The Gravestone

Madam Cecilia, Cici at the time, had only just turned 10 years of age, and her dad was already spending more time focused on work than on his daughter.

She’d had the unfortunate luck of being born shortly before The Iron Hand began their crusade, and had spent the majority of her life cooped up on the vessel, always needing to be on the run. Not to mention that there weren’t exactly many other kids on board that she could spend time with.

That, of course, hadn’t stopped her from finding her own fun, and she often found herself being whisked away in the world of mechanics. She was a creative at heart, and that creativity sparked a desire to construct strange little gadgets and gizmos, many of which had no use beyond looking fun. Her most recent construction, however, might serve some utility. Inspired by the works of the great Mildred Goldenrod, Cici had created a sort of binoculars, ones that could show the temperature of whatever they were looking at.

It didn’t exactly have the structural integrity to be used all that often, but then again, she didn’t exactly care. She couldn’t wait to show her father. She made her way up to the bridge, with an enthusiasm that only a child could bring. Bounding out of the elevator, she called out to her father. “Dad!”

Her father swiveled his chair around, a warm smile arriving on his face from seeing his daughter. He was a well built man, and almost certainly having gone to the gym in his youth, though body was currently somewhat rounded from constantly sitting at his station on a daily basis.

His hair was nearly entirely grey, having lost much of its original reddish pigmentation a good number of years ago. He wore his standard issue vessel outfit, that being composed of the typical jacket zipped up most of the way, and the utilitarian cargo pants that were all the rage back in his day.

“Cici! What are you doing here?” he asked, joyfully.

“Dad, look what I made!” she exclaimed, a childlike wonder underscoring her voice.

She held it up enthusiastically, as her father examined the new creation, adjusting his monocle. “Ah, and what do we have here?”

“My newest gadget!” she stated proudly. “I call it: The Super Investigator!”

He was glad that his daughter had found such a good hobby to occupy herself with. He certainly hadn’t been such a role model when he was her age, and was incredibly conscious of how little time the two of them got to spend together. He longed to give her more attention, but it just seemed that his work had increasingly taken up what little free time he used to have. Things could have gone so much worse if she had decided to rebel.

“Ah, this is quite the creation, my dear. Perhaps you should show it to the Captain once he's off duty,” the father said kindly.

“Do you really think so?” she asked, earnestly.

“Of course,” he laughed. “The Captain's always looking for things and creations that could be of use.”

All of a sudden, the vessel shook, knocking Cici down to the ground, her creation breaking in two from the impact. A voice began to bark through the speakers. “We are under attack. I repeat, we are under attack. All crew, attend to your stations!”

The lights dimmed. Cici frightenedly turned to look out the window, and for the first time, saw the aircraft that she would come far too familiar with in the coming decades. They rushed towards the vessel with a terrifying scream, blaster fire leaving dents and the occasional gauge the main hull. The adults were shouting commands frantically, the vessel jostling back and forth from impacts and evasion alike. Cici shakily got up from the ground, clutching tightly to a support beam to keep herself upright. The crew operated much like one of her mechanisms, each one doing their part. Though in the same way, they often faltered. All of the crew were too focused on protecting the vessel from outside attacks that none of them realized what was happening right beneath their noses.

Someone came up the elevator.

One of the crew members drew their weapon. Aimed it across the room at the first person who came into sight.

Her father had realized what was about to happen, though he was a fraction of a second too late. The assassin fired, and just like that, Cici was well and truly alone. Her father's body slumped to the floor, the light leaving his eyes.

It had all happened so fast.

The assassin was taken down nigh-immediately by another crew member, but the damage had already been done.

Cici later learned that the assassin was sent by The Iron Hand. Sent to infiltrate their ranks. To gain their trust. And then to kill every single person they could. Cici considered that perhaps she should have been grateful that only one person was a casualty. But she couldn't. Not when that casualty was the only person she had left.

The vessel wasn't out of the woods yet. The aircraft still orbited the vessel like vultures circling a carcass in an open field. Cici knew as well as anyone that a well oiled machine needed all of its parts to function. And the bridge was down a member. With a heavy heart, and tears blurring her eyesight, she pushed her father’s lifeless body out of the way, sitting where he’d sat countless times. She’d seen him operate it enough times over the years to know roughly what she was doing. And with her help, the bridge crew soon put an end to the ambush of the aircraft.

The Captain came to congratulate her, but she wasn't listening. She ignored his words, and picked up what remained of her latest creation, running her thumb along the now fragmented metal shell. Not a single glimmer of that light, that joy, remained in her eyes. Filled with rage, she threw the remnant as hard as she could. It clanged against the metal wall, bits flying off of it as the rest fell back to the ground.

