“What happened at the facility, Fran?” Aaxel queried, fingers crossed on top the table. I stood facing him; Bujo and Treiya were also present, standing at either side of me.

“I was doing my duty as a Pyrant and a Panner, keeping others safe.”

“Liar!” Treiya cursed.

“If you would let him finish!” Aaxel said. “Continue.”

“The door was jammed on the second level. The only other option was the door on the first. We took the lift up and Bujo left us to find the lever for the door. It was dark, none of us could see too well. Perhaps Bujo knocked something over in his search for the lever without knowing. There was a crash. The shelves holding up the travel baskets fell in order. I took responsibility roght then and put a wall over the Engineers so that they wouldn't be crushed.”

“You were suffocating us,” Treiya said.

“I was generous with the construct; there was more than enough breathing space. But someone kept screaming like she was dying. The other Engineers were calm. You can ask Bujo.”

“He left us trapped and took the lift down,” Treiya said.

“I took the lift down to see if anything had fallen below from the chaos.”

“You used the forging machine.”

“You are thinking things.”

“I am not.”

“What did he use the machine for?” Aaxel asked.

“I don't know. But he did,” Treiya answered.

“Did you search him afterward?”

“Yes.”

“What did you find?”

When she did not answer, I pronounced, “Like I said, you are thinking things.”

“What do you say, Bujo?”

Bujo looked at me and said, “Fran covered the door with one of his Pyrant stuff. I say, if he did not, we would not have had as many problems. If he had allowed the tube to lock in, the slates would have slid into them, no need for his wall, no need for checking the level under us.”

“Sorry that my priority was my fellow Engineers. Your legs are intact because of me.”

“I don't know what to say. Ehmm… I guess you'll go back to work and do better, Fran.”

“What?” Treiya was seething.

“Fran will be leaving anytime soon anyway. Why don't you use him while you can? It's no difference throwing him in a cell,” Aaxel said.

“He… he may be a traitor to the Empire,” Treiya said.

“Watch it, Treiya,” Aaxel warned. “Besides, Moggaine will soon be back. We’ll find out then whether Fran and his squad are traitors, but before then, watch it!”

She passed out the fury through her nose, in heavy, angry breaths.

“You are dismissed. All of you. Get back to work and make up for that slate we lost to the abyss.”

I left Aaxel’s station first and fixed myself a foil or two before trudging to the ejection room. I did not look at Irek, wasn't in the mood for his vile grimace. He ejected the tube, put his rings, yes, but made them very dim so that I wouldn't see a thing.

I looked at him, smirking. “I am a Panner.” I projected a sphere of light and walked down the tube half-afraid Irek would undo his rings and let me fall to my death.

When I entered the Weisinger's, someone was at my machine.

“This is my place,” I told him.

“You've been demoted,” he said tersely.

“Why?”

He crossed me an eye. “Really?”

I went down to the third level, to all the roaring and clangour and cacophony of engines. Five of them were already working there and with me now in the mix, six. I did the lowliest work, dumping crushed stone into pipes and filling churners with Waste. Taking a lick of my food on this level was far from delightful. I volunteered to take the nuggets of metals we had extracted in order to square the atmosphere at the upper levels. There was some menial cleaning and remaking of things that had been destroyed from the unfortunate event of the previous dusk. When Treiya saw me, she called one of the Engineers on the third level to meet her. Probably to ask him not to let me up again.

One good thing was that she didn't wait in queue behind me anymore on our way out if the facility. The gears had no troubles this time around.

I hurried off to the food hall, swiped a tray from the counter and found Zord’s table. I smacked the tray to the table, sat rather vehemently opposite from him and said, “I want to spar.”

Zord smiled a wicked smile and announced.

“Everyone! We've got a sparring match coming up.” He bounced to his feet. “My buddy, Fran versus the one and only…” He delayed. “...Zoooooord…” There came a raucous cheer. “Come on, come on, push your tables to the side. We need the arena ready.”

“Give me some time to eat will you,” I demanded.

