by Joel Ross
“That’s what they do,” Swedish grumbled. “Keep people hungry, keep ’em weak.”
“Kodoc needs the Fog,” Hazel told me. “If there are only ten servings of food at a table, the guy who owns nine is king. But if a hundred more tables show up? Suddenly he’s just a guy sitting alone.”
With my mind still hazy, I wasn’t sure I completely understood, but I knew one thing: giving Kodoc the map had been even worse than I’d thought.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
Hazel wiped my hair off my forehead and checked my eyes. “We go home.”
“To Port Oro?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“What about the Compass? What about Kodoc?”
“Your eyes look okay,” she said, patting my hair into place. “The Fog’s only in one again.”
“I don’t care about my eyes!” I said. “What’re we going to do?”
For once, Hazel didn’t have an answer . . . which was the worst answer of all.
I’d led Kodoc to the Compass, and he’d blown up an entire city. Forget the human race, forget lowering the Fog. Mrs. E once told me that I could change the future . . . and maybe I had.
I’d made it worse.
Rain clouds followed us northward, wetting the balloons with drizzle. Trickles dripped down the gutters and filled the water barrel. Hazel spotted a rainbow, but even that didn’t raise our mood.
Kodoc had won.
On the second afternoon, I removed the bandages on my calf and washed in the drizzle. A red line snaked around my leg from the ticktock “antenna,” like I’d been whipped with barbed wire. And I kept seeing flashes of the city, flattened by that diamond bomb. I’d blown my only chance to lower the Fog. I’d failed the crew. I’d failed everyone on Port Oro . . . and on the Rooftop, too. The kids in the Noza Home and the shipbuilders in the docks, the friendly bootball players and the grumpy trolley rider.
Loretta cooked dinner that evening, which looked like fried caterpillars in a potato peel sauce. The night air smelled stormy and electric, so Bea fed the lightning rods into the foggium converter while Swede stared at me.
Probably in disappointment, because I’d doomed the world to eternal misery. I ignored him until he turned away to set the autopilot that Bea had rigged; then we tucked into our hammocks and listened to the patter of rain on the balloons.
In the darkness, Bea said, “Tell the story, Chess.”
“Nah,” I said.
“C’mon, please?”
“The story’s no good anymore.”
“‘Before the Fog rose . . . ,’” she prompted.
“You’ve heard it a million times.”
“I’ve only heard it a thousand,” Loretta said.
“Pretty please?” Bea said. “With caterpillar on top?”
“Fine.” I rubbed my face. “Before the Fog rose, the Smog covered the Earth and made everything sick. People, plants, animals. The Smog was killing every single living thing.”
“So the nanotech gearslingers . . . ,” Bea said.
“The engineers,” I corrected, “created the nanites to scrub the air and water and ground. But the Fog spread, out of control, and buried everything until only a few survivors remained, clinging to life on the Rooftop and Port Oro.”
From her hammock, Hazel softly said, “There are more mountains out there.”
“But they don’t want us know that,” Swedish added.
“The ancient engineers studied the Fog,” I said, changing the usual story, “and predicted that one day a ‘Compass’ would self-assemble. A special machine that could lower the Fog when the time was right. Then the entire human race would get a second chance.”
When I stopped talking, the whirring of the Bottom-Feeder’s engine sounded loud in the quiet. The cool air smelled fresh, and I pulled my blanket closer.
“The cogs predicted that a kid with a Fog-eye would find the Compass,” I continued. “And finally, after hundreds of years, one did. Then he led Lord Kodoc straight to it.”
“That’s not fair,” Hazel said. “You did your—”
“Kodoc destroyed the Compass,” I said, speaking over her. “In order to stay in power. And we lost our chance to lower the Fog.”
“That’s not how the story goes,” Bea said in a small voice.
“It is now.” I closed my eyes. “The end.”
35
THE NIGHT PASSED, and a gray morning light spread across the sky. Drizzle pocked the deck while Hazel scoped the Fog and I sewed a patch on Bea’s backup shirt. Nobody said much until a few hours later, when the storm clouds feathered away and we sailed through a sudden brightness.
