Solar Flare E-Book

Sharon Lee

• Herausgeber: Zombies Need Brains, LLC
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 472

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Here Comes the Sun! Rising temperatures, melting glaciers, violent storms, and excessive heat. The future seems bleak…but there are signs of hope. In Solar Flare, we ask you to step into a world where we have managed to mitigate or even reverse the disastrous effects of climate change and our own destruction of our world. Race down the depleted waterway of the Mississippi in a solar-, wind-, and water-powered boat. Sail through the skies in a floating hydroponic dirigible. Skim along a solar-powered road in order to expose a corporation's secret. Hover weightless in space in a last-ditch effort to repair an umbrella-like solar collector. Or cower in a shelter as fire rages outside…only to emerge and discover the rebirth such fire can bring. Experience all of this and more in these seventeen solarpunk stories brought to you by today's hottest authors, including David Keener, Anthony W. Eichenlaub, Sarena Ulibarri, Jason Palmatier, Lauren C. Teffeau, S.C. Butler, Devan Barlow, Chaz Brenchley, Liam Hogan, Nicole Givens Kurtz, Christopher R. Muscato, Rhondi Salsitz, Ember Randall, Gail Z. Martin & Larry N. Martin, Sharon Lee & Steve Miller, Kristine Smith, and Anthony Lowe. Time to turn the tide and dream of a better future.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Other Anthologies Edited by:

Copyright © 2023 Patricia Bray, Joshua Palmatier, and

Copyrights

Dustbowl Detective

The Race on Dry Mississippi

Walking Through Fog

For the Love of Loudness

Trial by Fire

Going Home

Refraction

Of Grace and Youth and Memory and Time

Umbrella Men

The Astronaut

Hemingway Versus the Storm

Radiant

Drips of Hope

Lumen

Interventions

The Repairer of Lost and Broken Things

The Palmdale Community Newsletter

About the Authors

About the Editors

Acknowledgments

SOLAR FLARE

Other Anthologies Edited by:

Patricia Bray & Joshua Palmatier

After Hours: Tales from the Ur-bar

The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity

Temporally Out of Order * Alien Artifacts * Were-

All Hail Our Robot Conquerors!

Second Round: A Return to the Ur-bar

The Modern Deity’s Guide to Surviving Humanity

Solar Flare

S.C. Butler & Joshua Palmatier

Submerged * Guilds & Glaives * Apocalyptic

When Worlds Collide * Brave New Worlds * Dragonesque

Laura Anne Gilman & Kat Richardson

The Death of All Things

Troy Carrol Bucher & Joshua Palmatier

The Razor’s Edge

Patricia Bray & S.C. Butler

Portals

David B. Coe & Joshua Palmatier

Temporally Deactivated * Galactic Stew

Derelict

Steven H Silver & Joshua Palmatier

Alternate Peace

Crystal Sarakas & Joshua Palmatier

My Battery Is Low and It Is Getting Dark

David B. Coe & John Zakour

Noir

Crystal Sarakas & Rhondi Salsitz

Shattering the Glass Slipper

David B. Coe & Edmund R. Schubert

Artifice & Craft

Steven Kotowych & Tony Pi

Game On!

SOLAR FLARE

Edited by

Patricia Bray

&

Joshua Palmatier

Zombies Need Brains LLC

www.zombiesneedbrains.com

Copyright © 2023 Patricia Bray, Joshua Palmatier, and

Zombies Need Brains LLC

All Rights Reserved

Interior Design (ebook): ZNB Design

Interior Design (print): ZNB Design

Cover Design by ZNB Design

Cover Art “Solar Flare”

by Justin Adams of Varia Studios

ZNB Book Collectors #28

All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions of this book, and do not participate or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted material.

Kickstarter Edition Printing, June 2023

First Printing, July 2023

Print ISBN-13: 978-1940709543

Ebook ISBN-13: 978-1940709550

Printed in the U.S.A.

COPYRIGHTS

“Dustbowl Detective” copyright © 2023 by David Keener

“The Race on Dry Mississippi” copyright © 2023 by Anthony W. Eichenlaub

“Walking Through Fog” copyright © 2023 by Sarena Ulibarri

“For the Love of Loudness” copyright © 2023 by Jason Palmatier

“Trial by Fire” copyright © 2023 by Lauren C. Teffeau

“Going Home” copyright © 2023 by S.C. Butler

“Refraction” copyright © 2023 by Devan Barlow

“Of Grace and Youth and Memory and Time” copyright © 2023 by Chaz Brenchley

“Umbrella Men” copyright © 2023 by Liam Hogan

“The Astronaut” copyright © 2023 by Nicole Givens Kurtz

“Hemingway Versus the Storm” copyright © 2023 by Christopher R. Muscato

“Radiant” copyright © 2023 by Rhondi Salsitz

“Drips of Hope” copyright © 2023 by Ember Randall

“Lumen” copyright © 2023 by Gail Z. Martin & Larry N. Martin

“Interventions” copyright © 2023 by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller

“The Repairer of Lost and Broken Things” copyright © 2023 by Glass Green, LLC

“The Palmdale Community Newsletter” copyright © 2023 by Anthony Lowe

DUSTBOWL DETECTIVE

by David Keener

DAY ONE

Frank Santora, suited up and sweating in the heat, sits behind his wide, expensive wooden desk, looking up at Ulysses Perez standing in front of him. “Bastards boosted ten boxcars,” Frank says. “Made off with all the goods.”

“When?”

“March 17th,” Frank admits reluctantly.

Ulysses raises an eyebrow. “Bit of a cold trail, ain’t it? That’s almost three months ago.”

Frank bridles at his tone. “You’re not paid to think. Just find who did this and make sure it doesn’t happen again.” It’s clear that a wannabe corp climber like him doesn’t appreciate being chastised by a short, scruffy, wiry Mexican wearing dusty cargo pants and holding a battered cowboy hat in his hands.

“OK. It’ll be a minimum two weeks at my usual rate.”

“I pay for results, Paco.”

Ulysses shrugs. “Up front. No guarantees, on account of you lettin’ the trail go cold.”

“That’s not how I do—”

“Stop wasting my time, Frankie boy,” Ulysses says mildly, settling his hat on his head “I ain’t the one gotta explain things to Corporate.”

He’s halfway out the door when Frank says, “All right, all right. Deal.” Ulysses turns to look at him. “My secretary can give you the details.”

