by Tara Sim
Brandon lowered his eyes. Danny looked down as well, ashamed of himself as his frustration began to ebb.
While he struggled to word an apology, Brandon knelt beside him. One of his hands hovered over the tools as Danny looked on. The apprentice tentatively grasped the steel caliper used for measurements and held it up, hopeful as a puppy learning its first trick.
The anger that had seized Danny quickly let go. “Yes, that’s a micrometer,” he said, pleasantly surprised. “Well done.” The apprentice grinned, and blood rushed to Danny’s face.
Danny took the proper measurements and made small marks for the repair, explaining each step. Brandon seemed to have moved on from the outburst, nodding with interest at everything Danny said. Danny had to admit that perhaps his first assessment had been unfair. Here, for once, was an apprentice willing to learn. It eased some of the strain in his limbs.
Tongue poking out between his teeth, Danny focused on the frayed threads attached to the clock tower. He grasped them carefully, using not his hands, but his innate ability as a mechanic to touch time. The fibers were alive and pulsing in his grip, confused and directionless.
This was familiar. This was what he had missed most in the months he’d been away: the thrum of time, the beating of clocks. He used to spend hours in clock rooms before the accident, syncing his heartbeat with that of the clock tower. There was something else, too—a surge of power that felt like sunlight on skin, warming him from the inside out. Time grew stronger all around them, thickening the fibers.
In fact, the power was so strong he faltered. The fibers began slipping away, sensing his uncertainty. Before they fled his grasp, Brandon put his hands on the numeral and something jumped like an auto backfire. Danny jumped with it, eyes wide. Brandon focused only on the numeral, adding his power to Danny’s, to the clock’s. The fibers rushed back, stronger than ever.
Danny attached the broken ends of the fibers to the numeral in his hands, allowing the unremarkable slab of metal to join the connective web of time created by the tower. Then he asked Brandon to hold the power-infused numeral up to the clock face. His pale, thin hands looked even paler next to Brandon’s bronze skin.
Tools in hand, Danny fastened the numeral to the face. At first nothing happened, and he worried it hadn’t worked. Then, gradually, the fibers attached to the numeral filled the hole until it sealed. Time shivered, then relaxed; or maybe that was his own body’s reaction.
The tower bells rang in a sudden frenzy, calling out the hour of two before the hands moved to the correct time on their own. Danny tensed, momentarily deafened by the clamor. When his hearing returned, he could make out the crowd cheering in the street below. He breathed a sigh of relief.
“You’re all right now,” he murmured to the tower, pressing his fingers to its face.
“How long have you been a mechanic?”
Brandon’s voice startled Danny, and his fingers skipped against the glass. The apprentice was looking at him the same way he had in the clock room, except now both eyes were open. They were amber in the daylight, bright and curious. His voice was light and smooth, flowing, like the well-oiled whirring of gears.
“And here I thought you were mute.” Danny’s own voice sounded low and clumsy in his ears. He began to put away his tools. “I was an apprentice at twelve. I’m seventeen now. Became a full mechanic seven months ago.”
“Only seven months?”
Danny wasn’t surprised by Brandon’s disappointment. Most people were convinced that someone so young shouldn’t even touch the clock towers, let alone fix them. But that didn’t change the rule that one could be a full mechanic by seventeen, if you worked hard enough.
Danny glanced up to find the apprentice’s expression hadn’t changed. “My father started teaching me when I was six.”
The small frown disappeared and Brandon’s almost-invisible eyebrows lifted. “He’s also a mechanic?”
“Was,” Danny corrected, the single word heavy in the air between them. Before Brandon could ask anything more, Danny stood and grabbed the cable attached to the scaffolding. “Let’s go up.”
They pulled in silence until they reached the wide door above, right as the clouds broke open and spilled their promised rain. Danny almost fell to his knees to kiss the solid wooden floorboards beneath him, still dizzy from the height and the touch of time.
“I need to head back to London before the rain gets worse,” he said. “What about you?” There were no other autos parked outside, and the Enfield railroad station had been demolished a few years before.
“I’ll be all right.”
Danny reached up to fix his hair. His hands were trembling. Brandon noticed and gave him a sympathetic smile.
“I won’t tell anyone,” he said, putting a secretive finger to his lips.
“Oh. Um …” Of course Brandon must have noticed his fear. Danny looked down. “Thank you. Look, I’m sorry for snapping. I didn’t mean to. I have a lot depending on this assignment, and I didn’t want to ruin it.”
