The City in the Sky

It was dark.

Mulligan peered into the black doorway unable to make out anything inside.

“James?” The voice of his fellow MCA agent, Roger Copperton, came from behind him. “Maybe we should wait until help arrives?”

A similar thought had occurred to Mulligan, but without the building secured escape was still possible.

They had been tracking these suspects all week. The men were part of a Clockwork “reclamation ring”. Essentially they were grave robbers, stealing parts of decommissioned automatons from the Clockwork interment grounds in order to sell them to gear heads or perhaps even use them to build new Clockworks. Mulligan and Copperton had caught the suspects in the act of pilfering the parts, but the men had bolted. James and Roger had given chase across the city which ended when the suspects had ducked into a vacant warehouse on the skydocks.

At this point, James was not about to do anything that might jeopardize their chances of making the arrests. He turned to Roger and reasoned, “How about this? According to building code, there must be at least 2 points of entry to a place like this, right? You stay put at this one, and I’ll go around through the other side and flush them out through this door.”

In the fog and the light of the over-head gas street lantern, Roger looked a shade of green right down to the roots of his short cropped red hair, but gave a nod of assent all the same.

As he stalked silently around the side of the building, James wondered if he should go through with his plan. Worry began to fill his gut overflowing into his mouth like vomit, but he swallowed it back down and told himself it would be all right. After all Roger had been at the Ministry as long as he had. Between their years of experience they should be fine. He hugged the brick wall, his gun in his hand. There was no door on this side, only large windows around 10 feet up the wall. When he reached the next corner, he peeked around it, but found not a soul. The skydock led right up to the boardwalk that ran along the front of the building and terminated at a large green loading door. A few feet away from the loading entry was a smaller door that rested slightly ajar. As he neared the door he could hear voices coming from inside.

“...Goddamn fools! You led them back here?“,

“Where else was we supposed to go, Sir? We was just following the plan...”

“Oh shut the hell up! We need this place cleared out in less than 5 minutes or I will see you all hanged!”

“How are we supposed to...”

“A ship will be arriving any minute. Start packing, you stupid slags!”

It was all Mulligan needed to hear. He gently pushed the door with the barrel of his pistol, waited for a second for his eyes to adjust to the change in light, then slid soundlessly inside. He found himself inside a large open room which comprised the whole of the warehouse. Fortune was on his side as he was concealed in the shadows that fell around the perimeter of the room, created by the overhead lantern that was suspended from its center. He crouched down and quickly took stock of his surroundings. The two men they had chased were there, quietly grumbling between themselves as they hurried to load various parts from a table into wooden packing crates. Mulligan was awestruck by the number of similar crates stacked about the place, and realized they had stumbled onto one of the largest trafficking rings in recorded history. The third man, the leader, was nowhere to be seen at the moment. A large rectangular hole had been cut in the wooden planks of the floor near the center of the room. It seemed to empty into the open sky below and it occured to the detective that it was most likely used to covertly move contraband in and out of the building, away from the prying eyes of the dock patrols. Even now he thought he heard the sounds of distant propellors emanating through the black yawning maw, taunting him to make his move.

As he began to formulate a course of action, some movement in the darkness across the room caught his eye. Roger had slipped inside and was creeping up behind one of the men loading the crates.

Suddenly, James saw a glint of steel flash behind Roger. Before Mulligan could react, Roger screamed in pain and surprise. As the stumbled forward Mulligan could make out the haft of the blade sprouting from the other agent’s back.

“Roger!“, Mulligan yelled and without thought of his own peril, ran to aid the injured man. But it was too late. One of the thugs gave the fallen Detective Copperton a vicious kick sending him tumbling over the edge of the central pit and into the ether.

Mulligan didn’t hear the sound of his own voice screaming in his ears, nor the sound of the propellers reach deafening proportions as the airship closed to dock under the large black hole. And he never heard the sound of the gun which fired the shell that obliterated his knee in a spray of blood and tissue.

“Roger!”

