City of the Falling Sky

by Joseph Evans

  During a particularly wet lunchtime the following week, Seckry was able to catch Mr Vance on his own and tell him all about the email.

  “The innoya . . . it doesn’t ring a bell,” Vance said thoughtfully. “And Darklight believed helitonium to be extractable from it?” He shook his head in disbelief.

  Vance pulled out a heap of books from his shelves and started flicking through them until he said, “Aha! Potkins’ Concise Encyclopaedia of Vegetation. Bound to be listed in here.”

  As he ran his finger down the index page, he read, “Ingleberry, Inifern, Inkenspot, Inlandarrow . . . Innsbarrow.”

  “No innoya,” Seckry said.

  “No innoya,” Vance confirmed. “Strange. You can usually trust Potkins.”

  Vance flicked through a few more of the books, but found nothing of use in any of them.

  “I know a man who may be able to help us. Professor Thaumatop. He’s head of plant biology at the university. As soon as I manage to get in touch with him, Seckry, I’ll let you know.”

  Over the following two weeks the weather took a turn for the worse and there was torrential rain in Skyfall, soaking everything in the city. Seckry and Eiya visited the library and the university in an attempt to find out a bit more about Ropart Sanfarrow and Kevan Kayne, but there were no records of them. It was as though they had never existed.

  Eventually they came to the conclusion that the only thing they could do was wait until the concert, where they’d be able to speak to The Broken Motion and get this mysterious letter from them. In the meantime, Seckry began to spend a lot of time playing Friction with his new avatar, Anikam, who felt a lot more comfortable than the wooden training dummy. He found that, as Anikam, he could actually beat Tenk nine times out of ten in combative matches by simply firing arrows at him from rooftops before jumping down and swiping whatever items were there to be found. Tenk seemed to be in complete awe of Seckry’s Friction skills, but Seckry had been playing hand held computer games all his life, and he had picked up a few tricks along the way.

  “Seck,” Tenk said the following Monday morning, “you ready to meet the Eastern Eidolons?”

  Seckry had been looking forward to this day for a while. After school he was going to be joining the school’s official Friction team to discuss the possibility of him training with them.

  “Do you think they’d really consider training me up to actually join the team?” he asked. “I’ve only played a few games.”

  “Of course, man,” Tenk said confidently. “I’ve never seen anyone pick up Friction as quick as you. It’s like you were born to play it. I’ve told the guys about you and they can’t wait to get you involved. We’ve been waiting for a good player like you to come along all summer. Good riddance to Rungle. That guy always held us back.”

  Seckry spent most of the day daydreaming about competing in the annual Friction event, the Friction Mega Meltdown, with his new team, and during a practical biochemistry lesson he accidentally spilled a test tube of liquid nitrogen and froze the base of his tie, whilst imagining himself bowing to a cheering audience.

  When the bell rang, Seckry followed Tenk to the third floor and into the Friction training room.

  It was an unused classroom that had been fitted with six Friction pods. The walls were strewn with posters of avatars, levels, event flyers and other stuff, and there were tack boards full of photos from Meltdown games of the players in their pods and holding trophies.

  A short girl with rosy cheeks and a big, white, fluffy hat on her head thrust her hand out to him.

  “Loca Thumbsuckle,” she said brightly, and shook his hand.

  There were two, long, fabric ears hanging from either side of the hat, two little black eyes pinned to its front, and a set of sharp teeth around its base. It looked like the girl was being chewed on by some cute animal turned bad.

  “And this is Kimmy,” Loca said. A slender, tanned boy sitting in one of the chairs smiled and said, “Hi.”

  “Am I invisible?” said the only other person in the room that Seckry didn’t recognise, a large, stocky girl with fiery red hair and a scowl on her face.

  Loca gave Seckry a look that indicated disgust and said, “That’s Lessana.”

  “They’re all a year older than us,” Tenk informed him.

  “Nice to meet you all,” Seckry said politely.

  Before they got settled, Seckry had time to have a better look at some of the photos on the walls. The largest of them all was an enormous framed photo of a man holding a golden cup with the Friction logo on it.

  “That’s Kolda Kod,” explained Tenk. “Best Friction player there ever was. The guy took on the Northern Nightmare team single-handedly back when he was in Estergate, and when he moved into the over eighteens division he won the cup for the east seven years in a row.”

