The Brass Giant (15 page)

The automaton stepped forward with a long stride, crossing a third of the workshop in a single step. Turning, it raised its left arm, then its right. It crouched, spun, walked, kicked, and punched flawlessly. At the end of the performance, it swept into a deep bow, executing the motion with humanly grace.

Petra spun around in Emmerich's arms, gazing into his eyes as he placed the control apparatus on the table. “Emmerich,” she whispered, in utter awe of what they had created together. “It's perfect.”

He smiled at her and gently wiped a smudge of grease from her cheek. “It wouldn't exist if not for you.”

She trembled at his touch, the exhilaration of completing the automaton flowing through her body. They actually did it—­they built the automaton—­and she felt as if she could do anything, be anything. She searched his eyes, aware of his grip on her waist, tugging her close, her hands pressed against his chest, his heart thudding against her fingertips. Her pulse quickened and she felt her breath seize in her throat as her gaze fell to his lips, daring herself to bend to her desires.

“Petra, I—­”

She silenced him with a kiss, pressing her lips hard against his as she slipped her arms around his neck and rose up on her tiptoes, breathing in his warmth, the heady scents of grease and oil mingling with the saltiness of his skin. Unknown passion welled within her, and she leaned harder into the kiss, emptying her heart of everything she felt for him, everything she had tried to ignore, desire she had so long kept hidden beneath uncertainty and doubt.

Emmerich gathered her tightly into his arms, pulling her hard against him as he reeled backward from the force of the kiss. The feel of his breath mingled with hers, and she inhaled the intoxicating air as if it was the very breath that gave her life. She entwined her fingers through his soft hair, her heart racing as she tangled herself in his arms, losing herself in his lips. The tangy smell of metal and sweat, the way his hands pressed firmly into her back, drawing her against his chest, the taste of his tongue as he deepened the kiss with an intensity that stole the breath from her lungs—­she felt as if the world fell out from under her feet, an energizing tingle spreading from her mouth to her toes. Her hands slid from his neck to his chest, her fingers tenderly touching the wrinkled, sweaty folds in his grease-­stained shirt. Blood pumped beneath his hot skin, an electrifying pulse against her fingertips as she melted into the warmth of his body, never wanting to let go.

Seconds might have passed, or perhaps hours. Perhaps time had stopped, letting the world fall by the wayside. Petra found she did not care. She could stand for an eternity in Emmerich's arms, pressed against him with such force that their hearts beat as one machine, pumping life into them both.

When finally their lips parted, she panted for breath, every muscle in her body aching to wrap herself in his embrace, to never again leave his side. He kissed her lightly a second time, a gentle brush of his lips against hers, and she found his control a cruel torture, wanting nothing more than to lose herself in his lips again. He gently lowered her to the floor and cupped her face in his hands. She expected triumph in his eyes, but all she saw was sadness. He placed a lock of hair behind her ear.

“There is something I must tell you,” he said.

Petra's heart raced in her throat, a chill radiating through her bones as she searched his eyes for what he might say, what she longed to hear, the words that would slay the last of her doubts and uncertainties, a declaration of what she felt in her heart for him, returned willingly and passionately and without question. But he remained silent, the words still hidden behind his lips as he bowed his head with a frown.

“Emmerich, what is it?” she asked, raising her hand to his face, reveling in the heat of his skin against her palm.

He gently took her hand in his and stared deep into her eyes, his gaze dark and somber. “Petra, I want you to understand . . . everything I did—­all I ever wanted was to be an engineer, to build a better world through science. I never—­” He cut himself short, pressing his lips together in a firm line.

“You never what?”

“When I met you, I didn't expect that I would—­that we—­” He swallowed. “I only knew that I could not lose you, not before you knew who you were, not before you remembered. If I had known what the Guild was planning, if I had realized sooner—­” He shook his head. “I'm sorry, Petra.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The automaton,” he said, frowning. He left her side, leaving her cold and alone next to the whirring machine as he strode across the room to his desk and slipped a key into the lock above the second drawer. Even in the dying roar of the automaton's gear systems, she heard the faint click. Emmerich retrieved a sheaf of papers and laid them on the table. “It's a war machine.”

The words struck her like a gunshot to the chest. “What?”

“
This
is what we built,” he said, pointing to the schematics on his desk.

She crossed to his desk and surveyed the designs, anger building in her chest as the realization sunk in. A war machine. She gritted her teeth, the papers trembling in her shaking hands. The automaton was a mechanism of destruction, of death.

The basic design laid out in the schematics was similar to what she had originally drawn, but gear trains and sliders had been moved slightly to make room for the cylindrical mechanisms in the arms—­weapons,
guns
. She flipped to a detailed schematic of the arm chambers.
Massive guns
. Designed to shoot elongated, copper-­coated minié balls. The additions to the chest designs were grenade launchers, the same awful projectiles that had killed so many ­people in the square, that had nearly killed Emmerich.

