The Outskirts

As they neared the edge of the city, there was a noticeable amount of officers patrolling the streets leading towards a large metal fence and outposts. Just over the wall was a large charcoal black obelisk towering over the lookout outposts.

“First time seeing the pylon in person, it's impressive.” Jonathan thought.

He figured that this pylon must be the sole reason for the air’s clarity here on the edge of Myrtle's Coast.

“Pretty impressive range.” Jonathan says out loud.

“I don’t think we should really go with this now that I’m thinking about it,” Lewis tells Jonathan.

“What, why?”

“My arm might get us in trouble, and with how tight security is I’m certain that they’ll figure out my modifications.”

Jonathan looks around and can feel that the officers are keeping an eye on them through their blacked out visors.

“So what should we do? Go and try out Ter?”

“It’s risky, but I think it's a better option. At this rate we would have to win the lottery to get in.”

Turning the motorcycle around Jonathan readjusts their course towards the shore.

“Now our next biggest probleming is finding this Ter. I have no idea how we’re going to do this.”

“You’ve forgotten already? I have the right tools for this job Jonathan.”

Reaching his hand out, Lewis goes silent behind Jonathan.

“What are you–”

“Quiet, I need to concentrate.” Lewis says coldly.

Giving him his time, Jonathan rides along, unsure of what Lewis is doing.

“Take a right turn.”

Following along, Jonathan takes the turn at a street corner.

“Now go left.”

For some time, Jonathan was guided by Lewis for some time, following his commands without question.

“Stop. He’s here.” Lewis says abruptly.

Turning off the engine, they stand before a small building on the edge of the craggy shoreline. Behind the building a wooden dock stretches into the sea, a boat is secured on.

“I must be tired to forget that you can somehow find people,” Jonathan says.

“And good thing too, there’s surprisingly barely anyone by the coast for some reason.” he says as he looks around.

“It's harder to prevent flooding from the higher tides at night around here. Something I learned from my father.”

Dismounting from the motorcycle, Lewis walks ahead of Jonathan towards the building. Finding that there is an open sign posted outfront, they enter the building together. A bell hanging over the door chimes softly as they set foot inside.

“Good morning, today’s fish of the day is perch.”

Cleaning a table spotless, the man hangs the rag on his waist and greets the two of them.

“What can I do for you gentlemen this fine morning?” the man says.

“We are looking for a man named Ter. I’ve heard that this is his business.” Lewis says.

“You’re looking right at him,” 

“Wow, it really does work I guess.” Jonathan thought to himself as he looked at Lewis.

“So what is it that you want?” Ter asks.

“This might be hard to ask, but we need a favor. A favor from Dan.” Jonathan says.

“Oh, so Dan has sent you two. I’m guessing you’ll need something more than a meal.”

“Yeah.” Jonathan says at a loss for words.

“We need a ride to Myrtle’s Coast, it’s urgent.” Lewis says.

“Yeah, so what do you say?” Jonathan continues.

Looking as Jonathan and Lewis wait for Ter’s response, he finishes cleaning another table.

“Since it's a favor asked by Dan I’d love to help, but I can’t.”

“Why? We’re desperate, we would help you with anything if you need it.” Jonathan says.

“I’m sorry, but my ship just can’t right now, I need certain parts to fix it, but I’ve had no luck in finding them, and without it the engine just won’t start.”

Jonathan takes a moment to think, putting his hand to his mouth and grasps at his short beard.

“Mind if I check, maybe I can do something about it.”

“I don’t know what you can do, I mean it's literally missing pieces at this point–”

“Please, just let me see if I can do anything.”

“I guess it can’t hurt.” Ter says after he sighs.

Taking them to the back of the shop, Ter shows them around the boat stationed on the dock.

“A Catamaran Boat, it's nice.” Lewis says.

“You know your stuff! It sure is beautiful, but sadly it's in dire need of repair as I’ve said.”

Getting aboard, Ter pulls open a hatch in the middle of the ship, exposing the engine room. Dropping down below, Jonathan follows.

“I’ve had Dan and some other mechanics I know around these parts take a look at this. They’ve told me that some of the piston heads are blown and that it would probably be better to just get a completely new engine.”

“I would have to agree, it’s too much hassle than what it's worth at the end of the day.”

