The Lost Train of Thought Read online

  John Hulme and Michael Wexler

  illustrations by Gideon Kendall

  NEW YORK BERLIN LONDON

  To David Kuhn, Titanium Deb,

  and the kids with the safety-pinned shirts

  Contents

  0 · Winds of Change

  1 · The Court of Public Opinion

  2 · Unremembering

  3 · The Second Team

  4 · Trans-Seemsberian Express

  5 · Contemplation

  6 · Powers That Be

  7 · Brainstorm

  8 · Au Contraire

  9 · The Middle of Nowhere

  10 · The Word Is Given

  11 · The Most Amazing Thing of All

  12 · The Mother of All Glitches

  12.5 · The Lost Train of Thought

  13 · The Unthinkable

  14 · Triton

  Epilogue

  Appendix A

  Appendix B

  Appendix C

  0

  Winds of Change

  The Listening Post, The Seems

  Beep! Beep! Beep!

  Ralph Koohler lowered his sports page and let the half-eaten doughnut in his mouth fall to the desk. Was it his imagination, or had he just heard one of the long-range sensors go off?

  “That wouldn’t be good,” he whispered aloud. “That wouldn’t be good at all.”

  A few minutes of silence later, the forty-year-old father of three waited for his heart to stop racing. Ralph was not prepared to handle a crisis of any kind. He’d faced more than his share of those as an Air-Conditioner in the Department of Nature, what with the increase of smog and acid rain and the Powers That Be’s insistence that it was all “part of the Plan.” Thankfully, the transfer to the Listening Post had proved to be just what the Care Giver ordered.

  In a small building that was remarkable only for the fact that it was covered with antennae and set atop a wooden pole nearly three thousand feet in the air, Ralph’s sole responsibility was to monitor a series of safety beacons scattered throughout The Seems. These devices tracked the movements of natural phenomena like Purple Haze and Clouds of Suspicion—rare occurrences that, if allowed to go unchecked, could have significant effects on The World. However, in the month since he’d been reassigned here, not a single buzz, ping, or clang had—

  Beep! Beep! Beep!

  There it was again. Loud and clear and coming from a dusty transmitter that someone had stashed on top of the microwave oven. When Ralph rose from his desk and took a closer look, he noticed the only light on the metal box had flipped from red to green.

  “Hey, Georgie, you’re not gonna believe this.” Ralph dialed down to his shift supervisor, who was stationed in the small shack at the base of the post. “Looks like I got somethin’.”

  “You’re kidding.” George sounded even more surprised than he was. The ex–Power Broker had retired from the Department of Energy a while back, and was just trying to keep busy by volunteering twice a week. “Which sensor?”

  “Don’t know. This thing’s so old all it’s got is a serial number on the side.”

  “Read it to me and I’ll check the booklet.”

  “IB5944-WOC.”

  As Ralph waited for the supervisor to dig up the info, his left hand held his right to keep it from shaking. Twenty years ago, he had graduated from the School of Hard Knocks with dreams of making Air a thing of beauty again. In his mind, those dreams had failed to come true, and it had become harder and harder for Ralph to justify why The Seems didn’t do a better job of keeping The World out of harm’s way.

  “You sure you got that number right, Ralph?” squawked George over the intercom.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “’Cause the booklet says that’s the one hooked up to the beacon in the In-Between.”

  Now both of Ralph’s hands were shaking.

  “You’re not sayin’ what I think you’re sayin’, Georgie? ’Cause if you are, I’m quitting for good and moving out to the Sticks.”

  “You and me both.”

  Ralph took a deep breath, then turned on the old-fashioned dot matrix printer and plugged it into the back of the transmitter. Almost immediately, a stream of numbers began to churn across the paper, along with longitudes and latitudes and directional markers that Ralph didn’t pretend to understand. In fact, the only piece of information on the rapidly unspooling document that meant anything at all were the three words written in modern Seemsian across the top . . .

  “Winds of Change.”

