SECOND DRAFT: Hard Bank Left

6

Seventy eight years ago a chunk of the moon landed in Lake Michigan just east of what became the flooded districts of Chicago. Buildings crumbled, the streets dropped below the shoreline, a crater rose up stopping just shy of Michigan Avenue. Water had trickled into the districts from the rim of the crater ever since, effectively leaving everything south and west of the crater permanently flooded. It was a marvel anything survived, but most of the shorter buildings remained standing, turning the flooded districts into a derelict Venice ripe with disease and corruption.

For the most part the government of Chicago ignored the flooded districts, writing them off as a chaos too difficult to navigate and not worthy of devoting the time and attention of then Chicago Defence Force. The border patrol there would be the first to abandon their posts, the last to respond in a crisis, the perfect place for escaping the city, the perfect place for sneaking in, the perfect breeding ground for the phage.

The WindSong's large fan motors whirred at a slow silent hum not much louder than running water. The pilotry enclosure remained entirely silent as their little red ship slid back behind the borders of the Chicago homeland at top speed.

The jagged edges of a towering rock wall crested ahead of them: the lip of the crater.

"I'm dumping the ballasts."

"I just filled those."

Krys shot Graham a sidelong glance that resembled mocking. Graham returned it with contempt.

"I'm not releasing all of them." Krys pulled the switch releasing a portion of the ballast. She had to grip the console to stop herself from falling.

"Releasing hydrogen."

"It's going to take a couple hours to get that back."

"So we fly low for a while. Our hydro scrubbers will be happy to have something to do, anyway."

"Our hydro scrubbers are a glorified garden."

"Plants can be happy."

The glass dome at the bow of the WindSong, the main viewing area of the pilotry, slapped the surface of the water just on the other side of the crater.

"We're like a fish!"

Krys and Graham whipped their heads around in unison to see the tiny image of Celeste in her little glass cylinder jumping up and down excitedly.

Graham's eyes furrowed. "Celeste, have you even seen a fish?"

The hologram crossed her arms, leaned back against the back wall of her cylinder and flickered off. A tinny echo of her voice muttered over the coms, "I have too seen a fish: flying fish, in the Caribbean. Telling me what I have and haven't seen."

"Celeste?" Graham glanced over his shoulder, fully expecting her to be watching him through the cameras. "We can still hear you." He turned to Krys, they exchanged a significant glance. "What's with her?"

"Shit!" Krys frantically worked over the controls. "I'm going to need to release more of the ballast or we're not going to be able to get out. We won't even be able to land. I blame you."

"Why me?" Graham grunted, fighting the sudden need to fall as the low rise of half-submerged buildings dropped to below the pilotry.

"Because." Krys shrugged. "Anyway, we're almost there. I'm going to slow us down."

"You do that."

"Would you mind resetting the filter? We need to have the electrolysis working at its best if we're going to have any chance of getting very far. And we're going to need the envelopes full of hydrogen before we can refill the ballasts--"

"I know how an airship works." Graham found the switch for the filter reset, flicked it, waited for the light above it to turn red, then turned the dial next to it to the right. The light blinked green. The filter had been reset.

"Sorry. I'm just..."

"Nervous?"

"Yeah."

"That's understandable."

The half-submerged library building approached more slowly now, Krys chanced a moment to breathe. She glanced sidelong at Graham again, taking him in. He wasn't tall, only a few inches taller than herself. Nor was he stalky, the man was built for physical activity. He'd let his beard get a little scraggly, and lengthy hair hung unkempt below his shoulders, but overall he wasn't unattractive. She'd be lying if she said she never thought about him in any physical sense. It wasn't as though she didn't trust him, nor was it that she didn't love him. In fact she told him as much frequently. However, there was something else there, something unspoken, something present and real that kept them apart: something neither of them minded.

Krys found the thought comforting: someone who would never want anything from her. She never wanted anything from him. Therein lay their bond: neither wanted of anything from the other, neither asked. She was safe here, next to him. Still, it felt such a contradiction to know that she didn't want anything from him and also know that she needed him.

The words came so close to slipping out, those three words she would never say. It was humorous, how often she told him that she loved him. Love often remained the thing unspoken between companions, or so she's heard. This made little sense to her. Love was nothing more than an expression of sincere caring. Shouldn't those that are closest to you know that they are loved? No, love didn't need to be hidden, her need, however, was a different story entirely. They sat on the tip of her tongue: the words "I need you".

Graham turned, meeting her gaze. His brows scrunched as though to ask "what?".

Krys shook her head. "It's nothing."

"Okay. I totally believe you."

"Another time maybe. Right now I need to focus on landing these grappling cables properly."

"Uh-huh. You've talked to me while you were aiming them before. They don't exactly require precision."

Krys ignored him as hard as she possibly could. In this case it involved biting her lip and holding back a smile whilst she attempted to get the WindSong into a still enough hover to aim the grapplers at all. She had a tendency to swing a bit when this low. There was a slight whoosh and thunk as each of the three grapplers landed in the solid library roof. Krys's right hand went to the touch screen on the far end of the console. Her thumb, middle, and forefinger glided in a in a circular pattern. Celeste carried out the winching of the cables in tandem, following Krys's fingers for speed, until the bottom tier of Graham's workstation touched bottom. Her left hand flicked a switch, locking the controls.

"Graham, lower the ramp to the cargo hold will you? I'll be back with Ve in tow." With that she left, presumably to descend the ladder off the starboard side of Graham's workstation to the lower level where he kept Celeste's chassis.

"Yeah," he muttered as she left. "I've got it."