“Six Titans for six Divisions. We divided up this country, this stretch of land along the wide river. The six of us. The scions of our respective families, destined for greatness among men. For Peter Higgs, the control of the minerals below the earth. For Joffrey Unthank, the control of machine-part manufacture. Reginald Dubek, nuclear power, and Linus Tumson, the enriching and divining of fossil fuels. And then there was Bradley Wigman, a school friend of mine, who excelled in managerial organization, the eldest of a family born to an empire in the shipping industry. Together, we made the Industrial Wastes an efficient and cogent whole, all six Titans of Industry working for the betterment of the industrial state. I, like my father and his father before him, had a mind for science and, as was my birthright, the Science and Research Division became my jurisdiction. We worked in synergy, we six, and soon became very respected, powerful, and wealthy men in our own rights.”
The children had polished off their cake and were happily being given second helpings as Jacques continued:
“But Bradley Wigman changed. The promise of wealth and power, to work with his fellow industrialists for the good of all, transformed him. He wanted more. He wanted to crush his competitors; and once they were crushed, he turned on his fellow industrialists. He reorganized the Sextet so that it answered only to him, that his Division should control the other five. He oversaw the streamlining of the various products the Wastes produced and made it clear in no uncertain terms that dissent would not be suffered.
“It had long been my desire to develop an alternative energy, something that did not require the destruction of the land and that did not release harmful matter into the atmosphere. I devoted my entire team to the discovery of this elusive ideal, and soon we had managed to create a small batch of highly combustible, zero-emission fuel that was made from vegetal compost and sewer waste. And we did it all there, in what you call the Forgotten Place, a place once thrumming with the excitement and energy of a fleet of the nation’s best scientific minds. This fuel—it was a major breakthrough, the kind that happens only once in a generation. We threw our shoulders into the work and built this, an underground treatment center near the heart of the Industrial Wastes, where we would turn the world’s garbage into gold.”
Elsie forked a fresh chunk of cake and stared with renewed understanding at the abandoned machinery in the room.
“At first,” Jacques continued, “Wigman supported our efforts, as long as the work wasn’t interfering with our normal day-to-day responsibilities. But as soon as it became clear that what we were making was, in fact, the sort of breakthrough material that would make entire swaths of industry obsolete—including his beloved Petrochemical and Nuclear Divisions, to say nothing of Mining—he was petitioned on all sides to put us out of business. And put us out of business he did.”
The tenor of the room seemed to darken as Jacques described, in detail, how Wigman had sent in his army of stevedores and sabotaged the entire operation. The thugs chased the scientists from the warehouses and proceeded to burn the entire place to the ground. “All my research,” said Jacques, solemnly, “gone. All my prototypes, my samples, my great library—turned to ash and smoke.”
The collective noisy masticating of the seven Unadoptables in the room quieted as they listened to the man’s story. A few of the Chapeaux Noirs played a game of mumblety-peg in the corner; Nico traced some sigil on the grain of the table. An echoey drip from a far-off chamber could be heard; Jacques continued.
“In a way, it was an epiphany for me—do you know what an epiphany is?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Michael. Then, when the eyes of the room turned on him, he recanted. “No, actually.”
“It’s a realization. A sudden confrontation with the self. Predicating a sea change. A clarity. This is what happened to me. In that great conflagration, in the detonation that brought my precious research laboratories and life’s work literally to dust, I saw my life anew. I saw the hypocrisy, the cynicism, the poison of the industrial mind-set. The destructive power of capitalism. It all became very clear. And so, that very day, as I escaped with my cohort into the very sewers that we had built for our creation, I swore that I would devote the rest of my life to the tearing down of the institutions that built me. That day, Jack Kressel died. Jacques Chruschiel was born.”
A silence followed this dramatic telling. Elsie paused in the chewing of her last mouthful of chocolate cake, swallowing it down with a loud gulp in the quietness of the moment. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her sister set an emptied plate down and cross her arms. Elsie could tell she was getting impatient.
