Rector chewed on this new information and decided it might not be pertinent to his task after all, so he let it go. “Fine, then. I can let sleeping dogs lie. So what about you? We’ve got the afternoon to kill, don’t we?”
Houjin interrupted before Rector could lay out his plan. “He wants to steal the Naamah Darling and use it to scout along the wall.”
“I never said that!” he protested. “I never even wondered it out loud. Your friend here thinks he’s a goddamn mind reader, don’t he?”
Zeke laughed. “You were thinking about it, weren’t you?”
“No.”
“Liar. And if you think you can fly it by yourself, you’re welcome to give it a shot. It’d be a real shame, though. Here you just got into town, and we’d have to dig you a grave right away.”
Houjin laughed that time, but Rector scowled. “Fine, you two have your fun. And to think I was going to invite you all to come with me, hunting around the wall.”
“Hunting for what?” Zeke asked. He sat on the open hatch’s edge and let his feet dangle down.
“Monsters.”
Houjin grunted. “You said you were hunting for holes in the wall.”
“Holes, monsters, same thing. How else would monsters get inside?” he cajoled.
Zeke said, “They’ve had monsters inside for years. They built a wall around ’em, remember?”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it. I’m talking about the monster that came after me. If nobody ever saw it before, maybe it’s new. People have been talking about something killing the rotters. They’re calling it an inexplicable. That must be what jumped me. It was definitely big enough to kill rotters.”
Zeke looked at Houjin as if for approval or confirmation. For the space of a moment, Rector quietly loathed them both.
Zeke said, “What does that word even mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Houjin knew. “It means something you can’t explain. But it’s bad grammar in English.”
Impatient to get back to the point at hand, Rector asked, “Are you in, or not?”
Zeke replied for both of them. “Where do you want to start?”
Ah, that was more like it. Rector sniffed, folded his arms thoughtfully, and suggested, “Why don’t we get as far from the Station as possible, and work our way back around? Yaozu’s fellows have probably been all over King Street.”
The Chinese boy nodded approvingly. “Not a bad idea. We can take the underground tracks about halfway to the north end of the wall, then climb up and go by bridge the rest of the way.”
Rector liked the sound of riding for a ways rather than walking or climbing, so he gave the plan his stamp of approval on the spot. “All right! How about you two show me where we’re going, and I’ll lead the way!”
Zeke flashed a thumbs-up and Houjin sighed.
All three of them exited the Naamah Darling and Houjin sealed it behind them, saying, “Before we go too crazy with this plan, we should stop for more filters.”
“Filters?”
“For your mask, Rector. I don’t know how long you’ve been wearing that one, but I haven’t seen you change it. There’s a stash in the lean-to, along with some lanterns. Let’s stock up before we rush into trouble.”
“Sure, we can plan out the day, minute by minute. If you want to suck all the fun right out of it.”
Houjin said, “Fine. I’ll get extra filters and lights for me and Zeke, and you can have fun without any.”
“Don’t be a jerk about it.”
Houjin already had his back to Rector, and was disappearing into the fog. “Don’t be a dead man.”
Thirteen
Once the boys were ready, they headed back under the city where they were surrounded by faint, fizzing lamps that lit the underground paths like tiny beacons. They held their own lanterns close, but did not spark them yet for fear of wasting fuel. Fuel was the heaviest thing they toted, and you could never have too much—at least, that’s what Zeke said, with all the fervor of a convert.
This time they walked beyond the spot where the strung lamps hung. As full darkness encroached from within the tunnels ahead, Houjin nudged Rector with his elbow. “You’re tallest, so you should light your lamp and carry it up high. It’ll be brighter that way.”
Rector fumbled with his satchel, readied his lamp, and lit it.
“You just don’t want to carry one yourself,” Zeke said to Houjin.
“One of us has to steer the cart,” Houjin replied. He doesn’t know where he’s going, and you don’t know how to hold us on the track.”
“I could figure it out.”
“Maybe.”
“You old hens quit chattering, and tell me which way we’re heading,” Rector commanded.
Houjin pointed. “Down this split over here.”
It was very, very dark down that split over there. Rector couldn’t see anything beyond the golden bubble of light that radiated from the lantern held just above his head. The light wobbled as he shifted his grip to hold the heavy old thing more comfortably. Anything at all could’ve waited beyond the illumination’s razor-sharp edge.
