Fires of Invention

by J. Scott Savage

  Trenton gulped his food quickly so he didn’t have to taste it any longer than he had to. “What did you mean when you said that the chancellor knew the tunnels for the feed belt were too small?”

  His father toyed with his fork. “What I said was out of line. Cove is a difficult city to manage—too many people crowded in too small a space. It’s up to us to do the jobs we’re assigned the way they’ve been assigned, while those in authority make decisions that benefit us all.”

  “Like what we eat?” Trenton asked. “And who is allowed to have children?”

  “And what jobs we have, where we live, and . . . how big the belt tunnels are.”

  It made some sense. If everyone picked their own jobs and decided where to live and what to eat, it would be chaos. Food would run out, and everyone would fight over living in the best parts of town, and vital work might not get done. “I don’t care what job I get as long as I can work on things—buildings, mining, power plants. They all sound great.”

  His father reached across the table and ruffled his hair. “You did a great job today. Because of you, hundreds of people are breathing clean air and cooking fresh food again.”

  “So . . . what happened while I was up there?” Trenton asked, thinking about how close he’d come to ending up in the furnace. “Why did the belt start?”

  “Mr. Sheets is looking into it,” his father said. “A lot of the equipment in the mines is old, and we don’t have enough good mechanics to keep up with the repairs.” He seemed on the verge of saying something more but instead finished his food and began making a plate for Trenton’s mother. “In all the excitement, I forgot to ask you, what caused the jam? Did something fall into the chain?”

  For the first time since he’d nearly been killed, Trenton thought about the metal cylinder. What had happened to it? Did it end up in the furnace? He glanced down at his belt and noticed a glint of gold. He must have stuck it in with his tools right before the feeder started.

  He looked up and realized his father was watching him curiously. “Oh, uh, it was a big rock. It got jammed between the chain and the side of the chute. I thought I was going to have to take apart the chain, but I managed to knock it free.”

  “Good job,” his father said, patting him on the shoulder. “You’ll make a fine mechanic.”

  After his father left to bring his mother her dinner, Trenton did the dishes, wiped down the table, and went to his room. He closed the door behind him, sat at his desk, and turned on the bright light he used when fixing things.

  He checked the clock. Twenty minutes until the city mandated lights-out. Carefully, he removed the cylinder and placed it in the center of his desk. The first two things he noticed about the strange piece of metal were how light it was for its size and the fact that it still didn’t have a single scratch. Iron and cast iron were the two most commonly used metals in the city, but this was too light to be either of those. The color looked like a mix between copper and bronze, but either of those metals would have been crushed in the feeder.

  Steel was rarely used, and even that should have gotten scratched when jammed into the chain the way it had been. He ran his fingers over the metal surface, which was as smooth as if it had just been milled.

  The third thing he noticed was that while he’d been assuming the cylinder was solid—a section cut from a ring of some kind, perhaps—that wasn’t the case. It was actually a curved tube. Inside one end, he counted at least ten smaller rings going all the way down to a tiny core in the center.

  Using a pair of needle-nose pliers, he tried to grab one of the rings to see if he could pull them out, but they were all so perfectly formed that there was nothing to grab. He turned the tube around to look at the other end. It had a groove cut all the way around the outside, and the end was hollowed out with a fitting of some sort at the center—the kind of thing you’d turn with a screwdriver.

  Only he’d never seen a fitting like this. In the middle, about two inches down, was a star-shaped opening with a square in the center. He slipped a screwdriver through the star to the square below and tried to turn it. Nothing happened. He pushed on it. It wouldn’t move.

  He had no way to tell for sure, but maybe twisting the star and square at the same time would unlock something inside. He imagined sliding a tool with a star-shaped shank and a square tip into the opening. But he’d never seen a tool like that. Or heard of one. Why would anyone make something like this when a simple screw or bolt would do the job?

  A chime sounded, and he looked at the clock—almost ten.

  “Lights out,” his father called from the hallway.

  Trenton turned the tube slowly in his fingers. He should take it to his father. It was probably only a piece of mining equipment. His dad would take one look at it and say, “Oh, sure. I’ve seen a million of these. They’re all over level four.”

  But what if his dad didn’t say that? What if he looked at the device, frowned, and said, “I’ve never seen anything like this. It must be turned in to the authorities at once.”

  Trenton would never know what the device was or what it was for. Of course, if it was something illegal, he didn’t want to keep it. If he’d learned anything from what happened today, it was to never again do something that could put him or his family in a situation where they could be accused of breaking the law.

  The city was a machine when you looked at it from the standpoint of keeping everything running smoothly. And what would happen to a machine if you started swapping out parts with ones that didn’t fit together? The machine would break, damaging all the pieces in it and eventually destroying the whole machine.

  He started to put the tube in his desk but decided it might be safer under his mattress. Turning off the lights, he made himself a promise. He’d check around a little bit tomorrow. Ask a few questions. As soon as he discovered what the thing was, he’d decide what to do with it.

  But if he found that it was something not on the approved list, he’d give it to his father immediately. Better yet, he’d throw it in the trash where no one could be affected by its noncompliance.

