Brasswitch and Bot

by Gareth Ward

  “You shouldn’t be here. You need to rest. I tried to persuade Bot, but he said he needed you.”

  “I don’t want to miss out if we’re going after Flemington.”

  “We’re not exactly going after Flemington; it’s more damage limitation.”

  Much of the recent talk at Thirteen had been about how the captain had not taken the burning of his rooms well. Rumour had it he’d cried for a day over the loss of Lady Lovelace before launching into his enquiries with a new-found vigour, claiming an aberration connected to Carwyn must be responsible. The net result of his zeal had left one aberration dead and three more possible suspects awaiting Flemington’s robust questioning.

  The carriage rocked again. Plum reached out to steady Wrench. She shrugged away from his help, unfolded her arms and gripped the edge of the seat. “So where are we heading?” she asked, ignoring the hurt look in Plum’s deep purple eyes.

  “The Spread Eagle Tavern. Flemington thinks he’s got a lead on a remarkable.”

  “So, why’s this different from any of the others he’s hunted down?”

  “The remarkable in question is one of Bot’s informants, which at best is going to leave Thirteen with some difficult questions to answer.”

  “Remarkables snitch to the regulators,” said Wrench with disdain.

  Plum tilted his head. “Because that’s so much worse than working for them?”

  “It’s not like we had a choice, and besides, we’re trying to help.”

  “I guess Tommy Four Thumbs thinks he’s helping too. As Carwyn demonstrated, some remarkables are bad, and with the abilities they possess their potential to be remarkably bad is considerable.”

  Had Carwyn been bad before the villagers shunned him? Or had they made him bad, the constant drip of hatred poisoning him? Wrench knew what it was like not to fit in, to want to belong and not be allowed. She’d been lucky though; Mr Grimthorpe had sheltered her from the worst of it. Carwyn had no such powerful protector.

  “Did Bot brief you on the plan?” she asked.

  “Not as such. He said something about using his innate skills of tact and diplomacy to defuse the situation.”

  “He has all the tact of a half-brick in the face.”

  Plum’s finger twitched through a succession of shapes. “Which considering it’s Flemington isn’t necessarily a bad approach.”

  Wrench smiled. The fact that the captain had been only seconds away from electrocuting her in the dungeons was enough for her to hate him, but she wondered why Plum and the other regulators loathed him. “How come nobody else likes Flemington?”

  “Well, I don’t like to talk ill of another regulator,” said Plum in a way that meant he was about to do precisely that, “But apart from being a nasty piece of work with all the charm of the pox, he’ll do anything to move up the ranks. He doesn’t care who he has to tread on and he sees his overzealous pursuit of remarkables as a means to that end.”

  Plum was still an enigma to Wrench but she was sure he was hiding something. “What’s Bot’s beef with him?”

  “When the previous head of Thirteen retired, Flemington thought he was in line for the job. Bot was promoted instead and Flemington’s been trying to discredit him ever since.”

  Wrench grimaced. Flemington in charge of Thirteen would be like a fox in charge of the chickens. No wonder Bot had been chosen. Remarkables were what made Thirteen the potent force it was, and she couldn’t imagine Flemington working hand in hand, or indeed hand in tentacle, with them. If the attitudes of the QRF were anything to go by, even with Bot at the helm the deep-seated prejudice in the regulators was hard to overcome. How much worse would it be with a bigot like Flemington in charge?

  “And what about you, Plum?”

  “What about me?”

  “There’s something going on between you and Flemington. I just can’t work it out.”

  The corners of Plum’s mouth turned down and he stared at the floor. “When I was nine my powers started to become a problem. It was like I’d be so charged with magic it had to find a way out. I was with my ma, fetching the day’s bread and a horse bolted down the street, dragging the milk cart behind it. I couldn’t see because my eyes were bandaged but the sound terrified me. My eyes burned through the cloth and sent a pulse of raw thaumaturgy right at the horse. Poor beast turned to ash mid-gallop. The regulators were called and Flemington arrested me.”

  “But Bot rescued you, like he did me?”

  “Yes. Bot saved me.” Plum looked out of the window and shuddered. “Only Flemington interrogated me for two weeks first.”

