Steven Harper - The Doomsday Vault

“Shall I carry that for Madam?” Kemp asked.

“Thank you, no,” Alice said, clutching the spider to her chest. “Click! Hurry!”

The five of them, counting the little automaton that still sat on Alice’s shoulder, dashed past the sleeping agents down the hall where the clockworkers were locked in their laboratories, and found Edwina’s door. Gavin stared at the heavy wood for a moment, surprised at the amount of loathing he felt. Behind that door was the woman who had kidnapped him and infected him with the clockwork plague. He’d been trying not to think about that, to concentrate on the mission; however, now faced with setting her free, he felt disgust and hatred boiling black inside him.

“What are you waiting for?” Alice hissed. “Hurry!”

Gavin clenched his teeth. “She’s a monster.”

“Oh, Gavin!” Alice put a hand on his arm. “Gavin, I know it’s hard.”

“You have no idea, Alice. To her, I’m a windup music box, an automaton who’ll obey orders. She trapped me in this horrible, filthy city, and now she’s dragged me underground and is forcing me to set her free.”

Kemp made a coughing sound.

“I know, Gavin,” Alice said. “What she did is unforgivable. But you can move on. You’re bright and merry and you soar. Your hatred won’t change her, or what she did. Don’t give her the power to chain you down and ruin you.”

Gavin faced her. Every muscle in his back ached, and the cube grew heavy. His throat thickened. “I don’t know what to do, Alice. I hate this world. I hate the people in it. A man named Madoc Blue tried to do unspeakable things to me and I killed him. His blood was still on my hands when the first mate ripped my back to shreds. And then the Red Velvet Lady summoned me like a sorceress with a spell and locked me in her round tower so I would do her bidding. She’s the figurehead of all the horrible things that have happened to me. To my world. I’ve fallen so far, Alice, and I just want to fly again, be free of all these horrible people.”

“Free from me, Gavin?” Her arms went around him, and she kissed him. The warmth of her body went through him, and he closed his eyes, soaking in her presence. Thank God he wasn’t contagious yet.

“Can you do this?” she asked when they parted. “Not for me. For you. And for the world.”

Gavin bit his lip and nodded. Then he put his hand on the Impossible Cube, took a deep breath, and sang one note. The crystal D-sharp thrummed through him, built in intensity, rushed upward, and roared from his throat. The energy blew the door inward so hard, it cracked in two and the pieces smashed against the opposite wall. Gavin continued to sing. The Impossible Cube glowed blue in his hands. He was aware of Alice shouting at him, but he couldn’t stop. Silky anger and disgust poured out of him, slid from his throat in an orgasmic black stream. The badness felt so good, and he felt so bad that it felt good. He struggled against it, then gave in. His body shuddered with the pleasure of it. The cube glowed brighter, and his anger thundered through the underworld until the stones began to crack, and still there was more and more and more. Edwina shouted something at him, and he snapped his head toward her. She dived aside, and the power of his voice shattered the stones behind her. More and more fury tore from him. A hand grasped his shoulder, and he rounded with righteousness.

It was Alice. Her face held no trace of fear, only wonder and concern. Alice, who had also come from the hell that was London. He felt her love, both quiet and fierce, and the music buried within his anger answered it. Before the terrible note could touch her, he tightened his throat and changed it.

The new note rang white and clean as a bell that had only just cooled in the mold and still remembered what it was to be hot and pure. It swept every color of sound along the cracked stone corridors and poured over the sleeping agents, who smiled in their drugged sleep. It rushed over Alice and sheathed her in light, lifting her gently off the floor while sparks flickered about her like snowflakes. The little whirligig on her shoulder clung to its perch.

Gavin’s note faded. Alice drifted to the floor, her eyes wide. The glow faded from the Impossible Cube, and Gavin dropped it. As the cube tumbled toward the floor, it changed colors-blue to green to yellow to orange to red. The moment it touched the flagstones, red energy exploded in all directions with a bone-jarring whump and a blast of warm air that stirred hair and clothes. The cube was gone.

“Good Lord,” said Edwina.

Alice touched Gavin’s face. “Are you all right?”

He put his palm on her hand, unable to do anything but nod. Then all the strength left him. His knees buckled, and only Kemp’s chilly hands stopped him from dropping to the floor.

“Gavin!” Alice grabbed for him as well.

“I’m. . all right.” His voice was scratchy, and he managed to regain his feet. “Thank you, Alice. For bringing me out of that.”

She wrapped her arms hard around him, her face wet with tears. “You’re thanking me ? God, Gavin. I love you always.”

“I love you always.”

“Heavens, I am good.” Edwina emerged from the workroom carrying a spider with a large clock built into its belly. “Except for this little toy. Do you know they wouldn’t give me the parts I needed to complete-ah! Just the thing.”

She set the spider down and plucked the whirligig automaton from Alice’s shoulder. It squeaked in surprise, and before Alice or Gavin could respond, Edwina tore open its access hatch and yanked out several bits of machinery. The little automaton quivered and went still. Gavin stared in horror.

“Edwina!” Alice cried. “What-?”

“Shush, dear. Auntie’s working.” With dazzlingly fast movements, she worked the machine parts-memory wheels, Gavin now remembered-into the clock spider’s insides and closed it up. Then she unceremoniously kicked the thing back into her cell and swept the bits of the whirligig aside with her foot. The entire affair took only a few seconds.

“Ready now, darlings!”

“What was that for?” Alice demanded.

“My final project. You wouldn’t expect me to leave it uncompleted, would you?”

“But-never mind. We have to get out of here. The noise will bring dozens of people down. Do you have the other cure?”

“I do,” Edwina said. “Let’s-oh dear.”

Some of Gavin’s strength had returned, and he straightened enough to glance around. The other doors in the hallway had also been destroyed, flattened by Gavin’s voice. Startled faces, male and female, young and old, were peeping into the corridor. Dr. Clef waved to Gavin.

“We should leave now,” Edwina said. “In fact, we should run.”

They sprinted up the stairs. At the top, they met a group of workers, none of them agents.

“What’s going on?” someone shouted.

“There was an explosion in the clockworker laboratories,” Alice said. “People need help! Hurry!”

“Halt right there!” barked a new voice. Lieutenant Phipps strode purposefully, if a bit unsteadily, around the lower turn in the spiral staircase. “It’s a trick. They’ve incapacitated all our agents and broken into the Doomsday Vault.”

Fear rushed down Gavin’s spine. He glanced at the dozen-odd workers, then at Phipps. Her face was pale and grim.

“Do you think this is the first time a cure has been found and repressed?” Phipps said quietly. “You walked right past three others in the Doomsday Vault. I won’t let you release any of them.”

“I never understood you, Susan,” Edwina said. “Even in school, you contradicted yourself. You push the Hats-On Committee into sedition, but balk at this?”