The Lost Train of Thought (16 page)
“Did it have anything to do”— Captain Marcus released the bar and landed on his feet in one spectacularly coordinated motion, then accepted a towel from one of his two muscle-bound bodyguards—“with a missing Train of Thought?”
“Indeed. He wondered if The Tide was responsible for stealing it.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“That I had no idea.” Thibadeau followed the trio over to the captain’s cot. “As you know, I do not exactly have Triton’s ear anymore.”
The fact that the disgraced soldier already knew about a classified Mission only fed Thib’s suspicion that Marcus was, in fact, Triton himself. During the time the Frenchman had been in good standing with The Tide, he had spoken with its enigmatic leader via Calling Card numerous times, though on those occasions, the transmission was always garbled to protect Triton’s identity. The way the Captain carried himself, though, and the authority with which he spoke were eerily similar.
“And still Jelani interrupted his first active Mission in over ten years to see you.”
The Frenchman looked away. This moment he had to tread
carefully.
“I believe he was fishing for information about the deluge.”
Marcus finished toweling off the sweat, then sat down and lifted a barbell off the floor. “How so?”
“He fears the train is an opening salvo— a diversion that will leave the Big Building vulnerable to a larger attack.”
“If only he knew how close he was.” The Captain methodically curled the weight up and down. “But not close enough.”
Thibadeau’s breath grew shallow and thin. “So it is still on?”
“It was never off.”
From the very first night of his recruitment, when Thibadeau had been offered the chance to “answer all the unanswerable questions,” there had been whispers of The Tide’s final stroke. The covert insurgency had gradually infiltrated every department, every corner of The Seems, and once Triton gave the word, it would seize control of the means of production to build “a new and better World.” But only one man knew when that day would come.
“Jelani knows it is coming. They all do, and they are frightened.” Marcus’s eyes gleamed like two black jewels. “They should be.”
“What amazes me,
Capitaine
, is that you fail to see your own hypocrisy.” A rage long swallowed came vomiting out of Thibadeau. “The Tide has degenerated into a mélange of power-hungry vandals who seek nothing but to destroy, destroy, destroy! Not for the sake of anything worthwhile, but for the satisfaction of their own petty desires!”
If the Captain was moved by the accusation, he didn’t show it. He simply switched the barbell to his other hand, and continued pumping iron. “You’ll have to take that up with Triton himself.”
“Will you stop this charade?”
Thibadeau shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Everyone knows that you and Triton are one and
the same!”
Heads throughout the chamber whipped in Thibadeau’s direction, though it was hard to tell whether it was due to the nature of the outburst or the accusation it contained.
“Me, Triton?” The Captain laughed, and his loyal bodyguards followed suit. “I am but a soldier in his army, anxiously awaiting my orders.” He dropped the barbell to the floor and checked the Time Piece on his wrist. “Which I believe are about to arrive.”
As steely arms grabbed Thibadeau and drove him facedown to the floor, Marcus put two fingers to his lips and emitted a high-pitched whistle. Seconds later, a wiry kid with glasses and a hoop earring was jerry-rigging a homemade Calling Card on the parquet floor.
“Good to see you again, Sketch.” Thibadeau recognized the prisoner as a former Drifter who’d been his co-defendant at trial. “Have you spoken to Lena lately?”
“I got nothin’ to say to you, Freck, and neither does she.”
“Yes, I too was disappointed that she didn’t attend our tr—”
But Thibadeau was cut short by a former Flavor Miner’s knee in his back.
“Why are we wasting time with this traitor, Cap? Let’s waste him instead.”
“Because Triton appreciates those who question authority. For if we stifle every voice of dissent, will we not become as corrupt as the Powers That Be?”
Captain Marcus gave the go-ahead, and the Drifter plugged a power cord into the square metal plate on the ground. There was a brief surge of electricity, followed by a high whine as the Calling Card struggled to pick up a remote signal. But with a twist of the antenna, the broken-up image of the man they all knew as their leader shimmered into view.
“The rising Tide raises all ships!” said Triton in an eerily garbled voice.
Two hundred voices shouted back their response, so loud that the very floors of the gymnasium shook—and so united that it only sounded like one.
“All ships raise the rising Tide!”
“Mon Dieu,”
whispered Thibadeau, struggling more against his own fear than with those that held him down. For even though the image and voice were masked with digital fuzz as always, something about the way Triton clenched a fist and raised it into the air sent cold shivers down the Frenchman’s spine.
“The word is given,” was all he said.
“Attention! Attention all prisoners! This is Captain Robert Marcus
speaking . . .”
Simly tightly gripped the bars of the cell block door to the Protective Custody Wing, listening to the voice that boomed across the Seemsberia-wide loudspeaker.
“As of precisely twelve minutes ago, The Tide has assumed
command of this facility!”
Smoke from scattered fires made his eyes burn, but Simly could still make out panicked squadrons of guards running everywhere. Yellow lights in glass cases spun like carousels, belting out ear-splitting alarms, while pieces of Department of Corrections paperwork floated aimlessly in the air.
“Corrections Officers looking to join our cause, report to Cell
Block Q for further instructions. Those who’d rather cling to an
old and tired system should vacate the premises or be dealt with
accordingly.”
A man’s scream in the distance punctuated the Captain’s threat.
“Marcus over and out.”
