Fires of Invention

by J. Scott Savage

  “Rings.” She crinkled her nose in a way that reminded him of himself when he was focused on a tough problem.

  “What does it do?”

  She shrugged her skinny shoulders. “I have no idea.”

  “How can you not know?” he asked, sure she must be lying to him. “You’ve been following me all over town for this thing. You tried to beat me up.”

  “I didn’t try.” Her upper lip curled. “I totally beat you up. By the time that old lady looked out her window, you were crying like a baby.”

  “I was not,” he said, his face heating up. “And the only reason you pinned me was because you were biting and scratching.”

  “And punching you in the mouth and pinning you down—”

  “And throwing dirt in my eyes.”

  They glared at each other.

  “All right,” she said. “I’m sorry for hitting you.” She scuffed her boots on the street. “It belonged to my father, and I was afraid you would lose it. Or turn it over to security.”

  “Your father?” Trenton asked. “Where is he? And how did it end up in the mine?”

  She clicked the lever on her armband so fast it made a steady whir like the blades on a fan. “If I show you something, do you promise you won’t tell?”

  “Show me what?”

  She glanced in both directions before whispering, “You were asking about a tool. I can tell you what it is.”

  Trenton’s heart skipped a beat. He couldn’t believe he was considering anything to do with this lunatic, but he was curious about the tool. And the idea that the tube had come from her father hit home with him. If his mom or dad ever left him something, he’d do anything to get it back. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s see it.”

  “This way,” she said, still clicking her armband.

  “Are you sure you should do that so much?” he asked. “Aren’t you afraid it will explode or something?”

  “Explode?” She looked confused for a minute, then glanced at her armband. “Oh, this doesn’t really do anything. I just wear it because I like the way it looks.”

  9

  Trenton followed the girl through streets, around buildings, across parks, and behind shops. He thought he knew the city well, but she moved as if she was looking at a detailed map inside her head.

  “Are we walking in circles?” he asked, seeing the same shop for the second time.

  “Avoiding security patrols,” she said. When he paused, she looked back at him. “Or did you want to be seen wandering around the city with me?”

  “No, I guess not,” he said, hurrying to catch up with her.

  They stopped in front of a closed shop—the sign was gone, and the windows soaped over. Empty storefronts were unusual—they meant wasted space, which was a bad use of the city’s resources—but this one looked like it had been closed for a while.

  The girl stopped and scanned the area.

  “What do I call you?” Trenton asked. “The Boy Who Is Really a Girl Who Keeps Trying to Kill Me seems a little long.”

  She glanced over her shoulder. “You really don’t know who I am?”

  “Should I?”

  She raised an eyebrow—a trick he wished he could do. “Kallista. My father said it means most beautiful.” She snickered. “But Kallisto is the name of a woman from a story.”

  “A story?” Trenton backed away from her. Not only did she fight and invent unapproved devices, but she also was named after a character in a made-up story. What kind of family did she come from?

  Kallista shook her head. “It isn’t a new story. It’s from mythology, long before Cove was even thought of. My dad was into mythology.”

  Trenton relaxed. That was better. Stories from before the city was founded were fine.

  “Anyway,” Kallista said quickly, “the woman in the story got turned into a bear. I think my parents picked the name because I was a cranky baby.”

  “Can’t imagine that,” Trenton said under his breath.

  Kallista checked one more time to make sure no one was in sight, then ducked around the side. The store backed up to an apartment building, which looked like it had seen better days. Several areas of the wall were smoke stained, and an entire section appeared to have been poorly rebuilt.

  She knelt in the shade of the two buildings, brushed away the gravel, and pried open a basement window at the back of the store.

  “What are we doing?” Trenton asked. She hadn’t said anything about trespassing. “Who does this place belong to?”

  “It doesn’t belong to anyone,” Kallista said. “Didn’t you see the front? It’s been closed for almost a year. Trust me, no one wants to do business here.” She stuck her feet through the open window and slid through backward on her stomach.

  “What if someone sees us?”

  “They won’t if you hurry.” Her hand darted out of the window and caught him by the ankle. “Now get down here.”

  Trenton’s heart pounded as he squirmed through the opening. How did he get into these situations? He should be home studying for his science final, and instead he was breaking into a shop. He wasn’t known for having the best judgment, but even he thought this was a bad idea.

  Inside the building—with the only illumination coming from the dirty window they’d climbed through—Trenton could barely see. He reached to turn on a light, and Kallista slapped his hand away from the switch.

  “Ow!” he yelped, sucking his fingers. “Are you always this violent? How do you manage to keep any friends?”

  “I don’t.” She raised her head as if that should have been obvious. “Really, though, you want to turn on a light? You’d make a terrible thief.”

  He froze. “Is that what you brought me here for? To steal something? I’m leaving.”

  She chuckled. “Aren’t you the little blast furnace? Always ready to overheat. No, we’re not here to steal anything. In fact, if you’ll recall, we’re here because you stole something of mine.”

  “I didn’t steal anything. I found it. And how do I even know it’s yours?”

  She tapped her nose. “That’s why we’re here.”

