Stealing Icarus - Chapter 5

 

Author's Note:

We finally have a cover!!! It's the picture on the left. Hope you like it and enjoy chapter 5! It's a shorter one this time. 

Chapter 5:

Jay’s POV: 

    ‘Could you help me with this?’ My gaze drifted from the game I was watching, and went towards Jerry, who had a number of tools in his hands. 

‘Hm? Sure, what do you need?’ I said, getting up and walking towards him. We were in our dorm and Nate was out with Nithya and Shravya. They have been working hard for the past two days to find the leeway. With no avail, they let the rest of us do whatever we wanted today. 

Jerry and I already finished unpacking, but he still didn’t get all of his tools and gadgets to the workroom. Jerry got his own room for working on the weapons and tools. Lucky, but then again his job was very important. 

‘Could you grab that box over there and come with me to the workroom?’ He pointed towards a box sitting a few inches away from his bed. I bent over and grabbed the handle. This thing was heavy. 

‘What do you have in here? Bricks?’ 

‘Basically’, he replied. I narrowed my eyebrows but didn’t say anything else. Jerry grabbed another box and pushed the door open with his shoulder since his hands were occupied with the two tool boxes in his hands. 

I followed him out the door and through a corridor. He opened another door and went inside. I walked behind him and closed the door. Inside were two tables. The first table was filled with all sorts of metal pieces. 

On the other table, there were welding machines, hot prongs, and gloves. Jerry set the boxes on the first table, with the metal pieces, and I did the same. The box hit the table with a loud clunk, and suddenly we heard a peculiar sound. Was that, giggling? 

Jerry and I exchanged looks and opened the door. The giggling continued and we followed the sound. We walked out of the room, past a small balcony, where we had a clear view of the starless sky, and past a corridor. The giggling noise ceased, as we neared a door to another room. How many rooms were on this ship?

I opened the door, and Jerry shouted in surprise, ‘Move!’ I turned around in confusion, and a bucket of cold water drenched me. I was soaked in freezing cold water from head to toe. I moved the wet hair from my forehead and shivered. Jerry covered his hand with his mouth and tried, unsuccessfully, to contain his laughter. 

Footsteps sounded behind us, and I turned around. Rani and Scarlet came into view, laughing their heads off. Rani was clutching her stomach, shaking with laughter, and Scarlet, usually devoid of emotion, was quaking with her hand over her mouth. 

‘You are going to pay for this,’ I say with a low voice. 

‘We’d love to see you try.’ Rani says, with her hands on her hips. I’m supposed to be the prankster! How’d they pull this off before me? 

I wiped the water off my forehead and onto the ground. Then, I shook my head like a dog, spraying water everywhere. 

Growling in frustration, I stomped off to the boys’ dorm, with Jerry right on my tail. I opened the red door, and snatched the white towel, hanging off a chair. I put it over my head and started to wring the water out of it. I was going to get them back before they knew it. I grabbed a clean pair of jeans and a shirt and changed in the bathroom. 

When I walked out of the bathroom door, I saw Jerry leaning against the door frame. 

‘We have to get them back.’ he said, with a mischievous glint to his voice. I smiled and nodded at that. I take a silver watch off the bedside table and fasten it around my wrist. The quiet tick, tick, of the hands against my skin, calms me and I sigh. 

I pull on a pair of white socks and take my black sneakers off the rack in the closet. Jerry grasps the brass handle and twists the door open. 

Then Nate’s voice comes over the comms. 

‘Uh, Jerry? We need you here in the cockpit. Now.’ Exchanging a glance with Jerry, we started to run towards the cockpit. I threw the door open, revealing three confused people. 

‘Can you make any sense of this?’ Shravya says, handing a black tablet to Jerry, ‘we know that something is wrong, but we’re not quite sure what is.’ 

Jerry takes the tablet gingerly, and I watch as he analyzes the screen before him. His eyes widen and he asks, ‘Is...is this a live feed?’ 

Nate nods and Jerry says with a stern voice, ‘We need to get there fast.’ 

‘Why? What’s happening?’ I ask. Jerry side-eyes me and says,

‘I think the wing may be breaking.’ My eyes widen involuntarily and Nate covers his mouth. 

We head towards the wing, the sound of our feet slapping against the wood echoing across the ship. Jerry asks me to go get his toolbox and I give him a thumbs up. 

Remembering the path we took earlier to the workroom, I walked down corridors and past rooms. Finally, I found the brown door that I was looking for. This place could honestly be a maze. 

Urgently, I open the door and spy the toolbox that Jerry had asked for. I quickly grabbed it and ran out the door. Judging by the tightness in Jerry’s voice, when he said that the wing was breaking, I don’t think that we can wait more than a minute, before the left side of the ship collapses. 

I run with the unbalanced weight of the toolbox and reach the left wing. I see Jerry crouching down and examining the huge crack on the edge. Nate has his finger pressed to his ear, the comm set, and was telling Nithya and Shravya to hold position.

Jerry, noticing me near the doorway, gestured for me to give him the toolset. He pulled the box open, grabbed an assortment of tools, and for a few minutes, he worked in an eerie silence. We didn’t have anything to say, and I watched Jerry as he took screws and wrenches out of the metal box next to him. 

Suddenly, the silence ceased and a scream full of fear arose. We all exchanged looks and ran towards the noise. Another scream arose and I recognized the voice as Shravya. The cockpit. 

Rani and Scarlet, having the same thought as us, joined us as we ran in fervor towards the cockpit. 

Nate, having approached the cockpit door, threw it open and Shravya screamed as the ship jostled to the left. The side door was open, and I could see the bright blue sky, but the sight underneath the sky was the cause of our screams. 

Nithya was hanging by one hand, in the open air, on the side door’s handle with her hair, escaping its braids, waving behind her and a  plunging terror in her eyes.