With that, Rolfe pushed himself to standing and left Ikey and the mechanical ass alone. Its severed head remained on the bed, staring blankly at the wall.
After an hour or more had passed, Ikey had still not tracked down the machine’s problem. As he picked up a pair of tweezers to pull out a coil spring, a muffled scream passed through the room.
Ikey tensed up. The scream came again. Louder. A woman’s scream.
“Remain quiet,” Rolfe announced. His shoes clipped across the floor, and then aluminum frames scraped across the floor as Rolfe drew them around David and Gavril, and then closed the part between Ikey and the rest of the infirmary.
The doors burst open. A woman screamed again.
“Doctor, you’ve got to help her!” a woman demanded.
Ikey peered through a crack between two screens. One woman held up another whose head lolled on her shoulders. Her face was red and wrenched in agony. Wisps of hair fell from her bun and lay plastered in sweat against her forehead. Beneath her breasts, she clutched a bundle of rags. Behind the women, a mechanical ass stood with a fat-fingered hand clamped on the injured woman’s shoulder.
Rolfe pointed at the nearest bed. “Sit.”
The woman led her companion over. They sat down.
“What happened?” Rolfe said as he approached and reached for the rags.
The injured woman stammered, pleading for Rolfe to no, don’t. She turned aside and drew her hand away from Rolfe.
“She caught her hand in a belt, damn it,” the women spat at Rolfe. “Tried to catch a sole before it dropped into the wrong machine. Instead, she got her fingers tangled in the contraption. It chewed them all to pieces.”
“Let me see,” Rolfe said. He held his hand out before the woman and gave it a small shake, as if demanding an errant child return a filched piece of candy.
Ikey gripped the side of the blind.
“It’ll be all right,” the other woman said. She stroked the injured woman’s hair with the tip of her fingers. “Let him help.”
The injured woman extended her hand, like she was giving something fragile and priceless to Rolfe.
Rolfe cupped the bundle of rags. With index finger and thumb, he peeled back the folds of the bundle. The injured woman turned away. Fresh sobs fell from her. The other woman nestled her companion’s head onto her shoulder.
As Rolfe peeled away the bloody edges, the woman startled and flinched and pushed her head deeper into the crook of her friend’s neck.
Rolfe’s eyes squinted. His mustache twitched as he shook his head. He returned the rags to their earlier position, and with an expressionless face, he asked the woman to please lie down.
“What can you do for her?” her friend asked.
“Please lie down. I’m going to get someone who can help.”
“You’re not calling on the porter.”
“Please lie down. You’ve lost a good deal of blood, it appears. Please lie down.”
“You cannot send her to the chopper,” the other woman said. Her posture angled forward, her back finding an iron strength. If it weren’t for her friend sobbing into her shoulder, Ikey was sure she would be up and in Rolfe’s face.
Rolfe stepped back, then proceeded toward the hallway.
“Damn you!” the woman hollered after him. “She needs help, not the devil’s tools! If you have a God-fearing bone in your body—”
Rolfe disappeared down the hallway. A few seconds later, a door slammed.
The woman patted at her friend’s head, cooed that it would be fine.
Ikey glanced to David’s and Gavril’s beds, still visible from Ikey’s viewing angle. Gavril lay with his eyes fixed on the ceiling. David sat in a chair at his side, slouched and staring hard at something on the side of his own bed.
Ikey’s grip tightened on the screen as he wracked his brain for something to help the situation. If he could hide the women, or help them out of Marlhewn, get them down to solitary. But the other woman’s injuries…
Rolfe returned a moment later.
“May you rot in hell, you heartless monster,” the woman spat at Rolfe.
“Please lie down,” Rolfe said and gestured with a sweep at the bed. “It won’t be long now.”
The woman clenched her injured friend tighter.
Rolfe sat on the edge of a nearby bed and stared at the women. They watched each other for what seemed like half an hour before the doors opened, and in walked a short, fat man with a pork pie hat a size too large, and a coat a size too tight. Behind him, two of the mechanical asses marched in lockstep. A stretcher spanned the space between them.
