It was like watching an elder or a holy man come to visit.
I was the last to say hello. Abraham walked with me.
“Foster First,” he said. “This is Matilda Case. She is the thirteenth.”
Foster searched my face, his own expression blank and unreadable. “Matilda Thirteenth,” he intoned. “I have known you as a child.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
But he only bowed to me, then paced over to the couch they’d left open for him, his footsteps heavy despite the lush carpet and padding.
Dotty handed me a glass of water. “Don’t worry about Foster,” she said. “Words aren’t easy for him. He didn’t mean any slight by it.”
“Do you know what he meant? How he knew me?”
She glanced over at the big man who was accepting a glass of lemonade from Loy. “Maybe you remind him of a girl from his first life. It’s difficult to say. Out of all of us, he has suffered the most.”
Even though Dotty didn’t say it, I thought I knew why Foster recognized me. I was alive, or at least this body of mine was alive, all those years ago. I wondered whom she had been before she fell asleep, never to wake, until I was stitched into her body and mind.
The conversation geared back up to friendly levels, and just shortly after, there was a knock on the door.
A woman opened it and cheerfully announced that the stage was set and if everyone was ready, it was time to attend. Dotty thanked her and shut the door.
“What about Robert?” Vance asked. “Has anyone heard from him?”
I glanced at Abraham, who shook his head, his hands tucked into loose fists. “I haven’t.”
Buck pushed up off the couch. “Well, Slater Orange keeps a damn tight leash. He’ll be here when he can, I’m sure.”
Everyone exited the room through the private hallway. At the end of that hall was another hall, which eventually emptied out into the back of a stage.
There were maybe half a dozen civilians here who looked organized, helpful, and excited at being surrounded by almost all the world’s galvanized.
I stayed off to one side, as far away from the entrance to the actual stage as possible while one of the people went over the call-out schedule, which apparently would count down from Helen Eleventh to Foster First.
“Hey,” a spiky-haired man shouted at me. “What are you doing here? Galvanized only.” He started my way, but Abraham overtook him in four strides and placed his hand on his shoulder.
“She is here at my request,” he said.
The man stilled like a rodent in the grip of a hawk.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “My apologies.”
“None needed.” Abraham melted from killer to kindness in less than a second. He smiled and patted his shoulder. “It was my fault. I should have told you I invited a companion this evening.”
“No need—no need at all,” the man said. “I’ll see that she’s comfortable.”
“Thank you.” Abraham glanced over at me, and I was pretty sure that hot smile wasn’t just for the civilian’s benefit.
Man knew how to handsome up a place when he wanted to.
Abraham returned to the others, and Spiked Hair walked my way.
“I’m sorry to shout,” he said. “But you wouldn’t believe how many people try to get a little time backstage with the galvs.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I don’t want to be in the way. Where should I stand during the show?” I crossed my arms and tapped two fingers against my elbow. He didn’t notice.
“If you’d just step right over here, you’ll have a good view.” He pointed to a chair set near the door.
“Thanks.” I dutifully took my seat.
There was a bit more rushing about and music was building in the room beyond the stage. I tapped two fingers, as if humming along to the song, but none of the workers responded.
So no help here. I needed to get that message to Neds.
Abraham turned to see where I’d gone off to. I smiled and waved my fingers at him. He gave me a “stay there” look and I turned on the “you betcha” smile.
Right. As soon as the show got started and he was busy, I’d sneak out and find someone in House Brown who could run the note for me. If someone noticed, I’d just say I got lost.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer called out. “The moment we have all been waiting for. Please help me welcome our esteemed guests, the galvanized!”
The audience erupted into thunderous cheers, whistles, applause, and stomping. I put my fingers in my ears to take the edge off it.
Didn’t help much.
“Helen Eleventh, House Silver!”
Compact, lacy-stitched Helen strode out onto the stage.
From where I sat, the stage stretched out in a wedge beyond the rigging and gear, lights above and around pulsing silver, the audience a dark sea of bodies, noise, and flashes of light. Helen waved at the crowd as one of the multiple screens lit up with images from her life.
Her stitches were brown, white, black, silver as the images flashed by: Helen wrapped in survival gear, dragging half a dozen men out of icy water, a sniper rifle to her eye as she took the shot that ended the Left Street hostage crisis. Helen leading a hundred men, women, and children out of the devastating three-county inferno. Helen standing behind Reese Silver, Vice.
She sat in the chair farthest down the stage.
The noise hadn’t lowered but the announcer called out for Obedience Tenth, House Blue.
Spritely Bede hopped out on stage, waving just as Helen had.
Images of her past rolled out under blue lights, stitches fading from brown to green to yellow to blue. Obedience’s history involved her world-changing breakthrough in clean-water production, and a haunting image of her running through a cloud of poison gas, her gas mask on the child in her arms. In the last image, she stood beside the regal Troi Blue.
