Something in Sloane cracked, and she laughed. Giggled, really, until some of the tension bled away.
Mox’s eyes crinkled like he was smiling, but it was hard to tell—he wore a siphon over the lower part of his face, though a sleeker one than she had seen him don as the Resurrectionist. It was a seamless metal plate etched with feathers, like a flock of birds descending. It didn’t warp his voice, as the other one had, and Sloane was glad. There was something warm and round about his natural voice, and she didn’t want the Resurrectionist in her ear on this mission.
“I did a quick scan of the area,” Ziva said. “There’s no sign of the Army of Flickering anywhere. I think, since he intended to lure you with the boots, Sloane, that he’s left us a clear path to the Camel.”
“Well, that’s a small mercy,” Mox said. “Never thought I’d be happy to hear Nero’s expecting us.”
“He’s expecting something he won’t get,” Sloane said. “I won’t be going alone, and I won’t be going to him. You figured out your distraction, Mox?”
Mox nodded. “Distraction’s easy. But one big enough to pull most of the guards out of the Camel, well . . .” His eyes glinted. “That’ll be a trick.”
They walked a block down to the Thirty-Fifth Street bus stop. An old woman waited there, her head wrapped in a floral shawl, a basket of pamphlets at her feet. Sloane was close enough to see the title: “The Lord: Genetrix’s First Magic-User; How Magic Can Be Worship.”
The bus pulled up a few minutes later. Sloane let the old woman climb the steps ahead of her, then paid all three of their fares at once so the bus driver wouldn’t look too closely at Ziva. At Sloane’s instruction, Mox had not dressed like the Resurrectionist but in the fashion she had seen some of the younger Genetrixae wearing, all ripped denim and heavy leather jackets and muted colors. Nothing that would cue any memories of the city’s hooded, siphon-clad menace.
She led the way to the back of the bus and nestled against the window with Mox beside her. Ziva took the third seat, tugging her hood down over her eyes and slumping back like she was asleep. The cast of her skin was still unearthly if you looked at her closely, but they just had to hope no one would.
The bus lurched down 35th Street toward Comiskey Park—or whatever they were calling the place where the White Sox played on Earth. There, just beyond the stadium, they would get on the Red Line train going toward the Loop, where they could access the underground tunnels of the pedway. If Genetrix’s Chicago had a pedway. Sloane was trusting her memory of Chicago history to guide them.
35th Street was wide and flat with low buildings on either side, most of them made of Chicago’s favored red brick. It looked so much like it would have on Earth that Sloane felt, for snatches of time, like she was home. Then she would see a dingy sign in a shop window advertising cheap siphon repair or discount oscilloscopes or notice a bookstore boasting of selling all ten volumes of Basic Practical Workings for the Average Siphon User and she would remember where she was and that her mission wasn’t complete. Had never been complete. She had yet to kill the Dark One.
Up ahead, in the distance, she could see a tall structure that had to be the stadium. She had been there twice in the past ten years, once incognito, with a White Sox cap shading her face, and a second time for the Crosstown Classic, sitting in the Sox owner’s box with Matt. She had spent most of that game with other people’s phones in her face, trying to smile for selfies.
When the bus drew closer to the stadium, though, Sloane frowned. The old Comiskey Park had been demolished on Earth in the early 1990s. It had been replaced by a bigger stadium with taupe outer walls and a towering upper deck. But on Genetrix, the face of the structure was still wide and white, with the words COMISKEY PARK in blue across the top. It was the original. She was sure of it.
“I can’t believe it’s still standing,” she said quietly to Mox.
“They were going to rebuild it, but some Unrealist architects offered to use some of their techniques to support it and expand it . . . backward,