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She paused with her hands on her hips, checking the signs and finding her bearings. “This way’s fastest in the long run. The other two ways I know are roundabout, and I don’t know the tunnels so well myself. Every time I think I’ve got my directions figured out, I turn around and wind up lost. ”
“You’ve been lost down here?”
“Sure. These days I carry one of Frank Creat’s compasses and it helps me a lot, but sometimes I just have to find my way topside and look around to figure out where I am. ”
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Cly said. “All those rotters up there. All that gas. ”
“That’s what the masks are for, and the rotters aren’t so hard to avoid, once you know what lures them. As long as you stay off the streets, it’s not so much trouble to stay out of their way. Nobody’s seen any down here since Minnericht died. No coincidence, if you ask me. ” She started off down a wood-slat trail with a sign that said KING STREET on it. Chinatown was shortly beyond the train station. “You worry too much,” she told him.
“Do you take Swakhammer’s Daisy with you?” he asked, meaning the sonic weapon that could stun the rotters into submission, if only for a few minutes at a time.
“Lord, no. I can hardly lift that thing. ”
Falling into step beside her, Cly argued, “Then it sounds like I’m worrying just the right amount. I don’t like it, you all alone up there. ”
“I could show you the topside way, if you want,” she offered. “We could go left at the fork instead, and come up through the old Continental Hotel. From there, we could go rooftop to rooftop all the way to Chinatown, almost. You’d see it’s not so bad. ”
“You’re only trying to make me feel better. ”
“Is it working?” she asked, looking up at him with a gleam in her eye.
“No. And if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather stick to the underside. I don’t like wearing gas masks, and I don’t like rotters. ”
“Then you took a terrible wrong turn someplace, because you’re sure as hell in the wrong city, Captain. ”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. The surface here isn’t much to look at, but the underground is a sight to see. And…” He stopped himself from saying more.
“And?”
“And I know plenty of great people down here,” he finished weakly. Then, to change the subject while he still could, he said, “By the way, there’s a shorter way to Chinatown. ”
“Why didn’t you say something sooner?”
“I only just learned about it. Yaozu told me about it on the way from Maynard’s. ”
Briar was silent for a moment. Their feet made conspicuous and uninterrupted stomping sounds on the hollow sidewalks, until she finally said, “Yaozu, eh? I didn’t know you two were buddies. ”
“Not buddies,” he was quick to counter. “I don’t know him hardly at all, and I won’t lie—it was plenty odd. He came up to me in the bar, and said he wanted a word. ”
“And what did he really want?”
“He wanted to hire me,” he explained, and then he told her about Yaozu’s plans for civic improvement.
By the time he was finished laying it out, carefully choosing his words and how he presented the situation, they’d hiked to the outer edge of Chinatown. “Where do you want to stop?” he asked. He knew of only three eateries in the Chinese district.
“How about Ruby’s? She made me something last time I was there that filled me up all day. Back before I came inside,” she said with a gesture that suggested she meant the city, and not merely indoors, “I never wondered what oriental people ate or how they made it. But Houjin got Lucy eating some of his uncle’s meals, and she started spreading it around. ”
Cly nodded vigorously. “One day, I’ll take you to San Francisco. They have a big Chinatown there, and there are dozens of places to stop for a bite. Hundreds, maybe. And all of it’ll knock your socks off. ”
“Really? You’d take me to San Francisco? I always wanted to see it. ”
The captain cleared his throat. “Sure. I’d love to get you out of here, even if it’s only for a few days. We could go flying if you like. ”
During their walk to Chinatown they hadn’t seen or heard anyone coming or going; but now they detected the pump rooms roaring a few blocks away, drawing fresh air from over the wall down into the city and forcing it through the airways that laced through the entire underground. Chinatown had three of the biggest pumps, which between them provided the majority of the fresh air to the sealed spaces below. Three other rooms were scattered elsewhere, operating in shifts night and day to keep the bad air out, and the good air in.
Two men in work clothes, fresh from a shift at the pumps, came rushing down the walkway. They nodded at Andan and Briar, who nodded back—keeping the communication simple, for the language barrier was not insignificant. Many of the Chinatown residents and vault residents recognized one another on sight, but very few of them could share a conversation.
