The Lost Compass

by Joel Ross

  “And a needle and thread,” Swedish said. “And your scrapbook.”

  Loretta scratched her tattoo. “That kind of adds up, when you think about it.”

  “And to keep the crew safe,” Mrs. E told me. “And together.”

  “Yeah,” Hazel told me. “You’re a friendly fog-monster. “

  “Even they know that,” Swedish told me.

  Isandra clunked her cane against the floor. “Perhaps it’s not fair, Chess, but the entire Port is depending on you. The entire Subassembly, and all of—”

  “I don’t care about that,” I said. “The entire Port can get fogged for all I care, and the whole Subassembly too. All I care about is my crew.”

  A gasp sounded, and I saw Mochi standing beside Bea.

  “And Mochi,” I added lamely. “And I guess Jada.”

  “Not my brother and sister?” Mochi asked in a small voice.

  “Well, them, too, if they’re your family . . .”

  Mrs. E smiled faintly. “And the children in the Noza Home?”

  “Sure. I mean, they’re just kids.”

  “How about the guy who gave us the cucumber?” Loretta said. “And those nice bootball girls you almost stabbed?”

  “You almost what?” Isander asked, blinking at me.

  “In the junkyard,” Loretta told him, flashing a gap-toothed smile, “stabbing’s just another way of saying hello.”

  “But we’re not in the junkyard anymore,” Hazel said.

  Bea didn’t say anything. She just stood there with her big green eyes, holding Mochi’s hand.

  And Hazel was right. We weren’t in the junkyard anymore—and I was tired of carrying it around with me. We were part of the Port now. I was part of the Port now. Live or die, win or lose, we’d become part of something bigger than ourselves.

  “Well, I’ll do what I can,” I said. “But only because that was a really tasty cucumber.”

  Isander clapped me on the shoulder. “Good lad. The only question is, how can you trigger the—”

  A steam whistle interrupted him, and the clamor of engines filled the sky.

  “That’s the final alarm,” Mrs. E said, her knuckles whitening on the arms of her wheeled chair. “Calling all ships to the defensive line.”

  “What now?” Loretta asked Hazel.

  “We don’t have time to do this right,” Hazel said, her dark gaze on me. “So we’ll stick with Plan B.”

  “What’s Plan B?” Isander asked.

  “Fight with the mutineers,” Swedish told him. “And go down in a blaze of glory.”

  Loretta laughed a little wildly. “Our favorite kind of blaze.”

  But I knew what Hazel really meant. We didn’t have time to coordinate; we didn’t have time to think. Instead, we needed to scrape through by the skin of our teeth, like always. Plan B was me.

  37

  THE PORT ORO fleet drifted past the skyscraper, a scruffy collection of fishing ships and personal craft with a handful of fighting ships. Grim pilots flew toward Kodoc’s oncoming armada, while fisherkids nervously fingered chain slingers converted from net trawlers.

  “Look at them,” Loretta muttered, squinting at an old, fancy-dressed couple in an antique thopper.

  The fancy couple smiled bravely at us as they flew past, and I wondered if they’d left any children at home. I wondered if they’d last ten seconds against Kodoc’s warships.

  “C’mon, Bea,” Hazel urged from the crow’s nest of the Bottom-Feeder. “Now?”

  “Not yet,” Bea said, elbow-deep in the engine.

  Hazel lifted her spyglass to watch the Port Oro airships form a defensive line, while Kodoc’s armada—ten times bigger—swept closer like a dark cloud. “C’mon, c’mon!”

  “Not yet,” Bea said, then told a valve, “Don’t be silly— you’re all gummed up.”

  “I see Vidious!” Hazel frowned. “He . . . he’s flying the burned skeleton of the Night Tide.”

  “How burned?” I asked.

  “Her balloon’s okay, I guess. She should be in the repair bay.”

  “How’s the Rose?” I asked.

  Hazel swiveled her spyglass. “Not good. There’s five, six . . . eight mutineer gunships. Four warships. And two hundred civilian craft—scraps of floating driftwood for Kodoc’s target practice.”

  “She’s ready, Cap’n!” Bea sang out.

  “Go!” Hazel barked at Swedish. “Swing starboard!”

  The foggium cylinders roared to life. Hoses whooshed and valves clattered—and a clanging of bells sounded from Port Oro. Tong tong-rong. A happy chiming, like for a wedding or a feast. Tong rong tong rong.

