Wings of Equity

by Sean Kennedy

  Jazz smirked. “Does it annoy you when the shoe’s on the other foot?”

  The console speaker squawked into life. “Lilliput, we’re ready for launch.”

  “Finally,” Jazz said, and hit the speaker control. “Thanks, readying release now.” She nodded at Ezra. “Your turn.”

  He glared at her, but cranked open his window, reached up, and released the pulley. The ropes dropped to the floor outside, and the Lilliput jerked free of its restraints and headed to the sky.

  Above the panting and groaning of the engine, Jazz yelled, “Where to now, Boss?”

  Ezra shrugged laconically. “Cornelius said to follow the money.”

  “So, what, the local bank?”

  “It’s a start.”

  “It’s also probably where everybody else is looking.”

  Ezra glared at her. “Maybe everybody else didn’t have a Cornelius to point them in the right direction.”

  “And maybe that’s working to their advantage.”

  Ezra wanted to throttle her. “You have a better idea, then?”

  She flashed him a victorious smile. “Of course I do.”

  “Okay, genius, what is it?”

  “Follow the money. The money has to get to the bank somehow.”

  It was as if a whistle went off in his head. “The railroad.”

  Jazz winked at him. “I’ll lay in the course now, should I?”

  “Fine. Set a course.”

  Even the banging of her fingers on the keys sounded like a mocking anthem of triumph over him. Ezra didn’t know where his sudden fits of melancholy were springing from, but it seemed like he was just drifting at the moment, and everybody had something over him. If Jazz wasn’t his best friend, and equal business partner in every sense, he would almost take pleasure in firing her. At least if it was just him alone in the sky….

  But he knew that was the last thing he wanted. He had to shake this feeling, and it was just that tantalizing thought of the reward that would come with the capture of Icarus, allowing them to start a new phase of their lives, that kept him going.

  “Set a course,” he repeated to himself.

  THE railway that ran between Shrevesport and Waulkham Hills was the latest in high-end technology. The carriages ran above the line, held by magnetic propulsion, something that had recently been developed by Thomas Harding. Word was that he had actually “adapted” the idea from those of the poor underlings that worked for him, and now he was all the richer for it and they were all out of work. It only made Ezra more determined to find the funding for his dirigible prototypes before Harding managed to figure out their secrets.

  “A flying train,” Jazz mused as they walked to the edge of the platform and peered at the line. “What next? A flying house?”

  “Airships are already big enough. You could turn them into homes,” Ezra reminded her.

  She shrugged. “I love the skies. I don’t know if I would want to live in them all the time.”

  Ezra could say unequivocally that he could. Without even pausing to think about it.

  “I did see a story pictogram about a flying house, though. It was funny.”

  He looked at her with surprise. “You’ve seen a story pictogram?”

  “Bart got us tickets.”

  “They’re impossible to get!”

  She grinned. “Not for Bart.”

  “Nice for some,” Ezra grumbled.

  “I promise you next time we go, you can come.”

  Ezra ignored her, even though he secretly hoped that they would. Story pictograms were the latest thing, but also so pricy that only the rich could see them. Or those who managed to tag along with the rich, such as Jazz. The word had spread, however, and the public thrilled hearing about stories that were so realistically displayed that you felt they were real.

  “One man in front of us ducked when they showed a dirigible flying toward us.” Jazz chuckled at the memory.

  “They’re that good?”

  Jazz shrugged. “Bart says I’m too picky.”

  “You do always go for the best,” Ezra admitted. “Look at Lady Bart.”

  “I’ll tell her you said that.”

  “I’m sure Lady Bart already knows.”

  Jazz peered down the tracks, straining to see any sign of the impending arrival. “She always said you were a charmer.”

  Ezra’s chest puffed a little. “Really?”

  “Don’t get full of yourself, Kneebone.”

