Skyship Academy tpw-1

by Nick James

  … find refuge on another Skyship or something, maybe head to the Commonwealth. I wasn’t so keen on snooping around. All I really wanted was to break free of her grip.”

  It’s hard to picture Avery on the Surface, living at the Lodge. I just always assumed her life started when she met me, that she didn’t really have a past. I could kick myself now for not questioning it earlier.

  I jump over a crack in the pavement. “Then why didn’t you leave?”

  She shrugs. “I told you. I overheard a meeting. I heard about you . I was curious. I don’t know what I expected to find when I met this so-called ‘miracle kid,’ but you surprised me, Jesse. Not many people surprise me.” She pauses. “Maybe it was the way they treated you up there, maybe it was because you were alone, like me. Either way, you seemed to get it. You seemed to see past this stupid rivalry between the Surface and the Skyships and just get it. You weren’t a drone like so many of the others up there. You were different. I guess I kinda saw a part of me in you. We clicked.” She sighs. “Once I knew that Madame was interested in you, I knew I couldn’t leave you alone.”

  “You were protecting me?”

  “I was being your friend,” she replies. “I am your friend. Of course, staying at the Academy meant that I had to continue to give Madame enough information to keep her happy. I’ve seen what she does to those who disappoint her, Jesse. It’s not pretty.”

  I frown, sticking my hands in my pockets as we continue down the street. “We would’ve kept you safe. You could have graduated and been one of us.”

  “One of you?” She kicks a rock down the faded white line in the center of the pavement. “Didn’t you hear what I just said? I’m not interested in digging up Pearls for either side. As far as I’m concerned, it’s all a big distraction. I mean, think of what we could have done without them. There wouldn’t be any Fringes without the Chosen Cities. Without the Skyships we wouldn’t have to look over our shoulders all the time, afraid of some crazy war. I mean, the Polar Cities run all right without Pearls.”

  “That’s because the Polar Cities are up in the arctic. It’s not 500 freaking degrees.” I pause. “You fed her information, Avery. Information that could hurt us.”

  “I know.” She nods. “I was stupid, and scared. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.” She grabs my shoulder. “But that’s over now. I’m not going to let her ruin your life, too.”

  We cross the next street. I notice dull splashes of color in the distance, once-bright signs for fast food restaurants. “Hey,” I point in their direction, “do you think that’s the-”

  A dust-caked, fire-engine red car interrupts me, racing across the next intersection and out of sight behind a cluster of buildings. Avery and I freeze.

  After a moment of shock-addled silence, she smiles. “They’ve got a generator.”

  “You don’t know that for sure.”

  “Yeah, I do. How else would they get electricity for the car after all this time? It’s not like they’re leeching from a Chosen.”

  “If they had a generator, why would they be using it to power some stupid car?”

  “I don’t know.” She grabs my hand. “But maybe that means they have food. And maybe even a way to Seattle.”

  We hustle, nearly running through the street now. As we pass the intersection into the fast food restaurant graveyard, I get this weird feeling that we’re being watched from every boarded-up window. A billboard to our right reads len b rg: Pop 786, though it’s clear that some of the letters have been knocked out. Lenbrg, I guess. Across the street sits an old gas station with actual pumps, shut down and boarded up before the switch to electric three decades ago.

  We keep up a frenzied pace, so much so that we don’t hear the footsteps behind us until it’s too late. I pull back on Avery’s hand, spinning her around.

  There are four of them, each one bigger than us, wearing navy blue bandanas over their dark, shaved heads. I’m not sure if the color’s supposed to mean anything, but they’d be intimidating with or without them. They’re stockier than most Fringers, with muscles the size of grapefruits.

  “Hey!” The one in the front steps forward, loose white T-shirt rippling in the wind. “Not so fast, there. Ain’t never seen you around.” His words echo along the empty road.

  Avery and I huddle close together. These guys are twice as big as the ones back in Syracuse. For the first time, I actually wish Eva was down here with us.

  Avery steps forward, trying to be diplomatic. “Is this your town?”

