by Ryan Dunlap
Ras pulled the large wrench from its holster and held it at the ready.
“Erasmus Veir!” one of the soldiers shouted. “We’re looking for an Erasmus Veir and Calista Tourbillon!”
Helping The Collective was a low priority for the residents of New Crispin. Everyone scattered.
“I think this is a little overkill for bringing in a kidnapper, wouldn’t you say?” Callie asked.
Ras looked up at The Halifax, taking in its size. “A bit.”
“Hey! You two!” one of the men in uniform pointed at Ras and Callie. “You need to come with us! This place is going to be overrun with pirates!”
Pop interjected himself between Ras and the soldier. “Not if that thing makes a stand for us!” he said, pointing at The Halifax.
“That’s not our mission, now step aside!” the soldier leveled his rifle at Pop.
“You brought them here and you’re leaving them with us?” Pop said.
“Step aside! That’s your final warning!”
“It’s all right, Pop,” Ras said, stepping in front of the old man. “It’s better this way.”
“Good,” the soldier said. “Strap into one of the harnesses—”
Before the soldier could react, Ras swung the large wrench, knocking the rifle loose. “Run!” he shouted, leading Callie toward the dock.
“What are you doing?” Callie asked breathlessly, stumbling into a run behind Ras.
“The longer it takes for The Collective to bring us in, the longer The Halifax has to fight the pirates,” Ras said as the first warning salvo from the soldiers ripped past them and into a storefront’s window. “Which means less pirates for New Crispin.”
“They’re shooting at us! I thought they wanted us alive!” Callie said.
The Halifax’s weapon screamed again as they turned a corner to see The Brass Fox waiting at the dock less than one-hundred yards away. Thunderous crashing noises erupted, and Ras couldn’t tell if it was from the storm below or the battle above.
“Look out!” Callie shouted, yanking back on Ras’ arm and stopping him from running directly into the path of the half-airship on a collision course with New Crispin. The edges of the back half of the vessel were simply cauterized and smoldering where the front half used to be.
The wreckage crumpled, shooting wood splinters everywhere before screeching to a halt, effectively cutting off the path to the docks.
“There! Fire!” A pursuing soldier knelt with a tube over his shoulder.
Ras turned and wrapped himself around Callie before a mesh net knocked them off-balance, engulfing and dragging them to the ground.
The small squadron of Collective soldiers ran up and began securing ties into the netting before aiming the large gun at a descending Collective airship.
The gun fired, sending cabling out to strike the airship, and before Ras could attempt to cut his way free, the net lifted with a jerk and they were on their way to The Halifax as the battle over New Crispin began.
In his Captain’s quarters, Foster Helios III wore a grin he couldn’t have lost if he tried. The ornate brass sphere from Hal Napier sat in the middle of his desk. He placed a magnifying glass over it, inspecting the craftsmanship. The fine lines of filigree etched in the sides resembled a stormy sea of clouds. A product of a bygone era.
“Was this the only thing of note on their ship?” Foster asked the three officers standing across the desk from him.
“We pulled an old grapple gun that you might like for your collection off of the young man,” one officer said.
“Yes, I should very much like to see that,” Foster said, his eyes flicking to the walls of his Captain’s quarters which were lined with artifacts from the earliest days of wind merchants, back before the adventure of saving the world had turned into board meetings on profitability and risk matrix analyses. “Where are they now?”
“We’re running them through the battery of tests,” the second officer said.
“Good. They should be nice and pliable when I speak with them.” Foster placed his bare hand on the brass orb and held it high. “But what do we do with you?”
Ras lay strapped to a gurney at a forty-five degree angle inside a glass dome. The worst part hadn’t been the different gasses they subjected him to, or even the needles that forced him to fight the urge to vomit every time one unceremoniously jabbed him. Those came a close second and third to having Callie merely ten feet away from him in her own glass dome; scared, crying, and in pain as the two men in labcoats behind their console subjected her to the same treatment.
