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Fish shook his head. “It’s like there’s this barking and yapping, but I can’t quite understand what it’s saying. Come on, damsel. Before things get ugly.”
“I think the ugly’s already here.” Paige slapped a fist into her palm and glared at Fish.
“Ooh,” Fish said. “I normally wouldn’t hit a lady, but you don’t count.”
“You’d do well to pay her mind,” Lucy said. “And just because I’m a Steam Timer doesn’t mean I’d want anything to do with you hooligans.”
“I see how it is.” Fish flicked his cigarette aside. “Tommy, Seamus: get Ribera and hold him down for me. Billy, grab the skater girl. She’ll be next. And make sure that Petey-boy sees stars!”
“Run!” Diego shouted. He curled his fingers into a fist as the boys advanced.
“Yeah, right!” Paige replied. She’d already dropped her backpack and skateboard. Billy was just reaching for her arm when she darted toward him, grabbed him by the forearm, and judo flipped him to the floor.
“Whoa!” Petey said.
The move made Fish and the others freeze for a second. Diego saw his chance. He lunged for Paige’s skateboard, grabbed it with tingling fingers, and slammed Fish across the face with it.
Fish crumpled to the floor, rolling back and forth, holding his nose and cursing. Tommy and Seamus rushed over to him.
“Okay, now we might want to run!” Lucy said.
“Let’s go!” Diego darted for the hallway, Petey, Lucy, and Paige right behind him.
When they reached the dark corridor, Diego glanced back and saw Billy staggering to his feet, the other two crouched beside Fish.
“Let’s keep moving,” Petey said. They hurried back to the stairs and up to the service door.
Diego shut it and then punched in the key code, but the lock didn’t engage.
“Are you sure it’s the same code to lock it?” Petey asked.
“Please tell me you thought to check that beforehand,” Lucy said.
“Nah, it’s the same,” Diego said. He had no idea. “Just gotta get it right.”
Footsteps thundered up the stairs from below.
“Hurry up!” Lucy said.
“I’m trying.” Diego glanced through the window and saw Tommy and Seamus coming. “Grab the door and hold it shut!” Diego shouted.
As they crowded around him and grabbed the handle, Diego closed his eyes again. Had to push everything out, had to focus. Just the door. Just the intricacies of that lock . . .
Fists pounded on the door, breaking his concentration.
“We . . . can’t . . . hold them!” Petey shouted.
Diego took a deep breath and held it. Sank into his head. Nothing but the lock. Flashes exploded in his mind. He let the visions reach his fingers, tapped at the keypad, and the lock slid shut.
“Mongrel!” Fish shouted, his face pressed against the window, steaming up the glass. Diego could see the blood dripping down his nose. “You’re gonna pay!”
Diego stepped back, panting, and offered Fish a wordless smile and shrug. Angry muffled shouts and thuds continued behind them as they stepped away.
Once they rounded the corner, they stopped to catch their breath.
“Where did you learn to do that?” Petey asked, gazing at Paige.
“One of our neighbors is a jujitsu master,” she said. “My brother . . . and I used to practice with him.”
“Thank you,” Lucy said, her breath still short. “For getting us out of trouble.”
“No problem,” Diego said.
“She meant me, fool,” Paige said. “You’re the one who got us in trouble.” She took her skateboard back from Diego. “You’re just lucky you’re so . . . lucky. And that I was there to bail you out.”
She and Lucy started across the hall.
“But . . . ,” Diego said, “you have to admit: not bad, right? For a couple of kids?”
“Whatever,” Paige said, not looking back.
Lucy glanced over her shoulder but didn’t say a word.
Diego and Petey wound their way through the Ice Age hall looking for their class.
“So?” Petey asked.
“So what?” Diego replied. “I wish I could’ve hit Fish again for what he said.”
“Ah, don’t listen to him,” Petey said. “Fish doesn’t know nothin’, and his people are ignorant. You just gotta ignore it.”
“It’s not that easy,” Diego said. “Clock mongrel.” The words made him clench his fists. The name was vicious and hateful. He wanted to believe that Joe didn’t really mean it deep down, that he was only imitating his father and his brothers. But Fish had changed.
“Well, you showed him. And you’ll show him again. But hey . . .” Petey draped an arm around his shoulders. “Besides, that’s not even what I meant.”
“Huh?”
“I meant, what do you think about Lucy?”
“Oh,” Diego said. “I’m trying not to.”
The school day passed in a blur. Diego and Petey decided not to fly the gravity boards at lunch, worried that Fish and his gang might be waiting for a chance at payback, and instead stayed in the cafeteria. Diego kept an eye out for them in the halls after lunch too, and also for Lucy.
After school, Petey drove the Goldfish, delivering Diego to the ferry station.
“What’s up?” Diego asked over a new cassette, this one by another of his dad’s favorite bands, U2. Petey had been quiet all day since the fight with Fish.
“Nothing,” he said.
“Come on,” Diego said. “Something’s bugging you.”
Petey grimaced. “I don’t know, D. You were kinda reckless this morning, that’s all.”
“What do you mean? Hitting Fish? Come on, he was going to pound us.”
“I know, but, like, before that. The way you taunted him? It’s like you were trying to pick a fight.”
