The Inexplicables

“Wait … where are you going?” Houjin asked.

“Fishing!”

With that abrupt shift in plan, she took off. After she was far enough gone that there was no chance she’d overhear, Houjin leaned forward conspiratorially to ask, “Say, what are you two doing for the rest of the day?”

Rector shrugged and Zeke said, “I was going to go up to Fort Decatur in case the captain needs anything. Why? You got something fun in mind?”

A thrilled—but in Rector’s opinion, unnervingly sharp—grin spread across Houjin’s face. “Do you want to come with me to the Station and see what I’ve been doing? I’ll show you what I’m making to fight the men at the tower.”

“Why are you working all the way out there?” Zeke asked.

“You wouldn’t want me fiddling with dynamite around here, would you? And before you say it: Yes, I know your mother doesn’t want you there, Zeke. But Yaozu won’t bother you if you don’t bother him. He’s got too much else to worry about right now.” Houjin looked at Rector, using his eyebrows to ask for backup.

Rector got it and said, “Sure, and I won’t rat you out. Come with us, won’t you, Zeke? Let’s get a gander at Houjin’s toys. It beats hanging around watching the captain moon over your momma, don’t it?”

He winced. “Figured that out, did you?”

Rector laughed. “I ain’t dumb or half blind, you know.”

“Fine, all right. I’ll go with you. But if I’m going to risk getting hollered at, Huey, this had better be good.”

Leaving the mask behind for now, they hiked together out to King Street Station, taking the underground passages rather than the overland route. Rector found that he preferred the trip to the Station over the trip elsewhere in the underground, because it was almost entirely downhill. Sure, it meant he’d be going uphill on the return trip, but as a destination, it was easier than heading up to that damn park.

Near the Station’s edge, they reached a fork in the tunnels.

“This way,” Houjin said. “I want to show you something.”

Upon reaching a sealed door, he pulled out the lever and gave it a tug. The door squeaked, and the rubber flaps surrounding its edges protested. They dragged it along the ground with a scraping, sucking noise. On the other side of that door, a second sealed door waited.

Zeke explained, “Two doors between you and the outside air. That’s the rule, if you can make it.”

Rector checked the polarized glass Huey’d given him. “But the air’s pretty clear, according to this.”

“Yes,” Houjin said as he reached for the second door’s handle. “But it hasn’t always been. This part collapsed about five years ago. The place we’re going … it wasn’t always underground.” He drew back the second door. Its seals complained, too, but it slid along the ground and made way for the three boys to pass.

Beyond it, Rector found himself confused.

He wasn’t inside a room, or underneath a floor or cellar. He was standing in a beautiful train car. Curtains covered the windows, and the plush seats were clean, plump, and ready to be sat upon. Small tables were installed between two of the rows, allowing people to face one another and chat or play cards.

Zeke pulled back one of the curtains, revealing a view of nothing at all—except, Rector realized, a wall of dirt. “It’s a shame, ain’t it?” the younger boy said.

“A shame, I guess. It’s real nice in here. Feels like … like…”

“It’s a Pullman car,” Houjin supplied. “One of the fanciest they ever made. The gold leaf is real, and so are the crystals. Leaded glass, all over the place. And look at the carpet!”

Rector gazed down at his feet. His boots suddenly seemed insufficient to stand upon the rug. It was Persian in design, blue with gold vines and tiny orange flowers. Instinctively, he stepped off to the side, not wanting to rub the wet dirt of the underground into the lovely pattern.

Zeke laughed, and Rector told him to shut his mouth. But he said, “Naw, I’m not laughing at you—I’m just laughing. Everybody does that, is all. This is one of the prettiest places in the city, this little car right here, and even the rough old Station men don’t want to bother it any.”

“Sometimes Yaozu comes here and smokes,” Houjin said quietly, like he was passing on a secret. “I heard he makes the chemists come in here and clean it, keep it all dusted and shiny.”

Zeke gave Rector a nudge. “Anyway, come on. We can’t work in here. Yaozu would throw a hissy fit if we smudged one of the brass fixings, or anything like that. Huey, are we headed for your workshop?”

“Yes!”

“You have a workshop?” Rector stepped back onto the carpet because he had no choice, but he tiptoed gently to keep from smushing it.

