The Paragons: Chapter 1

    Surface cuts heal, given time, but deep wounds always leave scars. Tim Evans had a lot of these--so did his wife Emma, and because of this, they made sure their son Jesse had made it through life without any so far. He was just a bright-eyed child and might’ve still had a future, so his parents tried to squeeze all of their lost hopes into him. They lived in Dust Town with the rest of the bottom-dwellers, left without any prospects for betterment and forsaken by those above. Tim would’ve gotten a decent job, but most of the wealthy didn’t like to see cripples holding places in society, lest they be forced to look upon them in their daily to-and-fro.

    So, as with the other outcasts and deadbeats, Tim was resigned to a misbegotten job in the underbelly of Nyx, one of the seven great floating cities on the ocean. He fixed the zenith generators that kept his district powered. This would’ve been easier work if he hadn’t been confined to a wheelchair. Day after day, he would wake up, grab a few scraps of breakfast, bark a comment to his wife about something in the newspaper, and then wheel himself down to the enginery house about a mile away. There he would be greeted by steaming hot masses of pipes and wires, all just a little too far for him to reach without discomfort. It was almost like working with metal spaghetti, except there were no meatballs, and one wrong move of your fork might be deadly.

    Emma didn’t think it was very fair that the unemployment office assigned Tim to the enginery when Marla Thompson’s husband across the street had full use of both legs and got to strip automobiles for parts all day. No, as far as she was concerned, Randy Thompson was just a lazy bum who had never bothered to try putting on a clean shirt and finding a real job up above. Tim had tried this, many times, but the answer was always the same: “As you can understand, we have a lot of applicants for this position and you’re just not what we’re looking for at this time.” Emma was bitter about this. Indeed, Tim was twice the man that Randy was and he had the battle scars to show it, but today all of that didn’t matter, because today was a special day. It was Jesse’s twelfth birthday and she and Tim had planned a little surprise for him.

    “Wake up, you’re coming with me today,” Tim said as he reached over the lamp-lit bedside and gave his son’s leg a shake.

    Jesse stirred for a moment under a tattered orange blanket and then opened his eyes. “Huh?...What time is it?” he asked, confused.

    “It’s six-thirty in the morning and it’s your birthday!” Emma proclaimed as she beamed down at him in an old plaid dress, trying hard not to cry. “My little man is already twelve years old!”

    She said this with such motherly gusto that it caused him embarrassment. “Aw, stop it you guys. I’m twelve, not five,” said Jesse, slightly annoyed at being awoken so early on a Saturday but happy that they remembered nonetheless.

    His mother was a thin, redheaded woman at five foot ten inches tall, putting her well above eye-level with her husband when she was standing. Her glowing complexion, dainty nose, and warm hazel eyes could’ve made her a pageant-winner for the age of forty had it not been for the large unsightly scar that graced her jaw line, a constant reminder of times that others chose to forget. She had always worn shoes without heels and sat down most of the time because she felt doing these things put Tim more at ease when he was around the house.

    Of course he thought this was silly, but never said anything. He usually reserved his comments for the unjust system that kept them from moving up in life. His salt and pepper hair and hardened face gave him the countenance of someone that meant business but his grim outlook on life put him in stark contrast with his wife. He was but a shadow of the man that a troupe of young Nyxian soldiers once called Captain Evans fifteen years ago.

    “Wait, I’m going with you to work?” Jesse asked, still disoriented. “I thought it was too dangerous.”

    Tim half-grinned. “Relax, I’m not going to let you do any of the dangerous work. Your mother and I just want you to see what your old man does every day so you know not to join the damn army,” he said, his expression turning from repose to outrage. Emma scowled at him and he seemed to pacify himself.

    “What your father meant to say is that we want you to look forward to your apprenticeship at the jewelry shop,” she said calmly. “I know some of your school friends want to be big army heroes but the real heroes are the ones that stay safe and don’t make their parents worry.”

    “Mo-o-om!” he protested, “What kind of heroes do you know that sell jewelry?”

    A look of unease spread across her face. “That’s beside the point. Maybe you’ll understand once you go to work with your father.” She exited the tiny room, leaving Jesse and Tim alone.

    Tim bowed his head somberly and then looked up. His brown eyes were sad, like they had seen one too many disappointments over the years. “Son…I know you’ve been wanting that game you saw in the store up top—“

    Jesse sat up straight and smiled wide, “You got it?” he asked with excitement.

    “Well…no,” said Tim, sighing as if it was his own dream that had been crushed.

    “Oh…,” said Jesse glumly. “It’s okay, I think I’m getting too old for that kind of stuff anyways,” he lied.

