Chapter 14: Panasonic Youth

Together they neared the entrance. “Did I tell you my name?” the stranger inquired. “I really don't care,” Belle answered. The stranger laughed and told the trio that he was called John. They entered a room which was filled with people. People laughed. There was a buffet table. Streamers decorated the wall and funky lights hung from the walls. It looked almost like a hastily-prepared school disco, save for the middle, because in the middle Melanie, his daughter, hung like another streamer from the ceiling. The room was four or five storeys tall and the top two floors were curled with girders, pipes, steaming vents and rust. It was here that his daughter hung, limp, like a slab of meat. Russell gaped. John sidled up to him and said in a smarmy whisper, “Sure, she looks cute now, but you shoulda seen her when she was surrounded by ironbeaks!” Belle felt Russells fist clench and elbowed him hard in the ribs to remind him to keep his cool. So with a great deal of effort Russell looked up and managed to see another woman instead of his daughter. “Isn't it the same with all women? They look fine till you take a closer look.” Russell felt Belle tense and felt a warm flush of satisfaction.
“Preachin' to the converted right here, buddy,” John answered happily. Russell noticed his use of the word 'buddy' and felt angered that he was using Lesters word. He wasn't sure if he liked Lester or not but he sure preferred Lester to this peasant goon.

John eventually drifted off into the party (were they really at a party?) and Belle pulled Russell into a corner. He looked at her and she looked sternly back at him. “'Isn't it the same with all women'? What are you implying?”
Russell sneered at her. “As if it isn't obvious.”
Dresden gave Belle warning eyes but she didn't stop.
“Clearly its not. Care to explain?”
“You damned well know!” Russell exclaimed and turned away. She twisted him round and looked straight at him. “Russell – what Sebastien said-”
Dresden pushed them apart and, standing between them, said firmly “Later!” before gesturing up at the limp form of their prize above them. “What do we do about her?”
After a while, Belle said “Maybe if one of us tries to find our way up to the girders on the third floor?”
All three of them put their hands forward.
“I'm the smallest – I could crawl through any small gaps.” Belle said.
“I'm the strongest – I could carry her down.” Dresden said.
“I'm her father!” Russell said, somewhat hurt.
Around them, the party echoed, hollered voices bouncing off the pipes above and making everything sound slightly tinny.

Dresden shook his head. “There might be guards. When I collect her theres going to be uproar... she needs someone to protect her.” He pushed his chest out to its fullest. “And frankly I think I'm the best at that.” Russell went to argue, but saw Dresdens argument and backed down. He bit his lip and nodded. Dresden smiled and looked around. “Alright. I can see a private exit over there.” He turned to the other two. “And I'll need a distraction to get there. Can you do it?” He didn't wait for a response, and leapt into action.

Russell looked at Belle, who shrugged, and-

“You need good parents so you don't dick your life around, Lester. If I hadn't met you I might've died!”
Lester licked his lips, but said nothing, a tear shining down his face. He stroked Sebastiens shaking form absent-mindedly. Even so, for the first time, his fingers running along Sebastien felt electric. The boy was full of a potential he had never seen before, not since he had picked him up. Sebastien had always been bright, happy, relatively unemotional. To see him now, wracking ten years of emotion out of himself at once, or to imagine how he could have locked that door-

Sebastien felt like his ribcage had collapsed and his bones stuck out of him. Every time he breathed in he felt all the air he had denied his parents rushing down his throat, and a vicious guilt overtook him and boiled his brain inside his head. He was running all over himself.

Lester felt a raw energy from Sebastien, muscles coiled beneath steel panelled skin, like the kid was ready to explode. He gripped Sebastiens shoulder as his pained sobs began to cease. “C'mon, kid. When you're ready, we're needed.”

Sebastien swallowed hard. His voice was nasal with phlegm and repressed tears. “I'll give Russell another chance. If he really does love his daughter... then we have to help him. We have no choice.” Lester smiled and helped him up. They embraced briefly, and Lester gripped Sebastiens shoulders tightly. He drew him away for a moment so they were looking into each other. “Lets go,” he whispered, and they began a run, pounding the ground beneath their feet. The earth moulded to them. They could do anything.