Ulysses nods, then walks through the half-empty office bay to the reception desk where Frank’s secretary sits. Inari Ruska has a folder ready for him by the time he gets there. She’s early thirties, all pale skin and blond hair from her Finnish ancestry. Ornate letters on the wall behind her spell out: TRANS-PACIFIC STANDARD. Below it, a logo showing the silhouette of a freight train with the sun just above it.

“Didn’t you have an office last time I saw you?”

She grimaces. “The new director does things differently.”

He opens the folder and casually flips through the contents. It’s thorough, which means Inari must have compiled it for Frank.

“The payment’ll hit your account tomorrow.”

Ulysses tips his hat. “Pleasure doing business with you, ma’am.”

He walks out, gets into a battered Jeep parked outside, and drives off. Looking in the rearview mirror, he sees a rusted-out gray pickup truck pull out of a parking space at the same time. Reflexively, he zooms his enhanced vision and snaps the license plate. Probably just a coincidence, but a little paranoia never hurts.

* * *

Ulysses is eating lunch at a BBQ joint called the Thirsty Pig, sitting where he can keep an eye on his camouflage-painted Jeep. Papers and photos are spread across the table. From the evidence, the thieves separated the last ten cars from a hundred-car train, moved them up an abandoned siding, then destroyed some of the rails behind them so the boxcars couldn’t be easily retrieved.

The manifest for the cars is decidedly eclectic: industrial equipment (mining), commercial electronics, zirconium ingots, household appliances (washing machines, dryers, dishwashers), farm equipment, etc. All stuff that can be sold easily on the black market.

Except for the zirconium…that’s odd.

Inari walks in and sits across from him.

“What’s with the ma’am shit?”

There’s an extra plate of BBQ. Ulysses pushes it across the table.

“Microcams,” he says. “Two of ’em. Frankie boy’s got his eye on you.” He prudently doesn’t mention the cleavage shot Frank gets on video every time Inari bends over at her desk.

“Lovely,” she says, an expression of disgust on her face.

“Figured it was better for you if he didn’t realize we knew each other too well.”

“You call him ‘Frankie boy’ to his face?”

“Yup.”

“Ooh, I bet Frank didn’t like that. People around the office are scared of him. He…downsized.”

“I’m scary,” Ulysses says, with the utter confidence of an ex-soldier who’s still got his mil-spec cyber-mods. “Frank’s more like a toy poodle some spoiled rich lady would carry around in her designer purse.”

“You don’t look scary.”

“I like being underestimated.”

“Huh,” Inari says, feigning being unimpressed. “Did you solve the crime of the century yet?”

“About that,” Ulysses says. “If it’s possible, let’s keep my involvement quiet.”

“All right, but why?”

“It looks like an inside job to me. I’d rather not warn them that I’m coming for them.” He steepled his fingers. “Somebody was looking at manifests. Cut off the tail of a train that had what they wanted. What I want to know first is how come TPS Security wasn’t onsite for seventy-two hours?”

“The train AI thought it was a mechanical, so it didn’t trigger a security alert.”

“Frankie hire somebody before me?”

Inari stares at him in surprise. “Yeah. How’d you know?”

“Probably paid the guy more than me. Only he didn’t solve it, so Corporate’s still riding your boy.”

“Right on all counts.”

“Classic setup,” Ulysses says. “I’ll bet he hired a loser for an inflated price, then collected himself a nice kickback. Probably figured management would forget about the whole affair if it dragged on long enough. Only problem, they didn’t forget about it ’cause the crime’s unique.”

“You think Frank did the train heist?”

“Not a chance. Too bold, too flashy for a sneak like Frankie.” He points at the manifest. “How many people can access a manifest like this?”

“Lots of people. Most everyone at the office. Management at the train stations on the scheduled route. Inspectors. Loaders—”

“OK, too many to narrow it down that way, then,” Ulysses says. “I need an expert, somebody who can talk to me about the train AI, the alerts, all that electronic stuff.”

“That’s easy,” Inari replies. “You want to talk to Jasper Conway. He works out of Bluefield. There’s a small station yard there. He handles repairs, software patches, all kinds of stuff. He’s like a Swiss Army knife when it comes to keeping the trains running.”

“Then he’s my next stop.”

“This is nice,” Inari says, looking around the restaurant. “We should try for a dinner sometime.”

“You askin’ me on a date?”

“You’re the detective. Decipher the clues.”

* * *

The Bluefield train yard is bustling. A sleek, modern-looking passenger train stops at the train station north of the yard while Ulysses strides past the warehouses, cranes, repair berths, and outbuildings. There’s a cargo train pulled next to the warehouses, with sweating workers shifting cargo out of the cars in a dance that hasn’t changed since the 1800s.

Some lone boxcars, a few two- or three-car sets, and a small yard-based mini-locomotive perch on sidings waiting for action. Some of the boxcars look like they’re more than a hundred years old. After all, a thirty-ton steel box is pretty much always going to be a steel box; the only thing that changes is the paint job.

Ulysses comes to an ugly, metal, pre-fab building labeled WORKSHOP. Looks up and notices a couple of discreet cameras. Knocks on the door.

A man opens it. He’s got thinning hair, a potbelly, and was probably muscular ten years ago. Still, he’s looking not too shabby in designer jeans, a very nice designer shirt, and what looks like a Rolex but is probably a knock-off.

“I’m Ulysses Perez. I’m looking into—”

“The train heist.”

Ulysses frowns. “Everybody know about that?”

The man shrugs. “Biggest news around the company.”

“And me?”

“Well, you know. Nothing’s faster than the rumor mill.” He chuckles. “I’m Jasper Conway. I figured you’d be coming my way with questions sooner or later.”

“Convenient,” Ulysses says. “Saves time, you knowin’ why I’m here and all.”

“You want to know why a Security Alert wasn’t triggered.”

“You betcha.”

“I thought it was weird, too,” Jasper says. “Took me a good while to figure it out. It’s easier to show you, though, so let’s go for a walk.”

Ulysses follows Jasper down some steps, then they crunch across gravel to a three-car combo on a siding. Jasper climbs up onto the train coupling.

“This is the train coupling,” Jasper says. “And this is the comms cable.” He reaches underneath the coupling, lifting the cable so Ulysses can get a closer look. There’s a cable the width of Jasper’s thumb extending from each train; they plug into each other in the middle, with locking clips to ensure the connection doesn’t come undone. “Say somebody gets on the train without the AI seeing them. They manually undo the cable connection while the train’s in motion.” Jasper twists the connector apart. “The AI will send a Security Alert because it thinks somebody is onboard and interfering with the train. Likewise, if they manually uncouple the cars while this cable is still connected…a Security Alert.”

