1st August - 2763. 750 years since the Flood
At 15,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean, the air can be damn cold. No - scratch that - not damn cold. Damn freezing.
Flying on a Mk. IV Tesla bike, Julius Bechman pulled his fur collar up against his neck, pressing the sheep wool onto his goose-pimpled skin. He tightened the straps of his leather gloves around his wrists and re-adjusted the dark-tinted goggles that practically suctioned his eyes.
He revved the engine and the twin propulsion exhausts exploded hot steam and flecks of electrical fire, sending the bike onwards and slicing through the tops of the clouds. The front and back wheels of the bike spun madly, catching the stream of air pushing into the hollowed-out insides, lined with toughened rubber slats. The air pummelled the slats, angled as such to make the wheels spin clockwise, which in turn gave a constant flow of electricity to the Tesla stone stored in the battery compartment. It wasn’t so much that it would keep the battery full, but it was enough to grant Julius extra flying time if needs became dire or if there was not as much wind blowing straight it him. But Tesla stones had plenty of power, so that issue was a rarity.
The sun rose ahead of him, bathing his chrome machine and body in a delightful yellow light. He relished the minuscule warmth the light brought. Anything would do at this point.
The wind whipped at the exposed cheeks around his gas mask. It stung the skin, threatening to strike icicles of pain down through to his chattering teeth. Even with the leather gloves, Julius could feel the cold seeping through the repurposed goat skin.
He shifted the gas mask placed over his mouth and felt along the plastic pipe that led from the mask to the gas tank strapped to the back of the bike, all to make sure the lifesaving oxygen was not escaping through any gaps or leaks. He did not want to faint here. He had a job to collect on.
Noting that, he glanced behind him to check on his bag. It was still tightly strapped up with a leather cord on his bike's bag holder. He noted the wetness forming at the bottom of the cloth material.
He made a disgusted face. He should have bought a leather bag instead. That’s what he got for being a cheapskate.
He checked his radar that was screwed in place in the centre of his handlebars, in between the dials for his electricity, air and water gauges. It was a lengthy journey. He must have flown a good three to four hundred miles east. The measuring gauges on the left were all running at half the amount now, the small needle-like arrows quivered against the vibrations of the thrumming engine.
He made sure to charge up his bike’s Tesla stone at the Nova Scotian way-station till the geode was glowing a healthy bright blue.
He glanced to the dials on the left, all reading out the pressure gauges within the system. So far, all of the needles pointed to the middle, within the stable sector. He also paid a little extra to the mech-heads in the way-station to ensure the bike was functioning at its best. He did not wish to be late for his collection, nor blow up trying to get there. But as much as he had paid the mech-heads, his telecommunicater was still broken. Well, to be perfectly honest, there’s not much to be done when the device had a bullet hole in its centre.
Julius growled under his breath at the sight. He was glad to avenge it. He gave a sharp swipe of his hand to the wet bag, striking the culprit of the vandalism. Never mind that the bullet was intended for Julius’s head, but robbing him of his music whilst travelling?
Unforgivable.
The target in the bag, one Ernest Cartwall, was not a careful man. In fact he was a stupid man. So stupid that he had crashed his airship into a fleet of merchant vessels. Whilst drunk. A big no-no.
A D.U.I. charge was punishable by lengthy imprisonment sentences in Millenia City. When you’re in the sky, with gravity as your greatest threat, any crash or even a bump could kill you. Manslaughter was a typical sentencing at trials.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
And death had come for one poor soul abroad the ship that Cartwall bashed into. A lone guard on watch duty. He was sent over the side and plummeting down towards the earth, his scream fading with horrifying speed.
Safe to say, Cartwall did not stay to face the music. He stole a bike and fled. And Julius, being readily available, took up the job given by Carter soon after it was posted by an understandably enraged merchant.
Julius felt a personal anger for Cartwall as well. The coward didn’t have the decency to hold his ground. The guard would have had a family to support, no doubt. Not that Cartwall cared, apparently.
Julius tracked him down quickly. It wasn’t hard. Cartwall was flying scared, leaving angry near-missed airfarers pointing the way for Julius to follow. When he did catch up to the hit-and-runner, they were flying around the Nova Scotian way-station.
