by Mark Lingane
The key slotted perfectly into the lock, which turned smoothly. With a solid clunk, Sebastian unlocked the gate, then pushed hard against it. The gate failed to move. He examined the lock to confirm he’d unlocked it. Then it slowly swung open of its own accord.
The windowless anteroom was surrounded by cells, each old, cold, and lined with stone worn smooth. The only light came via gas lanterns suspended on chains from the roof.
Each cell detained a half-crazed, big-beardy man except for the last. A slight figure wrapped in a blanket lay 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 what they don’t think is 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. 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 to the cells and somehow entered them. Apparently it was very suspicious.
He sat there glumly next to Melanie, resting against the windowsill, watching 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 between 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, Oliver emerged with the head guard grumbling behind him. Oliver was smiling, which lifted Sebastian’s spirits. He stood in front of Sebastian and Melanie with his hands clasped together.
“I have 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.” Oliver turned to Sebastian.
Sebastian’s spirits sank. He didn’t want to go to jail.
“You must go and cohabitate with the teslas,” Oliver 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 Oliver wasn’t going to say anything else, Sebastian said, “Is that it?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not too bad. Thank you for helping me.”
“It wasn’t me,” Oliver replied. “Number Two called down from the heavens and instructed Mr. Floater here to release you.”
“Who’s Number Two?”
“The city’s ruler.”
“Isn’t that Nikola?”
“No. He’s a bit further down the chain of command, under the mayor. Number Two is the top banana.”
“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 to the quarters and make sure you’re settled in with your fellow teslas.”
Mr. Floater smiled and nodded at Sebastian, but when Oliver 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.” Oliver 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 “No” from Oliver. Considering how thick the door was, it must have been a thunderous shout, he mused.
Once certain that Oliver had left, Mr. Floater waved an angry finger at Sebastian. “Right, you pipsqueak, you’re coming with me. If I ever catch you doing something 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 until 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.
13
THE DOOR SLAMMED behind Sebastian. 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. The other boys, all several years older, were lazing around talking among themselves. Sebastian stood fixed to the spot, uncertain of his new surroundings. The room made him feel very odd; something about it set his teeth on edge. The walls were made out of a peculiar gray material, not the usual stone. It was smooth and cold to the touch.
“I’ve a feeling we’re not in Talinga anymore,” he whispered.
The dorm room was long with a dozen beds evenly distributed. Some had white lines drawn between them to make sure they were the right distance apart, meaning that not everyone was getting along. Clothes were strewn all over the place. His mother would not have approved. All but two beds were taken. At the base of each bed stood a set of metal shelves, each filled with personal belongings and dirty laundry.
His fellow captives resembled upturned mops: skinny boys with long, unwashed hair. Sebastian maneuvered between the beds, trying to avoid touching anything.
He greeted each boy with a happy hello, but they all turned their back on him, indifferent to his youth. One snapped at him, shocking him, sending him into a set of shelves which toppled over onto another boy. The boy jumped up and grabbed Sebastian’s throat. He could feel a slight tingling where the elder boy touched him.
“Hey, hey, hey,” said a boy, who looked the same age as Sebastian. “Stoker, let him go.” He placed his hand on the elder boy’s chest and pushed.
Stoker kept his grip and raised a fist, staring intently at Sebastian.
“Let him go or I’ll tell Floater. And you know I will.”
Stoker slowly released Sebastian, then wordlessly shoved him away, keeping an eye on him. The young boy pulled Sebastian away and to his own bed.
“Don’t mind them; they’re just bored and suffer from a disease know as FatHeadiosis.”
Sebastian stood, uncertainly glancing around the room. He’d never felt so unwelcome. Did Nikola know the dorm was like this? He looked back toward the door, desperately wanting to get to the station and to Toowoomba.
“It’s all right. Hey,” said the boy. “I’m Isaac.” He waved at Sebastian.
“I’m Sebby.”
