“That you are,” Yaozu said approvingly. “You’ve only been there once?”

“Just the once.”

“Your recent visit probably makes you as good a guide as Mr. Miller, who hasn’t been in years, if I judge his implication correctly. Between the three of you, could you make a map? Something we could pass out to those who might join you?”

Angeline told him, “We could. We will.”

“Good, good. We’ll need to educate a few chosen people about the terrain.”

“Only a few people?” Lucy O’Gunning asked.

“For now, only a few. And if possible, we should send out a party this afternoon. We can’t waste time.”

“But then what?” Lucy pressed.

He paused. “It depends on what we learn. If we can take a few days to gather ourselves and ready our defense, so much the better. If we can’t, then we rush our plans and hope for the best.”

“So you do have a plan?” Houjin sounded positively hopeful.

Yaozu gave him a chilly smile. “Yes. But it’s not a plan I can enact alone. I’ll need the whole underground to assist. And that’s only fair, isn’t it? Since it’s the whole underground we mean to save. They’ll come for the Station first, yes, but they’ll come for the rest of you eventually. Or the Vaults will collapse upon themselves without my people—and my finances—to restore them.”

Grudgingly, Briar Wilkes said, “That’s true.”

“Thank you, Sheriff Wilkes,” Yaozu said with carefully presented deference. “We all must agree to work together, and we must understand that the solution will not be clean, tidy, or peaceful.”

Kirby Troost, one of the men from the Naamah Darling, said, “I think we’ve got that part figured out. I, for one, am tickled pink at the prospect of dirty, untidy, and violent. So what do you intend for us to do, anyhow?”

Cly nudged the little man gently, as if he was concerned that too much had been said. But Troost stood his ground, and stared levelly at the Chinese man on the bar.

“Mr. Troost. You’re an engineer, aren’t you?”

“Close enough.”

“I’ll want a word with you later. You, too, Houjin. I have a team of my own at the Station, but I’ll need all the mechanical heads I can put together.” Then he concluded, “Between us, I believe that we can best them. Entirely.”

Chapter 22

Twenty-two

The city mobilized. Houjin was carted off with Yaozu—he didn’t leave with Cly’s permission, exactly, but the captain didn’t attempt to stop him. Angeline disappeared out the back of Maynard’s as soon as Yaozu had finished speaking, as if she’d forgotten something and only just remembered it, but Rector suspected that she was trying to avoid the man altogether.