Steel Kisses

by Laura Strickland

  “Ah, don’t be such a nancy,” Liam told him. “Sure, do you want to involve the police in a squabble between friends?”

  “He’s no friend of mine. And I want to see him back behind bars where he belongs.”

  “Is that why you provoked him?” Liam asked. “You’ve tormented him ever since you came to work here and been twice as brutal lately.”

  “I did not ask him to attack me.”

  “I think you did,” Pete said surprisingly.

  Sasha struggled to his feet, bleeding from several orifices. “That is not what I will tell the police.”

  “It’s what I’ll tell them,” Liam said evenly, “along with the fact that you threw the first punch.”

  “I did not!”

  “You threw enough verbal punches at him to warrant twelve thrashings. You have to admit, Sasha, you got what you asked for.”

  “I will never admit that.”

  “Well, if you want to keep working here, you’ll keep this between just us. Pete, make sure he gets home all right and help him clean up. Sasha, I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

  The two went out, Sasha still swearing.

  “Why didn’t you dismiss him?” Reynold asked bitterly.

  “Did you never see the man join a molding? Better sit down. You all right?”

  “I’m not sure.” Reynold looked at his hands…shaking.

  Liam pushed him onto a stool and grinned. “That’s just the aftershocks of the rage. Believe me, lad, I’ve been there.”

  “I think I broke my hand.”

  “Nah—you’ll be fine. Just rest there a moment. You made a right mess of my storeroom, though, didn’t you?” Leaving Reynold where he was, Liam began moving about the room, righting stools and an overturned tool cabinet, working his way ever closer to Lily’s resting place. Reynold wanted to say something, but his throat had closed.

  He croaked wordlessly as Liam reached out to straighten the lid that sat askew. His hand bumped it and it slid aside instead, revealing Lily’s motionless form.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Liam ejaculated. He backed off, staring, and took a look at Reynold. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “She. She’s not an it, she’s a she.” Reynold groaned.

  “One of those expensive steam units that belong to Dr. Landry?”

  “She doesn’t belong to anyone. She’s her own person.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, lad.” Liam contemplated the situation unhappily. “You stole her? And you’re hiding her here—on my premises?”

  “I didn’t steal her. I helped her escape. It’s a completely different thing.”

  “Not in the eyes of the law it isn’t. Holy hell!” He peered more closely at Lily. “She looks dead.”

  “Not dead. She’s shut down. She got upset because I said we shouldn’t be together. She loves me—” Reynold stopped speaking when his throat closed again.

  Liam backed off another step. “Loves you?”

  “We love each other. But I’m not good enough for her, so…”

  “She’s a machine.”

  “She’s not, though, Liam. She’s so much more. And she was a slave at the Crystal Palace. Pat Kelly says…”

  “Pat Kelly knows about this? About her? That she’s here?”

  Reynold nodded vigorously. “It was his idea I should bring her here.”

  “Jesus, Mary, and…”

  “Liam, Liam, you won’t turn her in?”

  “Well, I don’t know, lad. You know me—I have more than the usual amount of sympathy for the dead. Not that she’s dead, exactly. Or alive. I need to think about this.” Very carefully, Liam replaced the lid on the coffin. “You say Pat knows?”

  “He’s been helping us, helping her. Liam, do you consider Pat Kelly alive?”

  “Well now, there’s a question.” Liam rubbed his chin. “One I’ve never been able to answer, to tell you the truth. He’s a machine, sure, but he’s alive. And I owe my life to the fact that even more than a machine, he’s an Irishman.”

  “He has an ordinary life, and a wife—and a spirit, so Mrs. Gideon says. Lily’s no different. She’s funny and warm and—and innocent despite the things she’s been forced to do. I’d sacrifice my life to protect her. I can’t let her get sent back to the Crystal Palace to be a slave. Liam, she minds the things the clients make her do. What choice did I have but to help her get away?”

  “And fall in love with her?”

  “That happened before I knew it.”

