Terra Nova Page 2

  “Ariel?” she called tentatively.

  The igneous spirit turned her red eyes on Molly.

  “I am here,” Ariel said, dropping down from one of the windows. “She refused to leave until she had burned it all.”

  “We don’t have much time before Disposal arrives.”

  “I know.” Ariel rose until she was level with the flaming spirit and made gestures toward the sky. The great bird bowed her head and then looked upward. With one powerful beat of her wings she shot up, bursting through the factory roof, and disappeared to the west.

  “Good. Now we—”

  An engine rumbled outside. Molly turned and saw a hulking vehicle with a silver sword emblazoned on its side pulling into the street. Men and women in dark coats began pouring out of its doors.

  “They’re here!”

  She ran and slammed the door shut, pushing the bar into place just as the first agents reached it. Fists pounded on the other side.

  Ariel dropped down beside her. “I will have to carry you out,” the spirit said, and with a nod from Molly, she flowed around her and lifted them both off the ground. They flew toward one of the windows on the back wall.

  Just before they reached it, a man came flying through. He had dark goggles over his eyes and a metal box strapped to his back, flashing with the energies of an aetheric spirit. A flitter, Molly realized. They’re getting smarter. We’ve always had the advantage of flight, but if they’re using flitters now, that’s gone. The man carried a weapon—some kind of gun, thick with rivets and flickering with inner light.

  “Hello, Ms. Stout,” he said.

  The voice made her recognize his mustached face, despite the goggles obscuring it. Howarth. Agent Howarth had been chasing Molly since before she brought down the Gloria Mundi, the flagship of Haviland Industries. Lately, she seemed to be seeing his face more and more.

  “I don’t suppose you would surrender,” he said.

  Ariel turned to take them out another window, but agents were flying in from all sides now, all kept aloft by the flitters on their backs.

  “I thought not,” Howarth said, raising his weapon. Molly pulled her pry bar from her belt and threw it. It hit Howarth’s shoulder, and his shot went wide. A stream of flame, bright as the sun, passed only a few inches to her right.

  “Get us out!” Molly shouted. Ariel started for the gaping hole in the roof, but the agents were training their weapons on them. Molly closed her eyes.

  A bellow like thunder shook the building, and winds whipped in through the gap in the roof. The winds slammed into the agents, pressing them back against the walls and pinning them there. Molly looked up and saw the wooden hull of their airship hovering above the factory. Beyond the airship, Legerdemain’s vast blue wings stretched across the sky. The huge aetheric spirit flexed and curled its wingtips, commanding both the winds that held the airship aloft and the ones that trapped the Disposal agents.

  “Oh, thank you,” Molly whispered.

  Ariel took them both up, forcing their way through the hurricane winds. They reached the ship’s deck, and Ariel released Molly onto the deck boards. She spread her fingers across the pale, time-worn wood. The ship began to ascend.

  Her heart was still hammering in her chest, though, every muscle in her body tight, as if she was still under fire. Safe. Home, she told herself. She pressed her cheek into the deck and breathed it in. Slowly her knotted muscles began to unravel themselves.

  Thick hands grabbed her shoulders, and she looked up into her father’s bearded face.

  “Moll, are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Thought I wouldn’t be for a second there.” She probed her ribs, and her back, finding plenty of bruises but nothing permanent. Her father reached down and touched the side of her head where some of her hair had been burned away. “Just got my hair,” she said. “Nothing serious.”

  She pulled herself up and walked to the ship’s gunwale. Down on the street there were more Disposal trucks, and dozens of agents, but those with flitters were still pinned inside the factory. The others on the ground brandished their weapons ineffectually, firing bright-red shots that faded long before they reached the ship. “They got here quick. And they brought some new gear.”

  “Done this too many times,” her father said.

