Clockwork Villains

by T. J. Lockwood

  The screen flickers back to Robbie. “But she is alone.”

  I sigh. “She’s not moving like she’s alone.”

  Sasha sets me down on the ground. “It’s fine. She can take care of herself. We shouldn’t get involved.”

  My image grows bigger. “Are you crazy? She might need help.”

  “She doesn’t.”

  I clench my fists. “And how do you know?”

  “Because she won’t take your help even if you offer it.”

  A bang echoes from upstairs. Robbie disappears from the screen, and I hear the distinct sound of the door sliding shut at the top of the stairs. Sasha doesn’t look at me. She isn’t looking at anything, really. She just stands there, eyes empty—zoned out. That’s when it hits me; she’s probably in the system, leaving her body here for safekeeping.

  So this is my life now, trapped in a box and left behind without so much as a word. I don’t know if I can do this. Everyone says it’s all about code, but I just don’t understand. My head can’t wrap itself around strings of numbers and letters.

  There it is again, the tug.

  I look to my left, but there isn’t anyone there.

  “Piper.” Robbie reappears on the screen. “Are you still there?”

  Another bang echoes overhead.

  I nod. “Yeah. Where else am I going to go?”

  He redirects his attention to Sasha. “She left you.”

  “I know.”

  He pauses. “I’m sorry, Piper. I can’t... I can’t do anything beyond my physical circuits in this world. I am split between conduits and circuit boards. I can check on what is happening upstairs, but I can’t take you with me.”

  I nod. “It’s okay. Not like I’m going anywhere.”

  Robbie looks as if he is trying to decipher my tone of voice. “Ms. Piper, I don’t—”

  Everything goes dark: the screens, the lights, everything.

  “Robbie?” I whisper, and what follows is complete silence. Uneasy silence. There isn’t anything audible to latch onto. In this darkness, I feel disoriented. As if by instinct, I reach out and try to touch something, but that’s impossible. My brain knows it and yet in this moment I’m like a child again, yearning to latch onto anything, whether it be the hum of the lights or the gentle sounds of air flowing through the vents. As far as I know, Sasha hasn’t moved, but I can’t confirm that in the dark. My projection from the cube is an unfortunately dim light which barely reaches a foot in all directions.

  My dad used to tell me that light could be seen even in the furthest corners of darkness. The thought of others being able to see me clearly while hidden from my sight is unnerving.

  “Hello?” I say, but no one answers.

  Maybe I am alone.

  The screen flickers on as the backup generator kicks in. The lights in the corners of the room emit a red hue while the main lights stay dark. It’s still silent, but not to the degree it was a few seconds ago.

  “Piper.” Robbie appears on the screen. “I’m here.”

  Those two words are comforting in ways I can’t describe. A lone tear slides down my cheek, but I catch it before more begin to form. In the darkness and the uncertainty, there is Robbie.

  I’m never alone when he is close by.

  16

  THE MILLION DOLLAR STAND-OFF

  THE SECRET TO CREATING THE PERFECT DRINK IS BALANCE. It really is that simple. Each ingredient must contribute a small detail to a big picture. Nothing can be more or less than what is expected of it. Competition of flavours has put many restaurants out of business.

  People demand perfection in what they consume. It’s an interesting thing to witness. Humans pursue bliss, but the moment bliss becomes excess, the story changes. That is as true for alcohol as it is for life. The difference between one and the other is a line in the dirt.

  I still hear the shaker—feel the drips of condensation forming as vodka crashes against pineapple, bitters, and ice.

  Thing is, even if you put all the ingredients in as they say, it still doesn’t guarantee the perfect drink. There must be balance, and there can’t be balance without instinct.

  That is my world.

  This one doesn’t make sense to me at all.

  “Piper?” Robbie’s voice breaks the uneasy silence. The lights overhead flicker rapidly, but in the end they return to their dull hue.

  Sasha still hasn’t moved.

  My eyes scan from one end of the room to the other. “Yeah?”

