The Doomsday Vault ce-1

by Steven Harper

  “Why the notes?” Alice said.

  “Who cares?” Gavin snarled. “Why does she keep kidnapping me? Is it the way I dress? Do I smell good?”

  She needed to keep moving. Whatever happened, she needed to keep moving. If she stopped, the hysterics would take over. Alice extended the mechanical’s free arm to the deck and checked the controls. Certain the mechanical would stay frozen in place and hold the airship steady, she released herself from the chair and made her way carefully along the arm until she was able to swing herself onto the deck. Click limped over to greet her, freed of whatever influence Edwina had put on him. Alice patted his head, took up his missing paw, and popped the claws out. One of them had a lockpick on it. She used it to work at the cuff chaining Gavin’s wrist to the rail without meeting his eye, though she felt his body heat and smelled sweat and leather. He didn’t comment, either, but his breath came in her ear. At last the lock came free. He rubbed his wrist as Alice replaced Click’s paw.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I think we’re gathering a crowd down below.”

  She straightened, Click at her feet. “No doubt.”

  “So.” Gavin shifted his weight. “Your aunt Edwina.”

  “Yes.”

  They stood in silence, looking at each other high above the ground. A sudden exhilaration swept Alice. It came to her that she had defeated a genius, a clockworker, and more than once. Up here, with Gavin and the Third Ward, all that mattered was what she could do, not who she was. Up here, she was free.

  And then Gavin was kissing her. His strong arms were around her, and he was kissing her. Her heart took up her entire chest and her breath fled and he was kissing her.

  “I’m sorry I was angry at you,” he murmured against her lips.

  “My heart stopped when I saw you leaving,” she murmured back. “I don’t want to go through that again.”

  Movement caught her eye, and they broke apart. Glenda and Simon, with fresh bottles powering their gliders, dropped to the little deck. Explanations came fast and furious, though Alice never strayed far from Gavin’s side.

  “I’m only unhappy that I didn’t figure out who she was earlier,” Alice said. “I think the little automatons have been reporting back to Aunt Edwina about me since I was a girl. She must have left some bit of program within their memory wheels that let her take control of them for spying and now for this. It was how she knew I was attending the Greenfellow ball.”

  “Ah,” Glenda said. “She was able to extrapolate the most likely route you would take home and time the zombie attack so you would run straight into it.”

  “Yes. She also ‘happened’ to be present at the solicitor’s office with that paper bomb because she knew I’d be there to discuss an inheritance she herself left me. She even knew I would hear Gavin play in Hyde Park because Click or the other automatons told her Norbert and I took drives there.”

  “I’ve never seen this kind of careful planning in a clockworker before,” Simon said. “They’re usually fantastic with the inventions but not so grand with long-range plans. This woman is a new breed, and I don’t mind telling you, she scares the heavens out of me. We have to find her, and quickly-before she kills someone else.”

  “No chance of that today,” Gavin muttered, staring off into the sky.

  “A recovery team will be here soon to handle the mechanical,” Glenda said, “unless you want to walk it back to headquarters, Miss Michaels.”

  “Oh, I don’t imagine she’ll want that.” Simon grinned. “What if her Norbert hears of it?”

  At the mention of Norbert’s name, Alice’s exhilaration faded. “Norbert,” she said. “Yes. I need to talk to him.”

  Gavin caught her hand. “What are you going to say?”

  “Oh, Gavin.” She closed her eyes. “I don’t know. I need to think. I’m all mixed-up. In one day, I lost my automatons, watched an airship explode, stole a giant war machine, and learned my long-lost aunt is actually still alive and controlling zombies in London.”

  “What do you think of all that?” Gavin countered.

  Alice paused. “I loved it,” she burst out. “Damn it all, I loved it!”

  Gavin laughed. So did Glenda. Simon grimaced slightly, and Alice wondered why.

