tesping
constantly wandering
Head practically on a swivel, Lacey checked all directions for any hives on the attack, then tied a bright red strip of cloth around a pole by her. Propping her arms against two of the rusted steel bars braced against each other, she quickly lowered herself down through the somewhat rectangular opening created by the bars. When she was low enough that she was losing leverage, her elbows now about head level, Lacey tucked her arms in and dropped lightly into the darkness. She fell maybe a couple feet before hitting solid ground.
Glancing up through the opening once more, Lacey memorized her view of the shorn-off top of a corroded skyscraper and the intermittent fluttering of her signal flag. Inlets like the one Lacey just dropped through dotted the ruins most people called Akim, but Lacey always preferred to go out the same way she went in, since finding another exit was never guaranteed. Of course buildings and inlets had a habit of disappearing under yet more wreckage, but she could always hope that at the very least, her flag would stay put.
For better or for worse, Lacey was always filled with hope. The desire for things to work out in her favor, or at least not actively against her interests, hummed in her skin. Standing in the dark inlet, Lacey balled up the feeling in her mind and pushed it outwards as she commanded, “Light.”
Dutifully, a pinprick of light bloomed in the darkness around Lacey’s feet, before growing to about the size of her fist. The pearly glow it cast was more than enough to illuminate the opening of a small, dark chute by Lacey’s feet.
Tugging a small, dirty yellow hat out of her patched-up backpack, Lacey pulled it over her short-cropped red hair. “Come along,” she whispered to her light, then sat down to enter the chute feet-first. The light hovered above her mid-section as she shimmied down the chute—thankfully it wasn’t too steep—making it hard for Lacey to miss seeing all the dirt and grime she was picking up as she made her slow way downward.
By the time her feet touch a bottom and she had inched out of the end of the chute, Lacey’s hands and forearms were covered in black smudges and streaks, and her jeans and shirt were in not much better state. Her hair, thankfully, was protected by the hat; Lacey had learned that lesson a few months ago, when her hair had got coated in some kind of chemicals that then got into her eyes. She hadn’t been able to see for weeks, holing up her den with Jack bringing her stuff, and though it all eventually cleared up on its own—with her intensely hoping it’d heal all the while—her once-blue eyes were now speckled with black, like her pupils had decided to split up and scatter across her irises.
Lacey’s vision had changed a little, too. After her recovery she started to see thin golden threads twining through the city, ones Jack swore up and down didn’t exist. They weren’t common, and were sometimes hard to spot, but Lacey had left Jack that morning to chase after one of the threads. It had lead her up out of the den, into the open air of Akim, partway across the city, and then back down this chute.
Rubbing her hands against her jeans in a fruitless attempt to clean them, Lacey observed the small, circular room the gold thread ran through. It stretched across the floor in a lazy, crooked line. The walls of the tiny room were a smooth, uniform cement, and there was even a doorway in front of her; the wooden door had long since rotted way from its hinges.
Light danced forward, showing Lacey the steps that went even further downward. For a half-second, Lacey imagined she heard something echoing up the cement-and-stone stairwell, but she dismissed that. Nobody had marked the entrance to indicate their path down the inlet, and nobody lived here. Like all the people who managed to survive in Akim, Lacey knew where people did live. The dens people had cobbled together were generally clustered on the outskirts of the ruined city, separated into different tribes. Tribe dens were usually three to ten feet below the surface, just covered enough that ranging hives wouldn’t see them as they flew through the city, and not so deep that structural shifting would immediately bury them alive.
Lacey judged the chute she crawled down to have taken her at least thirty feet below the surface. Someone would have to be crazy to live so deep in the Downbelow, let alone so close to the blighted city center. Just knowing she was closer to the center than she’d ever been made Lacey’s skin crawl when she thought about it, so she pushed the thought out of her head. The golden thread she was following trailed yet deeper, down the staircase, and Lacey took a deep breath of dusty air before heading further down.
The Mechanist
Glancing up through the opening once more, Lacey memorized her view of the shorn-off top of a corroded skyscraper and the intermittent fluttering of her signal flag. Inlets like the one Lacey just dropped through dotted the ruins most people called Akim, but Lacey always preferred to go out the same way she went in, since finding another exit was never guaranteed. Of course buildings and inlets had a habit of disappearing under yet more wreckage, but she could always hope that at the very least, her flag would stay put.
For better or for worse, Lacey was always filled with hope. The desire for things to work out in her favor, or at least not actively against her interests, hummed in her skin. Standing in the dark inlet, Lacey balled up the feeling in her mind and pushed it outwards as she commanded, “Light.”
Dutifully, a pinprick of light bloomed in the darkness around Lacey’s feet, before growing to about the size of her fist. The pearly glow it cast was more than enough to illuminate the opening of a small, dark chute by Lacey’s feet.
Tugging a small, dirty yellow hat out of her patched-up backpack, Lacey pulled it over her short-cropped red hair. “Come along,” she whispered to her light, then sat down to enter the chute feet-first. The light hovered above her mid-section as she shimmied down the chute—thankfully it wasn’t too steep—making it hard for Lacey to miss seeing all the dirt and grime she was picking up as she made her slow way downward.
By the time her feet touch a bottom and she had inched out of the end of the chute, Lacey’s hands and forearms were covered in black smudges and streaks, and her jeans and shirt were in not much better state. Her hair, thankfully, was protected by the hat; Lacey had learned that lesson a few months ago, when her hair had got coated in some kind of chemicals that then got into her eyes. She hadn’t been able to see for weeks, holing up her den with Jack bringing her stuff, and though it all eventually cleared up on its own—with her intensely hoping it’d heal all the while—her once-blue eyes were now speckled with black, like her pupils had decided to split up and scatter across her irises.
Lacey’s vision had changed a little, too. After her recovery she started to see thin golden threads twining through the city, ones Jack swore up and down didn’t exist. They weren’t common, and were sometimes hard to spot, but Lacey had left Jack that morning to chase after one of the threads. It had lead her up out of the den, into the open air of Akim, partway across the city, and then back down this chute.
Rubbing her hands against her jeans in a fruitless attempt to clean them, Lacey observed the small, circular room the gold thread ran through. It stretched across the floor in a lazy, crooked line. The walls of the tiny room were a smooth, uniform cement, and there was even a doorway in front of her; the wooden door had long since rotted way from its hinges.
Light danced forward, showing Lacey the steps that went even further downward. For a half-second, Lacey imagined she heard something echoing up the cement-and-stone stairwell, but she dismissed that. Nobody had marked the entrance to indicate their path down the inlet, and nobody lived here. Like all the people who managed to survive in Akim, Lacey knew where people did live. The dens people had cobbled together were generally clustered on the outskirts of the ruined city, separated into different tribes. Tribe dens were usually three to ten feet below the surface, just covered enough that ranging hives wouldn’t see them as they flew through the city, and not so deep that structural shifting would immediately bury them alive.
Lacey judged the chute she crawled down to have taken her at least thirty feet below the surface. Someone would have to be crazy to live so deep in the Downbelow, let alone so close to the blighted city center. Just knowing she was closer to the center than she’d ever been made Lacey’s skin crawl when she thought about it, so she pushed the thought out of her head. The golden thread she was following trailed yet deeper, down the staircase, and Lacey took a deep breath of dusty air before heading further down.
The Mechanist
Last edited:
