Power Under Pressure (The Society of Steam)

by Andrew P. Mayer

  “Not to vorry . . .” Grüsser’s grim voice shocked her, and Sarah jumped slightly before she turned to see the Prussian standing behind them. His white hair and outlandish beard had both been singed by the heat of the fire, but he seemed otherwise unharmed. “My ship hast only zwei guns, und I don’t zink the Frenchman can reload zem without my help.”

  The mechanical man walked toward them and Grüsser’s eyes grew wide. “Ach, das ist der Automat! Is that really you, Tom?”

  “Mostly,” the machine replied, and gave a quick shake to the hand that had been offered to him.

  “I vunder if der Automaton might help me to remove zis.” Grüsser pointed awkwardly to the ornate device attached to his back. “Der vasser has expanded it a bit, but I think in short time it will strangle me again.”

  “What is it?” Sarah asked.

  Grüsser made a most unpleasant face at that question. “An unending nightmare that made me der Eschaton’s prisoner.”

  Tom reached out and placed his hand against the ornate box on the back of the device. “What does it . . . do?” he said, even as metal fingers tapped against the veneer of case, exploring its purpose. The inlaid wood had already been damaged by its trip through the water, and Tom peeled it away.

  “He called it der Chronal Suit. It chokes me to death, slowly—every day.”

  “I see,” Tom said, nodding. After rubbing the surface for few more moments, he grabbed the device with both hands. For a moment it seemed as if all he was doing was holding it, and then the box began to crumple underneath the metal fingers.

  “Danke, Tom, I . . .” The box began to tick loudly, and Grüsser’s eyes went wide. Sarah could see that the collar around the Prussian’s neck had suddenly dug hard into his flesh. His hands clutched at his throat, but the device was already too tight for him to get any purchase, or even allow enough air to escape for him to make a sound.

  “Hold . . . still,” Tom said, his voice sounding even more calm and emotionless than usual.

  “Tom, you’re choking him!” Sarah was shouting, although she was unable to think how she might actually be able to save the poor man if Tom couldn’t.

  “Just a . . . moment please . . . Sarah,” Tom said. She could see him driving his fingers further into the device, almost prying apart the steel at the seams. Tiny rivets pinged and popped as the pressure tore them apart. “I believe I can . . . disable the mechanism.”

  With a little more effort the metal began to open, revealing a tiny gap. Once it had reached half an inch in width, Tom lifted up his right hand and held his fingers over the crack. After a moment the wires that had covered his fingers began to expand out in long loops that twisted their way inside.

  Grüsser sagged forward, pulling the broken box away from the wires. Sarah raised a hand up to her mouth in shock: the poor man was clearly dying. But before the Prussian could fall any farther, Tom’s left hand shot out and grabbed him, hoisting him upward by his arms—shifting the man’s body forward until the box on his back was again just underneath the Automaton’s fingers, the wires twitching once again. “Just a few more . . . moments Herr . . . Grüsser.”

  Sarah felt as if she should say something, either offering advice to Tom, or comforting the Paragon. But if Grüsser was in pain he was in no position to say so.

  She wondered if the old Tom would have been as willing to let Grüsser suffer, even if his intent was to save him. She decided that either way it was a question that she didn’t really want to know the answer to. Still, if Tom couldn’t save him, then they could at least let the poor man die in peace.

  The Prussian lifted up his head, and Sarah let out an involuntary yelp as she saw his eyes practically bulging out of his head, and a purple tongue sticking out from his lips.

  Just as she thought the man was about to expire, there was a metallic “ping” and Tom jerked his hand violently upward, pulling out not only the wires, but a series of gears that had been tangled into them like insects in a metallic spider’s web. As each one was pulled out of the box the machine let off another loud pinging sound.

  But it was only after the twelfth gear was pulled free that the collar popped open. For a moment there was nothing, and then Grüsser let out a gasp that was easily the loudest Sarah had ever heard—as if the man were trying to swallow all the air in the world.

  Tom lowered the Prussian slowly to the ground, leaving the still-gasping Paragon on his hands and knees.

