CHAPTER 8
IN WHICH NADYA VISITS TAM’S OLD HOME, AND GETS MANY SURPRISES.
The next morning, I’m standing in a little waterboat with an engine that’s way too big for it, trying to catch my breath as it crashes through the waves between the cloudship docks and the Far Agondy mainland. The city’s skyscrapers loom in front of me like spikes of glass hair, all windows down the front with little bits of concrete sticking them together. The water smells like the bathroom when there’s been a plumbing clog, but the sun is up and shining orange through a hazy layer of smoke. It’s a beautiful day, all things considered.
Tam sits next to me, chewing on his thumbnail and staring at the city, the prosthetic leg he’s making for me sitting in his lap. Thom’s piloting the launch, which is what they call these waterboats. Aaron’s standing in front, where the bow jumps up and down whenever we hit a wave, grinning ear to ear and trying to keep his balance. Pepper, Sal, and Nic are back on the ship, but Tian Li’s here too, sitting across from Tam staring at the skyscrapers and looking almost as lost in thought as he is.
I tug a little map Tam sketched for me last night out of my pocket and check our progress. The airship spires are out in the bay, south of Doubleflow Island at the heart of the city. We’re headed to the west bank of the Doubleflow River, and there’s a bunch of other neighborhoods on the east bank we’re not visiting today.
Thom maneuvers us around a tugboat with some colorful shouting, and I think about what Nic said yesterday afternoon. I really, really want to know what happened to Brittany Brikowski, why Nic won’t talk about it, and why it makes him think it’s extra important for me to be careful, but I’m not sure when I’ll get the chance to ask.
I sigh and slump down next to Tam. I’m a little peeved at him for not paying attention to Pepper and making the fight between us worse, but when I see the worry on his face, I let it go. He must be pretty preoccupied right now. Five years ago, he ran away from the workshop we’re heading to after a machine he made hurt one of the kids there. He never even said goodbye, and now he’s gotta go face Gossner—the woman who runs the workshop—plus the kid he hurt and a whole bunch of other kids besides.
Thom swings us around a garbage scow steaming off to dump a bunch of trash somewhere—probably the middle of the bay, if the smell is any guide—then between a couple fishing boats I hope are going way, way out into the ocean before they catch anything to sell to people. A few minutes later, he brings us into the part of the harbor for launches and other small boats. Tam and Tian Li leap off and tie the boat up, and I stare at my crutches and massage the Mighty Lady, fighting off a concert of stabbing pains in my missing toes and trying to feel hopeful about my prosthesis instead of sad about being on the boat when I’d rather be jumping around.
Once we’re tied up, Tam helps me out, Tian Li gives Aaron a hand, and Thom pays the dock owner. Just as my foot hits the dock’s slimy wooden planking and I start to worry about keeping steady on it, there’s a loud whizzing overhead, like the wings of an enormous bumblebee heading straight for us. I duck, but Tam just cranes his head up. I follow his eyes and a second later a black blur screams over us on a line, catches another line, and slows to a stop on a platform at the end of the docks. The blur looks sort of like a big spider with its legs all bundled up, but as it unfolds I realize it’s a person clipped to some kind of device on a steel cable. I straighten and look over my shoulder. The cable runs all the way out to the docking spire where the Orion is berthed.
“Whoa,” I mutter.
“Those are the zip lines,” Tam says. “They run all over the city. Fastest way to get around. Take an elevator up one of these skyscrapers, then a zip line across town wherever you need to go. Then do the same on the way back. It’s genius. All us runners used to use them.”
I look back up at the line, which bounces around above my head like a nervous flea. I’ve heard of the zip lines before, but I’ve never seen one used so close. “I guess,” I say. Once, I would’ve jumped on a line like that without thinking twice, but now I’m not so sure. “I think I’ll stick with the ground.”
“Me too,” Thom says, coming over to join us. “You ready to go?” When we all nod, he sets off toward the end of the dock. “Good. We’ll be taking streetcars and subways to get to Gossner’s workshop.” He raises his eyebrows at Tam. “Not the zip lines. I want to get everyone there in one piece.”
Tam looks a little sheepish. He tries to impress Thom whenever he can. But the sheepishness fades pretty fast as we walk off the dock and Thom buys a roll of tickets for the streetcar lines. Soon Tam’s back to looking preoccupied and worried, just like he was on the water.
Half the day later, we’re standing on the thirty-third floor of a skyscraper, knocking on a big iron door. It was harder getting across the city than we expected. It’s not made for people on crutches, and I kept getting bumped and almost losing my balance or having to hop my way down tiny aisles in the streetcars and subways. Plus there was a lot of construction and one of the main subway lines was closed. Thom got us lost trying to figure out a workaround.
But eventually we got here, to one of the biggest buildings in a part of the city Tam calls the Forge. Apparently most of these places are filled with factories, workshops, inventing guilds, and engineering schools. He says of the whole bunch, Gossner’s is one of the two or three most important, and that she owns the whole skyscraper we’re in. I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around that. This building’s as tall as a mountain—how could one person own the whole thing?
