Above the Clouds

Sarah pulled her hair back and tucked it up inside her cap again. It was warm here in Finkton - the sun was bright but she suspected the temperature also had something to do with the heavy smoke that poured from the chimneys atop the surrounding factories. The area where they were now was less a small town than a huge factory floor. The workbenches all over the streets, crates coming in on the sky-lines, the open warehouses...

They were looking for the Good Time Club, where Mr Lin had been taken...and hopefully still was, alive. Helena was quiet, still wearing the big green coat despite the warmth of the air. Sarah kept looking at her, worried but hiding it under nonchalant smirks. She seemed to be taking what had happened to the Lin’s personally, and if they found nothing to bring back but a body, Sarah didn’t know what would happen.

As they passed by one of the smaller warehouses, Sarah glanced in the ajar doorway and stopped short at the sight of one the tears flickering in the centre. She guessed that was why the place was deserted.

“Helena!” she hissed. “Look.” She grabbed the coat sleeve and tugged her to the door.

Helena’s eyes grew wide.

“A tear.” she said, walking into the warehouse. Sarah followed.

“Can you open it?” She asked, not taking her eyes away as the light flickered again, the colours shifting from white to yellow to crimson.

Helena held a hand up and walked around the tear, her fingers stretching as if feeling the light. Then she held both her hands up and moved them like she was ripping a piece of paper in half.

The tear shimmered and twisted and opened a little more. Music came out of it, loud, and fast, and like nothing she’d ever heard before.

Sarah’s mouth dropped open as a voice filled with passion and pain half-sang, half-shouted words. She felt her hands tingle with electricity, and the hair on the back of her neck stood up. She made out - ome folks are born silver spoon in hand they only help themsel- before the tear snapped closed again. The sudden silence was like waking from a full colour dream back into a drearier reality.

Helena sighed and shoved her hands into her pockets.

“Sometimes they won’t…” She waggled her head side to side.

“Did you hear that? That was...what was that?” Sarah said, still staring at the tear as it glinted silently. “It was....amazin’. I’ve never heard music like that before!”

Helena gave her a small smile.

“I don’t think anyone has heard music like that before.” she said cryptically, tilted her head to the side, and began to walk backwards towards the doors. “Sarah. We have to…”

“Yeah, comin’,” Sarah replied, her fingers still tingling. She reluctantly left the tear behind and joined Helena back out on the street.

People scurried past, seemingly doing their best to avoid even looking at the two of them. Their faces were tired, and while there was much more variance in skin colour among them, all had a greyish tinge to them. Helena looked at all of them with concern. Sarah looked at Helena, wanting to shake her a little. We can’t save everybody. She rubbed the back of her neck. Maybe not even ourselves…

They turned a corner, and there was the Good Time Club, probably the fanciest building in this part of Finkton. Wide sandstone steps led up to a veranda with bay windows and large polished wooden doors, with the ubiquitous golden Fink statue clutching his golden watch in the centre.

The lights on the marquee spelled out SARAH MANNING AUDITION TODAY! in gold. The ‘M’ was crooked.

Sarah ran a hand over her face in bemused horror. Her name in lights.

Helena looked from the marquee to Sarah and back again.

“You’re famous,” she said lightly. Then, more seriously, “Should we just...go in?”

Candidate...audition...what was Fink’s game here? Out loud, Sarah said,

“Let’s check around the back. Maybe a door’ll be...open.” She winked at Helena, and felt oddly uplifted when she returned the wink with a small grin.

The sides of the building were smooth brick and cement, the windows too high to climb to. But behind the lumber stacks at the rear was a door. It was locked, of course, with a lock that caused Helena to drop into a sitting position, and stare at it in silence. When Sarah started to speak, she waved a hand at her, without taking her eyes from the lock. Then she pulled out her lockpicks, studied them seriously, picked three, and set to work. Sarah shrugged, leaning back against the warm brick and watched her work. It seemed to take a very long time, but it was no more than ten minutes later when Helena hissed triumphantly and the door opened.

