Power Under Pressure (The Society of Steam)

by Andrew P. Mayer

  Turning his head, he saw through his other eye that the missed attack had also thrown the metal-covered man off its center. The Shell teetered on its wheels as it tried to find balance, and the moment it did, it threw itself toward him.

  Nathaniel raised his shattered hands out in front of him, hoping to find a way to stop the metal-covered monster from ramming him. His desperate ploy worked better than he had expected, and he found his fingers wrapping themselves around the creature’s metal head.

  There was an instant of panic as he thought that he might be unable to follow through on his attack, the fire that had come to him so easily only a moment before suddenly retreating from his control. The metal man’s head twisted in his grasp, and he could feel an odd clicking sensation coming from inside of it as it tried to break free.

  The Shell’s fingers wrapped themselves around Nathaniel’s wrist. Nathaniel’s hands, already half-filled with his silver, flared white, and once again heat began to pour out from his skin.

  The effect on the Shell was instantaneous, and the man-machine twitched in his grasp, its hands clenching so hard against his skin that fissures were forming as it tried to break free.

  Nathaniel pressed harder, realizing that as powerful as the monster might be, his own strength as a “purified human” had also been amplified.

  As the heat from Nathaniel’s hands penetrated deeper, the Shell let out a terrifying squeal, like the cry a lobster might make when boiled alive inside its shell.

  The silver had gathered halfway up his arms now, and Nathaniel harnessed his limited control over his powers to make himself burn even hotter. If his intent was to kill, then he should go through with the act.

  After a few seconds the pathetic screaming began to die away. “I’m sorry, Hughes, but this madness has gone more than far enough.” He had once been a Paragon—the least he could do was execute the man humanely.

  As he increased the heat Nathaniel felt a rumbling coming up from inside the Shell’s body, and a moment later a section of the suit buckled and burst open, a gush of dark liquid spraying out.

  Where it struck Nathanial’s hands it bubbled and burned away. He found himself suddenly grateful that all he seemed to be able to smell anymore was smoke, as if the whole world was on fire.

  He let go and the corpse of the creature crumpled to his feet. Inside of him he could feel the quicksilver shifting again, moving back to finish the job of healing his head and arms that he had called it away from completing.

  Nathaniel shook his head slightly with disbelief. Monstrous or not, the corpse that lay in front of him had once been a Paragon. And as ruined as Hughes had become—first ravaged by disease, and then transformed into a monster—there had been a time when he had fought side by side with this man in the name of justice.

  As a child, Nathaniel had looked up to the Iron-Clad. And once he had joined the Paragons he had considered the red-haired warrior a kindred spirit: both of them men wrapped in machinery.

  He deserved a more respectable death than being burned alive inside his suit: twice, if he were to consider what had happened in the Darby mansion.

  Despite Hughes’s betrayal, in the end it was Eschaton and his Children that were truly to blame for the atrocities that had been committed here. And now, with the Shell out of his way, it was time to wreak terrible vengeance on the rest of them—starting with Eschaton.

  As he turned, he saw that the man with the knives and Murphy were tugging on Eschaton’s shoulders, slowly dragging him away. The silver in his left eye finally cleared, and Nathaniel raised his hands as he stepped forward.

  Jack saw him first, and turned to run. Although the slim villain had come to his senses in time to realize that Nathaniel was about to make good on his threat, he clearly hadn’t counted on the interference of Anubis.

  The jackal’s face was hidden again—he had somehow regained his mask, as well as some of his confidence. Stepping in, he grabbed Jack’s arms and pulled them tight. “Run, Murphy,” Jack said.

  Nathaniel stepped forward as the Irishman reacted. Looking up to see the Mercurial Man bearing down on him, the Bomb Lance let go of Eschaton and tumbled backwards, landing hard on his rump. “Where do you think you’re going, murderer?” Nathaniel’s voice was a horrible rasp, which seemed appropriate.