His voice had gone hoarse hours earlier from screaming at the scientists and trying to reassure Callie, who would look over at him but couldn’t hear or understand him. The familiar hissing noise returned as air filtered into the dome again. This time a burning sensation tingled throughout his body before sending chills up his spine. Callie just cried. She looked over at Ras and mouthed—or maybe said; he couldn’t tell—“Why?”
Ras violently shook the gurney, fighting the restraints to no avail. “Leave her alone!” he screamed repeatedly.
The scientists appeared to take special interest in one of their readouts and looked up at Ras with confusion, then delight. One of them twisted a knob, and the gas filtering in had Ras fighting to stay awake, as if he would somehow be more capable of protecting Callie if he remained conscious. The last things he saw before the blackness took him were her beautiful, tear-filled blue eyes, pleading with him.
The vision of Callie melted away into a gunmetal gray ceiling that provided absolutely no clue as to Ras’ whereabouts. He was horizontal; that much was certain. He attempted to sit up, but his body failed to obey any commands. Looking around was the extent of his range of motion. His ears rang and a high-pitched, feminine voice spoke in muffled tones, its origin unknown.
In his peripheral vision, he could make out some straight black lines. Metal bars? His limited ability to look around hindered him from surveying the entire cell, but from what he could ascertain, he was alone. No Callie.
The voice became clearer. “Hello?” it said. “You look awake. Are you ignoring me, Ras?” The woman’s voice was child-like. “Blink if you can understand me,” she said.
Ras blinked.
“Oh, good, you’re just paralyzed and not ignoring me. I hate when people ignore me.”
He tried to speak, but his best attempt produced a hum.
“‘Where’s Callie?’ you say? That’s terribly romantic of you to be so concerned. Tell me you at least had that date before you wound up here.”
Dixie.
Someone approached his cell, unlocking it. Two men entered. “Him?”
“Yeah, Foster wants him sobered up before they talk.” A needle plunged into his arm.
A pinch and a burning sensation flooded through Ras. He could still feel everything happening to him. His whole body began tingling like a limb growing new nerves. The men left the cell, slamming the door.
“Wurru,” Ras mumbled, trying to locate Dixie’s position. He attempted moving his head but waves of nausea crashed over him.
“Yoo-hoo,” Dixie said. “Next cell over. You’re lucky they’re speeding up your recovery. Took me the better part of a day before I could talk again. They haven’t been able to shut me up since.”
Ras didn’t doubt it. “Ow yuher?” Ras slurred.
“What’s that?”
Ras grunted in frustration. “How. Here.”
“Oh, that’s a horribly long story. It started about eighteen years ago when my father…”
Ras rolled his eyes, sending stars into his vision.
“Not that far back, no, of course not. What girl doesn’t want her backstory skipped over? You are a captive audience in most senses of the word, you know.”
He lolled his head to the left to see Dixie sitting on the floor in the next cell over, hugging her knees. She wore a plain gray jumpsuit. She cocked her head and wiggled her fingers at him.
“Hello!” she sa
id. “Boy, they must have run you through the wringer back there. You look like death warmed over.”
“What…they…do?” Ras asked.
“I have no idea. They’re testing us for something. I thought The Collective just sold fuel. Silly me. Oh! How I got here…my escape attempt at Derailleur didn’t go like I’d hoped, go figure. Police caught me and The Collective bought me.” She stood and walked up to the bars, resting her forehead between two of them.
“Bought?” Ras was able to flex his arms slightly.
“Well, they bought the police, and I guess The Collective needs test subjects, so what if a prisoner with no family goes missing.” She sighed. “Look at me, accidentally giving you details of my backstory. You’ll care about me yet, Erasmus Veir.”
Ras tried moving his leg and successfully swung it off the metal cot, inadvertently causing the rest of his body to awkwardly follow it to the floor. He crumpled on his side, his body awash with tingles.
