PART III
Men Among Gods
2044
LUCAS Gray / Ally Fae
LUCAS saw the breaking sun over the horizon greeting the brand-new day. As the each of them stepped out of the storefront they felt the oncoming warmth as the desert started its warm bake. They took a few steps out and LUCAS found himself turning toward the library at the back of the encampment—looking at the sad state of the building as it sat half sunken in. He turned back and noticed Ally was hanging closer toward the back of the group and empathized with her situation.
This was a lot of new people to meet at once and to suddenly take on. His own thoughts of their new companions were difficultly laced with worry. He was trying to not let the worry betray on his face—but then something clicked like a flash of lightning. What was the source of those feelings—those inhibitions toward trusting these two? What was the common denominator for why he had so easily let himself fall to distrust? It was simple when he thought on it—but it was because Gavin had told him.
He had trusted him so implicitly that it really was no surprise that he felt the way that he did. Was it because he was able to so thoroughly investigate anything about him that he let his guard down? He figured it also had to do with Gavin being the first face he had seen since coming landside.
Laven was right to be skeptical—and sure enough she had more experience with him being with the guild so often. And there still was something in him that wanted to believe in Gavin. Maybe that was the trap? The web he created in himself was maddening to untangle.
He made a stand to himself that he needed to be realistic. Right now, as they were, Roshe and Bambo were here with them. Gavin and Blaise had gone...elsewhere. Whereabouts unknown. That being said, the people to be wary of in this moment were them...as much as it felt wrong in him to do so. He looked up to Roshe who was leading the group to their parked airbikes on the outskirts of the encampment.
“So, what of the stowaway?” Roshe asked, turning slightly to Laven.
“She’s not a stowaway,” Laven said. “If we’re going to be working together I advise you to ask her yourself. Teams are only strong if the individual players feel like they’re part of a team.”
LUCAS felt Roshe’s gaze turn to him, and he felt a shard of discomfort stick in his side. They made it to the bikes and Roshe grabbed for the helmet resting on the side of the handle. Bambo looked at the bike and then turned to Laven. “You comfortable riding this one? I always feel like I’m going to crash on these.”
“I can,” Laven began. “But I’d definitely appreciate if you rode with Roshe.”
Bambo looked slightly down at that, and Laven was first to pounce on it. “That reaction is exactly why.”
“Sorry,” he said.
Laven flashed a look to Ally, then to LUCAS, “You two will come with me. We can fit on this one over here.”
Roshe sat down on the bike and clicked his helmet into place. He keyed in the ignition, and it kicked on, but started to sputter out. He tried it again, and it again attempted to turn over but failed.
“Damn it. Of all times…” Roshe muttered. “Bambo, you know how to fix this?”
“I don’t…” Bambo started. “I’m good with numbers and what little we have left of computers. Motorcycles are out of my area of expertise. I Blaise was our mechanic.”
“Tch, perfect,” Roshe cursed.
“I think I can take a look.”
The voice came from Ally. Roshe looked at her questioning then his eyes went over to Laven. She motioned with her head a positive affirmation and he sighed. “Yeah, sure, come on over.”
Ally was familiar with the attitude—when she was working in Home alongside Rickshaw and Felix. Rick’s workshop took in all kinds of projects over the years she worked there—and motorbikes were a common enough relic from the old world that people had enough fondness for to rebuild. The older men and women that knew how to construct such vehicles always tended to look at Ally with a look of concern and aversion whenever she worked alongside Rick on repairs and maintenance.
It was a familiar feeling to have the knowledge she learned questioned just because she was a girl. It frustrated her, but it also motivated her. Metalwork was something that she was really good at—no matter what kind of work that came her way. That was the methodology of Rick’s. Of course, each separate project was so vastly different to one another that she had to learn a lot of different skills to match the project that came in.
Ally approached the vehicle and bent down to one knee. She placed one hand on the key and waited a few moments. LUCAS stared at her in awe as she looked to be in her element for the first time since they had met. He watched her go over to the seat and she bent down and started working. She pulled a strand of her dirty blonde hair out of her face and worked the saddle off.
She placed her hand over the battery and suddenly Jace appeared at her side. The sight was enough to throw Bambo and Roshe for a loop. They both looked to Laven and LUCAS for confirmation. They each had satisfied looks on their face which was good enough for them.
“Wow, it’s always the ones you don’t expect,” Bambo said, marveling.
“I think the main point is don’t assume based on how one appears,” Laven said, and she eyed up toward Roshe.
He rolled his eyes but returned looking back toward Ally’s progress. She had the saddle replaced and was turning the key—the bike turned over and stayed on. She wiped her hands clean and fit the saddle on just right, looking up. “It was simple, thankfully. There’s a valve near the fuel line that controls how much, or little gets to flow—there was some gunk in the way that was disrupting the flow. I also did a test of the battery just in case it was a combined issue, that’s what Jace here was helping me with—but it doesn’t seem like that is going to be an issue here for quite some time.”
