Disclaimer in previous chapter.
- . -
Collins was not a town you really visited unless you had to.
It wasn't just the impending Plant closing, which since Hondelic had caused mayhem no matter how reassuring they'd been to the current mayor or city council. It hadn't been the greatest town even before then. Maybe it was because the sheriff was older than God. Maybe it was because the mayor was a drunk that never left his offices, too afraid of his wife to even go home.
She often wondered how they kept getting re-elected, term after term, but in the end, it was probably because the town liked it that way.
Meryl winced at the memory of their 'meeting.' Rarely had she met another human being that made her skin want to crawl off her bones and scuttle out the door. He'd agreed simply because Millie, in a surprisingly heated voice, had started berating him from everything between the state of his clothes to his consumption of alcohol. It was really her loud voice echoing inside his booze-riddled head that had secured permission of the Plant upgrade.
She guessed maybe it wasn't really out of character for Millie – apparently he had about six children that he probably hadn't seen for five years.
Oh, Millie.
She sighed softly, glancing up at the sky. The suns burned there just as they had the day before, and the day before that. It was about four o'clock, the beginning of the supper hour, and her stomach reminded her rather gurglingly that she hadn't eaten since that bag of pretzels at the bus stop more than eight hours ago.
Her eyes had stopped reminding her that she hadn't slept, having given it up when they saw the suns were up and deciding that it was a lost cause. She was sure she didn't look her best, but that didn't matter.
Maybe it would make the idiot feel guilty.
Meryl Stryfe looked down the main street of town, ending in the clean-picked remains of wreckage, with one glowing, yellow bulb visible above all of it.
So the Plant was still here. That meant Vash hadn't left town yet.
With a little less energy than she would have liked, she started down the street, lugging her suitcase behind her. Part of her wanted to check into a hotel just to dump her things, but she supposed she could always leave them with the guard at the Plant. It would be one of Elizabeth's security detail, and while she hadn't met all of them she knew her name and the close relationship between the engineering teams and insurance brokers like Bernardelli would get her in the door.
It occurred to her that she really didn't know what she was going to say to him.
Hey, you thomas-kissing, promise-breaking, flea-ridden, alcohol-swilling, broom-headed moron, long time no see. If you're not too terribly busy, can you help me find Millie? It sort of rolled off the tongue, but even in her head it wasn't satisfying enough. Even if she followed it up by boxing his ears, it wouldn't do the trick. Wouldn't make her feel any better.
And there was still the lingering doubt about Knives. She wasn't sure what breaking the 'rules' he'd laid down really meant. Did it violate the entire contract, or did it simply make her fair game? How were Vash and Knives getting along these days, anyway? Millie made it sound like they were starting to rekindle their brotherly relationship, but Millie also made it sound like Knives snuggled kittens.
And since she'd turned down the many offers to read the letters herself, she really had no grasp on what Vash was really writing. And there was a chance Vash was just telling Millie what she wanted to hear. He could put a positive spin on almost anything, and he knew how it would trouble the tall girl to know how miserable he was.
And she hoped he was miserable. Damn him!
She glared at the dust puffing around her feet, finding that easier to watch than the Plant, which seemed just as far ahead of her as it had five minutes ago. The walk across town was long and hot, and all she wanted water and a good dinner and a bed. And all of it was going to have to wait.
Maybe longer than tonight. If she really did find Vash, they had to get going as quickly as possible. She wasn't sure Millie was still in New Phoenix, which meant someone could have kidnapped her onto that steamer bound for Inepral City, and from there –
She'd be very hard to follow if she ended up more than two towns away.
Meryl stopped her brain from pursuing that further. She'd gone over it, again and again and again. Millie might have been on the sand steamer anyway. Even though her things were still being held at the hotel in New Phoenix, along with their room. She might have come around in a bar and just run for the steamer, thinking they could have her things sent on later. She might have been pacing up and down worrying about the fact that Meryl herself hadn't ended up on the sand steamer. She could be safe and sound in Inepral City, readying herself to sit down and have the meeting with the city council there.
She probably should have gotten on the steamer, and at least checked before she'd come here. Why had she done such a stupid, impulsive thing? How much of a fool would she be if Millie was safe and sound and she endangered Vash by tracking him down?
Meryl moaned. After all this, the Chief was going to kill her. She needed to send on a report and let him know why they were about to fall behind schedule . . . in a way, actually, getting that from Elizabeth could at least mask this mistake in judgment for a sudden concern after hearing rumors that she was getting behind –
Of course, that was nothing more than a lie. But it wouldn't be the first one she'd put into a report.
