“Yes,” Blue Sky said without thinking through the ramifications.
“No.” Tinker earned another hurt look from Blue Sky. “I’m going to be too busy. My cousin Oilcan will be riding for my team.”
“Will Blue Sky be allowed to race?” Chloe asked.
“Of course,” Tinker and Blue Sky said at the same. “It’s not like Blue Sky is under house arrest.” Tinker put her arm around his shoulders and felt the tension in his small wiry body. She gave him a little shake to try and get him to relax. “He’s always been like my little brother; now he’s officially family.”
Blue Sky gave her a shy smile and relaxed slightly.
“Now, if you don’t mind,” Tinker started again for the tunnel openings. “I have a lot to do.”
“Mind boggling complex stuff.” Chloe echoed back her earlier comment. “Like build a gate? Do you really think that’s wise, considering what happened with the last one?”
“I’m not building a gate.” Tinker said. “But in my defense, the gate I built for the oni did exactly what I designed it to do; it stopped the main oni army from invading Elfhome.”
“By destroying the gate in orbit?”
“Yes.”
“So how do you explain Pittsburgh still on Elfhome?” Chloe said. “Shouldn’t the city have returned to Earth after the orbital gate failed?”
Tinker really didn’t want to answer the question. In layman terms, Pittsburgh had been on a giant elastic band and held down on Elfhome by a simple on/off switch. Every Shutdown—with the flip of that switch—the city rebounded back to Earth. Chloe was right; Pittsburgh should have returned to Earth. It hadn’t because Tinker had managed to also mess up the fundamental nature of the cosmos—not a feat that she was proud of. “There were unexpected—complications—which is why I’m not building another gate.”
“What exactly are you going to be building?”
“Nothing.” Tinker held up her hands in an attempt to look innocent. Both Stormsong and Blue Sky gave her a look that spoke volumes—she was coming too close to lying for their comfort—so she added in, “I will be acting as project manager for work beyond the Squirrel Hill Tunnel.” Beyond as in another world beyond. “I probably will have no technical input on the undertaking. I’m just one of the few people that can easily supervise a large work force that includes human, elves and tengu.” And the dragon, Impatience, but Chloe didn’t need to know that. There, that was vague enough without lying. Tinker poured on more information in hopes to distract Chloe from important details. “I’m here today to inspect the tunnels for any defects. The tunnels are almost a hundred years old. They’ve been spottily maintained since Pittsburgh started to bounce between Earth and Elfhome. The discontinuity in Turtle Creek might have led to tremendous stress in all neighboring areas. The tunnels might not be safe to use.”
Chloe nodded through Tinker’s rambling and then launched a counterattack on her unprotected flank. “Tinker ze domi, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how nervous all of our viewers are about the current situation. There are sixty thousand humans in Pittsburgh. The city doesn’t have the infrastructure to adequately take care of our needs. During Shutdown, everything from warm clothing to medical supplies was shipped in from Earth. The last Shutdown was mid-July. What is going to be done to address the fact that we’re facing winter without supplies from Earth?”
“I’m fully aware of the facts.” And scared silly by them. The number was actually closer to a hundred thousand once you added in tengu and elves and half-oni that were allied to the humans. As the Wind Clan domi and vicereine of the Westernlands, Tinker was responsible for them all. “We won’t starve; the elves are shipping in keva beans from the Easternlands. The first shipments arrived by train yesterday. Martial law is being lifted later today so people can go to distribution centers that the EIA will be setting up for their share of the keva.”
Giving away the first shipment had been her idea since she knew that the big chain food stores with corporate offices on Earth only stocked a thirty-day supply that became ridiculously low just before Shutdown. By now, only the little stores with ties to local farmers would have food. Those stores were holding steady because most Pittsburghers had small gardens and currently were up to their armpits in zucchini and tomatoes. In a few days, the first frost could kill off the gardens and the little stores would have to support all of Pittsburgh. Hopefully, handing out a supply of keva beans would keep those stores from collapsing and panic setting in. “We expect a second shipment within a week. That will go to food stores for resale.”
