“Oh, that helps a lot!” Gaddy shut the bag shut. “We just need someone with access to the list.”
“Aiofe does.” Olivia said, thinking of the birthday party that Peanut dragged her to. Peanut wanted her to move into the house, saying it would be safer. Olivia had fled as soon as it was polite to leave.
Out in the baking heat of the parking lot, Aiofe checked the expired visa list. “There’s only one person with that birthday: Jevin Kay Kingston. He was here on a student visa. Oh, he was cute. Looks like he was right cheeky one, though.”
Aiofe shifted her tablet to show Olivia the photo attached to the visa. He was years younger in the picture but already smug.
“Yes, that’s him.” Olivia turned to Gaddy. “Where did you find him?”
Gaddy pointed downriver. “After the train derailment, I was scouting the rail lines. I found him down under the Fleming Park Bridge.”
“Where?”
“Here.” Gaddy took a well-worn map out of one of the carpenter pants pockets. She unfolded and folded it so that a small section was easily readable. Her fingernails were painted a neutral beige that nearly matched her skin tone. She tapped the words “West River Lot” and then traced along the river’s edge for six or seven miles. “This is the Fleming Park Bridge. It joins Neville Island with the rest of the city. He was on the train tracks that run under the overpass but it’s likely he started on the bridge. In the dark it would be hard to see that this part of the span is over train tracks and not the river proper. I think someone thought they were dumping him in the river.”
“He lived on the North Side with a bunch of other kids.” Olivia pointed out the general location on the opposite bank of the Ohio River. “I can’t tell you the address. I could find it again by walking there but I didn’t get any street names or house numbers. There were about nine kids living there, all about his age, all illegal. Either they had expired visas or snuck across the border during Shutdown.”
Gaddy whispered a curse. She frowned at the North Side and then glanced downriver, toward where she found Jevin. “I was assuming that he had a run-in with oni troops after fleeing Oktoberfest. You sure about him being home?”
“He cared deeply about how he looked,” Olivia said. “He liked looking sexy and clean and good smelling. If his clothes got ripped or stained, he’d go home to change. He would say things like ‘I wouldn’t be caught dead in that’ when he saw someone in ratty clothing.”
“Yeah,” Gaddy said. “Someone like that doesn’t go to a festival in that outfit.”
“I’m going to the house,” Olivia said. “I’m worried about the others.”
Gaddy pursed her lips. She clearly didn’t think it was a wise idea. She scanned the royal marines peering over Aiofe’s shoulder, trying to follow the conversation that had been all in English. “I suppose you have plenty of firepower to wade into just about anything on the North Side. I’ll come with you, just in case we need to call for backup.”
Emboldened by the tale of Tinker domi and the construction vehicles, Olivia decided to commandeer a big six-wheeled UN cargo truck that they found sitting empty at Station Square.
“We can’t just take it,” Aiofe whispered, looking around.
“It’s unlocked.” Olivia leaned in to look at the ignition. It was an older model that still used keys. There was a chain to lock the steering wheel but it hadn’t been engaged. Either someone had gotten sloppy or the truck had been left for her to find. “Maynard said that he would smooth over feathers ruffled by commandeering EIA property.”
“That was just a random example of him not interfering with Tinker domi,” Aiofe said. “If he wanted us to use it, he would said something more direct.”
“Maybe,” Olivia said, “but he’s a politician. He might have to pretend he didn’t know we were going to take it.”
Aiofe squinted at her. After a few moments of thinking, she said, “That’s stretching things a bit. I think he would have left a driver if he really wanted us to take it. It’s manual transmission.”
“He can’t get a driver any more involved than himself.” Olivia climbed up into the high driver seat. “I can drive it.”
Maybe. She had learned to drive on the Ranch’s big equipment, but a Kansas hayfield was not the same as a major city street.
Olivia waved at the marines. “Get in. Get in.”
The marines didn’t need to be invited twice to a new adventure. They clambered into the back, laughing and shouting.
Aiofe remained on the sidewalk, looking torn. “I’m not sure this is a good idea.”
Olivia thought enviously of Tinker’s dining room filled with possibly stolen lamps. No one seemed to ever tell the older girl that something was a bad idea. “I’m not sure which bus to take to where Peanut Butter Pie and the others were living. The buses to North Side are few and far between. I don’t want to get over there and then find out that we missed the last bus.”
“It’s easier to ask forgiveness than to get permission,” Gaddy said. “I’ll get my hoverbike and follow.”
13: TEAM MISCHIEF! GO!
Louise yipped in surprise and fear when something ran up her bare leg. In theory she loved all things small and furry, but not when they were running loose inside her shorts. She jumped up from the concrete floor.
Jillian yelped in unison. “What is it?”
“There’s something alive in here.” Louise had been sitting cross-legged, wiring together the luggage mules through their maintenance ports. Whatever the small furry thing had been, it had fallen out of her lap and disappeared among the clutter scattered thick around her.
“Alive?” Jillian pulled out her Taser. “Like what? A steel spinner? A strangle vine?”
“I don’t know!” Louise stepped up onto the luggage mule’s platform to get herself off the floor.
Crow Boy had gone to find food and information. He believed that the bunker was safe, hidden as it was in the middle of the secret tengu village. He was thinking “oni invaders” not “deadly vermin.”
Louise looked around for a weapon.
“It’s me!” Nikola’s voice called from inside a boot lying sideways on the floor. A white robotic mouse peeked out cautiously to wave at Louise. It wore Nikola’s blue scarf. “Silly old bear. We were bored so we came to see what you are doing.”
“Nikola!” Jillian squealed with happiness. She tucked away her Taser so she could scoop up the robotic mouse and nuzzle it. “I’ve missed you and the girls so much!”
Louise felt a flash of surprise and dismay. Didn’t Jillian realize that the last thing they needed was bored babies?
On the heels of that impatient thought, she also realized that Jillian had spent most of the summer worried that she’d lose first the babies and then Louise. While Jillian had Louise walking and talking and plotting beside her, the babies had been dormant for a month. Jillian didn’t have Louise’s “sense” that the babies were safe and sound within their seven-pound eggs. The twins had marked the sky blue shells with the name of the baby they held but Louise supposed that wasn’t the same as hearing Nikola’s familiar Christopher Robin/little English boy voice.
“Are the girls here too?” Louise said.
“Of course we are!” Chuck answered as she parkoured across piles of camping gear. Her mouse had lost its pink scarf. Its right ear was torn and its face had dirt streaked across it like war paint.