Drone Girl

Chapter Three

       Sybil, having ordered a drone for Stella from Uncle Silas and given him Matias' chestnut cakes, tried her best to refocus her attention on her secret task. She had spent some time thinking about how to open the object, but now, having waited for Silas to head out before rolling the oval from its hiding place, she realized she had a bigger problem. Dinner and the surprise Matias and Stella incident had made her forget just how heavy the object in question was.
       Being unable to lift it up herself, she thought back to how she had lifted it before. She had plenty of spare metal bars and rods, it wouldn't be a problem to create another dolly for herself and then modify it, so it had a foot pedal activated chain lift. If she made it as tall or taller than her workstation, than it would be perfect for moving the object anywhere.
It didn't fix all her problems, but it was a start. She couldn't just work on it, hunched over on the floor.
       This big question was, what was she going to do once she could move it around more easily? Her hands shook as doubt creeped in. If anyone found out about this, she would be expelled from the city. What if she had risked everything and she couldn't even get it open, or worse, she opened it and something horrible was inside?
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
       Take it step by step, she thought. That was what Uncle Silas had told her when she was just starting out. Back then Sybil was only allowed to harvest parts from scavenged bits of machinery, and when it came to unscrewing metal cases with tiny, specialized screwdrivers and painstakingly stripping wires, she had thought she was going to lose her mind.
       She remembered one time, she accidentally stripped a screw and despite her best efforts, she couldn't make it budge, the cross-section now gone. She had sat at one of Silas' spare workstations muttering to herself.
       "Stupid thing, stupid da—" The screwdriver slipped out of the once-upon-a-time cross-section and slammed into her knuckle on the hand holding the device.
       "I. CAN'T. STAND. YOU." she had screamed, throwing the square object on the floor, followed closely by the screwdriver itself.
       Uncles Silas, having watched the whole debacle, had walked over and silently picked everything up.
       "What's the problem?" He had asked, handing her back the box she was trying to open.
       "It's this," Sybil pointed at the stripped screw, "This stupid thing. No matter how I angle the screwdriver, nothing works, and I just stab myself."
       Thinking back now, she felt ashamed at how whiny she must have sounded.
       "Well," Uncle Silas said, "Let's take it step by step."
       He walked over to his work station and came back with a thumb sized amount of steel wool.
       "If this is the problem," he pointed at the screw Sybil had been struggling with, "Then all we need to do is think of a solution."
       He pushed the steel wool into the ruined cross-section.
       "The solution here is friction." He pushed the screwdriver into the steel wool and a minute later he had the screw popped out.
       "Notice, the screwdriver grips the screw through this little 'x' and moves the screw. All we needed to do was create the grip."
        Daily, for years after that, Silas would ask Sybil about whatever problem she faced, or if she didn't have one of her own, he would find one for her, and ask what the problem was and how she might fix it. Ever since then Sybil tried to think like Silas and emulate his patience.
        This had sparked a silent affection in Sybil for the red-haired man who looked so much like her father; Sybil was certain her parents would have liked Uncle Silas.
        For now, Sybil was going to follow his advice; she decided to sketch out the pedal action dolly, taking measurements before looking over metal pieces to solder together.
It took her three days to finish everything in the night, after her regular work duties. The most recent shipment of scavenged metal parts kept her and Silas busy during the days. Each part needed to be broken down for optimal functionality and neatness. Uncle Silas was never as organized as Auntie Avon, but there had to be an ease to finding things when they were needed.    
        He didn't want to spend time stripping parts down when he needed to use them, he wanted that done well beforehand.
         At night Sybil worked on her own projects, just like she always had. Or at least, that's what she tried to tell herself. Hiding something so potentially dangerous from a person who had taught her so much in life left her stomach feeling heavy. She didn't have an inkling of an idea as to how she could explain herself if anything happened because of her, but she also knew she didn't want to possibly lose the opportunity to get her hands on new technology that might help avenge her parents and the people of Marfeld.
        How many more people had to die? How many more children had to lose their parents? How much blood did it take to keep the gears of this government moving?
        No, Sybil wouldn't stand for it. What she had to lose paled in comparison to what she and others had already lost.
        So far, she only one had solid idea when it came to opening the box, and it involved liquid nitrogen. The Desert Palace had a supply of the stuff, mostly to help create winter conditions.
        Her first thought had involved a blowtorch and then rapidly cooling the object in water, but she had quickly realized that might ruin whatever was inside the box.
        Sybil shivered at the thought of winter. There was nothing she hated more than when The Desert Palace entered winter. She knew for a fact that many people had tried to ruin some of the weather machines to no avail.
        One particularly cold year even Sybil had gotten in on the sabotage, having left with a group of similarly miserably cold people from around the city. They had split into two teams, each heading for one side of the city.
        Sybil had been able to see from the outside that the machine was too cold to touch, with some parts already frosted over.
        The other team hadn't been so lucky, and one boy had gotten the palm of his hand stuck to the metal casing when he had taken his gloves off to 'get a better look at what he was working with.'
         It had taken that team almost an hour to unstick him, as they took turn heating water and pouring it around his hand to get him free.
        Last time Sybil saw him, he still had a scar on the palm of his hand, like a large mishappen square oval mix.
       Sybil made a silent vow to avoid his fate.
       Her hope was that the liquid nitrogen would break the metal down and make it brittle enough to break, but also not ruin whatever was inside of it.
       There were a few problems with her plan. One, she had to steal one of the vacuum flasks of liquid nitrogen the city kept in storage, near the city edge, and two, she had nowhere to safely use the liquid nitrogen once she had it. Not to mention she had no idea how to use it.
       With the foot pedal dolly completed, Sybil knew she didn't have a choice. She had to move forward with the next step of her plan: Surveil the city storage area.

