by S A Shaffer
“David!” his father yelled. “Get the life-balloons. I’ll get your mother.”
David looked at his father for a split second before he comprehended the crisis. The yacht was already falling. They had seconds to abandon ship before they crashed.
“David!” Father shouted again.
The second call spurred him to motion. David ran to a storage cubby and threw open the lid. He felt his stomach drop.
It was empty.
“No! No no, they’re not here, Father!”
“Did you put them there like I asked you?” his father asked as he hauled his wife over to David.
“I … I know I put them here. I know I did!” David said.
“Never mind that now. To the stern, quick now!” Father said.
The ship rocked violently as it pitched back and forth, its glide turning into a plummet. The three of them staggered toward the stern of the little vessel, and David’s father tore the lid off a storage cubby where they kept an emergency life-balloon—one emergency life-balloon. His father didn’t waste an instant. He spun David around and fastened the restraints to his shoulders. Then he took a length of rope and tied David’s mother to the restraints.
“David!” Mother said. “What are you doing? I’m staying here with you. I won’t risk our son’s life for my own. Stop!”
“It’s strong enough to hold you both, Marguerite,” Father said as he finished the knot. “We don’t have time.” David’s father wrapped his arms around them both, squeezed them together, and whispered in their ears, “I love you both with all my life.” Then he picked them up and threw them off the back of the ship.
Time slowed down as David watched his father grip the railing, shoulders square and silent tears rolling down his cheeks, yet a content purse to his lips. He looked every bit the great man he was—a man unafraid of death and ready to meet his Maker. Pain wrenched David’s heart as the doomed airship careened out of control and exploded against the cliff face, disintegrating man and vessel into fire and ash.
David flailed for a moment until his wits returned to him. He could hear his mother’s wailing over the top of the air whistling in his ears. He had to inflate their life-balloon. They were falling dangerously close to the cliff, and any one of the many outcroppings could dash them to pieces. He reached for the package dangling on the end of the cable. It wasn’t as easy as he remembered in training, especially not with another person tied to the restraints. He checked to make sure the cable wasn’t around his neck, and then he pulled the tabs on the package. A small balloon flash-inflated and bobbed above him. At the same time he felt the most excruciating pain shoot down his arm. The cable had wrapped around it in the fall and now constricted his bicep. He cried out in pain and looked up at their life-balloon. It was slowing them down, but not nearly as fast as it should. The combined weight of David and his mother was taxing the capability of the balloon. His mother noticed the problem and began untying herself from the restraints.
“Mother, no!” David said, pushing her hand away from the knot.
“Let me go, David,” she said. “We aren’t slowing fast enough. I won’t trade your life for mine.”
But David wrapped his legs around his mother and held her close. “I won’t lose you too!” he said through gritted teeth. The pain in his arm had subsided some. In fact he wasn’t sure he could feel it at all now.
His mother resisted a little, but then gave up and hugged him close. “It’s going to be alright, David. I promise.”
David looked one last time at the rapidly approaching ground, then he shut his eyes … and all went black.
When he opened them, he was in his apartment, his steam clock whistling beside him. Tears flowed down his face, soaking his pillow. He’d had the dream again—worse than any nightmare, because it was true, and when he awoke, the pain remained.
“I put the life-balloons in the cubby. I know I did,” David said as still more tears flowed.
He rolled off his couch and forced his complaining limbs to function, his ruined leg buckling and his mechanical arm slouching his shoulders. Switching on the light, he bent down and retrieved a small box from under the couch. He placed it on the covers and opened it with a trembling hand. He pulled out the first item: a photograph of his mother and father. They were kissing in front of a sunset. They were always kissing, back when his father was still alive. David used to hate it, but now he’d give anything to see them kissing again. He set the photo aside with reverence and pulled out the next item: a lump of tattered rag wrapped around a hard object. Unrolling the rag, he grabbed the familiar grip of his father’s triple-barreled revolver, still first in its class. David sniffed away some tears as he rubbed the sleek metal and fiddled with one of the cylinders. Then he reached in the box and pulled out a letter with the academy crest emblazoned across the top, the lines burning into his already watery eyes:
Cadet Ike,
Due to your recent and unfortunate accident, we are medically discharging you from the Officers Academy and releasing you from all commitments to the Houselands Armada. Your country thanks you for the service already rendered.
Sincerely,
Commandant Cripton
Everything in him wanted to crumple the letter up into a wad and throw it across the room, but the same burning in his heart also kept him from such action. He folded the letter up and placed it on top of the gun. Then he reached in and pulled the last item out of the box, another photograph.
It was his first event at the academy—the annual academy skiff race. In it he posed in uniform with two others. On one side his father, David Ike II, stood with an arm around David’s shoulders. On his other side stood a tall, stately gentleman with white hair and a wide mustache, a man who died of a broken heart not three weeks after David’s father. Admiral David Ike, hero of the Protectorate War, smiled with his son and grandson, ushering in the family’s third generation of Alönian armada officers.
