Philip Reeve - Infernal Devices

“This is Dr. Popjoy,” she told him softly. “Founder of the Resurrection Corps, and our leader’s personal surgeon-mechanic.” Then, to the old man, she said, “I am afraid that Mr. Grike has few memories of his former career, Dr. Popjoy. That section of his brain was severely damaged; I was unable to unlock it.”

“Pity,” said Popjoy absentmindedly. “Might have been nice to have a chin-wag about the old times. Still, maybe it’s for the best.” He walked all round the Stalker twice, reaching out to pat Grike’s shiny new bodywork and tweak the electric cords that trailed from his steel skull. “Excellent’” he chuckled. “A right proper job, Treacle! Couldn’t have done it better myself!”

“I seek only to please the Stalker Fang,” said Dr. Zero meekly.

“As do we all, Treacle. Come on now, we’d best go up; she’s expecting us.”

Hurricane lanterns burned in the long corridors of the building. Uniformed Once-Borns hurried about, shouting commands, waving sheets of paper, talking loudly into field telephones. Many of them had dyed their hair green as a symbol of their loyalty to the Storm. They spoke in clipped battle codes that Grike found he could understand perfectly; Dr. Zero’s doing, no doubt. As he followed her and Popjoy up the broad stairways, he wondered what other adjustments she had made.

At the top of the stairs was a pair of bullet-pecked bronze doors. “Resurrection Corps,” said Popjoy as the sentries slammed to attention. “Delivery for Her Excellency.”

The doors swung wide. The room beyond was big and dark. Grike’s new eyes switched automatically to night vision, and he saw that the far wall had been reinforced with armor plate. One long slot of a window, like the slit in a visor, remained open, glassless, gazing toward the west. The figure who stood at it was not entirely human. “Your Excellency…” Popjoy said.

“Wait.” A voice from the darkness, a commanding whisper.

Popjoy waited. In the silence, Grike detected the faint sound of Dr. Zero’s teeth chattering and the nervous drumming of her heart.

Suddenly a huge pulse of light arose from the western marshes, filling the room with an orange glow that fluttered and stabbed as the first great burst of fire separated into the muzzle flash of countless individual guns and the drifting white pinpoints of phosphorus flares. Forward Command shifted slightly, dead metal creaking under Grike’s feet. After a few more seconds the sound reached him, a far-off rumbling and banging, like somebody moving furniture about in a distant room.

Bathed in the light of her war, the Stalker Fang turned from the viewing slit to greet her visitors. She wore long gray robes, and her face was a woman’s death mask cast in bronze. She said, “Our artillery has just launched a bombardment on the forward cities of the Traktionstadtsgesellschaft. I shall be flying out shortly to lead the ground attack.”

“Another glorious victory, I’m sure, Fang,” said Popjoy’s voice from somewhere near Grike’s ankles, and Grike noticed that both Popjoy and Dr. Zero had fallen to their knees, pressing their faces to the smooth wood of the floor.

“But not a final victory.” The Stalker’s voice was a winter wind rustling among frozen reeds. “We need more-powerful weapons, Popjoy.”

“And you shall have them, Your Excellency,” Popjoy promised. “I’m always on the lookout for odd bits of Old Tech that might serve. In the meantime, we’ve brought you a small token of the Stalker Corps’s esteem.”

The Stalker Fang’s almond-shaped eyes flared green as they focused on Grike. “You are the Stalker Grike,” she said, gliding closer. “I have seen images of you. I was told that you had ceased to function.”

“He is fully repaired, Excellency,” said Popjoy.

The Stalker stopped a few paces from Grike, studying him. “What is the meaning of this, Popjoy?” she asked.

“A birthday present, Excellency!” Popjoy raised himself, grunting with the effort. “A little surprise that Dr. Zero here dreamed up. I’m sure you remember Oenone Zero, daughter of old Hiraku Zero, the airship ace. She’s a prodigy, already the finest surgeon-mechanic in the Corps. (Apart from yours truly, of course.) Well, Oenone had the notion of digging old Grikey up and repairing him to mark the anniversary of your glorious Resurrection!”

The Stalker Fang stared at Grike, saying nothing. Dr. Zero was shaking so badly that Grike could feel the vibrations through the floor.

“Don’t tell me you’d forgotten?” chirped Popjoy. “It’s seventeen years to the day since I restored you to life in the facility at Rogues’ Roost! You’re sweet seventeen, Fang. Many happy returns!”

The Stalker Fang watched Grike with her impassive green eyes. “What am I to do with him?”

Dr. Zero looked up for the first time. “I thought— thought—you could k-keep him by you, Excellency,” she said. “He will serve you well. While you work to cleanse the world of the cancer of mobile cities, Mr. Grike will keep w-w-watch over you.”

“Th-th-there,” said Popjoy, mocking her frightened stammer. “He’ll keep w-w-watch. A bodyguard as strong as yourself, and with the same heightened senses…”

“I doubt he is as strong as me,” said the Stalker Fang.

“Of course not!” Popjoy said hastily. “Her Excellency doesn’t need bodyguards, Treacle! What are you wittering about?” He simpered toward the waiting Stalker. “I just thought he might amuse you, Fang.”

The Stalker Fang tilted her head on one side, still considering Grike. “Very well. The unit is impressive. Appoint him to my staff.”

A tall door opened at the far end of the gallery. A uniformed aide bowed low and announced, “Excellency, your ship is ready to depart for the front.”

Without another word to Popjoy, the Stalker turned and walked away.

“Excellent!” said Popjoy when she had gone. He rose and switched on an argon lamp, then patted Dr. Zero’s bottom as she stood up, making her blush. “Good work, Treacle. The Fire Flower was pleased. People say you can’t tell what she’s thinking, but I put her together, remember; I’ve a pretty good idea what goes on behind that mask.” Dabbing sweat from his bald head with a handkerchief, he glanced at Grike. “So what does the Grikester think of our glorious leader?”

“SHE IS STRONG’ said Grike.

Popjoy nodded. “She’s that, all right. My greatest work. There’s some amazing machinery inside her. Bits of a Stalker brain even older than yours. Old Tech stuff so weird that even I can’t be sure how it works. I never managed to build another like her. But maybe one’s enough, eh, Grikey?”

Grike turned back to the window and the distant battle. Sheets of light sprang into the sky as if coming from some deep fissure in the earth. The night was full of airships. He thought that it would be good to serve this Stalker Fang; good to obey someone as strong as himself and not take orders from soft, squashable Once-Borns. He would be loyal to her, and perhaps, in time, that loyalty might fill up the empty spaces in his mind and rid him of the nagging sense that he had lost something precious.

That face, that scarred face.

It fluttered in his brain like a moth, and was gone.

Night, and a fingernail moon lifting from the mist above the Dead Hills. Wren lay fully dressed on her bed in the house in Dog Star Court, listening to her parents’ muffled voices drifting through the wall from their bedroom. It did not take long for them to fade into silence. Asleep. She waited, just to be sure. The dullness of their lives made her want to shriek sometimes. Asleep at this hour, on such a lovely, moony night! But it suited her plans. She put on her boots and went softly out of her room and down the stairs, with the Tin Book of Anchorage heavy in the bag on her shoulder.