“I don’t see how this could defeat Harmony though.”
“I don’t either, honestly,” Moonlight said. “I’m not sure any human can understand the full plan. But she knows Harmony has trouble acting, and so she has seen an opportunity.”
Marasi sat back, breathing out, her hand slipping from her gun. Answers. Actual answers. She’d been searching for so long, hit so many dead ends. To finally get an explanation felt … wonderful.
“So Autonomy is looking for an avatar,” Marasi said.
“She’s likely found one. A woman named Telsin.”
“Wax’s sister?” Damn.
“Granted, there’s rivalry among the ranks,” Moonlight said. “There always is, with Autonomy. So Telsin will have to prove she’s the strongest, the best. And, since creativity and individualism are Autonomy’s stated intents, she’ll reward grit, success, vision.”
Moonlight nodded to the half-finished buildings they were passing. “This city is an example of that, all designed by one gifted architect Telsin promoted five years ago. His work is meant to impress Autonomy … but the individual homeowners? They don’t get to design anything. They get a manufactured ‘individual’ house.”
“Seems like a raw deal,” Marasi said.
“Depends on what you want,” Moonlight said. “Living under her can be safe if you keep your head down, don’t stray into the dangerous regions where she demands that you test yourself. Autonomy is brutal, but also generous. If you impress her, you rise through her ranks. Even if you go against what you’re told, and you are successful, you are rewarded.”
“And if you fail?”
“It doesn’t go well for you,” Moonlight said. Her eyes grew distant. “She sickens me. But I do understand her … I think. It’s taken a while.”
Marasi sat back in her seat, thoughtful. Answers, finally. But at the same time … how much could she trust this woman? Was any of this true?
“Why explain this to me now?” Marasi asked.
“Because you’ve impressed my organization,” Moonlight said. “We who defend Scadrial have to move very carefully; there are forces in this world — Harmony included — that might crush us, if we take the wrong step.”
That gave Marasi pause. If they didn’t work for Harmony, who did they work for?
Moonlight led the truck caravan off the highway at last, passing through the outskirts of the city on the northern edge.
“It’s so … fabricated,” Moonlight said. “Look at that sign. You see it?”
“The billboard?” Marasi said, glancing at the large posted drawing of a stylized version of Bilming, with light rising behind it. PRIDE IN PROGRESS, it said. OUTER CITIES SELF-RELIANCE MOVEMENT.
“Those are all over the city,” Moonlight said. “Nights! The same exact piece of art, a hundred times over. Art that can be reproduced … is it really art at all?”
“Of course it is,” Marasi said. “Why would it stop being art just because it’s replicated?”
“It’s crass.”
“Said like an elitist,” Marasi said. “If you truly were interested in the beauty of the art — instead of some tangential sense of control — you’d want everyone to be able to experience it. The more the better.”
“Well argued,” Moonlight said. “I’ll admit that my distaste for Autonomy might taint my opinion.”
They led the convoy onto Biggle Way, then drove slowly in a single-file line. Eventually someone fell into step alongside Marasi’s truck, wearing a red jacket as the notebook said. She unlatched the window again.
“Ahead, across the Grand Motorway,” he said. “Third building on the right.”
She nodded and put the window back up. At the end of the street, they reached the Grand Motorway — a vast six-lane highway. Marasi had never seen a street so wide. “Are there really so many cars these days that such a thing is necessary?”
“They’re planning,” Moonlight said, “for a much larger city in the future.”
Well, they might not need that many lanes yet, but there was still plenty of traffic on the Grand Motorway. They had to wait for traffic to slow and give them a chance to cross. Ahead she could see a line of large warehouses — the third one’s cargo door was open. That was it, their drop-off.
“Are you going to interfere?” Marasi asked. “With our operation?”
“No,” Moonlight said. “You have my word.”
“Can I talk to you afterward?” Marasi asked.
“Yes,” Moonlight said. “But Marasi, I can only say so much to an outsider. For now I’m just here to watch.”
At a lull in the traffic, Moonlight pulled across — though the other nine trucks had to wait their turn.
“And what if bullets start flying?” Marasi asked. “You’re going to sit here and watch?”
“I’m not a constable, as you pointed out,” Moonlight said. “So yes. Consider me an external admirer of your work. Interested in the quirks of those who follow the law — and their … value.”
She smiled in a knowing way, then pulled into the cavernous warehouse. As soon as all ten trucks arrived, the sting could begin.
21
Wayne nodded as the trucks ahead waited to cross the highway. “Well then, Hoid,” he said to the coachman, “that’s all I know about how to pickle vegetables.”
“… Thank you?” Hoid said.
“’S all right,” Wayne said. “I’m a bastion of useful information, I am.”
The truck ahead of them pulled forward, crossing the vast motorway filled with sixteens upon sixteens of cars. Hoid moved their truck up, next in line.
“Can I have my harmonica back now?” Hoid asked.
Wayne fished in his pocket and brought it out. “I traded you fair for this!”
“You did nothing of the sort.”
“I did!” Wayne said. “The trade is in the glove box. You’re always too watchy for me to slip things in your pocket. How’d you get so good at that, anyways? You’re a rusting coachman.”
“Practice,” Hoid said solemnly. “A very great amount of practice.” He opened the glove box, and a bright white creature with a long, hairless tail peeked out. “Wayne. A live rat?”
“I call him Sir Squeekins,” Wayne said. “I wasn’t gonna bring him, but he snuck into my pocket, he did. So I figure, ‘That’s the seventeenth time you’ve let him escape his cage, Wayne. Better give him to someone responsible.’”
“You are a uniquely bizarre individual,” Hoid said, smiling as the rat crawled up his arm. “But … trade accepted, I guess?”
“Great, great,” Wayne replied. “He likes strawberries and booze, but don’t give him none of the booze, ’cuz he’s a rat.”
“Noted.”
They waited at the edge of the wide roadway. And Wayne, he’d had this feeling all day today. Something was happening. Something important.
“You ever feel,” Wayne said, “like you wish life was like the stories?”
“What do you mean?” Hoid asked.
“There’s always a good ending in those stories. The ones my ma used to tell … they meant something. People, they were worth something.”
“I think we live stories every day,” Hoid replied. “Ones that we will remember, and tell, and shape like clay to be what we need them to be.”
“The last story my ma told me,” Wayne said, “was about a lawman. Funny, huh? That I’d end up becoming one. Except he was a hero. And I’m … well, I’m me.”
“You do yourself a disservice, Master Wayne,” Hoid said softly.