On top of that, the hallway we’re in is pretty strange. Usually every floor in a skyscraper has a bunch of apartments or offices in it. The hallways run in straight lines between the doors, and you have to figure out which one leads to the office you want. In the fanciest buildings, there’s even a secretary outside the elevators, to tell you where to go.
But on this floor, there’s just a little room with big windows looking out over the city and one door, with a sign next to it made of shining copper letters welded roughly to a stainless-steel plate.
GOSSNER
Tam gulps and rubs his hands on his overalls. He steps toward the door, then stops. He’s breathing fast, and his hands shake a little.
“You want me to knock?” Thom asks gently.
Tam shakes his head. “No,” he says. Quieter, almost under his breath, he adds, “It’s gotta be me. It was my fault. I gotta deal with it.”
He walks up to the door, which has a huge bronze ring that must weigh a ton in the center of it, and knocks three times. The sound echoes in the little foyer we’re in, like the footsteps of a giant made of scrap metal.
A few seconds later, the door creaks open.
“Yes?” a boy asks. He only opens the door partway, so I can just see his face and the left half of his body. He’s soft-spoken, a little shorter than Tam, probably a year or so younger than us. He moves confidently, thoughtfully, slowly, like he has all the time in the world to decide what to do about things. He’s got a smooth, welcoming face and tan skin just a little lighter than Tam’s. His hair’s black, and his eyes are the deep brown of a rock outcropping with roots that stretch deeper than you can imagine.
Tam opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He swallows, then tries again. “Hey, Rash,” he says. His voice shakes like a shivering cloud frog. “I’m, ah, looking for Gossner.”
The boy raises an eyebrow. “Do I know—” He startles, and then his eyes widen and his jaw drops as far as Tam’s did. “Tam. Tam Ban. Holy third axle of Goshend’s skytrain. We thought you were dead!”
Tam coughs and scratches the back of his neck. “No,” he says meekly. “Not dead. I just left. How . . . um . . . how’ve you been?”
“Good,” Rash says. “Come in, come in!” He opens the door all the way, and I see the other half of his body. He’s missing his right arm partway above the elbow, and I realize why Tam was so nervous. This must be the kid who got hurt by his machine. “Hey, Alé!” he shouts. “You’ll never believe who’s back! Somebody go get the Goss!”
Tam glances at me, takes a deep breath, and walks through the door. The rest of us follow into a room that looks like a mixture between a squirrel nest and a playground. There’s metal everywhere—the beams of the skyscraper are exposed, enormous steel columns like the ribs of a leviathan jutting from floor to ceiling every twenty feet or so in a grid. The ceiling itself is four stories high and vaulted, so we’re in a massive, cavernous space. Instead of floors like most places would have, there’s iron catwalks and platforms with little holes drilled in them, so you can see all the way up. Zip lines and staircases and lifts and swings run between them haphazardly, and it looks like the kids who work here sleep anywhere they want—there’s sleeping bags and little tables and hammocks and dressers and mirrors spread out all over the place, with no plan whatsoever. The far wall is all windows, facing east toward Doubleflow Island, where the biggest skyscrapers of all tower over this one.
“Sorry,” Rash says, bustling back to us. He sucks his teeth and grins. “I forgot to get your names. It’s just so exciting to have Tam back. The Goss is gonna flip when she sees him. She was so sad when he disappeared. Who are the rest of you?”
“Thom Abernathy,” Thom says, reaching out to shake his hand. “First mate of the cloudship Orion.” He introduces me and Tian Li, then Aaron, “our general hand.” Aaron, who’s been staring openmouthed at all the kids running around this ironwork wonderland, puffs his chest out like a bird who’s found a fat, juicy worm. He must be proud he got included in the list of crewmates.
“Nice to meet you,” Rash says. He nods at Tian Li, who smiles back. “Navigator, huh? I’d love to pick your brain about a few things. I love maps.” He turns to me. “And a skylung.” He grins. “Wait till I show you what we’ve got on the third floor!”
Tian Li shrugs nonchalantly. She’s looked a little uncomfortable ever since we got to Gossner’s skyscraper. Rash’s excitement must be catching, though, because after a second she smiles a little and says, “Yeah, sure.”
I look up toward the third floor, but all I can see there are the catwalks and platforms, except in one corner, where there’s a whole room of iron sealed off from the rest of the workshop. I’m about to ask Rash what it is when all the motion around us stops. The workshop goes silent, and a woman’s booming voice calls out, “Tam Ban, you rascal! I can’t believe you left without saying goodbye! Where in the world have you been?”
