Waybound

by Cam Baity

  Mr. Pynch tried to hold him back.

  Too late. The lumie spilled over the edge of the bridge.

  Mr. Pynch blinked boozily.

  He staggered to the lip of the land bridge and looked over, steeling himself for the horrific sight of his partner shattered into grisly bits far below. Instead, he saw the Marquis dangling from a jutting lump of ore by the belt loop of his fancy trousers. He was fluttering his opticle in delirious laughter, suspended over the faint glint of train tracks far below.

  Blink-blunky-flunk.

  “Oh no. This most certainly DOES count as me saving yer life,” chuckled the balvoor as he lowered a mitt to haul his friend up. “If it wasn’t for me—”

  A train roared. Pebbles danced. The jutting ore cracked.

  The Marquis fell.

  Mr. Pynch’s smile fell with him.

  The Marquis’s opticle blasted a blinding shriek. He crunched atop an open train car of granulated ore. His opticle snuffed out like a candle.

  Mr. Pynch stared openmouthed at the blur of train cars below as they sped off into the night.

  Dollop knew he shouldn’t have eaten that calefactus, but he had been starving. It was only now that his body felt tingly and numb, like his parts were all detached, that he seemed to recall that calefactus was poisonous. Or was that tulum?

  Either way, his core was pumping irregularly, and his head buzzed like it was full of zurdyflies.

  And he was exhausted. Dollop had been searching for so long that the jungle had given way to a swamp. Skeletal growths drooped low and erupted in scythe-like fronds. Vesper gathered in bubbling, muck-skinned pools, and fetid orange mist clung to the night. Dollop knew he wouldn’t last long out here. He didn’t know how to make a terra shelter, or how to purify corrupted vesper, or anything.

  With shaking hands, he tried the salathyl prong once more.

  But no one was coming to save him. Dollop knew that now.

  He retrieved the prong with a heavy sigh.

  Poor Loaii. Poor Micah. What had become of them?

  “M-Mother of Ore,” he began to pray, but then stopped himself. She wasn’t coming to rescue him now either. The Great Engineer only helped those mehkans who could help themselves.

  He continued to trudge through the stinking dreariness of the swamp with his gut roiling. That calefactus was really making him woozy.

  Dollop tripped, and a musical tone sang out. He turned, and his arm grazed something, causing an even brighter note to ring.

  It was a twisting black strand stretched between two trunks, hidden in the foliage. A nauseating familiarity clawed at him, a sense that he had been here before.

  Terror seized him—this was a bad place.

  Dollop bolted. He barely made it two steps before he was clotheslined by another concealed black thread and knocked off his feet. A cheerful chord of three notes mocked his cry of shock.

  He was surrounded by an intricate web of musical trip wires. The lines ran along the ground and stretched down from branches. He could barely move without hitting the strands.

  A shadow whispered past overhead.

  Its name spread through his mind like a disease.

  Vaptoryx.

  Dollop had no memory of encountering one, yet he was overcome with vivid sensations, things he knew but could not have known. He could feel the slick mucus coating its supple black wings, hear the screeching clash of its needle-pointed legs, smell the hot rot of its snapping pincer maw.

  It ripped a hole in the mist. Sheet-metal wings unfurled with a warped wobble. The nightmare was coming for Dollop.

  He was locked in place, his mind trapped in the nether region between now and some half-remembered other time. The vaptoryx twisted in midair, wove its serrated body through the trip wires, and sailed forth to take its prey.

  Its pincer jaws flexed wide.

  The fog in Dollop’s mind evaporated in an instant.

  He scattered his pieces, spilling himself to the ground in a jumble. The predator’s mandibles snapped shut as it tore past, narrowly missing his head. His limbs gathered together and bounced off the wires, filling the air with a harmonic cacophony. He exploded into a sprint, ignoring the stabbing pain in his knee.

  Dollop looked back—the vaptoryx was so close he could smell the death lingering in its hungry jaws. He looked ahead—a nest of trip wires slashed across his path, blocking the way.

  Again, the pincer jaws hinged open wide.

  He leapt.

