Power Under Pressure (The Society of Steam)

by Andrew P. Mayer

  She frowned, or half-frowned, at least. “How did you even know I was here?” Viola put a hand up to her face. The patch of living steel was still in place, and it had indeed attached itself to her skin. She could feel where it had bonded to her flesh in some miraculous transformation. But something had clearly gone wrong: Eschaton had promised her that if his process worked the metal would become like her own skin, supple and alive. Instead what she felt was something dead and hard pulling against the bones of her cheeks.

  “When you disappeared after the attack we thought that you must have . . .” He cut himself off. “We thought you must have been taken.”

  Emilio’s hand brushed her face, but she could feel only the barest trace of his fingers against her flesh. “They have done something terrible to you.”

  She laughed despite herself, and pulled her legs off of the table. “Did they?”

  He nodded. “They put some kind of metal into your face.”

  Had he said into? At least the mask was part of her now. “How do I look?” she asked almost desperately. “Is it worse or better than it was before?”

  She could see by her brother’s expression that he had been surprised by the question. “I can’t,” he stammered, “I can’t tell in the darkness.”

  “Then get me out of here.” She stumbled slightly as she got to her feet, and Emilio put his arm around her to give her some support. Her instinct was to pull away, but she was too weak to do so. Instead she sank into him and let him carry her out into the main room, her feet barely managing to keep up as he dragged her along.

  “How long was I in there?” she asked as he helped her to sink down onto one of the work stools.

  “I have no idea,” he replied. “I only arrived a few minutes ago.”

  “And how did you do that?” she asked him, the reality of his being here once again overwhelming her with its sheer impossibility. Having her hapless brother be her rescuer was no more likely than an ant finding its way to the center of a beehive unhindered and un-stung.

  Emilio held up his arms in response. Bent back from the wrists were two long metal shafts, hinged so they lay along the arms, and locked into place so that he could use his hands freely. The costume was changed and updated, but she recognized it as the costume he had taken from Vincent. “I dug.”

  “What were you thinking?”

  “I was trying to rescue my sister.”

  She looked around to see if there was any sign of Eschaton, but he, the rocket, and the old madman had all disappeared. “Rescue me from what? You thought Eschaton had kidnapped me? That he had taken your worthless sister with the intention to somehow bribe your lover into giving him the metal man?” As she mentioned Tom’s name, she looked up and saw that the Automaton was still hanging on the wall above them, frozen by le Voyageur’s electricity.

  Emilio followed her eyes up, and then his own widened. “Tom! What have they done to you?” He spoke the words in English. How quickly his grasp of the language had improved once there had been a woman to motivate him.

  Men, despite their complex plans to cover the world in logic and machinery, were ultimately creatures of simple desire. What continued to astound Viola was the lengths they were willing to go to, in order to deny that basic truth.

  She had protected her brother for a long time, kept him hidden even after he had lost his wife and child to the authorities, but he was bound and determined to let his lust rule his heart and call it love.

  “What’s wrong with him? Have they stolen his heart?” Emilio began to reach up toward the metal man. “Why won’t he speak?”

  “Don’t!” Viola grabbed her brother’s hand and pulled it back down. “He’s been electrified.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Viola pointed out the thick, pitch-covered cable that ran out from where the Automaton had been wrapped in a large sheet of canvas.

  Emilio followed the wire across the room to a device that looked something like a large, shiny beetle. The dynamo was smaller than the others, but it still gave off a menacing, insect-like hum, spitting out sparks every few seconds as it provided the power needed to keep Tom from moving.

  She followed behind him, and noticed with concern where a number of the nearby machines looked as if they had been consumed, leaving only bits of scorched scrap metal on the ground.

  Her brother reached out toward the large switch on the front of the box. She considered attacking him before he could free the Automaton. Once the Automaton was freed, even her brother’s pitiable denial would no longer be enough to protect her from the truth. Tom would tell the entire truth, no matter what the consequences.

