by Giselle Ava
I throw the last scrap of cold chicken in my mouth and then slide the plate aside, hefting up the pistol and weighing it in my grip. Even with just one arm, Frederick knows what I can do, that’s why he wants me fighting beside him. That’s why we need George, even though he’s dead, because the three of us together is our best equation at this point.
I drop the pistol into my empty holster.
Perhaps we ought to wait for the unrest to die down, but I know we don’t have the time, that people are being executed in the streets, that while we still have something to hold onto, we’d better hold onto it. So I only say this: “Where is this Craxton fella?”
This is what Frederick responds: “Enjoying the theatre.”
Secret Mission
I touch the pistol at my side and breathe in the acrid air across the road from the Lyceum Theatre. Black cars line the streets, their perfect hulls covered in ash. Streetlamps seem to float in the air, their poles barely visible in the thick darkness that sits over London.
Dead George sits on one of these cars, his weight on top of it negligible. Meanwhile, Frederick stands at the very edge of the sidewalk. His entire body is illuminated by a passing street car, the tall man’s shadow cascading from right to left until the vehicle is gone and the three of us are plunged back into darkness. A breath of mist leaves Frederick’s mouth and scales the length of a streetlamp, dancing in the minimal light it emanates.
If you listen closely, you can hear the audience inside. The show has just ended. We’ll wait until the crowd has dispersed before tracking down Bernard Craxton. He was sighted earlier, dressed in teal with a red cravat and a matching top hat. His yellow moustache is unmistakeable. We also know that the Lyceum only has one exit and Craxton likes to linger out the front to smoke a cigarette, before departing for his car. We know that he is alone, which should make our task of kidnapping him easier. He is a smug man who thinks himself invincible, which makes our task of kidnapping him doubly easy.
He has a daughter, says the whine.
You’re still here, I respond.
As long as you are, it tells me sincerely.
My hand flies from my pistol to my pocket and disappears inside it. London has never been this cold. I shiver when that whine speaks to me. I imagine it as a tiny red bulb of light within my brain. I know it’s being sincere when it says it’ll be here as long as I am.
No. The whine has no sincerity. The whine has no emotion.
The whine, I tell myself, is not a thing.
The whine does not respond.
The doors out the front of the Lyceum open up and the commotion becomes louder. Bodies spill out from the theatre like a tidal wave, immediately dispersing across the road. The air begins to smell of pretentious wealthy men and I find myself scowling. Those men in their top hats and their expensive outfits, they’re the ones who scheme behind fortified walls, the ones who make our decisions for us, the ones who make us their weapons and then throw us out like trash because they fear what they turned us into.
Look at what they’ve done to this beautiful city.
Frederick glances at me, and then at Dead George, and then we’re stepping onto the road with our hands in our pockets. I lower my head, my top hat dripping shadow across my face. Dead George’s steps are lithe and silent. Everywhere he walks there’s a faint sound of somebody whistling, the air becoming bothered by his presence. Frederick just walks, his brown duster rapping against the backs of his legs with the breeze.
Where is this bastard? I surreptitiously look around at the men in suits. They laugh and they chat and they pretend nothing was ever wrong in London. To them, I imagine, nothing is wrong. They got what they wanted. When we offered them peace, they gave us war. And then they killed Mildred Piper and now they’re executing us in the streets. Nothing at all changes for these men with their purses full of money, their extravagant manor houses, their posh cars. Tonight they’re seeing a play. Tomorrow they’ll go back to work.
They think they’ve won.
My shoulder brushes somebody but I don’t look back. The man grumbles unintelligibly to himself but does nothing. I come close enough to a short, fat man to smell his gross odour, and he glances at me, one eye magnified by a crooked monocle. He weighs me up and then continues talking to his partner. This is because they think they’ve won.
I glance sidelong through the crowd to spot Frederick. He’s walking a few metres away from me, his height proving a good advantage in the watery crowd.