“Four wisps to the left, Swedish,” Hazel called. “Then the Port’s dead ahead.”
“Where?” Loretta asked.
“Just over the horizon,” Hazel told her.
“I still don’t know how you can tell.” Loretta peered into the distance. “It all looks the same to me.”
Swede clattered on the organ keyboard and said, “That’s what they want you to think.”
“Would you stop with that?” I grumbled. “It’s getting old.”
“They want us to think what?” Bea wrinkled her nose. “That the Fog all looks the same?”
“You,” Loretta told Swedish, “are the chuzzlest of wits.”
“I didn’t mean that,” he said, shaking his shaggy head. “I’ve been thinking about the Compass.”
“You mean the one Kodoc blew into a million pieces?” Loretta asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Except I don’t think he did.”
“We saw the bomb.”
“Yeah.”
“We saw the explosion.”
“Yeah.”
“Chess says the city got all flattened and destroyed.”
“Yeah,” Swedish said, tapping the wheel thoughtfully.
“Swedish!” Hazel called from the crow’s nest. “What are you talking about?”
He shrugged a meaty shoulder. “Maybe that wasn’t the Compass.”
“I saw it,” I told him. “It’s the place where ticktocks self-assembled.”
“You saw it,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “Because you were there.”
“Riiiiiight,” I said. “Because if I hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have seen it.”
“But what if the Compass isn’t a trash heap or a ticktock?” Swede looked toward Hazel. “What if it’s Chess?”
Loretta smacked his arm. “Chess is Chess.”
“Think about it!” Swedish turned to me. “Every time you saw ticktocks, you’ve been there! That’s the one thing every sighting has in common!”
“Well, but—if I wasn’t there, how would I have seen them?”
“Exactly! Because you trigger them!”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“The Compass is a sign, right?” he asked. “A signal that the Earth is clean and the Fog can go away?”
“Probably,” Hazel said, swinging down to the deck.
“Well, Chess’s eye is the sign,” Swedish told her. “A baby was born in the Fog and lived, with nanites in his head, and he—” He turned to me. “You learned how to handle the driftsharks, right?”
“A little.”
“That’s the Compass. That’s the trigger. You.”
A lump formed in my throat. “That’s loco, Swedish. I found the map to the Compass. It didn’t lead to me.”
“You found a map with a compass on it. I guess the cogs think it’s the compass.” He glanced at Loretta. “But . . .”
“Sometimes old stories get garbled,” Loretta said, scratching the burn scar on her arm.
“And you felt a click in the Fog, right?” Swedish asked me. “When you dove down to the Station? And that was the first time anyone saw a ticktock in forever. The Fog’s been waiting for a . . .”
“A fog-monster,” Loretta said.
“Yeah,” Swedish said. “To activate the nanites. What did Mrs. E say?”
“That t
he Fog doesn’t change Chess,” Hazel said. “He changes the Fog.”
“Maybe she was righter than she knew. Maybe this is how the Fog ends.”
“Look around!” I gestured angrily. “The Fog’s still here.”
Swedish glowered into the distance and didn’t say anything.
“And people have seen ticktocks before,” I told him. “That’s how we know about them. I’m not the first kid born like this. If they were Compasses, how come they didn’t lower the Fog?”
“Because they failed.”
“So did I.”
“Maybe not,” Swedish told me. “Not yet.”
“That’s stupid,” I said, and turned to Hazel. “Would you tell him?”
She started to speak, then stopped. She furrowed her brow and didn’t say anything.
“Some of that sounds right.” Bea squinched her face at me. “You felt that click, and you saw ticktocks, and you control the Fog. And the cogs don’t think the Compass itself lowers the Fog.”
Hazel brushed a braid off her face. “Yeah, they think it’s a signal. Like a real compass, it just points the way.”
“Now you’re listening to Swedish?” I asked her. “He thinks I’m the Compass because every time I see ticktocks, I happen to be there!”
