Uncrashable Dakota

by Marino, Andy

  She felt the tickle of tiny feet, the barely there shuffle of insects on her arms and neck. Perhaps, like cockroaches, the beetles were an indestructible species, tenacious enough to exist long after the last humans had died out. It was easy to imagine them skittering through rubble like this a million years from now.

  It wasn’t an Order ritual. The beetles were chirping and buzzing. They had always been silent before. She whispered to them.

  Our Father, who art in heaven …

  The airship keened, shot through with an eerie deep-sea moan. Tremors shook the chamber; a fresh set of screams rippled around her.

  She couldn’t keep track of time—minutes, hours, days—so she counted the beetles as they crawled across her skin. She was nothing but a piece of rubble to them.

  When the ship began its tilt, she thought she was free. But all it did was rotate her so that she was facedown. She thought about what it would be like to get crushed; snapping spine, shattering vertebrae. Best to get it over with quickly.

  Beetle fuzz tickled her lips; they were crawling on her face. She felt the new sound before she heard it—a murky tearing away, high above, descending. Familiar things were growing ever closer. The commotion of a Saturday night in Hell’s Kitchen, the dinner stampede in the dining hall at St. Theresa’s, Maggie and Delia slapping down trays together. The patter of Hollis and Rob in the dormitory hall, knocking at her door.

  Voices chimed in from all over: I love you.

  There were cracks in the hull. A seam had formed. If cutting the lines had destroyed the brain of the Wendell Dakota, the collision had claimed its body. Beetles chirped.

  This is what we call the farm.

  Back in her dorm room, Hollis was bringing her spare parts for a new electrical project. Rob was reading on her bed. An errant beetle carried a pair of pliers across her ceiling. On the Hyacinth, Benny Owens was welcoming a new apprentice. Soon she’d be a full-fledged member of the crew. A girl from Hell’s Kitchen, a nobody, an accidental delinquent. Changing the world.

  Only the cold knot in her stomach told her it was not real; would never be. The hull panels popped their rivets, millions of metal bolts flung out into the sky to fall like hailstones. It was so loud that she no longer heard anything at all.

  Delia saw herself as the girl she had been, watching Maggie’s uncle examine a telegraph key. His left pinky had been fused to his palm, so his hand was perpetually claw-shaped. And yet the movements of his good fingers were graceful and precise as they revealed to her the secrets of wires and circuits and fuses. He held the telegraph key in his gnarled hand and invited her to give it a tap.

  The silence was a miracle; a gorgeous hush as the ship tore itself in two. She was freer than she’d ever been. There were millions of stars, and she was among them.

  28

  “WAIT,” HOLLIS SAID. “You don’t know how far you’re going to”—Rob vaulted into the darkness—“drop.”

  Hollis peered after him.

  “It’s okay!” Rob called a moment later.

  Hollis jumped inside and landed in a pile of papers and books. The air was musty and stale. There was an undercurrent of beetle gas. A shaft of light from above illuminated a study strewn with leather-bound volumes. Yellowed newspapers from the last century were tied in luggage-sized bundles. Test tubes and flasks poked up through the mess. A long aquarium, somehow intact, contained three fat, oversized beetles attached by pipes to a spigot, out of which dripped the stuff that had coated the ship. A pool of empty air had formed beneath the aquarium, carving out invisible rivers between the mountains of books.

  “This is bananas,” Hollis said. “He was up here in the sky this whole time.”

  “If this isn’t real,” Rob said, “then at least we know we’re both crazy.”

  Hollis nudged an empty beetle husk with his toe. Had they been molting up here? Shedding one skin for another? He followed Rob through the study, down a passageway decorated with whorls of ink and pencil scribblings; notes and formulas that seemed to curl inward and end where they began. Hollis scanned the homespun ramblings of a man with nothing but time and solitude. The passage was lined with eleven numbered doors, five on each side and one straight ahead. Hollis opened the first one and flung it shut after a quick peek inside. He steadied himself against the wall, breathing hard.

  “I think we died,” he said. Rob turned to face him. “And this is hell.”

  Rob eyed the door. Hollis’s hand was still gripping the latch. “Let me see in there.”