“But that didn’t happen.”

“Nope. Because the robbers cut the cable instead, and then undid the coupling.”

“Why’s that matter?”

“AI didn’t see anybody, but it knows the cable got broken somehow. So, it thinks it’s had a mechanical. It sends a Mechanical Fault Alert instead, which needs to be reviewed by people before being escalated. They, um, didn’t check expeditiously.”

“Not a very smart AI,” Ulysses says.

Jasper shrugs. “You get the level of AI you pay for. You usually don’t need much to keep a train going one way on a steel track.”

“You think the robbers planned that?”

“I don’t know,” Jasper says. “Brilliant planning…if it was planned. But it coulda just been dumb luck.”

“Like if they’d planned to use an axe anyway.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m kinda interested in how they got on a moving train without the AI seein’ them.”

“You and me both,” Jasper replies.

They walk back across the gravel. As they’re climbing the steps, Ulysses turns back to look at the boxcars in the yard.

“The information I have says they moved the boxcars off the main line onto an unused branch,” Ulysses says. “I did the math, that’s thirty tons per boxcar, plus up to a hundred tons of cargo each. How the hell did they move 1300 tons?”

Jasper laughed. “Shit, they probably could have done that with a damn Clydesdale.” At Ulysses’ puzzled look, Jasper added, “Look, it’s the coefficient of rolling friction. There’s hardly any resistance with steel wheels on steel rails. On level ground, a pickup truck could pull a million-ton train.”

* * *

Ulysses is walking through the Bluefield Station parking lot when he spots the gray pickup truck that was following him earlier. Since he’s traveled three hours to get here today, it’s a sure bet that somebody is following him. He kneels down next to the parked truck, pulls out a knife, then reconsiders. He lets the air out of two of the tires instead.

He doesn’t like being followed.

DAY TWO

Ten boxcars huddle on rusty tracks surrounded by dusty desolation, doors wide open to the wind and swirling grit. Despite the wind, Ulysses can still see the remnants of tire tracks, boot prints, and drag marks where what must have been a sizable group of people unloaded the cars. Everything is tinged yellow thanks to his goggles. The cargo is all gone, except for junk scattered around that nobody wanted.

The zirconium ingots are gone, too. They must have had value to somebody, or they’d still be here.

He walks around the cars. The boxcars have sliding doors on only one side, with unobtrusive cameras above each door. All the cameras have been smashed. Interestingly, all ten cars have a red X spay-painted next to the open doors. Examining the foremost car, Ulysses is unsurprised to see that the comms cable has been severed, probably by a vibroblade given the smoothness of the cut. The train uncoupling was accomplished by a small explosives charge.

Very professionally done, too, Ulysses notes. Just enough charge to do the job.

Circling around to the last car, he checks out the rear camera. It’s a portable; battery-powered, magnetically attached wherever they’re needed. The camera itself is largely melted. Ulysses zooms in and sees several laser lines scored in the steel around the camera.

Back at his Jeep, Ulysses lifts the rear hatch, reaches in, and opens a metal box, revealing an “eyeball,” a light, spherical drone about six inches in diameter. His sensorium, the cyber control system implanted in his cranium by the good old US Army, automatically links up with the drone. At his mental command, the eyeball floats out on a whisper-silent air jet and flies down the railroad tracks.

Ulysses sees the drone’s POV in a window in the lower right quadrant of his field of view. Around the perimeter of the window, parameters are visible such as speed, altitude, and more. He sends the drone past a gap where a section of track has been blown up. Presumably, to make it harder to retrieve the boxcars and, perhaps, to give the perpetrators more time to move the cargo.

Destroying the track seems like overkill to Ulysses. Especially given how organized the unloading seems to have been.

Thirty minutes later, the drone has reached the main line and turned east, following the train’s course in reverse. Ulysses is trailing behind in his Jeep, making sure he stays within the drone’s four-klick comms range. Over the next hour, the terrain gets steadily more rugged, until the railroad tracks are snaking through a jumbled, rocky wasteland.

Ulysses is forced to stop the Jeep while the drone forges on. By now, though, he’s pretty sure he knows how an intruder got on the train. Knowing what to look for is half the battle, because he finds the evidence without too much trouble.

* * *

Ulysses is on the highway, driving back to Paloma. It’s desert as far as he can see, but he knows this all used to be fine Kansas farmland until the water dried up.

“Dmitri,” Ulysses says over a satellite phone connection. There are no operational cell towers in the desert anymore. “I got a salvage deal for you.”

“Oh? What are we talking about?”

“Steel.”

“Not war salvage, I hope,” Dmitri says with a rumbling chuckle. “I ain’t dealing with no unexploded munitions.”

“Nope. Good steel, and nobody rushing to collect it.”

“How big a job?”

“Three hundred tons.”

“Whoa,” Dmitri says. “You don’t think small, do you? I’m interested. Usual deal?”

“Yeah. So, it’s ten boxcars, sitting in the desert, about a mile from an old highway. Good hardpack dirt for that last mile, so trucks can get there fine.”

“Less it rains.”

“Yeah, right,” Ulysses says, chuckling. “Keep dreaming. I’ll send the coords.”

“Oohrah!”

* * *

Inari and Ulysses are lying in bed on their backs, side by side, breathing hard, with nothing but a thin sheet over them. They’re in Inari’s tiny RV which, despite being neatly maintained, has to be at least fifty years old.

Inari turns her head to look at him. “Why haven’t we done this before?”

“Never thought you’d be interested in a scrub like me.”

“But you never tried. I couldn’t understand…”

After a long pause, Ulysses says, “I was US Army, drafted at the beginning of the Civil War. Had a wife, two kids. They all died from one of the war plagues while I was away.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I was pretty…dead…for a long time.” Ulysses sighs. “Then, after the war…after the US broke up, it turned out I wasn’t even a citizen of the country I’d been fighting for on account of where I was born. And where I was born didn’t want me on account of me fighting for the wrong side.” One day Ulysses had been a soldier, the next he’d been a scrub, a person of no nation. An illegal alien with no rights in any of the five nations into which the former United States had split.

“Well,” Inari says, smiling, “you ain’t dead no more.”

