The Doomsday Vault ce-1

by Steven Harper

  When another automaton passed close by, a slower one, Alice leapt over the pressure square and, grateful she had chosen a simple dress for her luncheon with Norbert, landed behind the machine so she could follow it exactly. Her heart beat fast with fear and excitement. Another leap and step brought her behind the trio of spidery automatons skittering in another direction. She paused when they did, ducked beneath a swinging pendulum that would have brained her, twirled on her toes, and made a fast turn to stay behind the spidery trio. A few more steps brought her to the bottom of a staircase that circled the back wall, where she paused to catch her breath. No more traps triggered so far.

  After a moment’s thoughtful stare at the staircase, she put the wooden handle of her handbag in her mouth, flung herself astride the banister, and hauled herself hand over hand up its length. The process looked ridiculous and immodest, she was sure, but no one was around to see, so what did it matter? Better that than to risk an unhappy surprise on the stairs.

  A certain amount of exertion got her to the top, breathless and panting around the handbag handle. Click was waiting for her on the final stair.

  “How did you get up here?” she demanded.

  Click didn’t answer. Grumbling to herself, Alice clambered down from the banister. She was standing on a balcony that encircled the great room. A quarter of the way round, a set of double doors stood partly ajar. Below her, the automatons, pendulums, and ticking machinery continued in their strange, intricate dance on the grooved floor. The pattern hovered at the edge of recognition, but the longer Alice stared at it, the more her head began to hurt. Instead, she closed her eyes and listened carefully. The sweet violin music she had heard earlier seemed to be coming from beyond the double doors farther along the balcony.

  Alice started carefully across the wood floor. One of the boards shifted beneath her foot, and she leapt back. Nothing further happened. Alice drew her skirts back and tapped at the flooring with a quick foot. Still nothing. She prodded harder. This time an entire section of the floor tilted and flipped over on a pivot. Alice barely had time to yank her foot back and catch a glimpse of the yawning space beneath the boards before they smashed back into place.

  “Hm,” she said. “Who were you expecting to break in here, Aunt Edwina?” Then she glanced down at the faraway smear of dried blood on the floor near the front door. “And did they manage it?”

  The crack left by the pivot trap was now visible, and there was just enough room at the side, near the wall, for a careful person to edge around it. Thanking heaven her bustle was small, Alice pressed her back and hindquarters close to the wall and scooted around the deadly trap. The automatons below continued to ignore her. Alice cleared the dangerous section of flooring, which lay just before the double doors, and checked carefully for trip wires or anything else that might cause a messy death. She found nothing, so she stepped through and found herself on another balcony, this one overlooking a cobblestoned courtyard large enough to play rugby on. To one side, attached to a wall, rose the tower she had seen outside, from the front of the house. A narrow window toward the top glowed, and Alice heard the violin play. To her astonishment, she recognized the song as the one from Hyde Park. The wistful tune created an intense longing inside her, a desire for something she couldn’t name, a feeling that she was in the wrong place or the wrong time, but that the right place and the right time were just a step around the corner.

  A touch on her ankle gave her a start. Click looked up at her quizzically, and she realized she’d been staring at the tower, mesmerized.

  “That can’t be the same player I heard in the mist, can it?” she asked him.

  Click cocked his head, then put out a steel-wool tongue and washed a paw with little scratching sounds.

  Alice sighed and started down a set of stone stairs that led to the courtyard lit by a half-moon. A high wall ran all the way around the yard, and small gargoyles glared from the top. The ground was immaculate-no cracks in the mortar, no weeds or ivy sprouting anywhere.

  Gingerly, Alice made her way across the courtyard. Click walked ahead of her, segmented tail straight up, claws clicking on the stones. As she came closer to the tower, she realized that the dozen-odd gargoyles staring down from the top of the wall were made of metal, not stone. Their iron glare made her uneasy, and her mouth went dry. The musician played on, his melancholy music the perfect accompaniment to the eerie night.

  Click reached the base of the tower and flopped down on his side with a clank. Alice looked up. A shadow hovered in the window high above her. Her heart beat staccato, and feelings she couldn’t name shifted inside her.

  “Hello?” she called.

  The music squawked and stopped. The shadow in the window shifted, and out leaned a young man, not yet twenty. Alice couldn’t tell more than that in the moonlight.

  “Hi!” the young man called back. “Are you here to rescue me?”

  That made Alice blink. “Er… do you need rescuing?”

  “Yes, please. I’ve been in this tower for… well, I don’t know how long. At least two weeks, I think. I can’t get out. I’ve been playing like crazy, hoping someone would hear me and come.”

  “Are you an American?” Alice asked, and immediately wished she hadn’t. It was such an inane thing to say.

  “Boston. Are you English?”

  “Of course.” The entire situation made Alice feel oddly sideways. “I don’t normally speak to strange men when I first meet them, you know, however extraordinary the circumstances may be.”

  “Sorry! I’m Gavin Ennock. I’d shake your hand, but I can’t quite reach.”

  Alice stifled an unladylike snort of a laugh. “I understand, Mr. Ennock. My name is Alice Michaels. This is Click, my cat.”

