by Joel Ross
“Yeah,” I admitted. “I’m not really sure what—”
“Chess, c’mon!” Bea called down the walkway. “Mrs. E wants you.”
The doctor stopped me at the infirmary door. “Be careful— she’s still weak. She was very ill, and she’s not out of the fog yet.”
“I won’t stay long,” I said. “I promise.”
A breeze wafted through the windows when I stepped inside, bringing the scent of rain. I crossed toward Mrs. E, who was propped up in bed, flipping through a collection of papers. She looked good. She looked better than I thought I’d ever see her again.
“What’re you reading?” I asked.
“An instruction manual.” She showed me a page. “For a modular, snap-on construction technique called Lego. Look, it can make a bus station!” She showed me the picture on the front. “If only we had the bricks.”
I peered at the illustration. “And the buses.”
“Did you hear the news?” she asked, putting the papers aside.
“What news? There’s news?”
She took my hand. “Mutineer scouts spotted Kodoc’s Rooftop armada. They’re closer than we thought.”
“How close?” I asked, my stomach souring.
“A few days away.”
I closed my eyes, struck by a wave of fear. A few days. In a few days, they’d hit Port Oro. They’d set fire to the trees and blast the neighborhoods into rubble.
“You need to dive now, Chess,” Mrs. E continued. “Today.”
My breath caught, and my mind whispered, I’m not ready! I’m not ready to dive into the Station. I couldn’t dive three floors underground, into a dark hole writhing with driftsharks. Not yet.
“Not a problem,” I said in a wavering voice.
Mrs. E squeezed my hand. “What did the cogs tell you about the Station?”
“It’s underground,” I said as sweat beaded on the back of my neck. “Deep underground.”
“And there are sharks.”
I swallowed. “Yeah.”
“But you’re still going to dive?”
“Yeah,” I said again.
She brushed my hair aside to look me in both my eyes. “There’s a saying of the ancient spidermen: ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’”
“And way too many legs.” I gave a feeble smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll be okay.”
She patted my hair back into place. “I think . . . I believe that new things are rising from the deep places, Chess.”
“What do you mean?”
“They say . . .” She seemed to drift off for a moment. “A teacher of mine once told me that when the Compass is triggered, the ticktocks will follow.”
“Ticktocks don’t exist.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “Clockwork trash-monsters . . . they’re just a scary story. Aren’t they?”
“There are secrets in the Fog, Chess, that even you don’t know.”
I swallowed. “No way. I can’t even handle driftsharks.”
“You listen to me.” Mrs. E started trembling, and her grip tightened on my hand. “You can do this. You were born for this. You trained for this. I trained you, Hazel, Swedish, and Bea. You can change the future. Whatever happens—”
The monitor attached to her arm started clattering, a loud, scraping sound that froze my blood.
“I told you not to upset her,” the doctor snapped at me, rushing from across the room. “It’s time for you to leave!”
“But I—”
“Go!”
When I started to step away, Mrs. E grabbed my wrist. “You think the Fog makes you faster, Chess? You think it makes you lighter? You’re wrong. The Fog doesn’t change you. You change the Fog.”
15
I STUMBLED INTO the hallway and found the crew standing around the card table.
“What’s wrong?” Swedish asked, turning toward me. “Is she okay?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “She started to—”
“She’s fine,” the doctor said from inside the infirmary. “She just needs peace and quiet.”
The door slammed, and we stood there for a second until I said, “Okay.”
“Okay what?” Hazel asked when I didn’t continue.
“Okay,” I repeated. “Kodoc’s armada is on the way. They’ll get here in—”
“A couple of days,” Hazel said. “We know. We’re on the way to the raft now.”
“Now?” I asked. “Like, now now?”
“What other kind of now is there?” Loretta asked.
“Now now,” Hazel told me with a nod. “Let’s go.”
“There’s something else,” I said. “Mrs. E said . . . she said we trained for this.”
“Trained for what?” Hazel asked.