  “Tenk tells me you’re pretty good,” said Loca, interrupting. “Heard you’re better than Tenk.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say I’m bett–”

  “He’s awesome, Loca,” said Tenk. “Just wait ‘till you see this guy play.”

  As they sat around and talked, Seckry realised that the slender boy, Kimmy, wasn’t saying anything at all. He was staring at the floor and his face was becoming more and more upset about something as time went on.

  “So d’you reckon Seckry will be better than all of us after a bit of training?” Lessana asked Tenk, loudly.

  “Yeah maybe,” said Tenk.

  “So you’d say he was a bit of a . . . prodigy?”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “I think we should change the conversation now, Lessana,” Loca interrupted. “I’m sure Seckry is great, but he’s probably fed up of hearing about it.”

  “Yeah, I’m really not that good,” said Seckry, feeling embarrassed and unworthy of the praise he was getting. “I probably just got lucky against Tenk on two occasions and I actually cheated in the training level by using Tenk’s sheet which–”

  At that moment, Kimmy muttered something about the bathroom under his breath and hurried out of the room.

  “Look what you’ve done now, Lessana!” shouted Loca. “You knew exactly what you were doing, didn’t you?”

  “Is he okay?” said Seckry, perplexed, searching the others’ faces for answers.

  “Yeah, what’s wrong with him?” asked Tenk, as clueless as Seckry.

  Loca sighed. “Tenk, you’re so tactless. Don’t you realise? Kimmy’s been training so hard for the last two years to become as good as his dad, and now everyone’s going on about Seckry being a natural. It must be like a kick in the teeth.”

  “Well it’s not Seckry’s fault that Kimmy’s dad is who he is.”

  “Who’s Kimmy’s dad?” asked Seckry.

  “Who’s Kimmy’s dad?” repeated Tenk. “Who’s Kimmy Kod’s dad?” He leaned back in his chair to give Seckry a better look at the huge framed photo of Kolda Kod holding the Meltdown trophy.

  When Kimmy returned from the bathroom, he seemed to have composed himself, and Loca gave anyone mentioning Seckry’s natural ability a furious glare. They played a few games of non-combative Friction in some lands that were new to Seckry and he was introduced to everyone’s avatar. Loca’s was a cat-like anima named Kittya that matched her height and was equipped with a dagger, Kimmy’s was a humanoid named Slider who looked ready to slip out of site before using his tazer gun on the back of your neck, and Lessana’s was a hulking ogre anima named Ogg, who was like a female version of Tenk’s Basher. It was the first time Seckry had been introduced to Tippian’s avatar too, since even though he had heard a lot about Apocalyptia, he had never been in a game with him. The thing was twice the size of everyone else and was like a walking, mechanical giant, with a digital version of Tippian sitting in its cockpit of a head.

  Despite being overwhelmed, Seckry managed to beat everyone’s scores on all three levels, which got everyone murmuring excitedly, but Seckry knew it had been down to luck. He had accidentally stumbled upon the rarest item o
f the Nightbloom land (the crystal petal) when he had tripped over some tangleweed and fell face first onto it. And in the other two lands, called Sandstone Temple and Mystic Cavern, Seckry had been unusually lucky in spawning extremely close to a cluster of items.

  As Seckry rode home on the monorail with Tenk that evening, he felt slightly guilty.

  “I didn’t mean to make Kimmy feel bad,” he said.

  “Don’t worry, man,” said Tenk, shrugging his shoulders. “It’s not your fault you’re good. And anyway, we’re all better than Kimmy. It just sucks for him that he’s got all that weight on his shoulders.”

  “Does Kolda Kod still play Friction?” Seckry asked.

  “Nah. It was tragic what happened to him. Got smashed in a car accident and they had to amputate both his legs. Been in a wheelchair ever since. ‘Course, you can still play Friction with no legs, there are plenty of mecha avatars. But after being the world champ with his anima avatar, Dagger Eyes, he just couldn’t accept it, I reckon.”

  “So his hopes of victory are now with his son, Kimmy?”

  “Yeah. Gonna be hoping for a long time, though. Kimmy just . . . hasn’t got it, you know?”