  “Hell no.” The guy chuckles, slapping hands with his friend. “We’re from down south, beautiful. And you ain’t from around here either.”

  “No we ain’t,” she counters. “We’re wanderers. Just looking for water.”

  The guy smiles, advancing on us. “Well, come over here and I’ll give you a little something.”

  “Avery,” I whisper, “we should run.”

  “Too many of ’em,” she whispers back. “I can handle this.”

  “What would possibly give you that idea?”

  “Shh!” She steps in front of me, crossing her arms.

  “Aw, don’t be scared,” the Fringe leader coaxes. “We ain’t gonna hurt you. Just come over here a second.”

  Avery scowls. “In your dreams, maybe.”

  I grab her arm, pulling her back. The last thing she needs to do right now is antagonize them.

  She digs her heels into the ground, staying put.

  The guy grins, rubbing his hands together. “We got a feisty one here, don’t we? I like feisty.”

  Then, his grin turns to a frown as he notices something behind us.

  “Stand back, Horatio!” A voice rings through the street. I spin around to see a gangly figure wearing a sweat-stained gray tank top and baggy jeans. The kid looks no older than me.

  He stares down a crossbow too heavy for his stringy arms. A silver arrow glints in the sunlight, pointed in our direction. I can’t see beyond his circular goggles, but his mouth curls up in a confident smile at odds with his less-than-threatening build.

  “Back up,” he yells. “They’re mine!”

  34

  On one side of us, four burly Fringers. On the other, one nasty-looking crossbow. An hour of peace, that’s all I ask for.

  Horatio and his buddies laugh, wiping the sweat from their brows. “What the hell’s that supposed to be, Henderson?”

  “Antique,” the kid replies, “but these arrows are still mighty sharp. What do you want?”

  “We’re here to talk to your pops,” Horatio responds. “Business proposition.”

  “Yeah? Don’t think he’ll like that.”

  The Fringers continue to advance, slower but no less menacing. “Don’t think we care,” Horatio grins. “You looking for a fight, Henderson?”

  The boy steps back, curving around us until he has a lock on the gang. “Head over to Uni. Now. Or I put a shish-kabob right through each one of you.”

  Horatio chuckles, hands in the air.

  “I said now!”

  Horatio nudges his friend, whispering something to him before focusing back on the boy. “One of these days when you’re not looking, I’m gonna smear your head all over the pavement.”

  The boy grins. “I’m a biter. You get near my face and you’ll lose an ear.”

  Horatio shakes his head, amused, and motions for the gang to follow him into the town. With one final nod in our direction, they skirt down the street and out of sight. The boy keeps the crossbow pointed at us, jaw clenched with one hand on the trigger. Then, satisfied that the other Fringers are really gone, he drops it to his side.

  “Yo.” He holds out his hand like we’re actually gonna go over and shake it. It’s filthy, like the rest of him. A tuft of dark hair sticks out from underneath a backward baseball cap. His dampened clothing is riddled with holes. “Buncha chickens back there,” he mutters, pointing down the street. “Thing doesn’t even shoot right.”

  We stare at him for
at least five seconds, utterly silent.

  He pulls back his hand. “Guess we’re not gonna be shakin’. What’s the matter? You ain’t city folk, are you?”

  “No,” I stammer. “We’re… uh… wanderers.” It comes out more like a question than a statement.

  The kid flashes an are-you-stupid grin, which quickly develops into a full-bellied laugh. “Wanderers? Not out here you ain’t. Closest town’s thirty miles away. That wanderer crap may fly in the East, but not here. Unless you’ve got a secret camel hump behind you.” He crosses his arms. “So where you really from? Survivors of the train wreck?”

  Avery nods.

  With lightning-fast reflexes, the kid raises the crossbow again, ready to shoot.

  “No, wait!” She holds out her hand. “We’re Skyship.”

  His head tilts, but he keeps the weapon pointed forward. “Prove it.”

  Avery rolls her eyes. “You said that crossbow doesn’t work.”

  “Works all right.”

  She sighs, stepping toward him.

