“It’s no fun just watching,” Cala said, and her smile faded. “You’ve got to get involved.”
“Why has he got his mouth covered?”
“He laughs so much when I tickle him,” Cala explained. “He can be very loud.”
“I think I’ll go and—”
“Wait, boy,” Cala said. “I can tell that you’re an outsider. A loner. Don’t you want to hang out with people just like you?”
Damn it, Jacob thought. He knew that if she had been stalking him all this time, she likely knew of Whistler’s fears and doubts, and could easily exploit them.
“What’s your name, boy?” Cala asked.
“Whistler.”
“Is that your real name?”
Whistler hesitated. “No.”
“Well, you can be whoever you want to be. You can choose your own name. Sure, you can have a different name for every hour of the day. People usually call me Cala, but we’ve got to escape all these labels. Regime this, Resistance that. Why can’t we just be whoever we want? Why can’t we just drift between all these boundaries?”
“I suppose,” Whistler said.
“You don’t have to work for them, you know.”
Whistler stared at her, but said nothing.
“You don’t have to be their dog, barking when they tell you to. You can be a free soul like me and Jake here. We just come and go as we please. We do our own thing. No rules. No orders. We just have our fun, and that’s all.”
Jacob mumbled a warning. Don’t listen to her, Whistler, he tried to say. But Whistler was already listening.
“You don’t have to stay here, boy,” Cala continued, pushing a different kind of hope. “You don’t have to be here with Rommond and all his rules, or Tabby and her schemes. This is a prison. I’m helping Jake here break out. Do you want me to get you out too?”
The offer must have been tempting, Jacob thought, and it must have reminded him of the Hold, and how long it took for Taberah to rescue him, and how that even now that he was rescued, she seemed not to notice him at all.
“No one here cares about you,” Cala said bluntly.
Whistler looked at Jacob, who tried to mumble a response. I care, Jacob thought. He hoped his eyes spoke enough.
“Don’t look at him. He doesn’t care about you. He only cares about money. He was the same way with me. The only thrills he ever went for were the ones that resulted in a quick buck, or the ones that were cheap. I didn’t realise it back then, but I’ve got the ‘piphany about it now. I know all about him now.” She stabbed the side of her head several times with her finger, pointing out where the knowledge was.
Then Cala began patting Jacob’s face, as if trying to wake him up, but he was already frightfully awake. The drug was beginning to kick in. His vision sharpened. It seemed like he was seeing things for the first time, and seeing too much. All the lines and pores on Cala’s face were visible, like a map.
“You know, boy,” Cala continued, waving her hand at Whistler, who stood like one of Rommond’s statues, paralysed by the display before him. “There’s all sorts out there. There’s uppers and downers. Jake here, baby Jake, he’s a downer. Doesn’t wanna know what it feels like. Doesn’t wanna live. But this, here, this is an upper!” She held up the bag of Hope, held it up to Heaven, as if praising whatever god she believed had created it. “This makes all the doubt and fear and pain go away.”
Jacob’s mind felt like it was speeding up and slowing down simultaneously. He felt he could follows several lines of thought at once, and yet could not concentrate long enough on any single one of them. When Cala’s words finally processed in his brain, he looked at Whistler and saw more clearly than ever the doubt, the fear, and the pain. Who wouldn’t want it to all go away?
“Jake here’s had a go,” Cala said. She drew close to Jacob and smiled. “Oooh! Looks like he’s just getting started now. It isn’t just the destination that’s a hoot. It’s all about the ride.”
Whistler would not budge, and would not talk. Jacob wondered what was going on his mind, what new turmoil Cala had caused there, like she caused everywhere she went. Did Whistler ponder what the drug would be like? Did he want the freedom and fun that Cala promised, without her ever telling him of the horrors that came with it? Did he wonder if now that he knew he was part-demon, did he really need Hope to survive?
“There’s no point in saying no,” Cala said. “Let me make it easier for you.”
