by Steven Bohls
“Smoked oysters,” he whispered, opening his hand. His rally spark ignited, and a can shot from the pantry and slapped his empty palm.
• • •
For the first day in a week, Jed managed to keep up with the endless orders. According to Penny, Chog had frustratedly tried to bully his way into the kitchen on several occasions, but apparently Penny had stood her ground, arms folded, and refused to let him in. Jed cooked a whole pot of tortilla soup just for her and gave it to her at the end of the day—pot and all.
Before bed, he focused on Shay’s image and repeated his location, over and over. He had no idea whether the messages were reaching her, but something inside him said to keep trying. He hadn’t been able to reestablish a connection with her since he’d arrived.
Early the next morning, he floated down to the piles of junk. He’d been craving a Milanese risotto, but there was no saffron to be found. He knew there probably wasn’t any saffron in the whole junkyard, but if there was even a chance, he had to try.
He’d been practicing every day with his ability. Alone, under the dimming sky or early in the morning, Jed closed his eyes and let his sparks awaken. Soon, invisible threads connected him to the world.
“Saffron,” he whispered. The objects dissipated until there was nothing left. He nodded to himself, knowing it had been a slim chance. As he opened his eyes, a faint, almost indistinguishable object answered from far away—perhaps thousands of miles off. Curious, he lifted himself into the air and began soaring toward the signal. Sprocket buzzed alongside him as he flew. No matter how far he traveled it didn’t seem to get any closer.
“Maybe I can call it to me?” he said to Sprocket.
“Mmmaybeee,” she said, a hint of uncertainty in her tone.
Jed floated to the ground. He focused and powered up the rally spark. He lightly pulled against it, but it resisted as if stuck on something. He tugged harder. It didn’t move.
The image in his mind was so odd. It was like nothing he’d searched for in the past. It was like it was in the junkyard, but then it…wasn’t.
“No,” he whispered. It wasn’t in the junkyard at all. It was beyond the fringe. That’s why he couldn’t see it.
Excitement welled inside him. Could he pull something from beyond the fringe? “Here,” he said. The saffron shuddered, and Jed’s excitement grew. He blasted the rally spark, yanking the saffron toward him.
He opened his eyes.
Dark clouds swirled overhead. Jed’s stomach clenched. His heart raced and sweat beaded all over his body. Warning sirens rang from Rigger Hollow’s watchtowers. Even from this far away, Jed could hear distant cries from the townspeople. Guilt swirled through him. All he’d wanted was a bottle of saffron. He didn’t realize that pulling it from beyond the fringe would cause a junkstorm.
Jed
Rigger Hollow’s propellers tilted away from the storm, and the township began to move. People yelled as the storm-side barriers lifted at the edge of the township. Something zipped toward Jed. He reflexively held up his hand to shield himself. A small bottle of saffron landed in his palm.
“Let’s get back there,” he said to Sprocket.
“Huuurrry.”
Jed lifted himself into the air to follow the retreating city just as junk from the storm began crashing below. The sound was deafening. Winds tossed his body from side to side as he tried to keep himself steady. A chessboard flung past him and exploded against the ground.
Jed peeked over his shoulder. The storm was growing larger. He sped faster through the air, quickly closing the gap to the township.
This time as he ascended to the broken docking station, he didn’t have to worry about being seen. Everyone was either running for cover or operating stations to bolster the township defenses.
“Reroute capacitors two-oh-nine through eight-oh-seven,” someone yelled. “I want as much power to the underside turbines as I can get!”
Jed couldn’t see who was speaking through the dust and wind-blown debris.
“Hiiide,” Sprocket said, concern wobbling in her tone.
Jed shook his head. “I’m not going to find cover until the township is safe.”
Engineers rushed back and forth from a building with a lightning bolt warning symbol on its doors. They dragged cables from the building to the main deck, where ladders extended to the turbines. Jed bolted toward the doors and slipped inside the building.