I follow the voice, and at its source I see a woman with a smile like a copper pipe, big and bold and bright. She’s a little taller than Tam and rounder than Nic, and she’s got light brown skin and big brown eyes and long black hair pouring off her head. Her boots clank like they’ve got steel toes, her overalls and the welding apron over them are covered in grease marks and oil stains, and if the way she tosses her gloves down and scoops up Tam and squeezes him is any sign, her heart’s every bit as big as her skyscraper.
“It’s good to see you,” she says, and she ruffles his hair and puts him down again.
“Tam has been with us, Machinist Gossner,” Thom says smoothly, “working as our mechanic and a general hand on the cloudship Orion. He told us,” he continues, clearing his throat and raising an eyebrow at Tam, “that he was an orphan and had no place to stay, but that he was good with machines.”
Tam looks down. “Sorry, Goss,” he whispers. “I just . . . I couldn’t . . .”
She claps him on the shoulder and pulls his chin up so he looks her in the eye. “You’re a free child, Tam Ban,” she says seriously. “I said that when you joined us here, and it’s never changed. You work for board, you work for training, you work for a bit of wages, and you don’t owe me a thing but your respect and courtesy.” She flicks him in the forehead. “Which, I might add, was seriously lacking in your departure. I expect you’ll make it up to us by joining us for dinner tonight, whatever your current living arrangements are.” She glances up at Thom, as if asking whether that’s okay. He nods.
“Yes, Goss,” Tam says, still looking down. “I will.”
“And,” she goes on, “you’ll stop moping and start catching up with the kids here who remember you. You’ve seen a lot, I imagine.”
Tam looks up. The whole workshop’s staring at him. He stammers, “I . . . but . . .” He looks at Rash, and at the place his arm used to be. “How . . .”
Gossner’s eyes glint, and she spins and pushes Tam toward Rash, who catches him one-handed. “You can start,” she says mischievously, “by talking with Rashid, who’s always wanted to show you what he did with the machine you left behind.”
Tian Li and Aaron and I end up with Tam and Rash, while Thom and Gossner talk about some business of Thom’s that has to do with the World Beyond, where the fire spirits he and Pepper summon come from. Rash races up one of the staircases from the landing where Gossner met us, taking the steps two at a time, grinning wildly. “Wait till you see what I did with the cleaning machine, Tam. I mean, it’s a monster now—it can do practically a whole floor by itself!”
Tam stops climbing for a second, then runs after Rash. “You mean you didn’t destroy it?”
Aaron, who’s hanging back with me while Rash and Tam and Tian Li take off on their two good legs apiece, whispers, “What machine, Nadya?”
I watch the others and feel a little sad, a little left behind. “Tam used to live here,” I explain. I clue Aaron in about Rash losing his arm and Tam running away.
“Hang on,” Rash says as they get to a landing. He and Tam are warming up to each other as they start talking machines. “Let’s wait for the others.”
Tian Li, who’s looking at the workshop thoughtfully, raises an eyebrow as I get to the platform. “So Gossner owns this whole place?”
Rash nods. “Yep! Designed it herself, when she was younger.”
“Where’d she get the money?” Tian Li asks.
I frown. Tian Li has a thing about money. Where she comes from, some people have a lot of it and some people have none at all. She told me once she wants to go back and change that, like it’s her personal life quest or something.
“Um . . . ,” Rash says, scratching his chin. “I dunno, actually. I mean, she makes a lot selling her inventions and doing custom jobs for people and stuff, plus hiring us out as runners and fixers, but I never really thought about how much it must’ve cost to build this place. Maybe she got a loan or something?”
He shrugs and leads us upward again, like where Gossner got her money’s no business of his. “Sorry about all the steps, Nadya. There are swings and lifts for people with leg problems or who don’t like the stairs, but the swings in this part of the shop are being reconfigured, so you’ll have to crutch it for another few platforms. We change the layout all the time. The Goss says it’s good for us to think creatively in three dimensions. We’ll get the swings set back up before dinner tonight.”
“No problem,” I say, even though my arms are sore already and my hands are cramping. I stare around at all the machines, the catwalks, the little nooks where kids sleep, and feel a little sad. Pep would’ve loved it here. “So you guys can do whatever you want?”
Rash nods. “Just about. The Goss tells us to stop doing something or break it down or put it back the way it was every once in a while, but most of the time she just checks to make sure it’s safe, then laughs and tells us to carry on.”
“And she pays you?” Tian Li asks.
“Yep,” Rash says. “Pretty much the best gig you can get as a kid in this town, short of being born with a silver spoon in your mouth. We all feel pretty lucky. Me, I might never have figured out I could do all this if the Goss hadn’t showed me. We’re not all geniuses, but you can’t help but learn here.” He gets to a small platform and stops by a sleeping nook. “Okay,” he says, “just a sec. I need to grab my arm for this.”