  She plucked up a large metal pipe from the floor. The metal felt cool in her hand. If she did this, she would have to kill him. Emilio would never forgive her for such a betrayal.

  But as he pulled the lever she found herself frozen, unable to carry out any action against him. For an instant she wondered if perhaps something external kept her from attacking him. She willed herself to bring her hand down, but something inside of her had frozen her arm as surely as the electricity had immobilized Tom. Despite her belief that she wanted to do it, Viola couldn’t bring herself to move against her brother.

  The moment passed, and Emilio reached out and threw the switch. The machinery let out a groaning whine as the dynamo inside began to spin down.

  Viola lowered her hand, and they both turned at once to see what effect removing the current would have on the Automaton.

  As the last bolts of power drained through the wires, Tom’s body jerked in response, his flailing arms reminding Viola of a broken doll being violently shaken by a disturbed child. The links of chain that held his body to the wall rattled, the sound echoing through the huge, empty cavern.

  Viola took a step back, terrified by the strangeness of it all. Up until now she had been convinced that on some level Tom was fundamentally a man. But as he twitched and jerked in front of her, the Automaton seemed alien and unreal.

  The body fell limp. The tarp that had been covering the lower half of his body fell away. Viola could see now how badly the lower half of him had been mangled, his legs pulled completely apart—pinned to the wall by huge iron spikes. His lower torso hung between them, limp and dead, a long tube running out from his chest to channel the fortified steam his heart had been producing.

  “Tom!” Emilio yelled, but if the metal man had heard his name, he wasn’t responding to it. “Tom! We need you! Sarah needs you.”

  At the mention of Sarah’s name, Viola almost turned and ran. She felt her shame as a blush across her face, stopping only where the metal mask now covered her skin.

  But the same hesitation that had stopped her from striking down her brother grabbed her again, holding her in place. She could feel her fate hurtling toward her, but even if it was a locomotive that was coming, she wanted to embrace it.

  A low groan began to rise up. It emanated from Tom’s body, amplified by the walls. With his strings ripped away, Tom’s voice was no longer a harmonious strum of music, but a buzzing cacophony that rose up from the chains that bound him and the very walls themselves. It seemed random at first, like angry bees. As it grew in intensity Viola realized that the sound was calling out her name—and it was angry.

  But even still, she found herself frozen in place. It wasn’t until she heard a single word from her brother that she could move. “Run,” Emilio told her, and she finally did.

  As she took her first steps, she reflected that her brother wasn’t half as foolish as she had imagined him to be. Despite his desire to believe that his sister had been dragged here against her will as part of an elaborate plan, he had known the truth—that she had come here deliberately. Viola Armando had taken a side against her brother, Sarah, and Tom.

  Viola made it to the stairwell against the far wall before she felt something closing around her neck, jerking her to a stop. A strange sound came from her throat as she involuntarily gasped out the last bit of air in her lun
gs. She grabbed onto the chain that was both choking her and lifting her up into the air.

  As the ground pulled away from her feet, she could feel her body flooding with panic. But even as that physical sensation of fear continued to spread throughout her body, there was a sense of calmness in her thoughts. Viola realized that this moment was one that she had been waiting for all her life.

  The world spun and twisted as the chain, somehow animated, reeled her back across the room. She could feel it humming with whatever energy Tom was using to bring it to life, and it took only a few moments for it to bring her face-to-face with the Automaton.

  “WHY?” he asked her. The voice was thundering and deep, and yet she could still hear the intelligence behind it.

  From somewhere beneath her she heard her brother’s voice rising up. “You’re choking her, she can’t talk.”

  Viola felt herself being lowered to the ground, but the Automaton’s face followed her as she fell, the painted eyes unblinking and accusing. Her brother came into view in the corner of her vision.

  Finally the metal grip relaxed slightly, turning from a choking grasp to simply a collar around her neck. She gasped for air, but even as her body desperately fought for breath, her mind remained calm.

