by Blair Drake
The metal man stumbled as if being pushed by a force Reese couldn’t see. And maybe it was him. If so, yes! Let him stumble and fall. It was the only way he and Raven would survive and make it back to the platform.
Just when Reese found it hard to continue, small rocks at the top of the platform began to crumble and rain on top of him. At first, Reese feared it would pull the bolts out of the rock and they’d all tumble into the hole. But it was just enough for metal man to lose his balance. The clock struck the hour and the pendulum swung wide. And then metal man slipped from his perch at the top of the platform. The pipe fell first. He held tight to the sidewall of the bridge as it flew by. A few seconds later, metal man rolled past him and then disappeared into the darkness below.
Heart still pumping, Reese took a deep breath, and then another. Soon the humming stopped and the bright light became dim again. The cold air pumping up from below stopped and the room became the same type of void he’d felt when he first walked into the darkness with Raven.
And then he heard it. Laughing from below. Life.
Chapter 7
“Remind me to never piss you off,” Raven said, chuckling when Reese reached her. She hadn’t stopped laughing since metal man had tumbled past her.
Relief washed over him when he finally touched her hand and felt it was warm. He couldn’t see her. But he could hear her. Right now that was enough.
“Can you climb?” he asked.
“Um, my arm hurts. I don’t think it’s broken or anything. But it’s going to hurt for a while.”
“I’ll help you.”
They took their time climbing up the sidewall now that Reese knew the metal creatures were gone. But he couldn’t be sure there weren’t more where they came from. When they got to the top of the platform, he looked around and quickly noticed the large clock on the wall. The hands had stopped moving.
“What is it?” Raven asked, favoring her arm with her other hand.
“Nothing. Let’s find some place to rest for a while. There’s supposed to be another tunnel just down that way, I think.”
Raven peered up at him. Her hair was a mess and it looked…she looked. Shit, he didn’t have time for this.
“Let’s go.”
Time was a funny thing here, and Reese wondered if the broken clock would be quickly noticed by anyone around here. He had no idea who traveled from one part of the city to the other. Why anyone would risk coming face to face with those mechanical beings, Reese didn’t know.
They realized quickly that tunnel was too much of a danger. If there were any other mechanical men lurking, they’d surely find them sleeping in a tunnel. In the end, they decided on a small cubby in the wall like they’d hidden in before. Reese helped Raven up into the opening, trying his best not to hurt her arm any more than it was. Then struggled to pull himself up alone. Once the door was shut, Reese pulled Raven behind him and dragged her across the concrete into the small well where he hoped they’d be safe, at least for a while.
Breathing hard, he touched her wrist. She winced, so he eased the pressure.
“What are you doing?”
“Checking to see if it’s broken. I saw the way you’ve been protecting it.”
“It’s not broken.” She eased her hand away, leaving him cold.
His heart hammered in his chest and he didn’t know why. The hard part was over. They’d made it across the bridge, the first leg of the journey. He couldn’t see Raven’s face, but he was sure if he could, he’d see how much pain she was in.
And he wanted to see her face. If only to make himself feel better. He knew he was being selfish, but damn. So much of what was happening was surreal. He needed something real.
He focused his mind just enough to feel the hum of energy flow through him. He heard the buzz of electricity flowing in the conduit pipes above his head. There had to be light in here somewhere.
“What are you doing?” Raven whispered as the first bit of light touched the narrow tunnel.
“I just want to look at you. Make sure you’re okay. Don’t worry. If there are lights in here, it’ll help us see if anyone, or anything, is coming.”
He touched her chin but she turned away momentarily. He didn’t force her. But then she lifted her face to him as if she had a change of heart. Her cheeks were wet and tear-stained. The hair that had blown around her head during the fall and her struggle not to fall was stuck against her wet cheeks.
“I didn’t think we were going to make it,” she said, biting her bottom lip as if to keep her lips from trembling.
Emotion surged through him and bubbled up his throat, nearly choking him. He swallowed hard to force it back. “I know. I thought you were dead. That you’d fallen.”
“Me, too. I didn’t think you were going to catch me.”
He felt a frown pull at his forehead. “I didn’t. I couldn’t reach you.”
He could tell her body was weak. Probably much more weak than he felt after the ordeal. Energy still flowed through him. He could feel it now even without thinking of running. Raven was so tiny, so much weaker than he was. When he thought of what might have happened…
“I think we will be safe here,” he said forcing the images of her disappearing into the darkness from his mind.
She slowly lifted up to her elbows in an attempt to get further away from the opening. “You don’t sound very convincing.”
“Well, to be honest, I’m not sure I’m convinced myself.” He chuckled, but it was a nervous laugh that brought tears to his eyes. Tears of relief, and tears of fear over how close they came to dying.
Raven leaned her head against the concrete wall as she propped her body against it. “What do you think went wrong?”
Guilt surged through him. “It was me. It was too much energy. I think it somehow summoned them. I…it was my fault.”