  “Danke,” Grüsser rasped out between coughs. “I am . . . finally free . . . of zis . . . cursed thing.” He tugged at the metal straps binding his body and pulled the frame free, leaving him dressed only in a soiled shirt that she realized he must have been wearing ever since the device had been attached to him. “Danke, Tom.”

  “Now,” said Emilio, with a raw edge in his voice, “if you could only find a way to save my sister.”

  Tom turned to face the water. “You will be pleased to . . . hear that . . . Viola was not in the . . . house.”

  Emilio shook his head and stomped toward the Automaton. “You’d better be sure of that, metal man.”

  “She left last . . . night.”

  Sarah turned to look out in the direction that Tom was facing, and saw that something was heading directly toward them from the river.

  “Why would she do that?”

  “Because she was . . . angry with me,” Tom said.

  Emilio made what was almost a growling noise in response, and Sarah grimaced as she realized that once again the Italian girl had managed to throw everyone into conflict—this time without even being there.

  “And did she tell you where did she go?” Emilio asked.

  “No,” the mechanical man replied.

  Sarah had some thoughts, but now was not the time to express them. “Grüsser, isn’t that your ship?” she asked as she pointed at the object cutting through the river.

  “Ja,” the Prussian replied. “So zen, perhaps ve should run.”

  The boat was clearly headed toward the beach, although Sarah couldn’t imagine what damage it could do to them without its weapons.

  She expected it to stop at the land’s edge, but instead it continued up from the river, the deck rising up until the vehicle revealed that it was no longer simply an aquatic device.

  Underneath were two sets of locomotive wheels, but they had been fitted with a geared belt that allowed it to crawl up on the land without tracks underneath.

  The design was utterly ingenious, and she instantly wondered why no one had thought of it before.

  She could make out the hunched form of the mad Frenchman riding on top of it. Sarah had known this moment was coming, but she’d hoped they would have been more prepared when it came. Now they had once again been reduced to desperation.

  The sound of the Frenchman’s voice spread across the yard. “SARAH STANTON, YOU HAVE WHAT WOWD ESCHATON WANTS, YOU WIWW NOW GIVE IT TO ME!” She recognized the odd sound as from the amplifier that the Iron-Clad had once employed.

  Le Voyageur’s usual ridiculous speech was even more outlandish when amplified, but his intent remained utterly clear, and he was backing up his demands by targeting them with what appeared to be a very large brass gun, attached to the main deck of the ship.

  When he pulled the trigger, a series of explosions ripped across the yard, ending with another round of destruction that collapsed the burning remains of the house. As it fell over, a column of smoke and embers climbed up into the sky.

  “What is that?” Emilio said, grabbing the Prussian by his soiled shirt. “I thought you said he had no weapons!”

  “I am sorry! I zought ze gun vas not functional, but it is clear zat der vere some . . .”

  Sarah considered running, but she knew it would be a foolhardy decision. As the vehicle rumbled closer it was clear that if the Frenchman had wanted them dead he would already have killed them with the first volley. They were at his mercy. “Tom, go ahead and give the man what he wants,” she said.

  The me
chanical man gave her a barely perceptible nod and dropped into a run. With only a few yards now separating them from the amphibious ship, it took only a few bounds before the wires wrapped around the Automaton’s body had given him the bounce that he needed to fly through the air and land straight on the ship’s deck.

  As the Automaton hurtled toward the platform where the Frenchman stood, she thought she could actually see a smile on the old man’s face. It puzzled her only for an instant, and then le Voyageur lifted up another weapon. He had been expecting this!

  The device was a metal rod, covered at regular intervals with white ceramic rings. Before she could even wonder what kind of weapon it was, the rod spat forth a massive volley of lightning that caught the Automaton in midair, the electricity drawn almost hungrily to the mechanical man’s metal frame.

  Tom crashed hard onto the deck, his body limp as it tangled itself around the barrel of the gun.

  Sarah felt like screaming once again, but she was getting tired of yelling in frustration. “Tom’s taken out the gun. Let’s get him!”

