“We’ve got a large delivery request,” Amos said, returning from the Junker Lane courtyard.

His niece looked up from repainting a porcelain doll’s face.

“That’s good news.” She smiled and washed her thin paintbrush in a jar of yellow water until it turned pale orange. “One of the guilds?”

“No,” he said. “The request didn’t come from Haven. It came from the Guardhouse.”

Her brush froze above a pot of black paint and her face crinkled in confusion.

“The Guardhouse,” Elsa repeated.

Amos nodded. “They sent a cadet into the Alley with a list. Poor boy, he looked like he wanted to faint.”

Elsa dropped the paintbrush into the water jar and closed the lid on her paint kit. Showing more care with the doll, she placed it to one side to dry. She held out her hand. “Give me the list. I’ll pick the items out of the cavern and pack the cart for you.”

“I’m not going,” Amos said.

“You’re not?”

He shook his head. “Not this time. You are.”

Elsa thought he was joking. “Sure. That’s a great idea. Send the Bad Seed into a nest of sadistic guards.”

Amos didn’t laugh or even crack a smile. All trace of humour disappeared from her face.

“You can’t be serious,” she said.

Amos left her at the workbench and pushed through the divide in the red curtain. He stepped into the junk cavern and cranked the handle on the generator nearby. It lurched to life, sending out noisy vibrations. The faint scent of fumes, grease and rust stained the air. As the bulbs warmed, the cave began to glisten.

Around him a thousand treasures glinted. Beautiful intricate pieces of jewellery lined the shelves, as well as paintings wrapped against the damp, clothing made in unusual weaves and impossible patterns and ornaments blown from delicate coloured glass. Useful things such as chairs, vases, pots and sheets of metal, wood, and plastic had a home here too. There were boxes of car parts, bicycle pieces and computer electronics. Anything one could glean from the surface was here. Anything a person in Haven might want or need was here.

Amos inhaled a deep breath and waited for Elsa to appear. The curtain shivered and parted. His niece stood beside him.

“You always do the deliveries.”

“It’s time for that to change,” he said. “It’s time for people to see you.”

“People do see me,” Elsa said. “In Haven. Every Market Day.”

Amos pulled the list from her limp hand and scanned the contents. “No, I mean really see you. They know you’re my apprentice, but they still see your mark. I need them to see more than that.”

He returned the list to her keeping and took up his old squeaky wheelbarrow. Amos orientated himself in the cavern and pushed it down the neatly catalogued aisles of junk. Elsa recovered from her shock and followed him through the maze of shelves. She placed a hand on his sleeve to slow him down.

“That’s not going to happen. Not until I buy my pardon from the council and my rotten taint is gone.”

Amos turned down an aisle somewhere in the middle of the cavern and began sorting through a chest containing scientific instruments. He handed his niece a box of beakers, several dissection kits in kidney-shaped trays, a container of small glass slides and a bag of plastic gloves. He considered some of the more complicated items on the list and their location.

“Please don’t make me go.” Amos found it hard to stand firm when she used that pleading tone of voice. “I can’t do it,” she said. “I can’t go there.”

“Elsa,” he sighed.

“I don’t understand. Am I being punished for something?”

“No, quite the opposite.”

“Well, it certainty feels like it.”

Amos clutched his niece’s shoulders and spun her in a circle. “One day you will inherit all this. People will look to you for junk and I fear they’ll try to take advantage of you.”

Elsa hugged herself. “How does a delivery to the Guardhouse change that?”

“People will see you making decisions, taking charge.”

She snorted.

“You’re more than your mark.”

Amos watched her hand reach for the watch beneath her shirt and wondered if she was even aware of this nervous habit. The sight reinforced his decision. Elsa needed to get over her fears. She needed to learn to stand on her own two feet and prove to herself she was strong and capable.

Amos continued picking items from the shelves and packing them into Elsa’s cart. His niece tried everything to get him to change his mind. He fended off her arguments one by one, in a gentle, persuasive tone. Eventually she gave up and tugged on her coat.

“It’s just a delivery,” he said and handed her a lantern.

Elsa took the metal handle and attached the light to the front of the cart. “What if it’s not? What if they want me to fix or build something?”

“Then you adapt, just as I would. Recharge their head torches, fix their generators or whatever else they want. Get the lumieres and get out. If you’re still there at the next shift change, I promise I’ll knock on the Guardhouse door myself.”

Elsa nodded, but worry etched lines on her face.

