Waybound (10 page)

“State your business!”

“I was merely on a constitutionary stroll, when I stepped into this shadowed recess to escape the overwhelming torridity.” His words seemed to confuse the guards, so he added, “Rapturous day, but a modicum too hot for me particular penchant.”

The bald guard looked at the hole in the ore and the exposed sewer pipe within it. “You been digging?”

Mr. Pynch's heart valve churned. If the Marquis knocked on that pipe now, they'd be in a whole heap of trouble.

“Mercy, no! I found such disarray when I arrived here. Mayhaps a jaislid laborer was attempting to access the roots of this sendrite tower and forgot to cover his exertions.”

“That pile of fancy clothes yours?”

Mr. Pynch chuckled. “No mehkie this side of the Shroud would be caught dead in apparel of the human varietal.”

Baldy's gaze lingered on Mr. Pynch's garish green necktie. Then he spied an object sticking out of Mr. Pynch's pocket—it was the furry thing the Marquis had stolen. Baldy's eyes bulged.

“Little thief!” he snarled, snatching the pilfered toupee and slapping it onto his gleaming bald head. The fuming man squinted at Mr. Pynch and snapped his fingers. “ID this one.”

A glowing handheld scanner was shoved in Mr. Pynch's face.

Blip-blip-blip-blip…

He watched Baldy's hands move to the magnetic club at his belt—it was a Lodestar, just like the one Mr. Pynch had stolen from Micah, then lost in a lousy bet shortly after.

Now Mr. Pynch was beginning to feel ill, like he had a viral case of rustgut. He could see no easy way out of this. Was the Covenant watching? Would they come to his rescue? Surely, he would be shot dead in his tracks if he tried to flee.

And what about the Marquis?

PING!

“It's one of the saboteurs!” Baldy growled.

The guards drew their rifles. The yawning barrels pressed in so close that Mr. Pynch could smell how recently they had been fired. Fingers hovered over triggers.

A low groan startled them, followed by an ear-shredding glissando. The electronic thrum faded along with the purple glow that had tinted the area. An eerie silence settled.

The magnetic barricade of the Foundry compound was down.

An emergency siren wailed.

Mr. Pynch didn't miss a beat. He inflated with a pop, his body expanding so fast that he launched a few feet into the air. The men were flung back, their rifles skittering away.

Baldy scrambled for his Lodestar, but Mr. Pynch rolled end over end, flattening the bleeder. He deflated, snatched the magnetic club, and fired it. A purple bloom of force hurled the metal-armored men down the alley like stray fluff.

Mr. Pynch was preparing for a second assault—“hit them when they're down” was his default brawling philosophy—when he heard three muted knocks. He unscrewed the hatch on the sewer pipe and shielded his delicate nozzle.

“Took yer sweet time down there, didn't ya?”

The slime-befouled bundle of naked tubing that was the Marquis emerged, none too pleased. He looked at the trio of groggy guards and blasted up a message.

Blinkety-blankety-flashy-flick.

“You most certainly did NOT save me!” blustered Mr. Pynch. “I was handling meself most adequately, thank you very much!”

The Marquis scraped off handfuls of muck and got dressed.

“Though yer obliteration of the Foundry's security apparatus will surely satisfy the Covenant's needs. You have me regards.”

The Marquis tipped his top hat.

“Shall we vamoose?”

As they raced down the alley, a fireball erupted. Mr. Pynch and the Marquis glanced back over their shoulders to see a gang of Covenant warriors streaming from their hiding places, weapons drawn as they breached the Foundry compound's vulnerable perimeter. Among them was the thiaphysi who had captured Mr. Pynch and the Marquis. She saluted them with a fist over her dynamo—their obligation was at an end.

Black smoke curled into the sky above Sen Ta'rine and the Living City rang with a triumphant Rattletrap battle cry:

“Blaze the Way!”

Though it had only been a few days since the Citadel's collapse, the Foundry's relocation to the Depot was nearly complete. They had engaged the NET system, a glowing magnetic lattice suspended over the premises to deter aerial assaults. The watchtowers were overflowing with soldiers, and multibarreled Frag-cannons scanned the premises in agitated arcs.

Security had never been tighter.

Transloaders, hulking Tier-trucks, and Over-cranes clogged the arteries of the complex. All seventeen railways were occupied, yet more behemoth locomotives rolled in through the security gate, awaiting their assignation. The entire Depot teemed with personnel, with most of the commotion focused on trains idling by the tunnel to Albright City.

The shipment to Trelaine was being assembled, Goodwin realized—without his involvement.

He observed from an enormous plate-glass window in the circular conference room on the top floor of the Control Core. This impressive, cylindrical tower was the Depot's high-rise heart of glass and steel. At the room's center was a lengthy copper table inlaid with a golden image of the Crest of Dawn. Trapezoidal chandeliers hung overhead, and supple burgundy carpet spread underfoot. Workers laid cable, carried in plush furniture, and hung paintings on the walls.

Goodwin sat in a chair opposite Chairman Obwilé and the four directors, whose faces were lit from beneath by Computator panels. Their attention was fixed on the voices coming through their earpieces—removable ones, Goodwin noticed irritably, still feeling an ache where his own earpiece had been implanted. Apparently, he was not important enough to be included in this conference between the directors and the Board.