  “Avery!” I pull on her arm to stop her. She ignores me and grabs the front of the bow, yanking it from the kid’s grip and tossing it behind her. It crashes on the pavement, much to the kid’s dismay.

  She glares at him. “Why would anybody from a Chosen come running all the way out here?”

  “City Salesmen.” The kid rubs his gloved hand, annoyed. “Couple of ’em wandered in two weeks ago, trying to drag us into the Chosens and make us pay that pretty little tax of theirs. Chuck us out and reel us in… that’s how they do it.”

  “Do we look like City Salesmen?”

  He frowns. “Guess not.”

  “Who were those guys?” I motion down the street.

  “Wannabe gang lords.” He lifts his goggles, revealing a pair of inquisitive blue eyes. “Don’t know how they keep winding up around here. They’re from down south, trying to make a name for themselves. Not tough enough to do it back in YakTown so they mosey up here, I guess.”

  Avery crosses her arms. “How did you know about the train crash?”

  “Big news,” he says. “Good thing you left when you did. Twenty miles north of YakTown ain’t nothing. Gangs’ll be on it like ants on a carcass-druggies looking to cash in on whatever’s left.”

  My mind flashes back to the exploded Chute. I wonder if the government will send help if it means risking a standoff with Fringers.

  “Name’s Bobby.” The boy removes his cap, rustling his hair. “You guys looking for a Pearl? That it?”

  “No,” Avery starts. “Actually, we’re looking for food. We haven’t eaten since yesterday.”

  He nods, repositioning the cap on his head. “Never seen Shippers ’round these parts before. Ain’t there laws against that?”

  I glance over at him. “We aren’t exactly legal.”

  He shrugs. “An enemy of the Unified Party is a friend to me. I guess I don’t have to kill you or nothing.”

  “We’re just passing through,” Avery says. “All we need is food. We can pay you.”

  Bobby chuckles, crouching down to inspect the busted crossbow. “With what? Skyship credit ain’t good down here. Unless you got a packet of Serenity to trade with Horatio and his goons, I’m not interested.”

  “Rations,” she replies. “We can get you rations after all this is over.”

  “ All this is over? ” He stands. “Where you two think you’re going?”

  “Seattle,” I answer.

  He shakes his head, grinning. “Seattle? Sunken City Seattle? You really think the Cascade Colony’s gonna let you through?”

  I hold my hand up to block the blinding sun. “The Cascade what?”

  “The Colony.” He motions for us to follow him, cutting through a vacant parking lot in front of the gutted shell of a supermarket. “The Cascadians. Old George Barkley’s been heading over there twice a month ever since the smog lifted. Gotta pay the toll, though. They trust him.” He pauses. “Don’t trust nobody else.”

  Avery speeds up to walk by his side. “There are people living in the mountains?”

  “Of course there are people living in the mountains,” he replies. “It’s cooler up there. Not by much, but there’s shade. Trees.” He jumps a curb, leading us through a patch of scratchy grass until we’re back on another road.

  I step over a large crack fracturing the center of the street. “How does this Barkley guy get over there?”

  “Moving van,” Bobby answers. “Fills it up with trinkets from the city. Stuff to trade. Stuff to tinker with. What’s got you folks so interested?”

  Avery glances at me, but keeps quiet.

  “We’re looking for something,” I mutter.

  “Good luck finding it. Barkley’s about picked the place clean.”

  We cross the street and head into what was once a residential neighborhood. I stare at the vacant, country-style houses on either side of us, trying to picture them as they once were, with mass green lawns and bright new paint jobs. “Has he ever seen anything weird?”

  Bobby laughs. “Weird? The whole city’s a graveyard, buddy. Ain’t nothing to see, weird or otherwise.”

  Avery tugs at the front of her damp shirt. “Any chance we could catch a ride with this guy?”

  “George Barkley? He takes off this afternoon. I can introduce you, but good luck.” He heads for an alleyway between two particularly scummy houses. “Never did catch your names.”

  “Oh.” She grabs my shoulder as we follow him out onto the next street. “I’m Avery. And this is Jesse.”