“Guess not.”

“We need dessert,” Inari says suddenly. “I have ice cream, if you like vanilla.”

Ulysses eyes her pale white complexion, so much lighter than his own sun-burnished skin. “I like vanilla just fine.”

* * *

“You’re telling me,” Inari says, gesturing with her spoon, “that someone used a zipline to get onto the roof of the train?”

Ulysses is sitting across from her at a fold-down table sharing ice cream—two spoons, one bowl. “Yeah,” he answered. “The tracks were winding through rocky terrain, so the train was going slow. They strung a cable across this narrow canyon. Then somebody dropped onto the roof of one of the boxcars when the train went by.”

She shakes her head. “Sounds dangerous.”

Ulysses shrugs. “Only if you miss.”

“OK, so that makes sense, even if it is crazy. Why the X’s by each door?”

“I figure the thieves only cared about one boxcar, but they didn’t want to be obvious. So, they knocked off ten of them.”

“Like Goldilocks.”

“Come again?”

“Not too few, not too many, just right,” Inari responds. “Nobody gets too worked up over it because it’s still just a small heist.”

“I’ll buy that,” Ulysses says. “But then they got to get rid of all that cargo. So, they bring in some…scavengers…to offload the rest of the cargo and make it disappear. They put an X on the car they don’t want nobody messing with.”

“OK, but they can’t leave just one X behind when they’re done, or it’d be obvious.”

“Right.”

“You’re really good at this,” she says. “You know, figuring things out.”

“I dunno. Sometimes, I look at things, I just…see how they fit together.”

“It’s a gift.”

Ulysses chuckles. “Yeah, well, sure took me a while to figure out how to make a living at it.”

“At least you have something to depend on.” Inari rubs her forehead tiredly. “I lose this job, I’m in serious trouble.”

Ulysses frowns. “That a possibility?”

“Well, the office staff that’s left is mostly low-paid scrubs, or good-looking females, or both. And Frank’s after…look…OK, he’s a slimeball.”

Ulysses finds himself unsurprised at her characterization of Frank, since it jibes closely with his own low opinion of the executive. What does surprise him a little is the slow burn he feels knowing that Frank could mess up Inari’s life.

Maybe Inari’s right. Maybe he’s not dead the way he used to be.

Ulysses asks, “You trust me?”

“Yes.”

“I need a backdoor to the TPS network.”

Inari shoots him a look. “OK.”

DAY THREE

It’s afternoon, but it doesn’t look like it. A cold front came through overnight, bringing a Kansas dust storm with it. Ulysses is driving his Jeep slowly through the murk, high beams stabbing almost uselessly at the whirling grit. He’s thinking that GPS navigation is a wonderful thing, when a brief lull in the wind lets him see the “WELCOME TO MOQUIN” sign as he passes it.

This will be his third stop of the day. He’s hitting pawn shops and salvage places, looking for a lead on any of the scavengers who helped dispose of the cargo.

The dust has abated somewhat by the time he reaches the town center, mostly because the buildings are blocking some of the wind. He pulls into a parking space on the main thoroughfare about a block from his destination.

He calls Topaz, a hacker he’s used for about eight years. He’s never met her in person and has no idea what she looks like.

“Wait, please,” she says in her smooth voice. After a pause, she adds, “All right, security protocols are in place. How can I help you?”

“I have a backdoor to the Trans-Pacific Standard railroad network through a satellite office.”

“Oooh,” she responds. “You’ve been a very bad boy.”

Movement draws Ulysses’ eyes to his rearview mirror where he sees a pickup pulling into a space about fifty meters away, almost obscured by the dust. He can’t tell for sure, but thinks it’s the gray pickup truck again.

Still looking in the mirror, Ulysses says, “There’s a couple things I want you to look for when you do the dive. Plus, I’d like a profile on Frank Santora and Jasper Conway.”

“This is a bit larger-scale than your usual. I’m intrigued.”

After closing the deal with Topaz, Ulysses dons his goggles and hat, then grabs a mask to cover his nose and mouth. It’s all standard gear for these parts, seeing as dust storms are way more frequent than rainstorms. He gets out and walks down the cracked sidewalk. He turns a corner, then quickly darts ahead and ducks into a narrow alley.

If it really was the gray truck, he expects he’ll be followed. A moment later, a slim figure in a dark hoodie walks past. Ulysses yanks his follower into the alley.

Whoever it is screams in surprise and sprawls to the pavement.

The figure bounces up and tries to hit Ulysses with a second-rate taser.

But Ulysses is already in combat mode, his cyber enhancements kicking in so it’s like his attacker is moving in slow-motion. He knocks the taser out of his opponent’s hand, then slams the person into a wall.

His attacker falls hard, the hood comes down, and Ulysses realizes he’s been followed by a girl. Maybe eighteen or nineteen years old, long black hair pulled back in a ponytail. Even with her goggles, he can see that somebody’s given her a black eye as a memento.

Ulysses asks, “Who the hell are you?”

She pulls herself into a sitting position and looks up at him. “Winona Sky,” she says in a thick southern accent, “but everybody just calls me Sky.”

“You always follow people around?”

“You took my job,” she says defiantly.

“Frank hired you to waste time and fail. Congrats, you succeeded.”

“I didn’t fail.” She glares at him. “He pulled me off after three days.”

“If you’re so good,” Ulysses says, “tell me something I don’t know about the case.”

“They were after the zirconium. The rest was just a cover.”

“You know? Or you think?”

She shrugs. “It’s my theory.”

“Mine, too.”

Sky stands up, brushes some grit off her jeans. “Some of the stuff that was left behind, it wasn’t on the manifest.”

“Interesting,” Ulysses says. “Not relevant to this case, but it might be related to something else I’m workin’.”

“Honestly, I didn’t see how it fit in either,” Sky admitted. “All right. You’re trying all the places that might carry stolen stuff. Bernie’s is a dry gulch…he don’t know nothin’.”

“Really?”

“Saber’s Supply Company, that’s who you want.”

“That who gave you the shiner?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Big guy with tattoos all over his neck.”

“All right. If that pans out, I’ll drop a century on you and let you claim some street cred for the case.” She nods in response. “Now, do I got to threaten you to make you stop following me?”

“No,” she says sullenly.

“Taser’s a piece of shit,” Ulysses says. “You should stop by Krash & Burn, get yourself some war surplus. Tell Thrasher that Ulysses Perez sent you.”