  “Damn ya, boy, this isn’t a fair fight.” The squat man scrabbled backwards up the ramp, moving surprisingly fast. When he’d put a little distance between them the man reached one of his pudgy hands up and inside of his jacket.

  “Was it fair when you murdered Sir Dennis?” Nathaniel said, raising his hand up into the air. He had control over his fire now, but even with that, he was beginning to feel drawn, as if he were reaching the edge of his new abilities. His flame was burning brighter than ever, but whatever well of fuel he was drawing this ability from, it was about to run dry.

  He reached deeper, and felt a strange new kind of pain. But even if it cost Nathaniel his life, this villain was going to burn—he and all the children would be consumed by fire. The time for mercy was past. “You pinned me to the top of the bridge!” He could feel the heat he was bringing forward. The Irishman’s whiskers withered and smoked as they began to burn away.

  There was fear in the Bomb Lance’s eyes, but not as much as Nathaniel would have liked. And then the old man offered something far worse: bravado. “I did that, lad,” he said with a chuckle that was in no way a laugh. “I nailed you to that stone like a bug.”

  Nathaniel moved closer to the object of his fury, ready to kill, and when Murphy revealed his gun there was no chance of escape.

  Nathaniel should have simply reached out and burned him, but his instinct for survival had yet to catch up with his new body, and by the time he was ready to complete the attack the barb was already pointing directly at his face. The Irishman smiled as he pulled the trigger.

  The harpoon struck Nathaniel square in the forehead, the force of it sending him reeling backwards. He could feel the barb burrowing into him, just as he could feel his mind splitting apart, shattering him into one hundred pieces, and then one thousand.

  His splintered mind was now an army of himself, all calling him an idiot. He tumbled, unable to do anything to stop his fall. And yet he could still see, and every tiny mind was overwhelmed with the image of Murphy’s twisted grin.

  As he crashed into the ground, the barb in his head shifted and the world went dark. And yet, if he still had enough of a mind to recognize that he couldn’t see, that was something. He still had enough of a mind to recognize that he still had one to lose. And as he gathered his thoughts together, he recognized that he still had enough of a mind to want a drink.

  “Now it’s yer time to die,” he heard Murphy’s distant voice say. And in the darkness of his thoughts Nathaniel saw the silver sparkles in his blood dancing around him.

  There were thousands of them, like fairy lights from a children’s story. Whatever this strange world was, it seemed peaceful and beautiful. There was nothing he could do now—no way to save himself. And if this was going to be the end of his life, this might be an acceptable way to pass; free from the pain of the world.

  Finally, the tiny lights around him began to dim. Perhaps the mercury inside him had given him up, freeing him to leave consciousness for the final time.

  Then came a tugging sensation. Pain flared up inside him as something pulled free.

  Another tug. Then a third, fourth . . . Each one was more painful than the last. “Damn you, come out!” he heard a muffled voice say. The fifth time something snapped, and the harpoon that had shattered his mind was pulled free. The world fell back together, roaring in on a locomotive of consciousness that burst through the darkness and shattered the world into light again.

  Nathaniel’s eyesight returned, and he heaved air back into his lungs, the oxygen seeming to ignite in his throat. Through his broken vision he saw Anubis holding the Bomb Lance’s metal harpoon in his hand. The tip of it was twisted and bent. “I thou
ght I’d lost you,” the jackal said.

  Nathaniel wanted to tell the man that perhaps he should have let him go, but when he tried to speak, what came out of his mouth was pure gibberish. The words were guttural and garbled, like something a baby or a simpleton might say.

  “Take a moment,” Anubis told him. “Your whole head is silver.”

  Nathaniel used his second of respite to look around the room to see what had become of his attackers. The Children, it seemed, had abandoned their father. Now only Eschaton remained, and the gray man was still at their mercy, although his hands had started to move.

  Anubis stood and looked around the room. He ran to one of the walls, and then reached up to pull down one of the lights that had been screwed into the granite. As it pulled free, a length of cord came with it. It shot out an impressive shower of sparks, and the remaining lights flickered.