He stumbled and the light shook harder, but he caught himself.
Houjin casually outpaced him, and Zeke trotted to catch up. “Come on, Rector!” he called.
“I’m coming, you. I’m wearing somebody else’s shoes, all right?” He gulped, steadied his feet, and jogged stiffly forward. “You’ve got to remember, I’ve been laid up. I’m not back to myself yet.”
“There ain’t nothing wrong with you ’cept you’re scared,” Zeke argued.
“You take that back.”
“I won’t, because I was scared when I got here, too. Everybody is at first. Everybody who’s got a lick of sense, anyway.” The younger boy practically danced down the corridor, tripping along the narrow edge between the light and the dark.
Houjin added, “You’ll get used to it.”
“Like you did?”
“Me?” He shrugged. “I don’t remember. I told you, I’ve been here since I was little.”
Rector struggled to keep up to the pair of them, leaning and stretching his arm to hold the lantern out farther in advance of his own steps. He lunged with it, trying to keep them corralled inside the shimmering globe. “This must’ve been a weird place to grow up.”
Houjin shrugged again. “I don’t know. Every place must be.”
“You should get out more.”
“I do get out. I’ve been to Portland, and Tacoma, and San Francisco. And I went to New Orleans a few months ago. I’ve been all over.”
“Ain’t you special, then.”
“I didn’t say that; I only said I’ve been places, and all those places were weird in their own way. You’re the one who should get out more.” Houjin scooted forward, just outside the light—and for a moment, he was lost. “I bet you’ve never been farther than Bainbridge.”
Rector had never even been that far, but he kept it to himself.
The lantern caught up to Houjin and brought him into clear, sharp focus. He’d stopped at the edge of a long rail, a rail that was soon revealed to be one side of a track—the sort used by miners and loggers.
“Where’s the cart?” Rector asked. Surely it must have one.
“Over here,” Zeke called. He gestured for Rector to follow him, so he did, around a hidden corner to where the cart awaited. Zeke kicked a lever with his foot and the cart creaked. He gave it a shove with his shoulder and it rolled forward. A dozen feet down the sideline, it clicked onto the main pathway.
The cart was long and flat, barely as deep as an oversized bucket and not quite as long as a wagon. In the middle a handle reared up, and waved gently like a seesaw as the cart clattered forward.
Houjin swatted at the handle and it bobbed heartily up and down. “It’s no Pullman, but it’ll get us where we’re going.”
“We pump that thing?”
Zeke nodded. “We pump that thing. It’s not that hard, and it’s a lot faster than walking. Climb in! You can put the lantern on that hook up front.”
“That way you can help,” Houjin added, climbing inside and assuming a ready position.
Rector relinquished the lantern and crawled up inside, testing the boards with his feet. “Doesn’t seem like there’s much room in here for moving things around.”
“There are wagons, empty ones. You hook them up to the back, see?” Zeke indicated a set of knobs for hitching additional wheeled vehicles. “But they’re heavy, and we don’t need one right now. So get in, and let’s go.”
They shuffled their spots, and then leaned their weight into the lever—Houjin on one side with the brake, and Rector and Zeke on the other, at Rector’s insistence. Still under the weather, he said. Not up to his full strength, he insisted.
The boys faced one another as they shoved the handles up and down, and the cart rattled merrily through the never-ending tunnel. Along the way, Rector saw that there were actually two sets of tracks—one for each cart, he assumed, in case anyone was coming from the other direction.
At some point, Houjin insisted they stop for a break—though Rector quickly figured out that he didn’t need a rest so much as he wanted to switch seats. Thus far, Rector had been facing forward, and whoever sat opposite him was watching over his shoulders, back the way they’d come.
Houjin said, “I need to see the next two splits. We’re about to change directions. A couple of times.”
“Are we going uphill from here on out?” Zeke asked.
“Yes, but it’s not bad.”
The rest of the way Rector watched over their shoulders, eyeing the shifting, rock-sharpened shadows as they retreated behind them. The rollicking, rattling commotion of the cart rang loud throughout the passageway; it echoed in circles, surrounding them like the bobbling light—a pocket of glowing, raucous noise bumbling on the track, screeching as the path turned and the brake leaned against the round metal wheels.