  Lying in bed, he felt better about the whole thing. One question nagged at him, though, as he tried to get to sleep. How had the tube gotten inside the feed belt in the first place? Had it come off a piece of equipment? Tumbled down the belt from above, somehow? Either was likely.

  But if it hadn’t gotten there those ways—and if the tube was something not on the approved list—then someone working in the mines with his father was an . . . inventor.

  6

  What did you do, use your face to break rocks?” asked a boy who sat at the next desk over.

  “Very funny,” Trenton said, trying not to smile. Smiling made his face hurt, and laughing made it hurt even worse.

  Angus slammed a hand on his back, making every cut scream in agony. “Does your face hurt? Because it’s killing me.”

  “Good one,” Trenton said. “Must have taken you a couple of months to come up with a zinger like that.”

  Angus sneered. “Maybe next time you’ll think before coming up with another invention.”

  Simoni got one look at Trenton and put a hand to her mouth. “Did they do that to you in . . . ? Was it because of . . . ?”

  Trenton shook his head, trying not to wince at the pain. “The chancellor agreed to drop all charges. Especially when they realized my swing had nothing to do with the power outage!” he added loud enough for his whole class to hear.

  “So you didn’t get in trouble?” Simoni asked. “What happened to your head?”

  “No trouble at all.” Trenton grinned at how jealous Angus looked over Simoni’s attention. “In fact, you might say I’m a hero. It turns out that the power outage was caused by a jam in one of the coal-plant feeder belts. The tunnel was too small for an adult to climb inside, and they needed someone with excellent mechanical skills, lots of brains, and plenty of muscle. Of course, I was the perfect person for the job.”

  He went on to t
ell them about how he’d climbed the belt, fixed the jam, and nearly been pulled into the furnace. When he got to the part where his light went out and he hit his head, the entire class was sucked into the story.

  “Just when it seemed like I was a goner, I dove forward, jumped off the belt, and landed in the mine. Mr. Sheets said it was the most heroic thing he’d ever seen.”

  “Oh, my gosh,” Simoni said, shaking back her hair. “It must have been terrifying.”

  “I’ll admit I was a little scared,” Trenton said. “But if you’re planning on working with machines as a career, you have to be prepared for a little danger now and then.”

  Angus snorted. “They probably figured it didn’t matter if you got sucked into the furnace. There’s always another monkey willing to get his hands greasy. I’m going into security like my dad.”

  Simoni shook her head. “No one knows what their job will be.” When Angus only smirked, she said, “I want to go into food production. Working with plants and animals all day sounds wonderful.”

  It sounded like the most boring thing Trenton could imagine, but he didn’t say that.

  “None of you will be doing anything if you don’t take your seats and turn in your homework,” their teacher, Mrs. Staheli, said. “Because if you don’t, you won’t graduate.”

  Homework. Trenton clapped a hand to his head, forgetting the bump, and gave a yelp of pain. With everything that had happened, he’d forgotten about his homework. As everyone took out their slates and handed them to the front, he did as many of the equations as he could, then hurried it up to the teacher’s desk.

  Even though he’d guessed at a few of the problems, math was his strongest subject, and he felt pretty sure he’d squeak by. He couldn’t forget another assignment again, though. With less than two weeks to go until graduation, he was first in his class in math and science. As long as his scores stayed at the top, he was almost guaranteed to get a job working with machines of some kind.

  The rest of the school day went by quickly. Word of his near-fatal experience spread around the school. With each telling, the story grew bigger, but he didn’t mind. It was fun to be the hero for once instead of the kid who got in trouble. A few of the younger kids asked if he’d be hooking up his swing again so they could try it.

  Each time someone asked, he shook his head and said, “It may sound like fun to try something new, but do you know why our city was built?” Pretty soon the kids stopped asking, which was the way he wanted it. He was done getting into trouble. Doing things to help the city run smoothly was much better than taking risks that could put people in danger.

  He’d completely forgotten his plan to learn more about the metal tube until the last class was nearly over. As the other kids began putting away their work, he reconsidered his decision of the night before. The best thing to do would be to throw the tube away and focus on his studies. In another two weeks, he’d be learning mechanics on a scale he could only imagine, with a whole new set of bigger and better tools.

  Still, he couldn’t stop thinking about the fitting on one end of the tube and the rings on the other. What would happen if he found the right tool to fit it? And why go to all the trouble of making such an elaborate fitting in the first place? Unless the whole point was to limit who could use it?

  He wiped his slate clean and drew the tube from memory, focusing on getting the curve just right. As he sketched the odd fitting, a small hammer clanged against a brass bell in the corner of the room, signaling the end of class.

  Simoni stopped by his desk and leaned over to see what he was doing.

  “What are you drawing? Planning your next adventure?” she asked, brow furrowing.

  Trenton froze. Drawing schematics of approved items was legal; that was a necessary part of being a mechanic. But drawing anything new was a crime—just like modifying an existing device or writing a new story or idea. They were all considered to be creativity. He wasn’t quite sure where his sketch fit in legally. If the tube was an approved piece of mining equipment, then his drawing was fine. If not . . .

  “Oh, um, it’s something I saw in the mines,” he said, quickly erasing the picture with the sleeve of his shirt.

