IT WAS A nightmare.
Again the doppelganger reached Charles first. This time it said nothing as it stood before him, but looked at Charles as though joyful to have him returned to the land of the living. Berd did not doubt that it would even go so far as to tell him it loved him. Or kiss…
Strength ebbed from Berd and she was cold, so cold, as she came panting up behind them, her hands on her sides and her head bowed as she sucked in deep breaths.
Blast that Gine! He knew exactly how to trick Charles. Even kissing wasn’t going to work this time.
Charles’s blue eyes were bright with wretchedness as he stared from her to the doppelganger, the doppelganger that seemed to be made of flesh.
Berd brushed her fingers through her hair. They caught, stuck in the tangled mess that seemed to have ballooned around her head like a lion’s mane... A bone-white chemise flashed through the rips and burns of her mauve silk blouse. She lifted her hands to her face, only to discover she was curving them.
The doppelganger spoke, its voice nice and strong as Berd’s. “It’s me. I know all three reasons as to why Gine created the forest of metal trees.”
Then the doppelganger leaned forward stiffly. Its lips puckered, its eyes shut.
Had I looked that awkward when I’d done it? Oh, Lord alive…
Charles cleared his throat, eyes wide and frantic then took a wary step back.
“So, you know all three reasons why Gine created the forest of metal trees,” Berd said, her voice raw with emotion, as the doppelganger leaned towards the man.
It nodded primly, its lips inches from Charles’s. Its eyes closed.
“Good!” Berd gave a vicious shove, and the doppelganger fell to one side.
It was surprisingly light. It collapsed, crashing to the ground like a toppling tree. There hadn’t even been any flailing of arms, but Berd didn’t wait to see what happened to it. She’d had enough of Gine’s little games.
“And you,” Berd accused the figure that looked like Charles with a pointed finger, “you’re not Charles!”
She swivelled away from it and would have crashed into another figure, this one standing right behind her, had not two hands reached out to grasp her firmly, steadying her.
Berd barely noticed the pressure on her upper arms, because she was staring into eyes so blue she was lost in them. She didn’t need the hint of any aroma to tell her who this was.
Now she knew that deep down she would never have thought Gine was him.
“Are you all right, princess?” Charles’s voice burred.
Her heart began to hammer. And for one intense moment as he reached down, she thought he was going to kiss her—
He grasped her hand.
“Run!” He pulled her along, and they were running again.
She glanced back at the spot where the doppelgangers had been, but both body doubles were gone. No doubt they had disappeared back into the Engine. She snuck a peek at Charles, but he was looking straight ahead. Her heart beat faster but she knew it wasn’t solely because of the exertion. And she was warm, but again she didn’t think it was all because of the running...
Their run this time was nothing compared to the wild madness earlier, their pace distinctly slower. They could have conversed, and there was nothing chasing them — no bits, no disrupted earth. Yet, she sensed Charles was putting every ounce of strength he had into moving. He slowed even further as they reached the nearest book stack and then, to her horror, he tripped over his feet and pulled her down, tumbling into a heap together. As soon as her head cleared, she pushed herself up from the reflective floor, expecting Charles to follow, or to give her a hand, only he remained on the ground, his dark hair damp, and his eyes closed.
“No... No! Charles!” Her voice wavered, thinning away in the twilight of the Engine.
There was no response. He stayed exactly as he had landed, his eyes shut and his head turned aside. Hesitantly, Berd placed her hand on his cheek. The skin was cold and clammy.
“Charles!” she screamed again, her hands desperately shaking his inert body. He jiggled back and forth like a massaged piece of meat, but did not stir; as soon as her hands ceased their movement so did he. Berd sat back on her heels, unsure of what to do. His breathing was ragged. His eyes fluttered, opening long enough for her to see they had turned silver, and then closed again.
He was dying.
At first she thought the shudder she felt was her grief and shock, but then a shadow passed over her. Another deep metallic groan and shockwaves went through the ground. The book stacks were moving.
Berd jumped to her feet, hooking her arms around Charles. They had to get out of the way before a book stack trod on them. She tried to lift, then to drag him, anything, to shift him out of the way of those monstrous giants. But she failed.
The ground trembled. Charles’s head lolled from side to side. Berd, on her knees, had to brace herself with her hands, palms flattened against the green enamel floor or risk falling forward. Shadows swayed back and forth. The ground crunched and shook as a large column landed with an explosion of force, barely ten yards away.
Charles was simply too heavy. She had just about given up trying to roll him, when a voice nearby cursed.
