by Gareth Ward
“Looks mean, shoots mean, reloads slower than a sleeping sloth,” said Bot, picking up the gun and returning the hand cannon to the holster in his leg.
“It was a mechanoid. I could have just stopped him,” said Wrench.
Bot tested the weight of the Draeger. “Where’s the fun in that?”
“The fun bit is not dying,” said Plum.
Apparently satisfied he could manage the weapon one handed, Bot pulled the stock into his shoulder. “So where now, Brasswitch?”
Wrench nodded to a low arched door the automaton had been guarding. “We want to go that way.”
Plum frowned. “I think ‘want to go’ is not the sentiment of the entire group.”
Bot clapped Plum on the back with his free hand, knocking him forward. “Don’t be such a sourpuss. You know Master Tranter wants you to gain practical field experience.”
“That’s easy for Master Tranter to say; he’s not left the train in years. The most dangerous thing he has to worry about is whether his bath is too hot.”
A flight of stone stairs spiralled down from the door. Wrench followed Bot, whose overly large feet made negotiating the narrow steps awkward. A loud electrical hum rose up from below. The hairs on Wrench’s arms stood on end and her skin prickled with static electricity . . . or with what she hoped was static electricity.
“I don’t like what I’m feeling,” said Wrench. “It doesn’t seem natural.”
“Can you tell how far away it is?” said Bot.
“No. I can’t even tell what it is. Some sort of machine sucking masses of electricity. It’s not like anything I’ve ever encountered before.”
The stairs opened into a cellar crammed with two giant humming transformers. A tower of ceramic discs acted as insulation to three silver globes mounted atop each machine. Continuous sparks crackled between the globes. Thick cables snaked across the floor and trailed through an arch at one end of the room. From beyond the arch flickered a harsh blue light.
Wrench peeked into the adjoining room. Laid into the floor, a copper pentagram stretched to the extremities of the cellar. At each point, a thick tinted glass tube rose to the ceiling, inside of which writhed a robed monk. Like some sort of horrific zoetrope, the faces of the monks flicked through expressions of agony in a not-quite-linear fashion. Copper wire spiralled from the tops of the tubes, to something resembling a diver’s helmet worn by a rubber-suited monk who sat serenely at the pentagram’s centre.
“Time to kill their power,” said Bot and cocked the Draeger tank rifle.
Wrench spun around. “Nooooo!” she shouted, clasping her hands to her ears, but it was too late.
Bot pulled the trigger. A deafening boom filled the cellar and one of the transformers exploded in a shower of sparks.
Inside the pentagram thick blue bolts of electricity arced from the tubes to the diving-suited monk. His body spasmed, his expression now anything but serene.
A scowl darkened Wrench’s face. “You idiot! That wasn’t supplying the power. It was draining it.”
The monks in the glass tubes screamed, surrounded by lightning. On the floor, the pentagram glowed red-hot.
Wrench understood the machine more clearly now, and it was angry. She couldn’t pinpoint the source of the power but she sensed the surge in energy, no longer being dissipated by the transformers. She ran for the stairs. The crackle of electricity grew louder, vivid white flashes leaching all colour from her surroundings. Ahead, Plum’s feet disappeared up the spiral steps while from behind echoed the metallic clunk click of the Draeger being cocked. “In for a penny,” said Bot.
Her feet hammering the stone, Wrench lunged up the stairs. The retort of the Draeger again filled the cellar, followed by muffled screams. She barrelled into the corridor where Plum waited, his hands held over his head. Standing in front of the wrecked kitchen door, a monk pointed a clockwork-crossbow at Plum.
Wrench pushed her mind into the weapon, which this time offered no resistance. She locked the release catch in place and grabbed Plum’s sleeve. “We need to run.”
The monk levelled the bow. “You’re going nowhere.”
Plum’s fingers twisted in complex patterns and fire flew from his hands. The monk staggered backwards, his robes ablaze.
“Running away is one of my specialities,” said Plum and he sprinted along the corridor. Wrench raced after him, through the kitchen and back outside. She hurdled the smouldering monk, who rolled moaning on the wet grass and rushed past the stationary Scotch dog to the boundary wall. Her legs aching, she drew to a halt. Panting, she sucked in air, her chest heaving like bellows.