Meryl glanced back up at the Plant, faintly mollified to see it seemed closer. It was probably only an ile from the bus stop to the facility, but in the heat of the late afternoon it might as well have been five. Sweat was dripping down her face, and her earrings, when they brushed against her jaw, were hot to the touch. She considered tossing down the heavy traveling cloak, but for some reason the derringers made her feel better.
Particularly in Collins. If she planned to spend the night, she needed to be in her hotel before nightfall. And even then, she needed to pick a hotel without a bar in the lobby.
And even then, she might not get a good night's sleep. Though if her headache was any indication, she was going to sleep like the dead no matter what happened. Vash could destroy the entire city with his Angel Arm and she'd probably sleep right through it, as the walls vaporized-
A cold shiver ran through her, and the suns couldn't touch that ice.
It was Knives. He'd done something to her Vash, and she was never going to get him back.
The Vash she'd followed, she'd observed all those years, he'd never used that thing. Not on purpose. Maybe in his fight with Knives, but he'd never gotten that specific. But then again, how else could they have 'destroyed everything' the way he said they'd done? It wasn't terrifying to her that he could actually – make it happen, make it form, without being forced by Knives or his main lackey.
It was terrifying that he had chosen to.
And that he had chosen to do it in front of humans. Humans he didn't know. Humans that didn't know him.
She supposed it was slightly better than the idea of him standing in the middle of Hondelic and making his announcement. At least he'd had the decency to approach only the town council. And the sheriff. And he'd happened to interrupt their third appeal of the decision, as well.
It might have been above and beyond, but their orders from Bernardelli had included not allowing any town to say no. When Hondelic said no, she and Millie had kept at it. One of their evening meetings, which had made about as much progress as the previous two, had been interrupted by a polite knock, a polite apology.
A statement that if they did not agree, he would destroy the city and take the Plant anyway.
And then a demonstration of his willingness to carry out that threat.
It took him less than two minutes to accomplish what they'd spent a week attempting. He hadn't discharged a fiftieth of the blast that had destroyed Augusta. Just enough to take the roof off the building, and every building neighboring it for about an eighth of an ile.
And then one of his not-smiles, and a murmured "Whoops." Like he accidentally farted or something.
He'd been lucky, she growled back at her stunned memory. Lucky the sheriff had been too appalled by what he was seeing to fire. Lucky the council had been so sure of the three deputies, just outside the door, sure they'd come in the moment they ordered and shoot the gunman dead. Lucky it didn't take him very long to gather enough energy to do what he'd done.
Any longer and he would have been shot.
And she would have been the one to do it.
They'd agreed instantly, and even allowed him to leave, long after he'd transformed it back into his arm. He'd even had the gall to offer that same hand for shaking.
That was something she wasn't sure she'd ever seen Vash do. Humiliate a beaten foe.
That was what frightened her the most.
He never looked at them. Not at Millie, not at her. There'd been a glance in their general direction, an acknowledgement that 'representatives of Bernardelli' were there to protect the town, and should be listened to. But no eye contact. They'd been reduced to armed strangers, to be noted and kept track of but nothing more.
She wasn't sure, actually, that he'd known she was so close to drawing. She wasn't sure he was even paying her that much attention, considering he'd had the sheriff and all three deputies staring at him, guns drawn and shaking too badly to really calculate where the bullets would fly should they discharge.
She wasn't sure, looking back, how close she had been either.
And that was the man – no, the Plant, very obviously having revealed himself as a non-human – that she was about to approach in an effort to track down Millie.
Meryl Stryfe, what are you thinking?
But her feet had taken her, very loyally, to the foot of the Plant facility, and she was already attempting a smile at the two guards that stepped out of a temperature-controlled booth at her approach. Both were wearing the EF logos, which meant Elizabeth's team hadn't yet pulled out to leave running the altered power plant to the locals.
Of course she hadn't. There was still a Plant in that bulb.
"All the hotels are behind you, honey," one offered, not returning her smile.
She made a face. Funny. "My name is Meryl Stryfe. I represent the Bernardelli Insurance company and I've come here to inspect the facilities and speak with the lead engineer. Can you tell me who that is?"
The second one made a very odd face, the kind a person made when they had just taken a drink and then laughed, and were debating whether to try to swallow the liquid or spit it out. The first one raised an eyebrow at her.
"If you're Bernardelli, I'd expect you to know that," he drawled. Neither one got out of her way.
Meryl felt her lower eyelid start twitching again. "I'm really not certain if Elizabeth is here or still in Warrens, but given that this facility still seems to be running off a Plant instead of the solar panels, I'm certain she will be fairly soon."
