Copper Ravens(30)

“Why not? I like to know what’s going on.”

“Max! We’re wanted! If they find you, it’s back to the Institute!”

“Nah. You pretty much destroyed it, remember?”

And I wanted to hit him again. As if Micah and I—and Sadie and Mom, for that matter—hadn’t risked everything to get him back. In the case of Sadie, she had lost almost everything, from her dream career to her sense of safety. Before I could well and truly give Max a piece of my mind, he brought me back to the one subject even I couldn’t dispute.

“Listen, after the war ended, Armstrong was the engineer behind all the Elementals getting rounded up,” he said. “I bet he’s got some intel on Dad.”

For a moment, I almost accused Max of having tunnel vision, being that his singular goal in life was creating foolish, not to mention “likely to get him killed super extra dead,” plans in order to find out what had happened to Dad. He never acted with the tiniest bit of common sense or self-preservation, and I was sick and tired of his attitude.

Instead, I shut my mouth with a clack. Dammit, I wanted to know what happened to our father just as badly as he did.

And that was how Max and I ended up skulking around the Mundane realm about half an hour later. We’d hopped through the static portal at the wooded edge of the Whispering Dell, which had brought us right to my former employer’s parking lot.

“You really worked in that monstrosity?”

I tore my eyes away from the Lovers’ Pine and followed Max’s gaze toward the concrete box that housed the sham company of Real Estate Evaluation Services. “Yeah. I worked there with Juliana for a little more than a year.”

Max shuddered. “Place looks like a cross between a mausoleum and a prison.”

“I don’t know,” I said, scrutinizing the unopenable windows and badly maintained entrance. Someone should really trim the shrubbery. “It kinda reminds me of the Institute.”

“Same thing.”

Even though REES appeared to have been abandoned, Max and I knew better than to underestimate Peacekeepers. Well, I did; I think Max just wanted to play spy. Instead of walking across the parking lot to the sidewalk, we went to the back of the lot, scrambled over the fence (which, thankfully, wasn’t electrified) and slunk around the abandoned office park. In no time, we were walking through the Promenade Market’s main entrance.

“C’mon,” Max said, turning up his jacket collar. My brother, the master of disguise. “Let’s see what’s up.”

My heart raced and my palms sweated as we approached the wide entrance, and I imagined that our faces were plastered across those “most wanted” posters that decorate post offices. But there weren’t any posters, at least not that I could see, and, being that it was still early, I didn’t even see any armed Peacekeepers prowling among the stalls.

Then we were in the maze of crooked streets crammed full of booths and hawkers and a wave of homesickness hit me full-force. I missed the afternoons Juliana and I used to waste away, trolling this overgrown junk shop, searching for prewar books and movies, funky shoes that I never had the guts to wear in public, and, most often, lunch. The market had a whole section of booths that sold non-government sanctioned foods, like real cheese and hearty bread, as long as you knew who to ask. It was pricey, but so very worth it. While the government-run grocery stores were a lot cheaper, and legal, you could only buy processed crap that tasted like sawdust or rubber.

Max raised an eyebrow when he saw me eyeing a selection of aged cheddar. “Cheese?”

“I like cheese.” I sighed; since I didn’t have any Mundane money, I was doomed to admire the dairy from afar. Max shook his head and took off toward the newsstand. I, dutiful sister that I was, followed. What I saw on the racks shocked the hell out of me.

Each and every periodical bore an image of Mike Armstrong’s face plastered across its cover. Some of the photographs were in profile, showcasing his bulbous nose and a hairline that had receded like the tide; some were full frontal shots, full of smiling, too-white teeth. There was even one of him holding a baby. I hoped it was a doll; I mean, what mother would be foolish enough to hand her baby over to that lunatic?

I glanced around; I was surrounded by people discussing Armstrong’s excellent plans to restore Pacifica to its former glory, mothers included. I guessed I had found the fools.

While the photographs differed, the headlines were nearly identical; over and over, Dr. Mike Armstrong was lauded as the human race’s savior, the man who had effectively squashed the Elemental menace.

“Menace?” I mumbled. I hadn’t meant to strike up a conversation, but a woman near me overhead my musings.