it sat around his neck. He pushed his chair back and viewed Rector with no small measure of surprise. “Wreck, what are you doing inside the wall?”

Rector grinned, and hoped it didn’t look forced. “Working. For Yaozu.”

“Really.” Bishop said. It was a counter, not a question. “Yaozu.”

“That’s right, the man himself. I’m on a mission, but that mission don’t start until morning, and I’m not sure where I’m supposed to go tonight, or what I’m supposed to do. And the truth is, I’m god-awful tired.”

“Not to mention a bit banged up, by the look of you.” He pointed at Rector’s leg.

“Yeah, I had a hard time getting inside. Fell down a chuckhole.”

“Brilliant.”

Rector was determined not to take offense. “Well, it was dark and all. Anyhow, here I am. I thought maybe I’d look you up, see if I could bother you for a little favor.”

Bishop scratched at a spot behind his ear where the goggles he often wore had rubbed a track in his curly black hair. “I just bet you did.”

“It ain’t no big favor, I promise.”

“They never are.”

Exasperated, Rector threw his hands up and limped into the room uninvited but unopposed. He found an empty chair and flung himself into it. “Man, I don’t know why you’ve got to be like that. I’m tired, and I need a place to bed down for the night, and I don’t know hardly anybody down here.”

Bishop’s eyes narrowed. The grooves in his forehead dropped to a very pronounced
V,
suggesting he was not convinced. Through this sharpened gaze he paused to stare at Rector, which Rector did not like at all. But what was he going to do about it? Nothing, that’s what.

In his own sweet time, Bishop spoke. “You’ve been in the city a few days now, haven’t you? Those scratches aren’t fresh, and that rash you’re getting on your hands … looks like you’ve been running around without any gloves like a right moron, I must say.”

“So?”

“So, you’re new to wearing masks, but not that new. I see the creases on your jaw, and around your neck. They’re turning red, but they’ll callus up in time.”

“What are you getting at?”

Bishop folded his hands across his knees. “I’m getting at where you’ve been, and what you’ve been up to. You haven’t been in the Station, or I’d have heard about it. So you’re staying out at the Vaults, aren’t you?”

“Ain’t nobody’s business if I am,” he said stubbornly. “They’re the ones who brought me inside in the first place,” he said, whether or not it was the truth. “And they’ve been feeding me, and fixing me up. What do you care?”

“I don’t, much. But then, I don’t know much about the Doornails either, and these days we’ve got to pay real close attention to who comes and goes, and how. And why. But since you’re here, and since Yaozu has already given you the welcome chat … let me ask you something: You seen or heard about Isaac West anytime lately?”

“Westie?” He wracked his brain. “Skinny guy from Tacoma?”

“Right. Rumor has it he’s keen to get inside the wall and look around. And that’s not a rumor I like very much. The sharks are circling, Wreck. So if you hear of anybody from the outside getting any ambitions about coming inside, I want you to speak up. It’ll be best for you if you do—and best if you tell it to the Station before you say anything to those other guys.”

Rector’s nose felt like it was running. He wiped it with the back of his shirtsleeve, and tried not to notice the dump, yellowish stain that streaked the fabric. “Funny, you bringing that up. Harry did the same, when I stopped by his place the other day.”

“I’m not surprised. We’re worried, and we’re watching. One way or another, they’re coming for us. And it’s not like we don’t have enough problems down here, with the gas and all.”

“And all?” Rector asked, trying to sound innocent, and failing with great aplomb.

Bishop shook his head. “There’s talk about something bad walking the northern blocks. More than one something, we think; they’ve been spotted up on the walls, too. Not sure if they’re men, or animals, or what, but they’re big.”

“Do they … do they chase people? Kill ’em?” Rector gulped. “Eat ’em?”

Bishop lowered his voice to reply, enough that Rector almost thought that the chemist was playing with his head. “We’ve lost four guys in the last two weeks. Found nothing left of them but pieces, like they’d been yanked limb from limb.”

Rector’s mouth was too dry to swallow again. “Limb … from limb?”

“So keep an eye on yourself, if you’re going to be hanging around them Doornails. We don’t mind them keeping to themselves, but maybe they’re not alone. And maybe they’ve got ideas, and won’t keep to themselves forever. Don’t be a trusting fool about their company.”

“Jesus, Bishop. I can take care of myself.”

“That remains to be seen. However, you haven’t made a grab for the sap that’s not six inches from your hand, and you’re looking … I don’t know,
clearer
. You look more
clear
than last time I saw you. Maybe you’ll pull yourself together yet.”

“I do appreciate your confidence. So are you going to help me out, or do I have to find that crazy Chinese kid and get him to take me all the way back to where I came from? Because I sure as shit can’t find it on my own.” He left off what he thought about saying next, that he didn’t have the energy to make the trip anyway.

