The Sky Is Yours

by Chandler Klang Smith

  —How long will it take for you to get to know me?

  —long enough to gather empirical evidence supporting the hypothesis that you pose no threat.

  —And you won’t try to sneak into my mind? Or run away?

  —CORRECT.

  She wants to trust him. Magic animals hardly ever lie.

  —Do you promise?

  —i am TYPE SCAVENGER, not TYPE DECEIVER.

  —You’re just being nice because you want my peanut butter.

  Abby moves the can of peas, lifts up the colander, and feeds him a dollop off her thumb. While he licks peanut butter from his little pink paws and nose, she pets his white coat. It’s glossy and smooth, so different from the patchy, scabby pelts of the rats she used to skin on the Island…yet somehow, also familiar.

  —So we’re friends?

  —friend request accepted.

  24

  THE FIRE READERS

  “Why the snuff,” says Ripple, “do we go out to fight the fires at dawn?”

  The wind is freezing, with bits of glassy sleet in it. Dead leaves mingle with trash in the streets. It’s been a long fall since Ripple left home.

  He and Trank walk in the gray pale light of early morning, taking turns pushing the hot-dog cart down a side street in Hollow Sidewalk Village—in addition to fire skills, Ripple’s been getting to know the neighborhoods. Growing up, he was mostly just at his house, or at underschool, or sometimes at the Tangs’ mansion, which is also in the Heights and a lot like his mansion except it has a shark tank with a tunnel you can walk through and none of the paintings the Tangs own are of themselves, kind of weird if you think about it. But anyway: being a fireman has finally taught Ripple how the other half lives, “other half” meaning the non-celebrities of the upper middle class, and “lives” meaning used to live, because damn this place is dead.

  Take where they’re walking now. It’s a cute neighborhood, with little shops along the road—a florist, a dry cleaner, a juicery, an outpatient burn clinic—and apartments up above. The kind of place where, on a sunny spring day, people with normal jobs like lunch lady or sex stylist probably used to look out their barred-up windows and think, This two-room crap pad is sure no mansion, but at least my life does not completely suck. Only now almost all of the apartments are empty, the stores are all boarded up except for the burn clinic, and oh yeah, shocker, one of the buildings is on fire.

  “Someplace is always on fire,” Ripple continues, tugging on his neoprene gloves. “We could start after lunch and there would still be fires. We could go out at midnight and there would still be fires. I need my Z’s, pro. I need my balanced breakfast.”

  “If you want me to train you,” Trank says through the Tarnhelm, piloting the hot-dog cart around an open manhole, “you have to follow my orders.”

  They walk past the burn clinic. It’s not even open yet, but the proprietor sees them and hurries out through the jangling doors with his hands full of brochures. He’s wearing mint-green surgical scrubs, or maybe pajamas—could go either way, since as mentioned it’s still crack of sunrise o’clock.

  “Special on skin grafts!” he says. “Skin grafts are our specialty!”

  Ripple and Trank both ignore him. If you say one word to these guys, you have to hear the whole sales pitch.

  “I’m already trained,” Ripple argues. “I have my Junior Special Officer badge and everything. So maybe it’s time we start treating this more like a partnership.”

  “I leave at dawn each morning. You can leave with me or you’re on your own.”

  “Maybe I should be on my own, then.”

  “Maybe you should.”

  This annoys Ripple. Because doesn’t Trank respect how much Ripple is changing—how much he’s already changed? Ripple respects it every morning, when he stares sleepy-eyed at the mirror and tries to shave, which is basically a sobriety test for wakefulness; he respects it every night, when he peels off his sweaty, sooty gear and stands under the shower, too beat even to soap his pits. The difference is visible: he’s getting shredded, seriously cut, like not quite six-pack abs yet but a fun pack for sure. Even his face looks hella chiseled. He never got that from Power Jousting, since he basically just sat there and held the lance while his drone pony did all the work. Whereas now he’s got the cardio and the strength training and also the adrenaline, because holy shit is it scary to risk your life—he thought he would get used to it, but nope. It puts Ripple in permanent Fight Mode because flight is not an option, which is an important truth he learned from the inspirational quotes section in his fire training handbook although mostly that applies to conscripted pros who grew up without their own HowFlys.

