by Ryan Tang
Matthew let go of his son and stepped forward.
"You won't know how to fly it. I'll take you and your mom to the hospital myself."
Then he took a deep breath and turned back to the crowd.
"When we get back, I'll take anybody else who needs it too."
If Luke had been hurt and he couldn't be there, he would have wanted someone to do the same thing.
"Alright, Joe. Let's go grab your mom and take her to the hospital."
There was a place Waters went to get his heart checked once a week. Matthew had gone there to pick him up more times than he could count. It'd be costly. All hospitals were. But it was better to survive then figure out how to pay later. And if Waters was good at anything, it was saving his own skin. The place was probably the best hospital on any of the colonies.
Matthew climbed back into the cockpit. The big man crammed himself into the back, giving Matthew the pilot's seat.
They rose back into the air.
Luke stared right up at him, beaming with pride.
He wished he could have stayed.
Then his boy shouted out to him.
"Dad. You're a hero. You're the best pilot who ever lived."
For the first time in many years, Matthew smiled when piloting a Paragon.
____
The trip to the bald man's home was very fast, and their flight to the hospital was even faster.
"Dad. You're a hero."
The words had Matthew smiling all the way there.
He didn't want to land right in front of the hospital, but he had no choice, no matter how suspicious the bullet-hole laden cockpit looked. There was no chance of Joe's mom making it there by herself. Both her legs were crushed. An entire wall had collapsed on top of her. It was a miracle she was still alive.
In and out. In and out. He'd land and let them off. Joe would carry her into the hospital. And then he'd be gone.
He was skilled enough to do that.
Working on the delivery and retrieval team was all about getting in and out as soon as possible.
A massive Paragon flew past them.
Matthew gaped.
What the hell was he looking at?
He'd never seen a design like that before.
It looked like a hunchback, a hunchback with three massive wings sticking out the back. The machine had enormous feet and even bigger fists.
Matthew blinked and looked closer.
His eyes weren't deceiving him.
There were over a dozen people snugly riding on each enormous hand. The fingers were carefully curled to protect the riders from the force of the wind.
The machine was ugly as shit, but it was a Paragon. A true Paragon, not one of the bullshit machines from Waters's hangar.
Joe was just as awe-struck.
"Who the fuck is that?"
His mom smacked him feebly.
"Language."
Joe had put Matthew's son in a headlock less than twenty minutes ago, but the two men couldn't help but laugh together after that.
Matthew landed.
Joe crawled out, cradling his mom tightly in his arms.
A parade marched off the enormous hands. When the cockpit opened, yet another line of people filed out.
Matthew gaped.
The cockpit was as big as a living room. They'd barely fit three people inside his.
"Line up! Line up! Get in the order we discussed – most injured first!"
Whoever the pilot was, he had a good boss's voice.
Matthew prepared to leave.
The pilot of the hunchbacked Paragon was probably from Southern Robotics.
"Wait! Wait! Wait for that guy with his mom! They need to get in first!"
The charging line halted at once.
Matthew took another look at the machine.
The pilot didn't sound like a boss that time.
He sounded like a concerned kid.
The Paragon was one of the goofiest things he'd ever seen. The coat of bright yellow, red, and blue paint was quite similar to one of the machines he'd fought earlier in the day, but that was the only attractive thing about it. The giant living room cockpit was a stupid oval. The machine was hunched over all fours, squatting on the ground like an animal from Old Earth. The hands and feet were hideous.
His machine didn't look like a Southern Robotics Paragon. It looked like something the kid had built himself. The hands looked like they were for carrying people, not useless posing.
Matthew thought about all the times Polly freaked out at him for making the company look bad. Southern Robotics would never create something so ugly.
Southern Robotics could never create something so useful.
Matthew took the risk and shouted.
He'd already come this far. The strange machine would be able to help so many more people than he could. All he had was his broken-down cockpit. The hunchbacked Paragon was big and strong. It could help so many people.
"Hey! Hey you! Are you with Southern Robotics? Are you with the Security Force? Who are you?"
The ugly monster turned towards him.
"No. I'm ...uh... I'm just by myself."
The pilot sounded awfully young. He seemed like he was in his twenties, but he might even have been a teenager.
"I have a lot of people who could use your help."
"Where?"
The boy wonder responded at once. He didn't ask about the bullet holes in Matthew's machine.
"Block 8."
Matthew could hear the wince in the boy's voice.
"Aw man...things are probably bad there too, aren't they?"
He hesitated for a moment.
"Yes. I'll go there. I just got done with the severely wounded from Block 7. The people on your Block who are less injured will have to wait their turn, but I'll take a detour for the ones who need it the most."
Without another word, the boy's machine leaped into the sky. Even though the knees had bent down so deep they screeched, the floor was completely undamaged. The feet were very well-padded.
Matthew breathed out a sigh of relief.
Somehow, this kid was one of the good ones.