“Maybe the Compass is a fail-safe, a backup plan.” Bea twisted her leather cap in her hands. “You know, a device that stops the damage if a machine breaks.”
“So they knew the Fog might go crazy,” Hazel asked her, “and programmed the nanites to include an off switch?”
“Pretty much,” Bea said, rubbing her nose. “Except after hundreds of years, everything got cattywampus.”
“If Chess is the switch,” Loretta said, “how does he turn the Fog off?”
Bea bit her lower lip. “I don’t know—ask Chess.”
“How would I know?” I said. “You try being a switch.”
Hazel tapped her spyglass against her leg. “So Kodoc wanted a Fog-eyed kid to help him find the Compass and didn’t realize he’d made the Compass himself?”
Worry wormed in my heart. “Do you really think I’m the Compass?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “You kind of emerged from the Fog with your eye, didn’t you? And ever since you felt that click, your other eye’s been turning white. Ticktocks swarm when you dive, and you stop driftsharks with your mind. Do you think you’re the Compass?”
“No!” I said, but she kept looking at me. “Maybe . . . I don’t know.”
“We’ll ask the cogs if—” She stopped suddenly, staring southward. “Kodoc.”
The fear in her voice chilled me. I peered across the sky and saw a dark cloud swirling toward us . . . with metal glinting and propellers spinning. It was the Rooftop armada, moving fast.
“He’s coming for us,” Loretta said. “Maybe he does think Chess is the Compass.”
“He’s not after Chess,” Hazel told her, her voice strained. “Not anymore. Now he’s hitting Port Oro.”
The chill seeped into my heart. “What?”
“He thinks he destroyed the Compass,” she said, “and he wants to end this, once and forever.”
“But—” Bea’s green eyes widened. “But he never beat the Port before.”
“He never tried.”
“Why not? Why now?”
I rubbed my face. “Because he figured the Subassembly would lead him to the Compass eventually. He needed to keep them alive. Until now.”
Hazel looked at me for a moment, then said, “Fast to the Port, Swede! We need to warn the mutineers.”
Hazel kept an eye on the armada, Bea goosed the engines, and I stayed busy in the rigging, trying to convince myself that Vidious and Nisha would beat Kodoc.
Except what if they didn’t? If I really was the Compass, maybe I hadn’t lost our last chance. Maybe I still had a shot at lowering the Fog and giving the Port an escape route. But if I was the Compass, I wasn’t me; I was a fail-safe device predicted by ancient engineers.
And I still didn’t know how to lower the Fog.
“There she is!” Hazel called from the crow’s nest when Port Oro appeared on the horizon, a tiny green-black splinter rising from the Fog.
“I wonder how Mrs. E is doing,” I said, partly to myself.
Swedish turned from the keyboard organ. “She’s probably pulling wheelies in the hallway.”
“I’m going to make her the purplest wheeled chair,” Bea announced. “With foggium boosters and everything!”
“You’ll probably fire her into the sky like a cannonball,” Loretta said.
“I will not!”
“We have ships incoming!” Hazel called, peering through her spyglass toward the Port. “Well, rafts.” She paused for a second. “Uh, Chess, come check the raft in front with the yellow sails.”
I swung beside her and scoped the ships bobbing toward us. There were a dozen Assembler airships, most of them even smaller than the Bottom-Feeder.
When I spotted the raft with yellow sails, I frowned in surprise. “What’re they doing here?”
“Who?” Loretta asked from below.
“Mochi and Jada,” I told her.
“The tethergirls?”
“No,” I said, “the other Mochi and Jada. Of course the tethergirls!”
Thirty minutes later, the Bottom-Feeder swept to a halt beside the yellow-sailed raft, which flew in the front of the raggedy band of Subassembly airships.
“What’re you doing out here?” Hazel shouted.
“Looking for you!” Mochi yelled back. “In case you need help with—y’know.”
“The Compass,” Jada said.
“And we’re passing messages to the cogs,” Mochi told us. “From ship to ship to ship, so they’re ready when you get in, in case you need anything. To trigger the Compass!”
