by Gareth Ward
With an almighty crash the door swung inwards and slammed Flemington into the wall. The pocket watch fell from his hand. Unconscious, he slid to the floor amidst broken watch glass and scattered cogs.
A massive jet-black mechanoid stooped through the doorway then expanded to its full height. Over seven feet tall with bulbous skorpidium-carbide armour covering its body, it looked like a giant medieval knight.
Wrench strained at her bonds, the leather chafing her wrists. The mechanoid’s rounded head turned towards Flemington and the shape of its emerald eyes subtly changed. Somehow Wrench knew it was smiling.
“Good morning,” said the mechanoid, then paused, seeming to reconsider. “Obviously it hasn’t been a good morning, but I’m optimistic things are about to get a whole lot better. I’m Bot, and I require your assistance, so it would be absolutely top hole if you weren’t electrocuted.”
Wrench stopped the electric chair’s clock.
With frightening ease, Bot ripped away the straps that secured Wrench to the electric chair, the heavy leather parting like tissue paper beneath his chunky fingers.
Wrench ducked out of the skullcap. “Thank you.” She rubbed her wrists, feeling awkward. She’d never conversed with a machine before, at least not in the traditional sense.
“You are most welcome.” Bot stooped back out of the cell. “Come with me and live, stay here and die. The decision is yours.”
The mechanoid stomped down the corridor, not bothering to see if she was following. It was a Hobson’s choice he’d offered. When the infamous stable owner Thomas Hobson offered customers a choice of horse, it was the one nearest the door or none at all; the choice offered to Wrench was equally scant. Bot hadn’t said what he wanted but it couldn’t be worse than staying with Flemington. With a plink the Edison lamp overhead burned out. Wrench stepped from the cell. Behind her the transformer glowed red-hot and melted under a massive surge of power, never to electrocute anyone again.
Bot clanked through the stone-lined tunnels deep beneath Clifford’s Tower with what Wrench could only describe as a confident swagger. Of course, that was ridiculous; he was a mechanoid, although not like any of the mechanoids she’d encountered before. Automatons were a common sight on the streets of York, fetching and carrying for the wealthier gentry, and she’d even seen some of the more advanced battle-mechs used by the army and regulators. Bot was different. The way he spoke, and the fluidity with which he moved despite his massive size, was almost human. He pounded past a pair of uniformed regulators and they shied away.
A smile curled Wrench’s lips; she enjoyed seeing the much-feared enforcers adopting a subservient role for a change. “Where are we going?” she asked.
Bot’s voice boomed along the passageway. “The Minster, Brasswitch.”
Wrench recoiled. For some reason, coming from Bot the name rankled. “I thought you weren’t supposed to call me that?”
“I was just baiting Flemington. Bloody stupid rulebook. I mean, who the hell’s ever heard of a Technomancer? Brasswitch has power. Brasswitch creates fear. Until today, being called Brasswitch would have got you killed. Now, it might save your life.”
This was wrong. She wasn’t a Brasswitch. They were evil harridans that destroyed machinery, downed zeppelins and sank ships. Or so the superstition of generations believed. The last Brasswitch to be publicly executed was Morag Kennard, a wise woman living in the lee of the Tay Bridge in Scotland. She was blamed for the collapse of the central span on 28th of December 1879, plunging a locomotive and six carriages into the icy waters of the river Tay below. Seventy-five people died as a result of the disaster, seventy-six if you included Kennard, which nobody ever did.
Wrench’s father had been called as an expert at the enquiry. He’d claimed the bridge design was flawed, the iron girders being brittle under tension. The engineering company that designed the bridge denied any error and instead involved the regulators. In the end, it worked out better for all concerned to hang a madwoman than to admit a mistake. Well, better for all concerned, except Kennard.
Wrench wasn’t evil, or mad; all she’d ever done was help. As she’d grown older she’d become more aware of the technology surrounding her, sensing it like a sleeping dog waiting to be roused. She’d touch a machine and instinctively know how it worked, what it did and if it was unwell. She’d used this talent to fix things, to make machines better, never to do harm, but Flemington’s accusations niggled her like a squeaking piston. You interfered with the brakes on the Drake. You killed your parents, Brasswitch. What if she could trigger machines without knowing?