“Nice work,” whispered Sarah, gently touching Helena on the shoulder. “Be careful, alright?”

She led the way into the narrow corridor. There were two doors. The first opened to a stairwell heading down. Sarah could hear faint voices, but couldn’t make out any words. She closed that door and opened the other one carefully, then motioned Helena through. They found themselves in a dressing room, with cosmetics scattered in front of mirrors surrounded by light globes, and hints of satin and feathers peeking out of a wardrobe in the corner.

“A ‘good time’ for Fink and his cronies,” muttered Sarah. She stiffened as the idea that this was what she going to be auditioning for occurred to her - then she snorted and shook her head and quietly moved to the other door in the room, cracked it open, peering out into the club. She could see figures moving around, a few more gathered around the bar on the first floor. Christ, I could use a bourbon , she thought desperately. Her flask had run dry a while ago.

She closed the door again, grabbing a chair to wedge under the handle. She jumped at the sound of Fink’s voice, spinning around with the gun in her hand before she realised it was another voxophone. Helena held it up in front of her, trying to hide her entire self behind the contraption.

“Bloody hell!” Sarah groaned, her arm dropping. Helena slowly lowered the voxophone, the pink bags around her eyes suddenly vivid against her white face. Sarah holstered the pistol and held a hand out.

“Sorry, Helena, I thought...sorry.” She took the voxophone Helena was holding out, and frowned. “Wait. If you used your...power...would it stop bullets? Gunfire?” She remembered how the air had felt thick, back in the ticket office where Helena had first used it.

“Hm. Maybe...I don’t know.” Helena tugged her sleeves down, covering her hands.

Sarah tapped her foot a few times.

“Well, hopefully we won’t need to find out.” she said firmly, and pressed the lever.

I had thought you a fool, dearbrother. When you told me that you heard wonderful music trumpeting from holes in the thin air, I began to doubt your mental integrity. But not only have you made your fortune from these doodads, you have lit the path for me as well.

Helena raised her eyebrows.

“It must be for Albert. Fink.” she said in an interested voice. “He’s hearing music through the tears. And…” she slid a hand free of it’s sleeve and waved it in the air. “Passing them off as his own!” Her hand moved to her face and she pulled on her lips thoughtfully. “I think. From different times .”

Sarah’s eyebrows raised as high as Helena’s.

“Different times? You mean...from another year, or…? I thought they just opened up into another part of the world. Or, parts of another world? Wait…” This was starting to hurt her head, and not in a nosebleed way, just in a ‘not smart enough for this shite’ way.

Helena smiled at her, patiently.

“Think of it like...there’s this world. And then there are a million other worlds. All almost exactly the same. The tears are a...window. Into another version of this world. Or maybe this world but a hundred years from now!” She waved both her hands now, warming to her subject. “I read books on science...physics. Trying to figure it out.”

Sarah tried to follow.

“And what did the books tell you?” She saw Helena open her mouth again, and held up a hand. “Doesn’t matter. We should probably save the science class for later, anyway.” She placed the voxophone back onto the dressing table. “They must be keeping him downstairs somewhere. C’mon.”

Helena nodded and tugged her cap into place. As they crept down the stairs, she whispered into Sarah’s ear.

“The books taught me. There is a world of difference between what we see. And what is .”

Sarah made a mmm noise in response, then held her finger up to her lips. She needed to concentrate on their little mission, not try to understand some kind of...quantum bloody multiple worlds theory. She pushed the nagging worry about what Jeremiah Fink was bringing through the tears to the back of her mind.

The voices were louder now, as they reached the doorway at the bottom of the stairs, and Sarah peeked around the doorway to see two blue-suited Authority guards at the other end of the room. She ran her eyes over the room. Two desks and a block of filing cabinets sat in the centre. A notice board covered with memos and wanted posters was taking the attention of the two guards. She flexed her fingers and aimed.

One guard was enveloped in the green mist of Possession. He shuddered slightly, then drew his gun and shot his partner point blank in the head before she’d even noticed. For a moment he stood, swaying, then blinked and shot himself, his body joining the other on the floor.

