Steven Harper - The Havoc Machine

They reached the doors and the guard shoved them open. Thad mustered up some strength to struggle, but he was overwhelmed. The guard who had hit him before was pulling back his fist again when a sharp voice cut through the chaos.

“Wait!”

The entire room fell silent except for the animals, who continued to growl and screech and bark. Tsar Alexander was standing head and shoulders above the crowd on the platform next to his throne, his uniform covered with dust. A small cut scored his forehead, but he appeared otherwise uninjured.

“Bring that man to me!” he ordered.

The guards exchanged quick glances, then turned and dragged Thad, stumbling, over to the throne and pushed him to the floor before it, grinding his face into the dirt. By now, more than half the courtiers and servants had fled the hall, but a nearly equal number of other servants and guards had rushed in to see what was going on, so the Nicholas Hall was still crowded.

“Let him up,” Alexander said.

The hands released him, and Thad slowly pulled himself upright. He was suddenly glad Dante wasn’t here to make insolent remarks.

“What is your name, peasant?”

“Thaddeus Sharpe, Your Majesty. Son of Lawrence.”

“What did you do, Thaddeus Lawrenovich?” Alexander demanded. “What happened here?”

Thad’s mind was finally beginning to clear, though his body still ached. “I…I saw the bomb under your throne, Your Majesty. I didn’t think. I just grabbed it and ran. The children-”

“My children were not injured, thanks to you,” the tsar interrupted. “This man with the clockwork shadow saved hundreds of lives today, including mine. He is a hero of Russia!”

With that, the tsar descended from the platform, seized Thad by the shoulders, and kissed him on both cheeks. Thad froze, stunned. The guards stumbled over themselves to fall back and salute.

“Get everyone out of the hall in case that wall comes down,” Alexander boomed, one arm around Thad’s shoulder. “Summon physicians for the injured. Send a messenger to the tsarina to let her know the children are fine. And someone find General Parkarov. I want a thorough investigation immediately!”

Uncomfortably aware of the heavy arm of the tsar around his shoulder, Thad still searched the hall for Nikolai and Sofiya, but he couldn’t find them. The tsar abruptly snapped his fingers and dropped his arm.

“Thaddeus Sharpe,” he said. “Sharpe! I thought I recognized the name. You are the man who kills clockworkers, are you not?”

Thad wouldn’t have thought he could be startled yet again today, but it turned out he could. “Yes, ser.”

“And you are associated with the trick rider and her automaton horse? I believe the ringmaster introduced her as Sofiya Ekk.”

“I am.”

“Such a lovely wife.” Alexander slapped Thad on the back. “I congratulate you, Lawrenovich.”

“We are close, ser,” Thad said quickly, “but not married.”

“Ah. Then I congratulate you twice. ”

A large, gray-haired man in a blue uniform heavy with gold braid trotted over. “Sire, I hate to intrude, but it is not safe for you here. And by your order, I have an investigation to conduct.”

“Of course, General Parkarov.” Alexander turned to Thad. “You and Miss Ekk will visit the tsarina and me as soon as it is convenient. We have much to discuss.”

And he strode away. Just at that moment, Sofiya hurried up. Her cloak was missing, but she didn’t seem to be injured. “Thad! Are you well?”

“Sofiya!” Thad was seized with a confusing impulse to embrace her, which he quickly suppressed. “I’m perfectly fine. The tsar was-” He shook his head. “Where’s Nikolai? Is he all right?”

The look on her normally composed face gave him a terrible turn, and fear rushed over him. “You should come,” was all she said.

The guards holding Thad had scattered, and people of all sorts were trying to exit the hall. The circus folk who had animals were refusing to leave them behind, and were trying to turn the cages around to get them out. Old Frank, the elephant trainer, was desperately working to keep Betsy from breaking into a rampaging panic. Clowns staggered about like broken rainbows. A pair of physicians and their apprentices arrived, but they concentrated on the members of the court, most of whom bore only minor scratches but howled loudly at the idea of getting up to walk. Word came that soldiers would be bringing in stretchers from the barrack at the Field of Mars, but they wouldn’t arrive for some time. General Parkarov told several squealing court members-not all of them female-that they were welcome to wait for someone who could carry them away, and after the outer wall came down, he would be pleased to take their descriptions of what happened, if they survived. This solemn proclamation got most of them to their feet and out the door.

Sofiya led Thad through the chaos to a pillar that held up the inside wall. “You didn’t see,” she explained quietly. “He chased after you when you ran with the bomb, and he failed to drop to the floor. The blast caught him.”

Thad’s feet crunched over broken glass and chunks of debris, and his stomach roiled with dread. Nikolai was sitting on the far side of the pillar with Sofiya’s dusty cloak bundled round him. At first, Thad couldn’t see anything wrong. His hair was mussed. The upper half of his face, the human half, looked perfectly fine, and the metal lower half showed nothing strange except dirt. But then Nikolai turned to look up at Thad. The other side of his skull had been peeled away, revealing thousands upon thousands of tiny wheels and gears. Sparks snapped and cracked across them.

“Th-th-thank y-you,” he stammered. “Th-thank you f-f-for taking m-me out-out-out-out of there. I–I-I don’t have-ave-ave one. M-M-Mr. Havoc-oc-oc called me boy-boy-boy-boy.”

Thad stared. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Something hit his head, where most of his memory wheels are stored,” Sofiya said. “It creates problems.”

“The victim-im-im of th-the cu-cu-cuckoo’s b-b-brood parasitism-ism-ism will f-f-f-feed and t-t-t-tend the baby-baby-baby cuckoo,” Nikolai sputtered, “even w-when the baby p-p-pushes the nat-nat-natural b-born offspring out and begin-in-ins to outg-g-g-grow the nest-est-est.”

Thad looked down at the automaton that fizzled and sparked at his feet, the worry he had been feeling drained out of him. He had been starting to think of Nikolai as more than he was, but now Thad could see he was still nothing but a machine. “Can you fix this?”

“Perhaps.” Sofiya’s face was stony again. “But nothing is certain. Perhaps we should talk about this elsewhere. That wall may come down, you know.”

Nikolai was unable to walk. Thad flung a fold of Sofiya’s cloak over his head and picked him up. “We can’t go far.”

“What? Why not?”

“The tsar and tsarina want to see us.” And he explained.

Sofiya’s eyes went wide, and she automatically tried to brush the dust from her clothes. “What of Nikolai?”

“We’ll have a servant put him a closet. No one will bother a broken automaton.” The words came out harsher than Thad had intended, but he didn’t back away from them.

“Thaddeus Sharpe!” Sofiya gasped. “That is-”

“Ser,” said a soldier. “If you and the lady will follow me, the tsar wishes to see you as soon as is convenient.”

It turned out “as soon as it is convenient” meant several detours. A small army of servants ushered Thad and Sofiya into bathing chambers, where they were scrubbed, perfumed, and dressed in smart new outfits. Sofiya’s cloak was whisked away for cleaning, and her ruined circus costume was exchanged for a rich green gown trimmed with gold ribbon and sporting utterly fashionable and thoroughly impractical pagoda sleeves. Thad’s new valet polished his brass hand and dressed him in a dark linen suit tucked into shiny boots under a long evening coat. Nikolai was not stuffed into a closet, but a footman was assigned the task of standing guard over him, to Sofiya’s evident relief. Sofiya gave Thad a number of dark looks, which Thad pointedly ignored. At last, Thad and Sofiya were escorted down the maze of corridors and hallways of the Winter Palace.