The Lost Train of Thought (9 page)

“Why do you think Blaque selected you for this Mission?” Hassan asked his counterpart, mouth half full. “I understand why he took the boy genius— but with all due respect, you’re not exactly in your prime.”

The Octogenarian had already finished her grilled cheese and was happily knitting an afghan from balls of multicolored yarn. “Actually, I was wondering the same thing about you.”

“How so?”

“Honey, the only way we’re going to survive the Middle of Nowhere is if every member of the team knows they can count on one another.” Fixer #3 switched colors from larkspur to huckleberry. “Considering no one on the Roster trusts you as far as they can spit into the wind, I find you to be an even more unlikely selection.”

“Touché.”

Hassan didn’t need to be stabbed by a knitting needle to know this was a dig at his life’s work. The Fixer had been born to a proud and storied people whose beliefs and customs were contained within an ancient book. But over two thousand years ago, the thirteenth and most critical chapter had mysteriously vanished, leaving the text tragically incomplete. In the centuries that followed, a tribe that once stretched across the face of The World dwindled to a few thousand . . . and could soon become but a footnote in the annals of History.

“It’s been years since I turned down a Mission to pursue the chapter, Sylvia.”

“All I’m saying is, some of us wonder what comes first: your worldly Mission or your Mission to save The World?”

The only answer was the steady and hypnotic
click-clack
of wheels against rails.

“And as far as
my
age is concerned, let me just say this.” The Octogenarian held up the afghan, frowned, then got back to work. “Every year on the third Wednesday of October, I take a trip to Canaima National Park in Venezuela, climb to the top of Angel Falls, and tell myself the same thing: ‘Sylvia, if you can’t bring yourself to base-jump off The World’s highest freefalling waterfall, parachute down the eight-hundred-meter drop to the bottom, and still dig the rush, then you’ll know it’s time to hang up your handbag.’”

Since the third Wednesday in October had already passed, Hassan assumed she still dug the rush.

“What of Blaque?” The Persian steered the conversation away from himself. “I had no idea he’d returned to active duty.”

“He hasn’t.” Sylvia concentrated her energies on a particularly difficult section of drop stitching around the blanket’s back edge. “I guess because of Hope Springs Eternal, the Powers That Be felt he was the appropriate choice.”

In fact, Sylvia was worried about the entire second team. How were a convicted child, a crippled instructor, a cutthroat treasure seeker, and a resident of the Gordon’s Bay Retirement Community going to accomplish what a team of The Seems’ most formidable Fixers could not? As was her nature, she pushed those negative thoughts aside, preferring to concentrate on the way Hassan’s fingers idly found their way to the amulet of a winged sun around his neck.

“Are you any closer to finding it, Shahzad?”

“Almost there, Sylvia.” Hassan smiled sadly and tucked the necklace back beneath his shirt. “Always almost there.”

The Trans-Seemsberian Express didn’t have much in common with New Jersey Transit, but just as when he occasionally hopped the Trenton Local from New Brunswick to New York’s Penn Station, Becker leaned his head against the glass of his sleeper cabin and watched the world go by. Instead of Metuchen, Elizabeth, and Rahway, the Fixer was treated to the Sticks—a forest of tall yellow reeds that stretched as far as the eye could see. Somewhere out there was a utopian settlement founded by dropouts determined to escape the rat race of The World project, and when the train pulled to a stop, a handful of travelers—with all their Seemsly belongings strapped to their backs—got off.

The Sticks put him into a gloomy state, mostly because it reminded him of the time he and Jennifer Kaley went to a corn maze outside Toronto. They got intentionally lost and found a dead-end corner where the stalks reached high enough that they could hide and listen to the kids laughing and the parents running out of breath. When it was over and he got back to Highland Park, he could smell Jennifer’s bubble gum lip gloss on the collar of his flannel shirt, and he couldn’t bring himself to wash it for weeks.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

“Come in!”

Becker expected to see the ticket taker, who often checked the sleeping cars for stowaways or hoboes, but it was Hassan’s ponytailed head he saw instead. “Briefing in Blaque’s compartment. Five minutes.”

“On my way.”

Fixer Drane splashed some cold water on his face, then hoofed it over to Blaque’s cabin, where the rest of the second team had already coalesced.

