Gears of Revolution Read online

  “It’s my fault,” he said. “All the more reason to let me fix it.”

  Kallista set the wrench down and wiped a greasy hand across her cheek. “No. It’s not.”

  “Of course it is.” Trenton’s voice rose. He kicked the metal framework, the thud unnaturally loud in the quiet of the deep woods. “I broke it. I’ll repair it.”

  Kallista blew out a long, slow breath and faced him. “It’s not your fault.”

  “I . . .” Trenton began, ready to argue, before realizing what she had just said. “What do you mean? Of course it’s my fault.”

  Kallista ran her fingers over the dragon’s buckled metal skin. “There was no way you could have monitored the pressure gauge and fought off the dragon at the same time. If anything, it was my fault for pushing the engine too far. I could have found another way to escape. I was . . .” She pushed a lock of hair out of her face and blinked. “I was showing off.” Her eyes glistened.

  Trenton leaned forward, looking at her more closely. Were those tears? Was what he’d taken for anger actually sadness? He’d seen Kallista show many emotions, but never anything quite like this. He wasn’t sure how to react.

  Gently he touched her arm. “I’m sure we can find a way to fix things.”

  Kallista gave a strangled laugh, and Trenton was more confused than ever.

  “Of course we can fix it,” she said, rubbing her eyes with the back of one hand. “My father was the best inventor of all time. He knew this kind of thing might happen, so he designed the boiler to come apart if the pressure got too high.”

  Trenton scratched his neck. Were all girls this hard to figure out? He hadn’t been very good at understanding Simoni either back when the two of them had been working together. He wished his friend Clyde were there to translate. Clyde seemed to understand girls.

  “So . . . you’re not mad at me?” he ventured.

  She shrugged. “No more than usual.”

  “And you aren’t worried about fixing the dragon?”

  “No.”

  Okay, at least that was something. “But you are upset. Right?”

  Kallista rolled her eyes. “And I thought my father was bad with people.” She squeezed the bridge of her nose between her fingers, squinting up at the sky. “Yes. I am upset. And sad. And frustrated. Anything else you want to know? My blood type or maybe my favorite food?”

  “Cheese,” Trenton said instantly.

  Kallista looked at him and blinked.

  “Whenever we were working on the dragon, you gobbled up any fresh cheese I brought from the food production level,” Trenton explained.

  Kallista snorted.

  At least it brought the hint of a smile to her face. He wondered if he should leave her alone for a while and see if she felt better when he returned. Sometimes when he got stuck working on a machine, he’d step away for a while and see if things looked different with fresh eyes when he came back.

  Instead, he balled his gloved hands and asked, “If you’re not mad at me, what are you mad at?”

  “Myself,” Kallista said, the line appearing in her forehead again. “We’ve been searching for ten days, and we haven’t found a single sign of my father.”

  Trenton relaxed, glad it wasn’t his fault. Then he felt guilty for having thought that. Kallista’s father meant everything to her. He was the reason the two of them had started following the clues that led them to build the dragon in the first place.

  “Don’t blame yourself,” he said. “The problem is that we have no idea what we’re looking for.” He pulled off his goggles and fiddled with the lenses. “Maybe he didn’t leave any clues behind. Maybe he just, you know, started exploring.”

  “He wouldn’t do that,” Kallista said at once. “He wants me to find him. That’s the whole reason he left the letters. He knew we’d build the dragon and come after him once we saved the city.”

  That seemed like a pretty big stretch, even for a man as smart as Leo Babbage, but Trenton knew better than to mention it. “We’ve searched all around the mountain. If he left some kind of clue, we’d have found it by now.”

  “That’s not the way the game works,” Kallista said. “The clues aren’t always obvious. Sometimes you can look right at them without even realizing they’re there. I should have found it by now, though. I’m not trying hard enough.”

  When Kallista was little, she and her father had played a game. He’d leave clues for her to follow. When she solved them, she’d find a prize. She’d told Trenton all about it when they’d been searching for the pieces of the dragon.

  The thing was, life wasn’t a game. Trenton just wasn’t sure Kallista understood that. He hesitated to say what he was thinking, but at some point they needed to face the facts.

  “Maybe your father couldn’t leave you any clues,” he said, worried he’d upset her even more. He glanced back to where the red dragon had crashed into the woods. “Maybe something happened to him once he left the city.”

  Kallista picked up the wrench and slapped it against the palm of her hand. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  • • •

  An hour later, Kallista was still working on Ladon. She leaned inside the boiler so far only her feet and lower legs were visible.

  Trenton kicked at a small patch of ice tucked beneath the roots of a tree. While the mountains were still white, here in the valley the snow was almost completely gone. One of the things he already missed about Cove—or, rather, Discovery; it would take some time to get used to the new name—was how consistent the temperature was. Outside it could go from warm sun to icy rain in minutes.

  “Okay. So I guess I’ll go for a walk or something? Do some exploring?” Trenton looked up at Kallista, but she didn’t show any sign she’d heard him. “Maybe I’ll track down a bear and wrestle its fur off. You know, for a blanket?”

  Still no response.