“How?” Whistler asked.
“I’ve got the ballasts rigged,” she said. “There’s dynamite on all of ‘em. And hell, if that doesn’t kill us, all those holes I put in the air tanks will. So, you know what, boy, you might as well make it painless. If we’re all going to Hell, and I’d bet all of Jake’s money that we are, we might as well enjoy the way down.”
Whistler’s brow furrowed. Perhaps the horrors were clearer now.
“You don’t belong here, boy,” Cala said. “Kids are supposed to have fun, right?”
“I guess,” he said reluctantly.
“Well,” she said, holding out her hand to him, offering him the bag of Hope, and the promise of a new and more fulfilling life in its white powder, “sometimes it’s more fun to be a monster.”
28 – HIGHS AND LOWS
Whistler reached for the bag of Hope that Cala offered him. To him she seemed so friendly and generous, so giving when so many others only thought of taking, but she talked a lot about masks, and he knew that this was one of her own.
Just as his hand was close enough to dip into the white powder, he whacked her hand and knocked the bag into the air. The powder leapt from it, spreading in all directions, and Cala leapt to catch it, but it went everywhere like a fine white snow. She dived to the ground, clutching the emptied bag and desperately clambering to fill it back up again.
“No!” she cried. “You’re wasting it! You’ve wasted it!”
Whistler ran past her to where Jacob was struggling with his bonds, and clearly struggling against the drug. His eyes were freakishly wide, and his brow was covered in sweat. Whistler dared not think what was happening in his body, or in his mind.
The boy quickly untied Jacob’s hands and feet, and removed the gag, and Cala might have lunged at them were she not frantically cupping and cradling every last granule of Hope upon the dirty floor. Some of this she scooped into the bag, but some she licked and snorted, until her hands trembled as she tried to save her drug.
“Look how low you’ve become,” Jacob told her, but he struggled to keep his balance, and Whistler feared that he might fall and join Cala on the ground, hungry for another hit.
“Come on, Jacob!” Whistler said. He tried to help Jacob walk to the door, but he was too heavy. When Jacob stumbled in one direction, Whistler joined him, and it was only the wall that stopped them.
They hobbled over to the door, and Whistler had barely opened it when they heard Cala running towards them.
“No!” she screamed, and she threw herself at them, brandishing her nails.
They managed to get outside just in time, and Jacob slammed the door and turned the lock. They could see Cala through the small circular window, banging her fists against the door, pressing her cheek against the glass, staring out at them with her bulging eyes. She shouted and screamed, but they could not hear her, nor make out what she said.
“Sorry about that, kid,” Jacob said, slurring his words.
“It’s okay,” Whistler said.
“I guess we’ve all got demons.”
Whistler did not answer this. Jacob probably meant it to be reassuring, but Whistler did not like what he saw in Cala, or what he was seeing in Jacob. That this could happen to anyone scared him even more.
They stumbled a few steps down the corridor before Jacob collapsed upon the ground, pulling Whistler down with him.
“Go get help,” Jacob said.
“I’m not leaving you.”
“This is … more important than me. Warn the others.”
Jacob grabbed Whistler by the shoulder. “They have to get … up to air.”
Whistler nodded reluctantly, and then raced off to alert Rommond.
* * *
Jacob thought he saw Whistler running in both directions at the same time, until he realised that the hall looked identical both ways, which did not match what he knew the layout of the submarine was like. The boy disappeared from view, and yet seemed to leave behind some kind of imprint, like a blur of motion that trailed behind like breadcrumbs.
“Hope you’re not going mad,” he said to himself aloud. He laughed. “Hope.”
He hauled himself up until he rested his back more firmly against the wall. He noticed the strange pattern on the carpet beneath him, which stole his attention for a moment. Any time he moved, the pattern changed, and sometimes it felt like he was not moving at all, but everything else was moving around him. It was simultaneously unsettling and exhilarating.