“I wasn’t trying to. They were being jerks. They got what they deserved.”
Petey shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s your birthday, or if it was just having a couple of pretty girls around.”
“My birthday doesn’t have anything to do with it,” Diego said. “Come on, what’s so wrong with giving punks like Fish a bit of their own medicine?”
“You sound like Paige,” Petey said.
“Well, she knows how to stick up for herself.”
“Yeah, well, I just don’t want to spend the rest of the year having to watch my back. You know Fish won’t let it go.”
“Let him try,” Diego said.
“Great,” Petey muttered.
They were silent for the rest of the ride.
Diego hopped up onto the dock. A steady breeze whipped at his hair. Gulls circled overhead, making shrill calls. Diego looked out over the harbor and saw dark clouds on the horizon.
“Get her home safe, okay?” Diego said, slapping the side of the Goldfish. “Stay ahead of that storm.” He was second-guessing the idea of leaving such a prized invention, not to mention the pair of gravity boards in the trunk, in Petey’s not-always-sure hands, but he didn’t have time to get the Goldfish home and still make the ferry.
“Sure thing,” Petey said. “I got it. See ya tomorrow.”
As the Goldfish puttered off, Diego made his way through the crowds of people and cargo. Different languages tumbled over one another, and Diego caught a hundred smells: the sour sweat of livestock, the sweet burn of frying food, a burst of exotic spice, a flash of citrus.
He made his way between piles of crates and around break-dancers and a brigade of Napoleonic soldiers playing cards, carts heaped with furs. A band of Algonquin warriors inspected a caged beast: something like a rhinoceros but with three horns.
He boarded the hulking ferry as its horn sounded across the harbor.
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
Serpents and Soldiers (#litres_trial_promo)
“Diego!”
Diego was surprised to see a young man standing on the dock, waving in his direction. As he stepped down, he tentatively waved back.
The man smiled and put out his hand. “I’m George Emerson Jr., but you can call me Georgie. It’s great to finally meet you!”
Diego shook his hand, wondering if Georgie was going to be anything like his sister. “Nice to meet you, too.”
“Splendid that our fathers get to join forces, wouldn’t you agree?” Georgie said as they crossed the busy platform.
“Pretty cool,” Diego said.
“I’m looking forward to seeing this retrofit completed,” Georgie said. “It’s been painstaking work out here, that’s for sure. But more interesting than hitting the books back in London. I hear they brought you in to drive the bot. You must be an ace operator.”
“I’m okay,” Diego said. This Georgie wasn’t half bad.
“I appreciate your modesty,” Georgie said. He lowered his voice. “But if you want my advice, don’t sell yourself short to my father. He can be tough to take, especially when he smells uncertainty.”
“Thanks,” Diego said. “Actually, I’m really good.”
Georgie patted him on the back. “That’s the spirit.”
They reached the center of the open area, where George Emerson Sr. stood beside Santiago near a neat stack of eight large mechanical steam converters. Diego recognized his father’s work, now being replaced with the single Goliath converter that Emerson had designed.
“Careful with those pressure regulators,” George said curtly to two of Santiago’s workers. “And you there,” he barked, pointing at another man who was preparing the housing. “Do you even speak English? I said to scour that piping, not give it a massage.”
Diego was surprised to hear Emerson speaking to his father’s men that way. He watched Dad for a reaction, but Santiago only glanced up, then back at his clipboard.
“Hi, Dad,” Diego said.
“Oh hey, son.” Santiago rubbed his head. “George, this is Diego, our driver for today.”
George glanced over. “The prodigy, huh?” He gave Diego only a passing glance before returning to the clipboard. “You sure he’s up to this? It’s not a toy we’re installing.” His eyes flashed to the massive orange steam locomotive retrofitted with pistons and gears. “I would have preferred someone a bit more . . . qualified.”
Diego was about to stick up for himself when Santiago’s hand fell on his shoulder.
“Diego can handle it.”
Emerson lowered the clipboard, still frowning. “Only my top drivers in the Royal Engineering Corps are rated for a class-three loader. Has your boy completed any formal training?”
Diego glanced at his dad. Santiago’s lips pursed, but he breathed deep and spoke diplomatically. “I can assure you that your steam converter is in the best of hands.”
Come on, Dad, Diego thought. He wished Santiago would give this arrogant man a piece of his mind.
“Well . . . ,” George scoffed. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
“Your drivers wouldn’t have the first clue how to pilot that Centauri loader bot,” Diego blurted. “My father designed it specifically for this station. You have to know what you’re doing, handle it right. Tear the wrong thing out and you could blast us all to pieces.”
“How dare you speak to me like that, you insolent whelp!” George bellowed. “Mr. Ribera, if you can’t control your crew, I can pull my team and take my converter back home with me.”
Santiago’s hand closed around Diego’s arm. “My apologies, Mr. Emerson.” Santiago yanked Diego away, guiding him across the platform toward the foreman’s office.
Once the door had closed, Santiago threw up his hands. “Diego! What has gotten into you? Do you realize who you were talking to?”
“Yeah,” Diego said, “a real blowhard.”
“George Emerson is the chief technical officer of the—”
