Steven Harper - The Havoc Machine

“Inside.” Thad turned smartly back into the wagon, where a bit of rummaging turned up a bottle of brandy Thad mostly used for cleaning the cuts that were an occupational hazard. Nikolai accepted it and pulled down his scarf. His metal jaw and the hinge that fastened it to his skull nauseated Thad and he looked away as Nikolai raised the bottle. His initial revulsion warred with an impulse to stop a mere child from drinking heavy liquor.

Everything should be clear. He should simply take Niko-the machine’s head off and sell his body to a smith to be melted down. Yet that thought made him sick, and he felt guilty for thinking it, and he didn’t understand why he felt guilty. The mishmash was all very odd, and he felt out of sorts. Someone else had slid a sword down his throat, and he didn’t dare move.

He sat down on the bed, pulled a brass key from a chain around his neck, and inserted it into Dante’s back, hoping the familiar task would steady him. Silence filled the room, heavy as molten iron. Thad abruptly noticed the boy was standing with his back to the wall of dismembered souvenirs, almost as if he were one of them. An image of Nikolai’s arm nailed to the wall invaded Thad’s head.

“Let’s go back outside,” he said abruptly, and ushered the boy down the short steps to the ground. The cloudy sky still threatened rain.

“Hungry,” Dante said in Thad’s hands.

“How…how often do you need to eat?” Thad asked, winding Dante’s key. Perhaps he should take a nip himself.

Nikolai pulled his scarf back up, and he looked like a normal boy again. “It depends on how much I use. If I am quiet, I use very little. If I run or jump, I use more.”

“What happens if you don’t get any…er, food?”

“It’s very painful. Then I become tired. Then I just stop. I don’t like it. Do you like it when you can’t eat?”

“I don’t think anyone does.”

“Done,” Dante announced. “Done.”

“You don’t like me,” Nikolai said. “Did I do something bad to make you not like me?”

Thad kept on winding, uncomfortable. “What makes you think I don’t like you?”

“You called me a machine and you said I don’t mean anything to you.”

Thad wanted to say that the boy was a machine, that he didn’t mean anything. The sight of the boy’s inhuman face inevitably twisted something inside Thad’s gut and made him want to back away, or reach for a weapon, or both.

He said, “I don’t-”

“Done!” Dante shrieked. “Done!”

Thad was overwinding the parrot. He pulled the key out and Dante scurried about on the crushed grass in a furious circle.

“What’s wrong with him?” Nikolai asked.

“Too much energy,” Thad said. “He’ll be all right in a minute.”

“Why doesn’t he fly away?”

“He can’t fly. He’s damaged. And anyway, I don’t think he could ever fly. He is made of brass, you know.”

“It would be nice to fly,” Nikolai said wistfully. “Then I could go anywhere I pleased.”

Thad gave him a strange look. “You’re an automaton. How can you want anything?”

“I don’t know. I just do. How do you want anything?”

“Coo coo!” Sofiya came around the corner of the wagon at that moment leading Kalvis, her brass horse. “All the other wagons are loaded on the train and the stable tent is down. You are behind, and I have come to catch you up.”

“You.” Thad rounded on her, simultaneously angry at the woman and glad she gave him a change in subject. “I want to talk to you.”

“Hitch up the horse while you talk. I do not want to miss the train.”

Thad folded his arms. “You owe me information.”

“I owe you nothing, Mr. Sharpe.”

“Applesauce, applesauce,” blurted Dante, still scurrying about the ground. “Doom, defeat, despair. Darkness, death, destruction. Applesauce.”

“I’m tired of dancing, Sofiya,” Thad said, deliberately switching to her first name. “You’ve sucked me into this little game without telling me why or wherefore. I don’t know why or what you’re playing at, but you’re going to tell me what’s going on or-”

“Or what, Thad?” Sofiya replied. “You will threaten me with your knives? Point your pistols at my head? Tell your parrot to squawk in my direction?”

“Or you’ll keep suffering the way you have been.”

That stopped her. “I do not understand.”

“Griffin has a hold on you, just like he has one on me,” Thad said. “His spiders watch your family, which is why you do what he says. Am I right?”

Sofiya’s eyes strayed to the top of Thad’s wagon. No spiders. In the background, shouts and cries from the fading circus continued. Kalvis waited near Sofiya with brass patience, not even stomping a hoof. A wisp of steam curled from one nostril.

“He watches my sister,” she said softly. “This is what he says. She lives in a village not far from here in Saint Petersburg, but always Mr. Griffin’s spiders watch her and wait for his command. Mr. Griffin pays me very well and I send the money to her so she does not need to work, but that does not make it feel much better.”

Thad studied her. Sofiya’s face was stoic, but there was pain behind the mask. He could hear it in her voice, see it in the way she held herself. He wanted to know more, but couldn’t bring himself to pry. Later, he decided.

“I’m sorry,” he said instead.

“Spaceeba. But in the meantime-”

“In the meantime, we need to formulate a way out of this.” Thad curled a fist. “I don’t like being lied to, I don’t like being manipulated, and I definitely don’t like being enslaved to a filthy clockworker.”

Sofiya didn’t respond.

“He’s not like other clockworkers I know,” Thad continued. “Clockworkers don’t get along with normal people well enough to hire them. Not for long, anyway. There’s something wrong here. What do you know about him? Is he hiding in one of those boxcars or is he coming later? Tell me everything you know.”

She shook her head. “I cannot.”

“Sofiya.” Thad’s tone was gentle now. “We can beat him. I don’t like this any more than you do. I’ve convinced my friend to bring a monster into the circus. We can make a plan together and-”

“I can tell you nothing more.” She smoothed her dress. “He watches my sister, and he may be watching us now.”

“That’s how they win, Sofiya. They get inside your head and make you think they can do anything. They can’t. They’re only human.”

Sofiya barked a small laugh. “I wish it were that simple. Nothing ever is.”

“Exactly what does he need me for?” Thad pressed.

“That I do not know, and it is the truth.” She sighed. “I am sorry you were pulled into this, and I am sorry your friends are in jeopardy. Truly so.”

“I didn’t like it when the horse died,” Nikolai put in. He had edged up next to Thad. “It made me unhappy.”

“I don’t work for clockworkers,” Thad said. “Not for money or anything else.”

“That is why he makes threats,” Sofiya said. “No, threats is the wrong word. He will definitely hurt or kill your friends if you don’t do as he says. And he will do the same to my sister if I move against him. Those are not threats, they are facts. So for now, we must hitch my dreadful horse to your very nice wagon and bring it to the train, or the ringmaster will be very unhappy with his sword swallower and his new automaton.”

Thad blinked. “Sorry. New automaton?”

“Kalvis.” Sofiya patted the brass horse’s withers. “The big flood in Kiev left no automatons for the Kalakos Circus of Automatons and Other Wonders. Ringmaster Dodd was quite happy to have him.”