Clockwork

Chapter Fourteen

The airstrip stood in front of Kyros, the buildings a mere ghost of its former glory. Whitewashed and barren, the walls offered no sign of use; not even graffiti covered them. Kyros trudged towards the largest building, reasoning to himself that it was where the jets were kept. By the time he had crossed the extensive runway, he had worked up quite a sweat. He chided himself for never bothering to get in shape. Being skinny was not the same thing.

Arriving in front of the building's doors, Kyros realised that he had a problem. The corrugated steel doors stood shut, not open even a crack. Swearing, Kyros walked beside the building, looking for any way of breaking in. He found two options: a window or what appeared to be the rubbish chute. Choosing the window, he hoisted himself up. It was the harder option but he refused to go up a rubbish chute. He hadn't sunk that low. Yet.

Halfway through the window, Kyros got stuck. Now cursing a lot louder, he writhed around, trying to free himself. A sudden sharp poke caused him to stop, followed by a burst of pain. Letting out a yelp, he finally pulled himself free, his shirt now ripped on the side. Landing on the floor with a rather ungraceful thump, he inspected the damage. A large gash ran the whole way down his side, from below his shoulder, ending at his hip. Blood was starting to seep through the shirt. Feeling dizzy at the sight of his own blood, Kyros sat down, forcing himself to swallow his nausea. Taking deep breaths, he peeled the shirt away, wincing at the stinging wound. Shrugging off the rest of the shirt, he bound his wound, taking care to not worsen it. Satisfied with his first aid skills, he got up, telling himself to ignore the pain. Boy, was he a wimp. Life in the palace had made him soft. Kyros fumbled around for a light switch, successful after five minutes of groping around in the dark. His hands had rubbed against a few questionable objects during the process and he could have sworn that he had touched something slimy. He tried to not let his imagination get ahead of him thinking of the mysterious object.

Unlike the exterior of the building, the interior was covered in colour. The walls were littered with blueprints of prototypes, ideas and photographs. He hovered over one particular photo, a young girl with red hair standing next to a women with similar features. He could have sworn that he knew the child, that he had seen her before. An older version of her, at least. Those eyes looked so familiar, that facial expression, that hair. A mirror hung on the wall, cracked several times. Wedged in one of the cracks was what Kyros recognised as a bullet. He looked at his reflection, one the image of poise and calm, now unruly and unkept, like a new person. Taking in his appearance, Kyros started to laugh. If only his mother could see him; she would have a heart attack. Maybe he should try this look more often.

Shaking his head, he walked up to one of the jets, a white one that had caught his fancy. The others reminded him too much of his mother's jets and white jets were more common anyway. The better to blend in with.

About twenty minutes later, Kyros had managed to get the jet's engine running and the doors to the building to open. They had done so with such a din that Kyros was convinced that they heard him in the Royal Palace. Thankfully no alarm was set off and nobody had come running. Turning the location of the jet off, Kyros manoeuvred the jet out of the doorway. Gaining confidence, he sped up. Pretty soon, he was in the air, bidding good riddance to the barren land. Once he was content with the altitude of the jet, he put it into autopilot, letting it fly slowly in a straight line. Making himself comfortable, he punched the co-ordinates of Amortia into the control panel. He needed to get that telescreen. He hoped that the girl would take pity on him and give it back to him charge free due to his lack of money. Or he could exercise his right as the Crown Prince. Whichever would work. He noticed that the control panel had a function where you could remotely access a telescreen. Good, he could do that. Typing in his telescreen's identification, he tried to pinpoint its location. Unsuccessful. Frowning, he tried again. Nothing. That girl must have disabled the location. Why, he couldn't tell. Bloody nuisance. Muttering to himself, he typed in the code for the tracking device that he had put in the wiring. He was sure that nobody but him knew about it. The jet's built in telescreen lit up, displaying a map with a red dot to represent the telescreen. It appeared to be moving across Airstrip 7. Where was that girl taking it?

