Robert Bennett - The Company Man

She leaned close, then reached one hand out to the many mirrors. They seemed to twist with her though she could detect no movement.

“Don’t touch it,” Hayes said sharply.

“What? Why not?”

“It’s not… not happy, I don’t think.”

She paced around it, watching the images in the mirrors move. She looked at the mixed jumble of tubing that dangled off the midsection. Looked at the brass and crystalline threads hanging limp like rags. It was as delicate as a dragonfly’s wing. She remembered her wonder at the machine Tazz had shown them in the tunnels, and now that device seemed huge and clumsy and stupid in comparison to this thing of terrifying grace. She looked around and saw the walls were lined with worktables, each one paired with a bench. On all the tables were hundreds of tools, pliers and microscopes and thick drills, and in some places there were white stone slabs each with a small golden piece set in the center. She examined these and saw the pieces were tiny gears or many-faceted rods of incredibly intricate make, and guessed they had been pulled or ripped from the strange machine in order to be examined.

“How could McNaughton have made a machine that thinks?” she asked.

“I don’t think they did,” said Hayes from the other side.

“Then who? Kulahee? Do you think this could be one of his first ones, maybe?”

“I don’t think this was made by people, Sam.”

She stopped, then came around to look at him. “What?”

“I don’t think this was made by men.”

“Then… What?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. But I don’t think this could have been made anywhere on Earth.”

She stepped farther back, eyes tracing over its long, sloping figure, like a golden piece of driftwood washed up on the cement floor. She could see no source of power feeding the machine and yet she knew somehow that it was on and functioning. Unlike Tazz’s mechanism she felt this device could not be stopped, could never fall dead. It was somehow eternal, unending, or perhaps it had been forged in a place where time was as easily manipulated as steel or wood.

“The machines they make seem like they were never built for people,” said Hayes quietly. “And sometimes the workers think they talk to them, in their heads…”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s nothing,” he said. “It’s just what someone said to me not too long ago.” He swallowed. “This building,” he whispered. “It goes down far below.”

“All of our facilities are seventy percent underground,” Samantha said without thinking.

“But down there. Below us. I think there’s more.”

“More of these things?”

He shook his head. “But ones like it. Being stored. And waiting. And they’ve been waiting for so long…”

Samantha remembered the sounds of the machines in the deeps, and the faint pounding of strange devices filling the underground chambers. “Waiting for what?” she asked softly.

Hayes lurched forward, grasped his chest, then turned away and vomited onto the cement. Samantha went to him and pulled the hair out of his face and pounded his back. As he coughed she noticed something lying not more than a few feet away. She picked it up and studied it.

“What is that?” Hayes asked between breaths.

“A hat,” she said. “A child’s hat.”

Hayes looked at her and she knew he was wondering how and why a child could be there.

“We need to go,” Samantha said.

“You’re probably right,” Hayes said.

They slipped back through the patrols easily. The night was moonless and quiet, the whole world sleeping and shrouded in darkness. They passed through the woods and walked along the shore, searching for the boat.

“What is our city built of?” Samantha asked as they walked. “What’s down there, in its heart?”

“Do you remember the Red Star Scandal, Sam?” asked Hayes quietly.

“What? Yes, of course. Why?”

“Do you remember how, when they were asked how they knew the airship they’d made would work, they immediately said that they just knew?”

“Well, yes, but why…”

“How could they know,” said Hayes slowly, “unless it had already worked before? Maybe very, very long ago…”

Samantha thought about that. Then her eyes grew wide. “My God… Are you saying…”

Hayes swallowed and nodded.

“Then what could be down there?”

“I think it’s something alive,” Hayes said. “Genuinely alive, down under the city. I’ve… I’ve felt it. It’s trapped and broken and old, I think. It’s tried to speak to me, like that thing back there. But it can’t. It’s so old.”

“What could it be?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I have to find out.”

They found the ferry rocking gently on the night tide. The captain was sprawled in the back, a fishing pole in his lap, head nodding as sleep threatened to overtake him. Hayes picked up a stone and sent it ricocheting across the stern. The captain sputtered awake and then hauled them in, complaining with each heave.

“We have to get to Garvey,” Hayes said as the ferry started off. “We have to tell him that McNaughton has armed the unions. Maybe not all of them, but some, and enough. And we don’t know why.”

“We don’t?” she asked.

“No. We don’t.”

“What about that thing? That machine?”

“That’s why you’re going to go to Garvey,” he said. “I’m going up into the mountains to do some historical sightseeing. I’ll go visit Mr. Kulahee’s cave. I think it’s a tourist site these days. But no one there’s looking right. Not really. But I know how to.”

“How?”

“With this,” he said, and tapped the side of his head.

The boat sped over the waves, dipping up and down as it sloshed through the water. They saw the jeweled mass of Evesden rise up ahead, the glitter on the black shoreline growing with each mile. Both Hayes and Samantha stood at the stern, watching it approach with different eyes, as though it were a foreign land.

“Look!” cried Samantha suddenly, and pointed.

They both leaned forward to see it better. It was faint but it was there, a streak of the night sky that was a slightly lighter color than the rest, almost ash-gray. As they came closer they could see that where it met the cityscape the streak’s innards were red and molten and boiling. Then the cradle spotlights flashed along the column’s side and they saw it fully.

“It’s smoke,” Hayes said. “Jesus Christ, it looks like all of Lynn is on fire.”

“What the hell?” said the captain. “What the hell is going on?”

The boat veered closer to the bays of the city. They could hear screaming from far, far away. A whine like some insect, buzzing madly. Then a low-throated burst, and the column of smoke lit up.

“What the hell was that?” said Hayes.

“They’ve started,” Samantha said softly.

“What?”

“They’ve started. Don’t you see? They’ve started. The union men, with the guns. They’ve got them now and they’re using them.”

Bells rang somewhere and went unanswered. People rushed back and forth along the dock front, shouting to one another. Someone cackled somewhere and there was the sound of glass breaking and more screaming.

Hayes pulled out his gun as they came close to land. “Here,” he said, thrusting it toward her. “Take this. Get to Garvey. Just tell him what happened. Tell him what’s going on.” Hayes put one foot on the bow of the boat and waited for the captain to pull it in.

“What are you going to do?” asked Samantha.

“I’ve no idea,” he said. Then when he was near enough Hayes leaped down to the dock. He slipped and fell, recovered himself, and sprinted off toward the fire.