“Thing is, there’s been a lack of spare engines with how things have turned out here, and so now I’m stuck with this for the foreseeable future.”

Ter starts to leave the engine room through a ladder built into the side.

“Eitherways, Dan told me that even he couldn’t fix it so I understand if you can’t either.”

Lewis looks at Jonathan with unsure eyes from above on the deck.

“We can always find another way if we need to, Jonathan.” Lewis says.

“I can do this. I specialize in these sorts of things.” Jonathan says.

“Really? Well if you can get it done then consider the ride into Myrtle’s Coast guarantee.”

“Then consider it a deal. I’ll get started right away.”

“Great! Well if you don’t mind, I’ve got a business to attend to. I’ll leave you to it.” Ter says as he hops off the boat and walks away on the dock.

“So, can you really do it?”

“Yeah, all of Benedict’s training wasn’t for nothing.”

Lewis, amazed at his friend, starts to laugh.

“What’s wrong?” Jonathan asks Lewis for his sudden outburst.

“Nothing,” Lewis says, controlling himself as wiping a tear from his eye.

“It's just that you really have become a great mechanic.”

“Thanks.” Jonathan says, nodding his head.

“So then, do you need help?”

“Bring me the stuff from the motorcycle. I’m definitely going to need Dream for this job.”

Hurrying, Lewis brings Jonathan the leftover supplies from the storage compartment of his motorcycle. Although it's a considerable pile, Jonathan ultimately decides that the jar of Dream would be sufficient.

“So what's the plan?” Lewis asks as he looks over Jonathan from the top of the boat’s deck.

“I’m going to use Dream to make entirely new pistons for this engine. The problem though is that I need to somehow design these pistons without a proper computer setup.”

“That sounds hard.”

“Well, it's basically impossible.”

“Then why did you agree to this?”

“For some reason I feel like I can do this.”

“How though? You said it yourself, it's impossible.”

“I don’t know, but there's been this feeling in me that I can use this gift that Dream had given me for more than just pushing Dream away.” Jonathan says as he closes his eyes in consideration.

“Ever since I last saw your poor motorcycle, I realized that I could probably use Dream to create and fix things. But it's just a hunch.”

“It always starts out like that.”

Turning to Lewis, Jonathan opens his eyes and looks at Lewis with a raised eyebrow, his interest piqued. Lewis looks at his bandaged arm and makes a fist.

“When I first came to my senses after the surgery, I too had a hunch that I could’ve found you. Doesn’t it feel like it's something that would be second nature to you, right?”

“Yeah,” Jonathan says, he turns his head back to the engine.

“But, when I tried realizing this hunch on your motorcycle, it didn’t work. I got something wrong about the hunch, but I just don’t know what yet.”

“Well then maybe you just need to change your approach.”

“How so?”

“When I first tried using my ability I thought that I could just picture someone in my head and just see their direction, but it didn’t work. This might sound a little weird, but if I didn’t imagine myself shouting their name from the top of the island’s mountain I would never have been able to feel them in the first place.”

“So what, do I imagine harder?”

“I don’t really know, but I guess so. Maybe start with some strong memories of you fixing something.”

Grasping at straws, Jonathan closes his eyes and tries to remember himself fixing something.

“Fixing something. Fixing something. Fixing something… I don’t know, fixing something like my bike? That’s relevant.” Jonathan thought.

Entering the theater of his imagination, Jonathan tries to conjure the memories of when he first really attempted to fix his motorcycle all those years ago.

“I don’t know why but I can really remember the smell of oil.” Jonathan thought as he imagined himself scrubbing away at the rusted exterior of the bike, although he didn’t have the experience he has now, he realized that he sure did try.

Trying, trying, trying, failing.

He remembered just how hard it initially was, too much to do, too little knowledge to apply. Just then thoughts of Benedict entered his mind.

“A notebook.” Jonathan thought to himself as a notebook materialized in his mind.

Pages upon pages of notes slowly and meticulously being scribbled in, faster and faster until the book was filled, then these books multiplied in his mind. More and more these books filled his mind, the countless hours of him carefully fulfilling Benedict’s requirements for his challenges of the new vehicles in his shop. These challenges soon were replaced with Jonathan’s own notes as he continued on well past his time in Benedict’s shop, completing only more volumes of notes. Remembering deeply all of his notes, a library of completely unique parts and measurements down to the third decimal came falling down upon him in his mind. It was suffocating, but Jonathan manages to claw his way out of his illusive books to discover himself sitting at a desk.