* * *

Saber Supply Company occupies the shell of an abandoned big-box department store. Inside, Ulysses discovers a dizzyingly eclectic array of new and used goods: appliances, tools, toys, crafts, weaponry, and much more. It takes him all of two minutes to find stolen items from the train heist for sale.

Interestingly, security is deliberately obvious. Guards are posted at the exit, checking packages as customers leave, and cameras are mounted everywhere, presumably to discourage shoplifters.

Ulysses finds this ironic and wonders how much of the merchandise has questionable origins.

At the back of the store, Ulysses spots a stairway that leads to some offices, with windows that look out over the store’s aisles. He climbs the steps and walks into a rather spartan waiting room. A perky, well-dressed woman sits behind a reception desk that looks like salvage from a defunct law firm.

Approaching the desk, Ulysses says, “I’d like to talk to Mr. Saber.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the receptionist says, “but he’s busy right now.”

“That’s too bad,” Ulysses responds. “See, you have an awful lot of stuff on sale that was stolen from a Trans-Pacific Standard train. So, he can talk to me…now…or TPS Security can swat him like a fly.”

The receptionist suddenly looks flustered. “I’ll…I’ll…go tell him.”

* * *

The receptionist ushers Ulysses into her employer’s office. Joshua Saber is sitting behind a wooden desk, an older man who’s mostly bald except for a narrow fringe of gray hair. Two other men are standing on either side of the desk waiting for him. They’re both big and bulky, though the one on his left has some sort of spiky pattern tattooed around his neck.

Ulysses dismisses them as typical thugs. His US Army threat recognition module helpfully highlights the guns both of them are carrying in shoulder holsters underneath their suit jackets and notes a very low likelihood that either of them has combat mods.

Both guards come forward as Ulysses enters. The one with the tattoos, who Ulysses privately designates as Thug One, quickly and efficiently frisks him as the receptionist exits.

“He’s clean.”

Saber says, “I’m surprised you don’t carry a gun.”

Ulysses shrugs. “I don’t need a gun.” He gestures with his thumb toward Thug One. “He’s got a gun.”

He punches Thug One in the throat, then plucks the man’s gun from his holster as he’s falling. Thug Two has barely had time to start reacting when Ulysses pivots and slams an elbow into his head.

He casually ejects the clip, clears the gun, breaks it down into its components, and drops them on the floor.

Thug Two is on the floor, still dazed but starting to move a little. Ulysses takes his gun and breaks it down, too.

“I don’t care about you,” Ulysses says, giving Saber a level look.. “I don’t care about the stolen stuff from the train. Insurance has already paid off on all that so Trans-Pacific Standard isn’t out anything. I want whoever planned this, and I already know it isn’t you. Give me what I want, we’re done.

“Otherwise, I tell TPS you’re screwing with them and, well, Bad Things Happen.”

As if in counterpart to what Ulysses is saying, both thugs are on the floor groaning.

“You’re very persuasive,” Saber says.

“I do my best.”

“The guy called himself Mr. Purple. He said he knew someone who was boosting the tail of a train and they were inviting some folks to help take the cargo away. So, there was a bunch of us.”

“I don’t want them, either.”

“The planners, they had a biker gang as security, to make sure no scuffles broke out. We all had the manifest up front, so most of the cargo was already divvied up by the time we started unloading.”

“But one of the boxcars was reserved?”

“Yeah,” Saber says, “the second from the end. Some kind of metal, but nothing that looked all that valuable."

The second car from the end was the one with the zirconium. So, the whole heist is about a boxcar full of metal ingots. Not a surprise, but it’s nice to have it confirmed.

“Mr. Purple meet you here?”

“Yeah,” Saber replies. “The first time, anyway.”

“I want the video.”

* * *

Ulysses is driving down Route 44, through desolation that used to be prime farmland.

“The package I sent you has all the details about Santora and Conway,” Topaz says. “I was able to confirm what you suspected.”

“Excellent! I love it when things start coming together.”

“I’ll let you know when I manage to ID the guy on the video. If I can, I’ll put a trace on him.”

DAY FOUR

Ulysses is eating breakfast with Inari at the fold-out table in her RV when Inari’s ancient, pre-war cellphone buzzes.

She answers, listens for a moment, then holds the phone out to Ulysses. “It’s for you,” she says.

He takes the phone from her. “Yeah?”

“It’s about time you got back in the game,” Topaz says. “I was getting tired of you moping around all the time.”

“Thanks, I think,” Ulysses says, smiling, knowing Topaz is just showing off.

“You trust her?”

“Yes,” he says, putting the call on speaker.

“Your guy’s name is Matthew Rucker. He’s an environmental engineer. Looks like his PhD got interrupted by the war.”

“OK,” Ulysses says. “That’s…different.”

“He lives in or around South Riding, up in the foothills. Leastwise, he’s in that area buying stuff at stores at least every week. I just sent you a list of places where he’s made purchases.”

Inari says, “Looks like somebody’s going to South Riding.”

* * *

Ulysses watches from his Jeep as Matthew Rucker, a fit-looking man in a black t-shirt with dark hair and a trim beard, pushes a cart out of South Riding’s only market. In an odd form of double vision, he’s also watching a drone view of his quarry from three hundred meters in the sky. As Rucker drives away in a beat-up Land Rover, he sends the eyeball after Rucker’s vehicle, then follows at a distance.

Rucker travels about an hour into the foothills on winding roads. Eventually, the drone view shows his quarry pulling off onto a dirt road heading north. About two kilometers down the road, Rucker parks in front of a small complex of buildings. Some of them look like dormitory-style residences, others look like work buildings. Ulysses is surprised by the number of live trees around.

The complex definitely has some sort of water supply.

Ulysses turns onto the same dirt road, goes about half-way up it, then drives off-road and hides his Jeep in a deep hollow. Getting out, he sets off hiking so he can swing around and approach the complex from a different direction. Maybe it’s his military background, but he’s never been a fan of frontal assaults.

While he’s walking through the rough terrain, he directs the drone in a wide circle so he can keep an eye on the complex and his backtrail. On its first orbit, the drone shows him an odd white cone to the west of the little community. Conveniently, it’s approximately where he’s heading anyway.

Rounding a rocky cliff, Ulysses discovers that the white cone is made of ice. It’s about fifteen meters high and fifty meters in diameter, positioned next to a wide gulley about a kilometer from the complex. It’s an ice stupa—he saw them in a documentary once—created by collecting water runoff and jetting it up into the air in winter. It freezes into a large cone, which releases water through melting over an extended time period.

