Harbinger

12: THE REDCOATS

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” the driver of the Oakland-to-Downtown bus cried as the royal marines bounded up the steps behind Olivia. The puppies were all excited about the bus trip; the only other mechanical transport they’d experienced in their entire lives was the train ride from the East Coast. They bounced around the large interior, testing all the seats and examining every overhead advertisement.

“Are the redcoats with you, miss?” The bus driver watched the antics in his rearview mirror. “Are you one of those poor interns that the EIA hired to translate for the summer?”

Redcoats? Olivia hadn’t heard the nickname before but it was easy to tell why it sprung up. The royal marines were Fire Clan, whose “official color” was scarlet red. The marines’ uniforms looked like those of the British soldiers during the Revolutionary War; they wore the same kind of red wool tunics with big brass buttons down the center.

During the last few days, Olivia had been forced into close quarters with the marines and had seen them in every mode of undress possible, including buck naked. (They were very comfortable in their own skin and unabashed in their nakedness.) What was blazed across her brain was the white linen of their underclothes. She only saw them in their coats when they were away from wherever she’d set up camp. Their felt tricorne hats were black, as were their low boots. They also wore white cotton slacks and leather button-up gaiters that went up over their knees. She supposed that to any normal person, the other colors of the marines’ uniforms were lost against the brilliance of their coats.

“I am Forest Moss’s domi.” Olivia fed her fare into the box and took the transfer slip that it spit out. Did the driver know what a domi was? She hadn’t until a few days earlier. Olivia added, “I’m like Princess Tinker. I’m married to Forest Moss.” Sort of. At least the general impression in the city was that Tinker had gotten married to Windwolf. “These royal marines are my guard.”

“You’re going to pay for them?” It was a question but the driver said it more like a statement.

Last time she had taken a bus, she’d been shadowed by Wyverns. The sekasha had gotten on without paying. Not surprisingly, no one had tried to make the holy warriors cough up their fare — not with them lopping the heads off people right and left.

Olivia didn’t want to have to pay for the marines. It would be nearly thirty dollars for all of them and then she would need to juggle twenty-one transfer papers to get them back to Oakland. “I’m sure that the Wind Clan made arrangements through the EIA for the royal marines to have use of the public transit system.”

The bus driver blinked in surprise. “I–I—I don’t know.”

“It would stand to reason that the newly arrived elves from the Easternlands would ride for free,” she said. “There’s no other way for them to get around the city easily; they haven’t had time to ship in hundreds of horses and carriages. They don’t have human money, nor could the EIA pass out bus passes to all the incoming marines — not quickly.”

“I–I-I should call in…” the bus driver started but then stopped as his dashboard dinged repeatedly as the marines discovered the button that signaled a desired stop. He sighed and glanced up at his mirror. “Forgiveness!” the bus driver called in fluent Elvish. “Don’t push that, please — not unless you want off.”

“Chi-chi-chi!” Coal cried. “You speak Elvish so well.”

“I was born in Pittsburgh,” the bus driver said.

“He sounds like Wind Clan,” Ox stated bluntly.

“Ya! Fire Clan would be: Stop it, you kids!” Coal did a gesture that was possibly obscene. It was hard to tell, considering how often the marines used it with one another. He added a dozen more words that Olivia didn’t know.

The driver knew. He snickered, shaking his head. He closed the door and the bus trundled forward.

Olivia took it as a victory, the second for the day, maybe the third.

She’d forgotten to follow her father’s advice to see each success as proof of her own strength. It didn’t seem like much. She had no seeds in hand and no idea how she was going to find the missing prostitutes. Certainly what she had accomplished, however, had been more difficult than cleaning her room. She’d gotten in to see Tinker. She’d talked Tinker into using her great powers to help. She’d bullied a bus driver into giving the marines free rides. Yay, me.

Olivia squashed down hard on the negative thought as she herded the marines toward the back of the bus. Her dad always said that big victories were made of countless little wins. The bigger problems of life would seem impossible to overcome if you ignored all the little wins.

I was strong, Olivia reminded herself. I can do this. I’ve done the impossible to get this far.

It was still insanely early for a social call when Olivia hit Mount Washington with the royal marines in tow. She had dragged them through the light-rail subway stations under Downtown, gotten off at Station Square — which was still in chaos from the derailment — and then up the Monongahela Incline. Every leg of the trip was greeted with exclamations of surprise and excitement. It felt very much like taking a group of kindergarteners to Disneyland. All that was missing was Mickey Mouse.

Olivia wasn’t sure where Aiofe worked as an intern at the EIA. She entertained thoughts of marching up and demanding to see Director Maynard and asking him. That’s what Tinker domi probably would have done. Olivia doubted, though, that the man would know where one of his lowest-level employees was. The last time she’d seen Aiofe, she’d been working in the field with the troops setting up the keva-bean handout. Olivia was hoping that if she arrived early enough, she would catch Aiofe before she went off to work.

She used the travel time to explain to the marines who she was going to see. It was an interesting exchange of information. Explaining Aiofe required explaining the university to the marines, which led to high school, which led to the subject of education in general. The elves didn’t do schools like humans. Apparently there were too few children to even fill a one-room schoolhouse. They were taught their letters and numbers by traveling scholars. After they’d learned the fundamentals, it depended on their caste if they received any further education.

It sounded suspiciously like the type of education that girls received at the Ranch. If it weren’t for state mandates, Olivia’s schooling would have stopped the day her mother packed up their car and drove cross-country to the Ranch. As it was, Olivia never saw the inside of a school again. Her mother claimed it was because of the low quality of the schools in rural areas, but the truth was that the church elders didn’t want their young people exposed to the basic freedoms that others their age normally enjoyed. Brainwashing someone into accepting a narrow vision of the world only worked if you kept the blinders firmly in place.

As laedin-caste, all the marines had been carefully guided to go into combat training. Once they reached maturity, they had limited directions to go in terms of career. They could be a private guard for a household like Poppymeadows or join the general pool of royal marines. They claimed that they were happy, but then they didn’t know anything else but fighting and playing at their childlike games.

Olivia was furious for their sake but they didn’t understand her anger, which only made her angrier. When they finally reached her leveled house, she marched past it, up onto Aiofe’s front porch, and banged on her door, which was painted Wind Clan Blue.

“Who’s that pounding on me door?” Aiofe called fearfully.

“Aiofe!” Olivia called out to reassure the girl. “It’s me.”

There was the sound of bare feet running toward the door. It jerked open to reveal Aiofe in pink and green plaid flannel pajamas, her long dark hair up in a messy bun.

“Red!” Aoife cried and flung herself onto Olivia to hug her hard. “Oh, I was that worried! What in the world?”

Aiofe had noticed the royal marines lined up behind Olivia.