  Before he could reply, the air was cut by the scream of a whistle. Speeding above the track, its engines straining as it held the carriages in the air, the Metal Bird pulled beside the platform. Steam hissed out along the ports at the bottom of the carriages as they settled down onto the tracks themselves so the passengers could disembark.

  “Nice,” Ezra remarked.

  They were swamped by passengers on either side as they congregated around the cargo carriage. Ezra pulled Jazz aside and held onto her sleeve so he wouldn’t lose her in the crowd.

  “Let’s at least get a look at the hold,” he said closely in her ear. “See how things are stored.”

  As they moved closer, however, screams broke out from the people in front of them. The crowd turned and began to run back, and Jazz and Ezra were knocked down to the ground. Through the stampeding feet surrounding him, Ezra tried to see if she was okay, but had to cover his head with his hands to try and protect himself from injury. He could hear from some cries of pain around him that other people weren’t as lucky.

  When the stampede abated, Ezra looked up again to see Jazz sitting up only a few feet away from him. Her temple was bleeding, but she didn’t look groggy.

  “What the blazes was that?” she demanded.

  Ezra stumbled onto his feet. “No idea.”

  He offered her a hand up but as he expected she refused, choosing to get up of her own accord. The door to the cargo carriage stood open, but as Ezra approached it, there was a hubbub from some of the people remaining on the platform.

  “There he is again!”

  There was the sound of a small engine—a mere mosquito compared even to the Lilliput, let alone any larger dirigibles. The glare of the sun made him shield his eyes, but he managed to pinpoint the source of the noise. Peering out from under his hand he finally captured his first sight of Icarus.

  A trail of smoke followed the outlaw as he flew above the passengers on the platform, who ducked as one entity in fear he would hit them. He pulled on a strap at his hips, and the wings folded behind his shoulder blades so that he could land in one easy motion. With the engine still running, he turned to look at the people behind him.

  Ezra’s breath caught in his throat. Even if you took away the high style of his entrance, the man was a stunner no matter which way you looked at him. His torso was bare and smooth, except for a fine vein of hair that ran from his navel to the waist of his miner’s jeans. There was a golden burnish to it as if he had been kissed by the sun, which stood to reason seeing he flew so close to it, like his namesake. Leather straps crossed over his chest, running around to the wings on his back. Folded the way they were at the moment, they did not look as magnificent, but Ezra could already tell they were a beauty of engineering.

  Jazz’s hand went to the gun on her hip, and Ezra shot out his own to stop her.

  “What are you doing?” she protested.

  “Just wait.”

  She fumed, and he could tell she was trying to figure out what the hell he was up to now. And truth be told, Ezra had no idea.

  Icarus disappeared into the cargo hold and just as quickly returned with bags that he was already fastening to the belt of his jeans. Ezra could tell that they were government issued, and the way they bulged, there must be thousands of dollars in notes in each one.

  “Halt!” cried out a guard as he ran out onto the platform.

  Now, where was he earlier? Ezra thought.

  Icarus grinned, and Ezra was struck dumb again. This was the grin of an extremel
y confident man who knew what he was doing and had no intention of getting caught.

  With one quick flick of his wrist, Icarus’s wings unfolded as he ran along the platform. With a leap, he was in the air and rapidly becoming a mere speck in the sky above. One woman waved her fan vigorously and then fainted dead away on the platform.

  “We could’ve had him, Kneebone!” Jazz hissed.

  “Let’s get going,” Ezra said.

  While the passengers were still collecting themselves, Ezra and Jazz melted away in search of their airship.

  “SERIOUSLY, what was going on there?” Jazz asked as they launched, having been unable to get any word out of him while they prepared for flight.

  “You saw what I did. Icarus appeared, took money, and flew off again.”

  “I don’t mean that. I mean what was going on with you.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Do I have to remind you this was all your idea?”

  “Why do you have to remind me?”

  Jazz pumped the throttle, keeping her eyes on the sky ahead of them for any sign of their quarry. “Because you were the one who set us on this goose chase for the sake of not having to take a loan from Bart. You’re the reason we’re doing this! And then when he was right in front of us, you did nothing about it!”

