Oh, my God...
While the newsies interviewed shaken eyewitnesses, station security zipped up a body bag with an extremely deceased individual inside. It wasn't the first time Margo had seen a dead person. Not even the second. And her mother's murder had been far more brutal a shock. But blood had stained the golden "bricks" of El Dorado's floor, leaking down between the paving stones in rivulets and runnels, where Margo had never expected to see it. And if that glimpse into the body bag had been accurate, the dead man had been shot in the face, point-blank.
With a very large caliber firearm.
What in God's name happened up here?
Margo began to tremble violently as the remembered smell of burnt toast and spreading, stinking puddles of blood smashed into her from her own childhood, from that long-ago morning when it had been her mother's body zipped up and carted out, and her father led away in handcuffs... . She wrapped both arms around herself, biting her lips to keep them from shaking. Violence like this happened in places like New York or London or even Minnesota, where drunkards beat their wives to death. But murder wasn't supposed to happen in a place like La-La Land, not where happy tourists gathered for vacations of a lifetime, where residents pursued dreams that came true every single day, where delightful amounts of money changed hands and everybody had fun in the process. Margo discovered she'd pressed the back of her hand against her mouth, unable to drag her gaze away from the macabre load as security carried away the grey zippered bag with the remains of a stranger inside.
Who is he? she wondered grimly. Or, rather, who had he been? He hadn't been dressed in a tourist costume, or as one of those construction workers building the new section of the station. More than a dozen of the Arabian Nights crewmen, bruised and bleeding, were being dragged off in handcuffs. Then station medical arrived, having to fight their way past newsies filming white-faced, bleeding, dazed survivors. Among the worst injured were the Lady of Heaven Templars, members of the cult which had singled out Ianira as their prophetess. And Ianira was missing, might be dead... . Ugly cuts, swollen bruises, and visibly broken bones had so badly injured more than a dozen Templars, medi-vans were required to rush them out of the riot zone.
"Margo!"
She stumbled around, dazed, and found her grandfather cutting through the crowd like an ice-breaking ship plowing through arctic seas. Margo ran to him, threw her arms around him. "Kit!"
Her grandfather hugged her close for a long moment, then murmured, "Hey, it's over, Imp, what's wrong?" He peered worriedly into her eyes.
"I know." She gulped, feeling stupid from lingering shock. "It's just... stuff like that isn't supposed to happen. Not here."
Lines of grief etched deeper into Kit's lean cheeks. "I know," he said quietly. "It isn't. I hate it, too. Which is why we're going to do something about it."
"Do what? I mean, what can we possibly do? And what happened, exactly? I got here a little late."
Kit thinned his lips. "Ansar Majlis is what happened."
"Answer who?"
The grim look in his eyes frightened Margo, worse than she was already. "Ansar Majlis," he said it again. "The Ansar Majlis Brotherhood is one of the most dangerous cults to form up time in the past fifty years. Where's Ann?"
"On the weapons range. She stayed with Dr. Feroz and the tourists, to keep anybody else from leaving. I tried to catch up with the reporters. They went charging straight up here, but they outran me." She ducked her head. "I'm sorry. I did try to stop them."
Kit muttered under his breath. "I'm sure you did. Listen, Imp, we've got big trouble on this station, with Ianira Cassondra missing. I don't have to tell you the repercussions of that, both on station and up time. And with the Ansar Majlis involved, this riot may be the first of a whole lot of station riots. When word of this gets out..." He thinned his lips. "Next time Primary cycles, we are going to be neck deep in more trouble than you can shake an entire tree at. I want you to find Marcus. Try the Down Time Bar & Grill. Tell him we need search parties organized, Found Ones as well as up-time residents. And see if you can find out how Skeeter is."
"Skeeter's hurt? Ann said there'd been a shooting..." She swallowed hard, abruptly queasy to her toes. Margo and Skeeter Jackson might have a mutually uncivil history, but the idea of someone having shot the admittedly charming, one-time con artist left Margo sicker and colder than before. She'd gradually been changing her opinion of Skeeter Jackson, particularly since he'd become Marcus and Ianira's latest rescue project. An apparently successful one.
But Kit was shaking his head. "No, not shot, just banged up. Security said he had a lump on his temple the size of a goose egg. Should've had medical look at it, but he bolted into this mess, trying to find Ianira. Get Marcus busy organizing the Found Ones, okay? And find out if Marcus needs help looking after the girls."
Margo drew a shaky breath. "Kit..."
If we can't find Ianira, ever...
"Yes, I know. When you've got all that set up, meet me at the aerie."
"Bull's office? Won't Bull be busy conducting the official investigation?"
"Yes. Which is why you and I are going to be there." When Margo gave him her best look of blank befuddlement, Kit explained. "In a major station emergency, every single time scout in residence becomes a de facto member of station security. Same with the independent guides, the ones not on a company payroll, or with specific tour commitments to meet. And I'd say a riot, a murder, and a kidnapping qualify as a major station emergency in anybody's book. We're going to be busy, Margo, busier than you've been since you arrived on station."
He must have noticed the sudden panic Margo couldn't choke down, try as she might, because he said more gently, "Don't worry about the Ripper Watch tour, kid. You'll get to London, all right. But the Britannia doesn't open for almost six and a half hours and right now, we've got a murderer loose somewhere in this station. A killer who's very likely got Ianira Cassondra in his hands."
Margo shuddered. It was one thing, studying a serial murderer like Jack the Ripper, whose victims were quite well known. Hunting for a madman loose in TT-86 was another prospect altogether—one that terrified her. "Okay, Kit." She managed to keep her voice fairly steady. "I'll find Marcus, get the down-timers organized, try to find out about Skeeter, then meet you at Bull's office."
"Good girl. And for God's sake, Imp, don't let those damned newsies follow you!"
She tried to imagine the kind of story any reporter would take up time about this disaster, tried to imagine the impact that story would have, particularly the disappearance of the inspiration for the fastest-growing cult religion in the world, and nodded, jaw clenched.
"Right."
"Get moving, then. I'll see you later."
Margo turned her back on the chaos of the riot zone and headed for the popular residents' bar where Marcus worked, wondering how badly Skeeter had been injured and just who had grabbed Ianira—and what they were doing to her, now they had her. Margo bit her lip. What would Marcus do if they couldn't find her? Or if—she swallowed hard at the thought—if they didn't find her alive? And their little girls? They weren't even old enough to understand what had happened...
Margo's fear edged over into terror, mingled with helpless anger. If those little girls had been left motherless... Today's riot would be small potatoes compared to the explosion yet to come. And violence of that magnitude could get a station closed down, permanently. Even one as famous and profitable as TT-86. After the bombing destruction of TT-66 by whichever group of middle eastern religious fanatics had blown the station sky-high, all it would take was another major station rocked by violence to shut down the whole time-tourism industry. There was already a powerful up-time senator trying to close down the stations. If TT-86 went under because of riots and on-station murders, Kit wouldn't need to kick her out of time-scout training to wreck her dreams.