Hearts of Smoke and Steam

by Andrew P. Mayer

  “What for?”

  “So Jenny can come for that cup of tea.”

  “Feh,” she said, managing to make her fake spitting motion in the cramped confines of the stairwell before continuing to tromp downstairs.

  “I'm invited to a junkyard? How lovely.” Jenny stopped and turned up to look at her. “And the Society of Steam? What was that all about?”

  “Nothing,” Sarah said, and then smiled a little bit. “I just didn't want Lord Eschaton to think that he was facing one little girl.” She grabbed Jenny's hands. “I am in terrible trouble, Jenny—the kind of trouble that my father usually gets into—and if I'm going to get out of it, I need all the help I can get.”

  “Your father can…”

  “No. He can't. Not yet, Jenny. There's something wrong with the Paragons and I don't think he wants to believe it. I need proof. Once I have it, I can go to him.”

  Sarah shook her friend's wrists and looked her directly in the eye. “And I need you to keep all this a secret…for now. Can you do that for me?”

  Jenny sat silently for a minute, and then looked away. “For a short while…maybe. But you need to be careful. What happened to your mother—I don't want that to happen to you.”

  “It won't, I promise.”

  Jenny shook her head. “Don't make promises you can't keep, Sarah Stanton, and don't be a fool.” She paused for a moment, and Jenny could see tears starting to form in her eyes. “And I'm coming to your junkyard, if only to see what kind of place that little hellion lives in.”

  Sarah could only imagine how Jenny would react to the jumble she would find in the Armando household. “I don't think you'll be disappointed.”

  “If you would just tell us your secrets, we can fly together.” Nathaniel ran his hand along the shining wing, and then gave the metal a soft tap with his index finger. The metal rang out in response.

  Hughes frowned at him. “Talking to it won't help. Hitting it, either…”

  “But we're getting close, aren't we?” he replied with a grin. “I can feel it.”

  “We'll see,” the man replied, and bent back over the machine.

  The two of them had spent a good deal of time together over the last few weeks. Hughes was an unlikely partner, but together they had begun to unravel the secrets of Darby's technology and restore the new Turbine costume to working order.

  The suit had been broken during the battle at the Darby mansion months ago, and had remained that way since that day. Although his previous costume was still fully functional, Nathaniel had known from the moment he had first put it on that this model was clearly superior to the older one. He had felt the power it contained and despaired that he would never get it back.

  So far, getting the suit into the air had proved to be a failed endeavor, although the work to make it function had born some fruit. Darby had forced Nathaniel to gain a passable understanding of the principles behind the outfit before he had let him fly it, but the new suit had proved far trickier to decipher than the old one. A number of elements simply seemed to defy explanation as to their working, while at the same time being obviously integral to making it function.

  Having reached a dead end on his own, he had asked William Hughes to help him—the man was becoming a proficient student of Darby's designs, and he was surprisingly skillful at charting out the old man's intentions. He had restored a few broken machines to full function since the fire, and Nathaniel was grudgingly glad for Hughes's assistance, and that was something he would not have been able to say about the man only a few months ago.

  There were other positive changes since Hughes had lost the ability to fight as the Iron-Clad in the fire; a great deal of his overt anger seemed to have vanished, although off-handed condemnations of everyone and everything seemed to spill out of his mouth at regular intervals, with a large number of them reserved for posthumous scorn for Sir Dennis Darby.

  Nathaniel had spent the better part of the morning trying to ignore Hughes's particularly scathing statements about the departed Sir Dennis's “needless complexity” as they tried to uncover exactly what a series of damaged feed tubes were supposed to be feeding.

  Nathaniel peered over Hughes's shoulder, checking what he was up to. “I think that's right.” All they needed was a single clue from beyond the grave to bring this jumble of mysterious tubes and wires into focus. But the dead tended to stay quiet, especially when they were being continually cursed.

  Hughes connected that last wire and leaned back slightly into his harness. The frame reacted by standing up slightly, forcing Nathaniel to move out of the way. The frame itself was an incredible piece of engineering. “I think we're almost ready to give it a try.”

