Take Back the Skies

by Lucy Saxon

  Cat’s eyes widened; what were they doing with guns mounted on mechanical arms?

  The other rooms on that floor were similar; all mechanics’ workshops, all empty, none of them giving away their exact purpose. Cat and Fox went down to the floor below, where they saw three mechanics walking down the corridor. Ducking into an alcove, they waited for the men to pass. One of the men paused, a frown on his face and his gaze directed at their alcove. Cat flattened herself against the wall as much as she could, glad for the low lighting during the night shift. Her heart was so loud she half expected the man to hear her, and she didn’t dare turn her head to look at Fox.

  ‘What you dawdling for?’ one of the man’s companions called. The man shrugged to himself, shaking his head and continuing on. When they were alone once more, Cat let out a long breath.

  ‘That was too close,’ she murmured, and Fox nodded, looking spooked. Staying on their guard, they began to explore.

  The rooms on this floor were a mix of yet more workshops and small office spaces. Cat tugged frantically on Fox’s arm when she saw that the walls inside one room were pasted with blueprints, looking eerily similar to Fox’s own workroom back on the ship. Checking there was no one around, they slipped inside, Fox immediately directing his video recorder to scan over the blueprints.

  ‘These are all mechanical body parts,’ he murmured quietly. ‘Arms, legs, torsos. It’s like … they’re building mechas, but more advanced models. Mechanical soldiers, armed to the teeth. But … there’s something wrong. There’s no fuel source, and some of these connections don’t seem to lead anywhere. They’re … unfinished,’ he explained, frustrated.

  Cat drew closer. She could see what he meant; most of the parts seemed to just stop halfway, like there was something they connected to that wasn’t part of the schematics.

  ‘They’re preparing for war!’ she exclaimed. ‘Building a mechanical army that doesn’t age, or bleed, or feel pain. An army with no limits – it can be rebuilt and replaced as needed. Soldiers with no morals or emotions. If it works, they’d be unstoppable.’

  Fox looked grim, and stopped filming the blueprints.

  ‘We’d better stop them before they get that far, then, hadn’t we?’ he retorted. ‘There’s one thing I don’t understand, though. If they’ve got these grand ideas about mechanical soldiers, what are they kidnapping children for?’

  Cat shrugged, staring at the blueprints as if they would give her answers.

  ‘Commanders, maybe? Raising them away from their families, training them to be the perfect leaders for their metal army? They’ll need someone to give orders, and I can’t see many of the aristocrats wanting to get their hands dirty like that,’ she suggested.

  Fox tilted his head thoughtfully.

  ‘Only way to find out for sure is to keep looking.’

  Passing several workshops, at the end of the corridor they reached a locked door with no window, which instantly made them curious.

  ‘Can you get the lock?’ Cat queried, and Fox shot her an affronted look.

  ‘Of course I can get the lock. But what if there are people on the other side?’

  ‘Look, Fox, this is the only locked door we’ve found, other than the one to Mary and James’s rooms. I think we should take the risk on the assumption that whatever’s in there will be equally important. It’s worth it.’

  Fox nodded, dropping to his knees and pulling out his tool kit. Cat glanced around nervously as he worked, hating the feeling of exposure she got from standing there. She crossed her fingers, muttering under her breath and almost letting out a yelp of relief when the lock clicked.

  ‘Here goes nothing,’ he murmured, pushing the door open.

  It was pitch-black inside and completely silent, and Cat relaxed somewhat, assuming it was empty. A strange smell, like meat that had gone off, reached her nostrils and she gagged.

  ‘Hang on,’ Fox muttered.

  There was a click, and the lamps on the walls sparked, the small flames flaring to life.

  Cat gasped.

  Lining the walls of the room were large, steel-barred cages, locked with simple padlocks. Every single cage held at least a dozen children. They were all younger than Cat, and each one had some sort of mechanical attachment; a crudely fused mechanical arm or leg, similar to the ones Cat and Fox had seen in the workshops. Some of the children had entire sections of their heads missing, springs and gears jammed into the flesh of their brain. Others had metal plating in place of skin over their chests, and there were large, gaping wounds where the mechanics had failed to bond the metal to human skin. Bile rose in Cat’s throat, and she gripped Fox’s arm tightly. Not one of the children moved, and Cat realised in horror that every single one was dead.

