Dragon Sword by Mark London Williams

he already know that in his future, he gets
caught in a rip in spacetime, and that Thirty and Mr. Howe and a
bunch of people from DARPA will be showing me his picture on the
news? “Have you ever heard of DARPA?”
    “ DARPA,” he whispers. Then he pulls
me away from the police cars. “Is that the name of the
project?”
    Just then, a few cabs roll up.
Either the cops have all their statements or people don’t care and
are going to leave anyway. One of the taxis pulls up near us, and a
young couple, both in fancy clothes, rushes over to it. Before the
man gets in the car, he scowls at us, then stuffs a dollar into my
hand. Then he turns to Andrew Jackson Williams. “Shame on you,
bringing your kid out here to beg with you on Christmas
Eve!”
    With that, he slams the door.
They’re probably headed to DiMaggio’s Grotto, toward a nice big
plate of hot spaghetti with warm garlic toast. They should get some
chocolate rice milk to go with it, but I bet they won’t.
    Has rice milk been invented
yet?
    “ Seen any po tonight?” says
a voice from another cab.
    “ Charlie!”
    “ I heard on the radio there was
some trouble here. I came back to see if you were all right.” He
motions to the people waving down the other taxis. “Didn’t realize
it’d be so good for business. You need another ride, kid?” Then he
looks at Andrew Jackson. “Oh, did your dad come back?”
    “ I’m not the boy’s father,” Andrew
Jackson corrects him, before I can. “But I can tell the child has
aptitude.”
    “ He’s not my dad, Charlie. And
Margarite isn’t my teacher. She’s my mom. And I’m still looking for
her.”
    Charlie looks like he has a bunch
more questions for me, but I guess he hears a lot of stories, so he
decides to leave mine alone for now. “Well, hop in. You won’t even
have to pay me any spooky money,” he says with a grin. “Where is
she?”
    “ She might be back at the hotel by
now.”
    “ Has your mother gone missing?”
Andrew Jackson asks. He seems suspicious. Not of me — but of the
simple fact she’s gone.
    “ Not exactly,” I tell him. “Hey, I
can just call you A.J., right?”
    He cocks an eyebrow. “Not just
aptitude, but perhaps the gift. How do you know that?”
    “ You told —” I stop. “You look like
that could be your nickname.”
    “ Strange things are afoot tonight.
But then, Christmas Eve is a night of heightened
expectation.”
    “ Look, before we go,” I tell them,
“I should find a phone and see if my mom returned to the
Fairmont.”
    There’s a slight pause as they wait
for me to go off and make my call. “Um, I might need somebody to
show me how to do it.” I guess I can use the five-dollar bill that
Caen gave me, if I can figure out how to slide it in. They don’t
have anything simple like vidphones or wallet cards.
    “ You really are from out of town,”
Charlie says.
    “ You don’t know the half of
it.”
    “ We can just use my radio. I’ll ask
one of the cabbies there to check with the front desk. Get in.”
Charlie flings open the door for me, and I climb inside. “What’s
your mom’s full name again, kid? Something like French?”
    “ Margarite Sands,” I tell him. “But
she might be going by Franchon.”
    A.J. has been standing outside the
car, fidgeting with his sign. I think he was waiting to be invited
inside. But when he hears me, he starts pulling some other crumpled
paper from his pockets.
    “ She’s not there,” Charlie tells
me, putting his radio microphone back. “Any other
ideas?”
    “ Well, there’s this
fort…”
    “ Fort Point,” A.J. croaks. His eyes
are on fire again behind those glasses. “Fort Point,” he
repeats.
    “ Why do you say that?”
    He slides into the cab and holds up
a paper so Charlie and I can see it. It’s just a printed list of
names. But it says Samuel Gravlox Orchestra — Undercover on
the top.
    A few of the names are circled.
Including, halfway down, the name of Margarite Franchon. My
mom.
    “