Cogs in Time 2 (The Steamworks Series) Page 13

  The surgery does not hurt. When I wake, I cannot stop staring. The gown falls away, revealing my pale skin and small breasts, my own nakedness that I have not seen in years. Right over my most gruesome flaw—covering the most criminal of my indecencies—is the loveliest jeweled windup contraption. The skin surrounding it is still red and angry, but I have a burning desire to show it off to someone.

  There is a black velvet choker around my neck that also serves a purpose. The tiny charm dangling in the hollow of my throat contains many days' worth of medication. It is cleverly connected to the Ticker by a thin tube hidden inside a graceful silken cord. The complete set is the most stunningly beautiful accessory I have ever owned . . . and now it owns me too. I am thrilled to be one with such finery.

  I walk shakily to Ma Sweet's chair. She is elegant and regally poised as always, but when I reach for her hand, it is cold as ice. The thick cord and detached plug lie on the floor like a long-dead snake. In her shaky handwriting is a note: Have the courage to be free.

  ***

  Two weeks after the funeral, I am once again wandering the streets of Fairlight City. Storefronts are still cheery, but the coaxing shopkeepers have been replaced by mechanical eye-catching gadgets. Buskers operate automatronic dancing monkeys or wind-up birds that sing recordings of pitch-corrected warbles. My sense of direction has become wonky, but as the cobblestone roads widen to the very heart of the town, I recognize the bridge that crosses the river, quartering the city into four beating chambers.

  I can identify the resplendent opera house, its architecture an echo of human ingenuity, even though I am told it has become a steel mill. A passenger buggy goes by, attached to a propulsion machine sporting a massive bronze head resembling a giant horse. It rolls on a band of flat steel treads looped around two barrel-sized wheels, threatening to crush anything in its path. The brazen equine head snorts steam from its sculpted flared nostrils, its jeweled red eyes at once foreboding and unseeing.

  The Good Doctor takes my arm, almost like a lover. I come across as someone he is proud to be seen with in public, which leaves me bemused. I am not a normal person, let alone someone in whose presence one takes pride. But as we stroll the metropolis that once gave me my livelihood and fame, I fall into a shadow that is at once comforting and disconcerting: anonymity. My musical legacy is gone, but my long gloves, plunging corset, and slinky dress win me the admiration of new patrons. The denizens of the city stare, and I hold my head high, poised like a puppet on strings.

  My little ticker gleams merrily, the twinkling key twirling around and around like a tiny dancer in a music box. I can feel the surreptitious glances of passersby. I am a curiosity, a windup girl, not quite machine and not quite human being. I am the Good Doctor's finest invention. When people approach me, he becomes protective of my personal space. Almost as if he really cares about my well-being.

  The medicine is classified as an SSRI (Sedative Stimulant, Repressor of Information). It is intended to “flatten me out,” taming the highs and the lows, and gating the painful memories altogether. My behavior will be modified to fit the comfort zone of the populace. No public depression, no excellence. Society will still embrace me as a pretty object.

  We have lunch at the Stone Bulldog. Some of my cast members and I used to go drinking here after our performances, making sure to lavishly tip our fellow musicians playing into the wee hours. So much has changed. The decor is pretty much the same, but fare is served on unmanned carts. I wonder if even the food is clockwork, and inspect an orange suspiciously. The stage is still in the back, but an automatronic band occupies it now. Clearly on break, the musicians slump lifelessly over black and white keys, drums, and a set of bellows, chanter, and drones.

  A couple of patrons recognize me. I hear one of them murmur, “That’s Farfisa Sweet. What’s she doing here? I thought she was tucked away in some sort of madhouse.”

  The Good Doctor tries to place himself between the diners and me. “Do not listen to them. You are not yet ready and must not overtax yourself.”

  I grin. “These people need to learn some manners.” The medicine is making me feel invincible now. My throat opens and I sing.

  “Give thanks for lust give us life

  And hunger to compel us

  But what about the cogwheel when

  It ceases to propel us...?”

  “Sacrilege! Treason!”

