Sixth hour. I had almost forgotten. I put on my tracks and knee guards and rushed down the terminal to find the point of ejection. A good number of people were awake, straddling across the place in heavy boots and yawning. I did not know where the tube was so I just followed the largest group of people I saw. We passed through some doors and came down a few steps. I was foolish not to ask but it was a bit of precaution. The fewer people who knew my face, the better. After a while, the group I was following split into three. Two of those groups went on through different doors and the last of them remained in the room. I was lost, and it would not bode well for me especially with Pilot Irek, whoever he was. The people in the compartment unloaded bags and commenced battering the metal cladding on the walls. They were clearly Engineers. I was going to ask one of them for directions, when someone tapped me on my shoulder. I turned around to find a woman staring at me, her black hair folded to one side. She was of a considerable size, neither too small nor too big. Probably, the same age as me.

“You best follow me,” she said, quite serious.

And I followed without question. We went the opposite way I'd come and walked some zig-zag stairs to the section I supposed was the ejection room. Oh, I needed no telling who Pilot Irek was. His face was the arrogance of many knives; hunch-backed and muttering curses, he let down a gear and the wall beside him, parted in two ways. He proceeded to his desk and turned some circular wheel. There was a soft, grating noise from inside the walls then a tubular projection followed.

“Go in,” the woman who had brought me here said.

I obeyed. It was dark but not for long. Pilot Irek's rings whizzed ahead of me and attached themselves, in sequence, to the walls of the tube. The tube was lit gradually and I saw in the distance, the opening to the Weisinger's. The walk was sort of a descent as Area Zed's terminal towered higher.

“Thank your lucky star that Aaxel vouched for you. You won't get this chance next time,” the lady said. She walked ahead of me, knocked twice on the door and it came open with a click. A man was there licking something from a foil—his breakfast.

“Brightdawn, Treiya,” he greeted.

“Brightdawn, Bujo,” the lady responded.

The tube behind us was detached. I was largely ignored from there on out. There were three levels in the facility. The tube had brought me to the second and below I could hear the groaning of engines. No one had told me what to do, I didn't even know whether they were Pyrants or simply Engineers. I knew two names though, Bujo and Treiya.

I began a stroll through the second level. Every Panner and Pilot began studying as Engineers, then branched out after passing the first exams to become advanced students. As advanced students, we trained in Pyrancy, in the particular field we either selected or were appointed to. If we passed the exams as advanced students, we were sent to the Centre for Pyrantial Tests. (Back at E1, I had taken some of Fenrod's advanced students. Six of them I was sure would fail.) Point being, I wasn't completely oblivious to the engineering in the facility.

The second level was where the metals were pressed into different shapes and sizes. There was a lot of pulling the forger and heavy lifting. There were machines slated for the thicker metals of travel baskets and others for the lighter metals of pods. Completed designs were stored at the first level and extraction work took place at the third level below. I descended the steps to the third level. Two slow spinning twelve inch pipes were burrowed into ground to collect metals. And since most of it came with stone, they had to pass through grinders. Grinders crushed the abyssal stone to dust and sorted the dust to one part and the metal to the other. The tiny beads of metal were beaten down till they became a formless unit. The useless dust was returned through the second pipe.

“Panner.” Someone called from amidst the noise. It was Treiya. She drew closer.

“You'll work with us on the second level.” She followed me back up.

Nuggets of iron were arranged, ready to be pressed.

“Do you know how to operate this?” She asked me.

“The forger?”

“Forging machine.”

I looked at her blankly.

“Only that part is called the forger,” she pointed, “the whole machine is the forging machine.”

“Oh.” I blushed. “I know how to operate it.”

“I'll leave you to it then.”

That was all? “What exactly am I doing here?” I asked her.

“I thought you said you could operate it?”

“Yes, but what exactly am I making?”

She trotted over to another machine and tossed me the model of a travel pod. “This.”

It was then I knew I'd hate this facility. If everyone behaved like it would kill them to talk, the experience would certainly not be any good.

