Whatever happened, I had to get my hands on that phone.
Walker fell back to walk with me, and we talked quietly together. He deliberately slowed our pace, allowing some distance to develop between us and Honey and Peter.
“While you were gone,” he said, quietly and entirely matter-of-fact, “someone tried to kill me. Even in the midst of all that was happening. With so much madness running loose it’s hard to be sure, but someone quite definitely tried to remove my head from my shoulders from behind. Would have succeeded with anyone else, but fortunately my years in the Nightside have made me very hard to kill.”
“Even with the Authorities gone?” I said.
“Especially now they’re gone. I’m protected in ways you can’t imagine. But the point is, we now know who killed Lethal Harmony and the Blue Fairy. It has to be either Honey or Peter.”
“Always assuming,” I said, “that you’re telling the truth.”
“Ah,” said Walker. “There is that, yes.”
“None of us can be trusted,” I said. “We’re all agents.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
All at Sea
T
here was sun and light and warmth, and after the bitter cold There of Tunguska and X37 it felt like very heaven itself. All four of us cried out in relief as the teleport bracelets delivered us to our new destination in the sun. And the first thing we all did was tear off our heavy fur coats and drop them in a pile on the ground before us. Hats and gloves and everything else that reminded us of X37 followed as fast as we could rip them off, and when the pile was complete we all gave it a good kicking, just on general principles. And only then did we take the time to look around and see where we were.
We’d been dropped off in a neat little side street looking out over the docks of some major city. Ships everywhere: mostly navy, but some commercial, some tourist, and some fishing boats. American navy: big, impressive ships, longer than some roads, equipped with the very latest technology and the very biggest guns. Crew members swarmed over the huge decks like ants serving their queen. Not, therefore, a good place to be four strangers strolling around asking questions . . . I moved down to the end of the side street and looked out over blue-green waters without a trace of a swell under a pale blue sky with not a cloud to be seen. The sun was high in the sky, fat and friendly and deliciously warm. Seagulls rode the thermals, their distant voices raucous and mocking.
“I’m back in contact with Langley,” Honey announced, one hand pressed to the side of her head. Though how that helped with a brain implant, I wouldn’t know. She frowned, almost wincing. “There’s a lot of shouting going on. Apparently they took it pretty damned personally when I fell off the edge of the planet and they couldn’t locate me anymore. They’ve had three different spy satellites tasked to do nothing but look for me ever since. They were concerned. Which I’d think was very sweet of them, if they’d just stop shouting at me . . . Ah; it seems we are currently in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.”
“How long have we been off their radar?” I said.
“Three days, seven hours,” said Honey. “I’m being asked a lot of questions.”
“Who cares,” said Peter. “I smell food!”
“What kind?” said Walker.
“I don’t care; I’m going to eat it.” Peter glared about him, sniffing the air like a bloodhound on a trail. He plunged forward into the main street, following his nose, and all we could do was hurry after him.
“I will admit to feeling a bit peckish myself,” said Walker, striding along with a military gait. “Are there any noted restaurants in Philadelphia?”
“Oh, bound to be,” I said cheerfully. “Sailors like their food. And booze, and tattoo parlours and—”
“Langley is demanding to know exactly where we were and what we’ve been doing,” said Honey, striding along beside me like a tall dark goddess in her blazing white jumpsuit. “They were under the impression there wasn’t anywhere they couldn’t follow me with their brand-new toys, the poor babies.”
“Don’t tell them anything,” Walker said immediately. “Not . . . just yet. There might come a time when we need confidential information to bargain with.”
“Why would I wish to bargain with my own superiors?” said Honey just a bit coldly.
“I meant bargain with Alexander King,” Walker said patiently. “It’s well known the Independent Agent has contacts everywhere, in every organisation. Except possibly the Droods. Either way, I think we need to hold our secrets close to our chest until the game’s over.”
“He’s right,” I said. “Secrets only have power and value as long as they remain secrets.”
“So what do I tell Langley?” said Honey. “I’ve got to tell them something, if only so they’ll stop shouting inside my head.”
