The Lost Compass

by Joel Ross

  “We got the Compass. So how do we lower the Fog?”

  “Nobody knows,” I told her. “The cogs don’t know; Kodoc doesn’t know. The next step is lost, like a story in the scrapbook without an ending.”

  “Why did the ticktocks attack?”

  “They’re oriented to me, I guess,” I said. “The way a compass is oriented to the north. They’re like driftsharks. Strong and mindless.”

  “Maybe they’re trying to protect you,” Hazel suggested, “and doing it wrong.”

  “Or they’re the anti-Compass,” Swedish said, “and they’re trying to stop him.”

  I rubbed my eyes again. “Maybe they’re programmed to swarm toward any fogless mountaintop and tear things apart.”

  “They’re probably cattywampus.” Bea started crying. “N-none of this nanotech stuff w-works right.”

  “We saved a lot of lives, honeybee,” Hazel said, putting her arm around Bea. “Whatever happens, remember that.”

  I nodded and said something stupid about rescuing Mrs. E and Loretta. But even if we rescued them, where would we go? Kodoc controlled every inch of clear land now. There was no way to be free of him, not anymore.

  Hazel returned to the crow’s nest and Bea to the engine. Swedish stayed ten feet above the Fog. The engine thrummed, and the balloons bobbed. What happened next? Should we head for the Rooftop and try to hide in the junkyard? Surrender to Kodoc—

  The raft jolted to a halt.

  The prow slammed downward, and the gears howled.

  I slid five feet, and Swedish pounded the organ keyboard, ignoring the blood dripping from a cut on his chin. The deck straightened halfway, then started lowering toward the Fog.

  A hatch slammed opened, and Bea’s voice sounded above the howl of the engine. “That dangling ticktock grabbed something in the Fog! A tree or a tower or— We’re anchored; we’re stuck. It’s pulling us into the white!”

  “Unstick us!” Hazel yelled. “Release the cargo bracket!”

  “It’s jammed!” A pounding sounded through the hatch. “The ticktock’s dragging us down!”

  “Swedish!” Hazel called. “Get us higher!”

  “I can’t.” He slammed the keyboard. “Our compression’s shot.”

  The raft shuddered and jerked lower. Five feet, six feet. If the engine touched Fog, it’d stop working, and we’d crash.

  “Bea, drop that ticktock!” Hazel shouted. “Find a way. Now!”

  The vents howled; the propellers strained. The ticktock dragged the raft closer to the Fog, and I stared over the edge, sick with horror.

  Bea popped onto the other side of the deck, a rope looped around one shoulder, and scampered to the copper-tubed harpoon, babbling rapid-fire: “I can’t unbend the cargo bracket, so I attached a rope to the crooked part, and when I fire, the harpoon rope will yank the bracket straight and the ticktock will fall.”

  By the time she finished explaining, she’d already knotted the rope to the harpoon, aimed high, and fired.

  The harpoon flashed away from the raft, dragging the rope in a deep curve. The curve became a straight line, and the rope yanked at the crooked bracket under the deck. The ticktock must’ve fallen, because the straining fans suddenly launched the Bottom-Feeder into the sky.

  We shot upward like we’d been fired from a cannon. The balloons squeaked, the rigging whipped, and the deck jolted.

  “Way to go, Bea!” I yelled. “Nice jo—”

  Hazel screamed, and I spun and saw Bea tumbling overboard, tossed backward by the sudden motion.

  With a desperate sweep of her arm, she grabbed the harpoon barrel that swung over the edge of the deck. She dangled hundreds of feet above the Fog, her fingers slipping on the smooth copper. The raft was rising too fast for Swedish to control, and Bea was too far across the deck for me to reach.

  Hazel swung toward her, shouting, “Chess, Chess!”

  I was already moving, racing away from Bea. I snagged my harness without slowing and hit the diving plank at a sprint. I leaped overboard, shoved one arm into my harness, and pivoted in midair, facing the ship, falling fast.

  Bea dropped into sight under the Bottom-Feeder. She was in free fall, hundreds of feet above the ground, four or five seconds to impact.

  There, I told myself, tracking her fall. Right there.

  Then the Fog swallowed me.

  42

  WHITENESS SURROUNDED ME, but in my mind I still saw Bea tumbling through the air, plunging toward the ground. Not Bea, not Bea, not Bea. Every slumkid knew pain and loss and grief—but not Bea.