“They’re with me.” Olivia pushed up her bangs to show off the mark that Forest Moss had put on her forehead. “I’m Forest Moss’s domi now.”

She said it quick and fast to get it over with, bracing for the same sort of outrage that Tinker domi had leveled at her.

“Domi?” Aiofe’s eyes went wide. She pointed at the marines. “So — they’re yours?”

“Yes, for now,” she said.

“Smashing!” Aiofe pulled Olivia into the house. “Come on in. I’ll wet the tea. I’ve got biscuits that I’ve been saving for a special occasion. Some Digestives and some Fig Rolls. We can sit in the garden and have a proper talk.”

Olivia hadn’t gotten the door shut behind her as Aiofe pulled her through the house. The marines followed her in, excited at the chance to see the inside of a “normal” human house. Aiofe had squatted in a lovely big Victorian and over the years, sparsely decorated it with a style that TV shows called shabby chic.

“Shouldn’t you put some clothes on?” Olivia asked since Aiofe was still in her flannel pajamas.

Aiofe laughed. “This is perfectly decent!” Aiofe grabbed her teapot and started to fill it. “Just let me put the kettle on and grab me tablet.”

“Tablet?”

“I need to document all this! The anthropology department hasn’t been able to get a single straight answer on elf courtship customs. Tinker domi just suddenly popped up ‘married’ to Windwolf. The subject has been totally off-limits since some idiots from the tabloids asked some seriously intrusive questions. And no one really has had the time to sit and talk to the royal marines. This is absolutely fabulous!”

Normally Olivia thought of Aiofe’s kitchen as bright and cheerful and large. With the addition of the royal marines, it suddenly seemed quite small. Olivia sat down at the table in an attempt to make it seem less crowded. Aiofe had tidied up since she last visited — her laptop, textbooks, and research materials were all neatly stacked.

Aiofe put the teapot onto the stove and gave the dial a savage twist. The flame shot up. Dagger and Ox crowded in close, murmuring with surprise, and played with the dial to change the level of the flame.

“Don’t touch,” Olivia whispered at them, making shooing motions.

“They’re fine! They’re fine!” Aiofe opened and closed cabinets as she got the makings of tea ready. “Smashing, in fact! I tried to weasel my way onto the EIA support team that is backing up the Viceroy on the front line, but those plonkers weren’t having it. They told me to take the day off and then emptied the city of elves! I bawled me eyes out.”

“I’m sorry,” Olivia said. “But I really didn’t mean to stay. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I kind of left in the middle of the night. I was hoping you were okay — and that maybe you could help me — a little.”

“Me?” Aiofe said.

“I went out to talk to Tinker domi…”

“You talked to her?” Aiofe sat down across from Olivia and leaned in close. “What’s she like? They say she’s like a tiny lioness. So little. So fierce. Did she say anything about how she got married to Windwolf? Wait! Your dau mark is different! Oh, I need to take a picture of it! Can I?”

This was not going how Olivia imagined this conversation to go.

In the name of science, she let Aiofe photograph her dau mark and measure it. It put the girl intimately close. It made it harder to talk about what had happened over the last few days. She wanted to make it sound romantic but she didn’t want to lie. An ugly mess was an ugly mess no matter how many layers of white silk and red roses you layered over it.

In little embarrassing fits and starts, she skipped over the uglier points of her discovery that Forest Moss was looking for someone like Tinker domi.

“I got scared by everything that was going on. I could see that being a domi was more than just a bed warmer. I decided to track Forest Moss down and make him an offer.”

“Which was…?” Aiofe pressed a small plastic ruler to the dau mark.

“To be with him.”

“Forever?” Aiofe asked. “Is he going to make you an elf — like Tinker domi?”

It was the one question that Olivia didn’t want to answer the most. She knew that she couldn’t explain it so Aiofe could understand. She could never explain to her stepsisters why she didn’t just parrot the bastardized version of the Nicene Creed that the Ranch followed. It wasn’t what she believed. To change what she believed was to change herself. To say the words would make it easier to lose herself against the pressure to be the creature that the Ranch wanted her to be.

She’d fought to stay true to herself for a third of her life. She didn’t want to give herself up. All the whores on Liberty Avenue from Stateside would jump at the chance to be an elf; they would never understand her refusal to be transformed. Yet those women wouldn’t allow just anyone to cut their hair, or give them a random piercing or tattoo. How could they not understand that having every cell in their body transformed would be more life altering than having their head shaved?

Olivia’s faith was her bedrock. She knew through countless battles that her beliefs were built on a few thousand words. She’d protected those words because they protected her faith, which protected who she was at the very core. If she were transformed into an elf, what would happen to the person that she had fought so hard to protect? Would her soul bond to a body so foreign to the one that God gave her? Did elves have a soul? Did they go to heaven? Was there a separate heaven for elves? Elfhome existed in a different universe with a different sun and moon. She was terrified that changing something so fundamental about herself would wipe away everything that was her. Who would remain within her skin?

Even though it terrified her, she knew that most people would dismiss her fear. To them, she was like the little kid who was afraid they would slide down the drain when the bath water was let out. Yet, those who would belittle her fears couldn’t know the truth. No one had ever seen a soul. Touched a soul. Kept it from going down a drain.

Luckily, Aiofe had too many questions to wait Olivia out. She followed up with, “Why did Windwolf do it? How did he make her an elf? He did do it — didn’t he? I mean — she is genetically an elf — right? Or was it just an ear job?”

Olivia had been carefully questioning the marines about this for days. “The domana can use the Spell Stones because of something coded into their DNA. It’s the key to their military power. It’s against their laws to dilute domana bloodlines. They don’t want any little bastards running around who may or may not be able to use the stones that could make more bastards that may or may not. Windwolf had to make Tinker domana in order for them to be together.”

“And Forest Moss is going to…?”

“I want to stay myself.”

“Tinker domi stayed herself.”

Olivia bit down on “How would you know? You’ve never met her!” She said instead, “Did she? Really? Why was she just a hoverbike racer, then? Why wasn’t she someone influential before she was changed?”

“Life is always changing you,” Aiofe answered. “It’s like you’re in an egg — it’s nice and cozy and you know every millimeter of it and you think you know everything about the world. Then suddenly — boom! You hatch out into a different world. Then you’re a little chick, all covered with fuzz in a nice cozy nest with a mom feeding you bits and pieces of raw meat and you think you know everything. Then boom! You grow these feathers and you can fly and your mom kicks you out of the nest and you realize that all that raw meat that she was feeding you are little animals that you now have to catch yourself. You don’t know anything about the big massive world but you’re one kick-ass falcon.”

Olivia stared at her. That had to be the weirdest analogy she’d ever heard.

