He closed his eye, the last one remaining. A swift blow to the other eye, and he would be blind again. The world would be smudged into a muted swirl of dull colors and blocky shapes. A crash of his fist that he would feel only in his face, not in his hand. It would be like it was delivered from his own dad.
And he would be able to shut it out. Just close his eye. Anytime he liked. Be in the dark. With Rose.
Movement caught his eye. Gavril stood in the doorway. David peeked around the jamb.
“Go away,” Ikey said.
Gavril shook his head.
“Go away!”
Gavril remained in the doorway, motionless, his gaze fixed on Ikey as David examined the edges of the room and took in the damage.
Ikey stepped forward and reached for the door.
Gavril planted his bare foot against the door jamb.
Ikey grabbed the door with his mechanical hand, but he couldn’t bring himself to shut it, not while Gavril’s bony foot stood in the way, ready to spark with pain, damage wrought with the mindless mechanics of Ikey’s wrist and elbow.
“Go on,” Ikey said as he stared at the foot, the shards of glass around it, sharp and glinting and pricking the gaslight. “Piss off, will you,” Ikey said, and then his voice broke too.
Balancing on his one foot, Gavril leaned in and grabbed Ikey’s wrist. He gave a tug and leaned his weight back.
Ikey tensed at first, but then allowed himself to be pulled out of the supply closet lest he upset Gavril’s balance and send him crashing to the glass-strewn floor.
Their momentum carried them across the hall where Gavril stopped and gave another tug with one arm as the splinted arm folded itself over Ikey’s back, reeled him in, and held him tight.
A sob escaped Ikey.
Gavril placed his hand on the back of Ikey’s head and drew him close. Ikey’s chin hovered over the man’s shoulder. Gavril turned his head and kissed the scar-strewn temple of Ikey’s head.
He felt only a slight pressure, and a crushing wave of ugliness and horror that sapped the life from his joints.
Ikey’s knees fell out from under him. Gavril caught him and lowered him down until both men were on their knees in the hall. David’s hand appeared on the top of Ikey’s head and he stroked his fingers down the back of Ikey’s skull.
Ikey sobbed again and buried his face in Gavril’s shoulder. He wailed and cried and wished again for the ability to block everything out, to hide in the dark, to be disconnected from the world and safe from every horror he couldn’t see. And no matter how hard he cried, no matter how hard his pent up sorrow and anger poured from him, choking his throat and cutting off his air, Ikey continued to empty himself into Gavril’s shoulder. And never did his vision cloud with tears, waver or alter. Through it all, he saw the plain weaving and the crooked stitches of Gavril’s shirt.
The infirmary door squealed. Ikey continued to empty himself as footsteps hurried across the floor.
“What’s going on here?” Rolfe asked.
“Ikey saw his reflection,” David said. “For the first time.”
Rolfe’s footsteps moved over to the supply closet.
Ikey finally took a deep, shuddering breath, then lifted his head. He turned and faced Rolfe.
Pink colored Rolfe’s cheeks. His jaw flexed once, as if pushing his tongue against the roof of mouth. But then he walked away without a word and disappeared into his office.
“I’ll get this cleaned up,” David said.
“No,” Ikey said. “It’s my mess.”
“You sit with Gavril for a while. I welcome a chance to be off my arse.”
Ikey staggered to his feet and offered a hand to Gavril.
Gavril pulled himself up.
“Thank you, Gavril.”
The man smiled. “You are welcome.”
Ikey turned to David and took a deep breath. He wiped the butt of his palm under his right eye. “I appreciate the offer, but let’s allow the mechanical ass the honors. It’d be a good test.”
“Oh,” David said as he nodded his head slowly. “A wise man you are.”
Ikey snickered and looked away. A fresh sob floated up in him like a dark log and bumped against the thin ice of his veneer. “I feel rather foolish, to tell the truth.”
“It’s not who you are, Ikey. It is what the world has done to you.”
Ikey bit his lip, nodded to David and Gavril, and brushed past them as he made his way back to the motionless totem of the automaton.
