Tin

by Padraig Kenny

  Estelle looked at Jack, and he gave her an encouraging smile. It was decided. Estelle reached for her boots and sat down and started to put them on. ‘I’ll meet you out front,’ she said, ‘Just let me get my things.’

  Estelle arrived at the truck a few minutes later with her satchel full of tools. Gripper took it from her and gently laid it in the back, then she squeezed in beside Rob and Manda in the cab. She still looked slightly flustered, and she pushed her hair back over her shoulders and shook her head in an effort to look imperious. Jack had never seen her so addled.

  ‘So,’ she said, ‘what’s the plan?’

  Everybody looked at Jack.

  ‘We haven’t really got one yet,’ he said.

  Estelle suddenly became the old Estelle again. Her voice was steady, her movements small and controlled.

  ‘You don’t have a plan?’ she said.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Jack defensively.

  ‘Then why’d you come for me?’

  ‘I thought you could help. Maybe give us some ideas.’

  Estelle turned away from him for a moment and squinted out the window.

  ‘He’ll be in London,’ she said. ‘They’ll have him in the Agency’s headquarters.’

  ‘Then we should go there!’ said Rob.

  ‘It’s not that simple,’ she said.

  Jack sighed and nodded in agreement.

  Estelle clucked as she thought to herself. ‘We have to start at the beginning. Why did they take him? What’s so important about Christopher?’

  ‘Where did he come from?’ offered Jack.

  ‘What makes one of you important?’ Estelle asked.

  Rob scratched his head. Jack frowned and then looked at Estelle.

  ‘How good a model we are.’

  ‘And what makes a good model?’ asked Estelle.

  ‘A good engineer,’ said Jack.

  ‘Or a great one,’ said Estelle.

  Jack sat back and thought about this, then he looked at Estelle: ‘When I was in Mr Absalom’s shed, that man Reeves was talking about Refined Propulsion.’ Jack almost couldn’t finish the rest, and he could feel all their eyes on him. ‘I think Christopher has a soul.’

  Estelle nodded. Rob’s eyes widened so much, Jack thought they would fall out of his head.

  ‘Cormier was the one who discovered Refined Propulsion,’ said Estelle.

  ‘What’s refried repulsion?’ asked Manda.

  ‘He has a soul, Manda,’ said Rob breathlessly. ‘Christopher has a soul. He’s nearly proper.’

  ‘He’s Cormier class then, isn’t he? He has to be,’ said Jack.

  Estelle nodded.

  ‘Have you ever seen a Cormier Original, Estelle?’ asked Jack.

  Estelle shook her head. ‘No, but only Cormier himself could make a model as convincing as Christopher.’

  ‘What about a Blake?’ said Jack.

  ‘I’ve never seen a Blake, but I reckon you could spot one. There’s always something off, whether it’s a joint, or an eye, or the way they talk. Besides, Blake could never ensoul anything. Only Cormier could do that.’

  ‘Cormier class,’ Jack whispered to himself, his eyes widening with delight.

  ‘He might be one of the only ones left, that’s what makes him so valuable,’ said Estelle.

  ‘Are we going to London then, to get Christopher back?’ asked Rob.

  ‘We can’t just do that, Rob,’ said Jack. ‘We can’t just ask for him back. Only his owner or engineer can do that, and no one owns him any more.’

  Rob slumped back in his seat. Estelle looked thoughtfully at the dashboard.

  ‘Can we just ask anyway?’ said Manda. ‘If we sent Estelle in and she asked nicely . . .’

  Jack shook his head sorrowfully.

  No one said anything. Jack tried to think of something. He gave Estelle a pleading look as if she might be able to suggest an idea, but Estelle was busy looking out the passenger window.

  ‘Then what do we do?’ asked Rob.

  ‘We go to London,’ said Estelle.

  ‘But that’s pointless without an owner or whoever made him. They’ll just turn us away,’ said Jack.

  ‘Not if we have his engineer,’ said Estelle, squeezing her lower lip thoughtfully between her thumb and forefinger.

  Jack looked at her and shook his head in disbelief. ‘He wouldn’t.’

  Estelle tilted her head and smirked. ‘He might. We could ask.’

  ‘Ask who what?’ said Rob.