  “And you came all the way down from Skyship to Lenbrg so you could hitch a ride to Seattle?”

  “It’s a long story,” I reply.

  He stops suddenly, pointing at a group of well-maintained brick buildings stretching up a few streets in front of us. “That’s Uni. Main part of town. I’ll take you there, see what we can do.”

  Avery smiles. “Fantastic.”

  He turns around to look at us before covering his eyes with the goggles again. “Don’t get too excited. Lots of folks around here aren’t too crazy about Shippers. Sure, you ain’t government, but you ain’t Fringe either. Maybe you’re better off with that lame wanderer story after all.”

  Avery and I exchange glances. The last thing we need is another fight.

  “C’mon.” He takes off down the road. “I’ll keep an eye out for you. Don’t worry.”

  I sigh. Says the kid with the broken crossbow.

  35

  Cassius dragged his weakening body through the barren desert landscape, trying to pretend that the sun wasn’t slowly killing him.

  He cursed himself for following the Chute’s tracks northeast. Madame had said Fisher would head to Seattle, not Spokane. In all the confusion and horror of the night before, the details of their brief conversation had slipped his mind. Now he’d wasted precious time. He was lost.

  With the morning light, the hazy outlines of the mountains came into view far off in the distance. He knew little about Washington’s geography, except that Seattle was on the other side, away from the desert. But at the rate he was traveling now, it would take him days-weeks, even-to get there.

  Squat brown bushes surrounded him on all sides, the only type of vegetation that could thrive in an environment crying out for rain. He’d wandered into a hilly area, though each hill was identically brown and covered with the same ugly bushes-pockmarks on an already unsightly planet.

  His plan was to find a Fringe Town. He knew the locals wouldn’t be kind to him, but he’d sneak in, grab what he could, and be out before they could do anything. If he didn’t find civilization in the next day or so, he’d be out of luck. Not only could he die of dehydration, but Fisher would escape him. After the incident on the Chute, he wasn’t sure which was worse.

  He kicked the dirt, swearing to himself. Part of him wondered if this was punishment for striking out on his own, for trying to show Madame that he wasn’t going to play her game anymore. No com-pad, no w
eapons. He’d gotten his wish. He was completely on his own.

  The sun pummeled him with each step-a constant enemy, impossible to outrun. He longed for shade, for the shadow of a tree or an old telephone pole. The sky was a pool of blue, so clear that he could see the Northwestern Skyships, tiny dots in the vast abyss.

  The land was flat and lifeless, except for the snakes. He’d already run across two, and though they mostly ignored him, he remained cautious. Cassius didn’t like snakes, especially ones that weren’t part of a Chosen City zoo.

  Another twenty minutes passed before he stumbled upon an old roadway, cutting through the desert and disappearing into a dumpy bunch of hills in the east.

  He stepped onto the cracked pavement, eager for a sign of movement. His borrowed shoes were too big for him, and worn at the heel. Running his fingers through his sweat-drenched hair, he decided to sit for a few minutes, even though he knew it would make getting back up again infinitely more difficult. He closed his eyes, trying to block out the harsh sunlight. A warm breeze tugged at his tattered shirt.

  He opened his eyes to expansive nothingness. Everything was quiet-no people rushing around like in the city. No bells or advertisements or announcements. He couldn’t stand it.

  Then, a noise.

  At first he thought he had imagined it, that he was going crazy from exhaustion. But the more he paid attention, the louder it became. Holding up his hand to block the sun, he looked to the west.

  A small red dot approached him, kicking up a cloud of dust as it sped along the road. In his fatigued state, it took a few seconds for him to realize that the dot was in fact a car. An old-fashioned electric car!

  Immediately, he gathered what energy remained and stood to wave his arms in the air, jumping up and down in the middle of the road.

  As the car drew closer it slowed down, pulling to a stop a few yards in front of him.

  It was an old junker for sure. Most of the color had faded, covered in so much dust and dirt. But the novelty of seeing an actual car was enough to completely fascinate him. They were obsolete inside the Chosen Cities.