Downtown Mechanics

Part 1

Six Steps to Freedom

          Faryn wiped the back of her hand across her face. She managed to stop the sweat from dripping in her eyes but inadvertently caked more grease onto her forehead and cheeks. But she didn’t care. She was dirty; she was always dirty. Splotches of grime covered her from head to toe and her overalls were a well-worn black with a broken denim strap that was tied in a knot over her left shoulder.

          She dropped her arm to her side exhausted and let go of the giant wrench she was holding. It didn’t clatter on the ground, but vanished into thin air moments after she let it fall. She wiped her hands on her pants.

          “Marcus!” Faryn yelled, her voice echoing off the high shop walls. “I’m finished. I’m heading out.”

          From the other side of the workshop a gruff voice answered back. “You don’t wanna start it up?”

          “Nah, it should work. It was only a loose flywheel.” She kicked the large tire she had just replaced and a puff of dust lifted off of it. The tire was bigger than she was and looked strained under the weight of the massive machine it supported. “The new tire’s low on air too but our compression tanks are empty; can’t refill ‘em ‘til morning.”

          Faryn looked up through the grit-covered iron workings of the Clanker’s wheel well and saw Marcus’ dirt-stricken face pop out of the engine bay. He pulled himself out of a small hole and climbed to his feet, balancing on some piping with practiced ease. “Alright Fare, see you tomorrow.” He said giving her a thumbs-up.

          She reached out with her own hand and made a thumbs-up sign at him as well. Synchronously, they swung their arms inward and hit their thumbs-ups against their chest twice, reached back, and launched an air-high-five across the shop. When it figuratively met between them, they shouted in unison, “Chum-chum-heeey-yoh!” before ending the exchange with a celebratory fist-pump at their sides.

          “Yeah!” Faryn said as she turned to leave. “See ya, Em!”

          Faryn stopped at a stack of lockers on the way out. She slammed her hand against the chipped blue paint and hers opened up. Inside was an over-sized black trench coat that was so finely tailored with gold stitching and embroidery it might has well of been a suit jacket. It was finely pressed and Faryn wiped her hands on her overalls again for safe measure before taking the coat out and putting it on. It tied around her slender waist and fit perfectly. She removed a stained white bandana from her hair and tossed it into the locker. Her curly, blonde hair fell in a sweaty mess to her shoulders. 

          Oh god, she thought as she forcibly pulled her hair back into a pony tail. This’ll never pass.

          The nighttime air was hot and smelled of rotted garbage. The scent didn’t dissipate until she was six blocks away from the Downtown factories where the workshop was located. 

          As she crossed the metal bridge over the Trenton River the air cooled and a breeze tugged at the hem of her coat. Faryn lifted her head to the wind and closed her eyes, breathing in the relaxing touch it offered. She hated the East Side but she had to admit the air was definitely better than Downtown’s.

          At the end of the bridge she hopped over the railing and dropped a few feet to the sandy river bed. The water was clean here and she dipped her hands in washing away the grease. She couldn’t get it all, especially under her fingernails, but this was better than using the faucets at the shop where the water ran brown to start and never really faded to clear. After trying to wash her face as well, she turned and climbed up the slope of bushes back onto the road.

          Her house was the color of egg yolks, orange-yellow and shiny in the light of the streetlamps that shone off the slick, straight walls. It was boxy and curvy at the same time, sleek and uniform. There were no windows or embellishments and no door at the end of the grass-lined walkway that led up to her porch. But once she stood in front of the entrance, the glimmer of a door passed across her vision, an imprint that wasn’t really there even though she knew it was.

          Faryn brushed at her trench coat – flattening it out, making sure everything looked normal. She straightened her collar and pulled at her hair, which had dried on the walk home but still felt grimy to the touch.

          Finally, she took a deep breath and flicked her right hand out in front of her as if she was rolling dice. When her fingers fully extended, a flash of magical energy, invisible to the naked eye appeared in her hand and coalesced into an old-fashioned skeleton key. The key shimmered in magical light, a construct borne of her focused concentration.

          She held it up to the wall and a keyhole formed in the smooth metal. The door opened.

          Inside the house Faryn was greeted by a still darkness. She crossed the threshold cautiously. It appeared her parents had gone to bed already but she didn’t want to take any chances. If she was caught staying out so late again, she was going to get in trouble – let alone if her parents saw how she looked and discerned what she had been doing, playing with the Downtown Mechanics.

          The war was eminent. The D.T. Mechs had been steadily spreading since the Iron Revolution caused an onslaught of inventions that were both quick to build and cheap to run, industrializing Trenton’s infrastructure. Their boundaries now slashed the city from north to south, separating the East and West Magiques with a mechanical wasteland. It had taken years, but confrontations between both classes were at a high and the city was in turmoil.

          Faryn liked her magiques – the constructs she could create with her mind – but the mech was new, it was fun, exciting. She liked being dirty. She liked being free. The prim way the East and West lived caused her teeth to grind. They were too proper, too full of themselves. Ultimately, she wanted both.

          But the politics fled her mind once she reached the stairs without hearing a sound. The house was quiet. Each step across the marble foyer was taken lightly, carefully, and when she reached the red carpet that spiraled up the stairs, she relaxed, certain she’d be able to make it to her room without consequence.

          Six steps to freedom, her foot squished into the carpet. There was a shlop as she lifted up to the next stair. The carpet was saturated in liquid.

          What the hell? She thought as she stopped walking and crouched down to touch the carpet. Her fingers came away slick like oil.

          Faryn sat still for a quick moment listening to the house. It remained silent. Her breathing sped up. Something was wrong. She could feel it.

          She stood and continued up the stairs but at the landing her foot snagged and she tripped forward and stumbled over the top of a lifeless form.

          “Oh god!” she said as her hand grazed the blood-wet clothing.

          A shuffling of feet from down the hallway came running at her. She was trying to stand when a man careened into her knocking her backwards.

          “No! Please!” she screamed.

          He backed away from her and turned to run. The man’s hand brushed past a light switch as he jumped over the body and sprinted down the stairs. The room brightened immediately in a clean white light.

          The first thing Faryn saw were the dead eyes of her mother staring back at her from across the ground. Her breath caught and she crawled over to her franticly. The bloody carpet clawed at her hands and knees.

          With tears streaming in her eyes, she glanced down the staircase to see the back of a large man exiting through the magical door. He carried a rusty pipe in one hand and wore the dirty, overalls-uniform of the Clanker shop where she worked.