  “Unbelievable! Simply unbelievable!” Norbert plucked his cup of chocolate from the breakfast tray and sipped as he read the Times. It was the morning after Alice had returned from her adventure with Gavin and the giant mechanical. “The East India Company gives the Punjabis gainful employment, and they repay the Empire by rising up against it.”

  Alice nibbled at a piece of toast. The newspaper’s front page headline screamed MAD MECHANICAL MANGLES GREENWICH, with a smaller headline that announced DIRIGIBLE DETONATES and DOZENS FEARED DEAD, but Norbert was pointedly, carefully, and scrupulously ignoring all that for international news, and Alice had to scramble to keep up.

  “Cartridge papers are soaked in pork and beef tallow,” she replied. “The cow is sacred to Indians, and Muslims say pigs are unclean. Is it any wonder Punjabi soldiers refused to tear them open with their teeth? The natives over there were already restless, and their commander only made it worse when he sentenced all those soldiers to hard labor over a foolish technicality-one that he could have avoided by allowing them to use fingers instead of teeth.”

  “Military discipline must be maintained. Now they have to pay the consequences, and that’s the end of it.” Norbert set the paper down and drained his little cup. His voice was a bit too loud, his gestures a bit too expansive. “But this and the fighting in China have made me especially anxious to open that new munitions factory. Need to provide for my new wife after this week.”

  Alice gave a small smile. “Of course, darling, of course.”

  “The papers are ready, and I’ll come home early on Friday so we can sneak down to the church.” He rubbed his hands together with overly precise movements. “So exciting!”

  “Indeed.”

  “And then we’ll have to get back to the appointments,” Norbert continued, his excitement over. “It’ll be so convenient with you not having to go back to that silly flat every evening.”

  Alice said, “Absolutely.” Good God, he was dull. Compared to the deadly machinations of Aunt Edwina, Norbert’s mechanicals seemed insignificant and banal. How had she ever found him shocking? Her own little automatons were far more dangerous than anything Norbert could dream up.

  “Are the machines in good working order?”

  For a moment, Alice thought he meant her little automatons. Most of them had come slinking back a few minutes after Alice herself had arrived at Norbert’s house with Click. As a precaution, Alice had deactivated all of them, including Kemp and Click. It had hurt more than she had anticipated.

  “Yes,” she said aloud. “Your friends should be. . entertained.”

  “Perfect.” Norbert rubbed his hands together again with the same precise movements. It was the same excitement he had shown about their upcoming nuptials. She wondered what he would be like in the bedroom and gave an inward shudder. “I’ll be late. You’re beautiful.” He kissed her on the cheek, and departed.

  Alice left the breakfast tray for the mechanical maid to clean up and went down the hall to her father’s room. The automaton assigned to his needs stood in the corner, its eyes never leaving Father’s chest as it rose and fell, paused, then rose and fell. He’d been sleeping since she returned. His hair was gone, and his face was shrunken and shriveled. His body barely made a dent in the soft mattress. A heavy, stale smell hung in the overly warm air. His curtains were pushed back, revealing another day crushed by yellow mist. Alice touched his cold hand, but it remained motionless. Father’s breath paused, then resumed.

  In the many hours since she had returned with the memory of Gavin’s touch on her body, she had nearly left a number of times. Each time, this particular chain had pulled her back. She imagined men coming into the house and throwing her father into the street. Two men-Norbert and Gavin-ha
d different sets of hooks in her, and they pulled her in two different directions.

  “I thought I had decided,” she whispered. “And then it all went topsy-turvy again. What should I do, Father?” But he didn’t answer. She sighed. He didn’t need to. This man, the third one with hooks in her, had sacrificed everything to give her a proper future, and she knew what she needed to do. It was why she hadn’t said anything to Norbert about canceling their elopement-she had long known what the right decision was. Continued to be. A tear slid down her cheek as she held her father’s hand and mentally said good-bye to Gavin and the Third Ward.

  After a while, she left the room to wander the house’s empty halls. Spiders and other automatons continued their work with little input from Alice. She had asked, even begged, Norbert to hire some human servants so the house would feel less empty, but he had remained adamant.