“When I grew up in Dublin, I thought I knew everything,” Aiofe said. “I had it all figured out. But then I went off to uni and found out that I knew squat. Tinker domi was kidnapped by the oni and held prisoner, and made to work under the threat of torture. It changed her worldview. She might have only cared about racing before she got grabbed, but everything she’s done since then proves that she was changed by what happened to her.”

“I would argue that isn’t necessarily a good thing,” Olivia said.

“Life is a mixed bag of jellybeans. Good and bad. Change is inevitable.”

The teakettle started to whistle.

Olivia didn’t want to talk about her faith and her fears.

“I’m worried about some of the people that I know,” she said instead. “Everyone in the city without family can easily fall through the cracks. People like you.”

“I’m fine,” Aiofe said. “I was worried about you. I got called in to translate and came home to find your house a pile of rubble. I knew that you were working night shifts but I still called the fire department and everything.”

“I’m sorry,” Olivia said. “The Wyverns showed up to collect Forest Moss. I was too scared to think about leaving a note.”

“Ppfft!” Aiofe waved off the apology. “It’s fine. I wouldn’t have been thinking straight either.”

“When I was talking to Tinker domi, one of her men reported that some kids from Stateside who work Downtown have disappeared.” Olivia had gotten so used to editing what she said that she barely needed to think about not using the words “prostitutes” or “illegal immigrants.” She wasn’t totally sure if Tommy Chang could be called a “man” since that denoted “human.” He seemed human enough to Olivia — certainly more humane than her ex-husband. “I know these missing kids. I want to check on them — make sure they’re safe. I’m hoping that they’re just staying home with all the fighting going on in the city. I know where they’re squatting. The problem is that I think something bad might have happened to them, and if that’s the case, I don’t even know where to start finding that kind of stuff out. I need someone with a lot of resources to help me.”

“And I work for the EIA!” Aiofe realized instantly why she was first on Olivia’s list despite the fact that she was the one least at risk.

Olivia explained that while Tinker had had elves and tengu and a dragon at her enclave, there hadn’t been any humans. “Tinker domi doesn’t seem to utilize the EIA or the police.”

“She doesn’t have the same clout with them.” Aiofe started to pick through a basket of clean laundry. “On Earth, the spouse of a ruler never has any real power. In Ireland, the president might be leader of the country but his wife can’t do anything more political than host tea parties for charity. She certainly can’t have people executed on the spot or thrown out of the country. Pittsburghers think of Tinker mostly as a muddy wee lassie on a hoverbike. Humans just don’t get that she basically became a coruler with Windwolf when she agreed to become his domi.”

Aiofe did a magic trick of pulling on a floral sundress and taking off her modest pajamas at the same time. A few days earlier Olivia would be totally shocked but the royal marines had worn away that response.

Olivia focused on the problem at hand instead of Aiofe changing her panties without flashing anyone. “These are humans that I’m looking for — not elves. The police or EIA will be the ones that know if they’ve been hurt and taken to Mercy Hospital, or arrested, or gathered up to be deported at some later date…”

“Oh, I’m thick!” Aiofe cried. “You’re looking for cute hoors.”

Olivia wasn’t sure she had understood Aiofe correctly, especially since most of the prostitutes hadn’t been particularly attractive. “Cute whores?”

“Cute hoor,” Aiofe carefully pronounced the second word. “A person that engineers things quietly to their advantage. People that dropped out of school after coming to Pittsburgh on student visas or never had visas in the first place.”

“Yes.” Olivia braced herself for more negative comments.

“Well, the EIA hasn’t been collecting anyone like that.” Aiofe sat down at the table so she could type on her keyboard. “After the Viceroy was attacked, Maynard pulled everyone off rounding up people on the expired visa lists and focused on finding the oni.”

“I see.” Olivia had been hoping that the missing prostitutes had simply been arrested by the authorities.

“We keep lists of arrests, hospital admissions, and deaths.” Aiofe pulled up the EIA system. “Before August, we rarely had to update any of them. Pittsburgh was a fairly safe town even with the jumpfish and the river sharks and strangle vines. We got lucky that the tengu learned of the attack on Oktoberfest. Station Square had been evacuated before the train derailment. There were, however, a lot of injuries and deaths from the confusion and the fighting that happened afterward. We just need to check for the names of your lads and lassies.”

Tommy hadn’t given any names, he’d only specified “prostitutes working Liberty Avenue.” It seemed to imply that both the women and the men were missing. No one working the streets, though, used their real name, not even Olivia. The EIA lists would be useless for learning if people were accounted for or not. She didn’t even know who had disappeared.

She did know, though, that all the prostitutes were a few years older than she. “We’re looking for people between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. They would have been admitted to the hospital or arrested after the keva-bean handout.”

Olivia had talked with all the prostitutes from Stateside the night before the handout, trying to convince them to join her in getting the free food. The streetwalkers were like the proverbial grasshopper, never worrying about tomorrow. Peanut Butter Pie had been the only one who’d come with Olivia.

Aiofe refined her search. “That does narrow things down. With Pitt on summer break, eighteen to twenty-five is the smallest age group in Pittsburgh. We can also see who they list as emergency contacts; normally locals our age give a landline that belongs to a older relative.”

Olivia cringed with guilt; Aiofe didn’t know that Olivia was only sixteen.

Aiofe pulled up two lists of names. “The police didn’t arrest anyone since the handout. I guess that they were too busy to deal with minor offenders. The list from Mercy Hospital doesn’t look promising. Everyone seems to have given emergency contact and doctor information. Since I don’t have a general practitioner — something I should do something about — I doubt any illegal immigrant would have one.”

That left a short list of the dead. At the very top was “Doe, John.”

“That means he has no identification?” Olivia asked even though she was fairly sure of the answer.

“I’m sorry,” Aiofe said. “It does.”

Olivia steeled herself against the fear that was starting to grow in her. She really didn’t want to go into a place filled with corpses and see someone that she knew lying dead. Who else would do it? None of the other prostitutes had the resources to find out what happened to one of their own. “I need you to take me to the morgue.”

She needed Aiofe’s help partially because she had no clue where the morgue was, but also because Aiofe had some pull as an EIA employee that Olivia lacked.

Aiofe typed on her keyboard a moment and then shook her head. “He’s not at the morgue. The city ran out of space at their building on Penn Avenue. They’ve set up an overflow to handle all the dead with refrigerator trailers and are looking for other alternatives. I can take you to where he is.”

Olivia had come across the border between Earth and Elfhome at midnight during the July Shutdown.

She’d learned that trucks carrying big construction equipment to Pittsburgh had first priority to cross. The vehicles were searched as soon as they arrived, kept in the most secure parking lot at the edge of the quarantine zone, and flagged through immediately after Shutdown started. All other trucks were subjected to multiple, random searches. With the exception of certain medical supplies, everything else was given permission to enter the quarantine zone only if traffic patterns allowed it. It meant that any other vehicle might not even reach Elfhome.