“That’s really just sticking your finger in the dyke.” Chloe smiled brightly as she refused to be distracted. “Shouldn’t you be focusing on reconnecting Pittsburgh with Earth?”
That’s exactly what Tinker was doing, but she didn’t want everyone in Pittsburgh knowing that. Tinker sighed at Chloe’s predatory smile. “You really like your job?”
“Love it.” Chloe’s smile broaden. “I get to corner people, ask them all sorts of embarrassing questions and watch them squirm.”
Tinker tried to keep her temper but it was fraying fast. “If you keep pushing people’s buttons, someone is bound to push back.”
Chloe laughed. “It wouldn’t be good for morale if Pittsburgh’s favorite field reporter was chopped into little bits while reporting live. So, be a dear, and smile and tell Aunty Chloe everything.”
Completely the wrong thing for Chloe to say. It triggered all sorts of other things that Tinker didn’t want to be thinking about. How her previously anonymous mother had nearly drove her insane. How her pseudo-mother had turned out to be her real aunt. How Tinker totally lost it all on a dark road and gotten an old friend killed.
“You are not my aunt.” Tinker growled, suddenly too frustrated to be nice. “And this conversation is over.”
And all the sekasha kicked into overdrive, spearheaded by Stormsong. One moment the warriors were flanking Tinker, ignoring the conversation to give her the illusion of privacy. The next, they were between Tinker and Chloe with swords out.
“Don’t kill her!” Tinker ordered in Elvish, afraid that they would do just that.
Stormsong snatched the headset off Chloe. “I know how irreplaceable this is.” Stormsong held it out of Chloe’s reach. “Either you take yourself and it away from here, or I’ll grind it into pieces.”
“Fine. I’ll go.” Chloe tucked away the headset after Stormsong handed it back. “My boss has been texting me for the last five minutes to go cover the keva handouts.”
Chloe had a hoverbike tucked into the shadows of the inbound tunnel. The mystery of how Chloe reached the abandoned highway was solved. She raced the motor, making it roar defiantly before taking off.
“I have never liked that woman.” Stormsong watched Chloe speed off, her hand still on her hilt.
“Neither have I.” Tinker said.
#
The “us versus her” lasted mere minutes after the sound of Chloe’s engines died in the distances. Then everything clicked back to normal. Tinker’s right arm ached dully, her temper was frayed, the sekasha scattered out to find hidden evil ninjas, and Blue went back to pouting. When they were growing up together, Blue always looked like his brother John to Tinker. Now she could only see the Wind Clan sekasha stamp on him—the black hair, the blue eyes, and the tendency to glower.
“They won’t come out and say it.” Blue glared at her borrowed Hand as they checked the ironwood trees growing beside the bridge for strangle vines and steel spinners. “But they don’t want me to be a Blade. They’re all scared something will jump out and eat me.”
“It’s entirely possible something could,” Tinker said. “We’re at the Rim.”
Blue Sky huffed like he was going to argue the point. At one time, “the Rim” meant only the line of destruction where the transfer between worlds shattered everything at the edge down to elementary particles. On one side of the line was Pittsburgh urban sprawl and on the other was virgin El
fhome forest. Over time, though, Elfhome’s deadly flora and fauna had pushed inward, sometimes by several miles. Pittsburghers now considered the Rim to be where the dangerous Elfhome vegetation started.
“So what am I supposed to do?” Blue scoffed the pavement with his boot. “It’s not like I can be a Shield; I don’t have spells or a sword and my bow is useless at close range. Besides, you have the great wall of kick butt.”
Tinker understood completely. She could outthink just about anyone in Pittsburgh, but she was vulnerable to brute psychical force, especially when applied rapidly. It was always annoying to know that ninety percent of her enemies could simply pick her up and carry her off. The current record of being “carried off” stood at four if you counted the black willow tree, which didn’t so much carry her off as flung her halfway across the city.
Dealing with Chloe had at least made it easy to think of something Blue Sky could do. “You know your way around tech though.” She led him back to the Roll Royce and dug through the backseat that become the catchall for her toys. “You can help me take measurements and stuff.”