“So that’s how all this started?” asked Michael, wiping a cake crumb from the specter of his teenage mustache. “The Shadow Nawr?” He reddened a little as he fumbled his pronunciation. “Or whatever.”
Nico spoke: “Chapeaux Noirs. Yes. Jacques found us, other discarded and alienated workers of the Industrial Wastes, and united us around this common goal.”
“So what do you do?” asked Michael.
“Blow stuff up,” said Nico. “Eventually, everything here will be flattened. Then, and only then, we’ll be satisfied.”
“Seems like you’ve got a long way to go.” This was Rachel, still sitting against the brick wall with her arms across her chest. “Doesn’t seem like you’ve made much of a dent. Except for Unthank’s place. Oh wait. That was us.” She cracked a wry smile.
Nico wagged a finger at her, grinning. “I like this one, Jacques,” he said. “She’s a pistol.”
Jacques leaned back in his chair, watching the girl. “Actually, you’ve made a good point. We can only attack from the outside, but Wigman has built a strong empire. His walls are tall and thick. It’s a long game. A war of attrition.”
“We’re getting them by the ankles. That’s how you—” began Nico.
“Bring down a giant, by the ankles,” finished Rachel. “We got that part. But you’re not going to be able to help get our friends back by biting at some giant’s ankles.”
“Their friends?” asked Jacques, looking at Nico.
“Right,” responded the other man. “That’s sort of part of the deal. They helped me escape the stevedores, so I said we’d help them get two of their . . . club back.”
“Their names are Martha Song and Carol Grod,” said Rachel. “Martha’s an Asian girl, a little younger than me. Carol’s an old man. He’s blind.”
Jacques made a kind of punctuated hum at the mention of the two abductees. “Sounds familiar. Old blind man, Asian girl. Weren’t they . . .”
“The two people the stevedores took into custody,” said Nico.
“Refresh my memory, comrade. These were the two they brought into the tower?”
Nico seemed abashed. “The same.”
Jacques then turned to the Unadoptables. “I’m afraid our Comrade Posholsky made a bargain he cannot, in good conscience, keep. Your colleagues are in the tower. They’re as good as gone, my friends. No one could bring them back.”
“Liar!” shouted Rachel suddenly. She leapt up from her bench and threw herself at Nico, who scrambled backward to avoid the girl’s attack. Elsie let out a shrill yelp of surprise and Michael dove forward, grabbing Rachel by the shoulders.
“Rachel!” he shouted, pulling her back. “Easy!”
“We would’ve killed him,” yelled Rachel, her voice breaking with anger. “But we let him go. He promised us!”
Nico had scuttled over behind several other members of the Chapeaux Noirs and was laughing embarrassedly, having been so spooked by the teenager’s sudden attack. Jacques watched him calmly, his eyes jumping the distance between him and the black-haired girl. He sighed heavily before speaking.
“Oh, Nico,” he said. “It is a sad man indeed who makes a promise he cannot keep. Even if it’s only to save his life.”
“Apologies, Jacques,” said Nico, smiling. “Excuse-moi. I did what I had to do.”
“The Chapeaux Noirs keep their promises, children,” sai
d Jacques. “But I tell you, this thing you want, the rescue of your friends, it is an impossible task. Titan Tower is impregnable. Full stop.”
“Then give us Nico back,” said Rachel calmly. “That’s the deal, right?” A mischievous smile cracked across her lips. She shook free of Michael’s restraints.
“Yeah,” said Cynthia Schmidt, rising to stand by Rachel’s side. “Give us our prisoner back.”
Nico’s face went pale. “Jacques,” he said desperately. “You can’t do that. These kids are . . . these kids are savages.”
Jacques seemed to be considering the exchange. He remained quiet, his hand gently stroking the little gray triangle of his beard. “A deal is a deal . . . ,” he mused.
“Wait a second, Jacques,” pleaded Nico. He shook his finger at the elder man, buying the time he needed to conjure the right words. “Operation: Urban Renewal. Remember? We could do it, with the right guys.”