“The Powers That Be have asked me to reiterate that this is
not
a rescue Mission.” Fixer Blaque was reading from a message on his Bleceiver. “As much as we want to find our friends, our first priority is making sure the Unthinkable doesn’t happen.”

Everyone nodded their assent, though the way he tossed his Bleceiver onto a pile of clothes said he had no intention of leaving anyone behind.

“I also wanted you to know that I put in a request to have extra Twinkle and Refreshment added to our Good Night’s Sleep packages tonight. Considering the likelihood that tomorrow we will have to enter the Middle of Nowhere, I thought it prudent.”

“As long as I get my Snooze.” The Octogenarian smiled widely. “It’s the key to a long and healthy life.”

“Last but not least.” Blaque turned his gaze toward the window, where the first hints of snow were scattered on the rocky ground outside. “Be advised that this train is going to be making an unscheduled layover at Seemsberia station.”

“For what purpose?” asked Becker, in no hurry to spend more time in that awful place than he had to.

“I have arranged a brief meeting with one of the inmates. It shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes and the conductor has kindly agreed to hold the train for that duration.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, sir.” Hassan crossed a curious leg. “Which inmate?”

“Thibadeau Freck.”

For the second time today, the team gasped in perfect harmony. But Becker’s was just a little bit bigger than the rest.

“You’re meeting with Thib?” he whispered. “What for?”

Fixer Blaque placed a hand on the cold glass and looked as if he were a million miles away.

“That’s between me and him, Mr. Drane.”

Seemsberia, The Seems

Before the TSE even pulled into the Seemsberia station, Becker donned the cool-looking Hot Head he’d picked up as a parting gift from the Tamishantery. Hassan buttoned up his sheepskin coat, and Octo (as her friends and fellow base-jumpers called her) wrapped herself in the thick wool afghan she’d been knitting the whole way. Temperatures in Seemsberia routinely dipped fifty degrees below zero.

“Station stop: Seemsberia! Next stop, End of the Line.”

The Fixers followed Jelani Blaque onto the granite platform, where icicles hung off a solitary ticket machine and sparse wooden benches offered little comfort from the cold. All they could see for miles upon miles was frigid, unforgiving snow, interrupted only by the occasional glacier of ice, and the one unforgettable contrast. Far in the distance, a sprawling, high-walled prison made entirely of stone.

As Becker watched a medley of convicted felons negotiating their shackles and stepping onto the platform single file, he could only imagine the chills that were going down their spines. He himself had narrowly averted a stint in Seemsberia during his own trial, and he put himself in the soon-to-be prisoners’ shoes—emerging from a sealed car after a long ride and glimpsing for the first time the storied penitentiary where their rehabilitation and reintegration into mainstream society would take place.

“I’ll be back in thirty minutes.” Fixer Blaque joined two Corrections Officers who stoically waited to transport him to the main gates. “Be sure to hold the train.”

“I agreed to twenty minutes, friend,” the Conductor quickly corrected him. “One second longer, and you should think about where you’ll be sleeping tonight.”

Fixer Blaque didn’t argue with the Conductor, just handed him a business card, upon which was printed a single name and number. “If you have any problem with my request, I suggest you contact Madame Hightower on her direct line.”

The Conductor had no idea who Jelani Blaque was or why he was here—keeping his beloved TSE on schedule was his sole reason to be—but the Second in Command was an entirely different matter.

“On second thought, I’m sure the boys in the coal car could use a little Pickmeup.”

As Jelani Blaque commandeered a jeep and disappeared into the tundra, his fellow Fixers huddled together and watched a host of uniformed personnel board the caboose. Standard operating procedure for the Department of Corrections was to scour the train for contraband every time it arrived, and today was no exception.

“Why do you think he wants to see Freck?”

Hassan pointed to the distant gates of the prison, which were slowly opening to admit the vehicle bearing Fixer Blaque.

“Who knows?” The Octogenarian pulled the afghan tighter. “Maybe Jelani thinks The Tide stole the train after all.”

