“It’s already half past nine,” Roman said, interrupting the memory. “Are you ready for the broadcast?”
Ah yes. The broadcast.
Ironically, Ash was the one who’d given her the idea.
“The Black Cirkus wants to go back in time,” he’d told her once. “They seem to think that’s the key to fixing all our problems.”
He’d said this like it was an idiotic thing to think, but Dorothy had found herself disagreeing. Because, really, what sort of problems couldn’t be solved with time travel?
She’d started thinking about how she might go about changing some things. At the very least, the city needed power, access to medication and food. Too many people were hungry, and cold, and sick.
Dorothy had been a con artist before landing here. She’d never really been one for good deeds. But, for the first time in her life, she had all this power. And she knew how to fix this.
The problem was that the people of New Seattle disliked the Black Cirkus. They remembered them as the violent gang of thugs and thieves who’d taken over the city in the days just after the mega-quake. But Dorothy knew they could be so much more and so, several months ago, she’d told Roman her plan.
“Let’s speak to the people directly. We can have a . . . a broadcast.” She’d stumbled over the word broadcast, which she’d only just learned. “The people in this city don’t realize what’s being kept from them. They don’t know that time travel is still possible. Let me bring them to our side.”
They’d built a makeshift studio in the corner of the Fairmont basement, with real cameras and spotlights, which Dorothy and Roman had stolen from a defunct television station in 2044, and a backdrop made from a tattered American flag that Roman had insisted made them look like rebels.
Dorothy, naive, had thought the campaign would be easy. Just go on television (another new word!) and tell the people what they could do. But, of course, it was much more complicated than that. Distrust of the Cirkus ran deep. It had taken over two hundred broadcasts—one every single night—and the better part of a year to plant the seeds. Now, though. Now, they were close.
Dorothy took her place before the flag. The sudden glare of the spotlights made her squint, but no one would see her eyes beneath the hood that hid her face. Roman stood behind the equipment, all in shadow, and she heard the telltale sound of buttons flipping and dials turning as he worked the switchboard.
“Three . . . ,” said Roman, his voice cutting through the oppressive spotlights.
Dorothy took a deep breath.
“. . . two . . .”
Here we go.
Roman held up a single finger, and then, after a beat, he pointed at her.
Go.
“Friends,” Dorothy said, her heart beating hard and fast in her throat. “Do not attempt to adjust your television. Our broadcast has taken over every channel.”
6
Ash
Ash usually avoided wandering around New Seattle at night. It was far too likely that he’d run into someone unsavory; a Cirkus Freak searching for an easy mark, or some jerk who recognized Ash from the days before the mega-quake and wanted to start a fight. The city was only safe for those who had the cash to pay off the thieves and lowlifes who prowled the docks after dark. Ash didn’t have that kind of money, and, even if he did, he had far too much pride to pay for his own safety.
Besides, tonight was different. Tonight, he felt hyperalive and also, strangely, like he was caught in a dream he couldn’t wake up from. He practically salivated at the thought of throwing a punch, of feeling his knuckles connect with something hard and warm.
But there was no one around to fight with him. His skin tingled, uselessly.
He made his way to the end of the dock, stopping where it forked. One path led deeper into the dark water, bordered by ghostly white trees and mossy rooftops, while the other twisted toward the city. The buildings weren’t lit up—the only electricity downtown was used to power televisions for the nightly broadcast—but Ash could make out the shape of them against the black sky.
He almost felt like laughing. It couldn’t be any clearer than this: there was a good path and a bad path. He could turn right and wander around in the dark for half an hour, cool down before, eventually, making his way back to Dante’s, where his friends would be on their second drink.
Or he could turn left and head downtown, where the Cirkus Freaks and the people who paid them off partied.
He heard the distant call of voices. It stoked his anger, the knowledge that there were some people in this town who could still walk around at night without being afraid.
Seven days, he thought.
Out loud, he muttered, “What the hell?”
Left. Definitely left.
He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and lowered his head against the hammering wind. It was cold for November in the Pacific Northwest, but he found himself relishing the chill. It was a welcome respite from the burning inside him.
The voices grew louder as the buildings got closer together. A crowd of kids in nice coats stumbled out of a bar.
“No, that one,” one of them was saying, his voice rising in exasperation. “She was looking at you, didn’t you see?”
His friend snorted. “Not a chance.”
“We could go back tomorrow,” said the first. “Ask her.”
Ash slowed to let them move past. They irritated him for reasons he couldn’t name. Maybe it was that they clearly had money, or maybe it was just that they were obnoxious but not obnoxious enough to start a fight with.
They were just . . . happy.
Ash watched them, every muscle in his body wound tight. Their voices faded as they walked down the dock and, when they were gone, he pushed through the door of the bar they’d just come out of without bothering to glance at the sign hanging over it.
It was dark inside, with black walls and stainless-steel countertops and black leather barstools. There was a television above the bar, but it wasn’t turned on.
A crowd of people milled around the cramped space, shoulder to shoulder in the dark. He thought he saw one or two look his way, but he didn’t have the energy to worry about whether they’d recognized him or if they’d been Black Cirkus sympathizers before the mega-quake.
Before the Professor had disappeared, he and his time travelers had been a bit . . . controversial.
Some thought the Professor was a genius, the future of science and technology.
Others thought he was an out-of-touch intellectual, content to let the world around him fall to ruins while he focused on his books and experiments.
Neither side was entirely wrong.
Ash wove through the small, crowded room, keeping his head ducked, and found an empty stool near the bar.
A bartender appeared before him, staring for a beat too long before asking, in a resigned voice, “What do you want?”
“Beer?” Ash said, his eyes going wide as he read the chalkboard menu behind the bartender’s head. “You guys got beer?”
Most bars in New Seattle hadn’t had real beer since before the mega-quake. At least, the bars that Ash frequented hadn’t had beer since before the mega-quake. Too expensive.
The bartender hesitated, and his eyes flicked to the crowd behind him. Ash resisted the urge to check over his shoulder, see whether anyone was staring at him, whispering. It had been a long while since he’d been inside a bar that wouldn’t serve him.