It was some time before David could calm himself enough to get his mother up and sit her in the living room where she could see the sun, if it dared to make an appearance in the midst of Swollock Season. She looked so different now than she did in his dreams. Her body was failing, slowly. While she used to look barely older than David, now she looked like she could be his grandmother.
Several minutes later David took a deep breath of the humid air as he walked to the train, washing away all his pain. The past was the past, and he had the future to concern himself with. He swung by the post office and picked up the mail, having forgotten it the day before, and caught the train only moments before it left. Things were going to be so much easier when the airship transportation facility was operational.
Construction rumbled along at the site. A little more than two weeks after Blythe’s grand speech, Beldon Construction had laid the foundation for the transportation facility, and gutted Linden Airsail in preparation for Public Pharmaceuticals. As they neared five weeks, the transportation facility looked like a steel crossword puzzle. Another six weeks and the first airship ever would make port at the Third District, ferrying in people to the shiny new Public Pharmaceuticals facility.
David glanced through his mail, pausing when he noticed a letter with a Linden Lodgings crest. He popped the seal as he stuffed the others letters into his satchel, but choked on his own spit once he’d read the letter’s content:
Dear Mr. Ike,
Due to recent developments in the industrial sector, apartment rentals are in high demand. As such, there will be a significant increase in rent beginning next month and continuing indefinitely. Please be informed monthly rent will amount to: 149 sterling.
LL Management
26th Day of Swollock Season
David gawked at the letter. That was double the previous rate. There was no way he could afford that, not even on his new salary. And there certainly was no way he could continue supporting Ella’s rent. His mother would be all alone during the day—no one to feed her, no one to wash her.
David crinkled the paper in his hand. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. He was an aide to the Third District, but rather than rising to the top, David felt squeezed out of the bottom. He fumed all the way to the office.
He was early, as usual, but Mercy was still there before him. That was four weeks running … four weeks since Paula died … four weeks since they’d hired all new staff.
“Good morning, David,” Mercy said with a pleasant smile.
“Morning, Mercy,” David answered, doing his best to look at her eyes and not her exquisite dress. It was white this time, with a red sash—always something red with her.
She eyed him. “You look a bit flustered. Is everything alright?”
“You don’t miss much,” David said. “My rent just doubled. I might have to move, but I don’t know where yet.”
“David, that’s awful. I’m so sorry,” Mercy said, eyebrows knit. “If you live in the Third’s industrial sector, everything’s likely to get more expensive due to the recent commerce.”
David pursed his lips and nodded. “I know, but I didn’t think it would happen so soon.”
At that moment Blythe opened his office doors. “David, Mercy, with me.”
David dropped his satchel onto his desk and followed Mercy into the office, shutting the doors behind him.
“We have a long day ahead of us, but first … some tea,” Blythe said as he carried a tray over from the corner, walking across the glass floor and the thick carpet of golden clouds fifty fathoms below it. “How has your morning been, Mercy?”
“Very fine, sir.”
“Excellent, and you, David? How’s your mom?”
“She’s managing, sir, but it appears we’ll have to move.” David hoped his voice didn’t sound too agitated.
“Really? Why on earth would you do that?” Blythe asked. “You’re right next to the future transportation facility.”
“Precisely. Rent just doubled,” David said, trying to keep the venom out of his words.
“Doubled?” Blythe asked, eyes wide.
“Doubled, sir.”
Blythe’s mouth worked for a moment before he slammed his tea down on the desk, causing a bit of it to slosh over some papers. “Doubled! Those greedy, no-good bastards! Oh … pardon me, Mercy. But, David, you can’t afford that, not with your mother to take care of.”
“Quite right, sir,” David said. “We’ll manage, though. I’ll find another apartment.”
“You will not,” Blythe said. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”
“Sir, don’t trouble—” David started to say, but Blythe cut him off with a flourish of his right hand as he picked up his phonograph.
“Yes, Operator? Get me the manager of Linden Lodgings.”
David glanced over at Mercy, but she appeared as perplexed he was. A moment later the phonograph’s steam projection wavered into the form of a gangly man, his face as narrow as a weasel.
“Are you the manager of Linden Lodgings?” Blythe asked even before the steam projector could finish solidifying.
“I am. Who the devil are you?”
“William Jefferson Blythe IV, Representative of the Third District.”
“Oh, do forgive me, sir. I didn’t, um, recognize you. My steam projector is getting a bit old, and—”
“Did you just double rent for your apartments?” Blythe interrupted.
“Well, yes, times being what they are …” The manager uttered a nervous chuckle. “Big things are happening here in the Third—”
“My aide lives in your apartment,” Blythe said, interrupting him yet again. “Did you know that?”
“Um … uh, well, no, sir. I had no idea. The owner—”
“Well he does, and I didn’t spend all this time and effort to make big things happen in the Third so sniveling apartment managers could starve my employees right out of their homes. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir, of course, sir, but the owner—”
“Good. I want you to stop this foolishness. David Ike’s rent will be reduced at once.”
“Absolutely, sir,” the manager said, practically slobbering out the words. “But, sir, I do not mean to be obstinate, but we in fact have three David Ikes in residence here. To which one are you referring?”
