Keeping Cadence

by Piper J. Drake

  Finally, they ran out of buildings.

  "Down." She stood on the very edge, pointing at the rungs of a fire escape.

  No need to ask her if she'd follow or how. He only hurried, eager to get himself out of harm's way so that she'd take cover as well.

  He made it most of the way down and looked up. There'd been a break in the gunshots. Perhaps they'd had to reload. Cadence still perched on the edge of a nearby church steeple, far above any of the other buildings. She'd extended her glider wings and raised her arms out from her sides.

  He'd never seen anything so graceful as the way she arched backward and fell head first toward the alley below.

  A shot rang out.

  A wing tore away from the tiny pack at her back. She twisted in the air, tucked her legs and extended them again. She'd land on her feet.

  Too far.

  The drop had to be more than five or six stories. She landed on the cobblestones, feet first and rolled away most of the momentum. Or at least he thought she did. The horrible crunch of metal against stone told him it was much worse.

  He set his feet on the outside of the ladder and loosened his grip the way he'd done as a child. Zipping down the rest of the fire escape, he slowed himself with a desperate tightening of his grip and came to a jarring halt.

  "Cadence," he whispered her name.

  She lay on the cobblestones and struggled to push herself up with her arms. When he rushed to her side, she turned her face to him, mouth twisted in a grimace of pain.

  "Run, Jonathan. Get back to the ship."

  He pressed his lips together and scooped her up into his arms.

  "I'm too heavy to carry all the way." She gasped in pain as he shifted her in his grip.

  He winced. Didn't want to cause her any more pain than he had to. "You're not."

  The growl that rose from her throat sounded at least half angry, which was better than tortured. He spared only a few glances at her mangled legs as he began to walk. He reached the end of the street and turned at her direction.

  "We'll never get away from them at this rate. They're only a few streets over." She looked around them. "There, that doorway."

  He stepped into the archway and stood as she gave the heavy door a knock with a cryptic rhythm. An eye-slit opened and beady eyes glared out.

  "Safe passage."

  He wondered why Cadence didn't brandish her pistol, held firmly in her hand. But the door opened. He rushed in, careful not to bump her on the door frame, and found himself in a courtyard.

  "Hsst. Quickly." An old, haggard woman gestured to them.

  They hurried across an inner courtyard to another door. The woman waved them through without following and bolted the door behind them. It was a tiny private alleyway that let them out in a small stable.

  "Go right down this street and then turn left. Three doors down." Her directions were delivered in a breathless whisper.

  Jonathan's arms ached. He wouldn't admit it to her, but she was heavier than he’d expected. Even during their lovemaking, he hadn't noticed how much heavier she was than she should be. The damaged pack on her back housing her glider wings didn't explain the weight.

  "You can't go on much longer." Cadence leaned her head close, her forehead touching the side of his face. Her skin was cold, clammy.

  She was going into shock.

  The door was nondescript. Jonathan's engineering eyes caught sight of the complex lock, and the tiny viewing device hidden up in a crevice of the archway. When he knocked, the door opened immediately.

  "Hurry. Put her over there."

  The wizened old man gestured to a broad wooden table, hastily cleared, from the looks of the random items strewn on the floor around it. A cloth and some towels had been tossed over the surface.

  Jonathan eased Cadence down on the table. His heart tightened as little noises escaped her. She was far too good at hiding pain so any noise she made involuntarily had to be a sign of intense agony. Her legs…

  "Now. What do you have to say to me?"

  Jonathan rounded on the old man, ready to shout, maybe strike him. But Cadence's voice stopped him.

  "Hello, Papa."

  Chapter 7

  The old man's glower lightened and the deep furrows in his brow relaxed somewhat. He pushed his thick, wire-rimmed spectacles farther up the bridge of his nose and made his way to her side.

  "What have you done, child?"

  Cadence's whole frame relaxed as her father placed a hand on her shoulder. "Sorry, Papa. I got cocky and didn't dodge fast enough. Flew too high, fell too far."

  "I can see that." Her father laid a hand over her eyes. "Quiet now. Papa will fix things."

  When the man lifted his hand, her eyes were closed and didn't open again.

  Jonathan's heart stopped.

  After another moment of study, Cadence's father looked up at Jonathan. "You. You're still here?"

  "Jonathan, sir. Jonathan Archer. And I'm not leaving her." The truth of it resonated deep in his bones. She'd come to mean that much in so little time. He'd left the rest of his life behind him but her…no, he wouldn't leave her. He'd only just found her.

  The man grunted. "Have you a strong stomach?"

  Jonathan resisted the impulse to gulp. "Yes, sir. I do."

  The man waved toward a shadowed hallway. "Go through there to the kitchen. Start water boiling and bring me a damp, clean towel."

  Jonathan hurried to do as instructed. When he returned, Cadence's head was pillowed by dry towels and her legs were more stretched out on the table. Her eyes remained closed even as he approached but the shallow rise and fall of her chest reassured him she was still living. Her father was studying the jagged edge of bone protruding from her leg and the mess of clockwork hanging from her boot.

  "Ah, good. Clean up her face with that cloth. Gentle, hear?"

  Jonathan complied, and watched as her father bent to work. Gnarled hands with thick knuckles began to pick at her leg. The man's hands shook slightly, not from nerves but from age, as far as Jonathan could tell. Jonathan had seen a broken bone set once before and it would take more strength than her father appeared to have.

  "If you please sir, I can be of more help."

  "You keep her as comfortable as you can," the man growled. "This takes more than any would-be doctor."

  "I'm not a doctor."

  "And you can't go fetch one, not if my daughter was with you and the two of you came in this state."

  Well, at least the man had no illusions as to his daughter's line of work.

  Her father began setting the clockworks to rights, avoiding the broken bone for the moment. Her bleeding had slowed to a bare trickle, but still…

  Realization washed through Jonathan. "I'm a clankerton, sir. I truly can be of help."

  Sharp, dark eyes turned up to him, the man pierced him with a gaze he couldn't escape. "A clankerton, you say? And who are you to call yourself a clankerton?"

  "I…" Not much time, Cadence was losing too much blood. "I'm an engineer and an inventor, sir. I've known many clankertons and learned much from them."

  Another precious moment dragged by.

  "Fine then. Come around to this side." The old man reached to a side table and thrust a monocle into Jonathan's hand. The piece had multiple lenses attached to it. "Work with me and we'll see how good you are."

  It was a familiar tool and Jonathan slipped it into place. He'd had one similar in his belongings, left behind when this adventure began. He only hoped he wouldn't lose anything else.

  Cadence lay unconscious on the table, her beautiful hair trailing over the side. Jonathan brushed a lock from her forehead and then hurried to help her father save her life.

  "The broken bones, sewing up muscles and flesh, that's fairly straightforward." Cadence's father might have been talking to him or to himself, hard for Jonathan to tell. "It's the biometrics and clockworks. We won't be able to save her legs again without them. Hold pressure here."

  Jonathan did as
told.

  "Geoffrey's the name. Most call me Geoff. Now keep the pressure there and hold this steady while I reattach the sensor to her femoral artery."

  "Geoff…"

  "What?"

  "Nothing, I…was trying it." Not really, but Jonathan had lost what he'd been about to say.

  "Don't wear it out, boy, or you can go back to calling me sir."

  "Yes, sir, I mean, no, Geoff." Jonathan snapped his mouth shut.

  Her father might have smiled, just a bit. And yet his hands never wavered as they flew across Cadence's legs, restoring the major mechanics around her upper thighs.

  "Her boots can't be removed," Geoffrey muttered. "They regulate everything. Without them, her legs can't respond to impulses from her brain at all. The signals shoot down her spine and simply never make it to her lower extremities. We must restore those connections before we can address the biologic issues."

  Jonathan couldn't help but look at the broken mess of her legs. And yet, he had to marvel at Geoffrey's skill as the man separated tiny broken units containing exposed wires and bits of clockwork from her flesh and replaced those too damaged to repair quickly. All of it was done impossibly fast, with such efficiency. The design of it all, incredible to incorporate it seamlessly with a living being.

