Brasswitch and Bot

by Gareth Ward

  Flemington’s face darkened at the news he’d been duped.

  Bot cocked his head. “So, she’s expecting me and Plum but gets me and Brasswitch and decides to back out, leaving Carwyn on his own.”

  “She couldn’t have known you’d be at the church. It wasn’t a Thirteen job.” Flemington stroked his beard.

  “Carwyn was never going to come quietly. She engineered it so things went wrong and Thirteen would be called,” said Bot.

  “It still doesn’t make sense.” Flemington’s brow furrowed. “She couldn’t have known I’d come to The Spread Eagle.”

  Wrench stared over her bottle at the regulator. “Why were you here?”

  Flemington sneered. “I don’t answer questions from aberration filth.”

  The temperature dropped, and the bottle of ginger beer shattered, its contents now frozen solid.

  “Seventy-five per cent of the brain is water,” said Wrench. “Plum is my friend, you are not. If you don’t answer my question I will ice you.” It was a bluff. Magic couldn’t be directly used against a person, as the body’s aura interfered with the energy. However, Flemington wouldn’t know that and she’d delivered the threat with such malice that he capitulated.

  “I got sent a message that Daffydd, Carwyn’s brother, was the one who torched my quarters. The message contained this.” Flemington pulled a regulator red cat collar from his pocket. He fingered the small silver name tag and his bottom lip trembled. “The message said they had Lady Lovelace.”

  Wrench glanced sideways at Bot. How could that be? Lady Lovelace was ensconced in Plum’s cabin back at Thirteen.

  “Daffydd’s a stone-skin not a flame-mouth,” said Tommy. “He don’t even like fire.”

  Flemington scowled. “Well, much as I trust the word of a freak –”

  Tommy shoved the table backwards with one pair of hands, lunging for Flemington’s throat with the other.

  Grasping Tommy’s shoulder, Bot forced him back into his chair. “Sit down. You’re in enough trouble already. Captain Flemington is going to put his prejudices aside for the remainder of the discussion because whatever else he may believe, he knows Plum is a regulator and we look after our own. Isn’t that right?”

  Flemington glared at Tommy but nodded.

  Wrench flicked a shard of broken bottle from her trousers. “The Brasswitch’s magic was stronger than Plum’s, so why does she need him?”

  “Maybe she’s after information on Thirteen?” said Bot.

  “Seems to me she’s pretty clued up on that front already,” said Flemington. “She knew you’d be at the church and she lured you here.”

  “She didn’t lure me here. I came because Tommy sent word he was having issues with you,” said Bot, pointing at Flemington.

  “No, I didn’t.” Tommy shook his head. “It was a surprise to me when you turned up.”

  Wrench twisted her fingers together, wringing her hands. “When we were attacked in the Shambles the Lightning-Lady said, Don’t think this is over. We’re still coming for you. I thought she was talking to me but what if she wasn’t? What if they were after Plum all along?”

  “Which brings us back to the question, why does she need him?” said Bot.

  The image of Plum being branded in the cell replayed in Wrench’s mind and a thought began to form. Maybe she knew why Plum had been taken. Why it had to be a thaumagician. She bit down on her tongue, stopping herself from blurting it out. Someone in the regulators was conspiring with the other Brasswitch. Flemington had been at both the church and the pub and she had no reason to trust him. His obsession with her was unnatural and still unexplained and the fact that another Brasswitch had taken Plum was too coincidental.

  Bot stood. “We’ve been played good and proper and I don’t like that. Someone has my thaumagician, and I like that even less. I’m going to find them, and then I’m going to make them very unhappy.”

  Wrench slumped onto her bed, pain and fatigue vying for supremacy over her body. Instead of being allowed to help search for Plum, Bot had sent her back to Thirteen while he headed to Clifford’s Tower with Flemington. They were busy organising personnel to conduct house to house enquiries and make up search parties. It sounded good and made it seem like they were doing something useful, but in her heart Wrench knew it was wasted effort.

