Wax smiled, then dug into the sandwich. Wayne did the same, and he hadn’t realized how hungry he was. Some canteens followed — alas, just water. He wished for another beer. But no, they had work to do. One would keep them limber. Any more would be dangerous.
Wayne dug out a replacement metalmind for Wax, filled with extra weight, and tossed it to him. Next were some vials filled with metal flakes, all in a little sheath. Eight of them had been removed already; eight remained. “These ain’t your normal sort.”
“Harmony sent them,” Wax said. “Said they were special.”
“Did he now…” Wayne said, eyeing the last one in line, with a red cork. He set those aside, then took out a small pouch of metals with his name on it. Rusting woman had even sent him some bendalloy. “So, where do we go, Wax? You said they were buildin’ one final rocket, biggest of them all. Where do we find it?”
Wax scanned the notes. “They’re worried, Wayne. Up against the wall. There’s notations at the end here, from today. They are terrified that Autonomy will cancel their whole project — violently. So they’re scrambling to fend us off, and for any last chance at victory. But where … how…”
Wayne continued fishing in his duffel, then pulled out a strange wicker ball with a weight at the center. “Is this something Ranette made?”
Wax grinned, waving for Wayne to toss it over. Then Wax launched it into the air with a Steelpush. “Max must have helped Steris pack. Sent me a little gift.” He launched it higher next time. Then higher.
Then he caught it and froze.
“What?” Wayne said.
“I know where the bomb is,” Wax said. “You need height. Height first, then you can launch something far. Plus, they needed to build a big rocket someplace where people wouldn’t be able to poke around. Get as much height as they can, in a secure location…”
Wayne breathed out, and the two of them turned toward the center of the city. And the Shaw, the enormous tower there — which had new construction on top, supposedly adding a few new floors. Or was it a different construction project entirely?
“Damn,” Wayne said, noting the number of lights on in the upper floors of the tower, and the floodlights on the top. “They’re busy tonight. Backs against the wall indeed…” He looked to Wax. “It’s a mesa. That spire. That’s the mesa.”
“What mesa?”
“In my ma’s story,” Wayne said, “it all ended at the mesa. The lone peak in the center of a flat landscape.”
Wayne eyed his friend to see if he complained they weren’t in that story. Because in this, Wax would be wrong. They were in it — or at least living alongside it. Because Wayne had decided it was so, and that was the way of things.
“A mesa, eh?” Wax said, letting one leg slip out over the edge to dangle. “Yeah, I can see that.”
“I could never figure out the part that happened next,” Wayne said. “In the story, the lawman went to the mesa to find the bad guy — Blatant Barm, worst villain there ever was. But Barm was the mesa.”
“He … was the mesa?”
“Yeah, like he’d transformed into it,” Wayne said.
“That … doesn’t make much sense.”
“Sure doesn’t,” Wayne said. “I never could figure out why Ma told it that way.”
“Maybe it doesn’t mean anything,” Wax said. “Maybe she came up with it because something needs to happen in stories.”
“Nah,” Wayne said. “You didn’t know my ma, Wax. She was good at stories. Real good. It meant somethin’…” Wayne took a deep breath. “If we’ve gotta get to the top, that’s gonna be a rough ascent. There aren’t any other buildings around it nearly as tall. You won’t be able to Push us up there.”
“We’d be exposed to snipers trying that anyway,” Wax said, squinting at the floodlights high atop the Shaw. “We’ll have to go up the inside … Ruin, Wayne. You’re right. It’s going to be rough.”
Wayne’s foot thumped against something from the ammo duffel. He frowned, then knelt and pulled out a wooden box that had been tucked at the bottom. It had Ranette’s symbol on the top.
Wax breathed out softly, almost reverently. “Steris packed it.”
“What?” Wayne said, opening the top.
He revealed a gun. Stocky, with a barrel a good four inches across. Unlike anything he’d ever seen.
“Something special.” Wax took it out, then removed other pieces from the box to assemble something that looked a bit like a single-barrel shotgun, only with a much wider bore. It had a big central ammo wheel — almost like for an oversized revolver — which held slugs bigger than shot glasses.
Wayne whistled.
“We just call it the Big Gun,” Wax said. “I’d hoped I wouldn’t need it. It wasn’t built for a lawman. It was built … for a sword.”
In the distance, the sun finally sank beneath the ocean horizon, like a great big piece a’ dough bein’ dropped in to be fried up nice and toasty. Wayne held his breath. Then mists began to curl in the air. Growing like vines from invisible holes, pouring out into the city.
“Well,” Wax whispered, “that’s a welcome sight.” He glanced at the gun in his hands. “This next part is going to be bloody, Wayne. How much healing do you have left?”
“Not much,” Wayne admitted. “I can handle a bullet or two. That’s it.”
Wax took a deep breath. “I’ll want you to stay back. To let me do what Harmony has decided I need to do.” He cocked the strange gun, chambering an enormous bullet. “We’re going to get to the top of that building and stop the launch.” He paused. “Funny. I don’t know if I could have done this a few years ago. But I know who I am, what I’m fighting for, and why. There’s a certain peace in that, no matter how bad this is likely to get.”
“Rusts,” Wayne said, his stomach in a knot. “Wish I felt the same. Wax, after all this time, it’s still hard for me to sort out. I kill a man, and it ruins my life. Then I join you, and I’ve gotta keep killin’ them. Poor sods. You know?”
Wax shouldered the strange gun, then put his hand on Wayne’s arm. “Yeah. I know. But maybe your ma was right about the bad guy being a mesa. Being the land itself. Maybe that’s what she was saying, Wayne: It’s the world that we have to worry about. Individual men, yes, they can be evil. But we should worry more about the world itself making them so.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” Wax said, “do you think you’d have fallen in with the Plank Boys if your mother hadn’t died in that accident?”
“Absolutely not,” Wayne said.
“Nearly every man I’ve had to shoot? He had a story like yours. It’s the sort of thing Marasi is always talking about. You have to stop the Blatant Barms of the world, yes. But if you can create a world where fewer boys grow up alone … well, maybe you’ll have far fewer Blatant Barms to face in the future. Maybe that was what your mother was saying.”
Huh. “Yeah,” Wayne said. “Yeah, that sounds right.” He stood at the edge of the billboard ledge, the two of them facing the spire. Wax slid the last of those metal vials Harmony had given him into the aluminum-lined sheath at his belt. Wayne downed some himself.
“Wayne,” Wax said, “do you remember how this started? This new life, after the Roughs? I’d given up after Lessie’s death. You came to me in Elendel, and you pulled me out, Wayne. I was content to sit around, stewing in my own self-reflection. Then you showed up and grabbed me. Told me there were train cars being robbed mysteriously. Set me on the path chasing Trell…”