She had reached Monroeville a day and a half before Shutdown. She could see the huge fenced-in parking lots from her hidden advantage point. All the areas were filling up while a giant digital clock counted down. UN forces directed traffic, checked paperwork, and searched vehicles. In the first priority lot, there were three big yellow construction vehicles and a host of smaller backhoes and bulldozers and forklifts and skid loaders, all on trailers. While the parking lot was secure, drivers were allowed to come and go. Between the trucks entering and the drivers walking in and out, she should be able to slip through the checkpoint.

She’d hoped to hide inside one of the smaller bulldozers or backhoes, but the cabs were all glass. It provided the operators a full view of their surroundings but it meant that she wouldn’t be hidden from scrutiny. She would have to hide under one of the bigger vehicles. Most had large wheels that gave the machine plenty of clearance but exposed anyone under them. Her best hope looked to be a John Deere logger with caterpillar treads. The cab created a long, narrow crawlspace under it. The logger sat on a low-boy trailer being pulled by an old blue Kenworth with a sleeper cab. Betts Farms was written on the Kenworth’s door, along with a Pittsburgh address.

Olivia had studied the vehicle through her binoculars, wondering if the driver actually slept in his truck. There was a sprawling truck stop beside the larger nonpriority staging areas with showers and toilets. There were also many cheap motels within walking distance. She watched the Kenworth for nearly an hour but saw no signs of its driver. She knew that this meant nothing; he could be asleep. She also knew that her scrambling around on the trailer might be loud enough to alert anyone awake in the cab.

She had a narrow window of opportunity. She had to risk it. If she didn’t find a hiding place during the cover of this night, it would be another month before she could attempt crossing the border. After years of sneaking around the Ranch, trying to keep hidden from all her various stepsisters and — brothers and extended family, it seemed ridiculously easy to ghost through security. The low-boy trailer’s deck was only eighteen inches high. She stepped up onto wooden floorboards and then crawled between the caterpillar treads of the logger. Lying down, she had only inches of clearance above her head. It smelled of sawdust, engine oil, diesel fuel, and mud.

She was barely in place when the door to the Kenworth opened. There was the familiar jangle of a choke-chain collar. Her heart stopped. She hadn’t considered that the sleeper cab would allow the driver to travel with a dog. She went still as possible, barely daring to breathe.

The dog raced around the truck, the jangle of its collar marking its fast loops. It was a big dog if it was wearing a choke chain. It came to a stop near where Olivia had scrambled onto the trailer. It was close enough for her to hear its loud snuffing.

“Shep!” the driver called to the dog. “Heel.”

The dog bounded to the side of his master, who jogged away, singing a sea shanty in a rich bass voice. “We are outward bound for Mobile town, with a heave-o, haul! An’ we’ll heave the ol’ wheel round an’ round, Good mornin’ ladies all!”

Olivia went limp with relief. She had thought the driver must have heard her scrambling around on the trailer. He must have just wanted a break after sitting in his truck all day. Mud covered the wooden floor of the trailer with hard uncomfortable lumps but she didn’t dare brush them away. The driver might be back any minute. She would have to wait.

The driver came jogging back a half hour later, still humming the tune. The jingle of Shep’s collar kept time with the sea shanty. There were mysterious noises of truck doors opening and closing and the rustle of plastic bags. Olivia had guessed that the driver must have gone to the truck stop and bought snacks for the following day. He had started to play fetch in the dimly lit parking lot. A ball thunked softly on the pavement and Shep raced back and forth alongside the trailer.

“Get that dog on a leash, you stupid Pitty!” one of the UN guards called from out of the night.

“He’s on a leash,” the driver cheerfully called back in his deep bass voice.

“You’ve got to hold onto one end of it, you DPshit!” The guard blurred “DP” for displaced person into an insult. “This isn’t your backwater cesspool of a city! Get ahold of your dog or we’ll impound it!”

“Will do!” the driver shouted back, still sounding cheerful. He whistled to his dog, and muttered quietly. “Don’t fight with the off-worlders. Don’t fight with the off-worlders.”

The driver climbed back into his truck, hopefully for the night.

Olivia waited for nearly an hour, heart thumping, before deciding that the driver probably had gone to sleep. She spent a few minutes cleaning the wooden floor of the trailer under her, brushing aside the hard lumps of dried mud. She tried to sleep but her body refused.

Dawn came, exposing how little cover the caterpillar treads actually gave her. Anyone inspecting the trailer closely would see her. She huddled in the shadows, peering out of the hundreds of tiny spy holes in the treads. Luckily the morning brought rain, keeping everyone under covers. She spent all day tucked up into the machinery, staying as still as possible, carefully sipping water so she wouldn’t need to pee but wouldn’t end up dehydrated. There had been nothing to do but pray and feel bitter regrets about everything that she had said and done since she was eleven.

The driver exercised his dog several times, despite the rain. It was a big blue heeler like ones at the Ranch. An Australian cattle breed, it was a high-energy dog, good for a farm but not the confines of a truck.

With nothing else to do, Olivia made theories about what kind of man the driver was. He seemed to be in his early thirties. Assuming that the guard’s designation of him was correct, the driver had been born in Pittsburgh before it went to Elfhome for the first time. An uneven tan on his face made it obvious that he’d recently shaved off a beard. He was a dishwater blond of Northern European extraction — not fair enough to be a Swede but maybe something just south of that country or perhaps muddied down in America’s melting pot. He had the build of someone who worked hard in fields: tall, lean, strong. On the back of his neck was the farmer’s brand: a suntan that bordered on burn. Both his baseball cap and T-shirt were blue with white lettering spelling out Betts Farms. Was it because he was so proud of his workplace or was it a way to allay UN guards’ suspicion, showing that the man and the truck belonged together? Certainly, he closed to meet any roving guard before they could reach his trailer. He did it casually by using the dog as a distraction, making it seem as if he was coincidently stepping out of his truck to give the dog a few minutes of freedom. With his deep booming voice, he’d explain that the blue heeler normally herded the cattle on the Betts’ family farm. He claimed that he brought the dog on a whim, wanting company while he searched out and bought a used logger. By the very nature of Pittsburgh being on Earth only one day a month, the trip would span weeks. During his search, he’d been able to exercise the dog as much as it needed. This long wait to cross the border, he said, was taxing Shep’s patience. The well-trained dog would win the guards over with its friendly nature.

During these exchanges, Olivia learned that the driver’s name was Gage Betts. His grandmother, Gertie, who was over a hundred years old, owned Betts Farms. Since she refused to abandon the land owned by her father and her grandfather and great-grandfather, the family had stayed put. Oddly there were no mention of parents, aunts, uncles, or other intervening family — but it could be that Olivia had been overly sensitized to such connections via the Ranch.