  Cadence.

  "'Tisn't much different from a pure machine, boy. Only have to keep the clockworks sealed so as not to taint the circulatory system. Otherwise, it'd be toxic to her or her body might reject." Geoffrey peered through his own monocle, reaching up to click first one lens then another into place as he worked on tinier and tinier mechanics.

  "These clockworks are smaller than most pocket watches." Jonathan held another unit in place as Geoffrey made his repairs and reestablished the connection to Cadence's arteries and tendons.

  "Well, and they'd have to be. Otherwise, the units would be too unwieldy and big. My girl isn't big."

  I'm too heavy.

  Cadence's voice came back to him. It explained why she weighed more than a normal girl her size. And, Jonathan realized, she'd been self-conscious of her clockworks, not about her weight.

  "Here, I'll hold pressure. You do this one."

  Jonathan jumped to do as he was told. Once completed, Geoffrey grunted and had him do another. By the third, each of them began working on the mechanics of a separate leg. Jonathan copying what Geoffrey completed and working to move just as quickly.

  Geoffrey finally straightened and flicked back all of his lenses. "Good. Now we've got the biometrics back in place, I've set them to hold the blood flow. We've got to hurry and set the rest of her legs to rights before the tissue dies."

  Jonathan sprang to execute every barked order. After what seemed too long, Cadence lay on bloodied sheets, her legs set and stitched up, once again encased in beautiful boots.

  "When she wakes, she'll be weak. That'll make her persnickety." Geoffrey cleaned his hands of blood with one of the few clean towels left. "She's not to stand on those legs for another two weeks. No fighting for at least six weeks. The boots'll give her support to walk before the bones knit but they can't keep her from breaking them again if she gets into a fight. Every night, you'll have to open the boots up the way I showed you to expose her flesh to clean air. Otherwise, it won't heal proper. Understood?"

  Jonathan nodded, holding Cadence's hand in his own and rubbing his thumb over her soft skin.

  "You still see her as a person? My girl?"

  Jonathan almost snapped an angry response, but he was caught by her father's dark glare. "She's a wonderful person."

  "She's part machine."

  "She's courageous and loyal, warm and caring." Jonathan wouldn't be shaken. He'd seen every part of her now, literally knew what made her tick. "She saved my life."

  "She's saved many."

  "As a bodyguard and weapons chief, yes. But…" Jonathan struggled to find words to explain to her father the result of the last twenty-four hours spent in her company. "Before meeting her, I had no direction. All I wanted to do was get to the Exposition Universelle."

  "That's a destination, not a direction in life." A strange note colored Geoffrey's tone. "She agreed to see you safely there?"

  Jonathan nodded. "But then there's meeting her, and the ship! That ship could use so many modifications. Before last night, it'd only been about getting to the exposition and demonstrating my inventions, gaining acknowledgment of my skill."

  Now he'd found a project he wanted to work on and a woman he didn't want to let go.

  Geoffrey stared at him for a long time. Finally, the old man nodded. "I'll send a messenger boy to her captain. I imagine Captain Sharp will be here sooner than we'd like. We'll get some soup into you so you have something to leak out in case she decides to shoot you full of holes."

  Chapter 8

  "I'm telling you, if it weren't so obvious that man saved your arse, I'd have shot him."

  Cadence eyed her captain as she paced in the limited space of Cadence's cabin.

  "Sorry, Cap'n."

  Captain Sharp waved away the apology. "You kept those idjits off us long enough to complete the mission. We've got a sweet load of cargo and all the bits your boy needs to build his contraption for this Exposition Universelle. Plus, he's got all sorts of ideas to improve the ship's steam engine and armament. Enough work to pay his way to and from Paris a few times over."

  "I'm glad you didn't shoot him, then, Cap'n." Where was he?

