Chasm Walkers

by Raquel Byrnes

  “You never gave up. I knew you would never stop looking.”

  “But two years, Charlotte,” his voice cracked. “I am so sorry.”

  “Riley, it was my choice, remember?”

  “Your life for a ship full of innocents was a forced hand, Charlotte. You had no choice, really.”

  “Well, I am here now—”

  A far-off horn sounded, and I crouched defensively, my hand instinctually crossing my body, reaching for a weapon no longer at my side. The direction of the wind, the angle of trajectory to the vessel, an escape route, all flitted through my mind in an instant. The devices on my skin vibrated, delivering a jolt of icy numbness that enveloped me. My breaths slowed, and my focus narrowed to the ship. A passenger craft, it represented no danger. I knew this, and yet the alarm blaring through my mind was hard to let go.

  “Charlotte, hey, now.” Riley reached out, his hand touching my shoulder gingerly.

  The contact pulled me, soothed my frantic thoughts. I took in a shaking breath and stood, letting the tension leave my limbs. “I—I am sorry. I do not know what happened.” I cleared my throat.

  “You are safe,” Riley said. He tried to smile, but the worry in his eyes was obvious. “No one can hurt you anymore.”

  I nodded and took in a deep breath, hoping he didn’t notice that I wasn’t afraid at all, as he thought. My being hurt had not crossed my mind. The fact that I barely stopped myself from taking his side arm, however, worried me. Brows furrowed, I met Riley’s gaze. “I have a feeling that I was not always in that tank.”

  He watched me, his face an unreadable mask. Palm on his holster, he protected his weapon, subconsciously angling away from me. On some level, wariness crept into Riley’s stance. “It will get better. You are just feeling shock. A reaction to what you went through.” He motioned for the plank pathway behind him. “Let’s get you inside. Dr. Bartlet wants you to rest.”

  I hesitated, not wanting to leave my perch.

  “That is all she wants me to do. For the past few days, the only thing I have done is eat and sleep and try to figure out who I am.”

  Riley’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean, ‘who you are’?”

  “I don’t know, I…” My voice quavered, and I swallowed against the lump in my throat. “I—I feel like a stranger in my own skin.”

  “Charlotte, you survived unspeakable horrors. I don’t doubt you feel strange, confused even.”

  “It is more than what I feel.” I shook my head, tapping on the glass of the device at my hand and blinking away the sting in my eyes.

  “What are those things, anyway?” Riley squinted at my temple. “Is there something inside? I mean other than the mech?”

  “This silver chemical, Lilah thinks it might be what you and I found in the warehouse the other day—” I caught the pained look in his eyes as I realized my mistake. “I mean, a c-couple of years ago…when we were trying to…” I took in a ragged breath, unable to continue.

  The loss of Tesla. Ashton’s betrayal. All of it cut deep as if it had just happened days ago. I swallowed against the ache in my throat, my voice a rasp. “What did Arecibo do with me that whole time? T-to my mind? I am so angry and so numb inside at the same time. How is that possible? And why didn’t The Order just kill me?”

  “Stop,” Riley intoned. “Your mind is fine.” He reached out, and I stiffened. Hesitating, he took a lock of my hair and let it slide between his thumb and forefinger, his jaw working. “I can’t believe I’m not dreaming again. That you’re here.”

  My gaze flitted to the row of buildings below, to the door of the doctor’s office.

  Riley caught me and let his hand drop. He took a step backward. “We’ll figure out the rest.”

  “I am missing something.” I shook my head.

  “Charlotte, there are a lot of things that The Order did around the time you were taken that don’t make sense.”

  “What do you mean?”

  His lips pressed into a thin line, Riley studied my face for a moment before shaking his head. “Not now. Things are too overwhelming for you. There’s time. Come on.”

  “I want to stay up here.” I rubbed my eyes, fighting the sob bubbling in my chest.

  “Charlotte,” Riley’s voice soothed. “It’s a lot to take in. I understand that. You just need to get your bearings.”

  “Rough?” I smiled grimly.

