The Ghost Engine

by Theresa Fuller

  She pressed her fingertips to her temples. She had to defeat Gine, or she had damned them all.

  Around her the velvet silence fell like a heavy curtain. She had no idea if the car was going and presumed it was, not that she had any way to stop or to start it, if it failed. Or open it. Charles’s plan was for her to remain inside while he fought off the other book stacks. He had reasoned that inside the car, she would be out of Gine’s reach. Yet if she was out of reach, Gine would not be able to transport her out of the Engine.

  In a way, it was the perfect trap.

  She shook her head. Charles rarely made mistakes. It was simply further evidence that he was worried and exhausted. It didn’t matter anyway; she was not planning on remaining in the Faraday car. She was going to the Mill. If she failed because Gine culled her, at the very least, she had bought Charles time.

  Her right arm throbbed. A sticky substance oozed down the length of her arm as her blister ruptured, plastering her silk sleeve to her pelisse. She wiped her forehead with her good hand then pushed the pain out of her mind.

  Countless times, she had focussed on a problem and the hours had flown by. Countless times, she had gone into the stables at breakfast only to come out at supper time. She would open the stable door, and stagger out to find her dinner on a tray by the door, stone cold. Or half-eaten by the neighbour’s calico cats. Countless times…

  She had been hungry then. Not for food. Only for a solution. So many times she had gone to bed, angry with herself because she had not found an answer, only to find that as soon as she had placed her head on her pillow, the solution had arrived. She had gotten dressed and gone back down again in the freezing cold.

  Numerous were the episodes when she had forgotten everything else except for the joy of what she was doing. This frame of mind was what she had to achieve. Be so single-minded and focused in order to reprogram Gine.

  The door opened.

  Outside the trees gleamed with an eerie slickness as blue light nestled like beetles in their cracks, crawling out when she neared. She stumbled on, the glare of the Mill calling her, trying desperately to ignore the pain from her right arm.

  Light and the hum grew as she travelled forward.

  The landscape changed, becoming a paper cut-out of black and white. Heat from the Mill beat like a furnace, and she smelled charring metal as her cheeks grew uncomfortably hot.

  What worried her most was the intense light. Brilliant beams, as if the sun was low on the horizon, sliced into her eyes, obliterating her vision. She moved forward only with great difficulty, shielding her eyes with her fingers, constantly walking into metal trees. Her pelisse and hands were scored and cut.

  She had thought the Mill a single tower rising from amongst the trees, but it had grown into towers of cast iron and glass, ten times the height of the Crystal Palace in Penge. Gold and black imprints of its image rose on the back of her lids when she closed them, showing her a dazzling structure more in keeping with the Hagia Sophia of long ago Constantinople.

  Holy wisdom.

  Silver balls of lightning burst from within, tailing off in dazzling streams that veined tantalisingly across the surface of the glass walls. But closeness caused the pain in her right arm to flare even more.

  Finally, her heart pounding savagely, Berd stood before the glass walls of the Mill, squinting behind the shield of her clasped fingers, tasting browning metal in her lungs. She had just reached out one hand to touch the surface, when she heard her name called.

  “Berd!” A familiar voice shouted.

  She whipped in the direction of the caller, some distance away to the right, at first eager and then confused. The voice had sounded like Charles. Her heart skipped a beat. No, it was more likely Gine pretending to be Charles in order to stop her from entering. Charles may have improved his driving greatly, but there had been hundreds of book stacks.

  Frantic, she turned, intending to search for a door when a shadow lunged at her.

  She screamed and jumped back. For one split second, the intense white light of the Mill was cut off by the figure’s body, before it slammed against the inner walls of the Mill. She stared, unable to look away, as the figure was wracked with electricity, mouth open, head tilted back.

  But only as it sprawled to the ground did she realise that the figure was inside. Inside the Mill!

  How did it get within so swiftly?

  She would have sworn the earlier voice had been some distance away. And it had called from the right. But something had lunged for her from the left…

  She had heard neither its horrific screams nor smelt the burning of its charred limbs because it was within the glass confines. Had it not been, it would have grabbed her. Yet she had heard it earlier. The only conclusion she could come to, was that it was not the same figure who had cried out.

  Common sense deemed the figure inside to be Gine, but if it was Gine then it made no sense for him to leap at her if contact with the Mill’s glass walls caused such a heinous incident. Gine would know not to touch the walls. But then so would Charles. The difference would be that Charles would leap at the walls if it would save her life.

  The figure behind the glass walls… the figure with the sky-blue eyes. For one incredible second, she had thought she was staring into the face of Charles. But she had left him back in the stack… unless Gine had trapped Charles, placing him inside the Mill. Anything was possible with Gine.

  All thought of escape or even of reprogramming vanished. Immediately, it was far more important to find out who the figure inside the Mill was because then she would know the identity of the figure on the right. And know whom she kissed in the book stack; whom she had pledged her love to...

  Lightning scored the skies overhead and the trees around her seemed to jump up. Thunder cracked a second later.

  The Engine was under attack.

  “Berd!” The figure to her right reached her.