  Holding his hands out to keep from running into anything, he followed her across the dim room. Even if they’d wanted to steal something, there didn’t appear to be anything worth taking—just a few bits of wire here, a rusty screw there. Even the mice seemed to have left the building alone.

  “How is this old place supposed to prove anything?” he asked.

  She stopped in front of a metal door. To the right was a raised rectangle with what looked like three rows of brass buttons. Kallista pressed one of them, and there was an odd clicking noise. She pressed three more buttons, each followed by a click. After the last button, something inside the wall gave a thunk, and the door swung slightly open. She pushed it the rest of the way, revealing a room that was completely black, and held out her arm. “After you.”

  Trenton hesitated. What if this was a trap? Suddenly it seemed all too likely that she’d brought him to this abandoned building to torture him into telling her where the tube was. And he’d been dumb enough to fall for it. He stepped away.

  “Don’t trust me?” She laughed. “You might not be as dumb as you look.” She went through the doorway and switched on the light in the room beyond.

  Trenton had seen a lot of repair shops, but what he saw in the room on the other side of the door put them all to shame. He walked inside and couldn’t stop staring. Unlike the chaotic shop where he’d first seen Kallista, this room was immaculate. Every spring, screw, gear, and bolt was organized by size and type, with every drawer and box labeled clearly.

  And the tools. He had never seen so many in his life. A dozen different sizes of wrenches, screwdrivers so big you’d need two hands to hold them, all the way down to ones that would require a magnifying glass to use. It wasn’t only hand tools, either. A metal shaft ran most of the length of the ceiling and was connected to pulleys of all sizes. Belts ran from the pulleys to grinders, saws,
clamps, compressors, and other equipment he didn’t recognize.

  All of the tools were clean and shiny, without a spot of grease or rust—they might have come straight from the factory the day before. The glass-covered gauges and dials gleamed. The collection made his little tool set look like something you’d give a first grader to bang on the kitchen pipes with.

  Walking down the room, he admired dozens of schematics attached to the walls—detailed plans for everything from iron-smelting equipment to air-purification systems. He reached toward one, then pulled back his hand. “That’s”—he swallowed—“real paper.”

  Kallista grinned. “My father said it was easier to get the details right with paper and ink than slates and chalk.”

  “But how?” Wood and paper were precious commodities in Cove. Other than books and the city’s original founding documents, which were kept under glass in the City Museum, he’d never seen a real piece of paper. Yet here were dozens—some as big as two feet square.

  “He pressed it himself. From hay.”

  Trenton glanced at a tall shelf to the right, and his heart nearly stopped. “Are those . . . ?”

  “Books?” Kallista nodded. “He was a big reader.”

  Trenton stared at what must have been at least two hundred volumes. He read the spines, afraid to actually touch them. He found repair manuals, as expected, but also history books, biographies, dozens of volumes about Greek and Roman mythology, and an entire shelf of what appeared to be made-up stories. He stared at Kallista. “All of this belongs to your father?”

  “It did.” Kallista’s grin disappeared. “Until . . .”

  All at once, Trenton understood. She’d said he was a big reader. “He’s dead, isn’t he? And this building was . . .”

  “His shop.” Kallista ran a hand across one of the spotless work benches. “I come down once a week or so to keep things clean.”

  “Your mom?”

  “I was too little to remember her, but my father talked about her a lot.”

  Trenton’s father worked long hours, and his mother was . . . well, she wasn’t easy to be around at times. But to have both of your parents dead before you turned fifteen . . . He couldn’t imagine it. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “How long . . . ?”

  “Since my father died?” She glanced away, clearly uncomfortable discussing the subject. “It’s been a while.”

  Trenton was confused. “Why keep all this locked away? You could sell the tools alone for . . . I don’t even know how much.”

  She immediately bristled. “I’ll never sell my father’s things. Never.”

  He held up his hands. “Okay, sure. I can see that. But why would you keep a shop like this closed? Why would you work in that mining equipment pigsty?”

  “It’s all right.” She ran her finger through a box of wire connectors. “My boss, Cleaver, was a friend of my father’s. He sleeps most of the day, so I can do pretty much whatever I want. And he hired me when no one else would.”

  “But you could run your own shop,” he said. “With a setup like this . . .” He shook his head. “You do know how to use this stuff, don’t you?”

  Her face hardened. “I’m the best mechanic in Cove.” Without another word, she bent under the workbench on the right wall and opened a cabinet Trenton hadn’t noticed. She took out a metal case and raised the lid to reveal a rotating handle and a series of different-sized fittings.

  And the star driver.

  He reached forward, then paused. “Can I?”

  “May I,” she said. “Doesn’t that school teach you anything? Yes, you can, and you may. But be careful with it.”

  Trenton gently picked up the handle and fitted one of the tips into place. When he rotated the handle, the star-shaped shank turned, and the square tip pushed down. “It tightens and compresses at the same time.”