  ‘Ask Philip Cormier to help us get Christopher back from the Agency,’ said Jack.

  Rob frowned. ‘But how do we ask him?’

  ‘Yes, how?’ asked Jack, knowing full well what the answer would be.

  Estelle turned to him and smiled, and because it was Estelle smiling, Jack almost keeled over.

  ‘We’re going to Ironhaven,’ she said, ‘and we’re going straight to Philip Cormier’s front door.’

  ‘Don’t think of it as a prison, think of it as home.’

  Prison, thought Christopher. This wasn’t the headquarters of the Agency. Why had they brought him here?

  They were standing on a wide, open plain. Mr Reeves was looking up and smiling at the edifice that loomed above them in the morning light. It was a grey turreted monstrosity blistered with dozens upon dozens of windows. The windows were little more than slits in the lichen-covered rock. Great black streaks of damp rolled down from each window, and the horrid gaping hole of the black gate made it look as if the whole building was howling in torment. Christopher had also glimpsed a small tumbledown graveyard behind the building as they’d approached it. It was covered in moss and dotted with tombstones of soggy grey stone. Mounds of scrap metal were scattered around it.

  ‘They call it the Crag,’ said Reeves, smiling to himself.

  Christopher wasn’t listening to him. He was too busy thinking about Jack and the others. There was an ache in his chest, and he swallowed painfully, willing the tears not to come. In an effort to hide his true feelings, he spoke, but his voice was barely above a hoarse whisper, and he hated himself for it when he heard how pathetic he sounded. Seeing the glint of sadistic pleasure in Reeves’s eyes only made it worse.

  ‘Never heard of it,’ he said.

  Reeves bent down and gave him a patronizing look.

  ‘You wouldn’t have,’ he said. ‘The Crag is a very special type of facility. But like I said, you can call it home now.’

  Christopher looked at the grass at his feet. The blades were a pale green and mottled with brown spots, as if the foundations of the prison were poisoning the very earth.

  Reeves leant forward. ‘I said you can call it home.’

  Christopher’s eyes flitted towards Reeves’s face and away again.

  ‘Say it, say the word,’ Reeves hissed.

  Christopher closed his eyes. He thought of the junkyard. He thought of Jack and Rob and Gripper and Manda, and he stifled a sob.

  ‘Home,’ he said.

  ‘Say it again,’ whispered Reeves.

  ‘Home,’ he said again, and this time he gave Reeves a look that he hoped was defiant, despite the fact that his lips and chin were trembling.

  ‘Good lad,’ said Reeves as he ruffled Christopher’s hair. Christopher felt a shiver of revulsion. A smirking Reeves didn’t seem to notice. He turned to his companion.

  ‘Mr Dunlop, if you would be so kind.’

  Dunlop gave a grunt and produced a ring of keys from his mac. He inserted one of them into the large padlock on the front gate. The padlock opened with a great clacking sound. One in front, one behind, they escorted Christopher through the gate and into a large courtyard.

  The courtyard was just as grim as the outside of the prison. The centre was taken up with great mounds of grey tarpaulin, from under which scraps of metal and old wheels and tyres spilt outwards. The sense of the walls looming overhead, almost constricting the air around them, was overpowering here. Christopher’s world was growing smaller and smaller. He c
ould feel his throat tighten, and he felt a bout of dizziness.

  But I don’t breathe, he thought. How can I feel dizzy?

  Dunlop took out his keys again and unlocked a metal door in the courtyard wall. He pulled it open with a wrench, and flakes of rust spilt from the edges. They entered a hallway, and Christopher smelt rot and damp and stone.

  The corridor had a cement floor flanked by walls that were a sickly green. Paint was peeling off the walls in great swathes. Colonies of moisture droplets and fungus collected in random patches. They walked about fifty feet down the corridor, unlocking another door on the way, before they came to a set of double doors.

  Reeves knocked before pushing them open, and they entered a large laboratory. The lab was cement-grey with a strip of blue-and-white mosaic tiling stretching along the length of one wall. This same wall had a sink unit and some stainless-steel shelves bolted into it. There were several stained and rusty-looking surgical trolleys with various bits of copper, wiring and sheet metal piled on to them. There was a large hydraulic press set in a far corner. What looked like a dentist’s chair was situated to the left of the door.

