Ticker by Lisa Mantchev
No.
Numbness spread down my shoulders and into my arms. Sebastian caught Violet just as she reached the door. She kicked and screamed until he clamped a hand over her mouth. She must have bitten him, because he flinched but didn’t let her go a second time. As my legs failed me, Warwick picked me up and carried me to the largest of the metal tables. Muttering all the while, he strapped down my arms. When I turned my head, I could just make out Nic crouched upon the floor, whimpering like a kicked pup, hands pressed to his face.
“I’ll see to your brother in a moment,” Warwick promised before turning to contemplate the surgical implements, the bits of cotton wadding, the dark glass bottles standing in soldiers’ rows before he finally found what he was looking for: my new clockwork heart. It was a lovely brass gleaming thing, small, compact, far more refined than the device dying by inches in my chest. “First things first.”
My old Ticker was done. I could feel it winding down as it had so many times before, but each beat lingered a bit longer than it should, a vibration of finality in every contraction. The entire mechanism thrummed gently, as though trying to rock me to sleep.
“I’ll fight you with my last breath,” I told him.
“Good.” Warwick’s voice faded, and the improvised operatory stretched out before me like a train tunnel through a mountain pass.
My Ticker gave one last thud.
It seemed only seconds later that pain was a hot coal shovel lodged deep in my chest. I struggled against it, against the flesh that held me captive, against the straps pinning me against cold metal. My eyes flickered open, and I caught sight of Warwick, bloody up to his elbows, bright red splashes fading up his chest to the dull color of rust.
“I brought you out of sedation.” His desperate words belied the grace with which his hands moved as he dripped Quick-Heal into my mouth. “You need to fight. You must. Your survival depends as much upon your own will to live as it does this device. Fight to live. Fight as she couldn’t, damn you!”
I felt pressure on my chest, then heard a wet sucking noise. With a shudder, the new ventriculator began to work, moving pain through my body in spurts of summer lightning. Had I not been strapped down, I would have curled in on myself and whimpered.
“Why?” I could hardly give voice to the word, so faint was the breath leaving my lungs. “Why are you doing this?”
“Don’t you understand? We’ve both had our hearts broken.” Warwick bent down to whisper in my ear. “Death took from me the thing I loved most in this world. Now I am going to cheat it at every turn.”
“Dimitria wouldn’t want you to do any of this,” I said.
“Oh, but she would.” Warwick clamped a white rag over my nose and mouth; instead of chloroform, I smelled only roses. “Her last words to me were ‘Save Penny.’ ”
THIRTEEN
In Which All the Turns in the Waltz Are Reverses
It was some time before I woke again; I could tell by the crust on the edge of the bandages crackling nastily against my skin, by the sharp reek of disinfectant cutting through the copper tang of blood. My throat was raw, probably from screaming. Four blue glass bottles of Quick-Heal sat on the nearest table, three of them empty. Closing a hand down upon the fourth, I uncapped and drained it in one swift movement.
Returning the bottle to the table, I jangled the wires and rubber tubing attached to my arms and chest. Holding my breath, I tested each one, then pulled them out, singly and in pairs. I wore only my shift, and the room was Glacia cold, as though Warwick had decided we were best served chilled, just like one of Dreadnaught’s fancy melon ices. My breath turned to mist with every exhalation, and I couldn’t feel the end of my nose.
Circulatory complications, my inner clinician noted with detachment.
The lamps burned spots into my retinas, and I experienced one brief, panicked moment thinking Warwick had Augmented my eyes as well. I forced myself to breathe, to give myself time to adjust to the circumstances. The surgeon was conspicuous in his absence, though the space around me still reverberated with his grief-fueled convictions. Sebastian was also missing, but Violet lay on another table some distance away. I wasn’t certain if she was alive. Hands at her sides, skin pallid, she took a sip of air only after several long seconds. Still wearing his gray costume livery, Nic slept next to her.
