There are pivotal moments in each of our lives when we know everything is about to change. These moments don’t happen often. When they do, they hit us like freight trains. The most powerful ones give you that feeling of stunted inertia, as if forever could come and go and you’d never find the wherewithal to move from the spot you’re standing in.
I was standing in an underground bunker on Maclin, watching a conveyor belt carry a perfect line of Galvos Mk. VII Automatons across the factory floor beyond tall plate-glass windows, and I believed I’d encountered just such a watershed moment. Everything that would happen from that day forward would only serve to reaffirm how right I was.
The sharply-dressed woman in black narrowed her eyes at me. “The Mark-Sevens are not for sale, sir,” she said.
That’s never stopped me before. “If Angus is not for sale, and these robots are not for sale, then what the heck do you people do around here for money?”
“Maclin Automation is a collective of the brightest technological minds in the world,” she explained. “We have product lines to serve everyone from the casual enthusiast to the experienced professional. While our products cover all areas of physical augmentation, we specialize in—”
“You’re more fun to look at than you are to listen to,” I interrupted. “I know all that. My inner workings are full of Maclin parts. Spare me the sales pitch—just tell me how I can get my hands on those robots.”
“This project is why Angus Brunswick’s expertise is so vital to us,” she said. “We haven’t yet perfected a Galvos model that’s safe enough for commercial use.”
“You seem to feel safe enough using them to protect your own hide,” I said. I knocked on a guard’s forehead. The empty cavity inside resounded with a hollow metal clunk.
“These are the old Mark-Sixes. They’re slated to be destroyed as soon as the Mark-Seven prototypes are ready.”
“You can’t destroy these. I want them.”
“It’s no good, sir. They’re not for sale.”
“If you’re going to destroy them anyway, then theoretically you’d make more money selling them for a few chips on the hundred, right? Bargain basement prices, we’re talking…”
“In my opinion, sir, you’d be better off leaving this line of discussion alone.”
“If your opinion wasn’t wrong, I’d agree with you. I’ll leave it alone when you change your mind. I can see you’re a tough nut to crack, though, so we’ll get back to this later. Right now, I want you to meet Angus’s father, Ezra. He and Angus haven’t seen each other in years. If you won’t let Angus go, at least let them talk to each other for a minute. You might as well, while we’re here.”
“Cordelia Foxglove,” she said, by way of introduction. “I’m sorry Ezra, but your son can’t be disturbed while he’s working.”
“Malarkey,” said Ezra. Defiantly, he marched over and gave the glass three sharp raps with his mechanical fist.
Across the factory floor, Angus looked up from his work. The expression on his face passed from distant scrutiny to mild dismay, then took on an air of outright displeasure. He pushed himself up and stepped to the edge of the conveyor belt, waiting for it to reach one of its rhythmic stopping points before hopping over it. Cordelia Foxglove glared at Ezra all the while, perhaps wanting to say something but knowing it would do no good.
When Angus got to the door, he stood there like a dog waiting to be let out. Cordelia obliged him, producing a key which turned the gears on the door and sent its thick bolts sliding back from the frame. She stepped aside to let him enter the room. There was a brief rush of manufacturing noise as the door opened and shut.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Angus asked, addressing his father with all the affection of a hot iron.
So Angus hasn’t exactly been rotting away in a cell, I mused. That’s alright. We can work around a few unexpected developments.
Ezra was looking at me as if I’d led him into a trap—which I suppose I had, in a way. Portraying him as the heroic father come to rescue his imperiled son was the most convincing ploy I’d been able to come up with at the time. I’d thought we needed him to help us find Angus, but having him here seemed to only be making things worse. I could see it was time to interject with some subject-changing smoke and mirrors.
“Before you go jumping to conclusions, Angus,” I said, “you should know that we’re all here on Sable’s behalf. She’s the one who organized this little venture. She would’ve come herself, but she’s been detained.”
Angus ran a finger under his nose and sniffed. “Detained by who?”
