The Map of Stars, page 29
“Thank you,” Imogen Sparks said. “Be a good boy and slide that machine over here.”
“Come and take it,” Hunter said.
Before anyone else thought to move, Ono did. Its arms racheted out from Jaime’s pocket, snatched the machine, and snapped back, leaving the machine at Jaime’s feet.
“Oops,” said Jaime.
“Jaime Cruz,” said Hunter Roberts. “Your mother was Renée Christophe Cruz. Dr. Renée Christophe Cruz.”
“Yes,” Jaime said, frowning. “What about her?”
“I funded the university where she worked. Studied the mirror universe, your mother did. Before she disappeared.”
“You mean before she died?”
“Maybe.”
“What do you mean, maybe?”
“Maybe she’s dead, or maybe she’s just missing.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Theo said. “He’s lying.”
But Jaime ignored Theo. “I don’t understand,” Jaime said to Hunter Roberts.
“What if I told you that that machine looks very much like the one your mother used in the test that allegedly killed her? The test that was designed to prove the existence of the mirror universe? What if she did, in fact, prove it existed?”
“What . . . I don’t . . . ,” Jaime said.
“It was covered up, of course. An accident that big, a discovery that important? People couldn’t handle it.”
“That’s enough,” said Ava Oneal.
“Why don’t you turn it on and see?” said Hunter Roberts.
“No!” Ava said.
“The boy wants to know where his mother is, and he should find out, shouldn’t he?”
“Stop it!” Tess said.
Dr. Munsterberg walked over to Hunter Roberts and whispered something in his ear.
Hunter Roberts said, “We have a proposition. We’ll let all your friends go, Ms. Oneal, if we can have that machine and the pleasure of your company. Dr. Munsterberg has many . . . questions for you. Things he’s sure you can help with. Mysteries you can solve.”
“Mysteries,” said Dr. Munsterberg, drawing out the s.
“Ew,” said Priya Sharma.
Theo and Tess and Jaime surrounded Ava, as if she were the one who needed protection.
Ava smiled another one of her lovely and ferocious smiles, “No thank you.”
“It would easier if we worked together, Ms. Oneal,” Hunter Roberts said. “Aren’t you tired of fighting?”
“Yes,” she said honestly. “But I think I might have one more fight left in me.”
Hunter Roberts shrugged and held up one finger at Dr. Munsterberg. Dr. Munsterberg sighed and threw a lever on the side of one of the cages.
The cages opened and the monsters exploded out of them. The giraffe-owary charged and Theo, Tess, and Jaime scattered, trying to find a place to take cover, but there was nowhere to hide. Ava managed to duck right before its beak snapped where her head had been. Priya Sharma took her shield with both hands and brought it straight up, whacking the bird monster under the chin and sending it tumbling. Ray Turnage and Imogen Sparks took turns clubbing the spider-wolf. When the crocodile-scorpion raced toward Omar Khayyám, Theo yelled, “Look out!”
Omar adopted a fencer’s stance, feet wide and sword up. The crocodile circled and Omar did the same. When the creature stabbed with its barbed tail, Omar sliced it off with one chop. The crocodile roared and charged again, knocking Omar to his back and clamping down on his leg. Omar screamed. Theo, Tess, and Jaime kicked the animal, but it wouldn’t let go.
“Ava!” Tess shouted. “Help! Ava?”
But she was in the middle of the room, away from the melee, eyes closed. She was humming. Theo remembered back to North Brother Island, when they were trying to escape, that same humming sound that burrowed into his skin, seemed to set the air around him vibrating, the unidentifiable creatures in the water that seemed to obey her.
A moth swooped into the room. Then another, then another. In an instant, the enormous room was filled with the furious beating of hundreds of shining silvery wings—the wings of moths, of dragonflies, of eagles. The click-clack of Rollers joined the giggling of spiders as the lab was swarmed with machines of all shapes and sizes. The machines dive-bombed the monsters, attacking with metal claws and metal beaks, metal jaws and metal teeth. Guildmen ran in from every direction, wrestling with Hunter Roberts’s guards. A portion of the floor exploded and a giant digging machine churned up from the depths. The giraffe-owary attacked, but the digging machine ran right over it, and then it chugged to where the spider-wolf had Ray pinned. It took the spider-wolf in its mandibles and threw the monster against the wall. Rollers converged on the crocodile. The Guildmen pried open its jaws, and Theo, Tess, and Jaime pulled Omar’s leg free. As the three of them tried to stop Omar’s bleeding, the Rollers rolled the crocodile right back into the pit from where it came.