“I don’t know. For this. Diving into the Station, I guess. She said she trained us.”
“Trained us?” Swedish said. “What do you mean? I thought she just found us.”
Bea wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, that’s weird.”
“Who cares?” Loretta asked. “She fed you, didn’t she?”
“Maybe she did both.” Hazel wrapped a braid around her finger. “We always wondered, why did she adopt us? Why me? Why Swedish? Sure, he looks like a thug, but he’s not.” She smiled softly. “Mrs. E once told me that the first time she saw Swedish, some gang had crammed him into a broken wingframe and thrown him off the edge of the slum. But he didn’t fall. He flew that thing.”
Swedish shook his shaggy head and managed to look both proud and embarrassed. “I don’t remember.”
“That’s your gift, Swede—you’re a born pilot.”
“Flying’s easy,” he grumbled, but I heard the smile in his voice.
“Mrs. E picked us for a reason. You fly, Bea’s a gear genius. And I’m—” Hazel fussed with her necklace. “Y’know, whatever.”
“You’re what?” Swedish asked.
Hazel chewed on her lip. “Well, Chess says I’m bossy.”
“Only ’cause you’re the boss,” I told her.
“And you kind of are,” Bea said.
Swedish nodded. “Like a junkyard knee breaker.”
“So bossy,” Loretta agreed. “So bossy. So, so, so—”
“Okay, okay!” Hazel interrupted.
“Bossy,” I added.
“Fine! I’m . . . good at being in charge. Anyway, Mrs. E took our strengths and made them stronger. All this time, she’s been training us. We’re the best salvage crew on the Rooftop. You think there’s a better one in Port Oro?”
Swedish gave a derisive laugh.
“Me neither.” Hazel tugged at a braid. “After Mrs. E burned down Kodoc’s house, she didn’t run and hide. She went into the junkyard looking for slumkids with natural gifts—”
“And a freak-eye,” I said.
“Yeah.” She gazed at me. “Hm.”
“‘Hm?’” I said. “What does that mean?”
“Well, what if . . .” Hazel frowned. “What if she was putting together a crew for you?”
The idea freaked me out a little. “Well, then she messed up, because she missed Loretta.”
“Aw, shut up,” Loretta said, scuffing the floor with her boot. “You chucklenugget.”
Bea wrinkled her nose at Hazel. “You mean Mrs. E knew the Assemblers would need a diver?”
“No,” Hazel told her. “Maybe. I guess she knew that a kid with mist in his eye was special, and she knew he’d need help. A pilot, a gearslinger. People he could trust. Our whole life, she’s been shaping us into a tool.”
“A tool?” I said. “I thought she shaped us into a crew.”
“She fed us; she taught us; she raised us.” Hazel caught me with her clear brown eyes. “She hid us from Kodoc and saved us from the junkyard bosses. And look around.”
I looked from her to Loretta to Swedish to Bea, then back to Hazel.
“You know what we are?” she asked. “To the folks back in the slum?”
“Slumkids?” Bea asked.
“Bottom
-feeders?” Swedish asked.
“Dead meat,” Loretta said.
“Legends,” Hazel said, with a sudden, wolfish smile. “We snatched a diamond and got away. Who beats the bosses?”
“Nobody,” Loretta said.
“Nobody,” Hazel agreed. “But we did. Who outruns the roof-troopers? Nobody. But we did. Who escapes from the Rooftop to Port Oro?”
“Nobody?” Bea said.
“Nobody,” Hazel agreed. “But—”
“We did,” Bea finished.
The strength in Hazel’s voice made something expand in my chest, something fierce and happy.
“Who got help for Mrs. E?” Hazel asked.
“We did,” I said.
Hazel stood a little taller. “And who is going to dive three stories underground—and come back bragging?”
“Chess is.” Swedish said.
“Not quite,” I told them. “I’m too awesome to brag.”
16
WE PASSED ONLY a few Assemblers on our way to the roof, which was strange—usually the skyscraper buzzed with activity.
Loretta frowned at the empty hallways. “Where is everyone?”