  His body came apart in midair, bits and pieces of him tumbling between the wires, slipping through to freedom. The vaptoryx collided with the wall of black strands in a jangling chorus, tangled in its own trap. Dollop’s parts reunited to form his body on the other side of the barrier.

  The black beast thrashed, using its serrated body to hack at the lines, trying to sever them with its clamping pincers.

  Dollop couldn’t stop shaking as he raced deeper into the swamp. It wasn’t just the vaptoryx. He felt like a curtain had been ripped back, and now light was spilling into the recesses of his broken memory.

  Within minutes of gunning the engine, Micah had the hang of the Sea Bullet. Since he couldn’t risk turning on any lights, he navigated by starlight reflected off the silver flux. He eased off the accelerator and looked behind them. The lights of Bhorquvaat were too close for comfort. Micah steered the boat toward the scattering of islands that looked to be only a few miles away.

  The Sea Bullet died.

  The steering wheel went lifeless, and the deck beneath his feet stopped buzzing. He flashed his detached rifle light to read the fuel cell gauge—nearly full.

  He swept his light around the cabin. Phoebe was curled up into a ball in one of the seats. Fat lotta good she was gonna be.

  No worries. He’d have this jalopy up and running in no time.

  Micah found the service hatch in the floor, pulled it open, and climbed down the ladder. He scanned the mechanical confines with his light and saw a narrow walkway with a low ceiling, hemmed in on both sides with equipment.

  Who woulda thought a little ol’ Sea Bullet could hold such a huge engine room down below?

  The power box was as good a place to start as any. A quick search revealed it. To his surprise, the front panel was open.

  That was weird.

  An arm hooked around his neck.

  His light hit the floor. He threw his head back, trying to butt his attacker, but it only allowed the arm to tighten. Micah’s vision wavered. He stomped his heels, mashed some toes, but there was no cry of pain.

  In seconds he would pass out.

  He whipped an elbow back, connected with a rib cage. Still the grip tightened.

  The world dimmed.

  Then the engine room lit up.

  Sparks flew. Something hot screamed past him.

  Phoebe stood at the foot of the ladder, firing the rifle in a hissing spray. The arm around his neck loosened.

  Micah planted his legs on the wall and shoved. He slammed his attacker against the low ceiling with a crunch. The choke hold released. He tore free.

  As he stumbled and tried to regain his feet, Phoebe stepped forward, the rifle raised and trembling.

  “Hold your fire!” ordered the shadow in a husky voice. A woman’s voice. “Shoot down here, and you’ll kill us all.”

  Micah took the rifle from Phoebe.

  “You almost…coulda killed me,” he huffed.

  “You’re welcome,” Phoebe grunted back.

  The attacker lunged at them again. Micah raised the rifle and pressed the trigger enough to start the four barrels spinning.

  “On the ground!” he roared, surprised at the ferocity of his own voice. The woman hesitated, then raised her hands.

  “Okay,” she said calmly. “Don’t do anything stupid, Micah.”

  “How did you—” Phoebe started.

  “I said on the ground. NOW!” he commanded.

  The woman got down on her knees, hands behind her head.

 
“Now back away,” he said.

  She shuffled backward down the narrow walkway. “Phoebe, look,” the woman said. “I know who you are. I—”

  “Shut up,” Micah ordered. “Get my light, Plumm.”

  Phoebe grabbed his fallen light and shone it in the attacker’s face. The woman was in her early thirties with blunt, curved features that held a quiet confidence. She had light brown skin, and her black hair was pulled into a tight ponytail. The Foundry sunburst logo marked her spotless coveralls.

  “Find something to tie her with,” Micah said.

  “Wait, why don’t we—” Phoebe countered.

  “Just do it!” he ordered, hardly believing Phoebe would argue with him at this moment.

  She started searching the engine room with his light.

  “Micah, Phoebe. You kids are in serious trouble, you know that? You have to do the right thing,” the woman said, starting to lower her arms. “You have to turn yourselves in.”

  “If you don’t shut the hell up,” Micah growled, “I’ll shoot you dead right here, right now.” The hair on his neck rose.

