The Doomsday Vault ce-1

by Steven Harper

  She halted and stared.

  “You’ll what?” Louisa said.

  Alice didn’t answer. Instead, she lifted the hatbox spider onto the table, spun it around, and used a screwdriver to lever open a small door mounted on the rear.

  “What are you doing?” Louisa asked.

  “This spider has two panels to access the inside instead of one,” Alice said. “Unusual. Hold still, you.”

  The door popped open. Alice and Louisa both leaned forward to look inside. There was a moment of silence. Then Alice reached inside and pulled out a device, the shape of which made its function quite clear.

  “I don’t suppose,” Louisa said, “that this object has some machine-related function not so obvious to a layman.”

  “I’m afraid not.” Alice shut the spider down. Her hands were shaking, and she felt about to throw up. She remembered Mr. Caraway and the other man she had seen leaving the house during business hours, and she remembered that Norbert had been home. “Kemp, please bring every inhuman automaton in the house to the formal dining room. And don’t let Father know.”

  “Yes, Madam.”

  “What are you going to do?” asked Louisa.

  “I’m going to see how many of these things are equipped like this one. Then I’m going to talk to my fiance.”

  “You look upset.”

  “I am.”

  Kemp hastily threw a drop cloth over the dining room table, allowing Alice to make a lineup of automatons on it. It turned out most of the spiders and walkboxes were equipped the same as the first.

  “Do you drink?” Louisa asked from one of the high-backed chairs. “If you don’t, now might be a good time to start.”

  “Hm,” Alice said again.

  “You could install some spikes. As a little surprise.”

  Alice had to laugh at that. “Thank you for that thought. But I think talking to Norbert will do.” She glanced at the grandfather clock ticking in the corner. “And he’ll be home in an hour.”

  “Then I’d better scamper away.” She rose and kissed Alice on the cheek. “Whatever you decide to do, darling, remember I’m on your side. Though I have to say that your Gavin is sounding more attractive by the moment.”

  When Norbert arrived home an hour later with a bouquet of roses, he found on the table, instead of dinner, a number of spidery automatons with their covers off. Tools and parts lay scattered up and down the drop cloth. Alice stood among them, feeling like a black widow in a wiry web.

  “Really, Norbert,” Alice said icily. “How long did you think it would take me to find out?”

  Norbert looked at her for a moment, then set the roses down and pulled off his gloves. “I did say at breakfast that there was another task I needed you to take on.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I received a telegram from Fred Caraway at my office today. It said he’d stopped by on the wrong day for his appointment. He always was a little scatterbrained.”

  “What does that have to do with these … things?” Alice tried to keep her voice neutral, but anger and humiliation burned two red spots into her cheeks.

  “A remarkably imprecise description coming from someone of your caliber.” He yanked the corner bellpull, and Kemp immediately stepped into the room. “Gin and tonic. And where’s supper?”

  “On a cart in the kitchen,” Alice said. “I’m tired of waiting for explanations, Norbert, though I’ve already figured out quite a bit.”

  “What have you figured out, then?” Norbert seemed perfectly at ease, which served only to infuriate Alice.

  She took a deep breath to get herself under control. “These machines … entertain your friends, or business contacts, or whatever they are. In return, your contacts provide you good business deals. Mr. Caraway, for example, ensures low tin prices. You don’t keep human servants because human servants talk, and word would eventually reach the authorities. The only part I don’t understand is why none of them are interested in the more human-seeming automatons.”

  Kemp held out a glass of gin and tonic on a tray, and Norbert accepted it. “You’d be surprised at how many men are too shy even to pay for female companionship, and how many others are put off by human-shaped automatons.” He gulped from his drink. “There are men who find the idea of a small machine that doesn’t talk or even appear human quite appealing. And the man who owns the machines becomes popular.”

  “What has this to do with me?” Alice demanded.

  “I didn’t build these automatons. My uncle did. He died before I met you, leaving me with no way to repair them.”

  “And that’s where I come in? A female?”