  Because let’s be real, flight is totally an option for Ripple, it always has been and it always will be. He’s been thinking about that a lot the last couple of days, how he could just bail on this whole unpaid internship and go back home, no harm no foul. The job is never going to be done, not until Trank’s vision of a dragon-protected future city comes true, and Ripple’s not holding his breath for that.

  So far, though, despite having other options—like the option to go home and sleep in his own Slay Bed until eleven a.m., then have a brunch burger served to him on a silver tray—Ripple has applied himself, which is a new thing for him. He wishes Trank would respect that, and demonstrate his appreciation of Ripple’s hard work with a compromise naptime at least. Also, a promotion.

  They roll up to this morning’s first blaze: not one building, as Ripple expected, but two side-by-side, identical low-rises with painted brick exteriors. The topmost floors of each have flames tonguing the insides of their window glass and you can feel the heat down on the sidewalk.

  “I’m going in,” says Trank, donning his water tank backpack and heading for the door on the left. Ripple sighs, flips down his gas mask, and follows suit with the one on the right.

  Entering the building is the least dangerous part. Dragon fires start on the roof and work their way down…that is, when they don’t just scorch some brick. A lot of the fires don’t “take.” They do a little damage and burn out by themselves. It’s the weirdest thing: the dragons spit their magma-gorge—ptooie, ptooie—they don’t barf it. If Ripple could breathe fire, no way he’d show such restraint. It’s like the dragons are poking the city, trying to get its attention. To wake it up when, like Ripple, it just wants to hit the snooze button and doze.

  No false alarm here, though: this building got walloped big-time. In the lobby, smoke is already wafting out through the vents above the mailboxes, and Ripple can hear the fire licking and snacking inside the walls. Great, not even six a.m. and he’s got an unsalvageable superstructure on his hands. This is a Search & Rescue only.

  Ripple goes up to the fourth floor—any higher would already be too dangerous—and starts busting into apartments, hacking down jambs with his hatchet. He takes some satisfaction in the splinter and crash. The only good part of Search & Rescues is that you can renovate doors to your heart’s content.

  “Fire squad, coming through!”

  But the first apartment Ripple checks out is long empty, the bed stripped, the closets open and bare. Back to the hallway. The next one he checks looks more recently inhabited, with an open fridge half-filled with rotting food and sooty footprints not his own on the peeling linoleum. Ripple scouts around, but this unit’s clear too. He’s thinking he might be able to write the whole building off as a total loss when he finds the Survivor in Apartment 3C.

  The Survivor is in a kitchen, wearing a bathrobe, heating up a kettle on the stove. He’s stooped and rheumy, with neck skin like a Hoover Island vulture’s. He doesn’t seem to notice the thick black smoke pouring out of his vents, the heat bubbling his latex wall paint. A leukemic tabby lounges beside him on the windowsill, admiring its view of the airshaft.

  “Sir,” says Ripple through the Tarnhelm, “your building is engulped in flames. I advise you to turn off that burner before we have a belch on our hands.”

 
; The Survivor pulls a tarnished pistol out of his robe pocket and points it at Ripple quaveringly. It looks about as threatening as a used dishrag, even though it might be loaded. Obediently, Ripple sticks his hands in the air. It isn’t the first time he’s run into this situation. Keep it polite, keep it professional.

  “Sir, I’m unarmed. This suit might look bulletproof, but trust me, it’s not.”

  “They’ve tried to evacuate me before. The terms of my lease don’t allow for it.”

  “Sir, the building’s on fire.”

  “I’ll take responsibility for my own safety, thanks.”

  “Sir, as a representative of Metropolitan Emergency Services, I’ve taken that responsibility upon myself.”

  “I didn’t call the fire exterminators.” The Survivor coughs. “Besides, didn’t you get the memo? That department disbanded months ago.”

  Ripple gets this a lot; he doesn’t feel like explaining the whole independent contractor angle yet again. “Look, mister, I’m here to take you to safety. I can’t leave your side till you let me do that.”

