by Ren Ryder
“There have been a few maintenance issues, but I assure you, it’s entirely safe. Our entire staff uses this daily,” Charlene reassured me.
Bell winged her way inside ahead of me, flying up to the top of the cabin to get a closer look at the device powering the machine. “Kal, you’ve gotta try this!” Bell giggled as she placed her hand against the roof and the bottled lightning lit up the pads of her fingers.
I stepped inside the enormous glass cube, and the cart wavered midair while accommodating my weight. I felt triggered having nothing beneath my feet but a thin separation of see-through glass separating me from a fall into the abyss, but I kept my nerves from showing on my face.
“Have a safe trip!” Charlene saw me off with a smile and a wave.
The doors began to slide shut on their own accord, locking me into the death-trap with no escape. The boxcart swayed and the pulley system shuddered then began to descend into the depths of the earth.
Chapter Seven
The cable cart shuddered to a stop, swaying to and fro before settling in place. I leaned against an interior wall for support, my arms spread out to two sides to get a grip. I didn’t have a problem with heights, but this contraption was designed by a madwoman. The idea that any number of people regularly used it without care boggled my mind.
“That was so cool! Can we ride it again? Can we?” Bell buzzed around the interior of the cabin so fast she was a blur.
“No, no way,” I swore up and down.
“Awh, you’re such a party-pooper Kal! Bleh!” Bell stuck out her tongue at me.
The doors slid open and I stepped onto firm ground as fast as I could slip through the cracks. I crouched down to press my hands and face against the cold concrete floor.
I stood up, wiped beads of sweat off my brow and pushed my hair back out of my face. “I would rather jump off a mountaintop again than do that twice.”
“You’re so dramatic~”
Far beneath the surface, enforcer HQ bustled with activity. It was like an ant hill. Men and women in equal measure hurried to and fro about their tasks, conferring at each others desks. The walls were covered in reports and newspaper clippings, with red marker circling and connecting the dots between different events.
Bulbs of light affixed to chandeliers and connected by wires to a series of interconnected Tesla coils crackled with electric light. Huge circular ventilation shafts cut into the ceiling sucked out dead air and replaced it with fresh air fed from the outside by rotating fan blades. Handheld models of the Tesla coil sat like desk lamps all over the room.
And everywhere I looked, there was magic in the air. Mage auras burst with power and color. Elementals hovered around their contractors like dogs on a leash as people bustled about. Translucent fields of innate power crackled around the vast majority of the magic users I saw, and whatever sort of magic it was, they shared a similarity to the power Neil possessed.
Neil walked up to me while I was still admiring the place. “Kal. Welcome to enforcer command.”
“Where did all these people come from?” I asked, unable to restrain my curiosity.
“Where all state-sanctioned magic users come from, the Arcanium. Where else?” Neil tapped his nose as if sharing a well-kept secret. “You still have that token I gave you, no?” Neil asked in a soft undertone. “New Year’s is just a couple weeks away.”
I rubbed the pocket where I’d stored the iron token. “Yeah, I’ve still got it. State-sanctioned magic?” I repeated, dumfounded.
Neil grabbed me around the shoulder and led me off through the room. “Let’s continue this chat in my office.”
“Well if you insist,” I let the sub-captain pull me along without putting up a fight.
We left the hustle and bustle of the main hub behind us in favor of suites of private offices settled off the main drag. Neil walked me down a corridor full of plush carpets and rugs to the third office on the right near the back of the hallway. The sub-captain opened the stained glass door of his office suite and waved me inside with a hurried hand.
Not really understanding the need for haste, I took my time entering the office, looking around. There was a fancy hand-carved wooden desk that dominated the middle of the room, decorated sparsely other than tall piles of paperwork and framed pictures of a distinguished-looking family. Also in evidence were the seemingly ubiquitous Tesla coils, which lit up the room in an almost eerie, electric glow.