The second one was starting to turn an odd shade of puce.
The first one opened his mouth again, but the quirk of his lips told her he was just going to give her more backtalk.
"Just get out of my way and let me do my job. What's wrong with you?" The latter was directed at the second guard, whose badge identified him as Tallow, Milton. Under her fiery glare he subsided, but not much.
"You look like you're in about the same mood she is," he finally managed, before bursting into gales of laughter.
The first officer didn't so much as glance at his partner. "You might not want to speak with the lead engineer tonight, Ms. Insurance Agent. You might want to turn yourself around and find a hotel for the evening. This town gets pretty rough around pretty girls."
Meryl wondered if the veins were standing out on her forehead or not. "Are you denying me entrance to a Bernardelli-contracted facility?"
Tallows, Milton still wasn't fully recovered, and Meryl didn't see what was so damn funny. So Elizabeth was having a bad day. That would make two of them. Between them, Vash didn't stand a chance.
The first one grudgingly stepped aside. "Of course not, Ms. Stryfe." Ah, he remembered. "Would you like us to store your things until your inspection is completed for the evening?"
His voice was still heavily laden with sarcasm, but his attitude shift surprised her. She was about to smile when she realized this probably would result in something unpleasant for her. What was going on . . . ?
"That would be lovely," she ground from between clenched teeth. "I will come and collect it when my inspection is finished."
"Do you need an escort to the main control room?" Tallow, Milton looked as though he were about to suffocate.
"I'll be fine. Thank you for the concern."
The first officer leaned out exaggeratedly and accepted the luggage handle, and she huffed by him without another word. What the hell was with those guys? Was it something in the water?
Even in the harsh light of the late afternoon sun, the Plant seemed unusually cold. Empty. There wasn't a soul in sight. She put a hand over her eyes, shielding them from the glare as she studied the plant more closely. The solar panels were mostly laid out and mounted, but there were still two pallets of them wrapped beside the receiving docks, as though they'd just been taken off the sand steamer and were awaiting installation. Were they extras?
She continued underneath the main bulb towards the entrance elevator, noting the amount of dangling cable and disconnected hosepipe. She'd never seen a pre-production Plant in this kind of disarray. It looked as though everyone had dropped what they were doing and fled. She almost jumped as a cable slapped the metal framing above her head, and she kept her gaze on that gently buzzing Bulb.
She couldn't see anything inside, but she almost never had.
Was Vash on his way? But why would the pre-production teams be afraid of him?
Had something happened . . . ?
She hurried over to the elevator, waiting impatiently for the car to trundle down the shaft. When the doors finally parted, she hopped on, her cloak clanking slightly as it impacted the metal doors. She hit the button labeled CR and waited. The doors teased her, closing very slowly as though sore from their impact with her derringers. And then it trundled up to the top.
Was it quiet because Vash was in the process of extracting the Plant? He wouldn't have time to help her, in that case; he'd have to get his sister back to Knives as soon as possible. She wasn't sure how he was even able to get the Plants to survive outside their bulbs at all. It was said they existed partially in another dimension, and they'd blacken and die if they were taken out of the bulbs. That was the reason for Last Runs. But maybe that was another piece of folklore designed to make everyone feel less guilty about imprisoning and killing them.
Maybe it had to do with the fact that he was a Plant, too? She was pretty fuzzy on whether the Plant 'sisters' Knives always referred to were exactly like those two, or significantly different. Obviously they were female, but did they have skin? Or feathers? Did they have wings or arms? Or both? Did they have the same capability of firing an Angel Arm?
Not for the first time, she wondered if all Knives was doing was gathering up a Plant army to make the human extermination that much easier, and to overpower Vash.
She wondered if Vash wondered the same thing.
She wondered if Vash even cared, anymore.
Maybe he agreed.
The doors finally opened, showing her the wide polymer window, slightly tinted against the lights bulbs could produce, and thus offering a little protection from the glaring suns. Fully the entire pre-process team was standing in the control room; it was so full there wasn't elbow room, let alone breathing room. The back row turned to look at her, their expressions one of dread before they became simply curious.
Dread? Who did they think she was going to be?
"Did something about 4 o'clock confuse you?" a cool, feminine voice asked, and Meryl turned towards it.
Though she employed many tall, large men for these teams, Elizabeth still managed to be visible over them. Whether she was actually standing on something or was just wearing huge heels was a mystery, but her face and throat were quite visible from the elevator. Swallowing nervously, and not sure why she was, she stepped off the elevator.