  “But I am not a person singing live music! Don’t you see? I am part machine now, and so the laws don’t apply!” I launch into the most scandalous song I can think of, something about philosophers and plowmen.

  “Burn her!” someone screams. They all rush me now, the surge of angry bodies a tidal wave pushing me out of the door and onto the street. I feel clothing tearing, flesh rending, and only a moment later do I realize that the blood cascading down my gown is my own. Pain is a mere echo of shock. The force of the blow sends me spinning out of control, hurtling toward the cobblestone road.

  Someone absorbs my fall, a raw human strength encased in gentle skill, catching me like a champion dance partner, with the quick instinct of some beautiful wild creature. As I am placed gingerly on the ground my consciousness begins to flicker on and off, a guttering candle.

  Agony surges, and something akin to bliss melds with it. The Ticker is ripped from my chest, leaving a ragged, bleeding hole where my heart should be. I float above my body, with no cables attached this time, looking down upon the throng in a final curtain call. The adoring, despising crowd presses in for a look, wanting to touch the reality that is me. I did it. For a moment I made them all feel. Just before I ascend for the last time, my grand finale, Tosca’s leap reversed, I can see that someone has slipped something into my cold hands: a bouquet of freshly cut hydrangeas.

  Ice Breaker

  Aubrey Diamant

  *This Story is written in UK English*

  "You see, Alfred, see how the eyes fall too easily?"

  I stood there as my employer, Mister Westmorland, lifted the lids of a recently deceased young woman. Her limp eyelids closing over pallid blue eyes, the orbs were full enough of fluid to be photographed. Beauty was still preserved and yet to turn to rot, she was still fresh enough to give the appearance of life.

  "Now, be a good lad and fetch the pot of glue, we'll soon open those eyelids." With a sharp sound of clapped hands, he gave a good chuckle to a joke only he found amusing.

  Although I obeyed and brought him the pot of glue, it was no laughing matter to me, none of this was. The act of photographing the dead for profit, taking advantage of the grieving, was not noble, but callous. This girl was to be protected for eternity by our newfangled contraption, called the camera. What good was it when it was simply her mourning portrait upon a piece of glass, then sold to the relatives on a cabinet card? She would still not be breathing, still not be alive.

  Her relatives would mourn, wear black crepe and decorate themselves with jet jewellery. They would keep her soft chestnut hair in lockets and weep, sobbing in handkerchiefs under paintings of Queen Victoria. We were a nation of mourners, a frigid, weeping nation dressed in black garments, awaiting our own demise and entrance to the cold crypt of death, with a camera lenses as our last witness.

  Whatever Mister Westmorland saw in this moment as he brushed glue on her eyelids, applied carefully as one would cosmetics, I could not comprehend. The act of applying the glue, so gentle and yet almost vulgar caused a delightful smile just under his perfectly waxed moustache. What I saw was a lifeless thing, which was once a young woman. She was surrounded by brightly coloured silks in blues and greens, and lay on a fainting couch, her appearance was of a sleeping beauty. I was loathed to look at her until, with another callous cackle, Mister Westmorland succeeded in propping her eyes open with glue, waking me.

  "Little darling Becky is ready for her photograph, young Alfred." He was absolutely delighted.

  I turned away, breaking my gaze from Becky. Under direction of my employer, I began the process of t
aking the photograph, peering through the lens to see my subject. Once the moment was over, the beautiful colours I saw in life would vanish, and Becky would be frozen in plain grey tones of the camera's memory forever. How sad, I felt, wondering how long it would be before my feeble mortal mind would forget her vibrancy.

  Her eyes had no focus; her gaze could not see me. Yet I was captivated, and chills trickled down my spine from the dead girl's stare. The camera needed quite a long time to capture the image, the dead were perfect subjects. Living models blurred, drew breath and grew tired, thus the picture was ruined. Not the dead. Perfect picture making, without the slightest chance of motion; the subject could not spoil it.

  The chills continued, but not just from her gaze, I came to find. Looking at the windows of the salon, I noticed ice forming on the inside of the glass. Crystals were spreading and rapidly frosting over the panes as the seconds passed. The coal stove was not warming the room sufficiently any longer. England had been plunged into a winter like no other I'd lived to see.