Ava and the rest of the society ran to Omar. “Is he okay?”
Delancey DeBrule said, “He’ll be okay, but we should get him to a hospital.”
“Wait,” said Theo. “Where’s that Hunter guy?”
“And where’s the machine?” said Tess.
“I just had it!” Jaime said.
“No, no, no,” said Ava. “He can’t use the machine!”
“Don’t worry,” Imogen Sparks said to Ava. “We’ll find him. Everything will be all—”
The whole building lurched, and everyone slid into one another and then into the wall.
“What the heck?” said Ray Turnage.
The building lurched again. Dust rained from the ceiling. Cracks zigzagged along the floor. The rebar inside the concrete walls moaned.
Omar gritted his teeth and panted, “I’m not enjoying this turn of events.”
The building lurched once more, so abruptly that Theo bit his tongue. Water poured into the room from the open windows, rising fast.
“Something is sucking this whole place into the river!” Jaime said.
“But what could do that?” Theo said, sure he both desperately wanted the answer and also didn’t want to know, ever ever ever.
“Crawl that way!” Tess said. They tried climbing to the highest point of the floor but slid all the way back again when the building teetered and then tipped into the Henry Street Basin. Theo fought to hold on to Tess as they were plunged into the river, but a rush of water tore him away and blasted him out an open doorway. He dropped into the water like a stone. He thrashed and fought to get clear of the sinking building, hoping that Tess and Jaime were doing the same. He burst through the surface, coughing and gagging. All around him, the water was frothing, the waves taller than he was.
But what was making the waves?
He kicked his legs harder to keep his head above water. He looked up toward the sky, which was an eerie gray before the dawn. And standing in the middle of the Gowanus Canal, just beyond the Henry Street Basin, was the biggest monster of all, the precise monster that Theo should have expected but hadn’t. He froze, and the water swallowed him down.
Somewhere behind him, Tess screamed for them both.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Jaime
The first thing he thought when he found himself underwater was: Again?
The second thing was: Mima’s going to be so mad about my hair.
The third thing was: Swim! Swim! Swim!
He kicked, tried to get his bearings, but it was so dark, and he didn’t know which way was up. Something hit his leg and he swallowed water, choked, swallowed more. He kicked harder, but didn’t know where he was going, where there was air.
A light appeared next to him—no, two lights: Ono’s red eyes, pinking up the gloom. The propeller on the top of its head whirred. Its arms grew to many times their normal length and wrapped around Jaime. It rocketed Jaime up to the surface and dragged him to a nearby dock, then lifted him from the water and laid him down. Jaime turned over and coughed up lungfuls of river. Ono buzzed and beeped at him.
“I’m okay, I’m okay,” he said. He sat up.
The river seethed and frothed. People—society members, Tess, Theo, everyone—bobbed in the waves that were too big, why so big? A dark shape was silhouetted against the brightening sky, a shape that was so large and impossible and awful that he couldn’t put a name to it. It was as tall as a building—eighty feet? A hundred?—with the bulk of a whale. It had two enormous legs and a strangely smooth, bullet-shaped body that culminated in a head made mostly of rows and rows of teeth. Its two shorter arms ended in claws the length of the swords the society members had carried with them.
It was a shark.
The biggest shark Jaime had ever seen, a shark with two arms and two legs and teeth and claws and it was standing and it was walking and it was roaring and oh no oh no oh no oh no.
Someone screamed. He scanned the water. Theo’s dark head bobbed in and out of the waves. Without thinking, Jaime jumped in, grabbing one of Theo’s arms just as someone else grabbed the other.
Tess.
They pulled Theo to the surface, and Ono helped to tow them all back to the dock.