Rolfe sprang to his feet and tugged at the hem of his waistcoat. “Please lie down.” He gestured to the stretcher.
The woman clutched her injured friend tighter. “This is not treatment. This isn’t human. She doesn’t want this!”
Rolfe snapped his fingers and pointed at the injured woman. The mechanical asses set their stretcher on a bed, then approached the two women. Both began to cry, but neither resisted the mechanical asses as they took the injured woman by the arms and legs, lifted her, and placed her on the stretcher.
As the mechanical asses carried her out, the other woman stood. She glared at Rolfe and her complexion deepened through several shades of red.
Rolfe remained still, arms folded over his chest.
“May you rot in hell,” the woman finally said.
“Return to your post.”
The woman spat at Rolfe’s feet and stormed past. She shoved the doors open and yelled something at the mechanical ass that waited to escort her back.
Rolfe sighed, then rubbed the bridge of his nose. As he approached Ikey’s work area, he glanced at David and Gavril. Gavril did not bother to look at the man. David’s eyes held a thunder of malice and disgust as he returned Rolfe’s stare.
Rolfe pushed the blind aside.
“Why did you send her to the chopper?” Ikey asked.
Rolfe folded his hands behind his back and stared into the spiked and studded heart of the mechanical ass before him.
“She lost two of her fingers.”
Ikey joined Rolfe in staring into the automaton. “I thought you were against augmentation.”
“I am. But what would you have me do? I’m either a wolf in the fold, or a sheep in the den. I must play my part.”
“How many people do you do that to? Send them off like that?”
“Too many.”
Ikey stood a moment more, then glanced down at the spanner in his hand. He approached the automaton and went back to disassembling the layers of complexity that crawled around it.
“You asked for a scotch,” Rolfe said.
Ikey looked over his shoulder.
Rolfe still stared into the innards of the mechanical ass. “When you first came in, you asked for one. Would you like one? I could use a drop myself.”
“It’s awful early,” Ikey said, then turned back to the automaton. “But I wouldn’t turn it down.”
After Rolfe and Ikey shared a drink, Rolfe retired to his office and left Ikey alone to work. An hour later, he discovered the issue; a broken gear deep inside the works. With great relief, he took his discovery to Rolfe’s office and presented it. In return, Rolfe scurried off to find a replacement.
As the infirmary doors swung shut behind Rolfe, Ikey approached David and Gavril to give them an update.
“I don’t trust that man,” David said. “I don’t care what he says he believes, there was no excusing the way he handled that woman earlier.”
Ikey shrugged. “He has to play his part.”
David steepled his fingers together before his face. “Don’t we all. And isn’t that the problem?”
Ikey looked from David to Gavril, unsure of the meaning. Gavril regarded Ikey with his cool, gray eyes.
“We don’t have much of a choice at the moment,” Ikey said. He looked back over his shoulder at the automaton. He had removed so much of the thing’s innards that he could s
ee through it to the white-washed brick behind its tilting frame. Disassembled as it was, it no longer looked dangerous—just an innocent contraption to perhaps wring the juice of grapes.
“We leave,” Gavril said.
Ikey turned back. He arched his eyebrow at David, expecting translation.
Gavril nodded once. “Now. We leave now. Before that.” Gavril nodded at the mechanical ass.
Ikey pursed his lips and blew out a long breath. “Cross still needs my help. I have to finish this to help him.”
David smirked. “You believe Rolfe?”
“I don’t know that I have a choice.”
David averted his eyes. “I don’t like this. I don’t like waiting around here.”
Ikey glanced at the infirmary entrance. “How do you suggest we get around without getting noticed?”
“I’ve given this some thought,” David said with a grin. “Surely there are stretchers around here somewhere. We borrow one, put Gavril on it, and hurry him down to solitary. If anyone asks, we say Rolfe put us up to it. Don’t stop for questions. It’s not like we’d be heading for an exit. No one expects men to break into solitary.”
