AS SOON AS her shift ended that Saturday afternoon, Petra headed to Pemberton Square in the first quadrant, her and Emmerich’s agreed meeting place. When she arrived, she sat down on a bench in front of the bank and stretched her legs, basking in the afternoon sun.
The last two days were a blur.
She had spent every spare moment finishing the automaton design, sneaking trips into the storage room during her shifts at the pawnshop, scribbling notes under the dinner table, and working by candlelight as she sketched through the night. She hadn’t slept properly in days.
She pulled the designs from her pocket and flipped through the pages. She hoped Emmerich would like them. For her to spend hours on the sketches and have them rejected . . . she wasn’t sure she could handle it.
“Miss Wade?”
She looked up, and a reflection of the sun from the windows above blinded her. “Emmerich?” She shielded her eyes and recognized his wide grin. She sprang up from the bench and stuffed the sketches into her pocket. “You’re early.”
“Did you finish the designs?” he asked.
She nodded. “I hope you approve. I didn’t draw the linkages to exact form, only the basic frames and equations, but I thought you’d be interested in the power source that I came up with, a double—”
He pressed a finger to his lips. “Not here. We’ll discuss the details in the workshop.” He offered his arm, and once her hand was settled in the crook of his elbow, he led her across the square. “We should have the floor to ourselves today, but just to be safe, I thought it best we err on the side of caution. I’ve stored a change of clothes in my desk. I thought perhaps if you hid your hair, you might pass as a student. I know it isn’t very proper for a girl to wear trousers, but—”
“I don’t mind,” she said brightly.
When they came to the center of the city, Emmerich led Petra north, up the road between the school and the second quadrant, instead of to the University front entrance. The street was wide enough to have a footpath alongside the blackened brick, a commodity mostly absent from the streets of the fourth quadrant.
The University gleamed to their right, a monumental display of brass pipes and steam grates. To their left, the Regency-style buildings of the second quadrant stretched high above, balconies and bay windows looming overhead. A jolt of jealousy gripped Petra as she realized that Emmerich lived somewhere among those grandiose suites with his family, while she lived in a one-bedroom flat with a dozen others and barely a corner to call her own. She would bet he had his own bedroom—a four-poster bed, an armoire, and perhaps even his own toilet.
They came to Delaney Road, the main thoroughfare through the second quadrant. Steam-powered rickshaws wheeled up and down the road, spurting great puffs of steam and smoke as they darted in and out of the web of streets. The street bustled with shoppers, ladies in silk and satin fluttering behind their lace fans at the few top-hatted gentlemen posturing outside the shops. Stacked atop the ground level department stores and sprawling restaurants, the lofty levels above housed a number of specialty shops and cafés—chocolatiers, silversmiths, and milliners, even an apothecary and a florist. Elegant porticoes and painted windows overlooked the length of the street, whitewashed catwalks acting as metal footpaths for the bustling horde of finely dressed shoppers visiting the upper levels.
As the two of them passed by, the trolley-lift bell rang and the pedestrians in the center of the street cleared a path. Suspended by cables, an empty row of plush chairs descended from the aboveground trolley and landed in the middle of the road. Three women and two gentlemen climbed aboard, feeding coins into the automatic ticket dispenser before taking their seats.
Petra would give almost anything to be one of them. Ever since she was a girl, she had wanted to ride the Delaney trolley—a marvel of engineering—but she never had a reason to. The finery of Delaney Road was not for the likes of her.
Once the trolley passengers belted themselves in, the conductor flipped the controls, activating the drive motor. The row of seats rose from the street and rejoined the rest of the trolley car, where several beams locked it into place. Then the trolley-lift engines rumbled and the locomotive rolled along the rails a few hundred feet before shifting gears and shooting up seven floors.
Petra and Emmerich passed beyond Delaney, and he gestured ahead, toward the northern wall of the city. “There is a service tunnel ahead that leads to the lower student workshops,” he said. “It’s the best way for us to get in during work hours without notice.”
Near the end of the street, Emmerich pulled her into an alcove between two sizable ducts. Petra’s boots clanked against metal as they stepped onto a venting grate and warm steam billowed around them, dampening the hem of her skirt.
Emmerich crouched beneath one of the ducts and opened a panel set in the ground, revealing the service shaft to the subcity. He held his hand toward Petra. “Let me help you down.”