“The Regency. And before you get your suspenders in a bunch, Ms. Foxglove, no one’s notified the authorities of Angus’s whereabouts. Although that can change very quickly, in the event that you’re not planning to let us go. Anyway… Mr. McMurtry and the others are also in Civvy custody. I’ve got a plan to get them out, but your boss-lady here is making things difficult.”
Angus’s eyes darted to Cordelia, whose unsmiling face was somehow cautionary, as if she were trying to exert some silent control over him. He looked at the floor, then up at me. “I would’ve let her know I was okay, but these slave drivers have got me going around the clock. No communication in or out.”
“She’s worried about you,” I said. “And rightly so. Just like your dad was, when I told him what’d happened to you.”
Angus didn’t look at Ezra, who was now standing right in front of him after their years of being apart. But I saw the change in his face at the mere mention of his father’s name.
“I would’ve come sooner, son… if only I’d known,” Ezra said.
“There’s another good friend of yours waiting outside,” I said. “I know how much he’s been wanting to see you. The Civs didn’t manage to collar that little guy.”
“Neri.” Angus mouthed the word as if he were cradling something precious.
“That’s right,” I said. “Neri is doing just fine. He’s a little wooden right now, but he’s fine. He’s just up in the boat. Your boat. You don’t really want to stay here, do you?”
“I can’t leave,” Angus said. “Not just yet. I’ve become so absorbed in my work that I don’t know whether I could stop if I tried. I’m so close to cracking this—”
“That’s enough, Angus,” Cordelia said. “I’m afraid your friends will have to leave now. I made a special exception by letting them come down to see you. It wouldn’t be fair if you were to divulge any details about your work.”
“Fair?” I said. “Fair to who, exactly? You people are the ones who have him locked up down here against his will. How is that fair?”
“You don’t have to stick up for me. It’s okay,” said Angus.
“I’m not sticking up for you,” I said. “I’m trying to get you out of here so we can go rescue your crew. I’ve gotten too fond of those misfits for my own good, and since you’re the one thing Sable wants more than anything in the world, I’m not walking out of here unless you’re walking out with me.”
“As noble a gesture as that may be, stubbornness won’t get you anywhere,” said Cordelia.
“You mind your own business, lady,” I said. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
“Very brave,” she said.
“Most people call it stupid,” I said, “but I’m glad you feel that way. Allow me a word with my associates over here, will you?”
Cordelia frowned. Thomas, Ezra and I stepped aside while she gave orders to two of her robotic guards. They went over and stood flanking Angus like a couple of hulking statues, each at least a head taller than he was.
“It’s obvious she’s not going to let him go,” I whispered, trying to keep my voice quieter than the dull mechanical drone from the next room. “He doesn’t want to leave, either. That means there’s only one way to fix this.”
Ezra was interested. “How’s that?”
“I’m going to ruin everything.”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow,” said Thomas.
“I’ve spent the last few years doing everything I could to defy the Regency. It’s time I started thinking bigger, and this couldn’t be a more perfect chance to do it.”
“I’m beginning to see why Sable gets so irritated whenever you talk like this,” said Thomas.
“Just another one of my big dumb ideas, huh? Is that what you think this is? Well, you’re right. This is the biggest, dumbest idea I’ve ever had. You two believe as strongly as I do that we can’t let the nobility push us around forever. Now, I’m not talking about some desperate coup for a few hours of glory and an article in the paper. I’m talking about overthrowing the Regency. Doing away with the whole system of class and privilege as it currently exists. I’m talking about a revolution.”
The two men eyed each other as if they were sharing some silent mutual understanding about what they perceived to be the downward spiral of my sanity.
“Don’t you want to live in a world where people have a say over whose property is whose?” I looked at Ezra. “A world where you’re not someone else’s servant just because your inborn rank in the social order dictates it?” I turned my gaze onto Thomas. “Where you can be with the one you love instead of the one society thinks is appropriate for you?”
Thomas thought for a moment. “Well, yes, of course… but what you’re talking about… it’s impossible.”