  Molly sighed. She knew he was right. But despite dozens of raids, they had hardly scratched the surface of the problem. As the ship lifted up, taking them swiftly away from the factory, Molly looked out over Terra Nova’s industrial district. There were hundreds of factories like the one below, still laboring on, driven by the energies of countless spirits in countless iron prisons. And for every one we crack open, another two seem to spring up.

  Molly’s father gripped her shoulder again. “There’s only so much we can do,” he said, as if reading her thoughts.

  Molly nodded. “I know that, but…”

  The ground receded below them, the huge factories turning into tiny squares as they flew out, away from the city and over the Atlantic Ocean, where Disposal could not find them.

  “Did Kiernan and Rory get everyone away?” she asked.

  “We’ll find out when we pick them up in an hour.”

  Molly took her eyes off the factories in the distance and tried to think of the spirits and the laborers they’d freed. Her brothers would get the children far from the factories, into the hands of the Unionists. They were going somewhere better. And the spirits were free to find their way home now, back through the fonts that joined the human world and the spirit world.

  We’re doing good. Even if it’s not enough. The face of the small, terrified boy flashed into her mind. What else am I supposed to do?

  She stood up straight. “Thanks for coming, Da,” she said. He nodded and squeezed her arm.

  “Yes, thank you,” Ariel said. “I do not think we could have escaped if you had not arrived.” Molly’s father nodded again.

  Molly went to the mainmast and pulled herself up. Despite her sore back, she climbed quickly to the crow’s nest at the top. She had been climbing that mast for what seemed like her entire life, and its handholds were as familiar to her as her berth inside the ship. Once she was in the nest, she sat down on the small wooden platform and put her legs out between the posts of the railing, leaning against the mast. She looked up at Legerdemain, the spirit that carried the ship, and found comfort in the blue-white curve of his belly and the flash of his wings. She watched his long tail swish through the air behind the ship, its flukes curling to cup the wind.

  “Thanks for saving me. As usual,” she said. The spirit responded with a high trill, and through the strange connection they shared, she felt his pleasure at having her close again. “It was a risk, you know, coming like that. You’re a pretty big target.”

  A deep rumble of displeasure.

  “I know, I know—they could have caught me too. But here we both are.”

  She looked out across the ocean to where the lights of Terra Nova bled into the sky, masking the stars and illuminating the fug of its factories.

  Looks the same, she thought. Looks exactly like it did before any of this. Before the Gloria Mundi, before the factory raids … She closed her eyes and tried to let the wind wash her troubled thoughts away.

  TWO

  Molly stared at the face on the poster. She had seen the Wanted posters before, declaring her and her family enemies of Terra Nova and the British Empire, but she had never really looked at them. In the drawing they had made of her, she had sunken eyes and wild hair, and her mouth seemed to barely contain a snarl. She looked like a murderer. Which I guess I am. Sort of. Her stomach churned. Do I really look like that?

  She pulled the brim of her cap down lower and kept walking. An elbow dug into her ribs, and she turned to find Rory at her side.

  “Don’t tug at it like that,” he said. “Makes it look like you’re trying to hide.”

  “I am trying to hide,” she muttered back. “Did you see how many posters are ou
t now?”

  “I know. But the more you look like you don’t want people to notice you, the more they’ll notice you. Relax.” He grabbed her cap and pulled it down over her eyes. While she was pulling it up, he stomped on her toes.

  “Ow! Hey!” she shouted, but he was already running up ahead, past Kiernan and their father. Molly gave chase. “That hurt!” Rory grinned back at her. She bent low and ran. Now that her legs had grown a little, she thought she might be able to catch him, despite his three-year advantage.

  “Hey, stop!” called Kiernan. She turned. Kiernan gestured to the building beside them. “We’re here.”

  A short set of stairs led down to a basement entrance. Beside her, over the front door, there was a battered wooden sign carved with the figure of a rooster and the words The Bantam’s Rest in faded gold lettering.

  They descended the stairs, Kiernan leading, then their father, then Molly. When Rory circled back and fell in behind them, Molly punched him in the shoulder. He only grinned wider.