He reaches into his blankets and pulls out a prosthetic arm attached to a chest harness. It’s made of black iron and looks—honest to Goshend—like an anatomical drawing of the inside of a biological arm. It’s got a whole bunch of little rods and screws and springs and gears that rotate and compress and stretch out. He shrugs into the harness and takes a minute adjusting the arm. It looks like it has to line up just right. “I’ve figured out how to get a lot of functionality out of this over the years,” he says. “Watch.” He twitches a muscle in his shoulder, and the fingers in the arm close. He twitches another, and they open. Other twitches can make the wrist rotate right to left, or left to right, or the elbow move up and down.
“I’m pretty lucky,” he says, looking at me more seriously. “Most people who lose a limb don’t have the Goss to help them build prostheses, or a workshop full of smart kids to lend them ideas and extra hands.” For the first time, he looks at my leg, and I realize he’s the only person I’ve seen so far in Far Agondy who didn’t treat it like the most important thing they saw about me. “You’re lucky too, now that you’re here. Bet Tam’s building you a leg, and you came to get help with it, right?”
I nod, a bit flummoxed. How’s this kid know so much?
He grins. “She’ll get it sorted for you. I’ve seen her build legs for money, and she always does a great job. Bet she’ll do one extra special, since you’re a friend of Tam’s.”
Tam looks down again when he says that. He’s getting embarrassed so easily today. It must really be hitting him hard to be back here.
“So is this where you sleep, then?” Tian Li asks. She nods at the pile of blankets, the floppy mattress, the tower of books and newspapers, and the pile of gears and rods and half-built gadgets that seems to be the sum of Rash’s worldly possessions.
“Yep.” Rash spins to face her. “We kinda sort ourselves into families, since there are so many of us. I sleep up here with Alé. We’re best friends. We have a lot in common.” He flexes the arm one more time, then seems satisfied. “Right,” he says. “On to the machine!”
Rash shows us a lot more than just the one machine. First he takes us to the expanded version of the cleaner Tam built, while Tam stares at it and breathes hard and looks like he’s trying not to cry. The thing has a driver’s seat now, a steering wheel, and a whole row of brushes and mop heads and dials and gauges. After that Rash brings us to a reclining bicycle he’s working on, with a big basket in the back to help kids haul inventions or repair jobs around the city for Gossner. Then we’re off to the kitchen, where a crew of eight—including his friend Alé—is prepping dinner for what looks like forty people. Finally, he takes us all the way up to the roof.
We head through a locked door out onto a rooftop terrace as wide as the Orion’s deck six times over. The wind’s pretty fierce, and it takes me by surprise and almost blows me down the stairs, but Rash catches me and holds me up with a smile until I get my balance back. He’s surprisingly strong for a kid his size, but so are Tam and Pepper. It probably comes from working with machines all the time or something.
The view from the roof is mind-blowing. We can see the whole city, and since the sun’s setting, it looks like the bay is on fire. The electric lights around and inside the buildings turn on like enormous lightning bugs sparking up. The skyscrapers glimmer like fire-kissed stalks of corn covered with morning dew, and the docking spires out in the bay loom like the spines of an enormous leviathan, winking at us with their red and green navigation lights. Launches and boats cross back and forth in the harbor, and cloudships are still coming in and leaving, even this late in the day.
“Wow,” I say as the sun slips below the horizon and leaves the buildings in twilit shadows. The view sorta reminds me of the night sky, and I almost mention it to Tian Li. She’s looking at the places between the skyscrapers, though, where the buildings are dark and low and smoky, lit only by the reddish glow of the fire spirit under the city. I figure she’s got other things on her mind.
Rash, however, is beaming. “Isn’t it great?” he says. “But it’s only half of what I brought you guys up here to see.” He walks toward a big tarp with a bunch of lumps underneath it, then whips the tarp off dramatically. Underneath are six machines that look like giant wings with harnesses. I squint, not sure what they’re for.
“You’re building gliders?” Tam says. He runs his hands over one. “Do they work?”
“Sure do,” Rash says. “Watch this.” He picks one up one-handed and throws it across his shoulders, buckling it as he goes. “You just have to be careful about knowing what the wind does between the towers, or you can get into trouble pretty fast. I’d offer to take you guys out, but the Goss put the kibosh on that after one of Alé’s friends from across town nearly got turned into a pancake against a building. So I’ll just have to show you instead.”
He turns to Tian Li. “Hey, double-check my straps, would you? Just make sure there’s no buckle showing.”
Tian Li looks over the handful of buckles keeping the harness secured to Rash’s chest. “Looks good to me,” she says.
“Thanks,” Rash says, and then, with a glance at Tam, he runs toward the edge of the balcony.
I’ve gotta admit, my heart jumps into my throat when he leaps off the building and swan-dives into the air. But the wings on the harness extend and fill with air, and he only falls about six feet before they catch him and he’s flying, gliding in a smooth circle out toward the building across the street. It looks like a blast, and I find myself bouncing up and down, wishing I could join him.
“He’s losing altitude,” Tam notes with a frown.
