Jed and the Junkyard Wars

by Steven Bohls

  Captain Bog’s head swiveled back and forth. He shoved empty dishes over the cheese. Shay scowled. “Well, I’m ready to go.” He tossed several batteries on the table, then leaned in and whispered to Shay, “I’d leave an extra big tip if I were you.”

  The Roof Hotel was at the top of the tallest building in Dawndrake—forty floors up. The first thirty floors cost a battery apiece. The next five were two each. The final five took five batteries every stop. Sixty-five batteries later, Jed had his own room with floor-to-ceiling windows, a bowl of complimentary cans, and a bathtub with battery-operated heating coils.

  The next morning, he strapped himself to one of the zip line coils. Forty flights below, the crew was already awake and waiting for him.

  “Where to, Captain Golden Boy?” Captain Bog asked as Jed landed. Before he could respond, the captain turned to the others. “Oh, and that’s not going to be a thing, by the way. If any of you slugs call him captain, I’ll stuff you in an empty can and roll you down the stairs.”

  “I don’t know,” Jed said. “Where do you think we should start?”

  “A man named Digger might be able to help.”

  “Digger it is, then.”

  Captain Bog led Jed to a shop called the Etch Book.

  An elderly man missing most of his teeth waved them inside. “Which of you handsome gentlemen wants an etching? I’ll do one for thirty batteries. Two for fifty! It might sound high, but I do the best etchwork in the yard! No one better than Digger the Etcher. No finer etch for a thousand miles—that’s a guarantee!”

  Jed turned to Captain Bog. “Etchwork?”

  “We’ll take two. I hear good things about you, Digger. Word is you can etch just from description. Is that true, or am I only hearing scrap?”

  “It’s true. Not many folk pay for such an etching. It’s not an easy etch, after all.”

  Captain Bog dropped a sack of batteries on the counter.

  Digger grinned, showing the few teeth he had left. “Let’s get started!” He waved them to a room with an art easel and odd supplies. He picked up a spray gun connected to an air compressor with a hose, then waited.

  The captain nodded to Jed. “Go ahead.”

  “With what?”

  “Tell him what your parents look like.”

  Digger peeked over the easel.

  “Oh, um. My dad has a big nose. But not my mom. Hers is small like mine”—he glanced at Shay—“like a mouse’s.”

  Digger meticulously released bursts of air at the easel as Jed spoke.

  Jed continued for hours. He described every feature in vivid detail: The freckles on his mom’s cheek, which looked like a single shake of pepper. The bony cheekbones of his father. His mother’s queenlike forehead. His father’s eyes—wrinkled from ten thousand smiles.

  When he was finished, Digger turned the easel around and showed Jed two acid-etched metal plates. Jed’s stomach clenched. His mom. His dad. They were smiling. Smiling at him.

  “How’s this?”

  Captain Bog elbowed Jed in the ribs.

  “It’s…it’s perfect.”

  Jed took the plates. They were flawless. He reached into his pocket and handed Digger another handful of batteries.

  “But your friend already—”

  “I know,” Jed said, still staring at the picture. “This is just to say thank you.”

  “Can you make us stamps of these?” Captain Bog asked.

  “How many would you like?” Digger asked.

  “Let’s start with four stacks.”

  Digger took the etchwork to a black machine that looked something like a long barbecue grill. He placed the plates in a tray, then yanked a series of levers and pulleys. Steam coughed from small stacks. When Digger opened the reverse side, a copy of the etching dropped to the floor with a metal clang.

  He continued until Jed had four stacks of twenty thin plates.

  For the rest of the evening, the crew helped Jed hang copies of the etchwork all around town while Riggs and Shay stayed on board the tug and hovered near the dock. Each copy had instructions to contact them at dock line 487 if anyone recognized the picture.

  A day passed.

  And then a second.

  And three more.

  They talked to thousands of coppers and knocked on hundreds of spikes.

  Nothing.

  Kizer suggested they try an iron township cluster. “Farburrow is half this size with twice as many people and ten times the organization,” he said.

  “Yeah, and it’s also iron-regulated,” Sprocket said.

