LEGACY LOST Page 5

Trimpot leaned forward, whispering roughly into Olympia’s ear. He wasn’t one to deny the requests of a potential ally. “So many came together at night that you could hardly walk without finding yourself thrust against a stranger.”

  The former duchess giggled and clutched a fistful of hair at the nape of Trimpot’s neck. “More,” she purred.

  “We were dirty, and wild, and free.”

  His teeth captured her ear, and a cloud of white butterflies crossed the arbor, migrating from the blushing poppies to the open petals of the fire lily, as a discarded spill of skirt splashed out onto the step.

  Kaizen stood at the gate to the aerial dock, considering the Hermetic device in his hand. He depressed its button and spoke into the light of its fresh reel. “Ferraday castle,” he addressed the transmitter. “Monarch Ferraday the Third, this is Duke Kaizen Taliko, reporting status of the royal family as unharmed and en route to Celestine for supplies and harbor until further notice. I assure you that we are of one mind in regard to the offering of a scapegoat to soothe the troubled peoples of New Earth. I have detained one such rebel and will transfer him into your care within the week. Please accept my sincerest apologies that the rebel group grew so quickly and wildly out of hand. Know that they are now entirely snuffed, save this single revolutionary in our midst, one Neon Trimpot.”

  Depressing the button again, closing the lightweight silver orb, its wings sprang to attention and began their manic flutter, seeming desperate to begin the journey. Stepping onto the metallic grid of the dock, he heaved this Hermetic device into the cloudless sky beyond, winds tugging at his clothes and hair, Old Earth sprawling below: a muddied, otherwise nondescript wasteland, save the bleached carapaces of long-dead beasts, legs curled in, tilting imperceptibly in the dry breeze.

  Kaizen reached into his pocket and extracted another Hermetic device, this linked to the Taliko castle itself. He depressed its shell and addressed it to the only name he knew her to be registered under anymore: “Audio Swan.” He spoke into the flickering light of the recorder. “I saw you, and I know you – you saw me, and–” Why could he speak so much more easily to a threatening monarch than to a felonious peasant girl? “–and I just wanted to make sure that you’re all right.” Suddenly all the more unsure of himself, he added, “It’s me. Uh. The duke. Kaizen.”

  He could no longer see the potbelly airship, but maybe it was that black grain on the horizon. Regardless, he depressed the button again, sealing the device, and its wings sprang to attention, fluttering madly. Kaizen released this one with as much tenderness as if it was a living dove, eyes following the silver wink of its veneer until the tiny messenger disappeared into the distance.

  The sky over Old Earth’s “Arizona” that Sunday was cloudless and flat, the color of luminous milk. The ground below was a barren, clay-like substance littered in bones. This occasionally seemed to scuttle and burrow, but otherwise was totally dead. The airship Albatropus was as dry as a bone itself, the helm thronged with the entirety of the manifest, both CC and N.E.E.R. (excepting the vanished Coal-Radia), who all now busily turned over the topic of water in their heads. They couldn’t talk about anything else. They couldn’t think about anything else.

  “I didn’t know Earth even saw days like this,” Vector muttered from the shifting wheel, where he had reclaimed his position some hours ago. “‘When was the last time,’ she said.” No one had taken a single drop of water all day, and every throat was parched, every tongue thick and papery. “But the good news!” Vector went on, spritely and fake in spite of his sunken eyes. The crowded stern focused. “This level of dehydration is totally fine, short-term and all! I mean, okay, headaches, and some nausea, but probably no cramps, so none of us should be staggering off the boat or falling over like–”

  Dax slid from his lean against the rail, and his long legs splayed across the floor. He shook his head dizzily, and Rain started, dashing to his side and lightly slapping his cheek. Legacy, too, started, but hurriedly revised her countenance into that of a woman who did not care about noting that Dax was conscious, and Rain didn’t seem overly shocked by his fluttering vitals. This was mostly for show, but she hadn’t truly forgiven Dax yet for rejecting her the night before, even though she was aware of how unfair it all was. It still smarted, and was this how she had made him feel all along? So . . . stupid? It was the age of fourteen all over again.

  Vector cleared his throat. “Like that,” he finished. “What’s up, Dax? Anything you wanna tell us?”