As Ikey stood in the doorway of the closet and watched the mechanical ass clean up the mess, Rolfe emerged from his office and took up station at Ikey’s side.
“Will it be ready for its mission?” Rolfe asked.
Ikey went to cross his arms over his chest, but then cocked his right hand on his hip. “Yes.”
Rolfe nodded. He twisted at the end of his mustache. “What happened to you?”
“The world.”
“You didn’t ask The Old Chopper to cover your scars,” Rolfe said—an observation, not a question.
“I didn’t ask for any of this.”
A shower of glass tinkled as the mechanical ass slid a dustpan full of it into a dustbin.
Rolfe crossed his arms over his chest. “Still. Many of the men here ask for their scars to be covered. Especially those who get them on the face. You see them with the tin or copper plating.”
Ikey nodded.
“I shudder to see that,” Rolfe continued. “A man who would do that has given up all hope. He’s resigned himself to spending his life here, being replaced piece by piece until there is nothing left of him but a twisted knot of flesh squeezed into a box of clamps and gears. A man like that doesn’t care. A man who doesn’t care scares me.”
“Is this supposed to make me feel better?” Ikey asked.
“I don’t care if it does,” Rolfe said. “I’m simply saying I admire you for wearing your scars where everyone can see them. If everyone could see all the scars one carried around, then it would be a different world. If we could see the damage we do to others, if it wasn’t so tightly hidden away, we might take more care. Just maybe.”
Ikey leaned against the jamb. “What’s your scar, then?”
Rolfe smirked, then took a deep breath. “I live with uneasy decisions. Like the woman sent to The Old Chopper. That tears me up. The inside of me is like a hollow cave festooned with shreds of quivering flesh where my heart used to be.”
“Why do you do it, then?”
Rolfe clasped his palm over his mouth, then wiped it down his chin. “When my daughter died, I spent a year waiting to recover from the shock of it. I have delivered the worst news anyone could ever imagine hearing to many parents. I knew their reactions. I knew what to expect. But when it came my turn, it was like some pathway inside my head had been ruptured. That particular realization never made it to the core of me, the part that crumples up under the weight of that news. It was like waiting for a forest to burst into flames, and when it didn’t, I found the whole forest had turned to ash a long time ago.”
Rolfe cleared his throat and clasped his hands behind his back. “Once my wife left, I gave up waiting to mourn. But I soon found I couldn’t abide by that. I couldn’t accept it. I needed to suffer. I needed to experience that essence of change and the suffering that goes with it, or otherwise her life and her very existence meant nothing to me. It was absolutely unacceptable that such an angelic child as Mary could have passed through this world without stirring in me the greatest change, the greatest suffering imaginable.”
Rolfe took in a deep breath. Glass chattered and tinkled as the mechanical ass deposited another load into the dustbin. Rolfe exhaled.
Ikey sought the slightest sign of anything in Rolfe’s face, but saw nothing except the shifting movements of his eye as he watched the mechanical ass trundle about the room.
Rolfe swallowed. His Adam’s apple bobbed over the buttoned collar of his shirt. He turned his face to Ikey. “So that is my scar.
I am a man haunted by his own heartlessness. I have dedicated the remainder of my life to being an agent of change so that I might feel once again the capacity to grow, to evolve.”
Rolfe lifted his eyebrow. “Do you feel better now, having this tidbit?”
Ikey watched the mechanical ass relocate unbroken bottles and tins in order to sweep up shards of glass.
“Will you fight with me?” Rolfe asked.
Ikey looked over the remains of his shoulder at Rolfe.
Rolfe grimaced, then shook his head. “Poor choice of words. Will you fight alongside me, Ikey? The fight needs men like you. We need men who are unafraid to show their scars to the world. We need such men to be agents of change, to fight for a better future and struggle to see dignity restored and future generations guarded from the abuses of a few greedy bastards.”
Ikey turned back to the mechanical ass. “The prison master asks the prisoners to be equals.”
“I am no one’s prison master.”
