Fiasco Heights

by Zack Archer

  to the far-off walls and roof of the chamber. “They used their special powers to weld the walls together, to make it impossible for us to leave.”

  “How long have you been here?” I asked.

  “More than three of your years,” Metaxas replied.

  “The vast majority of Honoria aren’t warriors,” Kree said, her head dipped. “We don’t have your powers, your feats. We have these,” she said, pointing to her eyes and what I could see were tiny, fleshy discs on the palms of her hands. “The most we can do is see in the dark and maintain a grip on vertical surfaces, neither of which aided us when our world was laid low and we were sent to Halja.”

  Metaxas spat at the ground. “Halja is an accursed place.”

  “A place where criminals from your world and others are taken,” Kree added. “A place where people and things stalk each other for sport and survival.”

  “But you escaped,” I said.

  “We reached an agreement with the leaders in the Upperworld. The understanding was made with one of the Elect. The one that was mentioned before…the Harbinger.”

  At the sound of the Harbinger’s name, I traded looks with Atlas and the others.

  “It was an agreement that they breached,” Metaxas said. “We agreed to immigrate here and work in good faith and when we arrived, they stole our children—”

  “‘Collateral,’” Kree interjected. “That’s the word they used.”

  “Well, we’re going to find them for you,” I said, even though I had no idea how we might accomplish this.

  Kree nodded to me. “I pray that you can make this right.”

  I forced a smile. “We’re superheroes, Kree. Making things right is what we do.”

  The others continued on over the boardwalk as I remained behind, struggling to figure out how the six of us were going to be able to save the universe.

  Atlas left the others and trudged back toward me.

  “When were you going to tell me?” I asked.

  “Tell you what?”

  “The truth about this place.”

  Atlas licked his lips. “You’re not from here so I never expected you to understand. The situation in Fiasco Heights has always been delicate and complicated.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone use those words to describe slavery.”

  “I didn’t do this, Quincy,” Atlas replied, throwing up his hands. “I’m not the one who’s responsible for this. No world is perfect.”

  “That might be true, but you served the assholes who did. You might not have known about every last detail, but you knew enough of what was going on, didn’t you?”

  Atlas slowly nodded, his face knotted with shame. “Sometimes we don’t live up to our lofty principles.”

  “Yeah, well, this place is no better than Earth.”

  “Nobody ever said that it was,” Atlas replied. “Just because we’re blessed with great ability, doesn’t mean we always make the right decisions. But that’s why we’re doing what we’re doing, isn’t it? To make sure changes are made.”

  “Who’s to stay this time is different? Maybe Aurora’s right. Maybe she should just blow the whole thing up. Wipe the slate clean.”

  “The only problem with that is the good outnumber the bad, Quincy. Just like on your planet. To allow Aurora to continue her mission would be to condemn the many for the sins of the few.”

  I took this in, realizing the big man was telling the truth. “I want your word that if we make it out of here, you’ll help me track down those missing kids.”

  Atlas smiled. “I give you my word, Quincy.”

  He gripped my hand and gave me a bear hug.

  Splinter shouted for us to hurry, so we turned and bounded up the boardwalk. It ended at an oil derrick-shaped maze of the same translucent piping that we’d witnessed earlier. As with before, the air was heavy with the clatter of drilling machines that were pounding the ash. Splinter pointed to the pipes that removed the slurry and rose vertically up into the roof of the cavern.

  “So…this is it.”

  “What the hell is it?”

  Splinter smiled sheepishly. “The way out.”

  “But these are pipes,” I replied.

  Kaptain Khaos grinned. “Nothing gets past you, Night Fire.”

  “The pipes lead to a pumping station under the city streets,” Kree said. “They’re large enough to hold us.”

  “How are we gonna breathe in those?” I asked.

  Kree knelt and swept away the ash to reveal a handful of the snorkeling masks I’d seen the miners wearing before.

  “These contain eight minutes of oxygen.”

  “How long does it take to get topside?” Splinter asked.

  Kree tossed Splinter a mask. “If we’re lucky…seven minutes.”

  Damn.

  One minute to spare was cutting it close.

  Splinter whistled and the others laughed because we all knew that we didn’t have a choice. Either we sacked up and took a trip in the tubes, or sat around waiting to die.

  I reached down and grabbed a mask, which was made of a rugged material that resembled plastic and was large enough to fit around the entirety of my face. The mask consisted of a transparent faceplate, a clear mouth tube that held a slate-gray metal canister the size of a candy bar which I assumed contained oxygen, and three dangling straps that held the entire contraption over your head.

  The others grabbed masks, including Kree. “I’ll go with you,” she said. “I’m the only one who knows the way out.”

  “But what if someone catches you?” I asked.

  “I don’t have any children,” she replied. “I answer only to myself.”

  “We don’t have time to take on stragglers, girlie,” Splinter said.

  “I’m hardly a straggler,” Kree responded, anger flickering in her eyes.

  She pointed to a turn-wheel on the maze of piping. “I’ll need some assistance to stop the flow of water.”

  Atlas grabbed the wheel and turned it clockwise, the metal groaning as the water in the tubes came to a stop.