Plum’s skinny frame shook. He bent double and coughed, then spat on the ground. “Where’s Bot?”
“He’s –”
Pain gripped Wrench’s head and she sank to her knees. The machine in the cellar had gone critical, sending out debilitating waves of energy. Plum towered above her, an expression of panic on his face. Through eyes squinted in agony she followed the direction of his gaze.
The kitchen door burst open and Bot came surging through. He raced onto the lawn and with one massive hand scooped up the smouldering monk. The ground shook and the priory exploded in a crackling mass of electrical discharge. A shock wave swept from the burning remains and Bot stumbled. Momentum carried him onwards, his feet dug into the soft turf and he regained his balance. Behind him the priory roof collapsed, sucked inwards by a vacuum’s void.
Bot reached the wall and dropped the monk on the ground. Brushing dust and ash from his arms he said, “I think that was pretty successful, don’t you?”
Heat and the smell of ozone surrounded Wrench. Her ears filled with the discordant sound of thousands of voices. Bright colours swirled across her vision. From somewhere far off she heard a mechanical voice yelling “Brasswitch” but it was lost among the chaos. The cool wet grass was a relief as it came up to meet her, slamming into her face.
The crackle-tram trundled down Mickelgate and slowed to a sedate halt behind a Tadcaster Brewery dray. Wrench gazed through the window at an irate-looking regulator with a large burn on his face. She tensed, and not just because he was staring straight at her. There was something frighteningly familiar about him; she felt like she should know him. The scene shimmered and she was in a vaulted crypt unlocking an ornate phosphor-bronze casket. Metallic tentacles, thick as ship’s hawsers, writhed from beneath the lid and grabbed her around the throat. Her windpipe constricted; she struggled to breathe and everything went black. A gaslight flared; she was in a dungeon corridor, steel cell doors lined the walls. Ahead, a door pockmarked with bullet holes lay ajar. She peered through the gap. Plum was tightly chained to the wall, shackled by his hands and ankles. A brazier glowed red-hot before him, iron brands heating in the coals. Livid scars in the shapes of strange sigils smouldered on his skin. His eyes met hers, pleading, no longer purple but a soulless grey. She fell into their smoky depths and was on the footplate of the Drake with her parents. The countryside rushed by, the wind tearing at her clothes. Her father laughed, clutching her mother’s hand as he encouraged the driver to go faster. A knot of fear burned in Wrench’s chest. The brakes on the engine locked on and the air filled with the scream of metal on metal. The scream transformed into that of a young lady. She sat on a rug spread out in an empty carriage, before her a magnificent picnic. Her handsome beau clung in terror to a seat. The carriages jumped from the rails, twisting like a leaping salmon. The young lady catapulted towards the glass. Ahead of her a bowl of strawberries smashed against the window in a splatter of red mush. Flames engulfed the railway carriage and then Wrench was atop a black scorched tower, hundreds of feet above the ground. In her hands, she held the odic capacitor, no longer massive but the size of a football, nothing more than a toy. A monstrous beast flailed at Bot with huge tungsten tentacles, their sharpened points scoured deep gouges in his armour. With bladed hands Bot slashed and parried but the beast advanced, ensnaring the mechanoid, pinning his arms. More tentacles wr
apped around Bot. His armour deformed, constricted and crushed. The crack of breaking metal echoed across the tower and the glow in Bot’s eyes dimmed. “Brasswitch!” he cried.
“Brasswitch! Brasswitch, wake up – we’ve got work to do.”
Wrench’s eyes snapped open. Bot leant over her, his large angular head uncomfortably close.
“See, I told you she’d live,” said Bot with an air of triumph.
“It wasn’t about her living. It was whether she was going to be a dribbling idiot for the rest of her days,” said Octavia.
Wrench pushed herself upright. She was on a narrow bed in the sickbay. “What the chuff happened?”
Bot clicked his fingers together. “Look, no dribble. I win.”
“Keep calm,” said Octavia, taking Wrench’s hand and passing her glasses. “You’ve had a bit of a moment.”