  “I wanted to see what he was doing.”

  “We know what he’s doing!”

  “Just fly the damn ship, Jazz.”

  “You fly it,” she said threateningly.

  He shot her a look, and paled as she let go of the controls.

  The Lilliput plunged immediately, the air screaming against them in full voice. Ezra was pretty sure his stomach was still hundreds of clicks in the sky above them, but he fought his way over to the controls and yanked on them to try and bring the ship back up. Jazz sat back, her arms folded. Even in chaos, she looked calm and unrepentant.

  His hands slipped on the yoke as he fought to bring them back to gravity; he was pretty sure his sweat was defying all laws as it flew up from him instead of down. Gradually he felt the pressure around them lessen, and the yoke became easier to manipulate as the Lilliput righted itself and resumed its normal flight pattern.

  Instantly he turned on Jazz. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  Her eyes were fierce, although her stance remained relaxed. “Just trying to scare some sense back into you, is all.”

  “Of all the wrong-headed—”

  “Boss—”

  “—imbecilic—”

  “Boss—”

  “—borderline retarded—”

  “Seriously, Kneebone—”

  “—no, not even borderline, I’m talking fully crossed-the-line—”

  “Boss!”

  He finally stopped his offensive rant, and glared at her. “What?”

  Lost for words at his inability to see the forest for the trees, she leaned in, grabbed his face by the cheeks and savagely twisted his head around so he was looking out through the cockpit window. “See?”

  Icarus was flying ahead of them, little more than a dust speck on the window. It was his flying that gave him away—too controlled and less organic than a real bird.

  “Oh,” Ezra said softly.

  Jazz flipped her goggles back over her eyes and grimly took control of the ship again. “This time we’re catching him, right?”

  Ezra shook his head to clear the cobwebs. “Right.”

  Jazz threw them into another gear and the distance between them and their prey began to decrease.

  “Can you smell that money, Jazz?” Ezra crowed. “It smells good, doesn’t it?”

  Jazz sniffed. “All I can smell is your body odor, Kneebone.”

  “That hurts, Jazz, that really does. After all, I did bathe this morning.”

  “Not enough, apparently.”

  “Just because you have access to all the Lady Bart’s fancy powders and tonics—”

  “Wouldn’t hurt you to buy some. You know, the ones made for menfolk. Maybe that’s why you’re single.”

  “You are really trying to wound me, ain’t you?”

  “It keeps you focused,” Jazille said through gritted teeth as the figure of Icarus became more discernible. “Have you given any thought to how we are going to catch him? Did you make a net?”

  He knew she was teasing him. “We’re going to follow him home, Jazz. And take him out quiet-like. I have some tranqs.”

  She shook her head slightly. “Remind me to stay away from you with that thing. Your aim will probably get me, and I’m not trusting you to fly us home with me out of commission.”

  Ezra opened his mouth to argue with her, but at that moment, the Lilliput was rammed from behind, and he almost spilled out of his seat. An alarm began ringing from the comms system, and Ezra quickly began checking the sensors on the control panel.

  “There’s another ship behind us,” he reported.

  “Really? Is that what it was?” Jazz asked sardonically. “I thought it was a flock of geese.”

  Ezra ignored her. “It’s at least four times our size. Egret class.”

  “They’re not mucking around.”

  “I have a fair idea who it could be too,” Ezra said grimly. He’d know the Bubulcus anywhere.

  Jazille answered for him. “Harding.”

  “You got it—” Ezra managed to say before they were rammed again.

  This time the alarm took its shrieking a higher decibel, and both of them frowned as a trail of black smoke appeared at the driver’s window.

  “Engine four is gone,” Jazz said.

  “Keep flying. We can’t lose Icarus.”

  “We’re not going to last for long if they take out another one of our engines!”

  Ezra reached behind him and activated a smaller console. “Opening gun ports.”