“Measuring what?” Blue took her camera and flicked it on and checked the battery power.
“The tunnels.” Tinker waved a hand toward the absolute black of the twin tunnel entrances. The black holes created eyes for a skull-like building abutting the foot of the steep hillside. Between the two tunnels, a tall garage door completed the skeleton grin; a steel grate broke the white door into rows of teeth.
“Okay.” Blue took three steps toward the inbound tunnel before she managed to catch him by the collar and haul him back.
“After we get the lights on,” Tinker said.
Once upon a time, “Skull Mountain” wouldn’t have fazed Tinker. She would have plunged into the tunnels without a second thought. Sure, she would have known that the solid darkness within the nearly mile-long tunnels could hide virtually anything: collapsed ceilings, rifts in time and space, man-eating trees, frost-breathing wargs, or even just machine gun wielding oni. She would have naively assumed that her intelligence would carry the day. After tearing a rift in the fabric of space and time as a side effect of single-handedly thwarting an army of oni, falling off the planet, and other odd and painful misadventures, Tinker was starting to be a little more cautious. Her life wasn’t the only one on the line; wherever she went, her Hand would be bound and determined to follow. Worse now Blue would be caught up in the danger.
Blue obviously knew he was part of the reason she was being cautious and he didn’t like it. “I’m not afraid of the dark.”
“I want to get the lights before I start anything.” Assuming they could get Impatience to cooperate. To be completely fair, it wasn’t clear if the little dragon knew that she needed his help. So far she hadn’t been able to pin him down with translator in tow. He’d spent the last week drifting unfettered about Pittsburgh, walking through walls and whatnot, scaring everyone from Ralph at Eide’s Entertainment to the counter help at Jenny’s bakery.
She got a headache every time she just thought about the upcoming work. “I need to get a hyperactive dragon—that only tengu can communicate with—to build a pathway to Earth using work crews of elves that don’t speak English and humans that barely speak Elvish. I’m not going to do that in the dark.”
Speaking of language barriers, they were still speaking English which only Stormsong understood, although Pony had been working hard to learn. Tinker switched to Elvish. “I thought the tunnels would be lit. There are lights in Fort Pitt and Liberty Tunnels.”
Blue sighed, obviously wishing they’d stayed in English, but spoke Elvish in reply. “Those tunnels go someplace.”
“Technically, Squirrel Hill does too.” When Pittsburgh used to return to Earth for one day each month—before she stranded the city permanently on Elfhome—I-376 was routinely reattached to its severed half so that it once again lead to Monroeville. There was only a sliver of actual city beyond the steep hill, though, and it had been largely abandoned over the years. Man-eating trees, frost-breathing wargs and machine gun wielding oni had that effect on suburban life.
The there-but-not-there status of the largely unused tunnel made it perfect for the project.
“Why don’t we use the cars to light them up?” Blue pointed the camera at the three big gray luxury sedans.
There seemed to be a rule that when her Hand was working, only her First was allowed to talk freely. “Domi wouldn’t be able to call her shields inside the Rolls,” Pony explained. “Cars are easy to disable. You must always consider them as a possible trap, especially in confined spaces like the tunnels.”
Blue Sky nodded his understanding, now eyeing the tunnel warily. “So, how do we get the lights on?”
“Trial and error,” Tinker said. Hopefully “error” didn’t involve death and mayhem.
#
“Are you sure this is okay?” Blue Sky asked while he filmed her picking the lock on the access door. Someone had been serious about keep people out; there were two deadbolts on the heavy steel door. “Shouldn’t we call someone first?”
“I’m the Wind Clan domi. I can do whatever needs to be done.” At least, that was what being domi seemed to entail. She was still trying to figure out the limits of her power. So far, it was easier to plow on ahead instead of trying to track down someone that could verify if she had authority or not.
“But—but this belongs to the city, not the Wind Clan.” Blue tapped the faded words stenciled on the steel door that read “Authorized Personal Only” in English. “We should call….someone.”
