by S A Shaffer
“But what harm will it cause?” Mitchell said, losing his patience. “Our district relies on mining to survive. What do you expect the people to do?”
“If there is one thing I know about Alönians,” Blythe said as he raised his teacup, “it’s that they are tenacious and resourceful. Never fear sirs, I’m sure your constituents will adapt and find new jobs within House Thornton.”
“But…” Mitchell started to say, but another look at Blythe and he scooted his chair back, threw down his napkin, and stomped out of the dining room.
Evanson managed more tact as he wiped his mouth, thanked Hephnaire for the lunch, and followed after Mitchell.
Not a moment after they had left the room, Blythe turned and spoke to David. “Start an advertisement campaign in Thornton marketing an abundance of jobs in the third for workers with mining experience.”
His brunette companion giggled at that.
“Yes, sir.” David said, glancing at Hephnaire. “But sir, we have no such jobs.”
“No matter.” Blythe said with no apparent care that Hephnaire was listening in. “When they arrive and find no work, they will join our social assistance programs. Once they get a taste for free money, they won’t be able to leave.”
Hephnaire raised his teacup in salute as Blythe chuckled. David looked from one to the other and decided he better laugh as well, even though he found the idea revolting.
“Blythe, you really have a mind for population manipulation.” Hephnaire said. “However, their request has sparked my own memory. I too have a petition to make of the speaker.”
“Of course you do, you old devil.” Blythe said with a laugh. “Go on then, make it.”
“The view out of my lower resort rooms is getting obstructed by some new growth.” Hephnaire began. “If I could remove some of the younger trees, and when I say young, I mean, perhaps 50, 60 cycles, not more than 70, it would greatly improve the rooms’ values.”
“You know, I cannot tell you how pleased I am with this resort.” Blythe said as he spun his teacup on the table and then looked at Hephnaire. “If the view remained unobstructed, I might even be tempted to return some day.”
“Blythe, the penthouse is yours as often as you want it.” Hephnaire said.
“Oh yes please,” the brunette said with another giggle.
Blythe placed a hand on his heart. “Too kind Mr. Hephnaire, too kind. I suppose it is of Alönian interest to keep this resort in excellent condition if the speaker will be frequenting it. I see no problem with your petition. They are young trees, as you say.”
“Truly, Speaker Blythe, the forest does not know they are missing, as I have actually already cut them down.” Hephnaire pulled a document from under the table. “If you could sign this line, I already did the speaker the courtesy of filling in the date of the variance.”
Blythe laughed. “How thoughtful for you, Hephnaire. You even knew the date I would have signed it, had I known about it last season.” Blythe autographed the document, and the two men laughed about it for some time, offering additional jokes at the departed Evanson and Mitchell’s expense. After a few more minutes, David stood to excuse himself.
“Leaving David?” Blythe asked.
“Unless there is something you need, sir.”
“Oh, let him go, Blythe.” Hephnaire said. “He probably wants to make the one ‘o’clock balloon jump.”
“You have a balloon jump here?” Blythe asked.
“On the far side of the resort.” Hephnaire pointed across the dining room. “We strap a life balloon on your back, inflate it, and let you float through the foliage to a lower platform.”
“Well you better be on your way then, David.” Blythe said. “Enjoy yourself.”
David almost corrected the assumption to tell them he was heading back to his room for a nap, but he stopped himself. Hephnaire’s description of the balloon jump gave him an idea, one that just might save his and Francisco’s necks when they climbed Big Stanley.
HAVOC
Blythe’s dinner party and conference proceeded as they always did. A lavish meal of the most expensive dishes along with a continuous flow of fermented drink and crowned with an absurd speech from a murderer. The only way David could bear staying to the end was by thinking of the day when The Houses of Alönia threw Blythe out of office. If tonight’s venture proved fruitful, that day could be soon. All through the dinner, David tapped his foot and twirled his thumbs. Who was Blythe speaking with on his long-range communicator? David had his suspicions, Hephnaire making the top of the list. Who better to conspire with than the Don in charge of Alönia’s unions? And he’d already witnessed Blythe and Hephnaire making quid-pro-quo transactions under the lunch table, a timeshare at Everpine for a land variance. Tonight’s secret meeting meant something sinister on the top of Big Stanley.