“Take all the time you need!” Zord unzipped his tracks down to his waist and tied the hands in a knot. The squeal of table legs against metal floors were heard. The excitement was rich on every face. Zord was at the centre hyping up the crowd with gibberish while I ate quickly. I moved the badge of my Pyrancy—the kind for Panners: a hand wielding a hammer—from my right breast to my left breast just as Ozana had instructed. When I was done eating I nipped off a piece of foil, wrapped it over the helix and slipped it into my pocket. I joined Zord at the centre.

“Take your wildest strikes. I won't spare you.” I raised my fists.

“You can count on that.” He bounced on his toes. “Just one rule and you know it.”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

There was no pronouncement to begin. Zord whirled and delivered a round kick. I took the brunt of the attack on my forearm and as I paced to regain composure, another hit followed, directly to my abdomen. It hurt badly. I was shoved back and I coddled my stomach from the pain. I was expecting to perform badly, but at this rate…

Zord was immensely acrobatic—something I hadn't anticipated—he gave me no time to think. He covered the distance with a flip and followed with a roll, caught my ankle with both his legs and felled me on my face. I did not wait to register the pain, I knew he was already prepping his next attack so I rested on my back and kicked him away. He used the momentum of my kick to execute another flip. As I took the moment to stagger to my feet, I was sent back down with a crunch. I didn't even see what hit me and whatever it was, it made me realize two things. The first was that Zord was extremely fast and the second was that the chances of us escaping this place was almost nil. The next succession of events happened slowly. There was a roaring from the well entertained crowd. No regard at all for the just defeated, bleeding opponent that was me. If Zord’s blows had not killed me, the stampede would have. They stepped all over me in an attempt to reach their hero. I had to lay on my side and cover my head to prevent further injuries.

“Zord! Zord! Zord!” They threw him in the air as they chanted his name. I slipped away in the racket. Ozana had said that she would meet me outside the food hall to collect the helix. And I wagered I had caused enough disturbance so that our little convening will go unnoticed. I put my hand into my pocket to retrieve the helix. My heart skipped; it wasn't there. Had it fallen during the match?

I dug deeper into my pocket and felt something, the texture of a paper screen. It was Ozana. She had been a part of the stampede after all. Planted the letter during chaos of Zord’s victory most likely.

A lump was riping on my right cheek, my gait had already being restructured when Zord caught my ankle. I found my section, slid it open and lay on my bed for a long while. I did not open Ozana's letter yet. Also, Hstrad wasn't back from his trials, or should I say, from watching the trials. When I had regained enough strength to function, I removed my tracks which was smeared with blood here and there and placed Ozana's letter on a desk. After about an hour, Hstrad turned up, shoulders slumped and heavy-eyed. I signalled to him to divest himself of his tracks and tossed them in the Waste Room. We had the gumption to speak now without the anxiety of any eavesdropping. Hstrad seemed to be unbothered by my bruises.

“Ozana sent us something. A letter. I will read it now,” I said.

He shrugged.

I unfolded it and read: ‘The Pilgrim is set to arrive very soon. Prepare.’

I put the letter down, not ready to think about the implications of those words. I had no idea what Ozana was planning nor how we were going to pull anything off. I lived in E1 for a good part of my life, so I knew the ins and outs, who went in and who came out, who lapsed and who was thorough. But I was hardly a week in Area Zed. I still made the wrong turns and second guessed whenever I made the right ones.

“Prepare?” Hstrad asked. “Prepare what?”

“Did you befriend any Engineers at the landing bay?” I asked him.

“No one was keen on speaking to me.”

“Did you try and try again?”

“Don't talk down to me. I am not one of your students.”

“I am not…” I gave up trying to argue. “We need a plan. Ozana may have something planned already. But we can never be too careful. Tell me about the Pilot trials.”

Hstrad climbed the bunk and lay flat on his bed. “Ehmm… Pilot trials is kind of a prepping thing. Aaxel takes it very seriously. Every Pilot tries.”