“And by moment she means you were hit by a vast temporal shock wave that could have turned your brain into tapioca when the machine in the priory malfunctioned and exploded,” said Bot.
Wrench scowled. “It didn’t malfunction. You destroyed an integral part of the feedback system.”
“Causing it to malfunction,” said Bot. “The important thing is we’re all alive, and not tapioca-ish, and the mission was a success.”
“You found the NIA?”
“No, but we’ve ruled the monks out of our enquiries. In fact, we’ve ruled them out of existence.”
Images of Bot running from the priory and grabbing a monk from the grass filled Wrench’s mind. She couldn’t be sure if it was a memory or an alternative past she’d seen in her visions.
“I thought you rescued one.”
“More arrested than rescued. Unfortunately, he didn’t survive his burns. He did confess that the monks were trying to make a machine that could see into the future. He claimed the brains of the monks in the glass tubes were affected by the massive electrical fields, opening their third eye and allowing them insights of possible events to come.”
Octavia withdrew and poured two cups of tea from a pot resting on a cabinet. “He wasn’t able to tell us anything about the NIA, though.”
“So, you’re no further forward.” Wrench swung her legs from the bed and accepted the bone-china teacup offered by Octavia.
“Actually, we are.” Bot lowered his voice to a whisper. “What I’m about to tell you doesn’t leave this room, and that goes for you too, Octavia.”
“Cross my tentacles and hope to die.”
Bot turned towards Wrench. “Brasswitch?”
“You mean this is more secret than the fact that the Rupture isn’t closed, the odic capacitor keeps us safe and we have an NIA on the loose?”
“Yes,” said Bot.
“Hookey-Walker!” Wrench adjusted her glasses. “My lips are locked tighter than a Tesla-welded rivet.”
“The monk said shortly before we arrived yesterday they were visited by another regulator. He wanted them to use the machine to look into the future for a specific person.”
“Who?” Wrench took a sip of tea, enjoying the warm tang of tannins that soothed her whole body.
“You, Brasswitch. That’s how they knew we were coming.”
The cup in Wrench’s hand trembled, sloshing tea into the saucer. “Why are the regulators interested in me? I thought I was part of the cabal now?”
“You are,” said Bot. “Although, perhaps not everybody sees it that way.”
“Who was it?” asked Octavia, taking the cup from Wrench before she spilled any more tea.
“The monk didn’t hear a name, although he described the regulator as having a very bad burn on his face.”
“Flemington!” said Wrench.
Octavia’s tentacles quivered. “We need to discover what he’s up to.”
“He wants to kill me, that’s what he’s up to.” Wrench scowled, remembering the electric chair.
“Maybe.” Bot drummed his fingers against his leg. “He’s a misguided zealot, for sure, but there’s something else going on. I’ll make some discreet enquiries. You’ll be safe enough at Thirteen for now.”
Octavia’s tentacles wiggled. “She needs training. Pippa wasn’t ready and neither is Wrench. We can’t lose another Brasswitch.”
Bot patted the bed. “Get some rest and tomorrow Plum can start teaching you magic.”
“Plum?” Octavia folded her arms, and several of her tentacles. “Master Tranter should teach her.”
“Tranter’s got one of his migraines,” snapped Bot. “Plum’s good enough to cover the basics.”
“The basics weren’t good enough for Pippa.”
Gears whined. Bot squared up to Octavia, towering over her. “You think I don’t know that?”
Octavia lifted her chin. Uncowed, she met his gaze. “So don’t repeat your mistake.”
“It wasn’t my mistake.” Bot clunked to the door. “She wasn’t supposed to leave the train.” He stomped from the sickbay, his thudding footsteps receding down the corridor.
One of Octavia’s tentacles encircled Wrench’s hand, spreading a comforting warmth through her fingers. “He’ll come around.”
“You don’t trust Plum?” asked Wrench.
“Plum’s good, but he’s no Master.”
“He saved my life when we were attacked by the Future Watch.”
“Oh, he’s got the skills . . .”
There was something Octavia was holding back. Some detail she was hesitant to share. Wrench needed to tease it out gently, like removing a smudgel pin from its casing. “Did Pippa and Plum get along?”