“It’s a shark,” Tess said, once Ono had gotten them on solid ground. “It’s a shark.”
“Megalodon,” Theo said, and then nearly hacked up his esophagus. “Biggest shark that ever lived.”
“Did it have legs and claws?” Jaime asked.
“No,” said Theo. “Those came from some other animal. It’s a hybrid.”
“Yes, but a hybrid of what?” said Jaime.
“I don’t know.”
The monster roared and stomped its feet, sending waves that nearly swamped the dock. Jaime, Tess, and Theo fought the water, holding on to the wooden posts as tightly as they could to keep from being washed back into the monster’s path.
And then they heard it: the singing.
Among the ruins of Exquisite Engines, Ava stood in her shimmering gray coat, arms aloft. In a clear and resonant voice that Jaime felt all the way inside his veins, inside his heart, Ava sang a wordless tune. The machines, those glorious Morningstarr Machines, whirled, Rollers and diggers and ants and Guildmen running around her, moths and dragonflies and eagles swirling overhead. The flying machines flew faster and faster, and the force of their movements lifted the earthbound machines until there was a tornado of them in the air. There was the screeching sound of metal on metal, and fiery sparks rained down on Ava, and still she sang and sang and sang. Above her, the machines flew so fast that Jaime couldn’t tell one from another, until finally, they slowed, and in their place was a single machine, as vast as the monster in the water, but far more beautiful. Its flapping wings were made of thousands upon thousands of silver feathers, the curve of its enormous head and beak more majestic than any eagle’s. It gleamed in the light of the dawn like some kind of avenging angel.
“The Zīz,” Theo breathed.
“Renanin,” Tess said. “King of the birds, the singer and the seer.”
The bird threw back its head, but its cry wasn’t a screech or a scream as much as the sound of a million violins. It launched itself into the air, right at the leviathan in the water. The shark took two huge, bone-rattling, tsunami-making steps to meet it. The Zīz flew right over the shark’s head and jack-hammered it with its beak before flying past. The shark roared. The Zīz came back around for another attack. The shark jumped up and sliced its claws right through the Zīz. Tess clapped her hand over her mouth.
But instead of the Zīz falling into the Gowanus in pieces, it splintered into a cloud of tiny Zīzes before coming back together as one.
“That’s not a machine, that’s magic,” said Jaime.
“Same thing,” Tess said.
“Help!” said Theo. He was lying facedown on the ground, arms out over the water, reaching for Imogen Sparks and Priya Sharma, who were struggling with Omar Khayyám in tow. Tess held down Theo’s legs to keep him steady and Jaime helped him haul all three of the society members to safety. As the Zīz and the shark battled, Jaime, Tess, and Theo got Ray Turnage, Delancey DeBrule, Gunter Deiderich, Gino Ventimiglia, Adrian Birch, and Flo Harriman out of the river. And then they all watched as Ono airlifted an angry, dripping Nine from the water to the land.
“What in the name of all that’s good and holy is that thing in the water?” said Imogen Sparks.
“Shark monster,” Omar said. His skin was gray and clammy. “Who’s singing?”
“Shhh. Save your strength, you silly man,” Priya said.
“I am not and have never been silly,” Omar said. “Oh, that’s a pretty bird.”
“How are we going to get him out of here? Our airship’s in the river,” said Ray Turnage.
“Car?” said Priya Sharma.
Jaime looked around for a car just in time to see the creepy scientist with the creepier eyes sneaking up behind a still-singing Ava Oneal, a brick in his hands. She was so focused on the Zīz and its ferocious battle with the monster shark that she didn’t seem to hear him.
“No!” Jaime yelled.
The man brought the brick down on Ava’s head. She slumped to the ground. In the Gowanus, the Zīz broke into pieces, flapping haphazardly everywhere. The shark monster jumped up, biting at the silvery bits, crunching them in its teeth.
Jaime took off for Ava. He lowered his head as he charged and caught the scientist in the stomach, knocking him down. But Dr. Munsterberg was stronger than he looked, wiry and muscular under the lab coat. He shoved Jaime off and got to his feet. Jaime came at him again, but the doctor shoved him back easily.
