Margo Flint and the Last Soldier Read online

  Written by Nick Mazmanian

  Edited by John Tkach

  Cover art by Nick Mazmanian

  Copyright © 2018 Nick Mazmanian

  All rights reserved.

  Dedication

  To my Mom and Dad for the many video games, movies, and books that helped made me become the person I am today..

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to thank the many talents of my artist and designer friends who helped me design this book cover, without you this book cover would have been disastrous! Thanks Kent Heidelman, Edan Bryant, and Luke Adam Hodson! Thank you my wonderful beta readers, Amber Mazmanian, Brianna Fries, Katie Binns, Mel Yates, Erin Cragg, and Victoria Juillet! Your feedback is always welcomed!

  Lastly, thanks to my family and friends for their support during this book. It’s always nice to know you got folks in your corner.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1- Sticks in the wind

  Chapter 2- A Thief in the night

  Chapter 3- The End of The World

  Chapter 4- Bang

  Chapter 5- The Soldier

  Chapter 6- Zip’s Camp

  Chapter 7- Rollin, Rollin, ROllin

  Chapter 8- Shooting Gallery

  Chapter 9- Hills & Valleys

  Chapter 10- Flanders Fields

  Chapter 11- Memories

  Chapter 12- Violent Delights

  Chapter 13- Best Laid Plans

  Chapter 14- BFG

  Chapter 15- Boom

  Chapter 16- One minute to Midnight

  Chapter 17- Hi, My Name Is…

  Chapter 18- Pieces

  Chapter 19- On Belay

  Chapter 20- Face to Face

  Chapter 21- Old Habits Die Hard

  Chapter 22- Those who Wander

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note for Echoes

  Echoes

  Prologue

  Chapter 1- Sticks to the wind

  Margo looked at the worn metal badge in her hand. The rectangular piece of metal carried on either side of its vertical orientation a pair of wings with the word ‘Messenger’ stretching across. Even though the badge weighed only a few grams, it felt heavier than that in her hand.

  With a sigh, she clipped it to her green tunic, and looked back at Gail Lock. The wrinkled face of the Messenger General creased with a smile. She knew that Margo didn’t want to be here, but here she stood, and mail had to be delivered. She held out a leather messenger bag stuffed with letters and packages to the open hand of her newest, if temporary, recruit. She folded her aged hands together as she chided, “Remember, The Mays are very particular when you drop off their post. Do not just slide it into the slot of their collection box. You must deliver it to their bot.”

  “Oh good, I get to look at Brie today.” Margo threw the bag across her shoulders and dipped a bit as the weight of the mail sank against her body. After adjusting her stance, she looked at the old Messenger General with her green eyes and asked, “Are there any other special requests?”

  “Look now, Margo Flint, and look good.” Gail motioned toward the small hangar of Messenger Station. “This job may not have been something you wanted to do right now, but you’re doing it for the time being. We take considerable pride in our work. People in Artsiv depend on our ability to deliver their packages and correspondence.” She pointed at the last gyrocopter sitting at the end of the four-row bay. “You are our youngest Messenger, but be an example for your peers.”

  The blue container box that carried the crystal A.I. chip known as Catcher sat on Margo’s hip. As he spoke, three holes grouped in a triangle formation carrying billions of lines of data fluxed while he stated, “She is a very good pilot.” His voice sharply cut through the air and due to the construction of the chip, it carried a slight hum. “She placed top of her class in that regard.”

  Gail sighed as she turned toward the boxy computer sitting on her desk. With the swipe of her hand, she transferred the delivery information from it into Catcher. “That’s your route for today.”

  “We will have it completed in no-time-flat!”

  Margo turned toward the hangar but stopped at the door as Gail said, “Hold up one moment Margo.” The old woman walked toward her in her sturdy calf-length skirt. “May I put my hand on your shoulder?” With a deep sigh Margo nodded and Gail put her wrinkled but steady hand on her shoulder. “I think it was a bit harsh for The Eight to have ruled the way they did. No one should be barred from The Path of Roads. It’s a right for all teenagers, even if it is ceremonial in nature.” Gail squeezed her shoulder and looked at her with a gaze that held her just as firm as the old woman’s grip and said, “I think you were in a tight spot and your A.I. was in trouble. If it were Gatsby and me, I’d have done the same thing.”

  “I wasn’t expecting to hear that from you.”

  “I may be an old bag, but I’m a fair old bag.”

  A smile creased across the face of Margo for the first time since the discipline meeting yesterday. She nodded and turned toward the hangar as Gail’s grip released, but stopped once more to ask, “Do you think it’s real?”

  “The map you found?”

  “Yes.”

  The Messenger General thought about it for a moment and said, “No, I don’t. I think it’s a fine piece of art, but not everything from the past is some kind of brilliant thing. A lot of it can be junk.” She bent under her desk and pulled out an oil stained coverall that had the checkered red and white colors of the Messengers. “Before I forget, you need to wear this too.”

  ***

  “This flier is a bit loose.” Margo pitched the gyro right and noted the lag between her direction change and the craft responding to that change. Settling it into a stable hover, she adjusted her short black hair under the flight helmet. “I’m surprised no one’s clipped any of the cables running through the central market.”