Well, this certainly explains all the trees, both the ones he spotted earlier around the buildings and the lightly forested slope beyond the ice stupa that extends down to the settlement.

Somebody’s doing home-grown environmental projects.

Heading downhill through the trees, Ulysses grimaces in annoyance as the drone view shows him that a small group of armed men have found his Jeep. They must have a hidden camera somewhere by the road, which is better security than he expected, but less than what they probably need.

Still, knowing he’s around and finding him are two different things.

Staying in hiding as much as possible, Ulysses makes his way down to the complex, where he observes a bunch of people trickling into one building. Picking his moment, he sidles up behind a small group and follows them into the building, which turns out to be a cafeteria that looks like it can hold about fifty people. It’s mostly adults, though there are a few children around, too.

He casually gets in line.

“So, what’s for lunch today?” Ulysses asks the lady in front of him.

The lady looks at him with a puzzled expression, perhaps wondering why she can’t place who he is. “Oh, today’s roast beef sandwiches and potato salad. We got a house salad, too, if you want.”

Ulysses collects his lunch, fully aware that more and more people are noticing him and whispering to each other. There’s no place to pay, so he takes his tray to a table where nobody will be behind him. That leaves him facing the entire room.

He takes a bite of his roast beef sandwich. A man in blue overalls approaches.

“Mister,” the man says, “can I ask, who are you?”

“My name is Ulysses Perez,” he says loudly. “And I’m an investigator for Trans-Pacific Standard Railroad.”

Silence falls like a wet blanket. Ulysses takes another bite of his sandwich and chews slowly, knowing he has everybody’s attention.

“This is a damn good roast beef sandwich.” He takes a sip of water. “Good water, too. Nice and cold.” He looks around at everybody watching him. “So, ah, would anybody like to explain why you all felt the need to steal fifty-two tons of zirconium ingots from a TPS train?” He takes another bite of his sandwich. “You all can talk to me…or you can watch TPS shut down your operation faster than you can say ‘drought.’”

Ulysses continues eating. It really is a good lunch.

Then a group of armed men burst into the cafeteria. One of them is Rucker, who points in his direction. “That’s him.”

Rucker is wearing a black t-shirt that shows off his muscles, with a slogan on the front: THE MOUNTAINS ARE CALLING. Ulysses is pretty sure he knows who traversed the zipline to get on the train.

The men surround him. One of them points a gun at him.

“You need to come with us,” Rucker says.

“First of all, I’m eating lunch. Second, Mr. Matthew Rucker, you missed the part where I said I work for Trans-Pacific Standard.”

“Shit.”

A woman walks up. Brown hair, early forties, she moves past the armed men like she’s in charge. “It’s all right, Matt,” she says. “Joe, put that gun away.”

She sits across from Ulysses. Following her lead, Rucker sits beside her.

“Welcome to Vonda,” she says, “formerly known as Desert Research Site One. I’m Georgie Holland.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Ulysses says. “You want to tell me what you did with all that zirconium?”

Georgie brushes a strand of hair away from her face. “Do you know what a MOF is?”

“Not a clue.”

Georgie smiles faintly. “It stands for Metal-Organic Framework. Basically, it means you create a complex lattice that’s electrically charged and has the right shape to allow water molecules to be attracted and absorbed into the lattice.”

“Okayyyyyy.”

She sighs. “A good MOF can absorb water from the air. Even in desert conditions.”

“And that’s what you needed the zirconium for?”

“Yes.”

“So, you make this…MOF stuff…here?”

“We can make it in small quantities, which is good for experimentation.” She shrugs. “We outsource the creation for larger batches. But we have to supply the zirconium.”

“What about the ice stupa?”

“Ah, you recognized that,” she says. “Another experiment. Useful, but the ice doesn’t last past mid-summer.”

“Where the hell did you mad scientist folks come from?”

“We were doing field research when the war started. After the dust settled, we were scrubs with no university affiliations anymore.”

“I know how that works,” Ulysses says. “I’m a scrub, too.”

Rucker frowns and squints at him. “But you work for TPS.”

“I’m a contractor. They hire me to do investigations they can’t handle.”

“What now?” Georgie asks.

“It depends.”

“So, he’s gonna blackmail us,” Rucker says, slamming his fist on the table. “We’ll be paying off this pendejo forever.”

Both Ulysses and Georgie give him a look like he’s a puppy that just committed an unfortunate accident on the kitchen floor.

Pointedly ignoring Rucker, Ulysses says, “Are you planning to rob any more trains?”

“No,” Georgie answers.

“My instructions were…find out who robbed the train. And make sure it doesn’t happen again. Seems to me, I’ve succeeded.”

“You’re going to let us go,” Georgie says, “but you want something, too. Not blackmail, though.”

Ulysses smiles. It’s a pleasure dealing with someone smart. “I think you’re lucky I found you.”

“Why?”

“How many people you got here? And how big can you get and sustain the community here?”

“Forty-three people right now,” she answers. “Maybe one twenty if we grow it carefully.”

“You have a self-sustaining community with its own independent water supply. Do you know how many groups would be willing to kill all of you to take what you have right now?”

“I didn’t think…”

Rucker bristles. “Hey, we’ve got security.” He makes a vague gesture that takes in his ad hoc security staff.

“I’m ex-military,” Ulysses says mildly. “But I’m still wired.”

“Oh,” Rucker says nervously. Ulysses is mildly impressed that Rucker understands the threat level of a trained and wired ex-soldier, even if his men might not.

“So, what if a group of ex-soldiers decides to take you over? Or a mob of desperate refugees with weapons and nothing left to lose?”

“You’ve made your point,” Georgie says. “We’re more vulnerable than we realized.”

Ulysses nods. “Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to tell TPS the situation has been resolved. Insurance covered the loss, so they’re not really out much. And you’re going to have two new community members. Myself as your new Security Chief, and my…girlfriend.” The phrase feels strange rolling off his tongue. “I think we can fix your security issues and maybe some other problems as well, so we’ll both earn our keep.”

“Do I have a choice?” Georgie asks, then glances at Rucker as if seeking another viewpoint.

Rucker rubs his chin thoughtfully. “Take the deal, Georgie.” He sighs. “He’s kind of a pirate, but I think we’re better off with him on our side.”

Georgie chuckles. “Deal.” She and Ulysses shake hands.