Two more galvanized to go before Abraham took the stage.
Loy Ninth was announced next, and he swaggered out, kissing his fingertips and spreading his arms wide to the crowd.
Lights shifted to red and his past was played out on the screen: Loy opening the water valves of a damaged nuclear power plant, Loy digging through rubble of a collapsed mine shaft to reach trapped workers, and, finally, Loy standing beside the hard-edged Aranda Red.
Buck Eighth strolled out onto the stage and raised his hand to greet the crowd. Lights switched to flood the stage in colorless black and white, and the screens flashed with his life.
Buck’s stitches were brown, gray, silver, gold, and black. The screens filled with images of Buck throwing himself in front of an assassin’s bullet to save a head of House, Buck defusing a bomb set in the middle of a city, Buck taking down the top ten crime lords in Hong Kong.
Buck standing next to John Black.
Next up was Abraham. And while I was curious about what parts of his past would be put on display, I knew this was my chance to duck out.
The lights filtered to smoky gray and Abraham strode out onto the stage.
That was my cue. No one was paying attention to me. I snuck out the door we’d come in and followed the hallways until I was back at the waiting room. I slipped out that door and into the main lobby of the building.
The crowds had thinned, but there were still plenty of people gathered here, watching the big event on screens placed throughout the space.
I scanned the crowd, looking for a likely House Brown person willing to sneak the message out on the low.
Usually House Brown stayed out of cities and out of sight. But the chance to see the galvanized who had become an icon of House Brown heroism would draw in even the most city-shy person. I was counting on a higher-than-expected number of House Brown people to be among the crowds, especially if any of them were working unsanctioned temporary jobs for l
ocal businesses.
A man lounging by the outer door caught my gaze. I tapped two fingers on my thigh, and he nodded.
I walked over to him. “I need a favor,” I said.
“All right,” he drawled in a slow accent that made me smile. He was probably twenty years my senior, his hair combed back and short, his long face tanned and wrinkled. “What can I do for you, miss?”
“Do you live in city?”
“I spot job. Get home to the wife every three months or so.”
“Can you get a message to someone for me? A friend? His name is Neds Harris. Works the Case property. Have you heard of him?”
“Can’t say that I have. You know where about Mr. Harris might be?”
“This morning he was in Chicago, Gray Towers. Do you have a way to reach that far?”
“Isn’t anywhere on earth House Brown can’t reach,” he said with a soft chuckle.
“Thank you. Um, I don’t have much,” I unzipped my duffel, digging through the things I’d stashed there. I pulled out two packets of seeds. “Tomatoes for you. Gladiolas for your wife.”
He regarded the seeds like they were made of gold.
“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you so much.” I handed him the seeds with the note tucked between them, and they disappeared into his pocket.
He, rightly, offered me a trinket in exchange. Every inch of the city was wired with cameras and other recording devices. What they would see was me paying him for a thing, not for running a message.
Out of his other pocket he drew a small cloth. He unfolded it and plucked out a tiny doll. It was made of twine, carefully wound and tied into the shape of a little girl.
“She’s good luck,” he said.
“Thank you. I think I need her.”
“Earth to you,” he said.
“And the wind,” I replied.
He went back to watching the screens, and I walked away, tucking the little doll in my pocket.
I glanced up at the screen. All the galvanized were on stage, taking questions from the audience. Good. While they were busy, I could do a little more footwork.
If anyone asked, I was just looking around. Enjoying the wonder of it all.
It took me a few minutes, but I finally found the data room on the third floor. I sat in the corner of the room nearest the door so I could dash out if I needed to, and tapped into the screen.
Just because I’d been raised in the sticks didn’t mean I was a slouch with modern technology. Far from it, actually. I’d been data smuggling for most my life.
I hitched into the stream, dumped off into a subpar gutter line, and backtracked through enough antiquated systems, I was immediately lost to the noise.
This kind of data mining took longer, but it was as untraceable as a person could be while sitting in the middle of a city network. Minutes slipped past, rolling into a half hour, then an hour.
There was time. I still had time. The event was still rolling. People were still watching.
Abraham hadn’t noticed I was missing.
Yet.
That was good, right?
I slipped a frequency, chewed on my fingernail as another twenty minutes ticked away. People came in and out of the room at a pretty steady pace, and I tried not to look up in panic every time a shadow crossed the doorway.
Finally, I got to where I wanted to be: a few hits outside the hub on my property. If I were lucky, there would be an echo of Quinten’s message here. If I were really lucky, he would have sent a copy of the message to our brother-sister private off-site pocket.
“Come on, Quinten. Be a brilliant boy,” I muttered as I keyed my way into the pocket.
One new message.
Cheers rolled through the building. I glanced at the event feed. The question-and-answer session was done and everyone was walking off stage.
Which meant Abraham was about to find out I wasn’t sitting backstage.