  Wrench stepped from the carriage. Squat red-brick terraces closed the streets in on both sides, their net-curtained windows grey and uninviting. The tavern was the one bright spot in the street; cast-iron gas lamps hung from brackets on the walls, giving it a homely feel. A floral display below the bottle-glass front windows added to the welcoming ambience.

  “This looks quaint. Is it definitely the right place?” asked Wrench.

  A body hurtled through the front window, shattering it with a resounding crash.

  Plum’s fingers twitched into a form Wrench didn’t recognise. “Yeah. I’d say so.”

  “Looks like the party’s started early.” Bot clanked towards the door. “Let’s see if we’re on the guest list.”

  “He calls it a party, I call it another opportunity to die horribly,” muttered Plum.

  “Shouldn’t someone help the man on the pavement?” asked Wrench.

  “Reckon he can help himself.”

  The man got to his feet and brushed glass from his thick woollen jacket. His large hands had the appearance of granite, as did his face. He cricked his neck, the sound clacking like pebbles on a beach, then he loped back into the pub.

  The Spread Eagle’s interior was a scene of chaos. Overturned tables and barstools littered the room. Three mechanoid enforcers stood inert by the broken window, their heads hanging limp. On the floor, a regulator battled with the man who’d run back into the pub, while at the bar a four-armed fiend strangled Flemington.

  Wrench reached out to the mechanoids. They weren’t damaged or broken; however, something was keeping them inert. Where normally their gears, valves and pistons would have felt crisp and clear they were hazy. Her mind sensed the familiar oily feeling. This time it was stronger, not just a barrier to her abilities but interfering with the mechanoids, stopping them from working.

  Bot’s giant fingers grasped the stone-skinned remarkable struggling with the regulator. “You can walk out of the door or go through the window again.” He heaved the man up, so his feet dangled clear of the pub’s wooden floorboards. Bot’s head moved to within an inch of the man’s granite-like face. “But make no bones about it; if I put you through the window you won’t be getting back up again.”

  The man rasped something that sounded vaguely like door and pointed to the exit. Bot lowered him to the ground.

  Plum and Wrench helped the bloodied regulator onto a stool while Bot marched over to the bar.

  “That’s enough now, Tommy,” said Bot.

  Keeping three of his hands clasped firmly around Flemington’s throat Tommy pointed at Bot. “We had a deal.”

  “And I have kept that deal.”

  Tommy gestured to the trashed pub. “What do you call this?”

  “An unfortunate misunderstanding.”

  “You were supposed to protect me, leave the pub alone.”

  “And I did. Unfortunately, Captain Flemington plays very much to his own tune. And it’s one of those incredibly annoying tunes, like a busker with a penny whistle.”

  “Well, I’m silencing that tune,” said Tommy, returning his hand to Flemington’s throat.

  “I understand your frustration, Tommy, I really do. Ne’er a day goes by when I don’t want to strangle the captain myself, but I can’t let you –”

  Bot’s whole body shuddered, the metal plates of his armour clanking. “Brasswitch!” he bellowed, his body twitc
hing.

  Wrench took a step back. The oily feeling that surrounded the mechanoid enforcers rippled through the pub. “It’s not me,” she said.

  Bot growled. “There’s another Brasswitch.” His voice was stilted, every word an effort. His arm trembling, he gripped Tommy’s head. His fingers splayed over the man’s skull and he began to squeeze.

  All four of Tommy’s hands dropped from Flemington’s throat and the captain sank to his knees, gasping for breath.

  A look of panic on his face, Tommy said, “Not guilty, governor. Someone just killed them mechs and I was grateful for the help but it’s nothing I know about.”

  Straining to turn his head towards Plum and Wrench, Bot stuttered, “F-find the B-Brasswitch.”

  Wrench hurried behind the bar, following the direction of the oily feeling.

  “Where are we going?” asked Plum nervously.

  “Can’t you feel it?”

  “Feel what?”

  “The magic,” said Wrench, pushing through a door into the pub’s kitchen.

  Plum shook his head. “I’ve got nothing. If there’s magic, it’s not of my kind.”