For Becker’s part, he was just trying to stay warm and keep cool. Thibadeau Freck had been the most talented Candidate in Becker’s class at the IFR (not to mention Becker’s best friend) until he’d faked his own death and resurfaced as a prominent member of The Tide. Now he was serving a thirty-year sentence in Seemsberia for his role in the devastation of Time Square
¹⁸
— and Becker swore he’d never speak to the young Frenchman again.

“I hope he rots in there.”

Even though Hassan and the Octogenarian were shivering, they could feel Becker’s white-hot rage.

“Don’t worry,” the Persian again glanced toward the windowless complex. “He’s as much a pariah in there as he is out here.”

“Sergeant Linney, over here!”

The Fixers turned to see a gaggle of guards and dogs come running down the platform, all gathering around something a Corrections Officer had thrown from one of the storage cars.

“I think we’ve got something, sir.” The Officer showed his square-jawed staff sergeant a long printout filled with item descriptions and serial numbers. “This wasn’t on the requisition list.”

It was a large suitcase—more like a chest, actually— one of those steamer trunks that Becker imagined merchant marines would carry on their voyages across the seven seas. Upon hearing the commotion, the Conductor, the crew, even the lady who ran the newsstand crowded around the bulky antique.

“Everybody stand back,” Sergeant Linney said as he warmed up his baton. “I’m gonna crack this thing open.”

As the inspector got ready to bust the lock, Becker had the strangest feeling that he’d seen this chest before; not on imaginary ocean voyages or underneath the cot of one of his bunkmates at Camp Walden, but in a dorm room at the IFR. The sloppy carving of a double-sided Wrench on one of the sides confirmed his suspicions, as did several others that said simply “I ♥ CL/#23.”

Crack!

The lock split open and everyone who’d been told to stand back pushed forward to see what was lurking inside. But of all the people on the platform, the only one who could positively ID the illicit cargo was Becker Drane himself.

“Simly?”

“In the, uh . . . flesh, sir.”

Briefer Simly Frye dropped his head into his hands, which were rudely cuffed to the back of a seat on the prisoners’ bus.

“But I was only trying to help!”

“I know that, dude, but you went about it the wrong way!” Becker paced up and down the center aisle. “Fixer Blaque had to cut his meeting short to speak with the warden on your behalf, and take my word for it, he is
not
psyched.”

Outside in the frozen air, Jelani Blaque was still locked in heated negotiations with Inkar Cyration, the feared Administrator of the Department of Corrections. From the stony look
on the Warden’s face, it did not appear to be going well.

“Why would you do such a thing?”

“You said it yourself, Becker! I’m the only one you can trust!”

“When did I say that?”

“Back in Thought & Emotion, when you read everybody the riot act. You said that every Fixer on the Roster had betrayed you, and if they wanted you back they’d better let you bring along Milton Frye’s favorite grandson so there’s at least one person on the Mission who’s got your back instead of trying to stab you in it!”

Becker cringed at the memory of his temper tantrum.

“I really said all that?”

“Word for word. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I, um . . . had a Fly on the Wall™.”

Becker shook his head with dismay, because eavesdropping with that old and decommissioned Tool was a serious infraction.

“Dude, you can’t just break every Rule in the Briefer’s handbook ’cause you feel like it.”

“Why not? You did.”

As Fixer Drane marveled at the ripple effect of his bad life decisions, the door to the bus swung open and in walked a not very happy looking man wearing blue-tinted shades that had frosted over white.

“It took a great deal of bargaining, Briefer Frye.” Fixer Blaque sat in the empty driver’s chair and turned to Simly. “But I managed to keep you out of the Clink.”

Becker and Simly whispered “yes” at the same time, until— “Unfortunately, seeing as the Trans-Seemsberian will not be making its return trip until tomorrow, it looks as if you will be spending some time in the Pokey.”

Simly turned a whiter shade of pale. The Pokey was not the Hokey Pokey of birthday parties and roller-skating rinks, but rather the short-term holding cell where hardened criminals awaited processing and small-time hoods learned lessons they wouldn’t soon forget.

“But sir, wouldn’t it be better if I came along on the Mission? There’s four Fixers and not a single Briefer!”

“Out of the question.”

“But—”

Fixer Blaque silenced Simly with an angry bang of his stick.

“You’re right, sir. A few nights in the Pokey is just what I deserve.”