The Lost Train of Thought (22 page)

Eve hung up the phone, ruing the fact that eight of her finest Fixers had been sent to the very edge of The Seems. Even worse, they were still unaccounted for, and as she called down to her assistant, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d been outflanked on several sides. “Any word on Special Forces, Monique?”

“They’re on their way back from Seemsberia, but it’ll take a
couple hours.”

Eve let her head fall back and looked up at the sky, as if to ask someone, “Could you please just give me one break today? Just one?”

Departments had begun crashing left and right just around sundown, forcing the top-ranking official in The Seems to call an emergency session of the Powers That Be. The eleven other members of the ruling committee—an all-star cast of ex-Administrators, pioneers in Case Work, and one former beekeeper from the Department of Love—had dropped everything and rushed to the Big Building in their pajamas and overcoats.

“Is it possible the old infrastructure just finally decided to give way?” suggested Herbert Howe, the former Administrator of Reality. “Jayson and the Fixers have been talking about this possibility since before they built the IFR.”

“Get real, would you, Herb?” barked Candace Morgan, inventor of the game of Hopscotch. “This isn’t some leaky faucet or broken Heart String! This is a sophisticated, coordinated attack, and anyone who doesn’t know who’s behind it is a moron!”

Attention shifted back to Eve Hightower, who carefully made eye contact with each of the Powers. Four of them she knew were her enemies, individuals who’d voted against her opinion on nearly every proposal since the day she took office. But the other seven were supposed to be her allies—either longtime friends or carefully selected promotions, such as Candace Morgan. Were any of them still on her side now?

“I think it’s time for someone in this room to step up and take responsibility.” Candace might have used the word “someone,” but she was staring straight at the Second in Command. “The people wanted change, Eve, to fight for something they believed in, but you ignored them!”

“Leadership isn’t a popularity contest.” Eve’s conviction was strong, even if the walls around her were not. “You either believe in the Plan or you don’t!”

The meeting was about to collapse into a shouting match when Herb Howe turned to a familiar figure who was observing from a cushioned window seat.

“Sophie, please— don’t just sit there! Tell us what we should do!”

Sophie Temporale had remained in the building when the panicked calls had started flooding in, and had watched chaos descend upon The Seems with her typically detached amusement.

“Oh, no!” The Time Being laughed. “You kids are going to have to sort this one out for yourselves.”

Once again, Eve Hightower’s blood boiled at her mother’s smug indifference, but before she could unleash the wrath only a daughter possessed, a heart-stopping

BLAST

blew the conference room door off its hinges.

Heads ducked and the Powers That Be went scrambling for cover, as the floor-to-ceiling windows that made this one of the best views in The Seems shattered into a million little pieces.

“Nobody moves!”

When the sound of falling glass faded and the dust in the air settled, a slender figure recognized by all in the room stepped through the still-smoldering debris. She was followed by a dozen armed men, men who, like Lena Zorn, had black waves emblazoned on the chests of their white bodysuits.

“Now, this can be a bloodless revolution, or we can paint the town red,” she snapped, a fiendish grin on her pale face. “The choice is up to you.”

As her team fanned out to cover every corner of the room, Lena surveyed her latest conquest. She had been the only Tide agent to escape capture after “the Split Second,” and her reputation for ruthlessness had elevated her to number two on the Special Forces most-wanted list, just below Triton.

“Eve Hightower, I presume.” Lena approached the unflinching Second in Command, who was the only member at the conference table not now under it. “I’ve always wanted to meet the person responsible for botching The World.”

“You won’t get away with this,” whispered Eve, fists clenching tightly.

“I’m afraid it’s already been gotten away with, ma’am. Or haven’t your read your
Daily Plan
?”

While two of her associates seized Eve’s arms, Lena toured the perimeter of the conference room, peering out the broken windows as if seeing The Seems for the very first time. She allowed the cold wind to roar through her long black hair, then pulled out a Calling Card from her back pocket and placed it on the table in front of the Second in Command.

“A friend of mine would like to speak with you.”

