The Clockill and the Thief

by Gareth Ward

  Seeming unconcerned for his son’s plight, Nimrod took a spotted handkerchief from the pocket of his tweed jacket and polished a speck of grime from one of the weapon’s four trumpet-shaped barrels. “This is the mark one Nimrod Barm Entangler,” he said proudly. “It’s still in development, but I believe using it to capture Eldritch will provide a most excellent field test.”

  Sin flexed his shoulders, trying to shrug free of the net. The rope constricted, the rough cord digging into his skin.

  “You can’t break free?” challenged Nimrod.

  The more Sin struggled, the tighter the net grew, until even breathing became difficult. The rope cut into his skin, crushing his ribs.

  “Interesting,” said Nimrod, peering closer.

  Sin felt more like the scientist’s experiment than his son. In many ways, he was. He understood why he had to keep his parentage secret – not even Zonda knew. However, occasionally he’d like Nimrod to act more like a father and less like a Super-Pangene donor.

  “The net’s another invention of mine,” said Nimrod. “It’s made from friction hemp. The more you struggle, the tighter it becomes.”

  “I got that,” croaked Sin. “Can’t actually breathe.”

  Nimrod placed the Entangler on the ground and took a brass pressure sprayer from his belt. Depressing the handle, he sent a fine mist of peppermint-smelling droplets wafting over Sin. Creaking like the rigging on a ship, the net slackened.

  Worming his way free of the hemp cords, Sin took a deep breath, the lingering scent pleasantly invigorating. He rubbed at the criss-cross of marks left on his skin and glared at Zonda. “You set me up.”

  “I assure you it was nothing but happy coincidence, and indeed no more than you deserve,” said Zonda, smiling cherubically.

  “The young lady speaketh the truth, and such fortune has demonstrated the efficacy of the weapon.” Nimrod returned the pressure spray to his belt. “Zonda is no match for you in direct combat, much as you are no match for Eldritch, especially when we need him alive. The Entangler will allow you to capture him unscathed.”

  Sin rolled his shoulder, feeling the scar pull tight. There was no way Eldritch was coming out of the net unscathed. Alive maybe, but the man had nearly killed him. He wasn’t going to let that slide. Sin hadn’t been allowed to visit Eldritch in custody, and he was adamant that a considerable degree of payback was due.

  Nimrod folded the net and loaded a weighted corner into each of the four barrels before handing the Entangler to Zonda. “I hear you’re quite the markswoman.”

  With the stock pulled tightly into her shoulder, Zonda lowered her eye to the telescopic sight. She twisted, training the weapon on Sin.

  “No way,” said Sin, stepping sideways. “I’ve had enough of being used for target practice. It may not be lethal, but it bally well knocks the stuffing out of you.”

  “Maybe you should practise on the Battler Boy.” Nimrod walked to the edge of the arena and fiddled with a robot that looked like a punching bag on wheels. The battler slammed its six boxing-gloved hands together and chugged across the sand.

  Zonda slowed her breathing and tracked the battler’s progress, leading with the weapon.

  Enthralled, Sin watched the change in his friend. Put a firearm in Zonda’s hands and she became a different person: hardened, focused, deadly. She squeezed the trigger and steam erupted from the barrels. The net flew across the arena and slammed into the battler, ensnaring it. The robot gave a mournful hiss and toppled over.

  “Oh, good shot!” exclaimed Nimrod.

  “Shooting Eldritch isn’t going to be the problem.” Zonda lowered the Entangler. “Finding him is.”

  “There’s another happy coincidence,” said Nimrod. “Next Tuesday, an overnight visit to Coxford is timetabled for the candidates. We need to get everyone fitted with their outfits for the Heroes Ball. You two will slip away and Sin can use his underworld contacts to track down Eldritch.”

  Sin’s thoughts immediately went to the Fixer. The nefarious gang leader had overseen Sin’s life of crime on the streets of Coxford. If anyone could find Eldritch in the city it would be the Fixer. Hell, he probably already knew the traitor’s whereabouts, and was just waiting for the right financial incentive to share the information.