Sarah listened for footsteps, or more voices. Nothing. She stood, sliding the gun from its holster and keeping it loose in her hand, just in case. Helena followed her, looking at the bodies on the floor silently as she passed them. Blood had sprayed the notice board, and dripped down the penciled faces of Daisy Fitzroy and a variety of other Vox outlaws.

The next room was empty except for stacks of boxes, and another door. Helena pointed to a chalkboard hanging next to it, and tapped a finger on the last name.

Chen Lin. Cell 9.

Through the door was a larger room, more boxes, and a furnace. Vox Populi posters lay in heaps, next to advertisements for Chen Lin’s store, and the fire burned bright with bundles of paper. Other items lay on shelves haphazardly. Sarah guessed it was evidence disposal. The next doorway led to another room. Sarah let out a chuckle.

“Keep thinkin’ I’m underground. But we’re still in the sky.” She looked at Helena. “Do you ever get used to it? Being up here?”

Helena shrugged.

“I don’t really remember anything else,” she said pensively, then she flicked her eyes at Sarah, and asked in return -

“Do you ever get used to the killing?”

Sarah opened her mouth. Closed it. She rubbed a hand over her face and avoided Helena’s eyes, looking instead at the blonde curls escaping from the cap on her head.

“Faster than you can imagine.” she replied softly.

She hadn’t been lying when she’d told her earlier that she’d only killed in self-defence. But now, the self-defense was pre-emptive. She couldn’t wait for them to try any longer. They’d kill her and take Helena and she had to stop them. And she wasn’t gonna think about it.

The next room was dark. There was a table with a collection of liquor bottles on it at the rear, some chairs, and a projector. It was still running a loop. Chen Lin tied to a chair, shaking his head, the bruises obvious even in the grainy black and white. Voices shouted at him, using words that made even Sarah wince.

The light flickered over Helena’s face.

Her mouth was a straight thin line, and her clenched fists peeked out of the coat sleeves. Sarah sidled closer, wrapping her hand around one of the fists. It immediately opened and enclosed Sarah’s hand tightly.

“How can they treat people this way.” Her voice was soft, but sounded all the angrier for it.

Sarah reached out with her other hand, fumbling with the knobs on the projector until the sound clicked off. In the silence, she could hear voices echoing from further on, so she kept hers low as well.

“The ones that have the power...they like to treat people like things. Makes it easier if you believe the folks you’re kickin’ aren’t really human.” And other folks ignore it, and that makes it easier again , she thought, suddenly despondent. The mob at the raffle, that she’d nearly been a part of…

She pushed that feeling away and squeezed Helena’s hand, whispering -

“So let’s go stop them.”

Through the next doorway was a long, wide corridor, metal doors gleamed dully in the dim lighting. There were more guards, one leaning against a wall smoking a cigarette, two standing at the far end, talking in low voices. Sarah saw Helena wrinkle her nose up at the smell that hung in the air. Stale sweat, blood - not to mention other bodily wastes. A secret little prison under his club, and no accountability. She was hating Fink more every moment, and her hands itched with wanting to punch someone. But she kept her head, again using the Possession vigor.

The smoker let the cigarette drop from suddenly listless fingers, then drew his gun and shot one of the other guards, before being shot himself. By then, Sarah was halfway down the corridor, hand extended, and lightning engulfed the remaining guard, her body dancing on the spot before falling onto the cracked green tiles.

Behind her, Helena was busily opening all the cell doors. Some were empty save for blood-stained mattresses and empty food tins. Some still had the bodies in them.

Sarah started to think that Daisy Fitzroy would be positively gentle with Fink, compared to what Helena would do to him. She wasn’t saying anything, but her face …

Cell number nine was the last door on the right. Helena made short work of the lock and they found themselves in another large dark space, with a large cell ahead and metal stairs to the side. The cell was empty, so they headed down, moving as fast as possible without their footsteps echoing. They both jumped as the public address system crackled to life.

