Mike Rutledge

The Gestalt Job Mike Rutledge

Vasili Mikhailovich can remember waking up in the sick bay of the Apotheosis Break. He remembers his father's old airship crew picking him up for the Schultzwald job. He remembers the theft, the betrayal, the death, and his own narrow escape from the cudgels of wasteland raiders. But after that, it is like pages in the journal of Vasili's mind are missing. The Lord Judge Euric Gestalt, a frontier lawman, takes the boy's statement. The story is fantastical, exaggerated by the wild imagination of youth, and lacking convenient details. But in it, Gestalt hears what he has been waiting for: wastelanders stole shards of the All-Father from a noble house, and someone survived to tell the tale. Vasili wants the judge to bring someone, anyone to justice for lying to him, for using him. Instead, Gestalt hires the aging Apotheosis Break to help with an ongoing investigation, and in return promises repairs for the old bird, new hands to turn the valves, and handsome pay for new and old crew alike. Vasili knows he shouldn't trust the crew, or even a sworn judge. He should just go home. But if he does, he will never see the wonders of the world as his father did. He will never learn if he has his father's gifts. Or if pages were missing from his father's mind as well. The skies call him. Vasili needs answers, and coin. And the Break needs a deckhand.