“Seems wise,” Meriwether shouted back.
They turned back quietly, hoping not to attract the notice of the mechanisms below. Before they had gone a dozen steps, a great shadow leapt for them.
Balfour dropped the lantern, parrying the beast’s snake-fast strike with an instinct born of a lifetime’s training. And still, three long scratches bled freely across his cheek. Meriwether’s pistols filled the narrow tunnel with their reports. Sparks flew, but the great beast stalked forward.
The night had not been kind to it. The plates that had lent it a more nearly human appearance were gone. Cannibalized, Meriwether assumed, to make the first of its offspring. Likewise, the bronze gears and springs of its mechanism were stripped down, its own flesh sacrificed for parts. Its intelligence had played its purpose; its intent was now embodied in the working swarms below. What remained of the original machine did so for the single purpose of preventing human interference before the final, terrible hour.
The thing swung its great hands without warning. Meriwether leapt back, feeling the tug at his greatcoat and hearing the armored cloth rip like thin tissue. With a steady hand, he aimed at the one crystal eye unmarred by Balfour’s blade, and with a shot, shattered it. The beast shrieked, its hands rising to its face in a parody of animal pain as Balfour and Meriwether ran past it.
“Blinded!” Balfour said in a congratulatory tone.
“I shouldn’t put too great a faith in that, old man,” Meriwether said, looking back over his shoulder. Silhouetted by the hellish light, the beast was not nursing its wound, but replacing its crystals. The great metallic head rose, and a beam of steady light now leaped from it, lighting the fleeing men as clearly as daylight. It sprang after them, its gear-and-piston legs working faster than a quarter horse’s. Meriwether stopped looking back and set himself to the running.
The damp returned, the fog appearing in tendrils as they sped through the tunnel by the shifting light of their pursuer. Balfour and Meriwether had almost regained the station when it overtook them. With a grunt, Balfour fell, his legs swept from beneath him. Meriwether skidded to a halt, raising both revolvers, only to have them batted away. The great thing rose to its full height, its foot on Balfour’s chest, its gaze locked on Meriwether. It roared in something like triumph. Balfour drew a blade and sawed desperately at the thing’s ankle, but to no effect. For a moment, Meriwether saw the end of all things before him.
The blunderbuss rocked the beast back. A small gear hissed past Meriwether’s ear, and Balfour leapt to his feet. Rachel Cohen and Lord Carmichael stepped closer, the Jewess discarding the spent firearm in the clear knowledge that there would be no opportunity to reload.
“Remarkable woman,” Balfour said.
“Yes,” Lord Carmichael agreed. “It took her some time to convince me that you two might be in need of aid, but she managed. And just in time, I’d say.”
“Perhaps,” Meriwether said. “The battle is not yet won.”
The beast had paused, its head shifting from one side to the other like a bird considering its prey. The new arrivals had given it a sense of caution, but it had not abandoned its purpose. Instead, it seemed to taste the air and prepare itself to slaughter four rather than two. Meriwether put a hand to Balfour’s shoulder, paused, and pulled it back. Balfour’s tumble had left his coat sticky with grime and grit.
“You’ll need a cleaner for that, old man,” Meriwether said, displaying his blackened hand. He then glanced knowingly at the exposed gears of their enemy. Balfour frowned at the mess on his companion’s palm, tilted his wide head, and then, understanding his intention, grinned.
The beast attacked again, but instead of blades and bullets, Balfour and Meriwether leapt to the meeting like boys in a schoolyard. They slung double handfuls of railway muck into the gorgeous machinery. With every third step, Meriwether stooped to scrape his hand along the ground, and drew up more of the black mixture of earth and old food, rat droppings, pebbles, and bits of newspaper that a living city produces as body does sweat. Quickly, the fine bronze gears, lacking as they did their former protective plates, began to suffer. The great knife-like fingers began to bend more awkwardly. The deadly swings came more slowly. With a shout of delight, Rachel Cohen joined in as well, and then, with a sigh, Lord Carmichael.
When it became clear that the thing could no longer turn to the left, all four howled out in sheer animal delight. No four civilized throats had ever shared a hunting call of such simple human pleasure. At last, the beast froze, its gears fixed in place, its wires taut, but immobile. It teetered and fell to the ground, its replacement eye shattering, and the light within it fading forever out.
“You’re injured,” Lord Carmichael said.
“A scratch,” Balfour said.
“There isn’t time,” Meriwether said. “Lord Carmichael, the city’s water supply must be rerouted to fill the underground. If it is not, all of London will be in flames by morning.”
“Is it possible?” Rachel asked. “Can so great a task be accomplished in so little time?” Her arms were mud-encrusted to the elbow, her hair had come loose, and the wound on her shoulder had reopened, sluicing her side with fresh blood. No garment model had ever been lovelier.
“My dear Miss Cohen,” Lord Carmichael said, “this sort of thing is what I do.”
And indeed, the following morning was an unpleasant one for the residents of the great city. The drinking water usually supplied by the mighty Thames was in short supply, more than forty thousand workers were kept from their normal schedules due to a massive failure of the underground rail system, and just as the first light of dawn appeared in the east, Scotland Yard closed several streets to traffic owing to huge geysers of superheated steam coming up from the underground’s ventilation shafts.
