by Mark Lingane
“Do you know who I am?”
Sebastian’s attention was drawn back to the tall, muscular man. He shook his head.
“It doesn’t really matter in the grand scale of life, but your mother has passed information to me via Oliver Stephenson, your teacher. Your mother was rather cryptic, but then she always was.”
“You know my mother?” His eyes filled with hope.
Nikola nodded. “Everyone did. She was in regular contact until recently. For you to be here, something bad must have happened to her. And that’s bad for everyone. Do you know where she is?”
“The doctor took her to Old Toowoomba hospital to recover.”
“Recover from what?”
“Being very sick.”
“You have to be sick from something.”
“She got very thin and pale, then fell over. Just like my dad did before he died. And my aunt, but she got fat and pale.”
Nikola tapped his fingers on his knee while he watched Sebastian. A refreshing breeze blew up the alleyway and cooled the sweat on the back of his neck. He extracted a strange device from his pocket and held it near Sebastian. It made a clicking sound, which grew to a manic buzzing as he held it near. The closer the device was the more it buzzed.
Nikola stood up. “I’ll organize word to be sent.”
“What should I do?”
“You can move in with the other teslas. Go back to the gate and ask one of the guards to direct you to their quarters,” he called over his shoulder as he hurried away over the cobblestones.
Sebastian sat on the stool surrounded by potted flowers, watching the figure retreat. Frustration and confusion rose through his exhausted mind.
*
He was woken by someone gently nudging his shoulder. He opened his eyes. A goat was trying to nibble his ear.
“Getorff,” he shouted and shooed the hungry animal away. It made him recognize his own hunger.
He was still at the front of the small flower shop, on his stool leaning against the stone wall. He sagged back against the wall, letting his nerves settle and his vision clear. He took a couple of deep breaths and staggered to his feet. His arms and legs ached. He was almost amenable to the idea of having a bath. As long as he didn’t have to wash his hair.
He wandered back to the main gates and spent some time exploring the front of the city. It was quiet, and people were few and far between. He explored some of the alleyways to see what shops he could find. They consisted mainly of transportation shops. Things for horses. Things for carts. Things for people traveling on horses or carts. While he was examining a strange shop that seemed to be full of equipment for people doing strange things to other people, he noticed a distant figure with a familiar gait. He ran off in pursuit.
“Mr. Stephenson,” he called.
The figure turned. He was relieved to see that it was Mr. Stephenson. He waved at his old teacher.
“Why, Sebastian, fancy seeing you here. I thought you’d be celebrating after your narrow escape from the beasts.”
“I haven’t been told about any celebration.”
“Well, we haven’t won the war yet. Perhaps they’re waiting for a more significant moment. Come eat with me, my boy, in my quarters. I’ve got a very nice place up on the top of the apartment buildings next to Old Benjamin.”
A multitude of questions spun around Sebastian’s head, but one was vying for attention. “Food? When?”
“We can call into the kitchens and ask them to prepare something within the hour.”
Sebastian’s stomach groaned. An hour was a long time, but he had questions to ask. “What’s a tesla? Nikola said I had to stay with the other teslas.”
“Really? How interesting. So you’re destined to become a tesla. Very interesting.” He wandered on in silence, staring ahead. Eventually he spoke. “A tesla, at its simplest level, is someone who can sense magnetic fields.”
“My head hurts when those things come near. Do you mean like that?”
“Hmm. Hurts, you say? Today is a very surprising day.”
“You said something about war.”
Mr. Stephenson sighed. “Yes. There’s been talk of various unpleasant disturbances to the west, and recently we’ve been under attack by the great scary flapping beasts. Or GSFBs for short.”
Sebastian pulled a face. It was an unexciting name considering how terrifying they were. “Are there any other names for them?”
Mr. Stephenson chuckled. “We’ve been able to ascertain that the enemy’s name for them is digital reptilian airborne guardian ordnances network.”
“D-R-A-G … dragons?”
“Yes. It’s a stupid and inappropriate name.”
“I like it,” said Sebastian. He nodded his head in agreement with himself. He would decree it when he was king.
“Ah, the folly of the young.”
“It sounds like they look.” A question sat nagging at the back of Sebastian’s mind. “Mr. Stephenson?”
“Hmm?”
“On the last night you were at our place …” Sebastian trailed off, hoping his teacher would come to his aid. The memories of that night still hurt. It was the last time his mother had been the person he had known all his life. As she had gotten sick, her identity had seemed to drain away with her body.
“Hmm?” Mr. Stephenson repeated.
“What did you and my mother talk about after I’d gone to bed that night?”
“Mainly the past, my boy.”
“I heard someone writing. Was that about the past, too?”
“Ah, no.” Mr. Stephenson paused. He wiped some dust from his eye. “That was about the future. And the past. It’s complicated. Anyway, ultimately it shouldn’t be a concern for you. Let us proceed to the dining establishment for some nourishing sustenance.”
“Can we get Melanie so she can come too?”
“Who?”
“The girl I came in with.”
“Won’t she want to stay with the others of her … kind?”
“What kind?”