  The woman was unmoved, but she lifted her hands anyway.

  Phoebe returned with a bundle of cable, which Micah took along with the light. He handed his rifle back to her.

  “She moves,” Micah said, trying his very best to sound ruthless, “kill her.”

  He registered shock on Phoebe’s face, but she pointed the rifle at the Foundry worker all the same. Micah approached the woman very carefully.

  “Hands behind your back.”

  “My name is Gabriella,” she said, staring down the four barrels of the rifle. “Be smart. I can help you. Don’t make this harder on yourselves than it needs to be.”

  He grabbed the woman’s arms and yanked them behind her back. With trembling hands, he bound her wrists to her ankles, wrapping and tying the cable as securely as he could.

  “How can you help us?” Phoebe asked.

  Micah screwed up the knot he had learned back in Nature Scouts. He undid the cable and tried again.

  “Come back with me, and I’ll make sure you get treated fairly. You have my word,” Gabriella promised.

  After hog-tying the woman, he patted her down, powering through the embarrassment he felt at touching her. No weapons.

  “Come on, you guys,” Gabriella reasoned. “You’re not kidnappers. You’re not killers. You’re scared and for good reason. I’d be scared too, if I was in your shoes.”

  Micah checked the door at the far end of the engine room—it was the lavatory. In it, he found a toolbox and a compartment stocked with toilet paper, but other than that, it was empty.

  They could hear a sound rising above, the muted chug of Aero-copter blades.

  “They’re on to you,” Gabriella said. “They’re tracking the boat. It’s just a matter of minutes before—”

  Micah wrapped duct tape around Gabriella’s mouth. He returned the roll to the toolbox and dragged his captive toward the lavatory. She squirmed and fought.

  “A little help?” he said to Phoebe, exasperated.

  “We can’t do this,” she said.

  “We gotta,” he said, snatching his rifle from her. He used it to prod Gabriella into the lavatory, then slammed the door.

  “Micah,” Phoebe pleaded.

  He ignored Phoebe and dug a flashlight out of the toolbox. “Here,” he said, handing it to her along with the rifle. “Find something to bar that door with. Keep her in there, okay?”

  Toolbox and rifle light in hand, he stomped over to the power box, threw the core switches, and the electric generators hummed to life. A violent pounding erupted in the lavatory.

  “If she gets out, you know what to do,” he said, motioning to the rifle in her hands. He clambered up the ladder.

  Search beams cleaved the sky, flaring off the ocean of flux. Aero-copters and Gyrojets hovered around the Mercanteer’s palace. The Foundry was looking for its missing Sea Bullet.

  A radio crackled.

  “SB448, this is Control Core. Please respond.”

  Micah hunkered low and raced to the control panel, setting down the tool kit. Light in his mouth, he frantically set the dials and threw the silent boat into motion with a fishtailing lurch.

  “I repeat. SB448, this is Control Core. Respond.”

  He wrestled with the wheel, pushing the throttle up to fifty knots. Maybe they could lay low in those islands he had spotted.

  The radio crackled again. Micah dug around in the toolbox.

  “SB448, you have not complied, which is a dereliction of—”

  Micah smashed the radio with a claw hammer.

  It was late, and Mr. Pynch was sobering up against his will. The viscollia aftermath left him jittery and weak, with an unrelenting headache pounding behind his eye sacs.

  The Marquis was missing.

  Had his partner survived that fall, he would have headed for Durl. Yet a thorough search of that back-ore hamlet had produced no missing lumilow. So Mr. Pynch had moved on, hiking across the jumbled land bridges of the Arcs.

  He clung to the hope that the Marquis would find a way to contact him. A death-defying fall onto a Foundry train was nothing to a mehkie who had gotten out of tougher scrapes without so much as a stain on his gloves. But that train had been a fast one, which meant his partner might not have roused before Durl. Most likely the Marquis would be waiting at the next town. Wycik, it was, if Mr. Pynch’s memory served.

  So on he went, though his feet grew heavier with every step.

  If Durl was back-ore, then Wycik was submehkan.

  Perfect place for a hungover scrap without his partner.

