Fragments of Ash Vol. 1 (Urban Fantasy)

Chapter Five: Moon Gazer

It was getting dark, almost sunset, she'd made it to a grotty neighbourhood where the streets were narrow and the buildings were broken and dilapidated, Ada climbed up the outside stairway to get to the rooftop of an abandoned tower block near the Eastern Umbilical Cord. She was seven stories above ground; as strong as her magic may have been, it didn't help her deal with her fear of heights very well. Ada noticed the silhouette of a figure sitting in the exact middle of the rooftop, a young man hunched over some sort of box.

Ciel was fiddling with a home-made aerial. It looked quite crude, but Ada was probably underestimating its potency. The young man's features were hard to make out, with his slightly long dark hair and similarly black smart clothes, he looked like nothing but a skinny shadow against the light of the setting sun. Ada thought for a moment, trying to remember his full name. A moment of hesitation, she'd never addressed royalty before. She had no idea how he'd act. Whatever.

"Ciel Rochfort?" she got his attention,

"Hm?" Ciel raised his head and looked to see who had joined him in the middle of nowhere, "Uh, hi? Can I help you?" he looked confused; no surprise, a stranger finding him in the middle of no-where knowing his name was odd,

"Francoise sent me to check up on you. I'm a friend of Amelia's."

"Oh. You're..." he paused, thinking for a moment,

"Ada, you can call me Ada. I guess Francoise must have mentioned me at one point or another?"

"Oh yeah. He did a couple of times. Eleanor's new housemate right?"

"Yeah..."

The two fidgeted for a moment, Ada couldn't think of anything interesting to say,

"Sorry, I don't get many people joining me up here, I sort of use this place to fiddle with my toy," Ciel chuckled, trying to lighten the mood, then he realised what he'd said, "I-I'm referring to this radio here!" he pointed to a small device he was sitting next to. A small metal box with two dials, a number pad, a circular screen and a small speaker.

"I knew what you meant," Ada laughed,

"Right haha, good. Um, so Francoise just wanted to see how I was doing?"

"He was worried about you; I get it, it's a dangerous neighbourhood this area, a person like you is easy bait for lowlifes."

"Like me?" enquired Ciel. Ada wasn't sure whether he was offended or curious,

"Well, you know, I don't know, you look-"

"Don't worry I get what you mean. Yeah, I wouldn't exactly be able to hold my own in a fight. Still, I'm willing to put myself in danger if it means I can get this damn thing to work," he frowned, "wish Francoise wasn't so damned protective though."

Ada leaned to the side to get a better look at Ciel's radio, "So uh... what's that anyway?"

Ciel's eyes brightened, "It's a long wave radio transmitter that's tuned to read electrical signals from the feeding tubes in the sky. It's small, but it's got a massive radius, like, bigger than any radio tower in Melchiezedek. Most things of this power are at least 300 meters tall and are used for long-distance sonar equipment. I've made it so focused it's almost akin to a laser beam."

"R-right. What's it for?" Ada didn't know what Ciel said,

"To transmit and receive signals from..." Ciel stopped, "you're gonna think I'm crazy."

Ada shook her head, she was truly curious,

"To send and receive signals from the moon."

"Oh."