David and Francisco slipped out of the seminar as soon as they could, without arousing suspicion. They had to walk around Big Stanley, as running would attract attention. Once on the far side, they hopped over the boardwalk railing into the shadows of a low hanging bower. There they slipped off their suits and changed into the supplies Francisco had stashed earlier that day. They put on specialty gloves and shoes with intricate spikes along the palms and soles for gripping bark, but in the event they had to climb glass or metal, the pull of some velcro let the spikes hang on a flap and left the palm of the glove covered in a sticky grip. Their shoes bore a similar design.
But on their backs, they buckled the outlandish idea David conceived during the previous day’s lunch. After leaving Blythe and Hephnaire in their budding friendship, David went to the balloon jump platform, and against his better judgment, made the jump. The resort staff asked him his weight, strapped him into a life balloon, and inflated it. David immediately felt the pull of the balloon against his restraints, and he floated a little with every step toward the edge of the platform. He looked down the jump zone into the distance and felt a twinge of pain in his arm, a phantom pain from the time he lost it. He buried the thought and jumped.
It was very like his training back at the academy, except the scenery on the way down was infinitely better. Beautiful couldn’t quite capture the experience. He floated down at a lazy pace feeling a tingle in his stomach as his feet hung in empty space. But the sites around him soon overtook the anxiety. Sunlight filtered through the trees, accenting shadows and capturing flashes of wildlife. Birds called in different melodies of love. The exquisite smell of everpine and flowering epiphytes filled the air and gave him an unexplainable longing to explore the wild.
David marveled and gawked at the thousands of species that lived so many fathoms above the ground. It was an entire world that lived it’s cycle without ever touching the dirt he found so necessary. Thornton during the day looked different than at night, but no less extraordinary. While none of the bioluminescence glowed in their vibrancy, the natural colors of the animals were no less brilliant. But all of his observations were cut short as a dark shape detached itself from the shadows of a nearby everpine and swooped across the jump zone. He started kicking the air in a futile effort to get away. But the creature did not harm him, rather, it dove by and snatched a bird out of the air, the birds trilling tune cut short. He relaxed as the majestic leatherwing banked in a circle and glided down into the shadows below. Its oily skin shimmered as it passed through sunbeams, betraying the fact that it lived in water as much as air. As He watched the amphibious bird swoop away, his feet snagged in a net, and he realized he’d come to the end of the jump.
He rode the steam lift back to the main level and ran to tell Francisco about his brilliant plan. Thereupon, later that night, Francisco filched a box of life balloons despite his skepticism. But David cajoled and convinced and together they practiced far into the night, and despite nearly hanging himself on more than one occasion, David felt confident his idea would work.
So as he and Francisco strapped on their specialty climbing gear, they also strapped on life balloons
and inflated them. Prior to stowing the gear in the foliage, they’d calibrated the life balloons to their exact weight. Their practice session told them that anything more and they would float away from the tree without any hope of getting back, an experience that nearly sent Francisco into the upper atmosphere. He was still a little bit leery of the idea after that.
“This better work.” Francisco said.
“It will, I promise.” David said. “Just remember what I told you. The higher we go the stronger the wind. Don’t let it blow you off the tree. You’ll float for hours until someone spots you or your balloon loses buoyancy. Nothing to worry about.”
Francisco grunted. “I’d still rather free climb it.”
“It’s too far to climb. We only have,” David checked his pocket watch. “forty-seven minutes to get to the top. That’s not enough time.”
