by Natalie Reid
“This is where Ward broadcasts his messages every night,” Griffin said. “Here and on The Fulcrum. You know what that means?!”
Before she could respond, Harper answered for her, saying, “It means you can have a direct audience with the entirety of Aero City. You can tell the people anything you want!”
“Jessie,” Griffin said, a little more gently. “You can clear your name. Show them that you’re not a Bandit.”
She stared down at the table and ran a hand through her hair. It seemed too good to be true. Could things really go back to normal if she could prove to the world that she wasn’t a Bandit? Could she rejoin the military and go back to her old life with her mom and Tom at her side?
From the ear-piece, she could hear the sound of machines trying to break through the door to the ship that her mom, Denneck, and the others were locked inside. Ward had said it would take half an hour for them to break through, but she didn’t want to take the risk that he could have been lying.
“Denneck, are you guys alright over there? They haven’t gotten through?”
“Don’t worry about us, Jessie,” he responded. “You do what you have to do.”
She took in a deep breath and scanned her eyes over the table once more. She had to make a decision, and she didn’t have much time in which to do it. Her heart didn’t seem to want to beat right, and she placed a firm hand over her chest to try and calm herself down. Even if she did speak to the city, she didn’t know what she would say to them.
Her fingers moved on the fabric of her jacket and felt the thin edge of something underneath. Her face stilled and she momentarily stopped breathing.
“Hey, Griffin?” she asked softly, as if in a daze. “I want you to link our two systems together, and when you do, I want you to leave that room and walk away. Okay?”
“You got it,” he responded.
“Oh, and Harper?” she called out. “Make it loud.”
Then, reaching inside her pocket, she took the CD out and placed it on the table. At once, a circle appeared around it as the tablet read the information inside. She pressed the button to link their systems together, and when it showed a green light, she hit the button that started the song.
Rushing past the table, she was out of the room and running down the hall before the first of the notes came through the speakers.
When the song first started playing, Harper yelled into her ear-piece, demanding to know what she was doing, reminding her of her once in a life-time opportunity. She ignored her, and instead spoke to her cousin.
“You understand Griffin,” she said. “You know why this is important.”
There was silence, but then she heard him whisper out the words, “Which night?”
“How did you…” Jessie started to say in amazement, but he cut her off, saying, “Yes, I understand.”
As she ran down the halls, she zoomed past workers that were all stopped and looking up at the speakers, wondering why a song had started playing.
“Hey Jessie?” Griffin called out.
“Yeah?” She pressed a hand to her ear as she leapt around a stunned worker pushing a metal cart. She could hear commotion through the other end of the line, and she figured that Griffin and Harper must have made it out of the room and into the chaos of people that were filling up the hallways of the Bank of Social Numbers.
“I translated the song for you… when you had gone,” he said.
“Read it for me?” she asked.
Up ahead through the hall she could see the hangar. She had just started up the ladder to one of the fighter planes when the first words of the song started playing. A moment later, Griffin began translating.
“O holy night, the stars are brightly shining…”
Chapter 19
O Night
The snow had gathered in gentle banks around doorways, eaves, and windowsills when the first notes of the song fell over Aero City. It drifted in and out of living rooms and bedrooms, cold kitchens and damp attics, quiet, solitary minds and intoxicated noise. It reached every ear with an endless arm and drew them all outside so that bar-boozer, lone-crier, drug-taker and child-raiser were made to share in the common mystery of the song in the snow.
All throughout the city, people looked about them in hopeful excitement. No one knew what was happening, but everyone knew that something had happened. So they listened with awe and silent reverie, trusting that the song had to mean something, allowing themselves to be pulled out of the numbness of routine long enough to see the notes through to the end.
When the words in English started to play, words from a different age and a different world, some took out pens and tablets and tried to scrawl the ancient text on cold hands and computer screens. There were hardly any left that still understood what these sounds meant, but for those that were sparked with the urge to write them down, they knew that all it took was one person. In a world as connected as Aero City, they knew that, by morning, an English speaker would have translated the words and had them graffitied to a city wall for everyone to read.
There were those that met the song with caution, those in control and unaccustomed to surprises. Without even knowing the meaning of the song, they viewed it with apprehension. This was something that would swamp them with work and long hours as they tried to quell whatever uprising this might bring. Already they were compiling a list of known English speakers in their heads and prioritizing which of these they should visit first, going over the different methods of procuring their silence.
But there were those that stared up at the sky and the falling snow, heard the dead language and the somber notes of promise, and felt a strange sense of understanding hidden within. It was as if the song knew them. It could look inside and see what hid behind clasped hands and passive eyes. This was the answer to all the questions in the dark. Every long night and restless sleep. Every drink and every pill. Every time they looked over their shoulder and found nothing there, grasped at their neck and sighed in dissatisfaction. Every time they felt that phantom remainder and tried to remind themselves of the universal scientist in the lab coat explaining to them the simplicity of the Aero Complex. And every time they felt that that answer wasn’t good enough… this was the solution that had been hidden from them.