A kind pilot and a real Paragon.
Perhaps the machines weren't disappointments, after all.
Matthew thought of his son's words and smiled.
Luke thought he was a hero.
It was a risk, but he had to keep flying.
He couldn't do as much as the ugly machine, but he could still help.
"FREEZE!"
The tall armored men stepped from the shadows before he could take flight.
The Southern Robotics Security Force troops weren't armed with rifles anymore. Each of the men held a rocket launcher over their shoulders, thick enough to pierce clean through his cockpit.
There was no way Matthew could flee in time.
The officer at the front laughed.
"We got another one! What did I say, boys – all we had to do was stake out the hospitals."
CHAPTER 13: THE GHOST IN THE SPIRE
Alex hung yet another row of Christmas lights along the shelf, gently threading the string in between the books. The key was to look for places where the covers were particularly uneven and the gaps were most prominent.
The lit corridors looked like a real home now. The quake might have torn her cube house apart, but the Spire had always been her true home. Everything around it had been reduced to rubble, but the black Eternium tower had survived the quakes without even a speck of damage.
The bright lights made her feel a little better, but not by much.
The librarian thought of what Mrs. T said the first time she opened up the book-corridors.
"It means the Spire loves you."
That was good.
It felt good to be loved.
She'd let her students down, but she couldn't let the Spire down.
The Spire was too magnificent for even Alex's failures to affect it.
How could a scholar
of Old Earth histories not know what to do when the Disasters struck again?
How could Alex face her students?
How could she face Alice, who looked up to her so much that her dad did as well?
How could she face Laura, whose house had fallen?
How could she face Nico, who'd sent her countless messages the night of the quakes? For all she knew, he might still be sending them.
Her tablet was blissfully quiet by her side. Nobody could reach her through the strange silence of the book-corridors. The communication dimming property of the inner walls had always been such an inconvenience, but now it was her salvation.
Walking through the spotless book-corridors, it felt like the quake had never happened.
Alex reached into her bag and pulled out another row of lights. A few days after she started hiding out in the corridors, she'd discovered a stash of Christmas lights, identical to the ones on the ninth floor, tied beneath a trapdoor that opened up to the very top floor.
The stash of lights was the least of the new secrets she'd discovered.
She'd stumbled across countless new entrances and exits. On the 26th floor, she could spin in place on a disguised panel to be taken eight stories down to the 18th floor. On the 50th floor, a hidden elevator could take her down to the maintenance tunnels buried underneath the tower.
Alex smiled wistfully as she remembered how excited Emile got whenever they found a new passageway. Maybe they should have moved into the tunnels earlier. It was easier when you had to live in them.
They'd expect her back soon. Margaret had given her two weeks off, but that time was almost up.
Alex shook her head and kept walking.
Maybe she'd just let her co-workers down too.
It was easier not to think about it.
She reached the end of the hall, then carefully set her feet on the shelves. Alex began to climb, reaching for the secret panel that connected the 24th and 25th floors. She'd discovered that secret her first night sleeping in the Spire. Each of the stories had a hidden panel leading to the next one up, a shortcut that saved her from squeezing through the narrow book-corridor steps.
Her arms - covered with the swirling schools of tiny fish she'd drawn earlier that day - strained and strained. Climbing up the shelves was tiring, but she'd steadily grown more muscular.
Alex reached the roof and pressed hard. She came out to darkness on the other side.
She pulled her tablet out of her bag and started going through the shelves. Alex couldn't help herself, even though the disappointment made her head pound and her heart go sour. It was just like how she couldn't look away from the Forums on the night of the quakes.
She had scoured every book on every shelf, desperately hoping to find one that could help.
There had to be something on the Disasters.
There had to be something on Eternium.
But so far, there'd been nothing.
So many of the book-corridor texts were smothered by ink or damaged beyond repair. She saw one that was just a pitch-black cover with all the pages torn out. She found another that had rotted entirely to dust. It crumbled to pieces as soon as she touched it. There was even one that looked like it'd been stabbed through by some sort of needle.
She could have sworn things had been better before her fall. Perhaps it had something to do with the quakes.
This shelf was the same.
All the covers were black, and only a single title shone through, a thin copy of The Familiars.
Alex sighed.
She still hadn't found the copy she'd lost, the special one her parents had made just for her.
Alex reached back to her bag and started unthreading the next roll of lights. She'd brighten up the corridor, then read through the books when she finished.
She reached for the shelves, then suddenly stopped.
The sudden surge of guilt and disappointment was paralyzing.
Alex stared at the black covers, twirling the string over and over against her hand.
The soaked covers didn't look very promising. This was probably just another waste of time, just another disappointment, just another failure.
There were invaluable secrets hidden in the Spire's walls, but she wouldn't be the person to find them.
She was a bad teacher, a bad co-worker, a bad daughter, and a bad librarian.
She'd been hiding out in the book-corridors for over a week and hadn't found anything at all.
