The First Book of Ore: The Foundry's Edge (3 page)

Curving mustache. Bowler hat. Round black spectacles.

Phoebe gasped. With reflections dancing across the dark windshield, she couldn't be sure. Was she imagining things?

No. It was the stranger she had seen from her bedroom window.

Her mind scrambled for an explanation. Was it merely someone who looked like him? It was a fairly typical fashion, plain black suit with a white shirt and gloves. Maybe he was a new neighbor who coincidentally shared her commute.

That's when it hit her. This man had been sent by her father, hired to watch over her like a bodyguard. That's why he had been surveying the house that morning and why he was following her now. Did that mean she was in danger? Her father was a big deal at the Foundry, after all. Maybe this was a precaution, what with all the anti-Meridian stuff going on.

Surely that was it.

Phoebe gave the stranger a little wave to let him know she understood. On cue, the black Auto drifted back and disappeared into the sea of traffic. Not exactly the reaction she was expecting, but it was no matter. She was relieved to know that her father was watching over her from afar.

Still, why didn't he just tell her? Her father could have sent word from wherever he was. It would certainly scare her a lot less if she knew this stranger was a bodyguard and not some creepy stalker.

She pondered this until they arrived at Beatrice Albright Academy for Girls. The campus was a vast grassy commons enclosed by a row of stately elms, and the front of the school faced the distant bay, whose waters glittered through the leaves. Her instructors always boasted about the inspiring historical significance of their school. But to Phoebe, it looked like some sort of burned-out fortress, with a clunky iron block design corroded by centuries of ocean air.

Lately, the Academy had been undergoing renovations, and while half of the sprawling campus was caged in by scaffolding, the other half had received a shiny new veneer that gleamed with fiery reflections from the Crest of Dawn.

Tennyson parked the Baronet. Phoebe slouched so that no one could see her, and he didn't say a word, knowing her routine.
Every day, she watched as the other girls milled about, playing with their Spinner Purses and ridiculous hair mobiles until they all finally bobbled indoors. Only then would she slink inside.

The chauffeur resumed his obnoxious whistling and tapping. He glanced at her in the rearview mirror and gave her a smug grin. She had considered letting him off the hook for his previous slight, but this sealed the deal.

Phoebe searched one of the secret pockets in her skirt.

At last the bell rang. She grabbed her bag and shuffled out of the Auto, immediately feeling weighed down by schoolwork and the salty humidity of the bay.

Phoebe paused for a second, pretending to adjust her shoe as she pulled the bent nail from her pocket and wedged it beneath the Baronet's back tire. She slammed the door, and as Tennyson sped away, she thrilled to the pop and hiss of the punctured wheel. Hopefully, he would be stuck in traffic by the time he discovered the flat. That was sure to stop his stupid whistling.

“Gotcha,” Phoebe said.

As she trudged up the steps, Phoebe scanned the driveway and parking lot, looking for the stranger's black and bronze Auto. It was nowhere to be seen. She took a last deep breath of the free world, sour and salty though it was, and forced it out, resigned to another day's hard labor at Fort Beatrice.

 

he day was worse than Phoebe had anticipated. Normally, she could endure Miss Castella's annoying enthusiasm for punctuation, she could even stomach Mr. Pomeroy's wretched frog-puke breath. But not today. Every class was like being trapped in a sauna. The renovations on the building were causing the air-cooling units to fail, which meant long stretches of sweltering muck interspersed with rare bursts of heavenly breeze.

They wheeled a bunch of brand new Flurrys into every classroom, but even the Foundry's top-of-the line fans, chrome devices built to resemble spinning snowflakes, did little more than stir the air like a hot, boring soup.

As the end of the day oozed closer, Phoebe shuffled down one of the gleaming remodeled hallways toward Mrs. Vondell's dreaded history class. She saw a boisterous group of girls and locked her eyes on the ground. Two or more geese were called a gaggle, she knew, but what was the term for two or more shallow, stuck-up, catty know-it-alls? A squall? A shriek?

Yeah, that sounded about right.

She wove through the crowd and snuck past the shriek of snots, hoping to go unnoticed. No such luck.

“Seriously, that can't be for real.”

“I would just shave my head if I were her.”

“Was it cut by a drunk?”

“More like a blind man.”

This last dig came from Candice, and it stung the worst.

Back when they were kids, Phoebe and Candice had been inseparable. But when Phoebe needed her best friend most of all, Candice had abandoned her as if she thought tragedy was contagious or something.