She gripped his outstretched hand and stepped down into the service shaft. The sweltering heat of the subcity enveloped her as she descended the ladder, the tap of her shoes sending tinny echoes down the passageway. Beneath her, the deafening noise of the subcity machines drowned out all other sound. She reached the end of the service shaft and hopped down from the ladder, the clang of her feet on the metal floor unheard amidst the heavy thrum and violent hiss of the subcity.
Pipes lined the low-ceilinged corridor, snaking in all directions, and as the tunnel went on, the floor fell away to more service shafts, leading to the utmost depths of the city. Petra itched to delve deeper and explore the engines that drove the University. Somewhere below, this stretch of subcity housed the University’s power hub, an unrivaled array of boilers and engines, powering the whole third quadrant above. Under the fourth quadrant, the subcity retained only an echo of the machineries, but it was a beautiful sight—pipes, valves, and gauges neatly organized against walls and columns, leaving an open space of easily navigated platforms and spectacular views of gargantuan gear trains and engine control decks. Here, the subcity was compact and cramped.
Emmerich touched her lightly on the shoulder. “Follow me.”
He led her through the service tunnel, navigating the maze of pipe-laden passageways with ease. Petra followed, beads of sweat sliding down the side of her face and collecting in the collar of her blouse. She tried memorizing the path, but after the eleventh junction she gave up. How Emmerich had discovered his way through without losing himself forever in the bowels of the subcity, she couldn’t guess.
They came to the end of a narrow tunnel, and Emmerich offered his hand. “This may be a bit tricky.”
A collection of vertical pipes stood before them like swaying trees, unconnected to ceiling or floor. The only means of stepping through the pipes was an uneven line of couplings, fixed with narrow footholds for the service engineers.
Petra was unafraid of heights—she had stood at the edge of the observatory deck without fear—but with the dark, gaping maw beneath her, a pit of unknown depths . . . She shuddered. The pipes stretched for eternity, disappearing into infernal blackness. Her stomach clenched and she stepped backward into the safety of the tunnel, dragging herself away from the edge.
Emmerich stepped onto the first foothold without hesitation. “It’s not far, and it’s steadier than it looks,” he said, holding out his hand again.
Petra shut her eyes, steeling her nerves. She knew if she didn’t muster the courage to cross soon, she never would. Besides, if Emmerich could do it, so could she. She inhaled a deep breath and took his hand.
She placed her foot on the first coupling, clinging to Emmerich’s hand as she steadied herself against the nearest pipe. The metal vibrated beneath her fingers.
“What are these pipes for?” she asked, paralyzed. Her voice trembled as much as the pipe.
“Water mostly,” he said. “Some are drainage pipes, and others push water to the tanks on the top level. Don’t worry,” he added calmly, squeezing her hand. “It’ll soon pass.”
Finally, the pipe settled, and they moved slowly forward, Petra tightly gripping his hand as he talked her calmly from coupling to coupling. The pipes swayed with each step. “Just a few more steps, Petra, and we’ll be in the workshop.”
There was a rumbling below, and the pipe she stood on began to tremble. Petra squeezed Emmerich’s hand.
“Just hold on and wait for it to pass,” he said.
She gripped his hand tighter as the water rushed through the pipe. The vibrations shook her entire body, and her foot slid a quarter of an inch across the narrow foothold. If she waited any longer, she’d fall. She had no way to brace herself, no way to reposition her foot. She hurriedly stepped across the gap to the next pipe, but as she moved between them, the pipe that held her weight quivered violently and her toes slipped from the edge.
For a moment weightlessness seized her.
She reached toward Emmerich instinctively, and his hand caught her by the wrist. Her sweaty fingers clung to his arm, and she swung across the empty void, slamming into a coupling as she struggled to hold on. A sharp pain stung her hip, but she was no longer falling.
Emmerich held her by the arm with both hands, straddling the gap between two pipes. The muscles in his arms strained as she dangled beneath him.
She gripped his wrists, her heart thundering in her ears. “Can you pull me up?”
