The Clockill and the Thief

by Gareth Ward

“It could still go wrong, and we’d be trapped,” said Sin.

  “And if it does, panic’s going to kill you.” Ada swallowed and for the first time Sin saw emotion on her face, though it wasn’t fear – more like sadness. Before he could question her further, the moment was broken as the fish gave a jolt and the megaphone sounded again.

  “We are now entering the pipe-way that travels below the streets of Coxford. The journey to the Aquarinomic Hotel will take a smidgeon over fifteen minutes.” The megaphone trumpet rotated and a trickle of water ran from the horn, splashing onto the floor.

  Lottie and Trixie Asp, the candidates nearest the megaphone, pulled their feet back and hoisted up their skirts to avoid the pooling water.

  The recording continued, playing slower and slower, and the words became long and drawn out. “Do not be alarmed if you experience some . . .” The trickle of water turned into a steady stream and the recording ground to a halt.

  Sin looked across to Zonda, who had drawn her feet up onto the seat and was hugging her knees to her chest. “That ain’t right, is it?” he asked.

  “I think we may have a problemarooney.” Zonda withdrew a pocket watch, notepad and pencil from her reticule and began scribbling.

  The threat of death was no stranger to Sin. He’d fronted down gangs, dodged pot-shots from the Sheriffs, and most recently been stabbed and poisoned by Eldritch, but this was something new. Here, there was no foe to be beaten, no enemy to confront; he couldn’t out-fight, out-think or out-bluff the water that flooded through the horn with a relentless inevitability.

  A hubbub of panicked conversation filled the fish. Sin lowered his boots into the water and sloshed over to the gushing megaphone. He grabbed the horn and stopped it rotating, the foul-smelling water cascading over his face and shoulders. Ignoring the deluge, he tried to peer inside. The curve of the horn, combined with Sin’s short, stocky stature meant it was too high for him to see. Leaning away from the water, he shouted at Beuford, “Hey, big fella! Some help here?”

  The Americanian lifted himself from his seat and waded over to Sin. “What do y’all need?”

  “Give me a boost. There’s got to be a way to shut it off.”

  Beuford locked his fingers together and placed them on his bent knee. Sin rested his boot on the impromptu step and with the aid of Stanley, who offered a shoulder for balance, stood up. He pushed his hand inside the trumpet and fossicked about. “It’s just a pipe that leads into the ceiling.”

  “Can you plug it, brother?” asked Stanley.

  The stream of water had swelled, becoming a veritable torrent.

  “It’s too strong. I’m going to try something. Stand back.” He grabbed the trumpet with both hands and, biceps bulging, pulled himself up so all his weight was on the horn. He kicked his legs and jerked his body until the trumpet gave way with a loud crack. Still clutching the horn, Sin splashed backwards to the floor. The dirty water now gushed downwards.

  “Excellent job. That seems to have sorted it,” said Velvet sarcastically from her seat at the head of the fish.

  Drenched, Sin pushed himself up and motioned to the ceiling with the trumpet. “Now we can get to the screws in the access panel.” He tossed the trumpet towards Velvet and it landed with a satisfying splash, showering her in fetid water.

  “I’m going to kill you for that – once you’ve finished saving us,” said Velvet, shaking droplets from her hair.

  Zonda checked her pocket watch and added some figures to the columns on her notepad. She looked up. “Do you want the good news or the bad news?”

  Sin wiped a sodden sleeve across his face, the rank smell of the water filling his nose. “I could really do with some good news.”

  “The malfunction hasn’t slowed our travel speed. From my calculations, we will arrive at the hotel in approximately twelve minutes.”

  “What’s the bad news?” asked Stanley, rolling up his drenched shirt sleeves.

  “If the water continues at this rate, the compartment will be full in ten minutes.”

  “You had to ask, didn’t you?” said Sin.

  Stanley shrugged. “You reckon you can hold your breath for a couple of minutes?”

  “It ain’t going to come to that.” Sin pulled a flat metal lock pick from his pocket. Designed for tasks of a more dubious nature, it would serve as an impromptu screwdriver. “Gents, I’m going to need another boost, so I can remove the panel.”

  Reaching under the folds of her dress, Zonda rummaged through the layers of material. “Wait a mo-mo.” She pulled out a tan leather tool roll secured with a buckle. “Field-mekaniks kit. I never travel without one.” Unfurling it on the bench, she removed a screwdriver and tossed it to Sin.

