The Mark of the Dragonfly (26 page)

“What is it?” Gee said.

“Nothing.” Quickly, Piper turned away and the wind blew her hair across her face.

I can see why he likes you
. Trimble’s words rang inside her head, followed by a warm sensation spreading through her chest.

Oh, no. No no no no and no
. Piper bit her lip. It was nothing. So what if she liked looking for a soot smudge
on his face every time she saw him? And just because she’d been driven half out of her mind worrying when he was sick, it didn’t mean she had a crush on Gee. Her life was too complicated already.

“Are you all right?” Gee asked. She felt his gaze on her, though her hair obscured him from view. A tingling sensation worked its way along Piper’s scalp.

Who was she kidding? Piper thought. She couldn’t even look Gee in the eye without blushing. Of course she had a crush, she just hadn’t been able to admit it.

Oh, this is going to be all kinds of trouble
.

“I’m fine,” she said. Piper cleared her throat. She forced herself to peel her hair back from her face and look at him. “I’m glad you’re better—I mean we all are. Jeyne is, and Trimble too, and Anna … everyone …”
Stop talking
, she willed herself.
Please, just stop
.

Gee nodded. “Yeah, Jeyne already put me back to work. We hit Cutting Gap tomorrow.”

Piper jumped on the change of topic. “What does that mean?”

Gee swept a hand to encompass the barren landscape, the rock hills, and patches of scrub grass. “We’re traveling through mining country. Nothing grows out here. People used to farm this land, or hunt on it, until the king’s people found rich iron deposits here. Strip mining sucked every bit of life out of this place just a few years ago.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Piper muttered. The
landscape was yet another casualty of the factories. “What happened to the farmers and the hunters?”

“They became sky raiders,” Gee said. “Cutting Gap is a narrow pass through a canyon dotted with caves. The raiders attack on gliders that they hide in the caves. They always hit us on this route, especially when we’re loaded down with cargo, like we are now.”

Piper’s stomach did a little flip. “Wait a minute—you’re saying we’re going to be attacked? By sky raiders?” She couldn’t believe it. First Doloman, then the slavers, and now raiders? No wonder the passengers had been tense yesterday. They knew the train was coming up on dangerous territory.

“But with all the guards you’ve got, you’ll be able to fight them off—won’t you?” Piper said anxiously.

“We always have before,” Gee said. “I’m still a little weak, but Trimble says the train’s defenses are working perfectly—well, all except for the alarm by the mail car.” Gee shot her a look. “He told me someone disabled it. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

Piper blushed. “Actually, yeah.” She reached in her pocket and pulled out the clapper from the alarm bell. “I decided to test myself like Trimble said, but I didn’t want anyone to hear.” She handed the clapper to Gee and caught him fighting a smile. “You’re laughing at me!” she accused him, though she wasn’t really angry.

“Sorry.” Gee smothered a chuckle by pretending to
clear his throat. “It’s just you look so miserable about it, but I think it’s incredible.”

“You do?” Piper said. She’d never expected that reaction. “Why?”

Gee shrugged. “Why not? You have a power that no one else has—at least, I’ve never heard of anyone who could do what you do with machines. Ever since you and Anna came onboard, the 401 has never run smoother or faster. You’ve been like a lucky charm for us.”

“You can’t be serious,” Piper said in disbelief. “We’ve been nothing but trouble for you. And now that you’re protecting us, the train could get shut down. Where exactly is the luck in that?”

Gee tilted his head in consideration. “I’m not denying you’re a lot of work, but Anna saved my neck, and she’s under King Aron’s protection, so we owe her as much as we owe Doloman—more, actually, because Doloman betrayed his duty when he hired the slavers.”

Piper could see where it did make sense. In many ways, Anna belonged on the train. She was from the capital, marked by the Dragonfly. But Piper was still the odd girl, the scrapper who didn’t belong. She remembered her dream from the night before, when she’d stood atop the train while Gee’s dark shadow flew over her. She had felt like the 401 was where she was meant to be, but it was, after all, just a dream.

No, that wasn’t all, Piper thought stubbornly. She
had something to contribute—her magic. She didn’t know how her power worked, but she made machines run better, and when she needed to, she could make them stop running. That was worth something, even if it set her apart or made her strange.

