Chapter 2

Delvin sat on top of a grassy hill, Walter’s hill. The thick plush lawn beneath him stretched out across a shallow valley until it collided with the Deadworks complex, gleaming against the deep blue sky. Delvin followed the line of buildings, each rising up right next to its neighbor, each growing out of the preceding. A large modern steel and glass building butted up against an older granite one which then melted into an even older brick one and continued back in time and out of sight as the Deadworks wrapped around itself. Peeking out over the top of everything stood a gothic stone tower that Delvin assumed must belong to the Repository. He’d never been around to the other side, as far as he could remember.

The eternal noon-day sun beat down on the top of his head. No matter what shift Delvin rotated through—days, or nights—whenever he came to Walter’s, the sun perched itself unmoving at the top of the sky. His only way of marking time was his watch which somehow always read the time on the Outside in whatever region he was working. He’d been working Northern California as long as he could remember.

A very short bald man with an oddly elongated horizontal face and a white handle bar mustache walked over to Delvin. He wore gingham overalls and carried a large platter.

“Your duckswagle,” the man said in a low raspy voice, the ends of his mustache bounding up and down as he spoke.

“Thanks, Walter.” Delvin took the platter and set it in his lap. “I need to get something to bring back for Robi, you know what she likes.”

Walter pulled at the curl of his mustache, straightening it and letting it snap back into place a few times as he thought. “I’ll make her some cold barn noodles with dreg. If she doesn’t like ‘em, screw her for not coming herself. Ho ho!” His laugh brought a flush to his cheeks as he waddled back into his little hut, a wisp of smoke rising gently from the chimney the only blemish against the sky.

Delvin picked at his food. He didn’t really want duckswagle, but nothing else really sounded any good. He looked up at the sun and then out again over the valley. Nothing ever changed.

Lunis appeared next to him. She was tall, muscular, and dark as midnight. She had taken to wearing African tribal clothing after collecting a mark along the River Congo. Now she worked the Norway beat. She must be off shift and here for dinner. “’Allo there, Del.” She called him “Del”, a constant source of annoyance to him. “Knackin’ on a bit o’ duckswagle, are ya? I’m a mite peckish meself. Wally?” She took big long strides towards the hut.

Delvin began eating his duckswagle with a renewed sense of urgency, for it was far more palatable then the idea of having to force conversation with Lunis for an entire lunch break. Slurping down the last bit of juice, he finished just as Lunis strode back over.

“Done so soon, are ya? Be eat’n that duckswagle like you got a cringle up your crum, biggin?”

“I’ve got a 21 niner at P12.40 I need to get back to.”

“Ack. You still sloggin in the NorCal beat?”

“Yes. It’s steady.”

“I wager so. Ya know…”

Just as Lunis looked about to launch into some incoherent rant about the intricacies of collecting in Scandinavia, Walter appeared at Delvin’s hip carrying a plain brown box. “Here’s for Robi. Tell her what I said if she gives you any guff. Ho!” Bounce went his mustache to emphasize the point.

“Thanks, Walter. Nice talking to you, Lunis.” Delvin took a quick step into the black circle that had just appeared beside him and plunged down into his cubicle. He breathed a deep sigh.

“You back?” said Robi popping her head over the short cubicle wall that separated her desk from Delvin’s.

He looked at her slowly. “Walter made you some noodles.”

“Why does he always make me noodles? He’s never been Outside. How does he know Asian people eat lots of noodles? Just because I look Asian to an Outsider…”

“He also said…,” he cleared his throat and affected his best Walter voice, “if she doesn’t like ‘em, screw her for not coming herself. Ho ho!” Delvin grimaced at his own attempt at humor.

“Bah!”

“I think he has a crush on you, Robi.”

“Why do you think I don’t go there? He makes great food, but he hits on me like a nargugle.” She grabbed her noodles and slipped back down below the wall. “Don’t forget you’ve got a 21 niner…”

“I know. I know.” He reached into his pocket to make sure he had a cylinder, and said more to himself than Robi, “Let’s get this over with.”

“All right.”

Once again, a small black circle appeared on the rug next to him. He quickly drank some water from the glass on his desk, took a step to his right, and went to work.

Delvin plunged into a small kitchen that rippled through the shimmering sheath of energy surrounding him, separating him from the Outside. He looked around, surveying the landscape as best he could. If he peeked out of the sheath for a clearer view, he’d be visible to the Outsiders. That could get messy as the mark didn’t appear to be alone. The décor was a bit too rustic for Delvin’s tastes. A faux antique octagon Regulator clock hung on the wall, its pendulum swinging back and forth. The curtains and the towels all had a checked print. Another poor soul trying to turn the suburbs into the country, Delvin thought. Delvin didn’t like that, but then Delvin didn’t like the Outside much.

“The mark should be reading,” said Robi’s voice in his head.

“I’ve got him. Anything unusual I should know?”

“No. It’s a standard 21 niner.”

Delvin was pretty bored with the 21 series, but he was good at them. He longed for a good 41 or 51. A 61 series could be exciting too, depending on the method. He walked up to the mark, bringing the shimmering walls of his protective sheath almost within contact of the other man. He slipped the cylinder from his pocket with his left hand and focused his attention on the man’s chest. Delvin imagined the layers of skin, blood, and tissue on top of the sternum, below them a film of fluid and the pulsating heart. He traversed warm muscle until he found the upper portion of the right atrium and the sinus node. The man didn’t know it, but he’d been born with a weak heart that would suddenly, inexplicably, stop. Delvin pushed the end of the cylinder to the man’s right eye and focused his mind on disrupting the electrical impulses. The tired sinus node lost its rhythm and the heart beat erratically.

The man, awash with pain and fear, turned his head, knocking Delvin slightly off balance and causing his concentration to falter. Delvin grabbed the man’s arm to steady himself, but found his hand holding something far more slender. He looked down at a young hand and followed it up along its arm to the head of a young woman. Her brown eyes stared back at him through the rippling fluid of the barrier. She must see him, he thought, with those light brown eyes. Her right eye, the one to Delvin’s left, had a small dark fleck at about 25 past the hour. Her hand was so warm.

He squeezed it slightly in spite of himself and felt her respond by squeezing the mark’s arm. The sound of his own breath filled his ears while a small stream of tomato juice flowed down off the knife onto her other hand, then suspended itself in mid air preparing to drip on the table. A stray hair wrapped around a stud in her ear. She blinked and Devlin watched each long black lash collide with its counterpart below making a deafening series of roars one after the other.

“Is something wrong, Delvin?” Robi’s voice startled him and he jumped, pulling his hand away from the girl’s and breaking the connection. He turned back towards the mark and out of the corner of his eye he saw the girl do the same. Concentrating, he disrupted the impulses one last time. The mark’s breath stalled. The heart convulsed and finally stopped. As the man slid off the chair to the ground a twinkling light slipped from his eye into the cylinder. Delvin capped it off and looked back over at the girl. It broke his heart to see her scream.