Fires of Invention

by J. Scott Savage

  He checked his pocket watch and wondered if he had enough time to see Kallista and still get home on time. Maybe, if he hurried. He glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then started to jog.

  Halfway to the repair shop, a uniformed figure stepped out of an alley. Trenton skidded to a halt.

  “I know what you’ve been doing,” a familiar voice said.

  “Angus? Why are you wearing that security uniform?”

  “It’s my assignment.” Angus gloated. “I’m in training to be a security officer. I’ve been watching you, and I know what you’re up to.”

  Trenton tried to swallow, but his throat refused to obey. “You do?”

  Angus closed in until the two of them were only inches apart. “You don’t think anyone has seen the two of you sneaking around, but I have. And now the other officers will be keeping an eye out for you—and for her.” He clenched his jaw. “I’ll bet you’re on the way to see her now.”

  Ice filled Trenton’s chest. What had Angus seen? How long had he known? “It’s not what you think.”

  “Let me guess,” Angus said. “She feels alone and asked you to help her. You had no idea what you were getting into. But now you’re interested, and you think I’m going to let you get away with it.” With the sleeve of his uniform, he furiously polished his badge. “I’m not backing off. I’m going to do something about you two.”

  “What are you going to do?” Trenton asked, dreading the answer.

  “I’m inviting her over for dinner.”

  “Wait, what?” Trenton thought he must have heard wrong.

  “I’m inviting her to dinner,” Angus said. “And if that’s not enough to convince her I’m much better than you, I’ll take her to the city offices. Introduce her to the chancellor himself, maybe. You can’t do that, can you?”

  Trenton stared at Angus. Was this some kind of joke? “Why would you take her to the meet the chancellor?” Maybe “take her to dinner” was some kind of security code term for retraining.

  “Look,” Angus said, his voice bordering on desperation, “I’ve always liked her. I don’t know why she’d want anything to do with you.”

  Trenton wondered if he’d passed out at the picnic, if this was all part of a dream. “How do you even know Kallista?”

  “Who?” Angus asked.

  Trenton shook his head. “Who were you talking about?”

  “Simoni, of course,” Angus said. “I know you like her, and the two of you are never going to happen. You may as well give up now.”

  22

  Trenton watched Angus disappear down the street, heart still thudding. Simoni. Angus had been talking about Simoni the whole time. Part of him wanted to burst into relieved laughter, and part of him wanted to burst into tears. He considered heading home and going to bed early, but he really wanted to find out what Kallista had learned.

  He had just reached her shop when, for the second time that day, someone surprised him by stepping out of an alley. This time, he actually jumped, a squeak forcing its way between his lips.

  Dressed in a knee-length leather jacket covered with brass buckles and a hat made almost entirely of springs, gears, and wire, Kallista edged up beside him and hissed, “I saw you talking to that security officer.”

  Trenton put his hand to his chest. “Does everyone have to jump out of the shadows?” He stared at her outfit. “What’s with the hat? Did a clock explode on your head?”

  “Forget the hat.” She glanced anxiously around. “Who was the security officer? Does he know what we’re doing?”

  “No.” Trenton thought through what she’d said and tilted his head. “How did you know about what happened with Angus? Have you been following me?”

  “You know his name?” She narrowed her eyes. “What did he want?”

  Trenton tried to get his breathing back under control, but it wasn’t easy. “I think he wanted to take you on a date.”

  “What?” Kallista’s cheeks reddened. “What are you talking about?”

  Trenton released a laugh that felt far too close to panic. “It didn’t have anything to do with you. He likes a girl we went to school with and wanted some dating advice.”

  Kallista arched an eyebrow. “From you? I’ve never pictured you as much of a ladies’ man.”

  “Really?” Trenton asked, feeling more than a little offended. “It so happens that I was at a picnic after work today. With a girl.”

  Kallista’s eyebrow lowered. “What girl?”

  “Sorry.” Trenton huffed. “It’s private.”

  “Whatever,” she said. “It was probably that redhead you were talking to at graduation. I didn’t come here to talk about your love life.”

  “What did you come here to talk about?” Trenton asked. “Why were you following me?”

  Kallista interlaced her fingers and cracked her knuckles. “I figured out my father’s clue. I was waiting to tell you, but apparently you had better things to do.”

  “Seriously? You solved it already? Who’s the big guy, and where do his daughters live?”

  “Come on. I’ll show you.” Kallista started toward the shop. “I have a few minutes until I have to leave.”

  “Where are you going?” Trenton asked, but Kallista was already halfway down the alley. He followed her through the window and into her father’s workshop, where at least a dozen books were spread across the counter. He picked one up and flipped through it before realizing the pages were filled with stories about make-believe animals and fictional people. He dropped the book like a burning coal.

  Kallista clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “I told you; they’re from before Cove was founded, so they aren’t illegal.”

  Maybe that was true, but Trenton had never seen books about imaginary creatures—not even at the school library—and he felt uncomfortable around them. It was one thing to alter a machine a little; it was another thing entirely to make up stories or pictures of things that had never existed. That was creativity, pure and simple. He wanted nothing to do with it.