“Probably plotting against us,” Swedish muttered, kicking his new bootball against the wall.
“They’ll meet us at the dive site,” Hazel said.
“They’re coming to the Station?” I asked. “Like, to watch?”
“Yeah, but I told them we want to be left alone first.”
“We do?” Loretta asked.
“Chess does. You know he gets all blushy and nervous when they stare at him.”
“I don’t blush,” I said.
Hazel hunched her shoulders and ducked her head, letting her braids fall over her face. “Hey, who am I?”
Bea giggled and slouched along behind her. “I’m a tetherboy!”
Loretta didn’t have enough hair to hide her eye, so she clapped a hand over her face and said, “Nobody look at me! I’m horrible.”
Swedish laughed and tossed me his bootball. “You haven’t been hiding your eye so much in the past few days.”
I bounced the ball off the wall. He was right. Spending time with the cogs here had made me care less about my own freak-eye.
“Because he’s living with a bunch of other eyeclopses,” Loretta said.
“What’s an eyeclops?” Bea asked.
“A one-eyed ogre from an old story,” Loretta told her.
So I tossed the bootball at her head. Bea intercepted, and we kicked the ball around until we reached the roof. We crossed toward the raft that the Assemblers were lending us: a two-balloon ship with a small deck, a shiny engine, and a hefty winch.
“Not bad,” I said.
“Those balloons need painting,” Hazel said. “They’re boring.”
“It’s still an airship,” Loretta groused, eyeing the edge of the skyscraper unhappily. “Why’d I join a crew that’s always flying everywhere?”
“Because you didn’t want to die in the junkyard, fighting over a pair of ratskin gloves, remember?” Hazel asked. “Don’t blame us if you’re afraid of flying.”
“I don’t mind flying,” Loretta said. “I just don’t see why it’s always got to happen in the air.”
“What kind of crew stays on the ground?” Swedish asked her.
“A gang.” She sighed fondly. “Ah, the good old days.”
“You used to work for Perry,” Swede reminded her. “He’s a yellow-haired snake.”
“Perry’s worse than a snake,” Loretta said with a faint shiver. “They say he tossed his own parents into the Fog.”
“And that squeaky voice of his,” I said, with a shiver of my own. “That little-kid voice coming from such a stone-cold thug.”
“He’s not all bad,” Swedish said.
“Are you kidding?” Loretta said. “Name one good thing.”
“We’ll never see him again.”
“Huh,” she said. “That is good.”
Bea hopped aboard the raft for a chat with the starter coils. Swedish tapped the ignition sequence on the keyboard, and Hazel headed for the crow’s nest, with her new logbook in one hand and her spyglass in the other.
Loretta and I uncoiled the tie-down straps. Well, I uncoiled the straps—she tugged and grumbled at the knot.
“Hey, Loretta?” I said.
“I know, I know,” she muttered. “Swede keeps telling me to go easy.”
“That’s not what I was going to say.”
“Use a little finesse?”
I shook my head. “Not that either.”
“I’m hurting the raft’s feelings? Bea says I’m rude.”
“Nope.”
“What, then?”
I untied the strap with a single tug. “If anything happens to me . . .” I glanced toward the crew. “Take care of them.”
“I will,” she told me with a nod. Like that settled that.
And it did.
As we sailed away from the skyscraper, Bea monkeyed with the engine for a few minutes, then crossed to the winch. “I didn’t have time to rig a bell on your new tether,” she told me.
She meant the system she’d invented where I squeezed a hand brake on my harness that rang a bell on the raft, hundreds of yards above me. We’d arranged a few codes, for common messages like “I’m okay” and “Get me out of here!” and “Get me out of here NOW!”
“That’s okay,” I told her. “I won’t need one. As long as nothing goes cattywampus.”
Bea wrinkled her nose. “If you’re in trouble, give three sharp tugs, and we’ll pull you up. Okay?”
“Sure.”
She shoved me. “Don’t say ‘sure’ like you weren’t even listening!”
