The Perilous In-Between

by Cortney Pearson

  She considered the best route to the laboratories in the Aviatory’s lower levels while the rest of her thoughts flitted in every direction. Oscar had seemed so frazzled, so . . . distracted. Had he been going to see Rosalind? She hadn’t had the heart to ask him whether he’d gotten a chance to speak with her or not, though Victoria tried her hardest to get him near the harpsicord at the dance last night.

  She didn’t get a chance to figure it out. In an instant the siren wailed, long and shrill, stabbing into every one of her pores.

  “Impossible,” she breathed, thinking of the cog in her pocket. The Kreak never attacked during the day. It was always—always—at sunset.

  Victoria darted back outside and across the green, through the fence, and to her hangar, falling into place with the other Nauts dashing down the path from their dormitory.

  Their battle leathers weren’t in place and pristine as usual, but mussed as if hastily thrown on. Emma, Victoria noted, was still in her white camisole and had simply thrown a jacket over the top of it.

  “Finish that, will you?” Bronwyn snapped at Aline, a short girl with olive skin and slanted eyes who was still munching on a pastry as she placed her earpiece over her cheek.

  “What’s going on?” Orpha asked, twisting her hair up as she ran.

  Victoria looked around for Maizey. The girl’s hangar was right next to her own. But there was no sign of the slender girl with her bobbed-short russet hair.

  “Mount up, mount up!” Bronwyn yelled.

  Really, Victoria thought. Yelling does not help a situation—that was what their earpieces were for. Longing swelled in her chest like a balloon. It wasn’t fair, seeing another in her post. She’d known it was Bronwyn, but that still didn’t make the sight of the other girl doing a poor job of management any easier.

  The planes began pulling from their hangars, filling the air and adding the roar of their engines to the siren’s wail. Victoria ached to join them. She counted the puttering machines, their exhaust spewing in gray spirals through the sky. With Dahlia injured and Maizey missing in action, and with Victoria prohibited to join them, that made two ladies. Four total, yes, but only Bronwyn and Emma were truly qualified to defend the shore. The other night their squad of five had barely been enough. It wasn’t right.

  Sending a glance over one shoulder then the other, she bent to the handle at her hangar door. She thrust it upward, ready to mount Elsie despite it all, when she collided with Uncle Jarvis.

  “Goodness!” she exclaimed, her heart racing.

  Jarvis steadied himself. “I figured I might find you here. I hoped I wouldn’t. But I figured I would.”

  The smell of exhaust swirled between them. The plane’s roars faded away, while the siren still yowled overhead. Victoria couldn’t take it. She stormed past him into her open hangar. “Uncle, this isn’t fair. I’m the best pilot you have. I broke formation to do my job and get the beast into the ocean. Isn’t that what you trained me for?”

  “You acted impulsively, Victoria. That’s not a good sign of leadership.”

  “It’s not always about following rules!” she cried, struggling to be heard.

  He stepped toward her, shouting over the siren. “When it comes to saving lives, it is. You are our best, Victoria, that is true. But you have a lot to learn. I need you to prove you can follow directions and adhere to protocol. That includes sacrificing your desire to fly.”

  “We are down three pilots, Uncle! More lives would have been lost if I hadn’t done what I did!”

  She made for her ladder. He sidestepped, barring her way.

  Victoria’s back pricked. The siren call began to fade, but its chime echoed, warning people to prepare their gas masks. Who knew what kind of havoc that monster was wreaking on the shore, even now?

  “Why is this happening during the day? Is it a real attack?”

  The Kreak always needed a recharge once whatever the power source it thrived on wore off. She expected her uncle to mirror her confusion, but he only seemed resigned. “Yes, it’s real.”

  Her feet pushed past him to climb the rungs. Still, he did not move. His arm continued barring her way.

  “I’ll let you back on that plane—” He hesitated.

  Victoria swallowed, hardly daring to believe what he was saying.

  “I’ll let you fly if you agree to leave well enough alone. Follow protocol. Stop talking about changing what you don’t understand. Agreed?”

