Brasswitch and Bot

by Gareth Ward

  The gentle curve of the Foss Bridge carried them over the river. Now more of a canal than a river, the smoke from steam barges transporting coal and pig-iron into the city drifted up to meet them. To their left lurked the Shambles but the greyhound surged along the more respectable Colliergate. A hodgepodge of Tudor, Georgian and more modern shopfronts flashed past, the tall buildings casting them in shadow. Some hundred yards ahead Penelope Plumplington veered into Goodramgate and they lost sight of her. Bot growled and ran harder still, his feet smashing into the cobbles. He skidded around the corner, sparks trailing behind him. The narrow street snaked past the Minster, made narrower still by merchant stalls stacked with vegetables, fresh fish, and all manner of household necessities. Street vendors pushed their barrows through the crowded thoroughfare, shouting their wares. Overhead towered twisted Tudor houses, their second storeys jutting into the street at strange angles and decorated with colourful hoardings advertising everything from Bile Beans to Royle’s self-pouring teapots.

  “I can’t see her,” yelled Bot, powering onwards.

  Wrench stood further upright and pushed her mind into her goggles. Additional lenses slid into place and the eyepieces telescoped outwards, magnifying her view. They rounded a bend and the street straightened. In the distance, she saw a flash of white and a commotion as a tray of baker’s buns went clattering across the street.

  “I’ve got her. She’s heading towards Lord Mayor’s Walk,” yelled Wrench.

  “Hang on tight.”

  “Because I was thinking of letting go,” she shouted over the crash of Bot’s feet on the cobbles. With a mental flick the magnifying lenses withdrew, and the street’s surrounds came into focus. Shoppers and stallholders cluttered the pavements and ahead a Bartholomew’s Butchery wagon blocked the road. Bot accelerated towards the looming obstruction, seeming indifferent to the fact that there was no way past.

  Wrench held on tighter.

  Bot’s legs bent and in an explosion of steam he leapt onto the roof of the wagon. The lacquered wood canopy creaked under his weight, then with a loud boing, he sprang over the startled horses. He slammed into the cobbles, his feet skidding across the hardened flint. His arms flailed like a windmill in a gale then he regained his balance and resumed his charge after the greyhound.

  “Are you all right?” shouted Bot.

  “Just a bit surprised. I didn’t know you could do that.”

  “Me neither,” said Bot.

  They followed the dog into Lord Mayor’s Walk, which turned out to be more of a Lord Mayor’s sprint. Again, Wrench used her magnifying lenses to keep sight of their prey, and also to take in the view of the Minster, which peeked above the grass bank and thick city wall to her left. Perhaps it was just an effect of the goggles but the violet hue over the shattered tower seemed brighter than she remembered.

  “I think we’re gaining,” said Bot.

  Penelope Plumplington bounded along Clarence Street past rows of squat terraced houses with neat, well-maintained front gardens. Wrench knew little about greyhounds but from an engineer’s perspective they appeared to be built for speed rather than distance and Penelope Plumplington seemed to be tiring.

  “I know where we’re heading,” said Bot.

  “Where?”

  “You said in your vision you saw Plum in a cell.”

  “I never told you that.”

  “Octavia told me.”

  “I never said anything to her.” Wrench frowned. Her anxiety about the vision would have broadcast loud and clear to Octavia. Even without trying to read Wrench’s mind she probably couldn’t have missed it.

  “Only two places have cells. One is prisons.”

  “And the other?” said Wrench.

  The greyhound turned into Asylum Lane.

  “The madhouse,” said Bot.

  York Lunatic Asylum was where those deemed to be of an unfit mind were imprisoned, although what deemed a person as unfit was subject to a wide degree of interpretation. Certainly, many committed to the institution were in need of help, but for others their incarceration was a convenient way for a husband to be rid of a wife, or for a family to deal with a troublesome relative.

  Bot slunk into a copse of stunted trees near the front of the massive red-brick institution. Three storeys high, it menaced the landscape around it. Rows of iron-barred windows radiated an aura of foreboding, their dark countenance sucking all warmth from the August sun.

  “It’s time to get off.” Bot dropped to one knee.