  Ralph collapsed into his chair, and as he lifted the phone to his lips, he made a mental note to call his wife and tell her to start packing.

  “Georgie . . . you better get the Big Building on the horn.”

  Red Square, Moscow, Russia

  Becker Drane sat down on a bench in the northwest corner of Red Square and pulled his Transport Goggles™1. off his head. Though it was late October, the unseasonably warm weather had caused the frost from the In-Between to melt off the lenses and soak his mop of hair. He wrung out a few drops of water, then turned his eyes to the fading light of afternoon.

  Russia’s largest public gathering place was neither red nor square, but as always, it was a cacophony of color and sound. A juggler on a unicycle struggled to balance both himself and the three balls that seemed to be spending way too much time on the ground. A barefoot songwriter was strumming “Back in the USSR” in the shadow of Saint Basil’s Cathedral. And on the bench to Becker’s right, a boyfriend and girlfriend were arguing about something so strenuously that he was glad he couldn’t understand Russian. Ordinary people going through an ordinary day, none knowing what was about to blow this way.

  “Fixer Drane to Briefer Frye, status report?” Becker tucked his Bleceiver™ into his pocket and pushed the wireless bud into his ear.2.

  “Just arrived Department of Reality,” the familiar voice of Briefer #356, aka Simly Alomonous Frye, came through crystal clear. “Patch construction underway. I repeat, Patch is almost ready to go.”

  “I want it done yesterday, Sim. According to the guys at the Listening Post, the Winds are coming through this Sector in”— Becker checked the update on the Bleceiver’s view screen—“less than five minutes.”

  “Understood, sir. And sir?”

  “What?”

  “Can you believe it? Me and you? The Winds of Change?”

  Becker hung up, smiling at this favorite right-hand man’s trademark enthusiasm for the most dangerous assignments. But due to the complicated nature of this Mission, he didn’t exactly share it.

  Of all the natural wonders that originate in The Seems, few are more powerful than the mighty Winds of Change. These gusts of magnetic energy sweep at random intervals across the In-Between, causing wild shifts in the nature of The World. It was they that caused the invention of the wheel, the fall of the Roman Empire, and the social upheaval of the 1960s. But these events were the result of mere breezes that barely ruffled the Fabric of Reality. If the readings from the Listening Post were right, gale-force Winds were about to tear Sector 66 to shreds.

  “Fixer Drane to Department of Nature.”

  “Nature here.”

  “Give me 20 percent more hold in the Grass Roots.”

  “Hold up twenty! Try it now.”

  Becker reached down and yanked at the small patch of grass under his feet, which left the ground with little to no resistance at all.

  “Still too loose. Kick it another 6.” The sound of a hydraulic pump echoed over his Bleceiver and when he tugged at the grass again, it stayed firmly put. “Excellent. Now do the same for the trees and transfer me to Weather.”

  “Aye, aye, #37. Hold the line.”

  With twenty-two Missions
already under his belt by the age of fourteen, saving The World had become just another day at the office for Fixer F. Becker Drane. But when he’d been called by Central Command and notified that Sector 66— an area populated by eleven million people—was in danger of a direct hit by the Winds of Change, he’d been forced to put on his Thinking Cap™. A quick spin of the beanie’s propeller temporarily raised his IQ, and the Fixer landed on a plan: if the Winds themselves could not be stopped, then this entire sector would have to be battened down like a store in the path of an oncoming hurricane.

  “Weather here.” The familiar voice of Weatherman #1 chimed in over the line. “Good to be working with you again, Fixer Drane.”

  “Ditto.” Becker closed his eyes and was about to tune his 7th Sense to Weather, but the sweat beading on his brow told him what needed to be done. “Nice of you to give the Muscovites a little Indian summer, but I think we’re gonna have to drop 66 into the blue.”

  “Can’t we just send a Cool Breeze to counteract the Winds?”

  “Negative. The colder The World, the more resistant to Change.”

  “Good point. Weather over and out!”