It was an office made specifically for the task of working. Bookshelves lined the walls of the room, full of various tomes, scrolls, and volumes that ranged from ancient hand-scribed tomes to books fresh off the printing press. There were few accommodations for guests besides a rocking chair set against the wall that I assumed could be moved in case of company.
Neil drew the curtains shut for the windows looking into the office while I was admiring his digs. “I have a confession to make. I’ve overstepped my bounds by inviting you here. The captain will have my hide for bringing another stray into the fold without going through the proper procedures.”
The corner of my lip curled up into a smile. “You know, I took you more for the strait-laced type of guy. Why bother going against the grain for me?”
“Well, isn’t it obvious?” Neil walked around to the other side of his desk and sat down in his hardback wooden chair.
“Not to me,” I told him. "You mind?” I asked, pointed at the rocking chair set against the wall.
“Go ahead,” Neil waved.
I picked up the chair and moved it towards the center of the room, feeling a sense of déjà vu overcome me as I reenacted some of the events of our first meeting. I sat myself down in the rocking chair while Neil produced a pipe from his coat, packed it, and struck a match against the leg of his desk to light it. The sub-captain puffed out thick clouds of smoke while I rocked back and forth in his extra chair.
I cleared my throat. “Can I speak freely?”
“Please do,” Neil said, offering an open hand in invitation.
“Right, well,” I began, then picked up steam, “what is it you want from me? I figured I was going to be dragged into some interrogation room and grilled for details on Ouroboros. This isn’t that, so, frankly I’m at a loss.”
“The enforcers don’t have a reputation outside rumor, so its not common to imagine the worst before you see what we do with your own eyes.” Neil leaned back in his chair and took a few deep puffs off his pipe before continuing. “I looked into your story. It all checks out, but you knew that. Duke Regulus Maddox is a powerful man and despite being an outcast, his ties run deep, and I can’t move against him openly. That’s where you come in.”
“So what you’re telling me is I’m on my own, as usual.” I rocked back in my chair and held myself there. “I thought you said the enforcers only answered to the emperor? So much for independent action. Looks like politics have your hands tied.”
Neil slammed his fist on the table.
I didn’t react.
“I apologize, that was unbecoming of me.” Neil combed his spiky blond hair with his fingers in a show of obvious frustration. “I need damning information. The man is exceedingly careful, he keeps the people in his inner circle ignorant of his true nature. I need something to convince the emperor to act, something damning that connects the Duke to his dealings with Ouroboros. Can you get me that?”
I considered the sub-captain’s request, rocking forward and placing my elbows on my knees, holding my head in my hands. “What would that even look like? It’s not like he conducts his slave trade out of his mansion.”
Neil pointed at me with the end of his pipe. “Find the lab where he’s making his monsters. I’ll conduct a raid on the location on your word. If it all goes according to plan, we can place him at the scene and cut the head off this serpent.”
I laughed, loud and boisterous. “Oh, is that all?”
“What, you won’t do it, or you can’t do it?” Neil asked in a challenging tone.
Bell flew
right up in Neil’s face, making him choke on his pipe. “Take that back! Kal can do it! He can do anything he sets his mind to!”
Neil backpedalled, looking chagrined. “I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t think your contractor was capable of it.”
I leaned back in my chair, thinking. “I’ll take on your job, but I’m going to need a few things.”
Neil put his pipe down and folded his hands together on the table. “Shoot.”
“I’m going to need free travel across the Quarters, and some kind of official permit for my weapon.” I tapped the sheathe of my sword with my fingertips.
Neil reached rummaged through a drawer in his desk and took out a pen and notepad. He scribbled something down in such atrocious cursive that I doubted I could read it if I was staring straight at it, let alone upside down. He bent down and popped open a chest at his feet and, after a bit of scrounging, produced a shiny badge. He slid it across the table and I caught it before it fell off the edge.