  The plan was taking shape. With Sin’s connections, Nimrod’s technology and Zonda’s shooting skills, the mission certainly had legs. But a sense of unease still nagged at Sin. A surprise attack had floored him in the arena; if he let Eldritch get the drop on him, the results would be fatal.

  Nimrod’s private laboratory was situated at the top of a baroque tower towards the rear of the palace. The inventor had once told Sin he’d annexed the tower for his residence only because it had originally been constructed as an observatory. Cunningly hidden on the roof behind the sculpted stone facade, Nimrod had built a fantastically advanced telescope beneath a rotating dome. He’d promised to take Sin on a tour of the observatory one day, but this hadn’t happened yet.

  The laboratory itself was a cluttered mess of experiments, tools and equipment. Its chaotic nature was a reflection of the eccentric inventor’s personality. One wall was taken up with a vast bookcase housing journals, scientific papers and books crammed higgledy-piggledy onto the shelves in no discernible order. Specimen jars and domed cloches lined another wall, providing homes for everything from plants to stuffed animals to unidentifiable body parts. On a bench, amid a plethora of tools, rested three yellow rubber ducks.

  In the centre of the laboratory, Sin reclined in a padded leather surgeon’s chair. Two tubes trailed from needles in his left arm to a machine with a pair of brassanium pistons pumping up and down. Drawn from his body, blood passed through one of the tubes to be pushed beneath a thin ironglass slide. A high-powered microscope linked to a lumograph projector shone the output onto a large hanging screen, before the blood was returned to Sin’s arm via the second tube.

  “That weren’t fair, shooting me with the net,” said Sin.

  One eye to the microscope’s eyepiece, Nimrod fiddled with the focus ring. “And you duelling with Zonda was fair?”

  “One on one. It don’t get any more even.”

  “Except that, thanks to your mother’s genius, your body is designed to be that of the perfect warrior, crammed with Super-Pangenes that make you fitter, stronger and more robust in almost every imaginable way.”

  Sin shrugged. “It’s not my fault I’m better.”

  “Great responsibility follows inseparably from great power. I think that somebody important said that.” Nimrod ran a hand through his wild hair. “And if they didn’t, they probably will. Eve gave you these gifts; it’s up to you to use them wisely.”

  The microscope’s image came sharply into focus on the screen, a pulsing flow of red blood cells, biconcave discs carrying oxygen. Blue spirals jostled among them, as though someone had taken the red blood cells and given them several twists – which, in a way, they had.

  “It don’t feel like a gift,” said Sin. On the screen, a third type of cell drifted past, ugly, misshapen, its flaccid edges ragged and torn. “It feels like a death sentence.”

  “Your mother’s science was exceptional. Don’t confuse it with the half-rate efforts of the King’s Knights. She would never have done this to you.”

  Maybe not. But she’d still created him as a scientific experiment. He was a child born out of a quest for knowledge, not out of love. “I’ve no doubt she was a genius scientist, you keep telling me that.” It was everything else about his mother that Nimrod was less forthcoming with. Sin had given up asking direct questions; they simply made Nimrod glaze over and then change the subject. However, the Fixer had taught him that there was more than one way to elicit information from someone, and that sometimes what was left unsaid was the real value of the answer.

  “Do you think my mother would have been able to cure me?”

  With a clunk, the machine stopped. Nimrod took his hand from the piston brake and walked c
loser to the screen. He pushed his glasses further onto the bridge of his nose and stared at the image of a defective blue blood cell that drifted in the centre of the projection. “If anyone could, it would have been her. When it came to biology, she made me look like a dunce. And without wanting to sound immodest, that doesn’t often happen.”

  “What made her so special at biology?”

  Absentmindedly running a finger over the projection on the screen, Nimrod said, “She loved the magnificence of life. She always said to me that machines had no soul, chemistry had no soul, but a cell – that had life. Although I don’t think she fully comprehended its miraculous nature until you were born. That changed everything.” Nimrod pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. Making a noise that an elephant would have been proud of, he blew his nose. “And I’m not going to let the King’s Knights destroy that. If I increase the percentage of hemocyanins in your next batch, I’m sure that will help.” Nimrod took an ironglass clockwork pipette from a rack. The gears on the device’s mekanikal pump clicked around and sucked up a precise amount of deep blue liquid from a conical flask. The scientist lowered the pipette’s nozzle over a vial of Sin’s medicine and added the contents to the solution.

