“When’s your show?”
“Next week. Administrator Nye from Public Works is gonna be there and if everything goes well, I could totally get a job as a Junior Scenic.”
“Sweet.”
“Tell me about it. If you play your cards right, I might be able to score you an original Benjamin Drane at half price.”
Me-2 smiled proudly. With Becker gone as much as he had been, the lifelike Tool had become almost a brother to Ben, and seeing his excitement and his blossoming artistic ability gave its mechanical heart real joy. Which only made what was about to happen that much harder to swallow.
“What’s wrong, Me?” Benjamin dabbed a small blob of Phthalo Blue into a patch of sky on his canvas. “Why the long face?”
There were a few things that weighed heavy on the Me-2’s mind that day. First and foremost was the fact that the precocious Sunset painter would probably never have his long-awaited show. Because of the Court of Public Opinion’s ruling, Benjamin would never remember that there
was
a Seems, except as a figment of his brother’s imagination. But if that brother had no L.U.C.K. in finding the Lost Train of Thought, unremembering would be the least of their problems.
“Actually, I’m a little concerned about this whole Unthinkable thing.”
“I thought you said Becker’s team had it under control?”
“They do, it’s just—” Me-2 held up in midsentence, not wanting to let on that just minutes ago it had abruptly lost contact with its real self. “The last update from Thought & Emotion
wasn’t so hot.”
The other Becker grabbed the remote control off the night table and fired up the TV that had been installed on Benjamin’s ninth birthday.
“C’mon, Me, I’m trying to get some work done here!”
“I just wanna see what’s going on in The World.”
As Benjamin tried to tune out the video and get back to his sunset, the Me-2 flicked between the nine-hundred and seventy-one available channels. And if what it saw on CNN and BBC was true, things on the ground were even worse than feared.
Someone had started a wildfire in the hills of Santa Barbara, and the flames now stretched across a hundred-mile radius. The fans of two soccer teams had clashed outside a stadium, and the resulting riot had left scores of people injured and three innocent bystanders fighting for their lives. Worst of all, the rebels were on the move in the Congo again.
“I told you, B. CLOTs are popping up left and right!”
“What’s a CLOT?”
“Complete Lack of Thought!” Me-2 threw up its synthetic arms. “From there, it’s only a hop, skip, and a jump to the—”
“Those aren’t CLOTs, doofus— that kind of stuff happens every day. Why do you think I never watch the news?”
“Then explain Zurich!” Me-2 pointed to the picture-in-picture, where the capital of Switzerland had erupted in a torrent of political protests. “The Swiss are neutral about everything!”
“You’re crazy, Me. In fact, you’re doing exactly what my science teacher Dr. Isakoff says
not
to do: come up with a theory first and
then
find evidence to support it!”
The Me-2’s liquid crystal eyes took another glance at the events transpiring around the globe.
“Yeah, maybe you’re right, B. Maybe it’s all just part of the Plan . . .”
“That’s the spirit!” Benjamin yanked the clicker away from his alternate brother and turned off the boob tube. “Now beat it and let me get back to work.”
Seemsberia, The Seems
After the bus carrying Simly had passed through the gates of Seemsberia proper, he had been escorted down the steps and led directly to processing. Like every other Seemsian whose fate it was to reflect on their deeds behind these stone walls, he was searched, showered, relieved of his personal property, and issued a standard jumpsuit and prisoner ID number. Then, per Fixer Blaque’s agreement with the Warden, the Briefer was locked in the relative safety of a twelve-by-twelve holding cell until the next morning. That agreement had suddenly changed.
“But why can’t I stay in the Pokey?”
Simly Frye’s feet were in shackles, which didn’t exactly help him keep up with the Corrections Officer who was leading him down the long, dank hallway.
“New batch a’inmates comin’ in,” said the guard, ignoring the catcalls coming from the cells that lined both walls. “Gotta make room.”
“But I’m only here for one day!”
“Sorry, kid. Warden’s orders.” The Officer stopped before a tall steel door, then brusquely undid the shackles. “Suggest you
wear these.”
He handed Simly a thick wool jacket and cap, pulled a fat brass key off the rings on his belt, and inserted it into the heavy latch on the door.