  He sighs. “I don’t have enough power in the reserves to activate any countermeasures.”

  I shrug. “Countermeasures to what?”

  He pauses. “The Captain is engaged in combat. The south wall has taken significant damage.”

  I feel my heart beating faster in my chest. “Combat? What are you talking about?”

  A thunderous crash echoes. I’ve done a lot of crazy things in my life and put myself in some tight spots, but I’m not a fighter. I’m someone who has no problem running for cover, but that isn’t an option right now.

  The crashes start sounding more like explosions, and in that moment Sasha comes back to her senses. The next bang causes her to stumble backwards and fall to the ground.

  “What in the—” She’s cut off by what sounds like scraping metal.

  “Sasha.” I try to get her attention, but she’s paralyzed. “Sasha!”

  “Miss Sasha.” Robbie appears on the screen and Sasha scrambles to her feet and makes her way over.

  She’s frantic, and I don’t know much about computers, but the moment Robbie disappears from the screen and all the lights dim further, I have a pretty good idea of what she’s doing. An audible click comes from the panel next to the screen and she shoves something in her pocket before turning to me.

  “Sasha—”

  She doesn’t say anything as she picks me up and starts running up the stairs. Those sounds we heard before were muffled. The moment we step out into the hall, it’s as if someone turned up the volume to concert level. The echoes of gunfire quickly fill the air and there’s nothing I can do to get myself away from all of it.

  Sasha looks scared, but you can tell she’s familiar with this sort of situation. She crouches down and moves along the wall towards the kitchen.

  “Stay back! Sasha, it’s safer in the basement.” Calista stands next to a medium-sized hole in the wall—the gauntlet on her right hand is glowing.

  Outside the gunfire slows but doesn’t cease.

  A slight whistle fills the air for a few seconds. An explosion erupts afterwards. Is there a ship outside?

  “There’s no way out from down there.” Sasha takes cover in the kitchen.

  Calista releases a burst of energy from her gauntlet. “It won’t matter. They aren’t getting through here.”

  “Who’s they?” Sasha peeks around the island.

  I can’t see who Calista is firing at, but I can hear them.

  “I have no idea, but they’re shooting first and that’s all I need to know.” She pauses. “They’re messing with the wrong person.”

  Sasha inches around the side then looks down at me. She looks like she isn’t sure what to say. I look over at Calista and watch as she clenches her left fist and motions towards whatever is outside. The whistle starts again, and more explosions echo.

  “The Ocelot.” Sasha looks down at me.

  I pause. “The what?”

  She sighs. “Her ship. It’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen.”

  For a moment, the battle subsides. The light whistle is still in the air, but the gunfire finally stops. Calista is cautious. She carefully looks out with her gauntlet ready.

  “Sasha, I know you’re in there! I just want to talk.” The voice is unfamiliar, but the thick accent is distinct.

  Sasha freezes up. She looks like she’s ready to break down.

  Calista is next to us in seconds. “Come on, we have a window.” She grabs Sasha’s arm and begins pulling her towards the back
porch. Two silhouettes appear in the window.

  I look up at Calista. “Captain—”

  She nods and fires from her gauntlet. “I see them.”

  The burst of energy is concussive, like launching a wave rather than a beam. Those silhouettes fly back and we’re taking cover within seconds. The whistling is slight, but is gradually growing louder.

  Behind us, it sounds as if the front door has just been kicked in.

  Calista shoves Sasha outside. “Just keep running. The Ocelot will meet you in the clearing.”

  Sasha stumbles and I fall to the ground. She runs and doesn’t look back as my cube gets left behind.

  “You must be Captain Ridley.” The voice speaks, but I can’t see him. The only one in my view is Calista, who is carefully stepping outside and looks ready to run in the direction Sasha did.

  “If you know who I am, then you know not to get in my way.” She walks backwards, but stops as the heel of her boot hits my cube. Her eyes remain fixed on whoever is in front of her as she reaches down and picks me up.

