by Steven Bohls
A cloud of battery bugs danced in the center of it all. They were a happy tornado of victory. Above them all, Sprocket fluttered unsteadily with her Ping-Pong paddle and Frisbee wings.
“Sprocket!” Jed shouted. “You did it!”
“Zzztop fight! Zzztop fight! Zzztop fight!”
Jed
Jed removed the sliver of spark from his mother’s core and replaced it with an unbroken spark from his chest. As he infused it with energy, life surged through her. The metal fragments that made up her face softened as her single, violet eye met his.
“Jed,” she whispered, sitting up and taking his face in her hands.
She pulled him into a gentle hug and he held her metal body. “I thought you were dead,” he said in her ear.
“I was,” she said. “But I’m back.”
“You need to get out there,” a voice said behind him.
Zix.
Jed looked out one of the Endeavor’s windows. Ships littered the basin of the golden dome. Once green with grass, fields, and orchards, the land was now speckled with broken metal. Soldiers staggered from their vessels, unsure of what to do next.
“Can this thing still fly?” Jed asked.
“I’ll spin up the ion battery,” Zix said. “Dak, Brindle,” he called down the corridor. The two dragonflies peeked out of one of the cabins. “Fix up the ship’s loudspeaker system so the speakers point toward the outside of the ship.”
“Aye, aye, boss,” they called.
Zix handed Jed one of the microphones that Lyle had used to communicate with the crew. “I hope you have a good speech planned.”
The Endeavor was in the air in seconds after Zix left the room. It flew to the center of the dome above a patch of lemon trees. Jed climbed through the top hatch and stood atop the train. The microphone’s coiled cord barely reached. He squeezed the button of the microphone, and the loudspeaker amplified his voice, ringing out over the nearby ships.
“To every dread and dragonfly that can hear me: Lyle is gone. I have inside me the life he stole from you. But it’s not mine to keep. Any of you that want to be what you once were, I can give that to you. I have enough sparks for every dread and dragonfly who wants one. Instead of the sliver of spark you have now, I will give each of you that wants one a full life spark. You can be everything you used to be before you died. Memories…life…personality.”
A blast from a shatterbox held by a distant dread fired past him, nearly hitting his shoulder. “Get that clunker and scoop out all of the treasure inside him!” the dread shouted.
But before the dread could say another word, it burst into gears and scrap. Captain Bog holstered his shatterbox from afar and nodded to Jed.
Jed smiled at him. “Thanks.”
He continued his speech, but none of the dread came forward. The more Jed spoke, the angrier they became. Eventually, Sprocket’s battery bugs simply had to suppress their ships and weapons until Bog’s ships could manage to police the area. Bog’s forces guarded the dome as coppers and irons and dread repaired their vessels and departed.
Jed joined the others on the tugboat. “The irons and coppers know where the golds are now,” Jed said to his dad, who stood with him on the main deck of the tugboat. “They’ll probably come back like they did all those years ago.”
Ryan nodded. “Probably. But the golds have something they never had before: They have you.”
As the ships prepared to leave, only a few dread approached Jed about his offer. Most simply patched up their ships and left through the breach in the dome. Those who did ask for a spark seemed only to want a new “pretty treasure.”
The gold city was in complete disarray. Scrap and carnage littered the once beautiful fields and orchards. Half of the pleasant cottages were now rubble. The golds themselves were rattled and didn’t seem to know how to react to what had just happened to their home.
Jed called for Hift, Murjen, and Taskon. The three looked like scared children as they emerged from their shelter and bumbled over to him.
“Do you know what I’ve been craving for as long as I can remember?”
Hift shook his head.
“A classic, New York–style pepperoni pizza and a huge pitcher of ice-cold lemonade. Have you ever had New York–style pizza?”
All three of them shook their heads.
Jed nodded. “I’ll show you. Fire up the ovens. Let’s make all of our guests here some pizza and lemonade before they leave.”
Jed
Amidst a hundred thousand tons of rubble, those still left in the dome after the coppers and irons and most of the dread were gone all gathered in the town square for pizza and lemonade. The gold cooks were exceptional. Before the first pepperoni pizza was even out of the oven, they were all discussing new toppings and configurations. Pretty soon, they had made: balsamic strawberry pizza, berry with arugula and prosciutto pizza, cantaloupe and sweet ricotta pizza, charred corn and avocado pizza, and a raspberry brie dessert pizza.