On her eleventh birthday, she’d received a letter confirming her apprenticeship as an engineer at the coachworks. Not everyone was selected and she’d had to battle harder than most to even be considered. She’d been truly happy for the first time since her parents died and at that moment, a nearby gramophone had whirred to life without cause. Other times, when she was irked and moody, Edison bulbs had been known to flare and burn out. The engineer in her said coincidences happened and the events were nothing more than random chance, but the traitorous part of her brain that fed her self-doubt disagreed.
The passage opened into a circular stable, the stone walls and roof reinforced with girders of iron. Large ducted fans drew away the steam and the smoke that spiralled upwards from the rows of waiting walkomobiles. With their domed steel and glass cabins and their shiny brass legs sparkling in the lamplights they looked like giant insects waiting to swarm. A driver dressed in regulator red snapped to attention. “All fuelled and ready, Sir.”
Bot led Wrench to a walker, the sides of which were peculiarly angled, giving the carriage the appearance of a squashed dodecahedron. Unlike the other vehicles, which were painted madder-red, the colour of the regulators, the colour of fear, Bot’s walker was jet-black, matching his armour. The only embellishment on the machine was the crest of the ARC, the Aberration Regulatory Cabal: a clenched fist dripping blood, with the word Purity written beneath.
The Grand Cabal had been formed centuries earlier to rid the population of aberrations, unwholesome tainted people who threatened the natural order of society. Independent of the government and overseen only by the Queen, they met in secret, passing down dictates to be carried out by its operational arm, the Aberration Regulatory Cabal, the regulators.
“Take a seat.” Bot pulled open the carriage door and gestured to the bench inside.
Wrench glanced around the bustling garage, looking for a way out. She was surrounded by people who would kill her at the drop of a bowler hat. Escape would have been impossible, even without the armoured mechanoid watching over her.
“No electricity in these chairs. It’s the best offer you’re going to get,” said Bot.
Wrench climbed into the carriage. There was no other choice, for now at least. She settled onto the worn padded leather seat and waited. Bot lowered himself onto the oak bench opposite and rested his shovel-sized hands on his knees. “How much do you know about the Rupture?”
The walker rose on its legs and strode out of the fortified iron gate beneath the tower. Wrench considered the question. “Only what I learned at school,” she said. “Three centuries ago a religious order called the Monks of Mayheim tried to open a gateway to heaven; instead they created a connection to another dimension, letting evil into our world. Things came through – horrible, unspeakable things. Some people worshipped them as gods but all they did was destroy. Chaos ensued until an Augustine Knight, Sir Dereleth, drove the beasts back. Shrouded in protective armour, he ventured into the other world, ensuring the creatures’ banishment. Months later, he returned mortally wounded but with the knowledge of how to seal the Rupture.”
Sunlight filtered through the carriage’s smoked-glass window, a refreshing change from the dim claustrophobia of the tower’s dungeons. Bot’s green eyes shone brighter. “Only some of that is true. The gateways were never closed. It was more like we put nets over them, but occasionally things still punch through. P
owerful monstrosities that are responsible for causing aberrations like you.”
Wrench scowled. “I’m not an aberration.”
“You know that’s not true, Brasswitch,” said the mechanoid flatly.
Anger flared inside Wrench and the carriage light flickered. It wasn’t her fault she was different. She extended her mind, probing Bot’s mechanics, searching for some clue about the machine’s intent, or for a way to disable him. Blackness surged into her brain and her head snapped back, pinned against the carriage’s metal shell by an invisible force.
Bot’s eyes flashed red. Quicker than Wrench could blink, he was gripping her head with chunky fingers the size of hammerheads. “Brasswitch, if you ever use your powers on me again I will crush your skull like the most delicate of bird eggs.”
The cold metal pressed into her skin, points of pain skewering her head. Blood pounded in her ears, drowning out all other sounds. Fear overwhelmed her, but there was a sliver of something else too. A shard of terror that didn’t belong to her, but to the mechanoid.