“If I get into trouble,” I told her, raising my hands in surrender, “I’ll tug my tether three times.”
“Sharply,” Bea said.
“Sharply,” I repeated.
She frowned at the tether, and her lower lip started trembling. “You better not get hurt.”
“I won’t. It’s just a hole in a ground with a shark or two.”
“Here!” She gave me a twisty. “For good luck.”
“Thanks.” The burnished copper wire was shaped into a rose in full bloom, and it glowed when I raised it into the sunlight. “It’s perfect.”
“It’s a rose.”
“I know it’s a rose, you chuzz.”
“Because you gave me one after our last dive, so—”
“Bea,” I said, “it’s totally purple.”
She kicked my boot. “You be careful.”
“I will.”
“Slow her down, Swedish!” Hazel called from the crow’s nest. “We’re almost there.”
“What?” I squinted behind us, and the skyscraper was still in sight. “We’ve only been flying for five minutes! I could’ve walked.”
“Yeah, but they’re sending other tetherkids down with you,” Hazel said. “And these kids don’t like leisurely strolls in the Fog.”
“Because unlike you, they’re not mist-monsters,” Loretta informed me.
I spotted movement off the prow. A hundred yards ahead of us, a fleet of Subassembly ships hovered above the Fog: rafts, cargo ships, and fishing trawlers, all packed with people.
“This is a huge day for the Assemblers,” Hazel told me. “They’ve been diving for this map for years.”
I rubbed my face. Yeah, they’d been diving long enough to lose nine kids.
Swedish angled the raft toward the Assembler fleet, and a big ship spun toward us, creaking under a silver balloon. Isander and Isandra stood at the prow, dreadlocks and robes whipping in the breeze. The other Subassembly ships formed circles around us, until we were in the center of an amphitheater in the sky.
“Our best divers will guide you to the Station,” Isandra called to me. “But remember this, Chess. You must reach the lowest level. That’s where you’ll find the map to the Compass.”
“You already told me that,” I said. “A hundred times
.”
They’d also told me that they didn’t know exactly what the map looked like. They’d spent years researching this stuff but still didn’t know anything for sure.
“What’ll happen then?” Hazel asked Isandra.
“First Chess gets past the driftsharks and finds the map.”
“Then he memorizes it exactly,” Isander said. “And comes back.”
“That’s the only part of this I like,” Hazel told him.
Isandra gestured to the diving platforms behind her. “Mochi and Jada will dive from my ship and lead you into the Station. They’ve searched the top floor in the past.”
“Are you ready?” Isander asked the tethergirls.
Jada nodded briskly. “Yes, Cog Isander.”
“And you, Chess?”
“Sure,” I told him as I crossed toward the diving plank on my ship.
Hazel swung down from the crow’s nest and stood beside me. We looked at each other for a second—then she hugged me. “Don’t take any chances. With driftsharks nearby, you can’t afford mistakes.”
“I know.”
“You mess up, they’ll kill you.”
“Hazel,” I said. “I know.”
She stepped back. “If you get in trouble, come back. Nobody’s going to blame you.”
“Okay.”
She almost chewed on a braid, then caught herself and said, “Oh! I just made my first entry.”
“In your logbook?”
She nodded and showed me:
Captain’s Log. Start-8 9532.2
Here we go.
I looked at her. “‘Here we go’? That’s all you wrote?”
“Well, I was in a rush!”
“You could’ve mentioned my warrior spirit.”
“Or that time you glued your thumb to your face?”
“She’s all set,” Bea called from the winch.
Hazel fiddled with my harness buckles and caught my eye. A few seconds ticked by. She started to speak, then stopped. And from the look on her face, I saw that whatever she wanted to tell me was something I already knew. Finally, she nodded, and I turned and walked to the end of the plank.
“Goggles down,” she said, her voice soft.
I lowered my goggles. “Goggles down.”
“Tether free?”
“Tether free.”
“Dive at will, Chess.” Hazel took a breath. “And come back safe.”