by Ryan Dunlap
Zipping through the forest on the jetcycle was far more manageable than he had expected, and after only a few close calls with low-hanging branches, Ras gained a feel for flying the persnickety vehicle.
Judging by the speedometer, they were heading at a good clip toward the town. Callie kept an eye out for Dixie or any party of travelers that might have collected her, allowing Ras to focus on not killing them both. Dixie was nowhere to be seen, but keeping an eye on the tracks at that speed was near impossible.
Within twenty minutes they reached the edge of the forest and disembarked, covering the jetcycle with a mix of shrubs and downed branches which did little more than make it obvious that something was hidden underneath.
The town itself was surrounded by a dozen giant metal obelisks. The structures towered several hundred feet high.
“Did Remnants build these?” Ras asked.
Callie shook her head. “They’re older than the Atmo Project. Helios invented these pylons to keep the cities safe.” Callie said, nearing the tower and inclining her ear to the hum and crackle emanating from it. “It’s still active.”
“What are you talking about?”
“This was a stop-gap after the Knacks blew,” she said. “Energy can’t pass in or out of these fields. It kept people safe inside from Convergences.”
“How did people travel between cities?” Ras asked.
“They didn’t. The field would detonate a Knack passing through. Nobody wanted to find out if they were a candidate for joining a Convergence,” Callie said.
“Hence the Atmo Project.”
“Exactly,” she said, “I just wish I knew what town this was.”
“So, Remnants won’t be inside, right?” Ras asked.
“Not unless they’re willing to risk blowing up.”
“Suddenly this town seems a lot more appealing.”
“But that means Dixie won’t be inside,” Callie said.
“We’ll cover a lot more ground with a working ship,” he said and walked up to the crackling pillar.
“What if it doesn’t discriminate between Energy and Time Knacks?” Callie asked. “I didn’t bring Hal’s sphere.”
“I’m pretty sure I don’t actually need that to move around if you overload,” Ras said. “It’s probably the only useful side effect of being a Lack.” He walked past the pillar casually and turned to see Callie still standing on the other side.
“Don’t call yourself that. You’re special. You’ve always taken my headaches away…I just never told you because I didn’t want you to feel pressured into being near me all the time.” She met his eye. “I don’t want you to feel obligated.”
“I promised I’d keep you safe.”
“I made you promise.”
“I could have said no,” Ras said.
“Would you have said no if you knew what we are?”
“What exactly are we?”
“A matched set.”
Ras smiled. “I guess I thought that before we left Verdant.” A pause. He walked past the pillar again to Callie and offered his hand.
She placed her small hand in his and stood near him. Inhaling sharply, she began walking forward with her breath held. As they passed through the field together, Ras felt tingles coursing through his body that he hadn’t felt when passing through alone.
A quick expulsion of air from Callie panicked Ras until the laughter tickled his ears. He looked over to her and began laughing heartily, as Callie’s red hair was standing on end in every direction. Ras tried to stop laughing. “I’m sorry, but your hair.”
“My hair? Your hair!” she said, trying to smooth her own mane.
Ras patted his head to find that going through the gate with her left him with the same treatment.
“It didn’t do that the first time…” The laughing hurt, but oddly enough Ras appreciated the moment of levity more for it.
The laughter died down, and Ras and Callie just smiled at each other. She quirked her mouth and squeezed his hand gently. “I’m sorry I read your letter,” she said.
“It’s all right,” Ras said. He loosened his grip on her hand, but it remained attached to his. He looked down at their clasped hands. “We’re through the field now. You know you don’t have to keep holding my hand.”
“Right, but we’re also closer to The Wild. The headaches start faster if I get too far away from you,” Callie said.
Ras fought disappointment. “Well, squeeze tight if you see anything.”
They continued down the broken road, passing grown-over farms along the way before reaching the wreckage of the crumbled city. Half-fallen buildings lined the path, their debris strewn everywhere. A large sign, faded from time and neglect, welcomed and warned them.
It read: The Township of Bogues.
“Now might be a really good time to tell me what was in The Demons of Bogues,” Ras said.
“Not Elders. I skimmed it,” Callie said, a smile growing. “I don’t even know where to begin…”
“What now?”
“Ras, the first Convergence was either made here or came here after The Battle of Bogues. Look,” she said, pointing past the decrepit buildings to a more modest set of thatched-roof cottages, “They rebuilt after the Great Overload.”
“But Bogues wasn’t one of Atmo’s twenty-one cities,” Ras said, “So, what happened to the people that stayed inside the pylons?”
Callie stopped, jerking Ras’ arm back. “Then people might be in those cottages.” She held a hand over her mouth. “And they might know what happened.”
“And they might be inbred cannibals.”
“That’s hardly a sustainable system,” Callie said.
“I can’t imagine a flying city falling on them left a sizable population,” Ras said, “How about if we see someone and they don’t look like they want to eat us, we’ll stop and chat?”
As they continued down the path, the fallen city loomed larger, canted at a slight angle.
“Can we at least check inside one of the huts?”
