LEGACY RISING

by Rachel Eastwood

  Legacy closed her eyes and took a deep breath. In through her nose, out through her mouth, and repeat.

  “So,” Dyna Logan purred over CIN-3. “Tell us about your ideal woman, Kaizen.”

  Legacy’s eyes popped back open. She moved toward the radio, glaring at it as if Dyna and Kaizen were literally inside.

  “I think I’m going to have to give up completely on my automatic writer,” Mr. Legacy went on, oblivious to his daughter’s depression.

  “I don’t know, I mean, I guess she’d be . . . kind of blonde . . .”

  “I can’t stop this string of numbers from printing at the beginning and end of all text, and no one’s going to pay for that, will they?”

  “. . . and quiet . . . but strong?”

  Legacy lunged for the radio, wrenching its lever from ON to OFF.

  “I mean, how can you send a letter with a bunch of nines at the beginning and a bunch of zeroes on the end? But!” Mr. Legacy continued. “The good news is that I’ve completely finished my ocular bot! Of course, you can already buy an ocular bot and all, but mine will be cheaper!”

  “Could I see it?” Legacy asked. “Could I use it?”

  “The ocular bot?” Mr. Legacy clarified. “But it’s the tenth prototype, honey, and I haven’t even—”

  “The automatic writer,” Legacy said.

  She could see it sitting at the far end of his makeshift work desk, where all the misfits went before eventually being dismantled for parts. The machine looked like a leaflet of thin gold papers, a crank on one side, a hammer on the other, and a set of alphabetical systems suspended in the front, poised over the pages, prepared to chisel out or pound down whatever words corresponded to the placement of the letters.

  “Oh, of course, dear,” Mr. Legacy said, gesturing vaguely. “It’s on the counter.”

  Forcing herself not to think about Flywheel—and how much trouble she could be in if he fell into the wrong hands—or about Kaizen—and how his “ideal woman” sounded vaguely familiar—Legacy snatched up the automatic writer and went to her room to begin typing Trimpot’s next speech.

  Chapter Five

  Throughout Thursday night and into Friday, Legacy ate, slept, and breathed the keys on the automatic writer. Her silver and black braids hung unchecked in her face, the golden sheet pressed onto the tablet consuming her world. The way the hammer of each letter swung down felt as cathartic as wielding her mallet at Cook’s.

  Do we not witness their excesses by the castle grounds they keep? The Taliko Archipelagos combined could equal a quarter of the whole of Icarus!

  She ignored the quiet rattle of the door frame later that night. “Legs?” Dax’s voice called through the alloy paneling. “Legs, you up?”

  Legacy paused and glanced over to the place where she knew he was standing. She really couldn’t bear to see him. Not with the scent of Kaizen’s cigarette smoke clinging to her hair.

  “If you’re up, I’d really like to . . . see you for a second.” Legacy stayed rigid and silent, staring in anguish at the closed door, until she heard the whine of the stairwell and knew that Dax had given up and was ascending to Unit #7. Taking a deep breath and telling herself she’d had good reasons to pretend to not be home, Legacy set her eyes back onto the gold sheet before her.

  We once accepted that there simply was not enough, but isn’t there enough for our city officials to privately import delicacies from the Old Earth? A planet they claim is dead yields them plants which they SMOKE!

  When the sun rose, Mr. Legacy came downstairs to begin drafting revisions to his epoxy formula. “You up all night, Ex?” he asked.

  “Hmm?” Legacy murmured, roused from her stare at the automatic writer. “Oh, no. I mean yeah. What?”

  Mr. Legacy smiled. “Never mind. Should get some sleep.” But Legacy ignored the advice and continued.

  We were willing to believe their rendition of reality, though it was only our hearts they cut out! Only our minds! Meanwhile, their earl remains unmatched, and uncontested! Why should he slip the reproductive noose we all wear?

  “Dax came into Nanny’s Assemblage today,” Mrs. Legacy mentioned nonchalantly, unwinding the uniform bonnet from her pill store shift.

  “Mm, that’s nice,” Legacy replied, attempting to completely ignore the information. It wriggled and echoed in her tired head as she glared down at the golden sheet before her, forcing herself to focus.

