Power Under Pressure (The Society of Steam)

by Andrew P. Mayer

  For a moment Jack was hopeful he might have genuinely hurt the boy. He had thrown his knives with all the deadly accuracy he could muster, and they had struck Nathaniel along his entire left side: three of them piercing his arm, one in his shoulder, and one in his head. But Jack’s moment of triumph was short-lived when he saw their minimal effect. The blades had managed to pierce the transparent man’s skin, but only barely. Around each of them was a small spider web of cracks, as if his body had been made from pure glass.

  Nathaniel plucked them out of his skin one by one and threw them to the floor. “Who are you?” Nathaniel asked. The high-pitched terror in his voice had disappeared completely now, and Jack felt a cold chill go up his spine as he realized the question was being directed at him.

  “My name is Jack Knife.”

  “And you’re one of the Children?”

  Jack only nodded in response. There was no point in hiding it.

  “I’d run if I were you,” Nathaniel said coolly, “because once I’ve finished burning out Eschaton’s brains I’m going to kill you next.” The silver, although not as bright as it had been, was still moving underneath his skin, swirling around the cracks in the boy’s flesh and repairing the small amount of damage that Jack had managed to do.

  Jack had been threatened before, and was tempted to stand his ground. But he had never been bullied by a monster like this.

  If he had felt any unease about the world that Eschaton wanted to create before, he was even more terrified by it now. He couldn’t fight the transparent man, but he knew someone who could at least slow him down. “Shell!” Jack shouted, “Stop him!”

  Jack hadn’t actually seen the broken creature since the events had begun on the stage, but he prayed that the abomination was somewhere nearby.

  Just as Jack began to wonder if the creature would obey his orders even if he could hear him, the broken man-machine trundled forward, its twisted metal hands balled into fists, the wheels underneath it wobbling furiously.

  Nathaniel seemed unimpressed. “You’re a pathet—” but whatever insult the boy had in mind for the Shell was wiped away as a metal-covered fist cracked hard against his jaw. The impact of it was powerful enough to shatter the side of his head, the splintering spider webs spreading upward through his translucent flesh and into his eyes.

  The attack dazed Nathaniel, and while he reeled the machine took the opportunity to strike again, this time coming up from underneath his jaw. The second blow was hard enough that this time some of the shattered flesh actually fell away.

  Transparent or not, somewhere inside that head was a brain. If they could shatter it, he doubted even the boy’s silver blood would be able to repair him.

  Jack reached into his jacket to pull out another handful of knives, and as his eyes narrowed to take aim, he felt a hand grip his arm. “Anubis,” he said, without looking up. “Haven’t you already caused me enough regret today?”

  “Eschaton needs to die,” he growled. “I think you know that.”

  The jackal clearly thought that Jack had some hidden good inside him—something worth saving. He knew better, so why was he helping Anubis? What was in it for him? This altruism was dangerous nonsense for both of them. “He’s the man I work for.”

  Jack twisted out of Anubis’s grip and swept out his arm. He could feel the blade grazing the jackal’s skin, although he was unsure if he’d managed to cut more than leather.

  He should have pushed harder, but it was obvious that despite his brain knowing better he still didn’t have it in his heart to kill the man.

  Anubis’s punch connected hard, followed quickly by a second blow. Before there could be a third, Jack spun around and threw out his elbow, catching his opponent on the jaw, although not with the solidity he would have preferred. Finishing his turn, he hit Anubis again, sending him crashing into the pews. He almost felt bad as the jackal lost his balance and sank to the floor.

  Jack considered running, and then turned to see the unconscious form of Eschaton. He frowned as he stepped forward: self-sacrifice wasn’t his style, but it seemed that his newly formed conscience was keeping hard at work trying to get him killed.

  Jack put his hands on the gray man’s shoulders and looked up. The Shell had his hands wrapped tightly around Nathaniel’s neck, choking the life out of him.

