Winterbay (3 page)

“You know, I could really use you,” Olive continued. “You’re quick on your feet, good with artifacts. You’d be real handy out there. I know you got problems, things you’re running from, but that far east I doubt they’ll find you.”

Mira wasn’t so sure about that. There were people after her now, powerful ones, and they’d hunt her wherever she went. Their reach was long. “I can’t, but it’s definitely tempting.”

“Winterbay isn’t a fan of Freebooters, you know,” Olive told her. “Artifacts are banned there.”

“Guess it’s good I’m not bringing any,” Mira answered.

“Even without artifacts, it’s dangerous. Big place with lots of people. If I were you I’d stick to the wilds, the out-of-the way spots, small trading depots along the Mississippi, that kind of thing.”

Olive was right, of course. Winterbay was one of the biggest cities in North America. If word had spread that people were looking for her, places like Winterbay would be where they looked first.

“What is it you need?” Olive asked. “Maybe I can help.”

Mira smiled. She knew the girl meant it. “That’s sweet. But you can’t. What I
need
 … is information. I need a mark on a map, and if I don’t find it, I’m in a lot of trouble.”

Olive looked at her again, just for a second, then shifted her eyes back in front of the ship. “First Landship I ever served on was called the
Wind Strike.
Ugliest thing on six wheels. Someone put her together with pieces from an old truck stop and, I kid you not, a yellow school bus. Thing looked like it was going to fall apart before it ever started moving, but the truth was, don’t ask me how, it was the fastest damn ship in the fleet then. Pissed all the other Captains off, rolling junkyard, leaving them in the dust every single time.” Olive smiled. At least a part of the memory was good. “When a Landship Captain is taken by the Tone, the First Mate gets promoted. The Captain chooses his First Mate, which means the Captain chooses his successor. The
Wind Strike
’s Captain was fading; he didn’t have much time left. I was in the running to be the new First Mate along with a boy named Vincent; tall kid, muscles, way stronger than me. Smart, too. I hated him.”

Mira could imagine. It had to be a tough road, being as small and demure as Olive, rising up in such a physical world.

“One day,” Olive continued, “Vincent and I were both on rigging duty, which meant climbing the masts. You do it with harnesses and lanyards, and as we were gearing up, I noticed one of the straps on his saddle was torn, on the inside, near the buckle. I could tell it wouldn’t hold his weight very long. A part of me knew if Vincent fell climbing the mast, he’d be penalized for not checking his gear. So … I didn’t say anything.” Mira had to strain to hear the girl over the rumbling of the ship now. “Figured he’d fall ten or twelve feet at most, get bruised, knocked out of the competition, and that would be that. He made it all the way up to the first rigging with that strap before it broke. That’s almost thirty feet. Broke a leg and a few ribs. He never walked the same way again.”

Mira could guess the rest. “You got the position.”

Olive nodded. “For all of a month before I resigned and left the
Wind Strike.
It wasn’t just the guilt, you know, it was seeing the truth of it. A real First Mate would never let someone go up on a mast with a tattered harness. I didn’t deserve that position, so I left it, joined up with the
Wind Rift,
and started all over.”

“Why are you telling me this, Olive?”

“Because wanting something really bad, being willing to do anything to get it, isn’t a good thing. You might end up doing things you’d never do otherwise, things you’d regret. People have their lines, lines they normally won’t cross, and in times like that those lines start to blur.”

Mira sighed. She was probably right, but it didn’t matter. “I
have
to have this, Olive. It’s the only way I can fix things.”

“If you have to have it, you have to have it,” Olive replied. “All I’m saying is, remember what your lines are.”

The two girls stared at each other a moment, considering, and then Olive looked back to the wheel. She’d said what she’d wanted to, and Mira respected it.

“Can’t take you to Winterbay,” Olive told her. “The timeline just won’t let me. I can drop you close, though, near Chicago.”

Mira nodded. It was close enough. “I appreciate that.”

