Advanced Clockwork: Young Writers Prize 2014

Chapter 12

Gig looked out the window at the blackness, her emerald green eyes glowing in the dim light as she waited for Eve to come. They had done the raids already, hours ahead of schedule, leaving her to worry about the little robot girl. As much as she hated to admit it, she actually had started thinking of her like a friend, and friends were allowed to worry about each other. And with Eve, there was a lot of things to worry about. She had been waiting by the window for hours, looking out of the window into the dark corners of the burnt portion of the city, waiting. It was well past midnight now, and she should have been home by now. The parties usually only lasted till now.

Samuel was just as worried, his mechanical fingers drumming on the desk as it kept time with the clicking of the clock, as he stared at the door of the little shop. There was now way she would ever be late coming home, she knew better than to stay out past midnight, and the two Rebels knew full well that something was wrong. They didn't need to say it out loud, one look shared between them was enough, and Samuel raised to his feet.

"Where do we start looking?" He asked, Gig looking out the window one more time as she went past him to grab her emerald coat. "Any suggestions?"

"We should take the rooftops. If she learned anything, midnight you need to travel by rooftop." The white haired woman said, putting on a pair of copper goggles to protect her eyes from the chilling winds and a cloth over the remaining skin to keep it from getting frost bight. "Hopefully we'll have some luck."

He nodded, throwing on his hat and a long black trench coat, a dirty rag going over his exposed lower half of his face as he slipped steel goggles over his eyes. "Let's go."

"Gloves bud." She said, throwing him his black gloves as she slipped on her matching green ones, buttoning up the trench coat to keep the cold out. "We might be out there for a while." He nodded, slipping the gloves over his hands quickly as they walked up the stairs to the rooftop hatch.

"Lead the way." Samuel said slowly, readying for a workout as Gig's eyes twinkled with challenge. "I should not have said that."

"No you shouldn't have." She said gleefully, taking a running start on a path she knew was a slingshot route right to where they needed to start looking. He groaned as he tried to keep up, their footsteps as soft as mice as they practically ran unnoticed through the night, hopping from rooftop to rooftop with ease.

They stopped a couple of blocks away, their eyes widening behind their goggles at the sight that lay before them. They saw the smoke before the flames, the shouting of people as they tried to put it out drowned by the roar of the fire, and they instantly started running till they could get as close without being seen by anyone. They stayed to the rooftops just a few houses away, watching in silence as the King himself barked orders at the Captain of the Royal Guards and the soldiers trying to save the house, the plump employer crying on his hands and knees as the place burned to the ground in front of him.

"What are they saying, Gig?" Samuel asked, looking at her as she pulled off her hood, letting her black metal wolf ears free of their cage.

She furrowed her eyebrows, looking right at the two big shots as her ears honed in on their conversation. "Something about finding.... Someone named Eevee." She mused, her ears adjusting just a little bit more as she tried to catch it all. "Kingy wants her found, and the Cap. is saying that they can't do... a full out search for them?"

"Who are them?" Samuel asked, looking down at them and wishing he had ears that gave him super hearing as well. It would be better than trying to figure out what she was talking about.

"Uuuuhhhhhh, oh wow that man can cuss!" Gig exclaimed, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise. "Kingy cuss almost as bad as a trader!"

"Focus, Gig." Samuel urged, giving her a look. She smiled back and tilted her ears a little.