“Haven’t you ever had a mother, Tom? It’s only impossible if you stop trying. I’ve been too busy running away from the Civs to do anything about them for a long time now. Frankly, I haven’t cared enough to. But if I can stay here and help Angus finish what he’s started, this project of his may be the key to setting things in motion. That’s why I need you both behind me on this.”
Ezra gave me a somber smile. “I don’t fancy the Regency any more than you do. But at my age, I’ve come to accept it as something we all just gotta live with.”
“We don’t have to live with it. I refuse to believe that. The Regency has a tough time keeping control of a world where everything’s moving around all the time. The lesser lords that govern the Regency’s territories and protect its interests are the only defense it has against complete chaos. We can change things, but it has to start right here.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m with Thomas on this one,” said Ezra. “Beating the Regency sounds impossible.”
“It won’t be if we have an army to do it with.”
“We don’t have an army, Mull.”
“Our army is standing right on the other side of that glass. Angus has spent the last few months helping us build it.”
They gave me identical looks of wry disbelief.
“Are you with me, or no? Because if not, you both ought to get out of here right now, before I start breaking things.”
“I don’t understand how that will help,” said Thomas.
“You will,” I said. “You just have to trust me. You do you trust me, don’t you?”
They looked at each other, then at me. Thomas shrugged.
“Close enough. Just sit tight. I’ll take care of the first bit.”
I strolled over to the glass, studying the factory room beyond. “What’s a guy gotta do to get a closer look at those new models, anyway?”
Cordelia gave no reply.
“I suppose losing a shipment of Maclin-owned equipment while also being a brilliant mechanic like Angus here must be what it takes, huh?” I said, knowing I’d get no answer. I let my medallion hum into motion, giving myself the reflexive advantage I needed to grab the door handle without looking at it. I pulled the door open and slipped into the factory, shutting it behind me before Cordelia could react.
I could hear her yelling at me from the other room, giving commands to the automatons while she fumbled for her key. When Angus had opened the door, I’d noticed a line of thick metal deadbolts along its face. I assumed these had some effect on the door’s current state of unlock, so I took the opportunity to swing the latch home and jam them into place.
Cordelia had the key, but I had a wrist spike I needed less than I figured that door did right about now. I triggered the spike and drove the solid metal shaft into the keyhole. When she put the key in and tried to turn the lock, it stuck fast. I knew the jam wouldn’t last forever, but this wasn’t going to take nearly that long.
“I want you to watch this very closely,” I said, shouting to be heard through the glass, above the clink of metal and the hum of machines.
Bulls in china shops around the world were going to be talking about this next bit for generations. I stood facing the windows, cranking the winch in my arm to let the grapplewire slide out until I had a puddle of metal rope at my feet. Then I tied a loop at the end, like a noose—or in this case, a lasso.
Cordelia was jiggling the key in the lock, trying to shake the door and buffeting it with her shoulder, but the thing was as solid as it looked. I gave her a wink and a smile before I turned toward the assembly line. I began to watch the mechanical arms that were floating around the automatons, some grabbing parts off the belts, others attaching them, and still others welding them into place amid showers of blue sparks.
As soon as I identified a pattern, I sent the lasso floating through the air to catch on the nearest robotic arm. The grapplewire tightened around the arm like a bracelet. I gave the line some slack, ducking below the buzzing devices to get to the conveyor belt, where I slipped into line between two tall, stone-faced automatons. I turned toward the windows again, giving my captivated audience a happy wave.
The belt began to carry me, stopping and starting, across the floor. I wrapped a loop of wire around one automaton’s neck, then gave Ms. Foxglove another wink before I tried pushing it over. It was heavy, and the first push didn’t even budge it. Not the effortless effect I had been going for. I dug my heels in and pushed again, getting only a minute response.
By the time Cordelia finally decided to give up on the key and let her guards start breaking the door down, I had thrown my arms around the automaton’s neck and was shimmying up his spine like a mountain climber. I leaned back and let the one behind me stop my shoulders, then got my feet under me. My body was scrunched up between the two lifeless robots like a hammock between two trees.