        The next day, Sybil left, having gotten Uncle Silas' permission to take the afternoon off. Sybil made her way to the south eastern side of the city, where she knew Stella would most likely be practicing how to blend in and survive long bursts of travel with Reg.
        Most of the Desert Palace's city center, where Sybil stayed, was made of sturdier materials, some roofs even sporting ceramic tiles. The further out Sybil went in the city, the more she was reminded of her childhood in Marfeld. Corrugated metal and bits of particleboard was all some structures were made of here, and Sybil often found herself wondering why the original creators of the town had only built the inner-city area. The outer city area was reserved mostly for scavengers, and it laid empty in winter most years, as the cold would be borderline unbearable.
        Sybil still remembered when she had first ventured to this part of the city with Auntie Avon, back when Avon had a friend that was a scavenger. It had felt like at any moment her parents could come walking out of one of the shanty buildings and embrace her.
        Sybil tried not to come here often.
        She heard Reg before she saw him, his accent carrying a more sing-song lilt to it than any other she had heard. Following his voice, she rounded a corner and stopped. Not only was Stella with him, but Matias as well.
        "Hey..." Sybil suddenly found herself at a loss as to what to say.
        The three of them turned to look at Sybil. The scene before her was not what she was expecting; Reg was wrapped in a brown-gray cloak, and seemed to be in the process of interrogating a similarly hooded Stella and Matias.
       "Sybil! Are you here to join the next expedition as well?" Reg asked, unknowingly saving Sybil from the awkwardness she suddenly felt. "We were just going over 'plausible deniability.' Basically, how to get out of a nosy line of questioning."
         "No, no, I'm here to take Stella up on her offer to spend some together." Sybil said, quickly following with, "Silas gave me the afternoon off, so I thought we could go for a walk."
         Sybil tried to keep her voice even, hoping they couldn't tell she was lying.
         While Sybil had to admit it was nice to see Stella again, preferably without Matias, her real reason for coming here was to look less suspicious while she scoped out the city's storage center. She was half-certain it wasn't heavily guarded, but she needed to get an idea of what she was working with.
         Stella looked at Reg, waiting for permission.
         "Sure, sure," Reg lowered his cloak down to his shoulders, revealing a mop of curly mahogany hair, grays abundant at the front, "We should all enjoy some time with our friends when we can."
         He gave a wink and a nod at Stella and Matias before striding off.
         Much to Sybil's relief, Matias quickly made an excuse about getting back to work and headed off in the direction Sybil had just come.
         Sybil took Stella by the arm.
         "You know, you haven't told me much about what you've been learning with Reg."
         And with that Stella was off.

        Feelingmuch like Reg's apprentice herself, having listened to all the ways to hideyour hair color, change your eye color, contour your cheeks, apply wrinkles,remove wrinkles, dress to unimpress, and how to avoid questions and win favor,Sybil now felt confident even she could go out on expeditions outside the city.
        "Youseem really excited about this." Sybil said. Never had Stella talked aboutanything with so much enthusiasm. "I'm happy for you." And she was surprised tofind that she was genuinely happy for Stella. Despite their distance lately, andeverything that made Sybil feel like a giant ball of knots regarding Matias, Sybilstill wanted the best for her childhood friend.
          Alreadythe girls were reaching the far south side of the Desert Palace, and Sybilcould see the left side of the storage unit.
         Thebuilding was wide, and much longer than the other buildings around it. It lookedas though the entire place was built of concrete, like someone had poured onelarge, seamless, building shaped mold.
         Fromthe side, the place looked empty, almost abandoned. Sybil swallowed nervously.What if nothing important was kept there anymore?
         Sybilbrought them around to the front, pretending to listen as Stella went on about whothe most inconspicuous people are in a government-controlled city and why itwas so important to have a drone.
        "Ladies,"they both jumped at the voice behind them. "What brings you here?"