Ikey raised an eyebrow. “Change of heart? You’re going, too?”
David looked from Ikey to Gavril and back. “Whatever it takes. But the longer we wait around here, the greater the chance we will be discovered. How long can Rolfe keep that hatchet-faced nurse out of here?”
Ikey stared at David and tried to decide what he was up to. Would he really go with them, or would he turn back as soon as Gavril was out of the hole?
Ikey shook his head. “Go if you want. I’ll cover for you. Swear up and down I know nothing about your disappearance. You can knock me out if you want to make it more convincing.”
David kicked his feet off the bed and sat up. “Bugger that, man. I can’t carry Gavril down to solitary on a stretcher by myself. If we leave, we have to leave together.”
“Then we wait,” Ikey said. “I have to finish the automaton.”
“Do you think Rolfe really has Cross in a bind?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“The hell it doesn’t.”
“I’m not taking the chance.” Ikey looked from David to Gavril and back again. “You understand.”
David sat back in his chair. He steepled his fingers together again. “That I do.”
Ikey waited for Gavril to chime in, but the man said nothing. He only stared, his face blank and content.
Ikey returned to his work. As he waited for Rolfe, he picked up the ledger and flipped the pages to the cryptic part that dealt with how to instruct the automatons. His attention wavered, however, and his mind wandered off the page.
Rose would tell them to go. To leave now. Rolfe couldn’t be trusted.
The pace of his heart quickened as he reviewed the instructions. Once he put the automaton back together, he’d have a new bargaining chip. Rolfe would have to tell him what he wanted of the mechanical ass.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Before the dinner bell, Rolfe returned with the parts Ikey had asked for. Ikey repaired and reassembled the beast, except for the head and casing, and then wound the springs. With the flip of a lever, gears clicked and easements clacked and the thing stood up with the elegance and grace of a walking pocket watch.
Rolfe clapped Ikey on the shoulder. “Brilliant! How long before you can give it instructions?”
“Soon,” Ikey said as picked up the ledger book again. “But I have to know what the instructions are before I go any further.”
After a moment of silent appraisal, Rolfe nodded and bid Ikey to follow him into his office. Inside, he slipped a book from his shelf and laid it upon the desk. He flipped to a page and stabbed his finger on a hand-sketched diagram of a building wing.
“This pipe here is a water main,” Rolfe said. “At this juncture is a valve that will cut off the supply of water to the boiler. I want the automaton to approach this valve at night while this room is empty. I want it to shut off the water, then proceed here to this point where it will find an ax inside a case. It is to retrieve the ax, return to the valve, and then break the pipe here, on this side of the valve. Once the pipe is breached, the automaton is to turn the valve back on, and then sit itself before this door and move for nothing less than the end of the world.”
“Why?” Ikey asked. “If you want the boiler put out of service—”
“You do not understand the art of sabotage, my dear man. The point is not simply to ruin the boiler, but to cause as much damage as possible in the process. I want this room flooded. I want it submerged. I want them to not only have to repair the pipe and replace the boiler, but to have to drain the water from this room and replace the sodden equipment inside it. If you can do this, you can earn the inmates a day’s rest or more in addition to handing a large, severe setback to the Lord of Kerryford. The point is to make slavery unprofitable.”
Ikey studied the diagram. Whoever had designed the factory had not been keen on efficiency. The pipe shunted water around the room to take it to the boiler. The boiler should have been built on the other side of the room, near the water pipe to begin with.
“Can you do this?” Rolfe asked.
“What if I—”
“Can you do this?” Rolfe insisted.
Ikey nodded. “I can do it.”
“Good.” Rolfe snapped the book shut and gave Ikey a broad grin. “Can you do it before the dinner bell three days hence?”
“I can do it before the dinner bell the day after tomorrow, I think. I’m pretty sure.”
“That won’t be necessary. Three days will do.”
“Then what?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“About Cross? About David and Gavril. We have a deal.”