Bishop rose to his feet. He wasn’t a tall man, or a heavy one, either, and he wore a big brown leather apron over his clothes stained the same yellow as Rector’s sleeve, and pocked with burn marks. Bishop reached for a row of round knobs, and as he turned them one by one, a soft hiss of gas fussed out through the pipes. The cooking flames lowered, and the glass containers settled down to a simmer.

“All right, Wreck. If all you need’s a place to put your head, I can stick you someplace quiet.”

Rector laughed with relief. When he stood up again, he nearly collapsed, but caught himself. “Thanks, Bishop. Thanks a whole bunch, man. I want you to know I appreciate it.”

And as Bishop gathered up a satchel and a handful of tools, he said, “And I want
you
to know I expect you to keep an eye on those Doornails for us. You’re not their kind, kid. You’re ours. And you’d better remember it.”

Twelve

After spending the night in a clean, if sparsely fitted railroad car, Rector awoke to Houjin’s insistent knock on the door.

Once Rector was awake enough to get his boots on, he let Huey take him back to the Vaults, where he slept for almost another full day on the same bed in the sickroom where he’d first awakened. No one had given him anyplace else to sleep, so he went back to the spot he knew, and he took it.

He awoke to an empty room.

If anyone had come or gone since Houjin left him there, he had no way of knowing it, and he was alone now. But he remembered the way to the washroom, and he remembered the way to the kitchen. Since an empty bladder and a full stomach were his most pressing needs, he didn’t mind the privacy. He didn’t mind the peace and quiet, either, considering that both of the guys he knew down there were chatterboxes from the word
go.
But the longer he was by himself, the more he had time to think.

Thinking wasn’t his favorite thing to do, and it wasn’t his strong suit, though he didn’t consider himself a dummy by any means. No, mostly he didn’t want to think because he didn’t trust his thinking engine.

He knew he’d done bad things to his head, using all that sap over all those years. His whole life, it felt like. Well, not his
whole
life. The sap had a way of burning up old memories, as if it consumed them for fuel. He wanted some now, just short of desperately.

And here he’d been hoping it’d get easier as time distanced him from his last use of the stuff.

How long had it been? About a week, plenty of which was spent unconscious. Did unconscious time count, when it came to breaking a habit? A second thought came on the heels of that one: Could he find his way back to the Station unaided?

They’d have some there, obviously. He’d seen it right there, in Bishop’s workshop. Bishop hadn’t moved the packet, even after pointing out it was there and noting that Rector hadn’t made a dive for it. Maybe it’d be there still tomorrow, or whenever he could reach it next. For one awful flare of a moment, even the specter of Yaozu’s unhappy face couldn’t temper the awful need.

No. He couldn’t have any sap. He had a job to do, and Yaozu had no use for addicts.

Knowing this, remembering this, and
clinging
to this still didn’t take the edge off how badly he wanted the drug. But it steeled his resolve enough to keep him from setting off for King Street Station right that instant on a lark.

Barely.

Instead, he resolved his way down to the kitchen, without the cane this time. He was disappointed to learn that the cherry supply had not been replenished, but he was able to scavenge enough odds and ends, bits and pieces, and stray scraps of perfectly serviceable food from inside the cabinets and barrels to fill his stomach.

It was pleasant, this sense of being full. Over the years, he’d lost track of what it felt like. The sensation was quite different from his old way of managing his hunger, which was to load himself up on drugs until he simply forgot that he hadn’t eaten enough in a long time.

But even once he was content, he didn’t want to stop at “full.” A lifetime of paranoia about his next meal made him want to grab everything and hoard it, but he stopped himself from filling his mostly empty satchel with whatever he could carry from the kitchen. He’d left most of the bag’s contents under the sickroom bed since no one seemed inclined to take them away from him, except the pickles and he didn’t need any of the foodstuffs right at that moment. He’d kept the lighting supplies and added the mask he’d been using, plus extra filters and other small sundries—including a little pot of foul-smelling cream he’d found on the table beside his bed next to a note that read simply, in blocky print, “Fer your hands. And stop scratchin at them.”

Gloves still eluded him, but they were next on his list. He needed a pair if he planned to run around up top, and he had a mission—a real-live bona fide job, given to him by someone who nobody argued with.

The more he thought about it, the more he liked it.

He moved with the authority of the city’s “mayor.” So long as he stayed in his good graces, no harm would come to him. He mused on this pleasant fact while he chewed, eating so thoughtfully that he almost didn’t hear the odd thumping noise that came from down the hall. When it did penetrate his thoughts, he concluded that it moved with the rhythm of footsteps—and when the stepper appeared, Rector froze like a small wild animal.

All his smug, hypothetical confidence evaporated on contact with the man who stood in the kitchen doorway, because he nearly filled it. He wasn’t as tall as Captain Cly—and who
was,
really?—but he looked like a man Cly’s length who had been squashed down to merely average height. He had a wide, flat face and arms as thick as railroad ties. In his hand, he held a cane sturdy enough to support a moose.