Neil spun his pen across his fingers. “Done and done. I’ll pull a few strings and have you instated as a liaison to the enforcers. It won’t get you free access to everything you want, so don’t flaunt it. Your name will be on the books and it can be tied back to me, but it should suffice to get you past most trouble you encounter in your investigations. Is that all?”
I studied the badge. It was a simple little burnished silver piece inlaid with a purple eight-pointed star. Above the design an inscription read: Official Enforcer Liaison. I stuffed the badge in one of my bulging pockets and left the sub-captain’s original patch on his desk in exchange.
Bell winged over to get a better look. “Wow, so official~”
Drumming my fingers on the tabletop, I asked, “Why are you doing all this?”
Neil struck me with an intense stare. “You know why. The monsters roaming our streets are a plague on the good citizens of New London. The longer this goes on, the more people die, or worse. I want the head of whoever’s responsible, no matter how lofty their title.”
I stood up and stretched my limbs. “I feel the same way. I’ll do everything in my power to find Ouroboros's lab and nail the Duke.”
Neil stood along with me and stretched out his hand. I took it in my own and gave it a good shake. I looked down at our clasped hands, feeling the sub-captain’s power buzz against my skin.
Neil turned his head to speak directly to my sylph familiar. “Take care of this one for me, Bell. He can’t accomplish anything if he’s dead.”
Bell gave Neil a thumbs-up. “I’ll do my best~”
“When you’re leaving, try not to make a scene. The less explaining I have to do about you, the better,” Neil said.
“How do you want me to contact you in the future?” I asked.
“Leave a message at the front desk with Charlene,” Neil said.
“Alright, well, we’ll get out of your hair then. I’ll try to keep a low profile on my way out,” I said, walking towards the door.
“Oh, and Specter?” Neil asked in a heavy tone.
I turned back around with a heavy sigh, my hand on the doorknob.
Neil put his pen down. “Keep the body count to a minimum.”
“Not all the kills attributed to that name are mine. The—”
Neil cut me off. “I don’t want to hear it. Be a scalpel, not a sword. I don’t fancy the idea of cleaning up your messes.”
I gulped. “Scalpel, not a sword. Got it.”
Neil waved distractedly, his eyes tracking back to the gigantic piles of paper on his desk. I slipped out while he became absorbed with his work and shut the stained glass door to his office behind me. I breathed a sigh of relief after putting a barrier between myself and the sub-captain.
Bell bent over like she’d been struck. “Oof. Too little too late for that makeover, huh?”
I leaned against the wall for support. “It would seem so.”
I started to walk down the hallway towards the main vestibule, when a gigantic boom shook the wall behind me. The room beyond must have been soundproof, because the vibrations carried further than the sound itself. I turned around and headed back over to what I had first thought was a simple wall at the end of the hallway. A massive, steel-reinforced door painted the same charcoal gray as the interior walls blended in with the building.
I jiggled the handle and found it unlocked, so naturally I opened it and stepped inside.
I walked into what looked like a war zone. Black smoke filled the air, obscuring the room. Coughing up a storm, I waved my hands around in front of me in an attempt to see at least two feet in front of me. The fans overhead kicked into sudden overdrive, funneling the smoke up into the ventilation shafts and out of the room.
A massive workshop was revealed as the smoke cleared. Inventions of all sorts littered the space. Machina were in different stages of construction all across the room. A full suit of armor, empty besides springs, coils, and gears, walked about the room under its own power.
Tesla coils of various sizes were lined up against the walls, from the tiniest models I’d seen yet to massive, ten-foot tall monstrosities. One work station had pistols in different stages of construction— or deconstruction? There were longer-barrel guns with bulky magazines built into them that I didn’t have a name for at all. There was a huge weapon on wheels with six rotating barrels and a massive string of ammunition that looked designed to feed into it automatically.
In another corner someone looked to be in the process of building artificial wings of differing types. There was a metal-frame prototype with fabric stretched tight over the frame and a twenty-foot wingspan beside a similar model made of wood.