  ‘Oh, gods,’ Fox breathed, face pale. ‘Those twisted, perverted monsters. Cat, the mechanical attachments … that’s why they didn’t connect to anything. They’re not building mechanical soldiers – they’re fusing metal and flesh, they’re connecting wires to nerves and making human mechas. Gods.’ His voice trailed off hoarsely, and a tear leaked from the corner of his eye.

  ‘These must be the “failed experiments”,’ he continued after a pause.

  Cat shook her head, her mouth opening and closing silently – she couldn’t speak. The smell of blood and decay was making her nauseous, and she looked up at Fox desperately.

  ‘Go and wait outside, Cat,’ he told her softly. ‘I need … I need to film this.’

  Cat kept shaking her head, clinging tighter to Fox’s coat sleeve. She wasn’t leaving him; she wasn’t going out into the building alone. He looked at her, then sighed in understanding, squeezing her quickly around the shoulders and pulling out his video recorder with his free hand.

  ‘Cat, I need to get closer. I need you to let go of me,’ he urged softly, his fingers prying gently at the hand clutching his shirt cuff.

  Reluctantly, Cat released him, watching with glassy eyes as he walked closer to the cages. He was two feet away from the front of the nearest cage before he stopped, unable to force himself any closer. Cat waited as he filmed the cages, his quiet voice letting her know that he’d also turned on his audio recorder. It wasn’t long before he’d had more than he could take and switched both recorders off, returning quickly to Cat. She had slid down the door and was sitting with her knees tucked up to her chest, face buried in her arms. She jumped as she felt a hand rest on her hair, and looked up to see Fox eyeing her worriedly.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he prompted, nudging her to her feet.

  Outside, Cat dashed down the corridor to the nearest alcove, practically collapsing to the floor as she reached it, silent tears streaming down her cheeks. When Fox joined her, he sank to the floor beside her and hugged her. She latched on to him, burying her face against his chest, crying into his waistcoat. His cheek pressed against the top of her head, his arm around her.

  ‘I feel sick. I don’t want to be sick,’ she murmured frantically, her breath coming short and fast. He rubbed her back soothingly, squeezing her hand.

  ‘Just breathe, Cat. Nice and deep, copy my breathing, focus on me,’ he whispered, exaggerating his own breaths. Eventually, she calmed down a little, though all she could see when she closed her eyes was the room full of children. It could have been her, had she not been high-born. It could have been Fox, had he not run away. Her brain conjured an image of a girl with Ben’s features, and she went cold; how could they tell Ben about his sister’s fate?

  She didn’t know how long they sat in that alcove until she managed to get herself under control. She realised that she was practically sitting on Fox’s lap, and scrambled away. There was a wet patch on his shirt, and she bit her lip.

  ‘I’m sorry, I …’ she trailed off.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Fox said simply, squeezing her hand. She looked away, wiping her face on her sleeve. She was sure she looked a mess, with red-rimmed puffy eyes and tear-stains on her cheeks, but she didn’t care.

  ‘We should �
� keep looking,’ she murmured, her voice croaky. ‘Now that we know what we’re looking for.’

  But gods, how she wished she’d stayed oblivious.

  Chapter 17

  The atmosphere in the compound had completely changed for Cat. No longer was there the buzz of excitement, the thrill of doing something against the law; now, all she could feel was a persistent gnawing in the pit of her stomach and the overwhelming urge to curl up and cry. Fox too was even quieter than usual.

  Still, they doggedly kept on with their task, quickly sneaking to the floor below. There they found more workshops, which were bigger and more extensive than those they’d seen before, but Cat wasn’t interested in figuring out how the devices worked any more. She was hoping they would find some children alive and untouched, but considering how the mechanics had complained about running out of test subjects, she wasn’t confident that hope would be realised. The men had talked about bringing in a new batch from the country, though; maybe children were brought to the compound in groups at a time. Maybe there were hundreds of healthy kids still out in the country.

