Jed and the Junkyard Wars

by Steven Bohls

  He waited, but Jed only glared.

  He shrugged. “Then I’ll have to take you apart piece by piece. Wipe every memory. Start from the beginning. That’s not what I wanted for you. For us. I wanted us to share your memories—not lose them.”

  “Share?”

  Lyle touched Jed’s shoulder. “Of course! Don’t you understand? You’re me! You’re my perfected framework. A shell waiting for me to occupy! This skeleton”—he touched the golden innards of his own arm—“was only ever meant to be a temporary home. It reeks of adequacy. It yearns for the untapped potential of all those locked treasure boxes inside you.” He tapped the keyhole in Jed’s chest.

  “The time has come. Our time has come. Take this moment to think. To remember. And I’ll be back before you can blink. We’ve got a lot of work to do,” he said with a smile. “An entire world to destroy. An entire world to build anew.”

  He turned and left the room. The door clapped shut.

  Jed stared at the keyhole in his chest.

  It’s not possible. He tugged against the leather straps around his wrists. He needed to touch it—to touch the golden metal spinning and whirring inside his chest. His stomach felt like glue. “It’s not true,” he said aloud.

  A soft whimper echoed from Shay.

  “Shay, it’s not true. This—none of this is real!”

  Her jaw shook, and she winced at his words.

  “Tell me what’s going on!” Jed’s voice bounced through the room. It rang in his ears. Felt tinny. Fake. Metal. “Answer me! Look at me! Why won’t you open your eyes?”

  “I’m—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to,” she said. “I didn’t know. I did know, but I didn’t know. Please don’t be mad. I’m sorry.”

  The small voice stabbed Jed with more persuasion than the sight of gears inside his body. “Am I…?” He looked again at the golden metal. Spinning…humming so softly it sounded more like a fox’s purr than the drone of machine cogs.

  Eyes still shut and leaking tears, Shay nodded against the restraints.

  “But I grew up. I grew older. I’m—I’m not a machine! I have a family! I have a mom and dad!”

  The doorknob rattled. Shay’s eyes flicked open, and Jed’s gaze snapped to the door. The handle turned and the hinges creaked. A spindly dread peeked inside and scanned the room.

  It was the unusually tall dread from earlier—the one who’d stared at him. It stood there, still staring. Then it removed the hubcap strapped to its chest. It unlaced the pipe tied to its leg, dropped the crowbar from its arm, and loosened the strap around its head, uncovering a second eye.

  Jed’s blood felt like ice under his skin. The soft hum of his mechanical chest became a wild whirring. For the man standing in the doorway wasn’t a dread at all.

  It was his father.

  “Dad?” Jed’s voice quivered. His throat felt small.

  Tears burst from his father’s eyes. “Jed!”

  Jed’s breath caught, and tears of his own soaked into his eyes. His father’s arms wrapped around him.

  The same arms that had carried Jed up his first mountain. The same arms that had guided Mom through a thousand living-room waltzes. And the same arms that had cradled them both after the fat air-conditioning repairman had stepped on Frank, the family turtle.

  As his father’s fingers laced through Jed’s hair and pulled his forehead to his own, Jed thought of Frank—of his fractured shell, the stubby limbs and wrinkled neck, limp. He remembered the moment when he lifted the still turtle into his arms. He’d been sure that nothing would ever make him feel better again. But his father’s arms had somehow sucked away the pain. They’d done it then and they did it now.

  “What’s happening to me?”

  His father pulled away and examined the burned hole and golden machinery.

  “You’ll be okay. We’ll get out of here. Together. That man. Lyle. He’s not your grandfather.”

  “But the picture. He looks like—”

  “He’s not. He’s just a monster who killed your grandfather. He found out you were coming and tried to trick you. We tried to find you before he did. I came to the Red Galleon to stop him, but it was too late—you were already here.”

  Jed nodded. “But he told me”—his next words felt like shame and thick sludge—“that he made me.”

  His father squeezed Jed’s shoulder. The corners of his eyes wilted like Mom’s porch roses in autumn.

  “I’m so sorry. We tried so hard to stop him.”