  “Do you think we should tell the Major about the injections? It don’t feel right keeping it a secret,” said Sin.

  Nimrod slotted the vial into an aperture on the side of the machine and adjusted several dials. “You have nothing to feel guilty about. This is all on me.” He released the piston brake, and the machine began pumping again. “I can use my influence in COG, but it’s important that I have the confidence of the Committee, which I’ll lose if I force my will upon them. You’ll have to trust me on this, son. It really is better if we keep it our secret for now.”

  Laced with the latest evolution of the sapphire medicine, the blood being pumped back into Sin’s veins spread euphoria throughout his body. Nimrod had called him son. Or at least, Sin thought he had; it was hard to focus. Sin, Son, they were so similar. And yet that one tiny letter made all the difference in the world.

  A wary unease hung over the candidates. Their boots clanged on the metal steps as they ascended the steel staircase spiralling through the centre of the giant lozenge-shaped balloon that filled the gymnasium. They’d spent the morning practising cable-walking on a ground-based simulation rig that mimicked the gentle curve of the balloon’s envelope. Surrounded by padded mats, the rig was an easy introduction to the use of their boots. Now, stepping from the top of the stairs onto the balloon proper, the candidates carefully clamped their rigair boots onto the ratlines, the luxury of a soft landing no longer available. Their training had ratcheted up another notch in intensity.

  Sin leaned out towards the balloon’s edge, his whole body slanted, supported by the flight suit’s bracing. Seventy feet below, the first-aid kit and stretchers that had been laid out as a precaution seemed tiny and redundant. If the candidates fell from this height, a mop and bucket would be of more use.

  A flutter stirred Sin’s stomach. He wasn’t unused to heights – his criminal exploits as a street urchin had often required climbing. But this was different. Standing on the envelope, he was dependent on the boot’s technology to keep him secure. As reliable as modern manufacturing was, the mekaniks could still fail.

  Opposite Sin, Stanley swayed nonchalantly, a Cheshire Cat grin on his face. Also from the streets, Stanley had been a “monkey-man” before joining COG, a criminal specialising in climbing, and he was clearly enjoying the other candidates’ discomfort. He nodded to where Jasper squatted, clinging to the cables. “Jenkins is showing his true colours again.”

  “Aye, as yellow as his flight suit.”

  Zonda stepped alongside Sin, teetering unsteadily in her boots. “Not everyone is as brave, or maybe as foolish, as you.”

  “I ain’t exactly bang up the castle with this.” Sin’s mouth turned down. “I make a choice to control my fear. Jasper chooses to give in to the panic, and that’s not going to end well.”

  Her hands on her hips, Zonda scowled. “Maybe every day that Jasper chooses to stay in COG he shows more courage than you ever will. Have you thought about that?”

  Sin frowned. What was she on about? Life at COG was cushdie. A roof over your head, three meals a day and a comfortable bed. There was nothing difficult about choosing to stay in COG. Not getting kicked out was the hard part.

  The shrill peep of a whistle sounded and the candidates turned their attention to Sergeant Stoneheart, who stood at the balloon’s stern hatch, steady as an iron pile. “The rigidity of the envelope will vary depending on atmospheric pressure and whether the airship is ascending or descending. You must be able to walk on it whatever the conditions.” She strode across the balloon to where Jasper crouched. “On your feet, COG Jenkins.” She released one of her rigair boots from the cables and prodded the quivering candidate with a steel-capped toe.

  “I can’t, Staff,” said Jenkins, his voice high-pitched and reedy. “We should have buoyancy aids.”

  “Negative. This is a controlled environment. If you can’t operate here without falling, you’ll never manage on an airship that’s being buffeted by the elements or attacked by pirates.”

  “It’s not safe, Staff.” White-knuckled, Jasper gripped the cables tighter.