  There was a man in the centre of the room. He had his back turned to them, and he was working on an intricate collection of silver wires and tubes.

  ‘Well?’ said the man, without turning around.

  Reeves cleared his throat. ‘The device has been acquired, as per your instructions, sir.’

  The man flicked something, and a wire in one of the glass tubes sparked with blue light. ‘Very good,’ he said, and Christopher couldn’t be sure whether he was referring to Reeves’s words or his own work.

  The man grabbed a rag from a nearby bench and started to wipe the oil from his hands. He was wearing a floor-length grey leather apron which looked completely at odds with his air of debonair poise. He looked to be in his early thirties. His features were finely chiselled and handsome; his well-coiffed hair was swept back over his head.

  ‘Excellent,’ he smiled, ‘most excellent.’

  He strode towards Christopher with his hand outstretched. Christopher was so stunned by the gesture that he immediately raised his own hand. The man grasped Christopher’s hand in both of his and shook it vigorously.

  ‘Can I say how very pleased I am to finally meet you?’ he said.

  The man’s smile was crescent-shaped, all encompassing, dazzling. His teeth were perfect. His smile reached right up to the corners of his blue eyes, which shone with delight. Christopher was completely wrong-footed. He tried to open his mouth to say something, but the words wouldn’t come.

  The man went down on one knee before him, and his eyes roamed over Christopher’s face.

  ‘Remarkable, absolutely remarkable,’ said the man. ‘Were there any difficulties?’ he asked Reeves, without taking his eyes off Christopher’s face.

  ‘No, sir. There was minimal resistance,’ Reeves replied.

  ‘And the engineer?’

  Reeves snorted. ‘If he can be called that. He has been dealt with. He believes he is now being kept under surveillance by the Agency. He won’t be revealing what happened to anyone.’

  The man clapped his hands with delight. ‘Ha! Yes, the Agency. So the ruse has worked. Very good. Very good.’ His grin broadened as he inspected Christopher’s face.

  Christopher was confused. He felt dizzy. Who were these people, if they weren’t from the Agency? He couldn’t take in what was going on. None of it made any sense.

  The man held up his hands in a gesture of placation. ‘You’re confused, Christopher. I can see that. But all will become clear very soon.’

  ‘How do you know my name?’ blurted Christopher.

  The man stood up and smiled down at Christopher, ruffling his hair in a gesture of dismissal. He turned to Reeves.

  ‘How old is he?’

  ‘Twelve, allegedly. Older, of course,’ said Reeves.

  ‘Of course,’ said the man, contemplatively stroking his chin. ‘And his memories?’

  ‘There’s been erosion, possibly through trauma. I suspect this has been followed by tampering.’

  ‘He’s been patched then?’

  ‘So I’ve been told.’

  The man nodded. The discussion between the two men became a murmur in the background as Christopher’s eyes darted around his surroundings. He felt a sudden scorching sense of indignation.

  ‘Why am I here? Who are you?’ he demanded.

  Reeves blinked, and the man seemed surprised. This only made Christopher angrier.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said the man, ‘I should have introduced myself. I’m Richard Blake. Son of the late Charles Blake, and like my father before me, I am, and I say this with all modesty, possibly one of the greatest engineers of the age.’

  That broad smile again, as if Blake expected some kind of congratulations for his announcement.

  ‘I want to go home!’ Christopher shouted.

  Blake’s smile faltered. He looked disappointed. ‘But my dear Christopher, you are home.’

  Christopher stumbled backwards, moaning, ‘I want to go home.’ Dunlop made to grab him, but Blake waved him away. Blake got down on his knees before Christopher and held him by the shoulders.

  ‘Listen to me, Christopher. You’re here now, and this is your new home. You’re going to help us do something that will echo down through the ages. Do you understand me?’

  Christopher’s looked at Blake, but he felt dazed, as if he’d been punched. It was all too much.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ he asked.

  Blake squeezed his shoulders. ‘We’re going to change the world, Christopher. You and I. We’re going to change it for the better.’

  Christopher’s rage was starting to fizzle out. He felt exhausted now, and the tears started to come. Blake’s mouth opened in awe as Christopher started to cry, and once again his eyes roamed over his face, as if he were seeing a miracle.

