The Flight of the Silvers (Silvers #1)(88)

“Motley assortment here. Four adults and two teens. I’d guess they were all kin if it wasn’t for the chinny. Where do you think he fits in all this?”

Melissa studied Theo’s ghost. “They wouldn’t have left him near the revolver if they didn’t trust him. Whoever he is, he’s one of them. He’s not Chinese, by the way.”

“How do you know?”

“The tattoo on his left wrist is Baybayin. It’s an old writing script of the Philippines, pre–Spanish colonialization.”

Melissa had been on Cahill’s staff for twenty-two months now. In her early days, he feared she was hopelessly out of her element, a fish in the desert. Now he wished he could clone a whole team of her.

“If you want to embarrass me further, you can tell me what the ink says.”

“It’s been years since I studied the language,” Melissa confessed. “Best I can figure, it says rama. Or possibly kama.”

“Kama?”

It wasn’t until she said it out loud that Melissa fit the pieces together. “Karma, sir.”

For the hundredth time, Cahill locked his gaze on Amanda and her great tempic arms.

“I get the sense that none of these people are out hunting for victims. They only attack when cornered. I suppose I should find some comfort in that. At the moment, I just want to break out the wet card and drink myself silly.”

“Understandable, sir. I imagine you’ll be postponing your sunset now.”

“Why in worlds would you think that?”

Melissa laughed. “Are you joking? A case like this?”

Andy Cahill was set to retire in three weeks. He’d been a Dep for over forty years, since the days before tempis and aeris, juving and shifting. Like the Silvers, he’d been born into a world where time only moved in one speed and direction. Cahill had adjusted to the new reality better than most of his generation.

But now it seemed the game had changed again, and this time he wasn’t ready to follow. He was old, he was tired, and he had Melissa now. She was sharper than anyone he’d ever worked with. She had decades left to her.

“Darling, the minute I get back to the office, I’m making you the lead on this case.”

“Sir, I’m not at a level to—”

“You will be. I’m putting in those papers too. You’re ready for this. Trust me.”

“All respect, sir, it’s not my readiness that concerns me. The directors—”

“I’ll handle the idiots above me. You’ll have to handle the idiots below. A lot of them won’t like the fact that you’re cutting in line. And others . . . well, I don’t have to tell you why they’ll have problems. You’ll just have to earn their trust or push them out of the way.”

Cahill held her arm, then jerked his head at Amanda’s ghost.

“Just promise me you’ll find these people. Whoever they are, they’re scared, they’re reckless, and they’re powerful. You track them down. You haul them in. And for the ones who hurt those troopers, you make damn sure to give them their due karma.”

The chief interrupted them with updates. His men had just discovered the original van in question, abandoned twelve miles away at the edge of a national forest. Additionally, the registered owner of the vehicle—one Martin Salgado—had been located in Terra Vista. He and his son were found hunched forward in the front seat of a drifting aerocruiser. Cause of death was currently unknown.

Having two fresh new avenues to explore, two dotted lines to the dangerous oddities, Melissa Masaad took a heavy breath, then plotted her next several moves.





SEVENTEEN




For those traveling east, Ramona was the last pocket of suburbia in San Diego County. The town was home to fifty thousand people, twice the population of the Ramona that had existed on the Silvers’ world. In the wake of the Cataclysm, millions of East Coast emigrants made a cold rush on California, crowding every city, burg, and hamlet until the state cracked in half. By 1940—when Ramona, CA, became Ramona, CS—the local headcount had tripled and the town had bulged a half mile in every direction.

Theo groaned like an old man as he hunkered down on a wooden park bench. He’d spent the last four hours trekking through the margins of civilization, all the ranches and branches and gulches of South California. He wanted nothing more than to take a deep nap, but he knew from experience that cops didn’t take kindly to rumpled dozers. The last thing the group needed was more police attention.

At 11:30 on a Monday morning, the playground park was only minimally occupied by human life—two mothers, three toddlers, and four weary Silvers. A string of single-level storefronts lined the street across from Theo, brandishing offers both familiar and strange. An auto supply shop professed to be the number one place for custom liftplates and swore that none of their parts were tooped. A spa clinic advertised a special on Circadian Adjustment Therapy, inviting all to Extend Your Day the Natural Way. A business called Farsight Professional Augury peddled fortune-telling services with the elegant veneer of a bank. A fancy sign boasted that their staff had a prediction accuracy rating of 68%.* Theo was too far away to read the asterisk’s fine print.

He rested his face in his palms, dreading all the new headaches ahead of him. He was used to wandering cashless through California, but never sober, and always alone. He wondered if he’d be better off without the group, and vice versa. He didn’t know them very well (and vice versa). Besides, what did he bring to the table? He wasn’t all that resourceful, and he didn’t sport an eerie talent like each of them did. Of course, after witnessing Amanda’s tempic blowup, Theo didn’t feel too bad about being left off the weirdness wagon.