  Sighing, he tucked his gloves into his coat pockets and headed off into the trees. He understood that Kallista needed her space. She’d spent so much time by herself or with only her socially awkward father for company that she wasn’t used to being around other people for long periods. She started to get cranky when she didn’t get enough alone time.

  Trenton totally understood that. He felt the same way more often than he wanted to admit. He was much more at home around machines than people. When he was tightening and adjusting things, he felt more like himself. Give him a sputtering engine and he could break it down and figure out what was wrong with it in no time. If only emotions could be adjusted as easily as gears and springs.

  Once again, he wished Clyde were there to give him advice.

  “I realize working on machinery helps her unwind,” he said, pretending his friend was walking beside him. “The thing is, it helps me too. I don’t see why we can’t both work on the dragon.”

  Trenton kicked a pinecone down a small hill, sending it bounding into the shadows, while imaginary Clyde stuffed a roll into his mouth and nodded sagely.

  “She doesn’t want to admit it, but if we don’t find some sign of her father soon, we’ll probably have to go back to the mountain.”

  Clyde rubbed his chin as though weighing that option.

  Trying not to slip on the carpet of thick brown needles, Trenton made his way down the hill. The exercise warmed him up, and he unbuttoned his coat and tied it around his waist. He scratched a bug bite on the back of his arm and winced at the pain that shot across his red skin. “One thing I didn’t expect about being outside is that the sun actually burns your skin if you leave it exposed too long.”

  Clyde, who had somehow found a plate of cheese, chewed a square of cheddar and raised his eyebrows in surprised wonder.

  “Just between you and me,” Trenton said, lowering his voice, “being outside kind of scares me. At first you’re like, ‘Wow, look at the sun and the sky.’
It’s sort of exciting knowing you can go anywhere you want. Then you start to realize there are no walls, no protection. Sure, you can go anywhere, but you have no idea where you’re going or how far away it is.

  “Even worse, anything can come at you from any direction. Bugs, animals, dragons! And you don’t even want to hear about the weather. Water falls from the sky, but sometimes it’s frozen. With no warning.”

  Something crashed in the distance, and he stopped quickly, remembering the red dragon.

  Imaginary Clyde vanished with a frown.

  The dragon was probably dead after that fall. But what if it wasn’t? What if it was only wounded? And what if it smelled him and Kallista and was tracking them even now?

  “Maybe we should go back.” Trenton’s voice sounded much too loud in the stillness. He glanced around, wondering exactly how far he’d walked. “I’m going back,” he whispered, trying to keep his voice from trembling. “To check on Kallista.”

  As Trenton turned to climb up the hill, he spotted a flash of light through an opening in the trees. Standing perfectly still, he let his gaze wander through the forest until he could pinpoint the source of the light. It was coming from a ridge just beyond the edge of the tree line.

  He glanced at the sky. It was well after noon. The dragons would be out hunting. He should get back to camp—now. Still, the glinting light tugged at his curiosity like a string attached directly to the center of his brain.

  Maybe for a minute. Only until he saw what was making the light.

  Sticking close to the trees until he had reached the edge of the woods, he studied the side of the mountain. The light was definitely coming from the ridge. It flashed and moved like someone holding a mirror. But he didn’t see anyone.

  “Hello!” he yelled. “Is someone there?”

  The only response was his own voice bouncing off the side of the mountain. Get back to Kallista, he chided himself. It’s probably just a smooth piece of granite or a chunk of crystal. It’s not worth risking your life.

  Only, if it was light reflecting off rock, why was it moving? It had to be the same light he’d seen flashing earlier. But how could he have seen it from the air so far to the north and also from down here?

  After checking the sky to make sure no dragons were in sight, he took a deep breath and dashed out into the open. Rocks tumbled down the slope behind him as he scrambled toward the ridge. He was afraid to take his eyes off the reflection for fear he’d lose the spot, but he knew he had to watch for dragons, too. He was far enough from the cover of the trees that he’d never make it back if one of the keen-eyed monsters spotted him.

  At last he pulled himself onto the outcropping and sighed.

  It was nothing.

  A pool of water collected in a natural basin reflected the sunlight onto an especially smooth wall of rock. What a waste of time. He could only imagine what Kallista would say if she discovered what he’d done.

  He kicked a rock into the basin, then paused as the stone sank to the bottom. There was something odd about the pool. It was almost perfectly circular. Looking closer, he saw areas along the edge where the rock appeared to have been cut, shaped. And the water seemed to reflect the light more than it should.

  He dropped to his knees, reached into the pool, and pulled out a handful of bits of crystal. Mica, he thought it was called. There were hundreds of the shiny rocks spread evenly over the bottom of the pool. What were the odds of that happening naturally?

  Sunlight bounced off the water and danced on the wall of rock above it. Trenton’s heart danced with it. He ran his wet hand along the wall behind the pool, noticing how smooth it was. Not just smooth, polished. A perfect mirror reflecting the light of the water. Light flashed and swayed as the wind blew across the surface of the pool.

  The basin and the rock wall were clearly a natural occurrence, but the rest of it? That wasn’t a coincidence or a simple oddity of nature. Someone had intentionally created a signal that, when the sun was right, could be seen for miles. But who? And why?