  “He wanted to say hello, and for me to let you know that he was trying to get in touch.” Legacy could feel her mother’s eyes burning into her, but she didn’t look up. “Did Flywheel run down? He’s not broken, is he?”

  “He’s . . . missing right now,” Legacy admitted, finally glancing up. Her mother was, indeed, giving her that idle sideways stare which pretended to not be as probing as it was. The expression bordered on concern.

  “He said he needs to see you . . . and he wants to know if you’re going to ‘the thing’? What’s ‘the thing’?”

  Legacy tried not to hurry too much to slip her golden paper into the stack of leaflets on the counter. “I’m not sure,” she lied.

  Mrs. Legacy’s eyes shone with a touch more steel to them. “Hmm; that’s odd. He said that you would know what it was. Well, if you are going to ‘the thing,’ let Dax know,” she went on. “He seemed to be hoping you could go together.”

  “Hmm,” Legacy mimicked. “Well, I don’t know.”

  But she did know.

  And she would be there, all right.

  When Mr. Legacy’s snores came rolling in concert with Mrs. Legacy’s light, whining exhale, their daughter climbed fully dressed from beneath her sheets. She lifted her pillow and extracted the stack of thin golden sheets hidden there. Then, wrapping a scarf around her face, she skipped silently down the ladder and out the door of Unit #4. The stairwell of the seven story complex still groaned softly beneath her weight, even though she slunk and crept every inch of the way.

  When she reached the street, however, she took off running as fleet as a winged messenger, the completed speech clutched protectively to her chest.

  The shadows of the factories loomed and receded to her right, then the brass trees streamed past in her peripheral, their dangling leaves clinking like coins, and then she broke into Heroes Park, where the automaton statues rambled their half-truths to all who passed.

  Reaching Archibald Ferraday, she paused and glanced around, then delivered a vicious kick to the plaque at the word “freedom” and dove inside.

  Now that it was much earlier in the night than it had been before, the Chance for Choice headquarters thrived with busily crafting, plotting, moving parts. In addition to Vector and Rain were perhaps, now, at least two dozen cohorts. Neon Trimpot was separate from the fray like the conductor of an orchestra. Although he had no elite with whom to blend here, there was again something strangely aristocratic about his garb. While most others wore patched breeches and boots, Trimpot was outfitted in pink spats which matched his hair, slim black slacks, and yet another frock coat, this one black and constructed of soft, sheer material hemmed by black silk rosettes.

  “. . . but Rain estimates we’ll need at least one hundred cannisters for tomorrow night, and I only see half that here, but I know I told Morgana and Cypress both—” Then his eyes fell across Legacy, and he broke out into a grin. “Legs! Riveting news story I heard about you, heavily implied that you were with the CC,” he smirked. “Even had to go so far as to bring the duke out of his hidey hole and kiss the public boo boo. And I see you have pages.” He extended his hand expectantly, and Legacy delivered the document with obedience.

  Trimpot’s eyes ticked back and forth over the lines, then lifted to his little speechwriter and took on a glow.

  “Such vitriol in you,” he purred. “It’s marvelous. Everyone!” he cried. “I want you to meet the new woman behind the man! This is Exa Legacy!”

  There were one hundred and one reasons why Legacy had a sickened, preoccupied expression on her face al
l day Sunday. She felt like her guts were piled into her mouth, and the nausea culminated in intensity as the sun sank. Legacy laid in bed, eyes shut, waiting for the bells of midnight. Still, she had to wait for her parents to extinguish their bedroom light, and for the snore and the soft whine of her mother’s exhale to float into the air again, letting her know that she was safe to travel unobserved. It was after midnight when Legacy finally slipped out from under her sheets.

  But she still had one hundred and one reasons why she felt like she was about to either pass out or throw up.

  Tonight, one hundred people were hearing her words, and responding to her call.

  Tonight would also be the first time she’d seen Dax since their kiss.

  Both hers and Dax’s, and hers and Kaizen’s.

  Legacy turned the key on her bedside lamp, filling the room with a soft yellow glow, and rooted through her drawers for something perfect. Something beautiful enough to beg for forgiveness without saying a word.