“You didn’t,” Brandon assured him. “I’m sorry for not knowing what a micrometer was.”
“You did well with the numeral. Just study a little more, all right?”
He expected the apprentice to leave before him, but as he shrugged on his coat, Brandon hung back and watched the clock face.
“Are you sure you don’t need a ride?”
The apprentice smiled and shook his head. Danny hesitated. He wondered if he should offer him a drink as an apology, even if the idea made him shake worse than the thought of jumping back onto the scaffolding. He opened his mouth to ask.
“Goodbye,” he mumbled instead. Coward.
He headed for the stairs, shoulders hunched.
Brandon stayed in the same spot, staring at the clock face.
When Danny looked over his shoulder, the apprentice was gone.
The auto acted up as soon as Danny reached London, the frame jerking until it puttered up to the Mechanics Affairs building across from Parliament Square. It would be a miracle if he reached home before nightfall.
The angry drone of men and women assaulted his ears as soon as he stepped foot outside. They blocked the entrance of the tall stone Affairs building like watchdogs, an odd assortment of middle-class men with canes and working-class boys with threadbare caps, women in taffeta walking dresses and girls with coal smudges on their faces. Whenever someone walked in or out of the building they shouted:
“No support for the unnatural!”
“Take it down!”
“Stop construction now!”
The protesters had become a regular fixture over the last couple of months, their presence just as jarring as the first time they’d gathered. Their cause had been gaining momentum lately, much to the Lead Mechanic’s alarm.
Danny supposed anyone would be nervous about the construction of a brand new clock tower.
Clenching one hand into a fist, he headed for the mob. They identified him as a mechanic by the badge clipped to his belt.
“Stop construction!”
“The mechanics can’t control us all!”
“No monopolization of time!”
The mob didn’t reach out to grab him—didn’t touch him at all—but he felt phantom hands at his clothes, his arms, his throat. Their glaring eyes strangled him.
The raised voices cut off when the doors closed behind him. Danny leaned against the nearest column and closed his eyes for a moment, willing his heart to stop beating so fast.
Monopolizing time, he thought with a scoff.
It was true that mechanics kept the specifics of clock towers away from the public, but it was for their own good. They wouldn’t understand, not when they didn’t have the ability to touch time the way mechanics did. Without the mechanics, the towers wouldn’t function. Without the towers, the world wouldn’t function.
The very thing they protested was the thing they needed most.
He shook off the thought and walked into the
atrium. The wide marble floor shone, reflecting light from the crystal chandelier above. It hung suspended from a glass dome in the epicenter of the curved roof, which branched out into plaster moldings depicting the four seasons, one in each corner. Danny spotted a couple of mechanics leaning against the railing of the mezzanine above. Their laughter echoed across the atrium.
Danny climbed the long, winding flight of stairs that led to the first-floor offices. He bypassed them as the stairs curved again, away from the atrium, toward the back of the building where the classrooms were. The hallways here were long and wide, painted a shade of citrine the older mechanics insisted was once gold.
He passed murals and framed paintings, classrooms full of chattering apprentices and lecturing professors, before he climbed one more flight of stairs and found himself at the Lead Mechanic’s door.
The secretary saw him and waggled her fingers toward the office. “Go on in,” she said. “He’ll be along shortly.”
In the Lead’s office, Danny sat tapping his fingers against his knees. He told himself not to be nervous, that he was just submitting the assignment report. They were normally turned in to the secretary, but the Lead had requested this particular report in person.
Danny hoped he had done enough.
The Lead’s desk was wide and cluttered. One corner was occupied by a kinetic toy that dangled four metal balls from cords. Danny’s chair groaned as he leaned forward and lifted the ball farthest on the right, then let it fall. He watched them bounce back and forth until the door opened behind him.
“Hello, Daniel.” The Lead was short but broad, with a dark mustache and a balding head. He looked like the sort of man who would wish you a good morning whether you were an acquaintance or a stranger.
The Lead tossed a pile of papers onto his desk, glanced at the source of the clicking noise, and wrapped his hand around the metal balls to make them stop.
“Was it all that bad?” the Lead asked.
“What do you mean, sir?”
“Your face gives away everything. It always has.” The man settled at his desk. Behind him stretched a wide window painted with the colors of approaching dusk. “Tell me what happened.”