We fought together during the war. We were conscripted. They promised us it would only be a short deployment. They promised us lots of things.
“Bernard!”
The sound comes in from the right and that’s where I turn. The man who says this is about three seconds away from me, dressed in a grey suit jacket and black tie. His wife latches onto him. She is younger than he is, blonde-haired, wrapped up in a fashionable white dress.
The man is smiling in the direction of the Lyceum. I follow his eyes to a wash of people, and there by a red post box is Bernard Craxton. Striking red top hat. Teal suit. Red cravat. Yellow moustache. The man wears oval spectacles and his face is covered in blemishes. Craxton takes a drag of his cigarette and waves it at the man, painting the dark sky with smoke. He says, “Enjoy the rest of your night, Rodney.”
I feel Frederick close in on my other side.
Ahead of us, the man called Rodney and his wife close the distance between himself and Craxton, and speaks to him. I move through the crowd with Frederick and Dead George, focusing on Craxton’s expression. He chews on the end of his cigarette.
Why do you hate us?
Because I can’t control you.
So you’ll kill us.
We’ve provoked the hornet. We have no choice.
My shoulder clips somebody else and Craxton’s staring at me through a gap in the crowd. My heart stops in my chest. A sliver of smoke leaves Craxton’s nostril, floating into the sky where it becomes entwined in the thick haze. Rodney steps away from him and observes Craxton’s reaction. Craxton does nothing, just stares at me and takes another drag.
I imagine the whine, the blinking red light in the back of my head.
This is what I ask it: What is he thinking?
The whine responds factually: He recognises you.
Craxton says something to Rodney while staring at me. Rodney glances in our direction, then back at Craxton, who says nothing else. Rodney walks away with his wife in tow. Craxton tosses his cigarette to the ground, crushes it with the sole of his shoe, and walks away. Frederick moves fast. I follow. I have no reason to believe anything the annoying whine says, so I ignore it. I have never met Bernard Craxton in my life.
No, he definitely recognises you, says the whine.
I’m grinding against wealthy men as I follow Craxton from the Lyceum towards an alleyway. My eyes fixate on him and do not move. I’m afraid to blink or else I’ll lose him.
Craxton enters the alleyway and I increase my pace.
Craxton’s shoes flick up ash as he moves faster. We’re through the alleyway and into an abandoned carpark behind the theatre. It’s a gated area with two parked cars and a single overhead lamp, flickering on and off with a very audible buzzing sound. Craxton slows down when he enters this area and pulls out another cigarette. His matchbox clicks and a single leaf of flame burns against the tip of the cigarette. He sucks on it, looking at us.
“Evening, gentlemen,” Bernard Craxton says.
My hands sink into the pockets of my ill-fitting coat. Craxton takes a moment to admire my fashion choices, then looks up and stares into my eyes, smiling.
“I often stroll by here,” Craxton says, taking a drag of his cigarette and letting the smoke back out into the night sky. “What better way to unwind after a strenuous day of work?” His weight shifts nervously. Craxton is a thin man with bad eyesight; you can tell by the fact he needs glasses. He is clumsy. His left leg has an odd shape to it. A deformity, perhaps. If he runs, we�
�ll catch him. I’m sure Craxton knows this, so he’ll try to talk his way out of it.
Why didn’t he stay in the crowd?
He doesn’t think we’re mechanicals at all.
What if he knew you were? asks the whine.
He wouldn’t have come out here alone.
What if he knew you were, and wandered out here regardless?
Then he’s a moron, is what I say back to it.
Craxton ignores Frederick and approaches me. He definitely has trouble putting weight on that left leg. “That’s my coat,” he says.
Shit.
Don’t mention Cecelia.
“We have the same coat,” I say.
Craxton shakes his head and reaches out to rap his knuckle against my chest. I look down to spot a silver pin there, a crest that I’m not familiar with. “We also have the same pin attached to the same coat, do we?” He steps away from me, blowing smoke against my face.