I pushed. With all my might, I pushed until I achieved that glorious effect I’d been striving for: the one with all the dominos. The automaton fell over and crashed into the one behind it, whipping the wire tight around its neck and pulling the mechanical arm off its programmed route. The weight tugged the arm sideways, and although the arm fought back, the fight didn’t last long.
I hit the conveyor belt and rolled off to one side as the automatons crashed down around me. Then I stood and brushed myself off, stepping back into the recesses of the room to watch my handiwork—and get a load of Cordelia Foxglove’s face. She was as horrified as I had hoped; the other onlookers were equally so. Serves you right, I would’ve said, if her guards hadn’t just shredded the heavy metal door like confetti.
They flooded in and moved to block my only other exits—the two openings at opposite ends of the room that let the conveyor belt in and back out again. Cordelia was on the horn, ordering someone on the other end of the line to stop the presses at once—which that someone did. The assembly line ground to a halt. Mechanical arms froze in place. Conveyor belts ceased their hiccupping movements. The automatons were still falling.
I heard them going down in rooms that sounded far away, crashing and sliding over one another, knocking assembly equipment off its moorings, until at long last there was only silence. Silence, and the sound of every vein in Cordelia Foxglove’s forehead standing up on her skin like tree roots. The guards stepped over the mess on the conveyor belt and surrounded me. I wasn’t going anywhere. Somehow, I knew better than to try.
“Why would you ever do a thing like this?” Cordelia said. She was almost whispering, as if she couldn’t decide whether to scream or cry.
For once in my life, I didn’t say anything. No wisecracks, no self-deprecating jokes, no mean-spirited ribbings. I just stood there, looking at her, looking at me. We were squared off, and she didn’t quite know what to make of all this. What to make of me.
“You—,” she interrupted herself. “I—”
“You got a lot of work to do here if you wanna get up and runnin’ again,” said Ezra, appearing from behind one of the guards. “Gonna be an uphill climb, unless you can find yourselves a little help.”
“It’s time for you to leave,” said Cordelia, finally finding her voice.
I started to move toward the empty frame that had held the room’s mangled door.
“Not you.” Ms. Foxglove emphasized both words with equal venom.
I froze. I wanted to smile, a big stupid grin that would’ve given away the fact that I’d accomplished exactly what I had intended to. That was exactly why I didn’t.
The others were filtering into the room, but Cordelia’s gaze remained fixed on me. “You… are not going anywhere. The rest of you, get out. My guards will escort you back to your aircraft.”
“All due respect, ma’am, but it’s like Mr. Nordstrom said… I came for my son, and if he ain’t leavin’, neither am I.”
“I would prefer to remain here as well,” Thomas chimed in.
I wanted to pump my fist for the righteous alliance the three of us had formed in the space of that pivotal moment. Again, I refrained.
Ms. Foxglove’s face tightened into an incredulous grimace. “Do you think this is some sort of hotel? Maclin Automation is a business, and Angus Brunswick is here to work.”
“So I gathered,” I said. “That’s why we’d like to help.”
“Angus has suffered his last interruption on your account,” she said. “Guards, bring this man to an isolation cell. Take the rest of our guests up to the roof and see them off.”
The guards, mindless and unyielding, moved to do their mistress’s bidding. I might’ve avoided their reaching arms for a minute or two, but I didn’t want to find out the hard way what kind of guns they were carrying. When they took me by the upper arms, their grips were solid and immovable. I struggled a little at first, but stopped when I realized how little they cared.
“I want to work off the damages I’ve caused, just like Angus is doing,” I said. “I want to pay my debts in service to Maclin.”
“If that was your goal, you chose a poor way to achieve it,” said Cordelia. “And unless you have half the talent Angus does, you’ll be doing no such thing.”
“You don’t know me,” I said. “I grew up working on machines. And Ezra here is Angus’s dad, for Leridote’s sake… you think he’s not just as good or better than his son is at building stuff?”