He nodded. Sweat slid down his forehead and dripped off the tip of his nose, landing on Petra’s cheek. With a deep breath, he lifted her a few inches. She stretched her leg toward the nearest coupling, trying not to think of how heavily gravity pulled at her. If either of them slipped, if Emmerich let go . . . She swallowed the tightness in her throat, concentrating on reaching the pipe. If she could secure her weight on the joint, she could easily climb back up to the footholds with his help.
The darkness below reached for her, beckoning her downward, daring her to fall. She eased her leg upward, but as her knee grazed the coupling, the folded automaton designs started to slip out of her pocket. Panicking, she dropped her left hand and grabbed the schematics before they could fall. Emmerich’s grip tightened around her wrist as he strained to lift her, but her weight was too much. He hunched over again, lowering her out of reach of the coupling.
With nowhere else to stash the designs, Petra unbuttoned the top three buttons of her blouse, dangling precariously by one arm.
“What are you doing?” asked Emmerich, hastily glancing away.
“The automaton designs.” She delicately removed the schematics and her screwdriver from her apron pocket and stuffed them down the front of her shirt and into her corset. Once they were safely tucked away, she grabbed onto Emmerich’s arm again. “Okay,” she said. “Pull me up. I’m ready this time.”
Grunting with the effort, he lifted her a second time, higher than before. She raised her foot to the coupling and with Emmerich’s help climbed up to the next foothold. She braced herself against one of the pipes and stood, wiping the sweat from her face and hands with the hem of her apron. She started to tremble, shaking uncontrollably as a cold fatigue stole over her. Her head spun and she felt herself sway, but Emmerich’s grip remained steady on her wrist.
“Just a bit farther now,” he said softly. He gently took her trembling hands and positioned her arms around his neck, then laid his hands on her waist, pulling her close. She was intimately aware of how near she was to him, hardly a breath apart. “Hold onto me,” he whispered, looking into her eyes. “And watch your step.”
She nodded and let him guide her the rest of the way, clinging to him as she sought the couplings with her feet. One step at a time they neared the other side of the swaying pipes, and when they finally reached the end and met the awaiting ledge, Emmerich tightened his hold on her waist and lifted her bodily onto the precipice. Once her feet touched the floor, he gently released her, and she backed into the safe stability of the wall, heart still pounding.
“Are you all right?” He followed her onto the ledge and lifted a hand to her face as if to brush her hair from her eyes, but then hesitated.
Petra’s cheeks flushed. She must look a wreck, all sweaty and bruised. She raised a shaking hand to tuck her hair aside and chuckled nervously, glancing away. “I’m starting to think that this might be more dangerous than it’s worth.”
Emmerich dropped his hand and fiddled with the edge of his pocket, frowning. “Do tell me you are unhurt.” She heard the worry in his voice. “I should not have brought you this way. I didn’t think—”
“I’m all right,” she said, her heart thudding heavily in her chest. “A little bruised maybe, but otherwise I’m fine.”
“You’re sure?”
She forced a feeble smile to her lips and nodded, still trembling. “Yes.”
Emmerich pressed his lips into a firm line. “Can you wait here while I fetch your change of clothes? I’ll be just a moment.”
She nodded again, shrinking against the wall farthest from the swaying pipes as he ventured through the grate, leaving her alone in the dark, deafening tranquility of the subcity. She sucked in a deep breath and collected herself, trying not to think of what might have happened if she hadn’t been able to hold on.
Just a minute later Emmerich returned with the bundle of clothes.
“Here you are,” he said, handing her the shirt and trousers. “The workshop is empty, but as a precaution, you should still change. When you have, meet me at my desk. I’ll wait for you there.” He hesitated, tentatively laying a hand on her shoulder. “Are you sure you’re all right? I hate to think—”
“I’m fine, Emmerich. Really. And I’ll be better the sooner I can get dressed and start working—so go. I won’t take long.”
Petra watched as he stepped through the grate and disappeared into the workshop once more. When he was safely out of sight, she undressed, piling her clothes into a neatly folded stack. Once her corset was removed, she peeled the automaton sketches from her chest and placed the damp pages next to her things. The pencil sketches blurred together with sweat, and the pages had turned translucent with moisture. She would have to be careful not to tear the paper when she unfolded the designs.
She should have drawn copies.
If she had failed to keep the schematics from slipping out of her pocket and lost them to oblivion, she doubted she could have reconstructed the automaton from memory, not without the aid of her pocket watch.
