Frank Beddor - Seeing Redd

Jack scurried underneath his bunk, squeezing as far back as he could to keep from sight. Peeking out, he saw guards exchanging fire with a shadowy enemy, the razor-cards of their AD52s (automatic dealers capable of shooting a deck’s worth with a single pull of the trigger) zipping past, searing through the night sky.

A figure stepped through the blasted hole into the dorm. “Jack of Diamonds?”

Jack hustled out from under his bunk and approached the figure with open arms, as if welcoming a guest to his drawing room. “What took you so long, my good man?”

“We have to be quick,” the figure said.

Jack bowed to his dorm mates, who lay in various degrees of dishevelment and shock from the blast. “Gentlemen, I bid you farewell. My parents’ emissary has arrived to take me home!”

And with that, Jack of Diamonds escaped the Crystal Mines.

T HE BRIEFING room hadn’t yet been used in its official capacity: thrice-daily meetings during which Bibwit, Dodge, General Doppelganger, and Alyss’ other advisers would apprise the queen of pressing Wonderland business, be it financial, political, or militaristic.

“What’s this I hear about you refusing to come to my party?” Alyss teased, forcing a professional smile onto her face as she glided into the room-hexagonal in shape, with holographic viewing screens lining the walls and, at its center, a thick, heavy conference table carved from a single slab of soapstone.

King Arch was not one for teasing. He turned from his intel ministers, with whom he’d been conferring in a lowered voice. “Queen Alyss,” he said, “I make no secret of my prejudices. I don’t believe the turmoil Wonderland has recently endured would have happened were it a kingdom instead of a queendom. But I have come to pay what respects I can to you, for between you and your aunt Redd, I much prefer having you as a neighbor.”

“Thank you, I think,” said Alyss. “Shall we sit?”

The holo-screens were displaying real-time scenes from Wondertropolis’ major thoroughfares and intersections. Arch lowered himself into a chair before the screen showing the newly-named Genevieve Square. The intel ministers removed themselves to a corner of the room and remained standing while two fellows with faces as inscrutable as masks took up positions on either side of their king.

“I feel safe when I travel with them,” Arch said, noticing Alyss’ interest in his bodyguards. “Their names are Ripkins and Blister, and their combat skills, I think, would rival those of even the famed Hatter Madigan, though I’ve been informed that he has taken a sabbatical.”

Alyss nodded. “He needed some time to attend to personal matters. But he’s available to us if we need him.”

The truth was, neither she nor anyone else knew where Hatter had gone or when he’d return. On several occasions, she had stood next to the Heart Crystal to maximize her remote viewing ability, searching for him with her imagination’s eye. The Everlasting Forest, the Chessboard Desert, the Valley of Mushrooms, Outerwilderbeastia, even the Volcanic Plains: No matter where she looked, she failed to locate him. He seemed to have vanished from Wonderland altogether.

From out in the passage came a skiffling sound; Homburg Molly ran into the room and took up position at Alyss’ right flank.

“King Arch,” she said, “I’d like you to meet my bodyguard, Homburg Molly.”

Homburg Molly bowed, but at the sight of her-what with her coat a trifle too large and the heavy backpack that she wore awkwardly-the king laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Molly scowled.

Alyss placed a calming hand on the girl’s arm as King Arch struggled to control his laughter. The

walrus-butler toddled into the room with a pitcher of flugelberry wine, two goblets, and a platter of tarty tarts. After the wine had been poured and the walrus dismissed, Arch cleared his throat and reluctantly begged the queen’s pardon-her bodyguard’s too, of course. He did his best to look serious, but his amused glance kept returning to Molly.

“So, where’s the Heart Crystal?” he asked. “I was hoping to have a hologram made of me basking in its glow.”

“I wouldn’t have thought the crystal was of interest to you,” Alyss answered. “Possession of it means little to those not gifted in imagination.”

Arch waved a hand, dismissive. “Just like a woman not to listen. I didn’t say I wanted to possess it, Your Highness. Personally, I find whatever it is you do with your oh-so-powerful imagination to be overrated. Consider me a tourist who has come to see Wondertropolis’ main attractions. I’m sure you’ll grant that the Heart Crystal, as the source of creative inspiration for the cosmos, is among those?”

“We no longer keep it in the open.”

“But I thought Redd had been disposed of. What is the harm in keeping it somewhere for the public to enjoy?”

Disposed of. We can only hope.

Alyss and her advisers had discussed sending a small force into the Heart Crystal in pursuit of Redd and The Cat, which Dodge had volunteered to command. But the risks involved and the unlikelihood of the mission meeting with success had argued against it. No living thing had ever passed through the crystal and there was no guarantee that a physical body survived. Alyss had come up with an alternate plan.

“Bibwit,” she had said, “you’ve claimed that because Redd passed through the Heart Crystal, my aunt in the form we knew her might no longer exist?”

“I have claimed that,” Bibwit had admitted, “and a great many other things too.”

“And whatever passes into the crystal goes out into the universe to inspire imaginations in other worlds-most specifically, Earth, the world that has the most direct link to ours?”

“Sounds familiar.”

So she had suggested that Hatters Rohin and Tock, two of the most gifted among the new Millinery class, travel to Earth through the Pool of Tears, to keep watch for signs of Redd, The Cat, or the influence of either.

“Hunh,” Arch said when he heard Redd’s death had not been assured. He reached for a tarty tart and tossed it to one of his bodyguards.

The guard made a show of flexing his fingertips: Glinting sawteeth pushed out of the skin in the exact whorling patterns of his fingerprints. Without a wince of emotion, with hands moving as fast as the spinning blades of Hatter Madigan’s top hat, he reduced the tarty tart to a pile of crumbs, then nodded to Arch: The food was safe to eat. The sawteeth sunk back into the skin of his fingers, and Arch helped himself to a tarty tart and finished it off in one and a half manly bites.

“I see that Mr. Ripkins deserves his name,” Alyss said, for as she used her imagination to fuse the tarty tart crumbs back together, she noted that they weren’t crumbs at all, but shreds. He had ripped the treat apart.

The king pretended not to notice the tart settling on the platter, again in one piece and ready to be properly consumed. “My guards are prodigies when it comes to more traditional modes of combat,” he said, looking at Homburg Molly. “Blades, orbs, crystal shooters, what have you. But why should I limit them to traditional modes when they can do so much more?”

He snapped his fingers. One of his intel ministers stepped forward and pushed up his sleeve. Blister lowered an index finger toward the minister’s forearm.

“Ah, ah,” Arch said, and waggled a pinkie. “We don’t want him permanently scarred, do we?”

Blister pressed the tip of his pinkie against the minister’s exposed skin. The minister clenched and began to sweat. His entire forearm blistered.

“It’s best to have it drained as soon as possible,” Arch explained, “otherwise complications arise.”