by Natalie Reid
Lieutenant Carver knew very well of this secret hatred harbored by the people of Aileron Street. He knew because his brother Daniel and his wife had suffered with it for the five years they had lived there. When Daniel had died, he had left a will, stating that the house now belonged to Carver. At the time, Carver was dealing with problems of his own, in particular with how to keep his marriage to Sarah a secret. He did not want the house. He tried to give it back to his sister-in-law and her new-born Potentian, but they did not want to stay.
For years and years after Daniel’s death, Carver debated selling the home. He did not need it. He lived up on the air-base and did not have much occasion to go down into Aero City, especially now that his brother was dead and his wife was in hiding. But the house reminded him so much of Daniel, that he found he couldn’t part with it. It was the only thing he really had left of him. In fact, it was the only thing he had left of his wife. They had first met in this very house when Daniel had invited them both over at the same time. And it was here they continued to meet in secret on those rare evenings they both had off; here they defied the government and held a secret marriage ceremony to become husband and wife.
So, every time he got off duty long enough to fly down to the city, he would visit the house, dust off the furniture, and sit in its living room and think of his brother and his wife. He had done this for over twenty two years.
Now, as he sat huddled over a table, staring at a map with Sergeant Denneck in the dim lamp light, the house seemed a strangely fitting location. He had met Sarah here; now he was going to use it as a base of operations to help save his daughter.
“I was thinking,” Denneck said from across the table. “How do we know that Task Force hasn’t captured her yet and they just haven’t told anyone? It’s better business for them if the town is in a constant panic.”
Carver shook his head in a tired, stiff movement. “When Jessie first evolved, she was able to hide from the government for over three days. Three days, and she wasn’t even a human year old. We don’t need to figure out if she’s still out there. What we need to figure out is how she did it in the first place. If we understand that, we might be able to figure out where she’s hiding now.”
Carver placed his hand over the dot on the map that represented the Bank of Social Numbers. A purple X had been drawn over the location of Division Bank, and the entire business sector had been outlined in red. A handful of green circles dotted the east and north ends, marking possible locations that Jessie might be hiding out in.
“We need to get out there,” Denneck said impatiently. He pushed off from the table with his hands and walked over to the heavily shaded window. “This map isn’t helping. The only way we’ll find her is by walking the streets.”
“No, that’s a good way to drum up more trouble. We need to be patient and come up with a plan first.”
Denneck sighed and turned back to the table. Instead of sitting back down, his eyes wandered over to the wall to his right. In the wood, a series of bookshelves had been installed, and sitting on them were several hundred printed books. It was a rare sight within the walls of Aero City. Not many printed books existed, and in such great condition as well. Printed books were obsolete; they didn’t seem to serve much of a purpose, but they never failed to bring that certain spark of curiosity whenever someone caught a glimpse of one.
“Where did you get all of these?” Denneck asked. He walked over to the shelves and ran a finger down the leather binding of a dark brown book.
“I didn’t.” Carver leaned back in his chair as he said this, running a hand through his hair. It was getting a little longer than he normally kept it, and he was starting to feel like the young man he used to be, the boy with messy hair who didn’t quite know what he was doing with his life, the boy that let his girl slip away and was too scared to go after her.
Carver looked over to his sergeant and saw he was waiting for an explanation. He glanced back at the map briefly. They weren’t getting anywhere just staring at it, and thinking harder didn’t seem to be the solution.
“They were my brother’s,” he explained. “This whole house was. He left it to me when he died.”
Denneck took his hand off the book he was touching. “Your brother liked books?”
“Anything to do with before the Contamination. He ate it all up. Said he didn’t like what the world had turned into. I think he was convinced that one of his books held the secret to fixing Aero City.”
“But you didn’t feel the same way,” Denneck guessed.
Carver took in a tired breath. “He was thirteen years older than me. When I was younger, I didn’t question it. Then I grew up and actually decided to look through some of the books on those shelves. They were written in another language, one spoken before the Contamination. I couldn’t read it, so I finally asked him. He started telling me about men that rode on creatures called horses, and huge birds that could force a man to tell the truth.” He shook his head. “He was obsessed. I had a right mind to burn those books after he died.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He rubbed a tired eye and relaxed his shoulders. “A few days after he died, Ward and his Task Force showed up, claiming they had a right to search the place for any ‘smuggled property’ as they put it. I knew they would probably take the books away and burn them.” He gave a sad, brief laugh as he looked over at the bookcase. “Funny. I had been about ready to burn them myself, but when Task Force showed up, wanting to do the same thing, suddenly I wanted to do everything I could to save those books.”
“So you risked getting arrested for something you didn’t even want?” Denneck asked, politely skeptical.
He shook his head. “It wasn’t just that. Danny…my brother, he had a son. He was just a few days old when Danny died. I was saving them for him, so I could show him what kind of a man his father was. The boy’s been evolved ten years already. I don’t think I have it in me to show him this.”
Denneck nodded awkwardly and cleared his throat. He clasped his hands behind his back and looked down at the map.