So, for those few brief minutes, Aero City allowed itself to be captivated by a long forgotten song. Once, the world smiled at this song. Once, they stopped and gathered on cold evenings to sing it. Once, it was played on a night in which the falling snow was welcomed with shouts of joy and the ringing of bells. The cold of winter was forgotten on that night and replaced with childlike wonder. And people would look up to the skies and search for something miraculous and say that they had found it.
Though the world had changed since then, the song had not. It had survived oblivion and came back on this night, ready to fill the world again, if not with its words, than with its music. It drenched the streets outside of Mercury’s, whispered through the bedroom of an east-end apartment, fell through the chimney of the house on Aileron. It snuck inside the walls of the Desolar Complex and drifted all the way down to the purple lights of Bunker City.
It even rose in the sky to momentarily freeze the soldiers on the air-base, once more stopping a fight like it had done so long ago on a world-wide theater of war. Both sides knew it wouldn’t last long, but until then, they all held onto the mysterious song that had snuck in with the falling snow in the late December night.
* * *
The song thundered in Jessie’s ears as she started the engine of the plane and closed the cock-pit. The song muffled behind the thick metal and glass, but Griffin’s voice was still crystal clear in her ear.
“Alright guys,” she said, starting up her navigation and fighter systems. “Let’s head back home.”
From the open hangar, she could see their ship entering the black air, carrying her mom and Denneck and twenty five scared people to safety. A moment later she was out and flying in the sky behind them.
Her hands were steady and her head was clear as she piloted her ship, but she couldn’t stop the thrill that flying brought. It had been so long since she flew, but it felt like an old friend that had come back to visit. She cut through the air and the snow clouds like walking down a well-known path.
Though she needed to duck, swerve and tumble to avoid the fighter pilots that would soon be on her tail, she was still captivated by the words of the song that Griffin translated, and the soft melody she could hear in the background.
Some of the words Griffin spoke she couldn’t understand. They were still in English because their own language carried no word for what the song was describing. Though the lyrics were incomplete at best, and the specific meaning seemed lost to her, Jessie felt more invigorated than ever. What she had once thought was a sad song, she now knew to be otherwise. It wasn’t a song of loss; it was a song about finding something—a man or a king or a hero—and with him things changed. The world got better. She wasn’t sure how or why, but it did, and that made her feel better too.
In its own way, it really did carry the secret of the Aero Complex; the answer to the something that was missing. It was half filled and made no rational sense, but it seemed to fit in the lost space, like a strange-shaped key in a lock you didn’t even know was there.
A fighter sent a stream of bullets her way, and she rolled in the sky to avoid them. As she flipped over, she could just make out the lights of Aero City in the distance, and she hoped that somehow this song was giving the people down there comfort as well.
When the last of the notes had played, and Griffin had stopped speaking over the line, Jessie took the opportunity to ask, “Hey, Ritter. You make it out alright?”
There was silence on the line.
She moved her head to look behind her. Two more fighter pilots were now shooting out of the hangar of The Fulcrum. She thought she saw the large shape of The Guardian flying just to the side of them, but she couldn’t be sure.
“Ritter?” she asked again.
* * *
Ritter stared at the control panel in front of him. The Guardian was out of The Fulcrum and flying through the air. There was no set destination, only forward. He glanced to the controls for steering, but kept his palms pressed flat against the bare metal of the panel. Jessie’s voice rang out louder in his ear, but he ignored her as another voice spoke to him from behind.
“Don’t even think about touching those controls,” Ward cautioned in a low voice. “I’m getting far away from here so your friends can’t do anything to me.”
He turned his head to the side so he could see the President at the corner of his eye.
“What friends, Ward?” he asked.
Upon hearing Ward’s name, Jessie stopped speaking in the ear-piece, and everyone on the line listened intently.
“Resistance, military, Bandits, I don’t care. You won’t get your way.”
Ritter looked to his right. Ward had made him throw his gun to the ground, and it was now lodged in a corner between the wall and a storage cabinet.
“And if you were lying to me,” Ward continued, “and the only thing you really came here to do was to let that small ship-full of people go, I can assure you that they will be shot down before they come anywhere near Aero City.”
Ritter shook his head. “Your fighters aren’t that good. I know who they’re up against.”
“I’m not talking about the fighters,” he said, holding the gun in his hand a little tighter. “I mean this ship has the capacity to pulverize your ship in the blink of an eye.” Ward took a step closer to him. “You know I’m a rational man, Ritter. I can let you live to see your life through. Yes, you may not have your memories, but you’ll still have your life. All you have to do is just step aside and let me take control.”
Ritter lifted his palms from the control panel and raised them in the air.
“I won’t be me without my memories,” he pointed out.
“Then I’d say it’s an improvement.”
Ritter smiled painfully and shook his head. “Will you let me say goodbye first?”
Ward took in a tired breath, but then relented to his request.
“Jessie?” he asked. The ship jostled in the turbulence of the storm they were passing, and he placed his hands back down on the panel, a little closer to the controls. “Sorry about the kid. He was a means of helping me save my daughter. If I had to do it again, I wouldn’t do anything differently. But, all the same, I am sorry.”
