“Because it's touched by human hands,” Jacob said. “There's good and evil in anything we do. Maybe that's the great mystery. There are no blacks or whites, just different shades of grey.”
Rommond tossed another straw figure into the fire, another little being of his creation, another little life lost in the Great Iron War. “I used to argue with Brooklyn about his beliefs. I used to doubt him, and I tried to force him to doubt. But he was unshakeable. He told me that he did not just believe—he knew. He had a knowledge that I never had, a kind that science, that rationalism, could never replicate.”
“Maybe it's good that we don't all agree,” Jacob mused. “Life would be very boring otherwise.”
Rommond forced a smile.
“How did you meet him?” Jacob asked.
Rommond fixed his eyes upon the fire as he reminisced. “We met about six months into the war, when we tried to get the Free Tribes to join the fight. He's an Ootan, a member of the Ootana tribe. His real name, or his old name I should say, was Kia-ooba-lukassa, and his tribe is one of the friendlier ones, gaining pleasure through offering gifts to strangers.”
“Wish I'd known them,” Jacob said. “I'm always partial to gifts.”
“My truck broke down, and Brooklyn was sent to fix it,” Rommond continued, his eyes unwavering, as if he saw the memories with the souls burning in the fire. “We were amazed at what he could do, with so few tools, so few supplies. We thought we were stuck in the desert, but he got us back up and running in less than an hour. I gave him my pocket knife as a token thank you, a little tool to add to his meagre collection, and he was very gracious, as if I had given him a chest of gold. He gave me a Tamba-runga in return, the feather of a Tamba bird, which the Ootana use to symbolise peace. I thought they meant that they would never join the fight, that they opposed the war, but I found out later that it meant peace between us and them, between me and him.”
“If only the Iron Emperor did the same,” Jacob commented.
Rommond grumbled. “That will never happen.”
“So, not meaning to pry or anything, but how did you know that it was more than just a friendship?”
Rommond smiled. “We went back many times, exchanging supplies, exchanging gifts. Our real hope was to win them over, and use them as a means to win over the less amenable tribes. They clearly did not see our ulterior motive, and Brooklyn least of all. He had a kind of naivety, a bit like Brogan. But he had a deeper wisdom that I couldn't see. I can see it now.
“We walked for hours when others retired to bed. There was some kind of connection there that I could not explain. He clearly felt it too. One night he gave me a Kata-runga, an ornate necklace that symbolises union. I thought it was too much, a gift I could not take, so I offered it back. Little did I know that to offer a Kata-runga back is perceived among the Ootana as gifting union in return, and I had unwittingly agreed to a marriage proposal. Before I knew it, I was being showered in other gifts by the tribesmen. I tried to explain that it was a misunderstanding. I tried to tell myself that I had no time for romance, that I had no place for love. But Brooklyn won me over. Whatever war was going on inside me, he conquered that with peace. He united the broken parts of me. He made me whole for the first time in my life.
“We were wedded then, on the Ootana's sacred ground, but there were some among their people who opposed marriage to outsiders, who thought that it sullied the purity of their people. On the wedding night, they tried to force a coup, but they were driven out, and they became the Anganda, a new tribe that opposed everything we did. They were the reason Brooklyn was captured many years later. They were the reason he's like this now. They hated him not just for his love for me, but for his love of mechanics, of fixing things, of creating things, for his communion with the machine spirits, which they called the Machine Menace. They said that is why the demons came, that Brooklyn had summoned them with his unnatural acts. They wanted to sacrifice him. They thought that that would close the Rift, that it would seal that portal in the sky through which the demons and the sands came.”
“Hell,” Jacob said. “That's heavy stuff.”
“While you were off smuggling amulets, doing Taberah's dirty work, we were fighting on every front, even against people who should have been our allies. Some wanted to capture Brooklyn for his skills, for his gift, but others just wanted to kill him. God only knows what the Regime did to him, what torture he was put through. They got some of our designs. I'd like to think it was from spies, but I cannot rule out that they forced them from him. Perhaps they had him working on some of their own vehicles and vessels. It is difficult to think about.”
“If he's that valuable, then why send him here?” Jacob wondered.
“Because they knew what it would do to me, what it's still doing. Everyone has a weakness, Jacob. They knew mine. They exploited mine.”
“Are you sure you want to look at love as a weakness?”
“In war, everything's a weakness.”
“Even strength?”
Rommond grumbled. “They wanted me gone. Target 001. I've been fighting them from the start. They killed most of the other generals. But my strength came from Brooklyn. He was the man behind the man. For so long I could not get over him, and when it seemed that I was finally making some progress, when I was beginning to get my stride back, they knew there was one weapon that is better than guns.”
“Love?”
“They tried to break me,” Rommond said. “They tried to shake me.”
“Are you broken?”
“No,” the general replied. “But I am shaken. Whatever my airship did to the sky, the Regime has done to my heart. And what can support it? There are no balloons to hold up a sinking heart.”
“But you have him back now.”
“I'm not so sure, Jacob. It's his body, or bits of it, but … I don't know what they did to him. I don't know how much of him, if anything, is left.”