  “Poor Kimmy,” Seckry said.

  “The thing is,” Tenk went on. “Kimmy is like, a maths genius. He’s supposed to be amazing. He won the Skyfall Maths Standout of the Year award recently and guess what? He couldn’t even bear to tell his dad because he was embarrassed about it. All his dad cares about is Friction.”

  The next day, as Seckry opened his locker to get his astrophysics workbook, a note fell to the floor.

  Think you’re good at Friction, eh? Well I don’t. I was only saying that stuff yesterday to make Kimmy cry. The guy’s pathetic. And when you won those games? I know you got lucky. Meet me at the training room after school today without the others and we’ll find out just how good you are. We’ll have a real match. One on one. A duel.

  Seckry glanced all around him. Glaring in his direction was Lessana. Silently she mouthed, “Too scared?”

  Seckry shut his locker and walked away without saying anything back. He was beginning to see why the others disliked this Lessana so much.

  When the end of the day came, Seckry began making his way home with Eiya and Tenk, but as they were leaving the building, he stopped and started tapping his foot.

  “You alright?” Tenk said.

  “Yeah I just . . . I gotta sort something out.” He knew Lessana would be waiting for him, and he wanted to prove to her that he was worthy of being on the team.

  “I’ll tell you tomorrow,” Seckry said. “See you in a bit, Eiya.”

  He left them staring at him in confusion.

  As he entered the training room, Lessana stood up and smiled triumphantly.

  “I thought you’d got scared and chickened it for a moment,” she said.

  “Bring it on,” Seckry said.

  Seckry stepped into his pod and shut the door behind him.

  “If you want to quit,” Lessana said through the intercom, “all you gotta say is, ‘I’m a wimp, let me out,’ okay?”

  Seckry smirked. “No one is quitting. Someone’s walking out of here a winner.”

  “We’ll see,” Lessana said with a malicious chuckle.

  “Just tell the thing to start, Lessana,” Seckry said.

  As soon as Lessana started the game, Seckry appeared in a forest at night. He felt the artificial chill of the night air and he could hear owls hooting in the trees. He looked all around him. No sign of Ogg. He walked forward a few steps, keeping a look out in all directions. He knew this wasn’t going to be a simple game of one on one Friction. Lessana was here to prove a point and he knew she had every intention of beating him.

  He wandered around a bit more, flicking his head in all directions to try to intercept a possible sneak attack. But there was nothing.

  Then something strange happened. There was a sharp electronic buzz and the forest around him momentarily turned into a wire mesh before returning to its normal state.

  Seckry spun around, taking everything in. There was silence. Then came a high pitched screech and Seckry’s pod flashed bright red.

  The female Friction voice said, “Warning. This Friction session has severely malfunctioned and must be terminated. All players must evacuate their pods immediately to avoid any harm. Warning. This Friction session has severely malfunctioned and must be terminated. All players must evacuate their pods immediately to avoid any harm.”

  What? Seckry thought to himself. But he had no time to question what had happened. He had to get out of the game and out of the pod. He reached for the emergency stop button on his belt, but as he pressed the area, he realised the button had vanished. Seckry saw something else; Anikam’s fur, his fur was drenched in blood.

  “What’s going on?” Seckry shouted. “Lessana! Can you hear me?” But there was no answer. Was she stuck inside the game as well? “Lessana!” Seckry shouted again, over the voice of the Friction announcer.

  “Warning. Session will begin purge in ten seconds. All players must evacuate their pods immediately to avoid harm. Warning. Session will begin purge in eight seconds. All players must evacuate their pods immediately to avoid harm.”

  Begin purge? What did that mean? Seckry began thrashing about as much as he could, trying to hit the edge of the pod and break himself free. But he knew the simulation was still running and in the real world he’d be floating in mid air, unable to touch anything.

  Then a distorted cackle came through the buzzing of the machine.

  “Remember what you gotta say, Seckry?”

  “Lessana!”

  Lessana laughed cruelly. “Just say the words and it’s all over.”

  “The words?”

  “What are you, Seckry?”

  “Lessana, get me out of here!”

  “What are you, Seckry? You’re a w . . .”

  “I’m a wimp! I’m a wimp! Let me out!”