I levered myself to a mostly upright position, sweat gathering at my temples. The skin on the backs of my hands was a horrible shade of gray. My circulation was definitely compromised. I couldn’t tell if the fault lay with the new Ticker or my own body; either way, I needed a stimulant.
My Pixii sat on a nearby workbench, but there was the small matter of getting to it. I counted off the steps it would take, calculated the amount of energy I would need. Shoring up my reserves, I slid from the metal operating table. My feet rasped against the wooden floorboards. My thin cotton gown wasn’t enough to protect me from the chill of the room, and my teeth began to chatter. The sound of ivory on ivory filled my head until I could hardly think over the noise of it. I had to rest against the counter for forty-nine beats of the Ticker before I could close my fingers around the Pixii’s handle. By the time I located the depression switch, my knees wobbled. Charging the device took another twenty-seven seconds. Gritting my teeth, I set the metal foreprongs against the skin just below my chin.
The second I depressed the switch, I staggered back. Though I tried to brace myself, a blinding rush of energy roared straight to my head. Within seconds, my entire body radiated warmth. My veins thrummed, and my hands turned pink.
Tingling all over, I almost missed the soft cadence of boots against the stage floor. Ducking behind the nearest table, I could feel my pulse, a god’s hammer on an anvil. The acute cold faded into the distant background as I recharged the Pixii. The curtain nearest me parted, and Sebastian entered. His handheld torch cut a swath of light across the operatory, over Nic, over Violet. When he reached my empty makeshift bed, I leapt forward and jammed the Pixii’s foreprongs under his chin. The discharge suffused the white draperies with blinding blue light. Before it had completely faded, Sebastian crumpled to the ground.
Seconds later, at least a dozen mechanical Spiders staggered out of his ears. Dull brass instead of the black ones I’d seen at the courthouse, they twitched and jerked in disoriented circles before their legs gave out completely.
It’s like using an electrified net on the Butterflies.
Sweeping aside the Spiders with my arm, I knelt on the floor and checked Sebastian’s heart rate and his pupils before hastening to Nic. Delicate metal plates covered my brother’s entire left hand. A set of brass screws marked the line of his jaw—perceived weaknesses of flesh and bone, I could only assume, given Warwick’s fervid speech on the subject.
Forcing myself to move quickly, I set the Pixii under Nic’s chin, held my breath, and discharged it with a zing. He convulsed, his body stiffening with the transferred energy, then he fell back, limp and pale.
No response from him, and no Spiders.
Trying not to panic, I recharged the device, nearly cracking the dial in half as I twisted it up to the maximum setting. A second burst of light, a second round of waiting.
Still nothing.
Blinking back the burn of tears, I smashed the Pixii against the side of the table and peered at its shiny innards. With a few bits of wiring removed, I could dial up its power to twice what I’d used on Nic before. There was the chance that I’d kill him . . .
Or that he’d rouse from this sleep and kill me first.
Holding my breath, I braced the disembodied prongs under his chin and gave him everything the little machine had. A muffled pop was the only noise for a long moment, then a sudden wave of bugs poured out of my brother like a plague. Silver this time and at least twice as many as had been in Sebastian, they rushed forward as though drawn by invisible wires to the Pixii. Scrambling back, I struggled to piece the device together as they gave chase. Their legs tappity-tapped against the flo
Balancing the broken bits of the Pixii in my shaking hands, I somehow generated enough crackling energy to make my hair stand on end. Attracted by the warm hum of power, the Spiders leapt at me; the moment they alighted upon my skin, I pressed the discharge button. The blast knocked me off my feet, and I fell hard on my backside. Everything smelled of singed cotton and fizzled copper wiring. A straggling strand of my hair smoked, ready and willing to burst into merry flames. I licked my fingers and put out the threat of fire with a small, final hiss. Spiders surrounded me, their clockwork corpses twitching in a danse macabre.
“Penny?” Nic groaned.
