

Introduction
Chapter 1
1
Constable Paix Hanger had attended many crime
scenes, yet something about this one unnerved him. No blood
splattered the empty alley, no bodies adorned the back rooms of
this sad little fabric shop.
That was the problem, he
decided.
The boy was just ‒ gone.
He closed his notebook, putting
it and his pencil into his pocket. The room was odd. He'd seen
similar rooms before, this close to the Pot ‒ minimal battered
furnishings, nothing on the walls ‒ but this room held an emptiness
that pulled at his heart.
No smell of food. No personal
items lying about. Not even a toy or doll on the boy's thin
mattress.
Paix considered himself at that
age. The boy was twelve, even if he looked ten, perhaps too old for
dolls. But not even a book?
Forensics men dusted the open
back door frame and back stair railing for fingerprints while
others photographed the barren room and the child's portrait. The
family peered in from the doorway to their storefront, following
the officers' every move. The mother ‒ in her middle forties with
dark eyes and hair ‒ and a young man of sixteen, who looked like
her. Their clothes were well-made, too fine for a 2nd Street
address.
Probationary Constable Leone
Briscola stood in front of them, arms on the door-posts, blocking
the way. "You think he ran off?"
Paix flinched at the outrage
which flashed through the mother's eyes. This would make things
more difficult. He gave Briscola a sharp stare. "We don't have
enough evidence to say anything yet."
Briscola's swarthy cheeks
reddened, his dark eyes dropping at the rebuke.
Paix strode to the open back
door. Clouds covered the late December sky, yet Lady Luck had
smiled upon them ‒ it was mid-morning, with little chance of rain.
Cases like these at night in a thunderstorm were much more
difficult.
From the narrow steps, Paix had
a clear view of the entire alley. A team photographed the alley,
while another collected every item in it ‒ trash, half-eaten rats,
bits of wood ‒ each placed into its own brown paper sack, the top
folded and sealed. Labelled. Catalogued.
If this were any other
precinct, a detective or three would be ordering them around. But
Precinct 1 was stretched too thin for that luxury. Their job was to
do the preliminaries. Whatever detective was assigned would follow
up on the case tomorrow.
The alley wall across the way
looked like any other. Paix moved close to inspect it: graffiti,
but no hairs, no fibers, nothing to speak of what happened
here.
They should have cordoned off
the entire alley, and examined the back stair first. Dozens of
officers had walked these stairs, and others had trailed through
the alley while they spoke with the family inside. "Photograph
every shoe-print of every man here. And the family's."
"Yes, sir."
It was routine, but he didn't
want to leave anything to chance. Those eyes in the boy's tintype
portrait haunted him.
Paix pointed to a fresh mark ‒
a dog, stamped in red on the grimy brick wall. "Did you photograph
this?"
"Yes, Constable, but it won't
help much." The photographer, a slender, curly-haired man dark as a
Diamond, shook his head regretfully. "Colors don't show with this
film. I called for an artist."
Paix continued down the
alleyway. No signs of a struggle suggested the boy knew his
kidnapper ‒ or was lured away. He turned to face his team.
Briscola stood facing him.
"They're done with the room."
"Don't ever make a
determination in front of the family."
Briscola's cheeks reddened, and
he stared past. "Sorry, Constable."
Paix kept his voice low. "Sorry
won't mend this. It's bad enough most of the force is on the take,
or shaking down people for crossing the street wrong, or playing
target practice in the Pot. You know how rare it is for someone to
actually call us the day of a crime?" He turned away, trying to
keep his anger under control. Then he faced his partner. "You're a
good cop. But you have to keep your mouth shut. Understand?"
Briscola's head drooped. "Yes,
sir."
Paix clapped Briscola's
shoulder. "What do you see?"
The young man's face steadied,
his shoulders straightened.
It was encouraging. He hoped
Briscola would survive.
"No signs of a struggle, sir.
Nothing of his left at the scene. The family heard no noise ‒"
Briscola turned to Paix, astonished. "The boy didn't cry out."
"Notice anything else?"