  Weatherman #1 was famously efficient, and only seconds after signing off Becker could feel the temperature plunging. Moscow was far from freezing, but the air was soon chilly enough to prompt the regulars in the square to put on their wool hats and sweaters and curse the dreaded Russian winter. Becker slipped on a hoodie celebrating Rutgers women’s basketball and was about to dial the number for the Sound Studio when a voice almost made him jump out of his Speed Demons™.

  “Your papers, please!”

  The fourteen-year-old turned to see a tall man in a trench coat, black hat, and sunglasses sitting on the bench beside him.

  “Pardon me?”

  The mysterious figure smiled and repeated the request in a thick Russian accent. “I said, I would like to see your identification papers!”

  Becker’s heart leapt into his throat. For a second he thought he was about to be busted by a member of the dreaded KGB, who, upon finding out that the only “papers” in his possession were a Fixer’s Badge and a card for the Highland Park Public Library, would no doubt arrest him and imprison him in the Gulag. But then he remembered two things: 1) there was no KGB anymore (at least not officially), and 2) even if there was, they wouldn’t speak with Russian accents this bad.

  “Very funny, Henry.”

  “Sorry, kid.” The man’s inflection vanished in an instant, a sheepish grin spreading over his mouth. “I just always loved those old Cold War movies, like Firefox or The Spy Who Came In from the Cold.”

  “Watch them on your own time, dude. If we’re not careful we’re gonna have a front-row seat to Apocalypse Now.”

  According to his Mission Report, the Winds were now only three minutes away, which gave Fixer #37 little margin for error.

  “I got a few more calls to make and then you’re on.”

  “Do your thing.”

  As the man who sometimes went by the name of Henry Steele crossed his legs and watched the juggler try and fail to add a fourth ball to the mix, Becker dialed the last few numbers on his list. He had the Sound Studio remix the Sound of Silence with a little more bass, the Olfactory sweeten the Smell of Success, and the Department of Energy crank up the pull of Gravity. All of which helped prepare this densely populated area of The World for what was about to happen.

  “Why do you think they always hit the Russkies, kid?” asked Henry. “I mean, first they get stuck with Ivan the Terrible, then the Reds roll into town, and then that whole glasnost-perestroika thing. Why not Toledo or Walla Walla every now and then?”

  “The Winds of Change follow a course all their own, Henry.”

  “As far as you know.” The man in the trench coat pulled off his shades and threw Becker a wink. “Let’s just hope they blow hard enough to help that guy’s music career.”

  The earnest singer-songwriter had drawn quite an audience strumming Beatles and Cat Stevens covers, but now that he’d switched to his own material the crowd was starting to thin.

  “We’ll know in about a minute and thirty-seven seconds.”

  Becker pressed the gear icon on the Bleceiver’s touch screen and made his final call.

  “Fixer Drane to Department of Time.”

  “Time Management here.”

  “Ready for showtime?”

  “Affirmative. But remember— we can only do this for thirty seconds, or we might not be able to get it started again.”

  “Roger that. One Day That Time Stood Still is more than enough for me.”

  “Just make sure you’re wearing your Stopwatch™ and you’re good to go.”

  “Got that, Henry?”

  Henry held up his wrist, on which was strapped a red stop sign with Seemsian numerals up to twenty-five. “Never leave home without it.”

  “Good luck, #37,” said Time Management. “Hitting it in 3, 2, 1 . . .”

  The moment his countdown reached zero, everything in Red Square slowly ground to a halt. The pigeons that had been scampering about picking up scraps of popcorn and piroshki appeared to be turning to clay. The flags that flapped above Lenin’s tomb gradually stopped rippling. Even the argument between the boyfriend and girlfriend started to sound more like a broken record. In fact, the only two things that continued to move in the entirety of Sector 66 were Becker and Henry Steele.

  “What are the odds this plan of yours works?” Henry rose to his feet and gently placed his black fedora on the bench.

  “People don’t handle Change very well, but with Time on hold they should be able to weather the storm.” Becker closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. He could already catch a whiff of revolution and hear a low howl from somewhere unseen. “The only question is whether the Fabric holds together.”