Russell stepped forwards. "Listen up! belle hissed in his ear. "What are you doing?" "Run with me," he murmured back. "Listen! This is very! Very! Important!" He hung for a moment in the centre of the crowd, with everyone watching him, chocolate bars and bits of meat held poised in hand as they watched him speak. Nobody moved. "This... this food is poisoned!" A few people gasped, and a lot more put their food down, or dropped it, or spat it out, so that chocolate leaked into the floor. Russell saw Dresden sneak his way towards the exit on the other side of the room, urging his way through people. "Th-thats right! He continued, a little frantically, his hands raised high. He gulped. People were staring. "Its poisoned!" "How do you know?" Called someone from the back of the room and there was a mutter of scared assent. "How do I know? How do I know, you might well ask!" He gibbered and Belle sighed and stood up beside him. "Because we poisoned it!" She cried as Dresden slipped into the room at the back. the small cry the guard made as he was knocked unconscious went un-noticed as everyone was paying them attention.

Russell stared at Belle. "What are you doing?" He hissed. "Run with me." she smirked at him and then back at the assembled punters, mouths wide open and crumbs dribbling out. "Thats right! We're here to kill you for killing that little girl! Or should I say..." and she unsheathed a wicked grin, "Our lord!" Someone screamed in the back. "What on earth are you talking about?" demanded John, stepping forwards. "You said you were from Ironwalk!" Belle spread her hands wide. "We live beneath ironwalk, in the great drill-warrens! We have taught the drills to be our friends, and controlling all of them, and all of us besides, is that woman!" And she pointed at the meat suspended above them. "That queen of queens!" "Then its true!" someone else cried melodramatically from the back. Russell gaped. He had no idea whether this would work. "But you took her from us! Right at the cusp of our plan!" He cried, their voices writhing together in the five storey sphere and bounding round so everyone knew what they had done.

The room began to fill with a mindless gibbering as people realised that they had been poisoned. "And now we come here to take out revenge, and our queen as well!" Belle hollered triumphantally. "Nothing can stop us now!" She glanced upwards and saw Dresden clambering ably along the girders above them. He dodged another guard, picked him up and threw him backwards into the grate. he dented it and fell, unconscious. Knowing they only had to keep up their act a short while longer, Russell stepped forward again. "Thats right! And you fools gobbled every last drop, like the ingrates you are! You silly bastards!" and he cringed at his own inept insult. Belle rolled her eyes but knew that Dresden was at this very moment untangling Melanie above them. She glanced up and grinned at him. He shot a triumphant thumbs up back at them and turned around. The girder snapped.

Dresden fell.

Everything was chaotic.

Sebastien pounded the bare iron ground, his boots scummed with rust and tears and blood and bile and his eyes stung as he ran against the wind. Lester hurried along besides him and they grinned at each other as they ran and knew that everything was going to be alright. Sebastien rounded the next hill and with a flourish pointed at the sphere, in the near distance. All they had to do was run down and they were upon it. Sebastien had never seen the sphere before, despite his explorations of the island, and what he saw he considered perfectly normal. Lester arrived shortly afterwards, panting slightly and breathing deeply on his knees. He saw the sphere and his eyes turned to saucers. “Oh no...” he muttered.