  “Weird,” I muttered, looking behind us as we lifted off the skyscraper.

  Across Port Oro, people gathered on roofs with swords and pipes and a few steam-bows, preparing for the invasion. Motion caught my eye in a metalworking yard lower on the mountain, where two tiny figures slammed sticks onto a big copper disk. Tong rong-rong-rong. That wasn’t a bell—it was a gong.

  “What’re they doing?” Loretta asked.

  “Encouraging us?” I guessed.

  “They’re pointing at the Fog,” she said.

  Below the metalworking yard, rows of crops covered the mountain slope and disappeared into the steamy ocean of the Fog. A few rusty husks of farm machinery stood among the crops, and one bulky tractor poked from the shallow Fog, left there until the mist ebbed slightly.

  Two other tractors chugged uphill from the Fog, heaving over hillocks and hauling loads of scraps or—

  “Full stop!” Hazel shouted, her voice shrill. “Swede, turn, turn! Back toward the Port, now!”

  “Cap’n!” Bea yelped. “What? What’s wrong?”

  “The ticktocks.” Hazel lowered her spyglass with a trembling hand. “They’re attacking Port Oro.”

  38

  JETS OF FOG seeped from nozzles on the “tractors.” They were ticktocks, rusty gearwork monstrosities heaving across the farmland. Alumina panels shuddered and flaked as they crept uphill, crushing crops beneath heavy, misshapen treads.

  “T-tick!” Loretta stammered, pointing. “Tick! Tick!”

  My bones turned to mud. That gong wasn’t chiming encouragement; it was signaling an alarm. Another alarm. Even closer than Kodoc—and even deadlier. Ticktocks would sweep through the neighborhoods like a wildfire, destroying everything in their path.

  “There’s more over there . . . ,” Hazel whimpered in horror. “Five of them.”

  “Ticktocks.” Bea covered her mouth with her hand. “They’re not . . . possible. They’re not human.”

  “What’re they doing?” Loretta paled. “Are they working for Kodoc?”

  “They’re following Chess,” Swedish said, turning the Bottom-Feeder in a tight circle toward the skyscraper.

  A rush of blood in my ears muffled the gonging. “They’re not,” I whispered.

  “They showed up right after we did,” he said. “How else would—”

  “Over there!” Hazel pointed with her spyglass. “They’re tearing through buildings; they’re ripping homes apart. Stop them, Chess. Make them stop!”

  “How?” I almost wept. “How?”

  “I don’t care!” she yelled. “Just do it!”

  I reached a hand toward the ticktocks and shouted, “Stop!”

  On the mountain near the Fog, a ticktock’s barbed antennae jabbed the ground, then it pulled itself higher on the slope. Stop. Stop, stop. I closed my eyes. Retreat! Go back.

  “Stop!” I shouted again. Except when I opened my eyes, the ticktocks were still grinding toward the neighborhoods. “I can’t, Hazel! I’m too far or I’m not the Compass or . . . I can’t.”

  “Bring her down, Swede!” Hazel yelled. “Onto the skyscraper. Fast.”

  With a spin of the wheel, we slammed onto the landing pad. The balloons swayed, a few Assemblers shouted in surprise, and I told Hazel, “I’m sorry, I tried, I—”

  “Grab your wrenches, Bea,” Hazel snapped, talking
over me. “We’re taking a cannon from the roof.”

  “Which one?” Bea asked.

  “The six-pounder.” Hazel pointed. “Chess, Swede, roll it on board. Loretta—”

  “Yeah?” Loretta asked.

  “Don’t let anyone stop them.”

  “Yes, ma’am!” Loretta said.

  Horrified cries rose from the mountain at the sight of the ticktocks. I swung from the Bottom-Feeder to the skyscraper roof, then helped Loretta down. Hazel stayed in the crow’s nest, but the rest of us raced toward the cannon as Assemblers shoved to the edge of the roof, gasping and pointing.

  “Why would they follow me?” I asked Swedish. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “They’re made of trash and Fog,” he said. “You think they make sense?”

  “Hey!” Loretta called to the Assemblers at the cannon. “We’re taking this for Captain Hazel.”

  One of them started to object but froze when explosions boomed in the distance: the sound of Kodoc’s ships meeting the farthest fringe of the mutineer navy. Bea unbolted the cannon, then Swedish strained against the wheeled stand, while Loretta and I pushed the sides.

