The Inexplicables (The Clockwork Century 4)

She looked up and took note of both boys, then said, “Hello Zeke … and Rector. Still haven’t died on us?”

Rector said. “Not yet, ma’am. Not planning on it anytime soon. ”

“You and your plans. ”

Zeke repeated his edict, then added, “We’ve got intruders inside the city,” to give it some extra spice. “They’ve got bad ideas for the lot of us, and I think Miss Angeline has a plan. ”

“Intruders? Who would want to intrud

e…” she stopped herself. “Ah. Men who want to make money on the sap trade. ”

Tired of remaining silent, Rector fleshed out the story with a flourish. “We saw them. They’re here to raise hell, Miss Mercy—but we ain’t gonna let ’em. ”

“I’m sure I’ll sleep better at night for knowing that. All right, I’ll be there soon. Go up to the main floor, and I’ll swing down to the other end of this one and get my daddy—unless you saw him already. ”

Rector said, “Nope. Haven’t seen him. ”

“All right. Then you two keep spreading the word, and we’ll be up at Maynard’s as soon as we can. ”

On the main floor they found Joe Burns, Jay Arvidson, and someone else whose name Rector barely heard and didn’t remember. Like a great broom, the two boys patrolled the Vaults and swept everyone they found upstairs.

When the place had been scoured to Zeke’s satisfaction, he and Rector went down to the main-level storage room and switched out the filters on their masks. “Time to visit Fort Decatur,” Zeke said, screwing a clean carbon disk into place and twisting hard to make sure it was secured.

Rector nodded agreeably and fiddled more slowly with his own filters. This wasn’t old hat to him yet, and he was still getting the hang of making sure every seal was fixed as though his life depended on it. Because his life did depend on it, and that thought made him twitchy. His whole life, hanging upon a small black filter that could clog or fail at any time … but probably wouldn’t, if he set it up just right.

No pressure.

“Hey Zeke, I’ve been wondering,” he said as they made for the exit. “Why’s it called Maynard’s? Is that after your grandpa?”

“Sure is,” he answered proudly. “Miss Mercy says the Doornails treat him like he was their patron saint. But I only know what a patron saint is because of you and the orphan home. ”

It wasn’t a bad comparison. “Yeah, that’s right. ”

He thought about the small cards the nuns passed out, each one with the image of a saint and a short biography on the back. Maynard’s would depict him in his hat, with his badge, buckle, and rifle. He’d be wearing a halo of gold-colored gas, and all the poor sinners would venerate him on bended knee with eyes averted out of respect. Maynard Wilkes: lawman and folk hero. A man who obeyed the spirit of the law if not the letter. He braved the Blight without a mask, back in the days before anybody knew what it was, or how it worked—only that it killed. He fought his own officers, his fellow lawmen, and the remaining civil authorities one and all … and he ran to the city jail to set the prisoners free. Gave ’em a fighting chance. And his famous last words, according to people who professed to be in the know, were, “None of those men were condemned. It’d be murder to let ’em die. ”

It was a great story, and at least some of it was true.

If there was one thing Rector had learned in Sunday school, it was that people liked stories. People needed stories, same as they needed heroes. Dead heroes were the best kind, really. You couldn’t argue with them, and mostly, you only remembered the best things they’d ever done—while forgetting about the worst.

Once or twice, when he’d been too sublimely bored to think straight, Rector had opened up one of the Bibles lying around the orphanage. The words inside had been arranged funny, like they were spoken by someone in a play, but he got the stories anyway—and he learned about how a man after God’s own heart had lied, cheated, killed, and schemed … but went down in history as a great king all the same, all because of a lucky shot that knocked down a giant.

Maybe Maynard Wilkes had arrested half the people inside that prison. Maybe on another day, the occupants would just as soon have shot him as name a saloon in his honor. But it was those big stories people remembered, in the end.

And now the job of sheriff belonged to Maynard’s daughter. She wasn’t half the hero Maynard was, in Rector’s somewhat biased opinion; but if anybody had to call the shots, it might as well be her. Just like it might as well be Yaozu running the Station and the sap, and it might as well be Captain Cly turning away from pirating and setting up the docks inside the city.

How much did they choose—and how much was chosen for them by coincidence and lore?

Rector shrugged off the question. How much had he chosen, when he’d come inside the wall? And how much had he only been driven to?

Out through the huge round Vault door and under the streets the two boys dashed. They paused to spread the word to everyone they met, an assortment of men whose names Rector forgot as soon as he heard them. Along the damp corridors and muddy halls braced by mining timbers and railroad ties, the boys continued until they reached the ladder that would take them up inside the fort. Rector realized he almost could’ve found it on his own, a fact which surprised and pleased him, and made him wonder if his brain hadn’t cooked up like a boiled egg quite as bad as he’d thought. He was still capable of learning his way around, and that was something.

Up the rungs they went, and into the gloomy yellow-gray air.

Zeke headed directly to the main yard with its half-built docks at the east end and called out for Captain Cly or anybody from the Naamah Darling. No one answered. At first Rector thought the fort was a dud, but then a man stepped out of the fog. He was wearing a mask with a hole cut in the back for his ponytail, similar to the way Houjin wore his. This newcomer dressed halfway between a Chinese man and an airman, so Rector knew it must be somebody from the Naamah Darling, but he couldn’t recall anybody’s name except for Cly and Troost.

Zeke called out, “Fang! I know you don’t mean to sneak up on people, but goddamn. ” Then, to Rector, he said, “Fang ain’t got no tongue, so he don’t talk. He’s the first mate on the Naamah Darling. ” Turning back to the first mate, he said, “Princess Angeline is calling an underground meeting, down over at Maynard’s. ”

Fang nodded, then mimed looking at a pocket watch.