  A door shut behind her, and she realized she had automatically entered her workroom. The long table with its array of tools stretched across the back wall. Kemp stood frozen near the table, and Click lay on his side amid the debris. She expected the cat to turn his phosphorescent eyes on her when she walked in, but he didn’t move because she had shut him down last night. Suddenly the thought was horrendous, as if she had shut down a part of herself.

  “Oh, Click.” She opened a small panel on the back of his neck and extracted a brass winding key. His brass skin felt chilly and rigid, as if he had died. “How could I do this to you?”

  She wound the key, but Click was no child’s toy. It took considerable winding to undo the loss, and her wrists became sore with the effort. To pass the time, she hummed a soft melody under her breath.

  I see the moon, the moon sees me,

  It turns all the forest soft and silvery.

  The moon picked you from all the rest

  For I loved you-

  She bit her lip and stopped singing. At last, Click was finished. Alice replaced the key and pressed a switch. For a moment nothing happened. Then Click shuddered hard, and his eyes cranked open. He gave a metallic mew, trembled again, and gave Alice a reproachful look.

  “I’m sorry, Click.” She gathered him into her arms, where he made a cool, heavy weight. “So very sorry. I promise it’ll never happen again.”

  Click remained miffed awhile longer, then pressed his chilly nose into the crook of her elbow. Alice stroked him for a moment. Her eye fell on the storage box into which she had set the automatons that had survived yesterday’s adventure. With her free hand, she opened it. The little automatons lay in a jumbled pile of wings and segmented legs, dead as dried spiders. She ran a finger over several, remembering every plane and contour. One of them jerked slightly, using up a tiny vestige of windup energy, and went still again. Alice felt heavy.

  Fog still hung its damp curtain against the windows. It seemed to hem her in, closing around the house just as her dress closed around her body. Outside, everything looked smooth and perfect. But it was only a shell, a soft illusion.

  She wanted to fly. She wanted to learn. She wanted to fix machines that did something interesting, machines that would change the world. And she wanted to do it with Gavin.

  Click looked up at her, his joints creaking softly, his eyes green and steady. She could almost hear him speak. Then what, he asked, are you waiting for?

  Alice looked at her dead automatons and then at the fog. Fog might hem her in, but it couldn’t push her back. Not unless she let it.

  Suddenly, the idea of spending one more hour in the house became utterly intolerable. With Click in her arms, she fled from the room. She fled down the hall. And then, before she could stop herself, she fled toward the stairs. She was doing it. She was leaving.

  Her heart pounded with both fear and excitement. She would do it. She would do it today. Now. This minute. She would join the Third Ward, and she would see Gavin every day, and maybe something bad would come of it, but oh! Wasn’t it equally possible that something good would happen?

  She needed nothing, wanted nothing from Norbert’s house. She would leave right now and never come back. With a laugh that made her giddy, she clattered down the hall and made it halfway down the grand staircase near the front door when she abruptly remembered: Father. She couldn’t leave him.

  But her momentum was too great. The avalanche that had been building inside her propelled her on, and speed lent clarity. She hadn’t been worried about Father-not really. She had only been foolish and afraid, and had used Father as an excuse. His health was no obstacle! She could join the Third Ward on the condition that they move Father to their headquarters. If they wanted to take his care out of her salary, so be it. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? And the debts? They couldn’t imprison a baroness for debts, and that was what she would become, all too soon. Everything she wanted was within her grasp. She had just been too afraid to take it.

  Heartened, she ran farther down the stairs and halted again. What about Kemp and her little automatons? If she left now, she’d never get them back, and she couldn’t leave Kemp to rust and tarnish, or-this thought brought a shudder-allow Norbert to melt him down in a fit of pique.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Alice changed course. Scurrying past the soulless eyes of the footman, she entered the library and took out ink and writing paper. Click sat in her lap at the writing desk and watched as, with shaking hands, she wrote a quick paragraph. After a moment’s hesitation, she recklessly added another sentence and signed it. There were still four deliveries left before the Royal Mail halted for the night, meaning Phipps would have plenty of time to respond to the letter by tomorrow, perhaps even by this evening. Meanwhile, Alice would finish repairing Kemp and prepare Father to be moved.