  “COG Jenkins, you have five seconds to decide whether you’re more scared of falling off or being thrown off.” Stoneheart replaced her boot on the cable and began counting down on the fingers of one hand.

  His body shaking, Jenkins let go of the ratlines and tentatively rose into a half squat.

  Hoicking the D-ring on the back of his flight suit, Stoneheart heaved him upright. “A wise choice. Consider that your only warning.” She turned to the remainder of the candidates. “One circuit’s walk, stern-hatch to bow-hatch and back. The first three to complete don’t go again. The last to finish earns punishment duties for their wing. MOVE!”

  Sin tapped Zonda on the shoulder. “Come on. Top three. Let’s go.” He lifted his toes off the switch plate in his right boot, disengaging the clamp. Raising his foot, he aligned the boot’s groove with the cable and eased it into place. He depressed the switch plate with his toes and the boot’s clockwork jaws locked back onto the cable.

  “The altitude’s softened your brain.” Zonda took a tottering step. “I’ve got no chance of coming in the top three.”

  Sin shook his head. “No. You can do this. It’s not about strength or speed, it’s about precision and control. Think of it like your shooting. Breathe out, toe switch up. Breathe in, toe switch down. You’ve just got to get in a rhythm.”

  “Toe switch up,” whispered Zonda. She breathed in deeply and detached a boot.

  “Winner coming through.” Velvet shouldered past.

  Unbalanced, Zonda drove her foot down. The boot’s groove misaligned with the cable and the rubber sole slipped from the litanium line. Her foot slammed into the gas-filled envelope and rebounded. Distracted, she relaxed the pressure on her toe switches. With a metallic ping her other boot sprang free and she toppled sideways.

  Sin’s hand shot out, reaching for the harness-ring on the back of Zonda’s flight suit. His fingers tightened around the cool metal and the muscles in his arm pulled taut, bulging against his sleeves. He jerked Zonda towards him, his grip firm as a steamvice.

  The ratlines beneath Sin’s feet groaned. He forced his toes against the boot’s switches, keeping the clockwork-powered clamps locked fast while he wrapped his free arm around Zonda, hugging her to his chest.

  “Not complaining about me being too ruffarooney now,” he said.

  “No.” Zonda gulped and reattached her boots to the lines. “Consider it a new unwritten rule. You can be as ruffarooney as you like when I’m about to fall to a horrible death.”

  Sin softened his grip and let Zonda take her own weight again. “You good?”

  “I will be in a minute.” She shuddered and pumped her hands open and closed. “Just another near-
death experience to add to the list.”

  “Take it slow and you’ll be fine.”

  “Slow and steady wins the race.” Zonda took a step. “Or if it doesn’t win the race, it also doesn’t result in an untimely demise, which I think is a most excellent outcome for the moment.”

  “Stay safe. I’ve got words to have,” Sin said, and strode off in pursuit of Velvet.

  Sin weaved past the other candidates, who shuffled across the top of the balloon with varying degrees of confidence. Only Stanley and Velvet were making any real headway, and they had opened up a considerable lead. Stanley was a gangly mess of arms and legs, but his complete lack of fear coupled with an unconventional style meant he was eating up the distance to the bow. Ahead of him, Velvet glided gracefully, her long-legged movements precise and measured.

  Concentrating on the correct operation of his toe switches, Sin picked up his pace to a brisk walk. They’d been warned against running in their rigair boots. Although technically possible, only a few seasoned airhands could manage a brief run, and only then in life-threatening situations. As Hawk had put it: “Don’t run to your own funeral.”

  The bow-hatch was a low metal cylinder capped with a domed cover. Velvet kicked it, marking the completion of one length and turned to begin the journey back. Side-stepping ratlines, Sin blocked her way. A vein throbbed on his temple. “I thought you’d changed, become more of a team player. I guess I was wrong.”

  “I have changed. Only, Zonda’s not on my team.” Velvet placed a manicured finger on the metal “E” insignia on the collar of Sin’s flight suit. “Neither are you.”

  Sin shoved her hand away and squared his shoulders. “If you want to go toe-to-toe I’m bang up for it. You nearly killed my best friend just to win some silly inter-wing competition.”