"It's a way of saying your strength of character; your courage under fire."
Tinker snorted at that. "Lain, how do you know when you're in love? How do you recognize it?"
"Sometimes you don't. Sometimes you mistake lust as love. And sometimes you only know after you've thrown love away."
Trust Lain to say anything but words of comfort. Tinker dropped her head on the table and considered banging it a couple of times. "Argh," she groaned into the wood.
"Give it time," Lain said.
"If someone says that one more time, I think I'll scream."
She hated this feeling of being out of control. Last night, they had sat up waiting for Startup. Elves had little need for wristwatches, so it was without warning that Pittsburgh had flashed into existence, a dark sprawl of buildings washed in moonlight. From the enclaves up and down the street had come shouts of approval, as the elves cheered the return like a magician's trick. And in that moment, Tinker had realized that she would probably never see Earth again; elves stayed on Elfhome during Shutdown.
Like a cascade, realizations spilled down on her. She wasn't going back to her loft—Windwolf and Pony wouldn't fit, let alone the rest of the household. There was no reason for the viceroy's wife to work. Leaving Pittsburgh now wasn't just a matter of convincing Oilcan to come with her, but also leaving Windwolf and Pony behind.
It wasn't that Windwolf had taken away all her choices, but the ones left were dubious. Insist on living alone? Continue to spend inventing time on the scrap yard when Windwolf had money to burn? Betray the elves who loved her to leave everyone and everything she knew?
Desperate to snatch control of her life back—and yet not totally wreck everyone's lives with stupid decisions—she came up with the computing center. So maybe she went a little overboard.
Tinker sighed. "Let's get it over with. Give me my lecture."
"I don't know what to say," Lain stated, getting up. "And I'm not sure it's my place to say anything. I suggest you go talk to Windwolf."
"Run to my husband and get permission for what to do with my life?"
"No, go discuss with the viceroy what future the two of you are going to build for your people."
"Ouch," Tinker said.
"I never said being an adult is easy." Lain squeezed Tinker's shoulder. "But I have faith in you. And I'm fairly sure Windwolf does too."
* * *
After Lain left, Tinker glumly finished her lunch. She had no idea how Windwolf might take this scheme of hers. Would he think she overstepped her bounds, as Lain obviously did? Or would he be pleased at her initiative? Oilcan had gifted her with her datapad the evening before and she'd spent the night communing with it, laying plans, and barely noticed when Windwolf left in the morning. She eyed the denuded hillside, the conscripted elves, and the commandeered equipment; wherever Windwolf was, it couldn't be nearby.
"Pony, where is Wolf Who Rules?"
"He and Sparrow are looking for oni. The queen wished verification that the oni are not using Pittsburgh to access Elfhome."
A jolt of fear went through her. "They went out alone?"
"No, they have the sekasha, the EIA, and the rangers with them."
It sounded like a small army. She had been more wrapped up in her own plans than she realized. If the EIA were with them, then finding them would only be a matter of a phone call. Of course there was the problem that she'd apparently ticked off Maynard by misappropriating the smugglers' high-tech goods.
Then again, a small army shouldn't be too hard to spot.
The road up to the work site was just raw dirt, already growing deep ruts. She'd have to get it properly graded and graveled before it turned into a mud slalom. There was no way they could drive the Rolls up and down it without fear of tearing out the undercarriage. She'd pulled her old Gamma out of storage early that morning and coaxed Pony into trying the hoverbike.
He'd been dubious at first, but he smiled now as she headed for the bikes. "Ah, good, we're going flying again."
"Yeah." She swung her leg over her Delta's saddle. "I want to find Wolf Who Rules. Do you have any idea where he might be?"
"Sparrow was to search between the Rim and the rivers." Pony pointed down the Ohio River. The Rim arced along the Ohio's bank, clipped above the confluence of the Allegheny and the Monongahela, and then ran roughly parallel to the Mon, leaving odd slices of Pittsburgh without bridges. "Wolf Who Rules chose to search the bulk of the area, beyond Mount Washington."