It wasn’t until dusk that Olivia had realized what Gage had been doing all day.

Gage was keeping the guards from inspecting the trailer where she hid.

Had he spotted Olivia or was he hiding something else, something smaller, stashed within the machinery? If it was as simple as he’d seen her hidden between the treads, why hadn’t he pointed her out to the guards? Was he afraid that he might be detained? Or did he have plans for the girl, completely alone on a strange planet?

The possibilities terrified her. As dusk deepened into night, she considered moving to one of the other trucks. The parking lot, though, became a kicked hive of activity as Shutdown approached. Drivers who had slept in the nearby hotels arrived. The ones like Gage who had stayed with their trucks made trips to the truck stop’s showers and restaurants and toilets and convenience stores.

Just before midnight, the public address system kicked on. A woman announced in bored tones, “One hour to Shutdown. All priority drivers, please prepare for admission into the quarantine zone by your cue number. This call is for priority drivers only. All paperwork must be presented for final check as you enter the zone.”

One by one, distant trucks rumbled to life and moved forward. Finally, Gage’s Kenworth started up and lurched forward. The heavy shifting and rattling of the big equipment inches over her head scared her. There was nothing to do but wait.

At midnight, Pittsburgh arrived with a sudden huge clap of thunder, a wave of cool green air, and a chorus of truck horns.

Gage blasted his horn the longest.

The line of trucks surged forward, quickly building up to highway speeds.

She was committed.

She was terrified.

She fought to stay calm. She couldn’t panic. She needed to get off the trailer safely before Gage reached his final destination. She moved her legs in the low space under the logger, working out pins and needles from lying still for an entire day. She needed to be ready to run the first time that Gage came to a stop. She knew that they were on Interstate 376 heading into Pittsburgh proper. At some point, though, he’d leave the main roads for his family’s farm.

She could see by the headlights in the opposite lane that the outbound vehicles were at a standstill. At some point, hopefully, the Kenworth would run afoul of the traffic heading toward Earth. The roads had remained clear for miles and miles. After twenty minutes of roaring at full speed, she was starting to despair. Where were they going?

The truck slowed finally, taking an off-ramp while the bulk of the traffic continued straight. The new route wasn’t a limited access highway but an expressway through an inner-city neighborhood. Sidewalks and buildings lined the right hand side of the road. If she remembered the layout of Pittsburgh, this was Boulevard of the Allies and it led to other major highways heading out of the city with little or no stops. If she was going to get off, she needed to move soon!

She wriggled her way backward, out from under the big logger to stand behind it. The Kenworth slowed even more as it started into an insanely tight cloverleaf turn. The logger pulled tight on its tie-down chains, the equipment creaking loudly. Gage was downshifting, trying to bleed off speed to take the steep downhill turn. Olivia gripped the logger’s cab as she pulled herself upright. Luckily there were no trucks taking the turn with the Kenworth. No one was behind them to see her.

Olivia risked leaning over the passenger side to see what was ahead of them. There was a red light stopping the ramp traffic. The truck shuddered and groaned at the effort to come to a full stop.

“Yes!” she breathed. She could jump safely off once the Kenworth stopped.

The light turned green.

She gasped. “Oh no!” The sign ahead read Liberty Bridge. If she remembered correctly, directly beyond the bridge were the Liberty Tunnels. She had made notes that whatever she did, she needed to avoid the tunnels and the sparsely settled areas beyond. She needed to jump now.

The Kenworth shifted gears, slowing to nearly a stop but no longer braking.

“It’s just like the hay wagon,” she whispered to steel herself. If the hay wagon was under a dark overpass in a strange city filled with man-eating plants. She pushed the fear aside and jumped.

She stumbled in the dark, going down to her knees. Her hands landed in gritty dirt. She stayed down, panting with her fear. If she stood up, Gage might see her in his mirrors.

The Kenworth rumbled forward, gaining speed. She crouched in the darkness, waiting, until it had disappeared over Liberty Bridge. It was the last time she’d seen the truck. For days the rumble of big trucks made her heart hammer in her chest.

The makeshift morgue was set up at the huge parking lot at the foot of Mount Washington. The EIA had erected a big white tent. She’d caught a glimpse of it on the way up the Duquesne Incline but she hadn’t realized its significance. She’d thought it been set up for a wedding. Any little girl would dream of holding her reception within the crisp white canvas against the vibrant autumn leaves of the wooded hillside. Now that Olivia knew what the tent was, she noticed the line of refrigerator trailers parked beside it. Coolers for the dead.

Then she saw the Kenworth.

Olivia jerked to a halt at the sight of it. Around her the royal marines shifted into combat model, reading her alarm.

“It’s nothing.” She motioned for them to stand down. She forced herself to keep walking. Maybe she was wrong, maybe it wasn’t the same truck.

Blue Kenworth. Sleeper cab. Betts Farm. Blue heeler leaning out the window.

Yes, it was the same truck. The Kenworth was currently hooked up to a refrigerated trailer. She couldn’t see Gage Betts; the person setting the chocks on the trailer, though, looked too young to be its driver. Did it mean that Gage was somewhere nearby?

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Aiofe whispered fiercely. “It’s Director Maynard!”

Olivia tore her gaze away from the Kenworth to scan the area for the famous director of the EIA. She spotted Director Maynard talking with a tiny old woman dressed for church in a prim black pillbox hat, a russet housedress, white gloves, and black cane. What was riveting about the woman to Olivia was how prim and proper she looked — a counterpoint to the fact that every other word out of her mouth was a profanity.

“We normally fire up that goddamn ice rink up as soon as it gets hotter than fuck,” the old woman said. “It’s a son of a bitch to maintain and sucks energy like an expensive whore but the kids love it after pissing around in the hot sun all day. I don’t like it myself, it freezes the tits off me. I can’t take the cold like I could when I was younger. After the bullshit during the June Shutdown, we locked down and braced for war. Between that and Gage being off-world buying some equipment, we didn’t fuck around with the ice rink.”

“Can you gear up the ice rink to be a morgue, Mrs. Betts?” Director Maynard said.

Mrs. Betts? Was this Gage’s grandmother? The woman certainly looked fragile enough to be over a hundred years old.

“We could but what’s the fucking point?” Mrs. Betts said. “Most of the dead are elves or oni. Elves want cremated as soon as possible, not dropped on ice like a fucking Popsicle. The oni aren’t going be coming around, wanting to identify their dead. My kids can just dig a fucking big hole for your people to drop them in.”

“There are tens of thousands of people in Pittsburgh who aren’t permanent residents,” Director Maynard said gravely, as if he knew that Mrs. Betts had little sympathy for those who weren’t locals. “They want to know that they will be returned to their families if the worst happens.”