Petra clenched the design in her fist, tears splattering on the inked pages. “Why?” Her voice shook with anger. “Why would the Guild build this?” She glared at him. “Why would
you
build this?”

“I didn't know,” he said, shaking his head. “Not at first.”

“When did you find out?”

He sighed. “I—­I suspected sooner, but it wasn't until just before the attack on the University that my suspicions were confirmed. Petra, I thought I was building something for the benefit of mankind, not . . .” He sighed. “Not this. When I learned its true purpose, I confronted the Guild, and at first they led me to believe that the automaton was merely a precaution, that it was an instrument of defense, but it was a lie.”

“And you still built it. You still finished it—­a
war
machine, Emmerich. We built a
war machine
. How could—­” She gritted her teeth, unable to speak. “Why did you not refuse? Why did you continue to work on it, knowing what it was?”

“I—­” He frowned. “I wanted you to see what we built together, what you and I brought to life. You put your heart and soul into the automaton. I wanted you to see the beauty of it. I wanted you to see it finished, a monument to your intelligence and creativity.”

She stared at him blankly. “A war machine.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. He stepped forward and grasped her hands, his eyes full of sadness. “What
you
designed was so much better, so much more—­a marvel of scientific achievement built purely for the sole purpose of existing, born from a heart concerned with nothing more than creating something new, something never done before. What you created was beautiful.”

“Emmerich,” she said softly, “that doesn't change what it is.”

“I know,” he said, releasing her hands as he turned to face the automaton.

Petra was struck with a sense of pride and horror, the truth of its purpose corrupting the exhilarating triumph of success she had felt just moments ago. She had set out to build something revolutionary, something brilliant. Instead, she had built a harbinger of death.

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

Emmerich stared at their terrible creation, a monstrosity of brass and steel both menacing and beautiful all at once. “We're going to destroy it.”

An ominous silence followed his words, and in the quiet, the slow grating of a key inside the locked door cut through Petra like a knife. Emmerich spun around, reaching for her as the door cracked open.

But it was too late.

They had found her.

 

Chapter 12

V
IC
E-­
C
HANCELLOR
H
UGH
L
YNDON
stepped into Emmerich's office, followed by two others with the Guild emblem pinned on their lapels. The tallest of the men glared at her with familiar copper eyes, completely devoid of kindness: Emmerich's father. The other man, she did not recognize.

Emmerich wrapped his arms around her protectively. “Petra,” he whispered, keeping his eyes on Lyndon and his father. “As soon as you get the chance, run. Do you understand?”

She swallowed thickly and nodded, her heart pounding against her chest.

Lyndon stepped forward, surveying the automaton behind them, still whirring quietly. “I see you've finished it, then,” he said, admiring the machine. “A marvel of engineering, if you don't mind the praise, Miss Wade.”

Petra's eyes widened.

“Oh, don't be surprised,” he said. “We have known for some time that you have been assisting Mr. Goss, and what splendid help you have been.” He inhaled a deep breath and then sighed, still eyeing the automaton. “It's unfortunate, then, that your involvement must now come to an end,” he continued. “I am disappointed to learn of your inclinations, Miss Wade. You would have made a fine Guild engineer.”

She blinked, hardly believing the words she was hearing—­actual praise from the vice-­chancellor of the University.

“Enough of this, Lyndon,” said Mr. Goss. “She's been found out, and it's time to bring her to justice.” He gestured to the short man standing beside him. “Mr. Fowler, take her into Guild custody.”

“Don't you dare,” said Emmerich, pulling Petra close. He reached behind her and fumbled his hand across the table's surface, knocking tools and instruments aside, looking for something—­but what, she couldn't guess. Then she felt something press hard against her back.

Emmerich's father stepped forward. “Son, the Guild is willing to forgive your transgressions involving Miss Wade, but she is not the girl she seems. We have reason to believe that she is passing information to enemies of the Guild.”

Petra met the man's eyes. “That is a lie.”

“We have evidence against her, proving our claims,” said Lyndon.

Mr. Fowler stepped forward. “Come with me, Miss Wade. It's over.”

“Emmerich, they're lying.”

“I know,” he said softly.

Suddenly, the automaton sprang to life. Gears grated and whirred, and with a cavernous groan, the machine lunged forward, its immense bulk passing within a hairsbreadth of Emmerich and Petra. It stomped across the floor, rattling the metal plates beneath their feet as it came to a shuddering stop between them and the Guild men.

