“They’re people. I can do something.”
Sparks grabbed Nate’s sleeve. “Do something smart and get out of here. Do you want to burn up with them?”
The other Tinkerer and the girl with him had already climbed atop the nearest car and walked along it carefully, toward the fire. Tinkerers weren’t Servants. They didn’t have a code of conduct or a mission. But knowing how to fix things when no one else did still meant something. Ithadto mean something.
“I’ll be careful.”
Sparks sucked in a breath and took Nate by the back of the neck to pull him close. “Don’t get killed.”
“I said I’ll be fine! Get these people down the ladder, okay? Maybe they’ll listen to you and Reed if you don’t snarl so much.”
Sparks’s lips twisted into a small grin. “That’s a tall order.”
“Try to get them to stay together. It’s gonna get ugly.”
The crowd of onlookers below wasn’t scared—they were angry and hungry and likely to pluck every last trinket and scrap of clothes off the survivors. Nate couldn’t do anything about that.
Sparks watched him for another moment, shaking her head. “You’re crazed,” she said. But it didn’t sound like an insult, and when she let him go, she began waving down the survivors from the train.
Nate swung over to a set of thin rungs and climbed to the top of the car. Wind whipped smoke against him, and he ducked, coughing at the bitter, stinging taste of chemicals—and the unmistakable smell of charred meat.
This was a terrible idea.
The train car shook under his boots. He shuffled along the top, pitching back and forth to keep his balance. If he slipped and fell off, he’d be lucky to land on the tracks and not far below on the unforgiving concrete.
“I’m Nate!” He shouted through the smoke to the other Tinkerer. “Think anyone else will come up?”
“Reckon not. I’m Dres. That’s my daughter, Sandy. She tinkers fine, but I won’t let her too close to the fire.”
Sandy picked her way ahead with nimble steps, two blonde braids bouncing against her back. She wasn’t much older than Pixel.
“Maybe you should send her back down. No telling what’s gonna blow next,” Nate said.
The man smiled a blackened, half-toothless grin. Sun-blisters covered his pale nose. “That’s what makes it fun.”
Nate’s heart raced. The roof of the railcar rattled beneath his feet with the pounding blows of the people trying to get out. Nothing about this wasfun.
“Sandy!” Nate called. “You try the window back here, okay?”
Dres met his eye and nodded, allowing his daughter to move past and work on the window farthest from the blazing fire a few cars ahead of them. Nate went to work on the emergency hatch jammed against the guardrail. No amount of force would pry it open. But if he could take the hinges apart, it would slide down and in, and the people inside would be able to climb out. He tried to ignore the screams and blistering heat, hands shaking despite the simple work. Sweat dripped into his eyes.
Nate had heard plenty of rumors about the Breakers cooking explosives, but they’d never done anything like this.
No one had ever interfered with the speeding trains that led from Gathos City over the Withers to the smaller residential islands on the far side. Once in a while, people tried to run along the rails over the sludge-channels, but the trains came too frequently. They crushed anyone foolish enough to make a run for it.
What if Gathos City punished everyone in the Withers for this? They had the means. They could stop sending food rations over. They could cut off electricity and water.
Focus.
Nate spared a glance over his shoulder at the darkly dressed Gathos City commuters gathering in tight herds in the growing mob. Servants crept out into the crowd like ghosts in their gravel-colored robes and crouched beside people who writhed on the ground, burned and broken from the wreck. Nate exhaled heavily with a fleeting moment of relief. Servants took a vow to protect and care for anyone in need, whether they were old and dying or from Gathos City.
He scanned until he spotted the yellow scarf in Sparks’s hair and Reed beside her, running his hands through his short hair with frantic jabs. When their eyes met, Nate looked away. The year before, he’d toppled off an electrical pole after getting distracted by Reed’s dazzling green eyes and the caged-bird flutters they caused in Nate’s chest. He couldn’t afford to slip now.
The first hinge came apart with a quick pull, but the second was jammed. Nate took the pieces he’d already removed and fastened them back together to make a lever. He wasn’t strong—so he’d learned other ways to find strength. Bracing his boots against the hot metal, Nate threw his weight into it and loosened the stubborn bolt. It clanked to the ground, and the seal on the hatch popped open with a gasp of smoky air. Nate used his legs to pry it open all the way.
“This way is safe!” Nate yelled. “You need to hurry.” He tucked the borrowed tools into his belt and grabbed on to the edge of the hatch to vault inside.
For a moment, all he could do was stare at the white seats and gleaming walls. Piercing lights strobed, and a low, chiming alarm sounded over and over. The sweet, sharp smell ofcleanbrought on a memory as clear as a windy day. His mother’s hand in his in the back seat of a car while his father drove, quiet and distant as ever.