“She was ruining everything,” the man said, his creepy eyes burning with triumph. “Now she’s going to help me. I have so much more work to do. So many more experiments. You should understand. Your mother was a scientist.”
“What do you know about my mother?”
The man smiled for the first time. “I know she failed.”
Jaime charged again, but the man caught him under his arm and punched him in the kidney so hard that Jaime’s vision wavered.
“I have many more pets where these came from, but I can take care of you myself,” the doctor said. He dropped Jaime.
Jaime rolled in the dirt and debris, gasping. “Why are you doing this? What do you want?”
“What everyone wants,” said the doctor. “To leave something behind that will be talked of and written about for generations.”
“Like the Morningstarrs?”
“Better, much, much better,” said Dr. Munsterberg.
“I don’t see how making monsters is better.”
“Because you’re a small-minded fool, and small-minded fools never see brilliance when it’s staring them in the face.”
What the doctor didn’t see: a tentacle climbing from the surging water, and another, and another, and another. A creature slithering across the ground, its skin changing instantly from the blue of the water to the grayish-brownish of the stones and the dirt beneath it. Jaime would have thought it was an octopus if it hadn’t had more than eight legs. Its three round eyes were focused on the doctor’s back.
“You’re working for that other guy,” Jaime said, stalling. “That doesn’t make you powerful.”
“I’m using that other guy,” the doctor said. “And you heard him. Nature is meant to be manipulated. So are men.”
“Yes, they certainly are,” Candi said. She kicked the doctor into the waiting arms of the octopus. Half of its tentacles wrapped around the man while the other half slithered across the ground as it headed for the water.
“Help me!” Dr. Munsterberg said. “Candi!”
“I never liked you,” Candi said. “And I don’t think your pet does, either.”
The creature dragged the screaming doctor into the water with a wet PLOP.
“Hmmm,” said Candi. “On second thought, maybe I’m wrong about that.”
Jaime got to his knees. He braced himself for Candi to hit him, but all she said was “Idaho is better than this. Anywhere is better than this.” She ran off and didn’t look back.
Jaime crawled to Ava’s side. In the Gowanus, the shark swung at the machines. It snatched one out of the air and crushed it.
“Ava!” Jaime said, shaking her. “Wake up!”
Ava moaned but didn’t open her eyes.
“Please!” he said. “Please!” He wanted her to wake up and sing the Zīz whole again. He wanted her to wake up so that the Zīz could defeat the monster. He wanted her to wake up so that she could tell him the truth about the Morningstarrs. He wanted her to wake up and tell him who she was so that he could understand who he was. Was his mother alive? Could it be possible?
He hummed the tune she’d been singing, a tune that sounded so familiar but also so strange: La la LA la la, la la la LA la la.
Her eyes opened. “Jaime?”
“Yes!”
“Help me up.”
He helped her get to her feet. In the canal, the monster had wiped out nearly half the machines.
“Oh no,” she said.
In an instant, Ono was by her side. She sang and he buzzed in reply.
“Wait, what’s going on?” Jaime said.
Ono moved over to Jaime and hovered at eye level for a moment, its eyes flashing from red to green to blue. “Land of Kings,” it said. It reached out and patted Jaime on the head. And then shot into the sky.
“No!” Jaime said. He grabbed Ava’s arm. “You can’t make it do this!”
Ava kept singing.
Ono grew bigger and bigger as it rocketed toward the remaining machines. It joined them in another silvery tornado, from which the Zīz was reborn. Tess and Theo and the others cheered, but tears streaked Jaime’s cheeks as the Zīz swooped and took out one of the shark’s eyes. The shark screamed loud enough to shake the earth. The Zīz swooped and took out the other. The shark monster reeled, wildly swinging its arms. The Zīz attacked again and again, driving the monster back from the shore and into deeper water, pulling chunks of flesh with its talons, tearing it with its beak, slicing it with sweeps of sharp metal wings, until the beast teetered and fell with a tremendous splash.
The Zīz soared over the water, where the beast had fallen. The morning sun turned the Zīz from silver to a fiery red-gold. When the shark beast did not arise, the Zīz called with the voice of a thousand violins.
