Cultwick: The Sweeper Bot Plague (14 page)

Chapter 14. Ryn the Countess

“I feel ridiculous in this thing,” Erynn said to Pearl with an overly expressive frown.

“Trust me,” she replied. “This is exactly what those rich types back in Cultwick City wear.”

Erynn was standing in the middle of a basement room in a house owned by a rebellion sympathizer, Gerrit Callahan. She was trying to fit into a long, slender red dress with a series of gold circles lining down the fabric from her chest to her navel. Behind her, Pearl attempted to squeeze together the strands of string to tie close the back of the dress.

Draped along the dress’ waist were a series of interlocking gold hoops that formed a belt. The sleeves of the dress were composed of large puffy bubbles of fabric that flowed clear down to her wrists
. The base of the dress pressed tightly against her contours, as it squeezed tighter and tighter the more it approached her feet.

Having finally managed to tie the
cords along back of the dress, Pearl stated, “Now, all we need to do is pull yer hair down to disguise yer face. Ya have been posted on too many flyers fer too long, kitten.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Erynn responded. “Don’t suppose these rich types just wear masks, huh?”

“Nothin’ so easy, kitten,” Pearl replied. “We’ve proven the dress fits… sorta; let’s get ya out of it, so we can get yer hair ready fer this afternoon.”

Pearl and Erynn set to taking off the
uncomfortable dress, when Erynn asked, “I imagine this whole situation is a lot different than working in the Gem back in Dust Grove.”

“So far it’s been a sight safer,” she joked. “Used to get all kinds comin’ in there thinkin’
that just cause I danced fer ‘em, I was willin’ to sleep with ‘em. Got beat on more than my fair share.”

“Why’d you put up with it?” Erynn asked,
as she began dressing herself back in her normal clothes.

“There ain’t a whole lotta options
fer a girl out west,” Pearl explained.

“What about your paintings?” Erynn asked.

“No one wants those things,” Pearl said. “Yer the only one who seems to like ‘em.”

“
Other people are apparently blind, Pearl. So, what was it that made you stay with us?” Erynn asked, sitting in a nearby chair. “I would have thought you’d go back to Dust Grove after we made it to Chrome City.”

“I didn’t always live out west, ya know,” she said standing behind Erynn and starting to run her fingers through her hair. “I gr
ew up in Cultwick City, like y’all. They took somethin’ from me. Somethin’ I can’t even remember now.”

“What do you mean?” Erynn asked.

“The earliest memory I have ain’t that old,” she explained. “I remember runnin’ through the streets of Cultwick City. Don’t even know what I was runnin’ from. I was just runnin’. Everythin’ before that was taken from me. Don’t even know my real name. I just remember flashes from before. When I do, I paint ‘em.”

“All those paintings in your room were memories?” Erynn inquired.

“Yeah,” Pearl answered. “But I painted enough to remember that someone, some aristocrat in the city, did this to me. Took my memories, stole my life from me.”

“We left all those behind…” Erynn said trailing off, as she spoke.

“It’s alright,” Pearl responded. “I’ve spent years wallowin’ in the past. I think I should focus on my future now.”

“Well, I appreciate you staying with us,” Erynn explained. “And I’m sorry...
for what they took.”

“Thanks, kitten.”

While Pearl began styling Erynn’s hair, Erynn worked on a device that they would need in their upcoming bank robbery. The idea is that it would send out a homing beacon to another device allowing them to easily find it and make their way to it.

She would enter the bank
later today, posing as a wealthy citizen of Cultwick City and prominent member of the aristocracy, on travels. The confederacy had supplied her with papers identifying her as the Countess Elise Upton. While in the bank, she would open up a new safe deposit box and place the beacon inside the box. Getting near the vault would also give her an opportunity to look at the vault door and see what exactly she would need to do to get inside it.

Germ was
in another room working on digging a tunnel from the basement of the house to the underground safe deposit box room. Until she placed the beacon in the box, he was relying on his rat senses’ to guide him. In the adjacent room, Erynn could hear him scratching at the earth along with the help of the son of the man who owned the house.

Vincent, Rowland, and Hirim were off planning their piece of the scheme. They would feign a bank robbery,
intending for one of the tellers to hit the red button. This would lock down the bank vault and the door to the safe deposit boxes, which would give them the time they needed to open all the boxes and make their way into the main vault.

Erynn also knew she would
need some way to open the safe deposit boxes, and she wasn’t yet sure how she would accomplish this task. Perhaps some sort of explosive or a drill, she wondered. Maybe she would just go with the brute force method, by updating Tern with a new program and tool, allowing him to break into the boxes. She realized that it was very possible Tern would have the strength to tear the locks off the wall. She would need to do a few calculations to decide the best course of action.

“
Ya got that thing working, yet?” asked Pearl.

Erynn turned the two devices over in her hands for a moment before answering, “Maybe, want to help test it?”

“Whatcha need, kitten?” she asked.

“Take this one,” Erynn
said, as she handed Pearl one of the contraptions, “and go somewhere upstairs. I’ll come and find you with this one,” she indicated to the other device, which she still held.

“I think I can handle that,” Pearl said and began to head up the stairs.

Erynn turned to check her appearance in a nearby mirror. Pearl had restyled her hair so that several hanging strands concealed part of her face. Looking at her reflection, she hardly recognized herself. Maybe this plan really could work, she thought to herself.

She turned a knob on the device in her hand and a
set of bulbs illuminated a series of numbers inside. Erynn approached the stairs, and the numbers began to decrement slightly. She walked up the stairs and went in whichever direction caused the numbers to drop the fastest.