Jace nodded from behind her before he faded completely.
“Well, that is some mighty fine talent you have there,” Roshe admitted. “Seems I did underestimate you.”
“Stowaways can have talents too,” Ally said, offering a smile.
He chuckled, and then sighed. “Not a quiet talker, I know. Fine, that one is on me. Thank you for assisting.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Ally said. “It wasn’t even deeply mechanical knowledge. There are just some things I picked up when working for a shop for quite a few years.”
“You worked for an autobody shop?” Roshe asked.
“It was more an...everything shop?” Ally said, a little embarrassed at the mention of it. “It was a few years ago—the place is long lost to me, but I learned quite a lot there about these kinds of things.”
“Well then, I must say while the mechanical skills are impressive, I am much keener on that other ability of yours—that guy—Jace.”
Ally looked up to him and nodded. “He’s a special friend of mine. But for what you would be interested in...he’s like an extension of my will. I try not to rely on that strength though.”
“Relying on that which makes us more than just human serves as a perfect weakness for our enemies to eradicate and cripple us completely,” Laven said.
Ally nodded, agreeing with the sentiment wholly. “Exactly that. I...have had problems with that in the past. I am trying to do better.”
“Well, that is very brave of you,” Bambo said.
“Right, good mojo and all that,” Roshe said, clicking his tongue and turning back to the bike. “I am ready to hit the road if that’s all right. What say everyone else?”
Ally side eyed to Laven who met her gaze and chuckled. A shared look of shared feeling between them as she revved on the bike next to her. It roared to life and the wheel shifted to the side as the bike lifted a foot off the ground. Ally stared at the machine with widened eyes.
“That…” she started.
“Haven’t seen an airbike before?” Laven asked.
“I saw some parts were different to bikes I normally worked on—of course the things that came in were homebrewed things people built in their garages. I wasn’t expecting that this would be able to fly.”
“Well, we sure have a lot of surprises to show you too,” Roshe smiled, kicking his bike into gear and lifting it off the ground as well. “Come on Bambo, let’s show off. Laven’ll catch up.”
“Ah...right,” Bambo said. He walked over and pushed the back edge of the bike down and put a leg over it slowly. He worked his way over and settled himself in.
The very second Bambo was set the bike shot out, sending trails of sand on each side of the wheels past. Ally watched with awe as they took off toward the dune in the distance. Already the outskirts looked so much different to the environments that she saw back in her own time. The sands were a silver-gray the further they stretched out from the encampment. They looked like fine silver shavings that had extended as far as the eye can see.
“Ally? You coming?” Laven’s voice pulled her back to herself.
LUCAS saw her turn from his spot behind her on the bike. While she was out staring at the other bike they had prepared themselves.
“Oh, right, sorry.”
“No worries at all. If there’s anything right about what Roshe said it’s that I can sure as hell catch up to him.” She smiled and cocked her head. Ally nodded and walked over. She put one leg over the side and held her hands tight over the grips on the side. She opted to not wrap her arms around LUCAS in front of her as he was with Laven.
Laven revved the bike, and they took off into the distance. The wind coursed through their hair as they moved swiftly through the sands. Ally braced her hands tighter against the grips and LUCAS held his grip tight around Laven’s waist.
“You know,” Laven began, “It’s quite a story of my first time learning to ride these things. It wasn’t with the guild if you can believe that.”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Really?” LUCAS asked. “I couldn’t imagine controlling one of these things.”
“The more you do it the more you get used to it,” Laven said. “That’s what Syed said to me back in those days,” she chuckled.
“Syed?” Ally asked.
“Before I ran with this guild—I was freelancing out near what used to be Pakistan. It was shortly after I made my pact and started to strengthen up. He had a motorcycle...I don’t know what you would call it...fleet?”
“Like a gang?” Ally asked.
She shook her head, eyes still on the sands in front of them. “No, it wasn’t a bunch of people riding, I meant he had a sizable number of bikes. We lived in a city called Quetta. After the world turned over it merged with the Nushki Desert. I watched that science part of his brain kicks on and take about thirty normal motorcycles and convert them into bikes that floated off the surface of the ground. I couldn’t explain how he got it to happen, but something about this world just clicked for him. It was like a perfect storm.”
“And it was on those bikes you learned to ride?”
She thought on it with fondness before her smile faded. “Yeah. Those bikes didn’t ride as well as they looked. I think they consumed more fuel than anything, but I tried. And the sand allowed for the perfect environment to eat shit if you fell. You just had to watch out for the dunes—never know what kind of things hid underneath, stones or other sharp objects.”
“What happened to Syed?” Ally asked.