  “Why not? The sex of the mechanic is unimportant. I had small-business dealings with your father, and through him I learned about you and your talent with automatons. I helped wrangle you an invitation to the Greenfellow ball so I could look you over. The fact that you repaired Lady Greenfellow’s cellist on the spot sealed it, as far as I was concerned.”

  “In other words, you only proposed to me so I could keep your … toys in good working order?” Fury overwrote every word.

  “Good Lord, no!” Norbert came over and took her hand. “Alice, you’re also heir to a title. Over time we may grow to love each other, or we may not. But this”-he swept a gesture over the motionless automatons-“this is business.”

  The question popped out before she could stop it. “Have you used them?”

  “No,” he said simply, and sat back down. “At any rate, you’ve already discovered that several of them are broken. I want them repaired. We’ll set up a workroom so you needn’t clutter up the dining room, and I’ll give you the name of a shop that can be trusted if you need parts.”

  “Why don’t you have your factory make them?”

  Norbert shook his head. “My factory turns out materials in large quantities, far more than my little machines might need. Besides, the parts have to be custom-fitted. Don’t worry-I pay the metalsmith well to keep silent. And it’ll be easier now that I don’t have to worry about scheduling appointments for days when you don’t visit.” He drained his glass. “The beauty of it all, my dear, is that everything appears perfectly normal. Your father will continue to get proper care, and when we’re married, his debts will be paid. My first son will be a peer. You may work on whatever other projects you like, as long as my machines stay in good repair. Everyone comes out ahead.”

  “I see.” Alice sank into a chair of her own, barely noticing the soft velvet cushioning. She felt suddenly tired, as if she had worked a full day on her knees scrubbing floors. Norbert was right, of course. Father would be cared for. His debts would be paid. Most importantly, everything would be for the best because it would all appear normal. She would be-or seem to be-a normal, traditional woman with a normal, traditional husband, living a normal, traditional life. As long as no one knew that anything odd was happening, everything would be all right. Everything would be under control. That was the rule. Here, at least, she was on familiar ground.

  “Very well,” she said.

  The days passed into weeks, and Alice worked out a new routine. Breakfasts still belonged to Norbert, but mornings found Alice in the new workshop. She couldn’t think of it as her workshop yet, even though Norbert made it clear it was as much her domain as the kitchen was to most wives.

  The workshop lay behind an anonymous locked door at the end of an unlit hallway on the second floor. It looked perfectly normal and respectable from the outside. Inside was a place clean, spacious, and well lit by electricity, where Alice spent secret time hunched over a worktable, refitting rubber rings and lubricating little pistons. She stayed strictly away from the rooms where Norbert entertained his business contacts.

  Alice didn’t bury herself entirely in the workshop. There were wedding arrangements, but not many, since theirs was going to be so tiny. Her wedding dress arrived, and she modeled it halfheartedly for Louisa. And now that she had explored the house and taken over the household ac
counts, Alice took on Louisa’s help and put on afternoon teas for ladies who were fascinated with the houseful of automaton servants. The events were always highly attended, especially after she fitted one of the footmen to spout tea, milk, and hot water from his fingertips (though she told everyone she’d had it done for her). Alice remained bright and merry on the outside, but underneath she felt lost and frightened. The idea of ferreting out more secrets had lost its appeal, and although she felt flickers of curiosity about the fates of Gavin and Aunt Edwina and the grinning clockworker, she no longer felt a burning need to uncover more ugly truth and take the emotional bruises that came with it.

  “I don’t know why I did this, Father,” she whispered at his bedside one morning. “I’m wearing a shell, and it gets heavier every day.”

  Arthur Michaels shifted slightly on the silken sheets. His eyes were sunken; his white hair brittle. His hands had shrunk to sticks, and he weighed so little that Alice could lift him with ease. He slept almost all the time now and ate nearly nothing.

  Alice held his hand for a while, then pursed her lips and left the room. The automaton stationed near the bed would alert her to any change. Right now she had errands to run. Specifically, she needed to visit the special shop Norbert had mentioned. Three of Norbert’s automatons were malfunctioning beyond her ability to repair at home, and she needed to commission parts. She put on her hat, skewered it with pins, and went downstairs.