  “I think that we need to think about it again. The consequences if we get it wrong…”

  Hughes sneered. “I thought I was the scared old man here.”

  Nathaniel opened his mouth to remind Hughes that he had already managed to destroy one suit, when he was interrupted by a knock at the door. “Begging your pardon, gentlemen.”

  The massive purple-and-gray frame of King Jupiter filled the doorway. Nathaniel waved him in. “Welcome!” He felt relieved at the thought of having someone else to talk with.

  “Ah, the broken flying suit…” Jupiter's presence filled the room beyond his size, making the granite vault feel cramped. There was something awe-inspiring about the man, but at the same time Nathaniel still felt uneasy around him.

  Over the last few weeks, the Paragons had done little besides a bit of sparring, and his knowledge about this mysterious gray stranger was still as scarce as it had been the day that he had first appeared before them in the courtyard. In some ways, King Jupiter was more of an enigma now than he had been on that first day. “How goes the work?” he said, peering down at the suit.

  Nathaniel shook his head. “Slowly.” He pointed into the device. “We're still puzzling out where these feed tubes are supposed to go.”

  “The boy doesn't really trust me,” Hughes mumbled.

  Jupiter stepped farther into the room and shook his head. “Nor should he. That line you have connected to the main feed is clearly designed to vent excess benzene into the exhaust.”

  Both Nathaniel and William nodded simultaneously as they plotted out what that would mean if it were true, but it was Nathaniel who spoke first, “Of course!” No matter how obscure Darby's designs might appear at first glance, once you understood the intentions behind them, their brilliance and simplicity would shine through. “You are a genius, sir!” He certainly hoped the same thing would turn out to be true about King Jupiter.

  The gray-skinned man nodded thoughtfully. “Understanding isn't genius, I'm afraid. It's only the foundation of invention.”

  Hughes grunted. “I suppose you're right. Was there another reason you came barging in?”

  Something dark swept across Jupiter's expression like a cloud, then dissipated like a wisp of dark smoke, “Yes, Mr. Hughes—as a matter a fact, I was going to ask you for some help with a project of my own. I'm still trying to solve that problem in the basement…”

  Nathaniel tried to hide his enthusiasm for ridding himself of the other man. “I think I can take it from here, Mr. Hughes,” Nathaniel told him, still too eager in spite of himself. “I'll hook up the benzene line and we'll run a flight test first thing tomorrow morning!”

  Hughes grunted again and slid down into his harness before rolling away from the table. “Let's walk before we can fly.”

  It was impossible for Nathaniel to know whether he had offended the man, even when he didn't intend to.

  “Thank you,” Jupiter said as he followed Hughes out the door.

  As Nathaniel watched the two men wander off, he realized that he had completely forgotten to inquire as to the nature of Jupiter's project. The man was already a powerhouse without any mechanical devices. “What could he possibly have in mind?” he whispered to the air. He was sure that he would find out soon enough.

  The next hour passed
in what seemed like an instant, weeks of frustration vanishing as piece after piece seemed to simply fall into place. Nathaniel was confident that this was the correct configuration, and there was no way that he would have the patience to wait until tomorrow to test it out.

  He dropped the hatch onto the back of the wing, and was preparing to load it onto a trolley when the building began to violently shake, sending the final screw tumbling from his fingers to the floor, where it vanished into the gloom.

  As the vibrations increased, objects began to topple from the shelves, and Nathaniel caught one of the suit's pneumatic cuffs before it could hop off the table and crash onto the floor.

  Having secured the wing, Nathaniel grabbed the edge of the table and waited, but if anything the tremors only grew stronger, and more objects clattered and crashed as they leapt from the shelves.

  Nathaniel stared down at his suit. It was completely untested and probably still broken, but if this attack represented genuine danger, then he wanted to meet it head on as Turbine, and not run as Nathaniel Winthorp.