  A half-plucked chicken lay atop a battered table. Next to the fowl rested a pile of mud-covered carrots and potatoes. Hanging from the ceiling on hooks and chains, a host of dull silver pots and pans swung gently as if disturbed by a breeze. Two heavy skillets clattered together, and Wrench looked up. The air was still, but she saw, or maybe sensed, a shadowy current flowing past the pans, along the ceiling, then disappearing into a low wooden door set beneath the stairs.

  “We need to head to the cellar,” she said and hauled the door open.

  “Oh, great,” said Plum. “Because nothing bad ever happened in a dark spooky cellar.” He flicked a light switch and a feeble Edison bulb glowed orange in the gloom.

  The oily feeling shifted, then with a loud plink the cellar returned to darkness. Wrench reached out with her mind, following the wires from the switch to the bulb. Where there should have been a beautiful tungsten coil there was now only a molten mess. The bulb hadn’t blown by accident.

  Plum made a sign with his hand and a bubble of light appeared floating above it.

  “How did you do that?” said Wrench.

  Plum gave her a puzzled look. “Magic.”

  “Obviously magic. I mean how did you do that, precisely?”

  “Kind of hard to explain. Kind of difficult to do. And after your last attempts, kind of not something I want to elaborate on.”

  Wrench peered into the gloom. A set of rickety steps led down, disappearing into the murk. “You first,” she said.

  “Why do I have to go first?” complained Plum.

  “Because you have the light.”

  Plum looked at the glowing bubble. “Damn!” He descended into the cellar, the steps creaking alarmingly. Wrench followed him down, the wood groaning beneath her feet. The smell of stale beer and damp hung in the air. Against one wall sat a row of wooden casks. Tarnished copper pipes ran from brass valves in the tops of the barrels to the ceiling where they disappeared into the bar above. Beyond the barrels an archway led to a further room. Plum stiffened. A rat the size of a small dog scurried across the floor and disappeared into a broken pipe.

  Living in the city, rodents were an unpleasant fact of life. The council’s rat pipers would periodically clear a district, but it was only ever a matter of days before they returned. She stepped closer to Plum, who had stalled at the bottom of the stairs. “It’s only a rat – let’s get this done.”

  Plum shuffled towards the archway, the hand bearing the light outstretched ahead of him.

  The door at the top of the stairs slammed shut and the oily feeling suddenly vanished. The light in Plum’s hand flickered.

  “Now I feel something,” said Plum. “Strong magic.” The light flared dazzlingly bright, and Plum screamed.

  Wrench squeezed her eyes shut, blinded by the glare. She held her hands over her face. They blocked the light but did nothing to stop the stench of burning flesh. The light died and a thud like a sack of coal slung from a merchant’s cart reverberated through the darkness. Purple splotches filled Wrench’s vision. Blindly she reached out for Plum, but he was gone.

  “Plum! Plum, where are you?” she shouted, her voice high-pitched and reedy.

  She dropped to her knees and crawled forwards, feeling for the thaumagician. Her hands scuffed across the rough damp flags, finding nothing. Beyond the archway steam hissed, followed by the clunk and clatter of turning gears. She reached out with her mind to the unknown machine. The oily feeling returned, stronger than ever, pushing back at her, forming an ever-shifting barrier, deflecting her thoughts from the device.

  She needed to find Plum and she couldn’t do that in the dark. She had no lantern but if she could generate a spark with her bracers it would give her enough light to see. Her mind went to the Wimshurst discs, but they refused to accelerate, plodding around in slow circles, the oily presence retarding their progress.

  Behind her a loud crash emanated from the direction of the stairs. Bot burst through the door demolishing a large section of the wall in the process. He piled down the steps, which splintered under his weight, collapsing as he descended.

  “Brasswitch,” yelled Bot.

  “Over here,” said Wrench. “I can’t find Plum.”

  Light flooded the cellar through the large Bot-shaped hole. On the flagstones, surrounded by blood, rested Plum’s fez. The thaumagician himself had vanished.