    Tim steadied himself and then spoke again. “Anyhow, I knew you’ve always wanted to go with me to work since you were little, and you’re old enough now, so we thought it might be a good enough present this year.”

    “Are you kidding me, it’s an awesome present, I can’t wait!” Jesse blurted out, exaggerating his enthusiasm. “When are we going?” Jesse had already gotten out of bed and was throwing on his camouflage shirt and a pair of old jeans.

    Tim’s demeanor changed as Jesse said this and he managed to work up a smile, albeit with great effort. “Just as soon as we eat some birthday breakfast” Tim answered and he beckoned Jesse to follow him to the kitchen where Emma had already set the table.

    To Jesse, this was an even bigger surprise. He dug into scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and biscuits and gravy. Compared to the handful of cereal he usually got this was a royal treat, so he ate with vehemence.

    The kitchen was cramped with the three of them around the table so that Tim had to sit halfway in the living room, which was itself quite small. In fact, the entire house was not really more than a shack with its four small rooms. Tim had built it thirteen years ago out of scrap metal he’d found lying around in the wastes because Emma had just given him the news that she was pregnant. It wasn’t what they imagined for themselves, but up to this point it had served its purpose.

    When Jesse was finished he stood up, bumping his head on the lamp dangling from the ceiling. He grabbed it hastily and rebalanced it. He was fairly tall for his age, but gaunt like his mother for lack of nourishment. They shared a lot of physical characteristics, including the same dark red hair and prominent cheekbones, but he had his father’s strong chin and nose. What they could not for the life of them figure out was where Jesse’s peculiar grey eyes came from—not one of their relatives had eyes like that.

    “Ready?” Tim asked.

    “Ready as I’ll ever be,” he responded heartily and they left.

    Jesse saw his bike leaning against the wall outside and he thought about taking it, but he knew it would be disrespectful so he decided to walk. Before they had gotten more than a few feet away, however, Emma shouted, “Be careful!” from the doorway behind them. Jesse and Tim waved in unison and continued down the grimy metallic path. As they were leaving the cul-de-sac, they passed the Thompsons’ junkyard without so much as a glance for fear that Emma might still be watching them. Randy Thompson was lounging on a couch outside drinking a beer and watching cartoons on a little television set held up by a couple of milk crates. “Lovely day, isn’t it neighbor,” he said, aiming to strike up a conversation.

    Tim answered “Yes” without turning his head, making it clear that he didn’t want to talk.

    “Alright then, have a good one” said Randy over the animated characters’ voices and then he let out an elongated belch.

    Tim and Jesse kept pace and Tim’s wheelchair occasionally emanated a low hum as its spokes grazed the leg of Jesse’s patched jeans. The thumps of Jesse’s worn leather boots hitting the hard metal surface echoed as he ambled along.

    “Hey dad, how come you and mom don’t like Mr. Thompson?” he asked bluntly.

    Tim stopped pushing the wheels of his chair and craned his neck to look at Jesse, still rolling forwards. “I don’t have anything against Randy except that he’s a lazy bum that doesn’t deserve half the stuff he’s got,” he said begrudgingly, trying to stifle an outburst of anger. “Your mother…that’s another story.” He resumed wheeling himself with his rugged arms.

    “And what about Carl?” Jesse asked him.

    Tim ruminated for a moment and said “Carl, you mean Randy’s son? Why would I have anything against him? He’s one of your friends isn’t he?”

    “Yah, but he’s pretty lazy and he has a lot of stuff too,” argued Jesse.

    Tim chuckled. “That’s different. He gets good grades in school. He’s holding up his end of the bargain,” he asserted. Jesse went silent—his grades were average at best.

    They zigzagged through heaps of mechanical debris, avoiding a colossal rusted steel strut that supported the bustling city above. A little ways ahead, the path came to a divide marked by a post with two copper arrows. The right arrow had been engraved to read “School / Market / Nyx” and the left to read “Foundry / Enginery / Low Town.”

    Jesse had never taken the left fork before. He had never had a reason to before today. All of the townspeople constantly warned against it, because Low Town was that way. It was not the kind of place a kid like Jesse would want to find himself after taking a wrong turn. It was a foul place, filled with the wretches that were too cursed even to scrape a living off the bits that trickled down from overhead. Jesse had never heard anything good about Low Town but he took the left fork anyway, following after his father.