Power cells lined the walls. Jed found a retractable cable at the end of a shelving unit. He pulled the cable free, took off his shirt, and plugged it into his chest. “You need more power?” he whispered to the cables. “Here you go.” His sparks released some of their energy into the cables. Light swelled in the shelving units until the cells were pulsing with energy.
“Hunnngry batterrriezzz,” she said, fluttering over to one of the glowing walls.
Each of the shelves on the wall were connected by linking capacitors. Jed found the main cable and plugged it into his chest. The building hummed as Jed lent his power to the city.
“The battery house is…gaining power,” a confused voice called from outside. “What’s going on in there?”
“I don’t know,” another voice called, “but reroute everything you got to the east thrusters. Let’s get out of here!”
The storm had doubled in size by the time Jed was back outside. The township was accelerating away from the storm, but not fast enough.
“There has to be something I can do,” he mumbled to Sprocket.
“Something sooon,” she added. “Biiig storrrm.”
Jed climbed up the township’s railing and hung over the edge of the city. He poured what energy he had left into the mutiny sparks. He could feel a deep hum as the spark awaited direction. He focused on the piles of junk near the base of the junkstorm, then pushed.
His body compressed against the edge of the township as the force of his spark propelled him backward into it. Distant pieces of junk squished into one another as he pushed against them. Steadily, he dumped more of his power into the spark. His body pressed harder and harder against the township. The mutiny spark turned his body into an engine more powerful than all the propellers underneath him.
“We are moving faster,” someone shouted. “I don’t understand.”
“That’s not possible. I’m showing new power failures in cells one-oh-nine through two-twelve. We should be slowing down.”
Jed poured everything he had into his sparks. The township accelerated, flying through the sky as if it were a ship. His expended capacitors heated with a painful searing sensation. But as the power left him, so did the heat, until his body was cold and empty.
Head dizzy and muscles weak, Jed climbed back onto the city before cutting off power to the mutiny spark. As he lay on his back, the township’s momentum carried them away from the junkstorm and under safe skies.
Jed
By nightfall, scavenger parties had received word of the storm and arrived to loot its treasures. Iron falcons and copper wasps littered the sky. Men and women crawled all over the fresh junk, scouring its contents for trinkets.
The influx of people below them made Jed nervous. “Come on, Shay,” he whispered to himself. “Where are you?”
If he didn’t get out of here soon, Lyle would find him again.
Chog’s restaurant was mostly undamaged, and Rigger Hollow was filled with so many scavengers that the streets could barely hold them all. All day long, every chair and table at Chog’s was filled with hungry scavengers. Jed worked frantically to fill customer orders, and Penny worked diligently at her post.
“Two orders of minestrone,” Chog called to Jed. “And I got someone here asking if the cook can make ‘tomatoey chicken stuff covered in slug killer.’ His words, not mine.”
“What?” Jed asked.
Chog just shrugged.
A memory surfaced in Jed’s mind. The first time he’d made food for the tugboat crew, Pobble was horrified when he used salt. He called it “
slug killer.” Jed sat down the can of peaches he’d been holding and peered out of the kitchen at the crowd. There, standing in line and staring hungrily at his exotic menu was—
“Pobble!” Jed shouted. Pobble’s Ping-Pong-ball eyes opened as widely as they would go, and his mouth dropped open.
“Golden Boy?” Riggs said from behind him.
“No clunking way,” Kizer said, poking his head out from behind his crewmates with a stunned look of disbelief in his eyes.
“How did you guys find me?” Jed asked.
“Find you?” Pobble asked. “We came here for the scavenge, just like everyone else. Heard there were a good restaurant in town. Didn’t expect you to be running it.”
Jed shook his head. “I’m just working here until Captain Bog comes and picks me up.”
“The Captain’s alive?” Kizer said, stepping forward. “What happened?”
Jed looked around. In a lower voice, he whispered, “Not here. Come on back.”
He guided them to the kitchen and closed the door.