  “He’s very nice. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a clockwork cat before. Can he help get me out?”

  “That depends. Er… who put you up there?”

  “No idea. Two men knocked me out, and when I came to, I was here. The door’s locked, and little automatons bring me food.”

  “Were you playing in Hyde Park two weeks ago?” Alice blurted out. “In the mist?”

  Gavin drew back, wary. “Why?”

  Because you played like an angel, and I can’t imagine a world so cruel as to lock such a wonder away. “Because I think I heard you.”

  “That was probably me. I’m the only busker stupid enough to play Hyde Park on foggy days. Can you get me out? I’ve tried everything.”

  “I’ll do my best.” Alice realized her heart was pounding and her hands were shaking. That bothered her. Was she surprised at finding an inhabitant in the tower? Not particularly. She knew someone was up there playing music-the most wonderful, soul-melting music she had ever heard. And it was played by the same musician she had heard in Hyde Park. The idea that she now had the chance to meet this fine fiddler sent shivers over her entire body, which bothered her again.

  Was it a coincidence that this particular young man had been imprisoned in Aunt Edwina’s house? Or was something else going on here? The questions nagged at Alice, but she had maddeningly little information and a mind that was distracted by a young musician she hadn’t even met. Firmly she ordered herself to get a grip and look at the problem. Where was the tower entrance? She hoped it wasn’t inside the mansion.

  It wasn’t. She found it halfway round the tower, just out of sight. It was made of tired-looking wood and locked, of course. Alice rummaged around in her handbag and came up with a small set of tools rolled in black velvet. Embroidered into the soft cloth were the words Love, Aunt Edwina. Alice extracted two bits of metal.

  “Click,” she said, “light, please.”

  There was a pop, and two bright phosphorescent beams lit the lock. It was shaped like a clock. If the hands were set to a particular time, Alice could doubtless unlock it without a key, rather like knowing the combination to a safe. It was ingenious-and fiendishly difficult to pick. Peering into the keyhole, she could also make out two little needle
s on springs. No doubt they were coated with some dreadful poison. Alice stood up and stared at the door, hands on hips.

  “Well, really,” she said, and kicked it with all her might. The tired old wood smashed inward. Hmph. Clockworkers might be wonder geniuses, but sometimes they focused so tightly on the details, they forgot the bigger picture.

  “Are you all right?” Gavin called from above in his odd American accent. “I heard a noise.”

  “Everything’s fine, Mr. Ennock,” Alice replied as Click shone his glowing eye beams inside. “I’ve found a way in.”

  The interior of the tower was hollow, with a single wooden staircase winding a spiral around the inside wall. The edge of the stairs had a foot-high rim at the base instead of a handrail, which Alice found strange. It wouldn’t keep anyone from toppling over the side. At the top, Alice made out a landing and another door. She didn’t trust the stairs for a moment, but she didn’t see any other alternative.

  “Click,” she said, “would you run up there and see what happens?”

  The clockwork cat bounded up the steps and made the first turn. A moment later, there was a wooden clatter, and the stairs all flattened into a spiral slide. With an indignant yowl, Click skidded past Alice and clanked to a halt a few feet from the door. His eye beams went out as Alice bent over him.

  “Are you hurt?”

  Click straightened, one limb at a time, and shook himself. Then he deliberately turned his back on Alice and sat down.

  “Oh, Click, dear, I’m so sorry,” Alice said. “Can you forgive me?”

  Click’s tail twitched a dismissal.

  “I’ll give you a piece of steel wool when we get home; how’s that?”

  No reaction.

  Alice sighed. “Very well. You may play with my magnets first thing tomorrow morning.”

  Click turned his head but didn’t look at her.

  “And the steel wool.”

  Click stalked to the bottom of the slide, sniffed at the bottom, then sank all eighteen brass claws into the wood and clattered his way upward like a careful feline spider. In moments, he had climbed out of view.

  “That’s very clever,” Alice called after him, “but it doesn’t get me up there. Do you see a lever or a button or a-”

  Clank. With another clatter, the slide re-formed itself back into steps. Alice clutched at her handbag. “Is it safe to come up, then?”

  She heard a mechanical meow from the darkness above.

  “Was that a yes or a no?”

  She heard another meow.

  With a sigh, Alice climbed the steps, taking her time and testing each one. It was exhausting work, but she refused to take chances. About halfway up, she found Click on a landing near a lever. It was pushed upward and pointed toward a sign that read OFF. Other choices included ON, EXPEL, and DEATH. Alice wondered what the original setting had been.

  “You’re a very clever cat,” she said.

  They continued to the top of the stairs and the door Alice had seen earlier. She knocked politely. “Mr. Ennock?”

  He knocked back. “I’m still here.” His voice was muffled. “Can you open the door from that side?”

  She threw the bar, but the door itself was still locked, and no convenient key hung from any nearby hook. A quick examination of the lock showed it to be another poisoned time lock, but this door looked distressingly solid.

  “I’m afraid it won’t budge,” Alice said. “Just a moment. Click, give me your left forepaw, please.”

  Click held up the appendage indicated, and it clattered to the floor. Alice took it up, depressed a hidden switch, and all six claws extended with a little shwing noise. She inserted a claw into the lock.