  The siren screeched on. The cog seemed to burn against her thigh.

  “Victoria!” he barked.

  There was no time to think it over now. “Fine. Agreed.”

  Satisfied, he lifted his arm from the rung, and Victoria made her way up the ladder.

  Thirteen

  Victoria flew low, goggles pinching her temples. It wasn’t possible, the Kreak attacking at this time of day. The sensation of flying into direct sunlight was unfamiliar to her, and she squinted, veering off course slightly in attempt at avoiding the blinding glare. Jarvis knew more than he let on. She could tell from the look he’d given her.

  She passed over the curving lake straying down the countryside and toward the townhomes growing larger with her increased proximity. She expected to find people running around, desperate for cover, but as she approached the town’s outlying streets she gasped in shock. A few citizens stood with heads tipped upward, their elephantine gas masks shielding their faces as they watched the planes sheer overhead. Others scrambled, pushing and shoving their way through, but not to get indoors. To get to the shore.

  “What is going on?” she asked herself, wishing she’d worn her communicative devices. At least she would be there. She would hang back and let Bronwyn lead, but she would be there if they needed her.

  The sight of the people below reminded her too much of Diana Powell, and Victoria closed her eyes for the briefest moment, praying the memory away.

  “Hurry,” she urged, passing slower than usual above. “Get inside.”

  The ocean churned at the end of Down Street with its boardwalk marking either side. The Kreak rose, warbling out of the sea. People’s cries joined the chaos as its mechanical arms dripped foam and tangles of seaweed. Sunlight glinted off the metal, and the creature scaled the sand, its large limbs pounding down.

  The Nauts converged around it, spewing their flames to stop its advancement. A rush of adrenaline propelled her. Victoria knew she should steer forward and join them as quickly as she could, but still, something held her back.

  A boy, maybe seventeen or eighteen, stood in the center of Down Street, hands in the pockets of a strange pair of blue trousers. He wore a smile on his face as though he found people’s panic amusing. He wore no gas mask, no suitcoat or even a dress shirt, and that didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest.

  “What are you doing, fool boy?” Victoria cried, maneuvering her joystick and maintaining hover nearby. “Move!”

  His short sleeves placed him as an outsider, but the trousers were of no material she’d ever seen. A ragged hole spoked through one knee. And he simply stood there as if inviting the Kreak and its poisonous fumes to consume him on the spot. Victoria wondered if he truly meant to confront the large, metal creature. Perhaps he held some weapon she couldn’t perceive, and that was his reason for pocketing his hands.

  The four hovercraft near the shore maintained formation, spewing more fire at the beast. The sight wasn’t as formidable in the bright afternoon. The Kreak seemed to think so too; it charged forward like a newly freed animal.

  “It’s too used to our tactics,” Victoria mumbled. The Kreak lifted a claw, but at least the girls were smart enough to avert it. Almost at once it attacked again, smashing another craft to the sand.

  The boy turned in place. The humored, almost disbelieving look on his face deepened, as if he wondered what could possibly frighten the people so. How could h
e not know? Victoria hesitated. She should make for the shore. But she would never again stand by and allow another person to die in such a grim manner.

  The green haze curdled over the air, heading in their direction. More people scattered and vanished within shops, until only a few in gas masks remained with the boy in the middle of the street.

  With careful control of the joystick, Victoria lowered beside him, hovering above the ground. His eyes widened as she opened the hatch. The glass lifted slowly. The green haze closed in. There was no time for either of them to secure a mask, even if he had one.

  “Quickly!” she yelled over the noise of the engine.

  “What?” he yelled, covering his ears.

  Victoria rose from her seat and leaned out. Curse it, there was no time for this hesitation. She could already smell the smoke—thick and feral, like rotted eggs. Its vapor tinged her lungs.

  “Get in, you fool! Or we die!”

  The boy climbed on the wing spearing in his direction and pulled his way into the cabin of the hovercraft. Victoria was already lowering the hatch as he took his place in the empty seat behind hers.

