Wilder hadn't told James a lie, but he was perhaps overgeneralizing when he claimed to be going to the shooting range. Wilder took the long way to the foundry, gazing up at the ships moored in the port. There were hundreds of them, and as he marveled at each new bow, he imagined where that ship had traveled. They had been landlocked, so to speak, in their society. People did not have access to maps of the world. It had all been part of the Ministry's plan when Abel had Ascended. Not that Abel himself had done any of those things. From Wilder's understanding of the scripture, Abel had been one of the only people who was honest about what he intended to do with his life, and how he taught others to do the same. That could not be said for most of the Ministry. With the Ministry governing Phase City, Lumenbright, the neighboring city, and even Winklesmere, it's outreach was quite extensive. Through James' readings, he had learned a great many things about the structure of the world in which they lived. It was part of his goal to educate the masses on the reality of their world, and this had been agreed to by Lo, the Terren, as well as the rest of the Terrens when they had visited earth.
James was on a mission to learn all he could from the scripts in the ancient Terren language, and bring a more complete version of historical events to people through his sermons. So far, it was going well.
Wilder passed another ship, this one a steamer, with bright orange paint on it's side, chipping away slowly with each wave of the briny air. It looked as if it had been sitting for a century. Wilder felt a pang of sadness in his chest. It was a waste, he thought, that such a beautiful ship go on being moored to the same place, year after year. He saw scaffolding on it's deck, and men swarmed about cleaning and repairing. He hoped it was about to see a new life.
Wilder got on the light rail, and rode a few minutes to the foundry. The foundry was a large unused garage. It used to be a mechanic for semi trucks, back when gasoline engines were in use, and trucks ported goods across the world. The building had been empty for some years when Adonis bought the property from a local merchant. Adonis turned the space into a blacksmith, outfitted with a full furnace and oversized anvil. They had been designing weaponry, mostly because Adonis loved history, especially war history, and it was his side project to recreate old weapons, but also because Wilder had decided their last fight with unknown intruders had been terribly under armed.
Wilder approached the huge garage door with a vinyl sticker on each of the glass windows. "A+W Machines". He smiled, tracing the graphic of a skull and crossbones with his fingertips. Wilder opened the smaller side door, and stepped into the foundry. The sting of melted aluminum assaulted his senses, and he quickly grabbed a pair of safety goggles from the closet inside. He slid off his jacket, and replaced it with a heavy leather apron. To his right was a small office, the walls made of corrugated roofing tin. Adonis wasn't at the desk, so Wilder turned to the hangar like interior of the foundry, and began calling for him. His voice echoed back to him, after running the length of the concrete floored room. One single huge furnace stood in the center of the room, against the wall. Adonis had cut the chimney out of the roof himself, and the long stack shot up through the opening, red hot. Wheelbarrows of scrap Damascus mercury were parked near the furnace, and a few pair of tongs lay on tables near heating mittens.
"Adonis?"
"Back here!"
Wilder followed the sound of his voice to the back of the warehouse. Adonis stepped out from behind a pile of iron rods. He held a dozen in his arms, and gave Wilder a nod when he saw the boy approach. "I'm just gonna drop these off and take lunch."
Adonis was wearing the same shirt had had been wearing to church, a light blue button up; rolled to the elbow. His muscular arms were blushed with heat, the tattoos of six of seven deadly sins outlined on his inner forearm. "Give me a hand?"
Wilder helped carry iron rebar to the furnace, and it wasn't long before he was sweaty and overheated. He swiped sweat from his brow and removed the goggles from his forehead.
"How was your after church date?" Adonis asked, heading back towards the office. He wiped his hands on a greasy rag, and opened his lunchbox.
"It was good. We love that restaurant. James is anxious."
"Anxious?" Adonis took a huge bite of his sandwich. "Oh because the Terren ambassadors are coming back in what....two weeks?"
Wilder nodded. "Yeah. I feel bad for him. He literally has the world resting on his shoulders."
Adonis slicked back his dark hair. "I understand. That makes sense. I mean, all this," he gestured around the small office room. "I mean I personally don't really mind losing all of this. But, I guess I'm so close to the priesthood that I should feel badly about missing out on that." He laughed, "Can you imagine me, a priest?"
"I mean, James is trying to get me to write sermons."
Adonis offered him a box of cheese cubes. Wilder shook his head. "And, do you like writing?"
"Not really. James loves sitting up in his little book nook obsessed over some crumbling manuscript, but I'd much rather be getting some wind in my face."
"I feel that," Adonis admitted. "I love reading, but I would rather get my hands dirty."
"I'm gonna go to the target range," he said. "Do you need any help tonight?"
"Nah, I'm just making some ingots, breaking them down into smaller chunks, you know. For later. I'm sick of handling that Damascus mercury. It's so heavy and it stinks too. I guess that's what you get from mining other planets."
Wilder took off the leather apron and stepped outside of the office to hang it on the peg behind the door. "I'm gonna head out," he said. "But I'm taking the crossbow we made yesterday."
"Yep!" Adonis affirmed from the other room. "Go for it!"
"I'll see you later, Adonis."
"Have fun Wil!"
Wilder slung the crossbow over his shoulder and left the foundry.
Wilder walked the flight of concrete stairs down to the beach. The beach on the east side was the exact opposite of the beach on the west. It was cold and rocky, where the water was deep immediately off the shoreline. The sun had already slipped behind the skyline of buildings, leaving the rocky beach in a deep grey twilight. Wilder set up his foam targets, and began unpacking the crossbow. His fingers were starting to become numb from the bitter wind coming off the coast. He held the crossbow, aimed carefully, and pull the trigger. With a satisfying thud, the Damascus mercury bold flew straight and true into the center of the foam. Wilder reloaded the crossbow a dozen times. As he bent to retrieve the arrows, the twilight had become hazy and nearly too dark to see through. The blazing electric lights of Phase City came on one by one, and Wilder nodded towards the sea, acknowledging that it was his time to go.