For a moment, it seemed everyone had forgotten about the terrible events of only just hours before. Golds laughed and chatted with Jed’s family, the tugboat crew, and even attempted small talk with some of Bog’s dread. Though…the dread didn’t seem to know what to do with the pizza. They pinched it warily, sniffing it as though it were something highly suspicious.
Jed spotted Captain Bog and Shay talking with his parents and decided it was as good a time as any to tell them all what he had decided. With a deep breath, he walked over and smiled at the four. They smiled back. Well…Bog gave him a genial nod, at least…but that definitely counted as a smile in Jed’s opinion.
“I’ve decided to stay,” Jed said to his mom and dad. “This is my home. It’s where I belong. And they’re going to need me here now that the coppers and irons know where they live. Someday, they’ll get greedy again and attack. If the golds couldn’t defend themselves hundreds of years ago when they had a city of ten thousand golds, there’s no way they’ll make it now. They need me here.”
His mom looked from his dad to Jed. “Then we’ll stay, too,” she said, taking his hand. “We’re never leaving you again.”
His dad nodded.
“And what about you?” Bog said, turning to Shay. “Does that mean you’re staying here, too?”
Shay put her hands on her hips and stared straight into Captain Bog’s face. “Have you ever had a perfectly cooked pomegranate pie? I have. Right here. And it’s to die for. Melt-in-your-mouth delectable. Not to mention Shepin’s kebabs…”
Bog nodded. “I guess…this is good-bye, then?”
“What do you mean?” Shay asked. “Of course I’m not staying here. You think I’d give up flying around the world with the ickiest, scariest, meanest, biggest, rottenest, scoundreliest, scritchiest scritchmutt in all of Scritcherdom to stay here and get fat? Nuh-uh. Nope. No, no, no.”
Bog’s face lit up with a rare, wrinkled smile. “Then what was all that about the pomegranate pie and kebabs?” he asked.
“We need to make sure to get at least twenty pies before we leave,” she said. “And whenever we come to visit, they better have a basketful of kebabs ready for us.”
“Captain,” Kizer said, approaching Bog with Riggs and Pobble. “Now that you’re back, Bessie’s all yours. We’d be honored to have you as our captain again.”
Bog shook his head. “She’s all yours, Kizer. I’ve still got to figure out this mess I put myself in,” he said, jutting his chin toward the fleet of dreadnoughts that hovered quietly in the corner of the dome. “You take care of her, you hear? She’s a good ship.” He rested an encouraging hand on Kizer’s shoulder.
Kizer opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, Sprocket buzzed up beside him and floated right in front of his grim face. “Clllunnnk faaace,” she said, buzzing even closer to Kizer. “Jed can clllimb a ladderrr. Up, up, uuup!”
“Huh?” Kizer said, looking to Jed.
Jed shrugged. “Apparently, not everyone thinks I’m useless at ladde
r climbing.”
“So, you did know where a few other relics were…” Riggs said to Jed with a wink.
Jed looked around the dome and smiled. “Maybe a few, I guess.”
“By the way,” Pobble said, “forget about what I said before about not being able to call yourself ‘big.’ You know, what with you being a mountain and all.”
• • •
By morning, the dome was empty once again. The invaders were gone, and all was quiet. Jed sat on a hilltop overlooking the gold village. In his hands he held the small brass key that had unlocked so much. The life sparks of an entire civilization pulsed inside him. He felt as if he’d strangely become their guardian. They were his people, and this was his home. No one would ever take that away from him again.
The skin on his chest had healed almost completely, leaving only the small keyhole. Jed lifted the old key to his chest and turned it the opposite direction—locking the new Jed he’d become. As a click sounded in the silence, he removed the key and set it into the hole he’d dug near his feet.
“Welcome home,” he said to himself, filling the hole with dirt, and walking back toward the town.
Acknowledgments
I’d like to acknowledge some of those who helped make this a reality. First, to Mom: Thank you for always pushing me forward and for always believing in me. To Matthew: Thank you for the light of your friendship in the darkest of times. To Evan and Dillon: Your enthusiasm for Jed means more than you know. To Emma: Thank you again for the Tin Forest. It was perfect. And to Tracey, my tireless editor, and her whole editorial staff: You all are truly incredible mouselings.
STEVEN BOHLS lives inside a head of fairy tales and magic. He is a dreamer first, a thinker second, and a writer last. He also sculpts, illustrates, builds, creates, and designs. Steven has a BA in English from Brigham Young University and an MBA from American Public University. Jed and the Junkyard Rebellion is his second novel in the Jed and the Junkyard War series. He lives in Daybreak, Utah, with his wife and two daughters.