  “Dr. Bartlet says you have nightmares. That you’re agitated.”

  The thought that my trepidation was not based on a real threat, but on my own faulty state of emotions sent a trill of irritation through me. “I am fine.” A flicker in the distant sky snagged my gaze, but Riley moved, bending down to get my attention.

  His brows wrinkled with worry. “She says you are suffering from a form of battle fatigue. That it will lessen, those feelings. She worked with soldiers from the States War that had the same symptoms.”

  “No,” I argued, frustration with my own weakness burning in my stomach. They went through so much to find me. And yet, I wondered how much of the Charlotte he remembered—had risked his life to find—was left. “I wasn’t in a battle. I did not fight in a war.”

  “You fought for your life.” Finger under my chin, Riley tilted my face up to meet his gaze. “And you won. You’re here.”

  I nodded, knowing it was not that simple.

  The rotors sparked, sending a deep rumble along the tower’s platform.

  He looked around, his expression puzzled. “Dr. Bartlet says you spend all day up here.”

  “I feel safe up here.” I glanced down to the bustling port town below.

  “Truly?” He looked up at the powerful propeller that kept the city afloat. Instead of four giant towers, there were eight now, and they struggled to buoy the added population. Outer City could not take on many more people. I wondered if Riley knew this. If he did, I doubted it would change the “open shores” policy he fought so hard to preserve.

  “I like it,” I said simply.

  “It’s noisy and deserted. We’ve got armed men down there. A warm bed—”

  “This spot is optimal to observe the arriving vessels for all of Port Hayden and parts of the other ports in the distance.”

  He watched me.

  I pointed across the way. “I can see the whole of the market to the east boundaries where an attack would most likely come.” Nodding out to sea, I continued, “I can see an ocean approach for miles.” Withdrawing a spyglass from my pocket, I handed it to him. “I do not understand why I need to know these things, but it makes me feel better that I do.”

  “Vigilance is normal after what you’ve been through.” He smiled reassuringly, but his eyes were worried. “It will ease.”

  A few moments passed with us staring down at the busy scene in silence, the gentle dip and sway of the sky port soothing.

  Riley reached out, slid his hand over mine on the railing, and gave a soft squeeze.

  “They will look for me.” A quiver of dread moved through me. “Arecibo will. The Peaceful Union offered a reward for my capture.”

  Riley shook his head. “Of the city-states that survived the attack, most, if not all, are barely functioning. It is worse than after the States War. Almost as bad as the state of affairs after the Great Calamity. If the governors had any money to spare, they certainly wouldn’t waste it on a reward. As for the Order, well, we have over fifteen ports now and so many outposts we lost count. Outer City is vast. They won’t find you.”

  “I stick out.” Pointing to the devices, I frowned. “There will be talk.”

  “You arrived at port at night. Dr. Bartlet, Mara, and key deputies are the only ones aware of it. No one else knows you’re here, especially with you hiding up in the towers. We’ll keep it that way, all right?”

  “All right.” I crossed my arms, smiling the best I could despite the worry gnawing at the edges of my mind.

  I followed him along the planks to the waiting dirigible—a small, two-person vessel like
the one we rode the last time we were together. Back when I had hope for a cure for this affliction. The slick black skin of the air balloon shone through the natural netting, holding it to the small gondola hanging underneath. I climbed aboard. Shiny brass rudders and polished instruments shone in the sunlight and I turned away, wincing at the pain the brightness speared through my head. In the distance, the vessel form loomed closer and I stopped, my attention rapt on the black smoke trailing in its wake.

  “Oh, no.” I pulled on the tail of his duster, my pulse racing in my ears. “Riley, something is wrong. Something is terribly wrong with that ship.”

  3

  Riley spun around, his gaze snapping to the ship and then down at the bustling port below us. People along the slips of the harbor took notice, and a rise of alarm moved through the crowd. A bell clanged out a warning that set the whole port into a tumult.