Yes, Windwolf had more land to cover, but Sparrow actually had the thankless job. Between the three major rivers, the numerous smaller rivers and larger streams, Sparrow's team would be backtracking often to navigate over water or sheer hillsides. Pittsburgh had been the city of bridges—unfortunately, most stayed on Earth.
"You up to a long ride?"
"Very much so." Pony mounted up, thumbprinted the lock, and hit the ignition button of the Gamma. The bike's lift drive rumbled to life. Pony eased down on the throttle until he was at cruise level, and retracted his parking studs. "Come, domi, let's find Wolf Who Rules."
* * *
They went down the steep muddy road hacked through the forest until they hit the Rim. There, they crossed onto the abrupt start of I-279 North—six lanes heading into downtown with no traffic. There, to Pony's delight, she opened up the throttle and soared along the wide even pavement, gaining altitude. He was a good mix of fast learner and yet still cautious.
Confident that Pony could take care of himself, she focused on finding Windwolf. The South Hills continued the Pittsburgh tradition of houses clinging to steep hillsides, narrow valleys, and winding roads. She and Pony could miss Windwolf by a hundred feet and never realize it.
Maybe I should make nice with Maynard first, she thought, and bypassed the Veterans Bridge on-ramp to head for the Fort Duquesne Bridge; that would drop her closer to the EIA castle.
Two car-lengths behind her, Pony suddenly veered off onto the steep on-ramp, followed close behind by a blue sedan. Focused on Windwolf, Tinker had missed whatever caused him to swerve onto the ramp. Had the car cut Pony off? Tinker couldn't see how; it wasn't that close to Pony. Strangely, Pony wasn't watching to see what she was doing. She glanced up to check if she was cleared for pop-up onto the road, but there were signs and streetlamps in the way. A second later, she was under the sudden tangle of Route 28 crossing over 279, and the Veterans Bridge's on-ramps and exits vaulting over it all.
That neatly, a trap was sprung. Hoverbikes surged out from around bridge supports and down off of Route 28, converging on her. Even as she did a pop-up to miss the first one, she recognized at least three of the riders. The oni.
She nailed the throttle, ducking as the pop-up threatened to smack her into the I-beams of the Route 28 overpass. Even at maximum lift, she didn't have the clearance to make it up onto the Veterans Bridge, now two street levels above her. She shifted power into the torque spell chain, sacrificing height for speed.
She glanced in her mirrors, seeing the oni scramble to chase after her. Nyah, nyah, eat my dust.
But there were more combatants than she had counted on; a red Corvette came snarling down the on-ramp from Nash Street. There had to be an ancient V8 under the hood as the Corvette matched her speed, crowding her to the left side of the road, forcing her to take the lower deck of the Fort Duquesne Bridge. The bridge closed in around them like a tunnel, and the Corvette herded her across the river, with the other bikes following. They flashed across the bridge and down into the chute of the Tenth Street Bypass that ran along the river. The surface tension of water wasn't enough to support a bike, or she'd skip off across the river.
As they rushed toward the overpass of the Sixth Street Bridge, she popped up—slewing sideways in mid-air as she scraped over the railing—and landed hard on the overpass. She skidded across the road, momentum carrying her in a straight line toward the far railing. Sometimes she really hated the laws of physics. She leaned hard to redirect the lift drive to check
her slide.
There were two hoverbikes coming across the bridge, the riders nearly dwarfing their machines. She had to keep moving. If she stopped, they would have her. The city was to their advantage—the short runs and sudden dead-ends would let them pen her in with sheer numbers. The long stretches gave her, on the faster bike, the advantage.
She nailed the throttle open—the torque spell shooting her forward—and threw her mass far out, nearly kissing pavement, as she muscled the bike through a sharp right turn onto Fort Duquesne Boulevard, heading back to the bridge. All three lanes of traffic were slowing for a red light, too tight for her to weave through. A single tractor-trailer truck occupied the rightmost lane. She popped up to race the trailer's length, skipping her lift drive off its roof. She shot out over its cab, lost lift, and smacked down hard on the pavement in a bone-jarring impact. The truck horn blasted behind her, a wall of metal filling her peripheral vision.
