The following morning, I awoke to find she had already gotten out of bed. After dressing myself, I went into the hotel hallway. I found Wraith coming up the stairs, probably to wake me up.
“Morning, sleepy head!” he gestured, as we went down the stairs together.
“Where’s the girls?” I asked.
“They’re having breakfast on the second floor balcony,” he replied, “I figured you’d want a little something before we got to work today.”
“Have fun with Arduwan?” I asked in a joking manner as I yawned.
“Well, I managed to get her to sleep in the bed…only problem was…she zonked out pretty quickly and threw fists like Mayweather in her sleep. I’M the one who ended up sleeping on the floor!”
“Ha!”
He led me towards the sitting area where guests were eating. It was a second floor deck with about twenty tables that seated four each. Emily and Arduwan were at the far end of the deck. Emily was sipping her coffee and dragging a clove cigarette. I hesitantly stopped for a moment before her and Arduwan noticed us.
Wraith smirked and prodded, “So what happened with you two last night anyway?”
I smiled a little but brushed him off as we started towards where the girls were seated.
“Come on, buddy,” he continued, “Emily’s gotta be into some pretty freaky shit right?”
“It’s not like that,” I chuckled.
“I mean, did she have you tie her up? Did you piss on her?”
“Dude, seriously, what the fuck?!” I scolded him discreetly, merely a few feet from the breakfast table.
Arduwan was in her own little world looking off the balcony but Emily looked up to acknowledge me with a smile.
“I ordered you an egg and sausage croissant. They’re excellent here,” she stated.
It was clear she wasn’t gonna make anything about us awkward. Wraith on the other hand was close to getting clocked.
After breakfast, we set the next phase of our plan into motion.
“So here’s the deal. We’re out of cash, and we’re gonna need a lot of it,” Emily said, as she reached into her purse and pulled out the two gold coins I gave her, “Wraith, you and
Arduwan take these coins down to the precious metal dealer that’s two blocks over on Tomorrow Street. Eric and I will be at the photo development lab on Rocketeer Boulevard. Meet us there when you’re done.”
Wraith raised his hand and said, “One sec, please. I have a question. Hypothetically, if we ran into Alabaster Creole or Kaiser Roboto on the street before we meet up with you guys, would it be okay to go ahead and…you know, obliterate them?”
“Depends,” Emily answered, “have either one of you ever seen Alabaster or Roboto before?”
Wraith and Arduwan looked at one another. Arduwan shrugged her shoulders and shook her head before Wraith said, “No…”
“Then how would you even know it’s them?” Emily replied.
“That’s a good point,” Wraith conceded.
* * *
The two of them then made their way to the precious metals dealer while me and Emily went to go get the pictures developed with her tiny spy camera. She has never ceased to amaze me with her skill in the art of investigation.
As we stood there in the darkroom, there was only the faint glow of red light used to prevent film from over exposure. It was the faint relic of a bygone era in my world but the norm here in Brasshaven.
“Okay, now we just need to wait a few more minutes,” Emily said, as she turned to me.
There was a silent pause before I decided to say something.
“Emilly…about last night…”
“Hmm,” she perked up with a nervous look, “sorry. Was that too strong too quick?”
“Oh, uhh, no. That’s not what I meant. I meant earlier. With the Clint job. I’m sorry about the implied accusation. The truth is, even if you did, I know you would’ve been doing it for the greater good. We’re literally dealing with the most evil people in the universe and there's a means to and ends with it all.”
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She gave a half smile and said, “it’s okay. Don’t worry about it,” before putting her hands behind my neck and leaning up for a kiss.
Just then, the door opened up and Wraith and Arduwan came in. Emily scrambled to break our embrace and cover the film.
“Jesus!” she shouted, “are you guys for real?! It’s not like I have this photo saved on a thumbdrive, you know.”
“Sorry!” Wraith apologized, “the guy at the counter said you were in this booth and I forgot all about how this stuff worked.”
“Well, can you remember to go pay the bill for us while we’re waiting?” Emily gruffed, sarcastically.
A few minutes later the film was developed and we could clearly see what the map was.
It was an old Sprocket and Tool factory that Clint had purchased for Kaiser Roboto and Alabaster. God knows what they were going to use it for. But Wraith seemed to have an idea…
“Okay, I’m telling you. I said it once, I’m saying it again,” he noted, “they are definitely building a giant robotic spider in there.”
“Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a good look at the correspondence letters between the three of them. So there’s no way to know for sure without checking out ourselves. It’s a big complex and I don’t see a way for you three to get in there and get to Alabaster without being noticed. It’s probably best for us to figure out what they’re doing before we do anything drastic.”
“What do you have in mind?” I asked.
* * *
After reviewing the map from Emily’s photos, we came up with a plan to investigate Creole and Roboto’s mysterious complex a little closer. Emily had me come with her to a place on the far side of town that rented out hot air balloons. Apparently, they were hi tech enough in this world that you could be taught how to use one in a crash course lesson in under an hour.
The site of the mystery complex was about fifteen miles east of the city, in the desert. It was nearly a square mile in size. You couldn’t get near the place due to the security personnel, who regularly patrolled the place in dune buggies. There’d be no good excuse for just wandering out there to take a look. So we opted to fly over and take some aerial pictures to see what was going on.
We had Arduwan and Wraith go on ahead to a nearby cliff where they could observe us with binoculars. If they noticed anything out of the ordinary they could signal us with a flare gun that we purchased. We would execute the plan just before sundown. This way it would be bright enough outside for Emily to get some good pictures but we’d have the cover of darkness to slip away into once we had passed over.
“Ah, there we go,” Emily said, as she finished fixing a larger telescoping lensed camera to the bottom of the balloon basket.
I had been sitting on the ground nearby waiting for her to finish. I used that time to think a little. What would we do with the information we discovered? Would it be enough to know how we could get to Alabaster in a clean fashion? Or would we find out we were up against a lot more than we were prepared to deal with. I didn’t like the idea that he was teamed up with a guy that gave my dad and Higgins so much trouble for so long and that they had this big facility at their disposal.
“You good?” she asked me.
“Yeah. I’m fine. I just hope it’s not too late to do something about all this. We better get going. We’ve only got a couple hours of daylight left.”
“Right.”
So we fired up the burners and took flight. I had never been up in a balloon before. It would’ve been kinda fun had it not been for the circumstances. Not exactly the ideal date to go on with Emily. Though if you think about it, our first “date” was equally as troublesome. I’m referring to the incident with The Black Hand at Mr. Cadaver’s house of course. Wild to think about everything that has happened since then. Alliances made, people who’ve died. I really hoped that things could calm down for a little bit if we somehow pulled this off.
Up ahead, we could see the facility coming into view. I looked through a spyglass to try and find Wraith and Arduwan’s position. They were comfortably perched on the cliffside, just as we had discussed.
“I’d say, about three more minutes and we’ll be directly over the main buildings. Let’s try and get all the pictures we can in one pass, that way we don’t draw too much attention,” I suggested.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got this.”
Emily started snapping photos the moment we crossed over the outer wall of the facility. We were about a half mile above. There wasn’t much we could see with the naked eye. But it was clear there were soldiers present. Roboto’s men no doubt. It became clear after a moment as well that parts of the factory were up and running. That wasn’t a good sign. In less than two weeks, Alabaster had managed to secure a financing deal and begin production of a madman’s technological terrors that this world had thought it had seen the last of.
We drifted over the complex for a good three or four minutes and it seemed like all was going well. At the very least we’d been able to gauge the magnitude of what we were dealing with here. Best case scenario, some of these pictures would indicate how best to deal with Alabaster.
That’s when it happened…
*BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!*
Seemingly from nowhere, a rapid succession of gunfire, like that of a Maxim gun or an anti-aircraft, sprayed in our direction. The balloon was struck. Our basket was struck. And alas, Emily had been struck in the back of her left shoulder. She collapsed towards me. I caught her as she fell forward. It looked as though her lung was punctured! She spit blood out of her mouth.
*BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!*
The shelling didn’t stop. We were just past the outer wall, heading due east, opposite of where we had started. But our balloon was so badly damaged that it was maneuvering out of control. Not to mention that our propulsion system had caught fire from being struck.
Flames surrounded us. Wind was rushing by. I did my best to hold Emily up in the wake of all of this.
*BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!*
It didn’t stop!
“Eric?” Emily mustered with bated breath.
“Hang on, Emily! We’re going to crash. Just hang on!”
“Eric. I don’t want us to die like this. Not now,” she said, before she passed out from blood loss.
I wasn’t sure how much her spinal implant could help against blunt trauma and blood loss, but she wasn’t looking good.
*BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!*
It was so loud. The flames were so hot. Smoke was fluttering up from the propulsion system and I could feel our descent escalating. The only thing I could do was hold Emily there in my arms and hope for a miracle.