  Or attempting to. The boy made a fighting move Jack had never seen before, slipping his arms inside of the Shell’s and pushing outwards. Having freed himself from the machine’s deadly grasp, Nathaniel followed the graceful movement with a desperate one, shoving the metal man away from him with both hands.

  They stumbled in opposite directions—the mechanical man teetering backwards on his wheels until he banged against the first row of pews where Murphy was already managing to regain some semblance of consciousness.

  Nathaniel fell hard against the remains of the glass and metal cage. Most of the smoke it contained had already floated up toward the ceiling or had been burned away, but enough remained to allow for a steady stream of the black gas to trickle out and onto the floor.

  It quickly flowed around both the transparent boy and the metal man, and where it touched Nathaniel’s skin it caused it to turn back to the alabaster color it had been when Jack had seen him in the park.

  Jack yelled at Murphy. “Get over here and help me, you pathetic potato eater.”

  The Irishman stumbled toward him, still a little bit groggy from the last attack, but not too much the worse for wear. “What’s going on?”

  “Eschaton’s purified pet was about to burn us all to death.”

  Murphy looked down at the unconscious figure of the gray man. Jack could practically see the calculations going on inside the Bomb Lance’s head. They were undoubtedly the same ones running through his: live or die, save their leader or run.

  They were both men of expediency, but Jack once again found his conscience winning out. “We need to do this, Murphy. Now grab on, and let’s get him out of here.”

  Eschaton’s flesh was even more rock-like than Jack remembered, and he seemed as heavy as a boulder, as well. Even with both men tugging as hard as they could, he seemed to barely budge.

  For a moment Jack considered trying to drag Eschaton through the back door and out into the courtyard.

  It was certainly closer, although there was no way to know if there was any safety to be had out there. He knew le Voyageur had taken over the space to build one of Eschaton’s other experiments, but he had no idea if he’d be working there now.

  Worse still, Nathaniel and the Shell were in their way, and it was getting hotter by the second. He looked up to see that the boy had risen up, and now had the metal monster’s head between his hands. With no one to save it, the Shell was letting out a pathetic noise that landed somewhere between a whine and a scream.

  Jack tugged at Eschaton’s frame with renewed urgency. They’d have to get him up the ramp and out the door. “Pull, damn you,” he yelled at Murphy.

  The Irishman sneered and grunted, but the yelling seemed to have some effect. Eschaton began sliding across the floor. Soon they had him moving up the ramp that led toward the exit.

  Hearing the Shell’s whining growing louder, Jack looked up to see that things were not going well for the metal-covered man.

  “I’m sorry, Hughes,” Nathaniel said with what sounded like a genuine note of regret, “but this madness has gone more than far enough.” The boy’s arms were fully silver now, and their heat was travelling straight through the metal. A terrible charnel-house smell invaded Jack’s nostrils: the scent of cooked meat and rotting flesh.

  It only took a few more seconds for the screaming to stop, but it still managed to seem endless.

  And then something inside of the Shell ruptured with a crack. The metal on its chest burst open, spattering Nathaniel with a dark liquid that might have once been blood.

  Whatever sad force had been keeping it in its terrifying state of half-life was now gone, and the creature toppled t
o the floor.

  Jack realized that he and Murphy had both been standing mesmerized by the scene in front of them, and it wasn’t until Nathaniel began to turn toward him that he remembered the boy’s promise to do him in. It was well past time to go.

  As Jack let go of Eschaton he felt slightly cheered by the fact that he seemed to have overcome his current bout of conscience. He was sure that, all things considered, Nathaniel would much rather have Murphy than him, and he turned to run from the room, leaving the Irishman behind as a sacrifice.

  But just as he began his pirouette, it was interrupted by a familiar pair of hands that roughly grabbed his wrists and pinned them behind his back.

  The scent of leather and sweat clearly marked his captor as Anubis, as did the voice in his ear. “You’re not getting away that easily.”

  “Run, Murphy,” Jack said, resigning himself to his fate.

