Fires of Invention

by J. Scott Savage

  The pistons stuttered, and the tail dropped to the ground with a clang of metal. Trenton shut off the furnace, and the engine wound down. He put his head in his hands. It was never going to happen. They’d put so much time and effort into a machine that would never work.

  Unable to make himself spend any more time on the dragon, he climbed down and shut off the generator. The other kids would still be in the park, but he wasn’t in the mood to join them, and he didn’t want to talk about the colors of suits and dresses with Simoni. He didn’t feel like going home, either, so he walked around the level, poking at bits of old equipment and examining machinery.

  It might be fun to get one of the plants running again. He didn’t know what kind, or what he’d do in it, but at least he’d be working on something that had the chance to operate the way it was supposed to.

  A deep growling filled the air, and he froze in place. He looked around, trying to locate the source of the sound. Was it more equipment Leo Babbage had left behind? Something they hadn’t found?

  He heard another sound, like grating rock, and the rumbling came again. This time it sounded a little farther away. He waited, tilting his head and straining to hear, but after several minutes, the strange noises seemed to have stopped. He’d have to ask Kallista if she’d heard anything like them.

  Noticing a nearby smokestack, he wandered into a power plant that—except for the layer of dirt and grime covering it—could have been the one where he and Kallista had met Miss Huber.

  He looked longingly at the huge steam engine. What could their dragon do with that kind of power? This furnace didn’t look in bad shape. It had a few dents and some rust, but no holes. He stopped and studied it. Something was different about the engine. Where the pistons and gears should have been was a long metal cylinder. A piece of equipment connected the furnace and the feeder belt that didn’t belong there.

  Adjusting his helmet light to point up, he walked closer. What was that connected to the feeder? It looked like some kind of processing machinery. But why would anyone process coal before feeding it into the burner? He reached for a bar above his head and started to pull himself up to get a better look, then paused, noticing a mark on the floor.

  He dropped back down to get a closer look.

  There, covered by a layer of dust much lighter than the rest of the level, was a set of footprints. Someone else had been in this power plant. Not recently, but definitely in the last year or two.

  Right about the time . . .

  “He was here,” Trenton whispered. “Leo Babbage stood right here.”

  His heart began to race. Quickly he climbed back onto the equipment. It didn’t take long to figure out that the first piece of machinery was a crusher. It crushed the coal before it went to the furnace. The crushed coal was then blown onto the flames. The blower case was open, as though someone had taken it apart to examine the inside. Trenton reached out to run his fingers through the black powder coating one of the blades but pulled back, noticing a streak in the dust—another set of fingers had done the same thing.

  He moved past the furnace to where the steam pipes should have connected to the pistons and saw a large metal cylinder that stood open as well. A pair of rusty bolts lay on the ground next to a curved plate. Bracing himself with his hands, he leaned forward and peered into the opening.

  What he saw there made no sense. Instead of pistons and gears, rows of thin metal fans were attached to a single shaft. In the dust outside the metal housing, someone had written the word “turbine.”

  All at once, Trenton realized what he was seeing, what Leo Babbage had seen before him. This power plant had once crushed the coal into a fine powder, then blown the powdered coal directly into the furnace. That made the coal so combustible it must have practically exploded when it hit the flames. And instead of moving pistons in the cylinders, which had to heat up and cool down with each cycle, steam was used to turn the fans.

  His mind raced, calculating. This kind of engine would be so efficient that it could easily triple their current power production. The design took up much less space, too, allowing the engine to be bigger.

  The empty spot in the plans was exactly the right size to install a crusher and blower.

  Kallista’s father had designed it that way all along.

  Trenton threw his hands in the air and shouted, “Leo Babbage, you are a genius!”

  31

  Trenton tightened the last bolt on the blower, checked the gasket to make sure it wasn’t pinched anywhere, and sat back to examine his work.

  “All done?” Kallista called from above.

  “As far as I can tell,” Trenton said.

  He looked over the turbine assembly, wishing for the hundredth time that Leo Babbage had given them the designs for this instead of making them figure it out on their own. What if they’d built it wrong? If they blew in too little powder, the furnace wouldn’t get hot enough. Too much, and the whole thing could explode.

  “Why do you think your father didn’t put the steam turbine in his plans? Why make us discover it for ourselves?” he asked, climbing up to sit next to Kallista.

  “He did everything for a reason,” she said.

  Trenton shook his head. “You keep saying that, but that doesn’t help unless we know what the reason was.”

  She tightened a fitting on the dragon’s neck. “The bigger question is why isn’t this technology being used in the city power plants?”

  They’d gone around and around on this without finding a clear answer. Maybe the turbines and blowers had been forgotten over time. Maybe they didn’t work as well as they were supposed to.

  “Maybe it’s dangerous,” he said. “Maybe one of the plants blew up or something.”

  Kallista raised one corner of her mouth. “Do you really believe that?”

  No, he didn’t. Not only had he done the math himself, carefully measuring the equipment in every power plant on this level—all of which were built with the same machinery—but Leo Babbage had clearly wanted them to discover it. That alone told him that the process was solid.