  “Are you trying to pick it?” Gavin asked from the other side.

  “No.” Alice heard a sproing and a clink. She withdrew the paw to peer into the lock, where she found to her satisfaction that both needles had deployed against the hard brass of Click’s claw and paw, harmlessly discharging the poison and bending the needles into ruin to boot. “Much better.” She handed the paw back to Click, who reattached it, and checked with the lock again.

  “Light, if you please, Click.”

  With another pop, Click illuminated the door. Alice unrolled her tools again and this time set to work for real. Her own automatons came with little locks meant to hold them shut, and Alice had assembled dozens of locking mechanisms over the years.

  “You are trespassing on my property,” boomed a woman’s voice. “You have one minute to vacate my tower, or face the consequences.”

  Alice was so startled, she dropped the lockpicks. It was Aunt Edwina’s voice, though Alice only vaguely remembered it from her childhood. She glanced around for the source but saw nothing.

  “What was that?” Gavin asked through the door.

  “A minor problem,” Alice replied. “I suggest you gather any possessions you want to bring, Mr. Ennock. Our exit is likely to be hasty.”

  She set back to work on the lock. A always led to B always led to C. She could do this.

  “You are trespassing on my property. You have thirty seconds to vacate my tower, or face the consequences.”

  Sweat trickled down Alice’s neck and into her corset, but she ignored it and selected another tool. Click held the light steady, though she had to force her fingers not to shake.

  “You are trespassing on my property,” boomed Aunt Edwina. “You have fifteen seconds to vacate my tower, or face the consequences.”

  The lock gave. Alice stuffed her tools into her handbag and shoved the door open. Gavin was waiting on the other side, hands empty and violin case strapped to his back. He had striking white-blond hair-no hat-eyes the color of a summer sky, and a startlingly handsome face. He also looked slightly younger than Alice had originally thought-seventeen or eighteen.

  “I’m ready,” he said. “And you’re amazing.”

  “Oh!” Alice said. “Thank-”

  “You are trespassing on my property,” boomed Aunt Edwina. “You have five seconds to vacate my tower, or face the consequences.”

  “Run!” Alice grabbed Gavin’s hand and fled down the stairs. Click followed.

  “What do you think will happen?” Gavin asked as they made the first turn.

  A crash vibrated the steps and made them both glance over their shoulders. A vat that was painted to look like part of the wall at the top of the stairs tipped over, spilling an evil-looking liquid that gushed down the steps toward them at a dreadful speed. Even as Alice watched, it began to dissolve the wood it passed over. The low rim that ran around the edge of the stairs kept the liquid-acid? — from dripping over.

  “I had to ask,” Gavin shouted.

  “Hurry!” Alice shrieked. She flung her handbag over the side, grabbed her skirts in both hands, and bolted as fast as she dared. Gavin and Click kept pace with her, though the acid was gaining on them like a hungry sea creature.

  “We’ll never make it!” Gavin yelled.

  “Just run!” Alice yelled back.

  They made the second turn, and the third. The acid gushed around the curves, losing a little speed, but it was plain it would sweep over them long before they reached the bottom. It filled the entire stairwell behind them in an area too large to consider jumping over, and there was no space on the stairs to let it go by. The smell was sickening. Alice’s lungs burned and her shins ached. Gavin’s face became grim.

  “I’m sorry I brought you into this!” he shouted as they made the fourth turn, the one with the lever on it. “If I had known-”

  Alice shoved the lever to EXPEL. Instantly, the stairs flattened into the giant slide. “Go!” Alice ordered.

  Gavin didn’t hesitate. He flung himself headfirst onto the smooth wood like a boy on a sled hill. Alice snatched up Click and followed just as acid flooded the landing. They rushed around the turns, much faster now and gaining speed. Alice’s stomach lurched, she lost her hat, and her hair came loose. Gavin reached the bottom and slid across the stone flo
or. He regained his feet with incredible dexterity, and the moment Alice reached the bottom herself, he swept her up and moved her aside. The acid river gushed past them and swept through the door Alice had broken down. Panting, Gavin carefully set Alice on her feet.

  “That was… was…” He swallowed. “Do all your first meetings with strange men go like that?”

  Hoping nothing was broken, Alice retrieved her handbag from the spot where it had hit the ground, then looked about in vain for her hat. “No, thank heavens. I think our next step should be to-”

  A terrible shuddering noise and creaking of wood made Alice look up. Her face blanched. The damaged staircase-slide-was coming away from the tower walls. Even as she watched, a beam snapped and plunged toward them.

  “Move!”

  She wasn’t entirely sure who had spoken-she herself or Gavin. Both of them leapt for the broken doorway. They touched down briefly in the thin film of acid left on the stones just outside the tower, then flung themselves sideways to safer ground, where they landed in an ignominious heap. They lay there a moment, trying to catch their breaths. Click strolled over and nosed at Alice, who began to realize she was huddled against Gavin in an extremely inappropriate manner. She rolled away, tangling her skirts, and scrambled to her feet. When she managed to get her breath, she found Gavin opening his violin case, a worried look on his face.