Seemsberia, The Seems

Thibadeau tucked his own Calling Card into his sock and scrambled down the rungs of the rickety access ladder. He wished he could have told Simly the truth—he was sick to death of lying, both to friends and enemies alike—but the one thing that had kept him sane during the bleak and lonely nights was his Mission. A Mission that would never succeed unless he found the one who festered in the Heckhole.

When he finally landed on the tiled floor, Thib found himself in what appeared to be an abandoned hospital or insane asylum. Fluorescent lights cast a pale glow, garbage was strewn everywhere, and the halls were lined with padded cells. There was even a torn-up old straitjacket discarded on the floor.

“Duplicitous creatures, crafty and persuasive,” Thib whispered to himself. “Never, ever listen to a Glitch.”

The mantra that had been drummed into his head during his days at the IFR was interrupted by the unlikely sound of a ukulele coming from the cell to his right. He cautiously approached the door, and when he lifted the food slot, what he saw inside was a scraggly haired fellow, no more than four inches tall, wearing a tie-dyed shirt and gently strumming a tune on its cot, “If I had a hammer . . . I’d hammer in the mornin’ . . .”

The eyes may have lost their mad jaundice, and the peace-sign medallion around its neck might’ve indicated a shift in personal ideology, but the Glitch’s third arm and jagged-toothed maw told Thibadeau he had come to the right place.

“Come on in, friend.” The inmate kept on strumming, then used its free hand to hold up a bongo drum. “Let’s jam.”

Thibadeau realized to his horror that the door to the cell was indeed unlocked. Every fiber of his training told him to run as fast as he could, but the time for avoiding confrontation was over, so he swung the door open and cautiously stepped inside.

“I would love to,
mon ami
. But I did not come to the Heck-hole to rock out.”

“Then why, brother?”

“I need to speak with your, um . . . mom.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so?”

As the little beastie hopped to its feet and happily escorted Thibadeau down the fetid hall, something about its face jogged a memory. It was the slightest of scars— more like an impression, really— in the shape of what appeared to be the four fingers of that Fixer Tool known as a Helping Hand™.

“Pardon, but are you not the Glitch in Sleep?”

“I was that terrible force of destruction once,” it said without malice. “But once I got in touch with the Inner Child, I realized who I really was. I don’t want to hate anymore. I want to
love
and
be loved
!”

“Quite a breakthrough.”

“Thanks, brother. From this point forward, I’m all about making a difference.”

The friendly Glitch in Sleep stopped in front of a door several inches thicker than the rest.

“Now, let me do the talking, ’cause Ma can get a little . . . testy.”

Students of Seemsian history will attest to the fact that a single Glitch, if left to its own devices, is capable of eating its way through the machinery that makes The World in a matter of days. Yet there is one above them all whose powers exceed the combined talents of her offspring. One who, during Operation Clean Sweep—when the Fixers forcibly removed every known Glitch from the system— easily eluded their grasp. It was only when the bulk of her boys ended up incarcerated in Seemsberia that she turned herself in, in exchange for the chance to keep her family intact.

“Hey, Ma?” The Glitch in Sleep knocked on the half-open door to the cell. “You in there?”

No one answered, but Thibadeau could clearly hear the sounds of cooking inside, and the smell of bacon, eggs, and pancakes wafting through the crack of the door.

“Ma?”

The door suddenly swung open, nearly knocking both Glitch and the Frenchman off their feet.

“Didn’t I tell you not to bother me during
Price Is Right
?”

Much to Thibadeau’s amazement, the Mother of All Glitches was standing before him in a nightgown, rollers in her hair and slippers on her feet.

“This better be good!”

The Glitch in Sleep gulped for courage, then whispered out its request.

“A buddy of mine wants to see you, Ma.”

“Don’t you call me that, boy!” The three-inch-tall matriarch abruptly smacked her peace-loving son across the face. “You’re a disgrace to the family!”

“But Ma—”

“Go back to your cell and sing ‘Kumbaya’!”