  “They’re flying loose in back. Something’s wrong, you’re right,” Riley said and extended his hand to help me out of the seat. “I better get out there, make sure—”

  “It’s a fire…” I squinted at the vessel, and the focus lens snapped back down within my left eye. The strange whirring inside my own head was unnerving as the ship moved into sharp detail. A fire raged at the rear of the air ship. It licked at the balloon harness ropes and spread along the bottom of the hull. People ran in terror aboard the deck. Panic and fear for them surged in my chest and I ripped my attention away, grappling for words. A series of minute shocks trailed down my spine from the device, and searing cold threaded along my limbs and across my chest. A numbing control filled with an incredible need to move…to act.

  “It’s the aft deck and rudder.” I ignored his hand, instead I reached out and untied the bow knot, releasing the rope tethering us to the platform. “And they are heading right for us.”

  He glanced back at the ship, his eyes narrowing. “How can you know that? It’s too far to see.”

  “Not for me.” I avoided looking at him, buckling the seat harness across my waist instead. “If the fire spares their sails and air balloons, and they do not plummet into the seas, they will ram into us with no directional rudder. The trajectory is clear. We must hurry.”

  Riley considered me for a moment and then slid into the pilot’s seat. His hands moved over the controls and we drifted from the platform, banking away.

  “You’re certain?”

  “I saw it, Riley. I can see the path…the ship will crash into port if we don’t do something.” I flexed my hands, and the gathering tension of suppressed spasms pooled in my muscles as the silver chemical pumped from the devices into my body. “And do not even consider dropping me off below first, we haven’t the time, and you know it.”

  He growled through gritted teeth, but nodded.

  “If we go, you stay in this ship, agreed? You stay safe.” Riley engaged the propeller’s steam engine and the rotors pushed us forward at rising speed. “Charlotte?”

  “Yes, all right,” I said as I pulled the goggles atop my head down over my eyes.

  We tore across the sky toward the flaming air ship. Every muscle in my body was coiled, my mind on fire with adrenaline as I took in the vastness of the vessel we raced to intercept. The hull of a Spanish galleon, once impressive in size and strength, now buckled under seething flames that lapped at the blistering air ballasts holding it aloft.

  Riley signaled ships at the port to follow, the Morse light flickering frantically above my head. Slowly, several other air ships rose from the slips of the port, their propellers thrumming as they pushed full throttle to catch up.

  Something inside me shifted—an awareness that sent a shaft of horror through my heart. I reached out with my thoughts and felt their sickening need and rage building as we approached the ship.

  They were here.

  “Hang on,” Riley shouted as he banked the dirigible along an arc to meet with the flaming ship.

  The force of the turn flattened me against the side of the gondola and my goggles flew off my head as I clutched the cables with white-knuckled force. Teeth gritted, I watched him, waiting. A grimace pulled at his face when he saw them.

  “No,” he gasped.

  Tremblers overran the decks of the vessel, their quaking bodies lurching as they wailed and writhed amid terrified passengers. The monsters careened off of each other, moving so much faster than I had ever witnessed them move before. People screamed and clawed at the railing as the Tremblers tore at them, pulling them into thrashing clusters of keening, quaking bodies.

  A terror ship teeming with the dead.

  “Save them or sink them.” I unbuckled my harness, rising to stand on the seat, my hands on the balloon tethers as we sped along the port side of the galleon. “Your call.”

  “What are you doing, Charlotte?” Riley reached for me. “Have you gone insane?”

  “A ship of Tremblers crashing into your port, Riley. That is what will happen.”

  His gaze snapped to the ship, to the screaming victims of the monstrous attack, and then back at me. Riley’s jade eyes went cold.

  “Save who we can, sink the rest.”

  I nodded.

  Jaw tense, he flew closer to the ship. The heat of the fire flared my hair back with scorching wind.

  Riley pulled a brass lever and a grappling hook shot from the side of our vessel and wound around the galleon’s mast. He stood next to me, his duster flapping as we dipped and swayed with the giant air ship.

  “Are you sure you can do this?” His voice caught, worry wrinkling his brows.

  I held his gaze letting out my breath in a cloud of icy vapor. The devices at my hands, neck, and legs sparked, the inner works cycling with power as the tremors clutching my muscles converted to harnessed strength. Stepping onto the bow of the air ship, I crouched, rode the upsweep of a swell of heated wind, and leapt.