“Remember,” Amos said, trying to reassure her, “no matter what people say, you’re an excellent Junker. In the end, that’s all that matters.”

***

Elsa drove her cart into the Night Port and tried to remember everything her uncle had said.

Command respect.

Change the way people see you.

She bypassed her normal route to the ferry and travelled towards the far cave wall. The Guardhouse tunnel sat on a ledge high above, a sombre opening overlooking the port.

According to Rama, there’d been a time just after the Smoker Uprising, when this entrance was the most fortified in the Darkzone. The Keeper had ordered the newly formed Black Guardsmen to build sentry towers at strategic locations along the ledges and ramps leading to the Guardhouse, and she’d kitted them out with spotlights, dogs and guns. Rama told her that even with this protection, the guards were ill-prepared for a life in the dark. They’d spent their whole lives in Haven and saw a threat in every shadow. Their fear meant they had often fired without warning, and no sane Smoker had dared come within a hundred metres of the twitchy young men.

Times had changed, however, and tensions had eased. The sentry towers now stood empty, their men and dogs sent off on more pressing missions, their lights dust-covered and idle. There hadn’t been an incident for many years, and yet Elsa still trembled when she stepped within firing range.

“Command respect, change the way people see me.”

Elsa pushed her cart up a long metal ramp until she was level with the first sentry tower. The guards had mounted its platform atop a functioning spillway, giving them a clear view of those travelling to the higher ledge. Water spurted in a white frothy torrent into the lake and the fine spray cooled Elsa’s face.

She reached the narrow shelf above and headed toward the tunnel. Firelight illuminated a large red crane resting in front of her destination. A solitary guard sat against the machine’s square counter-weight, smoking a rolled cigarette. He flipped a lumiere coin in the air and caught the spinning disk on the back of his hand. He checked it. His cigarette wobbled against his lips as he mumbled and added a chalk line to one of two tallies on the concrete block, the first titled ‘Keeper’, the other ‘sun’.

Elsa approached. The dog beside him whined and the guard got to his feet. His tongue pushed his cigarette to the opposite side of his mouth.

“This area’s out of bounds to Smokers.”

It took a moment for her dry mouth to work. “I’m the Junker’s apprentice. I have a delivery from my master, Amos Jefferson.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

The guard switched on his headlamp and Elsa blinked as he shone it in her face. She showed him the letter, penned in Melker’s hand. Satisfied, he switched off the harsh light and turned to the shadows behind him.

“Maxim will take you through,” the guard said.

A cadet of no more than fourteen stood against the cave wall, so still Elsa had failed to notice him. He was dressed in dark grey rather than black and the sombre colour contrasted sharply with the pale blonde hair on his head. The guard whistled and the cadet broke his alert posture to jog over.

“Stick close to him.”

The tunnel moaned and the end of Elsa’s silk scarf fluttered against her neck in the passing air current. Narrow rail tracks started beneath the crane’s hook and entered the wide, dark passage before her. Without a word, Maxim helped her manoeuvre her cart wheels to straddle them. He hurried her forward until the sound of rushing water drowned out her movement. The tunnel glowed a soft yellow and she extinguished her lantern.

Water draped the entrance to the next cave chamber. The streams thickened and thinned, rippling the light beyond. The cadet halted at the edge of this uneven cascade and held up his palm in a gesture to stay. He rotated a small wheel set high on the wall. There was a clunk and the water jolted and parted. Two large sheets of metal spread, dividing the falls. The yellow light brightened as the cave’s electric light flooded into the tunnel. Elsa shielded her eyes with her hand and felt a moist draught licking at her face.

Beyond the waterfall’s scattered spray lay the framework of a truss bridge. The guards had removed the base platform, leaving the bare rail tracks and a dozen steel sleepers. Elsa looked through the triangular supports and rusted beams into the abyss below. She glanced back at the boy, certain he was playing some sort of joke on her, but his attention was directed across the wide gap.

A group of guards sat in front of a rusted boxcar, playing cards. One guard balanced on the wagon’s bent ladder while the others spread before him, using large fuel cans and a ration box in place of chairs and table. The sudden parting of the falls disrupted their game. Cussing, the men clambered to their feet. One guard took up position in front of a white lever next to the bridge’s end post, while the remaining men surrounded a giant wheel whose shaft drilled into the rock. They waited.

Maxim stepped to the edge of the tunnel and flicked his head torch on and off. On this signal, the lone guard gave the order to turn the wheel. The men lurched against their bars, straining when they met resistance. A thick platform emerged from the rock beneath them. It slid across the rail tracks towards Elsa and hit the tunnel’s metal lip with a clang. The guard pulled a second blue lever, locking the bridge into place.