  Hollis shook his head.

  Gently, Rob curled his hand around Hollis’s and pried his fingers from the latch. Then he steadied himself and opened the door. The walls inside the little room were a coral reef of shiny jet-black undulation. The air was dense with hovering beetles. Sitting in a nest of husks in the far corner was a bloated insect the size of a puppy. It was propped upright by an exoskeleton that left its soft underbelly exposed. Pincers as long as Rob’s forearm moved at a steady pace, scooping smaller beetles into its wrinkled, fuzzy mouthparts.

  Rob slammed the door.

  Hollis retched. A long-fermenting odor had been released into the passage.

  “Cannibals,” Rob said. “Keeping themselves alive.”

  “They’ve never done that before,” Hollis pointed out. “Samuel must have—no, please don’t—”

  Too late. Rob opened the next door and two stuck-together beetles tumbled out past his head. He slammed it shut before Hollis could see inside.

  Rob stood very still, gathering himself. “Mating,” he said quietly.

  “I don’t think we should open the other ones.”

  At the end of the hall they were left with no choice. Jefferson Castor was speaking to someone behind the eleventh and final door. Rob put his hand on the doorknob, paused, then turned to face Hollis, blocking his way.

  “Leave your pistol out here.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna use it. I don’t think I can.”

  “Then throw it inside one of these rooms.”

  “I bet your dad has a gun in there.”

  “You don’t think Samuel does too?”

  Hollis did a quick age calculation. He supposed his grandfather could still be alive. Besides, who else was Castor talking to? Hollis imagined walking into a standoff. Three generations of Dakotas and Castors, armed and resentful, together at last. Decrepit old Samuel, who had vanished into the sky when Hollis was a baby. Jefferson Castor in his suit. Hollis and Rob, after what they’d just seen in the corridors of the ship. After what they’d done. Together.

  “Okay,” he said. “We both do it.”

  Rob pulled his pistol from his pocket and turned to face the fifth door. “Agreed.” Hollis sidled up next to him.

  “Same time,” Rob said.

  He slammed his hand down on the latch and opened the door, leaving just enough room for them to toss their guns through the sliver of space. The room felt as hot as an oven on his fingers. Then Rob shut the door. Hollis unbuckled the holster and hung the sagging leather belt from the latch.

  “You dropped this!” they heard Jefferson Castor say. Alarmed, Rob pushed open the eleventh door and Hollis rushed through behind him. The air was thick with fireflies, and the overturned furniture cast eerie shadows. Jefferson Castor was hunched over a broken desk. “I brought it back to you,” he said. Hollis and Rob exchanged a glance: Castor was holding a grinning human skull, jamming an empty money clip into its mouth between broken teeth.

  “Time to go now, Dad,” Rob said gently.

  Castor turned and smiled sadly at his son. “Not until he says he’s sorry. I think I’m owed at least that much.”

  Rob looked at the skull and swallowed hard. Hollis marveled at the fact that in reality, skulls were just as scary as you’d think they’d be. He wondered how long Samuel had been rotting up here in his invisible crypt, outlived by his experiments.

  “Samuel and I have much to discuss,” Jefferson said.

  “You’re
talking to a skull, dad.”

  A violent shiver rocked Samuel’s ship. Hollis crashed against the side of a dresser. Fireflies scattered angrily. Jefferson tossed the skull aside and knelt to pull his son in close. Hollis was an arm’s length away from the thinning hair at the back of Castor’s head. He saw Marius’s hands slamming into his father’s back, the rail giving way. If he still had his gun, it would be impossible to miss from this distance. Rob would be covered in his father’s blood. And what then? Hollis looked away. His eyes settled on the upside-down skull, resting against a broken lamp, ruined mouth flashing silver. He thought of his mother, coordinating the rescue effort from the bridge. She was still up there. He was sure of it. She wouldn’t leave until all the life-ships had been filled. Or until the Wendell Dakota simply fell apart and sent them all spinning down to earth.

  “I want to tell you something.” Jefferson gripped Rob’s face and looked him in the eyes.

  “Stop!” Rob pleaded. “Just come on.”