“Women. They all sit around discussing”—he paused, reflecting on the random conversations he had caught—“sewing, or baking, or stitching.”
Sebastian gave him a look of surprise. Mr. Stephenson had never talked like this back home, and he could never have imagined him talking like this around his mother. His teacher knew her thoughts about things like this, as did their neighbors. They all knew what she thought of the Oakleys’ comments about “a woman’s place.” He felt he had to express the appropriate respect.
“I never heard Melanie talk about those kinds of things. She shouted a lot and killed some cyborgs.”
“How many?”
“I guess it was only one, really.”
“I expect luck may have been with her. She didn’t stab it with knitting needles or an overcooked crème brûlée or something?”
“No! She has a long blade and she’s deadly with it,” Sebastian snapped. “We have to find her.” He gave Mr. Stephenson another glance. His teacher sure was saying some unexpected things.
15
THEY RETURNED TO the front gate and Sebastian asked where Melanie was, much to the guard’s annoyance. The guard tried to brush him off as just another annoying teen that never made any sense until Mr. Stephenson eventually stepped in and explained in what he called “adult words.”
“You must remember the girl that came in earlier today.”
The guard snorted. “She’s in the cells.”
“Cells?” squeaked Sebastian. “But she’s a hero.”
“Maybe she should act like one,” the guard said. “She came in looking fragile, like a damsel in distress, then a couple of words of sympathy and advice and she goes mental. My foot will be aching for a week. Andy had to go home. The old sergeant had never heard such language and he used to be a chef, or a school teacher or something.” Reluctantly, he directed them to the cells.
Sebastian and Mr. Stephenson searched out the bleak residence.
“I must admit I’ve never been to the cells before,” Mr. Stephenson said. “I’m not sure I approve of the kind of person you appear to be engaging with.”
“We’re not engaged.”
Mr. Stephenson sighed. “Engage can mean things other than in reference to the acceptance and commencement of the matrimonial processes.”
Sebastian nodded in a knowing way, too tired to ask what that meant.
Mr. Stephenson led Sebastian into a small low building that emanated solidity with its stone facade and heavy iron door. A short fat man sat behind an old wooden desk. The man looked cranky, possibly due to being unimpressed with his level of professional success. He was wearing a frown so ingrained that his face resembled a dried prune.
Mr. Stephenson leaned forward and engaged the man with his special talking-to-other-men words, which sounded to Sebastian as though a scattergun of grunts and half-finished sentences had been fired into the conversation.
While the two men were deep in conversation and not paying him much attention, he slipped away down a dark passageway leading deeper into the building. He wandered down the long dark tunnel that looked more like a secret entrance to an underground tomb. It ended with a large iron gate. Just beyond the gate lay the cells. He could hear the murmurs, the sobs, the crazy laughing.
To his right was another smaller gate, and behind it a small room, the gatehouse. It contained a few mugs, a table and some books. In the center of the table was a large set of iron keys. He squinted at them, then back at the lock of the large gate. They looked like a good fit. But the gatehouse was locked.
He reached in through the bars to see if he could get the keys. They were several inches away from his fingertips. He waggled his fingers in an attempt to magic them over, but failed. He stretched as far as he could until his arm hurt.
He searched the area for a stick or something long enough to catch the keys. The floors were swept clean, with nothing lying around out of place. He sighed. He decided to give it another go.
He reached through the bars and this time his fingertips just grazed the keys. He stretched and managed to lay a fingertip on the metal loop holding them together. He tapped at it until his arm hurt again. He had another rest before trying for a third time. This time he found them within reach of his fingers. He pawed at them until he could clasp them between his fingertips, and lift them off the table and out.
He put the whole episode down to the stretching his sports teacher had gone on about endlessly when the teacher had turned up once a week at the school and told them what a bunch of ‘girly-girls’ they were. Who’s laughing now, Mr. Vanessa? he thought.
He placed the keys in the lock, which turned smoothly. With a solid clunk, he unlocked the gate. He pushed. The gate failed to move. He examined the lock to make sure he had unlocked it. Then it gently and slowly swung open of its own accord.
He wandered into a central area, which was surrounded by cells. They were old, cold and made out of stone. There were no windows. The only light came in via gas lanterns scattered around the walls.
He searched until he found a cell that didn’t have a half-crazed, big-beardy man in it. He saw a small person wrapped in a blanket, lying on a low wooden bench and facing the wall. Melanie was instantly recognizable, even without the swearing. He unlocked the cell and walked in.
The figure groaned.
“I know it’s you,” he said. “I can tell by the smell.”
“Go away,” Melanie groaned. She sat up and glared at him suspiciously. “Hang on, how did you get in?”
“I grabbed the keys. The adults are being adult-y upstairs. They never notice us kids. They don’t think I’m important.”
Melanie snorted. “You try being a girl. We’re worse than invisible. Invisible and useless. Better for nothing other than wearing dresses and looking pretty.”
“At least you don’t have that problem.”
She kicked him.
“What happened to you anyway?” he said, rubbing his shin.
“They put me in the women’s quarters, with girls. There was lace and frills everywhere.”