  Chapter 14: All Turns to Ruin

  CHAPTER 14

  ALL TURNS TO RUIN

  A smile crossed Sarah’s sleeping face as she slowly came back to consciousness. Her first thoughts were of being with Emilio on the roof as the sun had risen. The kissing, the touching, and the desire.

  She could still feel the scrapes across her skin that had finally led her to suggest that they head back into the house, and into her bed.

  And as she recalled the rest, another feeling overtook her, blowing across her thoughts like a dark storm. “What have I done?” Sarah said, whispering to herself.

  There was no denying it or turning back—Sarah was a ruined woman now. For years she had been told by everyone important in her life—with the notable exception of Sir Dennis (who had strenuously avoided any mention of sex)—that anyone who ever committed the sinful act outside of the sanctity of the marriage bed, as she just had, would surely find the full wrath of God coming down on their head. And yet, here she was, no more or less struck down by the wrath of the Almighty than she had been the night before. But the day was still young . . .

  “I may regret this,” she had said to Emilio. And now that regret had come.

  She had let herself be seduced by the man who was now sleeping far too comfortably and peacefully on the other side of the massive bed. She looked at his sleeping face, dimly visible in the gloomy light of the cloudy day that crept through the curtains and into the room. But even that weak glow was more than enough to reveal too much.

  She buried her face in the sheets, hoping to smother a feeling that seemed to be building up to become either tears or screaming. Either way, she wasn’t going to have Emilio waking up to the sounds of shouting from the woman he had been so intimate with the night before. Even if he was the man who had ruined her, he had also become, through death, love, and other irrevocable acts, the most important person in her entire life. It wouldn’t do to upset him.

  Spinning herself the other way, Sarah spent a few unproductive minutes attempting to will herself back to sleep. After all, if she could be the one to be woken up by him, it would all certainly be far less awkward. She could let him take the blame for all this. After all, when was it ever truly the woman’s fault in these situations? And yet, she’d not really tried to stop him, had she?

  What would her friends say? What would her father have said? Only Jenny was left to have an opinion.

  Maybe God somehow punished her for her acts prematurely, ruining her life because he knew that she would eventually come to this. Was that even possible?

  Sarah had never been much for the intricacies of theosophical debate. She had attended church for most of her life, but the Stanton family seemed more than content to simply sit in the pews and listen to whatever issue the pastor was attempting to unravel.

  Now she thought back, trying to remember if she’d ever heard anything about the possibility of predetermined suffering.

  No matter what the divine truth might have been, there was no undoing it. And at least now that they had done it, they could do it again . . .

  Sarah shook her head firmly, trying to rid her mind of these new and even more seductive thoughts.

  When the simple shaking didn’t seem to work, she threw back the sheets and pulled herself upright. The cold air raised goose pimples across her skin, reminding her that she was entirely unclothed.

  “Hello, Sarah,” Tom said, his painted eyes staring at her from just beyond the foot of the bed.

  Sarah, already scandalized, let out a stifled scream and then reflexively grabbed the sheets, covering herself before she realized that not only did Tom not have eyes to see her, he probably had as little prurient interest in her naked body as he did in a screwdriver, or a hammer, or a wrench . . . or something else that would have entirely no representational relationship to any part of the human anatomy whatsoever—if she could have thought of it.

  Gathering her composure, Sarah glared at the mechanical man for a moment. Tom did not move, even when she angrily, and silently, tried to shoo him away with the back of her hand, hoping that he would at least have the common decency to leave the room until she was decent.

  Instead, he spoke again. “We need to . . . talk.” His voice strummed out his words with his usual even tone. Unlike the well-mannered machine he had once been, the new Tom was seemingly completely unaware of decorum, and was steadfastly ignoring Sarah’s attempts to get him to leave before he woke the man sleeping next to her.

  Hadn’t her life already become complicated and corrupted enough without having Emilio waking up to see Tom in their bedroom? Especially now that she was . . . that they were . . .