  He released Jed and unbuckled the straps around Jed’s wrists and ankles. “We need to get out of here.”

  Jed sat up, and pain jolted through his chest.

  His father grabbed a can of oil. “Hold still,” he said, easing Jed back down. He opened the can and poured. Red oil streamed into the shimmering gears. Relief rushed over Jed. His father returned with gauze and wrapped it around Jed’s torso.

  “What am I, Dad?” Jed said, his voice shaking.

  His father took Jed’s head in both hands. “You’re my son.”

  The words felt right—sounded right. But they weren’t true. Not exactly.

  “He said you stole me….Stole me from him.”

  “We took you to protect you. Once we found out what Lyle was going to do with you, we couldn’t let that happen. And we weren’t about to let coppers or irons use you like gutter clunk. So we took you away from everything. Away from the war. Away from the killing and the greed. We didn’t know what was on the other side of the fringe, but it was worth the chance.”

  His father paused, letting Jed take in the truth.

  “We always have a choice,” he continued. “You have a choice right now. You don’t have to come with me. You can stay right here and wait for Lyle.” His eyes flickered to the keyhole in Jed’s chest. “You can choose to let him turn you into something else. It’s still your choice. Is that what you want? There’s nothing holding you to that table anymore.”

  “I want to go home.”

  His father held out a hand. “Then let’s go.”

  Jed looked at Shay, and another word from SPLAGHETTI surfaced in his mind.

  Empathy.

  “We need to help her, too,” Jed said.

  “Okay. There’s a life raft on the side of the boat. We need to hurry.”

  They helped Shay from the table, and she and Jed followed his father out the door. The three sprinted down the corridor to a cherry-stained staircase that led to the top deck.

  His father held a finger to his lips and pointed to a dread shuffling along the deck. Jed peeked out from the staircase opening. A second dread just stood, staring at the wall, and a third walked back and forth, its head twitching erratically.

  “The raft is a short sprint over there.” His father pointed across the deck.

  As the shuffling dread turned around, his father held up three fingers and lowered them one at a time.

  “Run!”

  They bolted into the open. Jed’s father leaped behind a crate, crouched, and then sprinted again. Jed raced to keep pace. They ducked behind the mast, then hid behind a shatterkeg. Bit by bit they inched to the far side of the ship.

  And then Jed froze at a black trench coat rocking slightly with the breeze. He cupped his hands to his mouth and called in a whisper, “Sprocket!”

  The woman didn’t turn around.

  “Sprocket!” Jed called louder.

  “Jed, no!” His father grabbed his arm.

  And then she turned.

  Rusted gears rotated slowly in empty patches of her hollowed cheek. Her face—half-gone—held only a ghost of the woman she once was. One eye was missing. The other empty. Cold. Foreign. Metal hoses connected her head to her shoulders.

  No. A chill shot through Jed’s arms. No!

  He stumbled, but his father held him steady.

  Sprocket limped toward them. Step, clack. Step, clack. The amputated barrel of her shatterlance was anchored to her knee instead of a leg.

  “Stowaways!” she
said. The silver hoses made her voice sound thin and metallic. “Stowaways on the Galleon!” she said louder, but the voice cut short inside the freshly attached hoses.

  “Jed, come on!” His father tugged on his elbow.

  “Sprocket!”

  “Sound the alarm!” Sprocket called, her voice like sheets of metal being sliced. Jed ran, and the step, clack, step, clack behind him quickly faded. Blood pounded in Jed’s ears. His jaw was tight and his muscles wobbled.

  It’s my fault. She wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t insisted on looking for my grandfather.

  “Here,” his dad said.

  The edge of the ship.

  Shay climbed up the Galleon’s railing and hopped to a copper raft with four seats. Thick iron chains anchored it to the Galleon.

  “Get started on these.” His father handed Jed a key and pointed to padlocks on the chains. “I’ll get the engine fired up.”

  He hopped inside and cranked a lever. Propeller blades twice the length of the raft spun underneath it as if it were an upside-down helicopter. The raft lifted, but the chains held it in place. Jed removed the first padlock and tossed it to the deck with a thunk.

  “Hurry!” his father called.

  Jed unlocked the other two, then hopped in.