All kinds of wires in different gauges were strewn about the floor, ran along the walls and connected to different devices all over the room. Light bulbs of varying sizes emitting all kinds of colored light were interspersed across the workshop, casting the whole place in technicolor light.
An engine sputtered and produced another thick cloud of smoke, drawing my eyes to the perpetrator. A woman in tan leather work overalls wiped grease off her forehead and set down the wrench she was using to tinker with the faulty motor. She was covered in soot and grime, but wore a beaming smile. Her strawberry-blond hair was frizzy and stood almost on end from the abundance of electricity flowing through the room. The woman wore a pair of thick goggles with different size magnifying glasses attached to them.
This must be the genius inventor Charlene was talking about, Tess Da Vinci.
Tess waved cheerfully to me from her workstation. “Why hello! You must be new here. Came to have a look at my infamous workshop?”
I grinned. “I was actually leaving when I felt the shockwave from some kind of explosion, so I came to investigate.”
Tess pointed at the sputtering engine in front of her. “That would be the new project I’m working on, I call it the Tesla turbine— she’s aways out from being operational, as you can see. Sorry if my tinkering caused alarm.”
“No, don’t mind me. This place is incredible. This is all your handiwork?” I asked in awe.
“Well, I’ve had many assistants, but for some reason they all get scared and run off. I can’t imagine why,” Tess said, pouting.
I walked gingerly across wires and through the jumbled mess of the workshop to get near Tess. “I’m Kal by the way, it’s an honor to meet the mind behind all this tech.”
Tess rubbed her grimy hands off on her overalls and stuck out her hand to meet mine in a firm handshake. “Kal, is it, and who’s your friend there?” Tess pointed over my shoulder.
Among other things, this woman had the sight. “Bell is my sylph familiar, well, more like companion these days.”
Bell waved. “Hi~”
“She talks! So cute! Can I touch her?” Tess asked with a weird look in her eye.
“Hey, no touching lady— woah, wait, not there! Don’t, I’m ticklish—” bell devolved into hilarious laughter as Tess started playing with her like she was a doll.
<
br /> Bell was struggling to free herself of Tess. “Kal, help me! I’m, I’m— ahahaha— I’m dying here!”
I bumped into a table and knocked off an etching rod from its station. “Sorry, I’ll pick that up.” I bent down to pick up the silver-alloy stick of metal with an inward sigh of relief when I wasn’t burned. Twirling it around in my hands, I wondered at its applications. I might be able to use it to inscribe runes.
Tess noted my interest in the etching rod, releasing Bell at the same time. “Do you also have a love for inventing?”
Bell straightened her dress and patted down her hair. “Geez, thanks for the help, stupid Kal!”
I ignored Bell in favor of Tess, saying, “Actually, I do have a magic tool I want to create, but I don’t know if I have the skills and know-how to make it.”
The inventor’s eyes lit up. “A magic tool? Really? Do you have the components on hand?”
I reached into my pockets and flipped them inside out, pouring everything in them onto the closest countertop. I scrounged through the mess I made, carefully separating the near-translucent shards I’d gathered of the magic stone from the second trial in the Otherworld.
Figuring Tess was due a demonstration, I drew a trickle of mana off my source and fed it through my magic channels into one of the shards of magic stone. A small wave of pure force cascaded out from the little piece of stone, upending the tools strewn about the table and making them fly across the room.
Looking around at the mess, I said, “Sorry… I wanted to melt the shards down and set the resulting piece into a ring.”
Tess ignored the destruction wrought by my demonstration, stuffing her face inches off the table and playing with her magnifying lenses to get a better look. “Wh-what is this! It’s amazing. Where in the world did you find this?”
I tried putting things back in their place while Tess was overcome with excitement. “Not this world, the Otherworld actually. This is all that’s left of the original magic stone, it kinda… exploded.”
With stars in her eyes, Tess asked, “You’ve been to the Otherworld?”