Ras took a deep breath. “Real quick.” He drew his wrench from his holster as they approached one of the small buildings. The cottages pocked the land in no particular pattern, and looked unkempt as far as Ras could discern.
Callie stepped up to the door and raised her hand to knock before looking at Ras, then the wrench. “Let’s not scare them.”
“I think strangers talking outside their front door already takes care of that,” Ras said. He holstered the wrench and gestured for Callie to continue.
Upon Callie’s first knock, the flimsy wooden door creaked open. Callie peeked her head in, then recoiled back with a retch before falling to her hands and knees away from the door.
“What is it?” Ras asked before he saw the remains inside. “Oh.” With a foot, he pushed the door further open, shining daylight on a family of skeletons in tattered clothing.
“I’m sorry,” Callie said, reaching for Ras to help her up.
Ras held her close and quickly walked away from the cottage. “I’m no doctor, but I’m going to say they’re dead.”
She pulled away, “Ras, those were people with family, and stories, and…” She sighed. “And now they’re going to be in my nightmares, and I’m never going to find out why the Overload happened.” She fought her irregular breathing with a quick inhale. “Let’s just get the parts.”
Standing under the shadow of the crashed city’s lip, Ras estimated the crater left at least thirty sub-levels exposed. A shelf eight feet above them held an open door that looked promising.
“I’ll give you a leg up,” Ras said, squatting down for Callie to step on his thigh. She steadied herself on some exposed pipe and as soon as she no longer needed his support, he climbed up the wrecked machinery to the ledge.
Pulling himself up next to Callie, he rested for a moment. “Are you all right to go in?” Ras asked.
“As I’ll ever be,” she said before disappearing into the black maw of the doorway.
“New rule: always bring a flashlight,” said Callie.
“Good rule,” Ras said, using the wall to half support himself along the angled hallway.
“So where’s the most likely place to find what we need? Up top in the abandoned city?” Callie asked hopefully.
“I wish. Any engine parts are going to be salvaged from below.” He patted the wall, causing a metallic echo. In the distance, a small green light grew, illuminating the long corridor. They froze. It faded, then pulsed back, continually repeating the pattern.
“Emergency system. We must have tripped a sensor,” said Ras.
“You say that like it’s a good thing.”
“Seeing our way around is usually a positive.” The dead city unnerved Ras more than he was willing to admit. It was one thing to compare the fallen city to Verdant from the outside, but another thing entirely to have an identical interior. For all the familiarity of The Engine garnered from his short stint in Verdant’s underbelly, he might as well have been walking the dead halls of his hometown. “But if this place still has emergency systems, it still has scoops.”
They came to a fork in the corridor and Ras instinctively chose the left path, which pointed slightly downward. “So if The Demons of Bogues didn’t have Elders in it, what did it have?”
“The usual. The boogeyman under the bed with green eyes that ate children if they didn’t sing the right song,” Callie said.
“How did the song go?”
“I didn’t memorize it.”
“Don’t give me that,” Ras said with a chuckle, “You memorize practically everything.”
“I really don’t feel like singing right now.”
They approached an old elevator shaft. Green lights blinked down it, lighting it enough to show that if it had been vertical, it would have been a good three-hundred foot drop. Thankfully, it sat at an angle that would have made for the biggest playground slide ever.
Ras swapped out the grapple spike with a magnet charge on his grapple gun, then placed the magnet against the wall next to the elevator entrance instead of firing a charge. He spooled out some thick cable and tested his weight against it. The quality was far superior to anything he had ever stocked the grappler with before. “Mr. Helios didn’t skimp on his displays,” he muttered to himself. He looked up at Callie. “Climb onto my back.”
“It’ll hold two of us?”
“More than that. Not all wind merchants make exercise a priority.” He turned for her to ease onto his back.
She stood on her tiptoes and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, her breath warm against his skin. “Ready.”
He swung out into the empty shaft, and one foot after the other, slowly began his descent alongside a long set of metal rungs. They looked to be a feasible alternative to the grapple gun, but Ras preferred to have the cable as a lifeline and a means to haul up parts.
A few odd noises clanked about high above them. Ras glanced up to see that the shaft went up at least another fifty stories.
“Emergency system, right?” Callie asked, tightening her grip ever so slightly.
“Yeah.” They came to another open elevator doorway one floor down. “Hang on.” Ras swung to the side a little, walking alongside the open entrance. In the corner of his eye he saw a blur of motion in the corridor as they descended. He decided it was just his fear playing tricks on his eyes and put it out of his mind until Callie’s arms tightened to a chokehold.
“Ras!”
“I saw it,” he said.
“It? Them!” She pointed upward. Pairs of glowing green eyes stared down from the open elevator shaft doors, including the one they had entered. There were dozens of glowing sets of eyes, with more appearing by the moment from above and below.
“P-please, don’t hurt us,” Callie said.
The eyes merely watched.
The cable began vibrating, alerting Ras to a creature above them that was starting to use some sort of tool on their cable.
