“You would defend him?” Ikey spat.
“I would save your life even as you tried to piss it away, yes.”
“And what good would that do? What good would that bring to Philip?”
“What good would you bring to us by poking an alligator with a stick?”
“I mean to do more than poke.”
David barked a laugh. “He laid you on the floor before you ever knew you were hit. You’re hardly half his size. What do you mean to do by confronting him? If you have a death wish, my good man, might I suggest you crawl in after Philip? You’d make it easier on the rest of us.”
Ikey stood up straight and glared at David.
“Not funny, is it?” David asked.
Ikey shook his head.
Gavril paused right inside the corner of Ikey’s vision.
“It’s not,” David continued. “So don’t toy with these daft statements. Get to work. Mind your work. Don’t think of anything else.”
The press clanged shut.
Ikey looked at Gavril. Once again, he was met with an impassive gaze of stone. Might they all be like that in Russia? Cold and frozen, faces hard and stern from harsh winters and bleak landscapes?
Ikey ducked into the maw of the press with David. “You don’t want me to provoke The Alligator because you want me to get Gavril out.”
“Right-o,” David said as he swept the pieces out of his half. “You don’t do anyone much good when you’re dead.”
“I won’t die.”
“You’re killing me by talking such nonsense.”
Ikey swept out his half, then stood and stared David in the eye.
The press clanged.
The two men ducked inside again.
“I’m going to do it,” Ikey said. “I have to. It needs doing. And if you sic Gavril on me, then my death will be on your hands. Your hands and Gavril’s.”
“And you would do that to me? As Philip has done to you? To you and me? You’d piss away your time and work in solitary? You’d go back on your promise to me? And what of Rose?”
Ikey stood up again as leather pieces fluttered to his feet.
“There’s more to the world than Rose,” Ikey said as he glanced back at Gavril, who clutched the edge of the cart and tried to bury a coughing fit in his fist. “And there is more than Gavril.”
“Do you love Rose?” David asked.
The press clanged.
Ikey dove into the tray as soon as it started to lower. The two men swept the tray off in silence.
“Well?” David asked as they stood again.
The tray crunched up again, settled into the leather and the blades with a clank. After a hiss, it dropped away and revealed the black spots of leather peppering its tongue.
As they dove back in, Ikey said, “I can’t say,” and swept the leather away along with his words.
“I’ll tell you this of love,” David said as they stood up. “We conceal it for safety, do we not? But if you push it so far back into darkness, you will find, when you look, only what we leave out for others to see.”
Ikey stared out over the floor, past Gavril and to The Alligator, who yelled at someone as he motioned toward a machine.
“I killed a man, once,” Ikey said to David. “It’s how I ended up like this.” He flicked his fingers at his face and swept a hand over his mechanical arm.
David cocked his eyebrow, then bent down to the tray again. “And you’d do it again?” Ikey joined him in sweeping the tray out.
Ikey stood up straight. “He shot my friend. The man I killed. He was trying to kill me. I…” The words trailed off as Ikey recalled that last moment before everything went up in flames: the weight of the hammer in his hand; the swing of it; the blow and the spark and the whoosh of air as the hydrogen in the Kittiwake blossomed into flame. There, at the moment, the split second before he raked the hammer down, had he intended to kill Admiral Daughton? Or had he merely intended to stop him, to get away, to hurt him enough to save himself?
David glanced around. His gaze lingered half a second on Gavril before he returned his attention to Ikey.
“I killed a man once, myself. Several, in fact.” He planted his hands on his hips and appeared to be taking up a stance from which to scold Ikey. “I’m not bragging. I’m not proud of it. I’m quite ashamed, actually, and you’re only the second person to know, so I’d appreciate it if you kept it to yourself. I’ve never been more ashamed of anything. But that’s what you push back into the darkness. The worst parts of you. Push them away, so far back that no one can see them, yourself especially. Pull out what you want everyone to see.”
“Is that why you’re here?” Ikey asked as they swept off the tray.
