The Ambuloks

Metal

"Just to let you know, Ren," Benny mentioned, pausing as he pulled open the grate to look back at her, "what you're about to hear is top secret. Not a word is to go past you lips."

Ren looked at Benny, stone faced as she considered the irony. She had to remind herself that it was a reasonable request for, at least, anybody but her.

Not even Benny heard Ren's secrets, and who else would she tell? Whenever the opportunity came to reveal herself, Ren pictured her severed head lying on a silver platter as the Grounded Council dug out her eyes with their fancy silverware.  It was a pretty good deterrent. She wasn't someone who made the mistake of trusting her friends with secrets. That luxury couldn't be afforded in the Spiral. Everyone was watching.

"Of course not," she told him, "not a word past my lips."

"Good," he nodded, stepping into the machine and facing her.

Following his lead, Ren led herself into the belly of the Carrier, letting a nervous grin slip onto her face. It's not like we're suspended thousands of feet in the air, she told herself, nope, and that's definitely not rust scraping under my feet.

Benny pulled a lever that made the metal groan and shudder violently. Stumbling into the wall, Ren's knuckles grew white as they clenched into nervous fists.

"Is it supposed to make that noise?" she asked, as the pins holding her smile clattered to the floor along with her denial.

"Relax Ren-Lin," he said, "I'm just stabilizing the gears before I detach the clamps." As he pulled another lever the machine shook again and gave a second growl. "One final one..." He said, grinning wickedly, "And here we go."

The machine shuddered to life, about as graceful as a newborn giraffe and as powerful as a mother rhino. The floor beneath Ren shook as it began to move. It jerked up and began to struggle downwards. The machine shuttered and stopped, as something hidden by metal panels grinded together. There was a horrible moment when Ren's stomach tensed, winding itself into knots with the metal, tightening and tightening until- suddenly- it dropped. The Carrier slipped from its runners and the box fell down fast. Ren and Benny were knocked against the sides, bracing themselves against the walls. The air felt too thick to scream, there should be rushing, but just like Ren, the air was trapped inside the bounds of the metal walls who's shine had been lost in a battle with grease and now- a battle with gravity. The dim overhead light flickered rapidly and Ren's mind spun through stages of doom. Her heart rushed up as she was separated from the Carrier's weight, sliding upwards as gravity had a momentary lapse. Her fingers scraped at the wall against her back. Through her panic she barely felt her nails bend and push into their beds as she tried to carve a handhold to stop her from falling, but the walls were falling with her. The metal on the carrier's outside tried to grip the walls. There was a bang on the outside of the box as something stuck, but with the momentum of the fall and gravity on it's side they slipped. Twice more metal clashed and the carrier's fall faltered, slamming its passengers into the floor, but falling again both times before two metal pieces hiding in the walls struck each other again with a deafening screech and created enough friction to stop their fall, bringing Ren and Benny crashing into the bottom of the carrier with a thud.

Ren's chest pounded as she tried to breathe. At the moment she felt like she'd receded into her depths, and imagined herself peering out through a body separate from her. She took her first trembling breaths between her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut. She tried to keep her lungs working, grabbing her chest to try and calm her frantic heart.

She opened her eyes slowly, looking at Benny from across the floor as Ren choked on her throat. He was struggling to pull himself off the floor and Ren felt too much like a statue to go help him.