  “What was that all about?” he asked.

  She triggered the gears to lift the craft higher and make for the horizon. “That green mist was the breath of the Kreak. It would have killed you instantly.”

  “Uhh—okay?” Of all things, it sounded like he was withholding a laugh.

  Victoria worked to keep her craft steady amid the green smoke. She made her way past the rest of the shops, keeping her eyes peeled for the monster, which had momentarily vanished. Was it hiding? Did it know how to hide?

  “From the sound of your surprise, I gather you are not from Chuzzlewit?”

  “Chuzza-what?”

  Victoria didn’t answer. She caught sight of the brute at once. The Kreak emerged from behind the bookshop, crushing the corner of the building with its front claws. Smoke pilfered, and debris scattered from the source of the wreckage. Several people screamed, and the Kreak let out a deafening roar. Its movements were jagged, rickety and unfocused. It staggered past the remaining shops on Down Street. Two hovercraft fluttered at its sides like insects blowing flames.

  The boy beyond her swore.

  “That is an approximate estimation,” Victoria said in response to how massive the boy pronounced the Kreak to be. She made straight for the metal brute, working to keep her hovercraft steady amid the thronging fumes. The gauge levels were clear. She veered the joystick to aim her fire at the Kreak’s exposed heart pulsing beneath its steel ribs. Her thumb smashed the button.

  Flame spurted out and licked the air, catching fire on the emissions coming from the monster. They curled through the poison, attacking its source.

  The Kreak’s massive head clicked and whirred, cranking in Victoria’s direction. Her stomach dropped through her seat. The monster lifted a mechanical talon. Victoria recognized the gesture from a few days ago when it had knocked Dahlia’s craft from the air.

  “Dive upward and wheel around,” the boy behind her shouted. “Confuse it!”

  Victoria jolted her joystick hard to the right, whirling Elsie in consecutive circles. Her stomach gave several pleasant lurches, and it was glorious, taking on the brute on her own, devising her tactics in the moment based on the Kreak’s behavior. She pulled out of the loop with a loud whoop and shot upward as the boy suggested.

  Sure enough, the monster swayed, frozen and confused in its tracks.

  “Go for the legs!” said the boy behind her.

  Victoria responded instantly. She darted for the small gap between the Kreak’s spring-operated legs. The beast tried to follow, but Victoria felt the loud thump as the Kreak’s strange face planted downward, smashing several gears against the dirt road. It roared in a rage, pushing itself upright again. Victoria wheeled around, reeling with adrenaline, heartened by the boy’s whooping shouts behind her.

  “Any other brilliant ideas?” she asked, her heart pounding.

  “Kill the thing?”

  “If only it were that simple.” She moved forward again, ignoring his offhand banter from behind. His words made very little sense to her as it was, and she found she couldn’t concentrate on them. The Kreak began retreating as if sensing defeat. Its head moved strangely thanks to the few components it lost in the fall.

  Someone had to have assembled all those parts, but who? Victoria wondered, not for the first time. She urged to barrel straight for the beast, to knock it down and relieve it of a few more of its gears. But her craft wasn’t up for that kind of an attack. Not if she wanted to land with herself and her new passenger alive.

  Victoria joined the other Nauts hovering in front of the Kreak’s slow, backward progress, spewing fire in its direction at her discretion. Gradually, like a wounded soldier, the beast lowered itself into the ocean. She glanced back at the boy’s shocked expression and then to the crumpled heap of wood and brick and piles of books spilling from Fenstermaker’s, like a bleeding of literature. Had anyone else been hurt?

  “This is the part where you pinch me so I can wake up, right?” the boy asked in a clipped fashion.

  Victoria wasn’t quite sure what to say. Questions rolled through her mind as she promptly headed back with the other pilots to park her plane, questions too forward to ask a complete stranger. Who was this strange boy? Where was he from? He would have died if she hadn’t found him when she did. So why didn’t he seem more afraid?

  Fourteen

  “Curse these wretched skirts.”

