The Starchild

by Schuyler Thorpe

  “Yeah, I thought that’s where you’d be. But mom wasn’t sure. She thought you might have already gone up to Stratos City already–lucky duck.” He said with an envious voice.

  Scratching the side of the my nose, I shook my head.

  “I actually haven’t gone anywhere as of yet, Little Brother.” I told him, then pulled the door open a bit so that the fresh sunlight could come in unencumbered.

  And showed him what I meant.

  Trell’s eyes widened at the sight of my bike in a sad state of disarray.

  “Holy crap. I knew you said the storm had knocked you around coming home, but–”

  “Yeah,” I offered up without passing regret. “It’s going to be a bit of a wait. Sorry.”

  My brother took what I said in stride. “It’s okay. So long as you get it fixed. That’s all that matters.”

  I smiled wanly despite the problems and challenges on hand. “Mom mentioned to me already that you want to take a trip to Shark’s Bay with me to pick up that power converter you wanted so badly.”

  Trell nodded. “I figured I could spend some time with Calis along the way–while you’re doing your thing up at the space complex.” He theorized at that point.

  “How will you get back home if I go?”

  “Calis will give me a ride back. He already agreed to my idea.”

  I looked at him with open amazement. “You know how hard it is to get him to agree on anything, Little Brother? Let alone your plan?”

  My brother nodded. “I know. I know. It took some convincing. The old man isn’t usually in a giving mood as of late, but this morning…he appeared on board with things.”

  “Hmph.” I said softly. “I wonder if it had anything to do with my long discussion with him the other day?”

  Trell grinned suddenly in response. “Yeah, he said that you were being a big pain the butt like always. Maybe that was it?”

  I glared at him in response, but I couldn’t stay mad at him for even suggesting it.

  “Okay, troublemaker. Let’s get going. What did you want to tell me so badly that you interrupted my work flow again?”

  Trell paused for a second and then said: “Oh! Right! Now I remember! Mom had me come and get you and to tell you that breakfast is ready.”

  “Is it that time already?” I mused, looking at my watch. The holographic display ticked over a couple minutes past ten in the morning.

  “I guess it is.” Not that a welcome break from the action would be a welcome one. I reflected with transparent relief. Then I added: “Lead the way, squirt.”

  ***

  My mother waited for us to come in from the cold–finding us to be our usual boisterous selves of days past–considering what had had been transpiring as of late.

  It was a pleasant change of pace that the woman felt was needed in this household and she couldn’t have asked for anything more than that.

  Still…change was coming.

  She could feel that much in the air. And she privately wondered if it was because her only daughter had finally decided to grow up?

  Pushing these thoughts aside for the moment, she stepped into the kitchen doorway in that moment–calling out to me and my brother: “Hurry up you two! You’re breakfast is getting cold!”

  Both of us acknowledged her by doing what we were told–and in no time flat–we were wolfing down eggs, toast, a variety of fruit pastries, and washing all that down with a pitcher of chilled apple juice.

  My mother fixed herself a plate as well, taking her place as head of the household while we finished what was on our plates in record time–openly amazed by our ravenous appetites.

  “So how are the repairs going?” She asked at that point.

  I sat back, having finished my second glass of apple juice and wearing a look of content and satisfaction on my face.

  “Good so far. But I’ve run into a snag of sorts.” I revealed.

  “What kind?”

  “The fuel pump.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Lining’s all shot to hell.” I explained in the simplest manner possible, not wanting to go into a great amount of detail.

  My mother knew immediately what I was talking about, instantly recalling the times when her husband, Kelin McGowan, had similar problems in the past with his own custom-built auto-frame–an extremely fast and highly maneuverable T-17 Firefly.

  And like her husband in the past, my mom had a suggestion for me–though a bit arcane in retrospect.

  “So fix it.”

  I rolled my eyes with a shake of my head. “Easy for you to say. I don’t even have a spare on hand.”

  Mom didn’t see that as a problem at all.

  “So improvise.”

  “How?” I questioned tightly. “I just told you: I don’t have a liner.”

  “Then think about something that could be used as a good substitute.”

  Staring down at my now empty plate, I thought back to how the liner originally looked: A paper thin, teal-colored square consisting of micro-woven metal filaments and air-breathing fabric polymers. All of which fit into a tiny circular hole covering the top of the tiny compressor valve.

  “Well…” I pondered thoughtfully. “Whatever I substitute has to be able to act as a filter, allowing only air and fuel to come through unhindered, but trap any foreign contaminants like dirt and sand for instance.”

  My mother was understandably curious about one thing.

  “If the liner can do that, how come the compressor jammed?”

  “My guess is that there was too much sand getting in for the liner to handle.”

  “In that case,” said the woman as she rose from her seat, “you might have a hairline crack somewhere in the body chassis. That might explain how all that sand is getting in unfettered.”

  I already knew that. However, I was already going through the motions of disagreeing with her.

  “I didn’t,” I replied evenly. “Because I’ve already checked.”

  My mother didn’t accept that as the final answer.