“So soft,” he said as he patted the carpet with both hands. The feeling was not just external. He felt as though everything inside of him was carpeted. All the aches and pains were cushioned. All the doubts and fears were softened. It took him a long time to realise that he was grinning and giggling to himself.
No! he thought. It almost did not sound like his own thoughts. You’ve got to fight this. They’re counting on you. You can’t give in. You can’t let go. Yet just as he had slurred his words, he slurred his thoughts.
He tried to fight it, but it was harder than any physical battle. If he threw a punch, his fist just melded into the cushion he struck against, until all the anger and hate, all the force and strength, dissipated from his hand, and he did not even realise he was losing.
Then he heard a clink, and he smiled involuntarily. That was one of his favourite sounds, as reassuring as the sound of his heart beating. He heard it again, and then again, until it seemed that he was swimming in a giant pile of coils, all clinking together joyfully. He waved his arms through the fountain of iron currency, unaware that he looked like a madman to anyone around, and it all felt so wonderful, knowing that he would never be a slave to poverty again.
Then he heard a different sound: a loud alarm went off, and it was jarring, but then the sound began to shift and morph into other sounds, and then it was a rhythm, and he began moving his head to the beat, unaware of the droning monotone that everyone else heard.
* * *
Whistler might have run directly to Rommond were it not for him feeling guilty at leaving Jacob behind. He told the first guard he found about the dynamite in the ballast tanks, and then raced around until he found Doctor Mudro, who limped and puffed his way back to where Jacob was murmuring to himself.
“You weren’t kidding,” Mudro said. “He’s had a heavy dose.”
He held a bag of smelling salts up to Jacob’s nose, and Jacob recoiled from them, but he appeared a little more alert than before.
“I need to give him Greenshield, a counteracting agent,” Mudro explained. “It slows the absorption of the drug into the bloodstream, and alleviates many of the symptoms. See if you can get his mouth open.”
Whistler struggled to open Jacob’s mouth. The smuggler chomped playfully at him, laughing and turning his head this way and that, like an animal playing a game. Eventually he gave in and let Whistler hold his jaw wide.
Mudro poured a thick green liquid into Jacob’s mouth, which the smuggler began to gargle and spit up immediately.
“Hold his nose shut,” the doctor ordered.
Whistler complied, and Jacob began to swallow the medicine, which Whistler could only guess was vile.
Mudro quickly packed up his things, for the surface alarm still raged around them. “That’s the best I can do. The rest is up to nature. He just has to wait the course.”
“But the ship is in danger,” Whistler said. “We need to help him escape!”
“He’ll regain much of his awareness and mobility pretty soon.”
“And before then?”
Mudro took a puff on his pipe. “Let’s hope the ship lasts that long.”
Suddenly they heard a series of loud explosions at the back of the submarine, forcing everyone to stumble or fall inside. The intercom squeaked on.
“All hands,” Rommond called out solemnly. “Abandon ship.”
29 – ASCENT
Water leaked into the stern of the submarine, and though the leak was small, it would not take long to fill the vessel, and bring them back down to the dark waters below.
The Lifemaker rose rapidly through the waters, buoyed by the front ballast tanks, which were free of explosives. But this meant that the ship tilted upwards, making it harder for the people to work inside. Though one of the ballast tanks in the stern was destroyed in the explosion, the others were still intact—only because the dynamite sticks taped to them were diffused by the water that rushed into the room.
“Saved from one death by another,” Rommond said coldly.
The front of the Lifemaker burst through the surface, like a bullet fired by an ocean gun. Had it any more power, it might have leapt into the air like a flying fish, and bore them away. Instead, it tilted forward and crashed back down upon the sea, sending enormous waves in all directions. It rocked there for a moment, and everyone inside it knew that they had less than a moment to get out before it sank again.
“Get the airship aloft,” Rommond called out over the intercom.