  He laughs and steps into view. “You might want to slow down, darling. Threatening me is not in your best interest.”

  The man is tall, wearing a cowboy hat, and has a tattoo on his neck. His vest looks military grade and the gun in his hand is steady.

  Calista doesn’t look the least bit intimidated even as two other men with rifles move up behind him. “You need to back off now.”

  “Darling, you have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

  “Jameson Polluck.”

  He smiles. “Well, you really are smarter than you—”

  Calista readies her gauntlet. “I’m not impressed.”

  She fires, and we’re running before the three of them hit the ground. The concussive boom echoes and the gunfire resumes in seconds. There’s a lot more than just the three of them.

  “Come.” The Captain speaks, but I’m not entirely sure to whom.

  Then, as we near the gated perimeter, the whistling starts, and I look up to see a large aircraft diving towards us. I’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s sleek, but massive, and lowers itself to a hover.

  A large door opens, revealing Sasha taking cover behind several metal crates.

  “Get to the bridge. I didn’t think I had to tell you that.” Calista steps aboard and the door begins to close almost instantly. A few stray bullets make it inside, but there is no damage.

  “Cal...” Sasha goes to say more, but stops as the Captain tosses me into the air. I land gently, cradled in her hands.

  “You shouldn’t leave your things lying around.” And with those words, she climbs the ladder towards the bridge.

  Neither one of us says anything, but we both feel the ship ascend and accelerate. Soon the sound of gunfire disappears completely.

  Is this what I have been reduced to?

  A thing.

  Sasha sets me down on one of the crates and looks me in the eye. “I’m sorry.”

  I nod, but say nothing.

  Maybe it would have been better if I’d been left behind.

  17

  THE SCARLET SKY

  WHEN I WAS YOUNGER, Robbie used to read me stories—fairy tales from a simpler time. That is what he told me, anyway; I’m not sure that any time can be called simple. Life is complicated, and that’s not because of technology.

  It’s people.

  It’s always about the people.

  “So, are you going to tell me what’s going on or am I going to have to guess?” Captain Ridley inputs something on her console and leans back in her seat. The bridge is relatively small, but there are more than enough controls lining the walls for me to have worried about touching something I shouldn’t, if I could touch at all.

  Sasha sits on the edge of her seat, fiddling with a small data key in front of a blank monitor. She looks determined and relatively sad every time the screen fills and then flickers off. I don’t understand what she types, but I do recognize bits of the code. She’s trying to run a program.

  “This ship is amazing.” My cube is sitting on one of the free chairs.

  Calista spins herself around to face me. “And what’s your story? Assuming you have one, anyway.”

  I pause. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She shrugs. “You’re a citizen of a town run by a corporation. Maybe there’s an NDA in play. If that’s the case, then there is no story.”

  I take a deep breath. “NDA?”

  She nods. “Non-disclosure agreement.”

  “I know what it is.”

  She puts her hands up in defence. “I didn’t mean to offend. I’m just trying to figure out what happened here. On the regular, there is no way a gang should have been able to set foot on property owned by the Suo Corporation. Polluck shouldn’t even be on this continent.”

  Sasha shakes her head. “He does what he wants. Wouldn’t surprise me if he threatened a barge to take him across to Russia.”

  Calista sighs. “Regardless, there are a few things at play here. People are missing, Suo isn’t maintaining its borders, and all I’ve got to go on is her.” She points towards me. “You’ve been to RigMire, right?”

  I don’t say anything right away. I have been there, but I wasn’t welcome at all. “Briefly.”

  She nods. “And did anything look strange while you were there?”

  What kind of a question is that? The whole place was strange. I turn away. “Look, I didn’t exactly... know what I was getting myself into. I don’t know how to answer your question.”

  She puts her feet down and leans forward. “You didn’t know about the digital deconstruction?”

  I sigh. “I don’t really know what that means.”

  “Now, that is very interesting—” The panel in front of her lights up. “Shit.” She leans over and flips a switch below one of the screens to her left.

  I recognize the face that appears as the man from the hologram in the house. “Henry.”