  With Beuford and Stanley lifting him upwards, Sin made short work of the brassanium screws holding the teak service panel in place. He tugged it free and handed it to Ada, who had joined them in the thigh-deep water. The skirts of her satin green dress floated around her like a giant lily pad. She peered upwards, seemingly oblivious to the cold water, instead concentrating on the network of pipes, valves and gears revealed beneath the panel.

  “The megaphone probably doubles as an air intake when the fish is on the surface,” said Ada. She raised a finger above her head and, staring past it, traced the root of the pipe backwards to a set of gears attached to a valve. “There. That valve should have closed when we submerged.”

  Beuford and Stanley waded through the water, manoeuvring Sin nearer to the mechanism. He poked his head into the cavity and twisted his neck to get a better view of the gears that operated the valve. Wedged between the oily cogs, something shiny glinted in the dark.

  No. Surely it couldn’t be?

  Sin hauled himself closer and peered into the gloom. His heart kicked, and a chill ran through his body. He couldn’t believe what was in front of his eyes.

  Sin didn’t need to inspect the silver florin rammed into the gears to know that on one side there would be a top-hatted skull in place of the King’s head. Did Noir really want Eldritch to escape so badly that he’d drown not only Sin and Zonda, but the other candidates too? Apparently so.

  Sin ducked his head out of the cavity. “There’s a coin caught in the gears.” He reached back inside. The milled edge of the florin dug into his fingers. Ignoring the metal’s bite, he gripped harder and pulled. “It’s stuck fast. I can’t budge it.”

  “Here, try these.” Zonda removed a set of pliers from the tool roll and passed them to Ada.

  Sin thrust the screwdriver deep in his pocket and secretly retrieved a copper farthing, gripping it in the folds of skin between his thumb and forefinger. “Shift me left, big fella,” he said to Beuford.

  Using the Americanian’s movement sloshing through the water as a distraction, Sin grabbed the pliers from Ada while keeping the copper farthing hidden in his other hand. He clamped the plier’s jaws onto the florin and pulled. The muscles in his forearm strained, but the coin still didn’t budge.

  “Try applying some rotational torque,” said Zonda.

  Sin grunted. “In English, please.”

  “Y’all need to give it a twist,” said Beuford.

  Sin grabbed the pliers with both hands and twisted. The florin’s soft silver grated against the gears, then the coin jerked free. Now unimpeded, the cogs meshed together, operating the valve, and the gushing water slowed, dying away to a trickle. Sin thumped the ceiling. “Now we’re golden,” he shouted.

  Zonda clapped, and there were cheers and whoops of relieved excitement from the other candidates, too. Even Velvet offered Sin a reserved smile.

  Beuford and Stanley lowered Sin to the floor. The cold, dirty water now came up to his waist. Careful to keep the silver florin hidden in his fist, he reached into his other hand and pulled out the copper farthing. “We nearly drowned for a quarter of a penny,” he said, holding up the farthing for all to see.

  Maybe the subterfuge wasn’t necessary. Perhaps none of the candidates would have recognised Noir’s c
oin, but he couldn’t take the risk, especially not with Zonda. Not that he’d decided to let Eldritch escape – the traitor had tried to kill him. However, it was a complicated situation, and he was still considering how best to deal with it. If the secret of his blood was revealed he’d be retired from COG, and this time there’d be no reprieve. And if he wasn’t in COG, would he still get his supply of injections? There was no doubt that Nimrod would look after him, but the scientist had nearly been assassinated before. Who was to say there wouldn’t be another successful attempt? Without Nimrod to manufacture his medicine, Sin would die in agony like the other poor souls he’d seen in the King’s Knights laboratory. He needed more time to think, and that meant keeping Zonda in the dark.

  He tossed the coin in a high arc towards Zonda. The farthing spun through the air, drawing the gaze of everyone in the fish, and in that moment of misdirection Sin pocketed the florin.

  Zonda caught the coin and turned it over in her fingers.

  Silently, Sin cursed. He’d made a mistake. If Zonda examined the farthing too closely she’d see it bore no signs of being wedged in the gears. “On the streets, I might have been killed for a few old coppers,” he said, trying to distract her. “I thought that had all changed now I was in COG.”

