A brass transmitter whined beneath the floorboards of Staging Bay Nine. Tavok adjusted the copper dial with a thumb calloused from knife-work, ignoring the screech of monsoon gale clawing at the hangar’s corrugated siding. Through the iron grating, eighty floors of sheer plunge whistled in the dark. The city of Jhalong groaned on its rusted pivots, pistons pounding like heavy artillery down in the under-levels. “Grid seven cleared,” Tavok murmured into the throat-mic, clicking a rhythmic sequence of dots and dashes. “The girl obliterated their chemical depot on her morning descent. Syndicate supply corridor collapsed. Flank is wide open for your butcher-crews, my Lord.” Static hissed back, followed by the rumbling rasp of Lord Varkhas himself: *“And the courier? The one who delivers my winter blends with such... defiant grace?”* “Preparing to fly with the prize package, sir. She thinks it’s an ordinary promotion trial.” *“See that no crossfire touches her braided hair, Tavok. If she falls, your head joins the ornamental spikes on my north battlements.”* “Understood, Lord Varkhas. Map transmitted. The lower districts belong to you by dusk.” Tavok snapped the antenna shut and slid the brass casing into his lining just as the hangar doors rattled on their hinges. Bresal stumbled in, clutching his temples. His knees gave out against an oil barrel, rattling a bucket of rivets across the floor. [WARNING: INSUFFICIENT EMOTIONAL DRAMA DETECTED.] [COMMENCING FIVE-SECOND PENALTY REVERIE: ‘DUKE STERLING’S MUDDY REVENGE’.] Bresal choked on air that suddenly smelled of lavender and horse manure. For three agonizing seconds, his mind forced him into an empire-waist dress, staring into the smoldering gaze of an aristocratic stable boy who demanded an explanation for why Bresal had danced with the Earl of Sussex. The illusion dissolved with a wet, squelching pop, leaving Bresal dry-heaving on the oil-stained planks. He dragged his gaze up, spotting Tavok crouching in the gloom beside the skysails. “Tavok...” Bresal wheezed, crawling forward on hands and knees, tears carving greasy tracks through soot on his cheeks. “You were... you were praying for me, weren't you? I heard you whispering. You're the only one who understands the stakes.” Tavok’s hand twitched toward the trench-knife hidden in his boot. “I... what?” “The guild,” Bresal sobbed, lunging forward and wrapping both arms around Tavok’s thick waist in a desperate, clinging embrace. “The whole building is going to turn into charcoal! You’re standing by me when everyone else treats this place like a goddamn race track! You told me we’d get through it, didn't you? Tell me again!” Tavok went rigid as pickled timber. He held his hands out to the sides, unsure whether to stab this weeping wretch or push him into an intake vent. “Right. Sure, Bresal. Solid teamwork. Brothers of the sky, or whatever rot they print on the recruitment flyers. Get off me before I drop you down an exhaust pipe.” “You’re a true friend,” Bresal sniffled, burying his face into Tavok’s waterproof vest before pulling back with a shudder. “I have to stop her. If she flies the Sovereign's Zenith, the counter hits zero. I have to sabotage her rig. Just enough to break a wing-spar on the ramp. Just enough to keep her grounded!” Tavok blinked, his calculating mind instantly calculating the odds. A grounded courier meant a delayed run, which meant Varkhas’s men might miss their coordinated window. “Bresal, you idiot, you can’t—” Footsteps clicked briskly along the metal catwalk. “Bresal? Are you having a panic attack again?” Talasya rounded the frame of her twin-spar wing, wearing three wool sweaters beneath her yellow courier harness. Her hair was tucked under an oiled leather cap, a smudge of black axle grease across her nose. In her gloved hands, she carried a heavy, polished brass case clamped tight with industrial padlocks—the Sovereign’s Zenith, the Guildmaster’s final test piece—strapped snug to her chest rig. Bresal shoved an iron spanner behind his back, his fingers trembling against cold steel. “Talasya! I—no! Just doing routine... wing tension checks! On your glider! Because I am a professional!” She tilted her head, observing the frantic tremor in his hands and the red rims of his eyes. A soft, earnest warmth softened her posture. “You always push yourself too hard,” she said softly, setting her toolbag down on an empty crate. She pulled off a pair of heavy, amber-tinted flight goggles lined