Angel of Brass (14 page)

Master Singh was climbing into his steam car
just as Jin approached the door. The older man pushed up his
driving goggles to give him a broad wink. “You take good care of my
Molly, now,” he said. “Don’t let her work too hard, yes? Make sure
she remembers to eat. Young girl like that shouldn’t all the time
have her head in a machine.”

Jin smiled back, even though a part of him
wondered if he should correct Master Singh’s assumptions about
their relationship. But if Molly hadn’t, then why should he? “I
will.”

“Good, good.” Singh pulled his goggles back
down. “I can tell you’re a good boy. You’ve got an honest face. I
will be seeing you again soon, yes?”

“I hope so,” Jin allowed. Singh nodded
happily and set the steam car in motion, bouncing away along the
cobblestones.

When Jin re-entered the shop, Molly glanced
up from the workbench, where she’d been sorting scrap parts into
piles. “Did Master Singh bother you?” she asked suspiciously.

“He worries about you,” Jin replied
neutrally, putting the boxes and bottles on the bench.

“He got married when he wasn’t much older
than we are, so he thinks everyone else should, too.” Setting aside
the last of the scrap, she picked up one of the boxes. “Oh! This
smells wonderful.”

They sat cross-legged on top of the bench,
facing one another as they ate. Molly passed the time by telling
him stories about herself and Winifred as children. “I was a
hellion,” she said ruefully, after explaining to him how she had
taken apart Winifred’s velocipede, then failed to put it back
together correctly, so that it fell apart while Winifred pedaled
around the park, dumping her into a pond full of ornamental
fish.

“It sounds like fun,” Jin said wistfully.

“Oh, it was, I suppose.” Molly expertly
scooped the last of the noodles out of her box with a pair of
bamboo chopsticks. “Although sometimes I wonder that we both
survived, not to mention avoided giving our parents apoplexy while
we were at it.”

“Winifred seems like a wonderful sister.”

“She is.” Molly set the box aside and gave
him an uncertain look. “What’s Del like? If you don’t mind my
asking?”

“Not at all.” Jin rested his elbows on his
knees and tried to think of a description. “Del is...smart. Not as
good at the violin as I am.”

Molly’s eyes lit up. “Oh! You play? I can’t
carry a tune in a bucket with both hands, but I love to
listen.”

Jin lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “I
don’t know if I’m any good, but I can scrape out a reel well
enough. I used to entertain Del and Fa—the doctor—after dinner.
Del’s a better singer than I am, and sometimes she’d sing along. Or
dance—we had ballet lessons, of all things. Dr. Malachi said that
it would improve our balance.”

“Did it?”

“I suppose. There was archery, and riding,
and fencing, and a whole host of other random things. Art, too—Del
can paint better than me, but the things she used to draw were
always strange. Dark.” Jin bit his lip, remembering the bleak
landscapes that had adorned the walls of her room. “Sometimes I
think she didn’t want to tell anyone what was going on inside her
head, not even me. Maybe painting was the only way she could get it
out.”

Molly put a hand on his ankle. “We’ll rescue
her, Jin. Gibson won’t abandon her. Neither will I.”

“Thank you.” He swallowed against the lump
forming in his throat and tried to think of something easier to
discuss. Fortunately, the door opened, and Liam came in, saving him
the trouble.

Jin suppressed the urge to glare at Molly’s
friend. For his part, Liam ignored Jin’s presence, as he sauntered
across the shop floor. “Hello, Molly,” he said, setting a bag on
the workbench. Its contents clanked loudly.

Molly made a huffing sound and glared at them
both, which Jin didn’t think was particularly fair. She forewent
commenting, though, and simply opened up the bag. “Did you get
everything?”

“I think so.” Liam tugged absently at one of
his spikes of hair. “I finished reading through the notebook, as
well. There’s nothing specifically about the shamblers in it, but
there are a lot of similarities between the controller and Jin.
Particularly where it hooks into the nervous system.”

Although Liam didn’t look directly at him,
Jin didn’t have to be a mind reader to know that the other boy
still didn’t trust him.
He sees me a machine, not a person. And
every word he reads in the notebook just confirms it that much
more
.

“I’m going to nip outside for a bit,” he
said, not wanting to be around Liam any more than he had to.