Francisco tugged uncomfortably at his restraints, but before he could say anything else, David bent his knees a little and leapt. He soared twenty feet in the air and clung to the side of Big Stanley. He looked down with a smile on his lips. Francisco followed suit. David made another jump and caught hold of a mushroom another ten feet further. It felt a bit like swimming up from the bottom of a pond. The slightest kick of his feet or pull of his arm sent him up whole fathoms at a time. In no time at all, they reached the bottom of one of the many resort decks that wringed Stanley. Together they worked their way across the bottom of the deck to its outer edge. Twice David snagged his balloon in the floor joists, and they lost a few minutes while he fished it out. When they reached the outer edge of the platform, Francisco used a mirror to see how many guards were on patrol. He looked back at David and held up two fingers and then a forestalling palm. They hung there for a few minutes until Francisco nodded and pulled himself over the railing in one silent movement. David imitated him, but with far less grace. Once over the railing, they both jumped and let their balloons take them a few fathoms into the air before they clung to the tree and held their breath. They waited as the two guards completed a circuit of the deck and passed around the other side of Stanley. Then they were on the move again, leaping up the tree in great bounds. They fell into a rhythm as they passed deck after deck of the massive living tower. At one point, David’s foot slipped, and he kicked off the tree and floated into the expanse, but Francisco’s quick hands grabbed his ankle and hauled him back to safety.
Finally, after leaping nearly 80 fathoms of tree, they reached the highest tier of the Everpine Resort, the penthouse and Speaker Blythe’s quarters. As the suite was sectioned into several spacious rooms, Francisco opted to climb to the roof and observe their quarry through the skylights. They arrived above the living room skylight at 10:52. Each cut free their Life balloons and unstrapped the restraints. As Francisco melted a small hole in the corner of the skylight and fished in a small microphone on the end of a wire, David noticed that there were already people in the room. He started to lean over the skylight to get a better look when Francisco jerked him back. He bared his teeth at David, pointing first at the moon and then at the shadows along the floor beneath. David nodded and placed his ebony hand along the metal frame of the window and lay alongside the skylight to have a view without casting a shadow on the living room floor. He saw Blythe and Hephnaire sitting at a table having a drink.
David applauded himself for his prediction come true. Blythe and Hephnaire were plotting something sinister, and all he had to do was listen. Francisco placed a soft cup over his ear, and he heard the men’s conversation as if he were in the room beside them.
“I’m willing to consider it, but what can you offer me?” Blythe said.
“If you allow my unions into Public Pharmaceuticals,” Hephnaire replied, “I’ll hand you the Sixth District.”
“An interesting boast.” Blythe smiled and rubbed his jaw. “How do you plan on achieving such a feat?”
“If you grant this policy and require labor unions in every district of every house, specifically my labor unions, I’ll finally have access to the workers of the Sixth District. I’ll start small: demand better health benefits, higher pay, more leave, but as I require more and more, profits will wane. Usually, I monitor all my other unions to see to it we sap our providers and not strangle them. I’ll do no such thing in the sixth. The workers won’t realize what’s happening. They’ll consume their own jobs. The business owners won’t like it from the start, but if you mandate unions through legislation, they won’t have a choice. Eventually, the unions will be able to require whatever they want from the businesses, and the businesses will have to comply. The end result will be the total collapse of the sixth’s business sector. How much of their population will come running to the third?”
“But you also want access to Public Pharmaceuticals,” Blythe said as he took a sip of his favorite pink drink, “The largest employer in my district.”
“That is nothing more than an internal dispute among the dons for supremacy.” Hephnaire said. “Don Johnson is an obese bovine. It’s painful to watch him ruin his father’s empire and embarrassing to know that he is the most powerful of the three remaining dons. I’ll clip his wings, but I won’t affect business or population in your sector.”
“So, I have but to trust the word of a don,” Blythe said as he held his drink up to his forehead, “and you’ll cull my most threatening enemy. I do wish you were more trustworthy. It is a tempting proposition.”
“When have I not been, Blythe…” Hephnaire began, before Blythe cut him off.
