The Sky Drifter

by Paris Singer

  “No, I saw her coming toward me, but for whatever reason, she turned and vanished down a street.”

  “How did you know she caused the explosion, Seven? How do you know she did it to talk to you?”

  I tried to remain as calm and casual as possible as I continued to lie to Ava. “I just put two and two together, Ava. I mean, it was pretty obvious, you know?”

  There was a pause that seemed to last an eternity before she said, “What did the hole look like, Seven?”

  I stood and casually stretched my arms. “Oh that? I didn’t really have a good look at it. It disappeared just after I got there. Iris thinks I imagined it. I’m starting to think she may be right.” I laughed nervously. When Ava didn’t say anything, I continued, “Well, I guess I’ll go buy some food as I’m pretty sure the kitchen’s empty.” I walked toward the front door, and as I opened it said, “See ya, Ava,” I left for the last time.

  Looking down at the path ahead, lost in a thousand thoughts, I rapidly left my quarters. No sooner had I done so, however, when I crashed into something hard. I immediately raised my head to see the burly, stone figure of a Morex looking down at me, growling with obvious contempt.

  Before I had any chance of figuring out what it was doing right outside my quarters, a heavy blow fell on my head, and I fell unconscious to the ground.

  ***

  “Wake up, Simian!”

  The altogether unpleasant sound of One’s voice bounded and echoed around my aching skull, making me wince. I slowly opened my eyes and saw the hard black grid of the arena’s sphere.

  “Well, well, looks like our little star is awake. Welcome, princess.”

  I propped myself up and placed a hand to my throbbing head. “What is this?”

  “Has being a twinkling little star gone to your head, Simian? I’ll be asking the questions, which you’ll answer like a good little monkey.” One’s sarcastic tone was filled with venomous contempt. “Get up!”

  “What are you talking about?” I groaned, still on the floor, “What do you want?”

  “I said get up!”

  “Ugh, keep it down, will you?” I said, slowly getting to my feet.

  “Ooh, what’s the matter? Does our little star’s head hurt?”

  “Thanks no doubt to one of your goons, yes. Now, what did you want again?” I asked, rubbing my neck.

  “Shut your pathetic Simian mouth. I’ll be asking the questions.”

  “Questions? You got me all the way down here to ask some questions? What are you, crazy?”

  “I said shut up!”

  One’s echoing voice resounded in my ears, causing me to wince again. I didn’t know what he could possibly want to ask me, but I thought the quicker he did, the faster I’d be out of there. Besides, I wasn’t going anywhere until he got what he wanted. Looming around outside the sphere were the two Morex.

  I had far more urgent problems to worry about than him, so in the interest of moving things along, I said, “Okay, okay. Ask away.”

  “Do you think you’re being funny, Simian? Do you think this is a joke?”

  “No, no. I just really want you to ask me whatever it is you want to ask me, that’s all.”

  “Well, aren’t you being cooperative like a good boy. Don’t think you can just shrug this off and lie, though, Simian. I’ll know if you’re lying.”

  “Whatever. Just ask.”

  “Who’s the girl?”

  “What girl?” I replied curtly with the foolish hope he meant any other girl, except the one I sought to find.

  If he did mean her, however, I’d have to add yet another weight to the already massive bulk that I struggled to carry in my mind. Unlike Ava, whose persistent questions both puzzled and scared me, One’s bold, violent attempt at extracting information about the mysterious girl, aside from being baffling, would irritate me greatly. As far as I was concerned, she was none of his business.

  “Are you really as dumb as you look? The girl you’ve been seeing! Black hair, red coat. Who is she?”

  To be honest, I would have lied. If I’d really known who the mysterious girl was, I would have told him anything but the truth about her. I didn’t, so the truth was just as good as the lie would have been.

  “Oh, her? No idea, sorry.”

  “Ha.” One exhaled flatly. “The thing about remedial species like yours is that they think all other species are just as dumb and simple as they are. And you must be regarded as stupid even by your own species’ standards if you think I’ll believe that garbage.”