The beams of light flickered up and down the hall, over and over again.
Alex didn't stop until she suddenly realized she'd rubbed her fingers raw. Her stomach was growling very loudly.
She blinked.
She couldn't say how long she'd sat there in the empty corridor.
Alex shook her head, then made her way back to the tenth floor.
It was probably late enough for everyone to have gone home. It was time to get some food.
Recently, there'd been even more leftovers in the kitchen than usual. The other night the librarians shared a massive cake and left a full half of it in the fridge. She could tell that Margaret had baked it as practice for her return, which only made her feel guiltier about her indecision.
It'd been filled with all of Alex's favorite things – dark chocolate at the top with a mix of lemon, copious amounts of vanilla, and the perfect touch of liquor, just the right amount for her to feel a slight buzz without it being overwhelming. And there was no milk in it either. Margaret always remembered Alex’s milk allergy.
Alex slowly climbed up to the plug-in kitchen they'd built beside the librarian's lounge. Then she began to carefully tap the covers, her ear pressed against the books. The first two returned a solid thud, but the next one bounced lightly back and she knew it was a book on the other end rather than Eternium. The interior book-corridors weren't solid all the way through. There were slight gaps in the Eternium dividers, gaps where if she removed both the book facing inside and the book facing out, she'd be able to see what was happening outside.
Alex only used this secret to make sure nobody was there when she left. Otherwise, it felt like she was spying on her friends.
A quick peek revealed an empty room. Alex returned down the ninth floor, checked again for her co-workers, then pushed past the spinning exit and quickly made her way to the kitchens.
She was careful to leave her tablet inside. She didn't want to break the silence and find out who else she was letting down.
There was a plate of warm meat rolls waiting for her on the counter. She took two, then opened up the fridge. Most of the cake was still there. Alex carved out a slice then slipped back to the 10th-floor entrance, smooth and unseen, just like a ghost.
Alex carefully packed her food inside her clothes as she walked to the ledge on the tenth floor. She brought her hands back and dove toward the secret entrance with her hand stretched out in front of her.
The Eternium flashed blue and she landed on the pillows inside.
She heard a very familiar laugh.
"Alex! How long have you been here?"
Mrs. T looked just like she always did, with her white hair cut short and curled neatly around her face.
She was one of the last people Alex wanted to see.
Alex instinctively turned to flee, forgetting that the ninth floor's entrance was separate from its exit. As soon as she turned to run, strands of light, colored in every shade of blue just like the design of her Paragon, twisted into the black Eternium walls.
The book-corridors transformed. The books gently scooted aside as a tunnel complete with winding steps leading down to the next floor appeared in front of her.
Alex blinked, too surprised to escape.
Mrs. T's shocked gasp echoed against the Eternium, but Alex's mentor soon collected herself.
She smiled very kindly.
"I'm sorry. I was hoping to talk but I see this isn't the time. Let me know whenever you are ready. I'll be there at once."
The elderly
lady stepped out of the book-corridors, her footsteps echoing as she headed for the conventional exit.
____
As soon as she stepped through to the other side, the blue light dimmed and the wall reformed behind her. She heard neat little thumps as the displaced books swiftly returned to their proper place. Little blue tendrils danced across the metal, slotting each of the damaged covers back into place.
When she tried to touch the wall again, it was as cold and void black as before.
Alex stared.
Somehow, she'd created a book-corridor entrance all for herself. It was only supposed to work on the soft entrances, the places Mrs. T and the others had shown her. But the entire wall had moved aside for her.
She should have been thrilled, but she wasn't.
Alex crept back to the nest she'd built for herself on the eighth floor, which had two new pillows and a big warm blanket, a heavy one that wrapped around her body. On her way down, she continued pushing against the walls, but nothing happened.
She shook her head.
It was just some freak incident, and she wasn't smart enough to figure it out. She felt so bad for running away from Mrs. T, but Alex couldn't face her. She couldn't face anyone, not until she stopped being a worthless fraud.
She was just turning about to turn off the lights when boisterous snores echoed through the book-corridors, resonating comically against the walls.
Alex jolted in shock. Her heart pounded in her chest, first in fear, then in surprise.
Did Mrs. T decide to just sleep in the Spire?
It was the only explanation she could think of. Emile was always joking about how loudly her grandma snored. Alex once thought her friend was being harsh, but now she knew Emile hadn't been exaggerating.
Alex clambered out of bed and onto the shelves, carefully making her way towards the noise. She moved over to the trapdoor that led to the ninth floor and then continued up to the tenth.
There was no doubt about it.
Mrs. T was sleeping in her office.
The snores were so stubborn not even Eternium could tame them. The noise reverberated against the holy metal, but they didn't become a song. They were still just snores.
Alex climbed over to where she'd peeked out into the kitchen and the scholar's lounge.
She hadn't completely secured the book she slid out earlier, the one she'd used to peek into the kitchen.