He’s right. Rash drifts toward the street every time he circles. He seems to notice, and he banks suddenly and changes direction, shooting up the street toward an intersection. When he gets over it, he tips his wings again, and smooth as a hawk, he catches some kind of updraft that carries him skyward in slow, lazy circles. He stays in it till he’s maybe thirty feet above us, then wheels gracefully around and starts gliding our way. As he closes in on the terrace, he drops his legs down from the little strap they’ve been resting in and tilts the harness up. The wings flare and set him gently on his feet, right in front of us.
“Whoa,” Tian Li says.
Even Tam’s smiling. “That’s incredible!” he adds, running over to Rash, who’s sweating a bit but grinning ear to ear. “What’s the glide ratio? I mean, it looks like you could keep going for a pretty long way, and then when you hit those thermals . . . How’d you get the trusses in the wings to bear the strain? How’d you figure out the steering?”
Rash laughs and unbuckles the harness. He starts to reply, but he gets cut off by a loud throat-clearing from the stairs back to the workshop.
“A-hem!” Gossner says. She’s standing on the stairs, arm resting across one knee, shaking her head. “If you’re done showing off, Rashid, everybody else has been waiting for dinner for about ten minutes.”
Dinner’s great. I mean really great. There’s a huge buffet line with about eight different dishes. Tam does me a favor and fills my plate, since it’s hard to crutch around and get food at the same time. I take big spoonfuls of this green vegetableand-cheese glop that Rash suggests, a couple sausages, and green salad to start, and then we go back for baked macaroni and cheese, some sliced ham, and a fruit salad of strawberries, pineapple, mango, blueberries, and melon. I end up sitting with Aaron and Tam on one side of me and Alé and Tian Li on my other. Rash sits next to Tam.
Tam eats quietly. Some of the other kids ask him questions, and he tries to put on a brave face, but I can tell he’s still not totally comfortable being back here. Must be weird. This used to be his home, his family. Then he ran away, and now we’re his new family and the two are meeting and he’s sorta caught in the middle.
Thom sits up at the head of the table, having a pretty deep discussion with Gossner. Maybe it has to do with the history Thom was asking about earlier. Looks like they’ve got a lot in common, even though I bet Gossner’s got fifteen years on Thom.
Kids are just starting to line up for dessert when Aaron speaks for the first time since we sat down. “Do you know anyth-th-thing about kidnappings, Rash?” he asks quietly.
Rash, who just got up to head for the dessert line, stops and sucks his teeth. He sits back down and sets his plate on the table. “How’d you hear about that?”
Aaron stares at him blankly. “It h-h-happened to me. Nadya saw it h-happen to my sister too.”
Rash blinks. All of a sudden the noise and life and smells and great food seem duller, and my fears crawl out of my stomach and wrap their tentacles around my heart like an angry octopus. “We found Aaron in chains on a pirate ship,” I explain. “And on the Panpathia I saw a girl in Far Agondy getting grabbed by a shadowy man. We think she was his sister.”
Rash leans back in his chair and taps his fingers on the table. “There’ve been kidnappings,” he says. “The runners all say to be real careful and go in twos and threes over by Bleak Forest and the Silver Stream. I don’t get out much though. Alé, what do you hear about it?”
Alé has been friendly as a summer breeze all through dinner, blinking behind thick eyebrows, explaining things to me, and asking about the Orion and what we see in the other cities. She’s got skin almost as pale as mine and long, crow-black hair that she likes to tuck behind her ears.
“Bad things,” she says. “A new gang lord came to town a while back, carved out a territory in Bleak Forest, then expanded into the Silver Stream. The police have been having a nightmare even containing him, let alone getting order back into those parts of the city, and the other gangs have fled. The kidnappings started soon after he had his territory secured. They happen all over the city, always kids, always skylungs or cloudlings.” She looks at me, evaluating, calculating. “You should be careful, Nadya. Don’t go out alone, don’t go out at night, and never go into Bleak Forest or the Silver Stream.”
I swallow. “Where’re those places?”
“On the other side of the Doubleflow,” Rash says, “within sight of city hall. It’s been a real embarrassment to the Lord Mayor that she can’t keep order in her own backyard. Apparently she’s furious about it.” He eyes the line behind us, then gets up. “I’m grabbing some cake. You want anything?”
“Sure,” Alé says, “get us each whatever you’re having,” and he takes off. Tian Li follows a second later so he’ll have an extra set of hands, and Tam and Alé and Aaron and me just sit.
Alé observes me, spinning her fork around. “You look like you’re thinking.” She’s a little older than me, and it shows sometimes. She hasn’t taken her eyes off me since we started talking about the kidnappings. “What about?”
I cough, trying to decide whether I can trust her. But I figure I don’t really have a choice. My options for getting out and about are pretty limited right now, and this might be my only chance to ask some questions. “The kidnappings. We’ve gotta do something.” I nod at Aaron. “His whole village is gone. He’s a cloudling, from Cloudlington.”
