Titan Song by Dan Stout (top 10 ebook reader .txt) 📕

Not until Dinah McIntire and her festival came to the ice plains. That had rocked the boat, for sure.

“Why do you think people look to the skies for flying saucers?” I asked.

“Probably because ‘flying’ implies the sky is the best place to look.”

“No. I mean, why do people want mysteries at all? Isn’t there enough crap right in front of them to keep their minds busy?”

“Oh, that.” He rolled back across the room and switched album tracks again. “The real world is a drag. It’s boring. We all know what to expect. Is it so wrong to want a sense of wonder again? Like when we were young and innocent?”

“We were never innocent.”

“You said the same thing about Paulus.”

I grimaced. “What I mean is, don’t you have enough to wonder about in the real world?”

Hanford flicked his ponytail. “They’re not mutually exclusive, man! I can watch the skies and still appreciate the everyday life. People might see miracles, but they like flowers and puppy dogs, too.” He stopped short, as if something had just occurred to him. “Hey, do you believe in miracles?”

“No.”

“You’ve never seen anything that defies the natural order?”

Now that was a loaded question. I thought of the web of manna connections, and the way I’d seen corpses inexplicably transform. But that was magic, and as strange as it was, it was still natural. Then, maybe because we’d been talking about Talena, I thought of her and her work with people in need. I figured there were some things that went beyond even magic.

“Anytime I see an act of kindness it’s a miracle,” I said. “It surprises me every time. Like seeing a candle being lit in the middle of a blizzard. It’s a miracle that it happens, and it’s a miracle that it isn’t snuffed out or exploited the moment it occurs.” I wadded up my pita wrapper and threw it in the trash.

“And the people who perform acts of kindness, are they miracles, too?”

“I suppose.” I flashed back to my argument with Talena, when I’d mocked the news for celebrating an act of simple kindness. Not for the first time, it occurred to me that I could be a real prick.

“Is that what you do?” he asked. “Spend all your time finding killers and saving lives. Are you lighting candles in the dark?”

“Hells no,” I snorted, then reconsidered the question. “I protect the people who do the lighting.”

“Right on,” he said. “Thing is, once your eyes are adjusted to the light, you can’t see a thing when you step away from it. The best protectors are the ones who dwell in the dark.”

Lunch was over. I stood up. “Thanks, Hanford. Have a good one.”

“Same to you.” He waved a farewell. “And maybe set aside one of them candles for yourself every now and then, huh? And next time bring some fries!”

I left the WYOT studios and walked to the bus stop, the chill Borderlands air clearing my head. As I walked, I thought about Hanford’s comment that those who stood to lose the most were most desperate to maintain the status quo. Paulus was at risk of losing everything, but Vandie Cedrow already had. And of the two of them, the younger Cedrow seemed the more likely to try something dramatic.

I remembered Klare’s insistence that Glouchester knew the Barekusu were funneling cash to radical groups. Was that why Serrow killed him? Or had she truly been driven mad by the buzzing like she claimed?

I thought of Ajax’s badge, hidden beneath a long-abandoned body in the vents. Vandie Cedrow had already lost everything and needed a revolution in order to get it back. I’d let myself get distracted by Paulus and Gellica. I needed to interview Vandie Cedrow and those who knew her. I needed to know why the Barekusu were giving her money. I needed to go back to the festival, and I needed to do it now.

31

THE ONE THING THAT I knew for sure was that there wasn’t any chance in all the Hells that someone was going to let me back into the festival site. The Bobby Kearn murder was closed out, and Dinah McIntire and Vandie Cedrow both had lawyers whose hourly billable rate was higher than my weekly paycheck. Plus, I’d have to figure out how to get a vehicle to get out there in the first place.

The Titanshade PD doesn’t let just anyone take out expensive vehicles and play on the ice plains. I could always rent a snow-runner or ice-plains-ready vehicle, but that meant spending a healthy chunk of the fore-mentioned meager paycheck. On top of that, I’d have a far harder time getting into the grounds if I showed up with a civilian vehicle. But if I wanted to take a department snow-runner, I’d need to fill out the appropriate requisition forms, then wait until they were processed and I was notified of their approval. Without a pressing case need, it could take weeks. Basically, it was a no-win situation.

Or I could cheat.

I dropped into a precinct substation near Camden Terrace and asked for Franklin DiLeno. Franklin was a nice enough guy, and a horrible poker player. He was into me for more than a hundred taels and I was betting that if I could offer him a way to lighten that load, he’d be interested.

As a sergeant at a substation on the Borderlands, Franklin had both a fair amount of pull and access to ice-plains vehicles. If anyone could wrangle a snow-runner on short notice, it was him.

“I dunno, Carter. What if we need it?” Franklin rubbed at his hairline like he was searching for imperfections. The same tell as when he had a garbage hand of cards.

“Then you use the other one. That’s the whole point of having more than one.”

It took a fair amount of wrangling, and a discount on the money he owed me, but I managed to convince him that it was in everyone’s best interests if I could be