  4

  I moved on instinct. Jumping before I knew why or how. Gaze locked on the rope ladder dangling from one of the air sacs of the galleon, arms out in front of me, I snagged it with both hands. It lashed with my weight, swinging across the deck. Fingers jolting into an iron clad grip, I fought to find my footing. Flames licked at my hands, and the stench of burning gum rubber and something much worse assaulted me. Heat rippled the air, distorting the scene below with invisible waves.

  A resounding twang reverberated, and a tether broke free from the galleon, lurching the vessel downward in a sickening drop. The severed cord whipped across the deck slicing at Tremblers and passengers alike as the entire ship dipped violently. They tumbled across the planks of the galleon, sliding against each other, screams and growls mixing in a cacophony of chaos.

  Riley leapt to the netting around a deflating balloon ballast and then climbed down until he was level with me. He reached out, straining to catch the rope ladder as I swung past. “Your hand,” Riley panted, his face tight. “Let’s go, Blackburn.”

  I tried to let go, to disengage my clamped fingers. “I–I cannot.”

  “You can,” he urged, misinterpreting my inability to control my fingers with fear. “I’ve got you.”

  Below me, a group of people clung desperately to the railing as they fought the downward slide of the ship. Behind them only a few hundred yards away now, Outer City’s harbor slips dipped and swayed in the sky. Frantic citizens lined the edges of the port gawking and pointing. A few ships that had followed us circled the fiery galleon. They shot grappling hooks to the masts and blasted the igniters beneath their balloons and dirigible air sacks at full trying to keep us in the air.

  “She’s too heavy,” Riley shouted at them. “Break away, break away.”

  He was right. The small, open-keeled air crafts built for speed and maneuverability were no match for the galleon’s vast weight.

  “Abandon ship,” I screamed. “Get off this vessel.” But it was too frenzied. Too panicked for anyone to hear me.

  Women and children huddled together while men and young boys threw anything they could
get their hands on to keep the Tremblers at bay. Though I could feel the creatures, knew their raw rage and need, it was different this time. They moved far too fast, too purposefully, unlike the maniacal shambling of the afflicted. Something was terribly wrong.

  Overhead, the fire licked at the final balloon. The gum rubber blistered with the searing heat. A glint of metal caught my eye and I tracked it, spying a uniformed sailor amongst the crowd. He scrambled up the stairs to the quarter deck, turned, and brandished a sword. The blade meant he was an officer.

  I drifted past Riley again, the pendulum arc of the ladder slowing too much for him to reach me now. I closed my eyes, blocking out the stench of roasting bodies, the creak of disintegrating wood, and the heat prickling my face. I took a breath and let out another crystalized vapor cloud. Completely numb now, the fear subsided, the uncertainty ebbed, and all I could see was the sword that I wanted. The one I needed to end this terror. I could sever the netting holding the ship aloft and on course to crash with Outer City. I loosened my grip and let go, dangling from the rope ladder by one hand. Searching the decks, I tried to find a place to land.

  “Charlotte!” Riley swiped for me, missing. “You’ll fall right into the thick of them.”

  “We need to get to that man,” I shouted to Riley. “As an officer he would likely have information about what happened.”

  “No time. We need to get to the passengers. To the women and children.”

  Closer now, the port loomed, and the fearful shouts of Outer City’s populace broke through the screams below. They rolled barrels to the edge of the platform, trying to form a barricade against the massive ship. It would not be enough. We thundered towards them, afire and swarming with Tremblers.

  “We need him,” I said. And then I let go.

  I dropped to the deck amid the swarm of Tremblers landing on their backs and falling into the melee of quaking bodies and screaming victims. Ragged hands and fetid smell engulfed me as the cold bodies pulled and shook me. Frantic and bloodied passengers screamed next to me. A man, tangled in the limbs of the monsters, shook like a rag doll, his open-mouthed cry silenced as the force of the thrashing stole the breath from his lungs.