by Trish Telep
"To your left," JW muttered, not looking at her.
It took Martha a moment to spot the cluster of black-painted automata standing flat against the walls.
"Automata: war machines," she breathed. "I thought most of them had been destroyed."
"That's what I heard too. Obviously, we heard wrong. Why does a nothing town in South Dakota need obsolete war machines?" JW asked.
Now that she had spotted them, Martha realized that the machines were everywhere, standing still and unmoving in the shadows. The automata were tall and thin, mismatched scraps of metal and wire, some obviously welded together from other machines. Each one was taller than a man, a vaguely human headless body set atop metal wheels or tracks. When they were new, each one had four arms that ended in weapons, but most of these were missing some limbs. Ominously, although the automata were stained with rust and streaked with dirt, the wide-mouthed guns at the ends of their arms were bright and clean.
Martha had seen automata before. They had first been introduced in the War a decade earlier. The original clockwork versions had quickly been replaced by spring-powered and, finally, compressed-air and steam-driven models. Although they were terrifying-looking, they were unreliable and not suited to modern warfare and were eventually phased out or used exclusively as sentries or private security. Working models sometimes turned up at fairs and carnivals, and a famous model nicknamed the Colonel, had been redesigned and put to work as a traffic cop in Chicago.
They turned down another street and suddenly the nature of the town changed. The road turned from dirt to smooth black pitch and the buildings on either side--banks and mining offices, hotels and restaurants--were bright and clean, sheathed in shining metal and polished ceramic. Rows of ornately carved streetlights lined both sides of the street.
"I'm guessing we've just passed through the workers' part of town, and this is where the employers live," JW muttered.
"Metal, glass, and ceramic buildings," Martha said. "I've heard San Francisco is like this."
JW nodded.
The doors opened and more townspeople came out onto the street to watch the airship passengers and their guards pass by. It took Martha a few moments before she realized what was wrong about the whole place.
"I know," JW said, as she opened her mouth. "There are no children. I noticed it a moment ago."
Martha Burke nodded, suddenly realizing that from the moment she'd landed in Deadwood, she'd seen no children. And as she watched the townspeople, she discovered that they were all focused on the war orphans that had been taken off the ship.
The group were ordered to stop before a gleaming silver metal-sheeted building. The words "Deadwood Gaol" were etched deep into the metal over the huge double doors.
Martha saw JW look at the sign and watched his shoulders twitch uncomfortably. "Nervous?" she asked.
"Don't much like the idea of spending time in jail."
"You've done it before."
"Oh, that was a case of mistaken identity," he said quickly, and they both knew he was lying.
The jail doors opened and a ramrod-straight backed middle-aged man in the blue and black uniform of an airship captain appeared.
"Captain Fontaine," JW murmured. "Saw him greeting the High passengers when we were boarding."
The captain's uniform had once been pristine, but it was now stained and worn. His left sleeve hung empty and was pinned up against his collar. A series of straight scars reached from his left ear to his chin. The ship's steward joined the captain on the steps, his ugly guns held loosely by his side.
The captain looked over the assembled passengers and when he spoke, Martha recognized his accent from his announcements made on the airship.
"Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to welcome you to your new home: Deadwood." His smile was icy. "Let me tell you what is happening right now." He glanced at the chronograph strapped to his right wrist. "In the next few minutes, the airship will broadcast a distress message. Apparently, our instruments have failed and the balloon is losing pressure." His smile broadened. "In an hour or so, the ship will be reported lost, with all hands. It will be a tragedy, of course. But every year, a dozen ships are lost across the Native Nations and the United States." His smile broadened. "Most of them are lost over Dakota in an area known as the Black Hills Triangle. All of them end up here," he added.
Fontaine came down off the steps and moved toward the passengers, who immediately backed away from him. "Unfortunately, ladies and gentlemen, you had the misfortune to book a flight with this group of children." He stopped before the orphaned boys and girls, most of them too shocked to be terrified. The captain waved his hand. "You, ladies and gentlemen, are a bonus. But these children--these are the prize."
Martha found JW's hand and squeezed tightly. Then she tugged him to one side, moving slowly through the crowd, toward the captain and the steward.
"Are we being held for ransom?" a red-faced man in a smart suit demanded. "We have money, we can pay."
"Money!" Fontaine laughed. "This is a mining town--no, this is the mining town. The wealthiest mining town in the United States. We don't need money. We have money. Look around you," he smiled. "Look at these buildings. They're made of solid metal sheets so thin they're almost transparent. The roofs are ceramic, impervious to cold and heat. These are some of the most expensive building materials in the world. This jail cost more than you earn in a year. This is most definitely not about money. This is about bodies. We need workers. In the mines." He took a moment to allow the sentence to sink in.
A confused murmur ran through the crowd. "But we can't work the mines ..." someone began.
"We're not miners ..."
"We have rights ..."
"The law ..."