  “Oh no. You’re not leaving me behind.” Wrench tightened her grip.

  “I’m not, Brasswitch. We’re staying put here.”

  “What?” Wrench banged her boots against Bot’s armour, like a rider spurring on a horse. “Plum’s in the asylum. We need to go and get him.”

  “And you think striding up to the front door and kicking it in is the best way?”

  Wrench shrugged. “That seems to be your normal approach.”

  “Not when there’s one of our own inside. And not when we have no idea what we’re up against.”

  “We know what we’re up against: Chain-Head, Parrot-Man and Hammer-Hulk. We scared them off at the Astrologium; we can do it again.”

  “You’re forgetting Lightning-Lady, Octo-Man, and the other Brasswitch. And they’re just the ones we know about. Carwyn was probably involved too; we’ve no idea how many others might be in there.”

  “We can’t leave Plum.” Wrench thumped Bot on his sparkly shoulder.

  “This is unusual, even for department Thirteen. Aberrations don’t normally work well together. You may get one or two acting as a team, but it never lasts. What we’re seeing here is unprecedented.”

  There was something uncertain about the mechanoid. No longer devil may care, act first brag about it later. Wrench had never seen him like this. “You’re scared,” she said.

  “Damn right I’m scared. And if you knew a fraction of what I do you’d be scared too. We need to do this properly. We need to get the QRF and come up with a plan. We can’t afford to mess this up.”

  Wrench’s magnifying lenses slid into place on her goggles and she stared down the tree-lined lane that acted as the main approach to the asylum. “That’s not going to happen.”

  Bot stiffened. “Are you threatening me, Brasswitch?”

  “No. It’s not going to happen because Captain Flemington is racing up the drive with an army of regulators.”

  “Oh, crap!” said Bot.

  The Clifford’s Tower regulators demolished the front door to the asylum and piled inside before Wrench and Bot had a chance to intercept them. Flemington was nowhere to be seen, having charged into the heart of the building surrounded by a phalanx of seasoned operators. Bot grabbed one of the trailing regulators by the arm and yanked him to a stop. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m not allowed to say, Sir,” answered the regulator, his voice trembling. “Captain Flemington’s orders.”

  Bot’s grip tightened and the regulator squealed. “If you value your job as a regulator, and indeed your arm, you’ll answer me.”

  “Yes, Sir,” said the regulator, his voice strained. “By robust interrogation Captain Flemington discovered the asylum was being used to shelter aberrations connected with the flame-mouth.”

  “Carwyn?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Bot let go of the regulator. “Damn it. This is worse than I thought.”

  Screams of the insane echoed from the filthy whitewashed walls. All around, Flemington’s regulators smashed in doors and manhandled the inmates with little regard for their wellbeing. Somewhere to the east an explosion shook the building and screams of a different nature rent the air.

  “Come on,” said Bot. “It sounds like they’re playing our tune.”

  Dust and a haze of smoke wafted up the basement stairs. Slumped against one wall a regulator moaned incoherently. A medic with a large white cross on the back of his red jacket wrapped a bandage around the fallen regulator’s m
angled leg.

  “Don’t go down there, Sir. There’s too many of them,” warned the medic.

  “I’m here to even the odds,” said Bot and descended the stairs.

  The medic reached out to Wrench. “You at least should stay, Miss.”

  Wrench brushed his hand away. “Chuff that. I’m here for my friend,” she said and hurried after Bot.

  Fallen plaster and splintered wood littered the floor at the base of the stairs. A flagstoned hallway stretched ahead of them, its end obscured by steam and a cordite haze. Steel-clad cell doors lined the corridor. Some were open, some were closed, and some hung from their hinges, broken and bent. From the doorways regulators fired blindly into the smoke-filled gloom.

  “In here. Take cover Sir,” shouted one of the regulators.

  Bot ripped a dangling door from its hinges and held it in front of him. “I’m taking cover with me.”

  An oily feeling washed over Wrench. “She’s here, the other Brasswitch,” she shouted above the pandemonium.

  “Can you keep her from affecting me?”

  “I’ll try.” Wrench pushed her mind out, imagining her own aura surrounding Bot, protecting him.