  Zonda looked up and met Sin’s gaze. “Indeedarooney. Being COG operatives, we get the opportunity to die for a far more noble cause.”

  Stanley grabbed Sin’s shoulder. “What’s up with her? We’ve just escaped a horrible death by drowning.”

  Sin shrugged, his cold wet shirt stuck uncomfortably to his skin. “Dunno.” But he did know. While the others were enjoying the sights of Coxford, he and Zonda would be hunting a man who until recently was one of COG’s top operatives. A man who had turned traitor and now wanted to kill him.

  “Sacrè bleu! What ’as ’appened ’ere? Zis is tres terrible.” Madame Mékanique’s voice echoed around the concrete-walled chamber far below the Aquarinomic Hotel where the pipe-way ended. The metal fish bobbed in an open section of the pipe, allowing the bedraggled students to disembark.

  Drenched from head to foot in the rank water, Sin was by far the sorriest looking of the bunch. Madame Mékanique dabbed at him with a silk handkerchief, her silver ringlets gently bouncing in time with the motion. “Monsieur Sin, you will catch your death of cold.”

  Sin glimpsed Noir disappearing up a narrow flight of concrete stairs that led to the hotel. His ragged black coat fluttered about him like a shroud of wraiths. “Someone’s going to catch their death all right, but it ain’t going to be me.” He pushed through the candidates, his wet clothes forgotten.

  Madame Mékanique’s voice followed Sin up the stairs. “The Major, ’e must know of this. And Nimrod – ’e, too, will need to fix le poisson.”

  Rage roiled in Sin’s chest with a ferocity that exorcised all fear of the magician. Sin wasn’t angry that Noir had tried to kill him; that was hardly an exclusive club. However, it was bang out of order that he’d been prepared to wipe out Zonda and all the other candidates just so Eldritch could escape.

  The concrete stairs led to a service corridor then into the kitchens, where a brigade of white-aproned chefs chopped, seasoned and stirred with military precision. Sin tugged the sleeve of a young kitchen hand who diced carrots with savage ferocity. “The bloke in black. Where did he go?”

  The kitchen hand briefly pointed towards a door with his blade before severing a bunch of carrots from their tops.

  Sin grabbed a sturdy kitchen knife from the granite worktop and stormed through the door onto the kitchen’s delivery dock. Crates of vegetables lined the raised concrete platform. Noir stood next to an empty steamcart. He attached a rolled-up strip of paper to the leg of a mekanikal pigeon and tossed the bird into the air. Its clockwork-powered wings flapping furiously, the tweet soared into the smog-laden sky.

  “Letting Eldritch know that your murder attempt failed?” Sin spat.

  Noir lowered his arm. His gaze fixed on the kitchen knife in Sin’s hand and his head cocked to one side. “And what precisely do you intend to do with that?”

  “I intend to get some straight answers for once.” Sin pointed the blade at the magician.

  “Good luck with that.” Noir grabbed the brim of his battered top hat and spun it high into the air.

  Sin kept his focus on the magician. The hat was misdirection, the same ploy Sin had used in the fish, throwing the coin to distract Zonda.

  Time slowed. Except it didn’t, not exactly. The top hat tumbled in slow motion through the air, but the magician surged across the delivery dock at normal speed. Confused, Sin raised the blade and the impossible happened: Noir sped up. He grabbed Sin’s wrist and twisted the knife from his grasp. The blade now in his own hand, Noir spun away from Sin, back to the exact spot where he’d started. Time snapped back and the top hat plopped precisely onto the magician’s head.

  Sin’s eyes widened. He looked at his hand, now devoid of the knife, unable to believe what had happened. Why had time slowed for him but not for Noir? It made no sense.

  “Close your mouth, you’re gawping,” said Noir.

  “How did you do that?”

  The magician twirled the knife in his fingers. “I did it very well.”

  Sin knew he was the product of a genetic experiment called the Eugenesis Project. Nimrod and Sin’s mother, Eve Metis, another genius scientist, had taken the best qualities from a number of donors, using something called Super-Pangenes. Before he was born, Sin had been enhanced with this genetic code, making him better than human. His time-slowing capabilities came from Noir, he knew that too; what had taken Sin by surprise was just how quick the magician was.

