Fires of Invention

by J. Scott Savage

  Trenton shivered, waiting for the warm air of level three to thaw him out. “M-m-maybe next t-time you’ll t-t-tell m-me w-why.”

  “Some people learn from being told. Others need to experience things for themselves,” Kallista said. “I get the feeling you’re in the second group.” She quickly screwed the vent back in place, then looked around. “I think the plant we want is that way.”

  Trenton followed her through a maze of square buildings and rumbling equipment. Unlike the food-production level, which had bright lights and pleasant smells, or the city, which had shops and parks, level three looked rough and smelled worse. The buildings were boxy and plain, and the warm, damp air stank of smoke and oil. Gears ground, chains clanked so loud they made his ears ring, and random flames occasionally shot into the air.

  “Everything you dreamed it would be?” Kallista asked, glancing back at him.

  Trenton grinned from ear to ear. “Even better.”

  This was the most amazing place he’d ever seen. His head swung left and right, taking in row after row of powerful machinery. The smell of oil was like perfume to him, and the clanking equipment was music to his ears. If he’d had any doubt of where he was supposed to be, this visit put an end to it.

  Kallista watched him ogling the buildings and grinned. “How did a gearhead like you end up in food production?”

  Trenton thought about telling her to mind her own business before deciding that it didn’t matter if she knew the truth. “My mother told the chancellor that I’m too dangerous to be allowed near machines.”

  She stopped and stared at him. “Your mother?”

  Trenton shrugged.

  “Why? What kind of danger could you be?” She shook her head. “What did you say to her when you found out? If one of my parents did that, I’d—I don’t know what I’d do.”

  Listening to the rumble of a nearby engine, Trenton thought about how he could be learning to work on it, if only his mother hadn’t gone to the chancellor. “I didn’t say anything. She doesn’t know I found out. At least not for sure.”

  “Are you kidding?” Kallista put her hands on her hips. “You have to talk to her. Tell her how you feel. Tell her—”

  “It’s not that easy,” Trenton complained, cutting her off. He shook his head. “She’s kind of messed up. From an accident, a long time ago.” He wasn’t sure why he was telling Kallista this when he didn’t even know her that well, but he had to tell someone. “If I say anything, it could make things worse.”

  Kallista ran her fingers through her hair. “I’d give anything to talk to my mom or dad, even if it was only to argue.”

  “She’s not your mom,” Trenton said, feeling embarrassed and angry. “She’s mine, and I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Can we just go?”

  Kallista turned around, and the two of them walked silently until they reached a large plant with two smokestacks rising out from the top. Although he’d never been inside one, Trenton knew it was a power plant. He’d read all about them. Coal was fed from the mines below up into a furnace that heated water into steam-powered massive pistons.

  Kallista leaned against the wall and peeked around the corner. “Once we go inside, keep walking and look like you know what you’re doing. Don’t make eye contact with anyone unless you absolutely have to.”

  They waited until a couple of workers exited the building, then ran to the entrance. Trenton couldn’t help stopping to stare. He could actually feel the rock vibrating under his feet from the pounding of the huge pistons.

  Kallista reached for his goggles and adjusted them. “Take out a wrench or something. And try not to look like you just got your first taste of candy.”

  He tried to stop smiling, but it was hard. After his transfer request had been denied, he never thought he’d see an actual power plant. “What are we looking for?”

  “No idea,” Kallista said. “Some of my father’s clues were easy to figure out when we played games, and some were really hard. The only consistent thing was that I always knew them when I found them.”

  “What do we say if someone stops us?” Trenton asked, watching a couple of workers moving around on the other side of the gate.

  Kallista licked her lips. “Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.”

  Her hope didn’t last long. They had barely walked through the front gate when footsteps sounded from behind them.

  A uniformed man stepped around the corner, stopped, and eyed them. “What are you kids doing here?”

  19

  Trenton felt his throat seize up. He glanced at Kallista, but she was scowling at the ground.

