Fires of Invention

by J. Scott Savage

  “He was there when the wall collapsed on your mother and the beam fell on her legs. I knew if we didn’t get her out of there quickly, she’d die, but we didn’t have the right equipment. Leo rigged up a couple of pulleys, a chain, and a drilling machine. Several workers tried to stop him because what he was making wasn’t approved. They threatened to have him arrested, but he didn’t care. He did it anyway to save your mother’s life.”

  Suddenly Trenton understood his father’s actions back in the apartment. Did his mother know that Leo Babbage—the man she despised—had saved her life?

  Kallista’s mouth dropped open. “He never told me that.”

  “Your father did a lot of things he never told anyone about. Things that would have had him in retraining for the rest of his life. People kept his secrets because they knew that if they ever had a problem, he’d be there for them. If he were here now, he’d be the first person working to fight the dragon.”

  Kallista dropped the wrench she was holding. “The final clue.”

  Everyone turned to look at her.

  “What clue?” Trenton asked.

  Kallista shook Trenton by the shoulders. “Remember how I told you that one of the rules of my father’s game was that he always left a final clue? Whenever I thought the game was over, there was always a last clue I didn’t expect. I thought the box was his final clue. But it wasn’t. In the letter, he said he descended into a pit of darkness, and that we might, too, if everything else fell apart. And you were the one who reminded me that he didn’t give up. That he wasn’t suggesting that we quit. He was telling us where to go for the last piece of the puzzle.”

  “A pit of darkness so black I could see no light,” Trenton said. “Hope continues to shine even in the dark. He was talking about the mines.”

  Kallista turned to Trenton’s father. “You said my dad worked down here. Maybe he left some tools in case his were seized. He always had a backup plan.”

  Trenton felt the faintest flicker of hope. Maybe they weren’t done yet. He turned to his father. “Do you know where Leo Babbage worked down here?”

  “Of course,” his father said. “He spent all his time in an abandoned coal shaft near mine number three. It’s not far.”

  40

  Trenton tightened the last bolt, and he and Kallista looked down at their work. Ladon was back together, but even with his neck down and his legs bent, his head still scraped the top of the mine.

  “You can really fly that thing?” Angus asked.

  “If we can’t, feel free to arrest us,” Trenton said. “The problem is getting up to the city.”

  His father blinked and scratched his jaw. “How are you going to get it up?”

  Trenton glanced at Kallista. “We’ve been talking about that. We’re going to have to go up the same way the dragon came down.”

  “The air-exchange pipe?” his father asked. “It’s not big enough to fly through, is it?”

  “We’ll worry about that when we get there,” Kallista said. “How far away is it?”

  “Not far,” Trenton’s father said. He jumped on a nearby loading car. “Follow me.”

  Kallista lit the dragon’s furnace and called, “Everybody stand back!”

  Angus and the miners backed up as the turbines kicked in. Trenton brushed dirt from the gauges and checked the fuel level. “We have barely enough coal to keep us in the air for half an hour. We need more.”

  “We can’t afford the extra weight,” Kallista said. “It’ll be tough enough to get up the pipe as it is.” After lowering the dragon’s head until it almost touched the ground, she walked the dragon forward, following Trenton’s father as he led the way in the loader. Rocks fell from the ceiling and walls as the dragon banged and scraped them.

  A few minutes later, the exchange pipe came into view. Air blasted past their faces, and the noise was nearly deafening.

  Trenton’s father shut down the loader. “I can’t get any closer.” He hopped out, climbed one of the legs, and took Trenton’s hand. “I know we haven’t talked as much as we should have over the last few months, but whatever happens, I want to say I’m proud of you.”

  Trenton felt a lump in his throat. “If anything happens to us, tell Mom . . .” He couldn’t finish. Instead, he hugged his father and nodded.

  As they started toward the air-exchange pipe, he glanced over his shoulder for one more glimpse of his father, who watched them with obvious awe and pride. Trenton hoped it wouldn’t be the last time they saw each other. The closer they got to the pipe, the more the wind pulled at them.