Bot’s eyes faded back to green. “The purpose of the regulators is to hunt down and remove the threat of aberrations.” His grip softened and he withdrew his hand. “Fortunately for you, I am one of the few who believe this can be achieved without resorting to murder. In your case at least.”
Wrench massaged her skull. “Why don’t you want me dead?”
“Right now, I need your skills.”
Not the most reassuring of answers. Was she just a tool to him, to be put back in the toolbox or discarded when the job was done? “So, you’ll keep me alive because I’m useful?”
“I’m keeping you alive because I believe it’s the right thing to do. I am of the opinion aberrations are not bad by default. A viewpoint which has made me unpopular among the majority of my colleagues, so you could show a little more gratitude.”
“I shouldn’t have to thank you for simply doing what’s right.”
“And yet, it would be terrifically nice if you did.”
“If you wanted nice you should have rescued someone else.” Wrench folded her arms and glowered.
“Alas, then I would have squandered a fantastic opportunity to annoy Flemington and the Clifford’s Tower Cabal.”
Wrench had always considered the regulators as one big scary institution, to be avoided at all costs. However, it was clear that the organisation was divided.
“You’re not from Clifford’s Tower?”
“Most certainly not. That’s Captain Flemington’s little empire. They protect the city of York and its surrounds. I have a more wide-reaching remit.”
“The regulators at the tower, they were scared of you.”
“When the most malevolent aberrations manifest, it’s me they send for.” Bot leant closer. “They hate me for my beliefs and they fear me because they’ve heard tell of what I’m capable of.”
“What are you capable of?”
“You help me at the Minster and you might just find out.” Bot twitched and the armoured plates protecting his workings clanked gently together. “Just so we’re clear, that was a bump in the road making me shudder and I am certainly not terrified of what we may find in the casket I want you to open.”
Wrench stuck her hands in her overall pockets. “Casket, as in coffin? Last resting place of dead people?”
“Sort of. Except what’s in the casket isn’t a person –” Bot drummed his fingers against a metal plate on his leg, “– or dead.”
Wrench’s relief at being free from Clifford’s Tower was beginning to wane. Flemington had appeared unhinged, and now it seemed Bot had a few cogs loose as well. Perhaps it was in the regulator’s job description: Are you cruel with a tendency towards lunacy? Then join the regulators today.
She fixed a smile on her face. “You’ve rescued the wrong person. You wanted the grave robber in the cell next door. If you drop me off here I’ll let you return for them.”
“I can drop you back to Flemington.”
“I’m just an apprentice engineer at the coachworks. I know about steam trains, not coffins. I’m no good to you.”
“Oh, but you are. When the Rupture occurred some of the creatures that came through couldn’t be destroyed or banished. Those aberrations were incarcerated in special caskets that over time would dissipate their power. These caskets are impossible to unlock – unless you’re a Brasswitch.”
“You could smash it open. You made easy work of my cell door. I’m sure a coffin would present little problem.”
“The caskets were forged three hundred years ago at the time of the Rupture. They drew on the massive flux of power flowing into our world as part of the casting process. With the Rupture now controlled we can’t make new ones and we can’t afford for this one to be damaged.”
Wrench looked out of the window at the bustling streets. Sat astride a monoped, a city gent juddered alongside the carriage. The metal machine shaped like a giant brass boot progressed over the cobbles in a series of small jumps. She could fling the door open, steal it from him, and lose herself in the crowd . . . no, Bot would stop her in an instant. She relaxed back into the seat. “I don’t want to open a coffin if there’s going to be something horrible inside.”
“That’s why I’m here. Dealing with horrible things is somewhat of a speciality of mine. And afterwards, if the Minster, and indeed the city of York, isn’t destroyed in a frenzy of metal-tentacled mayhem, you’re free to go,” said Bot. “Technically at least.”
“What do you mean technically?”
Bot rolled his shoulders. “Should you choose to leave, I won’t stop you.”
The carriage hissed to a halt.