  “I asked you what you’re doing here,” the officer said.

  Trenton held out his wrench. “We’re here to, uh, make repairs. On the plant gears.”

  The man narrowed his eyes. “Where are your badges?”

  Kallista took a badge out of her pocket and handed it to the officer.

  He studied it for a second. “Says you’re a repair tech in the city.”

  She swallowed. “I work on equipment wherever I’m sent.”

  The officer eyed her long coat and gloves. “You have a work order?”

  She shook her head.

  “Didn’t think so.” He pushed up her hat. “I know you. You’re the inventor’s kid. Babbage.”

  “Her name’s Kallista,” Trenton said.

  The officer turned to him. “I recognize you, too. You’re the kid who built the swing that nearly shut down the city. Marshal warned us to be on the lookout for you. Said you were apt to be up to no good.” He looked from one of them to the other. “What a pair. Don’t imagine you’d like to tell me how you got here with no work order.”

  “We took the elevators,” Kallista said. “How else?”

  “Really?” The man jeered. “Show me your pass.”

  Kallista looked back the way they’d come, and Trenton could tell she was deciding whether or not to make a run for it. That was the worst thing she could do. The officer knew both of their names and where to find them. Trenton gulped and tried to explain. “I was holding the work order and the elevator pass, but I accidentally dropped them when we got off, and they fell down the shaft. They’re probably somewhere in the mines.”

  Kallista gawked at him.

  The security officer didn’t seem nearly as impressed. “We’ll see about that.” He waved at a man working inside the plant. “You know anything about these kids being sent to do repairs?”

  The man shrugged. “Not my department. You’d have to ask the plant manager.”

  “Where is he?” the officer asked.

  “She,” the worker said. “This way.” He turned and climbed a set of metal stairs.

  The security officer waved a hand for the two of them to go ahead of him. “After you.”

  Trenton leaned toward Kallista, his feet clanking on the steps as they walked side by side. “What are we going to do?” he whispered.

  Kallista frowned. “A couple of months of retraining, I’d guess. The marshal doesn’t like me.”

  “That’s it?” Trenton hissed. “Your plan was to climb down here and hope we didn’t get caught?”

  “I didn’t hear you come up with anything better,” Kallista said.

  Trenton hung his head. This kind of thing was what always got him in trouble. He was a hard worker. He had good intentions and enough talent to do anything he set his mind to, but he didn’t think things through. Maybe his mother had been right all along; he wasn’t a good gear. He did things without considering about how they would affect everyone else. Being put in food production, where there were fewer things he could mess up, probably was best for him—and for the city. And now even that assignment might be lost.

  At the top of the stairs, a narrow catwalk gave a clear view of the plant below. Even with as much trouble as he was in, Trenton still couldn’t help but be fascinated by the equipment spread out beneath him. He scanned pressure gauges, feeders, rods, gears, and pistons and calculated how
each piece worked, why it was placed where it was, and how the whole process might be improved.

  No, he told himself. That was the kind of thinking that had gotten him on the wrong track. Instead of thinking of different ways of doing things, he needed to train himself to understand how and why things were done the way they were. He needed to stop trying to fix the machine and enjoy its magnificence.

  “Wait here,” the worker said. He knocked twice on a door, then went inside.

  Trenton’s mouth felt dry, and his stomach burned. Soon the security officer would know for a fact that they were lying. He’d take them up to the city offices. They might end up in the same locked room he’d been in when he swore that he’d never get in trouble again.

  “I’m sorry,” Kallista whispered. “I shouldn’t have made you come with me.”

  “You didn’t make me come,” Trenton said. “If anything, I forced you to bring me.” Looking into her wide eyes, he saw that she was at least as scared as he was. Why wouldn’t she be? He’d been thinking about what getting caught could mean for him, but, no matter what happened, at least he had parents to support him. The only thing she had was her father’s tools. If the authorities discovered the hidden room, they’d take those, too.

