And where was she now?
She sat up and pain jolted up her leg again. Wincing, she felt down to her ankle and discovered that she was bleeding. “Shit.” And then she remembered — she hadn’t been alone on the scaffolding. She searched the area around her with blind hands. “Pony! Oh, gods, Pony!”
There was a loud, metal clank and then the squeal of hinges as a door opened somewhere out in the darkness. Someone was coming. It dawned on her that might not be a good thing; the Ghostlands had been the oni compound. She groped at her side and found her pistol.
A flashlight flicked on some fifty feet away, its light a solid beam in smoky air. As it swept the room, her eyes adjusted, and she made out the figure of a being standing in the open doorway. The shock of hair, the sharp beak of a nose, and the tall lean body suggested a tengu.
She covered her mouth and nose to muffle her breathing.
The tengu moved toward her, shining his flashlight onto pieces of equipment on either side of the room — large tanks, pipes, pumps, and pieces of computer monitoring stations.
’Go away, go away, go away,’ she thought hard at him.
The tengu paused at one of the monitoring stations, checking the gauges there, and then moved to the second one. Grunting at what he found, he turned and ran his light high along the back wall. The beam swept over her head, moved on, stopped and returned to a point a few feet above her.
Gripping her pistol tight, she glanced up to see what caught the tengu’s attention. A smear of fresh blood led down to her.
’Don’t look. Just move on. There’s nothing here to see.’
Inexorable, the light slid downwards to shine on her.
Squinting against the brilliance, she pointed her pistol at the tengu. “That’s far enough.”
“Well, well,” the tengu spoke English with a heavy accent, the flashlight obscuring his features. “You’re what’s down here making so much noise.”
“Where is Pony? What have you done to him?”
Confusion filled the tengu’s face. “We don’t have any ponies here.”
“Where am I?”
“You don’t know?”
“Answer me, damn it!”
“Water storage.”
That explained the tanks, pipes and liquid sounds. “Okay, you’re going to walk me out of here.”
“Walk?” He closed the distance between and crouched down in front of her, twisting the flashlight’s base so it became a lantern, bathing them both in soft light. He was an older version of Riki, from the electric blue eyes under thick unruly black hair to the bird-like cock of his head. “Walk where?”
She tried to hold the gun steady but reaction from her fall was setting in, making her tremble. “Out of this place.”
“You — you want to go outside?”
“Yes.”
“Where exactly do you think we are?” He seemed more puzzled than alarmed, ignoring her gun to search her eyes.
“Water Storage.”
“Which is…where?”
“What is so hard to understand about this? I’ve got a gun and I’m willing use it. You either get me out, or I’ll shoot you.”
“Okay, okay, my English, it’s good but not perfect. I don’t understand what you want, Princess.”
“Oh, please, don’t call me that; technically I am not a princess.”
“Oookay.” He acted like this was a hard concept to wrap his brain around. “What should I call you?”
“Tinker. Of the Wind Clan.”
“I’m Jin Wong.”
Tinker knew she had heard the name before, but she couldn’t place it. “Jin, I want to go home, and you’re going to take me.”
He sighed and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Tinker, but you’re going to need to give me the gun before I can take you anywhere.”
“Like hell.”
“You’re hurt.”
“I’m fine.” And she scrambled to her feet to prove it. When she tried to put weight on her left foot, though, pain jolted up her ankle.
Jin had stood with her — as to be expected, he was at least a foot taller than she was. He wore a dark polo shirt with his name embroidered over his heart, dark nylon pants and white socks, all stained with soot, oil and blood. He stepped to her as she sagged back against the wall, hissing against the sudden agony.
“Don’t touch me.” She stopped him by raising the pistol.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Are all you tengu liars at birth?”
“No,” he said after a moment of surprised silence. “Our mothers’ give us lying lessons so we can tell when someone is lying.”
He looked down at her foot to indicate what he thought she was lying about.
“My ankle is just twisted,” Tinker snapped.
“Just to point out the obvious, if you shoot me, you’re going to have to crawl out of here.” He held out his hand. “And I’m not going to let you out of this room with the gun. So just give me the pistol, and I’ll do what you want.”
“I give you my gun and you’ll turn me over to the oni.”
“There are no oni here.”
“Liar.”
“We lie, but tengu still have honor. I give you my word — you won’t be harmed.”
They stood there at impasse, half in shadows, the gun growing heavy in her hand. She had fought to the death before, but she’d never shot someone in cold blood. She wasn’t sure she could actually do it and live with herself afterwards — certainly not after exchanging names and carrying on a civil conversation.
“I’m so screwed.” Sighing, she unloaded the pistol, pocketed the clip, checked the chamber and handed him the empty gun.
“I’ll take care of you.” He tucked the pistol between two pipes near the ceiling, way out of her reach. “I promise.”
“Bleah.” She wished she could believe him. Had Riki broken his word? Or had he actually never given her any promises, knowing full well that he couldn’t keep them? She couldn’t remember.
Jin produced sterile bandages out of his pocket and dealt with the shallow, bleeding cut on her ankle. He slipped an arm around her, then and helped her up. As he supported her, they headed toward the door.
The room was a maze of tanks and pipes, gurgling ominously. At the end of the room, they stepped through a low steel door, reminiscent of old submarine movies, and into another low ceiling room of mystery machines. What the hell did the oni have buried under Pittsburgh? She seethed with anger that Rikki hadn’t warned her about this.
“What the hell is this place, anyway?” she asked.
“This is life support.”
She scoffed at that. Life support made it sound like a damn space ship.
At the far end of the room, she could see there was a narrow, tall window. It gave her pause. Who put a window in an underground area? She forced Jin to detour through the equipment to look out it. At first she only saw night sky, above and below them, which confused her more. When she fallen? It was mid-morning — wasn’t it? And how do you fall into the ground and end up above it? The stars more brilliant than she ever seen them. And they seemed to be moving — which really meant she was.
A planet rose on the horizon, filling it completely.
She’d seen enough photos of Earth from orbit to recognize the luminescent blue swirled with gleaming white clouds. The sight of it punched the air out of her; she stood gasping, like a fish suddenly finding itself out of water, trying to get her breath back. The planet rose, filling the window, evidence that the ship she was on was rotating to maintain artificial gravity.
“No — we can’t be — this isn’t possible. This is a trick. I can’t be in space. I was in Pittsburgh. You don’t fall in Pittsburgh and land in orbit.” She couldn’t be in space. Could she? “You don’t fall in Pittsburgh and land in orbit,” she whispered again. But she hadn’t fallen to ground, but into the discontinuity — who knew what all was tied into that knot of realities? “Oh gods, where am I?”