  “Sorry.” Dax shook his head again, eyes rolling, focusing, and rolling again. “I . . . last night, our cabin got really hot, and I may have been sweating for a while. I got totally naked, but I still probably lost a lot of water.”

  “Totally naked?” Rain wondered aloud, raising an eyebrow flirtatiously at the boy as she monitored his pulse.

  Rain Ellsworth, a plump, blue-haired nurse in her twenties, was often servicing the wounds of the rebels, occasionally going so far as to provide medicines and equipment. At least, that had been her function when they’d had medicine and equipment available to steal or borrow. The Albatropus was quite limited in that capacity, and for someone like Dax, even a voyage as short as this was somewhat dangerous.

  “Coal-Radia didn’t seem to think that much of it,” Legacy commented dryly.

  Dax glared.

  “Wait, wait, wait, back up,” Vector said.

  “Why was your room so hot?” Liam interjected. Legacy’s former Companion, the only soul aboard unaffiliated with either the rebels or the slaves, had been making strides in getting over her. It was slow-going. He’d been here, looking for her, when the dome was hit by the electric cannon and Vector commanded the anchor risen.

  “That room shares its wall with the engine room, it’s always hot,” Gustav, who had offered Legacy and Dax the fifth cabin himself, said grouchily.

  “Our room is always hot,” Legacy agreed quickly.

  “No, Liam’s right,” Dax interjected, finally catching his breath again. “It was unusually hot.”

  “You must report atypical emissions,” one of the New Earth slaves, Boil, chirped.

  “Shit, man, that’s no good, why didn’t you tell me?” Vector cried, ignoring the slave. Most of the N.E.E.R. refugees were a little imbalanced. “Your room shares the wall with the engine room, so if it’s crazy hot, the machinery is probably overworked and damage could have occurred! Shit! Legacy! Rain!” he snapped. The two girls turned their attention from Dax to him. “Did either of you go above twenty-five miles per hour?”

  “No,” Rain answered immediately.

  Legacy hesitated.

  “Shit, Leg! Fuck! Shit! Fuck! Leg!” Vector swore again and again. “Did you?”

  “I may have,” she allowed, uncharacteristically meek. “For a little while.”

  Vector hung his head and sighed deeply.

  “Why?” she demanded, sitting up straighter. “We’re still moving all right, aren’t we? I mean, what’s the big deal? What’d I do?”

  Vector answered without raising his head to look at her. “The invisibility shield,” he answered tonelessly. “The invisibility shield was a lightweight, incredibly porous material which draped across the entire ship, except the top of the companionway. It would bend light around it, but failed upon close inspection, so it worked really well for most stealth – except – it was also very . . . sensitive to heat.” Now he rose his eyes to hers. “So, when the engine room got too hot, it likely charred the shield . . . and the fabric is so loose and light . . . so breathable . . . it’d just freaking evaporate, basically. If one thread caught flame, the whole thing would disintegrate in . . .”

  “In?” Legacy prompted, stiff and sick with guilt.

  “In seconds,” Vector finished.

  “So we’ve been fully visible since last night,” Rain concluded.

  Vector nodded once. “We’ve been fully visible since last night.”

  “Can another invisibility shield be manufactured from mater
ials onboard?” Claire Addler, the wan brunette mechanic, asked.

  Vector shook his head. “The material was a composite of fibers,” he answered glumly. “Some of them were natural, some man-made, none of them here.”

  “We passed the castle a long time ago,” Rain mentioned, “but none of the people on the grounds could have recognized the ship, could they?”

  “Particularly from such a distance as I’m sure we maintained,” Saul, the pale, frizzy chemist, added. “You’d have to be a lunatic to get close! It’d be like a mouse sniffing a cat’s paw!” He snorted.

  “We could have been anyone,” Rain agreed. “There’s no way they know.”

  “But it doesn’t really matter because, in order to dock, we’re going to have to be identified,” Vector said. A murmur of discontent stirred amongst the crowd, and a silver wink, unobserved in the commotion, wove expertly through the hedge of bodies until it located Audio Swan, the wearer of the golden vest.

  The Hermetic device, fluttering in mid-air, knocked softly at Legacy’s abdomen, and she snatched the winged mechanism into her fist before too many people noticed. Receiving a transmission now would be the worst possible timing . . .

  Legacy’s eyes tilted toward the deserted berth. Everyone on board the Albatropus, for the first time since its launch, was on the deck.