Cursing, she flung all power into the torque. The bike leaped forward and she ran it up the gears as she whipped back over the bridge, this time on the top deck. Mid-bridge, she took the fork toward 279. She didn't know what they'd done to Pony, but they'd gotten him away from her somehow. She had no idea what she was going to do when she caught up with them, but there was no way she was leaving Pony in their power.
She came to the snarl of on-ramps to the bridge. None actually connected the road she was on to the bridge, but she skipped over jersey barriers to catch the Route 28 on-ramp.
Veterans Bridge crossed the Allegheny in eight lanes of broad plainness, crossing first the Allegheny River and then the Strip District. At the far end it splintered into mad twistings, each exit heading in a radically different direction. She roared across the bridge, sick at the thought of reaching its end and not spotting Pony. Did they take him downtown, intending to hold him in whatever trap they had tried to maneuver her into? That didn't make sense. Why hadn't they caught her the same way they had caught Pony? Was it because she was domana?
Movement caught her eye, and she glanced into her mirrors. Oni were skipping up from the Strip District to land on the bridge behind her.
Shit. She ignored the first exit off the bridge that would have funneled her back into the city. Beyond it the roadway carved through the foot of the Hill, creating a cement canyon of pavement and bridge supports. She shot into the canyon, six hoverbikes trailing behind her, and the Corvette joining the fray from the downtown on-ramp. Straight would take her over the Liberty Bridge arching over the Monongahela River, through the tunnel to the South Hills maze and Windwolf somewhere searching for oni with a small army.
"Look what I found, sweetheart," Tinker muttered, but the Corvette was attempting to herd her that direction. No, if that was the way they wanted her to go, she'd better not.
As the Corvette crowded close, she popped up, and then kissed off his hood before he could correct, leaning hard to angle the lift into a sideways skip. She touched down on the exit ramp for the Boulevard, the scream of brakes behind her as the Corvette tried to stop, followed by the unmistakable thud of him hitting something.
Yeah, bring a car to a hoverbike chase. Loser!
She lost speed in the jump, though, and the pack of hoverbikes closed like a pack of wargs scenting blood. She put everything into torque, and whispered sweet things to her Delta. The ramp leaped from the canyon to the clifftop Boulevard of the Allies in one mid-air arc. Dropping down to the Parkway that ran parallel to the Boulevard at the foot of the cliff would be insane; even with the lift drive at max, she'd drop like a stone and—from that height—splatter.
If she could keep ahead of them, it was only a quick run to the Rim, and the EIA border patrol. She'd get them and the cops and find Pony.
The lead oni hoverbike, though, was one of her custom Deltas—talk about a mistake coming back to haunt you. For an oni, the rider was a little shit, grinning viciously at her with a mouthful of sharpened teeth. He matched her speed, smacking her closer and closer to the edge of the cliff. She ground her teeth, fighting to control her bike, but he had the mass on her. A pop-up might lose him, but that would cost her speed, and put her in the middle of the pack. His bike looked like Czerneda's, done in aquamarine fish scales. He had to have stolen it, since Czerneda would rather sell his soul than give the bike up. She braced herself against the battering and risked a look down at the thumblock. In its place dangled a mass of wires, bypassing the bike security system. Ha, well, bye-bye Mr. Oni.
She reached to yank loose the wires. He realized what she was doing and swung away from her. She risked overextending herself in a desperate grab. He came back at her, grabbing for her outstretched arm.
Shit, she had forgotten that their goal was her! She jerked away, and the motion rode her bike up the retaining wall and left her teetering on the narrow lip. Before she could push her bike back down to safety, the oni hit her again. As her bike tipped over the edge, he realized what he'd done—eyes going wide in panic, he grabbed hold of her bike instead of her and yanked it hard.
Instantly she was airborne, screaming as she went over the cliff and rushed toward the ground with nothing, nothing, to grab.
And then something grabbed her.
Riki had her by the back of her shirt.