  As soon as Seckry said that, the machine gave an electronic sigh and Seckry felt the floor of the pod hit him with a thump.

  He wrenched himself up to his feet and kicked the door open before stumbling out into the training room.

  Lessana was standing over him with a huge grin on her face.

  “What happened?” Seckry said, out of breath. “I was locked in there! The thing malfunctioned!”

  Lessana let out another laugh.

  “Come on, Seckry, you’re not that stupid are you? I knew I’d fool you first off, but I can’t believe you haven’t worked it out by now.”

  “You did all that to me?”

  “It was a prank! You sounded like such a girl, screaming, ‘Lessana! Lessana!” She burst into another fit of laughter.

  Seckry felt anger bubbling inside of him.

  “I thought the machine was going to kill me in there!” he said furiously. “I thought you wanted to have a duel, not play some stupid prank on me.”

  “No, watching you squirm like a drowning rat was much funnier than duelling you, I have to say.”

  Seckry picked himself up and slotted his Anikam avatar into his pocket.

  “Goodnight, Lessana,” he said stiffly, and left her laughing.

  “She is in serious trouble, man,” said Tenk, the next morning.

  “Did she program it to do all that herself?” Seckry asked.

  “Lessana? No way. She couldn’t program a Friction game if her life depended on it. Nah, those prank games are downloadable from FrictionPranks.sf. Nasty bloody things. The official Friction board has been trying to shut those kind of sites down for years but as soon as they do, another one pops up on the net. It basically just proves to everyone what a coward Lessana is. She arranges to duel you one on one and then pulls some stupid stunt on you instead. She’s clearly afraid of you. She knows you’ll beat her hands down in a duel so she decided to humiliate you instead.”

  Later that day Seckry received a text message from Mr Vance.

  Seckry, Thaumatop
has agreed to meet me in private later this afternoon. I’ll let you know what happens.

  Seckry dropped his phone back into his pocket with a feeling of hope. If anyone would know what the innoya root was, it would be the city’s professor of plant biology.

  Seckry, Eiya, Tenk, and Tippian spent most of the day with Ms Butterkins in the school sanctuary, as they had triple animal care, and were given the task of feeding baby bubberybirds, which were lively little things that kept flying around the room and settling in Butterkins’ frizzy hair, mistaking it for a nest.

  At the end of the day, Seckry and Eiya stayed behind and went to visit Vance.

  “I took my portable recorder with me and switched it on in my pocket,” Vance said, looking rather concerned. He pulled the recorder out and pressed play. “Listen to this,” he said with an expression of worry.

  There was muffled, distorted noise for a while, as though Vance was still walking, and then closing of doors, reverberating as though in a large hall. Then came a voice. Vance’s.

  “Professor, it’s good to see you.”

  There was no reply.

  “I’m grateful for your time. I know you must be busy.”

  There was silence again for a while until –

  “Jonn. You have to forget you’ve ever heard this word.”

  “Innoya?” Vance asked.

  “Don’t! Don’t say it in this building,” the professor hissed. “The only reason I called you here is to stop you from hounding me with letters and emails. Are you trying to get me killed?”

  “I just thought that–”

  “You just thought you’d badger me until I gave in, that’s what. Well you’re meddling in things that you shouldn’t be, Jonn. Who on earth mentioned that word to you?”

  “I believe that Professor Holdenbubble was overheard talking about it during his time here at the university–”

  “Dear Gedin, Jonn. Don’t you remember what happened to Holdenbubble?”

  “Yes but–”

  “You have to leave, I’m afraid,” said the professor, and there was the ruffling sound of material shifting.

  “Professor Thaumatop, I need to know what’s happening at Endrin, and the innoya root has something to do with it, doesn’t it?”

  “Out! And I never want to hear from you again!” bellowed the professor, and the recording crackled with distortion.

  Vance clicked the ‘stop’ button.

  “Wow . . .” said Seckry. “He really wasn’t happy.”

  Vance nodded concernedly. “I didn’t expect him to react so badly. This innoya thing must be pretty powerful, whatever it is.”

  “That Professor Holdenbubble, who tutored Darklight and the others . . . what did Thaumatop mean when he said ‘don’t you remember what happened to him?’”

  “Holdenbubble was murdered,” said Vance. “By who, nobody knows.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Broken Motion