Steven Harper - The Havoc Machine

“Kill him!” Sofiya paced the wooden floor of the Black Tent in her new gown. “Why did you say you would kill him?”

“I suppose I should have refused the tsarina?” Thad drummed his fingers heavily on a workbench. “The trouble is, the assassin wasn’t a clockworker.”

Sofiya stopped pacing. “How do you mean?”

“A clockworker wouldn’t use dynamite.” Thad was almost snarling now, though he wasn’t sure who he was angry at. “Too blunt. Too pedestrian. Too inelegant. Killing with mere dynamite is no fun . A clockworker who wanted to assassinate someone would use something elaborate or stylish, like a spider that delivered a drop of poison, or a thin wire that sliced your head off as you galloped past on a horse, or an automaton that disguised itself as a bootblack’s box until it sprang into action and sliced you into bits. Dynamite? Never.”

“So who did it, then?”

“Your hypothesis is probably the correct one,” Thad said. “Disgruntled landowner who doesn’t want to lose his serfs.”

“And what do we do about this?”

“How’s Nikolai?” Thad asked, deliberately changing the subject.

She turned to look at the little automaton. Nikolai was sitting upright on the workbench next to Dante. The sparking in his head had died down, and he wasn’t speaking. Every so often he gave a twitch. His left hand jerked upward, then lowered itself over and over.

“Failing,” she said. “He needs repairs badly.”

“Are you going to do it, then?”

She folded her arms. “Why do you care so much? He is just a machine, as you pointed out.”

“Why don’t you care?” Thad shot back. The anger was growing. “You’re the one who loves machines so very much. You haven’t even repaired Dante yet.”

“I was busy creating the act that saved this circus.” The heat rose in Sofiya’s voice as well. “I had to build the colt and put in-”

“Don’t feed me more lies, woman,” Thad interrupted.

“Lies? How dare you!”

“And keep the indignation.” Thad lowered his voice to a deadly steadiness. “I know clockworkers. There’s no evidence in this boxcar that you built that colt here-no scraps of metal, no plans, no calculations, no chipped tools. That colt was inside your horse from the beginning. It’s why you thought it was funny that Nikolai gave it the name of a male deity. The only thing you’ve built lately was my hand.” He held it up. “And that was something you modified from a spider Mr. Griffin built. That’s very, very strange for a clockworker, Sofiya.”

She looked frightened now. “So what? All clockworkers are strange.”

“They’re all strange in the same way. I know,” Thad said relentlessly. A part of him was well aware that he was doing this to avoid what Sofiya had brought up with Nikolai, but he didn’t care. He kept going. “You don’t like to build, do you? But you want to do. You hunger to do. The machines and the numbers call to you, but you’re afraid of them. You said the madness comes on you and you have to build, but that was a lie. You haven’t built much of anything. You said you’re looking forward to going mad, and that was another lie. You’re terrified of the madness, and that’s why you don’t build anything. You’re afraid you’ll fall into a fugue and never come out.”

“I built your hand!” she protested.

“Only because I saved yours.” He locked eyes with her. “What happened, Sofiya? Did you fall into a fugue state and hurt someone when you built Kalvis and that little energy pistol you carry around? Or are you just afraid of what you might become?”

“You kill people like me!” she shouted.

“You made me swear to do it! Or don’t you want me to keep that promise anymore?”

She spun away from him and leaned on the workbench. Her shoulders shook, and Thad realized she was weeping. The anger drained out of him, and he felt stupid and foolish. What had he been trying to prove? That he was smarter or stronger than she was? Shouting and yelling, that was always helpful. And with Nikolai sitting on the table with his head open. Thad was a schoolyard bully. His face burned with shame. He touched her shoulder. “Listen, Sofiya, I’m sorry I-”

He was flat against the wall with her iron grip around his throat and his feet a good six inches off the floor. His breath choked off. He clawed ineffectually at the air. Sofiya’s other hand reached down and clasped his groin. A dull ache snaked up his abdomen.

“Fine,” she growled into his face. Her voice was not her own, and she was speaking Russian. “I will repair the child. I will even repair the parrot. And you” -she squeezed harder and his eyes rolled back from the gut-wrenching agony- “you will help me.”

She casually flung him aside. Thad crashed to the floor, clutching at his neck, gasping for air, reeling from pain. Sofiya stomped about the Black Tent, snatching tools from racks and boxes and tossing them beside Nikolai. “Get up, boy!” she snapped at Thad. Coughing, Thad pushed himself upright. Sofiya crackled with energy. Her presence filled the boxcar and pushed at the walls. Every movement was fast and precise. Thad recognized the signs. She had fallen into a clockwork fugue.

“Bring me that spanner!” she barked. “And that screwpick! Before I slice you open like a putrid rat.”

Without a word, Thad handed her the tools. She snatched them from him as if he were nothing but an open drawer and bent over Nikolai’s exposed machinery. After some muttering and swearing, she grabbed Thad’s brass hand and shoved it into Nikolai’s head. “Hold this wheel in place. Don’t move it!”

“I-” Thad began.

The slap rocked his head back in an explosion of pain. It came so fast he didn’t even see Sofiya’s hand move. “Do not speak again unless I ask you a question. And then speak Russian, not that flea-ridden garbage you sodomite British call language.”

Thad worked his jaw back and forth, so angry he felt he might explode. The thought flicked through his mind: She was a clockworker, just like the one who had killed David. His spring-loaded knives were sheathed in his sleeves. He could still use the right one perfectly well, and it was a better than even chance his brass left was up to the job now, too. If he backed up and waited until her back was turned, he could get in a perfect throw before she knew what was happening.

But this was Sofiya, the woman who had saved his hand and his life. And he himself had brought about her fugue state. Now she could save Nikolai.

A machine. Why did he care about a soulless machine? In one shot, Thad could eliminate both of them. He hung there with a sword down his throat, divided in two.

And what would happen when Mr. Griffin returned? Mr. Griffin, the strangest and most cunning clockworker Thad had come across to date. It would be foolish to face Mr. Griffin alone. He needed Sofiya. He needed Dante. He might even need Nikolai.

Thad swallowed his anger and, feeling cold, reached into the little automaton’s head to hold the wheel as the clockworker had ordered.

“Don’t be clumsy, boy,” she said. “And we can finish this.”

Hours passed. The clockworker stormed about the Black Tent barking commands and pouring vitriol over Thad in equal parts. He kept his head down and obeyed as best he could, understanding fully why clockworkers were rarely able to work with others. Twice more the clockworker struck him hard enough to leave bruises, and only through great exercise of self-control did he avoid striking back. But slowly, steadily, the little automaton’s head came back together. It stopped twitching, though it didn’t move or speak as the clockworker set new rivets into his metal skull. She even produced needle and thread to repair his scalp with swift, tiny stitches. Hunger gnawed at Thad’s insides, and exhaustion dragged at his limbs, but the clockworker wasn’t finished yet. Without a pause, she turned to Dante. Her quick fingers disassembled his gears and wheels. A steady stream of invective punctuated her orders, berating Thad for letting the parrot fall into disrepair and filth. Without expression, he brought buckets of soap and water and a can of machine oil. In a short time, she had cleaned Dante out and put him back together again.