J. Mitchell - Midnight City

He studied the front of the store, shining the light back and forth. If he remembered right, this was where they used to keep them. He looked at the shelves, item by item… and found what he was looking for.

AM/FM radios, still new in their dusty boxes.

Holt smiled broadly. His radio had died on him a few months ago, and he’d been looking to replace it ever since. But working radios were becoming more and more valuable. And here he was with a shelf full of them.

He should take two or three extras for trade, Holt decided. Survival dictated it.

But before Holt reached for them, he spied something else on the smaller shelves in front of the register. Colorful packages of candy and sugary snacks of all kinds, all glittering under the beam. There was taffy for Max. Bubble gum. And there were other choices, too. One of them stood out prominently, sealed in its plastic sleeves.

Hostess CupCakes.

Holt remembered Mira’s words, remembered the feeling of her head in his lap, the softness of her hair. Those feelings were still eliciting frustration from him… but not nearly so much as they had been.

The CupCakes were easier to reach than the radios, and Holt, almost on instinct, hung down and grabbed two packages. The new backpack was almost full now, so he placed one in the new one and another in his trusty old one.

What’s the harm? he thought. It might make her more cooperative. Plus, she would certainly smile when she saw them, which wasn’t a bad thing either.

Holt moved for the radios, the last thing he needed. He hung down from the rafters again, stretching for them.

As Holt’s fingers brushed the tops of the radio boxes, he noticed something along the wall just in front of him, and he aimed the flashlight in his mouth toward it.

The wall contained strange, long markings, running from top to bottom. They were in groups of five. And about the same distance apart as the fingers of a human hand.

It wasn’t a coincidence, Holt realized. They were scratch marks. Human scratch marks. And as Holt shone the light on the wall in all directions, he could see the entire thing was full of them, from one end to the other, dug deeply into the drywall and plaster.

Holt looked at all the scratch marks revealed in the light… and felt knots form in his stomach.

MIRA SAT ON THE FLOOR in front of Zoey and Max. The dog was almost done with his taffy, and in the resulting sugar high, was content to let Mira do what she wished.

Mira had several items from her pack laid out in front of her. Two pennies wrapped in plastic sleeves, a small magnet, a piece of copper wire tied into a circle, and the roll of duct tape.

Zoey studied each artifact in turn, curious and confused at the same time.

“It takes three types of artifacts to make the most basic combination,” Mira began. “First, you need a power source, which is always two Strange Lands coins of the same denomination. The higher the denomination, the more powerful the artifact. Coins also determine the ‘polarity’ of the artifact combination. Placing them with the same sides facing out is a ‘positive’ polarity, and different sides facing out is ‘negative’. Got it so far?”

Zoey looked at her with wrinkled eyebrows. She clearly didn’t. Mira pushed on, making a note to try to simplify her language.

“Second, you need what’s called an Essence. The Essence defines what primary effect the artifact has. And third, a Focus, which says how the effect of the Essence manifests. In this case—” Mira pointed to the artifacts from her pack. “—the pennies are the power source, which means it will be a very low-powered artifact, and we’ll place them in negative polarity.

“The magnet will be the Essence. The effect of magnets with a single Focus involves gravity.” Mira placed the first penny tails side out next to the magnet. Then she put the circle of copper wire next to it. “The copper wire’s the Focus, and it will channel the Essence into a circle.”

Mira placed the last coin on the other side of the object, heads out. “Since the coins are aligned negatively, what do you think the effect will be on the gravity generated by the Essence?”

Zoey considered the artifacts, lined up and touching, ready to be wrapped together. Mira wondered how much smarter, if at all, Zoey was than other kids her age. There was no denying she had powers, and more of them were showing every day, but was heightened intellect one of them?

“It… decreases the gravity?” Zoey asked, slightly unsure.

Mira smiled. “Yep. That’s right. If it were positively aligned, it would increase the gravity.” So she was smart as well. Interesting…

Mira taped the objects together. The air around the artifact shimmered and hummed as the Interfusion took hold, the merging of the separate artifacts into one combination. Then, the humming vanished…

Zoey watched the lump of duct tape on the old hotel room floor with excited expectation. Initially, nothing happened.

And then, the artifact slowly began to spin on the floor.

It spun round and round, in a slow, lazy circle. Then it spun faster. And faster. And faster. And finally… rose into midair and floated upward, farther and farther off the floor.

Zoey clapped her hands. Max stopped his chewing, cocking his head to look at the floating artifact. He whined at the sight of it.

It kept spinning, kept rising, until it hit the ceiling. Even there, it kept rotating, trying to push through the roof. Zoey watched it in wonder.

Mira smiled, watching the little girl stare up at the simple artifact combination she’d made incessantly spinning into the ceiling. The first time Mira had seen an artifact do something like that, she’d probably been Zoey’s age. The sight had captivated her, and she immediately wanted to learn everything she could about the Strange Lands and the artifacts people brought out of it.

She had known right then that she wanted to be a Freebooter.

The artifacts were the closest thing the world had ever had to magic. For a long time, Mira had thought they were the key to everything, objects of unlimited possibility. Maybe to hold off the Tone, maybe even to repel the Assembly. Things that had happened to her, recent things, made her not so sure. But it still made her happy to see Zoey so engrossed.

“Would you like an artifact of your own, Zoey?” Mira asked.

“Yes!” Zoey exclaimed.

Mira pulled the collection of necklaces she wore out of her shirt, about half a dozen strands. One was a gold chain that held a small pair of brass dice on the end. Mira examined it somberly. She hadn’t thought about that necklace, or what it represented, in a while, even though she put it on every day. She wasn’t sure if that was by choice or by instinct. Quickly she stuffed it back into her shirt and looked at two of the other necklaces, each with a tiny but working compass attached to the chain as charms. Mira slipped one off her neck and handed it to Zoey. The little girl studied it oddly. It wasn’t what she’d been expecting, clearly.

“These little compasses are artifacts,” Mira said, “and they’re linked. Instead of pointing due north… they always point at each other, no matter how far apart they are.”

Mira watched Zoey expectantly, and the little girl slipped it over her head.

“Look at yours,” Mira said, holding hers up for Zoey to see. Zoey did the same thing.

It was as Mira had said. The compass needles pointed directly at each other. Mira and Zoey smiled.

“Now we’ll always be connected,” Zoey said.

Mira nodded. “That’s right. Always.”

A sound suddenly came from one of the walls.

An odd sound, a sound that Mira didn’t instantly recognize. She, Zoey, and Max turned to the wall, looked at it warily.