“Miss Manning, my dear girl! You know the best kind of interview is one where the applicant doesn’t know they’re being evaluated! Had quite the obstacle course set up for you - but you seem to have bypassed that. I like a little ingenuity! I’ve been watching you since the Raffle, and you’re quite the lion in the arena! And you’ve stolen the Prophet’s dear little sister from under her nose. Most impressive! Now, look, I know that Fitzroy has come calling as well...and hence my problem. She’s got the jungle all riled up and I need a new head of security. You can hardly blame me for looking after my own interests, can you? At any rate, I believe you’ll find your business with her has come to an end.
Lions walk with lions, Manning, not hyenas!”

They’d reached the bottom of the stairs now, and the sick feeling that Fink’s words had left in Sarah’s guts were immediately confirmed by the pools of blood on the tiled floor, and the silence from the open cell in front of them. She could make out a table covered with all manner of surgical - and blunt - instruments, and a lightswitch. She walked forward, trying to step over the blood, and flicked it.

She heard Helena gasp behind her.

One single naked bulb hung from the ceiling, casting a cold light over the man tied to the chair. He slumped to the left, unmoving, his face almost unrecognizable under the bruises and cuts and swelling and dried blood.

“Mr Lin,” breathed Helena. She moved forward and reached a hand out, bit her lip, then gingerly placed her fingers on his exposed neck. After a moment she raised her eyes to Sarah, and shook her head. “He’s...we’re too late.” The anger in her eyes had been replaced by a deep sorrow. “This is what Fink meant.”

“Yeah.” Sarah’s voice cracked slightly, then roughened. “Now we need to get someone else to make those guns for the Vox.”

“No!” Helena snapped, shocked.

Sarah hardened herself.

“Dead is dead, Helena.”

The light flickered. It was pitch black for a second too long, then a man’s clipped voice said  -

“Dead is dead.”

The light came back on, and revealed two figures in the doorway.

“What the hell…” Sarah said, blindsided. “ You ?”

“ I see...heads.” said Rosalind Lutece.

“And I see tails,” replied Robert Lutece. He held a coin up between two fingers so one side faced him, and the other his sister.

“It’s all a matter of perspective.” Rosalind kept talking over Sarah’s sputtering curses, while Helena watched the two of them with her head tilted to the side, seemingly fascinated.

“Wait, you are following me! Did Sister Rachel send you after me?” Sarah demanded, then stopped and thought. That wouldn’t make any sense - why would Sister Rachel go out of her way to get the False Shepherd to Columbia? She shook her head, confused. The two of them - in matching vest, tie and jacket ensembles - glanced at Sarah, the turned their attention back on each other.

“What do you see here, from this angle?” continued Robert, conversationally.

“Dead,” answered Rosalind. “And that angle?”

“Alive.” Robert stated.

Beside her, Helena stirred and murmured Sarah...look.

She looked at the body of Chen Lin, stepping back as a tear flickered over and around him. It was wide enough to see into quite plainly. She scratched at the initials on her hand, and let out a breath.

“The body...it’s gone,” she said, staring through the tear. Same room, no body, no blood. She moved, and the tear shimmered, and she could see the body. Moved again, and the body disappeared.

“It was never here.” corrected Robert.

Sarah kept staring, as did Helena.

“Another Columbia?” she said, her mind racing. Another Columbia where Lin was still alive, they could get their weapons to the Vox, get the airship, get home?

Helena nodded, seemingly buoyed up by the appearance of the Luteces and the tear.

“A different Columbia,” she confirmed.

“The same coin,” Robert said.

“A different perspective.” said Rosalind.

“Heads…”

“Tails…”

“Alive…”

“Dead.”

“We have to go through,” Helena said, decisively. “But how. This looks bigger than…” She was interrupted by a slightly amused Robert.

“It’s like riding a bicycle…”

“One never really forgets,” agreed Rosalind, almost smiling.

“One just needs the courage to climb aboard.” Robert finished, actually smiling.

The lightbulb flickered again, and the Luteces disappeared in the second of darkness.