“Captain Bog’s alive,” Jed said. “He’s going to pick me up here as soon as he can.”
“What about Sprocket?” Pobble asked. “Is she here, too?” He looked around as if he might’ve just missed her standing there in the kitchen.
Jed’s stomach sank. He shook his head.
“Where is she?” Pobble asked.
“She died,” Jed said. “The dread king killed her.”
“The dread king?” Riggs asked. “You saw him?”
“He’s sort of my father. Kind of. Not the father I was looking for. He’s the one who…” Jed hesitated, glancing uncomfortably at Kizer. All those times Kizer had accused him of being a dread—what was he going to do when he learned what Jed really was?
“Who what?” Kizer asked, suspicion raising his tone.
Jed took a deep breath. “He’s the one who built me.”
All three stared at Jed.
“Built you?” Kizer said, exactly as Jed expected.
“It’s not what you think,” Jed said.
The pantry door opened then, and Chog stepped out, his arms folded across his chest and his expression filled with hate.
“Hey, Chog…” Jed said.
“You…you’re one of them. You’s a dread,” Chog said.
Jed held up his hands. “No. I’m not a dread.”
“I just heard you. You told them. You ain’t a human. You’s a machine.”
“But I’m not a dread. There’s a difference.”
Chog slowly shook his head. “Ain’t no difference. You’s a liar!”
“Chog, no,” Jed pleaded. “I helped you. I saved your restaurant.”
“You was gonna eat my customers. Then you was gonna eat me!”
“I wasn’t going to eat anyone, I swear. I’m not what you think I am.”
“Dread!” Chog shouted, running from the kitchen into the dining room. “Dread!”
The bustling dining room fell silent, and the only voice that could be heard was Chog as he continued to yell the word dread.
“There’s a window out back,” Jed said. “Come on.”
Pobble, Kizer, and Riggs exchanged looks.
Jed shrugged. “You can come with me if you want,” he said, “but you don’t have to. Either follow me or explain to them what you were doing cavorting with a nasty dread.”
Kizer opened his mouth.
Jed smirked. “Come on. Let’s go,” he said again.
They were out the window and halfway down the street before Chog or anyone from the dining room entered the kitchen.
“Where’s the tug?” Jed asked.
Kizer gave him a hard look. “If you board our tug, we’ll have the whole city watch on us. I don’t want to be outrunning patrol boats for the next week.”
Jed laughed. “Leave the patrol boats to me,” he said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Pobble asked.
“It means I’m not exactly the same clunkhead kid who couldn’t climb a ladder that you once knew,” Jed said, smiling at Kizer.
Riggs seemed intrigued. “To Bessie, then,” he said before Kizer could argue. Riggs motioned for them to follow. They snuck through the streets until they reached the docking port that held Bessie.
“You should probably hide out in the stowaway cabin until we’re clear of the city—just in case word makes it to the docking guards and they start searching boats,” Riggs said.
Jed nodded. “Good idea.”
As they climbed aboard Bessie, Jed headed down the stairs to the kitchen, where he lifted the secret floor panel and descended into the stowaway cabin.
Shay’s charcoal drawings covered the walls of the small compartment. Jed stared at the picture of the lemon, and a flood of nostalgia rippled through him. This was where he’d first met her. He could still remember her clutching the can of beans as if it were yesterday. They’d come so far….
“Sky prop up!” Kizer called from above.
Gears churned as the ship’s sky propeller lifted in place and began to spin.
Bessie lifted from the dock and hovered in the air.
“Full thrusters ahead!” Kizer yelled to Riggs. “And, Golden Boy, you’re in the clear.”
Jed scampered from the stowaway compartment and joined the rest of the crew on deck.
“Glad to be back?” Pobble asked.
Jed nodded. “Glad to be back.”