Alé stops twirling her fork, then whistles. “Wow. I’m sorry.”
He shrugs. “Th-th-that’s okay. But can you h-h-h—” He stops and frowns. “Can you give us some advice or someth-thing?”
Alé nods. “We can, but . . .” She looks up and down the table at all the other kids. Everyone seems absorbed in their own conversations, but there are a few who might be listening to us. She leans in closer. “Ask if you can spend the night. The Goss will need time to help you with your prosthesis anyway, and she’ll be fresher for the work tomorrow morning. Plus it’s dangerous on the streets after dark. We can talk more privately once everyone’s asleep.”
I’m all set to agree, until I remember Tam and how uncomfortable he’s been. I look over at him, and he stares at his plate. But then he nods, and I figure we’ve got a plan.
It’s surprisingly easy to persuade Thom to let us spend the night. He and Gossner are still talking when Tam and I go up to their table to ask, and he says it’s okay with him if it’s okay with her, and she says we’ll work on my leg tomorrow morning after breakfast, and that’s all the discussion there is.
I get back to the table feeling excitement and dread swirling in my gut, like there’s cake and spinach mixing around in there—which, come to think of it, there is.
Rash grins when we tell him how it went. “Killer!” he says. “You guys can bunk with us. There’s plenty of room and we’ve got some spare blankets and cots.” Kids are starting to put away their dishes, and he gets up to join them. “I’ve got clean-up duty tonight though. Alé, can you get them settled?”
“I want to help,” Tam says suddenly. He gets up. “If you guys don’t mind, I mean.”
“Me too,” Tian Li says. She starts gathering plates and forks and glasses around Tam.
“Great!” Rash says. He claps Tam and Tian Li on the shoulders. “Come on, dish buddies! Let’s get scrubbing.”
The two of them take off for the kitchen, leaving me, Alé, and Aaron at the table. Alé gets up and brushes her hands off on her overalls, then tosses a dark-green corduroy jacket with tons of pockets sewed onto it over her shoulders. “Well?” she asks. “You ready?”
I scratch my head, looking around at all the kids cleaning up. It’s amazing how smoothly this place operates. Everybody gets along so well too. I miss Pep more than ever. She’d be right at home running around with Tam and Rash, asking questions about glide ratios and steam pressure. But instead I’m here, and she’s on the Orion, because she took the heat for all of us.
Then Alé starts off toward the sleeping platform, and soon I’ve got other things on my mind again.
It’s exciting bunking down with Rash and Alé. Alé scrounges up a couple extra mattresses from neighboring platforms, then spreads out blankets. “We use these in winter,” she says. “But this time of year we only need about one blanket each.”
Their platform’s pretty small, so all the mattresses get jammed together. We’re basically all going to sleep in a big pile. The platform’s got railings everywhere except where the two catwalks enter and exit it, so I’m not too worried about falling. Alé catches me looking and smiles. “Rash and I will sleep on the edges,” she says. “Just in case. We’re used to it up here.”
I nod, and then I settle down toward the middle. It feels great to get off my crutches and rest. Even though they got the swings set up by dinner, I’ve crutched farther today than ever before. My armpit’s rubbed raw, my hands have blisters, and my forearms and shoulders are killing me. My missing leg aches, and my other leg feels exhausted.
Alé sits next to me with a tired whuff while Aaron peers through the railings at the kids getting ready for bed above and below us. “Long day, huh?” she says. She pulls off her boots, and when she takes the left one off, her leg just pops straight out, no foot attached.
I can’t help it. I stare, even though I hate it when people do that to me.
Alé starts giggling. “I knew it! I knew it!” She rolls onto her side, then sits up. “I knew you didn’t know!” She grins. “Rash and I had a bet going, and now he’s got to make my bed for a week.”
I nod, still not sure what to say. I’ve got so many questions, but I dunno how I’d feel if some kid I just met started asking me about my leg, even if she was missing part of hers too.
“Want to see the prosthesis I made with the Goss?” Alé asks. I nod and she hands me her boot, which has a zipper down the front, and unzips it. “It’s all one piece to make it easier to get on and off, but it unzips so I can work on the mechanism. Sorry about the smell.”
“What smell?” I mumble. It mostly smells like gear oil and leather, with just a little bit of funk. “My shoe stinks a whole lot worse after a day like today.”
She laughs again and pulls her legs up underneath her. “I lost my foot to a car,” she says. “It came screaming around a corner as I was stepping off the curb”—she slaps one hand into the other—“and bang, that was it. I was already working for the Goss as a runner, so she paid for my doctors and helped me figure out how to build my own prosthesis. She’s a genius.” She grins. “She’ll do a great job with yours, I’m sure.”
I nod, looking at the mechanism inside Alé’s boot. It’s a long piece of metal bent at an angle about the same as if you were walking and put your weight on the ball of your foot. It probably works like a spring, and it’s got another bit of metal beneath it that looks like a heel. On top of it there’s a complicated mess of springs, and then a cup and sleeve.