"There is no law here," the captain snapped. "All of you now are citizens of Deadwood. You'll work for the mine owners, which means you work for me. I run Deadwood. Some of you--the ladies and the smaller men--will end up down in the mines, the rest will work on the surface, breaking rocks, hauling waste." His voice grew as ugly as the expression on his face. "You will do as you are told. That is not open to discussion. This is a company town. You'll never be able to leave it. And if you try, you'll not get more than five feet beyond the city limits. The graveyard on the hill is full of people who thought they could make it out."
Still clutching JW's hand, Martha called out. "What makes the children so special? Why are they the prize?"
"We got the idea from Britain where small children are sent up narrow chimneys to clean them. We send the children down into the deepest, narrowest tunnels, miles underground."
"But they'll die," Martha whispered, horrified.
"Some," he agreed. "But there are always more children."
Shocked, Martha took a step back. JW rested his hand on her shoulder and squeezed reassuringly.
"Most of the gold coming out of California is mined by children," the captain said slowly. "The mine owners have poured millions of dollars into the latest technology both above and below ground, but apparently nothing beats a very small human child with a pickaxe, chisel, and hammer."
"So that's where all the children have been going," a short red-haired woman said in a strong Irish accent. She looked around. "Children have been disappearing all across the West. Young boys mostly, but girls too."
"My brothers," Martha whispered to JW.
"That's a big assumption."
"That's what my instinct is telling me," she hissed.
"I believe you." JW added.
"Our Thunderbirds raided the Native villages first," Captain Fontaine said, "then the isolated towns and farmsteads, but there just weren't enough children. So we came up with a different plan: we bring the children to us. War orphans from the East Coast are offered places in schools along the West Coast." He shrugged. "Then we bring down the airships that are transporting them."
"This is slavery," Martha whispered, pulling off her hat to wipe her shining forehead. She had drawn JW with her
to the front of the crowd.
The captain turned toward her, a look of disdain on his face. "This is business."
The hat slipped from Martha's hand to reveal her tiny double-barreled dart pistol she'd tugged from its hiding place in the lining. She pushed the barrel of the gun up against the captain's bobbing Adam's apple. "So is this."
The steward moved, bringing his gun to bear on Martha, but JW lunged forward and struck the man between the eyes with the heel of his hand, then grabbed his matched pistols from the steward's belt, pointing one at the steward, and the second at the captain.
JW nodded at Martha in admiration. "You're full of surprises," he whispered.
"You have no idea." She pressed her gun against the captain's throat for emphasis. "Now tell your men to hand over the weapons."
"I will not."
"I've got two darts in here. Now these are not ordinary darts. I got them from a shaman in the Native Nations. One is tipped with bee sting, the second with spider venom. Maybe, they'll not kill you, but they will really, really hurt. Tell him, JW."
The young man smiled at the captain. "I got hit in the neck by a bee dart a while ago. My face swelled up like a balloon. My throat closed. I could barely breathe," JW leaned forward and lowered his voice. "I have heard that the shaman darts are really powerful. You get stuck with one of those and soon you start to turn into the bee or snake or spider. I saw a guy in a traveling circus who was half-man, half-bee. He'd been shot with an Indian Native dart ..."
"Hand over the guns," Fontaine ordered his men, "Do it ... do it now."
Passengers snatched their weapons back from the crewmen. "What do we do now?" a short stout man asked JW.
He turned to Martha, eyebrows raised in a question.
"Now we leave," she said.
"You'll never get out of here alive," the captain yelled. "There is no way out of Deadwood. The automata will stop you if you try to leave the city limits."
"There's another way," Martha said. "The same way we got here in the first place."
The captain grunted a laugh. "None of my crew will fly you out."
"Then I'll fly it myself."
* * *
Martha and JW walked on either side of the captain, their weapons trained on him.
Behind them, the armed passengers guarded the others, with the children safe in the middle of the group. They had left the disarmed guards and the glowering steward on the steps of the jail.
"We need to get out of here," JW said, looking around warily.
"Too late," the captain shouted. "My steward will already have activated the town's guardians."
Even as he was speaking, the automata appeared, lumbering and lurching out from the side streets, leaking steam and dripping liquid. Their guns moved across the group, whirring and whining. And nothing happened.
"They daren't open fire in case they hit you," JW laughed at Fontaine. He looked across at Martha. "They're programmed not to fire on their own commanders."
Helmeted guards appeared on the roof and in doorways, guns levelled. JW put his mouth close to the captain's ear. "You better tell them not to shoot." He pressed his gun into the captain's ribs for emphasis.
"Don't shoot," Fontaine called out. "I'll order the automata to cut down any man who opens fire."
"Wait, please wait." A woman hurried out of a hardware shop and ran toward the group. Her once-fashionable skirt was frayed and patched. JW raised his gun and pointed it at her. "No closer."
"Let me come with you," she pleaded. "My ship was captured two years ago. My son was sent down the mine. He died there," she added.
JW looked at Martha. She nodded and he lowered his gun.
An elderly man limped out of the bank. "Let me come with you," he begged. "I've been here five years. If you don't take me, I'll die here," he added.
And suddenly more and more people were steaming out of the shops and begging to join the passengers. By the time they reached the airfield, the group had almost doubled in size. All the mismatched automata in Deadwood followed behind them.