She touched his arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. “We’re not going to get very far if you beat yourself up about everything you do wrong. You just won’t do it again. If Endel says go through the darkness, that’s what we do.”
He nodded. But it didn’t relieve him of any of the guilt he felt. What scared him more than anything was that he couldn’t control what had happened. Once the energy inside him started moving fast and getting strong, he couldn’t stop it. At least, not the way he’d been able to do it when he’d been in the energy room.
“I…was scared you fell over the side of the wall,” he admitted.
“You? I was terrified. I didn’t fall, Reese. It sucked me in. I wasn’t expecting it. Something was pulling at my whole body. I still can’t believe I was able to hold on for as long as I did. I’m so tired now. My whole body feels like it was zapped of energy. “
He snapped his gaze to her. “And I’m just the opposite. I feel like I could run a marathon. You don’t supposed I’m stealing energy from you, do you?”
She rolled her eyes. “Let’s not get paranoid. I’m tired. We haven’t slept much at all. Second bell can’t be too far off now, which is normally when I get most of my sleep since it’s not safe to venture out that much.”
“Then get some rest.” Reese reached out and touched Raven’s hair, pulling the wet strands away from her face. She was warm to the touch and her cheeks were rosy. “We’re going to be okay.”
Her eyes drifted closed. “I’m going to hold you to that.”
Sleep hadn’t given Reese anymore clarification. He still had no clue how they were going to get out of hiding, through the maze of the epicenter, and over that last bridge. He’d thought of the map he’d looked at in the energy room and wished he’d given it more thought. The last bridge didn’t look at all like the one they’d just gotten over. The details were small and hard for him to decipher. So he’d moved on. Now that he’d had a taste of what it was really like in this underground world, he knew that had been a critical mistake. Those details mattered.
Compared to what they’d just experienced, that damned second bridge may as well be the Grand Can
yon for how long it was on the map. His powers had increased tenfold. Maybe more. And he was no closer to harnessing this energy. He could feel himself getting stronger, and if something happened while they were trying to navigate the bridge in the darkness, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to control himself.
Last night they’d survived. He’d managed to keep them from dying. What about next time? Reese wished he’d spent more time paying attention in his science class. He knew metals made electronics and magnets go wild. And they were in the underground which was filled with lots of different types of rock that could contain any type of metal that could set him off.
He glanced down at the watch on his wrist and touched it. Time wasn’t real down here. He’d made this broken watch work once. He didn’t know why, but that mattered to him now, if only to give him some perspective of night and day and light and dark. If only to give him the illusion that he had some control in a life he’d never had any control over.
Tears of frustration filled his eyes and turned into anger. Why did he have to be such a damned freak? Why was he born with such an oddity that drove away his father and made his mother send him away?
Normal people didn’t do the things he could do. Normal people got up every day and had breakfast with the family. They rode the bus to school, and they came home and did normal things. Reese didn’t even know what those things were because he never had the chance to be that way. They didn’t blow up their kitchen when they got angry or break the TV without even knowing how they did it.
Raven was still sleeping beside him. She was curled up in a ball on the concrete floor. At some point during the night, Reese had taken off his jacket, and placed it on her shivering body. She was so slight that he couldn’t stand feeling her shivering next to him and hearing her teeth chatter. She’d gone from being warm to cold almost instantaneously after she’d fallen asleep. He was still warm, which was normal for him.
Normal. What was that anyway? Raven was here, living in this underground world, sleeping in a concrete tunnel, which meant she couldn’t possibly know what real normal was either. How many times had she slept this way on the concrete floor? He’d only done it twice and he hated it.
All this time, Raven hadn’t had anyone with her. She’d been alone. As annoyed as Reese sometimes got with her trying to keep up with him, he was still glad he wasn’t alone.
He leaned back and felt his head hit the hard wall. Closing his eyes, he heard the growing hum around him. Now that this energy was flowing through him, how was he ever going to shut off his mind so he didn’t instantaneously create havoc around him like on the bridge?
That metal creature standing on the bridge was unlike anything Reese had ever seen before. Gnarly didn’t even cover it. Despite the button jacket, and it’s almost pirate look, Reese had almost expected it to have small wings to fly. It moved that fast, although he couldn’t figure out how. It didn’t have any skin. What he could see that wasn’t covered with cloth was weathered metal that almost had a green patina, a word his mother used to describe the old planter she used to keep on the steps of the back porch of the house they’d lived in with his father.
Reese’s heart ached just thinking about it. The house way out on the edge of town was the one he remembered well. They’d been a family when they lived there. His father, his real dad, was with them then. Reese never let himself think about it much. Why the hell would he? The memories were real, but they only ended up making him long for something that was never going to come back again.
But he remembered even now how it was torture to think of it. He wasn’t sure why it felt safe to do it here.
He recalled his dad looking down at him and smiling. He hadn’t thought of his dad that way in years. He was sitting on the back porch with his feet up on an old whiskey barrel that they collected rainwater in. His father was barefoot and was wearing that old T-shirt that his mother used to yell at him about being too old and raggedy for decent people to wear.