“Is it safe out there?” asked Simly. His teeth were already chattering, but not from the cold.
“Long as you don’t get on nobody’s bad side.”
With that, the guard opened the door and pushed the prisoner outside.
“Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time,” Simly whispered to himself. But when his eyes adjusted to the harsh light and he took the first look at his home for the next twenty-five hours, he was pretty sure he couldn’t.
Fenced in on all sides by barbed wire and overseen by four separate guardposts was a football-sized yard of frozen tundra. Inmates dressed in heavy layers were scattered across the ice and mud, pumping iron, playing chess, and engaging in the ancient sport of Distraction. Most were broken into clearly delineated cliques, and Simly recognized people in The Know, as well as the infamous Rocky Road Gang and even a crew of Seems Firsters.
20
But as he tucked his hands in his pockets and found a quiet corner, there was one posse that scared the Briefer more than all the others combined.
There were at least a hundred of them, all congregated on the stone stairs that overlooked the east side of the yard. At first glance, there was little they had in common with each other, for Pencil Pushers sat alongside Reality Checkers who chewed the fat with Drifters and Degenerators. But upon closer inspection, even the casual observer could spot somewhere on each prisoner’s body a tattoo or patch or piece of jewelry depicting what would have been a mark of shame in mainstream Seemsian society, yet here was considered a badge of honor:
A sinister black wave.
“You must be a newbie!”
Simly turned to see an old man with a Seemsberian monkey on his shoulder limping toward him and extending a gnarled hand.
“I’m Bill. Bill the Lifer, they call me.”
“Simly Frye.” He hadn’t forgotten Becker’s admonition not to talk to anybody, but the man’s wrinkled smile made it hard not to say hello. “I’m only in for one more day.”
“Time is relative, young fella. Some people live an entire lifetime in a day! Ain’t that right, Fumbles?”
The old convict petted the monkey on his shoulder, which disturbingly turned out to be a mangy stuffed animal. Even worse, a few eyes in the yard were beginning to turn their way.
“Well, it was nice meeting you, Bill.”
Simly started to look for another spot, but Bill followed.
“What you in for, if you don’t mind me askin’?”
“Trespassing,” said Simly, not wanting to get into the embarrassing details.
“Got caught with my hand in the Cookie Jar,
21
myself.”
“Sorry to hear that, bro. Listen, I don’t mean to be rude, but I just wanna pay my debt to society in peace and quiet.”
“C’mon, Fumbles! We can tell when we’re not wanted!”
As Bill the Lifer and his closest friend stormed off in a huff, Simly did his best to tuck into the shadows and make himself invisible again. Unfortunately, the damage had already been done.
“Well, well, well. Look what Seemsberian Snow Cat dragged in.”
Much to Simly’s horror, the entire Tide clan was drifting in his direction. The way they moved was like a sailboat tacking, plotting just enough of a circuitous route as to avoid the suspicion of the guards, who sat with their binoculars in the towers above. But in a very short amount of time, they had formed a semicircle around where he was standing.
“If it ain’t Kid Fixer’s string-bean sidekick!” An ex–Flavor Miner whose beard was tied with a rubber band got right in Simly’s frostbitten face. “Looks like Seemsmas came early this year, eh, boys?”
“I’m not lookin’ for any trouble,” muttered the frightened newbie, backing up the two inches that separated him from the wall behind him.
“Well, it’s looking for you.”
As The Tide started to roll in, Simly instinctively reached for the Fists of Fury™ that were clipped onto his belt. But then he remembered the collection of Tools that were normally strapped all over his body were now sitting in two cardboard boxes in Seemberia’s property room. So he put up his dukes— just like his grandpa Milton had taught him—and prepared to take his lumps.
“Les partir suel!”
En masse, the gang turned toward the voice of a gaunt figure that was approaching from the other side of the yard. His hair and beard were disheveled, and he was rail thin—though what there was of him was rock hard. Whoever he was, The Tide didn’t turn on him, which meant he merited respect.
“This don’t concern you, Frenchy,” the miner whispered under his breath.
“But it does concern them.”
The scraggly inmate unexpectedly hucked a rock up at the nearest tower, enough of a signal to catch the guard’s attention.