“My cousin’s probably hacked into the Task Force’s GPS by now,” he said, trying to fill the air. “We should be able to gather a lot more information.”
“No,” Carver said after a while. “She may be able to tell us what Task Force is doing, but it won’t…” He stopped suddenly and his eyes grew wide. “That’s how she did it.”
“What?”
He got up from his chair and threw his jacket on. “Harper!” he yelled out down the hall to where Harper had set up her work station. “Pack up your computer! We’re hitting the road!”
“Where are we going?” Denneck asked, going for his jacket as well.
Carver’s mouth flicked up in the barest of smiles. “To find our boys in gray.”
Chapter 3
Out of the Frying Pan…
Seeking refuge in the northern most part of the east-end, Jessie and Tom came across the junkyard furnace network. The guard on duty was asleep at his post, and after sneaking past, they found a hatch that led down into one of the tunnels. Though the scrap metal and bits of assorted debris did not offer the most comfortable place to spend the night, it was considerably warmer than outside. The furnace at the center warmed the inside of their tunnel to a comfortable degree, and for the first time in days, Jessie could feel her fingers again.
However, spending the night there was not as simple as sneaking past a sleeping guard and trudging through some garbage. The tunnels moved throughout the night, and they had to be careful not to get too close to the furnace. There were six tunnels in total, all leading a chute of junk towards the center where everything would be melted down. Every twenty minutes, a load would be pushed out from one of the tunnels, meaning that their tunnel would move once every two hours. So Jessie and Tom agreed to take shifts in sleeping. Every time they moved, they were to get up, walk back several yards, and the next person would take over the shift.
Tom insi
sted on taking the first shift, since Jessie hardly ever let him take watch, and she found she was too sleepy to argue. There was a couch down their tunnel. It was lying with both the seat and the back stuck up in the air like a V. The jagged remnants of an old car and a sturdy wooden table squished it on both sides. They could not wriggle the couch down to its proper position without causing too much noise and drawing the attention of the guard.
The table, miraculously, was standing right side up, with its lip sticking over one end of the couch. Tom climbed on top and sat down on it, telling Jessie that she should take the couch. Again she did not argue, and struggled to get comfortable on the tattered cushions. At first she could not decide which was more comfortable, to lie right on the corner so that part of her was suspended in the air, or to try and lie flat on one side and risk the possibility of gravity pulling her down. In the end, she couldn’t say which position she had fallen asleep in, for sleep had found her sooner than she expected.
When she awoke, her eyes felt sticky with slumber, and she somehow seemed more tired than when she first went to sleep. Quietly she rolled on the side of the couch that was furthest away from Tom so she could see him from where he lay on the table. Orange light glowed down from her side of the tunnel, and she saw Tom with his legs up to his chest, fiddling with his glasses in his hands. She was about to call up to him, when she noticed the expression on his face. He seemed troubled and anxious. This was more than the healthy worry that infested all those charged with keeping watch. Tom had been bothered by something, something immediate. Almost like he had seen something on his glasses. She hadn’t thought of it before, but she wondered if he could pick up transmissions in his lenses, maybe the news or even personal messages.
Tom placed his glasses on the table next to him, and Jessie caught a glimpse of a few words written on the lenses. It was hard to read in this light, but she could have sworn she saw the word junkyard. Maybe her mind had put it there. After all, they were sleeping in a junkyard; it would be natural for her to impose that word on something that looked similar.
Deciding that she had stayed silent long enough, she called out quietly, “Is something wrong?”
Tom jerked in surprise, and his hand flew to retrieve his glasses. “I didn’t know you were up,” he said, tapping the lenses so that the screen disappeared.
“What were you looking at?” she asked gently.
He shook his head and stuffed his glasses in his pocket. “It was nothing. I was just…” he cleared his throat, “…trying to stay awake.”
Jessie knew he was lying. He was hiding something from her, but why, she couldn’t imagine. He had sacrificed his old life to save her, and now they were on the run together. He had given her everything and was trusting her with his life; it didn’t seem natural to keep secrets from her now.
She was going to confront him with the matter, when suddenly the walls around them shuddered. Her hand shot out to grip the material of the couch, and in that moment, the tunnel moved violently forward. The movement jogged the couch loose, and its back-rest thudded to the floor, knocking the wind out of Jessie. The tunnel moved faster than she guessed it would, and the junk was squished along at such a rate that Tom’s table tipped forward, and he fell down the cushion seats and landed on top of her.
Heat spiked through Jessie’s face. She was painfully aware of everywhere they touched, the heavy press against her chest, the rub of his ankle across hers. As they moved forward, the old car next to them grated against the floor. Tom tried to steady himself by placing a hand on the rusted metal, but his palm kept slipping. With one last jerk, it fell from the car, and his palm reached for the only other thing it could find…her waist.