Isaac extended his hand and they shook. Sebastian sensed a slight tingle in his fingers. He made no comment, as the other boy hadn’t noticed. Isaac looked relatively normal compared to the others. His frame was a bit more solid, his skin didn’t look like the surface of the moon, and his hair was dark and short in comparison to the other boys’ various shades of near-blond mops.
“I’ve got a spare,” he said.
“Huh?”
“A spare berth upon the HMAS Isaac.” Isaac indicated the empty bed next to his own.
Confusion coupling with extreme exhaustion mixed Sebastian’s thoughts.
“I’m not sure I should be here,” he replied.
“Sure. You’ll be fine. There’s been a bit of drama from the civilians toward teslas. It usually passes pretty quick, but a couple of the newer guys get a bit on edge.”
“Civilians?” Sebastian clutched at his pack.
“Have a seat.”
Sebastian considered the bed. The boy was welcoming in a disappointingly unfriendly place. But where else could he go? Maybe, just one night and he could get a train out.
He sat and placed his pack on the taught sheets.
“Where’s your stuff?” Isaac said.
“I didn’t have time to get anything before the cyborgs came and destroyed my village.”
“What? Cyborgs? Destroyed?”
Sebastian looked from side to side. “Yes. Isn’t that what they do? How did you get here?”
“The teacher came with his assistants and tested every kid in the town, and we got a nice comfy train ride here.”
“Your home and family didn’t get wiped out?”
“N … o.”
“Laser guns blasting? Death? Everything on fire?”
“Wow. We had none of that. It sounds really cool. I wouldn’t mind my sister being laser-gun blasted. She’s always shouting and throwing stuff at me, except when she’s listening to No Bearing.”
“It’s not cool. It’s pretty scary. And then the great scary flapping things came and destroyed the train.”
“What? GSFBs? Not the express!”
Sebastian nodded.
Isaac sighed and looked dejected. “I really liked that train. Oh well, I guess they’ll be able to fix it. They fix everything.”
Sebastian kept his thoughts to himself. He wasn’t sure if the train or the tracks could ever be fixed, and felt a little bad and almost partly responsible, vaguely. He hadn’t asked the dragons to attack.
“What was your tesla score?” Isaac asked.
“I didn’t get one.”
“You didn’t do the test? How did you end up here?”
Sebastian shrugged and clasped his backpack tightly. “Nikola said I was to stay here.”
“You’ve actually met him? Wow. What’s he like?”
“Okay for an adult. He didn’t treat me like an idiot. A bit official, but he looks like a lion with the hair.”
“But you didn’t do the quiz? Or the blood samples?”
Sebastian shook his head. “He waved a stick at me, then he said I had to come here.”
“Oh, man, you didn’t get the big needle? That’s not fair.”
“Well, I did lose my village.”
“Oh, yeah. That’s not good.” Isaac cast his eyes down and flicked his fingernails together.
Sebastian lay on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. He felt a refreshing chill seep into his body. “Why’s it so cool in here?”
“It’s less conducive to electricity. With all the teslas in one room it can get a bit prickly, as you have no doubt experienced. It makes people go a bit strange.”
“Do you get headaches, too?”
Isaac looked at him and shook his head. “We get a funny feeling in our ears, like we’re falling over.”
“And that’s how you sense magnetism?”
Isaac nodded. “So you really don’t have a score?”
“No. What happens?” Sebastian sat up.
“After the testing, after they’ve taken your blood and drunk it or something, they give you a number. Mine was one-point-five teslas. This is your natural number, the one you’re at all the time. Then, after some more tests, and after they drain the rest of your blood, they give you the second number.” Isaac paused.
Sebastian was listening intently. He had the feeling that this second number was the important one.
“The second number is your potential maximum-burst peak, like half a second,” Isaac said. “The higher the maximum, the shorter the burst. It can be increased through the training they conduct here. They reckon I could get to a whole ten teslas if I work hard.”