  Well, what were they now? That would be an important question to bring up with Emilio when he was awake—which wouldn’t be now, she hoped.

  “Shhh!” she hissed back at the mechanical man, realizing that if she didn’t make at least some noise Tom would continue to talk.

  “I apologize for startling you,” Tom replied in a diminished glissando. Emilio twitched in response, but appeared to be content to remain unconscious—at least for the moment.

  Still, it would be best if she could get the mechanical man out of her bedroom.

  Sarah looked around frantically for something handy to wear. Distracted in the heat of the moment, it seemed that she had left nothing that could act as clothing within reach of the bed.

  Finally Sarah saw one of the faded oriental robes that she had adopted. It was sitting on an oak chair a few feet away, doing a passable imitation of old upholstery.

  As she moved toward the edge of the bed, intent on retrieving her garment, Sarah was reminded yet again that she was still quite naked underneath the bedclothes. And underneath (or perhaps because of) the shame, the wanton voice in her head reminded her that being naked was actually giving her a bit of a thrill.

  Sarah tried to shut down the sly voice, but it seemed that now that this more sensual side of her had been awoken, it—like her—was not going to go back to sleep so easily.

  Not that Sarah had managed to live nineteen years without any interest in the idea of sex, but she had always considered Sally Norbitt as the would-be libertine. The girl had been so utterly obsessed by the idea of what it would be like to “be” with a man that Sarah often wondered if she would be able to wait until marriage to find out.

  She was sure that if Sally had been here now, the girl would pepper Sarah with lewd and uncomfortable questions.

  Or perhaps, by now, her friend was engaged herself, stealing kisses with her husband-to-be, and looking forward to the wedding night, when Sally would finally lose her chastity and find the answers to all her questions.

  But Sarah would never know for sure. After last night, she had finally fallen so far that the world she had known would forever be denied to her.

  Being honest with herself, her father’s relationship with the Paragons had always meant that the Stanton family was eternally on probation with New York’s proper society. And although they were wealthy, money could only get you so far.

  With both parents dead, even if she wasn’t be
ing hounded by a maniacal villain, returning to her old life would have meant being quickly married off to a man of lesser standing. She shivered at the thought of the shriveled up old ne’er-do-well she might have been matched up with. With her luck, she would have ended her days married to Helmut Grüsser.

  But for better or worse, that life, and her old friends, were all closed to her now. Instead Sarah was here, trapped under the bedclothes, terrified to reveal herself to a mechanical man. It was as laughable as it was childish.

  Throwing caution—and covers—to the wind, Sarah rolled herself out into the cool morning air. She felt goose bumps rising across her skin as she raced for the robe. As she scooped it up and used it to cover herself, she saw that Tom’s head had turned toward her. Even though she knew he couldn’t actually see her, she felt the surprisingly warm sensation of a blush rising up in her cheeks.

  Her “slippers”—a threadbare pair of sheepskin-lined men’s boots—lay nearby. She stepped into them and walked toward the exit with a practiced clumsy trot, leaving both Tom and Emilio behind.

  While Emilio remained asleep, it took Tom only a few seconds to follow her out into the hall. Still stomping toward the front door, she heard him before she saw him, his piano wire flesh giving off a faint musical hum with every step he took. When she heard the thick rug that acted as her doorway thump closed against the wall behind him, she turned around and gave the mechanical man a stern look. “Just what did you think you were doing?”

  “I came into your . . . room to . . . talk with you.”

  “And how long were you watching me before that?” She pointed an accusing finger at him, and could see that she was shaking with anger, and perhaps shame. The feeling was even more powerful now than she had imagined it would be when she was hiding in the bed.

  “I cannot . . . see you.”

  “Don’t give me that nonsense,” she said, poking the extended finger at his chest. “See, hear, whatever it is you do, you’re not supposed to be sneaking around in a lady’s bedroom when she’s sleeping.”