    The mounds of waste lining the path grew larger as they moved in the direction of Low Town. A few vagrants hobbled about, sifting through the scrap, and others lay sleeping inside cardboard boxes, heads propped up on old tires and newspapers. None of them approached because Tim and Jesse looked just as much a part of the scenery as they did, and begging other bottom-dwellers was a useless trade. A few rays of sunlight had managed to poke themselves through tiny gaps in the ominous cloud that was the ceiling. They chose their targets indifferently, bringing false hopes to the destitute, and envy to the far-gone. If it weren’t for these meandering beams there would’ve been no way to tell night from day. Of course, true darkness never fell in the slums, not even at night, for the metal halide lamps that dotted the rafters cloaked the dusty air with a perpetually oppressive yellow light.

    They passed the foundry on their left, a big building with a crooked smokestack that rose up indefinitely in an attempt to pollute the real sky. The usual noises of hammers clanging onto red-hot iron and giant cauldrons pouring precious metals into molds had not yet begun—it was still early. The gate was slightly open and Jesse could see an orange glow peeking through the crack. A dump truck with driver sat backed up against it, no doubt waiting on a shipment of parts ready to be assembled by a factory elsewhere into an automobile or a bicycle or something else the wealthy could afford to buy first-hand. Or maybe into guns. The thought hadn’t crossed Jesse’s mind.

    Up ahead he could see the enginery house with its tin roof and pipes. Lots of pipes—thousands of pipes. Pipes that exited the roof in a great haste to climb upwards into the city. Pipes that left the foundations and slithered across the ground only to be lost under the mountains of waste. Pipes that twisted and turned, and not knowing where to go, returned again to the confines of the enginery. To Jesse, it looked like the beginning and the end of everything that he knew.

    “Just a little further” Tim said.

    When they came to the door, Tim took a brass key from under his sleeveless navy coveralls and unlocked it. Once they entered and allowed it to close, it locked behind them.

    “Can’t have any riffraff from Low Town following us in here, might force the huddled masses up top to live off sunshine” he said with deep sarcasm. He always made comments like that. Jesse was used to it by now.

    A hefty man looked up from behind a bench, abandoning whatever it was he had been writing. “Hey, what’s with the kid?” he grunted.

    “Don’t you worry about it, he’s with me,” Tim returned.

    The man squinted at them. “Is that so? Well make sure he doesn’t try to ‘fix’ nothin’ or it’ll be on you.” He then turned his gaze back to pen and paper.

    Tim wheeled himself around an enormous metal tank and Jesse followed closely.

    “Who was that?” Jesse asked.

    “Oh, Grubs? That’s my boss—watch your head now.” responded Tim as they made their way under a series of steaming pipes.

    “That’s a funny name, why do you call him that?” Jesse asked, this time genuinely interested.

    Tim rolled on, down a corridor created by two rows of large buzzing white boxes that sent wires in all directions. “His name’s Greg Rubman and he’s got a big belly so it just—don’t get near that wire, its live—it makes sense. Better than Greg or Mr. Rubman if you ask me. Don’t know how he got so fat, though, living down here. Must spend his entire salary on the pork fritters down at the pub.”

    Jesse wondered about this. He knew his father went to the pub at least three times a week after work, but he had never been there himself. It was in the marketplace, between Dagon’s Dairy and the cabbage stand. The sign said you had to be sixteen to enter. His friend Cameron went in once, on a dare, but he was hurled out by a bouncer before he could see what was inside. How Grubs could be so portly was a mystery. Even the livestock had to be raised up top to yield any meat. They had tried raising them once down here—a little experiment, but the animals never amounted to more than skin and bones. Something wrong with the water, they wagered. This didn’t really make sense, though, since all the water on the island came from the same desalination plant, located in another part of the slums.

    “Look out!” Tim shouted.

    Jesse ducked. He heard a cracking noise and something whooshed by his ear, leaving a shower of sparks on the floor next to him. He turned his head. A wire had snapped in front of them and was now dangling dangerously, like a poisonous snake in a jungle of pipes.

    “That was a close call,” Tim said, exhaling deeply. “Looks like Levi’s been slacking off. Remind me to tell Grubs about it when we leave. That one isn’t enough to kill anybody, though. Don’t tell your mother,” he said sheepishly, and then he continued wheeling himself down the corridor. This didn’t bring Jesse much comfort, but he proceeded nonetheless, leaving the snake-like wire to hiss and spark behind them.

    A roaring noise could be heard from ahead. It grew louder as they approached and Jesse worried that he might be entering a den of monsters. When they came around the corner his mouth fell open. There were half a dozen elephant-sized engines, shaking vigorously, sending tremors throughout the room. Amongst their giant frames were more weaving pipes, cogs bigger than their kitchen table, and rubber belts that could’ve been cut up and used as doormats falling through gaping holes in the floor.

