She seemed reluctant to say more. “Well, I won’t press—”
“She’s a truther,” Elizabeth said.
Mercy sat upright. “That’s an insulting word.”
Elizabeth said, “Truthers are conspiracy theorists. Mercy’s a time-travel truther. She thinks the government’s covering up the real source of the Mirror technology.”
“It was invented by gnomes from the far reaches of Hilbert space,” Jesse said. “Isn’t that what you told me?”
Mercy’s indignation turned her face a brickish shade of red. “They weren’t ‘gnomes.’ They were normal for where they came from. They were kept in captivity for a couple of years before they died.”
“No one’s ever proved that,” Elizabeth said.
“Because the evidence has been suppressed. But the facts are coming out piece by piece, and it makes the elites nervous.”
Jesse said, “What facts are those?”
“The fact that our entire political and economic system is driving us into a lethal dead end.” Mercy turned to Elizabeth. “The people you call ‘gnomes’ came from almost a thousand years in our future. They’re small because, where they come from, everybody’s small. Their bodies are unusual in a lot of ways, according to the autopsies, which were never officially released. They process food more efficiently than we do. They’re built for survival in a hot, depleted environment. That’s an uncomfortable truth for anyone who wants to go on doing business as usual, given that business-as-usual is cooking the planet. But it gets worse, for people like my father. The visitors’ economic system is different, too—egalitarian in a way that makes wealthy and powerful people uncomfortable.”
Jesse turned to Theo. “Do you believe this as well, about the utopian gnomes?”
Theo looked uncomfortable. “I haven’t seen the kind of evidence Mercy’s seen. But I agree that there needs to be a whole lot more transparency. And, you know, the irony is pretty inescapable.”
“What irony is that?”
“That we suppress information about the future on the grounds that making it public might create chaos. But somehow it’s okay for us to come here and stir up the exact same shit. It’s a double standard.”
“My father’s doing things here that are inexcusable,” Mercy said. “You should be angry at him.”
I may yet work myself up to it, Jesse thought.
By the time it was fully dark, two fire wagons had gone rattling and clanging down Montgomery Street. There was nothing else the window view could tell him, but it was a safe bet that there was trouble in Chinatown, just as Theo had predicted. Jesse was relieved, then, when the radio emitted a chirp that indicated an incoming message. Elizabeth put the device to her ear and said “yes” or “okay” at various intervals; then she tucked the radio into the calico travel bag and said, “We’re supposed to be at the Market Street wharf by ten o’clock. An unmarked boat will take us across the bay to Oakland.”
Jesse checked his pocket watch. Ample time to make the deadline. “All right,” he said. To Mercy and Theo: “We have a carriage big enough to carry us all. If anyone’s watching they’ll see us leave the hotel, but I can’t do anything about that—we only have to get to the stable around the corner on Market. Once we’re in the carriage we should be safe enough, though we might need to take the long way around if there’s trouble between here and the wharfs. Understood?”
Nods all around.
“Downstairs, out the door, up Montgomery to Market. I’ll reclaim the carriage, then we head for the docks. All right?”
No objections. The ladies put on their hats.
Jesse opened the door of the room and surveyed the hallway beyond. The Royal Hotel wasn’t a complicated building. He could see the entire corridor from the north end to the stairway on the south, and there was no motion but the flicker of the gaslights. “Come ahead,” he said.
They made it to the third-floor landing before they encountered anyone else. In this case it was a man in a top hat, escorting a woman who looked too furtive to be his wife. The man was clutching a room key in his right hand.
The couple walked past the door marked 316, Mercy and Theo’s old room. Jesse wouldn’t have given it a second thought, save that the woman tugged her companion’s sleeve and said, “What kind of hotel is this? This door’s had its lock broken.”
Elizabeth guided Mercy and Theo a little ways down the stair, out of sight. Jesse waited for the top-hatted man to convince his female friend to continue on to their own room. Once they were out of the corridor he made a cautious approach to 316.
The door was ajar. And yes, the lock had been forced—with a crowbar, it looked like. The wood of the jamb was splintered and broken.
Jesse pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The room was empty. Nothing had been disturbed except Mercy’s suitcase, the contents of which had been dumped on the floor. All else was as they had left it earlier in the day. The thieves had not found what they had come for.
Because what they came for, Jesse thought, was us.
The break-in wasn’t entirely surprising. The question was, who was behind it? Little Tom or some other tong boss, looking for more City weapons? Or Roscoe Candy, looking for revenge?
They passed through the lobby of the Royal into the street, where the evening air smelled of refuse and wood smoke. The pedestrians on Montgomery were mostly male and mostly respectable, none obviously threatening. Haphazard light and deep shadow provided cover but made it harder to spot potentially hostile strangers. Jesse walked a little ahead of Mercy and Theo; Elizabeth walked a pace behind them, as if she were afraid they might dart away into the crowd.
The traffic on Market Street was denser and even more lively, but the livery stable where he had left the carriage bore a crude sign that said CLOSED. There was no visible light from inside. Jesse pounded his fist on the barn-sized door, but no one came. Which was worrying. There were animals inside—he could hear the nervous whinnying that followed his knock—and at this hour there should have been a hostler there to tend them. He looked at Elizabeth, who shrugged.
The big door wasn’t chained, so he pushed it open. The reek of horses and fouled straw wafted out of the darkness, along with the sound of the animals shuffling in place. There was no lantern at hand. Jesse had been carrying his pistol on his belt under his shirt; now he took it in his hand and kept it at his side. “Stay by the door,” he told Elizabeth. “Keep Mercy and Theo where you can see them.” She nodded and drew her own pistol from a pocket sewn into her day dress.
Jesse hugged the shadows as he began to move deeper into the building. On his right was a row of stalls; on his left an assortment of carts, wagons, and carriages. A tall window at the rear of the shed admitted enough reflected light to allow him to navigate without bumping into anything. As he passed a small alcove he spotted an oil lamp resting on an anvil, as if it had been left there in haste, and he paused long enough to lift the mantle and light the wick with a paper lucifer of the futuristic kind. The lamp gave off an acrid glare that penetrated into the dark places of the shed and made it instantly obvious why no one had answered his knock.
The stable hand who had accepted Jesse’s horse and carriage only a few hours ago lay motionless, sprawled behind a quenching barrel in the blacksmith’s alcove. The blacksmith in his apron lay facedown on a drift of urine-soaked straw, arms akimbo. The throats of both men had been cut. Their blood had collected in rusty pools. It had been there long enough to begin congealing.