"I didn't mean to interrupt," she offered apologetically. "I'm here to speak with you when you have a moment –"
"Wait there," she replied, just as coolly as before, and returned to glaring at the assembled men.
She cowed them. There was no other word for it. They might have been capable of breaking her in half physically, but they were terrified of her. She was exquisitely dressed this evening, her makeup impeccable. The eyeshadow she'd chosen made her eyes seem a little more almond-shaped than usual, and her shade of lipstick perfectly matched the crimson collar.
Oh. The red dress.
Meryl almost winced when she heard the elevator doors slide shut behind her. She stepped back until she was leaning on them and tried not to make a sound.
She wasn't sure what they'd done, but this team was in for it.
"Why are there two full pallets of solar panels in the loading dock?"
No one dared say a word. She made eye contact with each and every one of them, stretching out the uncomfortable silence further.
"No one knows? Robert, aren't you in charge of inventory?" She pinned him with a look. "Is it an overstock? Did Central screw up and send us too many panels for this facility?"
Roberts clearly knew better than to stay silent when formally addressed.
"It ain't no mistake, ma'am," he started. His voice sounded feeble. "It'll only take us a few hours to get those panels up-"
"That's a relief, because I was supposed to have been here about fifteen of them ago," she interrupted him. "Tell me, can you travel through time? How is it you planned on getting all the pre-production work done on schedule if you have not yet completed it?"
No one dared say a word.
She raked her gaze over the assembled men again. "What? Almost eighteen hours behind, and nothing to say? No excuses, gentlemen?"
Meryl closed her eyes when the next voice that spoke dared to have an angry edge to it. "We've done the best we could-"
"Lee, isn't it?"
Her uncanny way of remembering the names of her teams was almost legendary, and the young man swallowed loudly. "Yes, ma'am."
"I hand-picked this team of engineers and technicians." Still cool, still in control. "I know full well that their best is significantly better than eighteen hours behind schedule. That leads me to believe this team has not been doing its best. Do you have an theories on why that might be, Lee?"
"Yes, ma'am!"
Meryl opened her eyes in shock. She could not recall the last time she'd seen one of Elizabeth's engineers respond to her like that.
Elizabeth, for her part, looked completely unruffled. "Well, then I suggest you report them."
Lee took a deep breath. "Well, ma'am, there's the angling engine that got sand in the carbine, and the secondary generator anchoring that came down and almost took out a whole row of panels. Then there was the compressed gas line that sprung a leak, and –"
"Look, miss, we knew you was gonna be mad," another broke in, "but it's like this place is cursed!"
"Or the town's sabotaging us," another offered. "Carter says he's doubled patrols and seen nobody, but there's no way that line punctured itself."
"The anchoring got checked two days before it gave. Ain't no way it happened on accident –"
"Enough." She held up a hand and got instant silence. Meryl agreed with the interruption; she couldn't let this group get out of hand. Now that they were opening up they were sounding spooked.
Was the town sabotaging them? They couldn't let that rumor get out. If the other towns caught wind that that kind of interference was tolerated, or Vash –
He'd have to make another example. He wouldn't have a choice. Not after Hondelic.
"Why were none of these accidents reported?"
This time she had eyes only for her foreman, a burly, short man with a temper to match. He refused to look her in the eye, and shuffled his feet uncomfortably.
"We thought you'd take us off the project," he finally muttered.
"You're right. I would have," she agreed. "Anyone who cannot guarantee the safety of their crew and their site has no business being a foreman for this union. You are immediately relieved of your position. I'll deal with you later." The last sounded so ominous it made Meryl wonder exactly what it meant.
"For the rest of you," and the room seemed to snap-to, "saying one site is cursed is condemning all the others. Millions of people died on these sites. We are standing and working on the graves of those that died in the Great Fall. Every engineer has seen something or heard something they can't explain. But never once, in all the stories I have heard and all that I have seen, have I ever heard of those spirits interfering with the crews of a Plant.
"They want these towns to succeed. These Plants provide power, food and water and goods for those few souls that survived. I have heard stories of couplings shattering feet from working crews and not one soul being touched by the shrapnel. I have seen with my own eyes an entire Plant powering down of its own volition after a crewmember was trapped inside the main generator with the bulb."
Funny the spin she could put on her attempt to murder Vash.
"If you are dealing with sabotage, you are dealing with the human variety," she continued. "And that will be stopped as of right now. I want detailed reports on exactly what happened, when, how, and the result. I want them in my hand in an hour. The rest of the subteams – I don't want to see a single panel unmounted by the time I'm done analyzing those reports.
"Johnson, Jenski, Lee remain. Everyone else is dismissed."