Jacques cocked an eyebrow. “That wouldn’t work on several levels. I assume these children want their friends back alive and not vaporized?”
“With a little rejiggering—couldn’t we make it work? I mean, it’s about time we went for the big guy, isn’t it?” Nico’s voice was trembling in its desperate sincerity.
Jacques folded one leg neatly over the other, as someone whose sinewy joints had seen years of careful exercise, and continued to stroke the fur on his chin. “I apologize for my associate’s irresponsible behavior, children,” he said. “He made a gambit knowing that it was an unlikely bet. However: We do have a similar goal, the two of our, shall we say, organizations. It might be that our aims are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they might dovetail in a very satisfactory manner.” He looked around the room, at the other black-clad saboteurs present, and said, “Call Le Poignard. Clear the table. Let’s see what sort of plan we can hatch.”
CHAPTER 8
The Interim Governor-Regent-Elect
It had been nearly seven months since Prue had last set foot in the Pittock Mansion, the seat of power of South Wood, with its opulent twin towers and ivy-laden facade. It was no longer the pristine, whitewashed edifice she remembered; the interior seemed to have suffered the effects of a weeklong party that no one was too keen to clean up. The portraits in the foyer, the walls of which she only had a moment to scan as the throng of celebrants carried her on their shoulders through the doors, hung badly askew. One of them, of a corpulent general in dashing fatigues, had been defaced with a giant, black-marker mustache below the general’s regal nose. The red velvet bunting that had hung along the central staircase’s banister and along the first-floor balcony had been torn out in favor of a ream of fabric striped blue, white, and green that looked like it had been hung by a person with poor spatial coordination.
A smell of smoke and possibly cheese that had gone bad was on the air. Prue tried to organize her thoughts as the crowd, with some difficulty, managed to navigate the looping central staircase toward, she supposed, the Interim Governor-Regent’s office. There, she thought, she would present her plan. Out in the open, as Curtis had said. Announce the tree’s call for the resurrection of Alexei; damn the skeptics. Get the entire populace to fall in line and help in the search for Carol Grod, the other maker. Who would dare assassinate a child while surrounded by her staunchest fanatics? Still, the sight of the guillotine, something she recognized from a book she’d been shown once by a friend, was deeply troubling to her. And was that blood on the blade? She’d only had a moment to see it, but the image haunted her.
“What is this racket?” shouted a man at the top of the stairs. Prue looked up and immediately recognized him: the attaché who’d presented her to Lars Svik, back when she’d first set foot on the Mansion’s parquet floors in search of news of her brother’s disappearance. “No more mobs in the Mansion! I thought we’d come to an agreement!”
The crowd paused on the steps, awkwardly juggling their twelve-year-old cargo in place.
“Put me down,” said Prue calmly. Her carriers did as she asked. She pushed her way to the top of the stairs, to the head of the crowd. The attaché peered through his spectacles at her.
“I know you,” he said.
“I don’t s’pose I’ll need to make an appointment this time,” said Prue.
The attaché smiled nervously at the crowd behind the girl. “Not that you did last time, if I recall correctly.”
“In fact,” said Prue, emboldened, “I think that I will be making a general announcement right here.” She gestured to the bowed lip of the second-floor railing, a balcony that overlooked the whole of the foyer. “If the Governor-Regent would like to be here for that, it would be fine with me.”
“I will ask the Interim Governor-Regent-elect himself,” said the attaché, and he ran off toward a pair of doors down the hall.
A young man in bicycle britches at her elbow said, “What are you going to say?” He spoke in a breathless, excited voice that seemed to match the general tenor of the entire crowd.
“Well . . . ,” began Prue.
“Is she going to make an announcement?” someone asked from farther down the stairwell.
“I think so!” shouted another.
“Excuse me,” said an older man who’d pushed his way to the front of the crowd. “Are you going to say something about taxes?”
“Pfft!” said another, a rabbit. “The Bicycle Maiden’s got more on her mind than taxes. She’s here to start another revolution!” The rabbit then looked up at Prue. “Aren’t you?”
