Tremble in the Dark: A Gwen Farris Novel (21 page)

Beth
was looking at him coldly, but Gwen let her own face relax.

The
guy had been dumped for being poor? So he strikes back by trying to prove
himself and make a lot of money. Not legally, or at least not totally so, but
it was understandable.

Now
she just had to ask herself why the cute grad student was allowed to
potentially cheat her, and the sleazy waiter wasn't?

The
answer was, she realized the same for both.

This
way they had a reason to have both of them questioned under telepathic review.

Gwen
tried not to let her idea show on her face.

It
wasn't easy.

They
pulled into the second station along their route at about two in the afternoon.
Most of the morning had been spent sitting around a table in the dining car,
but then everyone broke up and went their own separate way. For her part, Gwen
continued to write her story. She was putting out about ten pages a day, but
doing it by hand was slow and clumsy. It would take years to finish at the rate
she was going.

That
wasn't true of course, since it wasn't going to be that long, but it felt like
it. The funny thing about that was, if it took her two years to get done, no
one here would so much as blink about it. To Gwen it was a glacial pace, but
she had a feeling that anything finished within ten years would seem speedy and
topical to the people here. It was amazing that anyone ever finished anything.

She
had seventy pages though, and that would make, what? Twenty-five type set book
pages?

Sighing
she put it all away as the train slowed, wondering what was going on. They
stopped first at the station, but that was just to let them all off while the
train itself went in to a hanger, or whatever they called the barn like
structure where the giant crystal pack that powered the thing was kept.

This
time she just pointed at the building off in the distance and asked what it
was. Martin Cordell, who'd followed her and Bethany off, answered, sounding
slightly amused that she didn't know what it was.

"That's
the charging barn. They can't actually move the crystals, since they're just
too big, so they have members of the Chargers Union come in and do the work
here." He sounded like he actually knew what he was talking about too.

Gwen
growled under her breath and rolled her eyes, "naturally. But when the air
fields shut down because of snow each winter, those lazy bones can't be
bothered to send people out for us, can they?"

Martin
spun and looked at her, his face going very still after a bit.

"Sorry?
The chargers can't be bothered to come out for
you
? Here I'd been
hearing how the Vernors have been keeping you as a virtual prisoner this whole
time. True, in a gilded cage, but still, a
cage
. It sounds like you have
more agency there than what the Newsies have been saying." It was leading,
in the strange way that these people had. He didn't really ask a question, and
he was being pretty rude, for the situation, but Gwen didn't let herself go
stiff or anything.

It
was a chance to get the real word out, possibly.

"You're
kidding, right? The Vernors treat me like their own
child
. Probably
better than that. I keep having to get them to not give me all their money.
Their funds. We do things differently where I come from. They even let me work
on airships when I want. I've been pretty busy lately, but after my tour with
the Special Service is done this time, I'm thinking of doing that for a while.
Trying to get on as an Apprentice Engineer, if I can swing it. That, and I
think I have some work coming in the mailroom of the head office." She was
kidding about the second part, though it had been announced in the press here,
a while back.

The
man looked at Beth and then shook his head, slowly.

"You
make a very strange heiress, Miss Farris. Many of the things you say seem...
Well, it's almost as if you don't look down on anyone. That isn't how we do
things here." At least he seemed disgusted by that fact, rather than like
he was telling her to change.

It
was an odd thing to say though. Why would she do that? Money didn't make you
better than anyone else, and keeping busy just made sense. Even Ethyl worked in
soup kitchens part of the year, doing actually work, with her own soft, rich
lady, hands. There just wasn't enough else to do in this place. No World of
Warcraft. Not even Donkey Kong.

No,
here, if you wanted to do something, you needed to go out and actually
do
something. It was really hard too, since it meant exposing herself to people.
She didn't bother whining about that however. Even when she told them about her
life before, she had a strange feeling that no one here really understood it at
all. Billy did, in part, but he was the only person that had even seen what she
used to be. How crippled and different she was. Ugly...

She
would have
killed
to just be homely, at one point in her life. It was
part of why everyone seemed so good-looking to her now, she knew. Fat, thin,
buck toothed, or old, they all looked so strong and symmetrical. They just
didn't know how good they had it.

Instead
of answering, she nodded and waved for Clara and Sally to come over. They were
being helped by Sam the Porter and another man, the muscular white fellow. Both
of them were being very polite, even though the women had to be known to them
as whores. It hadn't been well hidden or anything.

"Over
here! We're going to catch a ride over to the hotel? I'll get you both a room.
Martin? Do you have a place to stay? It might be good to have a man along, to
keep the ladies out of trouble." Not that
they'd
be the ones having
problems, being masters of the world they lived in. No, the hard one to keep
tabs on would be her, but she was working, so that might help. She just wanted
to keep tabs on the man, and hoped that the more often he was around her
friend, the less likely he would be in the future to spread hate without
thinking.

Part
of her campaign to save the world, one asshole at a time.

"I
was going to do the same, but that would be lovely. These trips can be so
tedious, if you don't have someone to talk to. Luckily this is only an
overnight stay. I'm supposed to head over to WXFL when I get in, to do a piece
for a friend of mine. I don't suppose that you'd like to come with me and
spread some of your radical ideas, Miss Farris?"

She
nearly froze, but then looked aside at Bethany and shrugged. It wasn't what
she'd had planned, but there couldn't be a better place to start than in the
heart of the enemy's stronghold, could there? On the good side she was nearly
certain that Martin didn't really mean it, so she could surprise him a bit. It
never paid to be predictable, did it?