  Bot’s leg armour slid open and he grasped the hand cannon. “Let’s go get our thaumagician back.”

  Wrench shadowed Bot, staying behind the cover of the misappropriated door. Missiles hurtled through the smoke, rattling off the impromptu shield. A volley of sharp bangs deafened Wrench and one corner of the door deformed, the steel plate bulging inwards. An explosion sent a cloud of stone splintering from the floor. Pinging from Bot’s armour, the fragments ricocheted into Wrench. The bubble-brass plates on her trousers crumpled, absorbing the impact.

  “I need backup,” bellowed Bot.

  Regulators pepper-potted from doorway to doorway, clearing the cells as they advanced. Another thunderous salvo ripped into the shield and the weakened metal gave way, a starburst of holes puncturing the door. Bot hurled the shield into the smoke and was rewarded with several pained screams.

  Wishing that Octavia had finished the reinforced jacket to match her trousers, Wrench crouched low behind Bot’s thick armoured legs. The flagstone floor was disturbingly familiar. In her vision, she thought she’d seen a dungeon, but she’d been wrong. It wasn’t a dungeon; it was the asylum.

  Electricity arced through the smoke. Drawn to the metal mass of Bot’s armour, it crackled over the skorpidium-carbide plates. He shuddered, and his arms twitched. “I thought you were protecting me?” he bawled.

  “From the Brasswitch. I can’t do everything.”

  “It’s called multitasking,” said Bot. “Watch and learn.” He raised his left arm to the horizontal, pointing it along the corridor. The curved armour plate sprang upwards, revealing a rack of three rockets. A flint wheel spun, showering sparks over the trailing fuses, and they ignited in a puff of flame.

  Wrench forced her fingers in her ears. With a whoosh, the rockets zoomed into the smoke, exploding in orange balls of flame. Bot levelled his hand cannon and it boomed repetitively, filling the air with steam.

  Something crashed within the smoggy haze followed by a scream, more angry than injured. Bot stalked on, his cannon falling silent as the resistance dwindled. The corridor’s end loomed into view. On the floor, next to a flight of steps, lay a man covered in blood. He clutched a bullet wound in his shoulder with a crab-like claw.

  “Medic,” shouted Bot.

  Wrench lifted her eyes from the injured remarkable to the door in the end wall. It was ostensibly no different from any of the other cell doors: steel-coated wood with a grilled hatch. However, the specific pattern of bullet holes pockmarking the metal was seared into Wrench’s mind. It was the door from her vision. With trembling hands, she pushed it open.

  The door swung inwards with an ominous creak. A sense of déjà vu gripped Wrench and she froze, unable to breathe, unable to slow her frantic pulse. It was exactly as she remembered from her vision. She clenched her teeth, the scene playing out like she wasn’t there, like she was watching through someone else’s eyes, waiting for the inevitable.

  Her shoulders slumped. The cell was empty. She gasped, sucking in a huge breath, the smoky air tasting wonderful. The vision was wrong. A disconcerting thought niggled her and she pressed her hands against her cheeks, pinching the skin. The pain was sharp and reassuring; this was real and not another dream.

  “Are you all right?” asked Bot.

  “Plum’s not dead.”

  “But he’s not here either. Flemington’s gone and blown our only lead.”

  Wrench stepped into the cell. “Not necessarily.” Scratched onto the floor was a drawing. It was the most rudimentary of outlines, but it showed the Minster with its ruined tower and above it, a comet with a flaming tail. “Plum left us a clue.”

  Bot stooped over the image. “What does it mean?”

  “Tomorrow night the comet is at its closest. According to the programs I ran on the orrery, that’s when remarkables are most ‘magical’. I think the Brasswitch is going to use Plum’s magic like a flare to summon the old gods.”

  “Is that even possible?”

  “You said the casket was designed to contain a Non-Indigenous Aberration and slowly leach their power into the atmosphere, like a lightning rod in reverse. What if it could be made to release all that power into the Rupture at once?”

  “Plum’s not an NIA,” said Bot.

  “No. Master Tranter says he’s like a magical capacitor, a magical battery. The Brasswitch is going to charge him with magic then short-circuit him.”