  Obviously, it wouldn’t be in her common style of loose-fitting slacks and grease-smudged tank tops.

  She had to dig to the very bottom of her drawer to find something remotely feminine, and as she extracted the lacy garment, she experienced a little shudder of sorrow and self-loathing.

  It’d been three years since she’d worn this.

  Legacy slipped it over her body and privately relished the fibers from which it had been fabricated.

  The material was soft and flexible, lacy, the stark black of raven’s feathers. The way it clung to her figure allowed her the gentle curvature of breasts and hips, a rare set of features by which to distinguish her. The hem fell high on her thigh, but then cut back and billowed behind her in a handkerchief design, that popular style of the time. It was simple, but . . . elegant. It made her feel like she deserved to be touched.

  Even if I don’t, she thought, running her hands over its seams.

  The dress had been an embarrassing gift from her parents when she went on her first date with Liam, forever ago, before she got bored out of her skull and faked a migraine headache.

  Donning some high, striped stockings and a knee-high, low-heeled pair of lace-up boots, Legacy left her braids down, shrugged a light jacket, dirtied and patched, over her shoulders, and moved with a controlled creep out the front door.

  “Dax!” she hissed, quietly shutting it behind her.

  He was leaning on the balcony of Unit #4, facing away from the door and up—up toward the now waning full moon in his constantly rumpled collared shirt, open vest, and high-rising pinstriped slacks.

  “Leg,” he replied, turning. There was something different about him. Normally, his tone was buoyant, and it was he who dragged her out of funks. But now it was he who was wreathed in a kind of heaviness. “Sorry to . . . You look . . . really sexy.” He laughed breathlessly. “Where did you—I mean—Well, never mind.” His eyes panned away uncomfortably. “You just look really sexy.”

  In spite of everything, Legacy had to smile. “You can look at me, you know,” she said. “It’s okay.”

  But when his eyes panned to her, they were full of uncertainty. “I’ve been trying to get in touch since Thursday,” he said. “Is Flywheel broke or something?”

  “I’ve been really busy,” Legacy explained lamely. “I wrote the speech.” She avoided using the name Trimpot or Chance for Choice, just in case anyone was listening above or below. She also avoided mentioning that Flywheel was missing . . . as if Dax would magically know that he’d gone missing because she’d drunk some anxiety tonic, and then kissed the Earl of Icarus while under its influence. “We should probably go, it’s already started,” Legacy went on.

  “C-can I walk with you?” Dax asked.

  Legacy almost glared at him. It was offensive to think that she would reject his company. “Of course!”

  How was it possible that they could love each other secretly for years, and then, after finally confessing all, find themselves less certain than before?

  But the walk to the rally was made in near total silence, Dax looking to Legacy and then away, Legacy looking to Dax and then away.

  The lot behind the factory was thronged with the expectant faces of militant ragamuffins. Someone had set the garbage bins aflame, and they now roared with a toxic emerald fire. As the pair perforated the mob’s horizon, threading through a dense hedge of grumbles, shouts, and shadows, Dax instinctively grabbed Legacy’s hand tight. They moved toward the front, where Trimpot stood poised in the more common style of the crowd. Gone were his delicate frock coats and spats, replaced with tattered work pants and coal-blackened boots of thick tread. The speech had already begun. Legacy could recognize its lines as he pounded them out into his brass megaphone.

  “This is it!” Legacy yelled to Dax. “This is my speech!”

  She had a hard time listening to the actual words Trimpot spoke, and was more invested in gauging the reaction of the crowd. At her—or, at Trimpot’s—mention of the size of the palace grounds, boos and hisses came pealing. “Bet his bedroom’s got four walls!” someone cried.

  “We climb six stories for a cold shower!”

  “Three people in one hundred and seventeen square feet!”

  At the mention of their secretly imported goods, more howls came. Some rebels tossed stray trash, as if the duke were here, as if he could see this happening.

  Dax slanted an inquisitive look at her.

  “What?” she asked, looking around. In all of this din, why would he focus on her, standing quietly?