  “You have a warrant?”

  “We’re not on private property anymore. This is a Public Hazard Zone.”

  “Who decided that?”

  “Sir, the ceiling’s about to cave in.”

  “Public Hazard Zone. Huh.” The Survivor scratches his ear hair with the pistol barrel. He pours boiling water from the kettle into a mug with NEVER EVER GIVE UP printed on the side. “You sound like my kids.”

  “Kids?” Ripple glances around. He’s yet to see an actual child anywhere in the city. Most Survivors are depressing oldstrologers, predicting no future at all, or risk-taking young pyropreneurs who’ve figured out the dead-enders will pay top dollar for deliveries of fast food, booze, and loam while their time ticks down. Even the burn clinics are going under; that’s why the clinicians run around begging for attention like weak desperate virgins. “Sir, is anyone else on the premises?”

  “They don’t visit anymore. Say the city’s too dangerous.” The Survivor tucks the pistol into the tie of his robe and shakes some Powdered Zip into his cup. He hacks again, harder this time, with a mucous rattle in it: the air is thickening with ashy grit. “Hell, they were born here—born and raised. I paid for the boy’s exemption out of pocket myself. You try doing that on a damage assessor’s salary.” He stirs his mixture with a bent spoon. “Now they want me to come live on a soil reclamation farm with a bunch of endtimes lumberjacks.”

  “Maybe you should go,” Ripple offers, eyeing the gun. He wonders how quick the Survivor is on the draw, but he’s not going to risk it. “Then you wouldn’t be so lonely.”

  The Survivor blows steam off his wake-up juice. “I never said I was lonely.”

  “Well, you can’t stay here.”

  “They only invited me because they knew I’d say no. Wanted to keep me off their consciences.”

  “That’s not true. They’re your kids. They love you.”

  “They don’t want an old coot like me around.” A tremor seizes his liver-spotted hands; liquid sloshes and spills. “Besides, I used to hit ’em when they were little. Hit ’em hard. They pretend they don’t remember, but you don’t forget a thing like that. Most likely they just want a chance to get even when I’m back in diapers.”

  “I’m sure they forgive you.”

  “How are you so sure?”

  “They’re your family.”

  “Son, since when do people in families forgive each other?”

  The smoke is thicker now; even behind the gas mask, Ripple’s eyes water. It’s too late for any more conversation. “You win. I’m out.”

  The Survivor dumps what’s left of his drink down the drain. “Shut the door behind you.”

  Ripple descends the three flights back down to the sidewalk. He peels the Tarnhelm off his sweaty face as soon as he’s outside and rubs his eyes. Except for Trank’s hot-dog cart parked at the curb, the street is completely empty. As usual.

  Ripple would be lying if he didn’t admit he finds this whole firefighting thing a lot less glamorous than he imagined. People are so rude sometimes.

  “You’re letting out the smoke,” one pert granny said, putting the chain on the door as she tugged it closed.

  “Didn’t you see the Rest in Peace sign on the knob?” another asked.

  To be honest, Ripple is starting to have pretty major doubts about this line of work. Because seriously, what’s the point? When Ripple first started, he kept picturing the whole thing as a killer reality show, but that gets harder to do every day. It’s nothing like the edutainment special. There are no MILFs, no babies, no teammates, and even if you save a building it just gets lit up again four seconds later. Nobody cares.

  It doesn’t feel very badass to admit it, but Ripple is lonely. It would be different if Trank opened up to him, or even just eased up a little and made some small talk, but since that first night in the Fire Museum they’ve barely spoken about anything besides the task at hand. Meanwhile, Abby has this pet rat now that she found behind the stove, and even though Ripple warned her it’s probably carrying every disease known to man (black plague, Botticelli, flesh-eating spore), she keeps acting like it’s her new best friend. No joke: that furwad blinks its gross red eyes and she laughs like it said something hilarious. Ripple never thought he’d be competing with a rodent, but surprise. Plus it’s always watching when they have sex, which isn’t…constantly anymore. It’s one thing to bang a stranger, but it’s another thing to bang a girlfriend who keeps on getting stranger the longer you know her.