  The weight left her, and she felt as if she could jump off the top floor and fly. Why on earth-no, why the hell-had she waited so long? Folding the paper into an envelope, she scribbled Lt. Susan Phipps, The Third Ward, v2 on the front and rushed to the front door, where she dashed out into the clearing fog without pausing for a wrap, or even a hat.

  “Would the lady like me to arrange for a cab?” the footman called after her.

  Alice ignored it. The Royal Mail had an office only a few hundred yards down the street, and she ran toward it, skirts bunched in her hands. People on the sidewalk turned to stare at her, a hatless woman rushing in an unladylike sprint up the sidewalk, but Alice found she didn’t care in the least.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Agent Ennock! Could you come in here for a moment?” Gavin paused as he passed the office of Lieutenant Phipps, an uneaten apple in his hand. His first thought was that he was in trouble again, but Phipps didn’t look any more severe than usual.

  “Lieutenant?” Gavin asked.

  “I received this from Alice Michaels a few moments ago.” She pushed a handwritten letter across the desk toward him, and Gavin picked it up.

  To Lieutenant Phipps:

  After a great deal of consideration, I have decided to accept your offer of a position with the Third Ward, pending the Ward’s ability to care for my sick father. If this is acceptable to you, please let me know by post or in person. I remain at your disposal.

  Also, please tell Agent Ennock Gavin that I have changed my mind and would very much enjoy the chance to accompany him to the symphony.

  Very sincerely yrs,

  (Miss) Alice Michaels

  Gavin’s heart did a little jump, and he scanned the letter a second time to make sure he hadn’t misread. “Is this. . Is she really. .?”

  “It would seem so,” Phipps said, and she actually gave a tiny smile. Gavin didn’t know whether to be more amazed by that or by the letter.

  “Is it. . Can the Ward. .” He was stammering like an idiot, and he coughed hard to get himself under control. “Is the Ward willing to care for her father?”

  Phipps steepled her fingers, metal piling up against flesh. “I think we can manage the care of one old man. There’s time to send her a reply by evening post, but I think Alice might app
reciate a more personal touch.”

  Gavin was moving toward the door before Phipps had even properly dismissed him. Down at the stables, he found a groom waiting with a horse, and, moments later, he was riding as fast as he dared through the chilly evening mist. Traffic on the streets was light, and voices were hushed. Buildings loomed over him, always hemming him in and holding him back. Gavin hated the chains London threw over him. There was no beauty here, no softness; nothing but greed and poverty and disease.

  As if in answer to these thoughts, bare feet slapped brick, and a ragged woman, accompanied by a young child, dragged out of an alley, reaching toward Gavin’s horse. Plague sores wept yellow fluid. In a mixture of fear and pity, Gavin tossed the apple from his pocket toward them. The child caught it, and Gavin urged his horse to greater speed.

  He rounded the corner and let his horse drop into a trot as he entered the square that faced Norbert Williamson’s too-large house. He had never visited this place, but he knew exactly where it was. It took up one entire side of the square and was part of the dull, blocky architecture that made up so much of London. The mist was thickening again, a ghost trying to keep him out of the square. Heart beating fast, Gavin tied the horse to a hitching post out front, then dashed up a set of marble stairs to the double doors. He yanked the bellpull, and the door immediately opened.

  “Sir?” said the mechanical footman.

  Gavin handed it his card. “Tell Miss-tell your mistress that Agent Gavin Ennock of the Third Ward is here to see her.”

  “Please come in, sir. I will see if the lady is receiving visitors.”

  Gavin waited in the echoing foyer while the footman stalked away. He supposed someone of higher birth or position would have been shown to a seat and offered something to drink, but as a tradesman, he was forced to stand by the door, shifting from one foot to the other.