water that would never fail, never fall, never lose its luster. She tied the country she was trying to create to a bathhouse. I only wish she could have seen the damn place burn.”
“Got it,” says Leigh. She moves to hang up, and is stopped by Reed’s voice.
“Leigh.”
“Yes?”
“Bring me their bodies. I want to take them apart.”
“Can I have the heads?” she asks lightly, even though she knows she’ll never receive anything from James Reed again, save perhaps for a knife between the ribs and a bullet to the heart. Killing her will be difficult, but she’s sure he’ll be willing to put the effort in.
“Of course.”
“Then of course. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to save the world.” She hangs up her phone. After a moment’s consideration, she drops it to the street and grinds it beneath her heel, shattering the screen, destroying the delicate internal circuitry.
“Oops,” she says.
The nameless alchemist has returned from his attempts to run down the misleading BART tickets (and she knows he found their holders, and let them live; under the circumstances, she has better things to concern herself with). Leigh walks to his car, opens the passenger-side door, and climbs in.
“Can you see that?” she asks, pointing to the column of golden light in the sky.
He follows her finger. His eyes widen. “Where the fuck did that come from?”
“The Sutro Baths, and that’s where we’re going. You’d better floor it,” she says, voice serene. “We’ve got some cuckoos to kill.”
Commuter traffic is just starting to get underway, but they’re a “high-occupancy vehicle”; they qualify for the carpool lane. Between that, some impressively defensive driving, and a glorious willingness to violate traffic laws, it’s a little over an hour before they’re pulling up to what the GPS claims will be the ruins of the Sutro Baths.
There are no ruins here. There is only a dome of glass and steel glittering in the sunrise, lit from within by electric bulbs and lit from without by the entire sky. The structure glows with mercury light. It will be visible to alchemists for a hundred miles, a bright and welcoming beacon telling them that all is forgiven, that Baker’s dream has endured.
Leigh hates it as she’s hated little else in her life. She climbs out of the car, producing two pistols from inside her jacket and holding them low against her thighs, where they’re less likely to be seen by passersby. She doesn’t expect that to be a problem. Something like this—the reappearance of a historical landmark, the discoloration of the entire horizon—should have attracted dozens of onlookers by now. Since that hasn’t happened, she assumes the working in progress shares some aspects of its function with the Hand of Glory. No one is here because no one can see what’s happening. No one who isn’t already a part of this fight.
“Kill anything inside that moves and isn’t me,” says Leigh, looking to the nameless alchemist. “There may be a little strawberry blonde with a trustworthy face. I’d prefer to kill her myself. I understand that may not be possible. If it’s not, make sure it hurts when you take her down. Make sure she suffers. All right?”
“Yes, ma’am,” says the alchemist.
“Good boy. Maybe I won’t kill you after all.”
There’s no need for them to walk down the cliff: the Baths are back, fully material, glittering in the sunlight. Leigh Barrow walks straight through the front door.
CONCRETE
Timeline: 7:35 PDT, June 17, 2016 (and on).
There isn’t time to explore the Baths, much as each of them would like to, for their own reasons. Roger is enchanted by the history of the place, by the idea that they’ve somehow turned word into deed into material reality. Dodger can’t take her eyes off the angles, the mathematical perfection of the construction, the concrete glory of math become clear and present all around them. Erin simply wants to know the best places to hide when Leigh arrives—because Leigh is going to arrive. This is why they don’t have any time (there was never enough time).
Dodger leads them through the Baths, eyes half-closed and one hand held in front of her like a dowser looking for water. The others follow, saying nothing. Distracting her would cost time (there is never enough time).
They walk through vast chambers filled with empty pools, into a long, L-shaped room. The furniture flickers in and out of being, not quite stable; it appeared to have been a sitting room, once upon a time. Vast windows look