“It doesn’t sound too bad. Did they talk about ... sewing, baking or stitching?”
She narrowed her eyes. “No. It was worse. They spoke about those traveling singers, No Bearing, endlessly. How can such a bunch of stupid boys take up so much brain space?”
“Did you tell them that?”
“Loudly and repeatedly. Then a couple of them said I was unladylike, and I should be wearing a dress.”
Sebastian put his head in his hands.
*
Sebastian got into an unbelievable amount of trouble when it was discovered he had gone down into the cells and somehow gotten into them. Apparently it was all very suspicious.
He sat there glumly, next to Melanie, resting against the windowsill. He watched the afternoon clouds rolling in, as the incessant distant drone of the adults talking bored him into a semi-unconscious state. Melanie had her arms folded and was kicking the wall. In the end he couldn’t take the silence any longer.
“Who is No Bearing?”
“Just a bunch of stupid boys with whooshy hair who can barely sing. They travel around the major towns crooning to teenage girls. Back home, Candice, Jessie and Tracey were always going on about them. They’re so stupid sometimes. What’s so special about stupid boys with whooshy hair?”
Eventually Mr. Stephenson emerged with the head guard grumbling behind him. Mr. Stephenson was smiling, which lifted Sebastian’s spirits. He stood in front of Sebastian and Melanie with his hands clasped together.
“There is good news, and some not so good news.”
“Oh, here we go,” muttered Melanie.
“You, young lady, will be coming with me. I’m to be your guardian while you stay in the city. No women’s quarters or cells for you.”
“All right!” she cheered.
“You’ll receive your own living space just next to mine, but you must keep in regular contact with me and let me know your whereabouts at all times.”
“My own room, double all right!”
“Now, the not so good news.” Mr. Stephenson turned to Sebastian.
Sebastian’s spirits sank. He didn’t want to go to jail.
“You must go and cohabitate with the teslas,” Mr. Stephenson said. “I’m sorry I can’t look after you. I know that’s what your mother would have wanted.”
After it was obvious that Mr. Stephenson wasn’t going to say anything else, Sebastian said, “Is that it?”
“Yes.”
“That isn’t too bad. Thank you for helping me.”
“It wasn’t me,” Mr. Stephenson replied. “Number Two called down from the heavens and instructed Mr. Floater here to release you.”
“Who’s Number Two?”
“Nikola’s commander.”
“Doesn’t he have a name?”
“Yes. Number Two.”
Sebastian sensed that this was going to be one of those adult explanations that only worked if you’d lived their life and knew all their experiences, and if you hadn’t then you were stupid. He let it go.
“Mr. Floater will escort you down to the quarters and make sure you’re settled in with your fellow teslas.”
Mr. Floater smiled and nodded at Sebastian, but when Mr. Stephenson turned away he gave Sebastian a menacing look. Sebastian hoped “settled” didn’t mean beaten to a pulp.
“Come, young lady, we must away post-haste.” Mr. Stephenson indicated for Melanie to follow him.
“When you say all times, does that include when I need to—” she said as the door slammed shut.
Sebastian heard a loud shout of “No” from Mr. Stephenson on the other side of the door. Considering how thick the door was, it must have been a very loud shout, Sebastian mused.
Once he was certain that Mr. Stephenson had left, Mr. Floater turned and waved an angry finger at Sebastian. “Right, you pipsqueak, you’re coming with me. If I ever catch you doing som
ething illegal again it’ll be the deepest, darkest dungeon for you, and no friends in high places will help you out next time. Especially when I won’t tell them where you are. Comprende?”
Sebastian gave him a blank look.
The guard shook his shoulder. “Understand?”
“Yes,” he cried. “All except for that last word.”
“Stupid boy.”
Mr. Floater grabbed Sebastian by the shoulder and dragged him out the doorway. He manhandled him for several blocks through the twists and turns of the narrow streets. They came to a tall building that had two sets of steps, one leading up and one leading down. The higher doorway beckoned with a light door mainly made from glass. The lower door looked like a cell door. It was built of heavy wood rammed together with huge bolts, with an enormous keyhole carved into the wood.
Mr. Floater fumbled through some ancient keys, discolored and disfigured with age, until he found a black one almost as large as Sebastian’s whole forearm. Without releasing Sebastian from his grip, he unlocked the door and yanked it open. The smell of damp, rotting wood and unwashed clothes came rolling out.
“Go live with the other freaks.” Mr. Floater bundled Sebastian down the stairs and through the doorway.
16
THE DOOR SLAMMED shut behind him. He heard the lock slide into place and the guard’s footsteps retreat into the distance. Sebastian clutched the backpack to his chest. It was all he had, and it wasn’t even his. Several other boys about the same age were lying around talking among themselves. Sebastian stood fixed to the spot, uncertain of his new surroundings. The room made him feel very odd; there was something about it that set his teeth on edge.
“I’ve a feeling we’re not in Talinga anymore,” he whispered.
The dorm room was long and had nearly a dozen beds evenly distributed. Some even had white lines drawn between them to make sure they were the right distance apart. Clothes were strewn all over the place. His mother would not have approved. There were several empty beds.
