The Fall of the City of Steel

The Plight of the Davis Brothers

With only a reflexive "Understood," I opened my cockpit, drew up the pack of food and heaved it gently onto the ground, before vaulting out after it. I landed with an unsettlingly hollow metallic clank.

The first things I noticed when I disembarked were the smoggy air and the bizarre lack of engine noises. The silence reminded me of the forest outside. Next, of all things, I noticed that my plane's nose art was finished. Forgetting my police persona, I examined the now-complete work of art.

Annie stood in the same pose depicted by James' photograph. Naturally, James' depiction flattered her; her hair was a long, clean waterfall of golden yellow draped over her shoulders, her face was clean and her clothes were now pristine. Moreover, she held a bolt in her teeth, when I specifically remembered a nail from the photograph. In lavish cursive, Annie's name proudly subtitled her image.

"We don't get many of you police types around here," I heard a surly voice behind me announce.

Instantly, I stiffened up and whirled around. "What are you doing here?" I asked, in my best imitation of Greg Tupman's orderly, authoritative voice.

"I was gonna ask you that," said the dirty, hunched young man who authored the surly voice. "But I'll start. My name's Jenkins, and I was just headin' to work. And you?"

"I am a police officer," I pointed out obviously. "I've been sent here on a humanitarian aid mission. This pack behind me contains supplies intended for impoverished children."

"Well, you've come to the right place to find those," confirmed Jenkins, with a tinge of cynical humor in his voice. "Good luck." He began to walk away.

"Um..." I hesitated, "I need help finding them. I was told to rely on... local intelligence to find the hungriest children. I have enough here for four at the most."

"Local intelligence huh?" Jenkins mockingly repeated. "You mean you were gonna ask around. Well, I'll show you the poorest, the Davis brothers. Their mom and dad ran off when they were three and four, and now they're struggling to get by."

"Why are those children not in an orphanage?" I demanded.

"What orphanage?" Jenkins asked sarcastically. "The orphanage is a scam. The boss there should have been locked up long ago. But you police goons apparently have better things to do than help us poor sun-of-a-guns down here with things like that."

As Jenkins turned and began down the catwalk, I narrowly stopped myself from asking what those things were. Pretending to know, I shut my plane's canopy, felt for the key in my flight suit's pocket, then picked up my pack and followed the man.

On our walk, during which we wrapped around three sides of the skyscraper and descended a ladder that looked handmade, no fewer than five pairs of beady eyes leered at us through windows of the tightly-packed lower apartments.

"Where are we going?" I asked, when we touched down on some nondescript, heavily smoke-clouded metal surface at the bottom of the ladder. "There are no apartments down this low."

"Where have you police been for the last few years?" Jenkins lamented, feverishly watching the shadowy nooks and crannies around him. "Those apartments can't hold us all. Not anymore. Even if they could, we wouldn't all be able to afford it."

"But," I protested, my act starting to break down, "What about the smoke around here? Where is it all coming from?"

"We're right above the city generator," Jenkins informed, his patience wearing thin. "You of all people should know that. The air's nasty around here, but there are good spots to hole up in. Follow me closely, now."