Gine.
She almost wept in relief when she heard it.
“You pretty little fools!” Gine swore as he bore down.
Had Gine appeared at any other time she would have flown at him, but as he scooped Charles up into his arms, Berd saw him solely as a rescuer. Gine ducked under the leg of one of the monstrous nook stacks. Berd hesitated then followed, her heart in her throat.
No matter what Gine had attempted before, all was forgiven so long as he saved Charles. Gine, the god in the image of the man, strode away carrying his creator. Berd followed, praying that whatever Gine had in mind, it wouldn’t be too late.
In minutes, they were in the elevator of one of the book stacks, travelling up. Gine had taken control of it, moving it without the help of buttons. It was difficult to look at Gine and not see Charles as he gazed silently in her direction, but she had to thank him.
In the dying light, Gine’s black lashes glittered with tears.
Berd took a step back. “You— you really love him, don’t you?”
“I’m an engine. What is an engine supposed to know about love?” He replied, soft and bitter.
That was true enough. She glanced away, unsure.
“He loves you,” Gine said simply. His eyes, steady and begrudging, burned into her when she looked up.
Berd folded her arms, but her voice was a whisper. “You weren’t trying to kill him. Or me.”
He snorted. “Back on the subject of killing again? You certainly do have a one-track mind.”
She thought she detected a trace of laughter in his tone. “That horde of bits on the plain ... I thought we were running for our lives, but you were simply trying to save Charles from dying. Surround him with energy so he would be tempted to partake.”
Gine’s gaze shifted down to Charles where his gaze softened. “Stubborn fool.”
“Like someone else I know,” Berd said. “You were trying to provide him with energy. I wondered why we were never actually hit.”
“You’ll make me a pair of wings next and then I’ll have to hide my horns.” He rolled his eyes, but a corner of his mouth twitched up.
It was all beginning to make sense. “My incident with my doppelganger...”
Gine said nothing, only pushed his lower lip out. She found herself noting the shape of his mouth — Charles’s mouth — yet somehow ... different. Gine continued to study her, and Charles, in his arms, did not stir.
She spoke slowly, as the pieces fell into place. “You wouldn’t have created that doppelganger of me simply so that Charles could tell the difference between it and me. It’s too obvious. Though the doppelganger was flesh, it wasn’t me. I don’t look like that...”
Gine’s eyes only widened provocatively as if daring her to continue. The space outside slid by, and the mechanical whir of levers and pulleys continued.
“Oh stop it. I know you enjoy watching me squirm.” She rubbed her chin, no longer afraid of him. “So was it to see if I could tell the difference between the real you and him?”
The mechanical man gave a little laugh. “You obviously failed there. I mean ... you did kiss ... me.” His eyes caught hers, and the curious sensation of drowning in green returned.
Kiss me. Kiss... Berd shook the stupor off then clapped her hands together. “I know! You did it to get me to kiss Charles. That was it. That was the real reason all along. But ha! He fooled you.”
“Well...” Gine’s nostrils flared slightly, a flicker of reluctant admiration in his voice. “Ever think that maybe I would want to kiss you?”
A pause.
“That can’t be true.”
Gine raised an eyebrow. “Maybe Charles was right. There is something in you after all.” He shrugged, shifting Charles a bit.
The door to the elevator opened, and cold, lavender-scented air pressed upon her sweat-drenched body, causing a shiver to go through her.
Gine strode into the ice-blue room as if he were the master of the place, carrying Charles in his arms. Somehow his shoulders seemed broader than the man’s had ever been. Easily, he deposited Charles on the metallic floor, but as Berd stepped off the elevator, he stood, and began running his fingers through his jet hair. Had she not known Gine any better, she would have sworn he was nervous, but this was his domain.
“Charles will recover if you give him water. At this stage, he’s merely suffering from the effects of dehydration.” Gine’s tone was emotionless as he stared down at Charles.
Berd nodded. She had, after all, drained the bladder.
Gine placed one of his palms flat on the wall, watching as the water rippled over his fingers and hand. “And yes, what is stored here is water, not energy. Not that to become like me would be so terrible a fate, would it?”
“I am in your debt, Gine,” she said.
He swivelled to face her. Watery reflections played upon his features, revealing a sudden vulnerability until he twirled one finger arrogantly in the air and pointed at her. “Before I go, how did you tell us apart that second time?”
It was only her disgust with Charles’s inability to pick them apart that had alerted her to the fact it might not have been him, but merely another ploy. It had been a guess, but something inside her screamed not to reveal this fact to Gine. Berd gave the most confident laugh she could. “Are you trying to tell me, I wouldn’t know the real you?”
