The other six children on the benches muttered in agreement. Rachel stayed silent.

An incredible array of food was fetched and laid out on the table in the center of the room: veggie shepherd’s pie, mashed potatoes, seitan sandwiches (“The Chapeaux Noirs are strictly vegetarian,” explained one of the crew. “Explosive experts and animal lovers.”), and the promised chocolate cake, layered and luscious and coated in a thick shellac of creamy frosting. The children dug in with enthusiasm, heaping their plates with the food and filling their mouths with combinations of the available ingredients that they would have found repulsive before this, their most desperate time of life. Jacques spoke in his sonorous voice while they ate:

“Six Titans for six Divisions. We divided up this country, this stretch of land along the wide river. The six of us. The scions of our respective families, destined for greatness among men. For Peter Higgs, the control of the minerals below the earth. For Joffrey Unthank, the control of machine-part manufacture. Reginald Dubek, nuclear power, and Linus Tumson, the enriching and divining of fossil fuels. And then there was Bradley Wigman, a school friend of mine, who excelled in managerial organization, the eldest of a family born to an empire in the shipping industry. Together, we made the Industrial Wastes an efficient and cogent whole, all six Titans of Industry working for the betterment of the industrial state. I, like my father and his father before him, had a mind for science and, as was my birthright, the Science and Research Division became my jurisdiction. We worked in synergy, we six, and soon became very respected, powerful, and wealthy men in our own rights.”

The children had polished off their cake and were happily being given second helpings as Jacques continued:

“But Bradley Wigman changed. The promise of wealth and power, to work with his fellow industrialists for the good of all, transformed him. He wanted more. He wanted to crush his competitors; and once they were crushed, he turned on his fellow industrialists. He reorganized the Sextet so that it answered only to him, that his Division should control the other five. He oversaw the streamlining of the various products the Wastes produced and made it clear in no uncertain terms that dissent would not be suffered.

“It had long been my desire to develop an alternative energy, something that did not require the destruction of the land and that did not release harmful matter into the atmosphere. I devoted my entire team to the discovery of this elusive ideal, and soon we had managed to create a small batch of highly combustible, zero-emission fuel that was made from vegetal compost and sewer waste. And we did it all there, in what you call the Forgotten Place, a place once thrumming with the excitement and energy of a fleet of the nation’s best scientific minds. This fuel—it was a major breakthrough, the kind that happens only once in a generation. We threw our shoulders into the work and built this, an underground treatment center near the heart of the Industrial Wastes, where we would turn the world’s garbage into gold.”

Elsie forked a fresh chunk of cake and stared with renewed understanding at the abandoned machinery in the room.

“At first,” Jacques continued, “Wigman supported our efforts, as long as the work wasn’t interfering with our normal day-to-day responsibilities. But as soon as it became clear that what we were making was, in fact, the sort of breakthrough material that would make entire swaths of industry obsolete—including his beloved Petrochemical and Nuclear Divisions, to say nothing of Mining—he was petitioned on all sides to put us out of business. And put us out of business he did.”

The tenor of the room seemed to darken as Jacques described, in detail, how Wigman had sent in his army of stevedores and sabotaged the entire operation. The thugs chased the scientists from the warehouses and proceeded to burn the entire place to the ground. “All my research,” said Jacques, solemnly, “gone. All my prototypes, my samples, my great library—turned to ash and smoke.”

The collective noisy masticating of the seven Unadoptables in the room quieted as they listened to the man’s story. A few of the Chapeaux Noirs played a game of mumblety-peg in the corner; Nico traced some sigil on the grain of the table. An echoey drip from a far-off chamber could be heard; Jacques continued.

“In a way, it was an epiphany for me—do you know what an epiphany is?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Michael. Then, when the eyes of the room turned on him, he recanted. “No, actually.”

“It’s a realization. A sudden confrontation with the self. Predicating a sea change. A clarity. This is what happened to me. In that great conflagration, in the detonation that brought my precious research laboratories and life’s work literally to dust, I saw my life anew. I saw the hypocrisy, the cynicism, the poison of the industrial mind-set. The destructive power of capitalism. It all became very clear. And so, that very day, as I escaped with my cohort into the very sewers that we had built for our creation, I swore that I would devote the rest of my life to the tearing down of the institutions that built me. That day, Jack Kressel died. Jacques Chruschiel was born.”

A silence followed this dramatic telling. Elsie paused in the chewing of her last mouthful of chocolate cake, swallowing it down with a loud gulp in the quietness of the moment. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her sister set an emptied plate down and cross her arms. Elsie could tell she was getting impatient.

“So that’s how all this started?” asked Michael, wiping a cake crumb from the specter of his teenage mustache. “The Shadow Nawr?” He reddened a little as he fumbled his pronunciation. “Or whatever.”

Nico spoke: “Chapeaux Noirs. Yes. Jacques found us, other discarded and alienated workers of the Industrial Wastes, and united us around this common goal.”

“So what do you do?” asked Michael.

“Blow stuff up,” said Nico. “Eventually, everything here will be flattened. Then, and only then, we’ll be satisfied.”

“Seems like you’ve got a long way to go.” This was Rachel, still sitting against the brick wall with her arms across her chest. “Doesn’t seem like you’ve made much of a dent. Except for Unthank’s place. Oh wait. That was us.” She cracked a wry smile.

Nico wagged a finger at her, grinning. “I like this one, Jacques,” he said. “She’s a pistol.”

Jacques leaned back in his chair, watching the girl. “Actually, you’ve made a good point. We can only attack from the outside, but Wigman has built a strong empire. His walls are tall and thick. It’s a long game. A war of attrition.”

“We’re getting them by the ankles. That’s how you—” began Nico.

“Bring down a giant, by the ankles,” finished Rachel. “We got that part. But you’re not going to be able to help get our friends back by biting at some giant’s ankles.”

“Their friends?” asked Jacques, looking at Nico.

“Right,” responded the other man. “That’s sort of part of the deal. They helped me escape the stevedores, so I said we’d help them get two of their . . . club back.”

“Their names are Martha Song and Carol Grod,” said Rachel. “Martha’s an Asian girl, a little younger than me. Carol’s an old man. He’s blind.”

Jacques made a kind of punctuated hum at the mention of the two abductees. “Sounds familiar. Old blind man, Asian girl. Weren’t they . . .”

“The two people the stevedores took into custody,” said Nico.

“Refresh my memory, comrade. These were the two they brought into the tower?”

Nico seemed abashed. “The same.”

Tags: Colin Meloy Wildwood Chronicles Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net