  At a tug of intuition, I clamped my tether, veering under the ship like the weight at the end of a pendulum.

  My curving swing needed to intersect Bea’s straight plunge, but I couldn’t see her despite my sharper senses, couldn’t hear her. Still, I pushed myself through the Fog, lashing desperately forward. Seconds ticked off, and I stared at the fringes of my vision for the slightest blur of motion.

  Then I heard something.

  A thin scream.

  My heart clenched. Where was she? I spun and stared and—

  There! A shadow plummeted through the air fifteen feet from me. Too far away. No way. Not Bea. I shifted the Fog with my mind, and the mist thickened and curled and swept me closer. The scream wavered, and I slammed into Bea. Her face was white with terror, and I squeezed her tight and tugged my tether to slow our fall.

  The harness yanked my arm. Buckles twisted, and two straps tore free. I grunted and rolled in the air, condensing the Fog beneath us—

  I slammed to the ground on my back. I lay there, aching and breathless, with Bea sprawled across my chest. She clung to me, shuddering.

  “Well,” I said. “Let’s not do that again.”

  “I can’t hear you!” she yelled, her teary eyes wide. “I can’t see you.”

  I saw her, though. I saw the freckles on her nose, the stitches on her leather cap. I saw the torn harness, now connected to the tether by only a single strap. I saw a lichen-covered boulder fifteen feet away.

  And I saw the ticktocks grinding closer through the billowing white. Swarming toward us. Barbed antennae probed the Fog, and bushes crunched under jagged treads.

  I lifted my hand toward them. Stop. Stop! “Stop!”

  They kept rolling closer. My mind stuttered, blanked in panic . . . and then I knew exactly what to do. I shoved Bea’s arms into my ripped harness, which was strong enough to hold one diver’s weight, though not two. I fastened a buckle, then tugged the tether three times.

  “Chess! Don’t you da—” Bea blurred upward toward the ship, vanishing into the Fog.

  Whoa. Even the ticktocks paused like they were impressed. Not for long, though. A second later, they heaved closer to me.

  I stood and rolled my shoulders. Trapped in the Fog without a tether, surrounded by killer machines. I’d lost Port Oro. I’d lost Loretta and Mrs. E. I’d lost Nisha and Vidious, Mochi and Jada, and all the Subassemblers.

  But I’d saved Bea. And maybe because of that, I didn’t freeze when the ticktocks wheezed closer. I didn’t scream or tremble.

  I waited.

  43

  CAPTIVE’S LOG. START-8 873.3

  A DAY HAS passed since Kodoc defeated the mutineer fleet and seized Port Oro; the longest day of my life. Rooftop soldiers gathered every mutineer on the Port and forced us into a field of rubble where the ticktocks had flattened a neighborhood. Kodoc’s armada surrounds us, hovering in a low circle, weapons aimed to ensure our obedience and—

  No. That’s not what I want to say.

  I am avoiding writing about Chess. Can even he survive a night in the whiteness? Can even he find his way back above the Fog?

  After we lost him, we crisscrossed the area until evening, trailing tethers, praying for a tug on the line. Instead, Kodoc’s patrol ships discovered us. They took the Bottom-Feeder and tossed us among the defeated and the injured in this destroyed neighborhood.

  The tear-streaked crowd gasped when a sud
den red glow shone across the field. The skyscraper was burning. Flames rose like a pillar into the darkening sky. Mrs. E was in there; Loretta was in there. Hundreds of Assemblers and—

  “Beazy!” Mochi called through the crowd. “Over here!”

  “Where’s Mrs. E?” Bea shouted. “Where’s Loretta? Is everyone—”

  “They’re fine!” Mochi interrupted. “Well, not fine. But they’re here. Everyone ran across the bridge before Kodoc’s soldiers started the fire.”

  She escorted us down earthen stairs into a root cellar, where we found Loretta sleeping in a makeshift infirmary and Mrs. E speaking with the cogs. Mrs. E’s face glowed with relief when she spotted us—until she saw my tears. Her gaze shifted from me to Swedish to Bea . . . and grief dug furrows into her face when she realized that I’d lost Chess.

  She opened her arms, and I fell into them.

