Page 22 of Sparktopia
I’ve got my back to Jeyk and Mitch when they get to the top and step away from the stairs. A few seconds later they flank me. And we stand there like that for a few moments, just looking down at the people and the boats.
When they don’t say anything, I snap. “What?”
Mitchell shrugs, his shoulder bumping mine. “We’re just here for support, Finn.”
“Yeah. We figured we’d keep you company on the Master boat.” Jeyk nudges me with his elbow.
I sigh, then drop the tension in my shoulders as I try my best to be polite and thankful. “How did you guys even get up here? How did you get past security?”
Mitchell huffs. “We have our ways.”
Jeyk scoffs. “Zander’s in charge today. We slipped him a few coins.”
Mitch side-eyes me. “What we did was promise that you’d keep him around as a regular. Give him a little promotion.” He turns back to the view, leaving Jeyk and me at the windows. “Hope that’s not a problem, because I don’t like to be a liar.”
Part of me is kinda pissed that Mitchell and Jeyk took it upon themselves to make a promise like that, but another part—a bigger part—is grateful that they’re just acting like they normally would around me. Like I’m not the new Extraction Master. Like I don’t now live in a secret…palace. Because that’s what this place is. It’s not an office. It’s a fucking palace. And when I take all those sheets off the furniture on the lower levels, it’s probably gonna be something spectacular.
“Thanks,” I say, after a few moments of silence. “For… showing up.”
They both just shrug.
I’ve been friends with these men since we were boys. As the Tau City Extraction Master my father was what amounts to a king in this town, but both Mitchell and Jeyk come from good, rich families too and they grew up in the Extraction District as well. The three of us have been nearly inseparable since we were six years old.
We all started out as engineers. That’s what most young, respectable men from up-city become because engineers work with the spark in all kinds of different ways. These days Jeyk is working in the Canal District, I’ve been working here in the Extraction District, and Mitch was offered a stipend to study bio-spark. So he stayed in school and has been… well, I don’t actuallyknow what he’s been doing. He tells us things, I just usually stop listening one or two sentences in because it makes no sense.
I turn my head to look at them. “Did you guys see Clara?”
Jeyk sighs. “Not since last night. She was a mess. Tried to cross the bridge and get over here. She even slapped a Matron.”
I nod. “I saw it. Even from all the way up here, I could see the cyan-blue light.”
“Yeah. She left a perfect imprint of her hand in blue spark on Matron Bell’s cheek.” Mitch chuckles.
“It’s not funny, Mitch. That’s a major demerit.”
Jeyk steps in front of me, focusing my attention on him. We stand mostly eye to eye, and that’s what I’m looking at when he speaks—his crazy amber eyes. “No one cared, Finn. Nothing’s gonna happen about it because a few seconds later the bells rang.”
“Yep. They sedated her, the bells rang, and they carried her away.” Mitchell is still looking out the windows.
Jeyk turns back to the view, joining Mitch. And then it just feels inevitable that I do the same.
My father loved Clara. He never said he played favorites for her when it came to the Maidens, but he did. I know he did. He chose her as a Maiden so she could pull herself up without my help through marriage. He made her number nine so she would never have to worry about being called into that tower.
And isn’t it a little bit ironic that the night he dies is the night those bells ring? Which makes it the very same night that Clara Birch becomes the next Maiden up?
Is that why they killed him? Because he refused to do something he was told to do in regards to Clara?
I’ll probably never know that. Unless we find the murderer and get a confession. Which seems very unlikely after the talk the Extraction Council gave me yesterday afternoon.
Mitchell sighs loudly, then turns away from the window and starts walking back to the stairs. “Let’s go, Finn.”
He’s gonna be my number one, I realize. Because he’s not afraid of me. Not afraid of telling me no or of ordering me around when it’s in my best interest. Mitch is gonna stand at this door every day, guarding me from anyone and everything, until I die.
I don’t think he knows this yet, but I do.
Jeyk will be who I will turn to when I have questions. He’s smart. Way smarter than me and smarter than Mitch too, even though he wasn’t offered a stipend to study bio-spark. He’s more than a good spark engineer, he’s a great spark engineer. Jeyk knows everything about Tau City. He understands the inner workings. His mind is filled with schematics. Courses of action and predictive analyses. He is strategic, almost to a fault, and will always look me in the eyes when he gives his opinion, even when I haven’t asked for it.
I’m not alone. I have friends. Good friends.