  “If you think about it, the messenger gyros are mostly built to deliver packages. They’re strong fliers, but not that nimble. Also, they have autopilot.”

  “Not using it, but makes sense. Can you display our amazing route, please?” Projected on the front reinforced dome cockpit was a map of Artsiv. The city faced the coast as it nestled itself into a crack in the cliffs that led into a massive mesa with a river running through it. The messenger office sat at the bottom of the main canyon and faced toward four branching paths. Numerous tubes and cable wires ran into the aging building from all four channels. The route Margo had to take today went down the third canyon on the right and was indicated with massive red arrows that pointed in that direction. Seeing the indicators made her face look sour. “These wayfinders are hideous.”

  “They’re for people much older than you.”

  “You don’t have to remind me of that.” She sighed as she stared at the ugly arrows and said, “I wanted to be a Messenger when I was old, not now.”

  Just as she began to lurch the flier forward a screen on her right showed an incoming transmission. The picture on it was one that made her smile a bit as she accepted the call and greeted the image of her friend Nane Star lounging in her small room which had various clothes scattered around it. “How you holding up, Margo?”

  She pulled at the very loose and worn jumper as she responded, “Been better Nane. Been better. A bomb go off in your room?”

  A look of actual astonishment crossed her long face. “I’ve just been packing is all… I don’t think I’ve seen you actually upset before. Annoyed, yes, but never actually down. Can I take a picture?”

  A warning shot from Margo as she answered, “Nane…” A sigh escaped the tired chest of Margo as she let a little weight off her sho
ulders by saying, “I just can’t believe they took The Roads away from me.”

  “Trust me, no one thinks they’re right, but they’re The Eight and The Eight are wise with their chrome heads and electronic razor voices.” Her voice had taken on an irreverent tone toward the end of her statement which made the two laugh a little. “Hey, there’s the face that I loath! Always chipper even when all seems dark and grim like.”

  “What’s going on? I have to fly interior, so no calls while piloting.”

  “I just wanted to tell you that if you break the rules, which has a high probability since you’re you, that me and a few others are going to be at Harbor House.”

  “A few others?”

  “Most of the class is heading there for bonfires, rockets, and music! It’s gonna be fun!”

  “Thanks for the invite, but I’ll be passing.”

  “Here I thought my quippy nature cracked that mood around your head.”

  Margo shrugged. “It’s different this time. I can handle being reprimanded, but they didn’t have to discredit the map. I mean, it was one bad A.I. that did terrible things!”

  “I know Margo, I know.”

  In the pit of her stomach, she knew the answer already, but she figured she might as well ask, “What do you think about the map Nane?”

  “I… think it’s really cool looking.”

  “Nane!” She sank back against the seat and rolled her eyes.

  “Margo, you usually have a point about some things, but remember what Structor Vyse said, “Just because it’s covered in dust doesn’t mean it's important.”

  Catcher saw the shift in mood and in order to preserve the little happiness she got from the conversation said, “We should be going, Nane. We have a lot of packages to deliver.”

  “Okay Catcher, for anyone I know?”

  “The Mays are on the list as well as many other citizens.”

  “May? You have to deliver to Brie May? No wonder you’re in a state!” Seeing her over exaggeration wasn’t changing her friend’s mood, Nane pointed at the screen. “Margo, remember Harbor House.” She dipped her head, stared at the camera playfully, and then cut the feed.

  “If it means anything to you, thanks for not leaving me behind. The Eight are wise, but even the wise can get things wrong sometimes.”

  She lurched the delivery gyro toward its route. “Am I crazy? Like did the dust in the library make a parasite dig into my brain and make me think the map is a good idea?”

  “No, you’re not crazy, Margo. I think there is some merit to it, otherwise I wouldn’t have insisted you take it with us when we left.”

  “I just don’t get it. Why does it seem like we’re the only ones who get it?”

  “I’d say it's because we’re highly intelligent and sophisticated, but that would only be half-true, since good looking wasn’t being used.” A light grin made its way onto Margo’s face. “Ah, there’s the lady I know. That isn’t to say you can’t feel blue, especially now, but just know the Path of Roads isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be. Most teens wind up heading north toward The Dinema Cliffs and camp for a few weeks.”

  “What did my father do when he went?” Catcher’s chip stuck out of the gyro’s dashboard in silence as she navigated the gyro past the first series of worn platformed houses of Feathers Reach and toward her first stop. Warning signals blurted in the cabin as she slowed and flew parallel toward the delivery box. Pressing the “Delivery” button made the steel square pack of the gyro open and released a mechanical arm that dropped the corresponding mail into the beaten box. Once the arm had returned, Margo pushed on toward the next target and noticed that Catcher hadn’t answered yet. “Did you hear…”

  “I did and it isn’t my place to say what your father and mother did on their road.”

  A mischievous smile brightened the melancholy face of the pilot as she reached her next delivery point. “So, they went together?” Silence, again, was her answer.