Blue was always such a morally straight arrow. When they were kids together, he was the one that kept her out of trouble. She could talk her cousin Oilcan into anything, no matter how crazy dangerous, but Blue was an immovable rock, sticking firmly to the rules his older brother had laid down. The elves thought of the sekasha as holy because they had been created perfect in every way. The warriors were considered above flawed laws made by flawed elves. It was weird to think that Blue’s moral compass was genetically based.
“It was the city’s,” Tinker said. “According to the treaty, though, anything left on Elfhome after the gate failed would become the Wind Clan’s.”
Blue Sky made a face at the news. Raised by his human brother, Blue thought of himself as a Pittsburgher first and foremost. “Does that include people?”
“Humans are considered neutral at the moment,” Pony said. “Clan alliance can not be assigned, it must be chosen. It is the only way you can pledge your loyalty and be true to it.”
The cylinders of the second lock clicked into place and the door unlocked.
Stormsong stepped past Tinker and pushed the door open. It swung open to reveal a cavernous garage. Tinker noticed for the first time that Stormsong was wearing button-fly blue jeans instead of black leather pants. The rivets and buttons were done with ironwood instead of steel that would have messed up the sekasha’s protective spells. They were very much the female warrior’s style, matching her blue dyed short hair.
“I could have gotten it,” Tinker grumbled.
“I’m just doing my job.” Stormsong tucked Tinker’s right arm into the sling that Tinker had been ignoring. “You’re going to have to be careful or you’ll break it again.”
“I’m not made of glass.” Tinker complained.
Stormsong laughed. “I think you’ve proven that but for the next few weeks, it would be better if you pretended that you were. The bone has healed but it’s still bruised and fragile.”
Pony put a hand on Tinker’s shoulder. “Domi, let the Blades go first.”
What did they think was going to be locked inside the garage? Then again, this was Elfhome. She stepped aside to let the sekasha search.
#
The tunnels had a surprisingly complex and extensive control room for two cement-lined holes nearly a century old. Beyond the switches for nearly a mile of lights, there were also controls for a massive ventilation system and a fairly
new monitoring array. Tinker flicked on the lights, powered on the cameras and scanned the screens.
A 1953 Pennsylvania Department of Highways report stated that the tunnels were driven through “poor ground” as they were being dug and that extensive reinforcements were put into place to make them safe. Between what happened to Turtle Creek and the war with the invading oni, it was possible that the tunnels were no longer safe to navigate. Before they started fiddling with the fundamental nature of reality, Tinker wanted to test the tunnels’ support beams for stress fractures.
At first glance, the passages seemed undamaged. Then she noticed the small lumps on the pavement near the halfway point in both tunnels.
“What are those? Did part of the ceiling collapse?” Tinker played with the video controls. She found the zoom feature and panned over the objects. They were obviously not part of the tunnel. They were some kind of device, fairly simple in design—seemingly nothing more than a stack of bricks with wires sticking out of them—but she couldn’t recognize any of the individual pieces accept an obvious tripwire that stretched across both lanes of the tunnels. “What the hell are they?”
“Something bad,” Stormsong said.
Tinker turned to look at the female when nothing more was forthcoming.
Stormsong shook her head. “I don’t know what they are, but my talent says that they’re very dangerous.”
Elves described magic as the power to render things down to possibilities and reshape them. The intanyai seyosa was an entire caste who had been bioengineered to take “educated guess” to scary levels. Stormsong’s mother was the queen’s oracle and the female sekasha had inherited some of her mother’s talent. If Stormsong said the objects were dangerous, then they were.
Tinker studied the twin machines. The tripwires were connected to a cylindrical object about three inches long that was inserted into what looked like blocks of white molding clay. Tripwire. Clay. Tinker suddenly realized what she was looking at.
“Shit! They’re bombs.” Tinker pushed the elves toward the door. The tunnels would direct most of the force of the explosion laterally, but there was no telling what would happen once the tunnels collapsed. “Everyone out. Out!”