  A few minutes later, the door opened and the worker stepped out. His eyes went from the security officer to Trenton and Kallista. “Miss Huber will see you.”

  Trenton followed the security officer into a small room. He’d expected the plant manager’s office to be filled with tools. Instead, the walls were lined with shelves holding more books than Leo Babbage’s workshop had—instructional manuals, books about parts, equipment documentation, and a broad selection of books on math, engineering, and science. Outside of the school, Trenton had never seen so much paper in one place in his life.

  Sitting behind a metal desk was a woman with hair nearly as short as Kallista’s, but while Kallista’s hair was jet black, the woman’s was mostly gray. She had a broad, open face with bushy eyebrows and a smear of grease down one cheek. Her arms were as thick as Trenton’s father’s and as heavily muscled.

  “What do you want?” she asked, looking up from the work she was doing on her slate. Her tone was gruff, and her cold, blue eyes made it clear that she didn’t like being interrupted.

  The security officer coughed into his hand. “These, uh, kids say they were sent down to fix some something. Is that true?”

  Miss Huber’s brows drew down until her eyes all but disappeared. She pushed aside the slate and stared at the officer. “Does this look like the kind of place where children would be sent to ‘fix something’?” She glared at Trenton’s wrench and growled. “What are you planning to do with that, adjust my chair?”

  The officer narrowed his eyes. “That’s what I thought. Just making sure before I haul them to the security building.”

  “Do what you want with them.” The woman waved one hand. “Get out of my office.”

  “Wait,” Trenton said as the officer took him and Kallista by the arms. “This is my fault. Kallista has nothing to do with it. I was mad that I didn’t get sent to mechanics school, so I tricked her into bringing me here by faking a work order.”

  She stared at him, dumbfounded. “No, you didn’t.”

  “Yes, I did!” Trenton shouted. He was in trouble no matter what. It didn’t make sense for both of them to suffer. He hated the idea of anyone finding the workshop and seizing the remaining pieces of whatever Leo Babbage had been working on. “It’s my fault. Arrest me. Retrain me. Do whatever you want. I’m a bad cog; you already knew that. But let Kallista go.”

  “Oh, you’ll get retraining,” the officer said. “Both of you. And a lot more than that. Wouldn’t be surprised if the two of you end up sweeping coal dust before the year is over.” He grinned, seeming to enjoy the thought. Yanking them both by the arms, he dragged them toward the door.

  Miss Huber popped out of her chair. “Wait.”

  The officer paused inside the doorway.

  “What did you say the girl’s name was?”

  “You don’t need to worry about her,” the security officer said. “I’ll handle things from here.”

  The manager marched around her desk and seized the man’s shoulder, nearly lifting him off the floor. “You’ll do nothing in my plant unless I tell you to.”

  What was she doing? A second ago, she didn’t seem to care what happened to them.

  “What’s the girl’s name?”

  “I—that is—it’s Babbage, ma’am,” the man sputtered. “The inventor’s kid. I have to take her in.”

  “You’re not taking them anywhere unless I say so.” Miss Huber’s eyes turned into ice chips.

  The officer tugged at his cap. “But they’re trespassing, and off the city level without a pass. It’s my job to arrest them.”

  “Who says they’re trespassing?” Miss Huber asked.

  “Y-you did,” the officer said, clearly confused.

  Trenton was confused too. What did this cranky old woman care about what happened to them?

  The manager released the security officer and planted her hands on her hips. “I said nothing about trespassing. You wanted to know if these children had been sent for. I asked if this looked like the kind of place where kids would fix things. Obviously it is. How did your feeble brain not make the connection?”

  The officer let go of Trenton and Kallista. “You’re saying you did send for them?”

  “Of course, you babbling fool!” the woman roared. “How else would they have gotten here? Are you telling me that your people would have let them get on an elevator and come all the way to my plant without the proper passes? What would your commander think of that?”