However destructive a force, the automaton was the most magnificent thing Petra had ever beheld—­gears grinding and shifting, cranks spinning, sliders jumping like pistons, drive shafts whirring, and the fluctuating tick-­tock of the balance wheel. Just being in its presence made her bones tingle. The automaton stood to its full height, towering over them like a terrifying brass gargoyle, an awesome sight looming up in the center of the workshop.

Petra knew its power was dwindling, running on only three turns, but perhaps with a few minutes of its help, they might overpower Lyndon and the other council members. They might escape.

Under Emmerich's control, the automaton folded its right arm against its chest, and with a grinding sweep, knocked Mr. Fowler aside, throwing him hard against the wall.

Emmerich faced Lyndon and his father, holding the control aloft. “Stand back,” he warned. “I will not hesitate to use the automaton against you.”

Within the automaton's back a grating snap signaled the transition to its second mainspring. With only three windings, and the bulk of its power already expended, Petra knew that Emmerich had maybe two minutes to use the automaton at full tilt. He was running out of time.

“What do you expect to accomplish?” Emmerich's father asked him, his face devoid of fear. “Nothing good will come of this insubordination. She is a
spy
, trading Guild secrets to the enemy. Do you really want to align yourself with her?”

Lyndon stepped forward, eyeing the automaton. “There is no need for this sort of action, Mr. Goss,” he said to Emmerich. “Stand down, and let us take charge of Miss Wade. You do not need to become an accomplice in her treachery.”

The automaton's gears slowed. Petra estimated that it had less than a minute of power left. Emmerich had wasted its energy reserves testing its functionality. Her heartbeat quickened. They hadn't anticipated fighting their way out of the University, much less against the vice-­chancellor and Emmerich's father.

“They're biding their time,” she whispered, gripping his shirtsleeve. “They're waiting for it to run out of power.”

Emmerich glanced at the automaton, a calculating gleam in his eye. She could feel his muscles tense, the rapid beat of his heart. “Petra,” he said softly, the wireless control in his hands. “Remember what I said about running?”

His fingers flew across the control apparatus and the automaton crouched, bringing its large body as close to the floor as its joints would allow, emitting a screaming groan of gears and whirring belts. Lyndon and Emmerich's father watched the machine warily, slowly backing toward the door as Emmerich flipped the controls, pressing the switches to max power. With a strained grating of gears, the machine vaulted.

Lyndon and Mr. Goss gaped as the machine soared upward, a dent left in the floor from the pressure of its jump. The automaton's head just missed the ceiling and then came down, falling with the crushing force of a mortar shell. The crash was deafening, their ears bombarded with the shrill agony of metal tearing asunder. The floor buckled and warped on impact, splitting open with a screeching shear as the machine's massive weight cleaved through the metal panels and dragged the room downward like a drain.

Petra lost her balance and her feet slid toward the center of the crater. Stuck halfway through the hole, the automaton's exposed gears grated against the metal. Lyndon and Mr. Goss backed away from the automaton and the pitched floor, huddling in the door as Emmerich used the last of the machine's power to widen the gap with a forceful punch.

The automaton fell through the floor then, landing with a deafening crash below.

Petra clung to Emmerich's arm, scrambling to stay with him, unwilling to let go, but the soles of her shoes could not gain purchase and she slipped farther toward the gaping hole in the center of the room. “Emmerich!”

“Run, Petra! Get out of here!” Emmerich pried her hand from his arm and pushed her toward the crater, an apologetic look in his eyes.

She splayed her fingers across the floor, trying to stop her descent, but the surface was too slippery. The last thing she saw was Emmerich grabbing a spanner and heading for the office door.

Weightlessness seized her for a moment, the University tumbling across her vision as she fell. She crashed into the wrecked automaton on the floor below, landing painfully atop its exposed gears and hard metal frame, which pressed hard into her back and ribs. She winced against the aching pain that flared through her bones, white lights popping across her vision. Beneath her, the last of the automaton's power dwindled, the machine whirring to a still and silent death.

Remembering Emmerich's final words, she roused herself, blinking the room into view. Having fallen through the office floor, she was now in the upper workshop, sprawled across a heaping pile of metal and wood—­ceiling timbers and bent brass plates, the damaged automaton, desks, tables, and half-­finished machines all buried beneath her. A murmur rippled through the gathered crowd around her, a mob of faces gawking at the mess of gears and splinters, dozens more climbing the stairs from the lobby to stare at the girl and the fallen automaton.

She had to run. She had to escape. She wouldn't let them take her.

She wouldn't die, not so soon.

Petra started to climb to her feet, and blinding pain ripped through her leg. Panting, she forced herself to sit, and spied a sharp corner of metal sticking up through the side of her calf, blood soaking her trousers. Grunting with effort, she gritted her teeth against the pain and tried to lift her leg free of the metal, tears stinging her eyes. She clenched her hands into fists, gears biting into her wrists and knuckles as she shifted her weight away from her injured leg.