A roguish smile spread across Gine’s face, brightening him as if the dawn had come. “Touche!” Gine crossed his arms over his chest and regarded her lazily, as he leaned against the wall. “You’d better beware your tongue, my lady. We could end up mutually admiring each other. And that would be dangerous.” He spoke the last word as if it were a promise, his eyes shimmering twin emeralds as seen beneath the surface of a lake.
She frowned, unsure what he was alluding to. He was pushing himself back into the wall when she shook herself and called out. “Wait! Gine! I have a question.”
He stopped and reversed out. No matter how many times she had seen him do this, her stomach still turned each time it happened — his skin taking on the colour of whatever he was touching.
“What is it, my lady?” He frowned, as if he were in a great hurry and she was holding him up.
“Why did you rescue me?”
Gine cocked his head at Charles. “Ah, why don’t you ask him?” he challenged.
Charles? Berd swung her gaze onto his prone figure on his side. When she turned back, Gine was gone. Only clear water rippled down the blue walls while the scent of lavender pressed upon her face like a cold towel.
So all along Charles was responsible for rescuing her. Yet he had never mentioned it. Even as she asked herself the question, she remembered his dire need of water. She should not have spent minutes talking! Pray she was not too late to save him.
She ran over to the walls, washed her dusty hands in the cascade, scooped some up and then hurried back to Charles. His face was pallid, and she had to lift his head onto her knee in order to get the water into him without drowning him. It took several trips and many long minutes before she was able to get any water into him.
“Charles?” She watched anxiously.
In the end, she had to cradle his head in the crook of one arm to do so. She had just managed to rest his upper body partially on her lap when his lashes fluttered and he spluttered and choked.
He opened his eyes. They were silver-rimmed, as if he had woken from a beautiful dream. As she stared, the glazed expression disappeared and a sharpened one settled on her.
Heat flared up her throat. They were too close. She let go his head and it hit the ground.
“Ow!”
“I’m sorry!” she slapped her hand over her mouth then reached out to help only he waved her away, rubbing the sore spot on his head vigorously.
Thankfully, the difference was mere inches. But he was finally sitting up, his weight off her. “Where are we?”
“In one of the book stacks,” she answered, wishing her voice did not sound so shrill. She dared a glance at him then; his face was terribly pale, but his eyes glowed, alert as he looked around. “Are you all right?”
He nodded, his chest heaving from the exertion of sitting up, and if he had noticed her staring at him earlier, there was no sign of it. “You saved me. Again,” he said quietly.
She tilted her head at him, puzzled. “You did save me, earlier.” And so he had, at risk of his life.
“Colleagues.”
She frowned, not sure what he was alluding to.
“Colleagues,” he said again, insistent. “We are colleagues who work well together. You are my Enchantress of Numbers.”
Warmth flushed over Berd’s shoulders at the compliment for that was what Charles Babbage had christened her grandmother. And now Berd understood what Charles Fotheringay was trying to say.
Perhaps in the olden days, a knight would have rescued a damsel in distress, but if she was fighting for equality, it would be just as right for a damsel to save a knight if he needed it. Of course, she couldn’t take all the credit. In fact, most of the credit belonged to Gine. Well. She had been brave, and done her part. Small steps. Equality was a road, not a cliff to jump.
Equals.
Charles began to rise to his feet.
“Let me.”
He held out a hand to stop her.
“I believe ‘I’ can do this.” And so saying, he stood, and looked around at the room. “I admit I’m impressed. I thought I collapsed outside. You could have left me, but you didn’t. And you obviously managed to...?” He eyed her questioningly.
She opened her mouth to explain when Charles held one finger up.
“No, don’t tell me. Let me guess. You dragged me here?” Despite the paleness of his face, the laughter was back in his blue eyes.
She prepared to humour him, glad he was alive.
He persisted his questioning, his eyes gleaming curiously. “Well, carrying me would be out of the question. Hmmm, roll?”
She shook her head again, her stomach clenched as she tried not to laugh. He did look so puzzled. And beautiful.
Charles knotted his brows together. He concentrated as he gestured with his hands, miming solution after solution only to discard each one. “I give up. How did you get me here?” he finally said with a wave of one arm.
“Gine.” She smiled as she revealed the truth.
At the sound of Gine’s name, Charles’s face darkened. “Gine! Damn him, the treacherous bastard!” He glared at her as if she had betrayed him.