  They strapped themselves into the harnesses, and he shouted, “Good thing I added these.”

  Kallista stopped the dragon just outside the pipe and yelled back, her voice barely audible above the roar of the fans. “Once we get inside, I’ll point the head up and extend the wings. We won’t be able to actually fly. We’ll have to rely on the suction to pull us up. Burn away the exhaust fans and grate before we hit them, okay?”

  “Got it. By the time we reach the city level, there will only be one fan above us,” Trenton called back. “The dragon destroyed the rest coming down.”

  “That’s what worries me.” Kallista reached back and squeezed Trenton’s arm. “Don’t fall out.”

  Trenton was so scared, his entire body shook, but he forced a smile. “Do a good job of steering, and I won’t.”

  Kallista positioned Ladon’s head toward the pipe, and Trenton hit the fire button. A burst of flame blasted the pipe open. As Kallista walked the dragon through the opening, the wind increased so much that Trenton could barely breathe. His eyes felt as if they were being sucked from their sockets. He stuck the dragon’s tail out to create extra lift.

  Kallista yelled something he couldn’t make out over the roar of the wind. She aimed the dragon’s head straight up and pushed the lever to extend the wings. The dragon began to shake. The metal wings shuddered, and the struts made a deep groaning that vibrated throughout the entire body.

  The dragon wasn’t built for this. It banged against the floor, clanging its metal feet as if complaining about the rough treatment. The left wing shuddered, and wind pulled the right side up more than the left. They tilted to one side. Trenton swung the tail to counterbalance, and Kallista desperately worked the legs.

  The left wing jerked out, and for a moment they fell in the other direction. Before Trenton could swing the tail back, the fans pulled them upward. He’d imagined a steady rise, but instead, they bounced around like a feather. The wings shook and strained but continued to open.

  Kallista turned and screamed something. Trenton looked up; they were almost to the first fan. The nearly invisible blades whirred just above their heads. He pounded the fire button, but the flame missed, hitting part of the pipe instead. Kallista jerked the head around, but Ladon shook so hard that aiming accurately was impossible. The blade was right above them. He slammed down the fire button again. This time he hit the fan.

  Burning hot metal exploded around them, and they were sucked higher. Something hot landed on Trenton’s arm, and before he could knock it away, it melted through his sweater. The wings were fully extended now. The fans sucked them up more quickly, and the dragon slammed against the sides of the pipe. Trenton tried using the wings and tail for balance, but he felt like an insect trying to steer a twig down the middle of a rushing river.

  They sped toward the next fan, and he hit the fire button again. This time, he blasted it on the first try. He caught a quick glimpse of the manufacturing level as they blew past it. Lit by the dragon’s eyes, the edges of the pipe raced past.

  Another fan. He fired again. A splinter of metal stabbed his leg. Another fan, he fired. Missed. Fired again. The dragon was completely out of control, spinning and shaking, bouncing off the edges of the pipe like a marble in a tin can.

  Trenton blasted the next fan, and their upward climb slowed, then stalled, as the current pulling them up weakened. He could see the city level twenty feet above them.
With only one more exhaust fan between them and the highest level, there wasn’t enough suction to lift the dragon any higher. Trenton reached for the flight lever, but the space was too small to fly. If he tried to work the wings now, he’d lose what little lift they had and they’d plummet back down to the mines.

  Slowly, the dragon began to drop.

  “We’re aren’t going to make it!” He looked around, searching for some way to slow their fall. Fire, tail, wings—none of those would help.

  “Tilt the wings up,” Kallista called.

  What was she thinking? If he tilted the wings up, they’d drop.

  She tried to turn in her seat to reach the wing controls herself, but her harness had twisted, locking her in place. “Do it!” Kallista screamed.

  Praying Kallista knew what she was doing, Trenton pulled the wings backward until they pointed straight up and down. The dragon’s head came up, throwing Trenton into his seat. They began to fall.

