Steven Harper - The Impossible Cube

Feng flew backward, straight toward the arc. But as he fell, he angled his body so that he struck the table. Even over the wind, Alice heard bone snap, though Feng’s face remained stoic. He bounced sideways and managed to latch on to Dr. Clef.

“Was, denn?” Dr. Clef sputtered.

Feng snap-punched him twice. Dr. Clef’s eyes glazed over, and he let go of the table. Together Feng and Dr. Clef fell toward the arc and hit the eye. Alice wanted to look away, but couldn’t. When the two men struck the eye, flesh and bone shredded as if forced through a sieve made of razors. A cloud of blood and meat misted before the arc, hung for a tiny moment, and was sucked into the boiling water beyond. Alice cried out again.

Do whatever it takes to help! Gavin had ordered. Feng had done exactly that and gotten just what he had wanted. Alice felt only heart-wrenching sorrow.

Gavin grabbed hold of Alice’s free hand, the one with the spider on it, and the spider’s eyes glowed red. It was easier to hold on to one person, though she couldn’t do it indefinitely, and whatever force was pulling them toward the arc showed no signs of abating. Her desperation grew, as did the fear on Gavin’s face.

“What do we do?” she shouted.

He shook his head. His feet were trying to find purchase on the brick floor, but they were continually drawn out from under him. His hand slipped, and Alice forced herself to grab harder, though she was growing more and more tired.

“You have the cure,” he yelled. “Let me go and save yourself!”

A cold fist clutched her heart and her breath came hard. “Not you. Never you!”

“Alice-”

And then Susan Phipps was there. A rope was wrapped around her waist and she was playing it out with her mechanical hand like a mountain climber. Her silver-streaked hair streamed out like Alice’s. The sight was so surprising, it took Alice a moment to understand what-who-she was looking at.

“You’re both idiots,” Phipps shouted. From a holster at her waist, she drew a fat pistol.

Alice’s heart sank, though she didn’t dare loosen her grip on Gavin to defend herself. Still, it was too much. “Damn you!” she shouted back. “Kill us, then! See if it makes you feel better.”

“Phipps!” Gavin cried. “Don’t!”

Phipps fired-straight at the top of the turbine. A red beam lanced through the air and struck the spot where the shaft met the generator. Smoke formed and was pulled into the boiling arc. Then the generator shaft jumped away from the turbine shaft with a terrible grinding noise. Deprived of its energy source, the generator powered down. The arc’s glow faded, the eye and the boiling water vanished. Gavin dropped on top of Alice as the force abruptly ceased. The Impossible Cube trembled for a moment, went still, then released a burst of red energy. Alice braced herself for another slamming, but the energy went through her with only a strange sensation, as if something briefly crawled over all her bones at once. The Cube darkened, though it continued to give off a faint phosphorescent blue light.

Alice lay panting beneath Gavin. His weight was both welcome and crushing at the same time. Her arms had the strength of wet string, and she couldn’t even summon the energy to ask him to move. At last he heaved himself aside and dragged himself upright on trembling limbs to face Phipps, who was calmly untying the rope from around her waist and winding her hair back into a twist.

“If you had done that from the start, none of this would have happened,” Phipps said. “For all your talent, you’re still a rookie, Agent Ennock.”

“Why?” Gavin gasped, echoing Alice’s thoughts.

“I don’t answer to you,” Phipps replied coolly. “And you are welcome.”

“Er… thank you.” Alice felt like an admonished schoolgirl.

“We shouldn’t stay,” Phipps added. “I don’t think it’s safe.”

Alice summoned the strength to sit up. “Oh, come now! After everything you put us through, you owe us an explanation and you damned well know it!”

Phipps sighed and thawed a little. “If I can make the great Alice, Baroness Michaels, curse, I suppose I can offer an explanation.” She looked away for a moment. “Into the Doomsday Vault, I’ve put clockworker inventions that could uproot islands, let people move instantly from place to place, and make the human race immortal. But an invention that would stop time…” She shook her head. “I was so worried about justice itself that I lost sight of whom justice was for . What justice is there in letting clockworkers seize destiny from mankind? The time of the clockworker needs to end, and it needs to end now.”

“What does that mean to us?” Gavin was weaving, but kept his feet.

“It means, Mr. Ennock, that I am personally going to escort you and the baroness to China to spread her cure. It is fair.”

“God damn you, Lieutenant!” Glenda Teasdale appeared in the door to the stairwell with a pistol of her own. “After all this, you turn out like Simon? I’ll see you in hell!”

“Agent Teasdale!” Phipps barked. “Lower your weapon!”

“Michaels stole everything from me!” Glenda moved farther into the room, her pistol still trained on Alice. “She stole my profession and my life! She has to pay.”

“It would not be just, Agent Teasdale,” Phipps said. “She’s already paid, and paid, and paid. And so have we. It’s time to stop. For both of us.”

Glenda was breathing fast. Alice was so tired, she could barely move, but from somewhere she found a reserve of strength that let her come to her feet. “Glenda,” she said, “you’ve done so much for me. You were an exemplar to me, and without you, I would never have struck out on my own. I did a terrible thing to you in return. I’m sorry for what I did to you. I wish I could take it back. If you want to shoot, I’ll understand.”

And she moved in front of Phipps. Gavin tried to stop her, but she shook him off. She stood there, unarmed but for her iron spider, her arms spread wide. Too many people had died for her. She could die for someone else now.

Glenda took aim. Alice held her breath but refused to close her eyes. Glenda lowered the pistol.

“Goddamn you,” she said again, but this time to Alice.

“I’m sorry,” Alice said, and was surprised at how disappointed she was that Glenda hadn’t pulled the trigger.

“What am I to do with my life?” Glenda asked bitterly.

“If you can control your impulse to curse,” Phipps said, “perhaps you should go into politics. I can give you a letter of introduction that will go over quite well with the Hats-On Committee in Parliament.”

Gavin, meanwhile, staggered over to the table where the arc stood. Silently, he picked up the Impossible Cube. A lump formed in Alice’s throat. She joined Gavin and took his hand. Click clicked across the floor as well and sat at Alice’s feet. He looked at the arc as if waiting for something. Alice’s remaining automatons limped over to her and crawled into her skirts or fluttered to her shoulders. They all stood in a moment of silence before the arc, now a gateway to the world of the dead. Alice fought back tears.

“Feng gave his life to save ours,” Alice said. “I hope that will be enough for his father-and his family.”

“The plague took Dr. Clef,” Gavin said. “I knew it would happen, knew he’d leave, but I didn’t think he’d try to kill us.” He sighed heavily and wiped at his eyes. “In his own twisted way, he was like a father to me, and now he’s gone. He and Feng both.”

Alice embraced him and let her own tears wet his shoulder. They both wept for loss and unfairness while Glenda, Phipps, and the mechanical stood by in mute sympathy. At last Alice stepped away and fished in her pocket for a handkerchief.