“So we do. If the automaton completes this task, then the following morning, during the confusion, I will have the three of you whisked out of here in secret, and you will be reunited with Cross.”
“Where is Cross?”
“Someplace safe.”
Ikey went to fold his arms across his chest, but his mechanical arm wouldn’t cooperate completely. He ended up letting it fall to his side while he planted his right hand on his hip. “I’d like more than that. Suppose something happens? Where am I to go?”
“Nothing will happen.”
“Something always happens.”
Rolfe shook his head. “That’s the best I can do for you. You get that automaton to execute as specified, then I will have someone escort you to Cross’s location. Deal?”
“I’d rather know now.”
“I’d rather not be here having this conversation. But we make do with the situation we find ourselves in, do we not?”
Ikey stared. His mind churned over the bargaining chip. It was too soon to play it. He had to wait until it was close to time for Rolfe to execute his plan. Let him taste it. Then he’d snatch the plate away.
But why the deadline, if he wanted nothing more than to ruin the boiler and flood the room? Something wasn’t right. There was more afoot than what Rolfe alluded to.
“I’d like you to get David and Gavril out of here now. I’ll stay and finish your automaton,” Ikey said.
Rolfe stroked his mustache. “I’m afraid not. I don’t have it in my abilities to make that happen.”
Ikey tapped a finger on the desk. His attention drifted to the photograph of Rolfe, his wife, and his daughter. Ikey let out a measured breath and reminded himself that Rolfe was on his side. He may not have had a reason to trust the man, but neither did the man have a reason to trust Ikey. Each knew a damning bit of information on the other.
“Is there something more I can do for you?” Rolfe asked.
Ikey tapped the diagram between them. “Is this to scale?”
Rolfe nodded. “Exacting.”
“I need to borrow it. And a ruler.”
Rolfe produced a ruler from a drawer and laid it atop the book.
As Ikey re
ached for the items, Rolfe placed his palm across the ledger and ruler. “I know I haven’t given you much reason to trust me, but please believe me when I say that I don’t like putting you in such a position. I’d rather we work with a degree of camaraderie, as opposed to this veiled animosity that currently exists between us.”
“Then don’t put me in this position. Give me something to work with. Grant me a reason to trust you.”
Rolfe leaned forward. He stared intently into Ikey’s eyes. “If you knew how important this was, you wouldn’t be questioning me.”
Ikey slid his hand off the ledger. This definitely involved more than a flooded boiler room.
Rolfe sank into his chair. His fingers trailed across the desk blotter until he drew them down into his lap. He had misstepped, and he knew it.
Ikey straightened his back. “I hear confession eases the soul.”
Rolfe pulled his velvet drawstring pouch out from its pocket in his coat. “The truth,” he said as he packed the tobacco into the pipe, “is that I have this unique position due to my ability to complete those tasks that most men find distasteful. I can step back and see the lay of the land where most men cannot see the forest for the trees.”
Rolfe clamped the pipe between his teeth, then swept a match across the desk blotter. It flared to life, hissing. A pang bore into Ikey as he thought of the sound of Cross lighting a lantern, taking Ikey inside his house.
“The truth,” Rolfe said, then held the match to the bowl of his pipe. His cheeks sucked inward and the flame dipped into the bowl. After a few puffs, he shook out the match. “The truth,” he repeated around the stem, “is that I have the higher hand here, and I cannot compromise it by involving those who cannot see the complete picture. I must keep my hand close to my chest until it is time to play it. But rest assured, I give you my solemn word that what we are playing for here is worth it, and once you see the cards played out, you will agree fully.”
“Your solemn word? What is that worth to me?”
“Have I lied to you?”
“You’re withholding the truth.”
Rolfe nodded. “Indeed I am. And that is why my word to you is unassailable. I could be lying to you, telling you all sorts of fabrications to delight the ears. But I am not. I am telling you the truth. And the truth is that I cannot tell you a word more than what I have previously said.”
Tin Fingers: Book 2 in the Arachnodactyl Series Page 23