  “Stowaways!” a metallic voice rang from behind.

  Footsteps clomped along the deck.

  Lyle.

  Lyle appeared, and their eyes met. The man’s chin lifted, and his head shook ever so slightly.

  “Get off that raft!”

  Jed’s father pulled a lever, and a hydraulic noise hissed from the engine. “Hold on!” he said, then jammed two levers forward.

  The raft accelerated but jerked to a halt as chains rattled behind them. Underneath the nest of links was another padlock.

  Jed ran to the edge of the raft and leaped to the Galleon. His body slammed into its side, and he wrapped his arms around a rail.

  “Jed!”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Stop!”

  “You’re going to get yourself killed!”

  Everyone yelled at him. Shay. His father. Lyle.

  He pulled himself up and flopped onto the deck, then jammed the key into the last padlock.

  A white blast soared past him and slammed into the raft.

  Jed pulled off the lock and threw it to the deck.

  “Get on!” his father yelled.

  Jed stood, but before he could jump, Lyle spoke. “Take one step and I’ll blast that meat sack between his pretty white eyes.”

  Jed met his father’s gaze and mouthed the word Go.

  The blood drained from his father’s face, and his head shook back and forth.

  Jed raised his arms and faced Lyle.

  “I’ll stay here with you. Just let them go.”

  Lyle looked from Jed to his father, then to Shay. Hatred burned in his eyes.

  “Shay!” he yelled to her. “Shay, come back to me!”

  “If you don’t let them go,” Jed said, “then I’ll jump.” He backed toward the railing until he felt it press against his hip.

  Lyle’s fingers spread wide, and he lifted the shatterbox in the air. “Stop! Get away from the edge!”

  “Only when they’re gone.”

  Lyle stepped closer. “You won’t jump.”

  Jed swung one leg over the railing. And then another.

  Lyle froze. “Okay—you win. Come back over the railing and they’re free to go.” He waved his hand in gentle beckoning motions. “But if you don’t, that meat sack is dead.” Lyle steadied his shatterbox.

  “Jed!” his father called. “Get in! Now!”

  Jed shook his head. “He’ll kill you.”

  “I don’t care! You can’t let him take you!”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Shay’s eyes filled with tears. “Jed, no.”

  “Come away from the edge,” Lyle said softly.

  “Not until they’re gone.”

  The raft drifted away slowly until it was a pinprick in the dark mist of the barge.

  “All right. They’re gone. Now come here.”

  Jed stepped over the railing toward Lyle.

  The man rushed forward and swept Jed into a hug. He stroked Jed’s hair and squeezed. Jed returned the embrace, hugging Lyle tightly.

  Then he reached down and pulled the shatterbox from Lyle’s belt. He wriggled free and pointed the weapon at Lyle.

  Disappointment stung Lyle’s face. “This isn’t you. Don’t you understand who I am? You and I—we’re the same!”

  Jed held the shatterbox in both hands to steady his shaking arm.

  “What are you going to do? Shoot me and holler for your meat sack kidnapper to come back? Can’t you see? He doesn’t care about you. He left! Left without a word! Flew off with my Shay and left you! I would never do that. Never!” He shouted the last word, and the muscles in his neck quivered. “Give me that. I will take care of you. I won’t abandon you. I’m not like him.”

  Jed’s arms stayed steady.

  “79Q4B. Fetch me that shatterbox. But don’t hurt the boy.”

  Sprocket stepped forward, and Jed’s heart thumped. “Sprocket, it’s me. It’s Jed. Don’t!”

  Step, clack, step, clack.

  Single eye empty. Dead.

  Step, clack, step, clack.

  Jed twitched and trained the shatterbox on Sprocket. “Stop!”

  “Or what?” Lyle said. “You’ll kill your friend? That’s not a very friendly thing to do.”

  Jed’s lungs rose and fell.

  “Sprocket, it’s me! It’s Jed! The…the one who can’t climb a ladder, remember?”

  Step, clack, step, clack.

  Jed’s hands felt slick. He held his breath, then swung the shatterbox toward Lyle and fired.

  The blast hit squarely, and Lyle crumpled to the deck. Sprocket stopped and turned around.