"Last night was Yuletide
Center. Where are the decorations? The food? The gifts?"
Paix nodded. And the rest of
her family. Where were they?
Good thing I was assigned this
case, he thought. This woman was barely surviving. To have to
choose between bribes and food .... "What else?"
He watched as Briscola
struggled to find something, anything to say. Finally, Briscola
shook his head.
"The mother. She's hasn't given
her children a Yuletide, yet still wears a wedding ring."
Briscola's eyes unfocused,
blinked several times. Then he frowned, his mouth twisting. "She
loves her children. It's not that." He hesitated. "Recently
widowed?"
She took off her mourning
garb, yet she kept her ring.
"Yes, and by the look of things,
newly arrived to Bridges." The answer came to him in a flash.
"They're running from something."
The two officers returned to the house, and Mrs.
Bryce offered them tea. As there were only three stools, the young
man ‒ Herbert was his name ‒ lounged on his bed, watching them in
silence.
That they were offered tea
seemed encouraging. Perhaps she'd speak more of her troubles. Paix
said, "Was this your first voyage on the zeppelin?"
"No, sir," Mrs. Bryce said
stiffly. "We've traveled before." Her accent seemed familiar but he
couldn't place it.
"Did you enjoy your trip
here?"
They both flinched.
He decided to try a different
approach. "Mrs. Bryce, what brought you to Bridges?"
She glanced away. "I had
opportunity to own a business."
He peered at her. She hid
something. Why? "Anything you can tell us might help."
The woman glanced at her son.
"We owed money. Back in Dickens. We ‒ I thought we'd be safe
here."
Paix nodded. Now he recognized
the accent.
Financial refugees from Dickens
were not unheard of. A dollar from Dickens was a small fortune in
the slums of Bridges. "But why come
here
?" Fees from the
local crime family, outrageous rents with little in return ‒ this
wasn't the best play for a gentlewoman in financial distress.
She glanced away. "This was
where opportunity lay." She faced him, then set her teacup down,
her manner formal. "Will there be anything else?"
Something wasn't right here. He
handed her his card. "Madam, I'm here neither for your money nor
your favors. We want to be of service. But I don't want to further
impose on you. If you think of anything which might be helpful, or
if anyone contacts you about the boy, or if your son returns,
please let us know."
Her cheeks reddened, but she
stood: it was time for them to leave.
The men in the alleyway were packing their gear,
but gave Paix their attention when he emerged.
"I want a door-to-door search
in a six-block radius," Paix said. "Four of you come with me: we'll
take the Pot. The rest finish packing then split into teams." He
counted quickly, then pointed to one of them. "You stay here and
watch the house in case the boy returns." He raised his voice to
encompass them all. "Each team take search bags. Play it straight,
men. The boy is here somewhere, and the clock is ticking." If the
child were taken, as the mother seemed to think, every minute which
passed without finding David Bryce left less hope of him being
found alive.
And he'd been gone several
hours already.
Paix and his group strode to
the corner, then turned towards the Hedge. David Bryce might have
gone to some neighbor's house, invited in with warm food and gifts.
But the Bryce family had been in Bridges only a short time; his
mother insisted she knew of no friends here.
Paix peered up and down the
intersection before crossing 1st Boulevard. This didn't feel right.
If his hunch were true ‒ the family was indeed running from someone
‒ the boy would feel anxious, wary of strangers. He wouldn't have
left home without telling his mother.
Yet he didn't cry out. Why?
They crossed the wide,
broken-down boulevard to one of the gaps in the Hedge, then the
group slipped through.
Paix shuddered, the hair on his
arms rising. They had crossed into the Pot.
"You two," he pointed to his
right. "up three. You two," he pointed to his left, "up five. Six
blocks to each side. Meet back at the wagons when you're done."
The men shifted a bit with sour
faces, especially the ones asked to go six blocks into the Pot. But
Paix had no qualms they would follow. He waited until they deduced
his reasoning: he was senior, and had a new Probationary with him.
They nodded, and set off.