The old woman spat a curse so foul that Olivia blushed for having heard it. “They bitch and moan and do their damnedest to keep us locals from being together as a family. Serves them right to see what a bitter medicine it is to swallow.”

“Grandma Gertie,” Gage Betts said as he walked out of the big tent. He’d regrown his beard into a goatee. His dishwasher blond hair had been trimmed to a long crew cut. He was spiffed up to “farmer business” style with a button-down oxford shirt, new black jeans, and well-polished cowboy boots. He looked so much like one of the men from the Ranch that Olivia hated him on sight. All that was missing was a cowboy hat and a well-worn Bible carried like a weapon. “You know it’s the treaty that screws us over, not the off-worlders.”

The old woman cursed again. “The off-worlders are the ones that make it so hard to jump through the fucking hoops that the elves put in place. Two hundred pages of passports, visas, permits, and travel plans just to go to Earth for a month to buy a logger. What bullshit. When I was a little girl living on Earth, I could travel the planet with nothing more than a smile and nod.”

“That might have been true in the nineteen thirties, but it wasn’t true when I was a boy living in New York.” Maynard noticed the royal marines. A slight frown marked his confusion as he scanned the squad. He spotted Olivia and his eyes went wide. He flicked his hand to a woman standing behind him. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Betts, I have to attend to this personally. My assistant, Mrs. Walker-Buckton, will handle things from here.”

His assistant stepped forward with a clipboard. While her hair was dyed an unconventional deep blue, her demeanor was extremely professional. “I have the paperwork for the rental of your trailer and a check made out to Betts Farm to cover the agreed-upon deposit.”

Mrs. Betts didn’t take the unspoken clue. She eyed the assistant, grunting slightly. “What happened to that other girl, Maynard? The little twat that kept giving me the stink eye?”

Maynard glanced to his assistant, who did pick up the clue.

“She was an oni mole. I am not,” Mrs. Walker-Buckton said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Mrs. Betts blocked Maynard’s path with her cane. “She was? You sure? What did you do to her? Let those elves be judge, jury, and executor?”

“Taji Chiyo was part of the oni strike squad that kidnapped Tinker domi,” Mrs. Walker-Buckton said. “She was a kitsune; one of her ancestors was an oni spirit fox. Ms. Chiyo was part animal; she had fox ears and tail. At one point, Tinker domi nearly escaped while Ms. Chiyo was supposed to be guarding her. As punishment, the oni bred her to a warg.”

“A warg?” Mrs. Betts gasped and then added a blazing string of profanity.

“If you’ll come with me”—Mrs. Walker-Buckton motioned toward the Kenworth—“I can tell you all about it and we can discuss details pertaining to the ice rink.”

Freed of the old woman, Maynard bore down on Olivia with “intent” written all over his face.

I can do this, she told herself. I’m stronger than I think. If nothing else, this gets it over with fast — like tearing off a bandage.

She had no idea how you greet the leader of your race on a foreign planet.

Maynard surprised her with a low, sweeping bow. “I am Derek Maynard, director of the Elfhome Interdimensional Agency. I take it that you are Forest Moss’s new domi and they’re with you.”

He started in Elvish but the last sentence — much to her joy — was in English. It was so much harder to waltz around verbal traps in Elvish. By “they” he meant the royal marines, who were standing at attention in a line behind her.

“Yes, they are. I’m Olivia—” She caught herself before giving the rest. Her maiden name would be a lie but she wanted to abandon her husband’s surname forever. “Prince True Flame recommended that I use the name Olive Branch over Stone.”

Derek Maynard nodded slowly, giving her a slow once-over, probably trying to determine what kind of person he’d just been saddled with. “You’re from Boston, aren’t you?”

“How…how…how do you know?”

“You still have the accent. Not a lot; you probably moved away from it a few years ago, but the nasal short-A is still there. Strong enough that I’m guessing you’re a Southie.”

She blushed. Her mother had tried hard to erase the Southie accent but Olivia had clung to it, the only thing she had left of the family that she had been stolen away from. “Yes. I grew up in South Boston.”

“So, you’re not local,” Maynard said.

He couldn’t send her back to her husband. He couldn’t send her back to Earth. Still, it was frightening to admit the truth. “I’m not.”

He considered her in silence for so long that she found it nerve-racking. She could hear Dagger badgering Aiofe into translating for the marines. The girl seemed torn between reporting what her boss was saying and maintaining trust with her research subjects.

“What brings you here?” Maynard finally broke the silence. “Are you looking for me or have you lost someone?”

He gestured to the tent to imply the dead.

“Lost someone.” Olivia wet her suddenly dry mouth. If the Wyverns were a big club to wield on the elves, then Tinker domi was the one to use on humans. “I spoke with Tinker domi this morning. She encouraged me to use my position for the good of others. I’ve learned that some people — some humans — have fallen through the cracks, much like the Stone Clan children had. I’m attempting to track them down. Make sure that they’re safe.”

Maynard frowned. “I didn’t realize you were so young, but there’s not much I can do. The dau mark makes you domana elf of the Stone Clan. I can offer you advice and limited assistance, but for the sake of all the humans within my care, I do not dare do much more than that — at least not until I know Sunder better.”

“Why?” Olivia asked. The royal marines had told her the names of the incoming Stone Clan warlords but they knew little more than that. She wasn’t sure if it was because they had been denied a decent education, or if they were indifferent to the history of other clans, or a combination of the two.

“I have known the Viceroy half my life and consider him a good friend, and yet he would not want me to overtly influence his domi. He would want me to protect her, yes, and offer sage advice, but I could not block her from any course of action that she chose. If she decided to borrow my construction vehicles to raze an entire hillside outside the city to build windmills, then I could do nothing but smooth any feathers that she ruffled among the humans. I know that because that is how he would expect me to react to his doing the same. I must see her the same as I see him; that is the nature of their union.”

It would explain the instant obedience of everyone at the Poppymeadows enclave. It also explained why people kept warning Olivia that she didn’t have the same level of power as Tinker domi. Windwolf was the Viceroy and head of the Wind Clan, which outnumbered the Stone Clan by a thousand to one.

Maynard continued his explanation. “Sunder is the current head of the Stone Clan here in Pittsburgh. It means that both you and Forest Moss are under Sunder’s domain. If Windwolf would not allow me to influence his domi, I have to assume that Sunder will allow even less freedom.”

She nodded her understanding. The elder at the Ranch had an entire list of things that were forbidden, from phones to the internet to children’s literature. She had packed up her favorite books in Boston only to watch the elders burn them all as too dangerous when she arrived at the Ranch. What was so dangerous about The Wind in the Willows? That “the other” was not to be feared? That vastly different people could be friends?

