Rivka was afraid, and she coped the only way she knew how: she built.
Blueprints sprawled across her worktable. Large bolts and stubby pipes tamed the stubbornly curled edges of parchment. Kellar Dryn’s notes were stacked to one side, his cramped cursive circling around sketches and diagrams and equations. Rivka scanned over pages as she worked with bits of metal to construct an articulated model wing. It wouldn’t contain any wiring or powering mechanisms yet. Mr. Dryn had advised her to start with the skeleton and work inward.
She ignored the clock and the protests of her hollow stomach as long as she could. Finally, she wandered to the kitchen, and with a piece of bread in her hand, she stared out the window. Sunset smeared color down the windows of the surrounding towers. Down in the plaza, people would be rushing home from school and work, filling any available tram car and taxi cabriolet.
Rivka needed to go down there, terrified as she was. She needed to know if her idea was working.
She slipped on her coat and grabbed one of the freshly printed books from the shelf: Gem: or, The True Plight of Gremlins. Today was release day. She hugged the vivid green book to her chest, the cover bold against the deep black of her coat, and headed for the tram.
Rivka made herself read on the ride even though she had already read the novel to the point of memorization.
Gem the Gremlin was born to a first-generation gremlin chimera. He lived in a nest high above the plaza, a time of innocence and frivolity, but also of lessons. He learned to steal food or starve, that people were cruel, and that his mother was slowly dying as her body fought against cancerous lesions. Then he was captured by a man known only as The Scientist, who kept a full zoo of gremlins and other creatures that he used to piece together a behemoth chimera for use in what was simply called the Game.
Rivka looked up as she blinked back tears she couldn’t contain, even after countless readings.
Advertisements for the real Arena bout plastered the gaps between windows. The event was a week away. Tatiana would be practicing with Lump right now. Rivka felt a twist of yearning. She missed Lump and the other caged gremlins. A few days ago, she and Tatiana had staged a brilliant fight in front of Mr. Cody’s lackeys. Rivka had renewed her argument against the Arena match and the danger that it posed to both Tatiana and Lump. Tatiana had been pompous and utterly herself. By the time Rivka flounced away, she almost believed their own act.
The schism needed that realism. They needed Mr. Cody to believe Tatiana was blameless in the ensuing hullabaloo. If there was going to be any hullabaloo. Today would tell.
She disembarked into a teeming sea of people. It took her awhile to wade to the upper-level stairs, where she knew the vantage point would be the best.
Rivka had told Grandmother about how Mama would sell her bread on market days. If she gave someone a slice of fresh bread to sample, other passersby would notice. They would want a slice of their own, and when they enjoyed that, they sometimes purchased a full loaf to take home.
Mama always made sure to give slices to children in particular. Children had a way of making parents buy more of what they wanted.
Grandmother’s inspired strategy utilized members of her publishing staff along with Broderick’s gremlin-rescue peers. She deployed them with free copies of the book at major train platforms that catered to young academy and university students across Tamarania and the connected isles. Grandmother had spared no expense in her promotional efforts, especially when it became clear that Mr. Cody’s female jockey was Tatiana. By that juncture, stopping Mr. Cody was an even higher priority than telling Tatiana’s family of her mischief.
From Rivka’s vista, she spied people carrying copies of the bright green book. Even more, people were reading it! She hugged her own book tighter against her chest.
Each free copy contained a card that stated the book could be purchased at any bookstore or found at any library within the city-states. Once the volunteers exhausted their supplies of books, they would pass out these cards as well.
It had to work. The content had to cause an outcry, and quickly. That was the only way to spare Lump from facing the mechas on Warriors’ mountain, the only way to stop Broderick from his horrid duty of emptying cages in mere days.
Rivka hopped down the stairs again.
In the nearest rubbish bin, something green caught her eye. It was a copy of Gem the Gremlin atop the trash. She brushed it off, relieved that it looked as new as ever, then frantically lifted other papers in the receptacle to see if any other books had been discarded. What if everyone threw away their copy unread?
“This has to work,” she muttered. She walked on, clutching both copies, her mind in free fall. Grandmother would be at the office. Rivka could head there now, see if she had any sales numbers yet. Surely, Grandmother would have good news.
She boarded a tram. Her thoughts tumbled together, her heart beat like a slamming piston.
“Excuse me.” A young woman leaned across the seat. “Is that one of those free books?”
“Oh. Yes.” Rivka turned around and faced a cover toward her.