Cartwall panicked, shot twice at Julius - one bullet striking the telecommunicater - and then gunned his bike into overdrive. Julius saw this and just as he had expected, noted the blue sparks from the exhaust pipes of the bike.
There was a moment of eerie calm and then, kaboom.
The bike’s hydrogen and battery compartment blew up, with Cartwall atop it. Both man and bike scattered into burning pieces as the bike’s mangled main body crashed into a water silo on the way-station. Julius shook his head at the stupidity this man displayed before sweeping in to take the only evidence he could have that idiot’s existence.
Julius tapped the chronometer on his wrist. The mechanical device read out the Worldwide time as 3:30pm. He still had an hour left to get to Carter’s. He gunned the bike’s engine and sped on.
He looked ahead and noted a thick band of clouds. It was a group of dark grey nimbostrati, unleashing a torrent of rainwater down into the earth’s surface. He shivered. He did not wished to get soaked. So he pulled back the bars. The propulsion system built into the undercarriage of the bike - only thrumming at a lower state to provide lift - gave a growing roar and the bike began to arc upwards, aiming for the crest of the clouds.
But as he curved to avoid flying into the dark grey cloud, he heard a whining cry coming from within in the vapours. And without a moment’s warning, a great dark something rushed out from the top on the cloud, and directly into Julius’ path.
He shouted in shock, violently jerking the handlebars of the bike to the left. The right side of the twin exhausts cut out, forcing all the power into the left and that belched blue fire which threw the bike into a hard left.
He only missed the mass of black flesh as the sky-whale soared upwards. Its mouth was filled with rainwater, great dribbles spilled out from the corners of its maw. The hydrogen gas, that lifted the whale into the air and kept it aloft from the day it was born, hissed from its blowhole.
Julius felt his spine being pushed into his seat as the G-force of the turn nearly crushed him. The bike’s installed life-straps strained against his chest and yanked at the metal clips on his jacket. He would have been throw clear off his seat if not for them.
He gritted his teeth and glared at the beast that could have killed him. It spun through the air, its two fins swiping through the cloud, blissfully unaware.
A second, third and fourth cry sounded. Julius cursed and twisted right - exhausts swapped the roles and screamed shrilly - avoiding two leaping whales and then Julius pushed his bike up higher as one more sky-whale leapt out from the opaque ocean in front of him. He nearly clipped the belly of his bike on the nose of the fourth whale.
And as Julius looked down, he saw more and more of the flying behemoths exploding from the clouds. Soon there were over sixty of them underneath, leaping, spinning and flying.
He laughed to himself with nervous energy and adrenaline pumping in his popping ears; he had accidentally flown right into a sky-whale water harvest.
From what he remembered from school, sky-whales had developed the incredible ability to convert the water they swallowed into the twins gases, oxygen and hydrogen. Something in their gut or intestines did some strange chemical reaction to generate the gases. The theory was that when the first of the sky-whales appeared, they had ingested a copious amount of Tesla stones, the electric component that powers nearly all the technology of the late 28th century. The stones were reportedly transported by an ancient oil tanker back in the mid 21st century, until the ship was struck by a freak superstorm, one of the earlier signs of the cataclysmic weather change that would soon engulf the world. The ship was torn in two and the contents fell into the depths. And right into the mouths of the unsuspecting sperm whales and blue whales. Because of the electricity within the stones, the water within the whales had become charged to a point which hydrogen and oxygen were separated, giving the whales lift. Of course, dozens of the creatures died, having not enough time to evolve and adapt to the sudden physiological shift. But the ones that did not die, they took to the skies and only ever came back down to eat the krill and plankton of the oceans before ascending to their new home.
And now there they were, dancing in the clouds and sending out whooping clicks and whines as their song. Julius leant on the side of his bike, enjoying the sight. The creatures had been flying around the heads of humans for centuries and still they held a wonder that entranced all who surveyed them.
He wondered if they would be ever be trained as beasts of burden, like the mules and cows and horses back in the world capital, Millenia City. He shook his head, dismissing that thought. Something that wild could never be truly trained. And nor should they.
He sped away, leaving the docile animals in peace. He wondered if he could get something similar to their peace. He figured he could do it.
He just had to hunt down a few dozen more outlaws and nasty ne’er-do-wells to get it.