Steven Harper - The Doomsday Vault

“You still fight like a pirate, boy,” Phipps snarled.

Gavin lashed out with a spin kick, but Phipps ducked beneath it. Her metal hand grabbed his ankle and wrenched him around. He landed on his back. “Alice! The device!”

Alice forced herself to ignore his pain and to turn to the spider. Automatically she unrolled the velvet cloth with its tools inside. Opening the access hatch was no trouble-it was the exact same hatch Edwina put on all her spiders.

“ You have sixty seconds to evacuate ,” boomed the spider in Edwina’s voice.

Another crash. Gavin had rolled aside just in time to avoid the heavy pestle Phipps tried to bring down on his head. He managed a one-two rabbit punch to her ribs, but the angle was bad and he didn’t do much damage. Phipps pointed her metal arm at him, palm out.

“ You have fifty seconds to evacuate ,” said the spider.

Alice stared at the machinery inside. It was all a complicated mass, and she understood none of it. The wheels and gears and delicate wires snapped with yellow sparks, and she was certain that if she made a mistake, she would die, or the device would detonate instantly.

“ You have forty seconds to evacuate ,” said the spider.

Gavin rolled to his feet just as a wire whipped out of Phipps’s palm and wrapped around him. He struggled, but his arms were pinned to his sides. Phipps flicked a knife from its sheath with her free hand and moved toward him. Alice snatched up a half-broken beaker and flung it at the back of Phipps’s neck. It scored a red wound.

“ You have thirty seconds to evacuate ,” said the spider.

Phipps whirled, eyes wild. “You snotty upper-class bitch! I’ll get you next!”

Gavin lurched into her from behind. They both went down, though Gavin, whose arms were still pinned, was at a clear disadvantage.

“The device!” he shouted again.

“You have twenty seconds to evacuate,” said the spider.

Alice forced herself to study the machinery. It still made no sense. She had no diagram and no instructions.

Did she need them?

But operating without them would mean. . what? She wasn’t a clockworker-quite. She had been assembling machines for a dozen years, and clockworkers never lived longer than three.Alice had always assumed she was just talented. Theoretically, anyone could do what she did, with careful instructions and enough time. That no one had done it meant nothing. If Alice pulled this off, it would mean breaking more than mere societal rules. It would mean becoming truly unique. No rules need apply.

“Ten. . nine. .”

Phipps shoved Gavin aside and regained her feet. Alice swallowed. All right. She was unique. Machines answered her touch, and nothing could stop her. And with that thought, the memory of what Edwina had done to the spider came flooding back. She saw how everything fit together and, more importantly, how everything came apart.

“Four. . three. .”

Alice reached into the spider with a pair of forceps and extracted a single memory wheel. The yellow sparks died, and the spider released its grip on the cellar floor. Alice tossed the wheel away with a sigh, then stiffened as a cold steel touched her throat.

“Good work, Agent Michaels,” Phipps said in her ear. “That deserves a reward.”

“We’ve already released the cure,” Alice lied. “There’s no point in killing me.”

“There’s personal satisfaction.”

“I saved you just now.” Alice’s heart beat at the back of her throat. “I saved the entire Ward.”

“Susan!” Simon d’Arco was leaning against the doorjamb. “Susan, don’t! If she released the cure, there’s no point in killing her, and she just saved all our lives. Your life.”

Phipps turned her head only a little. “She committed treason. I’m just expediting the sentence.”

“A man gives in to anger,” Simon said. “What would an honorable Ad Hoc woman do?”

A long moment passed, and Alice prayed Phipps would believe the lie. Then the knife went away. Alice found she could breathe again. Gavin struggled out of the wire and sat up.

“You have until sunrise to run,” Phipps said. “Then God help you.”

The dirigible glowed a faint blue against the cloudy night sky while the gaslights of London slid by below. The stars had fallen to Earth, and the dark ground lay above them. Alice felt a moment of vertigo even as the sight took her breath away. She gave a heartfelt sigh and turned back to the deck. Gavin, lithe and strong, was back at the helm, his injuries only bothering him slightly. A mixture of fear and relief made her hands shake. He was sick with the clockwork plague, which filled her with red fear, but in a moment he would be cured, which gave her relief deeper than a drink from a cool, dark well.

“All right, Edwina,” she said, “it’s time to give the cure.”

“I don’t know why I would want to,” Edwina said peevishly. “You thoroughly wrecked my wonderful plan to destroy the Third Ward. What am I going to tell the other geniuses at parties? ‘My doomsday device almost went off. It almost destroyed an entire police force.’ I’ll be laughed out of society.”

“Don’t make me call Kemp on you,” Alice warned.

“Madam?”

“Oh, very well,” Edwina sighed. She was holding a large glass jar, and Alice wondered where she’d gotten it. “Set the ship to hover, Gavin, if I may use your Christian name.” Gavin obeyed while Edwina set the jar down and took up the spider Alice had snatched from the Doomsday Vault, the one with the hollow tubules running up and down it. “Your left arm, please, Alice.”

“Why?” Alice asked suspiciously.

“Because your one true love can’t administer the cure to himself, and I need to show you how to do it.”

Alice held out her left arm, and Edwina fit the spider around it. Dr. Clef stepped forward with unabashed curiosity. Kemp stood behind Alice, still uncertain what his role in all this was. Alice had banished the little automatons belowdecks for fear they might get swept overboard or otherwise lost. Click stood on his hind legs and peered over the gunwale, intent on something that interested only him. He popped his phosphorescent eyes alight to see better.

The spider moved cold and heavy against Alice’s skin. Its legs wrapped around her forearm, and its body flattened against the back of her hand, forming a sort of gauntlet that left Alice’s palm bare. It also put little claws at the end of each finger. A quick pain pierced her arm, and Alice yelped. The tubules ran red with her blood. Instantly, Gavin was at her side.

“What have you done?” he barked.

“Don’t strain yourself, darling. Everything is going according to plan. The spider creates a curative serum from her blood. It’s quite harmless, though the spider will never come off. It’s quite fashionable, don’t you think? Much better than a corset.”

“What do you mean it won’t come off?” Alice shook her hand, then pulled at the spider, but it clung like a tiny demon. Gavin pulled at it as well, but to no avail. The spider’s eyes glowed scarlet.

“If you’re finished fiddling,” Edwina said, “we can get on. The spider’s eyes glow red when it touches someone who’s infected with the plague. You’re touching Gavin now. Scratch or poke him with the claws to inject the serum. The lights will then glow green to indicate that it worked. Go ahead-you’ve earned it.”

Gavin silently held out his arm. Alice set her mouth. If this was what it took to cure Gavin, she would do it without complaining. She took a tentative swipe at him, but failed to pierce the skin. Gavin flinched, then held himself more firm.