She flailed backward, got hold of him, and swarmed up his body to cling deathly tight to him. "Oh, gods, oh gods, thank you, thank you."
Far below their feet, her Delta struck the riverbank and was instantly reduced to a mass of twisted wreckage.
Feet?
She jerked her gaze upward.
Massive wings, crow black, sprouted from Riki's back. She could feel soft down on his back and the start of wing structure and the movement of muscle as the wings beat the air. She could only stare in amazement as feathers shrouded the sky with black.
"Don't thank me," he snarled, shifting his hold on her so he had her by the back of the neck.
"I would have been dead if you hadn't caught me," she said, for the first time in her life only able to think "what—what—what—?"
"I shouldn't have had to." He twisted her in his hold, bringing up something to her face. "They weren't supposed to hurt you."
It all sank in as she recognized the flower in his hand. He was one of them. He was a tengu. He was there to catch her because he'd helped to design the trap in the first place. She tried to twist away from the flower, but he tightened his hold on her neck until she thought he would snap it. He pressed the Saijin to her face, crushing soft fragrant petals to her nose. The heat and goldness of the sun filled her senses.
"No!" She struck out. Her fist slammed into his nose, snapping back his head and instantly bloodying him. He straightened out his arms, keeping out of her reach as he kept the flower tight against her.
She tried to squirm out of his hold, turn her head away.
He forced her still, watching her with furrowed brow. Without his sunglasses his eyes were a stunning blue—not the blue of Windwolf's, whose eyes were the dark, rich blue of expensive sapphires, but the cerulean blue of an electric spark. She could see that they weren't human eyes now, too vivid a color, the shape faintly almond, the lashes thick and long, viewing her with the same deadly detachment as electricity . . .
14: Oni Moon
Tinker woke with her head pounding and stared in confusion at the strange ceiling above her. For several minutes it seemed like a normal white plaster ceiling. Then she felt as if a long, thin-limbed spider was picking its way across her forehead. She bolted upright, swatting at her brow. Her fingers found nothing to kill, nor was there anything now on her lap except a spill of fine linen sheets. She sat on a futon mattress, level on the floor, with a nest of sheets, blankets, and pillows so comforting to look at that she nearly sank back into them. Things were wrong, though, and she dragged her eyes back to the ceiling. Same plain white ceiling, or was it? She got the vague impression that something had changed, only she couldn't put a finger on what.
A few feet from the end of the mattre
ss was a stone wall with a deep-set window. Sitting on the floor, she could only see a slice of blue sky. She crawled to the wall, having difficulty controlling her overly light limbs. She looked out the window and gasped.
A city rolled out to the horizon, endless heavy stone buildings with red clay roof tiles. It reminded her of martial arts vids. As she stared hard at it, she finally made out the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, converging to make the Ohio, meaning she was on Mount Washington, not far from Oilcan's apartment—only at least one reality removed. Whatever they called the city below, it wasn't Pittsburgh.
"Wondering where you are?"
She turned and discovered that a female dressed in a kimono, feet tucked under her, sat in the far corner of the room, watching her. Had she always been there? Tinker's mind was too drug-clouded for her to remember.
"No," Tinker said, not because it was the truth—she was dying to know—but mostly because it was the opposite of what the female wanted her to say.
"Obstinacy will get you nowhere," the female said.
"It's all I have at the moment, so I'll stick with it."
Tinker went back to staring out the window. This wasn't Earth, nor Elfhome, but something beyond Elfhome. Judging by the room she was in, the narrow twisting roads, and the lack of any outward sign of machinery, the technology level of the reality was on par with Elfhome. Unlike the elf world, though, it seemed as if this place staggered under Earth's population problems.
"You're on Onihida," the female said. "There is no escape."
No need for bars on the window; the whole world was a prison. Still Tinker examined the possibilities for escape. The building she was in continued the Oriental theme, only on fortress scale. The outside wall was of massive stones and was mortared tightly, presenting seriously scary rock-climbing potential. The drop down to the ground was thirty or forty feet. A misstep would put her down over the cliff edge too, adding two hundred feet to the fall.
All things considered, she should find another escape route.