Maynard eyed the royal marines, who were still standing at attention because of Maynard’s own guard. His mouth quirked slightly, as if he could see them as the puppies that they were. “You should know that these warriors would die to protect you. I urge you not to take any undue risk that would put them in harm’s way. They could be considered children, high school age, and certainly they know nothing about human technology. Nothing about cars and trucks. Nothing about security cameras or phones and radios. Nothing about landmines or grenades. If they were to die while under your command, it would reflect badly on you. If your actions are judged to be pure stupidity and recklessness, the Wyvern will behead you. It’s your responsibility to keep them safe. Do you understand that?”

“Yes,” Olivia said despite the sudden lump in her throat.

“I’ve been told you’re at Phipps Conservatory. Yes, it affords you access to the greenhouses, but I would strongly recommend you find a fallback location that is easier to defend.” He fished a business card out of his suit’s breast pocket. “This is my direct number. Do you have a phone?”

“No,” she whispered. Every normal teenage girl had one on Earth. At the Ranch, though, only the men were allowed to own them. Since she’d had limited funds during her escape, she’d chosen not to purchase one before crossing the border. To her dismay, she’d discovered that cell phones were rare as hen’s teeth on Elfhome.

He waved over one of his guards. “Find her a phone. Make sure it comes with a charger.” The guard nodded and trotted away. “My guard will deliver a phone to you shortly. Keep it charged and keep it close. Call me if you need help or advice. Tinker domi had an advantage that you do not: she is a local. She knows Pittsburgh and she has a wide social network of friends. You should do whatever you can to build a network.”

Which was the exact opposite of what she had done since she arrived in Pittsburgh, keeping almost everyone at arm’s length. No one even knew her real name. Only the elves knew that she was pregnant. She had told no one of her abusive husband or the story of her dead stepson.

Maynard turned to Aiofe. “You work with my patrol squads as a translator? You’re the Pitt anthology grad student intern?”

Aiofe nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“You have a new job. Stay with her. Explain elf culture as you know it and act as a bridge when she needs to interact with city officials. I’m assuming that she will run afoul of them as often as Tinker domi does.” He produced a second business card to give to Aiofe. “Call me if anyone picks a fight with her.”

It would be more comforting to know that they had his backing if it didn’t come with the knowledge that he expected them to need it.

The phone arrived moments later, just as Maynard was pulled away by news of power outages in Oakland. The Bettses drove away in the Kenworth, expressing concern about their extended family at their remote farmstead. Despite the alarming possibility of attack, Olivia felt relieved that everyone had left. It allowed her to fumble with the phone with a minimum of witnesses. It was one thing to know what other people could do with their phones and another to actually get the phone to do what she wanted.

Aiofe explained how the phone worked to Olivia and the fascinated royal marines. “These EIA models remind me of the toy phone I had when I was little. Just like these, it had big buttons, a green digital screen, and was virtually indestructible. I’m glad that I could use my own phone for work. My first year here, I went through three smartphones before I found one that worked in Pittsburgh.”

“I’ve never had a smartphone,” Olivia admitted reluctantly. If she was going to build a network, she had to stop keeping people at arm’s length. “My mom had this really religious upbringing. It was like Amish, only worse. She was really strict about things like that.”

Her mother had left the Ranch as a teenager but she hadn’t escaped it. The brainwashing had gone too deep. She saw most “normal” American life as ungodly.

“That had to suck,” Aiofe said.

“Not really — not at first. I didn’t notice when I was really little. I had books and dolls and Legos. I don’t think I noticed until I was about third grade that all the other girls wore pants or dresses without leggings. By the time I was in sixth grade, I would have killed for blue jeans. I wanted a phone because all the other kids had one.”

“Me mum got me mine when I went off to boarding school so she could check in on me. She didn’t like me going off so young. I saw it as my first chance to do a real anthropology study: the indigenous race of an Irish all-girl private school. She didn’t like me coming to Elfhome either but here I am.” Aiofe handed the phone to Olivia. “Here I’ll stay until Tinker domi can figure out how to get us back.”

Olivia nodded as she realized that she might be the only person in Pittsburgh who didn’t want to go back to Earth. For the first time in her life, she was able to choose what she did. Even Maynard wouldn’t — and perhaps couldn’t — stop her.

“I want to get this over with,” she said. “I want to see if I know this John Doe and then try to find out what happened to the others.”

Aiofe stayed in the parking lot with the marines. The anthropology student was trying to explain human burial customs to the obviously horrified elves. The warriors were all shaking their heads and inching back.

It left Olivia alone amid the dead, steeling herself against the upcoming ordeal. No one in that tent can hurt me, she told herself. They don’t deserve to be feared. They have gone before God, nothing more.

She’d expected bodies laid out on tables but there were only body bags being shuffled around via workers in hazmat suits. They had some kind of mobile air conditioner cooling the tent, making it at least twenty degrees cooler. The space smelled like the slaughter yard at the Ranch; all that was missing were the screams of frightened pigs.

Olivia didn’t want to go around unzipping random body bags. She was sure that the bodies within would look like horror movie victims. Her stomach was already queasy from morning sickness. She didn’t want to lose her lunch onto one of the dead.

The weirdly familiar feel of the slaughter yard made it possible for Olivia to walk up to the nearest worker and explain what she wanted. Either Maynard or his assistant, Mrs. Walker-Buckton, had spoken with the staff, or the presence of the nervous royal marines had convinced them to be helpful. It quickly became obvious that while the people working at the overflow morgue wanted to be helpful, they were so overwhelmed that they had an utter communication breakdown. Workers from the EIA, the coroner’s office, and volunteers needed to discuss and consult paperwork over and over again as they tried to figure out where the John Doe body might have been stored.

A woman came trotting into the tent. She was short, had brown hair and eyes, and smelled of sunblock. There was something vaguely military about her, though she lacked any name badge or insignia. She wore a blue boonie hat, a khaki work shirt, black carpenter jeans and combat boots. They looked like a soldier’s uniform made out of civilian clothes. “I heard you’re here to identify our John Doe!”

“Actually, I hope not,” Olivia said. “I only know a few people in Pittsburgh. Some of them are missing. I hope none of them are dead.”

The woman nodded grimly. “I understand. I’m Linda Gaddy. My friends call me Gaddy. I’m working with the police. I’m the one that found our John Doe. I’ve been knocking on doors and such, hoping to put a name to the face.”

“You’re a police officer?” Olivia said.

“I’m kind of a jack-of-all-trades. I’ve got an eye for detail and a knack for being able to add two and two together. Sometimes I shuffle paperwork for someone that’s trying to jump through the EIA hoops, and sometimes I’m a glorified meter maid during Shutdown, making sure off-worlders don’t gum up the works by illegally parking.”