  “Maybe that’s what . . . you do,” Swedish grunted to me. “Lead ticktocks around. A compass gives directions.”

  “If they’re following me,” I said, shoving the cannon with my shoulder, “why can’t I control them?”

  Swedish’s face flushed as the cannon rumbled across the roof. “Good question.”

  The wheels turned faster after Bea whispered encouragement, and a minute later we reached the Bottom-Feeder. The airship bucked when the cannon thunked onto the deck from the boarding plank, and Hazel said, “Harpoons don’t hurt them.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “On the Port, they’re firing harpoons at ticktocks.”

  Loretta scowled. “They don’t work?”

  “One looks like a pincushion, and it’s not even slowing down.” She looked at me. “What are their shells made of?”

  “Everything, I think,” I told her. “Under a layer of rust.”

  “What do they use for fuel?”

  “Uh, foggium?”

  “Foggium doesn’t work in Fog,” Bea reminded me. “But ticktocks do.”

  “Oh, right,” I said. “Just Fog, then?”

  “Driftsharks are made of Fog,” Hazel said slowly, “and you can control them.”

  “If I’m close enough,” I told her. “Maybe. A little.”

  Hazel eyed me, then told Bea to fix the cannon to the deck and scanned the mountain through her spyglass. “People are running,” she said, her voice flat. “Grabbing kids, screaming. Ticktocks are smashing into houses, grinding them down.”

  “Why?” Swedish asked in a gruff voice.

  “I don’t think they’re trying to hurt anyone.” Bea bit her lip as she tugged her wrench. “They’re just flailing around like, like an airship without a rudder.”

  “They’re doing worse than flailing,” I said, shading my eyes.

  Families fled along narrow streets, and clouds of dust drifted over smashed homes. One ticktock shuddered in an intersection, spouting fire like a flamethrower. Farther on, another lashed its blades wildly, shattering cement and fiberglass.

  “They’re shooting cables at a roof, like harpoon lines,” Hazel said. “They can reach thirty feet in the air with grappling hooks. Oh, sweet soda can, it’s tearing the roof down. It’s—”

  A boom echoed from the southern tip of Port Oro as something exploded.

  “Hurry with that cannon!” Hazel’s voice shook. “People are fighting ticktocks in the streets.”

  “It’s going to be a massacre,” Loretta said.

  As Bea and Swede finished bolting the cannon to the deck, Hazel called, “Wait, they got one! They dropped a pod-car on it with a crane. With a hard enough impact, those things die. One down and—”

  “How many are there?” Swedish asked, wiping sweat from his face as he stepped to the organ keyboard.

  “Nine, by my count. Eight now.”

  “Done!” Bea shouted. “Cannon’s in place, Cap’n.”

  “Swede,” Hazel said, “loop around to the west.”

  “Um,” I said, strapping an ammo chest beside the cannon. “Does anyone know how to shoot this thing?”

  “I’m a quick study,” Loretta told me.

  “We’re not a warship,” Hazel said. “The gun’s a last resort. Chess, get into your harness. Bea, hook the heavy netting to the cargo tether.”

  “What are we doing?” Loretta asked her.

  “We can’t stop those things,” Hazel told her, “so we’re not going to try. We’ll airlift people to safety.”

  “There is no safety. Kodoc’s coming!”

  “Yeah,” Hazel said. “And he’ll make everyone slaves. But they’ll live.”

  “Most of them,” Swedish muttered, and opened the throttle.

  Bea dove into a hatch, and I grabbed my goggles and crossed toward my harness. A rescue mission. Trying to save the Port from ticktocks . . . so Kodoc could conquer it.

  Still, Hazel was right. We needed to save lives.

  I shrugged into my harness, working the buckles until a dark wriggle caught my eye on the mountain. The writhe of a ticktock above the Fog, not far from the marketplace we’d visited.

  No—two ticktocks. Big ones, the size of pickup trucks. They looked like mounds of trash crossed with nightmare insects. One rolled forward on mismatched wheels and a bulldozer tread, with a few spidery legs for traction. Overlapping scales shifted under the layer of rust that covered the ticktock’s back, and shuddering pipes spat sludge and vapor. Cables and blades sliced through the air like a deadly cloud.

  “Hazel!” I squeaked. “Look—down—there!”

  “Two of them,” Hazel said, scanning with her spyglass. “No, three of them.”