“But?” said Wrench.
“But Flemington is a vindictive little git and will undoubtedly make it his business to hunt you down and kill you.”
Wrench adjusted her glasses. Outside, flanked by two wrought-iron gas lamps, a flight of wide stone steps led to the Minster’s doors. In times of old, churches were seen as a place of sanctuary, but not now. Not for the likes of her. “So, if I want to live, I’m stuck with you?”
Metal plates around Bot’s mouth slid into different positions so he appeared to be grinning. “Yes. But look on the bright side.”
“What bright side?”
Bot punched her on the shoulder with a surprising lightness. “I’m terrific fun.”
“Yeah, I can tell. All that stuff about crushing my skull. You’re a real hoot.”
To call the Minster a church would be like calling Big Ben a timepiece. The biggest, most impressive building in the city of York, the Minster dominated the skyline. Constructed from thousands of tons of carved stone, the western facade was decorated with a breathtakingly complex stained-glass window the size of a locomotive turntable. The south-west tower, with its brass gargoyles and aluminium-bronze spires, offered tribute to the one true god. The blackened melted stump of the north-west tower, with its purple haze of swirling energy and roiling clouds, was a stark reminder of the power of the old gods. Worshipped in a frenzy of madness, the nightmares that squelched through the Rupture brought chaos to the country. They thrived on destruction, drawing power from devastation, opening new rifts to their dimension. They sought to obliterate the world and without the bravery and sacrifice of Sir Dereleth, they would have succeeded.
Wrench climbed the steps to the western doors. The hairs on her arms stood on end, as if she was in the presence of a strong static field. But this wasn’t electricity. This was power of an entirely different nature, and one she felt viscerally drawn to. She gestured to the desecrated tower. “So, the portal up there isn’t actually sealed and at any time something horrible could just pop through?”
Bot pushed the Minster’s heavy iron-bound doors open as if they were nothing and stepped inside. “Not at any time. Certain celestial events seem to bring the worlds closer, making the Rupture more vulnerable.”
Wrench had never been a fan of churches – the faithful hounded aberrations with
more malice than the regulators. Anyone judged to be different was cast from the congregation, or worse. The justice of the good book meted out with pious zeal. She clenched her fists and stepped through the door.
The interior of the Minster was as impressive as the outside with high vaulted ceilings, ornately carved arches and magnificent stained-glass windows. Wrench hurried after Bot, marvelling at the engineering prowess required to build such a place. The construction would have been a major undertaking even today, using steam cranes, hydraulic lifts and all the modern technology of the industrial revolution. How people had managed it five hundred years ago was beyond belief.
Bot stomped down the southern side of the nave. The clanking of his mechanics garnered him unchristian looks from the faithful praying in the pews. Wrench adopted an awkward skipping run to keep pace. “Where are we going?”
“St George’s chapel. Or to be more precise, an under-crypt, which thanks to Master Regulator Leech and a large sledgehammer, is now accessed via St George’s chapel.”
Legend heralded that a thousand years ago St George had slain a dragon. Since the occurrence of the Rupture many now claimed evil had come into the world once before and St George had driven it back, just like Sir Dereleth had done. Wrench had always been sceptical, preferring science to stories. Bot’s revelations about the Rupture made her wonder if the superstitions of old held more credence than she’d believed. If the fact of the matter was that the Rupture had never been sealed, what other truths had been kept secret? Her foster-father had complained only recently about the regulators when the railway lines to the port of Whitby were closed for two weeks. Allegedly the sailors on a foreign ship were afflicted with a virulent disease and so the area had to be quarantined. Now she wondered if that really had been the case.
At the far end of the chapel a rectangular altar bedecked in blood-red cloths and dedicated to St George the dragon slayer rested on a dais. To the left of the altar a pile of rubble lay next to a ragged doorway smashed into the church wall. Through the doorway a flight of steps led down to the under-crypt. A balding reverend knelt at the top of the stairs reciting a Latin incantation. An expression of loathing crossed his face when he glanced at Wrench. He knew she was an aberration, the hate in his eyes telling her plainly as day.