“Yours will probably be a lot like that,” Alé says, pointing. “Just with a rod where your shin would be and a cylinder to fit your residual limb and knee.” She rolls across the sea of mattresses and rummages in her clothes until she finds something. “Here,” she says, “it’s clean,” and she tosses me a sock. It’s made of some kind of rubbery material. It stretches and shifts, but it’s super tacky, like it wouldn’t slip at all against metal or plastic. “This is the key to the whole thing, the biggest part I bet Tam’s prosthesis is missing. The Goss didn’t get the chemistry right till about six months ago, and it makes a huge difference in how well her stuff works.”
“Thanks,” I say, and I return the sock. I look down at the Mighty Lady and flex her back and forth. She barks like she’s been jabbed with a needle, and that little bit of pain pokes a hole in a dam inside me, and suddenly there’s tears in my eyes. I’ve told myself over and over that I’ll walk again, run again. But I don’t think I’ve really believed it until now. Alé’s prosthesis is so good, and she’s so good at using it. Maybe I’ll be like that too someday.
I glance up and she’s watching me, looking sympathetic. “I lost my leg to pirates,” I say quietly. It’s the first time I’ve told anyone. “They kidnapped Thom and Captain Nic, plus our tutor, Mrs. Trachia. Tam and me snuck onto the pirates’ ship to rescue them, but we found Aaron there too, and we got caught after I broke him free. The pirates shot at us and hit my leg, and it got infected. Nic had to amputate it.”
I take a long, deep breath after I finish, staring at the Lady. I can still remember what it was like to have my leg. It wasn’t that long ago. But I’m starting to get used to being like this, and if I’m totally honest with myself, sometimes I realize how big a change that is and it scares me.
Alé stares at me, wide-eyed. “Goshend’s eyeballs,” she says. “That’s awful. But you saved that kid? From pirates? You’re a hero.”
I shake my head. Nic thinks I’m so reckless I might be a danger to the crew. Pepper thinks I’m a terrible best friend. I might’ve saved Aaron, but I haven’t done anything to save his sister.
So, no, I wouldn’t say I’m a hero at all.
Our conversation turns to other things—I ask about the food, the city, and how Alé found Gossner, and she tells me they grow some themselves and get a big delivery every day, the city’s the best place in the world, and she was five years old when her parents died in a warehouse fire by the harbor, and Gossner knew them and took her in. I ask who does the laundry for all these kids and where the bathrooms are, and Alé smiles and says the bank of washing machines is the size of a bus, then points out a little room with plumbing pipes coming out of it a couple catwalks over and says there’s a few bathrooms on every level.
Eventually Rash, Tam, and Tian Li show up. Rash and Tam laugh like old friends, and even Tian Li’s in a better mood. She and Alé stay up talking about the city for a while before we turn in for the night, and I borrow some paper and a pencil and write a note to Pep. Rash says Gossner has little flying messenger machines I can use to send it out, and I’d like to get it to her tonight if I can.
Hey, Pep,
Wish you were here. Gossner’s tower is pretty cool. There’s a lot of machines and stuff, and the kids are all into gears and steam like you. I miss you. Tam’s doing okay, I think. He and this kid Rash we’re with get along really well. I met a girl named Alé I think you’d like too. After Nic stops being such a jerk, we should come back and all hang out or something.
I sigh. So much for the easy part.
I’m still trying to figure out why you’re mad at me. I want to be a better friend, I just don’t know how. I don’t know if I can help it if people don’t listen to you around me, but I guess I can try. Maybe they’ll listen.
My stomach crunches up. I don’t feel like this note is going very well. But if I don’t finish it now, I’ll just get stuck trying to get the words perfect, so I finish it as quick as I can. Better to say something than nothing, right?
Anyway, I hope Nic isn’t being too hard on you, and you’re having a good time with Sal. It was really awesome when you saved us all from getting in trouble. I think you’re a great friend.
Rock on,
Nadya
I fold the note up and hand it to Rash, who attaches it to a little iron bird with a clockwork heart. He winds it, then flicks a few levers and drops it off the edge of the platform. My heart jumps, but a second later its wings start to flutter, and it sails out an open vent at the top of the workshop.
I thank Rash, then lie down and stare at the ceiling, thinking about Pep, Nic, and kidnappings. Rash and Alé don’t want to tell us what they know until everyone’s asleep, and I figure with how busy my brain is right now, I’ll just stay up until they’re ready.
But the sound of a few dozen other kids dropping off one by one, breathing soft and slow or snoring, is pretty hard to resist, and eventually I fall asleep anyway.
I dream about Aaron’s sister calling for help, and my gills burn. I’m trying! I call out to her. I’m trying, but it’s hard!
The shadowy man holding her turns toward me, and I try to run, but I fall down and have to scramble away on my hands and knees. He grabs me, and I hitch in my breath to scream—
“Hey,” Tam whispers urgently. “Hey, Nadya, wake up!”