Petra picked through the bundle of clothes Emmerich had brought and dressed, pulling the shirt over her sweaty underclothes. The shirt smelled like him, scents of engine oil and polished metal, with a hint of perfumed soap in the fibers. She buttoned the cuffs and rolled the sleeves to her elbows, reveling in the freedom of a man’s shirt—no corset or lace edges to pester her. She then belted the trousers around her waist and folded the hems back to keep them from bunching at her ankles.
Twisting her hair into Emmerich’s cap, she regarded her reflection in the nearest brass pipe. Her pointed-toe oxfords ruined the masculine effect of the baggy clothes, but as long as no one saw the shoes, she could pass as a student. Better than wearing Solomon’s sooty, worn clothes anyway. Satisfied, she put the screwdriver in her trouser pocket, picked up her garments and the automaton designs, and shimmied through the grate.
Emmerich stood over his desk, scribbling notes onto a pad of paper. The automaton prototype sat beneath the desk, propped against a crate.
“Where should I put these?” She held out her pile of clothes and blushed when she realized the corset was on top, but Emmerich didn’t seem to notice.
He tapped his foot against a drawer and crossed out the last three lines of notes. Petra opened the bottom desk drawer and found a mismatch of items—a spare shirt streaked with grease, a Jules Verne novel, a few spanners, and a roller bearing. She placed a piece of paper on top of Emmerich’s things and set her clothes in the drawer. Matron would kill her if she got grease on her good blouse.
Emmerich tore the page from his notebook, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it in the trash bin. With his shoulders squared, he breathed deeply and flexed his fingers against the desk. “The Guild wants the proposal on the newly designed automaton on Monday, and I still have nothing to show them. I have no idea where to begin.”
“Why don’t we start with what I have?” Petra sat down and arranged the automaton designs atop the desk, careful not to tear the damp pages.
Emmerich ran his fingers through his hair and sat down, scooting his chair close to Petra and resting his arm on the back of her chair. He examined the sketches for the leg mechanisms first. “What’s this here?” he asked, pointing to an expanded view of the cable guidance system.
“I thought combining a cable pulley on the ankle joints with the linkage in the hip would provide for the smoothest walking pattern,” she explained.
He scratched his chin and nodded. “But what about rotation at the hip when the automaton turns?” He pressed his pencil to the paper, leaving a graphite dot.
“The crank linkage spins around a rotating frame here,” she said, pointing to the central shaft in the leg cavity, “providing two-hundred-and-seventy degree motion. When the automaton receives the signal to turn, the frame will rotate and lock into a new train. With the specifications you gave me, the automaton will have four gear train systems within its lower body—one each for walking, running, turning, and crouching. If properly fitted, the automaton should be able to switch between each gear train and execute the next command in a matter of seconds.”
Emmerich reclined and ran his thumb across the stubble along his jaw. “What of the power system?”
Petra eagerly reached for the drawings of the automaton’s back and laid them in front of him. He leaned forward and examined the double mainspring schematics.
“How does this work?” he asked, gesturing to the complicated diagrams.
She explained how the mainsprings alternated, powering the automaton in tandem while winding the resting mainspring in the process.
“And when the mainspring is expended, it just switches to the other mainspring?”
“Yes.”
He scratched his brow with the pencil. “Does it work?”
“It should. I modeled the design after my pocket watch, but I have yet to put the theory into practice on such a large scale. The mechanics are the same—just larger.” She had no doubt it would work.
“We cannot depend on theories, Petra.”
“You said it yourself—the automaton needs a reliable source of nonelectric power. Why not clockwork?”
Emmerich sifted through the designs. “But designs and theories can only carry us so far. I need something tangible, something I can show the Guild.”
“Says the man practiced in electromagnetics.” Petra sat back in her chair and nudged the automaton prototype with her foot. “You asked for my help—this is what I have. It will work.”
“But how do I prove that to the Guild?” He placed the pencil behind his ear and leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “Look at it from their perspective, Petra. Of all the experts in clockwork engineering over the past century, not one of them has ever postulated the theory of a double mainspring.”
“And what?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “You think it won’t work because I thought of it?”
Emmerich shrugged. “I’m not saying that. Only . . . this is so far beyond anything I’ve ever seen, and I work with the best engineers in the world.”