“I told you why I’m here,” David said. “I was accused of filching bread.”
Ikey nodded as the men stood back up. “That’s why you don’t want to leave, isn’t it? You want to be punished.”
“Nonsense. If I wanted that, I’d confess.”
“Why don’t you confess?”
“Why don’t you confess?”
Ikey swallowed. “I see your point.”
“Do you?” David asked. “A dead man can’t atone for his actions. A dead man can’t work to erase his mistakes. A dead man can’t make the world a little bit better for at least one person. Leave The Alligator alone, Ikey. You want to talk to me about punishing oneself? Live for yourself first. Live for Rose. For Philip, if you want. Then we’ll talk about it.”
Ikey thought of the admiral, the flames crawling up his coat, the squinting expression on his face as if the light was too much to endure, and it was his only concern. Until his hands started flapping against himself, brushing the fire away like a horde of aggressive ants.
“Pay attention!” David admonished.
Ikey pulled his hand clear just as the tray clamped shut. His heart hammered in his chest as if it had been a hand of flesh that almost caught the blades.
Ikey let out a long breath. “Why don’t you leave, then? For yourself. For Gavril. For Philip, if you want.”
David smirked. “It’s different between you and me,” he said as he flipped a mechanical finger back and forth between the two of them. “You are trying to settle some score with yourself, punish yourself or something. It’s all about you. I’m trying to better his odds. With me, it’s all about him.”
“Gavril might disagree.”
David furrowed his brow. “We’re never going to find out, are we?”
Ikey leaned down to sweep off the tray. “If he and I escape, how might he react if I told him of your wishes?”
A drop of sweat fell from David’s nose as he swept the leather pieces aside. “It doesn’t matter to me what you tell him, as long as you tell him outside these walls.”
Ikey and David stood up as Gavril shuffled up behind them. His shoulders hitched and his cheeks puffed as he wrestled with the start of a coughing fit.
“Bloody hell,” David sighed. “Cover for us.” He dropped to his haunches and swept up the bits as Gavril coughed into his fist.
The press clanged. Ikey swept out his half of the tray, then stepped forward and swept out David’s half. He pulled his arm back as the press clanged shut.
The humming that forever filled the room died away until nothing remained but the sound of Gavril coughing into his fist.
Before Ikey, the machine halted as the tray approached the blades. The machine appeared to be caught up in a thought, interrupted before it could say what it had intended to say.
“Son of a bitch!” The Alligator bellowed. He stomped down the line, face twisted into a sneer and lifted to the ceiling as if the reason for the power loss was something he might whip down from wherever it hid. He’d tramp upon it and crush it so that they might get back to work.
“Don’t just stand there,” The Alligator yelled as he craned his head from left to right. “Grab your brooms and rags, you lazy sods. Clean your machines!”
David sorted his handful of bits
into the appropriate bins, then hurried over to a rack at the end of the room where dozens of brooms sat upright. Meanwhile, Gavril stumbled over to the machine, pulled a rag out of a crevice and tossed it to Ikey.
At each machine down the line, men retrieved rags, then climbed in to the maw of the machines, much farther than they would if sweeping out the leather.
Gavril knelt before the machine, then threaded his arm into the maw. A few seconds later, he pulled it back out. Odd bits and tiny shreds of leather fell from the grimy rag.
“You, too,” Gavril said, then coughed into his fist.
Ikey knelt before the machine and attempted to do the same, but he could not thread his mechanical arm through the narrow space between the tray and the blades. He had to turn his back to Gavril and use his good arm. His heart climbed into his throat as he sank his flesh arm back, deeper into the machine, past the blades ready to chomp boot-shaped holes out of his flesh.
“Hear the hum, get out fast,” Gavril said.
Ikey nodded. His tongue licked his dry lips as he swept the rag around and pulled it out. Bits of leather rained to the floor like dry manure.
Once David returned with a broom, he thrust it at Gavril with one hand while his other hand presented an open palm.