Sarah dashed over to the door, her head spinning, but there was no sign of them.

“How the bloody hell do they do that?” she demanded, turning around on the spot.  She rejoined Helena at the tear. “Do you know them?”

“Oh yes. I mean. No.” Helena lifted her shoulders. “I didn’t recognize them earlier, on the boardwalk. I was just so…”

“Full of sugar,” muttered Sarah.

“Mm. But they...she is the one who invented...” Helena was getting animated, the prospect of helping the Lin’s was a probability again and her anger had diminished slightly. “Rosalind Lutece! She made Columbia fly! I have - had - all her books.” She frowned. “But the Luteces disappeared years ago. At least. That’s what..”

“Your books say,” finished Sarah. She grinned at Helena, and got  wry smile in return. “Yeah, I’d actually picked up some of that along the way.” She thought about Ada and had a second of regret, but it was hardly the first time she’d pulled a disappearing act on someone. “But they just keep showing up! How do they...oh, forget it…” She gestured at the tear. “Shall we?”

Helena nodded, suddenly serious again. She concentrated on the tear, raising her hands and moving them in that particular way, and the tear widened slowly. Gritting her teeth, she pulled at the air. Sarah felt a slight vibration coming up through her boots, and the skin on the back of her neck goose-pimpled.

The tear grew wider, until it encompassed most of the cell. Helena spoke, her voice showing the strain it was taking on her.

“If we go through. I don’t think I can get us back.” She looked at Sarah, her face a mirror. “Are you ready?”

Sarah nodded, apprehensive but ready. Helena bobbed her head towards the other room, and Sarah stepped into it, feeling a lightheadedness that passed quickly enough. Helena jumped in after her, and the tear snapped shut behind them.

The cell was exactly the same, except for the lack of blood and bodies. And the roaring of voices and gunfire creeping through the building. Sarah looked up the stairwell.

“Something tells me one dead gunsmith ain't the only thing that's changed,” she mused.

Helena joined her, her excitement palpable.

“Another Columbia,” she breathed, following Sarah’s gaze, then grabbing her hand and trotting up the stairs, letting their boots make noise this time. Some of the shouting was coming from the large cells that faced the stairs. Groups of Vox fighters with their red sashes rattled the bars and yelled for freedom. Sarah couldn’t see any cell doors though, and they kept moving.

As they exited the door at the top of the stairs, Sarah’s hand flew to her gun as she spotted the guards. The guards….the same guards that they’d killed on their way down. They stood, swaying and mumbling and almost shimmering on the spot.

“What the hell?” She walked closer to the guard nearest her, listening to the string of words.

I'm disgusted, DISGUSTING, sick, sick, sick…

She skirted past and tried the other two.

Did I...why am I still here...?
I hate one of me...WHO DO I HATE? Can't tell WHICH ONE... Two in here...Who is the I? Which ONE hates WHICH?

“Sarah. Their noses. They’re all bleeding.” Helena was staying close to her, her earlier euphoria sinking rapidly.

“They were dead. I killed them. They were dead!” Sarah heard her voice turn shrill and took a deep breath. Helena touched her shoulder.

“Not in this world,” she said softly. “Come on.” She tugged at Sarah’s arm and they made their way back down the corridor, past cells now occupied by the living, through the room with the projector. Sarah watched the screen as they went past. Chen Lin was seated in a chair, not tied, and still being questioned until a voice cut in to say:

Scofield says cut him loose. Wife’s got friends in high places, and we need the cell.

They're bringing his tools to the lockup. That'll keep him clean, I guess.

His wife? She thought, but was distracted by more guards, the other guards she’d killed, but not killed.

They too swayed on their feet with bloody noses. They didn’t seem to see Sarah or Helena, but focused on something invisible. One whispered what do we do now , over and over as they passed.

They reached the stairs back up to the club, and Sarah paused, placing her hands on Helena’s shoulders and looking her in the eyes. Helena looked back, her face a mixture of apprehension and excitement and determination.

“Helena. What’s wrong with those people? Do you know why they’re...why they’re like that?”