"That
sounds wonderful! We should bring Beth along, though I don't know if she'll be
allowed to speak. Still, you might want to warn your friends there. If they
insult her, I
will
put them through a wall. I can do that now."
That was just true. In fact, she had options, when it came to doing that, from
physically throwing them, to blasting them with magical energy, or even just
using a Crin, which might be easier on her head. It didn't hurt that much now,
after a good meal and some sleep, but there was a little tickle in the back of
her head still, that reminded her of the slightly sick and over full feeling of
a migraine. She really didn't want to push things that way, if she could help
it.

The
man next to her gave a look that spoke of tolerance, and forbearing, as if her
little girl threats just didn't faze him at all. It was one of the hardships of
this place. No one thought that women could fight at all, and when they did it,
a good half of them ignored what had just happened and substituted their own
reality in its place. Only the Westmorlands, and a few of the more intense
military organizations acted like she wasn't just something pretty in a dress
to look at. Not that she didn't look good. Hot, in fact. Even in her SS
uniform.

She
decided then to never call the Special Service the SS again. It was a bit
troubling in connotation, and one of the Counts in charge of things was named
Goebbles
.
In fact, he was the Western Kingdom's propaganda minister, more or less. They
didn't have the Nazis here at all, and as far as she knew, Adolph was still a
valid choice for boys names, but it weirded her out a bit, she had to admit. He
was a good man though, Count Goebbles. A liar of grand proportions, but then,
she'd handed about a third of his most recent material to him. If he was a
liar
,
what did that make her?

Cordell
said something that didn't sound incredibly rude, and then kept his mouth shut,
ignoring what she'd just said, but seemed pleased enough that she'd promised to
go to his hate filled radio station. Beth on the other hand didn't seem all
that pleased at all. She glared a lot, as they rode on the Public Lorrie, which
looked a lot like a brown and green railcar, except for the large motivator
wagon at the front. The inside was nicer than the train had been, and the
seats, while not comfortable, looked like they were cleaned daily. That there
was such a difference in raw quality was odd though. It was nearly like the
trains were an afterthought, a thing that no one had ever really cared about.

That,
or something for people that were mainly too poor to have any other option. It
was expensive to use though, for this place. That and slow. They would have
gotten to the North line about a week faster, if they had James drive them and
she climbed out herself once a day to recharge the Crystal pack. Actually, she
stopped and did the math, and worked out that it would have cut ten days off
the trip. They wouldn't have been in place to observe things first that way
however, and it was a good place for her to start seeing a bit more of the
world, wasn't it? If they'd driven, she never would have met any prostitutes at
all, for instance. They certainly wouldn't have been invited to one of the
Vernors parties.

That
reminded her to actually speak to people, so she engaged Sally, smiling at her.
The woman had picked up that Beth was none too pleased with her, but not, Gwen
didn't think,
why
.

"It's
that the people that we're going to see really hate her, just for being. They
may not be as kind about things as Mr. Cordell is being either. At least he
isn't responding with fear to her. That might be tense." She didn't give a
lot of preamble to her words, but Beth nodded once and Sally went a little wide
eyed, as if Gwen had read her mind.

Clara
though, she coughed once and smiled, covering it as if she were being clever.
She looked at Bethany while she spoke.

"Well,
of course they'll be upset. You're bringing in a Westmorland demon. What do you
expect them to do?"

Honestly,
she didn't know. It would probably be a fight, but on the off chance that it
wasn't, they had to take it, didn't they? It was...

Well,
change didn't happen unless you made it take place. Her entire life she'd been
the one looked down on and put off to the side, and no one with enough power
could or
would
speak for her. Now, in this place, she was rich, popular
enough, and had power, after a fashion. For her to just let things go, being
content with the way it always had been, because it was nice for her, that was
as bad as if she were the one keeping them all down. It was another thing that
she figured no one would get about her. They just didn't have the context.

It
took a long while to get to the hotel, which was only about two miles away, but
they kept stopping and picking people up, then letting them off, like a bus.
When they all piled off the thing, there was a new challenge, since the place
was a lot smaller than she'd figured it would be. Rooms had been set aside for
her and Beth, but she had to pay top dollar for the girls to have a place,
which meant that they ended up in what she thought might be the honeymoon
suite. Sally tried to change with her and Beth, but Gwen shook her head.

"Nope.
You two can share with Martin. Unless that's..." Tacky, or simply not
done, came to mind, but the women both seemed fine with that idea. Martin
looked scandalized however, but there were no other rooms available there. The
other option was for him to go off and sleep outside somewhere, or in a single
stay, which, if Gwen understood the concept, was basically a stacked coffin
with a door on it. They weren't even inside buildings really, just boxes under
a roof, with heating inside for the winter.

It
didn't sound fun at all. More like what you did to someone you hated.

It
was Sally that worked that part out, going to talk to Martin alone for a bit.
When they came back he still looked disgruntled, but allowed that he could
sleep on the floor. Simply to preserve the "maids" honor. Naturally.

Then
they headed off to the Telesar station, since that part had apparently been
real. She left Sally and Clara behind, since, if there was a real fight, they
didn't need to be part of it. She and Beth were well armed and had their bags
with them, so if anything went down, they'd win. That was a given, to her mind
at least. Martin wasn't even thinking that way, and waltzed into the place as
if he, personally, owned it. As far as she knew that might simply be the case.
He had to have funds coming from somewhere, didn't he?

At
the front desk he waved at the woman that was behind it, who looked completely
normal. She even had glasses, and long honey blonde hair, above a nice, but
lower class dress. That just meant there weren't fifteen layers of lace and
ruffles. She looked a little bit like a Mormon from an old western movie, but
smiled when she saw Cordell, and only froze when she saw her and Beth, instead
of looking scared or like she was planning to go for a Crin she had hidden
under her desk.