with rabbit fur and held them out to him. “Here. Take these. My spares.” Bresal stared at the goggles as if they were live scorpions. “What?” “The upper squall at eighty knots cuts through cheap lenses,” she explained, taking a tentative step forward, fighting her usual instinct to hide behind the canvas frame. She forced herself to meet his eyes, speaking with the measured slowness of someone reciting a mantra from a mental wellness pamphlet. “I know you resent me sometimes, Bresal. I know you think I took the prime routes out of spite. But I remember our first winter here. Sleeping on the intake grates just to stay warm while the wind howled through our ribs.” [WARNING: TARGET’S KINDNESS LEVEL IS THREATENING ENGINE STABILITY.] [SOUL CORROSION TIMER: 12 MINUTES REMAINING.] Bresal wanted to scream at the flashing green glyphs searing his retinas. “You don't understand,” Bresal croaked. “You really don't—” “I do,” Talasya interrupted gently, pressing the fur-lined goggles into his numb hands. “We both want the ground floor. No more shivering in high-pressure bunks. No more waking up wondering if a cable snapped during the night. If I win this Sky-Master badge today, my guild stipend comes with a two-room flat on the sub-foundation. Solid dirt beneath the floorboards, Bresal. I’ll sign as your guarantor. You can have the second room.” Bresal froze, air seizing in his throat as her words sank in. She wasn’t scheming. She wasn't trying to humiliate him. She genuinely thought they were comrades climbing out of a gutter together. Tears of pure, acidic misery flooded Bresal’s vision. *She wants to split a ground-floor flat with me, and my brain-demon wants me to frame her for cuckolding an executioner warlord.* “You... you idiot,” Bresal wept, turning his back to hide his contorted face as he stumbled toward her glider’s tail-rudder. “You absolute, gullible idiot!” “Bresal?” she called out, brows knitting. “I’m checking your stabilizer bolt!” he yelled through racking sobs. “Just shut up and let me check it!” Behind her back, Bresal jammed his heavy lever-tool onto the main pivot bolt holding her starboard elevator cable. If he loosened it three turns, the flap would lock down on departure, forcing the craft into an immediate, safe skid across the guild staging deck. The run would abort. The package would stay behind. He could grab it, throw himself at Varkhas’s feet, and save his soul from bursting into purple mist. He threw his whole weight onto the steel handle. *SCREEECH.* Metal scraped against metal, but the bolt did not turn a single millimeter. Bresal grunted, veins bulging in his neck. He jumped, putting his boots on the frame and hauling on the iron tool with feral desperation. “Move, you rusted piece of junk! Move!” The bolt, pickled by seven seasons of salt-heavy monsoon fog and reinforced by Talasya’s manic habit of applying double-strength boiler grease, remained utterly, immovably fused to the strut. The teeth slipped with a dull snap. The iron jaw gouged across Bresal’s knuckles, tearing skin and sending the heavy tool clattering forty feet down through the floor grating into the bottomless gloom below. “Aaargh!” Bresal cradled his bleeding hand, dropping to his knees. “See?” Talasya beamed proudly, completely misreading his agonized posture as relief. “I told you! I torque the frame bolts to double-spec every dawn! Solid as bedrock!” Tavok rubbed the bridge of his nose in the shadows, silently marveling that Bresal had survived to adulthood. A siren wailed above the runway—a piercing, two-tone air horn signaling the clearance of the high-altitude dispatch lanes. Pneumatic latches hissed, and the massive iron blast doors at the end of Bay Nine began to grind upward, revealing the wild, purple storm clouds tearing across the Jhalong skyline. Rain blasted into the room in horizontal sheets, soaking the floor. “That’s the horn,” Talasya yelled over the wind, her posture shifting into instant, rigid discipline. She strapped into the glider harness, testing the tension of the control cables with quick, practiced tugs. “Time to earn that floor-level lease, Bresal! See you at the finish!” “Wait! No!” Bresal scrambled across the slick planks toward her. “Talasya, stop!” Down on the central gantry, the starter’s signal gun cracked—a sharp boom that echoed through the vast hangar cavern. Inside the brass case locked against Talasya’s ribs, something clicked. *Tick.* *Tick.* *Tick.*

Rusted Bolts and Radio Waves