People ran frantically to and fro. No one really needed orders. Their instincts gave them orders to survive.
“All hands,” Rommond’s voice croaked over the speakers, grim and glum, as if the very Lifemaker had deserted him, “abandon ship. Repeat, abandon ship.”
He ushered everyone bar Alson out of the command room. She bashed at the controls and tried to hold the ship steady. A wrong move now and it could overturn, preventing their means of escape.
“How long do you need?” he asked her.
“As long as you can give me.”
“Ten minutes.”
“That’s not enough.”
“It’ll have to be.”
He headed for the door, and she followed him. “I’m not leaving,” she said, and shut it after him. She locked it tight, and she could see that he was shouting through the small round pane of glass. It looked like he was urging her to leave. She shook her head.
“You won’t make it with no one at the wheel,” she said, mouthing the words and hoping he would understand. “This is where I belong.”
She returned to her station, which was every station now, and she heard Rommond trying to break down the door, slamming it with his shoulder, bashing it with a crowbar. She knew it would not budge. It was on Rommond’s orders that those doors sealed tight, and nothing could break them down, not even him.
* * *
Two large hatches opened at the top of the submarine, exposing the people inside to the glaring sunlight, which they had not seen in months. They averted their gaze, and continued to work in the shadows below.
Doors were taken off their hinges, walls were knocked through, stairwells were moved like scaffolding on wheels, opening up a passage from the highest deck, exposed to the elements, to the lowest level, exposed to the flood of the sea.
The airship was pushed and pulleyed into place, and though it was not quite ready, it was now or never—and never was fast approaching. They hauled helium cannisters to the dirigible and pumped up the balloon enough for it to begin to take off of its own accord. It rose the length of the ropes that tied it down, and a wooden ramp was extended from the large main entryway down into the top deck of the Lifemaker.
Dozens raced up that ramp, which creaked beneath the load. The surviving Pure were bundled aboard the airship before any others, followed by anyone else not needed to transport essential cargo and supplies. It was a frantic race, and as many came back down the ramp to help as those who went up.
“The vehicles!” Rommond shouted. “Forget th
e cargo. Get the landships up!”
“That ramp won’t hold,” Boulder said.
Already the Copper Vixens began bracing it with metal rods and plates, nailing and riveting and soldering them in place, completing a week’s work in minutes, never tiring and never resting, for fear of the eternal rest that threatened them all. Even as the last screw was turned, several landships sped up the makeshift metal ramp, which groaned beneath them.
Rommond raced through the submarine, shouting orders as he went. He could not tell who was coming or going, who was already aboard the airship, and who was drowning deep below. He passed by Taberah, who was helping some of the injured, and he passed by Jacob, Whistler, and Mudro, who limped and hobbled towards the airship.
Rommond ran to his quarters, where he yanked the plaque bearing Brooklyn’s name from the wall. The screws that held it in place dropped to the cold ground like the dead. He looked around the room, at all the books and paintings he had collected, all the artwork he had saved, and he knew he had no time to collect or save them now. They would sink to the bottom of the ocean, joining the cache of culture in the Alda Kalta, that submerged museum that might one day house them all.
He left his quarters and raced down to the lower levels. He passed by many people, some he rarely saw in his normal course of duty. He halted when he came to the room where Cala still clawed at the door. He had no idea who she was, but he knew who she worked with, and what they were capable of. He took his master key from his belt and twisted it in the lock, sealing it in a way that could not be opened without that same key.
“There’s someone in there!” one of the passing guards shouted.
“I know,” Rommond said. He banged his fist down and broke the key.
The general then continued down to the ironworks, which was already half-submerged in water. There were still many vehicles there, some that were being repaired, some that were being newly built. Some were even in working order, but the water was rising too rapidly. None of them could be saved.
Lifemaker: A Steampunk Dystopian Fantasy (The Great Iron War, Book 2) Page 17