David groaned and rested his head in his hands. “The one on the seventh floor,” he said.
“Did you hear that?” Blythe asked the manager. “The one on the seventh floor.”
“Yes, sir, I see him here in my records. His rent will be reduced at once. We are so terribly sorry for this inconvenience and we want you to know that we have nothing but the greatest possible respe—”
“Good, see that it gets done,” Blythe said before closing the line.
“Mr. Blythe,” David said, looking up from his hands with a wide smile, “I don’t know what to say.”
“Nothing, David. You don’t have to say anything, because I’m not done yet. What is the current state of your mother?”
“She’s … immobile, sir,” David said, puzzling at the question. “Airship accident a few cycles back.”
Blythe nodded as he wrote something down on a slip of paper. “I want you to file this today with the house clerk,” he said as he finished writing and then handed the slip to David. “It’s an application for a nonprofit to support victims of airship accidents. I have a fundraiser tomorrow night. I’ll introduce the nonprofit and see if we can’t get some donations to help pay for your mother’s medical bills.”
“Sir,” David said as he took the paper, eyes watering. “I … I don’t know what to say. It’s more than I could ever ask for.”
He glanced over at Mercy again. She favored him with a warm smile. Then he hid his face in shame as a few tears lined his cheeks.
“David, again, you don’t have to say anything,” Blythe said. “I require nothing for my friendship. Part of friendship is love, and part of love is caring for the needs of others. I don’t want anything from you but a smile.”
David wiped a sleeve across his face and nodded.
“Now,” Blythe said, “I have a task for you two. Next week we are dining with Don Johnson, manager of Public Pharmaceuticals. Both of you are coming, as well as my wife and one of Johnson’s assistants. I want it to be at the nicest restaurant in Capital City. I want them to serve Johnson’s favorite food, which, you will soon discover, is a big deal to him. Technically speaking, we do not need Johnson’s cooperation with us in order to move Public Pharmaceuticals, but it would sure make the transition smoother if we had it. This dinner must be a hit. Do you understand what I’m asking?”
“Yes, sir,” David and Mercy said in unison.
As the two of them walked out of the office, David felt energetic, eager to start a hard day’s work, but when he saw Samantha sitting primly at her desk in her latest seductive outfit, he struggled to hold back a frown. How she had managed to fill Paula’s secretarial position, David did not know. Apparently, on top of her first-class letters of recommendation, her father was also a prominent admiral in the Houselands armada, a valuable ally.
The new staff wasn’t all bad news, though. In addition to Samantha, Blythe had hired assistant aides, one each for David and Mercy. David’s assistant, Bethany, was as brainless as an overripe gourd and wholly smitten with Blythe, though nowhere near as sensual as Samantha. When Blythe asked David which applicant he would prefer working with, David picked Bethany, as she was one of the only applicants not exposing herself in some fashion—and she was too stupid to be a political spy. She would be next to no help at all—after two weeks she still couldn’t figure out how to make tea—but David preferred to work alone anyway.
“Samantha,” Blythe called through the still open doors, “I need you in my office, if you would.”
“Right away, sir,” Samantha said primly, standing with a haughty look and stepping into the office.
Mercy’s assistant, on the other hand, was quite the opposite of Bethany. Francisco Martin Duran was in his
thirties and silent as a lamb. He had a very odd mechanical eye that swiveled on its own accord and rarely in time with his good eye. David could never really tell where he was looking. The man seemed perfectly content to do as he was told. Thus far the only words David had heard Francisco say were “Yes, mum.” It did seem strange that a man his age was still an assistant aide, working for a girl half his age, but Mercy was an intelligent, powerful woman, and David didn’t judge. And besides, Francisco did flawless work. Blythe had selected him personally, as Francisco used to work for one of his old friends.
“Francisco,” Mercy said. “I want you to go down to the city. Visit all the top-tier restaurants in the gold sector. Find out which ones Don Johnson frequents.”
“Yes, mum,” Francisco said, jumping up from his desk and walking toward the door.
“Oh, and Francisco,” Mercy called after him, “see if you can’t find out what he prefers to eat.”
“Yes, mum,” Francisco said again, looking at the door with his good eye, and her with the other one.
David glanced at Bethany, feeling as though he should give her something to do as well.
She looked at him with pursed lips and a vacant expression.
“Bethany, would you … um …”
“Yes?” Bethany said, nodding along with every word.
“Would you mind making me a cup of tea?”
THE PINNACLE
The week passed sooner than expected, and David rushed into the office the morning of the fancy dinner purely on principle. He and Mercy had already orchestrated and implemented every possible detail, yet he’d come to the office early all the same. Even if he had to sit alone for the next ten hours awaiting the banquet, at least he’d be ready in case something went wrong.
He had just finished the first page of his favorite book, House Law, when the office door rattled. Looking as stunning as ever in a simple, knee-length blue dress with red heels and a matching red flower in her hair, Mercy walked in carrying a broad hang-up bag. She skittered across the office, heels tapping some offbeat tune, and laid the awkward bundle across her desk with a huff. She blew a strand of hair out of her face and looked up, eyes going wide.