  Although Norbert preferred his mechanical carriage, Alice had persuaded him to buy for her use a more conventional vehicle, a small, boxy carriage pulled by a pair of well-matched horses. A vehicle like Norbert’s attracted a great deal of attention, and there were times when Alice didn’t want all eyes on her. Kemp drove in a cloak and hat to disguise his own identity, and when they arrived, he carried two muslin-wrapped automatons into the shop while Alice took the third.

  The shop was crowded from floor to ceiling with shelves and bins, all of them filled with a jumble up of tools and parts-cogs, wheels, levers, pistons, drill bits, spools of wire, steel sheets, rivets, bolts, screws, nuts, and more. At the back of the shop behind a counter, a wizened little man perched on a stool with his hands tucked into the pockets of his leather apron. An enormous pencil was stuck behind one ear, nearly lost in the wrinkles that covered his bald head. His name was Mr. Smeet, and he had once been a smith himself, but now his son and grandsons ran the forge out back while he ran the business out front. Nothing in the shop itself was ordered in any way that made sense to Alice, but experience had taught her that Mr. Smeet could lay his hands on anything from the shelves in seconds.

  “Ah, the young miss and her automatons,” Mr. Smeet said in a piping voice that matched his tiny body. “What do you need today?”

  Alice made herself march up to the counter and set the bundle down. She had gone through this many times, and she still hated it. Nausea oozed through her stomach, and her skin itched, as if dozens of accusing eyes were watching her. She had to continually remind herself that she was protected. The machines were hidden under muslin, and their true function was also hidden behind an access panel.

  “I need parts to repair these three,” she said briskly as Kemp set the other two beside the first.

  Mr. Smeet reached for one of the bundles. “Let’s have a look.”

  Alice helped him unwrap the three automatons. Two were spiders, and the third was shaped like a large vase, though the opening at the top was not used for flowers. All three had been deactivated. Mr. Smeet put on a jeweler’s loupe, got out a large sheet of foolscap, and spun the automatons toward himself with little tsk noises.

  “These’ve been abused,” he muttered.

  “Yes,” Alice said. “I’ll need-”

  A dreadful wrenching noise tore the very air, and a section of the roof came off the shop, taking a large portion of the front wall with it. Alice screamed, flung herself sideways, and went down, hampered by her skirts. Shouts and screams filtered into the shop from outside, and a hail of wood and metal pelted over Alice. In an enormous hole where the front of the shop used to be stood a two-story machine. It had a squat, round build, with heavy legs, long arms, and gleaming brass skin. A glass bubble enclosed the top, and a young man with ash-blond hair pulled levers and spun wheels inside it. He wore a high collar and an evening coat that fit him badly. Alice stared up from the floor of the shop, trying to take everything in. The man, who pulled up a speaking tube from between his ankles, somehow struck Alice as familiar, though she couldn’t say how.

  “Wonderful!” His voice crackled thin and tinny. “Don’t fight me, and I’ll remember it as a kindness when I’m ruling London. Blow me a kiss, and I’ll make you my queen.”

  The machine clanked into the shop, and its front opened like a drawbridge. It leaned down, long arms reaching. Alice scooted back, her eyes wide. She was panting in fear. Kemp lay trapped under a wooden beam, one of his eyes smashed, and Mr. Smeet had fled out a back door.

  The machine scooped up handfuls of machine parts from the bins and shelves and dropped them into the opening, like a child stuffing his pockets with boiled sweets. “Memory wheels!” The young man laughed. “I’ll build myself an army! Blow me a kiss, and you’ll be my queen.”

  He sang a little song as he worked.

  Bring a bowl and plate and soup tureen

  And shirt and collar of velveteen.

  If you clean and oil my brass machine

  And blow me a kiss, you’ll be my queen.