  The night passed slowly, bristling with dread. This morning, Bea woke in tears, and I woke from a nightmare of sending Chess into the Fog for the last time. The others are looking to me for a plan, for a glimmer of hope. But how can I feel hope with Chess lost? How can I—

  Wait. Something’s happening outside. I’d better see wha—

  44

  MY BREATH SOUNDED harsh as I jogged uphill, louder than the splash of my feet in the stream. My numb feet in the freezing stream, which I’d been following since dusk, trying to reach fogless air. Trying to reach the crew.

  Drawing on all my new tricks—all my new powers— I’d stayed one step ahead of the ticktocks for hours. But with the sun setting, the Fog was darkening around me. Branches loomed from the mist, and a slippery rock twisted my ankle. I tripped, caught myself, then staggered onward.

  I needed to reach the mountaintop. Being the Compass didn’t protect me from mountain lions or hyenas—or from slashing myself on a jagged metal post.

  A mossy log caught my shin, and I fell to my hands and knees in the icy current. The cold stung my arms, and I wanted to cry—then I heard the crash of the ticktocks grinding closer.

  They never stopped—they never slowed. They just kept coming.

  I pushed to my feet and stumbled onward until I reached a meadow where the dark Fog glinted with moonlight. And halfway across, I dropped to my knees, shivering and dizzy—barely strong enough to turn at the rumble of approaching ticktocks.

  A black shape clattered into sight, and I saw the ticktock with the stubby plaststeel horn, the one I called Snout. He’d followed me closest and fastest, and almost caught me a few times. I reached for the Fog inside his shell with my mind, trying to control him.

  A moment later, Snout paused, grinding his gears and waving his antennae.

  Two more ticktocks lurched from behind Snout, and I stopped them as well. But dozens more heaved from the woods—too many. My focus dimmed, the meadow tilted, and I swayed, on the verge of fainting.

  My hold on the ticktocks snapped. They clanked toward me, and a spray of warm liquid spewed at me from a vent on Snout’s side.

  I shuddered and gagged.

  My revulsion kept me from fainting, and I groped for the ticktocks with frantic bursts of thought. But the harder I tried, the dizzier I felt. Snout’s treads crunched closer, and wiry antennae shot from his flanks and knocked me onto my back. The other ticktocks hissed and fired. Pain flared in my chest and legs as a spiderweb of cables strapped me to the ground.

  My teeth chattered, and I wanted to close my eyes and just . . . stop. Stop running, stop hurting, stop trying. But the crew needed me. Port Oro needed me. And like Mrs. E said about Hazel, Fall down seven times, stand up eight.

  “Stop!” I mumbled. No more! Stay away! My mind poked feebly at the ticktocks surrounding me. Stop! I have to save the crew. I have to lower the Fog and get to the Port! “And I’m f-f-freezing. . . .”

  Snout shuddered above me, straining to get closer. Vents covered his side like fish scales, opening and closing, shedding rust. Antennae whipped and gears turned, and a hose wrapped tightly around my arm.

  I shut my eyes, summoning every tattered scrap of willpower. I needed to join the crew and stop Kodoc and lower the Fog. The nanites in my brain whispered to the ticktocks, screamed at them, pleaded with them. . . .

  And a sudden roar answered.

  The roar of fire, of the ticktocks’ flamethrowers. My eyes sprang open, and the meadow was bright with flickering light. Streams of flame rose from the ticktocks like torches. Heat touched my skin, and I jerked upright—and realized that the cables weren’t wrapping me any longer, and Snout was burning my feet.

  Except . . . the flames weren’t hurting me. No, Snout was warming me with a low flame and looming over me almost protectively.

  The other ticktocks flailed at the Fog around me, and in the torchlight I saw them clearly. Completely clearly. Because I was sitting in a bubble of Fog-free air. A dome of perfect clarity, a hundred yards below the fogline.

  “No way,” I whispered.

  All around me, ticktocks inhaled the Fog. Short hoses and crooked vents sucked nanites from the mist—and crusty nozzles shot out jets of clean, pure air.

  45

  CAPTAIN’S LOG: SUPPLEMENTAL

  WHEN BEA AND I climbed from the cellar, the Rooftop warships were hovering low over the field of rubble, and the mutineer crowd was eyeing the flat roof of a tannery that stood over us like a stage.

  “Hazel,” Swedish said, stepping beside me. “What do you think?”

  “Let’s see what’s going on,” I told him.