  “You’re better than I ever was.”

  Rob wrenched himself free from his father and backed away. In one motion, Hollis pulled the immobilizer from his satchel, sprang forward, pulled the trigger, and slammed the tiny bolt of lightning into Jefferson Castor’s neck.

  “What are you doing?” Rob screamed, wrenching the weapon from Hollis’s hand.

  “Knocking him out,” Hollis said as Castor slumped against the desk. “He’ll be okay. Help me figure out if this thing still flies.”

  “I don’t care if it still flies!” Rob said, jabbing toward Hollis with the immobilizer as if it were a knife. “Look at him! He looks dead.”

  “I know, but trust me, Delia said—”

  “Oh, Delia said? One time she told me she had eleven toes.”

  “Have you ever seen her toes?”

  Rob grabbed his father’s wrist, checking for a pulse. Hollis moved through a constellation of fireflies into the next room. A single torn chair leaked canary-colored fluff. A table, slanted at an angle toward the chair, had been rigged with a mismatched assortment of levers made out of rifle barrels, lead pipes, baseball bats, scrap metal wrapped in dirty fabric. Fraying rope that had been fortified with twine stretched from the table to an installation of gears housed in a tin box the size of a makeshift shelter. Above the box, an oval window looked out upon a jumble of furniture.

  “Dad!” Rob said in the other room. “Wake up!”

  A plaid sofa was crushed against the window, a spidery hairline crack where its nubby leg met the glass. Hollis recognized the upholstery: third-class smoking room. He placed his hands on one of the rifle barrels, then changed his mind and selected a baseball bat. He pulled it toward him. One of the ropes stretched taut. The gearbox shook. There was a noise like a frothy waterfall in another part of the ship.

  “What did you do?” Rob yelled.

  Hollis ignored him and pulled another lever. The ship lurched. The sofa fell away from the window. He pulled two more. Hollow spaces in the hull crawled with activity, as if Samuel’s ship was infested with rats and termites. The shuddering sent him into the softness of the chair. Through the window, he watched the wreckage of third class disappear. Floorboards brushed against the glass like the branches of a tree. As if he were riding on an elevator with the doors open, Hollis counted the decks as they went by, quickly noting landmarks among the décor. There was a mechanical horse on its side, a monogrammed tablecloth from Café Pembroke, a lady’s hatbox. He kept track of the levers he’d thrown, and when he spotted a smashed crystal decanter set and a rolltop writing desk, he pushed the levers back into place.

  Rob appeared next to him. “He’s alive.”

  “Can you hold the ship here? I’m going after my mother.”

  “She’s gotta be on the ground already.”

  “No.” Hollis pushed himself up. Stuffing clung to the seat of his pants. “She’ll go down with the ship if I don’t drag her off the bridge.”

  Rob stood in the doorway. His lids were heavy. The cut on his jaw had started to bleed again. “The great uncrashable Wendell Dakota,” he said.

  Hollis shoved past his stepbrother. Jefferson Castor was still propped against the desk, fireflies swarming about his closed eyes.

  “Hey,” Rob said, “how am I supposed to control this thing?”

  “I don’t know. If it starts to fly away, pull some levers,” Hollis said. “Do whatever you have to do to keep it here until I come back.”

  Rob was chewing on his lip, watching his slumped, motionless father.

  “Look at me, Rob. This whole Castor-Dakota thing can end with us.” Hollis stuck out his hand. “Deal?”

  After a moment, Rob took it. “I’ll be here. Hurry up.”

  29

  HOLLIS CLIMBED UP out of Samuel’s ship on a pile of books. Once he was back in first class, getting to the bridge was a downhill slide. The bow had sunk in the sky, as if the weight of the main propeller had finally become too much for the weary Wendell Dakota to bear.

  The corridors weren’t as empty as Hollis had hoped. Near his own stateroom, he skidded past stragglers, groups of boisterous passengers who refused to believe in the ship’s crashability. Or else they were simply accepting their fate with cheery resignation. Either way, this involved hoisting drinks and making toasts.