  ‘Remarkable,’ Blake gasped. ‘The mimetic capability to create tears. Fluidity and mobility of emotional transitions. These things have been beyond the talents of almost anyone for centuries.’ Blake stood up and shook his head in amazement. ‘Absolutely remarkable.’

  After a quiet discussion between Reeves and Blake, Christopher was escorted out the double doors by Mr Dunlop. Reeves followed behind them as they made their way down the hallway.

  Christopher didn’t have to look – he knew Reeves was enjoying his discomfort. He could almost feel the horrid sliminess of his smile in the air.

  They took a sharp right turn down a narrower corridor. There were a dozen metal doors on each side. Each one had a narrow, barred window at eye level.

  Mr Dunlop opened one of the doors and stepped aside for Christopher.

  Christopher hesitated. He wanted to run, but he knew there would be no point. Dunlop’s right hand went to his mac and he pushed it aside, resting a hand on the black stick holstered on his hip.

  ‘That won’t be necessary, Mr Dunlop,’ said Reeves. He winked at Christopher, and Christopher suddenly felt the mad urge to rush him and claw his eyes out. But the feeling was gone in seconds and replaced by nauseous despair, along with the sense that he was being pushed forward by a force greater than himself. He stepped into the cell.

  ‘There’s a good boy,’ Reeves said.

  Christopher felt the soft rush of air behind him, and then the sound of the door clanging shut. He turned to see Reeves’s slyly malevolent eyes looking in at him through the small window.

  ‘Home,’ he said, and then he was gone.

  Christopher didn’t know what to do. He felt numb. All he could do was stare mutely at that narrow rectangle, while around him there was nothing but suffocating silence.

  He felt his legs give way and he collapsed on to the side of a steel bunk. Christopher thought about Jack. He thought about Round Rob and Gripper and Manda and Estelle, and this time the tears came with even greater force.

  The rain came down on Ironhaven.

  Jack had
never seen anything like it. As they drove it loomed ahead of them, a great big hump of tangled towers and houses and pylons and trees and hills, all sleek and black and shiny in the approaching gloom of evening, and all of it made of metal. It was like the junk dumped in Absalom’s junkyard, but junk which had found a pattern and purpose.

  ‘Who made it all?’ asked Manda.

  ‘Mechanicals,’ said a grim-faced Estelle. Her look had darkened ever since she’d seen the first sign about a mile back. ‘FLESH TURN BACK’, it had said. This one had been followed by others, all badly painted and scrawled, but with similar messages: NO FLESH HERE; FLESH NOT WELCOME.

  ‘Ironhaven was made by discards and deserters,’ continued Estelle. ‘Back in the old days there weren’t any laws governing what people did with their mechanicals. They used to dump the old ones by the side of the road. Discards would just wander around until somebody either picked them up and used them or had them smelted down.’

  Rob shivered.

  Estelle went on. ‘Mechanicals did what they liked here, and no one knew what to do with them. They started building homes and the town started to grow. Before the government could decide what to do, Cormier had moved in and proclaimed that Ironhaven was independent.’ They passed another sign: ‘TURN BACK NOW FLESH!’ it said. Estelle glared at it. ‘Cormier banned all proper people from entering the town.’

  ‘Why didn’t the government just stop him?’ asked Jack.

  Estelle shrugged. ‘Because he was Philip Cormier, the greatest engineer of them all. They didn’t want to upset him.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ asked Rob.

  Estelle looked at Rob. ‘Sometimes, Rob, when you have a temperamental child on your hands, the easiest thing to do is to give the child what they want.’

  Rob frowned at this and scratched his chin. After a moment’s contemplation he nodded.

  As they drove closer to the town, the rain became heavier until it became an impenetrable grey wall, and the sound of it thrumming off the cab roof was so loud they had to shout to be heard above it.

  Jack marvelled even more at the town as they got closer. There were trees here, but they were made of metal. They had iron trunks and tinplate bark and copperplate leaves. The houses, all sharp and angular, were almost piled one on top of the other, and yet looking at their construction and their placement it all seemed to make sense to his eyes. It was as if the town, despite its artificial nature, had grown from the soil.