“Guards, wait,” Cordelia said. She threw me a patronizing look. “Building and inventing are hardly derived from the same set of talents.”
“If I may…” said Thomas. “Talent, it would seem to me, has little bearing on your present circumstances. Your operation is in shambles, and, as Ezra has pointed out, you’re going to need help if you want to get up and running again. When you report this mishap to your superiors, are they going to let you hire new employees to clean it up? Reassign current employees from other projects? We’re offering you our assistance—manual labor at a slave’s wages. And yet, you’re trying to send us off like unwanted houseguests. That does not sound like judicious use of available resources to me, my dear. You’re managing this project, aren’t you? This doesn’t have to be anything more than a small hurdle in your progress if you’ll just let us help you.”
Cordelia Foxglove suddenly looked like she was on the verge of tears. “I’ve run my division flawlessly for the last five years… until this moment,” she said. “Now everything’s ruined. I still can’t understand why you would ever do such a despicable thing.”
“Because I want your blasted robots. I told you that, didn’t I? I want to be here when the first perfect model comes off the line, so I can hand you a big pile of chips and start giving orders.”
“Oh, you’ll be here. Yes, you will. But not anywhere near the automatons. As for you two,” she said, turning to Thomas and Ezra, “you may stay, but only if Angus will allow it.”
“I don’t want anyone’s help—least of all yours,” Angus said.
Ezra averted his eyes, looking hurt.
“Angus, I must say, this is quite an outrage,” said Thomas. “We’ve come all this way to find you and offer our help.”
“By doing this?” Angus said, indicating the damage.
“Granted, this was not what any of us intended. But it’s too late now to be sour about it. It’s obvious that your captors, here, have refused to honor their initial bargain. We can’t purchase your freedom. So until this undertaking is complete, it seems you’re stuck here. If you’ll allow us to be stuck here with you, we’ll help you finish your work faster so you can be reunited with Sable and the others in a more timely manner.” He turned to Ms. Foxglove. “You will allow us to leave when we finish, of course… won’t you?”
“What’s your decision, Angus?” she said.
Angus took a long, loud breath. “They can stay. With the stipulation that they all bust their humps to get us back on schedule.”
“We will,” I said.
“You will do nothing of the sort,” said Cordelia. “I won’t make the mistake of allowing you near the factory floor again.”
“Do your worst,” I said. “Rufus, are you alright tying up some loose ends for us? I think you know what I’m referring to. Leave the Galeskimmer here and get everyone back where they need to be. Oh, and give Sal my thanks. And my regrets.”
The old man nodded. Now that we were on Maclin, we were safe from the wandering eyes of the Civs. That meant I didn’t need the Baron as a bargaining chip anymore. He and Sal could be returned to Kilori, tied up and blindfolded, and the Civs would go on thinking I was the sole culprit in his disappearance. Rufus was no dummy; he’d pull it off alright. I had no idea if he would, actually. But he’d have to, for his own sake.
“Now,” said Ms. Foxglove. “Is everybody ready to go their separate ways?”
“I wish I knew what that meant,” I said.
“You’ll find out soon enough, Mr. Nordstrom.” She doled out instructions to her robotic contingent. Rufus and the rest of Ezra’s friends were to be returned to their aircraft on the rooftop. Thomas, Ezra, and Angus were to be taken to their residency rooms. And as for me, it seemed I was headed to the isolation block.
The robots escorted us off the factory floor and through the antechamber. From there, Rufus and his group split off down one hallway while the robots took the rest of us down another.
“That was a good bit of finagling you did back there,” I told Thomas, as our escorts pushed us brusquely down the hall.
“I am an adviser, you know,” he said. “My expertise resides in convincing people to see my point of view.”
“Your voodoo charms have never worked on me,” I said.
Thomas adjusted his waistcoat. “From time to time, one must shift one’s tactics to suit one’s aim.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means… of course they haven’t,” he said with a smile.