  They stepped inside. The roof was low, and the room ill-lit. Two shadowed figures perched between wooden kegs and stacks of chairs. No one spoke until the door was closed and locked behind them.

  “Well, from what we’ve heard, the job is done,” one of the figures said. He was a dark-skinned bald man, wearing a collared shirt and a well-worn vest. He was often present at these Unionist meetings, though the other faces changed regularly. She had heard one of the other Unionists call him Bascombe, though they weren’t supposed to use names.

  “Did you have to cause such damage?” asked the white-skinned, gray-haired woman next to him. “We could have sold some of that machinery, if you’d left it for us to collect.”

  “You know spirits are unpredictable,” Molly’s father said. “The furnace spirit—”

  “Not unpredictable,” Molly said. “They’re all pissed off, every single one. Some of them are just too weak from the iron to do anything about it.”

  The Unionists, and her father, all furrowed their brows.

  “No matter,” Bascombe said. “The job is done, the factory shut. Thank you again.”

  “What of the children?” Kiernan asked. “Are they safely away?”

  “They’re fine. They’re fed and safe. Tomorrow we’ll be looking to find them better prospects.”

  “There was a boy,” Molly said. “Didn’t leave the factory with the others, ran off the wrong way. Did you…?”

  Bascombe shook his head. “No one else came, apart from the group your brothers brought. Sometimes you can’t save them all.”

  The woman stood up. “Spare the details. We haven’t the time.”

  Bascombe nodded. “True. We should discuss your next target. There is a textiles factory on the west end that is forcing its workers to—”

  “Next target?” Molly’s father said. “Already? Disposal was waiting for us this time! We can’t hit another factory so soon.”

  “Too dangerous?” the woman said, staring straight at Molly. “I thought you were the great and terrible Molly Stout, who brought down the Gloria Mundi, the greatest ship that ever sailed the skies.”

  Molly glowered. “I’m not—”

  “Damned right it’s too dangerous. We would be stupid to move again so soon,” her father said.

  “Da? Maybe we should—”

  “This factory is going through laborers like they’re chaff!” Bascombe pleaded. “Dozens have already—”

  “We can’t help anyone if we’re captured because you’re too stupid to—”

  “Da!”

  Molly’s shout brought all eyes over to her. She hunched her shoulders. “Da, can we talk for a minute?” She gestured to the corner of the room. Her father, still glowering, turned and walked over. Molly and her brothers followed.

  “Molly, you know we can’t do this again,” he said.

  “We didn’t talk about this beforehand. We should talk.”

  “Didn’t think they would have the gall to set us on another raid right away,” Rory said. “I’m with Da on this.”

  “We need to let things settle for a while,” her father said.

  “But the spirits still need our help. We can’t just run and hide.”

  “I’m not saying we tuck our tails between our legs,” Molly’s father said. “Maybe something less dangerous for a while though. We could try distributing copies of Haviland Stout’s true journal again, show people that the official histories are lies, that the spirits aren’t evil, like they’ve been told. Maybe we could change some people’s minds.”

  “Oh no,” Rory said. “I’m not wasting my time with that again. Hours of bloody copying just to have the pages thrown back in our faces.” He massaged his right hand with his left, as if reliving the cramps he’d suffered after all that writing.

  “He’s right, Da,” Molly said. “We tried that. No one listens when we try to tell them the truth. At least if we go after another factory, we can free a few spirits ourselves.”

  “Factories aren’t the only place we can help the spirits,” Kiernan interjected. “I think Da’s right. If we hit another factory, Disposal will be there waiting. But if we choose another target, we might catch them off guard.”

  Everyone thought for a moment.

  “That makes sense,” Molly said. “We could go after the air purifiers in one of the wealthier districts maybe. Or some harvesters.”

  Her father’s grimace hadn’t disappeared. “Couldn’t we stop for a few days?”

  “I don’t want to stop,” Molly said. “But maybe you could, Da. You and the boys.”

