Rachel Caine: Ghost Town

She stared at him, helpless, and finally took one. They were fresh, so he’d actually gone out and gotten them. She could imagine how that had gone over at the local doughnut shop, especially given what he was wearing today. “Myrnin, have you been hunting?”

He raised his eyebrows and bit into a jelly-filled doughnut. Raspberry jam oozed out, and Claire swallowed hard.

After he licked his lips clean, he said, “Let’s look at your latest breakthrough, shall we?”

She followed him across to the back of the lab, where her own much saner-looking circuitry was sitting on another table, under another sheet. He’d made some . . . additions, she saw, in his usual nontraditional style. She couldn’t imagine how copper pipes and old-fashioned springs and levers were supposed to improve her work, and for a second she felt righteously angry. She’d worked hard on that, and like a bratty little kid, Myrnin had ruined it.

“What did you do?” she asked, a little too sharply, and Myrnin turned around slowly to stare at her.

“Improved the design,” he said, and this time his voice was cool, and not at all amused. “Science is collaboration, little girl. You are no scientist at all if you can’t accept improvements on your theory.”

“But—” Frustrated, she bit into her doughnut. She’d spent weeks working on this, and he’d promised he wouldn’t touch it while she was gone. She’d been so close to making it work! “How exactly did you improve it?”

For an answer, he reached over to the power cord—still modern, thank God—and plugged it into the outlet at the side of the table.

The computer monitor—LCD, perfectly good—had been given the Jules Verne treatment, too. It was almost invisible in a nest of pipes and springs and gears . . . but it came on, and Claire recognized the graphic interface she’d designed for him. She’d made it steampunky, of course, because she knew that made him happy, but with the ornaments on the outside it looked half-crazy.

Perfect for Myrnin, then.

She went through the touch-screen menus rapidly. Town security, town memory control, town transportation . . . Transportation and memory control had been the two things that hadn’t worked, but now, at least according to the interface, they did. She pressed the on-screen button for town transportation, and a map popped up, with glowing green spots for each of the stable doorways—like wormholes—that ran between Founder Houses in town, and throughout most of the public buildings. There were two at TPU, and two at the court-house, one in the hospital, some in places that she didn’t recognize.

But just because they were green on the screen didn’t mean they actually worked, of course.

“Have you tested it?” she asked.

Myrnin was finishing his doughnut. He wiped red from his lips and said, “Of course not. I’m far too valuable to waste on experiments. That’s your job, assistant.”

“But it works?”

“Theoretically,” he said, and shrugged. “Of course, I wouldn’t recommend a first-person test just yet. Try something inorganic first.”

Despite herself, Claire felt a little thrill of excitement. It’s working. Maybe. Transportation and memory control had been two impossible problems, and maybe, just maybe, they’d actually solved one of them. That meant the second wasn’t insurmountable, either.

She tried to keep that out of her expression, nodded, and walked to the wooden cabinet that covered the doorway that led to the lab. She tried to slide it. It wouldn’t budge. “Did you lock this in place or something?”

“Oh, no, I just stored some lead inside,” Myrnin said cheerfully, and with one hand he slid the heavy beast out of the way. “There you go. I forget you can’t actually move mountains; you do such a good imitation of it. I’ll move the lead to another location.”

She wasn’t sure if that was meant to be a compliment, so she said nothing, just focused on the portal in front of her. He’d put in a new locked door to cover it, and she had to go in search of the key to the padlock, because of course it wasn’t hanging on the hook where it was supposed to be. It took twenty minutes to locate it in the pocket of Myrnin’s ratty old bathrobe, which was hanging on an articulated human skeleton wired together in the corner of the lab—one of those old teaching tools, she hoped, and not a previous occupant of her own job.

Once she’d opened the door, what was beyond was an empty, dark space, leading . . . well, potentially to a horrible death.

Claire reached over and grabbed a book from a nearby stack, checked the title, and decided they could do without it. Then she concentrated, imagining the living room at the Glass House. It was harder to project that image into the portal than before, almost as if there were some kind of force fighting not to open the connection, but then the image resolved through with an almost audible pop and color spread out in front of her. Blurry at first, then slowly coming into focus.

“My God,” she breathed. “He actually made it work.”

Facing her was the back of the battered couch at home. She could see Michael’s acoustic guitar still propped up in his chair off to the side. The TV was off, so obviously Shane wasn’t up yet.

She flinched as a shadow walked in front of her, but it was only Eve, who crossed between the TV and the couch, still fastening her pigtails as she headed toward the kitchen.

“Hey!” Claire called. “Hey, Eve!”

Eve, puzzled, stopped and turned around, staring up toward the second floor, then looking at the TV.

“Over here!” Claire said. “Eve!”

Eve turned, and her eyes widened. “Claire? Oh, are the portals working?”

“No, stay there. I’m testing it.” Claire held up the book. “Here. Catch.”

She tossed the book through the open connection, and on the other side she saw Eve raise her hands.

The book hit Eve’s palms and crumbled into dust. Eve, surprised, let out a little squawk and jumped back, shaking the dust from her hands.

“Are you okay?” Claire asked anxiously.

“Yeah, just surprised. And filthy.” Eve held up her smudged palms. “Not quite there yet, right? Unless you wanted to pulverize people.”

“Not exactly.” Claire sighed. “Thanks. I’ll keep working on it. Sorry about the dirt.”

“Well, it’s not like we don’t have that on the floor. Michael was supposed to sweep; do you really think he’s done it?” Eve grinned. “Nice try with the weird science, but for now, I think I’ll stick with walking.”

She blew Claire a kiss, and Claire waved and stepped back. The color faded out again, turning Eve and the room to black-and-white, and then to just a sea of liquid darkness.

Myrnin was standing by her elbow when she looked over. He was tapping a finger on his lips. “That,” he said, “was very interesting. Also, you owe me a third-edition Johannes Magnus.”

“You have six of them already. But the important thing is, it’s almost working,” Claire said. “The stabilization’s off. But the connection’s working. That’s a huge step forward.”

“Not much of one if it turns us to ashes upon arrival. I can do that all on my own by strolling long enough in the sunlight. Well, it’s your problem now, Claire. I’m working on the other part.”

“What other—Oh. Wiping people’s memories when they leave Morganville.”

“Exactly. I’m actually getting quite close, I believe.”

“But you’re not going to use a brain. Other than your own, I mean.”

“Since you insist, I am trying it the hard way. I am not optimistic at all that this will ever work,” he said, and produced the box of doughnuts again, with a magician’s flourish. “One more?”