I started molding the wings, both of which took a good amount of time. If any of them were Pyrants, they did not show it—no holographic constructs to suggest that they were. Others around me seemed faster but I did not mind. I started forging the rudder when I was done with the wings. I was getting exhausted and hungry and from time to time, I saw the others pause to rest or even eat from foils. There were no food pipes extending from the summit of the Weisinger's but I had still assumed there was some kind of food service ongoing in the facility. I couldn't be more wrong. They each brought their own food, for dawn and mid-dusk. At times, I spied Treiya checking my general direction or pretending to do so at least. I knew she was watching me. I worked on, nevertheless, not minding.

Several hours later, that man earlier, Bujo, banged metal against metal. And everyone left their work as it were and queued at the tube reception area. There were not many of us, twenty or so.

“You are just at the rudder?” Treiya whispered in my ear. She was behind me; I had not known.

“Yes. I am,” I sounded confrontational. And indeed, I was confrontational.

“I expected you'd be at the fuselage by now.”

“Well, manage your expectations.”

I did not look at her but I knew the expression she wore, and I was happy my words had pronged her so.

The door parted to expose the outside, dark and chasmic. The tube was bulging to meet us. The terminal was scarcely lit. There was a shrill noise and the sky lit up around the terminal. Another shrill followed and another and another. The movement was oscillatory, and I realized then that it was the Pilot trials that Aaxel had been speaking of. It was… beautiful— the flashes of light and the sound accompanying them. I should have become a Pilot, I joked inwardly.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

What were they training for anyway? Perhaps Hstrad was among them. No one else looked surprised; they were used to the sight by now.

The tube finally clicked and we marched onwards. I knew the way to the food hall and wanted to promptly soothe my ailing stomach. They were all peers in Area Zed, no students or children. In the food hall, there were clusters of people chattering and eating. No one had been idle, all hands were on deck in the running of this place.

I picked a tray and a foil of food from a counter and started my search for an empty table. Some people were shouting out their lungs and cheering over a game of Grants.

(In the crudest terms, the game of Grants granted that you put a ball impressed upon with three different shapes and an X into a canister. It whirls to the bottom to reveal a random shape. You then build the tower with small ingots which have the corresponding shapes on them. Whenever you get an X you stop building and start demolishing. During the course of demolishing if you get another X, you continue building. The last tower standing was winner.)

I found a table with only one person. As I was sitting down, she was leaving. Good! Everyone was avoiding the strangers. I munched down on my meal to be joined halfway through by someone. He invited himself to sit opposite me and as I ate he said, “You liking it?”

I nodded.

“Want mine?”

I shook my head.

“You are the new guy, right?”

I nodded.

“Don't worry. You'll get used to it. We’ve all had a first time.”

I scoffed. “I am not here to stay. When we've gotten the help we need, we continue on to Aksselranta.”

He looked at me in disbelief. Then, his face wrinkled in amusement. “Yeah, yeah,” he dismissed and kept silent after that.

By the time I was done with my meal, I leaned in and asked what felt like a forbidden question. “Are you a Panner?”

“Yes. I am. Why ask?” He always spoke as if there was something funny written on my forehead.

I shrugged. “Just wanted to know. No one seems to call anyone by their titles.”

I picked my tray and was about to stand up when he showed a palm, “I am Zord.”

I took his hand. “I am Panner Fran.”

“I know. Dimdusk.”

“Dimdusk.”

I went over to my section to behold the surprise of my rebel squad.

“Ozana? What are you doing here?”

“Sss! It's Panner Gadne. Only Panner Gadne,” she shushed.

Hstrad was mulling on his bed. They looked like they had been waiting long for me.

“Tell me about your dawn,” she said.

I removed my knee guards as I told her everything, from Treiya to Zord. “Hey. I even thought Hstrad was one of those flying over the terminal,” I added.

“I didn't fly anything. I was on the summit in case of any emergencies,” Hstrad said dryly.

“Throughout?” I asked.

“Yes, throughout.”

“You worked with Aaxel?” I asked Gadne.

“I was reviewing paper screens and useless drafts.”

I sat on my bed pondering.

“Gadne, do you think there are any other Panners working with me in the Weisinger's? Or am I the only one?” I asked.

“You see it. Don't you?” She asked.

“They don't want us to practice Pyrancy,” I realized. “I am the only Panner at the Weisinger's. Ezita did not fly. You were left with files.”

“He checked in on me. Once or twice. I knew something was wrong,” Ozana muttered.

“That lady Treiya, she was watching me. I caught her a few times and she pretended she was looking at something else,” I said. “Do you think they know?”