“Tell them about X37,” I said. “But not what we did there. They’ll be so excited about the confirmed location of an old Soviet science city, they won’t care about us and what we did.”
“What you did,” said Walker. “I’m still a trifle uneasy over that.”
“That’s a good way to feel about Droods,” I said. “Helps keep you properly respectful.”
“Blow it out your ear,” said Walker.
Honey’s face went vague as she presumably filled in her CIA handlers with information about X37, hopefully being just a bit discreet about the whole Tunguska Event thing. Of course, she could have been telling them absolutely anything. Or everything. I had no way of knowing. It was important to remember that she was an experienced field agent, and I couldn’t afford to trust her. Or Walker. Or Peter.
Katt was dead. And the Blue Fairy. And . . . I never saw a thing. I couldn’t help feeling that if I’d been just a bit more on the ball, a bit more observant, I might have seen something. Done something. Katt was a rival, and I hardly knew her. And after what Blue did to me and my family, we were enemies to the death. But even so, I liked Katt. And Blue was my friend.
This is why I prefer to work alone in the field. There’s nothing like people to complicate a mission.
Peter took us straight to the eatery he’d sniffed out. By that time we’d all got the scent and were practically treading on his heels. I hadn’t realised how hungry I was. A little beaver doesn’t satisfy you for long. Peter barged right through the front door without even glancing at the bright shiny posters on the windows, but Walker took one look and balked.
“But . . . this is a burger bar!” he said plaintively. “I wanted food. Real food!”
“Don’t be such a snob,” said Honey. “This is America, home of the brave and incredibly fast food.”
Walker sniffed loudly. “And even faster indigestion. Any country that has to advertise laxatives on television at prime time is in serious trouble.”
“Oh, shut up and get in there,” I said. “I can smell dead animals burning, and my taste buds are kicking the crap out of each other.”
“If anyone even attempts to serve me something in a bucket, there will be trouble,” Walker said ominously.
Honey and I pushed him through the front door and joined Peter at the table he’d commandeered. He’d already attracted the attention of a pretty young waitress in a seriously ugly pink uniform and was giving her his order. He was only halfway down the card, and already she’d filled up half her pad. As burger bars went, this was perhaps a little better than most. Clean enough, not too crowded, and the piped Muzak had been selected by someone who’d at least heard of tunes. There were big glossy posters everywhere, with marvellous illustrations of all the wonderful things you could order. Presumably there so that if you couldn’t read the menu, you could still point at things. I have a soft spot for the big happy posters, even though what they’re showing you usually bears only a passing resemblance to what you actually end up with. I keep hoping that one day I’ll actually get what I order; a triumph of optimism over experience.
“What do you fancy, Eddie?” said Honey, running her eyes down the laminated menu.
“Anything,” I said. “Everything. Just kill a cow and bring it to me. I am seriously hungry. I may eat you if the service takes too long.”
“That’s a nice thought, Eddie,” said Honey. “But maybe later, okay?” And she fluttered her eyelashes at me.
“Mostly I prefer Burger King,” I said, tactfully changing the subject. “At least there you get what you ask for and nothing else. I mean, if I order a bacon double cheeseburger, as I have been known to do on St. Cholesterol’s Day, that’s what I want. Double beef, cheese, bacon, in a bap.
Nothing else.
No bloody lettuce, no bloody gerkin. If I’d wanted a side salad, I’d have asked for one.”
“Fussy, fussy,” said Honey, not taking her eyes off the combo menu.
In the end, between us we ordered the entire menu. I took a look around as the waitress laboriously wrote it all down, using up most of her pad. The big clock on the wall said 2:25 in the afternoon, which helped to explain why the place wasn’t too crowded. I drew Honey’s attention to the clock, and she nodded.
“God alone knows where my body clock is at,” she said, stretching slowly and languorously, like a cat. “I hate teleportation; it always ends up giving me jet lag. And your luggage usually ends up in another dimension.”
We’d persuaded Walker to order some of the more straightforward choices, but he was still fussing over the drinks list. He sighed, shook his head, and finally looked up at the waiting waitress.