“School.” Jonathan noted as he looked around.

“I could never focus… Well, that was until I started doing these challenges to pass the time.”

Looking down, he sees that he’s holding a mechanical pencil down on a half-complete diagram of something in his notebook. This something turned out to be an engine Jonathan became aware of as he looked closer to the page.

“This engine is all wrong, if it's built like this then there would be eventual issues with the pistons blowing.” Jonathan thought as he erased the misconstructed elements of the drawing.

“Although it's counterintuitive, these pistons need to be more rigid… perhaps they should also have their heights reduced by…” Jonathan thought as he scribbled away.

For hours, Jonathan redefined the engine and cleaned its design to the point where he felt satisfied.

“Now this is nice, something even Benedict would be proud of…” Jonathan thought as he dropped the pencil on top of the notebook.

Leaning back in his chair, Jonathan decides that now would be a good time to relax a little after such straining mental effort.

“Who would have thought thinking would be so–” Jonathan thought, finding himself unable to finish the thought as he fell backwards in his chair.

Bracing for impact he shuts his eyes in anticipation for the falling sensation to end and for the subsequent pain from the whiplash to begin when he lands, but it never comes. Falling, and falling Jonathan realized that the class he was in was not really real, that it was all just in his head.

“...Jonathan! Jonathan! I can’t believe it! You really did it!”

Groggy, Jonathan opens his eyes to Lewis shaking him awake. By the harshness of the sun, Jonathan could tell that it was already midday. Fearing for sunburn, he checks himself to discover that Lewis had covered him from the sun with an umbrella.

“I must’ve fallen asleep, sorry Lewis I don’t think I can figure this out after all–” Jonathan says as he rubs his eyes.

“What are you talking about? Look!”

As his awareness sharpened, Jonathan looked around himself. Lying by his side is a half-emptied jar of Dream that had somehow tipped over and spilled onto the engine room’s floor. Confused, Jonathan followed the Dream trailing out of it with his eyes to see that it led into the nonfunctional engine which now had a metallic purple finish on several parts of it.

“Wait, how did this–? Did I do this!?” Jonathan exclaimed.

“Yes!” Lewis says, shaking Jonathan.

“It was amazing! For a moment I thought that you’d just fallen asleep after all we’ve been through until I saw the jar starting to shake. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the Dream come to life and fill the engine until I saw your hand glowing–it still is, look!”

Jonathan looks to his hand and sees the final dying glimmers of a few pieces, before his hand turns normal.

“I can’t believe this either…” Jonathan says with shock, he stands up and scurries towards the engine.

“I was just dreaming about school, my notes, Benedict… too much to really think about, but I know this for sure. I was working on an engine and look at this now.” Jonathan says as he inspects the engine, Lewis looks on.

“It’s fitted exactly how I imagined it should’ve been.” Jonathan says, almost not believing himself.

“Let's get Ter to turn it on.” Jonathan says, looking at the amazed Lewis.

Together they jump off the boat and run their way back down the dock to the building in joyful glee. Returning to the boat with Ter, they present the new ship engine to him to shake away his skepticism.

“Wow you really did it. You know I’ve had at least three people come to me and say that this is just a pipe dream to get it repaired.” Ter says as he touches the purple repairs.

“We still need to turn it on to see if it really works. A lot of parts had to have been replaced after all.” Jonathan says.

“Understandable, let me go crank it.” Ter says.

Exiting the engine bay, he closes the hatch and steps into the wheelhouse. In anticipation, Lewis and Jonathan follow.

“I really hope this works.” Ter says as he inserts the ignition key.

Jonathan closes his eyes and hopes that the engine will work just fine; Ter turns the key. Hearing a distant sputter Jonathan’s heart sank, but suddenly the sounds neutralized and the engine roared with new life, new power. Sighing a breath of relief, Jonathan opens his eyes and sees that both Ter and Lewis were also doing the same thing as him.

“So as part of the deal we’ll go to Myrtle's Coast under the cover of night.” Ter says seriously.

Sensing Ter’s seriousness, Jonathan looks to Lewis for reassurance, he nods back to Jonathan.

“We are ready.” Jonathan says.