Jada leaned in toward us. “Do you have it?”
“We’re not sure!” I said.
“We’re pretty sure,” Swedish called.
“Stop messing around!” Jada yelled at us.
“Fine,” I told her. “They think I’m the Compass.”
Mochi gasped, but Jada just said, “Then start triggering.”
“So far, all I managed to trigger is ticktocks, and they’re trying to kill me.”
“Wait, wait, hold on,” Mochi babbled. “You? You’re the Compass? You can’t be the—”
“Let’s get you to the cogs,” Jada called.
“Yeah, before Kodoc gets back,” Mochi said. “The mutineer navy is crushed and we’re defenseless and—”
“Mochi!” Hazel gestured behind us. “He’s already here!”
Shouts of alarm sounded as Mochi and Jada spread the news. Then the ragtag Assembler fleet wheeled in the air, retreating toward Port Oro. Mochi filled us in as we flew beside the yellow-sailed raft. After the crew had rescued me from the Predator, Vidious and Nisha had battled Kodoc’s armada through the night. By dawn, the Anvil Rose had been hanging limply in the sky, and the Night Tide’s primary igniter had been blasted into scrap. The rest of the mutineer warships had fared no better, and with the Port navy in tatters, Kodoc had turned his armada to chase the Bottom-Feeder.
Every sailmaker, carpenter, and gearslinger on Port Oro had spent the last few days furiously repairing the damage—but the navy’s strength had been broken.
“The mutineers can’t beat him,” Jada called from the deck of her raft. “They can’t even hold him back.”
“Open her up, Swede!” Hazel ordered. “Let’s move!”
When Swedish tapped the organ keyboard, we shot ahead of the tethergirls, speeding toward the Port. Toward a fight we knew we couldn’t win.
36
WHEN SWEDISH LOWERED the Bottom-Feeder toward the skyscraper roof, I watched Assemblers priming their cannons. They were preparing for the invasion, but all that firepower wouldn’t even dent the Predator.
I caught Hazel’s eye. “What do we do now?”
“Fight,” she said.
; “What about—y’know—the whole Compass thing?”
“You can’t trigger the Fog if you don’t know how,” she said.
Our ship clanged onto the skyscraper’s landing pad. The rigging sagged, the deck shuddered, and the fans spun down. Bea popped up from a hatch and squealed, “Mrs. E, you’re outside!”
She scrambled off the airship and peeled through the crowd toward Mrs. E, with the rest of us following close behind. Mrs. E was sitting in her wheeled chair beside Isander and Isandra, and her wrinkled face cracked into a smile at the sight of us.
Isandra turned from the heliograph operator and told Hazel, “Bonita, the mutineers have a question for you.”
“Oh!” Hazel said. “Yes?”
“As you can imagine,” Isander told her, “the Port is arming every airworthy craft. Cargo ships, fishing trawlers, all working to—”
“—form a shield between the mountain and the armada,” Isandra finished.
“Will that stop Kodoc?” Mrs. E asked.
Hazel shook her head. “Not for long.”
“Which brings us to Captain Vidious’s question,” Isandra said, her blue eye intent on Hazel. “He’s wondering if you have a plan.”
“Oh!” Hazel fiddled with her braids. “Um, no. Not yet.”
“And is there”—Isandra’s blue gaze shifted to me—“anything we should know about the Compass?”
Isander put his hand on my shoulder. “The heliograph messages said that the Compass is you.”
“We need you, Chess.” Isandra leaned on her cane. “If you can lower the Fog, if you truly are the Compass—”
“—then this is not the end of Port Oro,” Isander said, “but the beginning of a new era.”
“I can’t lower the Fog!” I said, my cheeks flushing. “I don’t know how! Stop waiting for me to fix things. I’m not special. I just got lucky and survived. I never asked for any of this.”
“You’re right,” Mrs. E told me. “You didn’t ask for this. The only things you ever ask for are—”
“A full belly and a warm bed,” Hazel said, elbowing me softly.
“And a tether,” Bea added. “And a harness and goggles. And a hacksaw.”