“As much as anyone gets along with Plum. He’s different, had a harder time than any of us.”
“How so?”
“That’s for Plum to tell, not me.”
“And you think that affects his ability to teach me magic?”
“Not his ability.” Octavia looked down at her feet. “Pippa told me she thought Plum was holding back in his lessons.”
“Holding back, how?”
“She felt she’d mastered water and wanted to move on, but Plum insisted she keep at it. She asked me not to tell Bot, so I didn’t. Only now I feel as guilty as him about her death.”
“We should let Bot know, then he might insist I train with Master Tranter.”
“It wouldn’t make a jot of difference. He’s made up his mind. You’ll have to work with Plum. For now, at least.”
Wrench’s hand twitched and seemingly from nowhere the thought of juicy, bitter lemons popped into her mind. She swallowed, her mouth watering. “Great. I survive the temporal shock but Plum’s going to have me dribbling like an idiot anyway.”
Wrench concentrated on the glass of water resting on her desk, trying to feel the magic, trying to sense the change in the state of the molecules. Plum slouched against her steel wardrobe. He hitched up a sleeve on his lilac suit and made a gesture with his hand. The water emitted a faint crackling sound, then in an instant it was solid ice.
“Did you feel it that time?” said Plum, fixing her with his magenta eyes.
Wrench shook her head. It was three days since the incident at the priory and Wrench was fed up with thinking of mouth-watering fruit. She could now dribble at will, and was certain that her finger positioning of the sigil for water was perfect, but she still failed to have any noticeable effect on the contents of the glass.
Plum unfroze the water. “Your turn,” he said.
Wrench repeated the sign and reached out with her mind to the water, slowing the molecules, taking their energy, willing them to bond together, to freeze. The surface of the water began to shake, concentric circles expanding from the centre. She focused harder, she could do magic, this time it would work and she would wipe the bored look from Plum’s face. Her jaw clenched, and she screwed up her eyes in concentration, then the surface became calm and the moment was lost.
“I did it. Did you see? I did it,” she said excitedly. She hadn’t frozen the water but she’d had some effect, made the surface move. Tha
t had to be a start.
Plum pulled a fob watch from his jacket pocket. “No, you didn’t.”
Wrench put her hands on her hips. “I bally well did. Maybe you should have been paying more attention rather than gazing out of the window. I made the surface ripple and everything.”
“That wasn’t magic,” said Plum.
“Oh, what was it then?” challenged Wrench.
Plum flicked the fob watch open. “The military express. It comes hurtling through once a week on the next platform and always shakes the train.”
Wrench slumped onto a chair. “It’s not fair.”
“Welcome to the cursed life of an aberration,” said Plum and sighed.
“Octavia calls it a gift.”
“Yeah, well, even with an aberration like hers she can hide it. I spent the first nine years of my life with bandages swaddling my head, pretending I was blind. My ma only let me take them off when I was safe inside. All I saw of the world was the view from my bedroom window and that was nowt but the dirty wall of a mill.”
“Being able to do magic though, that must have made up for some of it?”
“Not really. Until Master Tranter taught me control, I just made weird stuff happen. And now it’s not like I can use it for anything fun. The only time I get to do magic is when some horrible thing is intent on eviscerating me. It’s not exactly a right royal barrel of monkeys working for the regulators.”
“How long did it take Master Tranter to teach you?”
“After about three months I had a basic control of water, then another nine months to become expert. The first form is always the hardest,” said Plum. “Once you’ve mastered your first spell you have a feel for it. Don’t be hard on yourself – you’ve only been at it three days.”
“I need to learn magic now.” She needed to be able to protect herself, to protect Plum. The image of the thaumagician chained in the cell, his eyes pleading for help, surfaced again. She pushed down the guilt-fuelled urge to confess. The other visions hadn’t been right. The tram had hit the brewery dray and there were no passengers on the Drake when it had crashed. They probably weren’t even visions at all but more like dreams where her brain was scrambling images, trying to make sense of them. And it wasn’t as if Plum needed the warning to be careful, or any additional encouragement to be paranoid. She thumped her fist on the desk and the water’s surface rippled again. “I have to be able to protect myself. I could be dead in three months.”