Phoebe's breath felt fiery in her nostrils, and her face tingled with humiliation and outrage. She raked a hand through her butchered hair and fussed with its ragged, uneven edge.

She strode into Mrs. Vondell's classroom and flopped into her chair by the window, more irritated than ever that she had to sit directly behind Candice. As the waddling hippo that was Mrs. Vondell began her history lesson, Phoebe envisioned all the terrible accidents that might befall her ex–best friend. Perhaps the workers would hit a weak spot in the roof, and the ceiling would collapse on her. Or maybe Candice's necklace would get caught in the blades of a Flurry. But between the sweaty classroom and Mrs. Vondell's monotonous voice dripping in her ear like a drug, Phoebe's mind drifted.

“That's correct. By 1646, the Alloy War had been going for sixteen years, claiming over thirty million lives,” Mrs. Vondell droned, her multiple chins wagging to and fro. “And on October twelfth of that year, Meridian brought about a cease-fire by introducing…the what?”

Nobody raised a hand, but Mrs. Vondell carried on as if she hadn't noticed the class's profound disinterest. She turned back to the enameled metal whiteboard, angling her ample rump to the class, and wrote the answer.

“The Ferro-nomic Treaty, which finally permitted international trade of Foundry goods. A free market emerged for the other nations of the world, who lacked our spirit of innovation.”

Phoebe's eyelids were heavy. She knew Mrs. Vondell expected her students to regurgitate all this stuff word for word on the test, but the day was nearly at an end.

Candice's muffled snort of laughter snapped Phoebe awake. She stared at the nauseating waves of perfect blond hair that that cascaded down Candice's back. The girl tittered at some private joke and flung her locks with a showy toss of her head. A handful of her curls spilled across the frame of the open window.

And an immensely satisfying snipe sprang to her mind.

“The global distribution of Albright's countless advancements in technology, manufacturing, and transportation resulted in major cultural and economic shifts. Greinadoren, Moalao, and the other primitive nations saw substantial improvements to their quality of life. But most importantly, Meridian became the most powerful country in the world. Now, can anyone tell me…”

There were only a few minutes left until the bell would free her from Vondell torture. She had to act fast.

Soft as a whisper, Phoebe eased the window sash closed on Candice's golden hair. She withdrew a paper clip from one of her skirt pockets, wedged it in the window mechanism, and twisted the wire around the knob to jam it. Candice was too engrossed in gossip to notice.

Phoebe wouldn't be the only one with an uneven haircut.

Satisfied, she prepared to bolt at the sound of the bell and glanced out the window to see if Tennyson had arrived.

Her breath lodged in her throat.

Beyond the workers' scaffolding and construction tarps wafting in the sea breeze, she saw the stranger in the bowler hat. His tailored black suit hugged his broad barrel chest, and he wore crisp white gloves on large hands. Gleaming steel trim lined his lapels and the soles of his shoes. He stood eerily still, the waxy tint of his skin making him look like a statue that might melt in the sun. His stout, gently curled mustache looked like a joyless smile, which made his appearance all the more disturbing.

Even through his impenetrable black spectacles, she could feel his stare.

The sudden clang of the school bell propelled Phoebe from her seat. She snatched her book bag and was halfway down the hall before she heard Candice squawk behind her. Phoebe imagined Mrs. Vondell being forced to cut the girl loose with a pair of dull scissors.

Gotcha.

She slowed as a swarm of students poured out of classrooms and toward the front doors. Normally, she would have escaped Fort Beatrice at full speed to avoid the mob, but seeing the stranger out front made her hesitate. That morning, she had felt certain that he was a bodyguard hired to protect her. Now she was not so sure.

If he was an ally, why did his glare feel so invasive, like he was impaling her with a mere look?

Phoebe flattened up against the lockers to avoid students storming past and considered another route out of the building. She slipped down a stuffy side hall that was shrouded in drop cloths and loud with the screech of power tools. A custodian shuffled out of a classroom hauling a heavy trash bag to the incinerator. The moment his back was to her, she dashed through the door he had left open.

A humid breeze drifted in from an open window that overlooked the athletic fields behind the Academy—away from the waiting stranger. She heard the shouts of kids playing outside and scanned the grounds to make sure no one was watching. Content that the coast was clear, she hopped up on the windowsill, swung her legs over, and dropped into the bushes below.

It was farther than Phoebe anticipated, but the hedge cushioned her fall. The mellow hush of ocean breeze tempered the brutal heat of the afternoon. It was such a relief to escape that stuffy old building.