  Nathaniel could feel just how far he’d managed to overdraw his energy reserves. He was hungry for something, but he wasn’t sure what it was. He felt drawn, and clearly he needed sustenance, whatever that might be. “Help me . . .” Nathaniel gasped, finally managing choke out a coherent sound.

  “Just one second,” Anubis said. He knelt down, but instead of helping him, he grabbed Eschaton and began to turn the gray man over. It was clearly taking a great deal of effort, but quickly enough he had managed to use the length of wire to tie the gray man’s hands together behind his back. “Who knows if this will work . . .”

  Nathaniel took inspiration, flipped himself over and pulled himself to his feet.

  Finding his balance, he took a few unsure steps across the room toward Anubis and Eschaton. “I need a drink.” He said it calmly. This was no longer a desire, it was simply a fact.

  Anubis looked up at him, clearly annoyed. “Is that all you can think of?”

  “My brain was shattered, so it’s amazing I can think at all,” he said, noticing that there was a threatening sound in his voice that he hadn’t intended. “I don’t think you understand quite how badly I need it.”

  “Well there isn’t any liquor. You’ll just have to wait.”

  Seeing Eschaton lying on the floor, Nathaniel remembered something. He bent down, doing so slowly enough to maintain his balance. He began to dig into Eschaton’s clothes. As his hands groped through the gray man’s jacket he looked again at his translucent skin. If it had been anyone but him, he had to admit, he would have found it something truly marvelous, in its own way.

  And maybe it was time to accept his fate. He still wanted desperately to believe that he could be the man he was before, but it was clear (in every sense of the word) that he was as likely to return to his previous state as a cooked Christmas goose could return to the skies. Having been so utterly transformed he would need to begin to accept it. And if he could figure out some way to control it, it might even be useful.

  “A-ha!” His hand had found the hard outline of the flask in Eschaton’s vest, and he searched desperately to find the entrance to the pocket where it was contained. When he found it, it took only an instant to remove the silver object and twist open the cap.

  Tilting back his head, he brought the bottle up to his mouth and let the liquid pour into him. Through the smoke, he could taste some of the alcohol, even if his sense of taste had been forever altered.

  The last of the liquor settled into him and spread through. There was a moment of deep satisfaction as his hunger evaporated.

  There was no way that he would have previously been able to consume that much alcohol in a single go before. He let go of the flask, and it bounced loudly as it struck the ground.

  What Eschaton had theorized was true; alcohol no longer had the same effect as before his transformation. Instead of the spirits clouding his head, he felt stronger, and his body filled with a sense of satisfied warmth. Liquor was like food to him now! “That’s good,” he said, although there was some small part of him that missed the fog.

  Anubis shook his head. “Eschaton is waking up. We need to figure out what to do with him before the Children get back.”

  “It’s simple,” Nathaniel said. “I want him dead.” The words had come out of him almost without a thought, but as he said them he felt satisfied with his answer.

  “I’m not ready to let you execute him just yet,” the jackal told him. “Not in cold blood.”

  “Blood?” he said mockingly. “Whatever it is that’s running through that man’s veins, it isn’t blood. Neither is what’s flowing through me, for that matter.

  “And besides, would you let him destroy the world to satisfy your misplaced sense of justice?” What was it that he had become, that he could feel so calm about the idea of taking another man’s life?

  He had burned the life out of the Shell while what remained of the man had screamed. Now he found himself wanting more.

  “Do I have a say?” Eschaton said as he rose up. His voice was clearly weakened, but just by his return to consciousness he already seemed larger.

  “You’ve already been judged and found guilty,” Anubis told him. “What we’re discussing now is your punishment.”

  There was a shout from the door. “They’re thtill here!” He looked up to see the boy with the broken teeth staring down at them. “And tho ith Lord Ethcaton!”