Simly backed away from the tall iron bars, trying to stifle the fear that was growing in his stomach. Not fifteen minutes ago, the Briefer was sitting on his perfectly made bed waiting for a guard to hand him his Walking Papers, when pandemonium had broken loose. Every cell door in Seemsberia swung open, instantaneously freeing Simly and a host of villains from their cages. The main entrance to Protective Custody remained locked, however.
“Simly, come inside.” A wispy-haired old man beckoned from inside his open cell. “It’s not safe for you out there.”
“Don’t worry, Permin. These guys are too crazy to worry about little old me!”
Simly glanced over his shoulder where the Insomniac was banging his head against the wall in an effort to get some rest and the Cereal Killer and Son of Seems were squaring off over the rights to the coveted title of “most infamous criminal in The Seems.”
“I’m not talking about this cell block, son. The Tide will not be kind to a company man.”
Permin again motioned to his cuckoo clock–filled cell and this time, Simly accepted.
“Maybe you’re right.”
During Thibadeau’s absence, the Briefer and the former Administrator of Time had struck up a conversation through the bars of their cells. Permin Neverlåethe was pleasantly surprised when Simly claimed to have read every single page of his famously long treatise,
A Not-So-Brief History of Time
. For his part, Simly had found Permin not the monster he’d been portrayed as, but rather a man of deep conviction, haunted by his own crimes.
“I don’t understand this, Permin. What are they rioting for?”
“The Tide will do anything to accomplish their goals. I only hope they had the foresight
not
to open the doors to the Heckhole.”
“What’s the Heckhole?”
“The ward for the criminally insane.” Neverlåethe struggled to moisten his lips. “That’s where they keep all the Glitches.”
So terrible was the idea that a swarm of those malignant creatures who’d almost destroyed The World a thousand times over could be loosed into the Seems again that Simly almost fainted right there on the spot. But then loud footsteps could be heard approaching the cell block. “Someone’s coming!”
“Hurry, boy!” Permin ran to a tall grandfather clock that he’d built from popsicle sticks and egg crates. “I can hide you inside Grandpa!”
Simly knew he should do as his new friend said, but if he had one Achilles’ heel (well, he probably had more than one) it was his insatiable curiosity. So instead of climbing into the belly of Permin’s latest invention, he poked his head outside the cell to see who was using a heavy ring of keys to unlock the doors to Protective Custody.
It was the Corrections Officer again, joined by the disgraced Flavor Miner, whose rubber-banded beard had been singed by the fires. And dangling between them, his thin frame battered with fresh welts and bruises, was a barely conscious Thibadeau Freck.
“Back to the Holiday Inn, Frenchie.” The Miner threw Thib roughly to the ground. “As soon as we take care of the Warden, I’ll be back to put you out of your misery.”
“Triton’s orders were clear,” cautioned the Officer. “Nobody puts the kibosh on the frog.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, but everyone knows accidents happen in a riot.”
The two Tide members flashed each other evil smirks.
“Same goes for you, string bean!” Out of the corner of his eye, the Miner spotted a lanky neck poking out of Permin Nev-erlåethe’s cell. “Enjoy your last few minutes on the face of The Seems!”
As soon as the duo locked the door and disappeared into the fray, Simly and Permin scrambled to Thibadeau’s aid. Though his left eye was closed and his beard smattered with blood, he was starting to come around.
“I guess your meeting with Captain Marcus didn’t go so well?” Permin grabbed an arm and helped him up to a sitting position.
“Let’s just say we agreed to disagree.”
“But what’s he after? He has to know the Powers That Be will never submit to his demands!”
“The riot is only the first step,
mes amis.
” Thibadeau spat a mouthful of blood to the floor. “A distraction for the deluge to come.”
Simly’s already strained heart sank another inch lower.
“Once the Powers That Be turn their attention to Seemsberia, Triton will activate his deep-cover agents, shut down The World one department at a time, and seize control of the Big Building itself!”
“You almost sound like you admire him,” whispered Simly.
“I respect Triton’s goal. But not his methods of achieving it.”
“Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” Permin Neverlåethe dropped the toilet paper he was using to dab Thibadeau’s wounds and clenched an angry fist. “I’m not going to stand by and let another Time Square happen on my watch!”
During their shared imprisonment, the two had never spoken of the roles they’d played in the tragedy of the Split Second. But all the guilt and sorrow they shared finally passed between them in this silent moment.
“If we wish to save The World we adore, not to mention ourselves, then there is only one option.” Thibadeau shook himself free of the cobwebs and rose to his feet. “We must escape from Seemsberia.”
“Escape from Seemsberia?” Simly laughed, though there was nothing funny about it. “Nobody’s
ever
escaped from Seemsberia, and the reason no one’s ever escaped from Seemsberia is because there
is
no way out of Seemsberia!”
Ban daged but not beaten, Thibadeau leaned on Simly’s shoulder, and the Briefer saw a long-forgotten sparkle returning to his eyes.
“
Au contraire,
Simly.
Au contraire
.”
23.
The first was Stu Ivar, aka “the Accidental Tourist,” but that’s a Story for Another Day.
The Middle of Nowhere
Since the Unthinkable would happen in less than twenty-four hours, the second team didn’t have the luxury of following an old coot and his partner on a painstaking journey from Who Knows Where to the mountains. When that partner turned out to be a bowlegged and cantankerous mule, the Fixers had no choice but to make certain “travel arrangements” to get where they needed to go in a timely fashion.