to crawl between the stacks of wreckage, my delicate fingers fishing for wire to strip from machinery and my body squeezing through dangerous narrows to find pieces valuable enough to sell.
But as we draw closer this afternoon, I see that the scrapyard has been temporarily transformed into a betting stage. There is a crowd of Outer City folk here, all shouting up at a series of daredevil games in play.
“What the hell is going on?” Adena asks me as we stop at the fencing to stare into the yard at the crowds.
“The Scrapyard Circus,” I sign, pointing at the games set up.
Someone has strung a series of wires high between two metal stacks, and now several are balancing their way precariously along the lines while people down below exchange coins and cheer them on. Elsewhere, people are competing over how far they can throw iron sewer caps or how accurately they can shoot down cans lined along the fence.
They are makeshift games that change every time, a circus of spontaneous entertainment that pops up now and then and offers the populations out here something to distract them from their troubles for a night.
“Is it safe for us to head in?” Jeran asks. “Should we wait?”
I shake my head. “No less safe than any other time. People look happy enough.” Then I push my way in through the fence’s open gate.
Red’s curiosity comes in through our bond, and when I look over at him, I see his head tilted up at the high-wire walkers, watching them wobble and hesitate as people down below shout encouragement. I remember staring up in awe at the competitors when I was small. I’ve seen people make it across on their first try; more often, I’ve witnessed people slip on the wires and go plummeting to the ground, hitting the sharp edges of protruding metal sheets along the way. The memory of the accidents makes me cringe, my muscles tense as I will the current walkers to make it across.
Red looks at me. Did you ever try?
I shake my head. My mother did. She never let me. But the circus is good for distracting others while you dig for parts in the piles.
“How do you know where to find magnesium?” Adena asks as I lead us away from the main festivities toward the back of the scrapyard, where the piles of metal cast long, quiet shadows across the land.
I point at the stacks. Magnesium was something I occasionally searched for as a child. Metalworkers in the Grid paid a good price for it because they liked mixing it with steel and iron. It’s lightweight, good for tools. You could fetch enough from even a small haul of magnesium to buy bread and flour from the markets to feed you for a week.
“The Early Ones sometimes used it in their tools and machinery,” I explain as we reach the stacks. I reach into one of the piles and pull out what looks like a flat, rectangular machine. When I turn it over, exposing its innards, I can see that it’s already been salvaged hollow. I hold the object out to the others. “Look for similar ones that haven’t been taken apart.” Then I point out a massive cylinder of an ancient flying object. “They used them to fly once. You’ll find it sometimes in these hulls, although most have been stripped clean.” I turn my head up. “And the best, of course, will be up high, where fewer people can reach.”
Adena and Jeran look somewhat lost for a moment, like they always do when I explain pieces of my past life to them. To their credit, they don’t question me.
“How did you stay alive climbing these stacks as a child?” Adena grumbles instead as she starts moving her way up one of the stacks. Even trained in the footwork of a Striker, she’s unused to the way the unstable metal shifts and groans with every turn of her body.
Farther up, though, Jeran is already hopping from stack to stack, nimble as a goat on the edge of a cliff, his face intent on the task before him.
I wedge myself in at the same time Red regards me. He starts to unfurl his wings. I can carry you higher, he says.
I hesitate, imagining the thought of being in his arms as he hoists me into the air. It would make the entire process faster, and if I’m being honest, I’ve wondered how it must feel to soar through