“I’m here.” Three steps closed the distance between us, and then I had my arms about him. His body, under the tattered shirt, was stiff and unyielding.
“By all the Bells, don’t squeeze me,” was the somewhat muffled protest as my brother sat up. “There’s precious little on my person that doesn’t ache. Even my hair hurts.”
I responded by hugging him all the harder. “There has to be another bottle of Quick-Heal in here somewhere.”
Pale and disheveled as he was, Nic’s eyes gleamed with the faintest golden light. “I hope to Cogs my memory is faulty,” he said with a groan, “but did I actually punch you in the face?”
In spite of myself, I took a step back. “You did. And I jammed my fingers into your ocular Augmentations, though it seems Warwick repaired them.”
He turned his head aside as though too ashamed to meet my gaze. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“I know,” I said. Warwick and his Spiders had done more than prey upon Nic’s resentment toward me; they’d sown wild seeds of doubt between us. “We’ll talk about that later.”
Looking very much like he might vomit, Nic stumbled against the nearest table. “Where’s Warwick?”
“In absentia.”
“The Spiders?”
I pointed to the smashed bits on the floor. “Obliterated.”
“Well played,” Nic whispered. “What about Sebastian?”
“Resting, for the moment,” I said. “Where are Mama and Papa?”
“Tidied away in a storage closet like a pair of brooms last I saw them.” Nic’s every word emanated furious purpose. “We’ll see this ended, Penny.”
“Yes, we will,” I agreed.
As one, we moved to Violet’s side, but it was Nic who leaned over, brushed a strand of dark hair from her cheek, and adjusted the crooked collar of her walking-out dress. I held my breath, wondering if he’d kiss the sleeping princess awake, but he was too much a gentleman for that sort of behavior.
“Violet,” he said, soft and urgent all at once. “We have to get out of here.”
Though her eyelashes fluttered, she didn’t rouse.
“There’s a faster way to get her up,” I said, nudging her roughly. “You’ve slept over your alarm, Nesselrode. Customers are waiting at the counter, and the sticky buns have risen out of their pans.”
When she sat bolt upright, she nearly took my nose off. “What’s happened?!”
I clamped an arm about her before she bailed off the table. “Calm yourself, it’s all right.”
“What about the buns?” Violet pivoted her head about. “This isn’t my room. This isn’t your room. Where are we?”
“In dire circumstances,” Nic said, helping me lower her to the floor. “You ran afoul of Warwick.”
Violet’s face paled, but her grip on us intensified. “I remember now. And Sebastian . . .” She ran her gaze over us, the same keen glance that took inventory of the bakery stockroom in less than ten seconds. “Sebastian ambushed me!”
“He wasn’t altogether himself,” was all I had time to say before Violet turned and flung herself at Nic.
“Never mind that now,” she said, blinking back tears. “You might have died, and all I’ve been able to think about was that stupid fight.”
Nic slipped his arms about her and murmured something in her ear as I crept away from the string of apologies that followed. Still, I caught snippets of “No, it was all my fault” and “I was afraid I’d never see you again” from both of them, followed by enough kissing to set my face ablaze.
As they made their amends, I located the smelling salts and turned my attention to Sebastian’s prone form. “Mister Stirling, it’s time to wake up.” Waving the bottle under his nose earned me a frown. A stiff and well-deserved slap to his cheek roused him the rest of the way.
“Penny, my darling,” he mumbled, “I hoped that someday I would wake to find you by my side. I just didn’t think it would be because you tried to kill me.”
“If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead.” I looked down at him. “Whatever you say next, don’t bother to be charming. I’m not in the mood.”
Sebastian’s eyes suddenly widened, and he jerked up as though I’d taken the Pixii to him again. “We have to warn Marcus.”
I caught hold of him by the shoulders. “About what?”
“A hundred SugarWerks Carry-Away Boxes distributed around the city. At the train terminals. The Meridian port. The airfield.” Sebastian heaved himself up, wincing as he jarred his Augmented knee. “I personally delivered the damn things to diplomats and government officials, every prominent aristocrat, shipping baron, manufacturer, and registered member of the Edoceon movement.”