  “Meanwhile! The Earl of Icarus remains unmatched! And uncontested! Why has he slipped the reproductive noose we all wear?”

  “How did you know—” Dax began.

  “Hang him!” someone bellowed from the midst of the masses.

  Legacy stiffened uncomfortably, feeling as if she were riding a monster bare-backed and didn’t know when it might buck and devour her. More trash went flying overhead, the sound of glass breaking emanating from somewhere in the crowd, and Dax ducked over Legacy, shielding her head. “Kind of madness, isn’t it?” he asked her.

  “Guess the speech worked,” Legacy replied.

  “What are we going to do!” Trimpot demanded of the crowd. “Are we going to just let them keep taking and taking? Are we going to say nothing, again and again, while they commit interviews to the damage control of their public image? Image! We don’t care! We live in shanties! Forced into arranged, state-mandated marriage! But there’s a castle in the distance! They come out once or twice a year to pat us on the head and tell us what good little citizens we’ve been! But we’re not good little citizens anymore!”

  The crowd roared in agreement.

  “Take up your coloring cannons with me, Icarus! Chance for Choice! Let’s show that pandering puppet, CIN-3, that the people of Icarus aren’t going to accept another trifle display of fake loyalty! They are not our voice! Let’s tell them what we really think!”

  Members of Chance for Choice, masked and all in black, coursed through the crowds like insidious thought, shoving thick, glass blunderbusses into the hands of every citizen present. What would have been a chamber for ammunition was filled with different colors of vibrant paint. None of the rebels were recognizable beneath the swath of black across their faces, but a male silhouette skipped past Legacy and Dax, shoving a magenta blunderbuss—a color cannon, he’d called it—into Legacy’s hands, a toxic green one into Dax’s.

  As the citizens were armed with their weapons of expression, the crowd moved, almost seeming to become some sentient fluid. They surged through the decrepit courtyard of the industrial territory, ripping through the strewn refuse flung in the ecstasy of their senseless fury, then through the brass forest and Heroes Park, pouring and careening into the narrow byways of the business district. Legacy lost Dax somewhere between here and there in the churning river of shadows; one minute, she had his hand, and they were right beside each other, and the next, the link was torn free and he was gone. She doubled ba
ck to make sure he hadn’t fallen, fighting against the current, but no one there, or maybe he was there, being trampled, and she just couldn’t see in the confusion. With the hurry and sloppiness of panic, she scanned the ground, and as the crowd thinned, having surged ahead, it became obvious that Dax was not here.

  She looked toward the mass of shadows moving toward CIN-3.

  He was there. With them.

  Legacy bolted forward and reentered the crowd with ease, having no resistance of bodies to struggle against, but upon infiltrating the membrane of the cell, motion became much more difficult, as did sight and sound.

  They turned a corner and there was the looming chromium station of CIN-3, with some rebels having already clambered along its turrets and windows, furious as wild animals, color cannons firing fine mists of the stuff onto the chrome, where it bloomed and then bled. But, as Legacy approached, she saw the blinking lenses of the cameras, both tiny and large, stooping to observe, extending their antennas like curious ears.

  Oh, no, she thought. We’re all going to get caught. We’ve got to—I’ve got to find Dax. We’ve got to get out of here before it’s too late. What was Trimpot thinking? How could he have been so stupid?

  Pounding along the sidewalk, Legacy only pausing to blur the eye of a miniature camera which scuttled along the wall on four legs, blinking after her with a deep blue eye. Another lens slithered down like a flexible periscope, close enough to document her exposed face, and she blinded it. She reached the entrance to the building, where rebels straddled trash cans to hoist themselves onto the scaffolds, climbing each other’s shoulders or clawing at windowsills for more height.

  If I could just find higher ground, I could find him.

  Legacy’s eyes darted in search of some leverage, and found Neon Trimpot’s pink faux hawk amid all the commotion, standing out like the flame of a candle in the darkness, up on a scaffold and not even painting, but speaking to Gustav with a bizarrely casual stance, as if this was merely tea time. Then he threw back his head and laughed, turning away from the wall of CIN-3 and eyes roving the crowd as if appraising a different kind of art piece, a different kind of statement, than the one actually being made.