“I know we have more details to work out,” Ulysses says. “But I’ve got plans for tonight and I need to get back.”

“Uh,” Rucker mumbles, “that might be a problem. Joe slashed your tires before I could stop him.”

DAY FOUR – THE OTHER CASE

Inari cracks open the door of her RV a moment after she hears the crunch of gravel under the wheels of Ulysses’ vehicle. He grins at her surprised expression as he climbs out of Rucker’s Land Rover. He reaches back in to pick up a few things from the passenger seat, then greets her at the door carrying flowers, a rectangular package wrapped in brown paper (complete with a pink bow on it), and a big bag containing a takeout dinner.

By this time, her eyebrows have climbed almost to her hairline and she’s smiling. “I take it you cracked the case, you’re hungry, and you’re hoping to get laid?”

“Something like that.”

Inari lifts the dinner bag out of his hands, steps back, and closes the door in his face.

Ulysses counts off five seconds and Inari opens the door, chuckling merrily. “I’m just playing hard to get. Is it working?”

“Meh, not so much.”

“Phooie, yet another thing my mama got wrong. Get in here.” Eyeing the Land Rover, she adds, “There a reason you traded in your Jeep?”

“Long story. I’ll tell you over dinner.”

* * *

Later, sitting at the fold-out table with the remains of dinner between them and the flowers in a vase to one side, Inari says, “So, that’s what they needed all the zirconium for.” She shakes her head. “I’m impressed. You solved this thing in…what?…four days.”

“Well, we got a lot more to talk about.”

Ulysses reaches into his pocket and pulls out a couple folded sheets of paper. He unfolds them and hands them to Inari.

Puzzled, she’s takes the pages from him. “What’s this?”

“Turns out you’re an S3, only nobody at TPS ever told you that it means you have signing authority up to five kay. So, four days ago, you hired me to look into…improprieties…at your office.”

“OK,” she says, rubbing her forehead. “So, I sign this and back-date it. I guess this is one copy for me and one for you?”

“Yup.”

“Does this mean Frank’s gonna get the heave-ho?”

“Frank pocketed half the cash that was supposed to go to Winona Sky. He’s also still collecting money for half the people he let go. Even worse, he has a smuggling thing going on with Jasper Conway. They’re selling unused cargo space to locals and pocketing the profits.”

“That’s why Frank didn’t want anybody looking too hard into the train heist. He didn’t want his smuggling operation exposed.”

“Right.”

Ulysses pushes the wrapped package across the table and watches as Inari unwraps it. The package contains two dog-eared trade paperback books, Business Plans for Dummies and The ABCs of Business Proposals. Paperback books are something of a rarity in their neck of the desert.

“I don’t understand,” Inari says, setting the books on the table.

“How do you feel about being the boss, instead of working for somebody?”

“I like the idea, but—”

“Topaz suggested that you should put together a proposal for TPS to outsource their division to your new company. Said that from what she saw, you were basically running the office anyway.”

“And after all the things Frank’s been doing…I’d have TPS management’s attention. Maybe I could hire back some of the people Frank laid off. I’d have to close the current office, though. It’s too big and expensive.”

Ulysses can see she’s starting to get excited about the idea.

“How about relocating the office to Vonda?”

Inari cocks her head and shoots him a penetrating look. After a moment, she says, “Is this… ‘sometimes I just see how things fit together?’”

Ulysses shrugs. “Water and food included. And having the regional division headquarters there would help alleviate their security problems. Nobody in their right mind wants to mess with TPS.”

Inari chuckles. “You got any other plans I should know about?”

“Well, yes,” Ulysses says, “but not until after dessert.”

THE RACE ON DRY MISSISSIPPI

by Anthony W. Eichenlaub

It was overcast the first day of the Dry Mississippi Solar Race. That should have been the first sign of trouble.

Pike Halverson was too nervous to notice. He rechecked the connections along the floor of his boat, The Flying Muskie. Connecting electronics was the one thing he knew he could do better than anyone else in the race. Pike was a panelman—a solar installer—and everyone else was an engineer.

“Interesting design,” said a thin woman in a white tank top and cargo pants. Her short black hair stuck out at odd angles from under a pair of blue goggles. “Who’s your sponsor?”

Interesting. Pike didn’t miss the low-key insult, even if he was a little dazzled by the sparkle of amusement in her bright eyes. “Traditionally, boats never used to have sponsors in the Dry Mississippi—” He peered at her name tag. “—Forever?”

“Forever Pha.” She stuck out a hand and he grudgingly complied. It was like shaking a feather; he was afraid his big, rough hand would crush it. “You’re Pike, right?”

“Yep.”

She took a step back and eyed him, then gave his boat the same treatment. “Is this your first race, Pike?”

“Is this yours?”

“I’m piloting Hansen Photovoltaic’s ship.”

He pulled the main line and extended the sail. “What happened to the legendary Talia Chen?”

Forever’s gaze went distant. “She couldn’t make it.”

“Interesting.”

The woman watched Pike work for several minutes while he finished the prep of his craft, then returned to her own ship, The Hansen.

Hansen Photovoltaic’s massive, wheeled ship had run the race every year for the last decade and won more often than it lost. Pike knew from a thousand installs that Hansen’s panels were the most efficient in the business by a longshot, but they were also the heaviest. In order to handle those lumbering octagons, Forever’s ship had to be huge. Its frame was a light-but-strong polymer reinforced in places with hollow fiber tubes.

The Flying Muskie was an ultralight made mostly of birch bark and pine sap.

The race ran from the rocky barrens at the former mouth of the Mississippi down through the silt flats of the riverbed and all the way through the first waters of the river until it reached the southern end of the Twin Cities where the river widened into Spring Lake. Pike’s ship could handle all three terrain types.

Probably.

The Hansen was the first to move. Its mighty wheels creaked as its panels absorbed power from the hazy sky. It mounted that first boulder like an infant taking its first steps. Unsteady at first, then confident, then smug.

Forever Pha waved at Pike as she rumbled ahead.

The Oval, an ultralight with a smooth, rounded bottom, pulled slowly forward next. Its whirring fans thrust the craft forward, scraping its runners against the rocky lakebed. Then another ship rolled past. Then another. There were twenty ships total, and nearly half moved only a few hours into the cloudy morning.