  Kallista was still working on Ladon when Trenton returned to camp. As soon as he told her about the pool, though, she demanded that he take her there.

  The wind wailed in the trees, and Trenton checked the sky. There were a handful of black shadows flying in a lazy circle in the distance. “Maybe we should wait until this evening.”

  “You might not be able to find it in the dark.” Kallista pushed past Trenton.

  “You don’t even know where you’re going,” Trenton said, following her.

  She whirled to face him, a wrench still in her hand, her cheeks flushed. “Then show me. It’s a clue from my father. I know it is. This is exactly the kind of thing we’ve been looking for.”

  Trenton wasn’t so sure. He’d searched the pool and the rocks around it for any kind of sign or message without any luck. But she was already heading toward the mountain, and he had to hurry to catch up. “For all we know, someone else could have made it.”

  “Have you seen a single person since we left Discovery?” Kallista asked.

  She was right. They’d spotted deer, squirrels, even a fox, and, of course, plenty of dragons. But no other people. Unfor­tunately, he was pretty sure the abundance of dragons and the lack of people were directly related.

  Keeping one eye on the flying shadows in the distance, he led Kallista back to the ridge. She knelt by the side of the pool and stretched her hand over the water, watching as the sunlight cast the shadow of her fingers on the wall. A small spring trickled water into the basin, keeping it constantly full. Long-legged bugs skittered over the blue surface.

  “This was cut recently,” she said, pointing to the same lighter rocks around the edges that Trenton had noted. “It appears that the spring was here all along. But he shaped it and filled it with the crystals to reflect the light better.” She turned and looked out over the valley. “This is the perfect spot to create a signal. I’m surprised we didn’t notice it from the air.”

  Trenton decided not to mention that he actually had noticed it. “What’s the point, though? Why bring us here?”

  “No idea,” Kallista said. “But I’m going to find out.” She ran her fingers through the rocks at the bottom of the pool, stirring them around. When nothing came of that, she moved to the polished wall, muttering, “What’s the next clue? Where did you hide it?”

  Somewhere deeper in the woods an animal screamed, and Trenton stared at the shadows in the sky, shading his eyes with one hand. Dragons were meat eaters. He and Kallista had seen plenty of them carrying the local wildlife clutched in their talons. If a dragon was hunting nearby, it could rise out of the trees at any minute and spot the two of them standing unprotected on the side of the mountain.

  He listened intently, straining to determine where the scream had come from. The wind picked up, whistling through the branches of the pines below them, and he heard something. It wasn’t a dragon, though; it was a sound he’d heard several times before while they were flying over the woods. A faint tinkling, like a chime, or bells, or . . .

  “No,” he muttered. He was not going to tell Kallista he was hearing music again.

  The wind grew stronger, and with it, the sound increased.

  Kallista stopped searching and turned. “What is that?”

  “You hear it too?” Trenton asked.

  Kallista tilted her head. “It sounds like music.” Before Trenton could enjoy the satisfaction of an “I told you so,” she darted down the side of the mountain. “This way,” she called, racing into the woods.

  It was hard to track down exactly where the music was coming from. The sound seemed to carry on the wind, bounding from tree to tree like a bird in flight. Every time the wind stopped, Trenton and Kallista paused, heads cocked as they waited for the music to begin again.

  “What do you think it is?” Trenton whispered.

 
“I feel like I should know. But . . .” Kallista pressed her fist against her forehead, concentrating.

  After nearly an hour of searching, the tinkling was so close Trenton felt like it had to be right in front of them. Madden­ingly, the wind stopped just as he was sure they were about to find whatever was making the sound.

  Kallista shifted from one foot to another as though she could force the wind to blow by sheer determination, but the woods remained still.

  Trenton tilted his head back. Maybe the air was moving higher up. His eyes traced the trunk of the nearest tree, following it up and up, until . . .

  He paused, scanning up and down. Something moved in the shadows.

  “Kallista,” he whispered.

  She glanced toward him, obviously irritated by the interruption. Then her eyes followed his upward gaze. Her mouth dropped open.

  Hanging from a thick branch roughly as big around as his forearm were pieces of metal dangling on an almost invisible wire. Not just any metal either. He recognized the gold shine at once. It was the same metal they’d built Ladon from. The same gold alloy Leo Babbage had discovered.

  • • •

  Trenton barely breathed as Kallista slithered out onto the branch. She was close to twenty feet in the air with nothing between her and the ground if she slipped. “Be careful,” he called.

  “I told you I’ve got this,” Kallista snapped, worming her way toward the thin metal cable. Trenton had offered to go up. As if that had even been a possibility. Kallista was determined to solve her father’s puzzle herself. Even if she had to break a few bones to do it.

  Watching from below, Trenton tried to position himself directly beneath her. He wasn’t sure how much good he could do if she fell, but at least he felt like he was helping in some way.

  Ankles locked around the branch, Kallista stretched out her arm until the fingers of her right hand touched the wire. The branch swayed under her weight, causing the metal pieces to chime as they clattered against each other—the music he’d been hearing for days.