“No, no, no let’s talk this out, huh?” Ras called up. It continued hacking at the cable. “Callie, I’m going to swing us over to the rungs—”
The cable snapped, sending them sliding down the wall of the shaft at an alarming rate. Callie’s screams pierced Ras’ ears, making it difficult to focus. The rungs along the wall of the shaft sped by, and he made a grab for one but accomplished little more than repeatedly bashing his hand.
Ras passed by a dozen or so elevator entrances before he looked down to see less than a dozen left before they would meet some nasty looking machinery waiting to stop their fall.
He tried to maneuver his right hand over to load another grapple charge, but in the process accidentally knocked his elbow on another set of rungs. The continuing slide caused his stomach and thighs to burn madly from the friction.
Another doorway flew by.
Seconds left.
Ras twisted his body, pulling Callie above him to shield her from the machinery awaiting them below.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“Just close your eyes,” Ras said, embracing her. He didn’t know if she would survive either, but he would give her the best possible chance.
Something pried his left arm off of her, slamming it against the metal shaft so that it screeched a horrific symphony as sparks showered down the hole. His arm and shoulder burned as they dragged along the rough wall. Ras squinted to see what had happened.
The placeholders for extra magnets atop the grapple gun, which Ras had never been able to afford to fill, had drawn close enough to the wall to pin his arm against the shaft.
The quick shift in momentum left Callie dangling from around his neck, facing him as they continued to careen down level after level. The magnet holder eroded away, slowing their descent until they stopped with just one elevator entrance above the floor.
“You’re smoking,” Callie said, arms trembling but still holding tight.
Before he could address his friction-burns, Ras swung his body as best he could, reaching his right arm over to the set of metal rungs. “I think this is your stop,” he said.
Callie reached over, taking the pressure off of Ras, who focused on prying his arm free from the grapple gun without falling the remainder of the way.
“I think I’m stuck,” Ras said. He noticed a couple of silhouetted figures climbing up from the bottom level to grab Callie. She screamed in surprise and began kicking down, striking one of the figures in the face. One of the glowing green eyes cracked and winked out.
“Leave her alone!” Ras shouted.
More green-eyed figures appeared at the open elevator doors above her. Ras worked his wrench free from the holster, tossed it to her, then returned to untying the grapple gun straps.
Callie climbed above him. Suddenly the half dozen straps that ensured his safety were his prison. Two down, four to go.
A loud beeping noise began emanating through the shaft as machinery whirred to life all around. The express-elevator cables began moving at a rapid rate. Pairs of green eyes disappeared as the hot, dank air moved through the shaft.
“What is that?” Callie asked, watching her pursuers flee back through the open doorway.
“They’re trying to crush us!” Ras had the third strap undone and began jerking his arm to save time. He offered his right arm to Callie. “Pull me free!”
She looped an arm through a rung and clasped his hand, then pulled with everything in her. Ras was slowly coming loose from the straps around his elbow when he saw the elevator screaming down at them. They had moments left.
Putting his feet up against the wall, he gave one last ditch yank to pull free. Slipping out of the grapple gun, he swung tenuously on Callie’s grip as the elevator neared.
“Ras!”
He fell the last ten feet, landing hard on his back next to some of the sharp bits of metal. He watched Call
ie barely dive out of the way of the rushing machine and into the open doors of the bottom floor entrance.
As the elevator came down upon him, all went black.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Doctor
The worst part for Ras wasn’t being trapped in a small, greasy encasement with a burned arm, nor was it being alone. No, the worst part was not knowing where Callie was, and there was precious little he could do.
Ras ran his hands in front of him, feeling a metal ceiling several inches from his nose, then a sharp tug of metal caught his hand. He felt the warmth of blood in his palm, causing him to recoil and knock his begoggled forehead against the elevator with a thud.
“I think he survived!” an old voice said. “Young man, did you survive?”
Ras almost demanded where Callie was, but he still held out hope they might leave him for dead, giving him an opportunity to escape.
“Young sir, I am leaving this machine here until you’re ready to speak.” A pause. “I can wait. I even have a comfy chair!”
The musty air tickled Ras’ nose, and he fought valiantly to suppress a sneeze. He failed. The sneeze shook his body, and his forehead once again struck the elevator.
“Bless you!” the old voice said. “Would you be in need of a kerchief?” The voice seemed willing enough to please.
“Wouldn’t you need to lift the elevator?” Ras asked.
“He speaks!” A panel opened in front of Ras’ face and a white kerchief floated down, obscuring Ras’ view before he could see who dropped it. “And no, I don’t.”
“Thank you, I think.”
“You are most welcome,” the man said, his voice once again muffled, “Now, what are you doing in my city?”
“Right now I’m lying underneath an elevator, wondering if my friend is all right.” He wondered how one could own a fallen city.
“The girl? She took a spill but is being seen to, I’m told.”
“Who am I speaking with?” Ras asked.
“I’m afraid it is ‘with whom am I speaking?’ You mustn’t end a sentence with a preposition. That is something up with which I shall not put.” He giggled.