There was a great deal of complaint, a bit of bitter humor at the expense of the government bureaucracy, and the city went on for the most part as usual. London did not burn. No one lost lives or freedom. Human civilization failed to collapse.
In King Street, Mrs. Long set out a simple breakfast of eggs fragrant made with rosemary and buttered bread still hot from the baker’s oven. Balfour, a sticking plaster on his cheek, ate with slow deliberation, as if the eggs had offered him some insult which he was avenging with his molars. Meriwether read the morning paper distractedly, the cheap paper rustling whenever he moved, and glancing up often to watch the sunlight burning off the fog. And Rachel Cohen, wrapped in one of Mrs. Long’s good housecoats now that the bleeding of her injuries was under control, sipped tea and gave herself over to small sighs.
“It was good fortune that you found us when you did,” Meriwether said to her. “It could easily have been a much less pleasant night.”
“I must disagree, sir,” she said. “In my experience there have been very few nights less pleasant than that. Though in the light of morning, I can recognize some virtues that have come from it.”
Balfour cleared his throat and, to Meriwether’s delight and surprise, blushed furiously. Mrs. Long appeared at the door, a fourth plate in her hand. She placed it deliberately at the table, drew silverware from her apron to make the setting, and with a satisfied smile announced Lord Carmichael.
His Lordship looked both exhausted and pleased with himself. Soot and stone dust marred his usually impeccable clothing, and the thick smell of algae followed him like bad fish. Even Meriwether didn’t complain. Lord Carmichael swung a burlap sack onto the center of the table.
“A gift from the British Museum,” Lord Carmichael said. Fatigue slurred his words slightly. “Apparently Mr. Olds has no use for the thing.”
Balfour raised a bushy brow, and Meriwether leaned over to tug the bag open. The great bronze head lay bare before them, the gears and axles forever stilled. Rachel brushed the brow of her conquered enemy, compassion in her face.
“I can’t imagine what it must have been,” she said, “to have come so very far and come so very near the redemption of its race, and yet to have fail
ed. Had its success not meant my own destruction, I should feel moved by it, I think.”
“Indeed,” Meriwether said. “I imagine it must have been in anguish in those last moments, to the degree it felt anything at all.”
Balfour’s chewing slowed and he nodded toward the head.
“Then why’s it smiling?” he asked.
Whatever the historians choose to believe, I know that the age that has begun to take the name of Industrial Revolution was born that night. Or if not born, at least it found its wings. In the automobiles and flying machines, the factory and the forge, Mechanism has returned to the world as slave instead of master. Rather than spreading desert, the fields and farms of England are producing more than ever before. And likewise on the continent. Rather than end the reign of humanity, machines are raising us beyond our dreams.
And still, I am haunted in these, my failing days, by the dread Emperor’s smile. I imagined when I was young that it must have lain inert within its tomb all the lost thousands of years until Lord Abington’s ill-fated enthusiasm revivified it. And yet what if I am wrong? What dark, deep, subtle fancies might such a mind create in so very long a time?
In dreams, I hear again the chatter of the machine gun. When I wake, it is to the great columns of smoke rising from our factories. I wonder if there is not something we have overlooked.
As Recorded on Brass Cylinders: Adagio for Two Dancers
James L. Grant & Lisa Mantchev
JAMES L. GRANT is best known as the artist half of the duo that creates “Two Lumps,” a cartoon about cats. Just to prove that he can do more than doodle, his funky fiction has appeared in various magazines in the last six years, and he has sold two novels. He is currently living in Dallas, Texas, with his wife and co-creator, Mel Hynes, and working on selling his third novel. His collaborator, Lisa Mantchev, is the author of Eyes Like Stars and the forthcoming Perchance to Dream, the first two novels in the Theatre Illuminata series. She has also published numerous short stories in venues including Strange Horizons, Fantasy, Clarkesworld, and Weird Tales. She lives on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state with her husband, daughter, and hairy miscreant dogs. Of “As Recorded on Brass Cylinders,” Lisa writes that it began with a story prompt after she returned from Norwescon one year, asking readers of her journal: “Make up a story about me at the convention.” James based the opening paragraphs on a photograph of Lisa in her steampunk costume (taken at, of all things, the Weird Tales party!).
IT WAS THE kind of American city that hadn’t been around for very long, not in the manner it presented itself. The town had existed when Colorado had become an official state, true, but for hundreds of years it had been little more than a place for ruffians and ne’er-do-wells to trade furs, gold, and goods. For a very short period, Denver had thrived on great inventions. Angelus remembered the first time he’d been sent here, to speak with a brilliant man named Nikolai. The Fifth Empire had been young. Its request had offered the young madman gold, riches, power; Angelus had made the presentation in person. But the brilliant Serb had declined, and eventually the quiet generals had resorted to merely pilfering the inventor’s notebooks after his death. A dishonorable endeavor, true, but the Fifth Empire’s needs had trumped the poor judgment of Tesla.