There was a sudden, mad rush of bodies right towards her, and Meryl yelped and scooted to her right as far as the crush of bodies would allow. Many wouldn't wait for the elevator doors to even open, despite the fact the car was still at the top of the shaft. In a matter of moments, the only sounds in the control room were the creaking wires that lowered the elevator car and the thundering of workboots down the main stairwell.
Johnson was a lanky man Meryl thought she recognized from a previous Plant inspection. When he caught her curious look and smiled, she was certain he recognized her. Lee was the young man that had had the guts to speak up, so that left Jenski as the foreman.
He still wouldn't look at her, and now that the room had mostly cleared out, Meryl got a good look at her.
The impeccable makeup was hiding a little bit of puffiness beneath her eyes, and her statuesque figure seemed a little less coiled than usual. Still, the crimson satin dress clung to her like paint, and it accentuated everything about her that made other women jealous. She stood, tall and imposing and at the same time graceful, and her eyes said as clearly as words that she knew everything that was going on around her and she was not pleased.
"Lee."
His head actually popped up to look at her.
"Thank you for revealing the truth to me," she said, in a more conversational tone. "Do you think the sabotage is being done by the town, or internally?"
He visibly started at her insinuation, but when her expression didn't change, he seemed to gather his courage.
"They know an awful lot about Plant systems," he offered. "Everything that's been done hasn't destroyed the main Plant infrastructure. It all looked to damage the changes, but not the working generators. If it's accidental, we've been lucky."
She paused as she digested that. "Have you noticed any problems interacting with the security detail that was assigned to this team?"
Meryl almost opened her mouth at that, but instead bit her tongue. They may well, in their obnoxious and man-like way, have been trying to help her avoid a confrontation with an irate Elizabeth. And this was deeply concerning to her as a Bernardelli agent. The current emergency with Millie aside, this would need to be dealt with, and fast.
"No ma'am," he said quickly. "They've been as concerned about this as the crew. We've even had off-duty guys hang out and try to keep an eye on things."
Elizabeth turned an icy glare on the foremen. "That is not an acceptable way to continue productively," she murmured. "It is your responsibility to see that the off-duty men are off-duty. How long has this been going on?"
Jenski finally looked at her, but only for a moment. "Three days," he admitted. "It occurred to me they might be getting tired, making mistakes. But you don't accidentally puncture a high-pressure gas line and not notice."
She stared at him a long time. "No, you don't," she agreed suddenly. "This should have been reported to me two days ago, Jenski –"
"I thought the guys could handle it!" he suddenly exploded, as though he'd been holding it in the whole time. "It was the first time you trusted this team with an unsupervised pre-production change. I didn't want . . . any mistakes I made to make the boys look bad."
"We all agreed," Lee volunteered, but Elizabeth didn't look at him. "He even asked us-"
"Shaddup, Lee," the foreman growled. "Miss Elizabeth don't want to hear it. It's my damn fault, and I'll take the blame."
"It's an oversight I can't ignore," she finally announced
And Jenski quietly shuffled over the stairwell. He said nothing as he pulled it open, and they listened to his heavy footsteps before the door closed behind him.
Meryl looked back at Elizabeth, shocked. Was that a dismissal? What had she just missed . . . ?
But Elizabeth looked as though she'd wiped her hands of that particular problem. "Draw up your own reports of all the incidents, Lee. Look at them from the perspective of what kind of knowledge would have to have been required to get the damage done, and what tools." He nodded, and immediately also headed over to the stairwell door.
Then her gaze fell on Johnson. All he did was nod. He had taken a seat at the main control board some time ago, and now he fell back to it, looking oblivious to them in only a few seconds of keystrokes.
"Meryl Stryfe. It's been too long."
The taller woman strode over, and Meryl nodded. "I'm sorry I interrupted you – the security detail didn't tell me you had called a meeting."
The other woman's smile was wry. "I'm not surprised. I'm sorry you had to stay for it. Of course, as soon as the reports are in I'll file them with Bernardelli –"
Meryl waved it aside. "That's actually not why I'm here, though I'd gladly forward them on to the home office." She stepped closer to the taller woman, glancing at Johnson. Elizabeth just nodded.
"I've known him a long time."
Up close it was obvious that Elizabeth had had a bad day. The dark makeup, she saw now, was not only to make her look more formidable but also to cover the fact that she was fatigued. There were bags beneath her eyes, and lines around her mouth Meryl wasn't sure she'd ever seen before.
"Are you all right?"
The engineer, one of the top Plant engineers in the world, just shook her head. "I will be once I get this problem straightened out." Her voice was uncharacteristically tired, and Meryl wondered at it.