The sphere was surrounded by Ironbeaks. The birds fluttered around the place like demented things, flapping themselved into the panels. They broke themselves apart trying to break down the sphere, but as the pieces, cogs, gears, wheels, turbines, propellors, broken twisted wings, fell to the floor the magnetic centre of the bird hummed and it refitted itself so the bird could try for another assault on the gargantuan ball. They wriggled into the holes in between the panels, or tried to as it crackled and thundered through anything which touched it. Lester licked his lips.
"So, Lance wasn't lying. Melanie attracts Ironbeaks."
He looked at Sebastien, whose lip trembled at the mention of the winged monstrosities. "Those are ironbeaks?" He said hollowly. "Those..."
Lester steeled himself, balling his fists. "Sebastien, I know why you want to go and save Melanie, to try and make sure that Russell is going to be a good father." Sebastien said nothing. "But you don't have to!" And here he turned to Sebastien, clapping him on the shoulder. "Nobody would think any the less of you if you just went back now. It will all be fine!" Sebastien shook his head violently. "I can't do that."
They both looked at the sphere in dismay as the outer layer was felled by the ironbeaks, the metal tearing up and floating into the sky. There was a fantastic metal tear as a team of ironbeaks ripped open the sphere like an onion. A crackle of lightning fell out and stabbed violently into the air, incinerating a number of ironbeaks but one got through and managed to burrow deeper into the metal.
"Shall we?" Lester said after a moments hesitation.
Sebastien breathed deeply, and nodded. "We don't really have a choice."
By the time they got inside the sphere things had gotten from bad to worse. There were sheets and flakes of metal falling from the edge of the sphere like confetti. He knew that if this had happened here, at Oceanside it would have been horrendous. He could imagine... but there wasn't time for that now. Pipes splintered inside the corridor and sheets of steam billowed out, clouding the interior of the corridor. They barrelled through it and onwards up the corridor, to where their friends were.
"Dresden!" Belle bounded forwards, slamming strangers out of her way in her mad rush to get to her fallen friend. She knelt by his side and wiped the hair from his eyes. With a quiet sob she looked him up and down. She saw that Melanie was curled protectively in his massive arms. With barely a shake, she picked up the unconscious girl and passed her to Russell, then returned to her fallen friend.
Russells world fell out beneath him again. He looked into the sleeping eyes of his daughter and saw Juliet, and then he grasped her tight. He couldn't leave her behind, even if he wanted to. As he felt her soft skin press against him, he felt a warmth he hadn't felt for years rush through him. His head buzzed and sagged at the same time, and he held his daughter tight. Melanie breathed easy. Russell breathed easy too. Dresden didn't breathe at all. Belle just sobbed. She pounded against his chest. She howled to the rafters, and pounded some more, stamping her fist into the ground and wailing. Dresdens chest no longer rose and fell. He was still. The rest of the world moved around him, passed him by, chattered as he kept quiet, got angry and scared as he stayed calm and withdrawn, fought and killed as he did what he needed to do to survive. Though, of course, he didn't need anything to survive any more except something to keep the maggots away. Melanie shifted in Russells arms. He felt something pointed at the side of his head. Something long and pointed. A snarl to the side of him spat "Put the bitch down, or I'll skewer you."

“Don't you dare, Russell! Don't you goddamned dare leave that girl ever again!” The voice rang out in the massive chamber, silent now, as everyone watched. Sebastien stood in the doorway, with Lester behind him, as smoke poured out from behind them. “You stand up for her!” He cried. Russell clenched his eyes shut as he felt the sword tremble beside him, the point digging into his temple.

Nobody moved for a good ten seconds. Russell trembled, Melanie hugged close to him, his assailant, furious, sword at Russells head, Belle, silently watching from the floor. Sebastien, analysing from the doorway. At ten seconds, he smiled. “Russell,” he began. “I think I was wrong about you-” but he was unable to finish his sentence. Two guards came from his side and threw dirty daggers at his throat. Another went for Lester, but he was too quick and barrelled his shoulder into the approaching guard, knocking him into his two comrades on their way to subdue him. He grabbed the swordmans weapon and grappled with him for it – Russell dived out of the way, daughter in hand, as the two fell, fists falling onto face and chest and arm and leg, kicking scratching. Belle leapt forward to help but the crowd, stronger now, settled in around her and suffocated her actions before she could do anything. She fell into the mob with a brief cry and her and Dresden were hidden.