"We can't take any more people," JW said. "We'll not get the ship off the ground."
"We're leaving no one behind," Martha said firmly.
"I knew you were going to say that," JW said. "You get everyone on board. I'll stand here with the captain to make sure no one takes a shot at us."
"Be careful," she whispered.
"I'm always careful," he replied.
"I don't believe that for a minute."
* * *
"So how good a shot are you?" Martha asked as the last passenger climbed the steps into the airship.
"Good. Real good. Why?" he asked.
Martha nodded to where the ship was anchored to the ground by four thick cables. "We'll not get into the air with them attached."
"What do we do with the captain here?"
"I say we should leave him," Martha smiled. "I'll bet his bosses won't be too pleased with him." She turned and hurried up the steps, but stopped at the door and looked down at JW. "I'm counting on you. We're all counting on you."
"It's been a long time since anyone said that to me," JW muttered. Shoving one gun back into its holster, he put his hand in the small of the captain's back and pushed him. "Get away from me."
"Wait," Fontaine said, "They'll kill me. You can't leave me here."
"Oh, yes, we can." JW's smile was chilling. "I think you should run." Then he turned and darted up the stairs. Kneeling in the doorway, he steadied the gun in his right hand with his left, took aim and fired at the nearest anchor cable. A second shot and then a third raised sparks off it. A fourth shot severed the thick cord, sending it hissing and whiplashing through the air. The airship lurched upward, freed on one side, and then the huge turbines roared to life.
The cheers from the passengers within was clearly audible.
Captain Fontaine turned and raced toward the automata. "Prisoners escaping," he screamed. "Fire. Open fire!"
Whirring and clicking, dozens of guns raised and fixed on the young man in the doorway.
* * *
Standing in the control room, Martha Burke faced a wall of levers. And all the labels were in German or Dutch.
There were many times when she'd wished for a better education, but never before now had she wanted as desperately to be able to read a foreign language.
A series of vacuum valves and glowing colored bulbs took up another wall. Most of the lights were dead, but in the bottom right-hand corner, one of a quartet of green bulbs turned red at precisely the same instant she heard JW's triumphant shout.
She grinned. Maybe he was as good as he said.
Then there was a dull whirring roar as dozens of guns opened fire at once. She actually felt the craft shudder with the force of what she guessed were hundreds of darts hitting the side.
"JW," she whispered, suddenly feeling sick to her stomach.
There was a highly polished battered leather seat in the center of the room, facing a large circular observation window. The leather was worn thin in places, horsehair stuffing poking through. Settling herself into the chair, Martha sat back and looked around. It stood to reason that the captain would control everything from this chair. Allowing her hands to fall naturally onto the arms, her hands came to a rest on two glass-topped levers. Looking closely, she discovered that there were bubble levels within the glass tops.
"Miss Martha, do something ..." JW's distant shout was accompanied by a second green light turning red at the same moment that the ship lurched and shifted. He'd released a second cable.
She felt a physical wash of relief at hearing his voice and she suddenly found there were tears in her eyes.
"I wonder what would happen if I did this ..." Gripping the levers in both hands, she pushed them forward.
A brass speaking tube was almost at the level of her mouth. She blew into it and could hear the tinny whistle through the rest of the ship. "This is Martha Burke, your captain speaking. Strap yourselves in. It's go
ing to be a bumpy ride!"
The airship's huge gas turbines roared into action and the entire ship shuddered to life.
* * *
Darts whizzed and buzzed around JW.
He'd managed to shoot two of the anchor cables--the rear left and right--and the back of the airship rose up into the air. However, he was coming under sustained fire from the automata on the ground. Every time he raised his head and tried to get off a shot, dozens of hissing darts embedded themselves in the wooden doorframe. It now resembled a pin cushion. One had entangled itself in his hair and a ricochet had whined off his metal vest.
He wasn't sure how much ammunition he had left. It had taken five or six rounds to sever each cable and, even if he conserved every shot, he didn't think he had enough to cut the remaining two.
The engines howled again and the ship lurched dramatically, the free back end rising, the tethered nose dipping down.
JW sat back and reloaded his guns as more darts buzzed through the doorway like angry bees. The wall opposite him was thick with the black needles.
He should never have gotten involved with the girl. He made it a rule never to get involved with any girl. And now he'd broken that rule--and look where it had got him.
A quick smile curled his lips. She was worth it. Tough as nails, determined, and prepared to spend two years and more crossing the country looking for her brothers. He knew what that was like: he'd do the same for his brother, Frank, and he knew Frank would do it for him. He'd grown up believing that family was everything and loyalty was paramount. Experience and circumstances had nearly robbed him of that belief. But now, here he was with Miss Martha, determined to fight for the fate of a bunch of orphans she hadn't even met.
JW admired her. Even though he'd just met her, he liked her. If circumstances had been different, he would have liked to have taken the time to get to know her better. It was a pity he was not going to live very much longer.
* * *
On the ground, Captain Fontaine, his steward and a handful of crewmen raced towards the Thunderbird in the hangar. They would not let the airship escape.