  “Will wonders never cease? All right, lad. For the sake of love—and because Pat Kelly’s on your side—I’ll keep silent. You’re just lucky Sasha didn’t get a glimpse of her. The jig would have been up.”

  “I know.”

  “But you can’t keep her here, mind.”

  “Where else? I need to keep her hidden till the heat dies down, so Pat Kelly can get her restarted.”

  “Does he know how?”

  “I hope so.”

  Liam shook his head. “I need to talk to Pat Kelly—now. Ask him over here. I’ll guard your wee friend till you get back—no one will harm her, so I promise.”

  “I’ll try to find him, but he could be anywhere. I may have to search all over the city.”

  “You’d better get a move on, then, hadn’t you?”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “All hell’s broke loose,” Pat Kelly told Liam as Reynold led him in through the back door of the coffin shop, “and no mistake.”

  In the end, Reynold had found Kelly at, of all places, the Crystal Palace, right down the street. Accompanied by a number of uniformed officers, he’d been standing out front giving orders, facing off against a large group of bystanders.

  Now he made the grinding noise that denoted his version of laughter. “A riot, and it’s all my doing.”

  “Riot?” Liam’s eyebrows shot aloft. “Over what?”

  “It would seem a radical idea is afoot—that automatons should have rights.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Ah, Mr. McMahon, I do, I do—and the Crystal Palace seems to be the epicenter, so to speak, of this wild idea. Dr. Landry and her surviving automatons are barricaded in the portion of the building that is still standing. Protestors are aligned outside. There is to be what I believe in the old west is called a showdown.”

  “To what end? Do you truly think automatons will win rights for themselves?”

  “I do. It may take a while, but I am sure it will come. Already I have won the right to marry. It seems the rest must follow in time.”

  “Is Chastity there—in the building?” Reynold touched Pat’s arm. “Is she operating? Do you think she’s really identified me?”

  “Well, now, friend, that is an interesting question. Word from inside is that Chastity, restored and restarted, has indeed told Dr. Landry all about the man who helped her and Lily to escape. She gave an excellent description of the fellow, which Dr. Landry has shared with the police. About fifty years of age he was—a former client of some means who, with an eye to using the two of them privately, hired a steamcab to get them away. The police are now actively searching for this man—seventeen stone, bald, and with a black moustache.”

  Reynold’s mouth fell open. “She…lied? Chastity lied?”

  “Created a story, apparently, yes. A woman of some talents. I confess I look forward to meeting her.”

  “So I’m off the hook?”

  Kelly’s green eyes met his. “At the moment, yes, it would appear so.”

  Reynold flushed with relief.

  “Not so quick,” Liam put in. “You’re still in possession of stolen property—on my premises.” He pointed at the coffin. All three men stared at it.

  “Ah—yes,” Reynold admitted. “Officer Kelly, what can I do with her? I can’t leave her here.”

  “No, he cannot,” Liam rejoined.

  “I do have a suggestion.” Kelly pulled a bottle from his uniform jacket. “Here is a measure of the enzyme formula
she requires. Treat her well—everywhere—nail down that lid, and take her off for burial.”

  “What?”

  “It is the safest option.”

  “You’re asking me to bury the woman I love?”

  “Only temporarily. If this matter ends the way I foresee, we’ll be able to disinter her and hopefully restart her once she’s free.”

  “Free?”

  “So I hope, friend.”

  “But I can’t just cart her off to the graveyard. They won’t be expecting her. There’ll be no place.”

  “There will, though.” Liam snapped his fingers. “Go get old Bernie. Pete and I shifted his coffin out back.”

  “Bernie?”

  “The poor fellow from the boarding house. They’re expecting him at Potter’s Field and will have a grave all opened up.”

  “But…”

  “We’ll roll your doll up in canvas and then lay him on top of her. He’s a skinny enough corpse—they should both fit.”

  “Genius,” Kelly declared.

  “I have my moments.”

  “I can’t put the woman I love in the ground with a corpse!”