  He looks unimpressed. “Captain Ridley.” He pauses. “Would you care to tell me why the Ocelot’s signal is reading as three thousand feet above Lavrentiya?”

  “There were complications.”

  He shakes his head. “I told you to wait for me.”

  I pause. “Polluck and his gang showed up in MagHaven.”

  For a moment neither of them says anything.

  “You’re sure it was him?” Henry looks away briefly.

  “Yes.” Calista clears her throat. “I’m not sure how he found transportation, though.”

  He shrugs. “Resourceful men aren’t that way because they’re lazy.”

  She takes a deep breath. “I have a citizen here who says she’s been to RigMire.”

  He nods. “Voltza should be over the Pacific right now. Dock and I’ll meet you on level four.”

  “The situation is complicated.”

  He smiles. “It always is.”

  The screen goes blank and the bridge quickly fills with a fragile silence. Sasha continues tapping away at the screen. She may have heard the conversation, but she certainly wasn’t paying attention.

  “Where are we going?” My voice wavers.

  She makes her way over to me and picks up the cube. Sasha stops typing and turns her attention to us.

  There’s a look in Captain Ridley’s eye that I recognize almost instantly—uncertainty. She isn’t a liar. I don’t know her very well, but it’s a feeling I have. She’s someone who gets straight to the point and isn’t afraid of making tough decisions.

  She turns to Sasha. “Well, this one needs to go home, but you and I—and I guess your house as well—need to figure out a few things. If you’re willing to cooperate, we’ll help you as best we can.”

  Robbie.

  “Cal.” Sasha stands.

  “We’re going to Voltza. No one has closer ties to Suo than my father. He’ll know what to do, but we’ll have to bring him up to speed first.”

  The hum of the Ocelot is subtle, mu
ch like the gentle buzz of halogen lights. All my life I have been surrounded by machines and mechanisms, but this one feels different. There is something about how Calista treats this ship. Her relationship with it reminds me of mine with Robbie.

  I look at the screen Sasha was working on. The numbers and letters continue streaming line after line of code until it flickers off again. Robbie.

  “The Maverick.” Sasha sinks back down in her chair.

  Calista smiles. “His name is Elias, and despite how the world sees him, there is still a man in the machine.”

  Sasha’s screen flickers back on, and I see Robbie curiously looking at his surroundings. The moment our eyes meet, he tries to speak, but I can’t hear him.

  Sasha follows my gaze to him and throws a celebratory fist pump into the air. “Yesss! I was starting to think the data was too corrupt to get him back.”

  The Captain walks back to her pilot’s chair and sets me down on the console in front of her. “Tell me everything, leave no detail out. I don’t care if you’ve broken laws, I’m not here to judge.”

  I believe her.

  So, I start from the beginning.

  18

  THE DIGITAL LIGHT

  MAKING LEMONADE IS THE ULTIMATE TEST for any bartender. No matter who you are or how many years you’ve been mixing, no two batches of lemonade will ever taste the same. The palate is complex and the resulting drink says a lot about a person. A little bit of who we are is stirred into a glass and melded together to create something wonderful.

  A person is like a glass of lemonade. The recipe is the same, but the details are something else entirely.

  The Ocelot jerks back and I hear the sounds of gears turning. Calista looks relaxed, but Sasha is gripping the underside of her seat with so much vigour. I barely feel the landing.

  Robbie is still on the screen, displaying very little emotion. Calista says that he can share space with the Ocelot’s mainframe and while the Ocelot itself is not a full-fledged AI it still has priority within the ship’s systems. I haven’t heard Robbie speak, but Sasha assured me that he’s alright.

  I’m struggling with my current form as I’m sure Robbie is. I press down on the rook below my thumb and stare long and hard at the keyboard in front of me. Sasha picks me up and follows Calista back through the cargo bay and all I can do is watch. It doesn’t matter what buttons I push; I have no idea what I’m doing. Perhaps it’s all just a bunch of trial and error.