Jessie gasped when she felt his hand curl around her middle. She couldn’t believe the noise had escaped her mouth. She was not the type of girl to get flustered like this. She felt so embarrassed, but luckily there was so much noise creaking throughout their tunnel that she doubted Tom had heard it. If he had, he might have thought to wonder what that gasp had meant, might have thought to wonder just what kind of an effect he had on her.
At last the movement in the tunnel came to a stop. There were a few lingering crashes as several items tipped over, but soon it was still and silent. She could hear Tom breathing—could feel it on her face. Though it was safe to move now, he did not budge. His hand remained warm and heavy on her waist, his face still a few breaths from her own. His features were lit softly by the orange glow of the furnace as he stared down at her. Jessie could not look away. She was pinned; there was nowhere else she could look.
“I’m sorry,” he spoke softly. “I guess I lost track of the time.”
She brought her lips together and gulped, fully aware that he could feel the movement of her throat as it constricted.
“You should have woken me sooner,” she whispered, out of breath, for it was hard to speak with his weight pressed on top of her.
His fingers twitched at her waist, but his hand still did not relinquish its hold of her. “You were finally sleeping.” His eyes moved up and down her face. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
Jessie thought to ask if he was going to move, for she couldn’t take what he was doing. He was just staring at her, not getting any closer or further away; stalling on the brink of action. She didn’t know whether he was frozen in fear or deliberation. Or maybe he was literally stuck, some heavy piece of metal having fallen on him from the march forward, and he couldn’t unhinge himself.
“Tom, are you—” she started to ask, when the tunnel jerked forward in motion again. As tumultuous as their first journey had been, this one felt even more violent. They were moving quicker, so fast that the objects began to churn like dough rolled in a mixer.
Tom hurried to get off her, but when he rose to stand up, the table behind them toppled forward. He had to duck out of the way as it landed on the rusted car, its other end sloping down on the couch’s cushions so that it acted as a roof over them. Jessie struggled to sit up and helped him knock the table off. When it was finally loose and surfing down a stream of junk, Jessie noticed the glow from the tunnel ahead. They must have been a lot closer to the furnace than she had originally thought, for the orange light was so bright, it couldn’t have been more than a few paces ahead.
“We have to get back,” she told Tom, gripping onto the back of the couch to look behind them. Everything was moving so fast, there was no static place for them to jump onto.
“Why are we moving again?” he shouted. “Is it malfunctioning?”
Jessie shook her head. She didn’t know what was happening, but it didn’t matter. If they didn’t move, they would soon be thrown into a churning pit of fire and molten metal.
She took a tentative step up on the top part of the couch. It was hard to balance because of all the motion, but she managed to keep her footing enough to help Tom up there with her. There was a flat piece of metal a couple feet away that they might have been able to jump on, but it was popping up and down as it rolled over the current of garbage. If they tried to jump on it, they would probably end up falling to the bottom, and they might never climb out from that. At the moment, the couch was a safer place to be.
Her eyes scoured the tunnel for any means of passage away from the furnace, a ladder on the walls or a large item that did not move about so fiercely, yet she could see nothing. How could they possibly move against a current as strong as this, especially when it was not water, but jagged scraps of metal they were trying to move against?
Something warm touched her hand, and she looked down to see Tom gripping it.
“Jessie,” he said, turning to face her. It looked like he thought this was the end.
At the corner of her eye, she noticed something at the other end of the tunnel. There was a lever on the wall just before the tunnel dropped down into the furnace. It wasn’t labelled, but she had to trust that it was an emergency shut-off switch.
“Stay here,” she said, giving Tom’s hand a squeeze b
efore turning to directly confront the furnace.
“What are you doing?” he shouted.
She ignored him and placed her foot on the back of the couch, about to kick-off. If she moved fast enough, she could run across the curve of the wall and her momentum would be enough to keep her up. Any normal person would slip right off, but she was far from normal. All compliments aside, she could say that, without a doubt, she was the fastest person in all of Aero City, and that possibly counted for the whole world. If anyone could do this, it was her.
Kicking off from the couch, she lunged forward until her foot made contact with the wall. The second she felt it, she forced her legs forward, willing them into a running motion. As she sprinted, she was vaguely aware that her body was tilted sideways. If she thought on it too hard, she might get scared and start to tip. Already she was beginning to sway. Her momentum was carrying her forward, but gravity was still working to topple her.
Just as she felt her foot slip on the wall, she jumped forward, aiming for the lever. The side of her jaw slammed into the rod of metal, but luckily one of her arms hooked around it, keeping her from falling. She ignored the burning on her face and scrambled to get a better grip on the lever. She held it with two hands and walked her feet up the wall so that all her weight would press down on it. However, the lever did not budge, even after she tugged on it fiercely several times, putting everything she had into it.
She peered inside the slot in the wall where the lever jutted out to see if something was stuck in there, but it looked clear. Maybe the lever hadn’t been used in so long that it had rusted shut. She stuck her fingers inside to try and feel something, but that was just wasting time. This lever was not going to move. And if it couldn’t move, then there was no way she was getting this tunnel to stop.