  “Check again, honey.”

  “Mom, I already ran a visual check on the bike from one side to the other. I didn’t see any crack.”

  Not wanting to fight with me, my mom quietly picked up her own plate and headed over to the sink, depositing it with the other dirty dishes that she might’ve had to use earlier. This included my plate and my brother’s–whom finished with the last of his breakfast–but not his juice.

  “Then it’s obvious that you’ve might’ve overlooked something,” she told me flat out. “And that just means you’ll have to march yourself back into the shed and double-check just to make sure…before you leave.”

  I just sat there in her chair and stewed, having clearly been defeated. My mother was right after all and I of course…was wrong.

  No, not wrong. At fault with myself.

  Damn it! I should’ve been more thorough! I thought angrily, wondering where on this bleak world I had gone wrong.

  “Okay.” I relented finally. “I’ll check again.” Even if I don’t like it.

  ~14~

  Returning to the shed, I tried believing that what my mom said would be an easy enough solution to my lining problem. There had to be an answer somewhere. I just had to find it.

  Simple. Right?

  Closing the door behind me, I went back to the computer diagnostic terminal and typed in another request: Structural integrity scan.

  This was a different process than the one that I had conducted before, and I was too busy kicking myself silently in the shins for not thinking about it when I was working on the hover bike earlier.

  The machine hummed and I had to step back a bit (as to not accidentally interfere) and watched as a pencil-thin beam shot out from the side of the holographic table, silently gliding over my bike like a gossamer curtain. After ten to twenty seconds of this, the beam quickly terminated itself.

  The terminal chatted to itself, digesting the raw data colle
cted and then spit out the results onto the monitor screen next to me.

  It wasn’t good at all.

  My mother was right after all. There was a hairline crack underneath the engine compartment, just a little aft of the control box.

  Walking over to the back of my bike, I knelt down into the cold sand in order to check this out. To see the results up close and personal.

  Sure enough, a four-inch gash was clearly visible in the bike’s exterior surface.

  So why didn’t I see this before? I wondered, before standing up.

  Like magic, the hairline crack vanished.

  Ah-hah! So that’s why I couldn’t see it!

  With the knowledge in hand, there was only one way to fix the problem now, and that was to use a special kind of sealant which would instantly bond with crack and temporarily fuse it back together. A stop gap measure, but enough of one that would allow me ample time to get it properly fixed when I had a spare moment.

  Or Calis. I drew up in an instant. Maybe he would be so kind as to patch this puppy back together while I’m gone?

  Considering my past track record of successes, one could only hope.

  Going to my tool box, I dug around inside it for a minute, before my fingers encountered what was needed and came away with a sealed tube–brand new and never once used.

  Messing with it for a second, I opened up the nozzle according to preference and went back to the afflicted side of her machine.

  Aiming the tube, I sprayed not one coat, but two coats on the affected area, then capped the tube and tossed it back towards her chest–watching it bounce of the edge, but doing a spin-flip on its own which landed it just inside the tool box.

  Sitting down next to my bike, I mentally started to count backwards randomly, all part of the wait as the sealant hardened on its own time.

  Then I mentally shifted gears and focused on yet another difficult problem: Finding a substitute lining for her tiny compressor valve.

  But the problem lay in the fact that there wasn’t much to work with.

  I began to draw lazy circles in the sand, hoping that I would find the answer, but having this feeling in the back of my mind that I had finally encountered a road block from which had no viable solution. No compromise whatsoever.

  Hell…I thought miserably, on the verge of accepting the fact that I failed and that there was nothing more other than to call it quits for the day, while finding another way to get a brand new pump.

  And tell Calis that I failed. I reflected sullenly. This setback certainly wouldn’t sit well with him at all.

  Getting up, I absently dusted myself off using my shirt, watching as the sand particles flaked right off–leaving not a trace of their existence behind.

  Out of the blue, inspiration had hit me like a brick.

  “The shirt!” I squealed in triumph, excited that I might’ve finally found a decisive way out of this mess.

  Running back to my box, I yanked out a pair of old-fashioned scissors–a quaint gift from my grandmother Marie when I was five years old.

  You can change the world with this. I recalled her exact words at my birthday party. Show everyone what you can do with it.

  Silently thanking my deceased grandmother for such an invaluable tool, I proceeded to cut out a small square from the lowermost part of my shirt–the part that wouldn’t easily be seen by anyone, lest they risk life and limb by trying for a closer look.

  I knew that mom wouldn’t necessarily approve of my actions, considering the costs of shirts these days down on the surface.

  Now is not the time to bitch. It’s time for action! Time to get going! I thought, energized by what I would accomplish next by this one small miracle.

  Placing the scissors back where I got them, I took the small piece of her own shirt and ventured back to the work table where I had disassembled the fuel pump, reassembling it back together in record time–making sure that the strip of cloth was put in its place before anything else.

  In less than fifteen minutes, I had finished the task at hand–now holding the fuel pump in hand up to eye level–critically scanning the piece of equipment for anything out of the ordinary, but all the while extremely proud of my ability to work gracefully under pressure.

