by Rajan Khanna
“I’ll do what I can,” he said.
I grabbed his hand, down below the table where people couldn’t see. “Thank you,” I said.
He looked back at me, eyes shining. Then he leaned forward and kissed me. I was . . . shocked. We were there in the lab with everyone watching. But I didn’t pull back or push him away. I kissed him back, and there was something hungry and desperate beneath it.
He pulled away, his face red. “I’ll see you soon,” he said.
Then he left me to the strange whirl of emotions that I was feeling.
* * *
Well, that escalated quickly.
Clay found a way to visit me a couple weeks later, at night, in my cell. He knocked at my door and opened it and we both sat on my sleeping mat and talked, and laughed.
“What did you bring me this time?” I asked.
“Two things.”
I looked at him expectantly. “Well?”
“The first is just that . . . I’ve found out a way to get us off of Valhalla.”
“What?” I said. “Clay!” I hugged him then pushed him back. “How?”
“I’ve arranged to go on a supply run. My supervisor put me into contact with the ship captain who’s taking me out, and I told him I was going to load up with empty cases to fill up on the trip. All we need to do is get you into one of the cases, I get it on the airship, and then we sail away.”
“Then what?”
“Then we make a run for it whenever we set down. Find transport somewhere else. And they’ll never see us again.”
I considered it. Assuming all went well, it seemed like a straightforward plan. “When can we leave?”
“Not for a few days at least. The run has to be planned, a site determined. I’ll have to assemble the cases. But not too long. I’ll make sure of it.”
I hugged him again. “Thank you, Clay. I knew you’d come through for me. For us.” I was overcome with a surge of hope, for the first time in a while. Then I remembered what he had said. “. . . You said two things.”
He smiled and pulled out a small bottle, and two cups. “Took me some time to barter my way to this stuff, but I think it’s probably decent.” He twisted off the top and poured some amber liquid into the two cups. He held one out to me with a slightly trembling hand. “Cheers,” he said.
I clinked his cup and tipped the contents back. The alcohol burned as it passed my lips and down my throat. It had a harsh edge to it, but also a pleasant flavor. Almost vegetal. “Good,” I said. He nodded.
We drank some more, and talked, and I felt something close to real happiness. It felt like a stranger, but I welcome it. A feeling of home. Of all the memories I had forgotten.
Clay brushed a piece of hair from my face, his hand resting on my cheek, and leaned in to kiss me. I kissed him back, happy to be in that moment, happy for that feeling, that familiarity and also that spike of excitement. I grabbed the back of his head and pulled him to me, our lips pressed together, first soft, then hard, then fast.
We fell back onto the mat and peeled off our clothes, kicking and pushing at them until we were naked. There, again, a sensation I had missed. Naked skin on naked skin. The heat beneath it. We fucked with an intensity that surprised me.
Clay said everyone thought I was dead. I think, in a way, I have been. Taken from everything that matters to me, made to live in a crazy place in an insane world, I’ve been sleepwalking through the days. But in that moment, I felt alive. Truly alive.
I wanted to make it last longer. I wanted to stretch it out and drain it of each second and millisecond. But Clay had to leave. It wouldn’t do to be discovered. Not with the plans that we were making. Not with the risk involved. So he put his clothes back on and left.
But before he did, he turned back and said, “I love you, Miranda. I always have.”
I smiled back at him. He walked out the door.
I tried to hold on to that feeling as tightly and as long as I could.
* * *
Three days after we fucked in my cell, Clay met me in the lab. “Tonight,” he said. “We leave tonight.”
I grasped his hands, making sure that it wasn’t seen. “You’re sure?”
He nodded. “I made all the arrangements. We’re due to arrive at the site in the morning. I’ll get you on board in the storage case, and you can hole up in the cargo bay. Then, when we land, you get back into the case, and when the time is right we’ll make our break.”
Then a thought occurred to me, one I hadn’t really considered. I was about to leave Dimitri behind. In this horrible place. After getting him tortured.
“Can you get someone else out, too?”
“What?” he said. He looked around. “Who, Miranda?”
“Dimitri,” I said. “He’s trapped here, too. He was press-ganged. He’s been a friend to me all these weeks. They tortured him because of me. I can’t leave him behind.”
“Miranda, this is going to be hard enough, just the two of us. I haven’t prepared to take another person.”
“All we need to do is get him out,” I said. “He can hide in another of the cases. We can all make our break together.”
Clay shook his head, clearly frustrated with my request.
“Clay, please . . . This isn’t just about me. This is about saving who we can save. It’s riskier, yes, but we stand to gain so much more. Another person. Free of this terrible place.”
He looked away.
“Please, Clay.”
Clay turned back to me, his face tight. He said, “Okay. We’ll get Dimitri out as well. But he has to be ready tonight. And he needs to follow my lead.”
I smiled. “He will. I’ll make sure of it.”
“Okay. Wait for me tonight, after you’re back in your cell. I’ll come for you.”
“I can’t wait,” I said.
But of course I had to. Until I was off of the city, I was still doing Blaze’s work.