Olivia had learned the hard way that the largest employers in Pittsburgh were the EIA, the University of Pittsburgh, and the city itself. The three paid well and had good benefits. Most of their coveted positions, however, went to off-worlders with post-doc college degrees. The police and fire fighters were the exception; neither required a college degree. It meant anyone who worked for them were locals.

Neither job description — accountant or meter maid — explained how and where Gaddy had found the unidentified body. Were those her normal street clothes or some kind of impromptu uniform?

“So currently you’re…?” Olivia said.

“Searching the back alleys for dead,” Gaddy said. “The oni made a thousand elf bodies vanish into the wilderness. There’s no telling how many humans are lying dead in the city. I won’t lie to you, this is going to be grisly, but it would really help out solving this mystery.”

“Mystery?” Olivia echoed.

“Who he is. How he got to where he was. Who or what killed him.”

Olivia noticed that the questions didn’t include “how he died.” Apparently that had been obvious. “Where is he?”

“I figured that he wouldn’t have anyone coming to claim him, so I had the last shift move him to that first trailer.”

The body was already bloated from the heat. Someone had used the face for a punching bag, breaking the nose and smashing out two front teeth. Olivia cringed, forcing herself to look. Did she know this man? It was hard to tell with all the damage done. All the male prostitutes had short, blonde hair. The man had been shot in the neck, the neat hole just above his left collarbone leading to a massive wound where it exited. He definitely had been murdered.

She scanned downwards. His shapeless gray T-shirt used to have a decal from the University of Pittsburgh on it; the logo had partially worn away in the wash. He wore a pair of loose drawstring shorts. She gasped as she saw that he had LOVE and HATE tattooed on his fingers. She tugged aside the body bag to verify that he had the start of a sleeve tattoo on his left arm that looked vaguely like a sekasha protective spell.

“Do you know him?” Gaddy asked gently.

She nodded, blinking away sudden tears. “He liked looking sexy at all times; he would have never left his house in such ratty, loose clothes. I think he must have been home when he was shot.”

“What’s his name?” Gaddy pressed. “Where does he live?”

“I don’t know his real name, just his street name.” She knew that wouldn’t help identify him to more than a handful of people. She knew that he had parents on Earth who thought he was still in college. She knew the agony of losing a child. Somehow his parents had to be told. “The reason he used a street name was because he’d used a student visa to get to Elfhome but it had expired. I do know that he turned twenty-one on August twentieth. They had a party for him.”

“Oh, that helps a lot!” Gaddy shut the bag shut. “We just need someone with access to the list.”

“Aiofe does.” Olivia said, thinking of the birthday party that Peanut dragged her to. Peanut wanted her to move into the house, saying it would be safer. Olivia had fled as soon as it was polite to leave.

Out in the baking heat of the parking lot, Aiofe checked the expired visa list. “There’s only one person with that birthday: Jevin Kay Kingston. He was here on a student visa. Oh, he was cute. Looks like he was right cheeky one, though.”

Aiofe shifted her tablet to show Olivia the photo attached to the visa. He was years younger in the picture but already smug.

“Yes, that’s him.” Olivia turned to Gaddy. “Where did you find him?”

Gaddy pointed downriver. “After the train derailment, I was scouting the rail lines. I found him down under the Fleming Park Bridge.”

“Where?”

“Here.” Gaddy took a well-worn map out of one of the carpenter pants pockets. She unfolded and folded it so that a small section was easily readable. Her fingernails were painted a neutral beige that nearly matched her skin tone. She tapped the words “West River Lot” and then traced along the river’s edge for six or seven miles. “This is the Fleming Park Bridge. It joins Neville Island with the rest of the city. He was on the train tracks that run under the overpass but it’s likely he started on the bridge. In the dark it would be hard to see that this part of the span is over train tracks and not the river proper. I think someone thought they were dumping him in the river.”

“He lived on the North Side with a bunch of other kids.” Olivia pointed out the general location on the opposite bank of the Ohio River. “I can’t tell you the address. I could find it again by walking there but I didn’t get any street names or house numbers. There were about nine kids living there, all about his age, all illegal. Either they had expired visas or snuck across the border during Shutdown.”

Gaddy whispered a curse. She frowned at the North Side and then glanced downriver, toward where she found Jevin. “I was assuming that he had a run-in with oni troops after fleeing Oktoberfest. You sure about him being home?”

“He cared deeply about how he looked,” Olivia said. “He liked looking sexy and clean and good smelling. If his clothes got ripped or stained, he’d go home to change. He would say things like ‘I wouldn’t be caught dead in that’ when he saw someone in ratty clothing.”

“Yeah,” Gaddy said. “Someone like that doesn’t go to a festival in that outfit.”

“I’m going to the house,” Olivia said. “I’m worried about the others.”

Gaddy pursed her lips. She clearly didn’t think it was a wise idea. She scanned the royal marines peering over Aiofe’s shoulder, trying to follow the conversation that had been all in English. “I suppose you have plenty of firepower to wade into just about anything on the North Side. I’ll come with you, just in case we need to call for backup.”

Emboldened by the tale of Tinker domi and the construction vehicles, Olivia decided to commandeer a big six-wheeled UN cargo truck that they found sitting empty at Station Square.

“We can’t just take it,” Aiofe whispered, looking around.

“It’s unlocked.” Olivia leaned in to look at the ignition. It was an older model that still used keys. There was a chain to lock the steering wheel but it hadn’t been engaged. Either someone had gotten sloppy or the truck had been left for her to find. “Maynard said that he would smooth over feathers ruffled by commandeering EIA property.”

“That was just a random example of him not interfering with Tinker domi,” Aiofe said. “If he wanted us to use it, he would said something more direct.”

“Maybe,” Olivia said, “but he’s a politician. He might have to pretend he didn’t know we were going to take it.”

Aiofe squinted at her. After a few moments of thinking, she said, “That’s stretching things a bit. I think he would have left a driver if he really wanted us to take it. It’s manual transmission.”

“He can’t get a driver any more involved than himself.” Olivia climbed up into the high driver seat. “I can drive it.”

Maybe. She had learned to drive on the Ranch’s big equipment, but a Kansas hayfield was not the same as a major city street.

Olivia waved at the marines. “Get in. Get in.”

The marines didn’t need to be invited twice to a new adventure. They clambered into the back, laughing and shouting.

Aiofe remained on the sidewalk, looking torn. “I’m not sure this is a good idea.”

Olivia thought enviously of Tinker’s dining room filled with possibly stolen lamps. No one seemed to ever tell the older girl that something was a bad idea. “I’m not sure which bus to take to where Peanut Butter Pie and the others were living. The buses to North Side are few and far between. I don’t want to get over there and then find out that we missed the last bus.”

“It’s easier to ask forgiveness than to get permission,” Gaddy said. “I’ll get my hoverbike and follow.”