Crap.
I just hoped he would have to go straight to autographs and pictures instead of hunting for me. And I hoped the other galvanized did the same.
Just in case I was at the top of his or anyone else’s priority list, I quickly pulled up the message and read through it.
I could tell it was from Quinten because it began with the letters: QCTMBMITW, which was the acronym of a title I’d teased him with years ago: Quinten Case, the most brilliant man in the world.
Not even the Neds knew I called him that.
My heart was pounding.
The message was coded yesterday and simply said: House Orange. Hidden enemy. WoM coordinates: 13.09. 2210.2400
I erased it, backed out of the connection, blowing it as I went, backtracking and scrubbing my trail. I glanced at the clock while the minutes ticked down. To clean up everything, I’d need almost as much time backtracking as it took me to get into the info.
“Hurry, hurry,” I whispered.
A half hour crawled by, an hour. I glanced up at the screen. Highlights of the question-and-answer session scrolled across it.
Recorded highlights. They must be done by now. They might even be looking for me.
Fifteen minutes. Fifteen more . . . and . . . yes!
I shut it all down, shouldered my duffel, and hurried out of there. Got down a flight of stairs and one more, then slowed my pace. I needed to find the autograph area, make it look like I’d ducked out to use the ladies’ room again, and everything would be gold.
I rounded a corner.
And nearly ran into Abraham.
“Where have you been?” he asked.
“Looking for you,” I said, not even lying. “I got turned around.”
“For two hours?”
“It’s all a little overwhelming.”
“You hunt feral beasts in untrackable scrub.” Abraham leaned against the wall, mostly in shadow. That didn’t stop people from noticing him or from noticing me with him.
“Well, this isn’t the scrub,” I said. “Also, I’m not supposed to be seen, right?” More than a few people snapped pictures of us. “I was staying unseen.”
He narrowed his eyes. I wasn’t lying, but I wasn’t telling him the whole truth either.
“We might want to move,” I said. “Before everyone gets a picture of us. Do you have another event to attend?”
A man pushed past me, brushing against my shoulder as he did so. He whispered, “Done,” and moved on.
“Here?” Abraham asked, while I snuck a look at the guy who just bumped into me. It was the man from House Brown who had taken my message out to Neds. Good. Very good.
“No,” he said. “It’s time for us to go.” He nodded toward the nearest elevator and started off that way.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Training.”
Right. Of course. For the big all-House public gathering I couldn’t screw up.
We stepped into the elevator. Even though there were other people waiting, they didn’t follow, giving us space and privacy. Abraham pressed a button. The doors closed, shutting away the people, the crowd, and my chance of tracking down anything more to help Quinten.
24
A new human-rights bill, ushered in by a new House Gray, ensured just treatment and fair process to all the people of the world. Except for the galvanized. The twelve bargained for human freedom for House Brown and became slaves once again.—2160
—from the journal of L.U.C.
The house was set on top of a rise, whalebone-gray siding, wraparound decks, and framing that supported more windows than I could count. It had three stories at least, the main-floor windows wrapped around a huge open living space that angled up for two floors of view.
Even though it was night and we’d been driving the streets for over an hour, it felt like we were worlds away from the bright, busy jumble
.
“We’re training here?” I asked.
“This is where we’ll stay for the night.”
“Who’s place is it?
“Dotty’s.”
House Green. “And you’re sure she’s all right with us staying?”
He pulled up to a half-circle enclosure where he parked the car in one of the available stalls. “I’m sure. Did you find anything more about your brother’s message?”
“What makes you think I looked?”
He just raised his eyebrow. “Matilda.”
“Yes?”
“What did you find?”
I searched his face, and for a moment all the old House Brown secrecy kicked up in me. I didn’t want to tell him what the message said if it would hurt Quinten. But it was just as likely that Quinten was already in some kind of trouble, already hurt and in need of rescuing.
I told him what it said.
“How did you find it?”
I shook my head. “You know. Carefully.”
“Did anyone see you looking for it?”
“No.”
He rubbed his fingers across the bottom of his jaw. “Are you sure it was from your brother?”
“Yes. He used a code that only he and I know. It was from him.”
“Do the numbers mean something to you?”
“That’s your takeaway? Numbers? What about House Orange, hidden enemy?”
“House Orange is an enemy to a lot of people, hidden or not. House Orange also has a lot of enemies. But if he felt this was his one chance to pass on important information, why those numbers? WoM coordinates doesn’t mean anything to me. But the sequence could be time.”
I ran the numbers through my head. “Five days from now?”
He nodded.
“Is there anything important happening five days from now?” I asked.
“Your brother must think so, but I don’t know what it would be.” He opened the door and walked back to the trunk for our luggage.
I didn’t know what it could be either. I got out with my duffel and rifle. The air was cool and damp and slightly salty. I wondered how far away from the ocean we were.