Ruby’s place was not so much a restaurant as a storefront stand with benches and tables, and no counter separated the eating area from the kitchen, where there were several fires heating strange round pans, filled with vegetables and fish, and chicken or pork when they could be found. It took ten minutes of careful enunciation and gesturing, plus a moment with a pencil on a piece of paper, but eventually the proprietor understood what they wanted.
Cly paid for both meals, then he and the sheriff sat on a bench outside to wait for their food. Together they watched the men come and go, some of them in coal-stained leather aprons from stoking the furnaces. Around their necks hung the goggles that protected their eyes from the white-hot fires that powered the air-bringing bellows.
“Hey, Wilkes,” he said, nudging her gently with his elbow. “I’ve been thinking. ” He gazed down at her and felt very big and very silly. He knew the flush was back; he could feel it curling up his neck and around his ears. “It’s about these transports, and this … this next job, in particular. ”
“For Yaozu. ” She said the name quietly, lest it be heard over the sizzle of the cooking fires.
“I think he does want to improve the place. He’s a criminal and a mystery, and I don’t trust him. But at the end of the day, being crooked doesn’t make him any different from the rest of us down here. Not in any way that matters. ”
Briar peered up at him. “Us down here?”
Cly cleared his throat again. “I was thinking maybe it’d be good to have a station out at Fort Decatur—an official station, not just a place where people drop by and park for an afternoon. With the kind of money he’s offering, I could do it,” he told her, leaving out the part about the extra money he’d pick up from the New Orleans summons. There was no reason for her to know about that. It’d only make her wonder about things that didn’t matter, and hadn’t mattered for years. “I could build a pipework dock without too much effort, and keep it as a home spot for the Naamah Darling, between supply runs and deliveries.
“Fang and Houjin spend plenty of time down here already, and my new engineer, Kirby Troost, probably won’t mind it. He’s a weird one—you haven’t met him yet, but I think he’ll work out fine, and maybe you’ll even come to like him. Anyway, it’s a lot of money, and all I have to do is head to New Orleans and pick up a few things. ”
“New Orleans?” She sounded worried. “That’s where you’re off to tomorrow?”
“Yep. And in New Orleans, I can hit up one of the Texian machine shops and get the Naamah Darling refitted—or unfitted—so it’s better for moving real cargo instead of sap and gas. ” He made that part especially clear, because he knew how well she’d like the sound of it. “While I’m there, I can pick up everything everybody needs, and a few other things besides. In particular, I was thinking…” He finished the rest in a rush: “Once it’s all sorted out, my ship and the Decatur dock, I could come back to Seattle and maybe I’d just … stay. And run
the dock. Out at the fort. For good. ”
At first she said nothing, her face unreadable. It always unnerved him when she made herself so blank like that. He prided himself on his ability to read people, and he wanted to read her—he needed to read her—but he had no idea if she was about to endorse the idea or call him an idiot.
“How would you, do you think … I’ve got to ask, Wilkes. How would you feel about that?”
She stood up, and she stepped in front of him—facing him almost eye-to-eye, since he remained seated. Her inscrutable expression cracked into confusion, surprise, and something sweeter. “Captain,” she said. “Would you be doing that for me?”
He swallowed hard, knowing that the uncontrollable blush was truly getting the best of him. “Yes, ma’am, I believe I would. ”
“Are you sure it’s what you want? To make that kind of change? I didn’t even ask you to. Shit, Cly. I’m old, and I work too much, and I can’t remember the last time I wore a dress, and I run around in the dark with my daddy’s gun all day, and I … Are you sure?”
Without thinking, he slipped his hands around her waist, drawing her closer until her knees knocked against the bench. “I don’t care if you’ve never cooked a meal. I don’t care if you never wear a dress, and I’d be proud as hell to have a woman who can shoot as good as you. And as for old, well, I’m older than you. And I’m too big to walk down the street without people staring and pointing—and even if I wasn’t, I know I’m not much to look at. All I can tell you is, I’ve known ever since you stomped up to me on Bainbridge and demanded to hitch a ride. …” He did not know what to add. It was too hard, too dangerous to say out loud.
Gently, she took his face in her hands. She leaned forward until their foreheads touched, and he could feel the warmth of her breath against his cheek. She whispered, “You’ve known what, Captain Cly?”