by Martin Kee
I am not doing this for him, she thought, swallowing her anger as she ran towards the glinting star. I am doing this for all the people who might get hurt.
His betrayal made her heart ache, clouding her thoughts as she ran. It wasn’t a new feeling; betrayal was like an old friend by now.
“If he was going to betray you, you would have seen it.” Melissa’s voice rang through her head, and in the in-between, it was hard to know if it was real or not.
“I didn’t see Dale betraying me until it was too late,” Skyla muttered.
“Almost too late.”
“He led me right to them,” Skyla said. It was so long ago, Dale almost a fading memory.
“But you don’t know if he meant to or not. Just how long are you going to keep pushing people away before you finally trust anyone?”
“I trust Gil.”
“Do you?”
She emerged from the ruins of an old building, its walls darkened by broken rafters and sheet metal. Pulling the goggles up, she looked around. A large crowd moved past her, through the park, none of them taking even the slightest notice. They cheered, yelled, sang, drank, carried signs, and laughed. The throng flowed in the direction of the old capitol building, the same place she had seen the bounding coin a moment ago. She ducked behind a wall as the people passed.
A warm sunrise lit her face. It felt as if the air was squeezing her. She blinked as the cracked lens of the goggles shattered, the pieces cutting into her skin. Heat bathed her; air that smelled like burning coal and burnt meat pushed her hair back as the shockwave lifted her from her feet. She landed stunned, a hail of rock and bits of glass raining down.
She wasn’t sure how long she lay there in the soft grass, coughing. Her jarred brain told her she was eleven years old again, sleeping in the crook of a forest tree in the Wilds, lost and terrified, feeling the wet familiarity of cold damp autumn leaves on her face.
Through the ringing in her ears there was screaming, crying, wailing. People called out in choked voices, shouted orders and sobbed. Skyla sat up, blinked, and stared at the field of bodies.
Pulling herself up along the wall, Skyla managed to stand. Her legs felt like wet noodles, her knees knocking as a wave of dust rolled over the crying, yelling crowd of survivors, making them fade to white.
I’m too late. Scribble’s dead.
Her breather mask still hung by a loose strap around her neck and she pulled it up over her mouth and nose, inhaling the filtered air. Skyla pulled the lenses down and the world became a scene of glowing specters in a fog.
Most of them ran blind through the dust cloud, bumping into one another, pausing, and running the other way. People carried bodies, parts of bodies, canes, hats, shoes, anything that could be a part of the person they once loved. Skyla could see as clear as day that the person they were carrying was dead. There was no shadow beneath them anymore; they carried a shell.
As she stumbled through the crowd, Skyla came to a broken pillar, beside it the leg of a young girl. Gil’s shoe was burnt, but the raven emblem was still clear, glinting through the dust. A patch of smoking black feathers lay in a pile nearby.
It wasn’t until Skyla heard someone yelling at her, that she turned and ran, tears clouding her vision.
Chapter 31
Rhinewall
HAROLD OWED FELTON his life, though he hardly realized as much when the rally began.
It appeared his boss had a much more interesting history than Harold had given him credit for. New Terminus was a distant land, the technology a thing of myth—stories of automatons, golems made from the dead, abominations in The Church’s eyes—abominations in most people’s eyes. The Physician he had met certainly made more sense now.
Felton stood beside the figure covered in a sheet. At the end of his speech he gripped a corner.
“I give you… the soldierboy,” he said, pulling the sheet away in a flourish.
There were murmurs from the crowd as the cloth came away. What stood there was similar in shape to the tin soldier outside the shop only much larger. It stood on legs that seemed too long and too thin, supporting a body that resembled a skeletal framework. The torso was triangular, with wide shoulder and a convex, almost pointed chest. Long, simian arms hung from wildly arrayed shoulders, which in its resting state seemed to slump almost sadly. Harold could see hardpoints where other apparatus might be mounted on the joints: guns, knives, halberds, unspeakable weapons.