“Maybe I can help,” a voice came from behind them. They turned to find the nurse there. They did not know how long she had been listening.
“I'm not letting you anywhere near him!” Rommond shouted. He stood up and pointed an accusatory finger. “You're the reason he's like this. It's your kind that did this to him!”
“I merely—”
“You merely ruined him!” He cast the last remaining straw figures into the fire, which lapped them up, which flickered with the feast, and then he stormed off, clenching his fists.
“Is he always like that?” the nurse asked as she sat down.
“I couldn't blame him,” Jacob said.
“Well, I can. I didn't hurt his friend. All I've ever done is try to save people.”
“People?”
“Yes, people. Whatever you are and whatever we are.”
“Humans and demons, in that order, apparently.”
“Apparently,” the nurse said. “You don't believe it then?”
“I have my doubts.”
“You know, they—we—call you demons too.”
“I'm not surprised, but what we do is not demonic.”
“Some of you do very evil things.”
Jacob nodded. “I suppose you're right.”
She extended her hand. “Lorelai Gandergale,” she said.
He shook it gently. “Jacob.”
“Just Jacob?”
“Well,” he said. “I don't know how just I am.”
She giggled. “Do you not have a family name?”
“Black,” he said reluctantly. “Jacob Black.”
“Interesting,” she said. “I thought you didn't believe in blacks or whites?”
He smiled at her.
“I'm glad to see a smile,” she said. “All those frowns and grimaces are very wearying.”
“You've got that right.”
She glanced at his arm, then grabbed it. “Who did these stitches? They're a mess!”
“Doctor Mudro. They seem to do the trick.”
“The trick?” she aske
d. “Indeed, if you want nasty scars.”
“At this stage I consider them war medals.”
“Honestly, I cannot believe a doctor did these. They're the work of an amateur.”
Jacob grinned. “Well, he was a magician before.”
“A magician?”
“Card tricks and all.”
“That explains it then.”
“You should see Rommond's wounds,” Jacob said.
She sunk her head. “I would, if he'd let me anywhere near them. I can tell he has a lot of scars beneath that uniform.”
“He sews himself up.”
“God, he probably does an even worse job than your doctor then.”
“Well, he's still alive.”
She smiled. “That's all any of us can really ask for, isn't it?”
* * *
Rommond visited Brooklyn in the Skyshaker, which was still grounded. He was tied down to a bed. It was difficult to see him like that, but Mudro assured the general that it was for Brooklyn's safety, as well as everyone else's.
“Can you hear me?” Rommond asked him.
Brooklyn looked up. There were tears in his eyes.
“We removed what we could,” the general said, “but some of it is in too deep. We don't have the doctors we used to have. Much has changed. We've lost so many.”
Brooklyn did not respond. He was always stoic, but the silence now was different. Perhaps without the machinery in him, he no longer had a voice.
“What did they do to you?” the general asked. Somehow it felt like an interrogation. Maybe it was the silence. Maybe it was because only days previously Brooklyn had been fighting on the enemy's side.
“I thought you were dead,” Rommond revealed. “I really believed it. I felt our connection sever, though I tried desperately to keep it alive. Maybe it was all those bits they put inside you, all those wires, all those drugs. They told me you were dead, and I believed them.” He turned away and shook his head. “I shouldn't have believed them.”
He paced the room back and forth, running his fingers violently through his hair, aggressively massaging his scalp, as if that might somehow put his thoughts in order, or calm his racing mind.
“Will you say nothing?” he asked. He wondered if he had anything to say.
He left the room, frustrated. He should have been happy, he told himself. He should have felt relieved. Brooklyn was still alive, but somehow it seemed worse than death.
* * *
Lorelai, with Jacob's help, petitioned the general many times to let her work on Brooklyn, but it took much convincing just to arrange an audience.
“I can help, Rommond,” she said.
He looked at her with forlorn eyes. “How?”
“I worked with several doctors who were employed on Project Ironbreath. I know enough about the procedures they used to make a reasonable effort at removing some of the … additions.”
“I don't want your reasonable effort,” Rommond growled. “Doctors like you are the reason he's not Brooklyn any more. They changed him, like an engineer changes parts in a vehicle. They might have wanted him to breathe with iron, but when I look at him now I'm not sure he is breathing at all.”
“You have every right to hate those who did this to him,” she said. “And I would hate them too, if hate helped. But it doesn't. And I took a vow to help, wherever I can, whomever I can. Right now I can help Brooklyn. I can help restore him. I can help make him Brooklyn again. Will you not let me try?”
Rommond was silent for a time. Who knew what went on in his head? Could he acquiesce to her request? Could he put Brooklyn's fate once more in the hands of the Regime? When Brooklyn had been taken, he did nothing. Could he really do nothing again?
When eventually Rommond made his decision, he did not speak. He simply looked at the nurse, deep into her eyes, and nodded. There was defeat in that nod, but there was also a tiny sliver of hope, buried deep beneath the pain. He walked off, and he forced his chin up, partly out of habit, out of military discipline, and partly in defiance of those who would see him crumble, and use Brooklyn to shake his foundations.
