“You’ll never live this down,” Ember said to Rosalie. “When people find out about your treachery you’ll never work again. We will hunt you down and kill you.”
“Who’s going to tell, sunshine?” Rosalie said, shoulders shrugging. “And if they did, no biggie. As far as Luna’s concerned, we’re just dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. Luna sent an expedition in good faith to try to rescue lost prisoners, but the evil Spoke greasers betrayed them. That’s what she wanted, so no disloyalty here. We’re living up to our deal with Luna, like good mercs. But you, I feel sorry for you, pal. She never really gave you much of a chance. Apparently Luna thought you were just a little too partial to Darkwind to be of any use. Some dogs just can’t be trained to learn new tricks.”
Ember’s face was ashen. He continued to look in all directions, trying to find away out.
Flora reflected on Luna’s militant words about the Spokes at the festival. At the time Flora thought Luna was grandstanding, like all the Grand Caverns leaders before her, but now she knew differently. This was someone who would willingly showcase and defile dead Essentialists at the infirmary just to raise the people’s ire against the Spokes. This was someone who would kill the chief in a lavish coup so she could have absolute power to push her agenda. This was someone who would actively set the stage for war simply because she thought war was in their nature. She was the wolf she so espoused, and she was the jackal as well.
Ember spat desperate words in Bartz’s direction. “Yes, you get your prisoner back. But how can you be sure this is what your lords want? How can you be sure they want to incite a conflict with all Essentialists.”
Bartz looked mildly annoyed. “You see,” he said, “the lords, they often disagree. They talk and they talk and then come up with some half-baked solution no one dislikes but that, at the same time, is good for no one. They don’t know how progress is made. Whereas we, at the railroad—we’re changing the face of Spoke society. We’re connecting dozens of cities north to south. Soon we will be bringing new tools to bear that will help our citizens make dramatic improvements to their lives. Soon we will be able to expand the railroad in new directions—to the west even, into SLS territory.”
It seemed Bartz was talking more to the Spokes around him, rather than Ember. “So,” he continued, “for the good of us all, sometimes we have to roll up our sleeves and get things done. Sometimes that means doing deals with mercs, to save us from ourselves.”
Now Bartz directed his attention back to Ember. “And if it means we allow our backward neighbors to fling a few arrows at us, that’s fine. We disagree with Essentialists on almost everything, but I think we can agree on one thing. Only one of us can rule these lands. It’s about time we sorted that out.”
“You will be cleansed from the earth, all of you!” Ember said defiantly. “We have tens of thousands coming to the frontier, from the Tuscon Union, from the Prefectorate, even. You will choke on your industry and be overrun. We will stampede over your sickly towns.”
Bartz was smiling. “I’m not worried. Soon we’ll have everything we need to drive your little herd over a cliff.”
Ember’s head stopped swiveling, and for a moment his gaze rested on Flora. His eyes retained their fervor, but they had moistened. For a brief moment he had the look of a lost child, cornered and afraid—one that was being unfairly bullied in a playground. Then he gritted his teeth and said, “Time to recompense the earth.”
She knew what he wanted her to do. Ember Thisslewood would never live in Spoke lands, prisoner or otherwise. He was about to return himself to the soil, and he wanted her to do so as well.
Ember abruptly ran toward Bartz, his knife raised high. One of the Spoke men drew his pistol and shot him squarely in the chest. Ember fell right at Bartz’s feet. Another Spoke pounced and had his knife at his throat.
Ember wasn’t moving. When Bartz turned his body over with his foot, Ember’s face was already lifeless. In his chest a hole oozed blood. The bullet must have travelled directly through his heart.
Flora didn’t follow Ember’s command. She had frozen during Ember’s charge, still reeling from the dramatic shift in their fortunes. Something held her back from following Ember to his death—some vague concern or warning telling her it wasn’t her time to die.
Without realizing, Mehta had crept up on her. He grabbed her arm holding the knife. She tried to resist, but his strength was too much. His fingers dug into the tendons on her wrist and she had to let go. Then he forcefully pulled her arms behind her back.
“Weren’t we going to keep him alive for questioning?” Rosalie asked.
“Sorry sir, I…” The man who shot Ember began.
“No, it’s fine,” Bartz said, stepping over the body toward Flora unceremoniously. “Probably for the best, actually. He seemed quite the idealist. And besides, we have been gifted with another.” Bartz probed Flora with his eyes. “Nice to look at, but she does need to clean up I think.” Bartz wrinkled his nose and then folded back toward the door.
The whole scene in the train car had seemed to be playing out in slow motion, as if she was one step removed. But now it was feeling real, and the full weight of her situation was becoming apparent. She had abandoned her family, aiding in a mission that had pushed her people closer to war. She had become a prisoner of the Spokes, subject to incarceration and possibly worse.
Even with all this, though, the nucleus of her desperate motivation for this journey remained. Some part of her wondered if in her captivity she might find Granger. It was that impossible and vague hope that made her go on this mission, that made her abandon her family. It was the same thought that stayed her hand, when most Essentialists would choose to fight against all odds, valiantly, like Ember had done.
She had to believe Granger was still alive, even as a prisoner, even though likely cordoned away in some servile role. If only she could see him one more time, to feel his touch, to hear him whisper about the sun and the moon, then the world would at least have given her something in return for her unrelenting sorrow.
Maybe then she would have the courage to do what Ember had done. Maybe then she could return her body to the soil without regret.
YORKTOWN
It wasn’t a huge room, but it was all there: desktop computers, laptop computers, smartphones, scanners and printers. There were countless cable boxes, chip boards, and hard drives. Other devices that looked like generators were nestled in one corner of the room. One whole shelf was full of devices Owen had never seen before in any pictures or books, including strange tools, spiderlike robots, and other enigmatic appliances. In the back there was even what looked like a large mainframe computer.
There was no sign of melting or other retcher damage, and presumably all this equipment had been preserved from the original EMP attacks by the Faraday cage enclosure.
“Unbelievable,” Owen said as he walked down one of the aisles. It was everything they could possibly need, everything they could possibly want. They could learn so much.
He ran into Preston as he turned around a corner on the far end of the room. “We did it,” Preston said, nodding and smiling.
“Damn right we did!” Owen exclaimed, grabbing Preston by the elbows. His grip nearly caused the kerosene in Preston’s lantern to spill out.
For a moment Owen forgot about Rourke and Thorpe. He even forgot about the bandits waiting outside. He stood there with Preston as they shared the moment. A moment they both had dreamed of since they were children. “I can’t believe it,” Owen said.