  She’d tried to get Bot to one side, so she could talk to him without Flemington in earshot but the mechanoid was in full command mode and had dismissed her without listening. If she was going to convince him she needed hard evidence to prove her point, and that evidence was at the orrery. She didn’t care that Bot had categorically forbidden her to leave Thirteen; Plum needed her help and that was justification enough for breaking the rules.

  Her eyelids closed for two seconds. Soft on her back, the mattress tempted her to give in to its charms and sleep for a week, but there was work to do. Forcing her tired eyes open, she dragged herself from the bed. The orrery beckoned, but first she needed to talk to the elusive Master Tranter about Plum.

  Wrench hid her bowler hat under her jacket and pulled open the door to her room. A thickset regulator blocked her exit. “Pardon me, ma’am, but Bot left instructions that you were to remain in your room until his return,” said the regulator.

  “And when might that be?”

  “He didn’t say, ma’am.”

  Her anger surged, flickering the lights. “So, I’m to be held prisoner?”

  “No, ma’am. You just have to wait in your room.”

  She slammed the door shut and stomped around the small cabin. Bot didn’t trust her and that infuriated her; the fact that he was right not to do so just added to her ire. Well, she’d show him. There had to be another way to slip from the train. The carriage windows didn’t open, and the door was no longer an option. Her gaze drifted to the circular heating vent high up on the wall above her desk. It would be a tight fit, maybe impossibly so, although perhaps that wouldn’t matter.

  From the bottom of her wardrobe she grabbed her tool belt and removed a screwdriver. She lifted the chair onto the desk and clambered on top of it. Compared to the heavy bolts she was used to dealing with at the coachworks, the four screws securing the vent were a cinch to remove. With the flat of the screwdriver she eased the grille free and then replaced one screw, giving it a half-turn so the vent hung suspended. She climbed back down and positioned the screwdriver and screws so they were clearly visible on the desk, then snuck to the hinge side of the door.

  Imagining the lines of a magnetic field, she adjusted them so the remaining screw rotated until gravity took effect. The grille dropped from the ceiling, bounced from the chair, then clattered to the wooden floor.

  The door burst open, obscuring Wrench. The regulator guard rushed to the desk and scrambled onto the chair. Craning his neck, he peered into the vent.

  Wrench slipped out of the door, easing it closed behind her. She rekindled her anger at being kept prisoner and forced her rage into the door’s mechanism. The lock melted, fused solid. It wouldn’t last for long but she didn’t need it to; it just had to hold long enough for her to visit Master Tranter.

  The “magic department” took the whole second storey of one of the carriages. The stairs that provided access were barred by a substantial iron gate inscribed with complex sigils. Wrench probed the lock, expecting to encounter formidable magical protection. The tumblers turned unimpeded and the gate clicked open. She hurried up the stairs, not knowing what awaited. Plum had obstructed her previous efforts to take a peek, citing Master Tranter’s delicate health as a catchall prohibition, and Octavia had sidestepped any of her questions on the subject.

  The stairs led into a room that looked like a cross between a library and a laboratory. One wall was lined with books, their leather-bound spines exuding age. Opposite, jars of chemicals and specimens preserved in formaldehyde filled the shelves. A bench ran along the centre of the carriage. Alchemical concoctions bubbled through the complicated arrays of glassware sat atop the
bench.

  “Hello?” called Wrench. If Master Tranter was as jumpy as Plum she didn’t want to scare him and end up on the wrong end of a blast of magic. There was no reply, only the faint sound of gas percolating through liquid. She walked further into the carriage and called again. “Hello?”

  “Plum, is that you?” said a husky voice from behind Wrench. She spun around, her heart pounding. Master Tranter was nowhere to be seen.

  “No. It’s me, Wrench. Plum’s missing.”

  A snort issued from beneath a black silk cloth covering what Wrench presumed was a large domed birdcage. Although, what sort of bird could communicate so readily was a mystery to her.

  “That explains why it’s been so quiet. I’ve been rather enjoying the peace,” rasped the voice from beneath the cloth.

  “I need to speak to Master Tranter. Where can I find him, please?”