“Up and at ‘em, flyboy.” Dixie cocked her head. “Did you really talk to Hal Napier? I overheard the guards making a bet and I’d love to get a piece of that action with some inside info.”
“Where’s Callie?” Ras said as he began to sit up slowly. The sensation started to subside.
“Probably still wherever they tested us, and if you wait long enough, she’ll probably wind up in the cell next to you,” she said, pointing to the empty cell behind Ras. “So, Napier. He’d have to be like five-hundred years old now, right?”
Ras eyed her. “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.” He carefully reached an arm out to the metal bar to steady himself. “I take it you’ve already tried escaping.”
Dixie laughed. “One doesn’t escape The Halifax. I just wish I had a porthole…we won a battle while you were out, but I think they’re at it again.”
“We?”
“I count anyone not a sky pirate as ‘we.’ It doesn’t mean I like The Collective,” she said, idly running her fingers along the metal bars of her cell. “You know, they aren’t the only ones fighting those sons of Lacks. Some of us wage our own private little wars.”
“Why do you hate them so much?” Ras hauled himself off the deck and sat on the cot.
“Backstory! I knew you’d come around,” she said, perking up considerably. “Well, I grew up with a bunch of wind merchants that built a city over a Convergence.”
“Crispin?”
“No, but close. Same story, same pirates. Anyway, about nine years ago—” She stopped suddenly. “Aww, c’mon!”
Six armed guards approached from down the hallway and stopped in front of Ras’ cell. They slid open the part of the door for Ras to put his hands through to be cuffed. “Foster Helios requests your presence.”
“Requests?” He stood and offered his hands. The restraints ratcheted tight, digging into his wrists.
The door slid open and Ras looked over to Dixie. “Tell him I say hi!” she said as Ras fell into formation with the six men. He wondered how much trouble people went through to have an audience with arguably the most powerful man in Atmo.
After several long corridors and one trip up a stairwell, the burning sensation wore off, leaving Ras feeling oddly refreshed.
They reached a set of guarded double doors that swung open upon Ras’ arrival to reveal a room roughly twice the size of The Brass Fox’s deck. An octagonal window running from ceiling to floor flooded the room with daylight and displayed the battle raging on outside. Ras wondered how long he had been unconscious in his cell.
From the ceiling and walls hung artifacts that would have made even the richest museum curator envious: original parts of an Elder airship, prototype sketches of blueprints for the Atmo Project, and trinkets of all sorts from history lost. Ras wondered if there was anything in the room that didn’t have ‘the first’ in its description.
Foster Helios III stood from the desk in the middle of the ornate room. With outstretched arms and a broad smile he said, “Now, now, this is not how we treat our guests. Restraints weren’t necessary.” One of the men behind Ras removed the cuffs before all but two of the guards exited the room.
“I couldn’t help but see you’ve noticed my grandfather’s collection,” Foster said, motioning for Ras to have a seat in front of his desk. “Inspiring, isn’t it? I guess when you create Atmo, you get to keep the nice things for yourself.”
Ras remained still. “You torture me and my friend and you want me to sit at your desk?”
“Torture?” Foster lifted an eyebrow. “Hardly. The Knack testing process is unpleasant, I’ll concede the point, but I assure you it leaves no permanent damage.” He smiled. “You’ll even find your wounds will heal once the effects have worn off. Marvelous process.”
“Why put us through it?”
“I can’t have a Knack ignorant of his—or her—ability accidentally blowing up half of The Halifax, now can I? A lot of Energy gets thrown around in battle,” Foster said.
“I noticed. New feature?” Ras asked.
“New war.”
“My friend and I aren’t Knacks.”
“Your concern for Miss Tourbillon is noted, but I didn’t make the rules.”
Ras scoffed. “Why did you bring me up here?”
“Erasmus, I’ll be upfront with you,” Foster said, leaning against the front of his desk. “You have done what my father spent the latter half of his life failing to achieve.”
“Cause a city to start sinking? Maybe he and I have more in common than you think,” Ras said.