  Kallista sat on a stool. She picked up a thick book and opened it to a drawing of a man wearing what looked like a bedsheet. “This is the ‘big guy’ my father was talking about. His name is Zeus.”

  Trenton had never heard the name. “Who is he?”

  “A Greek god.” Kallista shifted from one foot to the other, clearly excited. “My father was big into mythology, stories made up a long time ago about a bunch of gods and goddesses that lived in a place called Mount Olympus.”

  So far, none of it made any sense. Trenton was pretty sure they’d learned about the Greeks in school, but if they’d ever covered this mythology stuff, he didn’t remember it. He leaned over to see the picture more clearly. “What’s that he’s holding?”

  “A lightning bolt,” Kallista said with a grin. “The thing about nine daughters sounded familiar, so I started looking through my dad’s books. It wasn’t until I saw this picture that I remembered he used to call Zeus ‘the big guy with the lightning bolt.’ And then I remembered that in the stories, nine of Zeus’s daughters were known as the muses. They’re the ones we’re supposed to go see.”

  Trenton tilted his head. “We’re supposed to go to Mount Olympus?”

  “No. See, Zeus lived on Mount Olympus,” Kallista said. “But his daughters didn’t. They lived in a temple on Mount Helicon.”

  Was she messing with him? Trenton couldn’t tell. “So, we’re going to a temple?”

  “In a way.” Kallista flipped to another section of the book, which she’d marked with a screwdriver. “In the note, my father said that he took me to visit the house of the nine daughters. Of course, we never went to Mount Helicon, but I finally figured out what he meant. The house of the nine daughters was the temple of the muses.” She tapped a picture of a rectangular building with large, stone pillars.

  “I still don’t get it.”

  Kallista laughed. “I didn’t either at first. So I did a little more research.
Turns out that the Greek word for the muses’ temple is Mouseion—which also happens to be where we get the English word for—”

  “Museum,” Trenton said. “He hid the next piece in the museum.”

  Kallista nodded. “We used to go there all the time. He used to say that the best way to know someone is to see what they focus on from their past.”

  Trenton looked at the mechanical clock in the corner. It was almost seven thirty. “The museum closed half an hour ago.”

  “Exactly why we’re going now,” Kallista said. “I want to look around without anyone watching us.”

  • • •

  Trenton rubbed his palms on the front of his pants as he followed Kallista. The road to the museum, which was normally filled with pedestrians and people riding bicycles, was now almost deserted. The lights were dim, and even the trolley had stopped running.

  “Maybe we should come back tomorrow.”

  Kallista shot him a dark look. “I’m getting the next piece tonight. If you don’t want to come, feel free to leave.”

  “I want to go with you.” Trenton checked the time. “It’s just that my parents were pretty upset about how late I came home last night. If I’m late again, they’ll throw a fit.”

  “Is it them you’re worried about getting in trouble with? Or your girlfriend?” Kallista took long, quick strides.

  “Girlfriend?” Trenton caught up with her. “You mean Simoni? What does she have to do with anything?”

  “So it was Red,” Kallista said without looking back. “Clearly it was more important to spend time with her after work than help me look for clues.”

  Trenton’s legs were shorter than hers, so he had to jog to keep up. “Are you mad about something?”

  “I’m not mad,” Kallista snapped. “Learning what my father was doing is important to me. I thought it was important to you, too. But if your mind’s on some girl, I don’t know that I can trust you.”

  “You can,” Trenton said.

  They stopped by a wall, and Kallista peeked around the corner to make sure no one was in sight before quickly crossing the street. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her coat. “When that security officer caught us yesterday, you tried to take the blame. Why?”

  The abrupt change in topic caught Trenton off guard. He shrugged. “I guess I didn’t see the point in both of us getting in trouble.”

  Her eyes darted toward him, then away. “Did you feel sorry for me?”

  Trenton had expected Kallista to take more of the back routes that she seemed to know so well, but she was walking straight toward the museum. What was she thinking?

  “No, I don’t feel sorry for you,” he said. “Well, maybe, a little. What does it matter?”

  Kallista slammed a fist into her palm. “It matters to me. I already have too many people feeling sorry for me, the poor little orphan girl, daughter of the lunatic inventor. Poor little thing never went to school. Never had a proper upbringing. I don’t want anyone else feeling sorry for me, so if pity is the reason you’re doing this, I don’t want your help.”

  “I don’t feel sorry for you. Not like that,” Trenton said, wishing he’d stayed home. “Half the time, I don’t even like you. You’re a know-it-all and a pain in my neck. You have a terrible temper, and you do things without thinking. The only reason I’m doing this is because I want to know what your father was building.”

  Kallista stopped and looked at him. “You think I’m a pain in the neck?”

  “Sometimes,” Trenton said, bracing himself in case she was going to punch him again.

  Instead, she grinned. “Excellent. Let’s get inside the museum.”

  Trenton rolled his eyes. He really needed to stick to machines.

  Although the building was clearly closed, Kallista marched straight up to the doors as if she belonged there. She knocked, waited for a minute, and jiggled the knob.

  “You know it’s locked, right?” Trenton asked, sure they’d be arrested any second.