  Kizer folded his arms. “And?”

  “And we don’t exactly meet regulations.”

  “Regulations?” Jed asked.

  Riggs cut in. “I don’t like it. The Iron Guard can check the ship any time. They’ll take one look and find T-five engine enhancers, carbine-cored firearms, and dread paraphernalia. All of which will send us to an iron cell! I’m not getting my engine seized because some uptight customs officer thinks I shouldn’t be allowed to own it!”

  “We’ll just keep our distance,” Captain Bog said. “You’ll drop us at a dock zone in the morning and pick us up at night.” He turned to Jed. “And while we’re there, nod politely to the scrap slugs, who don’t give a clunk about anything or anyone but themselves. Those ramshackle, grease-chinned, pompous pieces of…” He mumbled more incoherent curses to himself.

  “Okay, then,” Jed said. “Stay away from the clunk.”

  “Exactly.”

  Kizer scowled. “It’s called order,” he said. “It’s better than letting a whole town full of lunatics swing through the air on chains.”

  Captain Bog held up a hand. “I shouldn’t have said anything. Iron, copper, it doesn’t matter. They’re all scrap.”

  It was a full day’s travel to Farburrow. When they were four scopes away, a pinprick of light glimmered on the horizon. The closer they got, the brighter it became. The township shone like a mirror under the sun. Polished steel plated every surface, as if the whole metropolis had been outfitted in a suit of battle armor. Riggs dropped the rest of them at the nearest dock zone, and they walked into the township.

  Farburrow was the opposite of Dawndrake in every way. The Farburrow spikes looked like long, sleek silver needles. The streets were perfectly bricked in aluminum. And on those streets, people walked with purpose. No one meandered about like the coppers had. An unsettling silence blanketed the township. Jed felt uncomfortable even whispering while they walked.

  As they had before, they all took the etchwork from shop to shop, asking if anyone recognized the people in the images.

  No one did.

  Until they entered Hamlin’s Brewery.

  Jed called for attention as he moved from group to group, flashing the etchings to anyone who would look. Again, nobody recognized the images. Jed turned to leave, shoulders down.

  “Wait,” a voice called. “Let me see those again.”

  A man with gray hair and a well-groomed beard held out his hand. Jed showed him the pictures.

  The man nodded to himself.

  “How do you know these two?”

  “They’re my parents,” Jed said.

  He nodded. “And what names did you say?”

  “Ryan and Mary.”

  “Ryan and Mary who?”

  “Just Ryan and Mary.”

  “Just Ryan and Mary?” He stroked his chin. “They wouldn’t happen to have the last name Jenkins, would they?”

  Sprocket’s gaze shot toward Jed. “Jenkins? Ryan and Mary Jenkins?”

  Jed’s skin felt hot. His cheeks burned.

  The man’s eyes shifted in a strange way. His hand moved to a holster at his hip, and he pulled a shatterbox free.

  But before he could lift it, Sprocket’s four-foot shatterlance was somehow already in her hands, at the ready.

  “Do you know what that kid is worth?” the man said to Sprocket. “We’ll split it. Fifty-fifty.”

  “I don’t think you
know who you’re talking to,” Sprocket said. “I’m not some iron gutter clunk. I’m a javelin.”

  “Javelin?” He nearly shouted the word. “A javelin in this establishment?”

  The room fell deathly silent as every person’s eyes fell on Sprocket.

  Kizer leaned toward her. “We should probably run,” he whispered.

  Sprocket eyed the roomful of glaring faces. “We should probably run,” she repeated to Jed.

  A few irons rose from their seats. Shatterboxes hissed and hummed as others around them readied their equipment.

  Still holding the shatterlance in one arm, Sprocket unclipped a canister from her belt with her free hand. The canister dropped to the floor, and a cloud of smoke burst around them, filling the room.

  Chairs slid away from tables, and iron footsteps thundered around them.

  “Now,” Sprocket said. “Go!”

  Iron everywhere began to shout, and more shatterboxes hissed to life.

  Blue bolts pierced the cloud of smoke and sailed over Jed’s head.

