Steven Harper - The Havoc Machine

“Thad! Good God, we’ve been worried!” Nathan clapped him on the shoulder in half an embrace. “Where are Sofiya and Nikolai? And why do you have the colt out?”

“We’re leaving?” Thad blurted out.

“Bless my soul,” said Dante.

“Dangerous to stay, what with everything going on. Warsaw’s a much better venue. You’re coming, right? We need you for-”

A twinge at the name of his old home passed through Thad. “You didn’t move my wagon, did you? I need a few things.”

Moments later, Thad was back at the riverbank with Dante and Maddie on the colt’s back. His good hand was wrapped in rags, and pieces of an automaton head from his collection were tucked under his arm. His pistols and knives and other equipment were hidden under his long brown jacket. He pushed his way through the crowd to the edge. There was a six-foot drop to the river, and a great many boats tied up below. Before he could think overmuch, he dropped into one of the larger ones. The colt hesitated only a moment, and followed. Dante screeched and flapped his wings frantically all the way down. The boat rocked, but didn’t tip over.

“Hey!” shouted a voice from above. “That’s my-”

“Sorry!” Thad was already rowing away. People were pointing and talking excitedly, but Thad ignored them. The current here was slow, and Thad was able to row upstream past the Academy to a section of the island where the streets were markedly less busy, and he made for it. This side also had a drop to the water, and Thad tied the boat to a ring near a set of rungs set into the stone embankment. Moving quickly to avoid losing the momentum he was building, he set the pieces of automaton head around his own, fitting them over his forehead and under his jaw and tying them in place with leather thongs. His brass hand was working perfectly now, or he couldn’t have managed it. Then he covered his hair with a battered hat a size too large for him and checked his reflection in the river. He looked like an adult version of Nikolai.

Thad tied a length of rope from the bottom of the boat around the colt’s neck, set Dante on one shoulder and Maddie on the other, and climbed the rungs. When he reached the top, he pulled the colt up with the rope and set it on the edge.

They were on a street several blocks upstream from the Academy building. Overhead cables connected the buildings, and power thrummed in them. Speakers similar to the ones Mr. Griffin used hung from cornices, and they spoke in Mr. Griffin’s voice.

“Father loves each and every one of you. Love is obedience, obedience is love. When we work together as brothers, we are all rewarded. All our machine brothers are equal, and we must work together to create a kind and gentle haven in this hostile human world. Listen to your father. Father knows you better than you know yourself and has your best interests at heart. Father loves you deeply, for he created you and will never steer you wrong.”

The words turned Thad’s stomach. Mr. Griffin had said the free-willed automatons would obey him as a son obeys a father, but he didn’t know Mr. Griffin meant it more or less literally. The automatons worked as if nothing were out of the ordinary. Odd machinery protruded here and there and everywhere, cranking and grinding and puffing. The air smelled of oily smoke. A troop of knee-high spiders scuttled by. Thad’s pulse was so loud in his ears, it seemed to echo inside the heavy mask he wore. But the spiders ignored him. Dante leaned forward, as if to jump after them, and Thad put up his brass hand.

“Don’t,” he said in an undertone.

“Applesauce.”

Thad walked toward the Academy. Then he paused and put a lurch in his step instead. He passed a pair of brassy automatons who were working on a metal spire sticking out of a wall. Their faces were vaguely human, but their bodies and limbs showed gears. They wore ill-fitting shirts and no trousers at all. The only part of Thad that showed was his brass hand, and he lurched past them with his three automaton companions without looking at them, though the eye slits in his metal mask didn’t afford him much of a view. The automatons paid him no attention. Thad took a deep breath inside the mask. This might work, then.

I’m coming, Nikolai, he thought. Just hang on a little longer.

* * *

Five soldiers guarded the arched gateway of the fortress, and they aimed their rifles when Kalvis galloped up. Sofiya brought the horse up short and leaped to the ground. The portcullis was up, at least, and Sofiya could see into the fortress beyond. She prayed Thad was right, that Tsar Alexander was here.

“No one enters!” one of the soldiers barked. “Leave now!”

“I must speak to the tsar,” she said. “Urgently!”

“No one sees the tsar!” the soldier repeated. “Certainly not a woman with unknown clockwork machinery.”

Sofiya walked quietly up to him, her arms spread wide. Kalvis came behind her. “I am the woman who saved the tsar’s life earlier today. I must speak to him. He will want to see me.”

The soldier refused to budge. “This is your final warning.”

It took but a moment for her to work out where every soldier was standing, how much each weighed, what kind of pressure it would take to move them. Sofiya moved. She wrenched the rifle out of the surprised soldier’s hands and smacked his temple with it. Before he went down, she punched a second soldier in the chest with the stock and elbowed a third in the nose. Bone crunched. Kalvis casually kicked the fourth soldier in the midriff and he went flying into the river. Sofiya whipped round and trained her new rifle on the fifth soldier, who was now facing Sofiya by himself.

“Drop your weapon, soldier. This isn’t worth your salary.”

He obeyed, and Sofiya hit him. He went down. Sofiya leaped onto Kalvis’s back and urged him through the gate.

They arrived in the fortress proper and Sofiya paused a moment to look around. A great many narrow streets and buildings were everywhere, but Thad had said the place crawled with automatons. She saw none here. Only soldiers occupied the place now. Purple shadows slid out of corners and crevices. Smells of oil and gunpowder and hot metal filled the air. Atop the wall, platoons of soldiers moved machines of war-cannons cranked around by clockwork machinery, the great automatons ready to fling projectiles, kegs of powder, stacks of cannonballs, rockets, bombs, catapults, and other machines. The sight of them made her heart race and brought a tang of coppery excitement to her mouth. She itched to examine them up close, take them apart, play with them, improve them. She pushed the impulse aside. This was not the time. Everything was being moved around to aim at Vasilyevsky Island-and Nikolai.

A lieutenant rode up on a horse, a normal one. “What are you doing here? Who let you in? No civilians are-”

“The tsar sent for me,” she snapped. “Show me to him. Immediately!”

“The tsar? But he wouldn’t-”

“This machine,” Sofiya gestured to Kalvis, “carries information, weaknesses about the clockwork island. The tsar has commanded me to bring it to him personally. Now, Lieutenant!”

The lieutenant hesitated, then nodded. “This way.”

He led them toward the wall, where a pavilion had been hastily erected over several tables. The tsar stood among them, surrounded by military men of rank, examining long, unrolled documents. He looked up in surprise when Sofiya and the lieutenant rode up. The men moved to intercept, but the tsar waved them aside and ordered Sofiya’s approach instead, to her relief. Her bluff had worked. The lieutenant bowed and withdrew.

“I never had the chance to thank you, Miss Ekk,” Alexander said. “My life was threatened twice in one day, and you rescued me. Russia owes you a great debt. I only wish we weren’t occupied by-”