  “Head for the life-ships!” Hollis implored, running past. He was almost to the bridge. Those passengers would just have to take care of themselves. He was done herding people who didn’t want to be herded. Maggie’s words came to him: That’s how it’s gotta be at a time like this.

  As if this thought had summoned her, she came bursting out of a skeletal doorframe, Lucy and Chester in tow.

  “Hey!” He waved his arms. The carpet between them was littered with the contents of a wardrobe, gowns and undergarments dragged from a closet, then left behind. He shortened his steps to keep from pitching forward. With a plaintive wail, the bow creaked lower in the sky. The tormented sound made Hollis feel like the airship was actually in pain. His foot got caught in a lacy slip, and he kicked it free. The electric lanterns blinked once, twice—and stayed lit. Which meant that furnace men were still shoveling coal. Dead men, he thought. Keeping the lights on.

  “Hollis!” cried his mother. She was working her way up the tilted hallway, elbows bent, arms moving like a toy figurine. Chester had a bloody bandage wrapped around his wrist. His sleeve was shredded. Maggie’s handkerchief was gone, letting her snarled hair free. Hollis was hurtling toward them so fast he practically bowled them over. He scrambled to change direction, fingertips hitting the floor for balance. Then he was running up the incline alongside them.

  “I’m fine,” he assured his mother before she could say a word, “and I’ve got a way out. You’re never gonna believe what—”

  “I thought I’d lost you!” She reached for his hand and managed to give it a single squeeze.

  “I’m sorry, but—”

  “There may be a collapsible remaining up top. Find a way to get to the sundeck.”

  “No, just follow me, forget the sundeck—wait, what about you?”

  “My place is here on the airship. There are rules about this sort of thing.”

  “I found something that changes the rules.”

  Crazed laughter echoed from a stateroom. A dog howled; another joined in.

  “Run faster,” Maggie said.

  “I told you to get out of here,” he said to Maggie. “You should be in a life-ship.”

  “Margaret and Chester saved my life,” his mother said. “Some of the men from this absurd militia refused to stand down.”

  Hollis glanced at Chester’s wrist. A deep laceration snaked out from beneath the bandage. His exposed shoulder was leaking blood from a puncture wound. Hugging them all right now would be a mistake, but Hollis almost couldn’t help himself. Chester was wheezing. Hollis caught a glimpse of scar tissue above Chester’s wound; an old injury right next to the new one.

  “We’re not going to the
sundeck,” Hollis said firmly. “I’m getting us all out of here right now.”

  A cold gust of air slammed into them. First class had become drafty. When the lanterns finally went out, they were crawling up the steep floor. Ahead, the end of the canted hallway looked like film of a starry night projected on a screen. Hollis couldn’t make sense of the angle.

  The bow of the ship was plunging downward, faster and faster. They were scrabbling at the carpet, trying to bury their fingers in its plush threads.

  Above them was nothing but sky.

  They climbed the last few vertical feet and clung to protruding wreckage; nail-studded boards and iron girders, once laid flat supporting the first-class deck, now poking up into the night. Hollis and his mother held on with both hands. Maggie scrambled onto a perch of torn carpet and wood. Chester dangled, his one good arm wrapped around a board. Below their feet, the hallway had become a vertical shaft. Furniture crashed against the stateroom door that had once marked the end of the hall but now served as the floor. Hollis couldn’t see very much of this because it was dark at the bottom, but he could hear the tumult of mirrors, paintings, end tables, and ottomans.

  The Wendell Dakota had cracked like an egg, splitting amidships, and the two halves were floating side by side, upended.

  As they peered over the rim, a vast cross-section of the decks lay before them. It was like gazing across the top of a moonlit labyrinth. Hollis picked out the flat line of the second-class deck. If the wind weren’t whipping around, he could have walked along the paths created by the exposed, severed interior.

  In its death throes, the dark ship was silent.

  Hollis searched the skies for shimmering negative space, an impossibly airborne collection of rubble, anything that might be Samuel’s ship. Even if it had been knocked around by the split, Rob should have figured out a way to keep it hovering nearby. Hollis had made it work, and his stepbrother was even better at things like that. Had he accidentally rehidden the ship when he’d pulled those levers?