Charlie Pace found the tear in the fuel line an hour after sunrise. He was a musician, not a mechanic, but he had spent two days rebuilding this plane anyway. Now he lay under it in the dirt, staring at the split rubber. Amber liquid dripped onto his wrist. His fuel, all of it, soaking into the ground. He had crashed here days ago. A mist over the Atlantic, then this place he could not name. His mother waited in Manchester for a birthday visit that never came. She thought her son was flying home. She did not know he was alive. The plane was his only way back to the pubs, the crowds, the loud stages full of strangers. Now the plane was leaking his last chance into the soil. Charlie slid out and looked at his work. The biplane was a patchwork of car parts, bent panels, and stolen engine pieces. He had bolted wings from scrap and wired them tight. Ugly, but close to ready. He pressed the split line with his thumb and cursed. No fuel meant no engine. No engine meant no flying. He wiped his hands and started walking. He had seen a low building the day before, its door half open. Inside, tall metal shelves ran floor to ceiling. Someone had stocked them with care. Folded shirts. Tinned food. Books in neat rows. Machine parts sorted into bins. Charlie stood in the doorway and stared. He searched the shelves, knocking cans aside. He needed fuel, or something close to it. Halfway down a rack he found glass jars filled with amber liquid. He unscrewed one and sniffed. The fumes stung his eyes. Not petrol, but it burned like it might. His pulse jumped. He grabbed three jars and ran back to the plane. He clamped the torn line with wire and a strip of metal, then poured the amber liquid into the tank. His hands shook. He climbed into the cracked seat and tried the engine. It coughed. It sputtered. Then the pieced-together motor caught and roared, black smoke pouring from the exposed cylinders. The whole frame shook under him. Charlie laughed out loud. The engine ran. The plane could move. But the fumes from the tank grew thick and sharp. The amber fuel ate at the patched line faster than petrol would. A hot smell filled the air. Charlie killed the engine and jumped down. The metal near the tank had gone dark and soft. The strange fuel was corroding his repairs from the inside. He stood there, breathing hard. He had found fuel and made the engine run. He had also found fuel that was slowly destroying his plane. Every minute the engine burned, it chewed through the parts he had scavenged. He had a working machine now, and a clock ticking against it. He needed a fix before the whole thing rotted apart.