Many years later, the Gods of Steel, Electricity, and Glass had changed the city forever; where once a mere trading town had bubbled away, the skyline now rose in towering spires of light. Asphalt covered the ground for millions of kilometers.
Fortunately, it was the kind of city that attracted those people society still considered “eccentric.” If the citizenry saw a bald man in black piloting an automobile over a century old, they would smile and wave. If that same man, whilst walking through a “mall” (such a barbaric word—the kind of monosyllabic, swallowed moan that one found befitting for this current déclassé iteration of human existence), perhaps paused and drank an entire Orange Julius in one long swallow, nobody even noticed or cared.
There were, as was the case with any society (no matter how uncultured), shining gems in their repertoire. A chilled drink with a mixture of citrus, dairy, and egg proteins whipped to a froth? Divine. It was easily digested by the metal vat of artificial zymogens in his belly and resulted in no waste material whatsoever. Affordably priced at the rough equivalent of a Florin or two in his youth. And quite delicious!
He wasn’t the kind of person who felt a pressing need to catalogue each separate individual in a room—fortunate, as the food court was enormous. He watched the crowd in batches of five, ten, or fifteen at a time, his eyes taking in postures, body language, and quickly identifying those who didn’t easily fit into a modern mall archetype.
When his gaze finally settled, it was on something red.
Not cherry or tomato, not fire engine or lipstick. This was the color of a horse-drawn carriage in Germany a hundred years before. The lacquered patina of the trim on Chinese temples when it had still been fresh. A British soldier’s uniform after it had been soaked in blood in India.
And it was the color of two stripes in her hair. Not a tone you’d naturally see on a woman’s head. The rest was burgundy, nothing terribly special in this day and age, striking but not as unique as the two streaks.
Not as unique as the peculiar corset and trousers of black denim and lace visible under the tattered excuse of a bustle skirt. Not as unique as the boots, which looked like they’d been stitched together from seven different time periods, two of which had yet to occur.
Also not as unique as her brass aviator’s goggles, the lenses smoky. Even though he couldn’t see her eyes behind them, he could tell she’d caught him staring. It was the kind of day where that could happen, blast it all, and he ducked behind an escalator as fast as possible.
Where did he go?
She’d had him in her sights, not figuratively, but literally tagged in the duplex crosshairs etched into her ocular reticle (an upgrade from the less reliable one of wire, damaged in the retreat from the Battle of Maiwand, which she still maintained—on the record and off—was the biggest bit of political skullduggery she’d ever seen).
That battle had also cost her 9 percent of the peripheral vision in her right eye—not enough to warrant a replacement but certainly enough to aggravate. She had to turn her head to scan the groups of indolent but gaily dressed young adults and wet-nurses pushing children in fabulous perambulators. On the main floor, enormous sheets of glass safeguarded sparkling storefronts. One level above, a centrally located gilt lift began its descent. Just behind a cart filled with smoked-glass spectacles was the mechanical staircase. Her eyes scanned beyond the whirring motors, rubber belting, and glass partitions to locate the one that spoke poetry with a single, sliding glance.
Ah! There he was, behind a teetering display of cheap scent and jewelry that would turn the skin green. The biorhythms were correct, despite the elevated pulse…
She swallowed.
He’d kept his human heart.
She thought of the years that had gone by, the upgrades he’d endured to become a Collector. How had he convinced Them to let something so weak and fragile as a human heart to remain at the center of his mechanical being?
Not that it mattered. The Company now required the retrieval of his brass memory cylinders. She licked her lips, and wondered.
Wondered if he’d recognize her.
Wondered if he was going to come along quietly or if she’d have to “persuade” him.
One thing was for certain: if he ran, and forced her to chase him in these cursed boots, he’d pay for it thrice over.
Of course, this would be the one time he’d forgotten to wind Doctor Gillen-heimer’s Royal Clockwork Mesmerizer, Mark IV. Of course. The damnable contraption had lain in his pocket for decades, a lump made to protect him from her kind should he ever need it, and had he ever set foot outside his flat without making sure the little brass key in its back was wound a full ten clicks? Not once, no, but that morning he’d somehow glossed over it
. It was one of those kinds of days, indeed.
Running was out of the question. Any woman of her breed who wore such boots could doubtless sprint like a gazelle in them if necessary. Or, more to the point, a cheetah. A very angry cheetah in a corset.
He could attempt to wind the damned thing, but its noise would likely draw her attention even faster. Bloody useless. Doctor Gillenheimer’s benefactors had poured finances into his research, paid bills that would bankrupt a sultan, in order for this little blob to exist, and it was as pointless in his hand as an Orange Julius would have been.
No, wait. He could have drunk the Orange Julius.
Not long now. Nothing to be done for it. Had he sweat glands, he’d have doubtless mopped his brow. A quick check showed everything was in order. Dress slacks, turtleneck, tuxedo jacket, leather loafers, all the color of a brand-new piano. Not a speck of dirt or lint, nor a hair out of place.
A quick decision was made. He put on Smile #45 (Greeting from a Strange Window Washer in August, 1956, in Perth at 7:16 a.m.), ducked out from behind the escalator, and thrust his hand forward in greeting.
Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded Page 37