Still, he waited, even though his simple readout indicated that he had the power to move. Early in the morning, the oaks and pines along the river cast it into shadows. Here, his solar sails had full access to the whole sky, cloudy as it was. If he left too early, he would lose a chance to fully charge his capacitors.

Finally, The Flying Muskie’s power level indicator beeped. As a heavy wheeled ship called the Brilliant Sky trundled past, Pike threw a lever and engaged his fans.

The scrubby vegetation under The Flying Muskie bent under an unnatural wind. Its weight lifted from the rocks until its birch runners barely touched the jagged stones. Pike eased the levers forward and the fans tilted. The Flying Muskie glided forward, passing the Lake Itasca marker at the headwaters of the Mississippi: “Here 1475 FT above the ocean the mighty Mississippi begins to flow on its winding way 2552 miles to the Gulf of Mexico.” The race ran only a fraction of that length, and the river wouldn’t start in earnest until it reached its intersection with the Minnesota, but this symbol marked the start of a journey Pike would probably never travel.

Behind, the sky darkened. The wind rose and Pike shaped his sails to tack against it. He easily passed the Brilliant Sky and its big rubber wheels. The massive solar ship had never been a real threat. It might do well in the deeper waters, but in mud and rocks it was slow as cold molasses.

The morning ebbed into afternoon, and the trees flanking the riverbed didn’t block the sun when it finally peeked through the hazy clouds. Pike’s sails weren’t angled perfectly to catch the rays, but they made up for it by catching the wind—an advantage not specifically forbidden in the Dry Mississippi Race rulebook. He had checked a dozen times.

Another ultralight—The Gone Again—moved across the rocks ahead. The Flying Muskie gained slowly, but both ships moved faster and faster as the sky brightened. Pike leaned hard to steer through a long bend in the dry riverbed. His canoe tilted, sails brushing the leaves at the far bank.

The Gone Again moved to cut off Pike’s path. It bent wide around the corner, forcing The Flying Muskie to the southern bank, where the shadows still clung to the open earth of the riverbed. Pike’s fans sputtered as the powerful solar rays stopped and the curve of the river faced him directly into the wind.

The Flying Muskie lurched and lowered. Its runners knocked against a tumble of granite boulders. He yanked the lever hard and forced it to slow and hover toward the center of the riverbed.

Then, with a flip of a switch, the lower boom swung and he tacked again. The jib caught the light and the extra power lifted The Flying Muskie up over the edge of what must have once been a waterfall. His stomach fell from under him as his ship dropped to the rocks below.

The hover fans caught his light ship to soften the blow at the bottom. Runners crunched against rocks and the ship nearly threw Pike over the side. His teeth jarred from the impact. When the ship steadied, he pushed his levers forward and The Flying Muskie flew on.

The Gone Again launched over the waterfall, but when it hit the rocks below something snapped in the ship’s frame. One of its solar panels cracked and fell, and the ship veered away, crashing into the woods.

“Good luck,” called the pilot as Pike sailed away.

“Thanks!” Competitive as they may be, the pilots of the Dry Mississippi were decent sports.

Usually.

He passed another ultralight not long later. He recognized The Oval with its smooth frame. Its silver-haired pilot scowled at him from atop her damaged vessel.

“Tough run?” Pike asked as he passed.

“Watch out for The Hansen,” the woman said. “The new pilot’s out for blood.”

Pike wondered if he should stop and help her. In the early days of the Dry Mississippi, that might have been the custom, but that would mean giving up his chance at winning. He sailed on, sure that she could manage her own repairs.

The rest of the afternoon passed without incident. Pike ate from his stores and rode across the dry riverbed. The path smoothed quickly after the headwaters. Rocks gave way to packed silt, and soft undergrowth choked the long trail where nature had finally decided to reclaim the gully of the former river.

The Dry Mississippi was hardly the exciting, pulse-pounding terror one expected from the most technologically advanced race in the Midwest. Even as the brutal afternoon sun beat down on him, he could hear the far-off rumble of thunder to the north. The air was thick—heavy with the impending storm, but still the race crept forward.

Every ship he passed was one step closer to the front. A small ship cut its path across the accumulated silt, slowing whenever the rays of the sun were dimmed by clouds or trees. Pike passed it without so much as slowing, nodding acknowledgement to its wary captain.

Then, finally, the last rays of the setting sun disappeared behind the western trees. Pike stopped The Flying Muskie and settled it upon the rocky shore where it would have good access to the eastern sky. The Dry Mississippi Race was a solar race. According to custom, the race didn’t move at night until the racers reached the still-flowing waters of the muddy river.

“Those cutthroat scabs!”

The voice rang through the forest as if the speaker were twenty paces away, but when Pike looked, he saw nothing. He finished tying down his sail and packed his gear so that it would be ready when he needed it. Then, he dropped to the hard earth and followed the rustling sound of a nearby competitor.

Forever Pha cursed as she pulled at her behemoth’s wiring. Her wrench slipped and she smashed her knuckles against the open hull.

Pike stepped out of the dry undergrowth. “Problem?”

Forever yelped and threw her wrench, missing Pike’s head by inches. He did not flinch.

“Stay away,” she snapped.

Pike raised his hands, palms out to show he was unarmed. “Sorry. I just thought you might be in trouble.”

Forever’s boots sent up clouds of dust when she stomped down onto the silt. “Those jerks who packed my gear are the ones in trouble.”

Pike had packed his own gear. He had built his own ship. Forever probably didn’t know how spoiled she sounded, but he decided to try another tack at the conversation. “It’s been a good race. Good sun once we got going.”

Forever seethed. “Anyone caught in that storm up north won’t be seeing the sun for a while.” She yanked open the pack next to her and dug through the tools. “Not that it’ll do me any good if I can’t reattach these connectors.”

“You’ll want the three quarters spanner.”

“This is a race, Pike,” she said to him, her tone suddenly very serious. “Go back to your little boat and get ready to be left in the dust.”

The way she said it made Pike bristle. She hadn’t even built her own ship, and she barely knew how to pilot it.

“There’s more to it than winning, you know.”

She scowled at him, but Pike thought he saw something else behind the hardness in her eyes. On his way back to The Flying Muskie, he saw her wrench partially obscured by loose soil. He didn’t bother to point it out to her.

She was going to leave him in the dust, after all. Who was he to offer help?

Far to the north, the dark sky strobed with lightning. Clouds swallowed the first stars of evening, and a cool wind blew from the east. Pike was glad he had tied down his sails well, because too much wind might be dangerous if the storm came south.