Maxim crossed to the other side in a series of broad steps. Elsa was less confident. The bridge had no sides, and the platform was only slightly wider than her cart. A fine mist coated its surface in glistening water beads. She tested the slippery bridge with her front wheels. When it bore the weight, she followed with one foot, then another.

“Hurry up, Smoker!” A guard yelled at her.

She quickened her pace. Her cart rolled onto the rock plateau with a small shake. Before she could join it in safety, the impatient guard tugged on the lever. The bridge shuddered back to life and began its slow retreat. Elsa yelped and her careful steps turned into a frantic undignified scramble.

Her boots hit solid ground and the guards laughed while Elsa tried to slow her heartbeat. She turned away to hide her embarrassment and watched the platform retreat until it was once more locked away in the stone beneath her feet. Across the precipice the falls reformed, trapping her here.

“They did that to me once.”

Elsa turned back to her young guide.

“Pulled the lever,” Maxim explained. “I wasn’t even halfway across. I almost messed my pants.”

She appreciated his efforts to make her feel better and peeked over her shoulder at the guards. They’d lost interest in her and returned to their game. “Don’t they want to check my cart?”

“They’re supposed to,” he said, “but I can’t see us getting much out of them now. Ready?”

Elsa took another moment to compose herself. From the bridge, the Guardhouse seemed like an enormous stone giant, hugging the broad plateau. The central building was its head, where cables and metal rods sprouted from the roof like hairs on a scalp. Windows gazed over the courtyard like great glass eyes, and beneath them a large door of dark metal formed an open mouth. Two long annexes grew from the main building and swept around the edges of the plateau like open arms, ending in tall round watchtowers that could have been the giant’s fists. So vivid was this impression that Elsa half-expected the rock monster to lift its chin, leap forward and swallow her whole.

“I’m ready,” Elsa said.

They followed the train tracks deeper into the Guardhouse’s embrace and passed through the training yard where men worked their dogs, teaching them to attack, turning them into weapons for hunting in darkness. Further along, grey clad cadets wrestled. They knocked each other down and locked necks and legs in complicated grips.

“I’m guessing from your pale face and wide eyes that this is your first visit to the Sink,” Maxim said.

“The Sink?”

The cadet pointed to a square carved pit at the centre of the plateau. “That’s what we call the Guardhouse, ‘cause of the step-well.”

The name seemed appropriate for the inverted-style pyramid. From her position, Elsa could see the first stone tier.

“It’s how we know how much water is passing through the turbines,” Maxim said. “The engineers use it to work out Haven’s energy allocations.”

“How do they do that?” Elsa said, intrigued despite herself.

“Well, if the water only reaches the bottom level, they know the turbines aren’t spinning at full capacity and they lower the allocation to all the Guilds until the water rises again.”

“And if it overflows the step-well?”

Maxim grinned. “Then who cares about Haven? It’s time to run.”

Elsa returned the young boy’s grin. She noticed the Guardhouse was divided into three-stories and three distinct sections—east, north and west. The east wing to her right, housed the Kennels on the ground floor. Smokers moved about the alcoves, cleaning the empty dog cages. She watched a boy in a threadbare servant’s uniform as he swept gnawed bones and dried waste into a bucket. Another boy emerged from a different kennel with a dish and trudged down a nearby set of stairs to the step-well’s first level. He tipped the fouled liquid into a carved gutter and used a pump set into the wall to rinse the dish and fill it up again.

Elsa’s gaze wandered along the first ledge to a two-poled pillory. A lone prisoner stood cuffed to the closest post, his hands bound with short metal chains. One of the guards struck the prisoner’s face hard enough to make his nose bleed. Normally, Elsa would have lowered her head when confronted with such violence, but this time she couldn’t look away. Something wasn’t quite right about this prisoner. His strangeness puzzled her. He dressed like a Smoker—a worker from the mines based on the cut of his shirt and pants—and yet Elsa couldn’t place him in that world. He stood too tall, and his back was too straight and too broad for someone who worked all day in cramped tunnels.

“I heard he broke one of the power turbines,” Maxim said, seeing her interest. The cadet pointed to a waterfall near the main entrance, which fell in uneven drips and drabs. “We find Smokers up there on occasion, trying to tap into our electricity supply. These guys have no idea what they’re doing though, and they end up damaging the generators or frying themselves. Stupid, if you ask me.”