  He shoved forward for a better view, and I grabbed Bea’s hand and followed him onto a fallen irrigation tank.

  “They got Nisha,” Swede said, anger darkening his face.

  “Oh, no,” Bea whispered, and squeezed my hand. “Oh, Hazy . . .”

  On the tannery roof, Captain Nisha knelt in front of a dozen airsoldiers. Heavy manacles clamped her wrists, and dirt streaked her blond hair. Vidious knelt beside her, also chained and filthy after a night in Kodoc’s cells. Despite the blood on his face, his restless gaze roamed the crowd and—

  The Predator fell from the sky and hovered over the roof. Dust rose in swirling clouds, and my braids whipped my face.

  “What’s happening?” Bea asked. “What’s going on?”

  Kodoc climbed down from a hatch in his flagship. He stepped behind Nisha and Vidious and raised a sword. The crowd gasped, and the Rooftop soldiers shouted for silence.

  “No,” I heard myself say. “No, no . . .”

  Kodoc lowered his blade to Vidious’s shoulder. “I am not a patient man,” he said, his voice carrying across the rubble. “So I will say this only once. There is a tetherboy hiding among you named Chess. And a girl named Hazel.”

  Bea started trembling and squeezed my hand tighter.

  “Bring them to me,” Kodoc said. “Or I execute your captains. One by one by one.”

  My skin prickled, and I swayed, suddenly light-headed.

  “Where are they?” Kodoc asked, lifting his blade to chop at Vidious’s neck.

  A stillness fell over the crowd. Kodoc’s blade flashed in the sunlight. His eyes narrowed, his shoulders tensed—

  “Here,” I shouted, my voice breaking. “I’m here.”

  “No,” Vidious growled, and Nisha strained in her bonds.

  When Kodoc pointed his sword at me, a squad of soldiers clubbed through the packed field. They shoved closer and closer toward the irrigation tank . . . until a roar sounded from the Fog.

  A clattering, grinding, rattling howl.

  Ticktocks.

  The crowd surged in terror, and wild-eyed roof-troopers drew blades and steam-bows. Gears shrieked inside a dust cloud that wafted from the Fog. Concrete shattered. Valves gasped. Then a breeze rose, revealing a line of ticktocks heaving into the destroyed neighborhood.

  Twenty ticktocks, grinding and shuddering and seeping Fog—until they stopped.

  Motionless. Waiting.

  A dozen barbed cables swept aside, opening a pathway between th
e ticktocks . . . and a kid slipped through. A wiry kid in a ripped jacket and filthy boots, with twigs in his hair.

  A thousand people stared at him—yet Chess looked only at me.

  The shouting faded into a faint hum. The distance shrank. There was a link between Chess and me, stronger than any tether. No matter how far apart we were, no matter how lost, no matter how alone, we were always connected.

  “Took you long enough,” I mouthed.

  46

  TOOK YOU LONG enough.

  The spark in Hazel’s eyes burned away my fear. With a twist of thought, I told Snout to scoop me onto his rusty shell and sent the entire row charging uphill.

  The Rooftop warships hovering in a circle around the rubbled field spun toward me. Cannonballs flew, war chains whirred, and darts dinged off my ticktocks. I reached out with my mind to the ticktocks hiding in the Fog on either side of the field. Fire, I told them. Now! Fire-high-now-fire-shoot-up-fire!

  Nothing happened, and I withered inside. What if the ticktocks didn’t listen? What if they didn’t understand? The Fog had built them—they’d built themselves—for one task. Not for this, not for battle.

  Luckily, they’d also built themselves to follow the Compass. To follow me.

  Before my heart beat twice, a hundred cables shot from the flanking ticktocks and pierced the hulls of Kodoc’s low-flying ships. Airsoldiers screamed and gunfire roared and ticktocks answered with flames and blades.

  The crowd scattered as my ticktock army rumbled across the flattened neighborhood. A squad of Kodoc’s soldiers prowled toward me, encased in armor and hatred. They fired steam-bows; but Snout raised his jagged flaps to shield me, and the darts pinged off them.

  A spiky ticktock swept the soldiers away, then I rode Snout over debris as my mind flickered across the battlefield, keeping the ticktocks focused on the roof-troopers and not bystanders.

  “Bring down the ships!” Hazel’s voice rang across the chaos. “If you destroy Kodoc’s ships, the Rooftop falls! His whole fleet is here!”