  “She’ll never know,” Kelly assured him. “Will not remember a thing. So long as we get her up again before the gentleman on top decays too extensively, all should be well.”

  “Why can’t we put Lily on top?”

  “Just in case the sextons at Potter’s Field decide to peek inside.”

  “Why would they? It’ll be nailed down.”

  “They have a reputation for pryin’ out the nails and lifting the lids to see if there’s anything worth stealing,” said Liam. “Didn’t you know that?”

  It seemed to Reynold he didn’t know a lot of things.

  “You stay, mind, till the coffin goes in the ground, and mark the grave well. We don’t want to go digging up the wrong one later, do we?”

  Reynold shuddered. “No.”

  “Right, then.” Liam rubbed his hands together. “Let’s have Bernie’s coffin back in here and get the deal done.”

  ****

  Reynold loitered miserably in the shadow of the fence that surrounded Potter’s Field, hoping the gloom of approaching night would conceal him from any curious eyes. Back at Liam’s, he’d treated Lily well with the formula Pat brought—Liam and Pat had left him alone for that part—and kissed her goodbye. He’d rolled her lovingly in a canvas and laid her tenderly in the bottom of the pine box, beneath the lining.

  Liam had helped him place old Bernie on top.

  “Now get him there quick, so they plant him before nightfall.”

  He’d done his best, trundling his load through streets thronged with policemen and pedestrians. No one paid much attention to him—they were all looking up Niagara Street, where a huge crowd now swarmed around the Crystal Palace. Pat had told the truth; something was definitely happening there.

  When Reynold arrived at Potter’s Field, he found the two gravediggers in their shed, drinking tea out of cans. They knew him by sight from past deliveries and put aside their tea so they could point him toward the newly opened grave. They followed with their rolling, workmen’s gait.

  “We can take it from here, chief.”

  “Maybe I’ll just stay and…er…pay my respects.”

  They stared at him in surprise. “You knew this fella, did you?” asked the one without any teeth.

  “No but he’s a charity case—no family. Seems a shame for a man to go in the ground all alone.”

  “Ain’t alone,” said the other man, who reeked so strongly of booze it made Reynold wonder just what had been in those cans besides tea. “We’s here.”

  They chuckled and manhandled the coffin into the grave so roughly Reynold feared it might come apart. But even Liam’s least expensive model was made too strongly for that.

  Still, what if Lily, on the bottom of the box, were damaged? What if her boiler ruptured or some more delicate part suffered beneath Bernie’s weight, slight as it was?

  “Careful,” he begged.

  The sextons laughed. “He won’t feel nothin’. There, he’s in. You run along now while we fill in the grave.”

  “Yeah—it’ll be dark soon. You don’t want to be here after dark. Some of ’em get up and walk around, you know.”

  So against his better instincts, Reynold withdrew to the fence, where he watched until the last spadeful of earth went on. Then, in near darkness, he crept back and stood over Lily’s grave.

  “I’ll come back for you, I promise. Just as soon as I can.”

  He stood there till it got too dark to see and then stumped off back to the coffin shop, wheeling his empty cart.

  ****

  “A mad scene, isn’t it?” The man standing beside Reynold—a stranger—spoke to him excitedly. “They called the police to quell the riot, and they joined it instead.”

  Reynold narrowed his eyes. He’d walked up Niagara from the coffin shop to view the scene as, it appeared, had half the other residents of the city. Hard to keep away. It looked like some garish stage set, all steam lamps and flaring torches, people as far as the eye could see. Amidst it all, the Crystal Palace—half burnt—stood like a castle under siege, surrounded on all sides by steam mechanicals of every description, from the most basic, well-battered models to the members of the Irish Squad. They formed a metal-and-flesh chain around the building and shouted their demands.

  Free the Ladies.

  No more slavery.

  No more oppression.

  Rights for us all!

  “It’s outrageous,” said another man standing nearby. “Those are machines. How dare they make demands?”