  As Mr. Pynch mounted a steeply bowed land bridge, he caught a glimpse of the Inro Coast in the distance and the sparkling silver gulf beyond. That was where the train carrying the Marquis was headed, which meant so was he.

  Mr. Pynch sighed and pulled his overcoat tight around his ample figure. He surveyed the elevated pathways, plotting his trajectory through the Arcs toward the distant smudge of Wycik.

  And that’s when he saw it, a light blinking below.

  Mr. Pynch’s pump soared, and his nozzle spun. He stumbled down the land bridge and crashed through a patch of iron burrs, picking the painful nuisances out of his skin while he ran.

  The light blinked again and again.

  Backlit-gurgle-munch, the Marquis flickered nonsensically.

  His partner was delirious, talking gibberish. He probably needed medical attention. Mr. Pynch descended, pushing harder and faster, zigzagging from bridge to bridge. He scampered down a pathway and wound around a cliff toward the hapless lumie.

  “There you be, ya snaky ne’er-do-well! I was surefied ya—”

  Mr. Pynch jiggled to a stop.

  His partner was nowhere to be found. He looked back and forth and up and down, but there was no sign of the Marquis.

  The only thing here was a monument wedged into the ravine wall. It was a broken-down Waypoint—one of those ancient altars where long-ago travelers sought blessings. The carved figure within it was so savagely weathered that its features were unidentifiable, though Mr. Pynch assumed it once depicted the Ona or a highfalutin axial of some sort.

  There were heaps of pink lacepetal scattered at the Waypoint, along with fresh kolchi nuts, aromatic ashcone, and other such devout offerings. There were even a few tinklets of gauge, which Mr. Pynch instinctively reached for.

  As he did, a recently planted torchbloom flared to life, incinerating one of the wingnut flies that had been circling. He studied the fiery bloom—this was the flickering light he had mistaken for the Marquis’s opticle.

  Mr. Pynch’s lumpy face sagged into a frown as he pocketed the donated gauge. He slumped to the ground beside the Waypoint and held his aching head in his mitts.

  Dollop wandered through the night, clutching his salathyl prong tight, though he had given up trying to use it.

  The vine-strangled swamp had thinned out to naked wetlands that wer
e identical everywhere he turned. Rotten trunks huddled like grave markers and knots of coastal kluttlefisk clicked their shells shut as he trudged past. The ground had gone from spongy red to sickly pale mud, as if all life had been leeched from the ore. Flux mixed with vesper in bubbling amber tide pools, the thin, cloudy liquid separating from the heavier silver muck at the bottom.

  His mind was tangled with fear. Frantic thoughts assaulted him, and not all of them felt like his own. There was something eerie out here. Not holy like Makina but…other. And yet somehow it was connected to him.

  Shapes shifted in the mist and coiled on the surface of the tide pools. He looked down with a dull realization that he was sloshing through one of the ponds. Thick bubbles swelled like boils around him before bursting with languid pops.

  He was sinking. The mud rose to his waist. His mind was blank. He couldn’t remember a prayer, couldn’t think to resist.

  Now it was up to his chest.

  So this is how it all ends? All alone…

  Amber mud filled his mouth.

  Sinking into nothingness.

  It sealed over his head.

  All went black.

  And yet…

  He was aware. Still breathing.

  Dollop checked himself—all his pieces were still in place.

  He rubbed his bulbous eyes until the space around him resolved. The salathyl prong lay discarded at his side. He found himself in a huge black cavern beset with millions of tiny, luminous fragments—a twinkling starscape of turquoise and emerald. The lumpy walls looked wet and curdled, with a ceiling of knobby stalactites drooping over an underground lagoon. The mirrored liquid depths glittered with glowing flecks. He rolled to its edge and looked at his shimmering reflection.

  A hundred eyes blinked back at him, wide with curiosity.

  Dollop spun around.

  As he did, something scuttled out of sight.

  He heard echoing footsteps, saw a shadow disappear into a light-speckled niche in the wall. A giggle warbled.

  Dollop was alert, but somehow not afraid. He wandered further into the cavern, following the movement. Voices spoke in high, excited tones.