She pressed her lips together tightly, then slumped a little.

“I think. They remember. Being dead.” Her voice was balanced between pity and curiosity.

Sarah felt lightheaded again, and touched her fingers to her own nose in a moment of panic, but there was no blood. She rubbed her face and straightened the cap. Helena copied her, shoving curls back into hiding and buttoning her coat.

“We better head back to the Lin’s,” she said.

They moved quietly up the stairs, listened at the dressing room door to what sounded like a furious Jeremiah Fink screaming at his head of security about trespassers in the basement, then were at the back door before the the guards from this reality could catch them. Helena made much quicker work of the lock this time and they were back out on the streets of Finkton. They looked at each other as they saw the marquee. It was blank now.

“Guess I didn’t get the job.” Sarah joked. Helena offered a strained smile.

There were a lot more police on the streets now, and both of the girls kept their heads down until they were back at the gunsmiths. The doors were still unlocked, so they went in, through to the back room. There was silence. Sarah scowled.

“Too quiet.” she muttered. “There should be...machines. Noise.”

Now Helena led the way upstairs. They paused as they came to the corner with the shrine. But it wasn’t a Buddhist shrine in this Columbia. An icon of Sister Rachel, her halo in gold leaf, replaced the statue. The candles still stood before it, burning bright, the light shimmering off the halo and the silver of her eye.

Sarah shivered, once again feeling like she was watching them, somehow. Helena dug her hands into her coat pockets, moving closer to Sarah.

They continued upstairs, and found Mr Lin in the workroom at the top. Except there was no machinery anymore, and Mr Lin was bending and adjusting things that weren’t there.

“Mr Lin?” Helena said hesitantly. “Excuse us, Mr Lin?”

The man looked up, cupping a hand around an ear.

“Who are you? Speak up, machines very loud!”

Sarah stepped closer.

“My name is Sarah Manning, Mr Lin, Daisy Fitzroy sent me…”

“Stand back, machines are dangerous!” Mr LIn shook his head in exasperation. “Wait downstairs with Mrs Lin.”

Sarah tried a louder voice.

“Fitzroy sent me. Weapons for the Vox? Can you hear me, Mr Lin?”

“Machines very dangerous. No place for stupid people. Want to lose pretty head? Downstairs!” The man shouted at them, and pointed, then squinted and bent down to turn an invisible handle.

Helena held her hands up in surrender and turned to go. Sarah joined her, whispering urgently.

“What’s going on? Is he the same as those guards?”

She nodded, arms wrapped around herself.

“I think so. I didn’t…” her voice trailed off.

They headed downstairs, and the woman now standing at the shrine was taken aback, her hands still clasped in prayer to the Prophet as she turned to face them. Her hair was in a bun, but it was brown, and her eyes were blue.

“Uh, sorry,” said Sarah. “We’re looking for Mrs Lin?”

The woman looked confused.

“I’m Sarah Lin. Can I help you?”

Sarah shook her head.

“No, Chen Lin’s wife? A little Chinese lady?”

Mrs Lin’s face was even more confused.

“Do...do you mean Chen’s mother? I’m afraid she’s been dead for years.”

Helena tugged on Sarah’s hand, and whispered into her ear.

“Sarah, this is Mrs Lin. Another Columbia, remember?”

Sarah tried to wrap her mind around it, but pretty much failed.

 Mrs Lin continued speaking, clearly in need of someone to talk to.

“They took Chen's tools. What's he got without his tools? If he could work again, maybe...i-if he could work, he'd…” She trailed off, sniffling a little.

Helena stepped forward and took her hands, soothing her.

“Mrs Lin, “ she said, darting a glance at Sarah, “Can you tell us who took his tools? Maybe we can. Help?” She raised her eyebrows and Sarah rolled her eyes, then nodded.

