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Fish’s buddies laughed at this, too. Fish scowled at Diego and made a circular motion, with his finger pointing at the ground. Turn around and walk away. He then raised his thumb to his throat and made a long, slow, cutting motion.
It was all Diego could do to keep his cool. Not even two years ago, they’d been friends, and Fish had even come by the workshop sometimes. Now he was well on his way to being a Time-separatist thug.
“D,” Petey said from a few steps behind him. “Come on.”
Diego tried to swallow his anger. But before he turned away, he held up a hand to his ear, then with the other hand pretended to be turning up the volume dial on a radio. He moved his hand away from his ear and slowly raised his middle finger in time to the dial spinning.
Fish shoved his hands in his pockets, his face so red it looked like he might boil over.
“Why would you do that?” Petey asked as they hurried to catch the girls. “I really don’t want a busted jaw, or worse. You know those guys have roughed kids up, bad.”
“He needs to know that not everyone is afraid of him,” Diego said.
“But I am afraid of him,” Petey said. “I’m sore at him for turning on us as much as you are, but we can’t do anything about it.”
“They shouldn’t act like that toward a girl,” Diego said.
“You two speak for yourselves,” Paige said as they caught up. “Them hoods wouldn’t dare mess with me, or they know what they’d get.”
“Yes,” Lucy said, “we don’t need seventh-grade bodyguards, if you please. We can handle ourselves.”
“Fine,” Diego said.
Petey said, “There’s the service entrance.” He pointed to a door with a keypad lock. “Right, D?”
“Yeah.” Diego led them to the door. He punched in the code.
The door didn’t move.
“I thought you said you had this?” Paige asked. “Or is this just more of your bull?”
“No.” Diego typed in the code again. He’d gone over it in his head. This was definitely it.
Still nothing.
Lucy huffed. “What a bore.”
“Try it slower,” Petey said, “in case the buttons are sticking, or a number isn’t registering.” He gazed back over his shoulder. “But, you know, hurry. Mr. Nelson could come by any second.”
Diego typed the numbers again, and when the door still didn’t budge, he slammed it with his palm.
“Knew you were all talk,” Paige said.
“We should just head back,” Petey added.
“No, wait,” Diego said. “Just . . . hold on.” He closed his eyes and tried to block everything else out. He placed his hand on the keypad. Imagined only the door, the inner workings of the lock. How the keypad mechanism might work . . .
Images flashed in his mind: the pins of the lock, the gears that would twist them into the right shape, the connections to the keypad—
Diego’s fingers found the numbers flashing in his mind. He tapped them in.
A click. He opened his eyes and pushed the door. It yawned into the stairwell.
“Okay, let’s hurry.”
Diego stepped through the doorway, then looked back to find Petey, Lucy, and Paige staring at him.
“That was weird,” Lucy said. “What did you just do?”
“Nothing, I just had the numbers reversed in my head.”
“You did it with your eyes closed,” Paige said.
“I had to remember them from the other day. So are you coming or what?” He held the door and motioned for them to go by.
They filed through, and Diego pushed the door shut but paused. “Ah,” he said, studying the door controls.
“What is it?” Petey asked.
“There’s no lock on this side. We have to leave it open if we want to get back up this way.”
“But if someone notices the door open . . . ,” Lucy said.
“It will be fine,” Petey said. “Won’t it, D?”
“It’s no problem,” Diego said. He closed his eyes again, tried to clear everything and see the door. There had to be a way to make this work—
“This is what you call a plan?” Paige said.
The comment distracted him. Diego breathed deep, trying to shut out the world again.
“I knew this was rubbish,” Lucy said.
Diego lost it again. He spun around. “What are you all afraid of? No one comes down here during the day, and the door will look like it’s closed. I’m going anyway.” He brushed past them and started down the stairs, stopping after a few steps. He turned back to see the three looking from one to the other.
“I’m not letting him call me a coward,” Paige said. She took Lucy by the arm and started down the stairs.
Petey glanced at Diego, then shoved his hands in his pockets and followed.
“I feel like they’re watching us,” Lucy said, glancing from side to side.
Diego felt like there were eyes in the dark too, but Lucy sounded terrified. As if she thought one of these creatures would come alive and devour them all on the spot.
“Hang tough, girl,” Paige said, squeezing Lucy’s arm. “You got this. Remember, these things are dead and stuffed.”
Lucy nodded. “Of course they are.”
They passed through the hall and out into a wide rotunda. It was brighter in here, the morning sunlight casting angular beams through round windows in the domed ceiling. In the center of the room stood the giant T. rex.
“Say hello to Wendell,” Diego said.
“Whoa,” Paige said. “Now that’s a carnivore.”
“Largest tyrannosaurus ever recorded in the wild lands,” Petey said.
“He’s majestic,” Lucy said, but she stopped a few feet from the felt ropes that ringed the specimen.
