The City in the Sky

Detective Mulligan avoided the gangway and made the short jump off the deck of the airship Salvation to the cobblestone dock of the skycity. He issued a quick hiss of pain upon impact and silently cursed his clockwork knee replacement. “The damn thing never has worked quite right”, he thought angrily. “‘Just like new’ my ass.” Straightening himself and summoning as much dignity as he could muster, he raised his eyes toward the gleaming skyline of the city backlit by the setting sun. The fading light assaulted his eyes forcing him to use his goggles to shield them. For a fleeting moment his heart leapt at the sight, but was quickly weighed down at the thought of the task that lay before him. “Archer is going have my head on this one”, he thought bitterly. Ignoring the pain still lingering in his knee, Mulligan made his way to the airdock’s parking structure in which he had parked his steamcycle a week earlier. The cycle’s copper boiler glistened happily in the last vestiges of daylight. “Damn, I hope the fuel is still good”, he grumbled to himself, “I don’t need anymore problems.” At the push of the starter his fears were waylaid as the flint sparked the coal in the boiler’s furnace. The little boiler’s fire started and the engine began chugging, slowly at first, but with a couple of pushes of the choke the bellows fanned the flames into a roaring blaze and the engine’s rpm’s responded in kind. When the pressure gauge hit green, he shifted the bike into gear and tore down the bumpy road that ran dangerously close to the precipice. In the gloom of dusk he could just barely make out the billowing black clouds covering the earth’s surface below.

Commandant Frederich Archer looked wrung-out. His already pale skin, if possible, took on an even more anemic appearance. He leaned his head against his palm, eyes closed, pushing his thinning, sandy hair askew. Mulligan looked at him with equal feelings of pity, respect, and discomfort knowing what was coming. Slowly Archer opened his eyes, straightened his spectacles, and began to speak: “What do you think I should do, James?”

His voice was flat, almost entirely devoid of emotion.

Expecting a monumental dressing down, the question caught Mulligan off guard as it was, no doubt, intended to. “Pardon, Sir?”

“If you were in my position, what would you do?”

“Here it comes”, thought Mulligan.

“It’s been Three months. Three Goddamn months, Three ‘arties’ destroyed, and still no solid leads, am I correct?”

Though Mulligan was no Clockwork activist, he found the slur chaffing.

“Well..”

Archer interrupted, the expected emotion now rising rapidly in his speech, “Three months, damnit! Do you want me to take you off the investigation? We’ve got plenty of other agents who would be more than happy to take it. Pennywhistle’s been chomping at the bit to get on this one.”

Mulligan grimaced at the name. Pennywhistle was a young upstart detective trying to make a name for himself. A bit of a know-it-all and definitely a schmoozer but he had some skills, which only served to stoke the fires of Mulligan’s dislike of the man. It didn’t help that he constantly hassled him about hiring a Clockwork nor that he had given Mulligan the interoffice nickname “Squeaky”.

“Please, Sir, I think if you’ll read my report you can see that...”

“I already have. It’s the same bloody thing all over again. The skinned artie, the disembodied face, and another blasted message painted on the wall. What it doesn’t say anything about is a suspect. I’m giving you one more week,” the intensity in the commandant’s voice gave way to a tone of sadness. “James, please...no one blames you for what happened to Roger. I have faith in you, but I’m afraid we are running out of time. This whole situation is on the verge of revolt and I have a lot of pressure from the top to close this one soon. I need my detective on this one. All of him.”

“I won’t let you down sir,” Mulligan replied, doubting himself as he said it.

Archer’s voice caught him from behind as he swung the door open to leave. “How’s the knee treating you?” The statement was created from genuine concern, but it still stung all the same.

“It’s been better, Sir.”

“Perhaps you had better stop by Joshua’s office on the way out”