It
wasn’t long before Erynn found Pearl standing in one of the rooms on the top floor looking out the window at the bank. “Ya really think yer lot can pull this off?” she asked.

“It’s starting to look
that way, yeah,” Erynn answered, as she knocked on the wooden wall at her side.

“Well, I guess y
er device works. Does that mean it’s time for ya to get ready?” Pearl inquired.

“I think so,” Erynn said approaching Pearl from behind. “What do you think you’ll do after this?”

“Oh, I suspect I’m in too deep now, kitten. Yer stuck with me.” Pearl turned and smiled to Erynn. “So, let’s get ya back in that dress, hmm?”

The two
women proceeded back to the basement, where Erynn squeezed back into the tight-fitting dress after a considerable amount of effort. In the adjacent room, they could still hear Germ scratching away at the ground, hurrying to get the tunnel started.

Once Erynn had managed to get inside the
dress, she opened the door to Germ’s tunnel room and went inside. “Hey Germy,” she called out to the rat.

“Ah,
Madam Clover,” he answered from inside the tunnel.

Slowly she could hear him scurrying back to the entrance. When he
arrived, she noticed he had shed some of his clothes, and that he was covered in dirt from head to toe. His paws were caked in the earth and he had even taken off the monocle he usually wore.

Behind him was the little boy that had eagerly agreed to work with the ‘giant rat man,’ as he had called
Germ. The boy actually looked to be filthier than Germ somehow.

“You look quite lovely,
Madam Clover,” he said.

“
Mmm,” she groaned shifting uncomfortably in the dress. “I’m leaving for the bank now.”

“Is that your beacon device?” Germ asked
eyeing the two mechanical contraptions she held.

“Yeah, this one is the one you’ll keep,” she said lifting up one hand. “This is the one that will be in the bank vault.” She lifted the other hand. “Once I get it into position
it should guide you directly to the safe deposit box room.”

Erynn placed the device on a nearby table
along with the rat’s things. “Thanks for doing this Germ. I know how you hate getting dirty.”

“Think nothing of it, ma’am.” Germ returned to his tunnel and continued scratching at the ground. The little boy happily
helped him by carrying the excess dirt out of the tunnel.

Erynn made her way upstairs bidding farewell to Pearl and grabbed the papers that had been left for her by Hirim. She tucked the papers and the device into a small purse picked out by Pearl and hung the
thin strap around her shoulder, leaving the Callahan’s home.

She practiced a dainty walk through the streets of Ash Cloud
, and watched how the other women moved as they went about their day. Erynn wondered how they could stand to wear such things. Her chest was tight and constricted, her toes were smashed and cramped, and her legs could hardly move forward or backward in the restrictive clothing.

Erynn managed to find her stride, however, and soon arrived at the
bank, which was luckily only a few buildings down from the Callahan’s house. She opened the doors, triggering a bell above the doorframe to ring out.

Several
townspeople were inside and talking to the various tellers stationed at the counters. Only one teller seemed unoccupied, so Erynn made her way to the woman.

“Excuse me,” Erynn said.

“Just one moment, ma’am, and I’ll be right with you,” the teller responded. She sorted some papers about and then placed them neatly under the counter. “Sorry, about that, miss. My name is Marjorie. How can I help you today?”

“I’d like to open a new
safe deposit box,” Erynn explained.

“Ok, ma’am. Since this bank is only for use by certain pre-approved Cultwick citizens, I’ll need some proof of identification,” the teller told her.

Erynn began to rifle through her bag and pulled out the papers left to her by Hirim. “Here you are, Marjorie,” she said. “I think these are all you should need.”

The woman took the papers and glanced
over them. “Okay, these look to be in order,” she said before handing them back. The teller took out a form from under the counter and began to fill it out. “Now then, I’ll put the box under your name, Countess Upton. Should anyone else have access?”

Erynn shook her head and said, “No, that won’t be necessary.”

“We have three sizes of boxes for use,” Marjorie explained. “Our flat boxes are mostly for paper documents, and then we have a multi-purpose box which can hold a random assortment of objects, and then the bulk box which can store larger items. Which one would you like, ma’am?”

“I suspect
your multi-purpose box will suit my needs,” Erynn said.

The bank teller turned around and sorted through a few files before finding what she was looking for. “It says here you have an account already open with the bank. Would you like us to deduct the fee from that account?”

Erynn had not expected that the identification belonged to an actual person, though it did make sense. “Uh, yes. I suppose that will do,” she answered.

“Okay, just one last question
,” Marjorie began. “Do you have any preference on your box number, Countess?”

Erynn again shook her head and answered, “No, it won’t matter.”

“Alright,” the woman said. “Wait here one moment, and I’ll go get you a key.”

Erynn stood there hoping for the teller to hurry back. She was finding it harder and harder to breathe through the
tight dress and the deceit wasn’t making it any easier. She wondered how long it would take Germ to finish the tunnel and worried about how dangerous the fake bank robbery would be for Rowland.

Soon, the woman return
ed and held with her a small, metal key. “Here you are, ma’am. Meet me over by the stairs, and I’ll take you down to the boxes.” She pointed over to the right and disappeared behind the counter somewhere.

Erynn slowly made her way
across the room to the stairs and waited for the woman to arrive. The teller had grabbed a key ring from somewhere in the back and beckoned for Erynn to follow her. Marjorie guided her to a sealed door, which after some fiddling the bank teller managed to open with one of the keys and a combination.

She swung open the door and indicated for Erynn to enter. “Your box is number 812.” The teller walked to the wall where the box was
and slid in a key to one of its two locks, twisting it and pulling it back outward. “If you need anything please let me know. I’ll be right outside, so take your time.”