  “Well,” Kallista said, running a finger across the power button. “Should we put it to the test?”

  Trenton checked the time. The dance would start in a couple of hours. “Is there enough coal?”

  “Fully loaded.”

  He took a deep breath. “All right. But we have to be quick. I promised Simoni I’d pick her up at seven. Are you sure you don’t want to go?”

  “To a dance?” Kallista puckered her mouth as if tasting a rotten apple. “I’d rather impale myself on a steam pipe and slowly bleed to death while the heat cooks my brain.”

  “Oh, that’s real nice,” Trenton said. “Way to encourage me for my big night out.” He sighed. “Speaking of being out at night, I think you need to stop working on the dragon after curfew. Security officers are everywhere right now. I swear I saw a couple of them examining the air vents the other day.”

  “Ha.” Kallista stuck her nose up. “The marshal’s men couldn’t catch me if I gave them a ten-foot head start and hopped on one leg. Besides, lately I’ve been spending the night up here and going down in the morning.”

  “I’ll bet you smell fresh at work.” Trenton nodded to the power button. “Let’s do this. If we’re going to blow ourselves up, we may as well get on with it.”

  Kallista grinned. “One . . . two . . .”

  On “three,” she pushed the button. Unlike before, a whoosh of flame appeared instantly as the furnace consumed the powdered coal in the primer. Within seconds, the turbines whined and the feeder belt started up.

  The dragon vibrated harder than Trenton had ever felt it. His eyes went to the temperature gauge. The needle was climbing fast. Too fast? The pressure gauge was climbing too. The fans in the turbine kicked up to a pitch higher than anything he’d heard before. The dragon’s eyes—which used to give a weak glow—cut through the darkness like spotlights.

  His pulse raced as he realized t
his was going to work. Then he noticed the temperature gauge. The needle was almost all the way to the top, and the pressure readout was edging into the red.

  “Turn it off!” he shouted, reaching for the button.

  Kallista blocked his hand. “No. Listen. It’s evening out.”

  Trenton held his breath. The turbines had gone from a deafening pitch to a steady roar. The pressure gauge held steady on the border between red and white. The temperature was a little high, but he could probably adjust that.

  Slowly, he let himself relax, feeling a grin spread across his face.

  “We did it!” Kallista shouted, bouncing up and down in her seat. “It works!” She turned the dragon’s head to the left. It moved as if on a string. “Shoot out a blast of flames.”

  Trenton twisted the dial for the flames to halfway and hit the button. A blinding burst of fire hit the iron gate at the front of the foundry and melted it instantly. “Holy iron slag,” he said, staring at the bubbling orange puddle. “Do you see that?”

  Kallista nodded excitedly and gripped the controls for the legs. The dragon lifted its front left leg, leaned precariously to one side, and turned before slamming it back down.

  “What are you doing?” Trenton yelled, grabbing the edge of his seat.

  “Trying to walk it,” Kallista said. Gripping the levers in both hands, she made the dragon take first one step and then another toward the melted gate.

  “Hang on!” Trenton shouted. “You have to use the tail as a counterbalance, or we’ll fall over.”

  He pulled the control, lifting the tail off the ground, then shoved it left and right with each step Kallista had the dragon take. At first they moved out of sync, and he was sure they were about to tip over, but, after a few more steps, they started to get the hang of it. They walked the dragon out the front gate and turned onto the street.

  With each crashing step, dust and rocks flew in the air. Could anyone could hear them from below? If so, they’d probably think the mountain was coming down on top of them.

  But they were doing it. They were really doing it. They were riding on the back of a mechanical dragon the two of them had built with their own hands.

  “This is amazing!” He hit the flame button, and a burst of fire shot out in front of them.

  Kallista increased the speed, and the dragon began to run, leaping ten feet with each step, then twenty.

  “Slow down,” Trenton yelled, bouncing out of his seat with every step as he tried to keep the dragon balanced.

  Kallista pulled the lever on her left and the wings began to extend.

  “Stop it.” Trenton reached for the lever, but Kallista knocked his hand away. With the wings fully spread, the length of their steps had gone from twenty feet to forty.

  She looked back at him, her eyes agleam with excitement. “Let’s fly!”

  “No,” Trenton said. They weren’t ready for this.

  They had too many things to test first. They were going too fast. Keeping the tail under control was getting harder and harder, and something sounded off with the hydraulics in the left leg.

  He looked ahead and realized they were heading straight for a building. “Look out!” he screamed.

  Kallista turned around and gasped. She tried to pull to the right, but it was too late. They couldn’t turn fast enough, and there was no time to stop.

  Knowing it was their only chance, Trenton yanked up on the flight lever. The wings changed angle and began to beat. The dragon jumped, landed hard, jumped again, then launched into the air. He watched the building disappear inches beneath them. The dragon’s tail caught the top edge of the wall and blew it to bits.

  “We did it!” Kallista shouted. “We’re flying!”

  Trenton looked down. Lit by the beams shooting out of the dragon’s eyes, buildings and equipment blurred past below. He pulled the lever back a little more, and they rose higher into the air.

