Nathan Yocum - Automatic Woman

A shock wave rippled through the room, pushing all men off their feet. Perseus and Pegasus popped up, took flight, turned and came crashing into their former home. The caesium had blown a hole through the bottom of the fountain and floor beneath, raining the second floor offices with water and mythological statues. The stone edges of the fountain fell into the hole, completing the implosion and leaving a jagged wound in the center of the floor.

I tore free my knife, but Barnes was already on me. Blood ran out of both his ears and I must have been in the same shape because I heard none of the blood-spittle expletives that came out of his mouth. His free hand vice-gripped the wrist of my knife hand. My free hand vice-gripped the wrist of his gun hand. We grunted and rolled like yin trying to kill yang. In my peripheral vision I saw Bell gain his feet, sway, and take two steps toward us. I must have yelled and screamed. Barnes fired a shot over my head, flecks of powder burning my forehead and filling the air with the scent of singed hair. I rolled with Barnes, once, twice, the third time away from the approaching Bell, down the hole that had once been home to Bow Street’s chic fountain.

We fell as a meteor of fat men to the rubble and bedlam of the second floor. The impact separated us and knocked the wind from my chest. I struggled to gain air, balance, sound, anything that could get me back into the fight.

All around me men were brawling. Some were Bow Street regulars I knew; some were wearing sack cloth masks and making a go at the regulars with truncheons, probably Darwin’s people or mercenaries. Who knows, the world is full of enemies and angry men.

I caught sight of Barnes raising his gun to me. I lunged and screamed and arced my pimp knife into his gun wrist, pinning arm, hand, and Barnes to a cheap plywood partition. The old bastard clocked my cheek with a left haymaker, giving me stars to count. All fight, that one. I kicked him in the bollocks and answered his left with two rights. I’m no gentleman. That’s my specialty.

Lord Barnes drooped and hung unconscious by his impaled wrist. I lifted his key ring and ran for the exit stairs, flinging Runners and Darwinians out of my way with equal abandon. I made my descent through fighting men and grunts and shouts and wild fists. I saw it all, but heard none of it. Down I went, first floor, basement storage, sub-basement non-storage. The third key I attempted put me into the room. The attending guard rose at my entrance. Non-storage was soundproofed for good reason. Prisoners, captives, and hostages tend to bellow in interrogation.

The guard rose, saw the fight in my eyes and the blood running from my ears and reached quickly for his cobra baton. I smiled and charged. He swung his club as I swung my fist full into his chest.

I know how to punch, how to step into it, to turn my body, to aim for whatever is behind the man. The guard’s feet lifted from bedrock and he landed as a mess of no air and broken ribs. I’m not sure if his club made contact. If so I never felt it. I retrieved the cobra from the floor for my own sake. You never know.

The four cells of non-storage were occupied. Orel. Emily. Mary. Some old codger I’d never met.

Call me Moses.

I freed the prisoners, even the old stranger. Orel gave me a hard look. Emily went to take a swing but her husband got a hold of her arms in the nick of time. She had to content herself with spitting on my foot before she and Orel left. The old codger followed with an approving nod in my direction. Mary gave me a much better reception. She caressed my cheek. I read her lips. They asked if I was okay, they asked where I had been, and then they were on my own. I closed my eyes for a moment, forgetting the danger we were in, forgetting the fight outside, the struggle of men, the fact that my hearing might never come back. I opened my eyes and pulled Mary out of the kiss.

“Get behind me,” I said. I popped one of Dr. Doyle’s syringes in my leg, opting for the recommended dose this time. I closed my eyes and took three deep breaths. My heart pumped solid in my chest, strong and brave. Blood flowed in my ears, my arms, and I felt like God’s last warrior, an invincible man.

The sub-basement stairwell had grown dangerously hot, oppressively hot. It was the kind of heat that sets off all the animal panic buttons in the back of my skull. During my brief interim in the sub-basement, the Bow Street Firm had turned into a flaming hellscape. The air was condensed and rippled like caramelized syrup. As we ascended breathing became unbearable. I threw my coat over Mary’s head and guided her into the first floor lobby.

The well-tuned machine of Bow Street was no more. Tables and desks were overturned. Boschon copiers, information looms, and pneumatic tubes were destroyed. The innards of the information beast were smashed and scattered. Flames licked the walls and coated all those beautiful panels of wood. The ceiling was invisible behind a cloud of black smoke that rolled and flowed like an upside-down ocean. Bodies of men were strewn about. Some I knew, some I didn’t. I stepped over Blaine, brave guard, wielder of the cobra. I stepped over a man in a burlap mask, another in a cheetah mask. My eyes watered tears for smoke and loss. All these men felled at the ego of two geniuses who were too posh to just have at each other.

I lifted Mary into my arms, cradling her to avoid the corpses and flaming bits of furniture. Near the front door I caught sight of something that chilled my spine. One of the burlap maskers was laid out, not moving. His arm had been hacked off at the elbow, but rather than blood and bone and ligaments, the dead masker poured oil. Tiny gears spread out from his wound, reflecting gold in the fire light. No doubt Darwin had been busy.

Outside the front entrance, the fray had taken to the streets. Dozens of men fought and scrambled over the cobbles. By now the Metros had weighed in and were swinging their batons at all men not uniformed. I imagine there was screaming, battle cries of the bloodied, and despairing cries of the dying. All the spinning hurling cacophony of war was thankfully muffled to my damaged ears. Lord Barnes was nowhere. It was possible that he was in the burning structure, a captain going down with his ship, but I didn’t think that was the case. A burlap masker ran towards me with knife raised. I planted my boot firmly under his chin and sent him hurtling. I couldn’t tell if he was man or machine, so keen was Nouveau’s creation, or should I say Saxon’s. I shifted Mary over my left shoulder and sprang the cobra with my free hand. The street was slippery with bloody mud. I swung at all comers, burlap, animal, Metro; no man or machine stood as my friend and I cracked all skulls brave enough or unfortunate enough to get between myself and the line of exit. The combat ebbed and flowed and I eventually found myself on the far side of it, away from the bloodlust grinder. I took off down an alley, Mary still over my shoulder.

A horseless carriage screeched to halt at the opposite end. Two Metros jumped out. They raised their hands and shouted words that wouldn’t have mattered had I understood. I set Mary onto her feet and charged the Mets. Blood was pounding in my face, in my hands, into the tips of my fingers. The first Met raised his baton. I faked a high attack and then dropped to my knees, shattering his ankle with a tremendous swing of the cobra. The Met howled in agony. This I actually heard through the muffled thumping of my destroyed hearing. I popped up to meet his partner, only to find him loading a scattergun from the other side of the car. My heart stopped. The Met raised his gun to his shoulder, leaned forward and was suddenly enveloped by my jacket. I swung left. The Met shot out the passenger window of his horseless carriage.