“Winter’s almost done here, but up there it’s still kicking. Cold like that, it cuts right through you. Hope you packed long undies.”

“I never told you?” Mira smiled. “I wear long underwear exclusively.”

Olive smiled back. “Winds guide you, Freebooter.”

“And you,” Mira answered back. The
Wind Rift
rumbled east as the sky darkened behind them, and the chill of the night began to set in. It felt even colder now than yesterday.

Ice and Fog

Though Mira could see ice everywhere in the moonlight, she could still sense the inevitability of spring. The waters of Lake Michigan were no longer frozen; instead they had disintegrated into an eternally stretching field of slush that parted and spread outward as the big wooden ferry was pulled through it.

Mira looked to where the ropes on either side of the craft stretched ahead and disappeared into the morning fog. They were attached to a wheelhouse somewhere in that haze, pulling the craft slowly toward it. Winterbay lay at the other end of those ropes, a place that even in the best of times was unfriendly to her … and these were definitely not the best of times. The thought of it made Mira shiver, and she pulled her coat tighter.

As Olive had said, Strange Lands artifacts were banned here. For that matter, so were Freebooters. Mira had stashed her own artifacts near the shore, buried in the basement of a crumbling apartment building in a city ruin. As much as she might want to, though, she couldn’t bury who she was and leave that behind in the same way. Say the wrong thing in this place, and people would figure out pretty quick what she was.

True to her word, Olive had gotten her to the northern outskirts of Chicago, where the giant, towering form of the Assembly Presidium baseship hung over the ruins, so tall it disappeared into a bank of swirling clouds high in the sky. She quickly said her good-byes and headed north.

Hopefully, she’d beaten the wanted posters here, but still, it was an obvious place to start looking. No doubt bounty hunters were already on their way, not just to Winterbay but to places like Currency and Faust as well. She had a day, maybe two, before the larger population centers were no longer safe for her, which meant she’d have to finish her business before that.

Ahead of her the haze was brightening. As it did, Mira watched a shape begin to draw itself in the thick off-white canvas of the fog. It stretched and widened as she drifted closer, more and more of it revealing itself until the breadth of it finally broke into view.

A few months after the invasion, when the Tone had gone active and the world’s youngest were left to fend for themselves, the city’s first incarnation had been built using an unlikely resource.

Boats.

Dozens and dozens of them, all types and sizes. Tugs, barges, paddlewheels, ferries, tankers, every kind of boat that had once run on the great lake, and the collection grew until it was more than a hundred strong. Over time they were moored and connected together, anchored as one giant platform in the northern half of the lake, away from the two nearest Presidiums in Minneapolis and Chicago.

That had only been the beginning. In the years that followed, more and more survivors arrived as word spread. Once there, they began to build.

On top of the boats, at first. Making a solid base of scrap wood and sheet metal, all of it blended and shaped together to be a cohesive, roughly circular structure that stretched some two square miles and encompassed the original mass of ships.

Then they kept going, building upward, adding levels populated with markets and houses and workshops and stores, stretching to the sky. There were towers and buildings made of wood and plastic, all repurposed from the ruins back on shore, stretching defiantly above the cold waters.

Unique in its construction, Winterbay differed from other cities in yet another way. As the ferry pushed through the fog, Mira saw it for herself: lights, gleaming and sparkling ahead of her in the night, and they were not lights like she was used to. They didn’t flash or waver in a multitude of colors. They were solid and lifeless and all tinged the same cold shade of white-blue. They were
real
lights, powered by electricity. Mira hadn’t seen that many in one place since the invasion.

Most places were powered by artifacts now, items imbued with powerful properties from the dangerous place to the north called the Strange Lands. Artifacts and combinations of them were used for energy, for light, for heat, for pretty much everything that was needed or wanted, and the world revolved around them now. They were the new order.

Everywhere but here.

Winterbay used the giant collection of boats underneath it as more than just a foundation. Their old engines and generators were kept running and, working together, provided power for the entire city.