  “Run!” Kizer yelled, yanking Jed by the arm and leading him to the exit.

  Kizer shoved open a set of double doors, and smoke spilled into an empty street. “Follow me!” he called to the others, still holding tight to Jed’s arm.

  They ran, but every iron from the brewery chased. The iron shouted to others in the streets to stop them.

  By the time they reached the docks, at least a hundred iron were on their tail.

  “Get us up and out of here!” Captain Bog shouted to Riggs and Shay on board.

  Ladders uncoiled down the ship.

  “If ever there was a time to learn ladder climbing,” Captain Bog said to Jed, “now is it. Jump!”

  They each leaped from the dock onto a rope ladder.

  Bessie’s propellers whirred, and the tug lifted away from Farburrow.

  “Jenkins?” Sprocket said when they were clear from the township. “Ryan and Mary Jenkins?”

  Jed nodded. “You know them?”

  “Everyone does! They’re the ones who started this whole war!”

  “They what?”

  “Most everyone in the yard used to think gilded relics were just glittertales,” Sprocket said. “Did you know that? Well…turns out most of the yard was wrong. Because the Jenkinses found one. The only gilded relic that’s ever been found.”

  “My mom and dad?”

  She nodded. “Those two were cracked as gutter clunk.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean they were insane. Like their heads were full of applesauce instead of practicality.”

  “Practicality?” Kizer said, one eyebrow raised. “This coming from you?”

  “Hey,” Sprocket said, “I’m as batty as the next copper. But the Jenkinses were as madcap as coppers ever get.”

  “My parents were copper?” Jed asked.

  “Javelins,” Sprocket said with a nod. “The best. And one day they just flew straight into the fog. Everyone thought they were dead, but six months later, out they came with a gilded relic. And a whole armada of dread nipping at their tails.” Sprocket laughed once. “I swear, every copper, iron, rust, and dread chased those two over each inch of the yard. Then, one day, they just disappeared.”

  “But what if they didn’t just up and disappear?” Captain Bog said. He turned to Jed. “What if they dug their way under the fringe?”

  The others followed his gaze. Then they looked back to Sprocket.

  “My sister hunted for the Jenkinses,” she said. “I used to help her mark up yard maps back home. We’d shade out areas whenever someone claimed to have had a Jenkins sighting. The last few areas weren’t too far away from the spot where we picked up Golden Boy.”

  Kizer looked at Jed’s watch. “So then that junkstorm spotter really is the stolen gilded relic?”

  Shay giggled and covered her mouth with both hands. “Sorry,” she said.

  “What’s so funny?” Kizer asked.

  “I’ve already told you,” Shay said. “It’s pretty, yes. But it’s not gilded pretty. It’s only regular pretty. That would be too silly. Much too silly.”

  While the crew argued Shay’s point, Jed thought about his parents: Copper javelins. Javelins who started a war.

  “I know where we can go,” Sprocket said.

  “You do?” Jed asked.

  “There’s a secret javelin base about nine hundred scopes west.”

  “Nine hundred ?” Kizer said. “That doesn’t make sense. I’ve never heard of copper operatives out that far west!”

  “Did you not hear the part about it being secret?”

  “You think they’ll know where my parents are?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe. If any copper would, they would.”

  “Nine hundred scopes is a decent flight for a guess. A month, maybe more…” Captain Bog said.

  “It’s all I got,” Sprocket said.

  Captain Bog looked at Jed and nodded. “All right. Then let’s hit a storm on the way out, fuel up, and head west. It’ll be a long trip.”

  Jed smiled. “Thank you. Maybe you are ‘thoughtfulness and warm hugs’ after all.”

  “And maybe that’s just your imagination talking.”

  Tenacity, Jed tried to remind himself. He had decided last week that tenacity was the most difficult word in SPLAGHETTI.

  As they flew toward the storm, Jed wandered the deck. A light caught his eye. Spyglass. Again. The red light, as it had been every morning, was pulsing once again.

  “Would you stop that already?” he muttered.

  The head turned, and he could feel the empty eye and spyglass staring at him. “I think you and I are going to be good friends,” it said.