  The silk fluttered as if caught in a sudden breeze and then slid free. Beneath was not a birdcage but a large fluid-filled bell jar. A disembodied head floated in the lurid blue liquid, cables and tubes trailing from the brass collar encapsulating its neck.

  Wrench gasped and took a step backwards.

  The head grinned. “I see that reports of my imminent recovery have been greatly overstated,” said Master Tranter, his voice magically projecting beyond the glass bell jar.

  “You’re just a head,” said Wrench.

  “My, my. You’re far more astute than Plum led me to believe. You’ve diagnosed my problem immediately. Well done.”

  Wrench’s heart rate returned to normal, the shock of Master Tranter’s predicament waning. Two weeks ago, talking to an aquatic severed head would undoubtedly have perturbed Wrench. Today, it didn’t even feature in her top ten list of weird things she’d encountered. “I can see who Plum gets his interpersonal skills from,” she said, and flicked a finger against the glass.

  Master Tranter winced. “Please don’t do that,” he said, and blew a bubble from his nose. “Now tell me about Plum.”

  “He’s been kidnapped, and I have a theory about why, but I need to know something about Plum and his magic. He’s different, isn’t he?”

  “Yes. The boy is an anomaly, and not merely because he’s frighteningly good. What specifically do you want to know?”

  Wrench clambered onto the roof of the train through a hatch in the magic department’s vestibule. She glanced about York station. Thirteen’s siding was positioned deliberately well away from the other tracks and no one loitered nearby. She lowered the hatch back into position then padded along the carriage’s roof. A confusion of pipes and dials decorated the wall at the carriage’s end, making for an easy descent. She clambered down and dropped onto the train track. Crouching below the height of the platform, she stepped from sleeper to sleeper.

  To some, being so close to the carriage’s giant wheels, axles and springs may have been frightening, but to Wrench they loaned a sense of comfort. The years she’d spent as an apprentice engineer meant she felt more at home beneath the carriage than inside it. She reached the massive hydraulic buffer springs at the end of the track and clambered onto the platform. With a final glance behind, she headed from the station.

  Not wanting Octavia to track her again, Wrench walked several streets away before flagging down a cab. The short ride to the Astrologium gave her enough time to clarify her thoughts and devise a plan. Unlike her previous visit, a light breeze sent the city’s smog tumbling away from the hill, the grey wisps parting like rapids round a rock. The orrery’s spheroidal tower dominated the hilltop, magnificent in the bright sunlight. Wrench took a deep breath and whispered to herself, “Be the blue train.”

  An underling showed Wrench into Magi Taurus’s office. The gaunt, anaemic magi hunched over his desk, scribbling in a journal. He glanced up, then returned his attention to the journal’s pages. “On your own today, little miss?” he said, dipping his pen in the inkwell.

  Wrench bristled. “It’s Brasswitch to you.” She pointed her finger at a decorative orrery suspended from the ceiling. Cogs, springs, planets and moons showered downwards, scattering across the inlaid leather desktop.

  Taurus looked up in astonishment. Mars bounced from his widow-peaked forehead and rolled across the desk.

  “It would be a tragedy were the same thing to happen on a larger scale,” said Wrench, gesturing towards the Astrologium.

  His hand trembling, Taurus put down his pen. “Please accept my apologies for my rudeness. How can I help you, Brasswitch?”

  “Have you fixed the bugs introduced by Parrot-Man?”

  “We believe so. We’re running some test programs now.”

  “Cancel those. I need you to run the Chattox program, my program, and one more which may take a bit of extra work.”

  Taurus spread his hands on the desk. “But that could take all day!”

  “What’s one day?” said Wrench, flicking Jupiter from the desk. “Compared to a lifetime in Clifford’s Tower?”

  Taurus slumped into his chair. “Tell me about this special program, Brasswitch.”

  Wrench leant over the gantry rail watching the planets and moons spin into position. Adjacent to her a pen attached to an articulating arm moved back and forth like the shuttle on a loom, drawing thick black letters and numbers as it went.

  After one complete revolution, the solar system slowed to a halt and the bright glow of the artificial sun faded. Taurus ripped off the sheet of paper that spooled from the machine and handed it to Wrench. “These are your results. They’re remarkably similar to those we ran for Chattox.”