  “Now it’s time to see if you work,” I informed the component, then went for my bike.

  With the proper tools in hand, I installed the fuel pump next to its twin, replaced the covering, and had the terminal run a complete systems check which lasted a full five minutes.

  Everything read green.

  The bike was ready and so was I.

  ~15~

  Weasel’s Ridge Maze.

  Transit Terminal Station 323.

  My mind was in a complete state of awe as I gazed over the large canyon that was Weasel’s Ridge maze and just felt a bit overwhelmed in the process.

  Despite its name, Weasel’s Ridge Maze was a far cry from being even the least bit small, as I quickly found out. The area was much larger and as credit to its legendary reputation–?

  This was going to be a fun trip in itself.

  Toeing my bike into gear, I started the trip down into the valley–weaving through a series of tight turns, dead end corridors, a plethora of jutting overhangs and even a couple of hairpin loops, before emerging into the clear, with a path running along the edge of a sizable cliff that ran for more than two miles in either direction–east or west.

  But to say that the view from above was even far less spectacular…most visitors to this area would consider that a grave understatement.

  Pulling up closer to the edge, I got a real nice bird’s eye view of the whole thing, before continuing on with my journey.

  Weasel’s Ridge Maze was by far much larger than most of the canyons I had previously visited, even larger than Dead Man’s Bluff, which boasted of the largest arch ever conceived by nature–reaching an astounding height of 1,200 feet at its highest point.

  That in itself was an auto-frame pilot’s dream, or in worst-case scenarios–an unquenchable nightmare. Especially to those in my stock in trade.

  Despite this knowledge, my personal opinion of the area remained unchanged. By the looks of things, the canyon floor belonging to this part of the ridge appeared more than capable of handling all kinds of heavy traffic–judging by the impressive number of hover cycles and transport vehicles already parked down below, looking like so many small toys from my perspective.

  Soon…I would join them.

  And just beyond the next cliff’s rise (about one hundred yards from the main parking lots), sat one of the largest transit terminal stations I had ever seen in my life.

  And here I thought the one at The Devil’s Playground was impressive enough! I thought in silent amazement. But that was just a pale comparison, considering all the pictures I had seen.

  Incredible!

  The building itself rose to an unbelievable height of five stories, almost–but not quite–reaching the side of the cliff face. The center of the roof had three large tubes built directly into the structure itself, composed entirely flexible polymer-tritanium material, lightly sheathed in transparent ablative armor. These connection points were part of an intricate sky tube transport system, linking this terminal and others like to the orbiting space complex of Stratos City.

  Easily maintained, each of these tentacles could be detached from the roof’s base on case of an emergency, allowing the tubes to be retracted and moved some where’s else.

  I watched as a cylindrical sky tube car shot upwards at high velocity, enthralled by the sight, but also unnerved, seeing that she could not get a clear view inside the opaque car itself.

  Jeez old man! I blanched silently. You want me to go in that thing?

  Fear took hold of me, only because I didn’t have the foggiest idea on what to expect next.

  I felt the muscles in my face go taunt–as I could only imagine how I looked to the outside observer: Blue eyes set, lips pursed, jaw clenched, every bit of my childho
od innocence gone in an instant as I put on a determined face in light of what I would have to eventually do.

  Chance it. A part of me implored insistently. You have nothing to lose by not going.

  The wind whipped around me abruptly, as if giving me more than enough reason to get going.

  I sighed, knowing that I had little choice in the matter. I would do this, but only because of the old man’s insistence, not to mention the fact that I was also his best student.

  Okay, Calis. I’m going to honor your request, but if anything happens to me while I’m up there…? I promised myself–knowing the risks I was about to put myself through–despite all the lingering horror stories attached to going up.

  Not too mention family history as well. That might prove to be a problem if anybody asks.

  Looking around, I spied a path that had been carefully cut into the cliff face a little farther downwind from where she was presently.

  From my perspective, it took on the shape of a steep cliff, winding around like a snake, merging flawlessly with the transit terminal–the exact opposite of the incline she had hopped yesterday.

  Sitting back a bit on my bike, I gunned the engines for the hell of it, firmly set on my goal on getting down there as quickly as possible.

  And in one piece if I could help it.

  ***

  Fifteen minutes later, I found a decent parking spot (but not the one I originally wanted), parked my cycle and began the long trek across the smaller parking lot on the other side of the terminal (but not the one I had seen earlier).

  Walking past the various ground-level transport vehicles, varied hover cycles much like her own, and–when I stopped for a second to look at the last one–even a garbage hauler.

  The massive profile of the thing reminded me of a hulking creature born from myth and legend, much like those I had seen in my old storybooks or on my mom’s stored holo discs.

  And the effect was no less humbling as the hauler easily dwarfed both me and the cycle parked next to it, giving me the eerie sensation that I was standing in the presence of a giant.

  But that only lasted for a couple of moments, as blatant curiosity overrode whatever lingering fear was still inside of me.