The crowd to applaud slowly, once the gasps had ceased, the murmurs replaced by cheers, which then grew into a standing ovation. Felton bowed, then looked at Harold and winked.
What have I gotten myself into? Harold thought.
“The soldierboy will possess the firepower of a Holy Guard soldier, but with none of the Vatican loyalty. They will fight for us, defend us without judgment or corruption. They will patrol the streets under Rhinewall command, our command, allowing us to once again walk the streets at night without worry of being assaulted by boy gangs. After this militarized police force has been implemented, there will be no more boy gangs.” He paused for gravity, his eyes sweeping across the crowd. “This, my fellow citizens, will be the savior of Rhinewall.”
The crowd roared. Flashbulbs ignited in the air as reporters recorded the historic event. Finally Rhinewall would have its own army, an army of machines. Harold stood motionless. They weren’t just pleased, the audience was simply elated. It was as if a seal had been broke, releasing all the fear and tension bottled up in the crowd until now.
It was only for a few more minutes that Felton ran through some shallow details: the speed, the strength (strong as a hundred men), the firepower, the loyalty (controlled from a confidential location), how soon they might be implemented. Apparently a factory was waiting to begin assembly; he had just been waiting for the mayor to give the word.
There was more applause. Soon the crowd dispersed, heading off to enjoy the reception, just to the other side of the Bowl. Harold had begun walking towards the capitol building himself when a strong hand grabbed his arm. Harold turned.
“Montegut!”
Felton stood there, his face stern, businesslike in spite of his smile. Behind him was the mayor, a tall man with haunted eyes. Harold knew those eyes…
“Mr. Felton, I—” Harold began.
“Lancaster please, if that’s comfortable.” It wasn’t.
Harold cleared his throat. “I was about to get some drinks—”
“I want to introduce you more formally to the Mayor,” said Felton, ignoring him. “Michael Goodwin, this is Harold Montegut. He’s been my right hand man for the last eighteen months. He’s a genius tinkerer and a fine accountant.”
The mayor extended a hand. “We’ve met.”
“Yes,” Harold said. “I recognized your voice. From the shop.”
“Ah,” said Goodwin. “Well yes, that does happen from time to time.”
Goodwin stepped in and shook Harold’s hand with crushing pressure. He gave a curt nod and smile, but there was something distracted about his eyes. He turned to Felton. “What time is it? We don’t want to be too early.”
“Nonsense!” Felton said. “There will be plenty of whiskey left for you.”
The mayor cleared his throat. “Well, if you’ll excuse me.”
“Yes, of course,” Felton said.
They both watched as the man stepped into a covered carriage. It moved silently along the cobble as Harold turned to Felton.
“Why is he going that way when they party is—”
One of the ceremonial cannons went off and Harold jumped. Cannons at this hour?
It wasn’t until he heard screams drifting across the Bowl that Harold turned his attention toward the capitol building. A dark cloud of smoke rose from a hole in its front wall. The pall had already covered most of the crowd as they lay on the ground. It took Harold a moment to realize they were dead, not just ducking for cover, not just laying down. The ones standing had begun to run, while others pulled
people from wreckage.
How much time had passed then? A minute? Five minutes? The ground beneath Harold seemed to shift, becoming liquid as his knees buckled. He felt that hand on his arm again.
“Harold, let’s go.” It was Felton, his face grim.
Why doesn’t he look surprised? Harold thought.
“A bomb?” he heard himself say.
“Yes. It’s terrible.” Felton pulled his arm. “I’ll explain in the car.”
“People,” Harold said. “People are hurt.”
“They won’t be the first,” Felton’s voice had changed. It was commanding, insistent. “Now let’s go.”
“No!” Harold tore himself from the man’s grip. “People are dying! What’s wrong with you?”
Harold ran, throwing himself into the smoke and chaos. People ran past him, away from the wounded building, their steps swaying and staggered. One man, missing an ear, stopped Harold, grabbing him by the collar. The man screamed into his face with red eyes from a mask of white powder. A trickle of red ran from the man’s nose down his lip.
