Steven Harper - The Doomsday Vault

“I won’t commit treason,” Phipps said. She was bracing herself against the wall for support.

“I left you a present in my cell,” Edwina told her. “My final project. In fact-”

“ You have ten minutes to evacuate ,” boomed Edwina’s voice from below. Gavin’s blood ran cold. It was exactly the voice he’d heard in that terrible tower all those months ago.

“Good God,” Alice gasped. “The clock spider.”

“You can arrest us,” Edwina said, “or you can get all those unconscious agents to safety. You can’t do both.”

“For the good of the Crown,” Phipps replied hoarsely, “I’ll make the sacrifice.”

“But will they?” Edwina cocked a thumb at the workers.

“You have nine minutes and thirty seconds to evacuate.”

“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Edwina said.

There was a moment’s hesitation. Then most of the workers swarmed around the group and out of sight down the stairs to help the agents. The remainder fled outright, leaving Alice, Gavin, Edwina, Kemp, and Click alone with Susan Phipps.

“Five against one, if you count the cat,” Edwina said. “And you’re still groggy. You can fight and lose, or you can run downstairs and save some lives.”

Phipps stared at them for a hard moment. Her eyes met Gavin’s, and the disappointment in her gaze nearly pushed him through the floor. Then Susan Phipps turned and marched down the steps.

Outside, they ran toward the barn with Click leading the way. Kemp and Gavin slid the huge doors open while Alice, Edwina, and Click rushed up the gangplank onto the little airship. When Alice arrived, more than a dozen little automatons poured out of a hatchway and surrounded Alice like a cloud of metal fairies. They squeaked with joy.

“And I’m glad to see you,” she said, “but we have no time. Cast off!”

The whirligigs and spiders scampered to obey while Edwina glanced around long enough for her plague-enhanced mind to figure out how everything worked. She cranked the generator, which coughed to life in a cloud of paraffin smoke, and pale blue energy crawled up to the envelope, where it swirled and swooped in a fine glowing pattern beneath the skin. The light revealed words painted along the gunwale. Alice read them aloud as Gavin ran up the gangplank with Kemp close behind.

“The Lady of Liberty ,” Alice said with tears in her voice. “Oh, Gavin!”

Gavin grinned and flipped switches. The propellers buzzed to life while Kemp reached for the gangplank.

“Wait for me! Wait!” Gabriel Stark, known as Dr. Clef, puffed up the plank and onto the ship. He was carrying a large lumpy sack. “ Du Lieber. How could you leave me behind to explode? And where is my Impossible Cube?”

“Er,” Alice said. “I’m not sure how to-”

“Oh-you have a clockwork cat. That is very nice. I will forgive you if I may pet the cat.”

“Be my guest,” said Edwina.

The airship, meanwhile, moved, gliding gracefully out the wide doors into the open air.

“It flies! Gavin. It flies!” Alice clapped her hands with joy, and Gavin’s grin widened into exultation.

“ She flies,” he said.

“So this is what for you wanted all my alloy,” Dr. Clef exclaimed. “Never would I have thought of this application. Very intelligent.”

“You have four minutes to evacuate.” Edwina’s voice was clear, even outside. People streamed from the house like ants from a hill.

“Why don’t they just take the bomb outside?” Alice asked.

“They can’t, darling,” Edwina told her. “The spider grabs the floor, you see, and it’s too complex for anyone but a plague genius to deactivate, and then only with days of study.”

The airship coasted past the chaos a bare six feet above the ground. No one seemed to notice them-everyone was busy dragging unconscious agents out of the house.

“You intended to destroy the Ward from the very start, didn’t you?” Alice said tightly to Edwina.

“Well, obviously. Look what they’ve done to us. To you. That device will make the one at my country house look like a mousetrap, so let’s move along, please.”

“I don’t see Simon or Glenda or Lieutenant Phipps,” Gavin said. He felt sick. “They won’t make it out.”

“They’d have you hanged, given the chance,” Edwina said.

“You have three minutes to evacuate.”

Gavin’s fingers whitened on the helm. The propellers beat their inexorable rhythm as the ship glided on. An agent Gavin didn’t recognize stumbled out the door, helped by a workman, then dropped to his knees on the front steps. He thought about Susan Phipps and the others downstairs, moving through air like molasses while Edwina’s voice counted down to doomsday.

Abruptly he yanked the cord from the generator. The dim blue light of the lattice went out, and the airship fell to the ground with a massive thud, though she retained enough buoyancy to avoid a damaging crash. Everyone rocked on his feet. Dr. Clef tipped over with a squawk.

“What are you doing?” Edwina shouted.

Gavin was already dropping over the side. “I have to do something. I have to help.”

“I’m coming with you.” Alice jumped after him, and Gavin helped her land. Together, they ran inside the house.

An alarm bell clanged as Alice and Gavin charged down the stairs. Partway, they met a group of workmen helping groggy, black-clad agents up the stairs. Alice paused to help them, but Gavin grabbed her arm. “No! Down here!”

“You have two minutes to evacuate.”

Alice shut her ears to Aunt Edwina’s dreadful voice and followed Gavin down to the cracked and ruined basement. Her heart beat like a snare, and she was only vaguely aware that she had automatically grabbed her tools before jumping off Gavin’s ship. Simon and Glenda were on their hands and knees in the corridor, trying to make it to the stairs.

“Gavin!” Glenda slurred.

“Do you hate me that much?” Simon gasped.

Gavin’s lips tightened as he and Alice ran past. He called over his shoulder, “I’m sorry! We’re trying to help.”

“What are we doing?” Alice demanded.

“You’re some kind of clockworker, Alice,” he said.

The words slammed into her like stones. She’d been trying to forget. Her terror of the clockwork plague rushed back at her. Bad enough that Gavin was infected. Now she herself was somehow affected.

Gavin felt her stiffen. “You are! You’re not completely like other clockworkers, but you’re close. You know machinery. You can defuse the device.”

Alice wrestled with fear. “I don’t have a diagram!”

“You saw what Edwina did to it, and she used parts from your automaton. You can do this.”

“I don’t know if I can, Gavin. If I make a mistake, we’ll be dead.”

“You have ninety seconds to evacuate.”

“And the alternative is?”

He pulled her into Edwina’s workroom, the one with the door blown inward. Wrecked equipment was scattered everywhere, and for a moment Alice was back in the basement of Edwina’s house, the one that had imploded. In the center of the floor crouched the malevolent brass spider, its claws sunk into the stone, and hunched over it was Lieutenant Phipps. She was trying to open it, without success.

“You!” Phipps barked, and launched herself straight at Gavin. She slammed him into the wall with her metal forearm across his throat. “I’ll tear your heart out!”

“Gavin!” Alice cried.

“The device!” Gavin choked. He twisted and managed to break away, but only because Phipps was still somewhat groggy from the pollen. She snapped a punch that caught him in the chest and knocked him backward. Alice felt the blow herself.