  ‘Wait,’ Fox breathed suddenly, pushing her into a dark corner.

  Cat blinked, snapping out of her thoughts, and held her breath as four men in overalls and lab coats walked past. She grimaced when she saw a rustred stain on one of the men’s white coat, knowing there was only one thing it could possibly be. The purple heart embroidered on his coat identified him as a doctor, sending a chill down her spine. How could a man trained to save people be doing something so awful?

  ‘We’re getting closer to something important,’ Fox told her quietly, once the men were gone. ‘There are more and more workers around here.’

  Cat and Fox continued in the direction the men had come from. Near the end of the corridor they found another door and Cat stood on tiptoe to look through its window. A stifled gasp escaped from her mouth and she beckoned Fox closer.

  The workshop inside was at least twice the size of all the others they’d seen and, unlike the others, it was a hive of activity. Cat counted twelve mechanics and two government men, both of whom she recognised. There were three large metal tables in the centre of the room with several carts full of medical and mechanical equipment surrounding them. In one corner was a cage similar to those they’d seen before. The only difference was the children inside these were alive. Unconscious by the look of it, but definitely breathing.

  She hastily removed her video recorder from her buttonhole and lifted it up to point it through the window, watching in silent horror as three of the mechanics opened the cage and removed a sleeping boy, his light brown hair matted over his small face. The boy was naked and thin and she was sure he couldn’t have been much older than thirteen. He was sleeping too deeply for his slumber to be natural, and Cat realised he had been drugged. The men laid the boy on one of the metal tables, and a doctor in a heavily bloodstained lab coat stepped forward, a scalpel in his hand. Cat looked away and saw Fox crouching down.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she hissed.

  ‘Trying to get this door open,’ he told her quietly. ‘We need audio, and we can’t do that with the door closed.’

  Cat looked back through the window, her stomach lurching as she saw one of the mechanics raising a lethal-looking mechanical saw to the young boy’s left arm. She ducked away as the blade whirred to life, not wanting to see any more. The lock clicked – Fox had the door open – but the hideous noise of the saw drowned out any conversation that might have been taking place in the room.

  Unable to keep watching, Cat switched off the video recorder and crouched down to join Fox on the floor.

  ‘Th–they’re cutting off his arm,’ she stammered.

  ‘Just wait. We’ll get our chance soon,’ he assured her, one finger curled around the door’s handle to keep it ajar, then they sat and waited for silence, trying to ignore the sickening grinding noise. Abruptly, it stopped.

  Listening to the murmur of quiet conversation, both of them jumped at a sudden explosion, looking at each other in alarm. Cat stood and peered through the window. The mechanical arm the men had been attempting to attach to the boy’s shoulder was twitching violently, and thick purple-black smoke poured from the wrist joint. Every man in the room had gathered around the table, and Cat knew this was their chance. Seeing a desk piled high with metal boxes, she kicked Fox in the side, silently gesturing for him to go through the door. He looked at her like she was crazy, and she rolled her eyes in impatience.

  ‘Trust me,’ she hissed.

  He nodded, slipping through the open door in silence, and she followed. Together they crouched down behind some of the metal crates that spanned almost the entire wall. Fox tapped her on the arm, gesturing to his audio recorder and switching it on. Turning hers on, Cat pointed towards the other end of the room. Fox shook his head, sitting down to make it clear he was staying where he was. Cat steeled her nerve, then ducked low, rushing down the line of crates to the other end.

  Standing in a small group on the other side of the crates, a few feet away from where Cat was crouched, were four doctors and one of the government men, Albert Jennings. He had worked for her father in the past, and it didn’t surprise her in the slightest that the slimy man was part of this operation.

  ‘We need to change our approach,’ one of the doctors said. ‘This isn’t working well. We need to step back and try something different. Maybe keep them out in the country for longer, bulk them up a little more. They’re coming in too scrawny.’

