Twinmaker

42

THE ELEVATOR WAS easily large enough for all of them, with a second shaft surrounding it, containing a spiral staircase. Clair fidgeted as the cage lifted them to the top of the Skylifter. She didn’t know what to expect of either Turner Goldsmith or the airship’s interior. The latter was swaying ponderously beneath her in a not entirely unpleasant way. Taking off again, she assumed. The deep thrumming of propellers was distant but ever present, like giant bees were buoying them up into the sky.

When the elevator door opened, Clair found herself in a D-shaped chamber that spanned fifteen yards down the straight side. The curved side to her left was all window, letting in the sky. Apart from that spectacular feature, the interior of the Skylifter was unassuming. The semicircular space at the top of the elevator was part meeting hall, part mess hall. Clair could smell stale coffee, and her mouth watered. There were two doors leading through the interior wall, which was decorated with paintings of landscapes and, incongruously, childish sketches in primary colors. Large, hand-embroidered cushions sprawled on a brown-carpeted floor.

Five people looked up as they walked in. The only one Clair recognized was Gemma.

“If it hadn’t been for your friend Q, we’d have given up on you,” Gemma said. Her cheeks were flushed, but the rest of her was as white as bone, and she moved her shoulder as though bearing a great burden. She nodded at Ray, who had come up the elevator with them. “Where is it?”

Ray hooked a thumb at where the body rested under a tarp.

“Bring it through. If we’re quick, we might hack into the lens feed. Be careful, though. The body could be booby-trapped.”

Clair hadn’t considered that possibility. From the sharp downturn of Jesse’s mouth, she guessed he hadn’t either.

“Which one of you is Turner Goldsmith?” Clair asked as the body disappeared through the right-hand door, followed by Gemma and the others.

“Turner’s upstairs,” said a woman in her twenties with disconcertingly mismatched eyes—one blue, the other green. “He’ll call when he’s ready. I’ll show you where you can freshen up.”

“Right now, I don’t care about freshening up,” Clair said.

“It’s through here.” The young woman ignored her protests, opening the other door and showing Clair and Jesse a toilet area. There were four cubicles crammed around two tiny basins. “Go easy on the water, but help yourself to soap.”

Clair started to argue. They hadn’t raced all night to get to the airship, dodging dupes every step of the way, only to be left on the bench like they didn’t even matter.

“I’ll be back when Turner sends for you,” the young woman said, talking right over her and following the others through the right-hand door and shutting it firmly in her wake. The sharp click of a lock left Clair in no doubt that she wouldn’t be able to follow.

Clair went to call Q, but her lenses were empty of anything other than a simple menu broadcast by the Skylifter itself. The Air was jammed.

She put her hands on her hips and looked around in annoyance and disappointment. So much for Turner Goldsmith telling them what to do.

“Buffalo,” said Jesse, his fingertips dancing across virtual menus.

“What?” She didn’t mean to snap, but she couldn’t help it.

“That’s where we’re headed, according to the flight plan. North until we hit the westerlies. From there, northeast over Washington, Montana, maybe into Manitoba and Ontario, then south for a landing in Buffalo.”

“What’s in Buffalo?” asked Clair.

“Maybe nothing. It could just be a ruse, in case anyone’s watching.”

“Fantastic.”

“We’re in a Skylifter,” said Jesse, as though he still couldn’t believe it. “No wonder no one ever knows where Turner is!”

Clair leaned her forehead against the sweeping plastic window, fighting tears of frustration and exhaustion. The ground below was already impossibly distant, a hazy brown plain, crinkled and dotted with faint geometric shapes still visible despite nature’s reclamation of the land. The plains were bounded to the east by jagged mountains—the Sierra Nevada, muscular stone in all its brutality.

Somewhere down there, Libby was in just as much trouble as she had ever been. And being high above it all, Clair thought, wasn’t solving anything.

You’d better have answers for me, she said to herself, or I swear, Turner Goldsmith, I’ll pop your balloon and bring you down to earth myself.