“You said them.”
“Pardon?” she said in French.
“You said them. You really don’t consider yourself to be part of the Spokes?”
“I would say we’re allied with them. Things are different for us up north, where I come from.”
“How so?”
There was a pause. “Well, we speak a different language.”
It seemed she was evading the question. “How else?”
“Not much else, really. It’s colder up there as well.”
“Nothing to do with knowing how to use a smartphone?” Flora asked.
Flora thought she might make Cecile angry, but instead she looked back and smiled.
“C’est drole,” Cecile said. “You have a good sense of some things, but in others you have no clue.” It was another cryptic comment, reminding Flora of what Cecile had said before going to bed the night before.
“What do you mean by that?” Flora asked.
“Excusez moi. Honestly I shouldn’t have said that. I just mean you have straight vision sometimes.”
“Straight vision?”
“Vision etroite. Maybe it doesn’t translate well. Ah yes, I think you call it tunnel vision.”
“How so?”
“Let me see. How should I put this?” She took a moment to gather her words. “You have come to a party where you don’t know what dress to wear. Nor do you know the etiquette, and the house is foreign to you. You’ve been allowed in the front door, but it’s only a matter of time until the guests find out you don’t belong. Worse still, it’s only a matter of time until you find out it isn’t a party at all.”
Despite the fact she was a Spoke who often said cryptic remarks, she was beginning to like Cecile. Now, however, her riddles were sounding downright offensive.
“Listen here, you Spoke weirdo, speak plainly or don’t speak at all. Do you even want to be saved? You would think you would appreciate what we’re doing for you.”
Cecile stopped walking and turned around. She looked earnest. “I’m sorry, Flora. Yes, my fate hangs on the outcome of this mission. I speak because of my concern for you. All I would ask is, is this person worth it? Are you sure you know what you’re doing? ”
Flora thought about Cecile’s analogy of the party. The only guest at this party that she didn’t get along with was Cecile. It was only her words that made Flora confused and frustrated. “What do you mean, what person?”
“Don’t take me for a fool. You asked me to commit to securing a prisoner, just before you called the retcher. I know that’s why you’re here. This person you are trying to free, they must be important to you.”
Flora’s mind raced. If she told Cecile she wanted to get back to her former husband, it could unravel everything. The others might also believe she was conflicted in her motivations. Worse, it could find its way back to Reed. She had to think of a response that made some sense, but didn’t reveal too much.
“I have a cousin that was taken by the Spokes. I know what he looks like, but otherwise didn’t know him well. I can identify him, so yes, that’s one of the reasons I’m part of the expedition, beyond the reasons I’ve already mentioned to Ember—to report on the coup and see the mission through to the end.”
She was trying to thread a delicate needle with her lie. Hopefully it would be enough to convince Cecile and let her drop it.
Cecile didn’t seem to be buying it. “You are risking your life for a cousin you don’t know well?”
The question hung in the air while Flora tried to think of a good response. Thankfully she was saved by lunch.
“Ca y’es! Well done,” Cecile said, looking up behind Flora’s shoulder.
Flora had been oblivious to Rosalie walking up behind her, carrying a large groundhog. She was donning a broad gap-toothed smile. “Rub-a-dub-dub,” she said.
After eating some sinewy groundhog meat and a husk of bread, they began the final leg of the trip. Flora kept her distance from Cecile to avoid her questions.
For a while the Spoke farms were positioned closer together, and soon enough they were walking down a proper avenue of Old World houses. They weren’t like the worn-out buildings near Grand Caverns, but rather they had been spruced up with modern Spoke renovations and adorned with bike parts of all shapes and sizes.
People watched them from a distance, some with weapons at the ready. No one approached them.
Ember began asking Rosalie questions about who they were going to meet and where. Flora noticed that whenever Rosalie discussed taking the train, color would drain from Ember’s face. Of all Spoke instruments and machines, the train would be the most loathsome to him. He would be riding a symbol of what he despised most, something spawned by the fires of industry, something that defiled the earth with its metal bonds.
Finally they arrived at a large, two-story house. Patches of metal siding checkered the roof and exterior walls. Several chairs made mostly of inner tubes lay out on the porch. In one of them a man was sitting. He was short, with a round belly and a full mustache. In one hand was a steel cup and in the other a shotgun.
“Well, well Rosalie, quite a motley crew you have here,” the mustached man said.
Rosalie walked up to the porch, careful to avoid a rash of chipping paint on the steps. “Howdy, Patterson. Been a long time.”
“Yep.”
“Well, motley is true, and that’s just my own mouth,” she said, smiling. “We have two SLS and their prisoner, a Spoke woman from up north, Quebecker she is. For her these SLS want to strike a deal with the lords of Seeville.”
Patterson sniffed, curling up his mustache. “Yeah, I thought I smelled something.”
Flora remembered what SLS stood for. Smells like shit. Ember must have known as well, based on the look on his face. He was stepping up the stairs behind Rosalie. “Hard to see how you could smell anything after living in this repugnant town for so long,” he said.
Patterson raised his eyebrows and brought the shotgun to rest on his lap. Rosalie held Ember’s arm and said, “Hush now, Thisslewood. Let’s not get spicy quite yet, or we might miss the meal altogether.”
Then she explained to Patterson, “This one here is an Essentialist leader, a sub-chief in Grand Caverns. He’s as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, so best we get movin’.”
“All right, then. Let me gather the boys,” Patterson replied.
Patterson entered the house and returned with three more men. They were haggard types, without uniforms, but well armed, each with a pistol. Despite the cool weather, they wore long shorts, or in one case, skin-tight pants. Their thighs were thick with muscle, every one of them. These must be mules, as Flora had heard them called.
Patterson led them off the porch to continue down the street toward some more formidable buildings. The three Spoke mules fell into a line behind the group of them.
Flora felt nervous and out of place in the Spoke town, but all the brick, concrete and Old World trappings didn’t make her fearful. Rather it felt like she was walking through some Old World bedtime story.
They turned down a broader avenue and ahead Flora could see a big sign saying S&R Railroad in a bright red stencil. They walked through the building and ended up on a platform, with long parallel rows of metal track stretching out to either side.
Mehta and the four Spoke mules watched over Ember, Flora, and Cecile as Rosalie and Patterson went to confer with some local railroad operatives. Heads bobbed and words were exchanged, but Flora couldn’t make out what they were saying.