“Gone, long since. It’s been a long time since I thought of him, honestly.”
“Close friend?”
The silence was telling enough. LUCAS took his right hand and pulled it off enough to put it on her shoulder. “Sorry to hear that.”
“I guess it’s like what they say—the people that are gone still live on in the things they teach you. I ate so much dune back in those days so I can now...say that we have caught up. Look over there.” She cocked her head.
LUCAS and Ally both saw the other bike speeding in the distance, but it was getting closer and closer.
“Roshe is fast, but he’s not accustomed to riding in the dunes. He’s a forest and mountains kind of guy. Only reason he’s out here is because planes haven’t been reinvented yet,” Laven explained. “Whereas I know just how to take the crests and troughs to make up enough speed to catch up.”
“So, I know this is probably a dumb question,” Ally began. “But where are we headed? And I’m surprised Roshe seems to know…”
“He doesn’t. He’s just shooting off in a direction,” Laven said. “Like I said, he just likes to go fast. We’re going to overtake him shortly and we’ll be making the tracks that he’ll follow behind. He won’t like it,” she chuckled, “but it’s as you said. He doesn’t know where we’re going. We’re headed east. Our goal is to find the Allison Fey from this time and that dragon that Luke saw her with.”
“Sakonna…” Ally said.
Laven nodded. “LUCAS said she was somewhere near some mountains, which realistically could be anywhere, but I’ve got a hunch about me—something I think spawning from the being I’m bonded with that is telling me Virginia. At least, you know.”
Ally did, nodding. “Right. So, entirely opposite side of the country?”
“Yes. It’s likely they aren’t there anymore, especially if they’re traveling by air, but if we’re going to find a trail, that’d be the best place to check.
“Let me do some calculating,” LUCAS said. “There’s quite a few mountain ranges in the area. I’ll run the information based on what I remember from what I saw, and I can estimate a time of arrival. I’m guessing somewhere between twenty hours from now.”
“Twenty...to cross the country? That’s...ridiculously short.”
“These bikes travel faster than old bikes used to,” LUCAS said. “At least, that’s what my estimates are telling me.”
“That is true,” Laven said. “With no police regulation anymore pretty much all inhibitions came loose and people ‘round here drive as fast as they desire. Of course, that sort of weeds out naturally the people that go too fast.”
Ally thought on the matter and shuddered.
“We’ll probably stop whenever I start to feel tired,” Laven said. “Roshe’ll hate it. He’ll probably bicker about the fragility of my constitution or something in not as many words...but he’ll be thankful for it deep down.”
“If you need me to take over I can try to learn on the spot,” Ally suggested.
Laven shook her head. “I appreciate it, but I know you’re asking to be nice and not because you want to. Any amount of tired I’ll be I’m sure you’ll be too.”
This was true, on both counts, really. She nodded in return. “Okay.”
They did overtake Roshe just as Laven had said, and when LUCAS looked to the side he could have sworn that he saw a sort of fierce determination in his eyes flare up as Laven passed him. The silver sands below them continued under until the color started shifting to a purple-silver mix. It was a slow transition at first but soon it became a lot clearer that they were going further and further away from the place they had once been.
LUCAS saw the ground underneath them shift to a more solid violet stone. Then he looked up to see the edge of a canyon on his left. It started as a deep drop off into what he guessed was a void, but as it opened up he saw down at the bottom of the canyon were grasslands. Trees dotted the way like a small forest.
“Why’s it all blue like that?” Ally asked, startling LUCAS who had himself been staring.
“Dunno. Probably because the sky’s like that,” Laven nodded up.
Ally looked up. She had noticed the sky was a darker shade of red than it used to be. It held malevolent energy that hung over her like a sharpened guillotine.
“To be specific, the cells in the plants down there react in a specific way to sunlight,” LUCAS said.
“So when we have a blue sky the grass seems green. Makes enough sense,” Laven said. “Biology always amazed me even though it was hard for me to understand more than the basics.”
“My father loved it. At least, I believe he did,” LUCAS said. “He loved reading, and books about the world around him were some of his favorite. I think if given the opportunity he could have become a researcher.”
“A lot of people could have become a lot of different things,” Ally mused.
“You said you wanted to be a writer, right?” Laven asked.
Ally nodded. She felt nice that she had remembered. “Yeah, it was what I wanted for a really long time. I’ve thought long and hard about doing it, but life has kind of made it impossible every time I get close to beginning.”
“I know all about that.” Laven began, “although, it is more with poetry and sketches than longer stuff.”
“I did not know you were into art,” LUCAS said, his brows furrowed.
“I think on some level almost everyone is into art,” she said.
“Right...I meant like, as a creator,” LUCAS corrected.
“I don’t know if I can really count myself as a creator if I’ve never created anything.”