    “Wow!” he yelled, struggling to be heard over the cacophony of sounds.

    “They don’t call it the enginery for nothing. Mind the holes unless you want to be dinner for the sharks,” Tim shouted back, grabbing the hem of Jesse’s shirt with one hand and pointing with the other. Jesse followed Tim across the room into a small hallway. The noise died down a bit.

    “Why would they put sharks in those holes,” Jesse asked, assuming this might’ve been another of his father’s grim jokes.

    Tim stopped suddenly, looking bewildered. “You don’t know what the engines do?”

    “No, not really,” Jesse answered back. It was the truth. He knew his father’s job was to keep their district powered, but what engines had to do with it he had no idea.

    “What do they teach you in school if they don’t teach you how this floating hunk of junk works?”

    “Well, reading, math, history, that sort of thing,” Jesse responded.

    Tim sighed deeply and then explained. “The engines keep Nyx on the move. Each district has its own engines and a computer system somewhere up top controls them all so the city doesn’t split apart at the seams. Those belts go all the way past the ballast tanks into the ocean and turn the propellers.”

Jesse’s look of confusion did not vanish. “Well, why do we have to keep moving then?”

    At this Tim rested his head on his fingers and shook it from side to side, stretching his brow. “Come with me,” he commanded.

He began wheeling himself again until they exited the hallway into a circular room with a vaulted ceiling. The roaring subsided and was replaced by a low but powerful hum and several high-pitched whistles. All around the perimeter were enormous water pumps that sent pipes towards the center of the room. In fact, this room had more pipes than any of the others but what stood out the most was the apparatus that they were feeding.

    “Ahh, home sweet home,” Tim said with a sardonic grin. He parked himself in front of a beat-up old toolbox and took from it a monkey wrench. “Well, son, this is it: the generator room. Now listen, we’re going to be here for a while and there’s not going to be a lunch break like you get at school. Think you can handle it?”

    Noticing Jesse’s expression of reverence, Tim said, “Oh, that’s the zenith extractor.”

    Jesse did not look away.

    Tim launched into explanation again. “The reason that Nyx is always on the move is because a city this big dries up the zenith real fast. If we stick around too long we’ll run out of juice. The pumps along the walls bring the water from the ocean and send it to the extractor there in the middle. The extractor sucks the zenith out of the water and sends it through that hanging pylon to all the wire-carrying pipes that leave this place. Don’t ask me how the extractor works—that’s some scientist mumbo-jumbo that I don’t know and I don’t care to know. What’s the matter with you boy?”

    Jesse snapped out of his trance and looked to Tim. “Nothing, I-I don’t know,” he said, not sure what had happened.

    Tim raised an eyebrow out of apprehension. “Don’t get near the extractor now, that exposed zenith could put you under in a heartbeat. We’ll just be fixing the little leaks that spring up around the edges here on the ground pipes. Sometimes they come loose. And be careful for the steam—it’ll getcha.”

    In a way, Jesse could see why the unemployment office had picked his father for this job. The pipes were all on the ground, so presumably it would be easy for someone sitting in a chair. But as his father tried to get to a leak in one pipe, his wheelchair would spring a leak in another pipe behind him. In order to get to a pipe, he had to roll over other pipes. What kind of cruel game was this? Was this really what his father had spent his time doing for the past fifteen years? He shuddered with disgust.

    “Dad, why didn’t you ever say anything?” Jesse questioned him.

    Tim stopped turning his wrench and looked back at Jesse, then behind himself at the newly sprung leak. “Beggars can’t be choosers, son,” he said, and then resumed turning his wrench.

    Jesse, bereaved, set to doing the only thing he could think to do. He walked over to his father’s toolbox, grabbed another monkey wrench, and began fixing the steaming, whistling leaks left in his father’s wake.

    They worked for hours, tightening pipe after pipe, until Jesse’s hands were raw and blistered. Tim’s hands were used to the torture and had calloused-over long ago, but he saw his son’s expression and suggested he take a short break.

    Jesse set his wrench on the ground, stretched his back, and looked around the room again. First at the pumps, then at the pipes, and then at the extractor. The extractor. The shimmering white stream of consciousness seemed to beckon for him. ‘Zenith’ they called it, but he knew that it was no such thing. What was it really? His father’s back was turned. He inched closer. The pull felt stronger and he must’ve moved even closer without thinking. His face was but a foot away now. The warm white glow bathed his features, turning his eyes from grey to silver.

    “Jesse, what the hell are you—NO!” his father shouted.

    But it was too late; Jesse’s finger had already made the connection.