John Wright - Titans of Chaos

It meant all the things I would never have, all the life I would never lead.

I said heavily, "Deserted island."

No smiles greeted my decision. Neither Colin nor Vanity was too happy about leaving civilization; Quentin nodded, but was not pleased; Victor had his usual self-controlled expression.

I said, "Once there, we can perform certain experiments, such as seeing if Gyges' ring can make us invisible to other systems being used to track us. We can have Quentin take more readings from the stars and from the invisible people who live in the middle air. Victor can go through his blood library; Colin can try to learn music."

"Bleh," commented Colin. Then he said to Quentin, "Gimme the magic ring back, Big Q. I feel the need to disappear."

"Vanity can experiment with her green stone and discover what her capacities are. I can take up knitting or bird-watching or something. So wave bye-bye to the lights of the big city, people; we are going to go somewhere where there is nothing but sand, sand-fleas, sandpipers, and sand-crabs."

A moment of gloom hung over the group.

Vanity brightened up. "What about sandwiches?"

I blinked. Vanity sometimes acts the way she acts. "What witches?"

"I mean, we have to eat, don't we? We have to go ashore to get food! And supplies! And do some shopping! How much money is left?"

"Um... You have the envelope, don't you?" I asked Vanity.

"So I do! So I do! Well... ? It's not going to kill the humans if we just go ashore for a few hours, is it?"

"Well..."

I looked out over the water at the gleaming, brilliant city, the engineering wonder of the Golden Gate Bridge. I thought about hot running water. We had just been in a sea-fight, right? And I had missed the chance to shop in Paris, right?

"Well, okay," I said, finding myself beginning to smile, "but only until the noon high tide!"

Quentin said, "Leader, are you sure that this is wise... ?"

"Oh, come on!" I said, pouting. "I haven't even had a chance to spend a single pound-note of that money!"

The Creatures of Prometheus

We smuggled ourselves into the country.

Quentin and I were carried over by Colin first. We were standing in a little spot of greenery called Corona Heights Park, between Haight-Ashbury and Twin Peaks. Across the grass, I could see a little museum, austere and white. Across the street (which fell in dizzying straight steps toward the sea), I could see another park, shining with green trees, surrounded by houses and buildings with sharply peaked roofs of black slate, the ones nearer us carved with ornate gables and fluted columns. I had been expecting to see everything in California made of white plaster and red tile, Spanish architecture. The buildings near us had a Norwegian extravagance to them.

Across the other way, we had a perfectly breathtaking view of the metropolis; we stood on a tall hill overlooking the buildings, and only the tallest buildings (made blue by the distance) were level with us.

The air smelled differently than it did in England. It was warmer. A little bit, not much.

I said to Quentin, "Won't you get in trouble? Sneaking into a country?"

Quentin said, "Any other country, yes. Not this one."

"I thought you had to obey all the rules anyone makes, or else your spirit-friends turn on you."

"Some rules carry more weight than others. The invitation on the base of the Statue of Liberty-and I assure you that I am a huddled mass right now, yearning to breathe free, and I certainly am tired, poor, and homeless, not to mention tempest-tossed-that invitation opens the ward and acts as consent to permit me into the country. My friends regard that statue as a tribute to the reigning goddess here, no matter what the human lawmakers say or do. She is a symbol, and her name is Mother of Exiles. The spirit world pays more heed to symbols than to mere words. They would have to knock Liberty's arm off, or douse the torch, in order to revoke that invitation."

I hugged myself. "It is colder than I thought here."

Quentin raised his hand and waved at some joggers bouncing by, little electronic gizmos in their ears. One of the girls waved back. Apparently his sweeping black robes and five-foot warlock wand did not seem odd or out of place here. Did I mention we were not far away from Haight-Ashbury?

There was an invisible stirring in the air near us, the grass shivered and blew, and I suddenly became aware of a giant black bird carrying Vanity and Victor in its talons. Quentin pointed his wand at the bird, spoke a word in Latin, and Colin was there. All three sort of tumbled to the ground. Well, not exactly all three; Victor caught Vanity. All one tumbled to the ground.

"Ouch," mentioned Colin. "Warn me next time." He fiddled with the ring on his finger to make sure the collet was pointing outward. The ring had been on his talon claw a moment before, which should have been his foot. He had also not been dressed and had enjoyed a different mass. I guess his paradigm just did not worry about details like that.

First order of business was changing money. We spent an hour or so sight-seeing, watching trolley cars go by, that sort of thing, waiting for the banks to open.

Finally, we went into one. The metal detectors at the door decided not to go off when Victor entered, even though he was wearing forty pounds of chain mail under his long white jacket.

Guess how that happened... ?

The bank was enormous, bright with streamlined columns of gold, and a floor of shining marble.

There was an art deco statue of Atlas shouldering his globe in the center. A golden figure with a torch streamed across a high upper panel above the glassed-in counter. A repeating design of wheels with wings sprouting from their hubs ran to the figure's left and right. The place looked like a temple, but more grand.

And it was convenient. We did not have to show any paperwork or visas; the clerk at the exchange desk looked up the current exchange rates, explained there was a fee, took our British pound-notes, and gave us Yankee greenbacks. Voila.

I noticed, as the people waited in line, one underclass type, a poorly dressed day laborer from the look of him, who got waited on when his turn came. The clerks did not move to the more nicely dressed gentlemen first. That is not the way it happens in British shops. It was also hard to tell a person's class by how he dressed. The Americans all dressed pretty much the same. Even the bank clerks did not wear neckties. It was all so Bohemian and informal. I overheard one clerk calling his manager-a woman, mind you- by her Christian name, rather than by her family name. Small wonder they call this the New World.

It was not until we were outside again that I noticed one drawback. We were standing on the sidewalk, near a hot-dog vendor. I said to Vanity, "Can you buy me some breakfast? I've never had a real Chicago chili dog."

"This isn't Chicago!" she said.

"The sign says-"

"Oh, Amelia, that's just advertising.... Where is your money?"