“Ain’t that the story of my life,” Ally said, rolling her head back. “It’s being endlessly inspired by what’s around you, but endlessly unable to do anything with it.”
“That and then some,” Laven said.
LUCAS felt left out in the conversation. He thought to himself what he thought of art. Was he even into art like Laven had said most people were? Art was nice...he could tell that. But it seemed...like it didn’t matter as much as living—as surviving. And then he figured he saw the problem the both of them were facing.
It would be like if he were not able to fulfill his purpose—if he were destined to fail his father’s wishes and it was entirely out of his control. He knows that fear well, and they had no choice but to live through that. Maybe...maybe there was a way he could help. He would have to think on it.
~...~
They slowed to a stop as the sun began to set. So fast did the time pass—they had talked on all manner of topics. Ally felt genuinely happy being able to talk about almost everything. The air around them cooled to a nice breezy chill—not enough to send shivers, but when she had stopped to take a breather when helping to construct a bendwood structure with the others she was able to admire the stars above in the violet sky. It was continuing the trend of impressing upon here just how different the world could be after fourteen years. That fact brought to mind other things about this world—what did Felix look like now? Was he still alive? Maybe someday she’d get to know the answer to those questions.
Roshe had finished tying down the last of the four walls around the small make-up. They had three smaller skeletons of shapes that could be considered huts. They sacrificed some of the structural completeness for size. Bambo was the one who offered to help build another separate hut, but it was clear he needed help from Roshe to keep it steady. They probably could have made enough huts for each of them to have their own quarters if there were another bendwood tree in close proximity. The further east they drove the sparser between the spotted trees popped out of the ground.
As the moon hung high in the sky they had each pitched in to help start a fire in the center of their structure. The good thing about bendwood is that it was so pliable because of sacs of water that broke inside to allow the branches and logs to be bent and shaped. That meant that it was heavily resistant to burning as the remaining water inside kept the wood itself damp. To further help the airflow, one of the sacrifices they made on the structure itself was the ceiling. Thankfully, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and rain seemed just as far a concept as snow here.
Bambo had retired early to his hut—they had determined that LUCAS and Laven would share a hut to themselves since any other combination made one or both of the parties uncomfortable.
Roshe, LUCAS, Ally, and Laven all sat around the fire, listening to the crackling sounds lifting embers up toward the sky. LUCAS tapped his fingertips together and then made the motion of clearing his throat. “I, um, I had an idea I wanted to run by you because I was thinking about what we talked about earlier—what you guys talked about earlier. About how you never had the opportunity to make your art.”
“Art?” Roshe asked, gripping a canteen tight and taking a swig. “That still exists?”
“Kind of the point we were talking about,” Laven said, but then she turned to LUCAS. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I...I know it isn’t exactly what you would like, but I think at least until we got into a position where it would be easier for you to write whatever you wanted down, I could record your art—not to steal it….I just mean if you wanted to get something out and have it available. At least until you were able to make it to whatever you would want.” He shrugged...trailing off.
The both of them thought on it for a moment, Laven was the first to speak up. “I really appreciate it. I don’t think I have any ideas right now for that.”
“That is very nice,” Ally started. “Are you sure you’d be okay with something like that? Do you have a storage limit? Isn’t there something more important you should put there?”
He shook his head. “I don’t have any limit I can see. And I mean this for both of you—if there’s something you want to put out in the world, then that is important. Just as important as surviving. I didn’t understand that at first, but I think I do now. Or at least, I want to.”
Ally looked around the group, as if worried at each of their reactions. “Would...you all be offended if I talked a little bit about the ideas I have?”
“No, go on ahead. I’d love to hear what you’ve been thinking about,” Laven said.
“You know my opinion on it already,” LUCAS said. “I would love to hear what you have to say.
Roshe closed his eyes for a moment and huffed. “Go on. You got something in you that you want out. I know how that feels. Can’t promise I’ll listen if it’s a love story, but I’ll try.”
Ally laughed, looking down to her hands. “It’s not a love story. At least, not at the start. I think it’s a story about heroism, and magic...and well, I guess everything that exists now in the world but not as dark.”
“Not as dark sounds mighty good right about now,” Roshe said. “Darkness deals too heavy a hand nowadays.”
“Well, I’ve had the beginning in my head for a long time, maybe I could try and tell what little I have?”
LUCAS nodded, smiling. “The floor is yours, Ally.”
Ally looked at him and smiled. She felt Jace by her side and knew he would be there to help her tell his story. This was something she had imagined as long as she could think. Back when she used to live with the Faes she had dreamed of having an audience such as this—not necessarily large, but genuinely interested. She had plenty on her mind she wanted to get off. Jace sat next to her and nodded at her to begin and she began to speak. His voice melded with hers and they overlayed one another in synchronous harmony.