Once outside, it was an easy climb to the
roof. Stretching out full-length so that he wasn’t silhouetted
against the sky, he let his mind wander for a while. The air was
cold, but it didn’t bother him, and he amused himself by watching
his breath plume in the air. There came various bangs and thumps
from below, as the two friends examined the controller.

As the moon rose into the sky and the wind
whispered along the roof, Jin slid into a doze. His thoughts grew
disjointed, and the stars burned in his vision, seeming to dance a
graceful quadrille...

A faint sound from below made him open eyes
he didn’t remember shutting.
What was that?

A cat, probably. Or a mechapede, patrolling
past.

The sound of a monotone voice, lowered to a
whisper, scraped at his ears and sent his mechanical heart to
racing with fear. Swearing softly, he rolled onto his belly and
crawled along the roof, until he was looking down into the
alley.

Two of the smiling men stood below. Neither
of them were the goggles-wearing captain, but he felt his belly
tighten with fear nonetheless.
They found me. How did they find
me?

“Why would it come here?” one of them asked.
The rank and file lacked the intelligence of the captain, but they
had enough cunning to carry out their orders with frightening
efficiency.

“This is where it came, before,” the other
said. There was no telltale breath of steam in the air when it
spoke, as there would have been with a real person.

“Fell. From the ship.”

“Perhaps it hid here. Perhaps the other one
lied.”

There came a frightful hiss, like the escape
of steam from an overheated boiler. “Lied to us. We will make it
pay.”

Two mouths stretched into identical smile,
their steel teeth bright in the darkness. “Yes. We will make it
pay.”

There was no time left for stealth. “Run!”
Jin shouted at the top of his lungs, and hoped that Molly heard
him. Both of the smiling men looked up, surprised, and he dropped
straight down on them, his claws extended.

At least they didn’t have time to bring their
guns to bear before he hit them. He felt his claws snag in the face
of one; the flesh peeled off in a large sheet, exposing wire, cogs,
and steel instead of bone and muscle. Then the other one struck him
from behind, a punch that knocked the wind out of him and sent him
sprawling.

The door flew open, and Liam stepped out, a
small ray gun in his hands. He froze at the sight of the mutilated
smiling man, his eyes going wide with shock.

The smiling man took advantage of the pause,
flinging itself forward, lower jaw unhinging to bite. Liam shouted
and flung up an arm instinctively; the steel jaws closed on it. His
shout turned into a scream as the gun fell from twitching
fingers.

“No!” Molly smashed her wrench into the head
of the smiling man that clung bulldog-like to Liam’s arm. It didn’t
so much as flinch, and the second closed in on her while she was
distracted.

Using all the strength in his mechanical
legs, Jin launched himself into the smiling man and knocked it
aside. It snapped at him, but he managed to evade being bitten,
unsure if even his arms and legs could withstand the pressure of
those iron jaws. “Run!” he shouted again, sinking the claws of his
feet into the smiling man’s abdomen and kicking like a cat.

Cloth and flesh tore, revealing even more
metal and wire. Something sparked and popped, and the smiling man
staggered, one leg freezing. It felt no pain, though; instead of
slowing down, it clamped its hands to either side of Jin’s
head.

“You will go back,” it said. “Go back or be
punished!”

Oh, saints, I’m dead, I’m—

The smiling man jerked once. Its hands fell
away from Jin’s head, its body crumpling to reveal Molly, Liam’s
gun in her hand. Her eyes were wild, and blood streaked her face,
although Jin wasn’t sure if it belonged to her, or to Liam, or to
the smiling man she had shot.

The remaining creature let go of Liam and
turned on them with a snarl. Molly pulled the trigger on the ray
gun again, but nothing happened. “Damn it!” she cried, and the
smiling man moved toward her, reaching out to draw her to its
mouth.

“No!” Jin shouted, and kicked, hard. His
claws snagged in the smiling man’s trousers, but missed flesh.

Well, that got its attention off Molly, at
least
, he thought as it twisted about to snatch at him
instead.

So now what?

Jin darted through the open door and into the
shop, the smiling man practically on his heels. There had to be
something here that he could use for a weapon. There were dozens of
tools, half-built machines, gears, and cogs, but nothing that
seemed helpful.