* * *
I’ve been thinking about the first time I met Clay. Back when I was looking for others like me, I was so worried that I wouldn’t be able to find anyone. It took some doing, and talking to some people whom Sergei knew, but then the word started to spread and scientists started coming to us.
Clay seemed so young when he joined us, just as we were starting to put Apple Pi together. I’m pretty certain he’s around my age, but he seemed so much younger, so full of energy, but also so rigid. He told us that his grandmother had done something (my memory fails me) for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She and her people had kept trying to fight Maenad. Later, as they had families, they enlisted their families in the fight. I knew from talking to him that Clay wanted, or rather needed, to finish that fight.
I know Ben didn’t like him. Not from the first time they met. I often wondered if that was because they were so different, or because, deep down, they were similar. Or maybe it was because of me. I’m no psychologist.
So looking at him, stretched out on the table, cut and torn and beaten, his skin already pale, his eyes blank and staring, I didn’t believe it was him at first. I mean it was him, I could tell by his face, what wasn’t covered in blood and bruises and cuts. But Clay had always been filled with such fire. I’d found it sometimes a little much, I have to say. But that was Clay. This . . . corpse couldn’t be him.
But of course it was.
He lay on a table stained with blood. Next to me stood Maya, and beyond the tables, wiping his hands clean with a towel, was Surtr.
“You were warned,” Maya said. “You were given an explanation. Nevertheless, you persisted.”
For a moment the words didn’t make sense. They entered my head, joined the swirl of words and thoughts there, and just spun. Beneath that was the spiral of emotions, but I was too scared to even delve into those.
Maya walked forward, arms crossed. “I should have recognized him. From the island. Even with the beard and the hair.” She reached out a hand and trailed her fingers through his beard. “But
he was good. He kept out of my way.”
Surtr walked forward, too. “He held out for a little while,” he said, his voice deep. His dead eyes bored into me. “Even after I started using the blade. But he soon gave up the identity of the captain, and what your plan was.” He smiled, and the fiery-sword tattoo seemed to writhe. “He was good sport.”
I wanted to scream at him. Lunge at him. Him and Maya and all of these psychopaths. But I just stood there. Like a mute statue. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t process. Couldn’t even cry.
“Three weeks,” Maya said. “On restricted rations. And don’t forget, we still have Dimitri.”
I took the words unsurprised and unmoved. I let them lead me back to my dorm, all the while not speaking, not feeling. Just . . . numb. I replayed the image of Clay’s body in my head. Counted the number of wounds I had seen, categorized them. What for? I don’t know.
Then I sank down to the floor on my mat and just sat there, staring at the wall.
“Miranda?” Dimitri called.
“Not now,” I said. The first words I had uttered since they took me to see Clay.
Not now. Not ever.
What now? They’ve taken all my options. There’s no escape. No getting out.
I’m trapped here forever.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Airships dot the sky above the helium plant. Armed airships, Mal’s people, I would guess. And here I am flying a Valhallan ship.
Nothing to do but run for it.
I pivot the airship toward the largest patch of sky I can find and aim right for the center of it.
From the gondola window, one of the ships turns toward me, begins to move in. I can see the large gun in its belly even from this distance.
You did not make it this far, Ben, to get shot down in the sky.
I lean forward, gripping the controls, ignoring the pain in my body, and I push the White Wolf’s speed to maximum. At the same time, I dump ballast from the nose, putting me on a course that should take me up above the other ships and at the very least out of the reach of that belly gun.
The ship starts shuddering at the sudden change of course, but that should pass.
I hobble to the gondola window to see what the other ship is doing. It’s far too close. And matching my attitude. Gunshots rip through the air around me.
Ahead of me is a patch of cloud. High up. Higher than I should be taking the White Wolf. But what other choice do I have? I dump all of my ballast, making the ship as light as I can, willing the engines to stay with me.
The whole ship vibrates and I have to grit my teeth against the pain in my leg, have to grip the controls tightly and hope that my head won’t split apart.
A quick glance out the back window shows my pursuers still after me.
My hand hovers near the gas distribution controls.
We pass through the outer layers of cloud. I start counting. One, two three . . . In my mind I’m estimating the distance between ships, making assumptions of speed and bearing.
When I hit twenty, I vent gas from the forward cells, then cut the engines on one side. We dive, like an injured bird, and I push us into as hard a turn as I can. The White Wolf moves with agonizing slowness. The ship shudders. I feel the shakes reverberating throughout my body, and each one sends pain rippling after it.
But I hold course.
As soon as I complete the turn, perpendicular to my original course, I put all the engines back on line.
Red lights flicker as the engines fail to start.
C’mon, damn you!
Any second now the other ship will figure out where I’ve gone, and now that I’m below it, that belly gun will be all the more effective.
I stab at the controls again and let out a whoop as the engines rev to life and we shoot ahead. I let us drop some more before letting the gas distribute and take us level.
By the time the other ship figures out which direction I’ve moved in, I’ll have put valuable meters between us. They’ll have to decide whether to follow me or to stay close to their companions at the plant.
The last glimpse I have of the ship is it turning back toward the plant.