  Jed remembered how Sprocket would leave her signature in the smoke’s trail after a shot. But this wasn’t Sprocket. It wasn’t anything.

  “We all have a purpose.” Lyle curled up to his knees and stood. The blast had washed away half of Jed’s grandfather’s face, revealing a golden mask. “We’re all engineered for something. I am the guardian of this world. Guardians are made to endure. I never fall forever. I don’t weaken. I don’t rust. I don’t age. And I don’t die.”

  Jed fired again and again.

  The shots knocked Lyle from side to side, but he always stood straight again.

  “What I do next is for you,” he said. “Sometimes we must hurt to be healed. Sometimes we must lose a choice to see the right choice. You think you have a home. A family. Friends. I am your family. And your only friend.”

  Sprocket grabbed Jed and dragged him forward.

  “Sprocket, don’t do this!” Jed struggled against her grip.

  Lyle frowned at Jed. “You could have shot her. She’s not even a meat sack anymore. Just a pile of scrap! Why do you care?”

  “You wouldn’t know,” Jed said, studying Sprocket for any hint of life.

  “I suppose not, which means she’ll have to go. 79Q4B, walk yourself over the edge.”

  She gave Lyle a confused look. “But…?”

  “Don’t worry,” Lyle said. “I’ll have you rebuilt by morning! And I’ll make you twice as tall!” He tilted his head and whispered to Jed, “That’s not true at all, of course. I’m not even going to look for her.”

  Sprocket grinned at Lyle’s proposal and hobbled toward the edge.

  Step, clack, step, clack.

  “No!” Jed yelled. “He’s lying!”

  Lyle hooked his arm around Jed. “You need this. You need to cleanse yourself.”

  Jed stepped after Sprocket, but Lyle held him firm. His grip was impossibly strong.

  “Sprocket, no!”

  Step, clack, step, clack.

  And then Sprocket lifted herself over the railing and fell into darkness.

  Jed felt torn in half. “No!”
He jerked against Lyle’s hold, swinging his fists. “You killed her!”

  Lyle caught Jed’s hands and held them firm. “In time you will thank me. I promise. I swear it on my eternal life. From small pain comes great opportunity.”

  “I’m going to kill you,” Jed muttered. “I’m going to find a way to do it.”

  “Come.” Lyle led Jed by the arm. “I must show you something else.”

  They entered the ship’s bridge. Levers and buttons lined the wall, but in the center of the room was an actual wheel with spokes and a carving of an anchor in its wood. Lyle scanned the skies, then pointed in the distance at the tiny life raft slowly drifting through the air. “There.” Lyle gripped the wheel and spun.

  The Galleon tilted.

  “Take us closer, 821E,” Lyle said.

  A dread shuffled forward and pulled a lever. The Galleon accelerated and began gaining on the life raft.

  Jed’s vision wobbled, and he felt his mouth open. “No! You can’t! You said you’d let them go!”

  “I did let them go. Ready an acid cloudburst, 821E.”

  “But Shay,” Jed said desperately. “She’s your daughter! She’s on there too!”

  Lyle placed a hand on Jed’s shoulder. “It warms my soul how much you care for your sister. You see, 821E will launch three shells over the raft. The acid will melt away everything that’s not metal. So if that thing really is your father, he’s made of metal—just like you.”

  “Don’t! Please! I’ll do anything for you!”

  Lyle gave Jed a look of pity. “We both know that’s not true. The second you thought they were safe, you tried to kill me. That’s not something I can overlook. I’m trying to teach you. I’m doing this for you. All for you.” He motioned to the dread. “A single barrage will be sufficient. Launch a three-shell spread thirty degrees off the port bow. On my mark.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Jed noticed that one of the buttons near the controls was glowing red.

  “Fire.”

  He bounded forward and slapped the button.

  A series of shatterkegs all fired at once. Red particles of dust exploded forward, streaking past the life raft. The shots slammed into the propellers of the nearest dreadnought.

  Anger coursed through Lyle’s eyes. “What have you done?”

  Chunks crumbled from the hull of the dreadnought. And then something exploded and the stern began to dip.