  Tom’s face swayed closer to her. Alfonso had done excellent work. The expression was neutral, but somehow she could sense anger behind it. “Why?” Tom asked again.

  She gritted her teeth, and then shouted at him, surprising even herself. “Look at me! Look at what you’ve done to me!”

  The head shook slowly from left to right. “I cannot see, Viola. I can only . . . feel.”

  She laughed at him. “You play games like a man . . .”

  “I—”

  She cut him off before he could make his excuse. “You know what you did. I never asked to be a part of this.”

  Tom’s head turned slightly, giving it that air of curiosity that seemed to be the one emotion the Automaton had truly mastered. “No one asks to . . . exist. We are the sum of our . . . choices.”

  Viola shook her head. “I was forced to take a side, this is the side I’ll take.” She wondered what Emilio would think, hearing her words. But he had chosen badly before . . .

  “What do you . . . want?” The words were somehow softer.

  “I want to be left alone, but that’s not going to happen while the world is full of people who think they know better.”

  The floating face nodded. “And you would let . . . Eschaton destroy the rest of the . . . world, and kill the people you . . . love?”

  Viola couldn’t feel the tear rolling down her face until it slid past her unfinished metal skin. “I suppose.”

  “What if I . . . killed you? Would the end of your . . . existence make you . . . happy?”

  She smiled. “I wouldn’t know. But we can try.”

  “Viola! No!” Emilio’s selflessness struck her as sweet, but also foolish. She could see Tom’s other arm wrapping around him, binding her brother.

  “Let him go,” she said, and then realized how foolish she sounded, ordering him to do anything. She was appealing to a humanity that the mechanical man simply didn’t have.

  “Where is . . . Sarah!” Tom boomed back at her.

  That girl. If she died, what kind of monster would Tom become? “I don’t know.” She wondered if Eschaton had ever considered that for all his bravado, this machine represented far more of a threat to the future of humanity than he ever could. If the Automaton ever realized that his enemy wasn’t any particular human, but humanity itself . . .

  “Upstairs!” Emilio yelled out, his voice almost smothered by the metal tentacle wrapped around him. “She’s up there, trying to find you!”

  The metal arms unwrapped from them both. Grasping the spikes that held him into the wall, Tom tore them from the rock, and lowered himself to the floor.

  His body began to twist, taking on a strangely inhuman form. Viola wondered if Tom had decided that he no longer wished to be human, but the strange configuration only lasted for an instant before it resolved into a more natural shape.

  He was still recognizable as the Automaton, but he looked more angry and aggressive than he had been before. Chains replaced the strings that had been wrapped around his body. He was more massive and threatening now, but to Viola he seemed more tragic and vulnerable than he had been before. Emilio hung his head. She couldn’t tell if he was angry or ashamed.

  “It is . . .” Tom said, his voice turning from a growl to a roar, “time for all this to . . . end.”

  “We need to go. Eschaton has taken the rocket up to the courtyard. I think he plans on launching it soon.”

  “Tom,” Emilio said, looking up at the roof. “It’s time.”

  The machine man nodded. “Viola, you need to . . . leave as well.”

  She felt a cold shock run through her. She expected to feel the chains wrap around her neck, choking the life from her until the world went dark.

  “Go where?” she said quietly.

  “Away,” Tom replied firmly. “Anywhere that I . . . will never . . . see you again.”

  The tone was so flat and unemotional that unscrambling the meaning was almost like a puzzle. She turned to her brother. “Emilio . . .”

  He was staring down at his feet, unwilling to look her in the eye. “You should go, Viola. He’s giving you another chance.”

  She took a step closer to him. “Emilio,” she repeated, “is this what you want?”

  “It’s what you said you wanted,” he replied through gritted teeth. “It’s what you chose.”

  She could feel the burning sensation of tears forming, but only in the eye that was uncovered by her metal flesh. “I didn’t mean to . . .” but the lie died on her lips before she could finish speaking it. It had been her decision that had put them onto opposite sides.