“I have a place I work when Yaozu wants something.”

Rector followed behind as Houjin opened the other door at the train car’s far end. Stepping out and through this door, he found himself back in an ordinary-looking tunnel, braced with the usual miner’s rafters and affixed with dirty lamps to light the way. “So the captain don’t mind you hanging out down here?”

“I don’t think he likes it, but he doesn’t try to stop me.”

“Could he?” Rector pushed. Was Houjin secretly a Station man waiting to happen? It was an interesting thought.

He took one of the lanterns off its hook. Without turning around, he said, “I don’t know. Maybe. If he said I couldn’t fly with him anymore, I’d have to think about it. Maybe I want to live down here forever, and maybe I don’t, but I like having options. And so far, any time Yaozu has asked me to do something for him, it’s always something that’ll help the city out, so the captain doesn’t care enough to make a fuss about it.”

Rector followed along in silence until he passed a fallen overhang that had collapsed under the weight of rocks and tree roots.

Houjin saw him looking at it. “That used to be one of the waiting platforms. Part of the wall fell down on it, during a quake. And the back yards where the tracks go are mostly buried now, unless somebody cut tunnels through them.”

“Like that car back there?”

Zeke said, “Yeah. But I haven’t seen too much of the back lots.”

“Because you’re not allowed down here,” Rector recalled.

“My mother doesn’t like it when I come down here. That’s not the same thing.”

“Close enough. You said so yourself, the other day.”

“Well I’m here now, ain’t I?”

“Must be feeling mighty brave.”

Zeke sniffed and stood up straighter as he tagged along behind them. “I just want to see what Huey’s working on, that’s all.”

“So you’ve got a story all lined up for when your ma finds out you was here.”

“You already said you wouldn’t tell her, and I know Huey won’t. So I’m thinking she won’t find out.”

Houjin led them deeper, down through an entrance that took them inside the train station proper—Rector knew it because he recognized the pretty marbled floors and the tiles that were set into the walls for decoration. There were runner rugs down here, too, but they looked worn and sad compared to the tapestries in the old train car.

Somewhere in the distance he could hear the clank, clang, and clatter of the elevator, but they were a long, many-doored hallway away from it when Houjin stopped and pulled out a key.

Rector tried to keep from sounding impressed when he asked, “Your workshop locks?”

“Yaozu thought it might be a good idea. This would have been one of the engineers’ offices if anybody had ever used this station for traveling.”

“How nice for you,” he said, more crossly than he meant to. He’d never owned a key to anything, not in his entire life. Not even now that he had his own room.

Houjin unlocked the door and led everyone inside, setting his lantern on a small table beside the door. On the wall above it, there was a metal bubble with a button in the middle. Houjin pushed the button. With a sputtering series of sparks, a line of bulbs lit up overhead. They were connected on a wire, and hanging low enough that he could’ve touched one if he stood on his toes.

He lifted one hand almost mindlessly, reaching for the light as if it called him.

“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” Zeke warned him. “Them things are hot.”

“Not yet. But they will be soon,” Houjin confirmed. “They’re electric, and it takes them a minute to warm up.”

“I’ve never seen so many in one place.” Rector withdrew his hand.

Houjin nodded and reached for a large box, which was sitting beside an even larger desk. The desk was littered with wires, coils, tools, schematics, stray parts, and scraps of paper covered in Chinese characters. The box was heavy, if Houjin’s posture could be gauged. He used his elbow to clear a spot, then set the box on the desk.

He said, “Electric lights are better than torches and candles down here, because they don’t leave smoke everywhere. Better than lanterns, because fuels like kerosene are heavy to carry around. And you don’t have to keep refilling the bulbs. You just change them out once in a while.”

“Where do they get their power from?” Rector asked.

“The pump rooms, same as the air circulation. They run on coal.”

“Coal’s heavy, too,” he pointed out.

“True, but we’re already using coal to power the air circulation. It was easy to rig up a generator and siphon off some of the energy. I’m telling you,” he said as he began to unpack the box, “electricity is the future. Before long, we won’t be using coal anymore, or any of the petroleum derivatives.”

Houjin had just used two words in a row that Rector didn’t recognize, but Rector played along like this made perfect sense to him. “I like how they don’t smell like anything.” ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">