Paige jumped right over them and stepped around one of the dinosaur’s thick legs. She moved under the creature’s chest, running her hand along its skin. “Wait, what,” she said, “this thing has feathers?” She brushed her fingers over soft, scalelike feathers around the creature’s leg. The pattern extended up around the underside of its neck.
“That’s going to be Wendell’s big surprise to the world,” Diego said. “She’s a species of T. rex never before seen.”
“She?” Lucy said. “But . . . her name’s Wendell.”
“She’s actually named after Wendy Dykstra,” Petey said, “the game warden who found the body out beyond the perimeter wall. She knew how important a specimen this was, so she hot-wired a class-four loader robot to get her over the wall before scavengers could.”
“But Wendell is a boy’s name,” Paige said.
“The museum wanted the dinosaur to have a boy name since the skeleton upstairs is Sue, so they changed Wendy to Wendell.”
“That’s how they reward her for her heroics?” Lucy said.
“There’s going to be a plaque by her that explains it,” Diego said. “Everyone will still know about her and what she did.”
“A plaque?” Lucy said. “Well, I guess the Time Collision didn’t change everything. It’s still a man’s world.”
“You got that right,” Paige said.
“Actually, Diego’s mom was part of it, too,” Petey said.
“Yeah,” Diego said, “she caught a glimpse of her on a training flight. She didn’t quite know what she’d seen, but she gave the coordinates to Wendy.”
“Your mom’s a pilot?” Lucy asked, turning away from Wendell. “Is she an explorer, or a bush pilot, or what?”
“She flies search and rescue for the air corps, but she used to be a fighter pilot. She fought against the Aeternum in their raids against New Chicago.”
“A famous fighter pilot,” Petey added.
“You—” Lucy’s mouth fell open. “You’re not talking about Siobhan Quinlan, are you? Not the famous fighter pilot, the hero of Dusable Harbor?”
Diego couldn’t help a wide grin. “Quinlan-Ribera now, but yeah. One and the same.”
“That’s—” Lucy shook her head. “Your mother is my hero. A woman who went well beyond her station in the Victorian world. But hold on . . . did you say Ribera? Like Santiago Ribera?” Suddenly her eyes narrowed. “You’re messing with me, aren’t you?”
“No,” Diego said. “Those are my parents. What’s it to you?”
Lucy kept peering at him. “So . . . you’re saying that the fact that your mother is Siobhan Quinlan, my hero, and your father is Santiago Ribera . . . the purported genius engineer whose own steam converter was found wanting and had to be replaced by my father’s superior Goliath steam converter . . . you’re saying those two things are just coincidence?”
“What do you know about my father?” Diego said.
“Your father is the entire reason we’re here,” Lucy said. “It’s his inadequate steam converter that’s the reason I’m stuck in New Chicago for half a year. So that my father can save your city.”
“Wait,” Diego said. “You’re saying that your father is that Emerson guy my dad was talking about?”
“He’s not some guy; he’s George Emerson, the world’s preeminent steam engineer, who will be knighted by the queen herself, I’ll have you know.”
“Right, him,” Diego said. “We’re only using his old-fashioned steam tech out of pity.”
“Pity?” Lucy nearly shouted. “How dare you? My father is a genius. His converter design is superior to your city’s. Everyone says so.”
“Who’s everyone?” Diego said. “Everybody still living with gas lamps and locomotives? Maybe that’s nice by your standards, but you should open your eyes around town. My dad is a visionary.”
“How much of a visionary could he be if his son is such an arrogant fool?”
“You tell that wannabe,” Paige said.
“Okay, okay,” Petey said. “How about if we rejoin our classes before someone gets hurt?”
“Oh, I’d hate to miss that opportunity!”
The voice echoed out of the darkness. The four whirled toward the hallway they’d come from.
A match was struck, lighting four figures.
Fish sucked on his cigarette, the end glowing, as he and his gang stepped out of the shadows.
“Get out of here, Fish,” Diego said. He tried to sound tough, but his heart was racing. This wasn’t a public place like the exhibit hall.
“Can’t do that,” Fish said. He plucked his cigarette between two fingers and waved it in their direction. “Have to rescue the damsel.”
“What are you talking about?” Petey asked.
“It’s a classic tale, really. Damsel in distress and then along comes a hero and his mates.”
“That punk better not think he’s talking about me,” Paige muttered.
Fish scowled. “Not you, love. That one.” He pointed at Lucy.
“Oh, I’m in no need of a rescue, thank you very much,” Lucy said.
“Sure you are. Look at ya: led into associations with a Mid-Time colored girl and a half-breed clock mongrel.”
“Shut up, Fish!” Diego shouted. “What happened to you anyway?”
“I wised up.”
“Sounds like the opposite,” Petey said.
“You need to step off before you step in it,” Paige said.