  “Don’t worry too much,” he said, tilting his head upwards slightly. “There’s a good chance that none of us will live through this.”

  “Before you . . . go,” Tom said, “I have a . . . question.” He turned his painted mask toward Viola. “You were my . . . friend. Emilio’s . . . sister. Why did you . . . give yourself to Eschaton?”

  She laughed. “When humans are broken they can’t just repair themselves. I wanted to become better than I was. I wanted to be like you.”

  For a long, quiet moment Tom’s face stared at her, as inscrutable and implacable as always. It neither wavered nor blinked. “I don’t . . . repair myself,” Tom rumbled. “I grow.”

  His head turned away, and the Automaton began to rise up, his body elongating and stretching toward the ceiling. Emilio, cradled in chains, rose with him.

  Viola took a step back, and then another. Then she turned and ran. This time when she reached the stairs, there was nothing to stop her.

  Chapter 25: Purification

  CHAPTER 25

  PURIFICATION

  Eschaton grabbed the handle and squeezed, freeing the lever. As he threw it forward he felt the platform beneath his feet shake as machinery hidden deep underground rumbled to life.

  For almost a minute nothing moved as the elaborate system that Darby had constructed built up pressure. It was only when it had become powerful enough to overcome the massive weight of the rocket that the platform began to rise, lifting slowly away from the floor of the laboratory and into the air.

  The rocket wobbled only slightly, but the Frenchman’s reaction was much more pronounced. Eschaton could see that the old man was clearly not convinced that the device was safely secured. “Don’t worry so much, Jean-Jean. We are reaching the end of a long journey. We’ll be fine.”

  “I am so gwad of youw confidence.” Le Voyageur shook his head. “But wife does not werk zat way. We must stwuggle to ze vewy end, and even zen it is only an instant aftew ouw death zat ze werk we have spent ouw entiwe wife to achieve is undone.”

  Eschaton smiled, thinking of how all Darby’s carefully laid plans had rapidly fallen to pieces after h
is passing. “I thought it would make you happy to see your efforts coming to fruition.”

  The Frenchman rolled his eyes. “You aways wewe an ideawist, Wowd . . . King Omega.”

  It was good hearing the Frenchman using his proper name. Ultimately, in the new world, it would only be the title that would matter. It was the beginning of a new world, but in his own thoughts Eschaton was still waiting to be reborn. Once the rocket launched, then he would truly be a new man.

  It was possible that his own reign would be short. Surely one of the survivors of the smoke would become powerful enough to destroy him and take power. It was not the legacy that he had originally wished for, but it was preferable to having his egalitarian paradise ruled by idealists and pacifists like the Mercurial Man. There would be no place for that kind of weakness in the world to come.

  Holding up one of his metal-covered arms, Eschaton flexed his hand. With every movement a small spark of electricity travelled across his skin. There was an irony in the fact that he now wore Darby’s legacy as his own flesh. It was surely one that would have been lost on the old man.

  The suit he had crafted for himself had come as a sudden inspiration—one that he could credit to the Automaton. Having taken the Omega Element directly into him, he needed a way to store the living energy that he produced. Every second he had more and more power at his command . . .

  “King Omega!” the Frenchman yelled. “Open the couwtyawd hatch!”

  Omega grabbed the second lever of the three in front of him and gave it a tug. Up above them the ceiling cracked open, allowing a beam of sunlight to filter down from above and split the darkness.

  He had hoped for rain the day of the launch, figuring the water might act as a catalyst for the smoke, but perhaps a blue sky would mean that the gas could travel farther. There was no way to know for sure until they tried. And once this experiment worked there would be other cities, and more rockets.

  As the gap continued to widen and the platform climbed closer to it, Eschaton could hear shouting from the courtyard above. A few moments later, a man slipped through the hole. His shout lasted only for an instant, before he crashed down into the framework of the rocket and hung silently.