Lorelai got to work almost immediately, for she knew that her old colleagues had made advances she was not present for, but most of all she knew that the longer the implants stayed inside Brooklyn, the less chance she would have of removing them. She only hoped that with them she would not also remove whatever made him the pillar which Rommond leaned upon.
32 – UNPLUGGED
Lorelai established a makeshift hospital tent in the city's central plaza, where the wounded were delivered by the truckload. The dead were brought to the desert outside, where they were buried, deeper than six feet, for fear the wind would shift the sand and expose their bones again.
It took two full days of almost restless operations for Lorelai to undo much of what had been done to Brooklyn. She could mend some of the scars of the body, but not the ones of the mind. Those she left to the spirits he believed in. She did not believe in them, but she hoped that if they did exist, they would make him whole again.
* * *
Jacob found the body of his father in the city's ruins. It was not clear how he died, but Jacob assumed it was the Iron Guard. He tried to tell himself that it did not matter, that his father meant nothing to him in life, and could mean nothing more in death. But his heart panged.
His father was no angel, but he was no demon either. He had made many mistakes, but as Jacob looked upon the lifeless body, and saw the features he had inherited—that square chin, that sandy hair—he could not help but think: So have I.
He regretted not using his last time with his father more wisely. If he had only known. Maybe it would not have mattered, it would not have changed the past, or changed his feelings, but at least then he could have said goodbye.
* * *
Whistler visited Brooklyn as he rested. He had not seen him in over three years, not since his capture. Whistler was just a boy then, not someone on the cusp of manhood. He wondered if Brooklyn would even recognise him. He hardly recognised Brooklyn at all. The passage of time had not changed him; the scientists had. Yet his eyes, those big blue eyes, were still the same.
Brooklyn smiled when he saw him. His smile was also familiar, though there was sadness in it now. “Brogan,” he said.
Whistler simpered in response. “Hi.”
“You are big now. You grow up fast.”
Whistler beamed. “You recover fast.”
“We all do, when we know how.”
“Can you teach me how?”
“Maybe you teach me.”
“What do I have to teach?”
“All have lesson only they teach. I see you already teaching it.”
“How?” Whistler asked.
“I see it in people who learn.”
“I don't understand.”
Brooklyn pointed to Jacob, sitting around a campfire outside the tent. The only spirits he worked with were those in bottles, but he had himself a séance with them all the same.
“He's my friend,” Whistler said.
“Your pupil too.”
Whistler looked perturbed.
“You see others,” Brooklyn noted, “but you don't hate others.”
Whistler pouted. “I'm one of them.”
“No, you are unique.”
“I'd rather be like everyone else.”
“Very boring like that.”
Whistler laughed. “I guess.”
“He learns from you,” Brooklyn said, pointing again to Jacob.
“What is he learning?”
“For much time, people call spirits others too,” Brooklyn told him. “Some say demons. Some say angels. Some say other names your language has no words for. I am ambassador for them. I stand in middle. Easier to see both sides from there. See more clearly. When only on one side, other side is very blurry. You see this too. I see it in you. This you teach him. We need ambassadors. Why? Because war is for division. Peace is for uniting. If we have
no one who unites, then how can we end this war?”
Whistler nodded. It was always how he felt. He was just never brave enough to say it. He never thought his opinion mattered in the great scheme of things, when the schemers were too busy with their own. He always had a voice, a soft voice, a voice that was still in the process of breaking, but he never really thought that anyone was listening. Brooklyn listened, and so, it seemed, Jacob listened too.
“I have gift for you,” Brooklyn said.
“For me?”
“For someone unique. No gifts for boring people.”
Whistler smiled.
Brooklyn took a tiny, furry ball from the chain about his neck and handed it to Whistler. It was very crude, with little beads for eyes, and felt triangles for teeth.
“What is it?” Whistler asked.
“It is worry eater.”
“Thanks,” Whistler said, holding it up, until it almost smiled at him. “I can keep it?”
“Bigger boys have bigger worries.”
“What about you?”
“Very big boy now. I leave my worries far away. Now I think of other people's worries.”
“So I guess you worry about them.”
Brooklyn smiled. “Very wise. Even spirits worry. At least that way worry eater will not go hungry.”
* * *
Rommond waited several days before visiting Brooklyn. He tried to say it was because Brooklyn needed to rest, but really he needed more time to come to terms with things, and to prepare himself for the worst.
“I meant to come earlier,” the general said.
“I know.”
“I wanted to be here.”
“I know.”
Rommond sunk his head, but Brooklyn took his hand. “Nothing down there,” he said. “Just feet. Just shoes. Better to look up.” He pointed up, where the canopy veiled the heavens. “Sky up there. Very beautiful.”
Rommond did not look up, but he raised his eyes to see Brooklyn's face. “I've been up in the sky. I shook the sky. But it shook me back.”
Skyshaker: A Steampunk Dystopian Adventure (The Great Iron War, Book 3) Page 16