  Berd swung around a tree, keeping it between her and the figure as she tried to determine if the figure was Charles or Gine. She tried to stare into his eyes, but like her, he was squinting through the fingers of one hand as he shielded himself from the heinous glare of the Mill. She could not tell.

  “Come! Hurry.” He reached forward to grasp her arm only she ducked out of the way.

  “What the hell!” he sputtered. “The Engine is being attacked. We need to get out!”

  She felt stupid as she shouted, “Who are you?” The truth was that she had no way of determining if he was telling a lie.

  The figure cursed loudly and vehemently. “Don’t be daft, princess. We don’t have time for games. We need to leave before the Engine blows up. Come on!” Again he reached to grasp her arm.

  Instead, she kept up a two-step round the metal trees, constantly out of reach but where she could see the figure on the right, which certainly looked like Charles.

  But then both figures did.

  As she agonised over the identity of the two figures, the left figure, the one behind the glass walls, crashed against the glass again. It was thrown backwards in an explosion of white hot sparks.

  “Who is that?” She pointed one shaking finger at it.

  The right figure stiffened. “Can you not even tell us apart now?” The edge of his voice trembled with disbelief.

  If the right figure really was Charles then she was insulting him by confusing him with Gine. She was risking their lives because she hesitated. But she had to be sure.

  Again Gine had tricked her. He had made her focus on something else other than her objective: reprogramming.

  And time was running out.

  Gine was good. No, Gine was brilliant. A pity he was not on her side.

  “I need to know. I need to know who you are. If you are truly Charles then I apologise. But I need to know,” she insisted. “That figure has been throwing itself at the glass walls, almost electrocuting itself in the process. Why is it doing that?” Unless it was Charles trying to protect her from Gine.
>
  Lightning flashed across the sky.

  The figure on the right spoke through gritted teeth. “It is hard to destroy stacks without destroying some of the Engine’s memory. It probably can’t remember how to get out.”

  “Charles has never lied to me.”

  Thunder boomed overhead. The leaves of the metal trees shook as if in a strong wind and she winced as some fluttered perilously close to her. The tang of motor oil glistened on the air.

  He sighed heavily. “I am Charles, and I’m not lying. Now please, please, please come, before that thing breaks through.”

  She was almost convinced. “But how did you get up so fast?”

  He tilted his head to the heaven, rolling his eyes, such a Charles-like expression that she longed to believe. “I parked the stack near the top of the plateau.”

  “But how did you know I was here? You’re Gine.”

  “I’m Charles—”

  The glass walls of the Mill cracked. The figure on the left was almost through.

  The figure on the right grabbed her round the waist. She whimpered when he brushed against her right arm but turned and ran with him.

  “Can it… can it break through?”

  “Yes, now run! Run for your life because he will be fast.”

  “But who is it?” cried Berd as she picked up the hem of her skirts and ran.

  “It is all that remains of Charles. But I wouldn’t stop to speak to him. His sole objective is to cull you.”

  The glass wall crumbled just as something inside her disintegrated.

  A bone-chilling roar filled the air and Berd knew the creature had fixed its gaze on her: the figure on the left. The creature who had once been Charles. Her love. Which could only mean she was holding Gine’s hand. Her enemy.

  As if he sensed her repugnance, Gine whipped his hand out of hers. Then he shoved her hard between the shoulder blades.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Run! Run! Run! I’ll hold him off as long as I can!”

  All Berd could do was to run and keep running, or it could catch her.

  She longed to know how Charles could have changed so much. Or how could Gine call himself Charles. But the selfish question that burned in her mind was if she would reach the Faraday car in time.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  THE DOOR OF the Faraday car cracked shut as soon as Berd entered. She slumped to the ground, too exhausted to clamber onto the seat and dug her fingers into her sides to stop the air, keening in and out of her lungs, from cutting like sheets of metal. Her injured right arm dragged like the chain of an anchor.

  Her agonised breathing echoed in the enclosed space. When she lifted her head from the floor, she found she was shivering. Nothing was making sense. She had entered the Engine to find out why Charles had refused to love her, hoping to win him back, but instead, things had gone horribly wrong.

  Charles, her love, was trying to kill her. Gine, her tormentor, was risking life and limb to save her, and she had no idea how all this had happened. Gine’s lie, saying he was Charles, made her far from grateful to him. But if he was speaking the truth then it meant that Charles was doomed.

  Too soon the door opened.

  She peered out. She was down on the glass-green plains, where the wind blew the odour of burnt pine, motor oil and paraffin from the wrecks of half-a-dozen blazing book stacks onto her face. She remembered seeing hundreds. No doubt Gine was waiting for when she was at her lowest to unleash them. She didn’t need to look at the blood-seared sky to know she was in hell.

  Where are you, Charles?

  The landscape shook. Lightning scored its nails into the skies. She scrambled out, rubbing her eyes and nose. A book stack, still intact, leaned next to the cliff. That had to be the original book stack. It was her only hope, though where she would go, she had no idea. Maybe the platform Charles had mentioned so long ago...

  She slammed into the elevator as thunder crackled. Cool ginger-scented air of the elevator fanned against her, drying the tears she was trying to hold back as she rode it up. Then the door opened, and she stumbled out. She was settling herself in the empty seat when she heard a cry.