Merciless hands closed on his arms, pulling
him down so that his knees cracked against the shop floor. At any
moment, he expected the unhinged jaw to close on the back of his
skull and break open his head like a melon.

Molly let out a hoarse yell and threw a
hammer that bounced harmlessly off the smiling man’s head.

“It will pay,” said the smiling man. “Pay for
this. Lied to us, hid from us.”

Jin twisted hard in its grip, as Molly began
to fling other things—cogs, gears, even a large bolt that bounced
off Jin’s leg instead. Caught between two conflicting urges, to
subdue Jin and to protect itself, the smiling man’s hold
slackened.

Jin tore free and ran for the workbench,
having at last spotted something that could be used as a weapon.
Having lost him, the smiling man began to close in on Molly again.
Her eyes wide with terror, she backed into one of the tarp-covered
machines and almost fell. “Jin!”

“I’ve got it!” he shouted, and snatched up
her blowtorch and flint. He’d watched her use it earlier, and he
twisted open the valve, even as he ran back to where the smiling
man closed inexorably on her. He didn’t have time to mess with the
lighter, so he simply scraped a claw across the flint, striking a
spark.

A jet of blue flame shot out, startling him
so badly that he almost dropped the blowtorch and set himself on
fire. Perhaps realizing the danger, the smiling man started to
turn.

Too late. Jin thrust the flame into the
smiling man’s jacket. The cloth caught immediately, followed by
hair, but the creature didn’t seem to notice that it was on fire,
instead trying to grapple with Jin again.

“Run!” Jin shouted at Molly as he stumbled
back.

But even though the smiling man felt no pain,
it couldn’t go on for long in flames. Almost immediately, its
components began to overheat. Unable to guide itself anymore, it
stumbled in circles, then fell into the thicket of tarp-shrouded
projects.

Oh, hell.

Molly snatched up the asbestos blanket used
to put out spot fires and began to beat at the flames. Jin grabbed
her around the waist, pulling her back from the now-raging fire.
“It’s too late! Molly, stop struggling; there’s nothing we can
do!”

“No! The shop!” she sobbed. “We can’t let it
burn!”

“I’m not going to let you die for a bunch of
half-built machines!”

He dragged her toward the front door,
determined to get her outside before the entire building was
engulfed. As they passed the workbench, she twisted in his arms
again. “Jin, no! The controller! We have to save it!”

Swearing furiously, he let go of her and
grabbed the device, while she retrieved Dr. Malachi’s notebook. By
the time they stumbled outside, the air was thick with noxious
smoke.

“Liam’s still in the back alley,” Molly said,
gasping for breath.

Jin wiped his streaming eyes. “Here.” He
thrust the controller into her arms. “I’ll get him.”

He pulled down his goggles, to protect his
eyes from the smoke billowing out the windows, and tried to hold
his breath as he ran the length of the side alley. Liam had gotten
to his feet and started staggering toward the street; his right
sleeve was sodden with blood, and a trail of crimson marked the
ground behind him. He looked hideously pale, and Jin wondered how
much more blood he could stand to lose.

“What’s happening?” Liam moaned, coughing as
he inhaled some of the foul smoke. “Where’s Molly?”

“She’s safe.” Jin dragged Liam’s good arm
over his shoulders, then half-walked, half-carried him back to the
street.

By this time, alarm bells had started to
ring. A crowd was already gathering, shouting as they watched for
sparks that would spread the fire further. Molly shoved her way
through the onlookers and ran to Jin and Liam, her face white at
the sight of her friend’s arm. “Saints! Liam!”

The smoke had attracted a mechapede; it
scurried over the building across the street. Then, sounding an
alarm of its own, it turned bonelessly on itself and raced off,
summoning the fire brigade.

Molly and Jin carried Liam across the street
and laid him down on the sidewalk. Molly’s hands shook as she
pulled off her tool belt, dumped the tools on the ground, and
fastened the strap around Liam’s arm as a makeshift tourniquet.
“They’d better send an ambulance,” she said in a trembling
voice.

A sense of helpless rage moved through Jin,
as he pulled his gloves and shoes back on.
Yet another person
hurt because of me. Because of Father.