  “Children!” the gray man bellowed with renewed energy, “Come save your lord!”

  At the sound of their master’s call, men began pushing past the boy and filing into the room. Clearly whatever fear had driven them away no longer held them in its grip. Perhaps they thought Nathaniel had been weakened and was now less of a threat, but he was about to prove them wrong.

  “I think the time for talking has passed.” Nathaniel said. He stared directly at Eschaton and held up his hand. He let the fire flow into it, refueled by the alcohol he had consumed. “It’s time for the execution.”

  As his arm began to glow, the Children in the front halted. More filed in behind them until there were at least a dozen men. Most of them wore brightly colored costumes, although the material was threadbare and the tailoring shoddy. He recognized a few of them, including the Bomb Lance, who was pushing a man in a wheelchair in front of him. The Irishman’s sudden interest in the crippled was not impressive.

  Anubis took a step forward, but was held back by the heat. “This isn’t right, Nathaniel, and you know it.”

  Even without seeing the doubt on the man’s face he knew what Anubis was feeling. Whatever Eschaton had become, he had clearly once been a man of superior stock. And Anubis, while he had proven himself to be far more than Nathaniel would have ever expected from anyone of a lower class, was not.

  But there were reasons that society worked the way it did, with some men on top, and others below. And men without gentility and guidance, no matter how brave or noble their intentions, would always have reservations when it came to carrying out justice on their betters. Nathaniel did not. Or at least, not anymore. “Don’t worry, Anubis, I’m quite sure.”

  Nathaniel let the heat rise up, and everything felt right as it spread throughout his body, almost as if he had finally become this new creature, the Mercurial Man.

  Then he felt it slip out of his control, as if there was another person inside of him taking command. The fire within him began to grow, and the silver under his skin expanded down his arms.

  Anubis backed farther away, as did the gang of Eschaton’s Children. “What are you doing?” the jackal asked.

  He looked down to see the ground smoking underneath his feet. “It’s not me!” Nathaniel said, hearing the panic in his own voice. He closed his eyes and tried to will himself to halt the silver, but the fire inside of him now had a mind of its own.

  When he looked down at Eschaton, he saw that despite the fact that his clothes were now smoking from the heat, the man was smiling as if this was what he had planned all along.

  Nathaniel felt the impact of a bullet against his skin the moment before he heard the report of the gun. It was quickly followe
d by a second shot, and then a third, each one smacking into him hard. He could feel his flesh shattering under the impact.

  Whatever had taken control inside of him, it had been disrupted by the damage. His attention broken, the flame flickered out and the light emanating from him began to wane. Perhaps his body couldn’t both heal and maintain such a high degree of heat? If that was the case, it meant that the silver that travelled within him had a will of its own—one that was capable of acting despite his intentions. It was a disturbing thought.

  It seemed that the shooting had stopped, at least for the moment. Nathaniel checked himself to see what damage had been done to him. There were spiderwebbed cracks across his chest where he had been shot, and the lead itself was clearly visible inside of him, but they seemed to have done him less harm than the Bomb Lance had with his harpoon.

  Looking up, he saw that the Children who had entered the gallery with the intention of attacking him were now holding back, unsure whether Nathaniel might still be planning to burn them to death. The man in the wheelchair was holding up his gun and grinning at him. “I think I might have taken the wind out of your sails, son.”

  Nathaniel’s anger made him shake. He would figure out how to reignite himself, and once he did, he would reach out and burn the man down.

  The rasping sound of Eschaton’s laughter made him turn back to look at the gray man. “You should have let me finish my research, Nathaniel. I might have been able to help you learn more about what you’ve become.” He nodded and raised his eyebrows. “It’s certainly interesting.”

  He stared hard at Eschaton, hoping that his anger might reignite his fire. “You need to die.” There was no sense of his heat returning, but if he had to, he’d throttle the life out of the man.

  Another bullet struck him, this time directly into the side of the head. He could feel the splinters it left.