Steven Harper - The Havoc Machine

“It’s a revolution, Mr. Sharpe. Many people will be hurt. But in the long run, everything will be better.” He paused. “I noticed you did get Nikolai out of the way. He’ll be safe, at least.”

Thad glanced up at the tunnel entrance. Nikolai was still sitting dejectedly at the mouth. “Why is everyone running about so? Where are the clockworkers?”

“Mr. Padlewski there is making speeches on the wireless to incite riot, and his friend is sending telegrams to our supporters who are waiting for just this moment. My other allies are delivering equipment to the masses, weapons my clockworkers have invented.” The pink brain seemed to pulse with excitement, though Thad knew the idea was ridiculous. “Some of them are becoming quite mad, I’m afraid, so I had to anesthetize them as I did you. We are-or rather, my revolution is-on the move!” He switched to Russian. “Long live the revolution!”

Fluid gurgled through the pipes and washed through Mr. Griffin’s jar. Everyone at the other end of the room paused in what they doing. “Long live the revolution!” And they went back to work. The spiders carried off the other sleeping clockworker.

“I’m telling you,” Thad said, “this is-”

“Thad!” Sofiya burst into the room at the top of tunnel. She rushed past Nikolai with barely a pause and tumbled down the rungs. Her hand was wrapped in a bloody rag. “Thad! It’s been hours! I have searched everywhere!”

“Are you all right?” A finger of warmth went up his spine at her entrance. She was a good and familiar sight in this awful place, and he was happy that she seemed to be all right, though her hand concerned him. He reached for it, but she pulled away. “What happened?”

“Miss Ekk,” Mr. Griffin said. Sofiya ignored him.

“The havoc spiders,” she said. “You won’t believe it, but it is true.” With quick, succinct sentences, she explained. The more she spoke, the more unsettled Thad became. When she got to the part about the twisted versions of Nikolai, he was staggering beneath the weight of her words, and had to catch himself against a crate.

“Don’t lean on that,” Mr. Griffin warned. “Delicate.”

“The bridge has burned and the havoc spiders are trapped on Vasilyevsky Island,” Sofiya finished, “but we have to move quickly if we want to stop them from…from…whatever it is they’re trying to do. Whatever it is involves Nikolai. It’s good you didn’t leave him up on the surface.”

Thad’s mind whirled with the new information. He stared around the chaotic chamber, a mirror of the one Sofiya had just left. He stared at his hand, a mirror of Mr. Griffin’s jar. He stared up at the shadowy tunnel entrance where sat Nikolai, a mirror of the one on the island. A number of ideas slammed together. Thad turned to the brain, complacent in its unbreakable jar. He felt cold and alone, even with Sofiya there.

“It’s you,” Thad said. “Everything leads back to you.”

More fluid dripped and blooped through the pipes. “Is it?” Mr. Griffin said.

“You are the one…man that holds everything together. You sent me to Havoc’s castle to get the machine. You forced the circus to bring you here. Now, by sheer coincidence, you’re fomenting a rebellion in the same city where everything is happening. And you’re always interested in Nikolai. You have been from the very beginning. You didn’t want just that ten-legged spider from Havoc’s castle. You also wanted Nikolai. That’s why you sent me in there. You knew I had lost a child and that I probably wouldn’t destroy an automaton that acted like one.”

“There was a ninety-four point six two eight percent chance that you would both rescue the automaton and keep it with you,” Mr. Griffin agreed.

The walls were closing in on Thad now, invisible walls that had been there all along but he was only now starting to see. He was nothing more than a puppet at the end of a string, an automaton following a program within its memory wheels. Was this how Nikolai felt all the time? Perhaps even now, his words were predicted, scripted, pulled out of him with no choice of his own. A puppet who could see the strings still had to dance.

“That’s why you insisted I hire the circus for you and why you wanted me to continue working with you,” Thad said. “Because you knew Nikolai would attach himself to me and would stay in the city as long as I did.”

“A ninety-one point seven five percent chance there. And an eighty-nine point two percent chance the tsar would command a performance once he heard of Sofiya and her horse, which would keep the circus and Nikolai in Saint Petersburg. Alexander does enjoy a beautiful woman.”

“Why?” Thad asked.

“It seems to be a failing among men. The tsar, in particular, has numerous mistresses who-”

“Why are you doing this?” Thad shouted.

Zygmund looked up from his wireless, and the man at the telegraph paused. Were they puppets, too? Could they see the strings?

A flurry of movement came from behind the machinery where Dante had disappeared a while ago, but Thad was too intent on Mr. Griffin to take much notice. “Doom!”

“I am not a fool, Mr. Sharpe,” said Mr. Griffin. “Normal clockworkers, foolish clockworkers, reveal their plans in long, maniacal monologues, but I am above that.”

Frustration and rage tinged Thad’s vision. He wanted to leap over the stupid machines and smash that glass jar to pieces. Instead, he forced his voice into a reasonable tone. The puppet might be controlled by his strings, but those strings led inevitably back to the puppeteer.

“Of course you’re a fool,” Thad said easily. “Good God-ninety-one point one two percent chance. Naturally.”

“What are you-?” Sofiya began, but Thad stepped on her foot.

“Point seven six,” Mr. Griffin corrected.

“Whatever, whatever.” Thad waved. “As if anyone could predict human behavior to that extent. It’s quite impossible. Everyone knows that. Even Sofiya here.”

He nudged her foot again. Sofiya blinked, then said, “Yes, of course. Completely impossible.”

“I assure you, it is quite possible. The proof is that you are both standing here, and there’s a revolution beginning up there.”

“Ex post facto,” Thad replied airily. “You’re merely taking credit for something that would have happened anyway. You don’t have a plan. You’re just trying to trick me into working for you for free. I can’t believe I followed a brain in a jar all the way across Europe. There’s the fool.”

“I HAVE A PLAN!” Mr. Griffin thundered from his speakers. The men in the room jumped, and Maddie quivered on Sofiya’s shoulder. Thad kept his expression bland.

“Naturally, yes, yes,” he said with blatantly false placation. “Never mind-I believe you.” He turned to Sofiya. “He does have a plan. We should believe him. Absolutely!”

“You don’t believe me.” Mr. Griffin’s voice was icy now, and Thad recognized the stage. “My plan is brilliant.”

“Tell us some other time. We should go join the revolution.” Thad took Sofiya’s hand, the uninjured one, and looked around for Dante. “As you said we should.”

“I knew from the start that Havoc’s machine would survive your attempt to destroy it,” Griffin said, “because I was the one who created it in the first place.”

That got Thad’s attention. “Did you?”

“Havoc was one of my clockworkers here in Saint Petersburg. Didn’t that occur to you? No, of course not. You don’t have a clockworker’s intellect. Havoc was a genius at understanding how the brain works. He merged brain tissue with machinery, and from there worked out wonders with memory wheels alone and got machines to appear to think. He even learned how to make a machine that could make itself more intelligent by adding memory wheels to itself. Meanwhile, I myself invented a spider with the ability to make copies of itself, though the initial prototype was flawed and merely walked about eating everything in sight in order to make materials for more copies, and I was forced to shut it down. Havoc became fascinated with my machine. Obsessed. He combined my designs with his own, and created a machine that was intelligent enough to improve itself and make intelligent copies. And that gave me my plan.”