“It’s not my fault you lot are a load of bumbling idiots with screwdrivers.” That made him frown, but she went on. “Just because I don’t have a degree from some fancy institution doesn’t mean my engineering isn’t just as good as yours. Just because you have the experience and schooling doesn’t make you any better than me. I’m not some stupid, frippery-obsessed female. I may be a girl, but I’m an engineer—and a damn good one.”
“I never said you weren’t,” said Emmerich. He scratched the back of his neck and sighed. “But you must understand my skepticism. This project will determine my future as an engineer. I cannot afford to make a mistake.”
She chewed on her lip. “I wouldn’t have proposed the design if I didn’t think it would work.”
“I know,” he said gently, massaging his forehead. “I don’t mean to offend you. It’s just—there’s a lot at stake here.” He lifted the designs off the desk and peered at the central power mechanism again. “But if you can prove that this design is functional, if we can show the Guild that this actually works, this design could revolutionize clockwork mechanics. Forget the automaton. Think about what we could achieve—the practical applications alone . . .” He shook his head, setting the designs down. “I want to believe you, I do. But until I see it with my own eyes, I don’t feel comfortable signing off on an untested design. You understand that, don’t you? I just want to be sure.”
Petra nodded, hating herself for being the reason her watch was in pieces and not in her pocket. If she hadn’t been so stupid, she could have shown him right then that the science was possible. “What of the rest of the design?” she asked, pointing to the other pages. “What do you think?”
Emmerich slid the double mainspring schematics across the desk and peered at the rest of her sketches. He rubbed his thumb along the line of his jaw, studying her equations and diagrams. “You did this all your own?”
She nodded.
“Where did you learn to design like this?”
“I learned the basics from Mr. Stricket when I was little. The rest, I taught myself.”
“You are a wonder,” he said softly, poring over the sketches. “Petra, there are graduating students—even University professors—who couldn’t hold a match to your talent. This is Guild-level science.”
She felt the heat rise in her cheeks. “Well, a lot of good it does me,” she said, clearing her throat. “The Guild will never let me join, and without a certificate of endorsement and the financial backing of the Guild, I can’t practice high-level engineering. I can never be anything more than a shop assistant,” she finished grimly.
Emmerich regarded her carefully, a comfortable silence falling between them. “Petra,” he said slowly. “I know I said we must work in secret and that your involvement on the project couldn’t be known, but I swear to you now: I will do whatever I can to help you earn a place within in the Guild. You belong here.”
The soft sincerity in his voice startled her. “You mean that?”
“If anyone belongs here, it’s you,” he said, his copper eyes blazing.
Petra glanced away from his intense gaze and bowed her head. “Thank you,” she said quietly, wringing her hands in her lap. She didn’t know what else to say.
They spent the next several hours copying the schematics to lined pages, annotating the drawings with measurements and figures, calculating the dimensions with tedious accuracy. A single mathematical error could ruin the integrity of the entire design.
Emmerich signed his name at the bottom of every page. Petra knew she could not openly display her name next to his, but she still left a mark. She penciled her initials in the designs themselves, positioning the letters so that if Emmerich found them and tried to erase them, he would have to erase an integral part of the design. Perhaps it was childish of her, but she didn’t care.
They left the designs for the center of the automaton’s chest blank. Emmerich still did not trust that the double mainspring would work, but Petra promised him the next time they met, she would have proof.
When they finished copying the sketches, she stretched back in her chair and yawned. With no windows in the lower workshops, she had no idea how much time had passed.
“It’s almost midnight,” said Emmerich, checking the clock on a nearby desk.
A shot of adrenaline jolted her chest. Matron would kill her. She hadn’t meant to stay out so late.
“If you collect your things, I can escort you home,” he said. “We can leave through the main entrance this time. Wearing my clothes, you can pass as a student if anyone happens to notice you, though we are unlikely to meet anyone at this late an hour.”
He offered her a knapsack to put her clothes in, and she fetched her garments from the bottom drawer of Emmerich’s desk.
As they turned down the lights in the workshop, he dipped his hand into his pocket. “I nearly forgot.” He handed Petra a single pound note and a handful of shillings. “Your first week’s wages, Miss Wade.”
She grinned. She had done it.
Petra Wade was officially a paid engineer.