  Liberty and Lyric helped Kree pry loose a transparent section of the pipe, a hatch that allowed us to climb inside. She pointed to a red button on the side of the mask. “Press that when the water comes. We’ll ride the tubes up to the turbines and then regroup.”

  I held up a hand. “Did you just say turbines?”

  Kree nodded. “Did I forget to mention that? There’s a threshing machine that removes the grit from the Akash. Don’t worry though, it’s just a series of gigantic, serrated blades that we’ll have to slip through.”

  I looked around. “Raise your hand if you’re worried about the whole gigantic serrated blades thing.”

  Nobody did and Splinter patted me on the back. “Don’t sweat it, big guy. We’ll change you if your diaper gets dirty.”

  Kaptain Khaos sniggered as Kree climbed into the horizontal tube feet-first, followed by Splinter, Kaptain Khaos, Liberty, Lyric, and me.

  Atlas helped me in, whispering, “If we get separated somehow, we’ll meet up at our hideout.”

  “You’ve got a hideout?”

  He grinned. “What kind of superheroes would we be without a hideout?”

  “How will I know where it is?”

  “Because sometimes the best place to hide something is in plain sight. There’s a building in downtown Fiasco Heights. You can’t miss it. The building’s made of twenty different structures that resemble the petals on a flower. It’s got nine sides and all of them are coated in Akash, making the it one of the toughest nuts to crack in Fiasco Heights. Plus it’s got an overbalanced wheel, a perpetual motion machine that looks like two huge circular fan blades moving in the opposite directions attached to the front. There on the ninth floor, room 921, is our home away from home. Remember that, along with one, two, three, four.”

  “One, two, three, four?”

  Atlas nodded. “That’s the code to the door.”

  I snorted. “Ser
iously?”

  He nodded. “We gotta keep it simple for Splinter and Lyric.”

  We traded a quick look.

  “Are we gonna do this, Atlas?”

  He smiled again. “We already are.”

  He slotted me into the tube where we lay like bullets in a gun in several inches of cold, gritty water that smelled like mildew.

  I looked back to see Metaxas peering down at us, a look of grim determination on his face.

  Atlas turned the wheel back, opening the way for the water to return and then climbed into the tube as Metaxas slammed the hatch shut.

  “NOW!” Kree shrieked.

  51

  I pushed the oxygen button as the water slammed into us, launching us through the tube at an alarming speed.

  The sides of the tube rushed past as the water carried us like human torpedoes, jettisoned up toward the roof of the cavern.

  I struggled to keep my face-mask pinned around my mouth, the outside world screaming past.

  It was like riding on top of a bullet-train everything whipped past so quickly, the muffled screams of the others melding with the rush of the water.

  We continued our harrowing ascent up through the tube for several minutes.

  I did my best to monitor time, counting down the seconds even as I lost track on several occasions. We definitely had five minutes of air left…or was it four?

  The tube suddenly and violently curved hard left, rocketing into a darkened passageway which made things infinitely more terrifying.

  I couldn’t see my hand in front of my fucking face as the water began creeping around the edge of my mask.

  I tasted the stagnant, bitter water, struggling to press the mask around my mouth when—

  There was a tiny, pulsing aura of light in the blackness.

  The tube was opening into a much larger space and then—

  There was a larger glint.

  A flash of light.

  Silver on black.

  The edge of an immense blade churning the torrents of water.

  Holy shit it was the turbines!

  The serrated blades!

  I craned my head and shot forward only to slam into Lyric’s back. Her hands were out and she was bracing herself. She was incredibly strong for her size, able to hold us both back when—

  BOOM!

  Atlas crashed into my back and my face-mask was torn from my face!

  The putrid water funneled down my throat as I groped for purchase.

  Lyric was screaming, gurgling, arms extended, the only thing keeping us from certain death. I blubbered as more water flooded my mouth.

  My eyes expanded along with my cheeks and I tried to lift my head out the water, but the tube was completely filled.

  Seconds, that’s all I had before I drowned and was pulped by the turbine.

  I flicked my wrists, fighting to build a ball of plasma, but I couldn’t generate any energy. There was something about the tight confines of the tube or the water that was preventing me from harnessing my abilities.

  Suddenly, I noticed that a section of the tube overhead and just beyond Lyric was missing.

  That had to be the way out!

  Then hands reached down and ripped away another section, and I looked up to see Splinter, Kaptain Khaos, and Liberty.

  They reached down and snagged us, pulling us up and out of the tube.

  I collapsed onto a metal pad on my hands and knees, my body a limp, wet rag. I elbowed myself up and vomited the watery-sludge and the rest of the contents of my stomach all over the ground.

  I looked sideways to see that the tubes fed into a lagoon of sorts that was being chopped by several blades that were as large as a watermill’s wheel-paddle.

  I fell onto my back and saw that we were inside a control center of some kind, a boxy room darkened by looming shadows and filled with electronic panels, control stations, and bulkheads.

  The sound from the machinery made it almost impossible to hear, but I saw Atlas smiling wearily at the others, shaking the water from his body like a gigantic dog. Kree grabbed my arm and helped me up.

  Splinter was moving around, patting every inch of his body. “Just making sure I’m all in one piece.”

