Mahingga

Chapter 26: The Break in

They'd been looking at maps for over an hour before Ako finally had to pull away to relieve himself and get a drink of water. The water's strange, almost metallic taste was still lingering on his tongue as he walked over to a fourth-floor window and looked outside. The sun was getting lower, and the tall buildings to the west were already casting long shadows in his direction.

Paingitan was indeed massive. The maps had only confirmed that. He felt like it would take years if they simply walked on foot to try and find Taiyo. But somebody must have seen him. Ako could see no way that the Pawids could have recovered the aircraft and not found Taiyo and Talino Midhara, the other engineer, onboard. If they could find the aircraft, then perhaps they could narrow the search. Maybe there was even a way to locate Taiyo's Palam.

From the corner of his eye, Ako could see Kita start to make her way across the room towards him. He shuffled on his feet and kept his eyes out the window until she spoke to him.

"You're planning something," Kita stated in Mahinggan, her voice quiet. She folded her arms and looked at him with her big green eyes. Behind them, Melovi sat at a table with his gun on his lap and a map held loosely in his left hand as his head bobbed. Shas had since gone back to the third floor to make some calls.

"What makes you say that?"

Kita grunted. "You were making that weird face where you look like you're about to smile or something. I've seen you make that face when you think you have a smart idea."

"I don't make a face," Ako said, suddenly very self-conscious of what his face was doing.

"Whatever. So, what're you planning?"

"Well, I'm not planning anything yet, but I do have some ideas."

"Okay, well let's hear 'em."

Ako hesitated, hoping it would look as if he were just gathering his thoughts. Part of his idea—to track the location of Taiyo's Palam—required him to build a program that had the function, but he didn't think his Palam could do the job. He would need a Ley powered repository to do so, and that would mean making an energy convertor. Doing so could be risky. The promise of Leypower was his only bargaining tool. He wasn't even sure if it was possible or how long it would take, or even if he'd have the resources to make it.

"Well, it will probably be easier to find the aircraft than it would be to find Taiyo, so I think we could start there," he began. "And then I think I want to try and build something."

Kita raised her eyebrow. "Build something? I know it's a hobby of yours, but I don't see how that's going to help."

"Just trust me, okay?"

"Alright. Finding the aircraft's not a bad idea, though."

"Especially since we've already found it," Shas said, coming in from the stairway door.

"Giant, blue one?" Kita asked with a hint of disbelief, though Ako doubted Shas was the kind of person to joke.

A man and a young boy came in after Shas, and Melovi jerked awake as the door shut.

"We found it a few days after we sent those pictures," Shas said. The young boy couldn't have been more than thirteen, but he blatantly stared at Kita with such interest that Ako started to dislike him.

"Where?" Ako blurted.

It was the man who answered. "They took it to an airyard on the western edge of town where there's a lot of other government facilities. That aircraft is one of the old, massive cruisecrafts that predates the Energy Wars." Ako took note of the man's reddish-brown beard, thick arms, and relaxed posture.