“I got it,” Gavril said.
“Get your arm out of there.”
“I hear for hum.” He caught another coughing fit.
“It’s the dust that worries me,” David said.
Gavril handed off the rag, then grabbed the broom stick and pulled himself up. He coughed some more, mashed his fist over his mouth, and began to stumble around, sliding the broom before him.
David snapped the rag and told Ikey to switch him places.
Ikey nodded to the rag clutched in David’s mechanical hand. “How can you clean with that? You can’t feel.”
“I know my way around these beasts by now.” He stuck his arm in. It disappeared to his shoulder before he drew it back, scooping out a handful of grime as he did so. “Reach in there and start wiping off the edges of the press. Try to get all the bits stuck in the back. When the power comes back on, you’ll hear a sharp whine. Get out as fast as you can.”
“What happened?” Ikey asked.
David shrugged. “Probably sabotage. There's been a raft of issues with it lately. Not that I’m complaining, but it sure puts The Alligator in a foul mood.”
“Who’s responsible?”
“Don’t know. But if you found out, I bet you could earn a pardon from here. The superintendent is desperate to find out. Whoever is responsible knows his way around the factory’s systems.”
Ikey asked more questions, but David told him to quiet down and listen for the whine of the machine. Many laborers had had their careers cut short when the press caught them full in.
“You don’t want two mechanical arms. Trust me,” David said, and his eyes touched on Gavril before turning back to Ikey.
They cleaned in silence, and the whole room seemed off with nothing more than the soft whisper of brooms, of David’s breath as he wheezed in the dust that he and Ikey kicked up. Gavril coughed into his fist until he could hold it no more, then leaned on the broom handle until he coughed up a thick wad of bloody mucous. He spat it to the floor, and the wet mass of it added to the weight of the tension laid across the room, so tight it hummed with its own sound.
It wrenched Ikey’s belly to hear it, the absence of the whine. Not knowing what to listen for made him feel like the press was always coming down, ready to snap off his arm, chew it up and laugh and spit it onto the floor, mangled and broken and twitching.
“What are you doing there?” The Alligator bellowed.
Ikey glanced up and saw the monster approaching, his attention focused on a point behind Ikey.
“Pay him no mind,” David said. “Just keep working.”
“This isn’t a bloody hotel, you worthless bag of rubbish. Move your bloody feet!”
Ikey glanced over his shoulder after The Alligator passed. He stopped two machines down and punched a man in the back of the head. The man sprawled to the floor like a dropped bundle of bed sheets.
The Alligator drew his leg back and delivered a swift kick to the man’s side.
An oof escaped the man. He rolled over and curled into a ball.
Ikey pulled himself from the jaws of the machine and turned around.
David grabbed a handful of Ikey’s trousers at the thigh. Ikey tried to pull his leg free, but the iron held its grip. He glared down at David as he shook his head.
The Alligator laughed and screamed at the man, asked if he needed a turn at his poor mum’s teat before returning to work.
Ikey flexed his mechanical arm. “Let go,” he uttered at David through clenched teeth.
“Work,” David admonished.
The Alligator raised his foot and stomped on the man’s rib cage. A horrible sound escaped him, like air fleeing a torn bellows.
“You’re no better than him!” Ikey spat at David. He swatted at the mechanical hand, but Ikey’s flesh fingers did nothing against David’s iron grip.
The Alligator roared. “I said get up!”
A chain rattled.
Ikey’s eyes widened at the sound of The Alligator’s mace. David’s eyes widened as well. His face paled. The whites of his eyes spread their blankness across him.
Ikey twisted his torso around and lifted his own mechanical arm, ready to smash it down on David’s hand.
The air split with the swoosh of the mace.
Ikey sucked in a breath, then lifted his arm the tiniest bit higher and focused his attention on the rods at the base of David’s hand, where they were mounted into a convex plate over the stub of his wrist.
Crack.