At the back of the workshop, the door at the top of the staircase flew open, and a group of men descended and pushed through the growing throng of students and Guild members. Petra panicked when she spotted Emmerich held fast between Lyndon and Mr. Fowler, who seemed to have recovered.

Then she saw Mr. Goss, Emmerich's father, striding toward her from the other side of the workshop. “Seize her!” he shouted. “She is a spy.”

A murmur shuddered through the crowd, but no one came forward. If she could reach the mass of students, she might be able to hide among them and escape. It was her best hope.

Painstakingly, she lifted her leg off the cold metal, a fresh gush of blood dribbling from the wound. With her leg free, she scrambled to her feet and skidded to the bottom of the pile, leaving streaks of blood across the jumbled metal parts. She hit the floor, and as her injured leg took the weight of her body, nauseating pain seared up her leg and chilled her spine. She fell on her hands and knees, breathing hard as she tried to muster the strength to stand, to ignore the pain and run, escape.

Gritting her teeth, Petra started forward when a pair of strong hands grabbed her by the shirt collar and jerked her to her feet. Her legs were jelly and her head spun, the workshop whirling across her vision.

“Petra, run!” shouted Emmerich.

She watched vaguely as the crowd parted, the pain in her leg blazing. Emmerich's father marched forward, and she remembered the danger, the need to escape. Her heart beating fast, she turned on her captor and landed a punch to his ribs, stumbling away as he released her. Staggering backward, she fell into the crowd and shoved a path through the swarm of students. The pain in her leg had dulled slightly, all her focus bent on reaching the stairs and escaping through the lobby. Her pulse thundered in her ears, the rush of blood drowning out all other sound. Hands gripped her shirt and pulled on her arms as she struggled to escape. She kicked, punched, and clawed, but a swift blow to her stomach brought her painfully to her knees. She coughed, feeling she would collapse from the effort of trying to move.

Petra stared at the floor, her body trembling. A boy spat in her face. They had no idea, no clue of the truth.

She was not the enemy. Lyndon. The Guild. Emmerich's father.
They
were the enemies.
They
were the ones who had twisted the automaton into a war machine. Did no one understand? She only wanted to be happy, to have Emmerich, to be an engineer. Was that too much to ask?

Now there would be no more of that. No more Emmerich. No more Petra. Just stillness. Silence. Darkness.

P
ETRA WOKE IN
a small, dark room. The heavy thrum of machinery reverberated through the walls and floor, rattling through her aching head. She pressed her fingers to her forehead.

She wasn't dead.

The smell of grease and polish wafted through a vent in the floor, and she felt a faint warm breeze from the whirring gears beyond. She sat up, every muscle in her body sore, her back and sides littered with bruises. A bandage covered her leg where the metal had speared her calf, and her trouser leg had been torn away, cut off just below the knee. She could feel the pull of stitches sewn across the wound, itching like mad.

Kneading her temples, she surveyed the room she was in—­a metal cube with a metal door, no windows, only the narrow, horizontal vent set into the floor. Through the vent grate she could see dim brass light, a familiar sight. She was below the city proper, held prisoner in the upper levels of the subcity.

The memory of the automaton and the attempt at escape came back to her in vague, unfocused thoughts, but she recalled the gist of what had happened. At least they destroyed the automaton. She could take solace in that.

Three days, she stayed in the cell. She counted the hours by the chime of the bell tower. The cell was not far from the tower, putting her somewhere beneath the first quadrant. Each day, she paced her prison, stretching her aching muscles, testing her weight on her injured leg, listening for the slightest sound apart from the subcity. Guards patrolled the hall outside her cell, stopping once in the morning to shove a meager breakfast through the door, and once in the evening to exchange her chamber pot and give her supper, before carrying on with their business. The Guild, or perhaps the police, had taken her screwdriver and pocket watch—­and her shoes. She wished she had thought to hide the screwdriver before she was captured. With it, she could dismantle the floor vent and escape through the subcity channels. She tried to work the screws loose with her fingernails, but to no avail.

Finally, on the fourth day of her imprisonment, the door to her cell opened. Men in stark black suits dragged her from the subcity prison, up six flights of stairs, and into an imposing, dark wallpapered room. Several lanterns flickered above a high table, curving along the full width of the chamber. A dozen men sat behind it, their faces grotesque in the greenish gaslight, surveying her with a mixture of pity and disgust. The rest of the room remained in utter darkness.

The men in suits threw her into a hard chair in the center of the room and strapped her in, the leather belts cutting into her wrists and ankles as they secured her to the chair.

Half-­starved and exhausted, she didn't have the energy to fight them.

“Petra,” whispered a warm voice to her right. “Is that you?”