I frowned. “Angus… I don’t know how long they’re planning to keep me down there, but I can help you. I’m not going to sabotage things again. That was just a ploy to get them to keep me here. Sable needs us, don’t you see that?”
Angus made no reply. He and the others split off down another hallway while the robots carried me down my own. My eyes met Thomas’s one last time before they disappeared around the corner. His look was reassuring, though I’d never been so uncertain about anything as I was about my future at that moment.
The halls grew starker and dirtier, the lights dimmer and more sterile. We entered a circular room with harsh white bulbs overhead and a big clunky metal chair in the middle. The robots threw me down and strapped me into the chair before retreating to stand next to the wall.
Presently, a gray-haired man in a brown suit with pocket watch chains dangling from his waistcoats entered the room through another door. He was pushing a wheeled tray table laden with various instruments that looked neither fun nor like things I wanted to be anywhere in the vicinity of. I could only surmise that this man fancied himself some sort of doctor, though it wouldn’t have surprised me if Maclin Automation’s definition of the word was a loose one.
“Cordelia tells me you need a… cleansing,” he said.
“I don’t need anything you’ve got, pal.”
“Isolation means no fun things to keep us entertained,” he said. “We will get you all cleaned out.”
By that, I hoped he meant he was going to suck out the contents of my digestive system through a hose. Only because that would’ve been better than what I feared he actually meant: that he was going to strip my body bare of every piece of tech he could find. I didn’t have any muscle grafts or high-caliber cloak-and-dagger stuff. I’d never been able to afford anything that fancy. But for the second time in a year, I was about to be eviscerated. And for only the first time in my life, this guy was going to remove absolutely everything.
He put on a pair of gloves, then cut my clothing off. He gasped when he saw the medallion on my chest, its tendrils snaking through my skin like veins. “Where did you get this?” he asked.
“Found it,” I said.
This seemed to excite the doctor, but he said nothing more about it and started opening every compartment he could find, making notes on the little pad he kept on his tray table. Then he would look over at his instruments as if to double-check that he’d brought the right tools for the job. He seemed pleased with everything until he came across the small ciphered box in my arm. Chaz had installed the crackler in Pyras, and the primitives had used a remote control to keep me in check.
The doctor was concerned. “This is fused to the bone,” he said. “I cannot remove this without the code, or I will have to remove your arm.”
“Please don’t do that,” I said. I told him what it was, and that it was inactive.
“We will see about this one,” he said. “I clean you of everything. Cordelia demands it. First, we do the reflex module.” He picked up some tool I couldn’t see, then felt around the edges of the medallion.
“Is this going to hurt?” I asked.
“Oh yes. Very much.”
It did. When he extracted the medallion, I realized just how deeply it had embedded itself—both physically and otherwise. A sudden shallow, sinking feeling came over me. There was a scraping in my ears like nails on tin, and a sudden rush of fever. This was followed by a period of profuse sweating and an aching that branched out to my every extremity. I couldn’t bring myself to move, yet it was agony to hold still. I passed out.
Several hours later, I woke from a fitful dream where the doctor had made a complete wreckage of my body. The nightmare was real. I was delirious from the pain. If Gilfoyle’s thugs had trimmed the grass at the stem, the doctor had torn it out by the roots. My empty compartments were the only things besides that blasted crackler box he’d left inside me. To remove those, he would’ve had to rebuild my telerium skeletal structure around them. That would’ve been far from necessary, since empty compartments are about as useful as wings on a cactus.
With my body feeling like it had just plummeted through a dozen brick walls and landed in a pit of flaming porcupines, the doctor unstrapped me from the chair and turned me over to the guards. They had to carry me this time, gripping my upper arms and pulling me along with my toes dragging on the floor. Another journey through the depths of Maclin, and they tossed me into a room so large and dark I couldn’t see anything but the floor beneath me.
The heavy metal door slammed shut, and everything went black. It was in that vast room that I entered the darkest, most tormented period of my life. But I soon found that even in the darkest of times, there is hope for a little light to make its way in.