“No, I’m not,” corrected Prue, though in truth, she really didn’t know what she was going to say, and the noise of the crowd made it difficult to compose her thoughts.
“Perhaps you could spare a word or two about water quality,” said someone who Prue couldn’t see. “Or public transportation.”
The crowd murmured approval. “It has gone a bit messy, the bus system,” someone conjectured.
“What about street repair? There’s a pothole on my street that’s the size of a bear’s fat belly,” said another.
“Hey!” shouted an offended bear.
“The firemen haven’t been paid since March, Maiden,” said someone else.
“The fire marshal had his head chopped off in April, so no surprise there.”
“Didn’t improve the service much.”
“The tariffs on poppy beer imports are outrageous!”
“The food in your tavern is outrageous, Citizen Fox, that’s what.”
“Shhhh! She’s about to speak.”
“No, she isn’t.”
“She just said something, listen carefully.”
“What did she say?”
“Are we to teach the writings of the Synod in schools, Maiden?”
“She’ll get to that, citizen. Haven’t seen you in the chapel lately.”
“I thought the revolution freed us of all that stuff.”
“Watch it, or the Spokes will free you of your head.”
At this point, Prue was completely paralyzed by the noise, and her hands moved instinctively to her head, cupping her temples in the way she’d seen her mother do when Mac had torn apart some precious craft project. She was also paralyzed by indecision. She felt like she was on the cusp of some major action, the consequence of which she still couldn’t quite see.
“Maiden?” came a voice at her heel. She looked down. It was a mouse, tugging gently at her pant leg. “Are you going to speak?”
“Yes,” whispered Prue.
She then realized what must be done: She needed to get away from these people. She pushed her way through the teeming mob, which had now surpassed the top of the stairs and was encircling her. Arriving at the balcony overlooking the crowded foyer—following the commotion, many more onlookers had crushed into the building—she raised her hands out in front of her, willing silence.
“QUIET!” she yelled. “PLEASE!”
The crowd, after some shushing between one another, did as she requested. Every eye in the room swiveled to f
all on her.
She smoothed the front of her peacoat. “Thank you,” she said. In her peripheral vision, she saw the double doors to the Interim Governor-Regent’s office thrown open; several figures emerged. They stopped on the threshold and watched as the speaker addressed the crowd.
“People of South Wood,” said Prue. It was as good a way to start as any, she decided. It seemed like the sort of thing returning heroes always said to their slavish army of followers—“people of such-and-such.” Now that she had that out of the way, she tried to divine exactly what would come next. She stalled for time by scanning the room with the gravitas of a Roman emperor surveying his people. She felt the surge of something inside her, similar to what she’d felt when the badger rickshaw driver had prostrated himself in front of her.
“I have . . . returned,” she said, drawing out each word in a slow, deep-voiced cadence. Too cheesy? she wondered. Too much?
The room erupted in cheers. She looked over to her right, to where the attaché stood with someone who she guessed to be the Interim Governor-Regent. To her surprise, he was a possum with a bleach-white face and a long, sinewy tail. He wore a tousled suit coat, and his fur was all disheveled. The air in the foyer and the staircase and the balcony was ripe with unbridled excitement; they waited for her next words.
“First off,” she said, “I don’t appreciate people treating other people badly, like, if they were for this revolution or not. That’s not cool.” She found that the Roman-emperor mode, which was great for making grandiose, crowd-silencing announcements, was not very sustainable when one got into the nitty-gritty. It fell away from her very twelve-year-old voice like the protective covering of some sad, dumpy Buick, when one expected a Porsche to be beneath.
The crowd became very quiet; whether they were internalizing what she’d said or casting silent judgment, she couldn’t say.
“Seriously,” continued Prue, “what’s with the thing out front? The guillotine.”
The crowd now seemed genuinely confused.
“Why,” offered a shrew with a surprisingly deep and loud voice, some ways down the staircase, “that’s for chopping people’s heads off.” The crowd around him nodded as he qualified the explanation by saying, “Those that aren’t patriotic, anyway.”