Behind the furious mother, Thib glimpsed what was clearly the penthouse suite of the Heckhole. It came with a private bathroom and a small kitchenette, in which she was cooking a huge breakfast. There was also a black-and-white TV set on the formica countertop, and judging from the sight of Bob Barker and his shock of white hair it was set to WTC.
²⁵

“I apologize for interrupting your program, madame. I only wish I had the luxury of coming at another time.”

The Mother looked up at Thib with something like utter disdain.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Thibadeau Freck, and I have a proposition that I believe you will find most entic—”

“Wait ’til after the showcase showdown!”

She abruptly turned and scrambled up to the front of the TV, where a ratty old recliner was placed not two feet away from the screen.

“I’m afraid it must be now.” Thib helped the cowering Glitch in Sleep back to its feet, then followed it into the cell. “The fates of both The World and The Seems are at stake as we speak.”

“So what? They can both go to Heck for all I care!”

The Mother resumed control of a frying pan that was filled with rapidly scrambling eggs, never taking her eyes off
The Price
Is Right.

“Lower, you moron! Bid lower!”

As the contestant onscreen ignored her advice (and lost a brand-new car), Thib could feel his moment slipping away.

“All I ask is a single favor, madame. And in return, I will help you
and
your children escape Seemsberia once and for all time.”

The hand that held the Mother’s spatula paused for the slightest of seconds before flipping another flapjack. The other two hands began cracking twelve more eggs against the hard edge of the skillet.

“Do I look like the kind of broad that does favors for The Tide?”

“I’m not here on their behalf, madame.”

“That charm around your neck says different.”

Thibadeau’s fingers grasped the black and cresting wave that had hung from his neck ever since he’d been initiated into The Tide. Once it had represented an exciting new assignment, charged with intrigue and danger, but now it felt like a burden that he could no longer bear. So he decided to play his final card . . .

“I am not a member of The Tide, madame, nor have I ever been. I am an agent of The Seems who was tasked with secretly infiltrating their organization, in hopes of bringing it down from within.”

Thib imagined the words sounded as strange to the Glitches’ ears as they did to his own (for he had never spoken them aloud), but that didn’t make them any less true. And whether it was real or just his perception, the kitchen seemed to go silent save for the sounds of boiling water and eggs frying in a pan.

“You expect me to believe that malarkey?” asked the Mother.

“You gotta learn to trust people, Ma!” implored the Glitch in Sleep, hopping up to the counter. “Only when we let our walls come down do we truly begin to connect.”

The Mother’s answer was to scoop up a rapidly frying egg and huck it at her ponytailed 1,435th born.

“Speak when spoken to!”

As the Glitch ducked behind the recliner and did as it was told, the Mother of them all turned her attention back to Thibadeau.

“Got any proof?”

“Only in the authority I’ve been granted by the Powers That Be. To free all the Glitches from Seemsberia, with but a single condition.”

Thibadeau could tell that calculations were running through her crafty and duplicitous mind, but it was impossible to tell if his offer had gotten the job done.

“What about the moat? How you plan on passin’ the test of Time?”

“It will lose its Essence long before we hit the water . . .”

“And our Attak-Paks®?”

“Buried at the top of the Heap. We will have to commandeer a vehicle to get there, but with the combined talents of a thousand Glitches, I somehow doubt that will be a problem.”

The three-inch-tall matron nodded, simultaneously turning off all the dials on her crusty stove. The water stopped boiling, the eggs stopped frying, and the pancakes stopped pancaking. As two of her hands began divvying out heaping portions on paper plates, her third reached above her head, where a large dinner bell was dangling from a string. One pull, and a loud
clang
echoed through the Heckhole.

“Breakfast!”

Thibadeau heard the eerie sound of countless doors flying open, followed by the pitter-patter of creepy little feet. In a matter of seconds this cell would be filled with the gnashing teeth and crazed giggles of a thousand lunatics, but he tried to keep his nerve, for all that mattered was what their beloved ma had to say. For her part, the Mother of All Glitches picked up a slimy cigar from her ashtray by the sink, put it between her cheek and gum, and took a deep and glorious drag.

“Now tell me more about this little favor . . .”

The Middle of Nowhere