17: GATHERING FORCES
With all the bridges in Oakland blocked by the fighting, Oilcan wouldn’t be able to drive the flatbed to find Tinker’s twin sisters. Going by foot would be too slow and dangerous; he had miles of oni-infested city to cover. He drove back to Sacred Heart to get his hoverbike.
Every legal parking space had been taken up by a massive collection of pickup trucks with empty gun racks. It seemed that after the fighting started, people just abandoned their vehicles any random place. Some of them were blocking the way for ambulances that were coming and going. Linda Gaddy was running from one pickup to another, checking to see if the keys were in them. Those without, she put into neutral and drifted downhill. The others, she started up and moved so the emergency equipment could get through.
Oilcan recognized the vehicles clustered around his newly installed gate: Geoffrey’s pickup, Moser’s van, Blue Sky’s hoverbike, and a dozen more belonging to Team Tinker. He pulled up onto the sidewalk, blocking in the van. Judging by the hood up on the van and the engine parts scattered around, Moser wasn’t going to be driving anywhere.
“We’ll get the weapons crate,” Thorne Scratch said.
Oilcan nodded. He hadn’t thought that they would need her backup weapons on the shopping trip, but he was glad now that Thorne Scratch had insisted on bringing the crate along. She was also right that they couldn’t just abandon it in the middle of a warzone.
One hoverbike isn’t going to be enough, Oilcan realized. He needed to bring two people back. Hoverbikes required some balancing. One untrained passenger made going through a turn difficult but two novice passengers could easily tip the hoverbike over. And the twins were probably not alone. Yes, Tinker could bully people into crazy things but he couldn’t believe that the entire tengu race would let two nine-year-olds go into a combat zone alone. He had to assume that there were more than just the twins behind enemy lines. Tinker wouldn’t leave a friend behind, so Oilcan would also need to rescue anyone traveling with the girls. Thorne Scratch wouldn’t let him go alone and the day had proven that she needed the backup that Moon Dog provided. It added up to four or more passengers.
Oilcan scanned the area. Was there anyone around that he knew and trusted? The person he needed most was Roach, who was the master of coordinating large groups of people.
He spotted a familiar figure. “Hey, TC! Is Roach around?”
TC was one of Roach’s cousins on his dad’s side of the family. He’d been a part of Team Tinker since the beginning. He glided his wheelchair over to Oilcan. Pittsburgh was not a very wheelchair-friendly city as it had shifted to Elfhome prior to the federal accessibility laws kicking in. Tinker had custom-built TC a chair that hovered to compensate. TC had a camouflage poncho over his chair and hunting rifle to protect them from the rain.
“Roach took off shortly after you left with Andy and Guy,” TC said. “He had to deliver something to Jane. Andy left his phone in the dumpster hauler that Roach was driving. Geoffrey told everyone that if Andy and Guy showed back up with you, I was to take them home.”
“I sent them someplace safe with my kids,” Oilcan said, mind racing. He would have to grab people without Roach’s help. It was best that he pick people that he’d known half his life and could trust completely. “I need some help.”
“What’s up?” TC asked. “What do you need?”
“I need to go rescue someone trapped behind enemy lines,” Oilcan said without going into detail. “I need a couple of people on hoverbikes. Three at minimum. Five would be better.”
“Sounds fun,” TC said. “Count me in!”
Oilcan considered the offer. TC had two custom-built vehicles: the hoverchair for indoors and sidewalks and quiet side streets; and an oversized green hoverbike nicknamed “Hover Hulk” because of its beefy square shape. Most of the team didn’t realize that Hover Hulk was a prototype for an actual hovertank that Tinker wanted to build when she was younger. (There was a reason Oilcan wouldn’t have been surprised if Tinker ended up riding around Pittsburgh on the shoulder of a giant robot. Her Hand might be deadly but they were much better for her and the city at large.)
All of the team members had an odd mix of keen intelligence, reckless abandon, steely courage, and yet a decent amount of self-preservation. They needed to keep up with Tinker yet survive her insanity. Andy was the only exception to the rule. TC had pulled his weight through all the insane stuff Tinker came up with in the past. The Hover Hulk could carry TC, a passenger, and a small amount of cargo while keeping up with the racing bikes that the rest of the team used. With TC along, they could take the weapons crate.
“Thanks,” Oilcan said and then waved over Thorne Scratch and Moon Dog. “This is a friend of mine. He’s to be trusted. His name is TC.”
“I am Moon Dawg,” Moon Dog mangled the English word. “Tee Cee has no meaning?”
“No, it doesn’t,” Oilcan said before TC could go into the story behind his nickname. It was short for Talmadge Carl Carr the Second. TC was named after his father and a “Second” because his father didn’t want to stick “Junior” onto his son. Beyond that, Oilcan didn’t have a clue what “Talmadge” might mean. It sounded vaguely French.
“I want TC here to take the weapons crate on his vehicle.” Oilcan pointed at the big green Hover Hulk.
Oilcan spotted Linda Gaddy moving toward him, once again on foot. “Gaddy! Do you have your hoverbike handy?”
Linda Gaddy wasn’t a member of Team Tinker but he knew her well through her work with the Pittsburgh police. On Shutdown and Startup days, she’d help him clear wrecked cars off the road so traffic could keep moving.
“Yeah, it’s just up the street.” She pointed away from the fighting.
“I need to go behind enemy lines to rescue some people stuck there,” he explained. “And some extra bikes to pick them up.”
“I’m in,” Gaddy said.
* * *
They managed to snag five more members of Team Tinker: Gin Blossom, Tate Holland, Brandon Hendricks, Abbey Rhode, and Axe Man. Oilcan paired Moon Dog with Gin Blossom; as a laedin-caste elf, Gin was the one best able to deal with the Stone Clan sekasha. Axe Man had a sidecar on his hoverbike. Altogether, it meant that they could ferry nine adult passengers. Thorne Scratch and Moon Dog took up two of those slots but it still left seven spaces for the twins and anyone traveling with them. Hopefully, it was overkill.
They took one of the alleys that ran between the enclaves to their back border wall. There they turned west and headed through the forest as fast as Oilcan dared. The woods in this area were fairly safe, as the elves gleaned firewood from them year-round. The only real danger was running into the oni. Judging by what they found, though, the oni had kept to the city streets.
He could sense Tinker holding a Stone Clan spell steady in Oakland. It was a comforting feeling. To the west, someone was calling a shield and a variety of other spells from the Stone Clan Spell Stones. It had to be the twins.
Finding the twins, therefore, shouldn’t be difficult.
Getting them to come with him to someplace safe…that might be impossible.