  “You met Tranter?” queried Bot.

  “We had a head to head, you might say.”

  Bot grimaced. “And he agrees with you?”

  “He agrees it would be possible.”

  “That’s simple then. We throw a cordon around the Minster. I’ll guard the casket until the comet’s gone then we all go home for tea and scones.”

  “We’d be going home without Plum.” Wrench ground her boot against the cell floor. “We have to set a trap.”

  “We don’t have the resources. This is too big for Thirteen to handle on its own. I’ll need the help of the Clifford’s Tower Cabal and that means getting Flemington on board.”

  Wrench eyed the devastation in the corridor. “I don’t trust him. The Brasswitch has been one step ahead of us all the way. We need to know whose side he’s really on.”

  “Flemington’s a regulator captain, in charge of a cabal. No matter how much we dislike him we can’t accuse him without evidence.”

  “We have evidence.”

  “No. We have information from a legally dubious search of his lodgings, which we then torched. That’s not a path I want to go down. Besides, if he is involved he’s hardly going to confess just because we confront him.”

  “We don’t need him to. Get him to a meeting with Octavia and she can tell if he’s being truthful.”

  “He’s not going to like that.”

  “He doesn’t have to like it. The fate of the city, possibly the country, is on the line. It’s not as if we’re strapping him into an electric chair.” Wrench rubbed her chin. “Although . . .”

  “We’re not going to electrocute Flemington,” said Bot.

  Wrench spun up her bracers, so they crackled with sparks. “Just a little encouragement wouldn’t hurt, would it?”

  Bot shook his head. “I never thought I’d be standing up for the man, but Captain Flemington is a regulator and we need to respect that.”

  “Even if he’s a traitor?”

  “If he’s a traitor he’s not going to agree to the meeting.”

  “You need to do whatever it takes to get him there,” said Wrench. Plum’s life could depend on it. He was the closest thing she’d had to a friend since the accident and she wasn’t going to abandon him. “We have to know what Flemington’s up to.”

  The QRF escorted Wrench back to Thirteen while Bot remained dealing with the devastation at the asylu
m. On her return, she went straight to Ops room one. If Bot was successful, and Flemington agreed to be questioned, they were only going to get one chance to find out the truth. And not just the truth about where his loyalties lay. It might be her only chance to interrogate him about his obsession with her and the deaths of her parents.

  She pored over the board of stuff taken from Flemington’s apartment, looking for something she’d missed, the proverbial ‘steaming gun’ as the great detective Shirley Holmes might say. However, after several hours reading and re-reading the cryptic notes, journal entries and newspaper articles, her eyelids drooped, and she was still no further forward. She removed her glasses and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, making them squelch.

  Dabbing at her tired eyes with an oily handkerchief, she gazed up at the board. Without her glasses, it was a blurred mess, and because of that something stood out. One of the newspaper clippings was different from all the others. Rather than being neatly trimmed with scissors all the way around, it had one ragged edge where part of it had been ripped away.

  She pushed her glasses back onto her nose and moved closer to the board. The story detailed the crash of the Drake and was similar to that of numerous other clippings but what made this one special was the photo. It showed Wrench and her parents stood on the platform before the Drake departed. Half of the photo was missing; the right-hand edge of the picture had been torn away.

  Wrench burst from the Ops room and sprinted to her cabin. She barged the door open, ignoring the smashed lock where the regulator she’d previously trapped had escaped. On her bookcase rested the very same photo, but this one was complete. She lifted the frame and stared at the picture. She’d looked at the photograph a thousand times before but had only ever paid attention to the figures in the foreground, herself and her parents. Behind them, over their shoulders, someone was getting into one of the carriages. Wrench removed her glasses and strapped on the goggles Todkin had crafted. She activated the magnifying lenses and zoomed in on the figure. The image was blurred but there was no doubting who it showed. This was the steaming gun she’d been looking for, of that she was certain. She slumped into a chair and removed her goggles. What she’d discovered was most definitely wrong, but what did it mean? Only one person could answer that, and hopefully, if Bot was successful, they would be questioning him tomorrow.