  “Why do you keep saying stuff like that? You don’t know me. You’re just some clunk decoration.” But as the words left Jed’s mouth, his throat felt dry and pinched uncomfortably.

  “But I do know you. I know a lot about you. In fact…let’s play a game to see how well I know you. It’s called Guess What’s in Your Pocket.” He smiled. “I’ll go first. I’m picturing something…something round…something yellow…”

  “How do you—”

  “No, no. It’s not your turn yet. I’m smelling something. Something that smells like home. And family.”

  “Stop it.”

  “I see a—”

  Sprocket’s thin voice shouted from the bridge, cutting off Spyglass. “Pobble! I thought you sprayed the deck last week!”

  “Yup,” Pobble called back. “I spray it down every Rigday. Sometimes even again on Nearday.”

  “Then why’s a gollug slug stuck here under the helm?”

  “We’ll play later,” Spyglass whispered. “When fat janitors and shrill pigeons aren’t squawking at each other.”

  Jed pressed the button on Spyglass’s head, and the light disappeared.

  “Get up here and scrape this thing off!” Sprocket shouted.

  Pobble grabbed a plastic spatula and marched up the bridge stairs. “I’m a-coming.”

  A few moments later he walked out, a purple slug stuck to the spatula. He smiled at Jed. “You ever taste one of these?”

  “I’ve had escargot, if that counts,” Jed said.

  Pobble’s brow scrunched. “Never eaten that can before. Not that I can recall, at least.” His confusion shifted into something sneaky. “Hey, I got an idea. I’ll give you a handful of batteries to take a bite right out of its back!”

  Kizer peeked around from one of the stacks. “Hold on. Make that two handfuls,” he said. He reached into a pocket and pulled out some batteries. “But only if you swallow the bite.” He slapped the batteries onto a table.

  “Are you crazy?” Jed said. “I’m not going to take a bite out of that thing.”

  “I’ll put in a handful,” Sprocket said from the top of the staircase.

  “Bring the slug over here,” Kizer said, pointing to the table. “You in on this, Shay?” Kizer asked.

  She stroll
ed closer. “In on what? What are you all doing?”

  Jed walked to the table. He poked the slug and it made a squishing noise.

  “Bite! Bite! Bite!” chanted Pobble.

  “Bite! Bite! Bite!” Sprocket and Kizer joined in.

  The whole crew was smiling and cheering. He couldn’t help but smile back.

  Shay pushed her way through the group. “Eww! Jed, don’t.” She leaned closer and whispered, “Besides, you could get twice that many batteries, silly mouse.” She stepped back and cringed at the slug. “That’s disgusting.”

  Pobble stepped in front of her and slapped Jed’s back. “Ah, don’t listen to her. It probably tastes like blueberries or something. And just look at all them batteries.”

  Sprocket looked over her shoulder. “Hurry. Before Captain catches me away from my post.”

  And then another word from SPLAGHETTI surfaced in Jed’s mind. A word he’d once thought he’d never feel around this crew. But now he did feel it. Or something like it. A word that made him consider—just for a moment, at least—taking a bite from the back of a gooey slug.

  Gregariousness.

  • • •

  By Nearday afternoon, they’d reached the storm.

  “Pull us back, Sprocket,” Captain Bog said. “I want a safe distance. Nothing hits the ship, got it?”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  Gray clouds swirled in the distance and drew together.

  “Get ready,” Captain Bog called.

  The clouds deepened into black. Old junk lifted from the piles and new junk fell. Everything whirled into a thick mass, crashing like thunder in a wild frenzy. No matter how many storms Jed witnessed, each was as terrifying as the last. The dark, whirling winds howled. Junk exploded in the air and clattered to the piles.

  Shay was giddy as always. “Do you ever wonder where it all comes from?” he asked her.

  “The sky?”

  “The junk.”

  “I bet those mean clouds find pretty things and drink them all up. Then they get sick because they drank too many. Their bellies get gray and sad. Then…”

  She paused and looked at Jed.

  “Blaahhhawwwrrg!” she shouted. “They puke it all up!”

  Jed laughed. “But where do the clouds get it from?”