I also lay down on mine. “He hasn't still let you try?”

“Mmm hmm.”

“You want to try right?”

“It's on my mind but it isn't a priority. I just want things back to how they were.”

I let him mope before I asked, “Hstrad, can you tell me about the trials from the time you leave this room at dawn to the time you return. Don't leave anything out.”

He said nothing.

I breathed and added, “Please.”

“The trials always start around the seventh hour. Sometimes I am asked to come early to check the pods before takeoff. After that is done, the landing bay is dislodged and the pods are flown.”

“Flown? Immediately?”

“No. They just gain altitude, no flash flying yet.”

“How many of them?”

“Usually five, sometimes six.”

“Okay?”

“The other Pilots not flying during that time go to the summit to wait their turns. Every travel pod is occupied by one Pilot and one Panner.”

“Panners fly too?”

“Not every time. But the ones that do are fixed. Like it's always the same six Panners around. They don't swap or anything.”

“Is Zord one of them?”

“I think so. I have heard the name.”

“So six Panners,” I wondered. “How many Pilots?”

“Thirteen if you count me.”

“Fourteen,” I corrected.

“What?”

“There's Pilot Irek that handles the tubes.”

“Oh.”

“There are thirteen Pilots in Area Zed then. Should probably be the same amount of Panners. That's around the same number we have at E1.” Somehow, I expected the place to be teeming with Pyrants.

“Yeah. It's mostly Engineers,” Hstrad confirmed.

“What of Aaxel did he show any sign of Pyrancy?”

“So far, no. He comes up to watch sometimes but doesn't do or say much. Perhaps, he is not a Pyrant?”

“I highly doubt that. Are the trials for some kind of war or what?”

“Yes it is some battle training stuff. I overhead Davvon say something about a hijack coming up in a few weeks.”

“A hijack?”

“Yes, some dead terminal. He said the place has important metals but the people occupying there have ignored mandates to leave.”

“I guess expert Pilots are that important.”

“It makes or breaks battles. There's a whole subject of Pilot training called Linking.”

“I know. I have heard the best Pilots are usually those skillful at linking.”

“Yes. And strategy-flying. And port-switching,” Hstrad said.

“Tell me.”

“One Pilot is able to make one port at a time, with multiple rings. When you have five Pilots, you have five ports. Five ports can come together in many different ways. That is basically what the Pilot trials are about. Team playing.”

“I see.”

“And travel pods just makes it easier. They can make sharp turns at ridiculous speeds unlike baskets which make dlow turns at slow speeds.”

“Do you see E1-12 whenever you are at the summit?”

“Yes. It hasn't been touched since. Do they make churners at that facility you work in?” Hstrad asked interestedly.

“No. Only Aksselranta makes churners. The metals for churners are not easy to come by. Why ask?”

“A travel basket goes out sometimes,” Hstrad said.

“Probably to get churners from Aksselranta.”

“Yes.”

“Be honest, Hstrad. Can you go up against those Pilots if it comes down to it?”

“Altogether?”

“No. One on one.”

He shifted in his bed. “I don't know, frankly. There's one girl, Lata. She performs stunts that I have read are impossible. Against her, I’d lose.” He shifted again. “No, I’d probably lose to every one of them.” Hstrad quieted. He was falling asleep.

I entered the Waste Room and put on my tracks.

“Where are you going?” He asked wearily.

I pointed up and mouthed, ‘Summit’ and he turned over to face the wall.

It was deep into dusk and was relatively quiet outside. I walked as silently as I could with my boots on and my hips still hurting from my fight with Zord. I climbed the first set of stairs up to the landing. As I was about to clear the next flight…

“What are you doing?”

I turned to see Goule at the bottom of the steps. He was the short, muscly man that had taken us around the terminal on our first dusk.

“Nothing… Sorry I wanted to check on my travel basket. E1-12?”

“You need permission from Aaxel.”

“I did not know. I’ll get back then.”

I hurried back to my section. Hstrad turned around from the wall and asked, “What happened?”

I made an X with both arms.