That fact had come to define the place. Its residents and its governing body, the mysterious Quorum of Id, saw the city as one of the last fragments of humanity’s past, a place that kept the old memories and achievements alive. Consequently, Strange Lands artifacts were seen as vile. They were forbidden, and so were Freebooters—those, like Mira, who specialized in venturing into the Strange Lands. Here, Mira was already a criminal, even without the wanted posters. Being a Freebooter meant the death sentence in Winterbay. It was why she had never visited, and why she was so nervous now.

The city loomed closer. It was free from the ice, but even so, it didn’t move or rock. The thick, slushy waves lapped and beat against the exterior, but the city paid it no mind. Whether because of its anchors sunk deep below or because it was so solidly built, Mira was unsure.

She followed the ferry’s ropes with her eyes as they disappeared into holes in the wooden dock that was now apparent in front of them. On its other side, a second ferry, loaded with survivors, all kids and teens, was preparing to return to shore, its own ropes stretching back the way Mira had just come.

Past the dock, there was a large archway, and Mira could see something hanging from it, lit up with strobes for all to see: a single huge gear or cog, painted in blue and white, the ominous symbol for Winterbay, one that spoke of the city’s reliance on, and dedication to, the mechanical ways of the past.

A line of people stretched to that archway and that giant cog, where city guards meticulously searched everyone who entered, looking for weapons and artifacts and other contraband. Mira swallowed at the sight. The time had come. She was about to learn if she had gotten here fast enough, if she’d beaten the swirling rumors of her crimes and the huge reward that was undoubtedly now on her head.

Everything, all her plans, rode on that hope.

Mira exited the ferry with a dozen other survivors and joined the line waiting to be searched. In fifteen minutes, she was through, staring at the impossible floating city of Winterbay. The guards hadn’t given her a second look.

Winterbay

Mira moved through the tight, winding streets of the city, trying not to look like an outsider as she brushed past hundreds of residents, but it wasn’t easy, mainly because she couldn’t help but stare around her in awe. Compared to the subterranean metropolis of Midnight City, Winterbay was a completely different animal.

There was no ceiling of thick black cavern rock; instead it was built “upward,” into the open air. The night sky hung above the city, full of stars and the blackened masses of occasional clouds. Somehow, it made Mira feel even more isolated and exposed.

Buildings and levels climbed upward all around, as high as six stories, and no two of them did it in the same way. They leaned or curved, some obviously built better than others, and a few even had ropes anchoring them to the deck to keep them from falling over.

Between the buildings, precarious-looking bridges made of rope and wood and other materials stretched, and Mira saw they were just as full of people, swaying back and forth.

Everywhere was evidence of electricity. Thick black power cables crawled over the street, climbing up the sides of buildings, and disappearing into holes that led down to the Underworks, where the city’s old ships rested in the dark. The warm glow from electric lights hovered inside the buildings. The shops and eatery stalls she passed had their names lit in colorful letters that stretched and wound ahead of her, painting everything in humming neon. The flickering illumination from old television sets reflected in Mira’s eyes, showing movies from the World Before. Kids huddled around video games or arcade machines; music streamed from stereo sets.

As she took it all in, Mira felt a sudden stirring of melancholy. The city was amazing, if only for the history it kept alive. It was a living museum, and it was strange to witness. Each individual sight or sound was a memory of how things used to be, a recollection of times that were gone but could still be remembered. They were things she could encounter outside Winterbay, of course, but only rarely, and the combined force of them, all at once and all around her, was almost overwhelming. Here, in certain ways, the world hadn’t moved on. It was both heartening and sad at the same time.

Mira forced her thoughts to the business at hand. The faster she got this over with, the faster she could be on her way, safely blended into the landscape, away from crowded, dangerous places like this. Winterbay
was
dangerous, she reminded herself, no matter how enthralling it appeared on the surface.

Mira studied the electric signs that pointed out the directions to the city’s many sections. What she needed was the trade district, and according to one sign, it was around the next bend, ahead on the right. Mira started moving, pushing through the crowd.