by S A Shaffer
Bethany looked at the guard with her large blue eyes. Then she removed her hand from her mouth and spoke in an anxious voice.
“Can you hide me?” she said.
“This area is off limits.” The guard said, sounding bored.
“Well so am I, but that doesn’t seem to slow Blythe down.” She said as she lifted her skirt and walked toward the guard as fast as ladies were allowed. “What’s down that there? Does he ever go down there?”
The guard smirked. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen the speaker in these halls.”
“Well he’s coming now.” Bethany said. She was only a few feet from the guard now. He towered over her petite form despite the heels she wore. Unfortunately, his knuckles turned white as his hands tightened on the repeater in his arms. He suspected her. Bethany redoubled her efforts.
“Please,” Bethany pleaded. “I just need a small cupboard where I can stay out of his hands and in my dress. I’ve slapped him twice, and he won’t leave me alone!” She put her hands on her hips and pouted.
It was working. The guard’s eyes flicked away for an instant, eying her pretty dress. His hands loosened on the repeater, and he sighed.
He pointed down the hall with one hand and said, “There’s a broom closet down that corridor and around—”
He never finished his sentence, for as soon as he looked in the direction he was pointing, Bethany took a handheld pulse emitter from her purse and tazed the man on the side of his neck. He crumped to the floor with such a loud clatter it made her jump.
“Shhh!” She said to his limp form. She turned her head and read the man’s name tag. “Someone will hear us, Tristan.”
Bethany checked both ways down the hall before she stepped up to the door behind the guard. Pulling a lock pic from her hair, Bethany fiddled with the lock. It wouldn’t budge. She bit her lip and tried again. She was no sneak when it came to locked doors but on occasion…”
“Finally!” Bethany said as the door swung open. She bent down, grabbed Tristan by his shoulders, and attempted to drag him into the room. He didn’t budge. She pulled harder, but she only managed to slip and fall on her backside. She got up and kicked the guard.
“That’s no way to treat a lady!” She said.
She grabbed his arm this time and braced herself against the doorframe. He moved at a painfully slow rate, and his face squeaked as it slid across the polished floor.
“Why did you have to be so big?” She said as she pulled him into the room with many huffs. “Tristan seems like a little man’s name.” Finally, she shut the door behind them and breathed a sigh of relief.
She bent and retrieved the guard’s repeater. She emptied the magazine and then fiddled with the trigger. When she’d finished, she dropped the repeater on the guard’s chest. It would be hours before he awoke, and she would be long gone, but she still enjoyed her little games.
The room looked like the inside of a power plant. Wires ran this way and that. Pipes and conduits crisscrossed along the walls and ceiling. In the middle, a long antenna as wide as Tristan’s waist reached through the glass ceiling and continued on for several fathoms above the top of the orbital. A wide dish crowned the apparatus. Bethany smiled. Someone had collected all of her favorite toys into one single room.
She set to work, first at the phonograph on the left side of the room. In moments she heard the general din of the assembly room and watched representatives find their seats in the light of a small steam projection. Next, she took her little purse and stepped up to the control terminal on the side of the enormous antenna. She ran some wires from the terminal to the phonograph, but for the moment, she left the terminal’s power switched off. She had to wait until the appropriate time, something David reiterated over and over again until she’d groaned in frustration.
She heard the call to assembly and several representatives give their motions over the hum of the phonograph, but she still waited, not touching the power switch on the terminal. Rather, she used the time to check and recheck her work. She even found a roll of tape to secure all the loose wires on the floor so nobody would trip. As she sat in a makeshift chair and prepared herself to watch the dullest assembly ever, waiting for a precise moment that seemed hours away, she heard a groan from behind her.
She spun around and saw Tristan standing to his feet and shaking his head. He looked toward Bethany and wrinkled his forehead. Then a grimace soured his features.
“You!” he said with venom in his voice. “You tazed me!” He raised his repeater to his shoulder and pointed it at Bethany.
Bethany looked at him with wide eyes. “You weren’t supposed to be awake so soon.” She said. “Everyone else takes longer.”
Tristan grunted. “I hope I’m on guard duty where they lock you up. I’ll taze you and watch a few programs while your drooling on the floor.”
Bethany slipped her hand inside her purse.
“Aw!” Tristan said as his fingers tightened on his repeater. “Not so fast, little missy. You move that hand again, and I’ll squeeze this trigger. I got no problems shooting a woman, even one as pretty as you.”
Bethany whimpered.
“That’s right, now you hold real still.” Tristan said.
“Don’t you want to turn the safety off?” Bethany said as tears rolled down her face.
“Huh?” Tristan said with a scowl. He looked at his repeater and then flicked the safety off. In that same instant his body stiffened, and a buzz issued from his repeater. He dropped the weapon and crumpled to the floor. Bethany withdrew her hand from her purse and pulled the cap off some lipstick. She freshened up and popped her lips a few times.
“Oh Tristan,” Bethany said as she stood and walked over to his prone form. “If you keep electrocuting yourself like that, you’re bound to get brain damage.”