  The cold was unnatural because it was midsummer. The calendar tacked to the wall said July, but the snow and ice outside spoke of February. The dead of winter had killed the season of warmth and sun as surely as it had killed Becky. Sweet, young Becky was the victim of supernatural cold, having fallen through ice and drowned. Her death and the cold gave me the gloomy undertaking of taking her first and only photograph.

  With a nudge of his elbow, Mister Westmorland relieved me at the camera, motioning me to the stove. I began to fill the pot with coal, in hope it would warm up the room quickly.

  "Blast this cold Alfred, it is quite possible that the devil's lake of fire was froze over this day."

  "No one knows why it is so cold, unnatural for sure," I said, wiping the coal dust from my hands.

  "Colder today than yesterday, colder still, they warn tomorrow."

  "People are dying from this strange weather. It shall keep me in business until there is no one left with money."

  Once again, Mister Westmorland found humour when there should be none, what good was money, if we were too cold to spend it? Too hungry from starvation? It was bleak. Certainly, I could find no happy thoughts; only to envy Becky who had escaped all of this dreadful business of life.

  "We'll all be corpses on the other side of the lens my boy. No use in being unhappy, we all die."

  "We all die," I said, repeating him, not sure as to why, but I did.

  The door to the salon opened, a flow of bitter cold rushed in—so intense it chilled the embers of my bones, and put out the fire which had kept the studio tolerable."I am looking for Photographer Henry Westmorland?" said a strange man approaching us.

  "That is I, I am Henry Westmorland, and this is my assistant Alfred Becket. How may I help you? Alfred, take the gentleman's coat and hat."

  "No, no. No need to take my coat,” the strange man insisted.

  I observed him. His clothing was a shocking colour of blue, and made of a funny, shiny material. Dressed richly, like a foreign prince from lands unknown, I saw that even the buttons on his clothes were silver and sapphire. His garments were cut in the modern fashion of the gentlemen of London, but made of such queer fabric and outrageous colours his attire was offensive. His face, the longer I looked at it, appeared white and icy I looked back at little Becky, his pallor was quite the same as hers, down to the blue tint of his lips. Underneath his fine top hat was a shock of white hair, but he was a young man, young as I was. His eyes, though, his eyes were covered with a pair of odd spectacles, so black I could not understand how he could see in them.

  He checked a strange pocket watch which dangled from a blue ribbon fob, then looked back at Mister Westmorland."I am here to collect Rebecca," the strange man said. I noted his voice was not like ours, he was not an Englishman, but neither was he from the Continent or America.

  "You are not the undertaker, nor his apprentice who delivered her. You may wait, if you like, for them to return, but I will not give the remains to you," said Mister Westmorland to the strange man.

  "The name is Professor Ishmael Frostt." He hissed hard as he finished the 't' in his name. "I am here to collect the girl."

  "I cannot release the body of the girl to someone who is not her family, Professor." Westmorland stood his ground, fists resting on his hips and feet spread apart in a defiant stance.

  He smiled a strange grin befitting a man such as him, as queer as he was. He nodded and tilted his head as if he understood, but he did not leave. From his imperial blue waistcoat pocket, he withdrew a small weapon. He then took a key, and placed it into a pinhole in the side of the gun to wind it. Mister Westmorland gave a chuckle, believing it to be a clockwork toy of some sort. The Professor pointed the gun toward me, and pulled the trigger.

  What I saw, and what struck me, was terrifying. The toy gun shone a blue light from the barrel, and when the light touched the shoulder of my brown wool coat sleeve, set it alight. I screamed and patted at the flames with my bare hand, trying not to panic. I was in horror, my coat smoked but the flames were out.

  Professor Frostt pointed the little weapon at Mister Westmorland, and fired. The blue beam lit up the chest of the man, and engulfed him in sudden flames. Mister Westmorland twisted and screamed in agony, knocking over the camera behind him and falling to the floor. As Professor Frostt pointed the gun at me once again, I was smart enough to move, jumping out through the window, glass and all smashing, as did my understanding of the world.