“Gentlemen,” Frederick says.
“My daughter’s always had a soft spot for you bastards,” Craxton says.
A gunshot goes off and pain explodes in my stomach—again. I scream, collapsing to my knees and marvelling at the blood splatter that decorates Craxton’s outfit. Frederick takes the man in a chokehold and grabs his firing arm. The barrel sweeps over me and I clumsily dodge it as another bullet flies, smacking into the side of the Lyceum Theatre.
“Arthur!” Frederick shouts as Craxton elbows him in the throat and escapes from his hold. I let my fist fly, striking Craxton in the face. The man’s nose cracks and he drops to the gravel like someone who’s run into a brick wall. My pistol slides into my grasp and it settles between Bernard Craxton’s bloodshot eyes. Frederick yanks him up off the ground and chops him in the side of the neck. Craxton’s eyes shut and he collapses in Frederick’s arms.
“Great work,” says Dead George, clapping his ghostly hands.
There’s another gunshot somewhere in the distance and my body goes numb. I imagine the scene, a man with metal contraptions beneath his skin falling to the ground, a police officer standing over him, his pistol gushing putrid plumes of black smoke.
Every action has its consequence, the whine tells me.
I know.
This war won’t end with a whisper. It’ll become the culmination of every decision everybody has ever made, until it reaches a point when there’s no more room for two sides.
And what will happen then?
That’s how it ends.
Frederick is eyeing me. The buzzing streetlamp goes off, plunging us into darkness. All that remains are the lights from the Lyceum, and the blue glow of Dead George.
“You okay?” Frederick asks.
I nod. “Let’s take him back.”
Interrogation
Here we are on the second floor of the Gresham Club, a group of mechanicals and the man who wants to kill us, a man called Bernard Craxton, tied to a seat.
In the moment where I’m standing before him, a pistol in my hand, there’s a little voice going off in the back of my head and it’s saying: Be careful, Arthur.
I’m also thinking about Cecelia Craxton, how she had helped me. She helped me and now I am going to kill her father. The gun is hot in my hand, a perfect fit, like it was designed to be there. Frederick stands across from me, to my left. He’s downing the rest of his beer in one fell swoop. When he finishes, the glass thumps to a table.
Craxton stares up at me, blinking like a man who has just woken up from a deep slumber. The last he’ll have. I wonder what a madman like Craxton dreams of.
Then I realise I don’t give a shit.
“Bernard Craxton?” I say.
“It’s already over,” Craxton says in confirmation.
“Does it look over to you?” The pistol hums against my palm, a slight tickling sensation that makes me want to gently finger the trigger.
“Killing me won’t change anything.”
“We’ll probably find out how true that is in the coming days.” I say this as I slide the pistol into my holster and motion for somebody to throw another chair at me. It flies across the floorboards and I catch it. “What is Fortescue to you? From what I’ve heard, the two of you dine together often.” I know this because we have spies on the inside, informants hooked up to the copper wires. They know these things. “He even gave you full control over a new project designed to exterminate all of our kind.” The table squeals as I place it in front of Craxton and sit down in it, close enough that I can see the sweat on the man’s brow. “I should hazard, killing you would change some things. Or is Fortescue that heartless?”
Craxton eyes me. “Maybe he would care.”
“Maybe you’re just a worthless sack of shit taking orders.”
“And what are you?”
“You know what I am.”
“Detritus.”
“Hm.”
“You’re like a dog who’s gotten angry because somebody didn’t feed him right. It’s not my fault people fear you. They don’t fear me.”
“You hate us so much. I must ask, what would your daughter say? Does she know how you slaughter us in the streets? Does she know the things you do?”
“Leave Cecelia out of this.”
Oh Arthur, what have you done?
