The Forgoten Heir

The Aftermath

​Leo descended the ladder with his muscles twitching from the strain. By the time his feet hit the gravel, the crowd of dockworkers had begun to disperse, returning to their stations with a sullen, quiet efficiency. The show was over, and the "Heir" hadn't fallen.

​Gus was still there, leaning against a rusted bollard. He looked at Leo—soaked, shirt torn at the shoulder, hands stained with hydraulic fluid.

​"The pen was a nice touch," Gus said, his voice low. "But you’re bleeding, kid."

​Leo looked down at his hand. A jagged cut across his palm was weeping red onto his white cuff. He hadn't even felt it. "You could have killed those drivers, Gus. For what? To see if I’d flinch?"

​"To see if you still knew how to use a lever," Gus corrected. He stepped closer, the smell of tobacco and old sweat rolling off him. "Sloane Vane sent a memo this morning. She’s looking for 'redundancies.' She wants to automate Bay 14. If she does, eighty men go home forever. We wanted to see if the new shareholder was going to sit in his glass box or if he was going to get his hands dirty."

​"And?" Leo asked, wrapping his handkerchief around his hand.

​"And now we know you can climb," Gus said, turning away. "But climbing up is the easy part. It’s staying there while everyone else is trying to shake the ladder that’ll kill you."

​Leo watched him walk away. He felt a hollow thud in his chest. He had passed the test, but he had lost his invisibility. He was no longer Leo from the South End; he was a 'Vane' who happened to know how to fix a crane.