"How are things in Warrens? I take it you've finished there on schedule?"
The engineer regarded her, as though she were a truck and the other woman was considering her odds of getting across a stretch of desert with her. "There was a problem," she said, keeping her voice low. "At the time I chalked it up to wear and tear, but now . . ."
Meryl knew what she was thinking. If there was already some kind of underground resistance to the Plant upgrades, and it was organized enough to hit two difference cities at once –
"Just one?" Given the problems the crew here had just listed, maybe it really was just a coincidence.
The engineer nodded. "That I know of. I left John Watkins in charge in Warrens, and he'll get word to me if anything else slows them down." She seemed to shake herself, and some of the arrogant woman Meryl knew well came back to the fore. "What can I do for you this evening, Ms. Stryfe?"
A coldness slashed through her gut as she contemplated her next words, and all the unknowns the meeting had driven from the fore of her mind came rushing back. What if . . .
Meryl tried to make her voice sound light. "I was actually looking for . . Eriks. Is he in Collins?"
Elizabeth looked nonplussed. "I'm sorry, did I hear you correctly?"
Meryl met her eyes squarely. "You did. I'm afraid there's a problem that I might need his assistance with."
A raised eyebrow. "Inepral City was less than receptive, I take it."
She made a face. "Actually, I was supposed to be meeting with their city council about now."
Elizabeth blinked at her. "Inepral City is about a hundred and eighty iles from here."
She hadn't counted on resistance from Elizabeth, and couldn't keep the irritation out of her voice. "I'm well aware of that! This problem couldn't wait. Is he here, or not?"
" . . . I don't think so." The engineer's voice was very . . . careful. "I sent him a message letting him know of the problem in Warrens, but I think it was Jenski that replied."
Meryl digested that. It didn't matter how Elizabeth knew it hadn't been Vash to satellite wire back the response. They probably had their own system, just like Millie did. Considering how closely Elizabeth had to work with Vash and Knives both, she wasn't surprised that Elizabeth was also allowed to communicate with him.
That just left her out of the loop.
She squashed down on the jealous pangs, because of course there was nothing to be jealous about. She didn't care. It was just extremely inopportune that the idiot had chosen now of all times to be scarce.
"Meryl, if I'm not mistaken –"
"I know," she growled. "I wouldn't ask if there was any other way."
The engineer gestured at one of the control room seats, and Meryl shook her head. "No, thank you. Do you have any idea how I can contact him?"
"Is there something I can help you with?"
Perhaps the direct route was the best. "Millie's gone missing."
The engineer's face shifted slightly, and the expression was foreign to Meryl. "Millie Thompson? Your partner?"
"How many other Millies do you know?" she snapped. "Yes, Millie Thompson. Last night. She went out to mail a letter and never came back."
Meryl cast a look towards Johnson, but he seemed even more absorbed than before. Possibly he was accustomed to hearing things he wasn't supposed to, and had learned to tune them out for the greater good.
"What are you doing here, then?" Elizabeth hissed at her. "Why aren't you tearing that city apart-"
"I already did. She's not there." Meryl chose to leave out the option that Millie had boarded the sand steamer and was safe and sound in Inepral City. She'd come this far, and for some reason the fact that Vash wasn't where Elizabeth thought he ought to be worried her.
"What do you mean-"
"I mean she's not there!" She took a deep breath, and tried again. "I mean I spent the entire night looking for her. She's either dead or she's in serious trouble, and I thought –"
"That trouble gravitates to Vash," Elizabeth finished. She, too, glanced at Johnson.
"Take a break," she called, and the man immediately locked down his council and headed towards the door on the far end of the room. Meryl wasn't sure where it lead, but he didn't even glance their way as he shouldered open the door.
She waited for it to shut before she looked back towards Meryl. "I can't find Vash," she said without preamble. "He was in Warrens three days ago. That's the last time I saw him. He should have been in town the entire time, but we couldn't find him. I thought he might have come ahead here, but no one's seen him."
Meryl blinked. "What do mean, no one's seen him? Like he's hiding in a donut shop somewhere, or –"
"I thought of that too." She leaned against a console and sighed. "But since he didn't get my message he should have been here yesterday to extract the Plant. The crew said they haven't seen him either."
And there was no doubt the Plant had not been extracted.
Meryl's brain hacked back some of the conversation she'd overheard, and she paused. "Didn't your foreman say the problems here started three days ago?"
Elizabeth's eyes narrowed. "You're saying you think his disappearance and the sabotage is related?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. But it's a little strange. Do you . . . ever write him letters?"