The whine burns with such intensity I flinch. Craxton notices this. His eyes narrow with curiosity; his lips, which are cracked, form an uneven line across his gaunt face. I stand up from the chair, still staring at Bernard Craxton. His expression has softened. His eyelid trembles. For the longest time, he doesn’t blink, and I’m sure he doesn’t even breathe.
What did you tell them to do? the whine enquires.
I told them find the Craxton girl.
How charming, says the whine.
I glance now at Frederick. He gives a nod.
“What are you doing?” Bernard Craxton says.
This is what I say: “Bring her out.”
From a side room, two men in red coats drag a young woman with a messy gag in her mouth. She squeaks, her cerulean eyes going wide at the sight of her father. Her fashionable pink skirt has been torn down one side but clings to her small body.
“You bastards!” Craxton screams.
The men slam her to the floor, bruising her knees.
I pull out the pistol and show him it’s loaded.
Craxton struggles against the binds that keep him on the seat. A man grabs the back of it to stop it from toppling over. I glance at Cecelia and she’s looking back at me. No. I shake my head and look away. Frederick is staring at me. He has not moved an inch up until this moment, when he takes a step back and grabs his empty beer glass.
Shit, Arthur, says that annoying little whine, the whine that has been there ever since the revolution came crumbling down, ever since Mildred Piper died and I found myself all alone with that police officer, who tried to kill me. They all want to kill us. They hate us. They fear us. But they did this to us. And this is the only way we show them what we’re worth.
You’re going to kill these innocent people.
They’re not innocent, I say as I walk over to Cecelia.
Cecelia Craxton never did anything wrong.
I aim the pistol at her face. She makes a choking sound, saliva spraying from her gagged mouth and dripping down her pointed chin. She fights. The men restrain her and I wish she would just give up because we both know there’s no going anywhere for her.
“Please don’t hurt her,” Craxton begs.
He’s begging, Arthur. The man is bloody begging!
Frederick has walked away.
“I want you to call Fortescue,” I tell Craxton. My face hurts because one of Fortescue’s lackeys smashed a baton into it. My body hurts because one of Fortescue’s lackeys shot me. London has gone to shit because people like Fortescue and Craxton let it, fostering a vile culture of hate towards people like us—people who fought for their liberty!
Craxton stares at me. “Put down the gun.”
“Call F
ortescue,” I say.
“Very well. Let me go.”
Let him go, Arthur.
The guy standing behind Craxton looks at me and I give him a nod. He unties Craxton’s binds and Craxton stands up slowly. I shift my aim from his daughter back to him as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small communicator. The device is silver and rectangular, roughly four inches long. There are a series of buttons on it.
“I need to connect to the wires,” Craxton says.
“Give it to him,” I say, pointing to one of the revolutionaries.
Craxton does this, and the other man plugs a long copper wire into the bottom of the communicator. London is interconnected with these wires. Imagine a complex network of wires snaking in and out of walls, tangled through establishments, weaving underneath the city streets. Most establishments and wealthy estates are fitted with access points. We have one such access point on the second floor of the Gresham Club.
“It’s connected,” says the man.
“Stay there,” I tell Craxton before he has a chance to get any closer. Craxton glances at his daughter and then at me. The man who is holding the communicator between his large fingertips looks at both of us at the same time. “What’s the number?” I say.
Craxton gives it. The man inputs it into the device.
“Now you stay quiet,” I say to Craxton.
“Don’t touch my daughter,” he replies.
Still aiming my pistol at him, I shove his chest back from the communicator towards the spot where Frederick had been standing. I can see him pacing anxiously back and forth. One of the revolutionaries grabs Craxton. Another copper wire connects the communicator to a speaker, like that of a gramophone, and from this speaker comes a crackle.
“Hello?”
“This is Arthur,” I say. My pistol is still aimed at Craxton. His daughter, Cecelia, is on her knees to my other side, whimpering with the soaking gag in her mouth.
A pause from the other end.
“Aren’t you dead?” Fortescue says.
He knows you, says the whine.
“Then you know who I am,” I say.