  "We didn't catch Dodgson but it's a small world. We'll take what's owed to us out of his hide soon enough." Her captain never forgot a slight and trying to kill her or her crew ranked up there in terms of personal insults. "The only real issue is that you're laid up for weeks, from what your boy tells me."

  Aye, and Papa had told her the same and then some.

  You be more careful out there. And don't tell that young clankerton, but it saves me no small bit of worry to know there's someone else out there who has the skill to get you back on your feet.

  Warmth spread through Cadence's chest with the memory. Papa wasn't the demonstrative kind, but he loved her. Every tiny component in her boots was proof of that.

  "I suppose we'll sail slow and be sure we don't have idjits on our tail, in any case. Damn, but after this mess with Paris, I'm going to have to take that boy on as crew, aren't I?"

  "Cap'n?"

  Captain Sharp came to a stop by the foot of the bunk and tapped her boot in a staccato beat on the floor. "We've got to make sure there's somebody onboard who knows how to fix you, after all. I need my Weapon's Officer in top shape at all times." The lines over her captain's brow cleared and her mouth softened. "Besides, he makes you smile. We'll keep him around if he wants to stay. But the two of you will have separate bunks regardless of where you actually sleep. We've got no cabins big enough for two."

  Cadence swallowed past the emotion welling up. "Aye, Cap'n."

  "Enough. Rest. That's an order."

  Her captain stomped out the door.

  * * *

  "Cadence?" A blond head poked into the room.

  "Come in, Jonathan."

  "How are you feeling? Any pain?"

  "No, Papa turned off the pain receptors to my legs." She fussed with the blanket on her lap. Her captain had given her blessing, but she really didn't know what Jonathan actually wanted.

  "Ah, I'm supposed to turn those back on tomorrow." Jonathan perched on the very edge of the bunk, turning an envelope over and over in his hands.

  Didn't he want to be near her? Maybe not now that he knew she was part clockwork.

  "Ah."

  Awkward. The silence grew heavier.

  Jonathan chuckled, a nervous sound. "He said if I didn't turn them on, at least to half, you'd be up and moving way earlier than you should. He even recommended I turn the pain receptors to higher than normal sensitivity to try to keep you in bed somewhere close to as long as you’re supposed to rest." He looked at her then, finally. "You have a very high pain tolerance, from what I c
an tell."

  She tipped her head in a noncommittal nod.

  "Are you going to be a difficult patient, Cadence?"

  Couldn't look at him, couldn't bring herself to ask if he'd be staying. But she wanted to know! "I'll try not to be."

  "I…have a difficult question to ask you."

  Her breath froze in her chest.

  Silence stretched for too long and finally she had to look at him. His attention was fixed on the letter in his hands. "Your father wrote down very specific instructions I'm to follow to help you recover."

  "You don't have to."

  "I want to." Jonathan lifted his head. "Don't you think I do?"

  "I don't know." She gave him neutral honesty, didn't dare let the hope into her voice.

  "I want to take care of you." He paused, ran a hand through his short hair. "Truth be told, I want to stay with you for as long as you'll have me. I just, don't know if your captain will let me stay."

  Thankfully, that part wouldn't be a problem. Relief flooded through her. "I want you to stay."

  He smiled then, maybe tentative but still warm. An intimate smile, just for her. "Then I will."

  "Papa trusted you with instructions for my boots?" She cringed. It was the closest she could come to asking Jonathan what he thought of her.

  Jonathan blinked and color flooded his face. "He gave me schematics for your entire design. Said I ought to study them in case something else comes up while we're away from New London. They're a very personal part of you, Cadence; I won't learn them unless you give me your permission too."

  She didn't know what to say.

  He went on, words tumbling over one another in a nervous stream. "His designs are brilliant, really. Genius. I'm fascinated. And Cadence, I don't know how he had one, but he included an invitation to exhibit at the Exposition Universelle. How did he have an invitation? They're rarer than gold. I'd planned to go and try to find a way in when we got there or maybe set up a tent on the outskirts of the grounds. Lots of exhibitors do that, I'm told. But now…how did he have an invitation?"