  “Wait!”

  She looked up and across the empty space to see Gine on the top of the plateau, hobbling towards the stack, towards her.

  Gine, who had lied to her. Gine, who had called himself Charles. Gine: who was supposed to have Charles inside him. In the sepia light, his clothes appeared torn, his face a mess of bruises. If he expected sympathy from her he had come to the wrong person.

  Then she saw Charles, or what was left of him, a heap on the ground. No, not a heap, it was rising. His torso, his husk, as stiff as a tree trunk, a hollow tree, for all his substance was gone. She could not deal with either Charles or Gine now.

  The Charles-creature was Gine’s problem. He had tricked her. And now if he expected her to wait for him he was mistaken. She gave one short, scornful laugh then turned to the controls as she tried to figure out how to work this thing.

  Thankfully, she had the experience of driving her autocar, and she had watched Charles — No, Gine — earlier. She flicked switches. Her face heated at the memory of his deception.

  Hurry, hurry. Hurry before Gine reached her. The stack swung away when Gine was six feet away from the edge of the plateau.

  Good. She clenched her teeth and rotated the stack a hundred and eighty degrees.

  “Berd, please.”

  She would be a fool to turn around; Gine had tried to kill her. The term he preferred was: cull.

  And he had done something to Charles.

  But if Charles is really inside Gine…

  Blast! Blast! Blast!

  She turned the stack to face Gine. There was but twelve feet of air between them. And the Charles-creature was closing.

  Gine was standing, arms loose by his side. “Please.” His face was at peace as if he did not expect her to take him. But it made no sense why he would need her help. He was in charge of this place. She had seen him melt into the surroundings, into solid steel walls on numerous occasions.

  Gine’s chest heaved with the effort of speaking. “I can’t kill him, do you understand? I can’t kill him. But he can kill me.”

  Leaving Gine was murder.

  Berd told herself she was a fool, but she moved the stack to close half the distance. “Jump!”

  No one said she had to make it easy for him.

  Gine leapt, sprawling face-down in a heap onto the copper platform. So he wasn’t really that helpless. But she could not make out what he was playing at. She didn’t wait to see if he was all right, but turned the stack and moved away from the cliff. Away from Charles...

  She pressed her trembling lips into a straight line as the stack swayed and staggered like a drunken camel. Behind her she heard Gine’s shouts, the slam of his body as he attempted desperately not to fall off the polished platform.

  She spread her lips in a mirthless smile. It was her turn to monopolise the chair. When she felt they had travelled enough distance to be safe, she halted the stack, but did not extinguish its engine. Then she swivelled the chair to face Gine.

  The platform was empty.

  She gasped. He must have fallen off! She shot up from her seat just as she saw his knuckles whiten against the edge of the platform. He hauled himself back up, his face red with the exertion in the dirty brown light.

  “How could you?” she screamed at him, throwing all her anger and frustration into her words.

  He shook his fist and shouted back, but she couldn’t hear him over the rattle of the engine and the storm. Lightning scattered silver streaks across the sky as she switched the engine off. As the stack quivered to a stop, Gine pushed himself into a sitting position. His chest heaved from the effort as if he were actually breathing.

  Thunder shook the air.

  “I cried out countless times for you to stop! Where did you learn to drive, if one could even call that driving?”

  Sh
e raised a delicate finger. “Not one word about women drivers. Or over the edge you go.” She flicked the air to demonstrate.

  His face whitened. But she was in control. “How could you trick me like this?” she demanded.

  “Trick you? What do you mean? I saved your life.”

  “I meant the kiss.”

  His scowl promptly vanished, replaced by a grin that showed how much he had enjoyed it. “I opened my eyes to find you kissing me.”

  She spoke through clenched teeth, “I thought you were Charles. I thought I was kissing him.”

  He arched a brow. “I am Charles. You were kissing him. Me.”

  She stilled. “What do you mean?” Her voice was tight.

  “I explained it to you before.” Gine tilted his head back, indicating the walls of the plateau two miles away.

  ‘I?’ He must mean Charles. Charles had made mention about how he and Gine were merging each time he partook of the energy. Only right now Gine seemed to alternate into being Gine one minute and Charles the next. Then she remembered she had seen such confusion in him before. After their ride in the hot air balloon and in the elevator, Charles had appeared as if fighting some bitter internal battle. Gine had been trying to take him over back then. And even that once in the book stack when he almost crushed her hand.

  “Earlier you said you were Charles. That is the only reason I turned back. Then you called that — it — whatever remains of Charles. Who is the creature? Explain what you mean or I’ll throw you back.” She placed a finger on a switch.

  Gine scrambled to his feet.

  “Stay. Where. You. Are,” she ordered.

  He shrugged and dropped obediently. “Very well. Charles told you about the line of code.”

  Her heart almost stopped. Surely he did not mean that line of code!

  “Charles programmed me to always save his life.”

  Perspiration dampened her body and she sank back onto the chair.

  “What I did, I did because of my programming. If a program performs a bad line of code, is that program bad? Remember, I have no choice in the matter. If I tell you, promise you won’t throw me off?”