Ever since then, she’d worked at that position on the bridge. Never straying from her orders. Never a moment to be her true self. This was the most “herself” she’d been in years. Exploring abandoned areas with Camden and Levo. Even though it was a journey with the fate of civilization on its shoulders, it felt nice. It felt like an adventure.

It made her feel young again.

As it stood, the vessel was making its way towards the presumed entrance of The Iron Hand’s headquarters. Based on Goldenrod’s notes written in the “Legends from the Old World” book that they stole it from the library, and some other documents that were with the blueprints in the safehouse, the forensics division had been able to piece together a general location for where the headquarters might have been. It was just a hypothesis, but it was the only lead that they had.

One document, however, revealed information that would make it significantly harder to enter than just sneaking their way in. It mentioned something about a biometric scan. Now, biometric scanning seemed far too ahead of its time for this steampunk machinery. At least, that's what Camden thought. But again, he knew by now not to judge their technology by how rudimentary it appeared to be. With the power of Valos Alnovarium, it seemed that almost anything was possible.

As far as living beings in The Iron Hand went, no one was quite sure how many, or rather, how few there were. All that anyone had seen for the last 30 years were drones, completely devoid of any pilots or human beings. It was said that The Iron Hand used to employ humans, but that certainly didn't seem to be the case anymore. So where were they going to get something to trick the biometric scanners? Well, from one of the few people they knew worked for them. From Mildred Valaraki. Or more accurately, from her grave site.

After discussing their plans with the Captain, he revealed that the vast majority of people who died were all located in one centralized area. A global cemetery, if you will. Luckily for them, it just so happened to be on the way to the hypothetical entrance to the headquarters of The Iron Hand.

Camden sat by one of the portholes, watching the blooming trees pass by as the vessel approached its destination. He couldn't help but think back to his first day back in the old town. Being driven back to his grandmother’s old house. Thinking about it now, he couldn't believe that he had even considered missing her, that he had longed for her attention and approval. If he had known what he knew now, he probably would have destroyed that machine to begin with. And taken down that automaton with it. But soon enough they were there, and Camden, Levo, and the Madam exited the vessel once more.

The temperature here was significantly more mild than that of the North, with the suns shining brightly and the birds chirping quietly. Where they were currently located, the climate was that of the springtime. They made their way through the plentiful greenery, and after exiting into a clearing, they found it. He knew that the cemetery would be big but he hadn't imagined just how far reaching it was. How much ground it spanned. There must have been hundreds of thousands of graves here. Maybe even millions. And so the search began. The trio split up, each one of them covering a different chunk of the grave site. And eventually, although it took significantly longer than they had hoped, they found what it was that they were searching for. Located vaguely in the farmost outskirts of the field, was a relatively new looking gravestone. It couldn't have been here for more than 10, 15 years. The text carefully engraved on the front looking just as pristine as the day was first inscribed.

Here lies Mildred Goldenrod. Inventor, creator, and inspiration to all.

Clearly whoever wrote this gravestone didn't know of her secret profession. Her figurative skeletons in the closet, Camden thought to himself. There was no time to dwell on that now. He took the shovel that he'd been carrying off his back, and stabbed it forcefully into the dirt. He looked at the other two, each one of them also carrying a shovel themselves. It was time to desecrate a grave.

⯁ ⯁ ⯁

Another hour soon passed, but it didn't take much longer before one of their shovels hit something hard. Something solid. A skeleton. All they needed was a small amount of DNA, to hopefully trick the biometric sensors. And fortunately for them, there was still an amount of flesh on the bones. It wasn't much, but it would certainly do. Camden thanked his lucky stars that his grandmother hadn't been cremated.

With the DNA now acquired, and some of his grandmother's remains stored carefully in an airtight sealed container, they began to head back to the vessel once more. The final battle was near.

…

Camden walked past one of the graves, and he almost hadn't noticed it. After all, what made a grave stand out against so many others? But this one caught his eye, and he stopped to examine it. It looked significantly older than the rest, cracks plaguing its stone structure. Its positioning slightly crooked, having sunken a small amount into the ground. There was a name on the front obscured by dirt and grime. Camden slowly reached his hand forward brushing the clotted clumps of earthen material off of the rock. He hadn't known what to expect. but never in a million years would have guessed this.

The name made his blood run cold. His breathing sped up. He could no longer hear the world around him, only the thumping of his heart in his chest. His legs grew weak, shaking as he fell to his knees. His vision began to fade. Levo and The Madam looked back, just now noticing that Camden had been left behind. They ran to his side, the Madam asking him if he was all right, asking what was wrong. But her questions fell on deaf ears. Levo looked at the gravestone himself, not recognizing the name that laid in front of him. But it must have been someone who meant a lot to Camden. He read it aloud.

“Maya Silverros.”