Jed
Bessie sailed through the air away from Rigger Hollow. Jed stood at her edge and gazed into the sky as warm wind flowed over him. The tugboat wasn’t his home, but the rich sense of familiarity wrapped him in a comforting hug. It felt good to be back on board. He imagined the old crew bustling about the main deck—Pobble tinkering with his fiddle while Kizer paced the bridge, hands clasped behind his back. Then he pictured Sprocket cleaning her shatterlance and shouting at Captain Bog.
He glanced to his left, where Sprocket the tin can rested on his shoulder. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”
“Um, Jed?” Pobble said from behind.
Jed turned around, but the bard didn’t need to explain why he was interrupting Jed’s daydreaming. Up ahead of them, directly in their path, a stark line of dreadnoughts stretched across the horizon.
Kizer poked his head from the wheelhouse and called down to Jed. “You said Captain Bog took control of part of the dread fleet….Is that him?”
Jed studied the blockade of vessels until he spotted a snakelike ship squirming through the ranks. The Endeavor. Apparently, Lyle had recalled his twenty-thousand dread from war after Jed left….Jed shook his head and called back. “Those aren’t Bog’s. They’re the old dread king’s.”
Kizer grabbed a lever and pulled. The tugboat slowed its movement toward the warships, hovering in the sky—a miniscule dust speck standing before an army of monsters.
“Hello, son,” a voice whispered in his mind.
Lyle.
“Get out of my head,” Jed whispered back.
“Huh?” Pobble asked.
“Nothing,” Jed said.
Lyle’s whisper returned. “I knew you’d come back to me. Now, if you don’t make a scene, I’ll let your friends live.”
“I’m not going back to you,” Jed said. “I’ll never go back.”
Pobble stared at him, head cocked as he watched Jed talk to the air.
“I must insist,” Lyle whispered.
A boom echoed from one of the dreadnoughts. A single shot arced through the sky toward them.
Kizer wrenched a set of levers and Bessie turned in the air. He jammed another lever forward, and the ship shot away from the dread fleet and safely out of range from the shatterfire.
“If he’s trying to ambush us,” Kizer called through the bridge window, “he’s doing a clunk-poor job.”
Jed slowly shook his head. “He’s not trying to shoot us down,” he said, more to himself than to Pobble or Kizer.
Rigger Hollow’s warning signs rang
as the town lookouts spotted the dread army.
The dreadnoughts advanced at a steady, slow pace toward the city. Their black smoke stained the sky and engulfed them in a frothy cloud. Kizer moved Bessie cautiously out of range of their approach, keeping a safe distance.
“Jed?” Kizer called. “What in the clunk-covered skies is he doing?”
Jed shook his head. “I don’t know.”
The line of dreadnoughts pushed them all the way back to the Rigger Hollow city line. Another shot launched from one of the dreadnoughts. As it sailed through the sky, Kizer easily moved the ship out of range. But the shot had not been aimed at them. One of the buildings on the east edge of the city exploded into orange fire.
Jed’s heart lurched.
Bessie backed farther away from the city, but the dreadnoughts were no longer advancing toward the tug. Shatterkegs crackled from the front of their hulls. A volley of shatterfire domed across the sky. Orange explosions blossomed throughout the floating city.
“No!” Jed yelled at Lyle. An image of the sweet orphan girl, Penny, burned into his mind. She must be so scared right now watching the rockets sail toward her home.
“These are the consequences of your choices,” Lyle whispered back in his mind. Then Jed felt the voice retreat and vanish completely.
A second volley arced from the dreadnoughts, slamming into the city. As the third volley hit, several turbines began to whine and slow.
Penny…Jed thought to himself.
The city wilted as chunks fell away, dripping to the junk piles below. The sirens stopped wailing as the towers that still held crumbled to rubble.
“Stop it!” he yelled, but there was no answer.
The fourth volley fired at the center of the city. Shatterfire smashed down and the city cracked in two. The half closest to the tugboat tilted and fell away from the other. The turbines could no longer keep the two halves afloat.
The dreadnoughts ceased fire and stood guard as the rest of the city toppled.
“Jed,” a new voice said in his mind.