  A spot-lamp telescoped from Bot’s shoulder and played across the cellar. He clenched his fist ready for battle and strode through the archway. Wrench pushed herself to her feet and followed. The room beyond was empty except for a stack of beer casks against one wall and a steam-powered cellar hoist that was stuck in the up position, the lifting platform having pushed open the trapdoors in the street above.

  Bot pulled the brass lever on the wall to lower the lift. Steam hissed from the pistons and pumps strained to turn, but the platform didn’t budge. “Brasswitch, lower the platform.”

  Wrench moved her mind into the machinery. The mechanism was straightforward and would have been simple enough to operate had the main gearwheel not been a molten fused lump.

  “It’s wrecked,” said Wrench. “We’re stuck.”

  “Not yet we’re not.” Bot seized two beer casks and carried them to the next room, depositing them on the floor. He grasped what remained of the stairs and heaved backwards. Gears ground, then with a splintering crack the wood came away from the walls. Bot discarded it and fetched more casks, stacking them to make an impromptu set of stairs.

  “Go,” said Bot.

  Wrench scrambled up the barrels to the kitchen and ran outside. The cellar hoist poked into the now deserted street. She cast her mind about, searching for the oily feeling, searching for Plum. She sensed nothing. Her friend was gone.

  Wrench sipped a ginger beer at a worn wooden table in the trashed bar of The Spread Eagle. Between drinks she held the squat brown bottle’s cool glass against her temple, hoping to quell the needle-like headache piercing her brain. Beside her sat Tommy Four Thumbs and opposite, his face like thunder, fumed Flemington. Nobody spoke. Bot had told them to wait, and so they did. To Wrench’s surprise Flemington had offered little resistance to the command. After another botched operation, which was at best only quasi-official, Wrench suspected he was on thin ice. A regulator had gone missing, possibly kidnapped by remarkables, and he needed to do whatever he could to salvage the situation.

  Tommy drummed his fingers on the table with all four of his hands. Flemington glared at him, making no effort to hide his disdain.

  The flavoursome fizz of the ginger beer tingled Wrench’s tongue and a ripple of magic flowed to her fingers. The ginger beer solidified, turning into a semi-frozen slush. Great, now it worked when she didn’t need it. What had happened to the magic in the cellar? Plum hadn’t sensed anything until the oily feeling disappeared. Perhaps it not only
blocked her abilities but magic too. So why had Plum’s light spell worked?

  Bot stalked into the room and sank onto a stool, his joints hissing. “Still no sign.”

  “We should be out there helping to search,” said Flemington. “Not in here confined to the naughty chair.”

  Wrench baulked at the idea of agreeing with her nemesis but for once he had a point. They were wasted here, doing nothing while who knew what horrors Plum was enduring.

  “This wasn’t chance; it was planned,” said Bot. “Someone targeted Thirteen and I need to know why.”

  “You need to get Plum back. That’s the priority,” said Wrench. She couldn’t shake the vision of Plum being tortured. While he’d been safe at Thirteen she’d been able to dismiss the dream as fantasy; now that he had been taken the image played over and over, vivid in its cruelty.

  “We will get him back. However, we have to understand the big picture.”

  “What makes you think Thirteen was the target?” said Flemington.

  “The Brasswitch that did this is powerful. She disabled the mechs, blocked our Brasswitch and did the magical equivalent of sucker-punching Plum. Yet she didn’t take you out,” said Bot, looking at Flemington.

  “Maybe I was just too much of a threat?”

  “Yeah, and maybe mechanical monkeys will fly out of my oil plug,” said Bot. “No, she wanted the fight balanced so we’d be wrong-footed when we arrived. Then she attacked me knowing I’d send Plum and our Brasswitch to counter her.”

  “That’s a risky plan. Too many moving parts,” said Flemington.

  “Not if she was prepared to wait. She could see how events unfolded and just disappear if the opportunity to take Plum didn’t arise.”

  Wrench rubbed her temple where the pain was collecting. “The strange presence I told you about before, I felt it here too, only much stronger. Perhaps the Brasswitch originally planned to take Plum at the church.”

  “Plum didn’t go inside,” said Flemington. “You left him outside threatening me.”

  “I left him outside because he had no magic,” said Bot.