  I noticed as I closed my hand and tightened it that a sudden flash of anger swelled inside me.

  “Now, let me explain the situation in a way even you will understand. You tell me what you know about the girl, and I’ll let you go back to your sad, pathetic life. You don’t tell me about her.” One reached over to touch his right forearm. From underneath his coat sleeve a light chain emerged with a metal ball materialising at its tip, clanging loudly as it connected with the sphere’s metallic floor. “I will break as many bones in your weak body as it takes until you tell me. And if you still don’t tell me,” he continued with an animated tone, “I’ll let my husky friends crush them into powder. Is that understood?”

  Before I could stop myself, I said, “You know, I’m surprised you can hide that huge mouth of yours under that mask, let alone manage to walk straight without crumbling under its weight.”

  One’s body immediately tensed and he jerked forward only to stop himself. Regaining his composure with forced airiness, he said, “Am I to take your insolence as a refusal to answer my question?”

  “I did answer your question. I don’t know who she is. Why do you want to know, anyway?”

  Ignoring my question completely, One said, “You know, I hoped you wouldn’t tell me, Simian.” He got into an attacking stance.

  “I don’t want to fight you, One.”

  “No choice.”

  Pinching the bridge of my nose with my index and forefinger, I sighed, and replied, “Have it your way, No Face.”

  No sooner had the last syllable left my lips when One charged toward me, his light chain in full swing. Just as he swung the metal ball at my chest, I knelt as far as I could and then exploded back up, aiming my fist at his jaw. Swift as wind, One angled his head to the side, dodging my counter attack and shifting his body while raising his knee to strike my rib-cage. Lifting my own knee to block his, I anticipated his next move and thrust my forearm vertically to his other side to block the incoming punch.

  As soon as I had, I swung my arm back to strike his face with the back of my fist. Just as I was about to connect, however, One flipped backward onto his hands, pulling the metal ball upward at an arch, narrowly missing my ear. He back flipped a couple of times away and then crouched in a defensive stance. When he saw I wasn’t in pursuit, he stood back up.

  “Ready to tell me who she is, Simian?”

  “I already told you what I know, but even if I did know, it’s not like you’re doing a very good job of convincing me to tell you, is it? You haven’t even managed to land a single blow.”

  “What I’m doing, simpleton, is toying with you. If I wanted all your bones broken straight away, it would have happened by now. It’s a lot more fun for me this way.”

  “There you go blah, blah, blahing your huge mouth again. Pretty soon you’re going to need some extra support to carry that thing.”

  “Shut your trap, Simian,” spat One, “Besides, you haven’t managed to hit me either. If your only plan is to keep pathetically dodging me, you’ll be seeing my burly friends before you know it—and they’re dying to get their hands on you.”

  “I tell you, keep spewing that putrid garbage from that huge mouth of yours and pretty soon I’ll just faint from the stench.”

  “Enough! Are you going to tell me about the girl or not?”

  “You really should clean your ears once in a while, No Face. It might help you understand when people tell you stuff.” Even wearin
g a mask, I could tell how angry I made him. His whole body stiffened, and his right hand, which he’d clenched into a fist, visibly shook.

  It really didn’t look as if I’d be leaving the sphere without having fought, and beaten, One. Even if there had been a way, my own big mouth had slammed that door shut and locked it tight. The concern I felt that I wasn’t wearing a helmet was over-shadowed by the ominous feeling that something bad was happening around me. Every moment I spent in that sphere increased my frustration as my thoughts lingered on the idea that the mysterious girl was somehow the key to it all.

  I really didn’t want to fight One. Whatever animosity I felt for him was dwarfed and seemed trite then. However, the faster I got out of there, the sooner I could go in search of the mysterious girl.

  Without wasting another moment, I extended my middle finger at One, and said, “Bring it, No Face.”

