Kaleb walked nervously down the steps towards the mistship yard. He was jostled left and right by the press of bodies. There might have been a lull after Arleigne’s death, but you’d hardly know it from the busy people wandering around in the dark corners of this area of the city. They were busy trying to drum up business and make a little profit, and profit was always to be found in trade. Erid and Kaleb had travelled through this section before when running from Arleigne’s attack, yet they had gone by back passages and behind the main action. Now he was pressed into the middle of a mad stream of people, and Kaleb was finding it difficult to calm down and focus on maintaining his fake spikes. It had taken another week to perfect them, and a few sessions of being slapped at random intervals by Essan to prepare him for the possibility of maintaining the field in the face of surprises, in order for the two to be happy with his work. It had taken him until four days previous to be able to walk while imitating the spikes. Initially he had been confused and tried to keep the pools still while he moved, resulting in several instances wherein he fell over himself to the comic enjoyment of Erid and Essan, who both made time to watch that particular exercise for some reason. Yet he had managed to do it, at last. His mind felt like a wrung sponge, and his body strained with every step. He only hoped that his internal feelings weren’t showing on his face. Even after all their preparation, the plan had changed. There was, Erid and Essan had said while smirking happily, going to be a ‘diversion’ in order to help Kaleb make a clean getaway. Essan was going to accompany him on this journey though pretending he didn’t know him –at least at the start– so Kaleb assumed it would be Erid making the diversion, before he followed them later in the day. Kaleb had been reassured when Erid and Essan had laughed and patted him on the back when he’d expressed concern for Erid’s wellbeing. “I’ll be fine” he’d said, “more so than you, if you can’t maintain this field”. So, bearing Erid’s warning in his mind, he clenched his teeth, settled the ten pools sitting in his body, and followed the stream of people downward towards the mistship yard.

Essan had told him that he was to get on the ship headed for Veillard, and then disembark there and head for Silver’s Tap – a bar that Essan had also handily drawn up a little map to. The group would reconvene there that evening, or the next day if Erid was unable to make the evening trip. Kaleb followed the people, but grew increasingly confused as they descended past various mist ships. Shouts and yells sounded, and the mighty steel constructs occasionally moved and jostled, their enormous fins paddling the air from time to time. He was awed by these huge monstrosities– and they sure looked like monstrosities. He hadn’t had any time to see them when first he’d travelled around them, but now he stood, mouth agape, oblivious to the crowd pushing and pulling at his position, admiring the accumulation of so much metal in one device. As the thing moved again he thought there was something… almost alive about them. He shivered. The noise and bustle was beginning to get to him, and he felt a dull nervousness join in with the exertion of maintaining his disguise – the possibility that he might be late.

He quickly descended trying to find the ticket booth, but he didn’t have any luck travelling downward – he soon found himself in a much less densely peopled area, and worried about being accosted there, so ascended again. Eventually, his nerves peaked, and he reached out and tapped a man on the arm

“What?” the man wheeled around frowning

“I’m sorry sir, could you tell me where the tickets to Veillard would be?”

“Hmmph, what am I a tour guide?” the man grumbled, then pointed up and along past one of the steel mist ships to a small gathering of people around a building at the end of a walkway. “You’ll want that one there.” he grunted, and then turned and joined the flow of people before Kaleb could thank him.

Kaleb quickly ascended, trying his best to hurry against the dominant flow, which was downward. He wondered if there was another stair he was supposed to take – lots of people were giving him sour looks and glaring at his passage upstream. Eventually he was able to push himself out onto the correct walkway beside one of the mist ships, and hurried along the wide pier, dodging between the people on it, his body starting to let him know that he wouldn’t be able to maintain his spike impression much longer. The aches and pains were rising through his stomach and his arms. He swallowed and made his way to the ticket booth. On his way, he saw what he would rather not. Standing each side of the gangway onto the mistship were two of the thugs that had tried to steal his organs. They hadn’t seen him yet. He quickly went over all his changes: his hair was dyed, his mask was new, he was wearing different goggles, he only had a knapsack (Essan was carrying the full pack) and he had even been given a new pair of shoes. They hadn’t spied him, and he scurried on his way. He wasn’t sure if he was actually going to be able to pull this off. He licked his lips and kept on moving, one foot after the other, to the ticket counter.