“Those bastards in Bollingbrook did this! This is what The Church wants!”
Harold only stared as the man continued.
“Our souls weren’t good enough for them! Now they want the rest of us! This is what they want! This is the madness we’ve tried to free ourselves from!” The man released him and ran on.
Harold wandered through the chaos like a man sleepwalking. A woman to his left sat keening with a hand on the side of her bleeding head, her skin coated with ash as she rocked back and forth. Another man simply wandered in a circle, clutching his right arm. Something struck Harold’s shoe and he looked down to see a hand. As Harold drew closer to the smoking capitol building, he began to step over more body parts, feet, shoes, and blood… so much blood.... The street was stained dark with it as people carried the dead and wounded away. Off in the distance he could hear the approaching sound of sirens.
Ambulances arrived and people piled in, overflowing them until the carriages drove off with their bellies scraping the road. There simply didn’t seem to be enough. As the police began to arrive, they forced people back, but there were never enough police.
Harold pushed further ahead into the fog of death, away from the crowd, away from the authorities. A trail of blood led him to a broken doll in the dirt, partially hidden by the fallen pillar. Harold froze when he recognized her.
The left side of Gil’s head was burned, the black eye patch fused to her skin. Her left arm was gone below the elbow, exposing meat and bone, cauterized by the flames. Her shirt was singed and black, the pants ending in deflated cloth where a leg should have been.
Harold sensed he was not alone and turned. A girl stood just ten yards from him, her slight frame standing in the dust. She stared through broken goggles at Gil’s severed leg, then removed the breather mask from her face as she cried. She raised the goggles to wipe a tear and Harold knew for sure it was her.
It was Melissa’s friend, the girl with the ridiculous name, the girl who had befriended and bewitched his daughter, the girl that led his daughter to her death. Skyla stood there untouched by the explosion, an angel of death. That seemed to be her way, showing up to taunt the dead and dying, just as she had his late wife. He could feel himself turning towards her, could feel his mouth moving, but the words seemed distant and detached.
“You!” he screamed, as the girl turned to see him, her eyes wide with horror. “You!” His jaw hung open, screaming, “You! You did this!”
He took a step towards the girl, pointing at her as he bellowed. He had become something else now, some swelling pustule, gorged in his outrage. He wanted to scream her name, but it wouldn’t surface to his mind. It was blotted out, shunted to the depths, and the name he screamed didn’t sound like a name at all.
“Get away from her! Get away you, you little buzzard! Haven’t you done enough?”
The girl opened her mouth to speak, maybe to apologize, to explain, but instead spun on her heel with tears in her eyes, fleeing into the smoke and vanishing. He could have killed her then. He wanted to kill her, wanted to wrap his hands around that little throat and squeeze...
Instead, Harold stood over Gil’s broken corpse, the anger draining from him, replaced by despair, all-consuming sadness. She looked so much like his Melissa, her tiny body limp, lifeless—
Movement. It was just a small motion, the chin turning in a slow nod, the subtle rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, then coughed blood onto the dirt. Alive.
Scooping her up, he carried Gil out through the smoke, stopping at the line of people tending the dead and wounded. She was a paper doll shivering in his hands. Harold had to concentrate on his words so that he would not simply scream meaningless gibberish as onlookers stared at him.
“Is there an ambulance?” he said, panting, turning from face to face, trying to connect on a human level, looking into strangers’ eyes. “Please. An ambulance?”
One woman’s hand went to her mouth in a gasp as another man rushed forward. He looked at the girl in his arms.
“She’s alive,” said Harold. “But not for long. I need a vehicle. She needs a hospital.”
The man’s face went pale and before he spoke, Harold already knew what he would say: “The last one just left for the hospital on the south side… there… there should be more shortly.”
The man looked down at Gil and raised a hand to touch her. Harold stepped back.
“Don’t touch her!” he hissed at the confused man. “She’ll be dead shortly!”
“Sir, she’s… she won’t make it.” The man looked at him with resignation. “All the ambulances have left.”
