“I don’t know much about the place itself, other than it’s a massive city that floats through space, brings its own set reality in a sphere that surrounds it, and that it can hop from one reality to the next when the Bleed encroaches.”
The two boys let that thought sit as they sipped at the salty broth. That’s what it mostly was, too: broth.
“This is really good, thank you,” Arridon said.
“Yeah, thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” Phil said. “It isn’t much, but home cooking has a certain…quality to it.”
The two boys ate as the old man watched, and after tipping the bowls upward and draining all the broth and the sparse, soft vegetables at the bottom, they burped, and leaned back into the couch, relieved.
“I don’t think I can find my way back to that spiky building I arrived in,” Arridon began. “I’ll need you to take us there. Can you manage that?”
“Of course,” Phil agreed. “I can’t enter the clockwork room with you, but I can bring you close.”
“Also—and this might seem like a strange question, but do you have god-tech weapon ammunition?”
“You’re packing heat? Show me,” Phil leaned forward in his recliner, excited.
Arridon removed his mother’s pistol from the stretchy waistband of the pants Phil gave to him.
“Colt 1911. One of the most reliable handguns ever constructed. American-made. Where’d you get it?”
“My mother brought it to my world from somewhere else. The world of American, I guess. My dad had it. Now I have it. I don’t have many of the little, um, metal exploding beans that go in the handle here.”
Derrick and Phil both burst into laughter, and Arridon felt his cheeks redden with heat.
“You’re lucky I work in insurance, Arridon,” Phil said, still chuckling. “You’re also lucky this is a United Kingdom almost at war. I can get you some of the bullets you need on the way to the Shard. We’ll have to stop at Tesco, but we can also get you some crisps, and maybe a drink to bring. You two are gonna put me in the poor house. Worse than my daughter ever did.”
“Where is she now?”
His demeanor darkened. “Oh my Jenny is...trying to make the world a better place. Or at least that’s what she believes.”
“Is she safe?” Derrick asked.
“Most certainly not,” Phil said, and turned away to face the kitchen. “But you can’t tell your children how to live their lives. You can only protect them the best you can, and give them the tools to flourish.”
“Tools like more bullets for my mother’s Colt 1911?”
Phil turned back to the boys, fresh determination on his face. “Precisely, Arridon. Let’s gather up some supplies and set off back to the Shard. There isn’t much time, no matter whether or not you think the concept of time is important.”
27
LONDON
The clamor and crisis in the city Phil called London grew; the heavy vehicles he called “tanks” clanked down the road, their grunt, behemoth weight was savage, chewing up the stones and roadway with alarming ease. The mechanized monsters of war had sloped, angular postures that seeped the threat they posed. Armed men wearing green and tan uniforms poked out of holes in the roofs to watch over the terrified city population as war grew nigh.
More planes flew overhead, knifing through the cloud cover, lights blinking as they swung in circles, searching the landscape below like eagles looking for a meal to snatch. Arridon felt trapped in a way he never had as the city curled up into a ball and prepared to die.
He was reminded of the Citadel and the Channel passage he, his sister, and his father had made just…just hours ago. The canyon; how it ran red with blood as they fled through castle walls made of thick stone, using spells.
“Here’s the entrance,” an exhausted Phil said, taking a seat on a dirty, garbage strewn bench that sat askew on the sidewalk. He raised a limp hand and pointed at the dust-crusted glass tower that climbed to the mangy clouds above.
Posters warning of the signs of war and how to take shelter covered half the transparent outer walls. Several posters of a hostile looking young woman were placed in high traffic locations. Armed men wearing black armor and helmets, stood guard in all directions, warily looking over the hurried masses as they passed. Their tense stances spoke a message to all who strayed too close: don’t fucking try it.
“Aren’t you coming in?” the two boys asked in unison.
“That won’t be allowed. You see, only those with a pure enough DNA from the Gods can enter one of their transient structures.”
“Once more, but slower, and with smaller words,” Derrick said.
“The clockwork rooms don’t…’exist’ in the same way the rest of a reality does. They’re special, and for special people only.”
“And you’re not special enough?” Arridon concluded.
“My mum might say otherwise, but that’s the gist,” he huffed.
“Will you be safe here?” Derrick asked.
“That depends on your definition of ‘safe.’ Most of us will be dead within a day or two, regardless of where we are standing. It’s going to be a rather bad war. But hearing that the moon will be colonized after gives me some hope. Even if the Bleed will arrive there eventually. It’s inevitable, I suppose.”
“What will you do?” Arridon asked.
“Well, I’m going to enjoy what’s left of my pipe tobacco, try to get a message to my Jenny though the channels that still function, and then, not long after, I’ll be incinerated in a nuclear explosion or poisoned with some form of toxic gas. It’s apt to be a busy time.” Phil was strangely cheery.
“Why aren’t you afraid? I’d be going out of my damned mind! Digging a hole in the soil to hide under.”
“Coming here with my wife was our hole,” he said, no longer cheerful. “We wanted to protect Jenny. And now, Jenny’s the one about to bring it all down,” Phil said, pointing at the posters of the hostile woman. “I