The swordsman was on top of Lester now, and punched him square in the mouth. Lester fell back with a cry, blood trailing from his mouth and the guy sneered a victory and put his sword against Lesters throat. They were caught. All that was left was Russell, and his daughter, hugged against him. He could protect her from the world. Could he protect her by running, by pounding bronze till he got home? Could he run away again? She breathed on his arm and

He was back in his safe place. The last time he had been truly happy. Waves lapped the shore outside and crawled around the base of the stairs, moulding the banisters. Russell sighed contendedly, and pulled the sleeping Juliet a little closer to him. She moaned softly in her sleep and padded her arm around his back. He fell asleep on her shoulder, or he was awake and lying next to her. When dreams and reality collided you could do anything and wish for anything and it would happen and nothing mattered all of a sudden. All he knew about or cared about was the soft breathing, the rise and fall of Juliets heaving chest, the sweat and passion still hanging in the air. He could feel all of her and be happy, and felt like he was at one with her. Her chest rose and fell-

The exact same way that Dresdens didn't anymore, since he fell, since the crack that broke his spine and shattered his lungs, since the five storeys pulverised him. His last act was to save Ju- Melanie. Russell wondered for a moment whether he would do the same, whether he would fall back-to-the-floor so he would collapse into a stain on the ground but cushion his baby daughter, or would he use her as a ribcage shield.

Happy place happy place. He was with Juliet, the seas outside-

­Were going to rust this island until it sank below the surface and never mattered to anyone again because anyone who could have cared would have rusted along with it.

I dont care about this place.

Russell wanted to go home.

He almost didn't notice when Melanie was taken, but he noticed alright. As soon as his second heartbeat was ripped from him he noticed, and he screamed and ran towards the baby-snatcher, not because it was Melanie, not even because it used to be Juliet, but because he needed something to anchor himself to the real world, he needed some reminder that he had made an impact on someones life, even if it ruined it, he needed to know that he hadn't wasted everything. Selfishly, he cried for his daughter as guards restrained him and bound him alongside the other. Tears streamed down his face as his proudest achievement was held aloft in front of the pillar in the middle of the room.

Sebastien looked at him proudly.

A massive grinding echoed from beneath them and the assembled crowds started a low hum. It grew louder and more sonorous as the pipes picked it up and echoed the noises back at them. “Oh no...” muttered Lester. Before them, the pillar was rising up from the ground. Gears below it ground and sprung and creaked, moaned, bit at each other as the pillar rose until it pierced the roof. Melanie, in her bundle, was held before the rising shaft. The night sky crackled above them, and the pillar hummed with the energy of the entire island. All across the island, wires hung limp, lights flickered off, the moon stopped its relentless assault across the sky. The entire sphere vibrated with suppressed energy, violent, powerful energy. Russell could taste electricity in the air. “No!” he cried to the humming masses, and was smacked sharply about the head and neck by one of the guards. Screens flickered on all over the pillar and through them you could see the entire island, the metal room illuminated by thousands of flickering images. The sphere was omniscient and it could be sated with a sacrifice, and none better than the girl who had killed so many with her filthy birds.

Raised aloft, Melanie woke and began to howl. Her scream scrambled the air around her, so that the person holding her felt his fingers blister and begin to fall away. Melanie hung there in the air, as the air around her sparked and crackled like a thunderstorm. The sky tore open above her, as the pillar split the ceiling. The sphere had been compromised. Birds poured in, and people screamed and began to run from the room. The guards surrounding Russell, Sebastien and Lester disappeared, leaving nothing but traces of scar from the daggers drawn at their throats. They awoke to action immediately – Russell ran forwards to get Melanie. Before he touched her he could feel her pulse, feel her heartbeat in the air around her, feel blood flowing through her arteries, feel millions of nerves spark breaths and movement and thought and, eventually, relativity.

The sky above them fell in on itself, and caved magnificently, huge chunks of the ceiling falling – from Russells point of view – as slowly as a feather. He grabbed Melanie, feeling his hands sting and blister for a moment, and screamed to his team, his successful team, “Lets go!”
Belles eyes swam with tears as she looked back at the corpse of Dresden, already birdfood. She brought out a hand to grab him, but ironbeaks snapped at her fingers and Sebastien pulled her away, shouting “Theres no use! Theres no use!” She was pulled to the door, and together, they ran down the corridor, pistons pumping and steam washing the air around them. The ground beneath Russell split and he tripped, but Sebastien caught him by the arm and pulled him up. All the while Russell gripped Melanie like she was a precious diamond, his most precious possession.