Piper gripped the iron railing tighter. She was tired of feeling sorry for herself. If having this magical talent meant she could help the 401’s crew, well, that was worth exploring.

Gee nudged her. “What are you thinking about?” Piper blinked, coming out of her thoughts. “You look … determined.”

“You’re right,” Piper said. “If machines react to me, if I’m a synergist or whatever, then it’s a gift I should be able to use.” And use it she would. “Tell me what I can do to help you fight off the raiders.”

Gee stepped back. “Who said anything about fighting? The train’s already running great because of you. Let me handle the rest.”

Piper shook her head impatiently. “There must be something else I can do.”

“You’re too young. Jeyne would kill me if I let a kid like you get hurt fighting raiders.”

Piper snorted. “A kid? How old are you, security man?”

Gee turned away, and Piper heard him sigh. “I’m thirteen,” Gee admitted, “but it’s different for a chamelin.
We may look like humans, but we’re physically much stronger.”

“Fine, you won’t let me fight, but what about the defenses?” she said. “If I help operate them, maybe they’ll work better.”

Gee looked at her thoughtfully. “There might be something in that,” he conceded. “Trimble and Jeyne control most things from up front, but there’s a security station back here in the last cargo area. If the raiders get past the first- and second-tier defenses, Trimble has to haul his butt back here to activate the backup systems. He’s had to do it a few times, and it’s dangerous for him to make the run while the train’s under attack.”

“So I’ll stay back here and be the third tier,” Piper said simply. “Trimble won’t have to make the run.”

“It’s not quite as easy as that,” Gee said. “I’d need to teach you what the defenses do and how they’re activated. Also there are certain signals we use so you’ll know when to set them off.”

“Well, you said we have a day, so let’s use it.”

Gee pushed off the rail and looked her in the eyes. “Why are you so eager to do this?”

The answer was easy for Piper. She wanted to prove that she belonged there. That it wasn’t a mistake leaving the scrap town. “I owe you,” she said simply. “You and Anna are square, but you saved my neck too.”

Gee frowned. “So you’re just paying a debt?”

“It’s not just that,” Piper sputtered. “It’s everything. Everything about this train has been good for us, for me.” And it had. She’d had food, protection—in the last few weeks, she’d seen more of the world than she’d ever dreamed. Piper was horrified to feel tears pricking her eyes. She would
not
let Gee see her cry. “It sounds crazy, but this train feels like home sometimes.”

Gee kept his gaze locked on hers, but Piper had to look away. “It’s not crazy,” he said after a moment. “Maybe you could stay here.” He added quickly, “I mean, I know you said you might settle in Noveen, but your gift with machines is worth a lot. I’m sure Jeyne would hire you on if that was what you wanted.”

“I don’t know,” Piper said, feeling suddenly breathless at the possibility. “I have to make sure Anna’s safe first, but that sounds …”
Amazing
, she thought. The idea of staying on the train, of seeing the world, a new place every day, and doing it alongside people who helped each other and treated each other decently—Piper’s heart lurched hopefully at the thought. She was almost afraid to want it, afraid to think about how happy it would make her.

She realized that she hadn’t felt this alive—as if she were truly living and breathing—since her father left for the factory. Two years of letting the loneliness of the scrap town eat away at her—now there were so many possibilities, yet the future was still so uncertain.

Piper pushed those thoughts away. They hadn’t
reached the capital yet. Sky raiders stood between the 401 and Noveen. They had to take things one step at a time.

Gee put a hand on her shoulder, shaking her out of her thoughts. “Come on, I’ll show you the defense station, and we’ll get started.”

Piper nodded. He was right. For the time being, all she needed to do was focus on helping defend the train.

Gee led her back into the train and to the next car, into a small room cordoned off by a heavy black curtain. Piper gasped at the mess around her. Levers, valves, and pipes covered the walls and floor, labeled with hastily scrawled pencil marks—arrows pointing up, down, left, and right as if they were clues in a vague sort of scavenger hunt.

Piper squinted at the markings. “Are these meant for someone to actually read?” she asked.

Gee laughed. “Only Trimble. He’s the one who made them, though he doesn’t need them anymore.” He leaned over Piper’s shoulder and pointed to a red valve with a smudged mark beside it. “Flame turrets,” he said. “Look, you can see where Trimble drew a fire.”