  ***

  Margo, carrying a look of boredom on her face, lazily pressed the delivery button once more. The robotic hand shoved the parcel into the container box, and retracted back into the carrier, thus allowing her to move out of the well-built overhanging houses of the Perch District.

  Glancing at the massive wayfinder, she noticed her route was going to take her toward the Talon District. Her stomach began to turn a bit at the thought of having to see Brie in her flight gear, ready to take to the skies. “Blegh.”

  “I know she’s not the best person…”

  “She’s constantly trying to outshine me. She’s been that way since class four and I am getting tired of her.”

  “You’ll find, in life, that you will have to do things you don’t want to do. Right now, we have to deliver the Mays their packages.”

  As the hefty gyro lumbered through the connector between Perch and Talon known as Tinkers Alley, the world blurred past Margo’s canopy. Her green eyes glanced past the powerlines, and the shops containing Electrists; sparking and banging away at technology the Searchers had found out in the world. “Look at them, Catcher. I wanted to be the one to bring them the bits of old. To figure out our past.”

  “You will.” Catcher’s voice held a bit of anger as he continued. “You will one day.”

  “I’ve been wanting to be a Searcher since…”

  The A.I. cut her off. “You were small. I know, and you will.”

  “Not after this. It’ll take the full seven rather than four. No one will believe the map now.” She pushed the throttle, making the world blur a bit more, and narrowly missing a gliding monorail car pulling into the suspended station. “Catcher, are you okay?”

  “If I could sigh, I would right now. You shouldn’t have been punished for saving me. Never, since my activation, have I ever heard of that being a sufficient reason to ban someone from The Road.”

  Margo sighed, “Guess I’ll be known for something.” The red arrow pointed up and as the natural ravine grew upwards into the side of the mesa, Margo pushed out of the path and flew in the free air toward Talon’s Peak.

  Talon’s Peak held landing pads that branched out of the rock like the roots of a tree bursting from a pot. The orange rock mesa that housed the homes here was cracked in half, revealing hundreds of lights that stood inside. It was here that the finer dwellings of glass and expert stonework stood surrounded by purposeful foliage that could thrive in low light.

  Margo approached the flying lane and joined the numerous darting vehicles that zoomed in and out of the district. As she flew into the mesa, the light of the sun fell back, making the pinpricks of light from the homes inside that much brighter. Their family flags fluttering in the nearly constant wind that blew through this area. In the center of all the hustle and bustle stood a smooth and symmetrical structure that seemed to radiate importance.

  This was the structure that the Eight resided in; this was reflected in the construction of the building with its eight sides.

  The wayfinder pointed left and made Margo’s eyes roll as she pitched the gyro toward her destination. On every lawn was a party of some kind as the parents of the teens going on The Path of Roads celebrated with their children before they set off. Some parties were large, some small, but the Mays’ was the biggest of them all. Margo flew over the house, a little lower than she should have, and landed on the delivery pad as her wayfinder directed. Powering down the systems, she side eyed the Mays’ family flag that carried the image of a flower divided into five sections that represented the five seasons in a highly detailed manner. Margo always felt it was too much for a flag.

  “Margo, deliver the package, and let’s go.”

  She nodded as she disconnected her helmet from the gyro’s computer system and exited the craft. The loaner jumper was baggy on her as she walked over to the cargo department. As the wind rushed toward her, it made the overly large suit into a sail, and if she jumped into the gust of wind, she could probably fly away. She knew it was silly to think that, bu
t as she opened the blue box and keyed May into the inventory cycler, the idea just seemed like fun. As the sorter rotated, she placed her body against the wind and hopped. A gust pushed, but she didn’t fly, and as she came to that realization a voice spoke behind Margo that made her back tense up. “Trying to fly away from your problems, Margo?”

  She collected the box and turned around to find the blonde curls of Brie May floating in the breeze. She stood in her custom fit flight suit that carried the flag of her family on her right shoulder; it looked as natural on her as the smug expression on her face. Next to Brie stood her butler bot with a tray. The simple and gangly automaton followed its master as she strode to close the distance between herself and the Messenger on her flight pad. Margo steadied herself as she approached her classmate. “Here’s your box.”

  “Thanks.” She took the item and signed the mail list Margo carried. “This is for my parents.” She placed the package on the butler bot’s tray. The bot then bowed unnaturally smoothly, turned, and walked back toward the house. Brie returned her attention back to the olive-skinned pilot. “I wanted to see how you were doing after the hearing.”

  She motioned toward her ill-fitting outfit and shrugged. “You can see, it’s going.”

  “Going?”

  “Just going. You done?”

  Brie rolled her eyes. “Even though I am enjoying this, a little bit, maybe more than that, I think it was wrong of the Eight to deny you The Roads.”

  Margo raised an eyebrow in confusion. “Really?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, I would’ve done anything to save Charlotte, but mostly I wish I could have crushed you with where I was going on my Roads. The map you found was—neat, but frankly iffy.”

  The eyebrow fell into a scowl. “And there’s the Brie I know.”

  “Do you really think that ancient map is real?”

  “Yes.” A twinge of anger flexed itself through Margo’s facial muscles before she pushed the emotion away.

  “Maybe it is better that you stay here. If we all headed out on…”