He’d left that T-shirt behind too when he’d left. His mother still had it tucked deep inside one of her dresser drawers in her bedroom. Reese knew this because he’d seen her take it out one day when he is standing in the hallway and she didn’t know he was there. Her bedroom door had been open just enough of a crack for him to see through. She’d been dating George by then. But by the way she’d picked up the old shirt and brought it to her face, touching it to her cheek, and then smelling it, taking in a deep breath, Reese knew she missed his dad.
He’d envied his mother that day. He could pick up the watch and touch it but he couldn’t smell his dad anymore. That old familiar scent he had from working on the yard was gone. Sometimes he smelled like pine. Sometimes it wasn’t so pleasant after he’d worked in the sun all day. But it was him. His dad. That was always good.
The humming continued until Reese realized it wasn’t coming from him. It was coming from his jacket pocket. He turned and looked at Raven sleeping next to him. He reached into the jacket pocket and pulled out the talisman. It was bright blue. Too bright to equal the emotions going through him. The way he felt, it should have been red.
He’d been filled with anger for a long time, although he found it hard to talk about. It didn’t matter because the only person he felt okay to talk about it to was his mom and she was the source of some of that anger. Except for those few moments he’d allowed himself to think of that house on the edge of town. Those memories filled him up with emotion he couldn’t handle. It was just as potent as the anger. But different.
Raven stirred next to him. Reese remained still so he wouldn’t wake her up. He didn’t want to lose these few seconds he had left to himself where he didn’t have to think about what they needed to do next or how they were going to make it safely the rest of the way to the portal. He’d have to worry about Raven, and how she’d gotten hurt last night, and he didn’t have to worry about this damn energy around him, or hurting anyone. He just wanted to be left alone.
But Raven stirred more and her restlessness more pronounced until her eyes opened up wide as if she’d been startled by something.
“Hey, you’re okay,” he said.
She leaned up and looked at her surroundings as if she had to remember where they were. “If we’re still here, we’re not okay.”
Despite his mood, he still grinned. “You really are a half glass is half empty kind of gal, aren’t you?”
She frowned as she looked up at him. Her hair was a mess and yet she was still pretty. Not all girls were like that. “Do you have a glass of water or something to drink?”
He chuckled. “I guess we should try to scrounge something up. Something to eat too because I’m starved. The problem is, I have no clue where to find food around here. The stuff Endel gave us to take with us is long gone.”
“Endel always got me what I needed. I never dared go into the city during the day. But I remember seeing on the map that this part of the city, after the first bridge, showed some places to get food. It might too dangerous for us though.”
“Danger is a relative thing. There’s the Oh-my-God-we’re-gonna-die type of danger. And then there’s the sneaking around where we might be seen kind of danger. At some point, we’ll have to risk leaving here. We might as well figure out the food situation while we’re at it.
“You’re right. If we don’t eat or drink anything, we will eventually lose our strength. I have no idea how long it’s going to take to get to the portal.”
Her frown turned into a worried stare, and Reese knew she was thinking of time. Time didn’t matter except when it did. The portal would close, and they had no idea how long they had to get there before time was up.
Reese looked down at the talisman in his hand, and pressed on the blue stone with his thumb. It hummed softly, not quite as loud as it had when he’d taken it out of his blazer pocket. He hadn’t expected there to be a response even though Endel said it was a way for them to communicate. So he was surprised when he heard Endel’s voice coming from the
talisman.
“You almost got yourself and Raven killed, yungin’,” Endel said. The voice was low, but Reese could almost see the stern look Endel was giving him. Raven on the other hand, still had a blank expression
“You hear something?” Raven whispered.
Reese nodded and waited for Endel to speak again. When he didn’t, Reese said, “We had a bit of a problem last night.”
“It’s just the first of many. This one was your doing.”
“How do you know?”
“The Citengams were out in full force last night looking for a yungin’. I don’t have to guess who they’re talking about.”
“Citengams? You mean the mechanical dudes we saw? How did you hear about it when it just happened last night. They ambushed us on the bridge.”
“So I heard. It doesn’t take long for stories to get around. Mind telling me what went wrong?”
“Nothing,” he lied. “We made it over the bridge. We’re in a tunnel right before the marketplace.”
“If nothing went wrong, I wouldn’t be hearing about a connection bridge being destroyed. If it disrupts merchandise from being moved from one village to the next, it’s big news. You did that?”
He took a deep breath. “Yes.”
“What part of silently did you not understand? Not only were you not silent, but you may as well have used a bullhorn to tell everyone in the city you were there.”
“It won’t happen again,” he said, annoyed with himself as much as Endel for giving him a scolding he deserved.
“Tell me what you saw.”
He was reluctant at first, but Reese knew he was way out of his league and he needed to come clean with Endel. “I’m not exactly sure. We were about halfway over the bridge and—”
