Conduits

Chapter Nineteen

Cooped up in a cage for one, two, or however many days the Junkers had been keeping her, had given Clara a sense of claustrophobia. They had shrunk her world down, suppressed her range of movement.

However much she wanted to, the conduit had not panicked.

Countless times Clara had to wheel herself underneath a golem to work on the machine. Now that was a tight squeeze, the space especially confining if the golem had no tires and was up on blocks. That little world had more of a chance of falling in, crushing her. The Junker cage could do far less, but only if Clara kept her mind open and free. Weak as she was, tapping into the Field, using her sixth sense to roam freely, would prove a taxing task. She had needed to conserve what little strength she possessed while trapped in the kennel, on a limited diet, with little sleep. Being so weak, lacking fine control, Clara might let too much of the Field in, as well. Sensory overload was insanity, just as bad as panic. Instead, the conduit fell back on simpler methods of perceived freedom...

During quieter-sleepless-moments, Clara imagined the world outside her cage as expansive and endless, enough to steal a breath. Sunshine on her shoulders, warming her face. Wind gusting, taking up her curls. The Field spiraling around a junkyard of stacked, towering golems ready for salvage. But, even with this imaginary world to look forward to, Clara still felt boxed in. The borders of her new world-the kennel-always there, if left outside her mind's eye.

Now she knew why she had had that persisting sense, even when letting her mind drift to a mentally intangible plane of openness.

The Junker's golem beast was tight and confining, the single hallway outside the kennel narrow, the ceiling no more than eight-feet high. All the surfaces were metal, the walls corrugated with specs of rust in the groves, the floor solid steel-frigid under her bare feet, she wanted to curl her toes-stamped with a diamond pattern. She nearly tripped a couple of times, her toes frozen and with little feeling. Wish I had my boots.

Kell led the way, hunched over so not to hit his head on the low ceiling. The other men-including Roos-walked normally, fully upright with a little clearance above. Turnip Head and the other Junker, both handling the snares attached to metal pole-arms, walked behind her, pushing her along.

"Go on then. Be a nice little battery," Turnip implored.

"Go too fast and we'll strangle you, not on purpose but you'll learn the lesson either way," the other man warned.

Clara took in more of her surroundings as they walked.

The single hallway stretched the length of the golem, the thing's throat she thought of it, the space wide enough for two thin men to walk together. The sound of footfalls bounced around the space and quickly rebounded back on itself, making Clara's shoulders hit her ears as she tried to avoid the returning ruckus that felt so close. Some doors opened into the hallway, Clara counted three to occupy her mind. Most of the other doors slid open into wall pockets. Behind her a spiraling staircase led... where? She guessed either to the roof of the golem beast or to a second level. When the golem nearly ran her over, it did seem taller than a regular building...

The group moved past a part of the hallway with a welded line up both walls and across the ceiling and floor. A weaving of beads, welding, that connected two golems. This was not just one golem... it was a caterpillar-like beast of metal, sewn together to create something horrible! Kell confirmed proudly that the golem-he called it a bus boat and referred to the golem as a "she", like a boat-was constructed using three golem, each a double-decker with expanding sides. He commented that eighteen wheels wider than Turnip Head's gut were required to stabilize the bus boat for travel across the "road sea".