  In the blink of an eye we charged at each other. One matched me blow for blow as we fiercely threw flurries of kicks, punches, knees, and elbows in the hopes of causing as much damage as possible. I tried desperately to avoid One’s metal ball that whooshed and screamed past me. We were so evenly matched, it sometimes felt as if I were fighting myself. We fought for what seemed to be an age, every breath I took increasingly becoming heavier until my lungs were on fire and my face stung from the sweat that poured into my open cuts.

  Panting just as hard as I was, One rushed at me, swinging his light chain vertically at his side, and I ran in the opposite direction. As soon as I was close enough, I jumped forward and propped my foot up against the black metal grid ahead, pushing myself off it. I rapidly spun back toward One, who stood a few paces back. As he sent his metal ball hurtling toward me, I painfully caught it as I continued falling in his direction.

  When I was close enough to him, I brought the ball streaming forward into One’s plain white mask, shattering it as we crashed to the hard floor, one on top of the other.

  My every muscle screamed in pain as I struggled to find strength to move. One lay motionless beneath me as faint gurgling noises bubbled from his throat. When finally I gathered the strength I had left, I slowly propped myself up. I felt dazed and blinked hard to try to stop the room spinning around me.

  When at last I was able to focus, I looked down, and for the very first time saw the face of the being I’d known as One.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  MY HEART STOPPED and breath caught in my throat as I froze in fear of what I saw. The sight of the face in front of me brought me to the brink of sanity, making me question my own eyes and everything I knew and had ever known.

  The face of the one I’d come to detest, whose eyes were rolled back into his skull, was my own. His thin nose, his mouth, his chin, all were an exact match to mine. I scrambled backward against the gridded wall of the sphere. What I saw couldn’t be real. It had to be an illusion—a trick One had designed to mess with my mind. It couldn’t be real. Or was Iris right? Was I losing it? Was I imagining what I saw? And the mysterious girl, did she exist only in my imagination? That couldn’t be. Ava had seen her that first time when she’d been outside my quarters. Hadn’t she?

  I brought my hands to the sides of my head in a desperate attempt to keep my thoughts together when I heard a groan coming from One, who stirred. I wanted to turn away, to close my eyes and erase any memory of that pale face, but I was transfixed by it as One brought a hand to it.

  “Ugh…Damn…Simian…” Slowly he sat up and held his head again. When his gaze met mine, One tensed his forehead, and spat, “What are you gawking at?”

  Gazing in shocked disbelief, I exhaled. “Is this a joke? Is this real?”

  One frowned and winced as he tried in vain to get to his feet. “What? I told you I’ll be asking the questions.”

  “Why have you done this?” I persisted, my mind beginning to spin.

  “Enough of your stupid questions. What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Stop pretending! Your face. Why is it like mine?”

  “I’m getting tired of your cryptic ramblings, Simian. Shut your mouth before I shut it for you.”

  A sudden overwhelming anger took over as I hastily got to my feet and threw myself on top of him. Before One had the chance to do anything, I straddled his chest, pinning him down, violently grabbing his collar with both hands and slamming him down onto the metal surface. “Tell me why you’ve done this!”

  I needed to hear him say it was a trick he played on me. That it was deliberate—real. I needed to know that what I saw really was an imitation of my face. I needed to know I wasn’t crazy.

  “Get your hands off me!”

  “Tell me!”

  The door to the sphere opened, and I looked up to see the two Morex appear threateningly inside, one behind the other. For a moment, they stood side by side, glaring and snarling menacingly at me.

  “Don’t just stand there,” One cried, turning his head to face them. “Get this monkey off me!”

  As the two Morex rushed toward me, I instinctively ran up and along the sphere, flipping over both of them, and then ran out the door toward the exit. I burst through the side entrance to the stadium and continued running along the path until I reached the main academy gates.

  I stopped and looked behind me, expecting to see One still wearing a creepy version of my face on his with his two goons running closely behind him, but saw no one. In fact, I saw no students or teachers on the grounds. The area looked oddly deserted for that time of day.