James Mulligan opened his eyes, but it made no difference. Eyes open or shut, all he could see was blackness. He lay still for several minutes wondering where he was and if he had gone blind. Slowly he fit the pieces of the puzzle together. The first thing he became aware of was the leather smog mask pressing against his face. Then came the acrid taste coating his tongue. He rapidly blinked his eyes and, as they came into focus, he realized he had not lost his sight, rather he was looking through the mask’s lenses at some of the densest smoke he had ever encountered. And then it all came flooding back:

The Kestrel had crashed!

He remembered the horror of watching the ship and all aboard being slowly pulled down to hell by the massive Requiem and its maniacal Captain Granger. He had only seconds to pull on his mask before The Kestrel’s stern was swung downwards, forcing him to grab the wheel. He had reached for Jana’s hand...

“Jana!”

He said her name aloud, but there was no reply. Had she got her mask on, too? He couldn’t remember. He fought the worry that consumed his brain, knowing he must do something. He began to make a mental tab of his injuries. Carefully he moved each appendage starting with his fingers and moving in the visceral direction. Miraculously his limbs seemed intact. He ran his hands along his torso. His jacket felt tattered and torn in a few places. As he reached the right side of his lower abdomen he became aware of an intense stinging sensation. His hand felt wet as he pulled it away. He placed his hand over the wound once more and applied pressure to staunch the bleeding. Gingerly, he rose to his feet. He took a few steps to his left and felt his hand brush against smooth planked wood. “The Kestrel?“, he wondered.

“Jana!“, he yelled again.

His eyes adjusted better now. He could make out the shape of the little ship through the smoke. He groped his way around the hull hoping to find any of her crew alive, but it seemed deserted. He wondered to himself if they had been thrown clear might they have survived.

“OK, now what, James?“, he asked aloud.

“James?“, his name echoed back to him through the darkness, but it was not his voice.

“Reg?!“, yelled Mulligan through a throat choked with emotion.

Mulligan fumbled his way over to where the Clockwork’s voice had originated, but as he rounded the curvature of the hull he found his hope frozen by horror. Reginald’s fully intact torso was nearly severed from its lower half by the collapsed gun port he had attempted to escape from.

“My God, Reg!“, Mulligan exclaimed.

The Clockwork’s silver eyes shone in the dim light afforded them, and he even managed a smile.

“Oh, this?“, he asked inclining his head towards his mangled lower body, “It’s nothing, James. One of the few benefits of being an ‘artie’.”

“Can you move?”

“Unless you brought a cutting torch with you, I’m afraid I’m pinned here for the duration.”

Mulligan opened his mouth to reply but was stopped short by a small scuffling noise that came from the haze.

“Hello?!“, yelled Mulligan.

No reply was given except the strange, disembodied scuffles.

“Jana?“, Mulligan said hopefully.

Something hard and round pressed against the back of his head.

“So, you’re a friend of Windfury’s, eh?”

Mulligan didn’t need to see the owner to recognize its oily voice.

“I’m afraid we haven’t been properly introduced. My name is Marcus Granger, Captain of The Requiem, and since I can’t deal with our dearly departed Jana, I guess my quarrel now ends with you.”

Mulligan could hear the smile in the man’s voice through the wheezing. The detective’s mind raced to the Sakai currently pressing against his ribs from its resting place in his inner coat pocket. He began sliding his hand from his wound slowly up his side. But Granger spied the movement, and pressed the gun barrel harder into the detective’s skull.

“Now, let’s not be foolish”, said Granger patronizingly.

Now it was Reg’s turn to enter the fray. “Foolish?!“, asked the Clockwork with unveiled incredulousness. “We’re trapped on the surface, and all you can think of is petty revenge?”

“Haha”, laughed the Captain. “Revenge? No. I’m collecting a debt. You owe me a ship. Your life for my ship. Sounds fair, doesn’t it?” Without waiting for an answer, Granger squeezed the trigger, and fired a round into the helpless Reg’s head.

“You sonofabitch!“, yelled Mulligan, as he fell to his knees to check on the lifeless automaton.

“Don’t worry. You will be joining him soon enough. Oh that’s right. Clockworks don’t go to heaven, do they?“, said Granger as he gave Mulligan a kick to the shoulder causing the detective to roll onto his back. Through the smog, Mulligan could see the Captain’s masked face and hair were covered in blood. His eyes were wide with madness. He pointed the gun at Mulligan’s chest. Mulligan squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the end.