Violet whirled about, looking as if she might strangle him. “You stole boxes from SugarWerks?”
Less concerned with the containers than the contents, I stared at Sebastian. “What’s in the boxes?”
“Mechanical Spiders. More than enough to bring the city to a standstill. Marcus needs to know before the timers go off.” Noticing that I wore only my shift, Sebastian shrugged off his jacket and draped it over my shoulders.
“We also need to get Mama and Papa,” I said. “What do we have in the way of weapons, other than my Pixii?”
As it turned out, there were plenty: razor-sharp scalpels, syringes of sedatives, and the metal legs off the operating tables, which would serve as clubs. Nic hastily patched the Pixii back together with some spare plates and wires, but the poor thing was prone to buzzing and sparking without warning now. Still, I felt safer with it at the ready.
“Let’s go,” Nic said once we were armed.
We tiptoed across the stage, eased open a door, and entered a long corridor. Unnatural quiet surrounded us, broken only by the sound of our muffled footsteps upon the rug. After the brilliant illumination of the operatory, my eyes struggled to adjust. Nic’s ocular Augmentations must have compensated for the lack of light, but he still moved with caution that matched my own.
Doors on either side of us bore small luminous nameplates identifying the contents of each alcove: film canisters, construction supplies, cleaning equipment. Warning signs marked the rooms containing nitrocellulose, and we gave those a wide berth. At the end of the hallway, Sebastian pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked the door.
The room beyond smelled of stale tea and sweat. A lantern with a red glass globe burned atop a table littered with overturned cups and crumbs. Blindfolded and bound, our parents huddled together on the floor. Their clothes were grimy and rumpled, like those of naughty children caught playing in a coal hole. Far from being chastened, though, our father reared up his head like a bull about to charge.
“Coward!” he roared. Despite the dried blood crackling in his beard and the rusty flecks decorating his linen, he vibrated with indignation and strength.
This wasn’t the empty shell sloshing with alcohol we’d known this last year. This was my father.
Nic closed the door as I flew across the room and pressed my fingers to Papa’s mouth.
“Quiet,” I ordered him. “It’s not Warwick.”
“Penny?” When I jerked his blindfold off, he flinched away from the light.
I reached out and pulled the cloth from her eyes. For a fleeting moment, I looked at a blurred picture of Dimitria, her copper hair falling over her shoulders, eyes filled with tears; then everything came into focus and I held my mother in my arms, breathing in the trace of rose water under the acrid scents of fear and fury. “Are you all right?” I asked.
“Get out, the lot of you, before he comes back—” A bout of coughing curtailed my father’s order. Apparently he hadn’t been taken without a fight, and Warwick must not have spared any Quick-Heal for him.
Nic landed alongside me, his Augmented fingers attacking the knots. “Save your strength. We’re going to need it to get out of this place.”
The moment Papa’s hands were free, he reached into his breast pocket for his spectacles. He wrapped the wires about his ears as Nic turned to Mama.
“Let me see what he did to you,” she demanded. When her ropes dropped to the floor, she grasped Nic’s Augmented hand and turned it over.
“I’m fine, I promise.” He averted his gaze before she could look into his eyes. “We’ve no time for an examination.”
“Where’s the nearest exit?” Mama asked, finding her feet and looking over the group like a hen counting her chicks.
“The stage door, but it’s rigged with sensors and explosives.” Sebastian led us out of the storeroom and down the hall. “The front entrance is farther, but at least we’ll leave with our limbs intact.”
I charged the Pixii to its full capacity as we hurried. “We need to get everyone out and signal Marcus for help. We still have the Carry-Away Boxes to worry about.”
“I expected the almighty Kingsley to be here by now, astride a white horse, colors flying,” Sebastian observed as we made our way up a twisting staircase.