The woman glanced at her companions. They all wore vests for a Tamaran academy. “One of our friends was given a final copy from a man out by the platform. She said what she read was good, but is the book really all about gremlins?” Her face twisted in disgust.
“Yes! It’s a story told by the gremlin. A story based on truth. Here.” Rivka held out both books to her. A young man snared the second copy.
“You already read it?” the woman asked, her eyes on the cover.
“It’s short, not even a hundred pages. Reads fast, too,” said Rivka. The man had already settled back in his seat, book open. “It went on sale today. You can find it at all the bookstores.”
“That’s where we’re going right now! We have papers due soon, but . . .” The second woman’s voice trailed away as she tried to read over the man’s shoulder. The group huddled around both readers, their voices dropping to murmurs.
Rivka faced forward in her seat. Her empty fingers twined together, and she smiled.
Rivka and Tatiana faced each other across the shiny expanse of the Stout dining table. Tatiana leaned on her elbows, her eyes shining like stars.
“There I was, in the full jockey uniform, helmet covering my entire head so no one knew who I was. I had orders to stand behind Mr. Cody. Reporters filled the whole room. Mr. Cody started talking about how his lawyers were looking into the matter of this new book and that its dreadful Scientist might be based on him. Reporters interrupted, asking about the gremlins, about how many had died to make his new mecha-chimera, if the laboratory cages were still stocked full. It was glorious. Mr. Cody owns most of those papers and has controlled them for years, but they still couldn’t resist such a controversy.”
“How did Mr. Cody react?” asked Rivka. This was the first time she had seen Tatiana since their staged fight. So much had happened in the days since.
“He was Mr. Cody. He was smooth as pudding. He said no more gremlins were being harmed and that he was officially withdrawing Lump from the bout. Everyone started yelling. I had to turn my head away, so many bulbs flashed.”
“Grandmother had a note relayed here, saying that she’s been swamped by reporters, too. Her whole press is exclusively printing copies of Gem the Gremlin right now.”
Tatiana nodded. “Lump’s withdrawal from the bout is going to be the headline in all the evening papers. You should have heard the questions yelled at Mr. Cody! He answered a few of them. He said he knew that thousands of people were offering up their homes to gremlins, and yes, he would be at the next meeting of augusts that discussed legislation on experimentation on gremlins and other beasts. But then he said he had to go, and it ended, just like that. A few reporters called out to me, too, asking if I was disappointed, if I had a statement. I just waved.”
“Are you disappointed?” Rivka delighted in every word of the conversation, but her mind kept wandering to blueprints.
Tatiana settled back in her chair. “I’m still working with Lump every day. With you gone, I’m the only one who can safely enter his circle. And then there’s the book.” Her grin glowed. “I thought it would bother me that I couldn’t be known as the author, but then I get to walk behind Mr. Cody and hear him damn you and your grandmother, saying he wished the Wasters had gotten you, that girls your age shouldn’t be allowed to get ideas and write things like that. And I’m standing right there. The author. All his spies, all his intrigues, and he doesn’t know.”
“Grandmother says the truth is bound to come out eventually.”
“It will.” Tatiana looked pleased at the prospect of new fame. Rivka wondered if Tatiana would feel quite so chuffed after her mother and brother knew the full truth of it. “This big fuss will be another brief Tamaran trend, but there’ll be long-term good from it, too.” She stood, smoothing her bobbed hair. “I need to go see what damage those three gremlins have done to my flat today. Oh!” She patted a pocket. “Here.”
She tossed a satin drawstring bag onto the table. “Mr. Cody hosted a lunch party. Whatever else can be said about the man, he does serve good food. I saw these and thought of you, so I stuffed some in my jacket pocket.”
Rivka untied the bag. A sweet scent wafted over her senses as the bag fell slack to reveal a handful of shimmering maple crisps. “Why—thank you.”
“Frengian maple, right? Is this something your mother used to make?”
Rivka nodded, momentarily mute. “Yes. Thank you.”
“Well! I’m not sure when I’ll see you next.” Tatiana gave her a brief hug and practically bounded away. “But soon!”
“Yes. Soon.”
She stood there for a while after the door shut. With a few crisps in her palm, she walked to the window. Maple sugar crusted the top of the small yeast crackers while the underside was caramelized and slick. The sweetness crunched between her teeth as she studied the city. In the distance, near the plaza and Mr. Cody’s tower, an airship flew with a trailing small banner.
The words on the banner, in bold black print: “SAVE THE GREMLINS.”