“Then let us go.”
“We have a deal.”
Ikey shook his head. “What you’ve told me makes things worse. You have threatened me and my friends. You have ordered others to The Old Chopper all to see if you can feel the remorse that you are apparently incapable of. You’re a monster, and I don’t see much in you that I care for.”
“And you are ugly as sin—”
Ikey winced.
“But we do what we must. We act according to what we think is right. Sometimes that action is ugly, but what is ugly isn’t always wrong or to be feared, is it?”
“I will not be persuaded by your velvet arguments as long as I am in here.”
“Your animosity is misdirected, my dear man. I am not the one who brought you here. I am the one who is trying to shut this place down.”
“What of David and Gavril?”
“What of them?”
“Would you ask them to join your crusade?”
Rolfe shifted his gaze out across the infirmary. David and Gavril were nowhere in sight, secluded behind the dividers that separated them from the errant person who came in seeking medical treatment.
“I would welcome the fellowship of any soul who fought to change this world for the better. But to be honest, your skills make you unique. There are only a handful of associates in our band of revolutionaries who can match you in mechanical will and spirit.”
“And what do they do with their talents?”
“Fix things.”
“Like the boiler.”
“You might say as much.”
The mechanical ass deposited another load of broken glass into the dustbin. Ikey wished he’d done something with the head, turned it into something less disturbing. But then it would stand out among the other mechanical asses wandering the halls.
Ikey turned to Rolfe. “I’ll make you another deal. You get a message to Cross, and a response back to me by the dinner bell tomorrow, then I’ll hear you out. I’ll give your band of hoodlums an honest consideration. How’s that?”
Rolfe watched the mechanical ass shuffle on to the next shelf. It laid the dustpan against the wood, picked up a brush, and began sweeping up the glass.
“What message?”
“Do we have a deal?”
Rolfe’s chin lifted a smidge. “My movements are restricted. I don’t know that I can get a message and a response by tomorrow evening.”
“That’s the best you can do?”
Rolfe turned to Ikey. “Take the message to him yourself the day after tomorrow. And if you want to join the fight, then we’d be honored to have you at our sides. But if you have a single doubt—any reservation at all—then I would rather see you pass. We have no room for doubt here. Doubt has a way of filling up with cogs and gears in this part of town.”
“Very well,” Ikey said and turned back to the mechanical ass.
Rolfe watched the creature’s progress a moment more, then returned to his office. When the door clicked shut, Ikey leaned against the door case again as the glass jumbled into the dustpan like the fractured voice of a music box.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ikey laid his pliers down and picked up the wooden box he had fiddled with since shortly after Rolfe had invited him to join his band of hoodlums. He opened the hatch on the mechanical ass’s body, then slid the box into a tight compartment. As the slots on the end of the box clicked into place, Ikey sought a hint of recognition or realization in the glass eyes; any sign that the thing understood. Nothing. It only continued to stare at the space over Ikey’s head.
Ikey plucked a rolled-up towel off the bed and turned around. The mechanical ass clamped its hand on Ikey’s shoulder. His breath stopped as he waited for something more to happen, but true to the instructions given, the thing stood behind him and waited for Ikey’s next move.
Before his next step, in his mind, Ikey cataloged every tool placed inside the rolled-up towel. He couldn’t think of anything more he’d need, so he tucked the makeshift tool roll under his mechanical arm and stepped forward.
His shoulder strained against the mechanical ass’s grip for a second, and then the thing matched his step.
A sigh passed quietly over Ikey's lips. He moved one of the aluminum screens aside. He didn’t bother to call on and wake David or Gavril. Sure enough, at the noise of the screen scraping across the floor, they each sat up in the bed they shared. In the candlelight Ikey had worked by, they blinked their tired eyes and squinted at the dark silhouettes of Ikey and the mechanical ass.
“What are you doing?” David asked. “Are you leaving?”
Gavril tossed the sheet aside and placed his feet on the floor.
“I have to go get something,” Ikey said. “I’ll return shortly.”