“Oh,” replied Sebastian. “That sounds impressive,” he added, unsure whether it was impressive or not.
He sighed and let his eyes wander over the scene of boys in various states of lazing around. The whole place seemed to be idle and tense, in that awkward state between having no expectations and nothing planned.
A hush fell over the room as the other boys went quiet. They watched as an older boy entered. He was in his late teens and walked with an air of superiority. He wore a form of armor that appeared to be composed of bits of hard leather strung together with poor stitching. He had a dark red cape.
Sebastian decided that he wouldn’t dislike him straightaway, but would give him some time to prove how annoying he could be first. The boy was thinner than the others. His face was drawn and gaunt, and his ears seemed slightly too big and pointy, and stuck out through his hair. Which was whooshy. Melanie would disapprove, Sebastian knew. In fact, he was certain all the females he had known would disapprove for one reason or another. Except for Aunt Ratty. She hadn’t seemed to disapprove of anything male and unmarried. Except him, of course.
“Who’s that?” he whispered to Isaac.
“That’s Gavin. They say he may be a k-tesla, a kilotesla.”
Isaac noted the blank expression on Sebastian’s face and continued. “That’s someone who’s a whole other level above us, someone who can control magnetics, rather than just sense it. He could be the first one. It’s really cool. He’s currently a twenty-tesla guy. Well, that’s what he tells everyone. But they reckon—he reckons—he could do super-quick bursts to a thousand teslas. No one’s ever done that before. They’re not even sure if the human body can survive it. It’s all really cool stuff, especially if he gets blown to pieces. He’s the first tesla to have faced a cyborg. He confronted them on the train up here.”
“Don’t you like him?”
Isaac laughed. “You’ll see.”
Gavin wafted through the crowd of younger boys surrounding him. He gave Sebastian a casual glance, recognition that he was a new face but unimportant. As Gavin approached, Sebastian sensed a light tingling in his hands. A slight wave swept over him as the older boy passed by. He glanced at Isaac. He wondered if Gavin also sensed it. If he did, he didn’t show it.
Gavin wandered by and disappeared into a special enclosure at the end of the dormitory. The roughly constructed box gave the illusion of a separate room, certainly a division between Gavin and the rest of the boy
s. He drew a threadbare curtain across the entrance and disappeared from view.
“I’ve got a feeling I won’t like him,” Sebastian said. “But it’s early days.”
“See? And you haven’t even spoken to him yet. That’s when he’s really annoying.”
Sebastian stared at the end curtain. Nothing seemed to be happening.
He yawned and his stomach growled. The afternoon sun had waned and been replaced by the cooling evening light filtering in through the dirty windows. A breeze drifted in from the alleyway, wafting the curtains and providing more much-needed chill to Sebastian’s tired and aching body.
“What does a tesla do all day?” Sebastian asked Isaac, hoping it would involve food.
He lay back and closed his eyes. He didn’t hear the response as he fell straight into a deep sleep.
Oliver peered sheepishly through the doorway into the large and spacious room as Nikola beckoned him inside. An immense wall of ancient books contained within equally aged wood, dark and oppressive, lined the right wall. An antique brass telescope occupied the corner by the window. Nikola sat behind his desk. He didn’t look happy. Two chairs rested on the opposing side, one occupied by a white-haired elderly man with a thick mustache. He had his hands clasped across his legs, which were crossed. His appearance seemed out of place with the other city dwellers, casual and scruffy compared with the general standard, and certainly in stark contrast to the formal and immaculate uniform of Nikola.
The commander indicated the empty chair. Oliver slipped awkwardly in the low slung leather seat, looking hesitantly between the men. Nikola sat on a tall-backed sofa, its dark brown leather cracking due to extreme heat and age. Behind him, a large window offered an impressive vista over the city and into the dark plains of the west.
“You summoned—I mean called—me?” Oliver said.