“There a problem down there?” The Corrections Officer took off his mirrored shades and shouted over a bullhorn. Nobody said a word, because nobody wanted to be tossed into solitary confinement or given extra sessions on the Couch. “I didn’t think so. Now break it up!”
He didn’t have to ask twice, and one by one The Tide began to reverse course and trickle back into the yard. But not before one of them gave Simly a vicious shove, knocking him into the wall and off his feet.
“I don’t care if you are Triton’s boy.” The Flavor Miner stepped right up to the one called Frenchy and spat directly in his face. “I’m personally gonna send you to A Better Place.”
“But I’m already there,
monami
.”
As the chess masters returned to their clocks, the bearded prisoner grabbed the newbie by the elbow and lifted him off
the ice.
“Simly Alomonous Frye. What’s a nice guy like you doing in a place like this?”
Simly hadn’t recognized his savior at first glance, but the accent born of summers in Paris and winters in Chamonix left no doubt in his mind about who this stranger was. The two had trained together on the hallowed grounds of the IFR and faced the same gauntlet of challenges thrown at all his Candidates by instructor Jelani Blaque. But the Briefer shuddered at what terrible events could have transformed that debonair French teenager into the battle-scarred convict who stood before him now . . .
“Thibadeau?”
Executive Conference Room, The Big Building, The Seems
Eve Hightower sat one chair to the right of the head of the conference table, numbly clutching the twelve ballots in her
hand.
“Eight to four?” She had already counted the anonymous votes reflected on the small white squares of paper twice, but she couldn’t stop herself from doing it again. “Eight to four?”
Since the other eleven members of the Powers That Be had already excused themselves, the Second in Command was left alone to figure out what had gone wrong. Only a single issue had come up on the docket today, that being whether or not to intervene in the matter of the Blue Poison Dart Frog. The amphibian indigenous to Sector 419 was on the verge of extinction, but the Rules governing Animal Affairs clearly stated: “
tampering
with the success or failure of any species is strictly prohibited.
” Eve was beyond stunned, however, to find that hers was one of only four votes that advocated letting Nature take its course in this matter.
“How is this possible?”
She angrily tossed the ballots across the table, not because the actual issue had won approval, but because of what the results said about the Powers That Be themselves.
“What were you expecting, dear?” Out of the shadows in the corner of the conference room stepped an older woman with long silver hair. She was dressed more casually than the Second in Command— in a simple white blouse and jeans, with sandals on her feet—and she seemed far more amused by the vote. “A landslide?”
“Just the usual seven to five.” Eve’s annoyance only increased at the sight of the older woman’s smile. “But to flip-flop that far the other way?”
“Surely this isn’t the first vote that caught you by surprise.” The new arrival sat down upon the edge of the table and pointed to a famous painting on the wall. “You should’ve seen my face when the original Powers shot down my proposal for extra Time off for good behavior.”
“Mother, please! If I wanted to hear stories about the good ole days, I would call Sitriol Flook!”
Sophie Temporale quietly let Eve’s fury wash over her. No matter how hard she tried to be helpful, the woman known as “the Time Being” still couldn’t avoid getting under her daughter’s skin. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I thought you wanted me to be here.”
“I did. I do.” Eve took a deep breath, feeling typically guilty about flipping out on her mom. “But what I really need from you right now is advice.”
Ever since her mother had made an unexpected return to The Seems after fifty-plus years of exile, Eve had sought Sophie’s council. These were dangerous times, what with the rise of The Tide, and the Second didn’t know who she could trust anymore. “You saw the vote, heard the arguments. Who do you think sold me out?”
“If you ask me, the question is not who, dear, it’s why. Why would they approve a motion that is so obviously and noticeably against the Rules?”
“And I’m sure you have an answer for that too.”
Sophie nodded. “The Powers That Be have always been and always will be mere reflections of what’s happening in The Seems at large. And any fool can see that the people are beginning to lose faith in the Plan.”
“That sounds more like Samuel talking.” Eve was surprised by the coldness of her own voice. “Or Triton.”
“Ignore the truth in your enemy’s words at your own peril, sweetheart. And speaking of Samuel, you might want to consider heeding his advice instead of dismissing it, else those who sold you out take it as a sign that you fear his popularity.”