  ‘We don’t have time to step back and change our approach, Meyers!’ Jennings hissed angrily. ‘It’s working in some cases, and we’re running out of kids! The commoners will start asking questions if we take them any younger – they’re sceptical enough as to what use a little brat could be in a war zone.’

  ‘It’s only working in one out of five children! That’s still four dead kids we could do without!’ a different doctor exclaimed.

  ‘Getting a guilty conscience, Barton?’ Jennings sneered.

  ‘No,’ Barton insisted defensively. ‘I’d just rather we developed something more likely to work on all the children and reduce the rate that we’re going through test subjects. You said it yourself – kids are in short supply these days.’

  ‘The commoners aren’t having kids any more.’ A third doctor now jumped in. ‘Not if they can help it. They can’t see an end to the war, and they don’t want to bring up kids in a country like this.’

  Jennings snorted with disgust.

  ‘Well, the sooner they wipe themselves out for good the better. Do what you have to do,’ he snapped. ‘Just do it quickly. If we run out of kids, we’ll take adults.’

  ‘That won’t work and we both know it! The subjects need to be experiencing puberty for the enhancements to take. Their body needs to be in the process of changing already. Adults have finished growing, so it would be useless to try.’

  Cat almost screamed as a loud bell rang sharply three times, positive it was someone raising the alarm about her and Fox. She met his eye at the opposite end of the room, and he looked just as scared as she did. The workers, however, didn’t seem fazed, and one let out a contented sigh.

  ‘About bloody time! I’m knackered!’ Meyers remarked, rolling his shoulders and putting down the sharp metal tool in his hand. He glanced back at the boy on the table, who now had a new mechanical arm fused to his shoulder, the skin around the joint red and blistered, but not bleeding. The arm was held out at an angle, supported by a smaller metal table that had been pulled up beside the large one. Two of the workers were taping plastic sheeting around the boy’s shoulder, keeping it sterile, and another covered the boy with a thin blanket up to his chest.

  With that, all the men headed for the door, and, seconds later, Cat rushed back to Fox. This might be a shift change, and would be their only chance to get out before a bunch of new workers entered. They waited for a long moment before daring to sneak out of the room and slipping down a corridor in the oppo
site direction.

  ‘Jennings – the government bloke – kept saying they didn’t have much time, and were running out of children,’ Cat said hurriedly. ‘He told the doctors to do what they needed to do, so I think they’ll be redesigning some things. I just hope that while they’re doing that, they’ll leave the kids alone.’

  ‘We can but hope,’ Fox agreed. ‘But we’ll need to start keeping an eye out for rooms with live sprogs in. If this whole building is going up, we can’t leave them in here.’

  Cat shuddered at the prospect, and nodded. If they were going to be evacuating the monarchs, they could take the time to save as many children as they could too.

  ‘We should get back to Mary and James – it’ll be light soon, and we both need sleep,’ Fox prompted.

  Peering around the corner, Cat followed Fox in a sprint down the corridor towards the staircase, while it was empty. The two of them practically fell down the stairs, jumping them two or three at a time until they reached the bottom floor. Fox fiddled with the lock on the door, pushing it open and Cat followed him inside, eyebrows rising when she saw a lamp was still on and that Mary was sitting on one of the sofas.

  ‘You didn’t have to wait for us,’ Cat said by way of greeting.

  Mary rolled her eyes.

  ‘Did you really think I’d be able to sleep with you out there?’ she retorted.

  Cat shrugged, looking around the room.

  ‘James gone to bed?’ she asked, and Mary nodded.

  ‘Now, tell me what you’ve discovered,’ the queen requested, eyes serious.

  ‘Nothing that need concern you until we’re out of here. The less you know the better,’ Fox said firmly.

  Mary drew in a breath, but all she said was, ‘There are blankets and pillows for you both, if you want to get some sleep. Fox, there’s space on James’s floor, and Cat, you can take my floor.’

  Cat froze.

  ‘No, I stay with Fox,’ she said firmly, stepping closer to him. Mary frowned in disapproval.