“I’ll decide if she’ll make it,” Harold said.
“We can find a doctor here—”
“She needs more than just a doctor!” Harold could feel the heat in his face as the girl stirred in his arms. “She needs a facility, an infirmary! We need a vehicle.” He raised his voice over the crying, wailing mob. “Does anyone have a vehicle?”
People only stared, their eyes betraying how overwhelmed they all were, how stunned. This was the reopened wound, the Cataclysm all over again. Their faces all begged the same question: When would it ever end?
“Please!” he cried and felt his voice begin to crack. “Please… anyone with a vehicle! Someone, help me!”
A voice called his name and Harold spun, seeking it out.
“Harold! Here!” Felton, his top hat silky black with only the slightest hint of dust, stood at the fringe of the chaos. Harold staggered forward as Felton rushed to meet him, his face deeply concerned. He looked down at Gil. “Is she alive?”
“Yes,” was all Harold could say before choking on his words. “Please.”
Felton looked past him at the injured still awaiting rescue. They stared back with suspicious eyes. He leaned in to speak in Harold’s ear. “Follow me. My vehicle. Hurry.”
They pushed through the crowd as people scurried behind them, racing to the empty stage, past the dormant soldierboy, where Felton’s electric carriage waited… protected by a group of men. They stared back at Felton and Harold without humor or empathy.
“I believe that’s my vehicle,” Felton announced.
The shorter man stepped forward, and Harold could see he held a bat. “It’s ours now.”
Felton’s movements were so fluid, Harold almost missed it as the man reached over, and touched a small button on the side of the soldierboy. Limbs straightened with a sound of ratchets, and legs twisted to face the men as they stared. The soldierboy began to move with long, unnatural strides towards them, and the men scattered. Felton ran to the electric carriage and opened the door.
“Get in.”
Harold did as he was told, cradling the girl to his chest, feeling warm blood soaking into his vest and shirt. It was becoming hard to see with the tears clouding his vision.
“Hey!” a man yelled from behind him. “We still have wounded. We need that
car!”
Harold turned to see a mob rushing down the street towards him, waving their arms as they went, blocked suddenly by the soldierboy turning to bear down on them.
“Hold, on,” said Felton, stamping his foot on the floor.
The carriage lunged forward, and through the window, Harold felt the cold wind on his cheeks over hot tears. He looked down at the girl and removed his belt with one hand. He forced it around her arm, just above that ragged stump, tightening it to try and stop the bleeding. Lucky or not, the heat had cauterized a large portion of the wound, but she was terribly burned. She wouldn’t make it through the night.
“Give me your belt,” he said.
Felton pulled his belt loose with one hand as the carriage bucked and rolled over the pavement. He handed it to Harold, who then tightened it around Gil’s thigh. She moaned, her eyes fluttering and rolling into her head.
Harold looked up with alarm. “The hospital is the other way,” he said. His heart sank.
Felton turned just enough to meet his gaze as they raced down the cobble street. His eyes betrayed a cautious optimism.
“The hospitals will be flooded,” said Felton. “She’ll never get the attention she needs there. She’ll die in the emergency room. I know a place that’s closer.”
“Where then?”
He glanced sideways at Harold, a half-smile on his lips. “My house.”
Chapter 32
In-Between
HER WORLD WAS a smear of smoke and tears as Skyla ran from the chaos. Behind her the man’s voice seemed to follow. You! You did this! She hadn’t expected to see that face ever again, least of all here. But there he was, Melissa’s father, pointing his finger, his face red with anger.
And he was right, she thought. I get everyone killed.
She stopped to catch her breath, inspecting the broken goggles in her hand. Not much was left of one lens, the pieces held loosely in place only by the casing. She could feel the scratches around her eye where splinters had cut her skin. The other lens was smudged and dirty. She wiped it on her clothing as voices approached. Slipping along the side of the wall, she moved behind a large dumpster where the shadows were thickest. She placed the goggles back on her head and stepped through…