The Eagle #11 - Enter the Abyss pt. 3

                The night air was cold, but Damien made sure to bundle up before sneaking out. He shivered, but it wasn’t just due to the cold temperature. Damien hadn’t heard the entire conversation between his father and John, and so the full meaning was still cryptic to the young boy. But he knew enough to want to know the full story. His father, the great Eagle, was hiding something that he didn’t think Damien could know about. Something that no one living on the Eagle knew about. And, Damien felt with a resolute certainty, that secret had something to do with his long-dead mother.

                Damien had no memories of his mother, Valerie, other than the stories John and his father had told him. He saw pictures and watched videos of her, but could not remember her motherly touch or her warm embrace. She had died before Damien’s first birthday, leaving him to be raised by his father, John, and an assortment of teachers and nannies. But Damien had always envied the other children in his school who were able to go home to both their parents. Though he was well taken care of and his father’s influence saw he was rarely left wanting, Damien missed what most took for granted; his own loving mother.

                While lost in thought, Damien subconsciously made his way towards the central generator. He heard the two men talk about the secret’s location being the ‘main generator’s broom closet’. Damien had never been left to wander the Eagle alone, but he still knew how to get everywhere major at least. The central generator was located in the center of the flying kingdom, as its name suggested. However because Cloudtop City was offset, the generator was on the outskirts, in between the city and the rural agricultural areas. His class had taken a field trip to visit each generator and engine at one point, but even without that trip Damien had seen the generators with his father multiple times.

                After what was a very long walk for the eight year old, Damien found himself nearing the generator’s reinforced glass dome. He stopped before getting too close though, because stationed outside were two guards. Damien hadn’t thought about getting past these guards, plus any more that might be inside. He couldn’t wait too long outside however, since the cold was beginning to get through his layers. Getting an idea in his head, he started towards the guards, hoping his grand scheme would work.

                The guards gripped their weapons tighter when he approached, but drew back into a salute after Damien threw off his hood and they recognized the son of Alexander Jackson. He waved as he walked up to the guards smiling.

                “Hello, it’s really cold out, huh?”

                The guards smiled back, and one replied, “It sure is. Shouldn’t someone be with you? It’s awfully late to be out on your own.”

                Damien looked around and shrugged. “I thought they were right behind me.” He looked at the guard and shivered. “I know their number. Is there a phone inside I can use?”

                The guard nodded and opened the door. “Need any help?”

                Damien shook his head and smiled. “No, I can do it. Thank you though!”

                With the door closed, Damien briefed a huge sigh of relief. He couldn’t believe that worked! The adrenaline starting going to his head, making him wonder what other things he could do just because he was the son of the Eagle. However a stray thought pulled him back to his mission, and he quickly made his way to the generator room. He wasn’t sure if the guards would call his father or not, so he didn’t want to waste any time.

                Once there, Damien was stunned by the sheer size of the generator. The other generators were smaller and only provided power to the anti-gravity engine attached to it. However this central generator provided power to all of the Eagle, and Alex powered all the generators, this one included, by himself. There were back-up measures in place, of course, that would allow the Eagle to continue flying even if Alex couldn’t provide the electricity. But while he still could, the flesh-made Eagle would provide the power, while the man-made Eagle would provide a home.

                While gaping in awe, Damien happened to notice a door across from where he was standing that he never took note of before. He approached it and saw it was nothing more than a maintenance closet.

                “This must be it,” he whispered to himself, suddenly very aware of the betrayal of trust he was committing. What if his father was right, and he couldn’t handle the truth that laid before this door? For a moment, Damien contemplated turning around and going home. But something nagged at the back of his mind, and he couldn’t bring his body to turn away. He needed to know.

                Damien tried the handle, but it was locked. He saw the door was protected by a biometric locking system, the same kind that protects the most valuable assets on the Eagle. His father’s safe back home had one.

                Damien leaned up against the door, trying to think. Had he really come all this way to be stopped by a locked door? He put his hands on the door and tried to will it open, but it didn’t budge. Damien sighed, saddened that he would never know what secret his father was hiding from him.

                *Ping*

                Damien had felt a quick flash of heat through his body, and then the biometric lock had opened. He tried the handle again, and found the door open. Damien slowly opened the door and entered the room. Inside was a computer terminal to one side and a metal cylinder in the center. This room was slightly warmer than the main generator room, but other than that there didn’t seem to be anything of huge importance here.

Damien went to the terminal and found it had few options on it. Pushing some buttons, he was in the midst of wondering what the big secret was when, after pushing a random button, the metal cylinder began to move. Damien realized the metal was just a casing hiding something under. As a low light from the containment tube bathed the boy, his eyes grew wide. Damien’s heart felt like it stopped, he let out a sorrowful scream, and a wave of heat flowed forth from his body before he fell unconscious.

Dr. Arjan Muahitl was always a careful scientist, and did everything according to his strict routines. He had a steady hand and had never messed up an experiment or lost any chemicals due to sloppy work or a shaky hand. Yet no matter how cautious a scientist he was, nothing could have stopped this event. As he slowly poured the last of the shadow energy into a beaker, he was full of regret, for this was the last experiment he could perform on the mysterious energy.

But at that exact moment, so late at night, something struck the Eagle with such a force that Arjan Muahitl dropped the vial onto his desk. Such a short drop, yet the vial cracked and broke anyway, releasing the shadow energy into a tiny cloud. Arjan stooped closer, trying to corral the energy with his hands, but stopped mid-motion when he saw the energy begin to seep into his skin. Arjan felt the energy move from his hands up his arms and into his torso, converting his physical body into more shadow energy along the way.

Arjan Muahitl watched with a detached scientific curiosity as the shadow energy consumed his body. By the time fear set in and he tried, but failed, to scream, all that remained was a quickly dissolving head.

Alex felt the electrical wave wash over the Eagle before it hit his quarters. While the electronics were untouched, Alex was knocked backwards. He steadied himself, but suddenly felt something that made his heart stop. Alex rushed to the balcony and grabbed ahold of the railing to prevent himself from being blown away. As he looked out over Cloudtop, he knew his worst fear had come true.

The Eagle was falling.