She used her lipstick to draw several hearts on his cheeks. Then she jumped up as Walker started making his motion for the inquiry. She stepped over to the steam projector and watched the scene unfold. She saw Blythe mock Walker, the vote for the inquiry, David’s triumphant return, Mercy’s miraculous appearance, and then she saw it, the signal. Blythe leaned over and whispered something to Eric, who immediately left the dais.
A moment later, Bethany saw a few doors close from the limited perspective her projector presented, but Eric did not return. Bethany raced across the cramped room, stepping on Tristan to do so. She turned off the light and put her back against the wall behind the door. There she waited.
Within a few moments, she heard footsteps approaching. They neared and paused at the door.
“Tristan?” a voice called.
But after a moment, there was the sound of keys unlocking the door. Then it opened with a creak, and a heavily tanned man entered the room. He reached behind the door to turn on the light and a flickering blue light filled the dark room as Bethany tazed him. He crumpled to the ground. Bethany closed the door and turned on the light. In front of her lay Eric Himpton sprawled out on top of Tristan. She stepped over them and walked up to the antenna terminal. She rubbed her hands together, savoring the moment. She flicked the power switch and heard several generators groan to life. Lights eliminated up the side of the antenna and around the dish at the top.
Bethany smiled. David had been concerned from the start that Blythe would shut off the assembly broadcast, and the Houselands would never know what happened during the inquiry. He had agonized over this fact for weeks on end, but just a few days ago he’d had an epiphany and dreamed up one of his typical, crazy-brilliant plans.
When Blythe sent Eric to shut down the broadcast, Bethany intercepted him and ensured that the broadcast stayed active. In addition to that, she’d projected it on the orbital emergency frequency, a system the orbital used whenever all of Alönia needed to hear something in a hurry, like an invasion or a cyclone warning. The enormous antenna sent out a signal to several other relay stations, and collectively they broadcasted across all Alönian frequencies, with the exception of
military channels. This meant that every single Alönian radio and phonograph now projected the inquiry.
The plan was ingenious. Blythe wanted and believed nobody could hear him, but instead, everyone could. Every single Alönian currently using a phonograph or listening to the radio now listened to the juicy inquiry of William Jefferson Blythe IV. If Bethany had to guess, the news would spread like wildfire, and the whole Houselands would tune in. But that wasn’t even the best part! The reason David had been so adamant on the timing was to ensure that Blythe wouldn’t discover that all of Alönia was listening to the inquiry. He’d sent Eric out to terminate the broadcast, and then cleared the gallery and locked down the assembly so nobody could report on the event, but in this case, it just meant that nobody could tell him he was national news.
Bethany watched the assembly for a few more minutes while David pressed his case, then she headed for the door. There, she paused and looked back at Eric. She pulled her lipstick from her purse and bent down over his face to draw some hearts. She could spare a few more minutes.
A NIGHT IN THE CLOUDS
David fell for a few moments of terror before landing with a thud on something white and padded. He’d fallen perhaps ten feet through the sky onto a skiff hovering below the assembly’s glass floor, and the impact of his landing bruised his tailbone. Considering how far he could have fallen, though, he decided he didn’t mind so much. He grunted and rubbed his backside.
“I worked for three hours dressing up and making myself beautiful.” A voice said from beside him, and he turned to see a rather distraught looking Mercy.
He opened his mouth to speak, but his stomach had yet to decide what was up and what was down.
“At your request!” She said as she pointed a finger at him. “And now you’ve completely filled my gown with sand!” She shook out her bodice.
But as David looked around and saw the fine layer of particulates covering the entire 71 two-seater cockpit, he knew it wouldn’t help. When he looked back at Mercy, she smiled at him.
“I think it worked.” She said.
David remembered himself and scooted across the white leather bench seat to the controls. Guardsmen dangled from steel girders only ten feet above them, and it wouldn’t be long before one of them spotted the skiff in the darkness. With expert hands he adjusted the throttle, and the skiff shot forward leaving behind a cloud of sand filtering down to Capital City. As soon as he had a chance, he leaned forward and switched on the skiffs onboard phonograph. Though the wind whistled around him, the speaker projected unmistakable sounds of panic and yelling. Over the top of all the chaos he could hear Blythe’s screams of rage. David smiled.
“He doesn’t sound very happy,” Mercy said.
“Just wait till he discovers we’ve stolen all his airships.” David said and Mercy laughed, a sweet sound that carried across the night sky. The open top allowed chilly, high-elevation air to flow around them and the current made Mercy shiver. David reached an arm around her, and she snuggled close. She’d released her hair from the bun, and it flowed behind her like a flaming torch in the wind.
David had wanted this for a long time: a flight in an amazing skiff through the starlit evening with Mercy clinging to his arm. He wanted to say something nice.
“I’m sorry about your gown.” He said. “I can help you get the sand out later.”
“Thanks, but it’s not in places your allowed to go.”
David gulped. “Oh, right.” He tried to think of something else to say.
“Are you blushing?” Mercy asked.
“Probably not as much as you are.” David said.
She laughed and slapped his chest.
“So where are we going?” she asked as David banked the skiff through a cloud.
“You know where we’re going.” He said with a sideways glance.
“Can’t we at least pretend we’re doing something romantic?” she asked.