Elizabeth looked at Meryl as if she'd just admitted to cutting the compressed gas line herself. "No," she said flatly. "I talk to him in person. It would be too difficult to complete this work without face to face communication."
So Elizabeth had even more leeway than Millie . . .
"And no, I don't know where his 'home' is," she growled, mostly to herself. "I've only spoken to Knives twice, and I can't say I enjoyed the interaction either time. I have no way of communicating with him, or confirming that Vash is with him."
"Oh! That's not what I was thinking," she said hastily. She couldn't imagine knocking on Knives' door. Hi, we know this location is secret and teeming with Plants that hate humans, and that humans are strictly forbidden, but we were just wondering if Vash is home? "I was just thinking, Millie was mailing Vash a letter when she . . . she disappeared."
It was so hard to say. Like it wasn't true. Like she hadn't disappeared, and there was another verb that was correct and unrelated.
"You think he picked her up and they took off for some reason?" Elizabeth mused. "No offense, but Millie's not the sharpest tool in the shed."
"She's more perceptive than most people give her credit for."
"No need to be so defensive. I was just stating a fact."
"The fact," Meryl fought hard to keep her voice level, "is that they're both missing. You're having problems at this plant and in Warrens. And we have no idea where to find either one."
They chewed on that in silence for a while.
"Do you think Vash knew about the sabotaging?"
Elizabeth shook her head. "He'd have mentioned it to me. He knows what's riding on this project."
That thought sobered Meryl significantly. How much danger had she just put him in by coming here?
"Has he . . . been acting unusual lately?"
The engineer snorted. "I don't know that anything he does can be classified as 'usual.' He's still –" She broke off suddenly. "Of course, you know. If he's been sending Millie letters."
Meryl could have screamed. Instead, she balled her hands into fists behind her back and tried to laugh. "Of course. I was just thinking, maybe he thought an organized group of saboteurs was something he needed to take care of himself." In case Knives would consider it failing.
The taller woman sighed deeply. "Maybe," she finally responded. "But if he can't handle it in three days' time, it's obviously a bigger problem than we thought."
She stood up brusquely, straightening the gown's full skirt before glancing inquiringly at Meryl. "Are you coming?"
Meryl blinked. "Coming . . . ?"
"To the hotel? We need to get a rental truck, unless you brought a vehicle?"
The engineer was already striding briskly across the control room, towards the mystery door on the far side.
"Wait! Why do we –"
"Isn't it obvious?" Meryl could have choked that smug sound right out of her voice. "If Vash really did stupidly go to confront the saboteurs, and he's not back yet, he needs our help. When we find him, we find Millie Thompson."
She pulled open the far door. "Johnson!"
He ambled out, obviously having not been far from the door, and Elizabeth looked slightly chagrined for having bellowed.
"Your break's over."
He just nodded, taking his position again with a nod at Meryl.
Meryl was still trying to understand what Elizabeth was thinking. "I'm sorry, I don't-"
Elizabeth grabbed Meryl's arm in a vicegrip and steered her towards the elevator. "Millie disappeared when she was sending Vash a letter. If this group is organized enough to hit our solar plants in both Warrens and Collins, there's no reason to think they haven't already begun preparations in New Phoenix. It's not like the plant upgrades are secrets. They might have been afraid she'd found them out and was passing information to Eriks."
She slipped back into the other name as easily as she'd slip out of her gown. Johnson, for his part, never so much as twitched in their direction.
"But why the truck? Do you know where they are?"
She shook her head, propelling them through the opening elevator doors. "You do. Where was Millie sending that letter? Do you know?"
"April. But, Elizabeth, I'm pretty sure the letters go through Knives before they –"
The engineer shook her head. "There's no way Knives'd walk up to a human town to pick up a letter from a post office. Besides, I don't think he's left their home since we pulled that data out of the wreckage he found two weeks ago."
Meryl wasn't making the connection. Maybe they both needed a good night's sleep. "But how does that mean that Vash and Millie will be there -?"
"They won't." The car trundled down the shaft, catching occasionally as the little motor struggled with the counterweight. "But some of the saboteurs will. They'll need to intercept the letter."
"But, Elizabeth, they didn't take the letter. They left it at the post office in New Phoenix. And the post office teller went missing the same night," she added, wincing slightly when the engineer glared at her.
"Any other details you're omitting?" she asked coldly.
"The letter is going to Inepral City to be resorted. They could always get it there."
"They won't. They'll let the letter arrive in April."