  “Well, maybe I can stack the deck in our favor.”

  Henry Steele may have looked like a private investigator or some bad B-movie spy, but in fact he was one of the few and the proud charged with disposing of the residue of Design. This substance is known to cause unexpectedly favorable Chains of Events in the Plan— be they as small as finding a parking space in a crowded mall or as large as a planet-killing asteroid narrowly missing the Earth. Hence, the Powers That Be formed a covert squadron whose sole mission was to dispense it with the greatest of care.

  They called them the Agents of L.U.C.K.3.

  “Cross your fingers, kid.”

  As Becker did as he was told (not forgetting to cross his toes and knock on the wooden bench three times— and only three, in case the Jinx Gnomes were listening), the agent reached into a small leather pouch that was clipped to his belt. Out came a clenched fist, which he blew into once, then made a hand motion that looked suspiciously like someone throwing dice. But instead of two cubes covered with dots, the smallest amount of gold glitter escaped from his fingers and vanished into the air.

  “Baby needs a new pair of shoes,” was all he said.

  “Thanks, bro.” Becker pulled out two nylon straps and buckled them to the bench. “We’d better put on our Seat Belts™ too.”

  As Henry did as he was told, the air began to crackle and the invisible howl built into a deafening roar. Then Red Square itself started shaking so violently it reminded Becker of the train set he used to have in his grandparents’ basement, and the way the miniature people and buildings would rattle when he and his little brother, Benjamin, wobbled the table and pretended “the end of the world was nigh.” Thankfully, the extra gravity he’d ordered from Energy kept the real people and buildings of Sector 66 firmly rooted to their place in The World.

  “It’s working, Drane!”

  “Don’t book a table at Flip’s just yet.” A worminess in Becker’s stomach was telling him that, though the pillars of Red Square were holding fast, something was not quite right. “My 7th Sense is ringing off the hook.”

  Becker’s Bleceiver was also ringing off the hook and when he picked it up, the frazzl
ed voice of Simly Frye was shouting on the other end of the line.

  “I’ve got bad news for you, sir! We sewed the Patch into the Fabric but it’s not holding! Repeat, it’s not—”

  “Tell me something I don’t know!”

  Much to the Fixer’s horror, the ground began to bulge upward like a tin of Jiffy Pop. But instead of aluminum foil, the stone and brick of Red Square took on the appearance of cloth being stretched to the limit. In a matter of seconds, the bench to which Becker and the Agent were fastened rose several hundred feet in the air and if the Fabric pulled any tighter, they (and the rest of Sector 66) would soon be in a very unrealistic situation.

  “Where’s my L.U.C.K., Henry?”

  “Have a little faith, kid.”

  Easier said than done, especially because in about fifteen seconds Time would be restarting and a lot of Russians would be in for a rude awakening.

  “I’m trying, dude. I’m try—”

  But before Becker could express his struggle to believe that the impending catastrophe was all part of the Plan, the famous statue of Minin and Pozharsky unexpectedly tilted forward on its base and poked a tiny hole at the top of the distended square. Wind and Change rushed up through the opening, spouting like a geyser into the sky, while the very Fabric of Reality began to recede. By the time Becker and the bench had resumed their original position, not only had cloth returned to concrete and stone, but the bronze rendition of the butcher and prince who helped liberate Mother Russia in 1612 was proudly overlooking its homeland once more.

  “Whoa,” was all the Fixer could muster. But the last part of the Plan for this day had yet to be written.

  Not one second later, there was a loud groaning noise, and just as Time in Sector 66 had slowed to a crawl, it now kicked back into gear. The pigeons resumed their gobbling, the lovers their quarreling, and the juggler his pedaling about the center of the square. Noticing Becker’s jaw hanging loosely open at this miraculous stroke of good fortune, Henry tipped his fedora.

  “Knew I was feeling lucky today.”

  “Nice work, dude. But we still gotta cross our i’s and dot our t’s.”