  “Hmm.” Simoni sniffed and looked around, clearly not interested. “Going home, or are you going to stay here drawing . . . mining stuff?”

  Trenton got up from his desk, and a new thought came to him. If it turned out that the item he’d found wasn’t approved, then someone was inventing. If he could prove it, he’d be a bigger hero than ever. Even the chancellor would be impressed. The city might give him a better mechanic job. His parents might get a better apartment. It would more than make up for the mistakes he’d made.

  “I don’t think I’ll go home just yet,” Trenton said. “I need to stop by a repair shop.”

  • • •

  The first level of Cove was where plants were grown and animals raised. Trenton had no desire to see that. He’d heard that it all smelled like animal dung, and besides, they used only the most basic of machines on level one.

  The third level had the machines that ran everything from power generation to sewage, and the fourth level was mining. Yesterday was the first time he’d seen either of them, since they were typically considered too dangerous for children. But hopefully he’d start his vocational schooling on one of them soon.

  The second level—what everyone meant when they said “the city”—was made up of shops, apartments, parks, schools, city offices, and all of the other businesses people visited on a day-to-day basis. The city was divided into four quadrants, split by Main Street running north to south and Center going east to west. A map of the level looked like a pie cut into four pieces.

  The sections were simply referred to as North East, North West, South East, and South West. Each quadrant had its own schools, shops, and apartment buildings. Trenton’s family lived in South East, which was where he decided to start his search, first, because he knew the businesses there best, and second, because it was the section fed by the power plant that had shut down.

  He stopped at a repair shop, where Trudy Finster, the owner, recognized him the moment he stepped through the door.

  “If it isn’t my good friend Trenton,” the elderly woman said. She wore a leather apron and a pair of goggles that had rotating lenses attached to the side. Depending on the size of whatever she was repairing, she flipped from one set of lenses to another. At the moment, the medium lenses were flipped to the front, and she appeared to be studying the parts of an adding machine spread out on the worktable.

  “Hi, Mrs. Finster.” Trenton watched over her shoulder as she tweezed a gear the size of his pinky fingernail from a narrow spindle. Even without magnification, Trenton could tell that it was bent.

  “Not adding sums correctly?” Trenton asked.

  “Oh, it adds like a jewel,” Ms. Finster said. “It should. I built it myself.” She typed 12 + 13 on the black metal keys, pulled the handle on the side, and white plates with the numbers 2 and 5 popped from the top. “The problem is with resetting it.” She pushed the CLEAR key, and the entire machine rattled with an ugly clang. “The fools at City Hall hit the keys too hard. Lazy accountant there has all the grace of a fish on a floorboard.” She set the gear on a felt mat and looked for another one.

  Trenton studied the broken part. “Maybe you could use heavier gears,” he suggested.

  “And maybe I could get my shop closed for making unapproved changes.” The shopkeeper eyed him with a cranky frown. “What do you need today? Ball bearings? Springs? Oil?”

  Trenton wandered over to the tools located on a rack along one wall. He tried to think of a way to explain what he needed without giving out too much information. “Actually, I’m looking for a kind of screwdriver.”

  Ms. Finster flipped her lenses up. “You didn’t use yours as a chisel again, did you? I told you that would ruin the blade.”

  “No.” Trenton laughed. “I already learned my lesson. What I’m looking
for is a more specialized tool. It has a square tip and a star-shaped shank.”

  The woman rubbed her wrinkled chin. “Never seen anything like that. Specialized, you say?”

  Trenton shifted his feet uncomfortably and tried to make his words sound casual. “I think it may be used in the power plants.”

  “Try Fez Popper down the block. He works on the larger stuff.” She flipped her lenses down again, then gave Trenton a curious glance. “This is an approved tool we’re talking about, correct?”

  “Absolutely,” Trenton said, already on his way out the door. “It’s for a project I’m doing at school. To prepare for vocational training.” Before the shop owner could respond, he was on the street.

  The rest of the businesses he checked went the same way. No one had heard of such a tool, and all of them asked if it was on the approved list. By the end of the day, he’d checked with almost every shop in South East. If there was such a tool, no one in this quadrant had heard of it. He was becoming more and more sure that no one on any other level had heard of it either—at least no one working on approved equipment.

  He’d nearly decided to throw the device away when he remembered one South East place he hadn’t tried—a shop that specialized in the sale and repair of mining equipment. He’d seen his father visit it once or twice to fix a lamp or a drill. When Trenton entered, the shop was dark, and, for a moment, he thought it might be closed. Tools and parts were spread haphazardly around the room like toys tossed aside by a careless child.

  As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he noticed a tall, thin boy at the back of the shop. He had a leather cap pulled low over his eyes and was running a steam-powered grinder. The boy noticed Trenton standing inside the door and took off his goggles.

  “Need something?” he asked in a high-pitched voice.

  “Get back to work,” came a gravelly snarl from the rear of the shop, and a flabby mountain of a man who looked like he’d just climbed out of bed came waddling into view. He pushed his belly up against the counter, eyed Trenton, and said, “You’re the kid what climbed a feeder belt in mine two yesterday.”