  “No. I meant how come you were so fast? I should be able to do that too. I have your Super-Pangenes.”

  “I’m not part of any experiment, boy,” rasped Noir. “Science killed your mother and if the warmongers have their way it will be the death of us all. That’s why I helped Eldritch escape.”

  Sin’s gaze fixed on the blade. He’d played right into Noir’s hands, chasing him to the deserted loading dock where the spy could finish the job and make sure Sin didn’t catch the traitor.

  “Eldritch is a pawn,” said Noir, as if reading Sin’s mind. “We need to follow him to the King’s Knights. Escape as bait, it’s an old spy trick.” Noir adjusted a skull-shaped silver cufflink. “It wasn’t me who tried to drown you in the fish. The tweet was to let Staff MacKigh know we still have a saboteur at the palace.” Noir’s arm shot out and the knife embedded in a barrel of apples next to Sin’s head. “Make no bones, boy, I don’t make mistakes. If I’d wanted you dead, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” The magician stalked off.

  A shiver ran through Sin’s body. He suddenly felt cold, and it wasn’t because of the wet clothes clinging to his skin.

  It was late afternoon by the time the students had debriefed with Madame Mékanique about their near-death ordeal and they were allowed to check into their rooms. The Aquarinomic was Coxford’s finest and most peculiar hotel. Its corridors, function rooms and bedrooms were designed and decorated with a distinctly nautical motif, a theme that was enhanced by the many tropical aquariums that formed part of the hotel’s structure. This created an atmosphere of being a resident in a fantastic sub-nautical vessel.

  Sin unlocked his steamer trunk, thankful that the fish’s cargo compartment had been unaffected by the leak and his equipment for the mission – a mission that he was becoming increasingly conflicted about – remained dry. It was Noir’s scheming that had originally identified Eldritch as the traitor, and now the magician wanted to use that to his advantage to track down the King’s Knights. Or so he said. Why did he have to be so secretive? Why didn’t he just tell the Major? Perhaps because there was still a saboteur in COG and Noir trusted no one, not even Major C. Maybe that was why he had sent the tweet to Staff MacKigh rather than the commander of COG. Then again, who was to say MacKigh wasn’t the saboteur?

  A shark
drifted over Sin’s head, patrolling the massive ironglass tank that formed the bedroom’s ceiling. With the unconcerned menace of a top predator, it sliced through the water, master of its domain. Sin paid it little heed, intent on preparing for his sortie into Coxford’s underworld, where he would be meeting a top predator of an entirely different nature.

  The crime-ridden streets had been his home for five years and he knew they held untold dangers, not least of which was the man they were hunting. Eldritch was possibly the second-most dangerous man in Coxford. The man they were about to visit, the Fixer, was undisputedly the first.

  From his steamer trunk, Sin removed a stitched leather holster containing an NB77 steampistol. The weapon was beautifully crafted: the stock polished walnut, the curvaceous pressure chamber a rich, warm brassanium and the stubby black barrel made of forge hardened steel. Along with the artistic considerations, Nimrod had designed the weapon to be easily hidden, and when Sin strapped the holster’s harness across his chest and shoulders, the pistol disappeared snugly beneath his arm. He donned a long, waxed coat and checked his reflection in the room’s full-length mirror. The pistol didn’t show, and he looked suitably mean, but something was missing. From the hatstand he selected a bowler and flipped it onto his head. Adjusting it to a rakish angle, he checked his reflection again and smiled. He looked bang up the clockwork mouse.

  The steamtram hissed along Magdalen Street, pushing through the evening’s smog. Sin sat opposite Zonda, who was outfitted in chunky knee-length boots, tan trousers and an armoured leather bodice. She too would have a pistol secreted beneath her dark jacket, along with myriad other surprises.

  Memories of villainy filled Sin’s thoughts, triggered by the familiar landmarks they passed. His old life seemed so distant now, almost from another existence. He’d only been at COG a matter of months, but already it felt more real than the streets ever had.

  Sin had been good at being bad, rising to lieutenant in double-quick time, and that worried him. The Fixer had trained Sin to be his right-hand man, someone he could depend upon, but that had all changed in an instant when Eldritch had recruited him to COG. He’d abandoned his old life without apology or so much as a word of his whereabouts. To the Fixer, that might be seen as a betrayal, and betraying the gang was the worst of all crimes.