Gavril stood as David placed his feet on the floor. “What? What are you going to get?”
Ikey glanced at the dark hallway on the other side of the room. Rolfe had left several hours ago, a pork pie hat planted squarely on his head, his overcoat hanging from his shoulders, but still Ikey half-expected to find him at the end of the hall, stepping from his office.
“I don’t trust Rolfe. Before I hand this beast over to him, I want to construct something.”
“Like what?” David asked.
Ikey shook his head. “Nothing. It’s a simple device that might come in handy if we have to escape on our own. But the pieces I need to make it aren’t in here. I have to go find them.”
David glanced at Gavril, then stood. He rolled his pillow aside and grabbed the shirt folded up in a neat square beneath it. “I’ll come with you.”
Ikey shook his head. “You can’t.”
David's shirt dangled from the hook of his finger. “You can’t go alone.”
“I’m taking this.” Ikey hitched a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ve instructed it to follow me around like a shadow. If someone sees me, I’ll look like another inmate being escorted around the building.”
David shrugged into his shirt. His fingertips clicked together as he hurriedly buttoned it. “Well, it can hold my shoulder as well. We’ll both look like we’re being escorted.”
“That won’t work. I don’t have time to instruct it to follow you as well.”
“What’s to instruct?” David asked as he shoved a leg into his trousers. “Tell it to hold onto my shoulder. I’ll follow you.”
“No,” Ikey said. “It doesn’t work that way. Besides, how many of these asses do you see escorting more than one person?”
David buttoned his trousers, then turned around and plopped down on the bed. “It’s late. Who will see or even notice?” he asked before he bent over and fumbled under the bed for his boots.
“I’ll be right back,” Ikey said. He turned toward the door. The mechanical ass’s grip tightened, then followed him along.
“Which cell?” Gavril called out.
Ikey looked over his shoulder.
“In case you not make it back. Which cell has tunnel?”
He couldn’t recal
l. When they had dragged him out of solitary, he had forgotten to count the doors on his way out. He had no clue which cell held the tunnel.
“I don’t remember. Honestly.”
Gavril nodded once.
“You don’t remember?” David asked as he fumbled with stuffing his foot into his boot. “Well how the bloody hell do you expect to find the tunnel, then?”
“I’ll recognize it when we open the door.”
David stood. He had one foot in a boot, the other still bare. “You won’t consent to go now, will you?”
Ikey inhaled deeply.
“Because of Cross,” David said.
Ikey nodded once.
“And yet you don’t trust Rolfe?”
“He knows enough to convince me that he has something to do with Cross. He mentioned… He told me things that only Cross would have said.”
David and Gavril exchanged a glance. Across David's face, it was plain to see him churning the words over in his head, searching for a way to suggest that Ikey take Gavril with him now, show him the exit before anything befell Ikey.
“Go,” Gavril said and nodded to the double doors. “Hurry back.”
“How can you tell which cell is the one with the tunnel?” David asked.
“There’s a patch of rust on the door. I’ll know it to touch it.”
“Touch it? You don’t even know what it looks like?”
“It’s dark down there,” Ikey said. The promise of the darkness pulled at him. “I couldn’t see a thing.”
David's shoulders slumped a bit.
“We’ll get out,” Ikey said. “One way or another. I promise.”
With that, Ikey turned back to the door.
“Godspeed,” Gavril called after him.
The footfalls of the mechanical ass echoed down the halls. Ikey wished to turn around and tell the thing to be quiet, to tread lighter, but it would be a wasted effort. The ability of the machine to understand verbal commands was highly limited. Such a request would be ignored, and furthermore, it would be best if Ikey didn’t appear to be sneaking around the workhouse at night.
As Ikey and the mechanical ass approached a pair of automatons stationed on either side of a double door on his left, Ikey held his breath but kept his pace steady. As they passed by the mule-headed machines, each remained rooted in its spot, watching with lifeless eyes as Ikey walked past with his escort’s hand clutching his shoulder.
Tin Fingers: Book 2 in the Arachnodactyl Series Page 25