Once they were done, Obwilé and the others fixed Goodwin with indifferent stares. He took that as his cue to begin.

“Good morning, and thank you for your time. Materials gathered from our raid reveal fifteen Covenant encampments scattered throughout Mehk. If we attack from the region marked here”—he pressed a button on his Scrollbar and the map appeared on their screens—“we can drive them to—”

“Thank you, James,” cut in Obwilé, “but stick to the facts. My team doesn't need your advice in these matters.”

“Of course, but I urge you not to delay. They are scrambling to recover, so we are perfectly positioned to strike.”

“You were summoned here to deliver a report. That is all.”

There was a click in his earpiece. By their reactions, Goodwin could tell the rest of the directors heard it too.

“There has been an attack on our compound in Sen Ta'rine.”

“Nine Watchman units destroyed. Six injuries, two fatalities.”

The directors exchanged glances.

“Eighteen enemy mehkans killed, five escaped. Minor damage to our facility. We have a team in pursuit.”

“Is the threat ongoing?” inquired Director Santini, a jowly man with a haughty air and a black, manicured goatee.

“No, but it appears to have incited riots elsewhere in the city.”

“You see? We must act now,” Goodwin said gravely.

“You believe this is the Covenant?” Director Layton asked.

“Unlikely,” interjected Obwilé. “There is no reason to think—”

“Let James speak.” Her voice was frigid.

“Without a doubt,” Goodwin replied. “With our new intelligence, we can cripple them, but time is of the essence.”

There was a tense moment while the four directors huddled. Chairman Obwilé adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses and touched his earpiece. Evidently, the Board had something to say to him alone. Perhaps they had a secret purpose for him—it wouldn't be the first time the Board had played one of its pawns off the others. Or perhaps they were reprimanding him.

“James, we are granting you a temporary advisory position on the Covenant Task Force,” Director Layton said at last. “You will serve under General Moritz. Don't make us regret it.”

Goodwin nodded and made sure not to glance at Obwilé, enjoying the man's frustration from the corner of his eye.

“You have my thanks,” he said. “There is one other matter.”

“Yes?”

“The children are alive. The Covenant is protecting them.”

“What makes you think you know this?” Obwilé asked.

“In the camp, one of the prisoners, a sort of priest, said something. I had the words translated: ‘
The infidels will wither. Phoebe is the light of Loaii
.' It is unclear what the term ‘Loaii' means, but they appear to believe she is a kind of saint.”

“What of it?” inquired Director Santini.

“Are these delusions relevant?” Director Layton asked.

“Yes.” Goodwin looked at their scowling faces. “If we hope to eliminate the Covenant, we need to understand their objectives. I propose we send a recon team to track the children down and—”

“You waste our time,” scoffed Obwilé.

“No, Mr. Chairman,” Goodwin said calmly. “If the Covenant thinks they are important, then we should do the same.”

“As I recall,” Obwilé sneered, “you dismissed us when we told you to find those children.”

“They were not a priority then,” argued Goodwin. “And I did, in fact, detain them—”

“Only to lose them once again.”

“
Enough
,” stated a voice in their earpieces.

“
We cannot spare resources to mere hunches
.”

“
The children are of no consequence at this time
.”

“Report to General Moritz, James,” Director Malcolm said with a flash of his white-capped teeth. “Focus on the Covenant. If you find evidence that the children are pertinent to our interests, then we can revisit this matter.”

“
Dismissed
.”

Goodwin nodded, burying his contempt.

Heel. Roll over. Play dead.

His time would come.

J
ust as Phoebe had suspected, the trickle of vesper swelled to a stream, then became a creek that carved through the lush jungle. They had been hiking for hours, and while her coveralls felt like a Toast'em Oven, the trek was not at all unpleasant.

Much like the rain forests she had heard about back home, this jungle was a torrent of life. Magenta, parrot green, and fluorescent yellow blooms dominated the creek beds, their vibrant faces turning like pinwheels. Amid the tahniks, trees with hinged, zigzagging trunks sagged with purple punching-bag fruit. And a rainbow orchestra of flying things was rehearsing in the canopy. Phoebe couldn't call them birds exactly, because most of them didn't have wings. There were propellers, soaring kites, leaping springs, and some that hovered like flying saucers.

It was sensory overload—too many kinds of plants and animals to take in at once. And that had her kind of worried.

Earlier, she and Micah had stumbled upon a host of carnage-splattered mehkans like miniature jackhammers on stilts. Startled by Micah's armor, the horrific, oversized mosquito things scattered, leaving a blackened carcass behind. Whether they were predators that had brought the poor creature down or just scavengers, she couldn't say.

“Hold on a second,” Phoebe said. She loosened the straps on the Multi-Edge's sheath and cinched it around her slender waist.

“Not like that,” Micah chuckled. “Put it 'round your leg.”

She realized he was right, but her beanpole legs were too scrawny for the straps, so she continued fastening it at her side.

Micah just shrugged and clattered ahead through the florid pinwheel flowers. He paused for a moment by the vesper, activated his VooToo, and dipped the tubes in to get a drink. He marveled at the blooms surrounding him. Spatters of electric blue forked through with streaks of oven red and orange, and as the petals turned, their colors swam in a hypnotic whirlpool. He leaned in to inspect one of the beautiful blossoms.