Piper took a step back to see the marking from his angle, and she bumped against Gee’s chest in the process. “Sorry,” she mumbled, her face reddening.

“It’s all right,” he said quickly, putting a hand on her
back to steady her. He laughed nervously. “There’s not much room in here.”

Was it Piper’s imagination, or did Gee’s face look as red as hers felt? She tried to ignore it—it was slightly harder to ignore the warmth where his hand had been—and focus on the levers and valves. “What does this one do?” she asked, pointing to a copper lever with a worn leather grip in the center of the floor.

“That controls the spikes. Sets of them jut from the ceiling and sides of the cars,” Gee said. He pointed to the set of pipes and valves just above the lever. “Those are the—”

“Smoke screens,” Piper said, starting to get excited. She could see it now. “It’s to throw the gliders off, right? Everything is designed to keep raiders from latching on to the train.” She followed the path of the pipes and valves with her eyes, imagining where they would come out on top of the cars. Instinctively, she could see how the system worked. “You tied some of these defenses in with the heating and cooling systems, didn’t you? They use the same ducts?”

“Very good,” Gee said. “We close off the bonnet and ducts and stop the water jets that wash the air. Means it can get pretty hot in here for a while, though.”

“I’ll bet.” But anyone who tried to land on top of the cars with a glider would be in for a nasty surprise when the train’s ventilation system turned against them. “Do they always attack with gliders?”

“Not always. Sometimes they use horses, but Cutting Gap is narrow—lots of curves. Once we make it through the canyon, we can get out of range of their gliders quick. Their engines are small, mostly used for support and meant for short range only. The challenge is getting through without too many of the raiders boarding us.”

“What about stopping the train? Have they ever tried that?” Piper asked. As she spoke, her attention was drawn to a square crack in the ceiling through which pale sunlight filtered.

“In the past, they have,” Gee admitted. “They’ve torn up sections of track, but that tactic actually worked against them in the long run, so they stopped doing it.”

“How could it work against them?” As interested as she was in the story, Piper found she couldn’t focus. The crack in the ceiling was calling to her. It looked like a trapdoor.

“We’re not the only train that makes Cutting Gap part of its route,” Gee explained. “Tearing up the track or trying to derail the train slows everything down, delays the other trains coming through. It’s more efficient for the raiders to hit multiple trains while they’re on the move. They board them at strategic points, grab what cargo they can, and get out. In the end, they get more out of those kinds of attacks, and the 401 always has valuable cargo, so they make sure to hit us whenever they can.”

“But the 401 has an advantage the other trains don’t,” Piper said, glancing at Gee as an image of him in his chamelin form went through her mind. “You can protect the train from the air and attack the gliders.”

“That’s my job.”

Piper pointed to the ceiling. “What’s that for? Is it part of the defenses?”

Gee frowned and shook his head. “You don’t need to worry about the hatch. You won’t be using it.”

Now Piper was really interested. “Oh no?” She raised an eyebrow. “It’s for going topside, isn’t it?”

“Only in emergencies.” Gee pointed to a corner where three crossbows hung on a rack against the wall. The weapons were as long as Piper’s arm and obviously expensive. Bolts covered in wicked silver barbs hung beside them. “If too many of the raiders get on the train, somebody has to go up top with a crossbow,” Gee said.

“Can I try?” Piper said, shooting him a hopeful look. She thought of her dream—how exciting it had been to stand on top of a train car with the wind in her face.

“No,” Gee said firmly, squashing her hope.

“I don’t mean fire a crossbow,” Piper said, exasperated. She put her hands on her hips. “I just want to go up top.”

“Well …” Gee glanced uncertainly at the trapdoor. “As long as you let me make sure you’re strapped to a safety harness—”

Piper was already moving across the train car to grab
a safety harness from behind the weapon rack. She fastened it to her belt as Gee reluctantly pulled a short stool from the corner of the room and stood on it to open the trapdoor.

“I’ll give you a boost, but stay on your knees when you get up there,” Gee instructed.

Piper stood in the square of sunlight coming through the open hatch and waited while Gee checked the harness on her belt. He nodded, satisfied, and reached up to attach the other end to a metal loop on the trapdoor. “You sure you want to do this?” he asked. “You’re not afraid of heights?”