Who whistled softly. “No appointments after today?”
“I noticed that too.”
“‘They arrive’…” Wayne said, reading.
Wax nodded, giving Wayne a moment with the calendar pages while he pulled out the letters. The light wasn’t great down here, but he could make out enough in the sunlight coming through the grates. Reading the two letters again, one extremely incriminating, the other full of pleasantries. What …
Oh, rusts. “Wayne,” he said, holding up the incriminating letter they’d gotten from the newspaper editor. “This is a forgery.”
“What? Really?” Wayne took it. “How do you know?”
“Before all this started,” Wax said, “I spent a good amount of time on an operation that implicated Vennis Hasting — who supposedly wrote that letter — in a scandal. I proved that he had been bribing other senators. In order to make our case, Steris and I authenticated letters we’d acquired from him. Rusts. I visited three separate handwriting analysts, and they talked specifically about the distinctive turn of Vennis’s strokes. Which aren’t right in this one.” He felt his eyes widen. “That’s what it means … that’s what she’s doing…”
“Mate,” Wayne said. “You’ve gotta be more clear. ’Cuz I sure ain’t following.”
“My sister,” Wax explained. “She needs a way to seize control of the Basin, and prove to Autonomy she can rule here. I’ve been wondering how blowing up Elendel achieves that.”
“It would remove a whole lot of barriers.”
“Yes, but surely the other cities would never follow someone who committed such an atrocity.” Wax held up the fake letter. “Unless Telsin could claim she didn’t blow up Elendel. Unless she had proof — in the form of forged letters — that the senators inside Elendel were the ones developing the bomb. With the right evidence, she could make it look like they mistakenly blew themselves up.”
“Oooh, that’s devious,” Wayne said. “She can ‘recover’ some of the details of that weapon too, so Bilming will ‘reluctantly’ have access to the technology to protect the Basin from the Malwish. Hell … that would work. Remove Elendel. Unite the Basin. Achieve dominance on the planet.”
A piece locked into place. Even Gave’s letters — the real ones from Vennis Hasting — made sense now. They’d needed handwriting samples, hence the cordial letters between mayor and senator.
“And the lack of appointments after today?” Wayne asked. “Seems like our deadline’s even tighter than we feared.”
“We need to find this lab,” Wax said, starting along the storm drain again. “And hope the bomb is there.”
Wayne nodded, joining him. Gave had scheduled fifteen minutes on either side of his appointments for travel to the lab — so it wouldn’t be too far.
As they walked, Wax found himself increasingly worried. About what Telsin was doing. About the implications of it all. So he was a little relieved when Wayne broke the silence.
“Sooooo…” Wayne said. “When you were in the mayor’s office … did you notice if he had a nice desk?”
“He had a rather nice one,” Wax said. “Why?”
“Did you…” He nodded back in the direction of the Silver House. “You know…”
“Fart in his chair?”
“Yup.”
“Wayne. Of course I didn’t.”
They walked a little farther through the muck, finding a place where kids had obviously snuck down, judging by the graffiti painted on the walls: giant sweeping Terris patterns of V’s.
“Okay,” Wax finally said, unable to let it go despite trying quite forcefully, “why would you even think that I would do that to his chair? You explicitly said not to, and beyond that … what the hell? Who does that?”
“Nobody, nobody,” Wayne said. “It’s good you didn’t. Gotta stay classy, you know. ’Specially in times like this. Very serious. Bombs threatening cities. Likely detonation today. No time for frivolity.”
He paused.
“But…” Wayne continued, “if I’d been there, and seen that fancy chair … Well, I like those chairs, you know? The type that leans all the way back, and is all leather, and firm enough for support, but not so firm that it’s uncomfortable. You know?
“And I’d think, ‘Damn, that’s a fancy chair.’ And I’d wonder … would the old backyard mistmaker sound different? What if I released a little concentrated essence of Wayne into those perfect leather contours? Would it feel different? Would my cheeks—”
“That’s enough. Please.”
“Oh, right. Okay.”
They continued on a little farther, but something about his words … Wax again tried to put it out of his mind, but …
“Wayne,” he finally said, closing his eyes, feeling angry at himself for continuing the conversation. “I have a chair just like that back in my study in the penthouse.”
“That you do,” Wayne said solemnly. “You do indeed.”
Oh hell. “Wayne. Did you—”
“Wax, the whole city is in danger, you know? You need to stop letting your attention drift, mate. First that fixation on me maybe setting government buildings on fire — only twice, mind you, which isn’t a pattern, just a coincidence. Now this fascination with what comes outta my backside. Can’t we keep focused on important things?”
“Yeah, I suppose.”
“Like this art,” Wayne said, admiring some graffiti. “Ma was right. This place is beautiful.”
“Ma?” Wax said. “Do I want to know what you’re talking about this time?”
“This just reminds me of an old story with a canyon,” Wayne said, joining him as they continued. “A story my ma told me. Last one she gave me. So I remember it well, you know?”
“No,” Wax said. “How is this tunnel a canyon?”
“It just is,” Wayne said softly, looking up as they passed under another grate, sunlight crossing his face in a checkerboard pattern. “Been thinking about it since earlier today. It’s inevitable, you know?”
“I don’t,” Wax said. “I really don’t, Wayne.”
“Well it just is,” he said. “Even if you don’t know it. You’re the hero, Wax, and you got a mission. Barm. The nastiest monster what ever lived. You’re gonna stop him…” He hesitated. “Watch out. Might be some snakes in this canyon.”
“It’s a storm drain,” Wax said, “and I’ve never seen a snake in the city.”
“Yeah, they’re damn good at sneaking,” Wayne said. “Speaking of snakes: the Set, they’ll know that was us with the mansion.”
“Undoubtedly,” Wax said. “They might push into the mayor’s study to recover sensitive documents. I couldn’t replace the rug above the trapdoor — so they’ll know I found the tunnel.”
“Ah, great.”
“Great?”
“You’re supposed to find a bad guy in the canyon,” Wayne explained. “If the story is going to go right, at least.”
“Wayne,” Wax said. “We’re not in a canyon in your mother’s story. We’re in a storm drain in Bilming, trying to find and stop an explosive device. We—”
He was interrupted by a gunshot just ahead, echoing in the narrow tunnel — and a bullet hit the concrete near Wax’s head with a pop, blasting out a chip.
They both immediately ducked to the sides, getting low, and saw shadows moving in the tunnel ahead, just around a bend. Wax picked out two figures crouching beside the curve of the tunnel — the Coinshot he’d fought earlier, and a shorter woman wearing a bowler hat.
“Hey,” Wayne said. “Will you look at that. Bad guys and snakes. Both at the same time.”