  At least if he goes home now he can show off his badge. That’s something, right?

  Trank comes out of the building on the right, even though it’s still on fire. Dragons 2, firemen 0.

  “No Survivors,” Ripple reports.

  Trank nods. He refills his water-tank backpack and loads it back into the hot-dog cart, then, as he always does, takes out his logbook and jots something down on the pages inside.

  “What do you keep writing in there, anyway?” asks Ripple. He tries to look over Trank’s shoulder, but the fire chief covers the page with his gloved hand, like it’s a test and Ripple is trying to copy his work—like he doesn’t even trust him.

  “Notes.”

  “About all the awesome people you saved? Oh wait, you didn’t have any Survivors either.”

  Trank closes the logbook. “My building was empty.”

  “Mine wasn’t. There was some old cat fapper who wanted to die.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Duncan. We can’t save everyone, but it’s always painful to be reminded.” Trank says it kindly, but that just pisses Ripple off even more, like Trank is trying to tell him how to feel.

  “He pulled a gun on me!” Ripple explodes. “Nobody cares about what we’re doing. It’s just like Uncle Osmond said, this place is for the high and the damned. And Osmond’s the only high one left. I know you think the city’s going to come back someday, but news flash: it’s not. Kelvin was right. Empire Island is over—there’s nothing worth saving. I should just go back home.”

  Ripple didn’t expect it to come out sounding so harsh; for a second he thinks Trank is going to deck him. But he doesn’t. He’s standing there, totally still, and although it’s impossible to tell his expression through the Tarnhelm, he seems to be actually…listening?

  “This time is wasted,” Ripple adds, a little meeker.

  “What about heroism? Is that a waste of time?”

  “No. But if we want to be heroes, we need to do something real.”

  “What do you propose?” Trank asks the question like Ripple’s answer matters.

  For once, Ripple thinks for a second before talking. He looks up at the sky. The dragons are way over to the east side, and though they’re too far off for him to make out most of the details, it’s the first time in a while he’s seen them fight. In fact, it looks more like a vicious embrace from where he’s standing, the way their bodies twist together in th
e flurry of their wings, yellow talons clawing green-scaled ribs, fangs gnashing throatward. What if they’re mating? Ripple imagines a snaky joystick lustily unsheathing itself from turtilian foreskin, slam-jamming an airborne scalebox. And then the eggs, organic sex bombs dropping from the clouds, unbreakable and fully fertilized, the next generation of destruction.

  Nothing anybody does down on the streets will matter as long as the sky is theirs.

  “We need to slay the dragons.”

  Trank shakes his head. “You know that’s the wrong idea. The dragons will preserve this city.”

  “Look, I know you had some weird dream in the hospital, but you were on drugs. There’s no evidence you’re right.”

  “Yes, there is.” Trank holds up the logbook. “In here.”

  “What are you talking about? You just said that was ‘notes.’ ”

  “Duncan, have you ever noticed a pattern in the dragons’ fires?”

  “Like how they’re tagging?”

  “What?” Trank sounds surprised and mad and excited all at the same time.

  “The fires, they look like graffiti.” Ripple shrugs. “Like the dragons are writing all over the city. I saw it from my HowFly.”

  “What exactly did it say?” Now Trank isn’t just listening—he’s riveted. Ripple shrugs again.

  “Just random letters. They’re not spelling out words or anything. They’re stupid sky lizards. Why do you care?”

  Trank carefully puts his logbook back in the hot-dog cart. “Never mind.”

  “No. You just said it was ‘evidence.’ Evidence of what?”

  Trank hesitates a long time—duking it out with himself about what to say next, maybe? When he finally speaks, he leans forward conspiratorially, as if the volume on his gas mask has been turned way down.

  “During my term as fire chief, I moved in the highest circles of city gov. For years, behind closed doors, I heard rumors about some kind of operations transmitter—a command console that could give orders to the dragons. I was never privy to the details. Only that there had been one, but it was lost, and the materials were too volatile to risk building it again.”