  “Except my odic potential is higher,” said Wrench.

  “Much higher,” agreed Taurus.

  “Run the final program for when the comet is closest.” Wrench stared into space, or at least into a scientifically accurate model of space, while Taurus made some adjustments to the machine. Bot had told her that at certain times the net over the Rupture was weaker, but maybe that wasn’t the case. When she’d performed magic with Plum in the shooting range she’d attracted something through. She hadn’t weakened the barrier; she’d acted like a magnet. When the moon and sun aligned, the combined pull of gravity created spring tides. According to the Celestines, the planets and the comet amplified the odic forces, making Chattox and Wrench more powerful. Maybe the other Brasswitch was going to use the spike in power to draw something through. Master Tranter had confirmed what she’d suspected, Plum was different from other magic users. Thaumagicians normally converted energy from their bodies’ cells into magic, but Plum could store pure magic, which was why his eyes changed colour. The Brasswitch was going to charge him up like a battery and then release all that energy at once, when the comet was closest, creating a beacon to lure the old gods through.

  The planets danced across the simulated cosmos and paper spewed from the machine. Wrench scanned the figures, but she already knew what it would say. The greatest effects of the comet would be on August the fourth, St Dereleth’s day, her birthday.

  The lift doors further along the gantry clanged open. Wrench’s heart kicked in her chest. The last time she’d been at the orrery Chain-Head and her cohorts had attacked them. Bot strode from the lift. Wrench’s pulse raced and her chest tightened; the mechanoid was angry. With his shoulders hunched forward and his eyes burning red, he stormed along the gantry. How had he found her? She hadn’t left any clues for Octavia to follow and she’d not hailed the cab anywhere near the station. Bot stamped to a halt alongside her. “We’ll talk about this later, Brasswitch,” he said.

  Bot’s hand shot out and grabbed Taurus’s shirtfront. Without effort, he dragged the magi closer. “When we were here last, you said you warned the aberrations.”

  “I did and I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.” Taurus clutched onto Bot’s thick metal wrist, his legs trembling.

  “How?” said Bot.

  The pitch of Taurus’s voice rose, like he’d been sucking helium. “How what?”

  “How did you contact the
m?”

  “G-mail. Brimble Pontefract the Third, if memory serves me correctly.”

  Bot let go of Taurus’s shirt. “Do you have any more?”

  “Only one. Miss Penelope Plumplington.”

  A small leather seat ejected from Bot’s back and foot-pegs extended from his waist. Attached to the seat were Wrench’s new goggles. The mechanoid kneeled next to Wrench. “Goggle up and saddle up. We’ve got some running to do.”

  Penelope Plumplington was anything but plump. Her sleek muscled haunches powered her along York’s streets like an express train at full throttle. Bot’s feet pounded on the flagstones, steam spurting from his joints as he struggled to match the dog’s pace. Greyhound mail was a recent addition to the city’s communications. With a higher load capacity than the traditional carrier pigeons they were fast finding favour in the local business community.

  Wrench stood on the foot-pegs clinging to Bot’s shoulders. She’d spent the first quarter-mile of their pursuit bouncing in the saddle like a pea on a drum skin, before deciding that the seat was obviously intended for more sedate journeys. The wind whipped past her and she was glad of the new goggles Todkin had crafted. Along with preventing her eyes from watering they had a telescopic function, allowing her to keep sight of the greyhound’s distant form.

  At first, as they’d headed downhill from the Astrologium Bot had managed to keep pace with the beast. Now on the flat, with the length of Walmgate extending into the distance, they were losing ground. Squalid brick terraces ran both sides of the street, homes to the influx of Irish that had come to the city. With four or more families sharing houses designed for one, the pungent aroma of unwashed bodies and night waste wafted on the wind.

  They passed The Spread Eagle pub. Nausea churned Wrench’s stomach, the site of Plum’s disappearance bringing the vision of her friend being tortured into her mind. Bot pumped his arms harder, accelerating, the reminder of the missing thaumagician perhaps giving him extra impetus.