  The man’s face went white. “No. Of course not.”

  “Then I suggest you leave,” Miss Huber said. “Get back to your rounds. We have work to do.”

  20

  Trenton watched as the flustered security officer stomped out of the room and slammed the door behind him. He glanced at Miss Huber, nearly as terrified to be left alone with the rough-looking woman as he would have been to be dragged back to the city.

  “Put that wrench away,” the woman barked, “unless you’re going to use it.”

  Trenton quickly shoved the tool into his belt.

  “Thank you for helping us,” Kallista said.

  Miss Huber waved her hands and scowled at the two of them. “What are you really doing here?”

  “I always wanted to see a—” Trenton began, but quickly shut his mouth at the woman’s stony stare.

  Kallista twisted her hands together. “My father wanted me to. I believe he left something in your plant for me—some kind of message.”

  The big woman pushed Kallista’s goggles up and studied her face. “You look like Leo, and even more like your mother. I see it in the eyes and mouth.”

  “You knew my parents?”

  “Natch. Everyone knew them.” She patted Kallista on the shoulder. “I was so sorry when your mother passed. And then your father . . .”

  “I still think about him all the time,” Kallista said.

  “Of course you do, dear.” The woman walked behind her desk, placed her hands flat on its metal surface, and eased herself into the chair with a soft groan. “Sit,” she said jabbing a blunt finger toward a couple of chairs stacked in the corner.

  Trenton and Kallista took the chairs and sat down. Trenton still couldn’t believe the woman had backed their story. “Why did you lie for us?” he asked.

  Miss Huber pursed her lips and gave a look that under any other circumstances would have sent him running. “Lying takes you from the little pot of hot water to the cauldron of boiling water. I do not do it, nor do I recommend it.”

  Trenton slouched in his seat. “But you told the guard that you sent for us.”

  “I did nothing of the kind,” she said, slamming her palm on the desk. “I told the featherbrain that you were sent here. Is that a lie?”

  “No,
” Kallista said. “My father sent us.”

  Trenton couldn’t help but smile. The plant manager was scary, but he had to admit that she was also smart.

  Miss Huber frowned, a deep crease forming between her brows. “Do I want to know how you managed to get past security to reach my plant?”

  Kallista shook her head.

  “I thought not.” The woman busied herself writing on her slate for several minutes until Trenton began to wonder if she’d forgotten that he and Kallista were there. He thought about coughing but was too scared.

  “Your father was a different kind of man,” Miss Huber finally said. “I can honestly say that this plant would not be running today, at least not as well as it is, if it weren’t for his work.”

  Kallista leaned forward. “He repaired things here?”

  Miss Huber chuckled. “Repair is the wrong word. Child, your father studied machinery the way a doctor studies the human body. He could walk into a plant, tap on this, listen to that, examining each and every moving part. He could tell you exactly what was out of sorts and how to get any machine running smoothly again. I’d venture to say he worked on half of the equipment in the city. No one ever asked Leo Babbage for his pass when he came and went.”

  Trenton couldn’t believe how this woman was describing Kallista’s father—the same Leo Babbage he’d always heard about, the crackpot inventor who’d killed himself by taking silly chances. The two stories didn’t add up.

  “If he was such a good mechanic, why did he work in a little repair shop? Why wasn’t he assigned to be the head of maintenance?” he asked.

  Kallista gave Trenton a dark look, but Miss Huber nodded. “I suggested that very thing more times than I can count. And I wasn’t the only one. If he’d stuck to machines, he would have been in that position long ago.”

  Kallista took off her goggles. “What do you mean, if he’d stuck to machines?”

  “As I said, Leo was a different man.” The plant manager looked at the ceiling and sighed. “Most people who turn to working with machinery do so because they find engines easier to understand than people. Your father, on the other hand, saw through the workings of the human mind as easily as he could analyze a squeaky driveshaft.”