  Victoria struggled to descend the metal ladder after parking Elsie back in the hangar. Each time her boot heels touched metal, they took a bite of her skirt with them. She nearly fell twice.

  The boy’s flat-heeled shoes lingered above as she paused to collect her torn skirts more fully in one hand. At this point she didn’t care how much leg she showed, as long as she made it down the infernal ladder without breaking her neck.

  She stepped onto the concrete floor, sweat dripping down her back. She hoped the young man couldn’t tell through her corset. Despite his unusual clothing, he was handsome.

  Victoria ran a hand over her hair, still tied into its bun. “Thank you for your assistance back there, Mr.—”

  He hopped down, skipping the last few rungs and likewise ran his hands through his dark hair, which fell over his forehead. Something black winked at her from the crook of his elbow in the process. Had he gotten oil on him, perhaps?

  He glanced up at Elsie, taking in the makeup of the plane’s metal underbelly.

  “It’s Graham,” he said, adjusting his short-sleeved shirt. Victoria had never seen a boy’s arms to this extent before. It’s not as though they’re that different from my own, she chided herself, though she couldn’t help staring at him. He really was quite beautiful, for a boy, with large brown eyes that brimmed with amusement, strong cheekbones, and straight, white teeth when he smiled. And his lashes—were boys allowed to have such long, dark lashes?

  The way he was looking at her made her flush. What must she look like right now? And in a too-small training corset, no less.

  “So should I just call you my pilot?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Your name, Amelia Earhart. You saved my life back there, didn’t you?” The question was confirming more than inquiring.

  “Oh.” Amelia, who? “Yes, I did. Save your life, that is.” Victoria strode to the hangar door, still unable to process the simple question. She reached for the rope to pull the door down. Mr. Graham, who was several inches taller than she, lifted an arm to assist her. This time she caught a more direct sight of the mark on the fullest part of his forearm. Not oil, but a tattoo? The image was a circle with points along its edges, almost like a star. She felt herself flush. Only sailors and pirates from stories had tattoos. Who was he?

  “Thank you,” she said once the racket q
uieted and the door kissed the ground. “And my name is Miss Victoria Digby of Gingham Range.”

  “Miss Victoria Digby, as I live and breathe,” he said, quirking the corner of his mouth upward. “Listen, Victoria Digby.” His hands delved back into his pockets. “You wouldn’t happen to know of an A.C. Starkey, would you? I kinda need to find him. ASAP.” He popped his lips in a strange fashion at the end of the odd word.

  Victoria decided not to ask what it meant. She considered for a moment, skimming through names of the townspeople in her mind. Mr. Graham’s chocolate brown eyes fastened directly onto her face unabashedly, like she was a map he was trying to memorize. She heated under the penetration of that gaze. Charles Merek had never looked at her like that.

  Instead of connecting a face with the name he’d given her, she found herself trapped in that gaze, her thoughts seizing. Who was this boy? Where had he come from? And what was he doing in the middle of the street during an attack?

  “My uncle might know him,” she finally said, not wanting to bombard the boy with questions at the present. She was already uncomfortable around him as it was.

  “Let’s do it, then,” Mr. Graham said, strutting forward a few feet in front of her. Several of the other Nauts leaving their hangars stopped and stared, leaning to speak with one another behind their hands. Graham jutted his chin in their direction, before he glanced back as if realizing Victoria hadn’t moved.

  “Right. Sorry,” he said in self-chastisement. He made his way back to her. “Just had a really weird experience. A couple, actually.” He bopped his hands. How fidgety he was.

  “I suppose I can see how flying on patrol with me could be classified as ‘weird,’” she said.

  “Look, Tori, I’m in a place that I’m pretty sure doesn’t exist. I don’t know anyone here, and I’d just like to find my friend. Can you help me? Please?”

  Utterly bamboozled, Victoria nodded. She decided to reply to his final comment, the only part of his words she’d been able to comprehend. “Of course. Of course you’d like to find your friend. My uncle Jarvis should be at Gingham Range by now. Why don’t you join me there?”