  As silently as she could, Legacy crept along the rail and toward the wide door set into the face of the forecastle, nudging it open only enough so that she could slip inside.

  The medium-sized room, now cluttered in makeshift bunks and the checkerboard of bulging drawers in the floor, was empty.

  Legacy extracted the hidden device and depressed it, a thin beam of light sprouting from its crown, and an all too familiar baritone flickering out.

  “I saw you, and I know you – you saw me, and – and I just wanted to make sure that you’re all right. It’s me. Uh. The duke. Kaizen.”

  Legacy almost grinned at the awkward conclusion to the message, but she also knew that this – this wasn’t supposed to be cute. This was, in actuality, very dangerous. If he tried to come close to their ship . . . if he thought that she needed him in the least . . . she risked the safety of everyone onboard. Maybe, maybe Kaizen was trustworthy, but what about the former duchess? What about the courtiers, or the servants? What about Dax, who had been forced to move onto the Albatropus when his childhood unit was raided by sentries after Malthus’ death? This meant that the orders could not have come from the surly, antagonistic duke, but from Kaizen himself . . . Which meant that revealing their position, and possibly therein their identities, was unsafe. Even if not for Legacy.

  Taking a deep breath, the ghost of the smile long faded from her lips, Legacy spoke into the tiny device, its beam of light recording.

  “Kaizen. I am fine. But it is over. Please do not seek me. The things we have done – that I have done – have been selfish, and irresponsible, and short-sighted. Heed this warning. If you come to me . . .” Her eyes flashed to the ground and she concentrated on pushing the words through her throat. “. . . I do not know what may become of you, or even of myself. Goodbye, and good luck.”

  Oddly shaky, the silver-braided girl took her exit via the same door she’d entered, likely to subtly release the humming, eager ball of silver in her fist.

  Through the cracks in the wall, Coal-Radia, still nude, and very thirsty, had seen the entire thing. What a queer name, she thought, rolling it around in her head, wondering who he was, and why her “sister” was so averse to seeing him. Hmm. Kaizen. Kaizen. Kaizen.

  Kaizen sank deeper into the steaming bathtub, the cucumber mask slathered over his face exfoliating and unlocking every pore. They said baths conserved water – and he couldn’t be pressed to sacrifice every luxury, could he? His hair was twisted into a warm, wet cloth, saturated in some kind of rich protein cream. Trimpot, shock of all shocks, had offered to take the helm for a while, and so Kaizen didn’t have anything to do at all. Nothing to do but enjoy himself for what little time he had left.

  The washroom door opened and Kaizen lunged forward defensively.

  “Who’s there!” he hollered, the cucumber slices tumbling from his eyes and plunking into the bath water. Kaizen grimaced. He supposed, all told, it was a small loss, but it still smarted.

  “Duke Taliko?” In the shifting tides of steam throughout the room, Master Addler squinted and removed his foggy glasses. He rubbed them vigorously with the cloth of his shirt, squinted again, and replaced the glasses. They immediately redeveloped their film of condensation. “Duke Taliko, it’s Master Addler, sir. I’m sorry to disturb you! Where . . . are you? I . . . Hello? Hello?”

  “I’m here, Master Addler,” Kaizen replied, cupping warm water in his hands and splashing his green-colored face. The cucumber pulp coursed from his cheeks and chin. “What can I do for you?”

  “Oh, nothing, sir, nothing!” Master Addler sputtered. “I’m so sorry! I just . . . Sophie was so excited, I thought you might also be happy to know.”

  Kaizen unwound his sopping hair and dipped it into the water. This life would be difficult to leave. “Know what?” he wondered idly, still drowsy with the warmth and the looseness of his muscles in the water.

  “I completed some of my tasks ahead of schedule!” the little hunchbacked machinist cheered. “The personal attendant automata are operational at full capacity!”

  Kaizen opened his eyes and felt a twinge of . . . panic? “Really?” he asked.

  “Mostly!” Master Addler responded. “Maybe not ‘full’ capacity. You see, well, they’re not entirely perfect. But they respond successfully to all commands provided by their imprints. In truth, the imprint function is – got – a little fried by that virus. But I was able to restore them to the ‘small group’ setting. So, when you command Newton, you should know that Sophie or your mother or I would also be capable of commanding Newton.”