“What? Stealing airships isn’t romantic?” David asked.
“Men!” Mercy groaned and shook her head.
“All right, we’re flying to the Seventh District resorts on our way to a romantic dinner.”
Mercy sighed and rested her head against his shoulder again. “That’s a happy thought.”
David weaved between clouds for a few extra moments, purposefully taking the long way and enjoying his close proximity to Mercy, but eventually he slowed the ship and raised the cloth top.
Mercy sighed and drew a compact gas pistol out of her skirts. “So much for my imaginary romantic evening.”
David smiled and dropped the skiff through the cloud cover and heard the familiar pitter-patter of raindrops splashing on the windscreen.
“Trust me, this is going to be a lot more fun.” he said.
Mercy gave him an I doubt that look.
Below the clouds, light pollution from Capital City lit up the sky. David turned the skiff toward the Victorian sector, and there, moored alongside several other yachts, sat Blythe’s newest pleasure cruiser, designed in Armstad, crafted in the Third District, and paid for by the general taxpayers of Alönia. It was the flagship of the armada. He’d only seen it once before in House Thornton and, even then, only at a distance, but he knew an advanced airship when he saw one.
David glided his skiff closer. The yacht looked about the size of a small to medium carrier. The bay doors along the underside looked large enough to hold between thirty and forty skiffs. While the other yachts all enjoyed extravagant paint jobs that were visible even in the darkness, Blythe’s yacht looked black as pitch in comparison. Wherever the light touched, it seemed to slip around its oily surface without any reflection at all. The surface reminded David of his own arm.
As he drew alongside, something else caught his attention. There was no top deck. The ship’s envelope sloped around in one continuous curve, interrupted only by a tower protruding from the middle and several spherical armaments looking like bubbles. David guided his skiff toward the rear of the yacht and notice one central turbine coring the entire hull with duel rudders forming a cross over the thrust nozzle. The Cloud Cutter 71 had a similar design though on a much smaller scale. The closer David got, the more details became visible. On either side of the stern, he saw gyroscopic turbines folded alongside the envelope; though, these folded so tight they didn’t interrupt the envelope’s smooth curves.
David looked at Mercy with a dangerous smile.
“Sometimes I wonder what your devious mind is thinking?” Mercy asked with narrowed eyes.
“I’ll bet that’s the most sophisticated airship in the sky.” David said. “And that’s precisely why I’m stealing it.”
“It’s not enough for you to take away his speakership,” Mercy said, “you wanted to take his toys as well.”
“Well I’m not going to let Viörn take them. When war finally comes, we can’t risk technology like that in enemy hands.”
“Well then,” Mercy asked as she checked her pistol’s magazine, “Let’s get this over with.”
She handed David a cloth bundle, and he unwrapped his father’s old revolver. He attached the holster to his belt. Its weight against his hip gave him comfort.
“Right, well there should be a…” David said as he rummaged around in the skiff’s storage compartment. “Ah-ha!” He said and produced a small square device with several buttons on one side and a long antenna protruding from the front. “A skiff-door-opener.”
David veered the skiff below the yacht and pressed one of the buttons on the device in his hand. Nothing happened. He checked the device to make sure he was pressing the right button and frowned when he saw that he was.
“Perhaps he doesn’t have a personal opener yet.” Mercy said, but David couldn’t believe that Blythe would not afford himself such a luxury at the earliest possible moment, especially considering his nocturnal lifestyle.
“Oh!” David said, and he tapped the control against his forehead.
“What?” Mercy asked.
“I’m an idiot. It’s a private garage.”
David maneuvered the skiff up around to the top of the yacht. Sure enough, a skiff sized hatch with blinking lights along its side lay open beside the control tower.
“This is going to be easier than I thought." David said and he guided his skiff through the opening and landed in a small, single-skiff garage. He closed the private hatch and opened their skiff’s cloth top.
“Smells like new airship mixed with Úoi season rain.” David said in a whisper.
They listened for a moment, as Francisco had taught them to do before entering an unknown situation. Once satisfied they were alone, David climbed from the skiff and alighted on the ground, before helping Mercy do the same. Her billowing skirt made it difficult.
“Not the best heist attire,” She said in a whisper as she lifted her skirt and slipped off her heals so their clicking wouldn’t give them away.
David crept to the far end of the skiff compartment and opened the door. Dim light and the sound of sweet music drifted through the open door. David crouched down and slipped inside the room, followed by Mercy. While she held her gas pistol, he slunk through the room with his father’s revolver at the ready. However, the compartment adjoining the skiff garage looked to be empty.
David rose to his feet very slowly and looked around the opulent three-room suit. Plush couches and thick carpets graced the floor, while an impressive refreshment station covered one entire wall. David tried to check the adjoining room as quietly as he could, but his wet shoes squeaked against a section of uncarpeted floor.
“Dearest, is that you?” a woman called from the next room over, a bedroom by the look of it. She emerged a moment later holding a glass of wine and dressed in the most peculiar aeronautical uniform that was at least three or four sizes too large. Sleek black hair flowed over one shoulder.
“Who the devil are you?” The woman asked as she placed a hand on her hip and huffed.