“Just a tea, please, my dear. Do you have Earl Grey?”
“Don’t embarrass me,” Honey said firmly. “You’ll have coffee and like it.”
“American coffee,” said Walker. “I am in Hell. Just bring me a cup of water, my dear.”
“You don’t want to drink the water around here, honey,” said the waitress. She’d rather taken a shine to Walker, or at least his accent. “Even the bottled stuff is suspect. Tell you what; I’ll bring you a nice Dr Pepper. How about that?”
Walker smiled at her. The waitress was a tall healthy-looking girl, whose prominent bosom put an unfair strain on the front of her ugly pink uniform.
“Thank you; that would be lovely, my dear.”
The waitress flashed her perfect teeth at him and tottered off with her pad full of orders.
“What a warm and understanding chest that girl had,” said Walker. “What’s a Dr Pepper?”
“It’s like the docks,” Honey said kindly. “Close to water.”
The food finally arrived, and we gave all our attention to pounding it down. Nothing like real hunger to make everything taste good. To my relief, my burgers arrived entirely uncontaminated with lettuce or pickle, and neither had they been skimpy with the cheese. None of us felt like talking; we just sat and chewed and swallowed, along with the occasional grunting noise of satisfaction. Walker wolfed his stuff down too and even ended up trying bits from everyone else’s plate. Though no doubt he’d go to confession later and confess that his stomach had gone slumming.
It wasn’t as though we had much to say to each other, even after all we’d been through together. Perhaps because of what we’d been through. A lot of what happened at X37, all the things we experienced . . . were just too private, too personal to discuss. We were all hurting on a spiritual as well as physical level. I remembered seeing my parents. Or something that looked very like my parents. Nothing ever has a hold on you like unfinished emotional business . . . When this was all over, and Alexander King had his information, and the Drood family had his precious secrets locked safely away from the rest of the world . . . it was time, and well past time, that I finally got to the truth about what happened to my parents. Who really killed them, and why. And Molly’s parents too, perhaps. Was there really a connection? Molly always was ready to see the worst in the Droods . . . Still, I’d waited long enough for the truth. Once this game was over, I would make time for something that really mattered.
I’d allowed my family to distract me for far too long.
We all finally reached the point where even brute willpower couldn’t force another morsel past our lips, and we sat back from the table, favouring our distended stomachs, and looked at each other to see who felt like talking first. And since none of us felt like talking about X37, we talked about Philadelphia and why we’d been sent there.
“Has to be the Philadelphia Experiment,” I said.
“Has to be,” said Honey, nodding emphatically.
“Didn’t they make a film about that?” said Walker.
“I’ve seen it,” said Peter. “Started badly, ran out of steam, and then really went downhill. Sequel wasn’t bad, though.”
“If all you know is the movie, then you don’t know anything,” I said. “The film was all about time travel, while the experiment wasn’t.”
“I always thought the Philadelphia Experiment was just another urban legend,” said Walker. “The Case of the Vanishing Ship, and all that. I’ve never seen any official files on it, and I’ve seen files on most things that matter. Remind me to tell you about the Unholy Grail sometime.”
“I wouldn’t touch a straight line like that for all the tea in China,” I said firmly. “The experiment—”
“You’re about to lecture us again, aren’t you?” said Honey, not unkindly. “Droods know everything, right?”
“Right!” I said. “You’re catching on! Now hush while I tell you all a nice story. The legend first. There are many variations, but the gist is that on October 28th, 1943, the USS
Eldridge
was used as the setting for a very advanced scientific experiment, to see if a navy ship could be made invisible to enemy radar. This was also known as Project Rainbow. But something went very wrong with the experiment.
“The
Eldridge
set off from the docks, and set their brand-new machines working. Other ships in the area were standing by to observe any changes that might happen. They weren’t prepared to see the
Eldridge
completely disappear—become actually invisible. All they could see was a deep depression in the water where the ship had been. And then the gap in the river suddenly filled up as the
Eldridge
vanished. Thrown out of our reality entirely by the power of its new machinery.