  At that moment, Kallista pistoned the legs out. The dragon’s talons tore into the sides of the metal pipe. She clamped down hard, making the claws dig into the metal. Soon they’d stopped sliding down and were clinging to the side of the pipe.

  Trenton couldn’t believe she’d taken the risk. He looked over his shoulder at the mine floor hundreds of feet below. If the claws had missed their grip, they’d both be dead.

  Carefully, Kallista released the front left talons. Gripping the wall with the other three feet, she moved the leg up and forward before slamming it back into the pipe wall. Doing the same thing with the back right, she began crawling them up the side of the pipe.

  “You’re nuts!” Trenton yelled, his heard racing.

  “What do you expect?” Kallista yelled back. “I’m Leo Babbage’s daughter.”

  Trenton checked the pressure gauge; it was dropping. He yanked the hatch open. At this angle, the dragon’s feeder was no longer pulling coal into the crusher. No more powder was being blown into the furnace.

  “Go!” he screamed. “We’re losing power.”

  Kallista looked back, and her eyes widened. With no time to be careful, she maneuvered the legs so they climbed up the pipe in lurching strides. Trenton watched the temperature gauge slide lower and lower. The pressure was dropping too fast. The dragon’s legs began to move sluggishly.

  Realizing they’d never make it, he pulled off his harness and crawled through the hatch. Metal hot enough to scald his skin glowed all around him. From this angle, everything looked wrong. But he didn’t have time to think. Leaping from one piece of equipment to another, he made his way to the fuel bin. The coal was all piled at the far end. To reach any, he had to hang from his feet.

  Dangling upside down into the bin, he thought about the day Simoni had called him a monkey on the swing.

  “She should see me now,” he muttered.

  He scooped coal into the front of his sweater until it bulged and couldn’t hold anymore, then pulled himself back up with his legs. The turbines were about to stop completely. He yanked open the cover of the crusher, shoved handfuls of coal inside, and waited. The grinder churned. His pulse thudded as he waited to see if there was still enough power to run the blowers.

  The turbines stalled, started up, stalled, and then roared back to life. “Yes!” he shouted, pumping his fist. Quickly he dumped the rest of the coal from his sweater inside.

  The dragon began moving again, making it hard to climb back up. By the time he pulled himself out of the hatch, they’d reached the city level. Kallista swiveled the dragon’s head around, and Trenton climbed into his seat and slammed the fire button, blasting the side of the pipe away with a burst of flame.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” Kallista said.

  Trenton shrugged and grinned. “What do you expect? I’ve been spending a lot of time around Leo Babbage’s daughter.”

  41

  Let’s get in the air,” Kallista said.

  Trenton checked their fuel. “We’ve probably got twenty minutes of flying time, tops. Do you have any ideas for how we stop the dragon once we find it?”

  “No clue.” Kallista raised Ladon to his full height, turned down Main Street, and made the dragon run.

  “Everybody out of the way!” Trenton yelled.

  His words didn’t do much, but the sight of the golden dragon racing by—giant feet clanging against the street with every step—scattered the people in front of them.

  But one boy waved his arms wildly. “Trenton! What are you doing up there?” Clyde yelled.

  Trenton waved as they thundered past. He pulled back on the flight stick, and the wings began to flap.

  Clyde yelled something that sounded like “Girls are going to love that thing!” as they rose into the air.

  The damage to the city was worse than Trenton expected. Buildings were in flames. The fire department was trying to extinguish them, but they couldn’t keep up as new fires sprang up all over the city. In the distance, a long line of people waited for the elevators—at least they still worked. But several bodies lay motionless on the ground; not everyone had escaped.

  “Over there,” Trenton said. He pointed to a huge, green shape circling City Hall. The dragon belched flames and occasionally dove in an attack with its talons and fangs.

  Kallista turned them toward the creature. “Save your fire until we’re close. It uses fuel faster than anything else.”