  She took the tool back, put it in the case, and closed the lid. “He was working on something before he died. He wouldn’t tell me what it was, but I know it was important to him. I’ve looked all over the shop, but there’s no mention of it anywhere. Until you came along, I thought I’d never find out what it was. Now that you’ve discovered whatever he left for me, I know I’ll be able to figure it out.”

  Trenton felt sick. He couldn’t imagine how much it would hurt to lose your parents. But she was fooling herself if she thought the tube he’d found in the mines was meant for her. “He didn’t leave anything anywhere for you. It must have fallen off a mining cart or been picked up by accident. It could as easily have ended up in the furnace.”

  She fiddled with the laces on the front of her vest. “You didn’t know my father. He never did anything by accident. He knew the feed shaft was too small for an adult to climb into. Somehow he figured out a way for the piece to jam it at the right time. He probably planted it long before he died with some sort of timer.”

  It made no sense, yet hadn’t he thought that the tube almost looked like it had been made to slide through the belt and jam the chain?

  “He knew I’d be sent to fix it,” she went on. “I know mining equipment better than anyone, and an adult couldn’t fit in the tunnel. The only thing he didn’t count on was you and your stupid swing.”

  Trenton looked away. “You know about that?”

  “Of course,” she said. “It sounds like a lot of fun. Too bad they caught you.”

  He shook his head violently. “It was a terrible idea. People could have been hurt. And even though they didn’t, I had no right to use city property to build unapproved things. We are all gears and cogs in—”

  “A magnificent machine,” she finished. “Whatever you say. Can I have the tube now?”

  Trenton was about to agree when he noticed something that seemed out of place—a sign shoved in the corner behind one of the workbenches. It looked like the sign missing from the front of the store. He could only see the last two thirds of it.

  bage Repairs

  He walked across the room, grabbed the sign, and pulled it out.

  Babbage Repairs

  Babbage. Leo Babbage. The man who’d blown up an apartment building while trying to make unauthorized changes to a water heater. The man who had killed himself and dozens of innocent people. The Inventor.

  It all made sense now. The closed shop no one wanted to fill. The apartment building with the burn marks and recent repairs.

  He turned around slowly. “This is his shop. These are the tools he used to . . .” He stared at the star-driver case. “Was he using that when he blew up the apartment?”

  Kallista stepped toward him. “It’s not what you think. They don’t tell the real story.”

  Trenton threw the sign down. He felt filthy for even coming here. “You’re his daughter. The daughter of a murderer.”

  “He was not a murderer!” She pushed him in the chest, and he fell, banging his head against the wall. “I’m sorry,” she said, reaching to help him. “If you’ll only listen—”

  “No.” He got up, shoved past her, and ran out of the room. “Don’t talk to me ever again! And don’t ask me for the tube. I’ll never let you have it.”

  He pulled himself back through the window, leaned against the apartment wall, and threw up.

  10

  Days passed, then a week, and Kallista never showed up. Trenton went from being afraid that she’d try to contact him, to being relieved she hadn’t, to being a little disappointed that she hadn’t even tried.

  Not that he wanted anything more to do with her—the daughter of Leo Babbage was the last person in the world he should be associating with.

  Only he couldn’t stop thinking about what it would feel like to have both of your parents dead. She’d said she had no friends, and he could understand why. Who’d want anything to do with the daughter of the city’s most infamous inventor? After being raised by a man like that, no wonder she was so strange.

  He wished she’d been the one to find the tube on the belt. If she came to ask for it again, would he tell h
er where he’d hidden it? He’d meant to get rid of it a dozen times but always found a reason not to. Too much homework. Someone might see him throwing it into the incinerator. His mother wasn’t feeling well.

  The night before graduation, all of the eighth graders had a party at the public playground. It was strange being outside when all of the city’s lights were dimmed. Usually he was in his apartment at this hour. He sat on a swing, watching as other kids toasted meat and treats over hot coals, sang, and joked.

  “Excited for tomorrow?” a female voice asked.

  Trenton turned, thinking for a moment that it was Kallista. But the hair of the girl settling into the swing next to him was long and red, not short and black.

  “This swing’s not quite as exciting as the one you made,” Simoni said, smiling in the darkness.

  “But safer,” he said. “And approved.”

  Simoni nodded. “Approved is definitely better.” She pushed herself back and forth with her feet. “You’ll be a great mechanic. The city will be safer with people like you making sure all of the approved machines run smoothly.”

  He smiled at the thought of working on one of the huge plants or something else equally complex. He’d finished first in math and second in science—second only because he’d been distracted during the final exam. “And you’ll be great at food production,” he told her. “I’ll bet our meals will start tasting better the day you go to work.”

  “They couldn’t taste any worse.” Simoni wrinkled her nose. “The carrots last night were as hard as rocks.”

  Trenton laughed.

  Simoni got up from the swing. “Come on. Let’s go over to the fire. Some of the kids were talking about starting a dance.”

  “You go on. I’ll be right there.” Trenton watched her walk away, then glanced at a small, square-shaped bush at the edge of the park by the slides. He’d buried the tube at the base of the flowering shrub. With vocation school starting the following week, he’d be busier than ever. This might be his best chance to get rid of the tube and stop thinking about it once and for all.