“No, Erasmus,” Foster said, clearly annoyed, “you have met with Halcyon Napier and tasted the air that keeps him alive.”
The Halifax shook slightly as its weapons fired on the sky pirate fleet.
“Shouldn’t you be out on the bridge, winning the war?” Ras asked.
“This is more important, I assure you,” Foster said, walking back to Ras. “Who is the first wind merchant, and why?”
“A history quiz?”
“Humor me, and I’ll end Miss Tourbillon’s tests early upon your word that she isn’t a Knack.”
Ras narrowed his eyes. “Hal Napier, because he discovered the Origin of all Energy.”
“Exactly,” Foster said. He pressed a button on his desk. “Yeardley, end the girl’s testing.” An affirmative crackled from his unit. “Better?”
Ras nodded.
“What if I told you that you could be the most famous wind merchant of all? Even more so than Napier.”
“I can’t exactly go and discover another Origin,” Ras said.
“Can’t you?” Foster asked playfully. “You’ve already met someone eight times older than you and you’re discounting what’s possible?”
“What exactly are you proposing, Mr. Helios?” Ras asked.
“That you take the same deal my father offered your father.”
“Excuse me?”
“It doesn’t surprise me that he didn’t tell you. Publicly he was so outspoken against The Collective.”
“You’re lying.”
“He actually came to my father, telling of Hal Napier’s need for wind merchants to retrieve tankfuls of air from The Wild, then offered us the location of the source of this…fountain of youth in return for…something,” Foster said, sliding into his desk chair.
Ras finally sat. “Which was?”
“Such things were never shared with me, but I do know what I can offer.”
The battle raged on outside. Ras was amazed at how Foster didn’t even take note of it. “Do you now?”
“Yes. If you lead us into The Wild, and I’m talking about just crossing the mountains, not even trying to find the fountain of youth, or Origin, or whatever it is; I will do three things: one, I will credit you as the wind merchant that discovered the new Origin.”
“But I wouldn’t have,” Ras said.
“History has a selective memory,” Foster said, gesturing dismissively. “Two, I will install Helios engines on Verdant with a lifetime supply of
fuel.”
Ras thought the offer oddly familiar. “Whose lifetime?”
“The Collective’s,” Foster said. “And three, I’ll commission a new ship for you…how does that sound?”
“What happened to my ship?”
“You’d prefer to keep that old thing?” Foster asked. A distasteful look played across his face.
“So it wasn’t destroyed?” Ras asked.
“Goodness, no. I ensured a team extracted it before New Crispin fell.”
Ras heart sank. “I…how did it fall?”
“Sky pirates, of course.”
“You led them here.”
“And you led us here,” Foster said, folding his hands politely. “I hope this underscores the importance of what I’m after, and how willing I am to compensate those who aid me in finding it.”
Ras closed his eyes and couldn’t escape the faces of Pop, Joey, Krantz, and everyone else his father had worked so hard to save. “Then it must be incredibly, incredibly important,” he said slowly.
“I assure you, it is.”
“You’re looking for the fountain of youth?” Ras asked. He could feel himself shaking, but hoped it wasn’t visible.
“My father was. He obsessed over it later in life,” Foster said with a sigh. “I do suppose when nearing the end, one finds ways to distract oneself from the inevitable.”
“What do you think is in The Wild?”
“Well, something is keeping Napier alive, is it not?” Foster asked. “But let’s just say that from what I’ve learned, stopping at immortality is a touch…shortsighted.” He smiled a devious smile. “Ras, you have an opportunity to surpass your father. You would even travel with the safety of our numbers.” He slid open the drawer of his desk, and delicately pulled Callie’s brass orb out, placing it on the table. “My grandfather invented this.” He pointed a finger at some of the scrollwork. “It has his initials worked into the engraving here. I can only imagine it still works.”
Ras fought his instinct to swat Foster’s hand away from touching the orb. If Hal was right, Callie’s tool for completing their mission was compromised.