  Falling a short distance, I landed on a heap of fresh snow that lay undisturbed on the rooftop of the building next to ours. I did not linger long, but scrambled away in hopes that Professor Frostt would not be able to aim his gun at me the further away I ran. Slipping, nearly falling, I prayed I would not end up sliding down a roof and being shattered by a fall to the street. If given the chance to die by cold or a fall, I prefer death by cold.

  After a few frantic moments more, I'd jumped cross another building to a roof top where I found a door to a stairwell. Once down the stairs and on the street, I was able to stop and take a breath. My heart was racing, my body was both hot and freezing and the air was almost unbearable to breathe in. It was colder than even a few moments before. I turned back to the end of the lane, peeking from a place of safety around a corner. I could see the studio on fire. The flames were not hot enough to warm the air, any water used to fight it would only turn to icicles, no doubt it would be left to burn to the ground.

  As I watched the inferno, I was astonished to see Professor Frostt striding from the building. Untouched by flames and soot, walking towards his strange mechanical horseless carriage, he was accompanied by the much deceased Becky. The shock of what I saw made my guts turn violently, nearly vomiting at the sight of the girl walking on her own, her gown flowing with her slow gait as if woozy from her long sleep. She did not need to be carried; she was as alive as I was. I had heard stories of a mysterious creature, the Zombi in the country of Brazil. A dead person brought back to life by unhallowed means, raised from the grave to become a slave to the resurrectionist. If I did not want to believe in the zombi creature, then what my mother and father had read to me from the family bible was coming to pass.

  My fate was before me, as I was witness to the end of the world. The terror I felt at the moment ground me into a low saddened state of hopelessness. My mind slowly came around to what was happening as I stood there on the icy pavement, and I wondered if I should just stay there. Should I just stay here and freeze to the spot? No, with the weight of the dying world on my shoulders, I straightened myself and carried on. I would go home to my parents and be with them whilst we waited for the inevitable.

  The sky grew darker by what felt like otherworldly means, more snow was falling, the daylight world became night time in a matter of minutes. I walked past a man wearing a placard; he shouted headlines from the Illustrated London gazette."Great Frost returns after two hundred years! Thames freezes sixty-eight centimetres thick in minutes. Ships
trapped in Arctic ice! Many feared dead in violent frost!" I bristled and kept walking, I'd read about the Great Frost in school, this was no mere return of the Great Frost.

  I changed my path home, going to the bridge. Call it curiosity, perhaps I wanted to see how bad it was. The closer I came, the louder the sound of chaos became. I pushed through a crowd of onlookers, and the sight before me was sickening. Ships caught in the ice, along with sailors who had attempted to cut free their ship. As soon as the ice was cut, some of the men had fallen into the waters, then terrifyingly, the ice spread fresh, freezing them where they swam. Sailors, who thought they were saved by ropes from the ships, found the ice had frozen so rapidly, that they were caught, unable to escape. Some men who had fallen in. Their heads just above water, were strangled, their cries for help silenced as the flash freeze crushed their throats and ended their lives.

  I ran from the bridge, feeling as if I had gone mad, thrown in to a terrible fit of dreaming. In my nightmares nothing makes sense, this vision I've had of death and cold was certainly a nightmare, one no one can wake me from.

  Returning home, I was surprised at the warmth I walked into. My parents were in the drawing room, hands folded in prayer, their voices murmuring quietly. I removed my singed coat and sat down in a chair by the fire. I found I could not tell them of the disaster in the outside world, nor could I tell them what had happened to Mister Westmorland. Was it too late to pray for salvation?

  A knock at the door seemed loud and jolting, I came to my senses as if I had fallen into a sleep and was woken. My father looked at me and motioned for me to answer the door. Being a good son, I did. The closer I came to the entrance, the sharper I felt the cold. I was reminded of Professor Frostt and his bitter cold draft. Frost clung to the window glass, again, rapidly spreading. I opened the door, marvelling first at the complete darkness of night time on what should be a sunny mid-afternoon. Not day, but night, a clear and cold star filled sky above the city. I lowered my gaze to a pale man, dressed in black, who stood on the step.