I continue on, heading east.
* * *
Thankfully, there are maps aboard the White Wolf. Maps with Valhalla clearly marked on them. It’s not a quick trip, unfortunately. I’m not concerned with preserving these engines for very long, so I estimate that, at maximum speed, I can reach the sky city in about two days. That’s a lot of time, and plenty can go wrong. I could run afoul of raiders or pirates. I could experience an engine failure. I could hit a massive storm.
I also neglected to check if there was any food or water on the ship before I left. It didn’t seem like a priority at the time, and I don’t want to stop to barter—not that I have any barter to begin with.
So, after I set my course and am sure I’m not being pursued (which I’m not—I wonder if I have Rosie to thank for that), I look through the gondola to see if there’s anything there for me.
I find a storage box with a few things in it. Plenty of jugs of water, more than enough for this trip. And some old fruit that’s somewhere past ripe, but somewhere before moldy. It should be enough to get me through, if not to satisfy me. I’ve eaten worse.
The real treasure is the parachute packed into the cargo hold. I’ve only seen one once before, with my father, aboard another pilot’s ship. He liked to take it down, parade it around. Show off how lucky he was to have something so valuable and useful. Some other time, this would be an exciting find.
The more important discovery is that there’s an emergency medical kit here. Bandages. Even a little of what I’m hoping is antiseptic. It’s not labeled, but it looks right. I rinse my wounds in the water and squeeze some ointment into them. There’s even a needle and thread, so I sew myself up. Eventually. I pass out in the middle of my leg, even with the small bottle of booze in the medical kit. But soon enough I get it closed. Doesn’t matter much. I expect to be sitting for most of this trip.
My plan is pretty simple—arm the bombs in the hold, ram this thing into Valhalla, and make so big a hole in that fuckdamn city that they will be hurting for a while. I don’t know enough to make it strategic. If I’m lucky, I’ll take out the Cabal or some of the top Valhallan leaders. At the very least, I hope to hurt them. And with the stinging they’ll take at the helium plant, it should take them a while to recover.
It’s a brute-force play, but with enough strength behind it to do some damage.
It’s the best I can hope for at this point. Maybe not a fitting end to a life like mine, but a satisfying one.
As I lie here, setting my mental course, I should get up, should stay alert for any other ships, for any weather disturbances, for anything. But the pull of gravity, of sleep, takes hold of me even here on the White Wolf, and I’m not strong enough to resist at the moment.
So I don’t.
* * *
I wake up some time later, annoyed with myself but also realizing that I needed the sleep. I’m carved up like a fresh piece of meat, and I’m lucky if I’m not concussed. This plan won’t work if I get feverish or fall into a coma.
I drink some water and eat some overripe fruit and seat myself at the controls.
No other ships in sight. Flat land beneath me.
Nothing to do but fly.
Out in the Blue.
It makes me think of Dad, of course. He would think this was all stupid. He would try to talk me out of this. But he’s not here.
Was that really you back at the temple, Dad? I guess I have to get used to the idea that I’ll never know. If that was him, then I will go to my death having failed him. But I’ve lived with that failure for so long that I can die with it. Still, I wonder what it would have felt like, to have that failure removed. To no longer feel the weight of it in my own personal ballast. Would that human beings were more like airships and we could just dump the extra weight we carry with us.
But nothing is ev
er that easy.
I think about what I would say to my father if he were here with me. Even if it were just the ghost of him. Sorry, Dad. Sorry for letting you live on as a thing. Sorry for not watching your back better. Sorry for being an extra mouth to feed and an extra body to watch. And, of course, thank you. Thank you for teaching me what you did. Especially how to fly. Thank you for making me a good forager and a great pilot. Even if I was never a great man.
Not that you were all great. You were hard, and distant, a lot of the time. I think you were doing it to protect me, to keep me hard, but it was lonely. I was with you for most of my life, most of the days and hours and minutes, and yet there were so many times that I felt alone.
Still, I don’t know that I would have done any better. I almost certainly would have done worse. Taking care of something else. Someone else. I’ve never been very good at that. Not with you. Not with Miranda. Not with anyone. People who cross my path often end up dead. Or, if not dead, then grounded, like Diego.
So in the end, Dad, you were a better man than me. I think I like it best that way.
I don’t believe that there’s anything after this world, and I know you didn’t either. It’s not our way. Still, I sometimes think about it. A place where you are reunited with everyone who went before you. If so, would you be there with Mom now? I hope so. Wouldn’t that be an amazing thing.
I think of her a lot, too. Or at least the fuzzy space in my head that stands for her. When I was younger, I remembered things about her, but that all got lost long ago, washed away by the torrent of danger and survival. Of all the things I’ve lost, that’s one of the most painful. All I had were the stories you told of her. There was a time when I was jealous of you for having so much time with her. Those memories. But it was only later that I realized what it must have been like for you, to have lost the one person who meant everything to you, to be left with a young son, alone, to be reminded of her every time you looked at me.
* * *
There’s something freeing about saying good-bye, unburdening myself of the feelings, of the guilt. And I have so much guilt, so much to answer for.