  Kallista pulled a pair of wires out of her hat. “Good thing a ‘clock exploded’ on my head.” She slid the wires into the knob and fiddled with the lock.

  “You’re seriously going to break into a city building?” Trenton asked. “Do you have any idea how much trouble we’ll be in if we get caught?”

  “More trouble than we’d get in if someone found out we climbed down the air vents to the third level? More trouble than we’d get in if they found out we were assembling parts Leo Babbage left behind?”

  “How do you know there isn’t a guard on the other side of that door?”

  Kallista knelt down to get a better look. “We knocked, and no one answered. Besides, if someone stops us, we’ll just say we’re solving the city’s food problems by building a giant chicken.”

  Trenton couldn’t help snickering. “Did your father teach you how to pick locks?”

  “He was a repairman,” Kallista said. “You’d be amazed how often people lose their keys or lock them inside their homes. Can I help it if the skill also comes in handy for breaking into other places?”

  A few seconds later, a clicking sound came from inside the knob, and Kallista swung the door open. Trenton had been in the museum many times, both with his school classes and his family. Then, it had mostly been boring. Now, with the overhead lights out and the only illumination coming from the displays, it was a little bit creepy.

  “What are we looking for?” he whispered.

  “I don’t know,” Kallista said, walking softly along the hallway. “The second part of the note said, ‘The hunger there has always bothered me.’ That could be taken literally, or it could be more misdirection to throw off anyone else who might read the note.”

  “Great,” Trenton said. “I’ll keep an eye out for a green salad.”

  Kallista made a face. “Ha-ha.”

  Hunger, Trenton thought. The museum had plenty of that documented. The starvation of the people who founded Cove often showed up in their paintings and writings. Technology-caused pollution had destroyed crops, and disease had made most animals inedible.

  Kallista moved along one wall, tapping her fingers every so often. Trenton assumed she was looking for a secret compartment. After a few minutes, she climbed the stairs leading to the podium with the Book of Chancellors on it.

  “What are you doing?” Trenton shouted, pulling her back.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” She yanked herself out of his grasp and began flipping through the pages of the ancient volume. “Looking for clues.”

  “You aren’t supposed to touch that.”

  No one but the current chancellor was allowed to touch the book, but Trenton found himself glancing over her shoulder as she turned to the very first page. And there it was—the actual handwriting of the very first leader of Cove. Three full paragraphs describing people nearly starving to death that first year as they struggled to get the farms up and running—how they built the first fish tanks and planted seeds.

  “I worked on that,” Trenton said.

  Kallista gave him an amused look. “You worked on the Book of Chancellors?”

  “Of course not. I worked on the first fish tank ever built here. It’s where I found the parts your father hid.”

  “Good for you.” Kallista turned the book to the current page and hopped off the podium.

  “There’s one thing I don’t understand,” Trenton said, following her.

  “How to be quiet while searching?”

  “Very funny.” Trenton went to the display cases containing the writings of the original settlers. “According to these, the people who founded Cove had no food. So where did they get the seeds to plant and animals to breed?”

  “What are you blabbering about?” Kallista asked, annoyed.

  Trenton rapped on the glass covering a painting of stick-thin people planting seeds in the first hydroponic troughs. “Up on level one, they have almost every kind of plant and animal you can imagine. But according to the Book of Cha
ncellors, they were starving. How did they get all of the seeds and healthy animals they have now? Also, how did they survive when—”

  “Look,” Kallista said, cutting him off.

  Trenton moved down to the display case she was staring at. It contained a document written by one of the city’s founders. The paper was roughly fourteen inches wide by twenty inches tall. Over time, the ink had faded and smudged a little on the corners.

  “What does that look like to you?” Kallista asked, pointing a finger at the bottom right corner.

  Trenton leaned in to get a better view. “There’s something under it.”

  Kallista gripped the side of the case and pried the metal from the glass.

  “What are you doing?” he said. “That paper is extremely fragile. There has to be a better way to open the case.”

  Kallista yanked on the case until it came lose. After pushing up on the glass, she slipped two fingers inside to tweeze whatever was beneath the letter. Trenton held his breath as she slid it out. Only when she managed to get the second document free did he let himself exhale.

  “What are you doing?” he shouted. “Do you know what’s going to happen when someone discovers what you did to one of the most cherished documents in history?”

  But Kallista wasn’t listening. The paper she was holding was roughly the same size as the document in the case, but it was folded into fourths. By the time she unfolded it, the document was nearly three feet wide and four feet tall.

  Trenton stepped toward her. “What is it?” he asked, his mouth dry. “It looks like plans . . .”

  The words died in his mouth as he leaned closer and saw what was on the paper. It was a set of plans, all right—the schematics for what her father had been working on. What they had been putting together.

  It was a machine, but not only a machine. It was a weapon—just like he’d feared. But not only a weapon. It was . . .

  Well, he didn’t know exactly what it was. If the plans had been drawn up by anyone other than Leo Babbage, Trenton would have considered them a joke. But if there was one thing he’d learned about Kallista’s father, it was that the man did not seem to have possessed a very refined sense of humor.