From the bushes, Phoebe watched her classmates frolic, their lively Trinkas dancing in a colorful stir. Boys from the nearby prep school had gathered as well, pretending to ignore the girls but showing off nonetheless. Six of them were playing a frantic game of Springchuck, bouncing the coconut-sized copper gyroscope. You were supposed to catch the thing, perform some feat of agility, and then hurl it back into the circle of players. The gadget shot out at random, so it was impossible to predict where it would go, which was supposed to be half of the fun.

The older boys raced their Cable Bikes across the lawn toward a nearby hub. At the umbrella-shaped brass booth, they latched their Bikes on to the ascension line and zipped off overhead. The boys chased each other along the crisscrossed Link-Way high above, doing dangerous stunts as they switched their Bikes from wire to wire, to the giggling delight of the girls below.

Phoebe crept through the shrubs and made her way around the side of Fort Beatrice. A long line of Auto-mobiles parked in the driveway came into view, and she could make out Tennyson leaning against the Baronet, his arms folded disapprovingly.

And there was the stranger.

He had positioned himself between the chauffeur and the front doors of the Academy, as dark and unmoving as an inkblot. She considered trying to signal to Tennyson, but it was no use. He would not understand the need for discretion, and there was no way to get his attention without the stranger seeing as well.

The chauffeur mopped his brow and scowled at his watch. She knew exactly what he was thinking. Phoebe had a habit of ditching her driver in order to take the Zip Trolley home. How long would Tennyson wait before giving up on her?

She couldn't stick around to find out.

Phoebe broke into a jog and cut across the athletic fields. The wind brushed against her damp skin as she ran, waking her body after the long, dreary day. She made her way to the edge of the grounds and passed under the row of elms that bordered the Academy.

Sweet freedom!

She found herself on a residential street lined by brand-new tin-plated town houses with tall trapezoid windows. The symmetrical buildings were so alike that Phoebe wondered how the residents ever managed to find their way home. She crossed an intersection and headed up a street bustling with fashionable pedestrians. Phoebe dug into her book bag, withdrew her hat, and popped it on, activating its metal feather ornament with a flagrant swish. She was headed to the Zip Trolley stop on Illacci Hill, one of the classier shopping districts in Albright City, so she had to look the part.

The afternoon sun lit up the glass storefronts like a kaleidoscope. The bluster of Auto traffic filled the air, and the glittering gold sidewalks looked like fashion runways. Waves of city folk towered over Phoebe and broke around her like the tide, their shopping bags sizzling with brand-new purchases.

She didn't like crowds but found it easy to get lost in the shuffle. No one even noticed the scrawny twelve-year-old girl in the ratty skirt.

The window displays drew her eye. A glamorous hat store showed a lively beach scene populated by bronze mannequins in the latest summer fashions. There were sweeping striated sun hats that could retract to the size of a pillbox and adorable silver bathing caps with goggles that popped out when they got wet. At another store, she admired a pair of Scopers, sandals with heels that could extend to make you look taller. Not that Phoebe needed any help in that department.

She wove between the throngs of refined pedestrians and made her way to the gadgetariums farther up the hill. One novelty shop advertised the FroYoYo, a peach-colored yo-yo made of tin that (for some reason unclear to Phoebe) doubled as a frozen yogurt dispenser. The next store sold household luxury items, including Sleeksweeps and the Kinetik Komforts series, scalp and body massagers that resembled gyrating chrome spiders.

A Foundry truck with tank treads covering its back wheels was parked in the street. The cargo bed was segmented with overlapping steel plates, and its gate was open like an invitation. She approached, dying to know what was inside. Probably the
premiere of a brand-new product, something unbelievable that
would be—

She froze.

Phoebe couldn't believe her eyes. She stared at the reflection in the truck's polished chrome bumper.

The stranger was behind her.

He was running at top speed, his long strides unwavering as if climbing the hill required no more effort than breathing. There was no longer any question. He was after her.

A shock of adrenaline rippled through her limbs. She ran with no destination, past pedestrians and across streets, heedless of the honking Auto-mobiles. She wanted to look back but didn't dare.

Halfway up the block she skidded right, and then dashed into the alley between a department store and a hotel. Her footfalls echoed and multiplied in the narrow passage.

Click-clack-click-clack.

Or were those
his
steps pounding closer and closer?

The skyscrapers rose around her like the bars of a silver
cage. She burst onto Fourth Street in the center of the Financial
District. The shadows were growing long and the buildings shone with the fierce amber glow of sunset. The sidewalks were even more crowded here, and she weaved between the masses, hoping they would conceal her.