“Your whole life, Hephnaire, no, more than that. The Hephnaire family has been dishonest since its inception.”
David thought Hephnaire would grow angry with Blythe, but the man only shrugged.
“It’s the only way to make money.” Hephnaire said.
“Here, here.” Blythe remarked in a toast with his now empty glass. “I’ll do it Hephnaire, but only with an insurance policy.” Blythe put his cup down and leaned forward in his chair. “I’ll rewrite the legislation as an employment improvement program. Your Unions will have free rein on all businesses, but only for a three-cycle term. After which the program will expire. If I am not still speaker, you will have no way to renew it.”
Hephnaire frowned, but in the end, he nodded, and the two men shook hands. David wanted to spit out the vile taste in his mouth, but he resisted the impulse. He thought he had seen it all when a woman entered the room, and not just another one of Blythe’s floozies, it was Bernice, his actual spouse. David looked up at Francisco and then back down at the trio. He’d supposed Bernice to be dead in a ditch or floating in the Capital Bay, not in the same room as Blythe.
“Your 11’o’clock is here.” She said with a forced smile.
David gulped. This is only the warmup? David thought.
“Is he?” Blythe said as he jumped to his feet and check his watch. “Damn! Lost track of time. Good evening, Hephnaire. I’m sorry to rush you along, but I have a pressing engagement.”
Hephnaire seemed to know a dismissal when he heard one, and he left the room immediately.
“Send him in.” Blythe said to Bernice as he straightened, leaned against his chair, and then straightened again, apparently unsure how to present himself.
Bernice left, and David held his breath. A moment later she returned escorting a cloaked man of small stature. The man seated himself but refused to take off either his hat or his cloak.
Blythe looked uncomfortable, more uncomfortable than David had ever seen him.
“Welcome to the Everpine Resort.” Blythe said to the stranger. “Is there anything I can get you?”
“No.” the stranger said as he leaned back in his chair. “I came to hear a status report. I did not come for drinks.”
“You’re sure?” Blythe said. “I have Senchá.”
“Please, I only want the report. Then I must leave.”
“We are on schedule, ahead of schedule, actually.” Blythe said, his voice faltering.
“The airships?” The st
ranger asked, lifting his head just enough so that David could see his chin, but no more. The man spoke perfect Alönian, but that was just it, perfect Alönian in a way that marked him as a foreigner.
“Deconstruction begins on the 38th day of next season.” Blythe clasped his hands and smiled. “You see, ahead of schedule, well in advance of the wedding.”
“What assurances can you give me to guarantee that date?” The stranger asked, not sharing Blythe’s enthusiasm. “You have made promises for the past 5 cycles and only now show results. We cannot adjust the image once the tapestry is sown.”
“The assembly has already approved the deconstruction. The airships are steaming toward the Third District as we speak. My enemies are powerless to intervene; yet I am still hacking away at their limp corpses. In another few seasons, I will be the only power in Alönia. The die is cast, and there is no changing it.”
“Your confidence is commendable.” The stranger said. “I wish I could share it. To many times I’ve seen a total victory transform into a complete loss. I have even orchestrated it myself on several occasions. You will forgive me if I feel skeptical.”
David risked a little more pressure on the window frame as he leaned out as much as he could without casting a shadow. He couldn’t see the man’s face, and as of now, he hadn’t a clue of his identity. If only he knew the man’s nationality. But then, a black shape thudded against the roof on the other side of the skylight. David jumped, and such was his position, that he clenched his fist on the frame of the skylight, his ebony fist. The frame crinkled beneath his grip, and the glass fractured into a spider web of cracks. A pause of absolute silence followed, a moment that allowed David to look up and see the cause of his fright. The flying cat lay on the other side of the skylight licking a paw, ignorant of its mischief. Then, the fractured glass crumbled into a thousand pieces that skipped across the living room floor. David saw Blythe look up in shock, but the stranger was nowhere to be seen. He’d vanished.