Hstrad sat up.

“I don't know.” Ozana was lost. It was the first time I saw her clueless about something. “We should never meet like this again. They are still suspicious of us.”

Ozana paced the room for a time while I settled down from the day's work. I saw her face suddenly brighten. She came close to me, patted me down rigorously and whispered in my ear, “There may be a recorder in this room. Look around but don't make it obvious.” She went over to a curious Hstrad to tell him the same thing but I stopped her. I shook my head furiously.

“What?” She whispered. I motioned with my hand for her to hold on. Hstrad was about to say something but I shut him up with a gesture. Then, I entered the Waste Room, removed my tracks so that I was only in my undergarb, and plodded out. Hstrad had already removed his. I took the rest of the tracks and my sling bag and shoved them into the Waste Room. Ozana's eyes bobbed with understanding. They had planted the recorders on our tracks. We were yet to utter a word. To be cautious, I waved my hands in a gesture so as to suggest we check the room for any other recorders—little discs, painted to blend with the black of our tracks.

Under the bed, on top the shelf, around wall corners, we found nothing. I looked Ozana up-down, she was still in her tracks.

“It's the one I have been wearing since E1. I washed the blood off this myself. There's nothing on it,” she said, normally.

“They brought new tracks for us, the previous dawn. Hstrad wore the new one. I was suspicious so I wore my own from E1 again, same as you. Either way they had their hands on my bag and the tracks. They may have planted the recorders then,” I theorized.

“They heard us.” Hstrad rubbed his eyes defeatedly and sat back on my bed.

“We did not say anything implicating,” Ozana snapped.

“Earlier, Sorge asked, ‘Do you think they know?’” He snapped back.

“That means nothing. We can just say that we were referring to the food finishing and not that you had actually forgotten to pack them. The story is that we are from a poor terminal anyway.”

“I don't know but it seems like I have been doing some heavy lifting here. Why use my name for lies when Sorge here caused all this?” He rose up in challenge.

“Do you think if you tell them that Pilot Fran made you escape, they'll pardon you and send you home with mush? Escaping is an illegality. They will have every right to kill us and they will not discriminate!”

While they exchanged words I slipped the door open to make sure no one was listening in.

Ozana gathered her sanity and said, “Pilot Ezita, I want you to befriend the Engineers working at the landing bay. Make them tell you about schedules and work habits and what not. If there is any need to escape this place. It won't be a travel basket anymore. It would be a pod. So prepare.”

She turned to me. “Panner Fran. I want you to do two things. Keep up friendship with that Panner, Zord. Find out what you can. Also, I want you to forge a helix for me in the Weisinger's facility. It should be exactly one reed thick and not too long but long enough. Pitch shouldn't be over an inch.”

“Why?”

“It's the key to a safe.”

“Why not just use Pyrancy?”

“It's fashioned from Xobane.”

“They have Xobane? I thought the metal was rare? Only-the-Iron -Emperor's-eyes kind of rare?” Xobane was used as a last resort during wars. Too valuable to throw around and hard to come across. The only metal capable of bypassing Pyrancy. A shrapnel from Xobane could rip apart a Presidential Horde.

“It is part of the Propaganda that some people think the metal is a myth. It is not mentioned anywhere in edicts or communiques,” Ozana said.

“Are you sure it is Xobane?” I asked.

“I am.”

“What is in the safe?”

“I don't know but that Aaxel boy is questionable.”

“Area Zed is questionable.”

“No, he is even more questionable.”

“Okay, then. The helix will take days though. I can't make it one sitting.”

“It's no problem. Whenever you are through, wear your badge on your left breast and put the helix in a foil. We’ll make the exchange just outside the food hall,” she said.

“Right.”

“Wait. Wait. I am lost. What is our business with Xobane?” Hstrad asked, frantic.

“Calm down,” I pacified him.

“Isn't it wise that we don't worsen things for ourselves?” Hstrad whined, throwing his hands in the air. “Why touch this Xobane thing at all?”

“Pilot Ezita. You have no business with the metal. I haven't asked anything of you concerning it, have I?” Ozana said.

“You only just said we are all in this together,” Hstrad said. “Why are you doing this Ozana? In the travel basket you were keen on taking us back home. Why?”

“For Mubbers… I… I am doing this for Mubbers,” Ozana admitted.

I smiled.