  I leaned against one of the pillars that made up the main gate and faced toward the town, glad for the moment I had to catch my breath and think. Nothing made sense to me any-more. It felt as if everything I’d taken as a reliable certainty was now crumbling around me. I was torn between yielding to the idea that I was going crazy and trusting the strong feeling in my gut that there was more to this than I knew.

  Whatever the case, the mysterious girl remained the only beacon to finding the answers to what was happening. Besides, if she really was just a figment of my imagination, she’d eventually re-appear, and no matter what she said, or what she did, it would all be meaningless. Eventually, I’d be taken to the nurse, and most likely locked up until they figured out what was wrong within my mind.

  Assuming she was real, the only question that remained was where to look for her first. I’d tried the academy and town in vain, so to my mind the only places that remained where she might be found were the upper deck section where the crew resided and piloted the Sky Drifter and the engine rooms below.

  Both were on the upper northernmost section of the ship, and could be accessed by crossing the town all the way north and then following the path beyond it.

  Without another moment’s hesitation, I rapidly headed into town and along its many winding, narrow streets, which now also appeared deserted. Soon after, I arrived at the northern exit and saw the path that led directly to the high-rising structure ahead.

  The bright white wall rose almost to the dome above. Its upper half being made entirely of glass. At the foot of the structure, a massive wide tunnel, its width almost equal to the structure’s, led to places unknown. The lights above illuminated it in a dim orange glow.

  After quickly crossing the path, I made it to the mouth of the tunnel and saw two doors. The one on the left was a wide elevator, no doubt leading to the upper deck. The one on the right had a square sign above it that read, “Engine Room. Caution.”

  Just as I’d decided to head toward the right door, a familiar yet oddly placid voice came from behind me.

  “Hey, buddy.” Standing right behind me were Iris and Pi.

  “Damn it, Pi.” I exhaled with a mix of annoyance and relief. “You made me jump.” Looking around as if to find the answer to my question, I asked, “Where did you both come from?”

  “Where are you going, Seven?” Iris smiled.

  I looked at them, convinced now they couldn’t understand or believe anything I’d told them about the mysterious
girl or the strange events that had happened. To avoid being told again there was something wrong with me, I did what I’d too often been doing lately—I lied. “Nowhere special. Just thought I’d hang out here for a while. It’s quiet, and Ava won’t let me sleep properly. And what are you guys up to?” I hoped to change the subject away from me and the pathetic lie I’d told. I really didn’t feel comfortable lying to them, so I tried to do it as little as possible.

  Iris gave me a knowing look, and Pi smiled, throwing his big hands behind his head. “You’re looking for her again, aren’t you?” asked Iris.

  “What are you talking about?” I replied, trying my best to look confused. We looked into each other’s eyes for a moment. Iris’ gaze made it seem as if she could see straight through me. My resolve quickly crumbled, and I sputtered, “Yes. Look. You don’t have to believe me. I’ll just go—”

  “We believe you, bro,” said Pi, smiling broadly.

  I looked at him in surprise, my train of thought derailing.

  “We’ve been talking, Seven,” began Iris. “We haven’t been the best of friends to you lately. What I mean is, even though we didn’t find that girl that time, it doesn’t mean she doesn’t exist, right? And maybe there really was a hole in that alley that disappeared right before I got there. My point,” she concluded, her expression becoming more serious, “is that we’re friends, and we should stick together and be supportive of each other, right? You’re not crazy and you’re not a liar. We know that.”

  A sudden pang of guilt pressed against my chest at those last words. “So, what are you saying?” I asked, feeling a glimmer of hope rising from somewhere inside.

  “We’re coming with you, bro,” replied Pi. “And we’ll look for that girl as long as it takes to find her.”

  “Exactly,” agreed Iris. With a slightly sheepish look, she said, “Sorry I doubted you.”

  The relief that washed over me warmed my very core. It felt as if I had my two best friends back, and any loneliness I’d felt faded instantly away.

  Before I could find the words to thank them, Pi said, “So, where do we start, bro?”