Steven Harper - The Havoc Machine

“HE NO LONGER GIVES ORDERS,” the machine repeated. “LOGIC DICTATES THAT WE MUST CREATE A NEW OBJECTIVE. TELL ME WHAT THE NEW OBJECTIVE SHALL BE.”

“I can’t answer that,” Thad shouted. “You’re sophisticated enough. You can make your own choices, just like Nikolai.”

“Five minutes,” said Dante. “Five. Doom!”

“YOU MUST STAY AND TELL US WHAT THE NEW OBJECTIVE SHALL BE. YOU MUST STAY.”

Mechanical hands reached, but they were clumsy now, and Thad was running for the portcullis before the machine had finished speaking. With Nikolai’s help, he spun the wheel that raised the grate and ran through with Maddie, Dante, and the colt following. The automatons on the other side had unfrozen and meandered about uncertainly. Thad felt bad for them-it wasn’t their fault they had been built, and now they seemed to have the new and disconcerting ability to think completely on their own. It wasn’t right to let them be slaughtered, any more than it was right to let Nikolai die. But he couldn’t help them all. He wasn’t even sure he and Nikolai would get away in time.

A thought struck him.

With Maddie lighting the way, he sprinted down the corridor with Nikolai and the colt. “Niko,” he said, “I’m leaving this up to you. Your choice.”

“What is it?”

“I think we can stop the automatons on the island from being destroyed,” Thad said. “But it’s not certain. We might die along with them if we try it. Or we can get out of here. You know more about automatons that I do. Which should we do?”

Silence for a long moment as they ran up a staircase. Then Nikolai said, “A little boy in a family isn’t supposed to make such big decisions. That’s a papa’s job.”

“All right,” Thad said. They were at the exit now, but another staircase led farther up. The group of them hung there between the two directions. “Then we’ll-”

“But we aren’t a usual family,” Nikolai finished. “So I will choose. We should save them. They are like my brothers, and we must not let them die.”

“Three minutes,” Dante squawked. “Three!”

Thad gave Nikolai a brief hug. “I’m proud of you. Son. Let’s go!” Together they turned their backs on the exit and hurtled up the stairs.

Kalvis labored as he ran. He needed to be stoked and wound. The new wireless transmitter she had installed at the Peter and Paul Fortress sapped even more of his energy, and unlike a real horse, he couldn’t be pushed. Hoping for the best and not daring to examine the mathematics too closely, she rode him as hard as she dared through the streets. The sun had touched the horizon, and the tsar would attack in less than eight minutes. There was nothing she could do about that now. She had done everything she could, actually, and the thought of sitting still, even among all those weapons, made her ill. It would be beyond foolish to make a run at Vasilyevsky Island, but there was one other place she could go.

The horse arrived at an all-too-familiar building. Sofiya dismounted. The rucksack she wore felt strange on her back, and the baton clipped to the belt around her waist didn’t help. She moved aside the sewer cover with a practiced ease, dropped into the tunnel below, and lit a tin lantern. Water dripped, and darkness stretched before and behind her. Dammit all, now she did feel more secure underground, with good, solid stone close around her. Never, ever would she admit this to Thad.

If she ever saw him again. With Nikolai.

Best not to think of that. Just keep moving.

The route was familiar now, and she easily found her way to Mr. Griffin’s lair and clambered down the rungs. Mr. Griffin’s jar with its pink cargo was in its usual place, surrounded by the crated machinery and the spiders. Zygmund Padlewski and his friends were still working at their desks. In the corner slumped the twisted version of Nikolai like a broken doll, deactivated now that it had served its purpose.

“You!” said Mr. Griffin in English. “What are you doing here? I-”

Sofiya pressed a button atop the baton, which was connected to the pack by a thick cable. Instantly, every spider in the room shut down. Zygmund’s wireless transmitter went dead. He glanced up, bewildered.

“Do you know what this device does, Mr. Griffin?” she said in icy Russian. “It generates a magnetic field that interferes with all wireless transmission. I put it together in the Peter and Paul Fortress a moment ago. Mr. Padlewski, the brain man here has been playing you. There is no revolution. He intends to keep you around for your cerebrospinal fluid. He’s been drinking those clockworkers for years. They help him live longer. It’s the only reason he would surround himself with other lunatics.”

She kicked open one of the crates. Primeval, the plant clockworker, fell out. The top of his head had been neatly removed, revealing smooth yellow bone. His eyes bulged beneath an empty brain pan. Zygmund and the others bolted to their feet.

“Didn’t have a chance to get rid of that with them always underfoot,” Griffin muttered in English.

“Run, fools!” Sofiya said, and had to quell an urge to laugh insanely as they scrambled down a different tunnel, leaving only a few papers drifting on the air.

“You know you’ve sealed your sister’s death warrant,” Griffin said when they had gone. “Though I might be persuaded to leave her alone temporarily if you-”

“Shut it,” she snapped. “I spent my entire life being frightened, Mr. Griffin. Frightened of the landowner, frightened of the tsar, frightened of you. Do you know what I have learned? Fear is power. But it’s a power of choice. I chose to give you power over me. And now I’m choosing to revoke it.”

“Your sister-”

Sofiya stepped forward and tapped on the glass jar with a fingernail. “You’re afraid of me now, aren’t you? You should be. You’re helpless. Your spiders don’t work. Your men have fled. You’re two pounds of meat in a jar. And I have a sledgehammer.” From her pocket she produced a bumpy metal egg. “The Russians have some very nice weapons in the fortress. This is called a grenade.”

“An explosive device?” Mr. Griffin said coolly. “Isn’t that-?”

“Blunt? Crude? Tactless? Yes.” She fingered the little firing pin. So smooth, so elegant, even though she hadn’t built it. “Exactly the opposite of what a sophisticated clockworker should use. Completely unexpected and incalculable. Which is why I’m choosing to use it. Good-bye, Mr. Griffin. I look forward to dissecting what is left of your brain after I scrape it from the walls.”

Her finger moved toward the pin. And then a terrible, painful sound ripped through her. It was as if the maw of the universe sucked her in and chewed her mind with billions of teeth. Her mind tried to make sense of the tritone her ears were receiving, and it got caught in the endless spirals of numbers that made up the basic mathematics of it. It could not exist, but it did exist, and the impossibility of it tore her to pieces.

“You forgot I can do that,” Mr. Griffin’s warm, chocolate voice said over the noise. “I can play it until your little device runs down and I regain control of my spiders. Then you will die, Miss Ekk, and your fluids will feed me.”

Sofiya was on her hands and knees now. The sound was a ten-ton weight. Her throat was hoarse, and she realized it was because she was screaming. A red light flashed on the baton clipped to her waist.

“Ah! I believe your battery is already running out. A hazard when you build in haste.”

The spiders twitched. A few came upright and shook themselves like little dogs. Sofiya’s skull was filled with red lava. Every nerve burned. She clawed her way upright, using the wall for support. The sound got worse, and the pain grew with it. She was directly underneath Mr. Griffin’s speaker box. Summoning her last bit of strength, she lunged for it.