I take deep breaths and open my eyes. I’m facedown, tangled in a pile of blankets. My head’s about three feet from a gap in the railing at the edge of the platform. Rash, who was supposed to be guarding it, must’ve rolled away in his sleep. Tam’s got me by the arm, and my foot’s against his chest, so I think maybe I’ve been kicking him.
“You awake yet?” he grunts.
“Yeah,” I whisper back. “Sorry.” I move my foot, and he lets go of my arm and rubs his chest.
“Geez, you kick like a backfiring dump truck,” he says.
My gills burn, but I decide to take that as a compliment. “Thanks,” I say. Next to me, Rash lets out a loud snore. “Think we should wake the sleeping engine boiler over there?”
Tam grins. “Probably. I’ll get the others.” He turns to crawl over to Tian Li, Aaron, and Alé, but I realize this might be the last chance we get to talk alone for a while, and I grab his ankle before he goes.
“Hey,” I say, “are you okay? Being here, and all?”
His grin fades, and his eyes dim. The soft orange light of the boilers down below hits his face like sunset on a cliff. “I think,” he says. He runs a hand through his hair. “I mean, most of the time I am. Rash doesn’t blame me at all, says if he’d listened to my rules in the first place he never would’ve lost his arm. Goss doesn’t either, although she seems a little mad I left without saying anything. And the other kids don’t look at me like I’m a monster anymore. They want to ask me all kinds of questions about the Cloud Sea and cloudships and pirates and the world outside Far Agondy.” He shrugs. “So if I let myself, I can feel like everything’s okay. But every time I do that I feel guilty, like I shouldn’t be getting off so easy. So I dunno. I’m okay. But I’m not great.” He glances up. “Thanks for asking, Nadya.”
“No problem, Tam,” I say. “We gotta stick together, y’know?”
“Yeah,” he says. He smiles. “Yeah, I do.”
It takes a few minutes for everybody to wake up. Alé gets her prosthesis on, and I find my crutches. Soon we’re all standing by the stairway leading up from their platform.
“Okay,” Rash whispers. “We’re headed to the third level. We’ve got a spot there where we can talk without anybody hearing us.” He looks at me apologetically. “We won’t be able to use the swings, because they’re so loud. Think you can crutch it?”
I nod. I’m still sore, but I’m not gonna let that stop me. “Of course,” I say. “Let’s go.”
Alé grins. “Follow me,” she whispers, and she leads the way out.
She takes us on a long, winding path that keeps us from running through other people’s sleeping nooks. “It’s great sleeping wherever we want,” she whispers as we stop for breath on a platform full of buckets of rusty bolts and scrap metal, “but it makes sneaking around at night pretty hard.”
When we get up past the second level, Rash pulls me aside and points out our destination. It’s the room I saw before, a big black rectangle probably a hundred feet long and thirty feet wide, suspended from the roof in one corner of the building. Only one catwalk leads up to it. There’s no lights shining there and the boilers are far below, so I can’t see any details.
“What is it?” I ask.
“A surprise.” He gives me a big, goofy wink. “Remember that thing I wanted to show you? That’s where we’re headed.”
I stare at it as we work our way up, trying to figure out what it is. Some kind of room, obviously. But what could be in there? A swimming pool? It’s definitely big enough. But why would they put a swimming pool up by the ceiling?
I still don’t have it figured out by the time we get there.
The entrance is kinda spooky. We’re up by the windows, so there’s a great view of Far Agondy’s electric night, all those skyscrapers with their dandelion brightness, but it’s still pretty dark up here. The room we’re entering is made of cast iron, welded together so tightly I can’t even see the seams. It must weigh a bazillion pounds—there’s support rods attached to it every six feet or so in a grid. I’m amazed the roof can take all that weight, but I guess they must build things pretty strong around here.
The door’s design is really familiar. It’s got a big wheel in the middle that looks like it has to be unlocked and cranked open and shut. Just in front of it there’s a shelf with a bunch of masks.
“Here, put one of these on,” Alé says. She starts handing them out.
I stare, blinking. The masks are made of black rubber, with little glass eyepieces so you can look out. They cover your mouth, and attached to the mouthpieces are black hoses about a foot long, with canisters at the end. Rash and Alé show Tian Li and Tam how to get theirs on.
I stand patiently and wait my turn, but when Tam and Tian Li are done, Rash just grins. “You and Aaron won’t need them,” he says. I recognize the design of that door, and my stomach twists up in a knot. This can’t be what I think it is. It can’t.
“Come on,” Alé says. We bundle into a waiting room just like the one on the Orion, and Rash cranks the outside door shut. Alé pushes a big green button. The air hisses and whooshes as it’s sucked out, and then there’s a chime and the inner door unlocks. My gills open up, and we step into something that’s definitely, one hundred percent, undeniably a cloud garden.