Paix was within his rights to
order, to bluster, to demand. But he never liked to work that way.
Men who understood and agreed meant men who'd follow orders ‒ and
come back alive.
The six men crept straight
across the empty wide street paralleling the Hedge. Then they moved
forward, one silent step at a time, nightsticks drawn, keeping to
the center of the street. Broken glass lined the gutters, in places
ground fine as sand. On either side, the bombed-out ruins stood
eerily quiet.
At the first intersection, Paix
and Briscola stopped, while the other men pressed on. Paix
whispered to Briscola, "Have you been in the Pot before?"
Briscola shook his head, face
pale. The paper sack in his hand made a crinkling noise.
"They will try to kill you if
they can."
A whistle rang out, high and to
the left. Briscola jumped at the sound. The rest, several yards
ahead, didn't even flinch.
Paix shouted with full force.
"A boy's gone missing. We need your help."
Silence lay heavy in the air.
Then across the street to their left, a boy emerged from a battered
yet elaborately carved corner door. The boy was seven years old and
blond, wearing the bright red jacket of his trade.
Two older boys, twelve or so
with light brown hair, followed, the familiar bulge of a weapon at
each boy's side.
Briscola let out a loud breath.
Paix relaxed, yet kept watchful. "Greetings, Memory Boy."
"Good morning, Constables."
Memory Boys remembered
everything: heard, seen, or written. Paix thought this might be a
curse rather than a blessing, although the families of these
children lacked for nothing. "What have you heard of a boy
missing?"
"Nothing," the Memory Boy said.
"What's he like?"
Paix peered around. They were
much too exposed. "Let's get out of the street."
The older boys nodded; the
group moved back against a wall. Far off ahead, two Constables
turned right, their motions wary.
"Briscola, watch the windows."
Paix crouched to the Memory Boy's height. The boy's companions ‒
from the look if it, his brothers ‒ stood watching everywhere but
them. "His name is David Bryce. He's twelve, but small: he looks
ten. Just arrived from Dickens. Dark hair and eyes, but light of
skin."
"I haven't heard of him," the
boy said, "but I'll listen."
"Thanks," Paix said. "And ask
the Clubbs to watch as well."
The boy smiled brightly.
"However would I do that?"
"This is no game,sir. Someone's
after the family, and I don't want this boy taken from the
city."
The Memory Boy's face reddened.
"I'll take care of it."
The Clubb crime syndicate owned
the only way out of this dome: the zeppelin station and by
extension, the Aperture. If the boy was taken out of Bridges, the
police would need to involve the Feds for permission to pursue him,
and no one ‒ least of all the Clubbs ‒ wanted that.
And everyone knew Memory Boys
reported the better information straight to the Clubbs. "Good lad."
He straightened. "Safe journey."
"You too," the Memory Boy said,
and the three children left.
Briscola said, "What now?"
Running across a Memory Boy had
been incredibly fortunate. But they still had a lot of work to do.
"Have you done a search before?"
"In training."
"Then you know what to do."
Briscola took one of the search
bags from the paper sack, a fist-sized muslin bag filled with
colored chalk dust then tied shut with twine. He tossed it into the
middle of the intersection, leaving a bright pink bloom on the
grimy cobblestones. "You always go right," Briscola said, as if
reminding himself.
Bemused, Paix followed him.
The two men searched the
bombed-out buildings, looking under fallen boards, behind broken
walls, down fetid basements. Eventually they reached the six
blocks, then circled around to search the other side of the
street.
No one interfered, for which
Paix was grateful.
When they returned to the pink
spot, the bag was gone. Stolen, most likely, perhaps to use as a
toy, or to color one of their filthy hovels. The two men moved
on.
Once they'd searched the six
blocks on the other side of this street, they moved to the next.
Briscola marked it with a yellow bag this time.
By the time they were finished
searching the second street it was well past midday. They returned
to Mrs. Bryce's home. The wagons ‒ and the rest of his men ‒ stood
waiting.
No one had found anything.
No one would talk with
them.
It was business as usual.
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Last Updated: 3/3/2025
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