“Ritter, what are you doing?” she asked. Her voice was hurried and distracted, and he could see from the window that a lone fighter was ducking and swerving and avoiding the rapid fire of a number of approaching ships.
“Tom?” he asked, ignoring her question. “Are you there?”
“Yes, I’m here,” he responded quickly.
“Will you put her on?”
Ritter waited in silence. The ship jostled, and in his ears he could hear the rattle of metal and the muffled sound of battle.
“Nel?” he asked after a few moments. He gulped down hard, hoping that she wouldn’t stay silent. “Are you there sweetheart?”
Her voice was frightened as she answered, “Y-yes.”
He pressed his palm firmly into his eye and nodded. “I know I promised to explore the world with you.”
“Hurry this up, Ritter!” Ward prodded.
He rubbed at both of his eyes and continued. “I promised a lot of things I could never give you. But I know the worst part was finding out that I wasn’t the man you thought I was.”
He heard her small voice through the earpiece, but she had spoken so quietly he couldn’t make it out. Then he heard the sound of crying, and her voice came back, louder this time.
“No,” she cried. “You swore to the skies. I waited but you never came back.”
Ritter gripped a fist to his mouth and blinked his eyes in several hard secessions.
“I tried every day. Every day I searched for you, tried to find my way—any way to get to you. I kept your flowers on the piano, and on the desk at my work and in my pocket, and I would stare at them so often thinking of you. I told myself nothing else mattered but getting you back. But when I finally did, when you finally came back, your dad didn’t come back with you. And I’m sorry, Nel. I’m sorry I didn’t come back.”
“But,” she sniffed. “You’ll come back now?”
The ship jostled more violently, and Ritter threw himself in front of the control panel. He could hear Ward cocking his gun in warning, but he ignored him.
“I’m afraid I can’t sweetheart. I can’t give you a trip around the world or a field of Harebells.” He lifted his hand up and held it poised over the controls.
“What are you doing?” Ward demanded.
“The only thing I can give you,” Ritter continued, “is a better man to remember your father by.”
He grabbed the controls and locked his sights on a nearby fighter.
“Stop!” Ward yelled, taking another step.
“I love you Nel. Goodbye.”
Ritter pressed the button to shoot down the fighter. The moment the shot was fired, another rang out from within, and The Guardian was sent into spinning chaos.
* * *
Jessie told herself not to feel anything as she watched the large ship jerk in dying motions through the air. Another shot was fired from it, hitting a fighter that was on her tail. She could no longer hear Ritter, but she didn’t want to imagine the pain he was enduring so that he could maintain control of the ship.
With the second fighter destroyed, a few others dropped off from Jessie’s tail and turned about to start firing on The Guardian. The large ship, which would not sit still in the air as two sides fought for control within, was in no shape to defend itself. Bullets streamed from several surrounding fighters. The large ship danced and jerked about in perilous anger before the light pouring into it became too much for it to handle.
A cloud of fire erupted from the comm
and post of The Guardian, and a moment later the large ship was falling in the sky, leaving a trail of ember behind.
“Dad?” Nel croaked out.
Jessie bit down on her lip and kept her eyes focused on everything around her. Denneck and the others were gaining more and more distance away from the fighters. She, however, was still in the thick of it. Once The Guardian had been fully taken care of, the others rejoined in the attack against her.
She tipped and turned and made that plane dance like no one else ever had. There were four planes still on her tail, but they had yet to hit her. The pilots inside them had not been trained by the military. They did not share in the same love and vigor for flying that they did. It would take them a while before they finally hit her, and by then, her mom, Denneck and the rest of them would have gotten away.
But hit her they would, she realized. Without firing back, there was no chance for her to get away. All she could do was buy time.
“Denneck?” she called out, quickly spinning her plane to avoid another volley of attacks. Outside, the world was moving quickly, and her body was reacting with the speed it had been bred with. But in her mind, the world had stilled.
“Tell my mom I love her, okay? Tell her every day.”
“Not you too!” Harper cried.
“No, Jessie!” Denneck yelled out. “Don’t you do this to me!”
By now his ship was a dot on the skies in front of her. She was even low enough in the atmosphere that she could see the falling snow and the fuzzy outline of the trees below her.
“Tom?” she said. She dodged another attack and plunged her nose further towards the ground. “I wish I could have seen your face one last time.”
“No. You’re going to make it through this,” Tom assured her. She could hear the choke of tears in his voice. “I’m not going to let you die again.”
Her fighter shuttered in mechanical pain as a bullet finally struck it across the wing. An alarm sounded in her cock-pit. The steering was less responsive, and soon another bullet struck the same wing, setting it on fire. She tried to ignore the damage as she aimed her plane towards the ground. She glanced over her shoulder and made sure all four fighters were still following her. Seeing that they were, a feeling of relief washed over her. None of them had chosen to go after Denneck’s plane. They were going to get away. The distance between them was far enough to ensure that.