Her attention returned to the prisoner, who seemed a few years older than Elsa. “What will happen to him?”

Maxim shrugged. “They’ll probably make an example out of him.” He grabbed her arm. “Watch the shaft.”

Elsa pulled up at the warning. A small hole adjoined the main step-well, deep enough that she would not have recovered from a fall. She leant over the side. The shaft was broken with beams of light.

“This plateau’s got more holes in it than a Smoker’s shirt,” Maxim said. “There are tunnels and everything. We have to find our way through them as part of our dark navigation training.”

Elsa skirted the shaft. Despite Maxim’s warning, her gaze drifted down the tiers, searching for the young blonde man.

“It’s impressive, isn’t it?” Maxim said, pulling her attention up again to the Guardhouse. “Rivals Haven’s Light Well, in my opinion.”

To be polite, Elsa nodded.

“I was worried when I first moved here, but we’re just as civilised as in the city. We don’t miss out on anything. The captain makes sure of that.” Maxim pointed to the left side of the Guardhouse. On the ground floor, long tables ran beneath a beige coloured awning.

“That’s the Mess hall. We get three meals a day.”

He moved his hand up to the second floor, which was lined with balconies and archways. “Second level is our sleeping quarters. Cadets are housed in the left wing. Twenty of us to a room, cramped but comfortable. We’ve got everything we need, except if we want to bathe or shave, then we have to use the bottom of the step-well.”

Elsa pointed to the middle building, with its glass windows and ornate door. “Who lives there?”

“The captain and his officers.”

“Those are Captain Melker’s apartments?”

Her escort nodded.

Some of Elsa’s confidence deserted her. It was one thing to know Melker lived in the Guardhouse, another to be faced with his actual dwellings.

“It’s pretty grand inside,” Maxim continued. “Us cadets, we don’t get to go there much, but sometimes I help serve at dinner parties for the officers.”

A whistle drew their attention. A cadet waved them towards the Mess.

“That’s Jasper,” Maxim said. “He usually helps your uncle with unloading. He’s stronger than he looks, though he’s not as careful with the glassware as he ought to be.”

Maxim led her beneath the awning covering the dining area. Empty trestle tables and chairs ran its length. On a sideboard, the kitchen staff had laid plates and cutlery in preparation for the evening meal. A wide archway in the back lead to the kitchen. Elsa could hear the clatter of pans from within and smell the delicious aroma of roasting meat.

“We’ve got an hour or so before people come in wanting their dinner, so we better get unpacking,” Maxim said.

Elsa had been tense and alert from the moment she’d arrived, but now she allowed herself to relax. “Let’s get started then.”

She gave instructions for unloading the delivery. The two young, eager cadets listened and followed her commands without hesitation. The time passed quickly. Elsa ticked off each item as she removed it from the cart and grouped them into neat piles for the boys to carry to where they were needed. She began to enjoy the process. Perhaps her uncle was right, because for once she didn’t feel like a Bad Seed or even a Smoker. She felt like a real Junker, and it was glorious.

“This is the last box.” Elsa said and opened the contents to check the scientific equipment had survived the trip intact. “I’m guessing you know where to take it by now.”

Maxim nodded. “Though I’m beat trying to work out what we need with all this stuff.”

“Your superiors haven’t told you?”

“I’m a cadet. They don’t give us reasons for anything. Just orders.”

Elsa smiled. As an apprentice, she understood his frustrations. She glanced out into the courtyard and saw Jasper emerging from the officer’s apartments.

He hurried towards them.

“We’ve been waiting for you,” Maxim said.

Jasper leant closer to the other cadet and spoke in a low hushed tone. Elsa couldn’t hear the words, only the urgency. Maxim straightened. His face turned serious and he held out his hand to his friend.

“I’ll do it,” he said.

There was a short argument that Maxim eventually won when he said, “She’s my responsibility.”

Jasper pulled out a large brass key and placed it on Maxim’s palm.

“Is everything alright?” Elsa asked.

“Captain Melker wants to see you,” Maxim said, suddenly serious.

“Now?” Elsa asked, her fear spiking. “But, my cart—”

“Leave it,” he said. “Jasper will move it out of the way.”

Why would Melker want to see her? Did he need her services as a junker? Or was there a more insidious reason.

“What about my tools?” She had her small toolbelt on, like always, but she kept her larger, more specialised gear in her cart. “Will I need them?”

The cadet refused to answer. “Follow me, please.”