  He supposed it was possible that he could wear his old, more reliable outfit. But that suit was in Hughes's office, and that was on the other side of the courtyard. There was no guarantee he could even reach it without confronting the cause of the disturbance.

  Besides, he knew the first rule during any kind of danger to the Hall was to move to the outside of the building as quickly as possible and find the others. Nathaniel was, he had to admit to himself, less clear on the specifics of the rules that followed after that one, but he was fairly sure that there was nothing in them that specifically stopped a man from pulling out his flask and taking a long pull of whisky while he decided what to do next.

  By the time he had satisfied his thirst, the shaking had begun to subside, and Nathaniel, fortified by liquor, decided to take the opportunity to pull on his costume. The coveralls and harness for the new suit lay on an overstuffed chair in the corner. They had managed to provide a soft landing for a few of the books that had fallen from the shelves.

  Quickly clearing away the wayward volumes, he began to unbutton his pants and shirt.

  Fairly confident that no one was around to hear, he began to hum his theme song to himself. Nathaniel was no musician, and he was sure that if anyone actually heard the anthem, they would have considered it a sadly bowdlerized version of a popular drinking song, which it essentially was. But it always put him in a heroic mood when he sang it.

  No one flies higher!

  He's filled with desire, to save all the ladies, who will then maybe, give him a kiss, and stoke up his fire…

  Turbine! Turbine!

  The method of attaching the new harness was unfamiliar, and his singing and humming went quickly silent as he clumsily worked the hooks and straps into place.

  By the time he was ready to hoist the wings up into the harness, the rumbling had started again. Even with the distraction, the wings slid easily into place, locking into a set of rails that had been well stitched onto the back of the suit.

  Despite the streamlined procedure, it had still taken longer than expected, and Nathaniel made a little prayer that the others wouldn't be waiting for him to arrive. Even more importantly, he didn't want anyone to get hurt looking for him.

  He tugged hard on a pair of small handles attached to silk-wrapped wires, and the wing split in half and folded up. Pulling the cords downward moved the wings back into a more compact position. In some ways, the ease of storing the apparatus on his back was the greatest innovation.

  The old wings had been fixed in place and were always incredibly unwieldy while he was on the ground. Better still, with the wings folded back, Nathaniel could run through doorways without having to scuttle sideways like a crab.

  Slipping the flight helmet onto a hook in his belt, he moved through the hallways at a quick trot, his rapid pace reaffirming that his decision to wear the new suit was a good one.

  He had just reached the entrance hall when he heard the screaming. At first he was unsure if the sounds were human, but when they started for a second time, there was no doubt that the sounds were coming from a living throat.

  For a moment, he was tempted to turn around and find the origins of the anguished yelps. After all, as a hero he was duty bound to protect people in danger, especially if they were his fellow heroes.

  “When the Hall is in danger, first move outside the building,” he reminded himself, the strict words mimicking just how angry his step-father would be if he discovered that Nathaniel had ignored the rules. Besides, his wings were mostly useless indoors. Once he was outside, he could take to the air and quickly uncover the source of the attack.

  His mind made up, he continued across the foyer toward the main door. There was an earthy smell in the air, and dust and colored chunks of plaster littered the floor. Nathaniel looked up to see that large sections of the fresco had fallen away, leaving jagged holes in the mural above his head. He noted with no small irony that it was the image of Darby that seemed to have suffered the most damage.

  He felt a slight twinge of guilt as he wondered if perhaps they would finally put his own visage up there when they repaired the damage. He would make a fine Apollo…

  Reaching the exit, he gave the massive brass doors a solid tug. The metal slab moved an inch, and then made a terrible rasping sound as the corner scraped against the lintel and stuck, letting in only a thin streak of light and stream of cool air from the outside. Nathaniel pulled again, putting more effort into it, but the door wouldn't budge.

  Thinking that he might be able to do better with a second attempt, he tried to shove the door closed again, but now it seemed just as unwilling to shut as it was to open.