  Kiernan shook his head. “In for a penny,” Rory said.

  Her father growled. “Fine.” He stalked back to where the Unionists were waiting, all on their feet now. “We won’t be hitting another factory for you.”

  “I knew we couldn’t count on them,” the gray-haired woman spat. “They’re spirit-touched.”

  “We don’t work for you,” Kiernan said.

  “Come now, Mr. Stout,” Bascombe replied. “We can’t stop now. The children in those factories are still—”

  “Then crack open the damned factories yourselves!” Molly’s father roared. “My children have shut down a dozen, all while being chased by Disposal, while you sit in basements and plan where to send us next! We are not your dogs!” He spat on the floor, turned and stormed out of the basement. Rory followed quickly.

  “He’s not wrong,” Kiernan said. “Yours might be a good cause, but we can’t win it for you.” He turned and left. Molly followed after him, but Bascombe caught up to her and grabbed her shoulder. She turned, ready to push him off, but the sadness in his eyes caught her.

  “Please. You know how bad it is for the children in those factories.”

  Molly nodded. “I know.” Not just for them, she wanted to say. But she knew even rebels like Bascombe weren’t ready to sympathize with spirits, to think of them as more than monsters. She shrugged off his hand and followed her family out. As soon as the door closed, she could hear the woman shouting inside.

  Kiernan waited at the top of the steps. She could see Rory and her father, already half a block away.

  “Um, can you tell Da I’ll catch up later?” Molly said. “I want to go see something.”

  Kiernan smiled wearily. “I thought you might. Don’t spend too long there, okay?”

  “Okay. I’ll call Legerdemain when I’m done, and he can send Ariel to get me.”

  Kiernan squeezed her arm, then jogged off after their father and brother. Molly turned and scanned the crowds. No one seemed to be looking at her, but all the same she cast her eyes down and turned her collar up as she moved farther into the city.

  Ingrid Bledsoe

  Francis Bourne

  Samira Bukhari

  As Molly scanned down the list, the names began to blur together. She swiped at her eyes, trying to clear the tears, but they wouldn’t clear.

  Last time she had visited the Gloria Mundi memorial, they hadn’t starte
d carving the names of the dead. It had just been a ring of tall standing stones surrounding a statue of the huge iron-plated airship. It had been hard enough being here without the names. So many names.

  None of these people care if you cry over them, she told herself. Stop it. She ran her sleeve over her eyes, and this time they stayed clear. She forced herself to look up at the names again. She moved along the stones to the last in the row.

  Blair Sawyer

  Cosmo Stathakis

  Christine Sullivan

  She scanned down to the end. It’s not there. Her heart thudded in her chest, and she put her finger where Brighid Stout, her sister, would be. How can it not be there? Maybe they left her off because of me?

  She went through all the names again, on all the stones, but Brighid wasn’t on the list of dead. Could she have survived? Molly almost didn’t want to think about it. Poking at the memories, at the guilt she felt over her sister, was like prodding a bear that could wake and consume her at any moment.

  Her eyes moved back up the stone to another name. Meredith Peterson. She leaned closer. Is that her? She couldn’t see any other Merediths on the list. When she had arrived on the Gloria Mundi, terrified and knowing no one, a girl named Meredith had taken an interest in her. She had teased her about her height and kept her from feeling lost. And then Molly had freed the ship’s spirit and sent them all crashing to the ground. If that is you, Mer, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.

  She didn’t need to look to know that Charles Arkwright’s name wasn’t there, even if he had died in the crash. No one was supposed to know he was still alive, kept from death for over a hundred years by strange spiritual machines. Below the Gloria Mundi’s statue, she could see Tyler Arkwright’s name instead. He had been the current head of Haviland Industries and was meant to be Charles’s great-great-grandson, though he was only playing the part so Charles could stay hidden. There was a small statue of Tyler too, perched at the prow of the Gloria, resplendent in his dress uniform. Molly stared at it. I wonder who you really were.