  “He got wet,” Kaptain Khaos said, angling a thumb in Splinter’s direction. “Wood splits when it gets wet.”

  Splinter flipped him a middle finger I swung a final look at the blades.

  Kree held up a hand and gestured to a circular door at the back of the room.

  As we moved forward, she related how she’d been held captive with the children for several months and was the last one brought down into the mines. She said she vividly remembered the ways in and out of the city’s underground passages as well as the Harbinger’s fortress, his keep, which is where she and her people were initially confined when they were first brought to the planet.

  Slipping through the circular door, we ran headlong down a semi-lit corridor. Kree guided us by hand signals, flicking her fingers forward, and sometimes left and right.

  She led us through empty rooms and forgotten passages, deftly maneuvering past workers and city dwellers who never caught a glimpse of us. If it wasn’t for Kree, it was unlikely we’d ever be able to make it topside without being spotted.

  As we ascended, I watched her ears and tail which seemed to respond to the slightest sound or hint of danger.

  At one point she held up a balled fist, stopping at a junction in a wide corridor. Her head flicked left and right and she nodded to herself as if satisfied that we were going the right way. For a moment I heard a sound coming from her, a contented purring note that made me think she was satisfied that we were in exactly the right spot.

  She turned back to us and smiled. “It’s right up around the corner. The entrance to the chamber. Once we get there, we can use the walkways to get up to the city streets.”

  “How do we know Aurora hasn’t beat us to the punch?” I asked.

  “‘Cause we’re still here,” Splinter said.

  Kaptain Khaos nodded. “If she’d beaten us to the bad guys, this whole place would be gonzo.”

  I nodded and smiled. At that moment I felt like a hero, a real hero for the first time. We’d done the impossible, at least for the moment. We’d fallen down into the lowest level of the planet and battled our way past supervillains and monsters to make it back up. Nothing was gonna stop us now.

  I held out my hand and the others—even Kree—rested their hands on mine.

  We turned, and wouldn’t you know that’s when it happened.

  That’s when the fireball exploded at the other end of the corridor.

  52

  I flung myself sideways, grabbing Kree, Liberty, and Lyric, pulling them down. I knew we only had seconds to act before the fireball engulfed us, so I fabricated a ball of plasma that filled the corridor in front of us.

  The fireball hammered into the plasma ball, bending it, causing it to bubble and fissure. The heat was immense, singeing the hairs on my fingers as I gripped the edges of the plasma, struggling to keep it intact.

  Grimacing, I maintained the shield’s integrity and the fire slowly burned off, trailed by jets of black smoke that led back to a flamethrower that was held by a robotic Snout sentry.

  A Synth.

  “So…that just happened,” I said.

  “I think we’ve been spotted,” Splinter offered.

  “Ya think?”

  Everyone shot to their feet. “What do you think we should do?” I asked.

  “Run like hell,” Kaptain Khaos replied.

  “Yeah,” Atlas said, locking his jaw, dusting himself off, looking pissed as hell. “But we’re gonna run right at ‘em!”

  He wheeled around threw a brutal punch, his fist flying down the corridor, smashing a hole through the Synth and its flamethrower.

  There was a contained explosion as the flamethrower blasted apart, followed by screams echoing in the distance. I realized the Synths were probably accompanied by a human
foot-detail, a small group of flesh-and-blood law-enforcement Snouts. Whoever was waiting for us had seriously miscalculated because we were on the move, charging down the corridor as one, Atlas in the lead.

  Sirens sounded and footfalls thudded on the floors above us.

  Two more Synths lurched into view and Atlas punched them to pieces.

  We skidded to a stop near a broad landing that lay at the edge of the Black Chamber, the cylinder filled with compressed air that powered the city’s invisible air walkways and elevators.

  Looking up, I could see the various ovals and long ropes of barely-visible dimness floating in the air that marked the walkways and elevators. Even though the chamber was full of compressed air, it was channeled in the direction of the stepping platforms which meant if you strayed toward the chamber’s outer edges, you would likely fall to your death.

  The problem, of course, was that the platforms, walkways and elevators were heavy with Synths.

  Thirty, maybe forty of the synthetic sentries and a few human handlers.

  They were descending on us, moving like spiders down a barely visible staircase from the top of the Black Chamber.

  I could see daylight at the top of the chamber, maybe a hundred or so feet above us. If we could just find a way to ascend, we’d be able to emerge into the open and hopefully seek shelter in one of the city’s buildings or another portion of the Upperworld. But that wasn’t possible at the moment. There were too many Synths and more of them were on the way, crawling over the lip of the chamber like fire ants.

  “We have to get across the walkway!” Atlas shouted, pointing to the air walkway that led before us, connecting the landing to another one on the other side of the chasm.

  One of the human Snouts shouted at us over a loudspeaker, exhorting us to “HALT!” but we were already on the move when the Synths opened fire. It was like being trapped in the middle of an explosion.

  Compressed energy rounds whistled past us along with some kind of flash-bang grenades that bounced off the walkways and burst in the air.

  Atlas was the tip of our spear, barreling forward, taking out his anger on the robotic attackers.