“If we get ‘em back, maybe it’ll help your...husband.” Sarah said, wondering if it actually would. But they weren’t getting any guns unless Lin had the means to make them, so…

“Goddamn police. They took them and locked them up, in the impound in Shantytown.” Mrs Lin’s voice was bitter. Sarah wondered whose strings she’d been able to pull, and how they’d have to pay for it. Not someone up at the top, else they wouldn’t have taken the machines and tools as well, but just high enough to save his life.

Sarah pulled her cap off and dug her fingers into her scalp. This was becoming some sort of wild goose chase. But what choice did they have?

“Well, let’s go to Shantytown,” she said loudly. Both Helena and Mrs Lin jumped a little, then Helena smiled and Mrs Lin bowed her head in relief. As they left, she turned back to the icon of Sister Rachel and thanked her for sending help. Sarah opened her mouth, but Helena nudged her and gave her a look, so she shut it again until they were outside.

“She thinks we’re bloody angels sent by the Prophet, or somethin’!” burst out Sarah. “I’m havin’ trouble understanding all this, Helena, to be honest.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. Maybe she shouldn’t try to understand it. Just keep moving, get the job done...hell, let Helena do all the thinking.

Helena’s fingers twined around each other.

“Did you notice. Mr Lin had a bloody nose.” Her wide hazel eyes met Sarahs, full of concern.

“Mhm.” Sarah looked away. She was fine. No nosebleeds for ages now. And Lin would be fine once they got his tools back to him. They just had to...keep moving. Get the job done. God, she was tired. Starting to repeat her thoughts. Wait. Was there another her running round here? Or maybe this was a Columbia she had never come to in the first place…

“Sarah,” Helena hissed, interrupting her rambling thoughts, “Those guards are staring at us.”

Sarah glanced around, casually, scratching her nose. The guards were showing interest, but not drawing their weapons, so she just took Helena by the arm, and unhurriedly walked the other way. They had passed the gate to Shantytown earlier, in the other Finkton. She’d got the feeling that wasn’t the ‘official’ name for it, and when she looked again at the roughly painted letters high above their heads, she could see the words ‘Factory Worker Housing’ just visible underneath.

They passed through the gate, passed crates on sky-lines, passed more guards. They’d come back into the open air onto what looked like ship-deck, wooden planking beneath their feet and raised sides of metal. It bobbed up and down gently like a ship, too, but one that sailed on air.

Helena’s head was turning back and forth. Sarah followed her gaze and saw more tears - small ones, barely visible, but there.

Sarah realised the tears had been appearing more and more...did Helena attract them somehow? Or maybe her power caused a reaction in the world around her. She could feel the headaches coming back, and she dug her fingers into her temples for a moment, then smiled reassuringly at Helena when she gave her a concerned look.

The two of them strolled past the last of the guards, and walked into the elevator, Sarah heaving a sigh of relief as she jabbed the button and the doors slid shut.  Helena looked at the floor and twirled a finger in the curls that had inevitably escaped the hat again.

“If you want to ask,” she said quietly, “you can ask.” Her hand stopped fiddling with her hair, and waggled the little finger with its thimble at her.

Sarah crossed her arms.

“Alright then. What happened to your finger? Was it an accident or…?” She tried her hardest not to stare, but the light glinted off the thimble and drew her eye. Helena gave Sarah a half smile.

“It’s a mystery. Really!” She held it out in front of her, tilting her head this way and that, examining it. “It’s always been that way. Maybe Songbird knows. But he’s not telling.” She placed the thimble against her lips. Then her smile slowly died away. She looked down at the floor. The elevator rumbled gently down and down. Sarah unfolded her arms, and stepped closer, dipping her head to look in her eyes.

“Hey. What’s wrong?” she asked. Helena’s mouth opened, closed.

“You must think. I’m some kind of...freak. Opening holes in the air. Making the dead live again. My only friend is a giant bird.” She wouldn’t meet Sarah’s eyes, so Sarah took another step and gently laid her hands on Helena's shoulders.

“I’m your friend, yeah? You’re stuck with me now.” Sarah wasn’t surprised to find that she meant it. Helena made a sniffling sound and wrapped her arms around Sarah, and they stood like that for the remainder of the elevator ride.