As if in sarcastic response to his exhausted straining and fraught nerves, an incredibly bored looking lady presided over the ticket counter, her face twisted into some sneer of displeasure, armed with a gaze that Kaleb was sure could dissect monsters in midair. He approached and laid his money on the counter, just as a whistle sounded. He had known of money before his trip to cable city, but he still didn’t quite understand how it functioned. In the settlement on Haethea, everyone just worked and then the council decided on the food that they would grow and eat. All the shiny coins –the denominations of which Essan had patiently explained to him– were a true mystery, their functions and role in the world beyond Kaleb’s understanding entirely. They looked nice, with their little texts and small faces, they glinted in the light a bit, but he couldn’t understand how they were better than something useful, like grey gull eggs. Essan had said that it was precisely because it was not useful that it could be a symbol, rather than a commodity. That it could be traded without being turned into anything else. Essan had grumbled about Kaleb then, wondering how on earth he expected to get by in cable city without money. Kaleb had shrugged “I’d figure it out” was all he’d said.

“A-a ticket to Veillard please” he asked the lady, stuttering a bit under her withering gaze.

“Ngh” the lady grunted and printed one off, thrust it in his hand with the change and swept the money away in one movement, barely registering the activity. “Better hurry” she said at last. “She’s leaving”.

He looked to see that there were fewer people on the pier, and those that remained had all gathered by the gangway and were making their way up it. Kaleb dashed back to the mistship in a panic, almost losing his pools as he did so. He quickly regained his composure, and set his teeth once again. He wondered if his lateness was being registered by the men who’d attacked him. He watched them out of the corner of his eye, throwing careful, guarded glances their way. They in turn were looking left and right, but they hadn’t spotted him yet. They mostly seemed bored, but they were watching. He drew up his courage, and made sure that the ten pools were still active in his body, and then he approached the gangway. On his way, both of the men’s eyes alighted on him, he felt it, and began to sweat. Don’t look at them. He had nothing to hide. Or he had to pretend that he hadn’t anything to hide. He just had to make it to the ship, then they wouldn’t be able to do anything. Or at least, Essan had said they probably wouldn’t be able to do anything. Mistships were apparently the domain of the powerful companies, or those that could compete with them out here –and it paid not to get on their wrong side. They did, after all, transport the black market goods as well.

The men’s gaze were sizing Kaleb up and down, and he felt it keenly. They began to move closer to him. Then there was an enormous BANG. It sounded out through the whole settlement. Kaleb began to turn and watch, but then remembered that this was probably the distraction. He hurriedly snuck past those in the line watching for the origin of the sound, and quickly passed his ticket to the person stamping them at the foot of the gangway. He politely tapped them on the arm when they didn’t respond immediately, and the functionary hurriedly stamped his ticket and then he moved quickly up the gangway, before anyone could call out to him. Another loud explosion sounded. What the hell did Erid do? Kaleb wondered. He finally made it to the top of the gangway, and strode into the internal walkway and let out the breath he’d been holding. His pools were fraying at the edges. He had to get himself to his cabin, and quickly. Abruptly, Essan was there before him. He winked, and then flattened himself against the wall of the hallway, and Kaleb smiled a polite smile, though inside his heart was leaping in joy. He’d made it. He felt the warmth of safety rise up within him at the sight of the man, but he chided himself to contain it until he found the cabin. As he’d been so late in getting his ticket, he was far in the bowels of the ship. Essan had been thorough in describing the layout of the mistships–apparently more thorough than describing how to get to the ticket booth. Kaleb dashed down the narrow halls, slipping beside people going the same way and squeezing past those coming the other, he took the metal stairs downard two at a time and landed with the bang on the metal grilled floor, and finally stood before a door marked with the numbers on his ticket. He hurriedly pushed it open, and then, at last, collapsed on the ground in a puddle of sweat and field exhaustion, his breath coming in near ragged sobs.