  “My father’s plan worked. It worked!” Kallista yelled, throwing her arms above her head.

  Trenton had never been so scared in his life, but he couldn’t help grinning. The cold air whipped against his face, bringing tears to his eyes, and he realized his entire body was shaking.

  “How are we supposed to land?” he asked.

  “I have no idea,” Kallista said. “But isn’t this great?”

  It was more than great. It was amazing. This is what he lived for—to see something he’d built with his own hands work the way it was supposed to. To build something new, something . . . important. As much as he enjoyed farming, this was what he had been born to do. There was no doubt of that in his mind.

  “You’d better turn around,” he said. “We need to get back and figure out how to land this thing.”

  Kallista pushed a pedal with her foot, and the dragon banked to the right. The wing struts creaked, and Trenton moved the tail to act as a rudder. They heard a ripping sound, and Trenton whirled around to see the canvas on the left wing rip off one of the struts.

  For a moment they evened out, but the cloth continued to tear away. At the same time, the canvas on the right wing shredded off of one whole section.

  “Get us down!” she yelled. “The wings are coming apart.”

  Trenton pushed the flight lever forward, and the dragon began to descend. But not evenly. The wings shuddered, and the dragon swerved left, then right. Canvas was ripping all over now. The dragon was dropping too fast. Bits of shredded cloth flew into the air behind them.

  “I can’t steer us!” Kallista screamed.

  Trenton shoved the stick all the way forward, trying to get to the ground more quickly, but the head went down, and the rear came up. He pulled back on the flight lever, forcing the tail down to act as a brake.

  Kallista managed to pull the dragon’s head up, but it was no good. They were coming in too fast, shaking like a ball bearing in a tin can, and Trenton could barely keep himself from falling out.

  They hit the ground with a thud. Kallista worked to move the feet as fast as possible, but they were out of control. Something snapped, and the dragon tilted to the left. Trenton’s hands were ripped from the controls, and he was thrown from the seat.

  He saw the ground coming up to meet him, and then everything went black.

  • • •

  “Trenton, can you hear me?”

  He heard a faraway voice but couldn’t understand it. The world seemed to be spinning around and around, and he thought he was back on the gear trying to make the swing.

  “Be sure to duck before the beam hits you,” he muttered before passing out again.

  Sometime later, he felt something cold and damp press against the side of his head. He opened his eyes, but the world was a blur.

  “Don’t try to sit up,” a voice said. He recognized it.

  “Kallista?” Where was he, and why did he feel like he’d been run over by the trolley? He started to sit up, but a wave of pain ran through his head and his neck.

  “I told you not to do that,” Kallista said.

  He blinked, and a street filled with pieces of broken machinery came slowly came into focus. “What happened?” he asked. “Where are we?”

  “We crashed the dragon,” Kallista said. “You were thrown out. You’re lucky you didn’t die.” She wiped her eyes. “It’s all my fault. I should never have tried to fly it.”

  “Help me up,” Trenton said.

  She put her arms around his neck and back, helping him up to a sitting position. He stared at the mass of twisted beams and pipes. “Was it the . . .” He couldn’t remember the right word at first but knew he should. “Was it the turbines?”

  “No,” Kallista said. “It was the wings. The canvas wasn’t strong enough. It tore.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s good.” He tried to nod but instantly regretted it. “Wait.” He stared at the mess of machinery in front of him and started to recognize parts. “Is that the dragon? Is it ruined?”

  “I can fix it,” Kallista said. “But I don’t care
about that right now. Only that you’re okay. I never would have forgiven myself if I’d killed you.”

  “How about next time, we wear helmets,” Trenton said. “And we add harnesses to hold us in our seats. Did your father have a reason for not including those?”

  She laughed shakily. “Now you’re starting to sound like the Trenton I know. You were unconscious so long, I worried you might never wake up.”

  “Unconscious?” Something clicked in Trenton’s mind. “How long was I out? What time is it?”

  “You’ve been sleeping for almost five hours,” Kallista said. “It’s just after eleven.”

  Eleven!

  “Oh no,” he groaned. “I missed the dance.”

  32

  Trenton had been out of the hospital for almost two weeks, but Simoni still wouldn’t talk to him. He’d tried talking to her in the elevator, during training, and after work, but she always went out of her way to be in a group of girls who made it clear that he wasn’t invited to be part of their conversations.

  Shoving his hand into the pockets of his apron, he joined Clyde and walked toward the orchard where they would be picking cherries that day. He paid no attention to a security officer who stepped up to them until a far-too-familiar voice said, “Guess you don’t think you’re all that special now that Simoni’s dumped you.”

  “What are you doing here?” Trenton demanded.

  Angus grinned, looking far too pleased with himself. “Got reassigned to this level.”

  “You mean your father got you assigned here,” Clyde said.

  “Watch your mouth, or you may end up back in retraining, artist.” Angus put a hand on Clyde’s chest, but Trenton slapped it away. The two of them glared at each other. Angus was much bigger than Trenton, but even though his father was the head of security, Angus would get in trouble for starting anything.