  Jazz looked behind them wildly. “Are you sure you want to do that, Kneebone?”

  “We’re being attacked!”

  “I know we are! But who’s going to believe us if we take out Harding? He owns half the city!”

  “We just can’t let him take us out of the sky!”

  Jazz bit her lip, and conceded. “You’re the captain, Boss.”

  Ezra nodded grimly. “Firing.”

  He hit the button, watching the console carefully. The graphic showed the bullets raking off the side of the enemy dirigible.

  “Dammit!”

  “Evasive maneuvering,” Jazz said, and Ezra felt the Lilliput lurch to the left.

  “They’re coming around us!”

  “They’re faster than us too.”

  “Obviously we have to work that into the next prototype,” Ezra said through gritted teeth.

  “I’ll remember that. In fact, wasn’t it you who said we were faster?”

  “I said our next prototype would be faster,” he argued, although he now couldn’t even remember what he said.

  There was the grinding of metal on metal as Harding’s craft appeared on the port side. Ezra could see Harding in the captain’s seat—even though his face was almost fully covered by his cap and goggles, Ezra was sure he could see a deranged grin at the damage he was causing to the smaller Lilliput.

  And then abruptly, with the throwing of sparks, Harding’s ship disappeared from his sight. Ezra poured over the graphics console, and realized that Harding was now above them.

  “What the hell is he doing?”

  It was a rhetorical question that Jazz didn’t need to reply to. Because they both knew Harding was aiming to put them out of the sky and have Icarus all for himself.

  His eyes glued to the screen, Ezra yelled out, “Here he comes again!”

  Jazz’s grip tightened on the controls. “Trying to get the hell out of his way.”

  “Hold on!”

  The Lilliput was forcibly shoved aside, as if the Hand of God itself had come down to do so. However, as Harding’s ship tried to move away to ram them again, it became apparent that they had somehow gotten caught together. Both
ships’ engines screamed as they were taken to the limit with the extra weight.

  “It’s gonna blow if we go on for this much longer!” Jazz yelled.

  “I know!”

  The Lilliput lurched as Jazz tried to shake them free, and Ezra could see out the window that Harding was pulling away in the opposite direction to try and do the same.

  “Once we reach ground again, I’m going to kill him!” Jazz declared.

  “Get in line,” Ezra growled.

  Harding’s ship finally wrenched away, but with it came the door from the port side of the Lilliput. Air rushed into the cockpit, and before he even knew what was happening, Ezra was sucked out of his seat and fell into the empty sky below them.

  Chapter 8

  EZRA was dimly aware that the relative stability of his seat was no longer under him, and the rapidly receding cry of his name from Jazz made him realize that he was no longer in the same space as her.

  Freefalling was relatively peaceful, it seemed. A mental haze had settled around him like a comfortable blanket, and the ground seemed so far away that it was as if he would never reach it and would keep falling forever. Maybe it would be better that way; it was certainly more preferable to thinking about what his body would look like once he slammed into the earth below.

  He closed his eyes and wondered if it would hurt. Or would death claim him so quickly the pain wouldn’t even register before all sense was snuffed out of him?

  So this is what it all comes down to, he thought. Just make it quick.

  He opened his eyes again. If he was going to die, he was going to face death head-on and look him in the eye as he was taken.

  The beauty of the desert landscape welcomed him as he continued falling toward it.

  And then, a little distance below him, something flew into his vision. Except instead of continuing on its course, it seemed to hover, as if waiting for him.

  It’s Death himself, a giddy part of his brain thought. This is it!

  And Death began flying toward him for its claim.

  But as the angel of mercy got closer, Ezra thought his heart was going to hammer out of his chest.

  It was Icarus.

  With a dull thud, they collided, and then Ezra was in Icarus’s arms. His body was aching from the impact, and he fought to catch his breath back as it seemed to have been knocked out of him. He lifted his head, his vision blurry, and looked into the dark blue eyes of Icarus himself.