  “That’s the home for kids,” Loretta said, pointing higher on the mountain. “The Noza Home—over that bridge. They’re heading for those kids!”

  39

  “SWEDE, GET LORETTA a shot at that thing!” Hazel shouted. “We’ve got to knock it off course!”

  The Bottom-Feeder swooped toward the hillside, and the ticktocks clattered higher. The two big ones rolled forward on treads, while the smaller one swiveled on a jerking tripod with whipping chains.

  Then a bone-rattling boom sounded. The raft shook, and a buzzing filled my ears. What was that? Was Kodoc already here? Were we hit?

  When my hearing returned, Hazel was shouting, “—next time, warn us first!”

  “Sorry,” Loretta yelled, her face black with soot.

  She’d fired the cannon. She’d missed the ticktocks, but at least she’d alerted the neighborhood. People poured from doorways, shouting and confused. Except in the Home for Kids, nobody noticed: the factory machines were too loud.

  “Okay,” Loretta yelled. “Here goes! Three, two—”

  I covered my ears, and the cannon fired again. A direct hit into the flank of the biggest ticktock. Its antennae writhed, and its rusty shell shuddered. A thrill of hope rose in my chest—then the ticktock continued grinding uphill, still on course.

  “It’s not working!” Loretta yelled. “The cannonball’s not heavy enough.”

  “Chess,” Hazel called, “get ready to dive. Clear that bridge the ticktocks are heading for. Don’t let anyone set foot on it.”

  “What?” I asked. “Why?”

  “Because when the ticktocks reach the middle,” she said, “Loretta’s going to blow it out from under them.”

  “They’ll fall and smash,” Loretta said in wonderment. “Hazel, you are a thug.”

  “Swedish,” Hazel called, “take us in.”

  As the raft swooped closer, the small ticktock swiveled on its tripod, following the big one toward the bridge, but the medium-sized one veered off and climbed a ledge toward the next hill. Taking a shortcut toward the Noza Home.

  “Got a bad feeling,” Swedish muttered.

  �
��We’ve got to warn the kids,” Loretta shouted.

  Hazel shook her head. “After we take down the bridge.”

  “That won’t stop the ticktock on that ledge! It’s gonna chew through the factory.”

  Cannon fire sounded in the distance from Kodoc’s armada, and Hazel swung from the crow’s nest to the deck. “I’ll drop with Chess,” she told Loretta. “And run to warn the kids while he clears the bridge.”

  “There’s only one tether,” Swedish said.

  “Chess will hold me.”

  “Unless he drops you.”

  “He won’t drop me.”

  “We need you here,” I told her.

  Hazel clamped her jaw. “I’m not about to send Bea down.”

  “I’ll drop with him,” Loretta said, nervously finger-combing her spiky hair. “I’m smaller than you, and better at running away.”

  Hazel turned to me, a question in her eyes. I nodded— that ticktock was crawling closer to the Noza Home every second.

  “Okay,” Hazel said. “Loretta dives; I’ll take the cannon.”

  I adjusted the winch, then led Loretta to the end of the plank. She groaned and wrapped her arms around me, trembling in fear.

  “You sure about this?” I asked. “I know you hate heights.”

  “I d-do not,” she said, her teeth chattering. “I’m f-f-f-fine.”

  Swedish brought the raft into position, Hazel gave the okay, and I said, “Hang on—this won’t take a second.”

  Loretta started belting out a song: “Row, row, row your boat, sitting in a tree! K-I-S-S-I-N-G!”

  I jumped, and we landed at a crossroads not far from the bridge. I staggered on impact because of Loretta’s extra weight, but even after I caught my balance, she didn’t stop squeezing me. Or singing in my ear. “—then comes marriage, then comes baby in a railway carriage.”

  “We’re down,” I yelled.

  She took a breath. “I know that.”

  “You can let go of me.”

  “That’s what you think.” She took another breath and released me. “Where’s the Noza Home?”

  I pointed. “Three blocks.”

  “Okay—pick me up before I get chomped.”

  She started running, and I turned toward the bridge. The ticktocks were close, judging by the sound of screaming and crunching. People stampeded past me, carrying bawling babies and armloads of gear, blocking my path. The upward tug of the tether made me feel light, so I jumped experimentally. I rose seven or eight feet in the air, bending my knees so I didn’t kick anyone in the head.