  The three of them ran toward the vehicle, Sarah by far the slowest as she was once again hobbled by her boots. She willed herself to move faster, and as she did, she promised herself that she would never again allow her habits to become as slovenly as they had inside the junkyard house.

  She had never believed her mother when she had told Sarah that good grooming was something to be relied on, not discarded, during times of crisis. She believed her now.

  Emilio had almost reached the metal rungs on the side of the ship when it rumbled, belched out a cloud of black smoke, and began to rapidly slide into the river. The Italian’s shout of “No!” echoed her own thoughts almost perfectly, but despite their desperation none of them were fast enough to reach the ship before it slid back into the water, and began to head down the river.

  There was a crackle and a loud, ringing tone as the amplifier returned to life. “ZANK YOU SO MUCH FOW YOUW COWOPEWATION, MISS STANTON. I HAD HOPED TO END ZIS DAY BY KIWWING YOU, BUT I WIWW TAKE MY PWIZE AS CONSOWATION, AND IF YOU SUWVIVE, I WIWW SEE YOU ON ZE OTHER SIDE OF HUMANITY.”

  Sarah walked toward the shore and stared after the boat. It was far better than staring at the burning remains of the junkyard behind them. As the Submersible’s ship chugged down the river, she wondered how they had managed to have been so close.

  Emilio turned to Sarah. “So, what do we do now?”

  “Ve have lost mein ship,” Grüsser said, stating the obvious once again. “Und now they have der mechanical man as well.”

  “We have nothing,” Emilio said, falling cross-legged onto the sand, his shoulders sagging with a level of despair that Sarah had never seen before.

  Sarah nodded. They had lost a lot, including Tom. But Sarah had more. “We’re going,” she said grimly.

  “Where?”

  “Home,” Sarah replied, her resolve stiffening as she realized it was well past time for this. “Back to the Stanton mansion.”

  She looked down at herself and frowned at her dirty, tattered robe. “But first I’m going to need to find some clothes.”

  Chapter 15: A Final Judgment

  CHAPTER 15

  A FINAL JUDGMENT

  “You killed my father, you killed Sir Dennis—now it’s my turn.” Nathaniel wrapped his hands around Eschaton’s head and reached for the heat inside of him. The power had been coming to him more and more easily, but now—just when he needed it the most—he felt it beginning to fall away.

  Reaching deep inside, Nathaniel found more energy and rekindled the fire in his hands. The irony of it was too wonderful to ignore: he was finally going to destroy the man who had ruined his life using the very powers that had been given to him by Lord Eschaton.

  For just a single instant, he felt guilty about his actions. Burning a man to death wasn’t something a true Paragon would do. It was the act of a villain. But what he held between his hands was a true monster. Whatever he had been before, Eschaton had, through his machinations and intentions, sacrificed his own humanity and turned Nathaniel into a transparent abomination. He would burn Eschaton first, then he would find a way to bring the entire Hall tumbling down on top of him as a tomb.

  Just as his heat finally grew back to its full power, Nathaniel felt several impacts against his flesh. The sensation of it was more shocking than painful, and he looked down to discover a series of metal knives sticking out of his skin. They had only penetrated slightly, the tip of each one sending out a web of tiny splinters where it had punctured his flesh.

  A moment later the pain arrived, and the tip of each blade sent out a sensation like a wounded tooth, igniting his nerves on fire.

  The shock of the sudden sensation made Nathaniel let go of the gray man, and the body slumped to the floor. His hands free and the heat already draining away from his fingers, he reached up and quickly took the blades out.

  Almost the instant after he pulled the knives free, he saw the silver under his skin swirl around the damaged flesh, and he felt the pain diminishing.

  There were definitely advantages to being the Mercurial Man, although nothing that made it worth having been transformed into a monster.

  Dropping the knives to the floor, he looked up to see who had thrown them. The man standing in front of him was tall and thin, with a pencil mustache that only accented his wolfish, dangerous look. He didn’t look familiar, but he was clearly one of Eschaton’s stooges. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Jack Knife.” Yet another villain with a ridiculous name. But he had to remind himself that this was the world he had chosen to live in.