Ikey’s hand swung out, away from himself, flung back toward the powerless machine. A broomstick flashed before his face. He stumbled to his left, dragged by his arm as Gavril followed through, the broom gripped in his hands like a jousting stick, the tip of which was lodged in Ikey’s arm.
Another crack. The second one much louder, like a chorus of cracks.
Ikey’s arm slammed into the machine. Gavril collided with him. Hands gripped his shirt, yanked him forward and flung Ikey around in a stumbling arc until his back slammed against the side of the machine. The back of his head bounced off something hard and blunt. The world trembled and darkness edged in around the sight of Gavril’s face, teeth bared, slivers of blood between each tooth.
“I—“
Gavril shot a blow into Ikey’s stomach. The air escaped him. Another blow collided with his right cheek. His face snapped hard to the left. He fell to his knees.
Ikey reached back, grabbed a pipe, and steadied himself. Grains of rust dug into his palm. He lifted his mechanical arm, surprised for a flash at how easily something so brilliant and versatile as his arm had been reduced to a blunt club.
Gavril grabbed Ikey’s mechanical arm and pinned it against the machine. Ikey swung it forward regardless and brushed Gavril away with all the fuss that Smith had used to dispatch Ikey’s dad in an arm wrestling match.
Ikey pushed himself to his feet. Gavril coughed into his fist. His chest heaved. His breath wheezed. His face was scarlet—a hot rock with which he would scald Ikey if he got close.
Gavril raised his fists.
“Enough!” David demanded from behind Ikey.
“What’s going on back there?” The Alligator yelled.
The bottom fell out of Ikey’s stomach. This was it. Gavril be damned, it was time to make The Alligator pay.
Ikey spun around, his iron arm up in a fist. The room split with a whine. Machinery crashed. Men screamed.
David, standing at the corner of the machine, clenched his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut. Screaming continued.
The Alligator bellowed as he ran down the line for someone to shut it off. Shut it off.
Ikey’s fist dropped. Gavril brushed past and plucked the broom off the floor before carrying it back to
the rack.
“Come on,” David said. He motioned Ikey back to his station.
Ikey stepped out from between the machines. Down the line, men gathered around one of the leather presses. Blood splattered the floor before a machine like drool from a monster’s jaw.
Ikey closed his eye, and everything was sharper.
“Come on,” David said as he laid a hand on Ikey’s shoulder. “Get to work.”
Ikey turned away. David’s face was pale. Smudges of dirt and grease stood out across his cheek in sharp contrast.
Ikey followed suit as David leaned in and swept out the machine.
“He would have killed you,” David said as they stood up.
Ikey shook his head. “I would have taken him.”
“I wasn’t talking about The Alligator.”
Chapter Seventeen
The rest of the day, David remained civil to Ikey despite the altercation. He was too accommodating, in fact, as if trying to make up for a slight on his part. Gavril, meanwhile, remained silent, distant; a long, dark cloud around which David hovered like a bird.
Once they made it back to the bunk hall, the man with the wonk leg approached. He told Ikey that he had the toolkit if he wanted to accompany him back to the end of the hall.
Ikey glanced at David, who sat on the edge of his bunk and pulled his boots from his feet. He nodded.
Ikey followed the man back. In return, the man presented him with a simple tool roll, then shucked his clothes off until he stood in nothing more than a pair of knickers over a canvas contraption that held a mechanical leg to his stump in much the same way as David’s hand was held against the stump of his arm.
Ikey unrolled the toolkit. It contained a screwdriver, a pick, pliers, and a few spanners of various sizes. After nodding in approval, he made short work of examining the inside of the leg. The man’s stump had shrunk in size since the leg had been installed, and the cup at the top of the prosthetic no longer fit. Ikey bent the components inside the cup to better hold his leg, and then he teased the rods that held the eyelets, drawing them to their proper positions. As he was finishing up, the watchman rang the bell, then extinguished the lantern and robbed Ikey of the scant light that made it to the back of the hall.
Tin Fingers: Book 2 in the Arachnodactyl Series Page 18