  More parts went into the compartment. Outrage overcame some of Alice’s fear. He was a thief! A common thief! She scrambled to her feet as the machine shoved more parts into its chest cavity. But then to her horror, the machine plucked Norbert’s little automatons from Mr. Smeet’s counter and held them up so the driver could examine them through the glass bubble.

  “Premade automatons,” he cried. “Yours, my queen? I’ll be grateful. May I have the honor of a dance?”

  And then Alice knew him. He was the ash-blond man in a bad coat who had asked Louisa to dance at Lady Greenfellow’s ball. He was the second son who had seen Louisa home-and stayed for breakfast. He was even wearing the same badly cut coat.

  “Patrick Barton!” she gasped, then clapped her hand over her mouth.

  Patrick’s machine leaned down for a closer look. His eyes were wide and wild. Clockwork madness. Alice wondered if he’d been infected with the clockwork plague before or after the ball and prayed it was after, for Louisa’s sake.

  “Alice Michaels!” he said. “Well! I’ll be glad to make you my London queen, my luscious Boadicea, my warrior angel. Especially if you made these automatons. I’ll make you famous.”

  A shot cracked through the air and ricocheted off the glass. It was quickly followed by another. Alice heard shouts and clattering hooves.

  “Police always come in legions,” Patrick groaned. He stuffed the three automatons into his machine’s chest cavity, and it clanked shut. “I’ll come back for you, my Boadicea, my spider. Give my best to Louisa.”

  With that, he turned and stomped away, leaving Alice in the shambles of the shop.

  Chapter Eleven

  Gavin leapt from his horse and pushed through the crowd of people that surrounded the ruined shop. Smashed wood and twisted metal lay everywhere like random notes flung from a staff, and the discordant smell of fear hung in the air, though it did nothing to dispel the crowd, most of whom were waiting for the chance to make off with something. Everything he hated about London was in evidence-dirt, chaos, evil-minded people hovering about. Still, it was pure luck that he and Simon had been only a few blocks away when the report came over the wireless.“Move aside, please! Police!” he called. “Police! Let me through!”

  The word police always did it. The crowd rippled aside to reveal the demolished shop front. Gavin hurriedly picked his way inside, his black leather jacket protecting him from snags and jabs. He didn’t bother to remove his simple workman’s cap. Clearly, the machine had come and gone, but it
might have left clues-or victims-behind. His practiced eye automatically picked out several four-pronged claw marks in the walls and deep circular gouges in the floor that marked out huge footprints. Gavin noted their size and did some mental math. The machine had been between twenty and twenty-five feet tall, the same size as the mechanicals used during the Napoleonic Wars, and that made Gavin nervous. If the pattern he had become all too familiar with held true, the mechanical would be armed with a number of dangerous weapons. He sniffed the air. Paraffin oil. Some clockworkers had begun experimenting with new, more efficient fuels for their machines. This was clearly one of them. Several shop shelves, what remained of them, had been swept clean, indicating theft as a motive.

  A figure popped up from behind the counter at the back of the shop, and Gavin reflexively went into a fighting stance. The figure, a woman, brandished a crowbar. Her hat was askew and she had a wild look in her eyes, but Gavin recognized her instantly. His heart did a little jump, and happy surprise thrilled through him. He swallowed a small lump in his throat and dashed across the shop, where he reached out to embrace her, then stopped himself at the last moment.

  “Alice!” he gasped, and snatched off his cap. “Alice Michaels! What are you doing here? Are you all right?”

  Alice dropped the crowbar and grabbed Gavin’s jacket lapels with both fists. He smelled her perfume, a sweet, roselike fragrance at odds with the frantic look on her face. “We have to get them back!” she barked. “Now!”

  “Get what back?”

  “The machines! He took the machines! We have to get them back before he figures out what they’re for and tells everyone when he comes back to make me his queen!”

  For a terrible moment, Gavin was afraid Alice was the clockworker who had destroyed the shop. She was babbling like Dr. Clef on one of his bad days, and her expression said she wasn’t quite all there. Then he realized she was just upset, a victim.

  “It’ll be all right,” he soothed. “Just tell me what happened.”