  Nathaniel absentmindedly pulled the flask out of the pouch in his pocket and unscrewed the cap as he pondered his next action. The warmth of the whisky spreading out through his system dulled the panic just a little bit.

  Sarah would probably also say that it was dulling his senses, but considering how quickly he could find himself on edge since he had been impaled on the bridge, perhaps a little dullness might be best for everyone concerned.

  And then an idea popped into his head. He pressed the palm of his right hand flat against the door, and reached the fingers of his left down until he felt them touch one of the dials on his belt.

  Nathaniel grasped it between his fingers, and then paused for a moment, squeezing the dial instead of turning it.

  While he had a much better idea of how the system worked than he had previously, there was no guarantee that King Jupiter was actually right about the benzene tube. His first attempt to use the suit might bathe him in a toxic cloud of vaporized acid. “Life grants no opportunities for the meek,” he said to himself, and twisted the knob. The turbine on his right side roared to life. He could feel it pressing his hand against the door, blasting his face with a stream of warm air and steam.

  He turned it up further. He could feel a dangerous strain in his bones, but after a moment the door scraped loose and slammed shut.

  Nathaniel let out a satisfied grunt, and then the building began to shake again. It was deeper and more violent than before, and his fingers slipped free from the control knob on his belt as he tried to maintain his balance.

  From above him, loud enough to be heard clearly over the thunderous rumbling and the roaring of his own turbine, came the unmistakable throaty scrape of stone shifting against stone.

  He looked up and saw the lintel shift and crack. Nathaniel tried to jump backwards as the massive piece of stone slipped down, but the turbine on his wrist was holding his hand firmly in place against the metal door, as if it had been glued there.

  The edge of the door crumpled as the massive chunk of rock bit into it. The metal shook under his hand.

  The jolt seemed to free a memory in his brain, and Nathaniel remembered that the previous suit had a hidden kill switch. He pressed his left hand into a fist, and the device instantly shut off.

  Nathaniel
stumbled backwards, only barely managing to stay upright as he teetered down the broad step that led from the doorway to the main floor.

  As he began to recover his bearings, another jolt ripped through the ground. It felt as if someone had managed to lift up the entire Hall and drop it again. Feeling his legs being thrown out from under him, Nathaniel pointed his right hand downwards and unclenched his left.

  The turbine reactivated as quickly as it had stopped, and the force of the jet on his wrist halted his fall as effectively as if he'd found an invisible wall to prop himself up against.

  After a moment, the shaking once again started to subside, and he reached for the controls at his belt, quickly managing to find the control knob.

  He puffed out his cheeks and blew out a long breath to let some of his nervousness pass.

  He felt more pleased with himself, in spite of the fact that there was clearly something terrible going on. Not only had the new suit worked, but he'd actually used it in a clever way.

  After waiting a moment to make sure the ground wasn't going to start shaking again, Nathaniel took a few steps forward and pounded the brass door with his fist—it responded with a muted thud. Finding that unacceptable, he tugged on the handle with all his strength, but the metal had been wedged into the stone so tightly it might as well have become a part of the wall.

  The main entrance was gone, and his only choice was to head back into the building and see if he could find another way out.

  As he turned and began walking across the plaster-covered floor, Nathaniel saw the flash of a white-clad figure as it scampered past the doorway that led out from the foyer. He was clearly headed into the main part of the building.

  Nathaniel was about to demand that the person stop when he realized that the figure was a familiar one. “It can't be…” he told himself, but how could it be anyone else?

  Reaching the doorway, he turned and cautiously peered down the hallway to his left. Some of the gaslights had been damaged during the shaking and were burning dangerously high, while others had been shut off—either by design, or from broken pipes behind the walls. Nathaniel had no desire to be burned to death, but he wanted to follow the fleeing figure, and there was enough light that he could see the back his quarry's head as he headed down the corridor. It only took a single good look for his suspicions to be confirmed; what he had seen before was not a hallucination: the White Knight was in the Hall, and he was clearly up to no good.