  Kaizen frowned. “Newton?” he repeated. “You restored Newton?”

  “Well, of course,” Master Addler answered. “Why?”

  “No reason.” The young man struggled to admit that he was terrified of his former automaton assistant.

  “Again, my lord, my apologies,” Master Addler said, bowing from the wash room. “I’ve also pass-coded a hard reset into their functions, just . . . in case. Not that I foresee any issues! Shall I inform the entire royal family, or members of the court? Or would you prefer to choose individuals to trust with the passcode?”

  Pff. Trust. Yeah. “Just tell me,” he answered.

  “All right, now, don’t forget it, though I don’t see how you could; it’s one of my favorites.” Master Addler tittered for a moment before continuing. “It’s–” He glanced around and turned back. “–’balderdash gas.’ Now, it’s a tongue-twister, so be careful with pronunciation! ‘Balderdash gas.’ If you please, I’ll send Newton by to dry and prepare your bedclothes posthaste!”

  “No!” Kaizen cried without thought. The door closed without another word from the old man, and Kaizen was somehow sure that Master Addler had not heard him.

  Kaizen nudged his bedchamber door open and crept inside.

  “Let me help you, sir,” a robotic voice greeted him, coasting with a clatter toward the movement of his body.

  “N-n–”

  “I would very much like to help you.” The bot looked just like the other Newtons had looked, tall and slender, lightly muscled with a froth of thick blond curls. He was coated in a glossy porcelain plating, circles of blush sprayed onto his cheeks and strikes of paint to mark his eyebrows. His ankles, wrists, knees, elbows, hips, neck, eyelids, and mouth were all jointed and maneuvered with an alarming severity when he moved them – or, rather, when they moved. Certainly, he didn’t do anything. He was just a jumble of gears and rods. Wasn’t he?

  The chief and most disturbing difference between Newton-3 and the others was that his eyes, the standard blue marbles, glowed with a pinprick of red in the center.

  Kaizen gulped, pee
ring into a face that was identical to the face that had pummeled him in the chest until its knuckles broke their plating into jagged shards and cut him with long, deep lacerations that would likely never heal. He still had to be tender with the stitches down his torso.

  “I don’t need any help,” he informed Newton-3, finally finding his tongue. “Thank you, but that will be all.”

  “You are all there is, sir,” Newton-3 went on. His head tilted on his jointed neck, so it was as if he were truly peering deeply at the man before him. “Disappoint you, and I will cease to be.”

  Kaizen scrutinized the oddly existential bot a touch closer. Had Master Addler programmed the languages of the first set? He had to doubt it. Surely, they’d known when to get lost, and they hadn’t said such disconcertingly morose things.

  “Augh, okay, then . . . You know what you can do?”

  Newton-3 plunged into a low bow, and Kaizen grimaced.

  “You can wash the glass plating on the dome,” he commanded. “That ought to give your life meaning for the entire trip.” Newton-3 hesitated, vibrating as if attempting to assimilate this command with his system, and then rolled from the room without further ado.

  Moments later, a sharp tap came at Kaizen’s bay window, jerking him from the nap into which he’d been slipping, half-dressed, on his bed.

  The Taliko castle’s Hermetic device clinked steadily against the glass.

  Shaking Legacy’s phantom fingers from his hair, Kaizen went to the window and unlatched it, accepting the device and depressing its shell. The light emerged, flickering with the husky cadence of her voice: strong. Soft. Still alive. And commanding him, in no uncertain terms, to forget her.

  Chapter Three

  Legacy was no longer allowed to take the helm of the Albatropus, even though there was no twenty-five mile per hour speed limit imposed anymore. As Vector loved to continually remind her, their invisibility shield had been singed away, and now they could maintain forty-five miles per hour all day if they so pleased. Still, Legacy wasn’t allowed behind the wheel, in some very effective form of negative reinforcement, but she enjoyed the view of sunset from the deck nonetheless, and Ray didn’t seem to mind her presence. She could tell herself she was keeping him company, even if he didn’t seem to give a damn one way or the other, and his girlfriend, Izzy, was already there with him. Ray and Izzy had been housemates with Neon Trimpot before he’d defected, and moved aboard the airship prior to its launch, fearful that they would be turned in if they stayed behind.