  The nearer they flew, the more Trenton doubted their plan. The real dragon was at least twice the size of Ladon and moved with a grace they couldn’t come close to matching. When they were several hundred yards away, the dragon spotted them, swung its head in their direction, and screamed.

  “Here we go,” Kallista said.

  The two dragons flew straight at each other. Trenton kept his hand poised over the fire button, but before they could get within range, the creature opened its mouth and launched a stream of flame at them.

  Trenton slammed the flight stick forward, and they barely dropped in time to avoid getting roasted. The flames passed so close over their heads that they singed Trenton’s hair.

  Screeching at missing its prey, the dragon whirled around.

  Kallista circled too. She turned Ladon’s head, and Trenton slammed the fire button. The flames made a direct hit on the green monster’s scaled chest.

  “Take that!” Trenton screamed. “How do you like the heat?”

  The dragon howled, but it didn’t look damaged. It dove toward them, fangs bared.

  Kallista tried to dodge it, but the dragon’s talons scraped their left wing, gouging a strut. The attack knocked them off balance, sending them plummeting downward. They fell within fifty feet of the ground before recovering.

  “It’s faster than we are. Stronger, too,” Kallista yelled as they flew back up.

  “We have to outthink it,” Trenton called. “Get us close, and I’ll use our tail to hit it.”

  Kallista turned and once again set them on a collision course with the monster. As before, the dragon attacked them with flames. Trenton tucked them below the fire, but this time, instead of diving, he pulled back up. As they passed under the beast, he pulled the tail control violently toward him.

  The metal tail slammed against the dragon’s foot, and something snapped. The dragon howled and turned away. Its leg hung at a bent angle.

  “We hurt it!” Kallista yelled.

  Trenton pumped his fist. “Maybe we can find a way to outmaneuver it. Let’s get closer to the ground.”

  As they headed toward the city square, a figure with a top hat and walking stick came running out the front door—Chancellor Lusk. Incredibly, he shook his walking stick up at them and shouted, “Get that invention of yours out of the air! It is not approved.”

  Trenton glanced over his shoulder. The dragon was right behind them. “Look out!”

  Kallista banked to the right, but instead of following them, the green dragon swooped toward the square and opened its jaws.

  “No!” the chancellor
cried just before the creature snatched him off the ground. His legs kicked between its teeth, then disappeared down the dragon’s throat.

  For the next ten minutes, they dueled the green dragon. Occasionally, they made a hit using their tail or flames. Once, Kallista even managed to strike its belly with a talon. They took plenty of damage too. Kallista’s right arm was burned, and blood streamed from a gash across her forehead. Trenton’s pant leg was soaked with blood, and somehow he’d injured his left wrist.

  Of the two dragons, Ladon was the most injured. Both wings were damaged, and the front right leg had broken almost completely off. Even worse, the real dragon had figured out most of their tricks. It kept its distance, striking only when it had a clear advantage. Staying low no longer helped; the creature could outmaneuver them in between the buildings.

  As the dragon chased them, Trenton checked the fuel meter. “We’re almost out of coal. We have to land.”

  “I’m not sure we can.” Kallista pointed to the broken leg. “I don’t think we could get back in the air, either.”

  Behind them, the dragon peeled off. Trenton spun around to see where it was going. On the street below, several adults were trying to sneak a group of children toward an elevator. The dragon was heading straight for the group.

  “It’s going for the kids!” he yelled.

  Kallista saw it too. She pulled the dragon into a turn at the same time Trenton changed the angle of the wings, sending them into a dive. “Run!” she cried to them.

  But the dragon would reach the kids before they could. Trenton shoved the flight control all the way forward. Wind blew his hair back from his forehead.

  The adults looked up and saw the danger. They tried to rush the children to safety, but they were only halfway across the street, and the children were panicking. Hoping to create a distraction, Trenton blasted a stream of fire toward the dragon.

  The green beast hurtled toward the children, who screamed. Trenton squinted his eyes, knowing what was about to happen.