Suddenly angry, Kyros punched the control panel. He had been so stupid! Of course she would try to steal it, it was probably more valuable than her whole shop put together. Stupid Kyros, stupid. He thanked his lucky stars that he had put the tracking device in the telescreen otherwise he may not have seen it ever again. Gritting his teeth, he forced the jet to follow the red dot, hoping to catch up with it. And when he did, that redhead better have a good reason for her actions.

                                                                                                                         *

Felicity woke up, feeling like she'd had the best sleep in years. Her hand was still entangled with Hunter's. Flushing red again, she yanked it away, pulling herself up. Hunter thankfully remained asleep, giving the occasional groan. He reminded her of a sleeping puppy. She stared at him for a few minutes before realising that watching people sleep is creepy and that she should probably stop. She left Hunter where he was, still a prisoner of sleep.

Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she wandered around the ship, not quite knowing where she was going. She could imagine the cogs in her brain, fighting against each other, inevitably about to explode. She was missing a cog. If only she knew where the Prince was. She had a feeling that he would be more understanding of her predicament than his mother. The Queen was renowned for her short temper.

She entered the control room, seeing to her amazement a fully awake Hunter who was talking animatedly to Austin.

"Yeah, I'm okay," Hunter said.

"Just a bit of a headache."

He noticed Felicity's arrival.

"Oh look. There it is now."

Felicity glared at him.

"Oh, hey Flicky." Hunter said, not entirely enthusiastically. Austin too, looked rather annoyed at her intrusion. Ignoring this, she marched into the middle of the room.

"I think we should discuss our next move. Our original plan seems to have backfired."

"You mean your plan," Austin pointed a finger whilst walking towards her.

"I was pretty content where I was, Scarlet." He folded his arms. Felicity mimicked his actions and said

"If I remember correctly, you wanted to escape from Monty just as much as us."

"I wasn't the one stupid enough to get myself thrown in a bloody prison cell."

"At least I wasn't the insufferable brat who worked with those people."

"Well that's just low."

"Funny, I still haven't reached your level yet."

"Scarlet, you're too short to reach my level."

"Knock it off you two." Hunter interrupted, holding his head.

"This ship's too small for us to argue."

"Sorry that my ship isn't satisfactory mate, I wasn't exactly expecting visitors."

Hunter just got up from his chair and sat down on the one next to Felicity. Austin looked upset for a second but then covered it up with cold indifference. He just leant back and inspected his nails. Felicity smiled at him, victorious.

"So anyway, I propose-"

"Flicky, I thought you never would! Yes!" Hunter said.

"Just kidding, do continue."

"As I see it, we have two possible plans of action. A: drop the telescreen off at the palace-"

"And get caught and get our butts sent to jail." Austin said.

"Or," Felicity continued, "Track down the Prince and give it to him."

"Why don't we just drop the bloody thing out of the jet? Blame someone else?" Austin suggested.

"Gee, didn't think of that. No, we can't. He's seen my face, he knows it's me. Also, that doesn't really keep us out of jail, I've personally pissed of the Queen and she didn't take too kindly to it."

"Okay, Flick. Say we choose plan B. How the hell do we track down the Prince?" Hunter pointed to the jet's telescreen which was running the news feeds.

"From what I can tell, not even the Queen and her Iron Guard are currently able to do that. And she has the whole lot of connections."

Felicity put her head in her hands, defeated.

"You're right. I should just turn myself in. Lot less hassle. True, I probably won't see the sky ever again but-"

"But that's not happening, Red. You may be a pain in the arse but the Queen is worse. Anything that pisses her off, I wanna be a part of. We'll think of something."

Austin patted Felicity's head awkwardly. She slapped his hand.

"I'm going to go and eat something. I'm hungry." Felicity swept her hair over her shoulder.

"Hey! I was nice, wasn't I?"

"Almost dude. I forgot to tell you not to touch the hair."