The elevator doors opened, and Elizabeth stepped out first. Meryl followed, slightly off-put that she had to take a stride and a half for every one of the taller engineer's. Like a cat trailing after its owner's thomas.
The odd mental image made something click in her brain.
"To get the messenger. Because whoever picks up the letter might have suspicions as well."
Elizabeth nodded curtly. "We need to beat that letter to April. To do that, we need our own vehicle."
Meryl started to half-jog as Elizabeth started striding like she meant it. They were approaching the guardhouse, and Meryl wasn't surprised to see both the officers appear at their door.
Johnson had warned them.
"But how do you know they didn't read it when they had access to it in New Phoenix? They'd know there was nothing in it."
"They can't open it without damaging the envelope."
Meryl gaped at her. If Elizabeth didn't send letters like Millie did, how would she . . . ?
The tall brunette jerked her head in signal to the security guards, and they began to approach.
"If I know Knives, he won't use a product of a Plant to carry the messages. He's using real paper. Real paper tears. Whoever picked up the letter in April would realize it had been previously opened, and it might scare them off or warn them. They won't risk it."
Because there was no reason to think that the receiver – Knives, in this case – had any hard evidence. Just suspicions. A pre-opened letter would prove their existence.
And suddenly Meryl realized why they were hurrying.
"Locate us a dependable vehicle, capable of traveling several hundred iles," she called, when Milton was close enough. He immediately turned on his heels, though the other officer continued to approach.
If they didn't beat the letter to April, and something happened to whoever Knives had running his errands, then Knives would know.
Knives would know that something was going wrong with Vash's plan.
And that was something they needed to prevent at all costs.
"What if the ones in April won't tell us what they've done with Millie and Vash?"
Elizabeth nodded towards the guard still approaching them. "Then they'll tell us where to find someone who will."
The first guard just looked at her, and she paused in her powerwalking to eye him up and down. "You're exhausted, Aaron."
"No less than you, Miss Elizabeth," he replied. He glanced once at Meryl, and it was same. From her head to her feet. Like she was a piece of fruit at market. "And Ms. Insurance Agent as well. Sunjy gave me a run-down."
She just nodded. "Plot me the fastest trip between here and April."
He nodded, turning on his heels. The women followed him into the guardhouse, where the biggest, most complete map of Gunsmoke she'd ever seen hung on the wall.
She couldn't help but gape at it, and Elizabeth laughed.
"This was a gift from his friend Doc," she explained. "They charted most of the planet from air, so their maps are far more accurate than land surveys."
He located April, then Collins, and frowned. "Cut here to Inepral City," and he tapped its location on the map, "and then across the desert to Mei." Another tap, and he eyeballed the distance meter on the bottom of the map. "Then south about eighty iles."
"That's not the most direct path."
He almost smiled. Meryl just stared at him. Was this the same guy that had given her such a hard time? He was almost human in her presence. "It is if you don't want to run out of fuel. You're taking a light vehicle. Four passengers, not a lot of room for extras. We'll find something that won't overheat or we'll rig a cooling system."
She put a hand lightly on his arm, guiding it off the map so she could get a better look. "As thoughtful as that is, I'm afraid we don't have time for that."
"All four of us haven't slept in twenty-four hours, from the look," he pointed out.
Four?
Sunjy, her tired brain remembered. Two security folks, her, and Elizabeth.
She shook her head. "No time. We'll drive it straight, in shifts."
He shook his head, but it was obviously not in disagreement. More like resignation.
"You're going to have to change clothes, Miss Elizabeth."
Meryl stared at the map, marking all the cities. She'd never seen a map like this. You could see how the fleet was downed, how the cities were grouped, and the massive amount of desert she didn't even know existed. Every single settlement was on perhaps one-fifth of the planet's surface. The rest was just desert.
Knives and his Plants could be anywhere out there. Why April? It was a small settlement, and just beside it were two that had sprung up around aquifers. She stared at the proposed drive, and couldn't help a sudden, low laugh.
She'd interrupted the conversation, and just shook her head at a slightly questioning look from Elizabeth.
"It's nothing. I've driven the desert between Inepral City and Mei. He's right, there's not much out there."
But there had been, once. In the desert between Inepral City and Mei they'd found an almost unconscious preacher slouched in the shadow of a huge cross.
"You could have just said," she muttered softly, to no one in particular.
- . -
Author's Notes: I told you I'd further the plot! And I lied. ; ) It was necessary, though. Considering this is a Trigun fic I suppose I should include Vash at some point, huh. Not that he has much to say at the moment, but next chapter should revolve around him pretty significantly. Thank you guys for your comments! They're very helpful, especially considering I'm sadly manga-less.