  “They’re thinking, feeling beings,” said a woman on Reynold’s other side in a voice he recognized. He turned his head to see Topaz Gideon standing not far away with a fair-haired man at her side.

  Topaz, catching Reynold’s eye, nodded at him. “Good to see you again. I trust our mutual friend is in good company.”

  Reynold’s stomach turned over. He could barely stand to think about Lily. “Not really. But safe for now, I hope. Have you come to put a stop to things here?”

  She grinned an assassin’s smile. “On the contrary, my husband and I have come to join in. I’ve brought all my girls to speak up on behalf of their spiritual sisters. If anyone understands the plight of the woman forced into prostitution, it is they. Isn’t that so, Rom?”

  She turned to her husband and kissed him on the lips—hard—before gesturing to Reynold. “Come on!”

  They surged forward, but Reynold stayed where he was. He’d learned that lesson and didn’t want to risk coming to the attention of the authorities.

  A great cheer went up when the reinforcements joined the crowd at the front of the building.

  A figure climbed onto the stairs of the Crystal Palace and raised his arms. When he called out, Reynold recognized him as Pat Kelly.

  “We demand justice both for ourselves and for those trapped inside this building. We are thinking, reasoning beings and deserve fair treatment. We will no longer be used, held, and forced to labor against our will. This country was founded on fairness for all, and we are part of the all!”

  Wild cheers arose along with a faint cloud of steam. A detail of Buffalo Police arrived and abandoned their wagon when they couldn’t force it through the crowd. Reynold wondered how the police would handle a confrontation with…the police.

  “Cease and desist!” cried one of the newly-arrived officers. “This is an illegal assembly. Arrests will be made.”

  No one moved from around the building or among the crowd.

  Pat Kelly called out, “Hello, Bob. I didn’t know you were on duty tonight.”

  After a moment’s consternation, the officer replied, “I wasn’t! Got called in special ’cause of this.”

  “Sorry about that, friend. But there is such a thing as right of assembly. You’ll have to go home.”

  “Right of assembly’s for humans, ain’t it?”

&nbs
p; “I think it pertains to all citizens. And, since we are native to this place, we claim the right of citizenship.”

  “Well, but—”

  A small metal steamie at the edge of the crowd started a chant: “Free our sisters! Justice for all! Free our sisters!”

  The gathered units took it up in a variety of voices—wheezing, grating, clicking, bellowing—a cacophony arose into the Buffalo night sky and echoed like thunder.

  A chill ran down Reynold’s spine.

  “Stop!”

  At first the woman’s command was lost in the chant from the crowd. But she repeated it and stamped her foot. One by one the steamies realized the front door of the Crystal Palace had opened.

  Candace Landry stood there, backlit by bright radiance.

  The chant died to a murmur before trailing off altogether.

  “You will not have my units!” Dr. Landry shouted. “They are my life’s work, and I will die before I allow you to take them.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “Candace, you have to give them up. You can’t continue to exploit intelligent, feeling beings.”

  To Reynold’s surprise, Topaz Gideon rather than Pat Kelly mounted the steps to face Dr. Landry. Topaz’s husband, poised for action, stood a few steps below her but didn’t interfere.

  “This is madness,” Dr. Landry exclaimed, waving her hands at the gathered crowd of combined steamies and humans. “My Ladies are machines; they have no feelings! And you”—she focused on Topaz—“were in favor of these units being built and used for their assigned purpose.”

  “I was wrong, Candace, and I’m not afraid to admit it. You made them too well, too close to human. It’s not right to use them against their will.”

  “I shall never surrender them. They are the crowning jewels of my life’s work. And they are my possessions. Now, Officer…” She gazed past Topaz to the newly-arrived squad. “I want all these machines cleared from my property at once.”

  “How do you suggest we do that, ma’am? There are too many of them. And I suspect Officer Kelly’s correct in saying there’s no law prohibiting steamies from having the right to assemble…”

  “They are machines, you fool. They have no rights!”