Gearspark Aviatrix's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Gearspark spread her grease-pencil notes across the workbench before the memory could blur. Under the patchwork tarp of her rooftop workshop, the salvaged core engine ticked as it cooled. She flattened the chart with a wrench: shear layers, updraft column, the ragged smear where a dark shoreline had shown itself for one minute. She traced the line with her thumb. It was hers. She had flown it. She wanted to fly it again before the wind forgot her. A heel clicked on the gravel behind her. Velvet Mirage stepped under the tarp, out of the sun, and set a thick black envelope on the bench beside the chart. Dark wax sealed the flap. She did not sit. "Keep the map," Velvet said. "Find the truth." Gearspark looked up. "I already know the truth. I flew it." "You flew a route." Velvet tapped the envelope with one finger. "Someone else flew it first. Years ago. I want to know who still remembers." Gearspark broke the seal. Inside were old field reports on soft paper, stamped and re-stamped. Pilots describing strange lights past the storm-wall. A harbor master's note about a boat that came back empty with the log torn out. A dated sketch of a shoreline that matched the smear on her chart almost line for line. Her stomach dropped a floor. She set the papers down carefully. "You want me up again." "Not to prove the crossing." Velvet's voice stayed even. "To see who watches when you go. Lights on the water. A second craft in the shear. A signal answering yours. Anything." She paused. "You already owe me for the first flight. Call this the same debt, paid twice." Gearspark almost said no. The wing was half gone. The strut had cracked on the way home. A second run on the same rebuild was how pilots ended up under the harbor with their engines. She looked at the envelope, then at the chart, then at the sketch that someone else had drawn before she was born. "I'm not repairing it," she said. "I'm rebuilding it stronger. Thicker spar. Double strut. A dampener on the tail so the second shear doesn't kick." She rolled the chart and tucked it inside her jacket. "Give me two days." "You have them." Velvet turned to go, then stopped at the edge of the tarp. "Gearspark. Fly high through the first shear this time. If someone is waiting, they'll be waiting where you were." Gearspark nodded once. Velvet left. She pulled a fresh spar off the rack and clamped it into the vise. The core engine ticked. The reports lay open on the bench, one dated sketch faceup, the shoreline drawn by a hand she did not know. Her name was not going to be first. It was going to be second, or it was going to be the one that found the first. She picked up her file and started cutting.