  “And you’re one of the Children?”

  The man nodded in return.

  He was feeling better every second, now. “Well Jack Knife, I’d run if I were you, because once I’ve burnt out Eschaton’s brains I’m going to kill you next.” For what it was worth, it wasn’t a personal threat. His plan was to kill every one of the sorry muttonheads who had thrown their lot in with the gray man. The world would be better off without them, and with all of Eschaton’s Children gone, perhaps there was hope that he could somehow return to a normal life.

  Nathaniel took a threatening step forward before he realized that he needed to make absolutely sure Eschaton was dead before he dealt with anyone else.

  But he was unprepared for what Jack Knife shouted out next. “Shell! Stop him!”

  The remains of Hughes wheeled out of the darkness toward him. It was hard to take the misshapen monstrosity seriously as it trundled along on its wobbling wheels. The metal hands contracted into fists. Nathaniel felt the fire in his hands begin to grow—this wasn’t even going to be a fair fight.

  “You’re a pathet—”

  The blow came from nowhere. Whether it had been sheer speed or simply Nathaniel’s misplaced bravado that had left him open for the attack, it was impossible to say. Either way, the power of the punch was literally mind numbing, and Nathaniel saw the world splinter as his left eye shattered from the force of the blow.

  He felt himself falling backwards, and for an instant he wondered if his entire body might simply shatter like glass when it landed against the hard floor. But before he could find out, a second blow lifted him up again, landing like a hammer blow against his chin. This time he could hear the sound of its impact shuddering through him, and through the haze of confusion he wondered if his jaw had been completely pulverized by the blow.

  Acting on pure instinct, Nathaniel stumbled backwards. The desperate maneuver paid off, and he watched with relief as Hughes’s steel-clad hands punched into the empty air where his face had been only a moment before. A vague memory passed through the Mercurial Man’s addled brains: hadn’t Hughes once been a boxer? Perhaps there was more of the man left inside this pathetic creature than he had given credit for.

  Taking advantage of the confusion, Nathaniel lashed out at the metal man. He could feel his hands cracking as they struck the monster’s steel skin.

  The
creature moaned and paused for an instant, its twisted face hanging in front of him. Nathaniel balled his hands into fists, but felt himself hesitating before he struck. His fingers were already numb, and if he broke them off what would happen? Just how much damage could his new body rebuild? It was one thing to be a glass monster, and another to be one with only stumps for arms.

  Then he looked through the metal slits and caught a glimpse of Hughes’s eyes. They were wide open, as if the man had been caught in a perpetual moment of terror. Were the creature’s mute cries the remains of Hughes’s once-formidable personality screaming for release?

  Nathaniel looked down at his fists and saw they had filled with mercury. Perhaps that would allow him to attack without fear of damage. As he pulled his arms back to strike, the Shell’s metal-clad hands closed around his throat. His hesitation had cost him his opportunity.

  As he reached up to grab the Shell’s wrists he suddenly remembered one of the lessons that Wickham had given him in the Oriental fighting arts. He hadn’t enjoyed the lessons, but his step-father had told him that the Sleuth knew secrets that had saved all their lives at one time or another, and attendance was mandatory.

  Putting his hands together, Nathaniel slipped them between the Shell’s arms, then pushed them apart. Much to his surprise, and relief, the creature’s grip broke as he had intended.

  Desperate for a moment’s reprieve, he struck out with both arms, hoping to shove the monster away from him. The desperate maneuver worked, but he found his own footing had been less sure than he had imagined, and suddenly Nathaniel realized that he was reeling in the other direction.

  Before he could begin to regain his balance, he had landed hard against the remains of the smoke-filled iron cage. Nathaniel could feel the metal twist underneath him as he crashed into it, glass splintering against his own solid skin.

  At the same moment his shattered left eye suddenly filled with silver, half blinding him. His body was using its diabolical magic to heal the damage, but the timing was terrible. A part of him wondered about the mechanism of his recovery. Did he have only so much mercury to go around? Then how had he managed to make his whole body glow just a few minutes before?