Danny gave a verbal report as he handed over the written one. It had come out to only one page, hastily scrawled on crumpled parchment he’d found at the bottom of his bag. He hadn’t had time to find real paper; he was much too anxious to find out what the Lead had to say.
The Lead skimmed the report with a critical eye, then set it down. “It sounds as if everything went well.” Danny wondered if he caught a hint of surprise beneath the words.
“I suppose it did.”
“Don’t be modest, Daniel. This was a medium-risk assignment, and you pulled it off. That’s something to be proud of.” He smiled, and Danny started to smile, too. Before, he had never questioned praise. Now, it sat tepid and uncertain at the bottom of his rib cage, afraid to rise too high lest it pop like a bubble under atmospheric pressure.
“I was afraid it would be too much for you,” the Lead continued. “This is certainly a successful first step.”
The bubble popped and Danny’s smile vanished. He resisted the urge to slip down into his seat. First step. He’d made so many steps since becoming a mechanic, followed by several large steps back. Now he was lost somewhere in the middle.
Still, he forced himself to reply with a small “Thank you, sir.”
The Lead read through the report again. “Was the apprentice agreeable?” It was known throughout the ranks that Danny Hart never got along with his apprentices. Several were on a list of those never to be reassigned to him again due to back talk, piss-poor attitudes, or in one case, body odor.
Danny regretted yelling at Brandon. He hadn’t deserved it, not really, even if he was a dalcop who didn’t know what a micrometer was.
“No,” Danny said. “But too quiet, if you ask me.”
The Lead rested his arms on the desk and leaned forward. “You look peaky.”
And there it was. He couldn’t avoid it. As soon as word had spread that he’d been hospitalized, people had started looking at him differently. Talking to him differently. Quiet, cautious, like he would crumble to dust at the slightest provocation.
“I’m fine, sir,” Danny said, “although it wasn’t the assignment I expected.”
“Don’t dip your toe in the water to get used to it, jump in headfirst.”
Danny had some things to say about that, but wisely kept them behind sealed lips.
“Now, about the missing numeral,” the Lead went on. “I’ve heard nothing from the investigation crew. Did you happen to see anything suspicious while you were there? Anyone lingering near the tower or avoiding it?”
“I couldn’t tell with the crowd. I got a good look at the clock face, but I didn’t see any marks or scratches.”
The police were still investigating when he’d left, though. They wouldn’t stop until a suspect was found.
The Lead chewed his mustache. “The only way the numeral could have detached so cleanly is if a mechanic committed the theft. I suppose the numeral could have dropped from the tower and someone picked it up, but all the same, we should be careful. We don’t want clock parts popping up on the black market, if they haven’t already.” He sighed and drummed his fingers against the desktop. “First Maldon, then your accident, and now this.”
A beat of his heart. An intake of breath. Danny scooted forward. “Sir? Has there been any news about Maldon? About the new clock tower?”
The Lead rolled his shoulders back and cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Daniel, not yet. It’s a bit tricky, you know. This is the first tower we’ve attempted to build in hundreds of years. And what with the protesters, it’s making it even harder. You must be patient.”
“But what about the mechanics working on the tower? What I mean is … Because of what I did today …”
He clasped his hands between his knees as the Lead gave him that familiar look of sympathy.
“I know you want to go, Daniel. It’s a big job, and there are several things I need to take into account. You did well in Enfield, and I’m happy to see you haven’t lost your spark, but this is something altogether different. We’ll see.”
He was stalling. The decision should have been simple. What wasn’t said was plastered all over the walls: Danny had to overcome his fear before the Lead would let him near such an important assignment.
Based on his behavior today, Danny’s hope dwindled even further. He grabbed his bag to leave when the Lead stopped him.
“I just wanted to remind you,” he said slowly, each word like a step toward a cliff, “not to give up hope. About Maldon, or your father.”
Danny couldn’t look him in the eye, so he turned to the door and swallowed. “Yes, sir.”
“Daniel?”
He turned back.
“I know you have your heart set on this. Just give it some time. I’m still considering you for the job, don’t worry.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Danny took his time on the stairs and hesitated at the doors. Holding his breath, he rushed outside, but at this late hour the protesters had thinned. Even so, he hurried down the street to where he’d parked his auto.
The rain had stopped long enough for the clouds to part. Sunset made the sky blush and set low-hanging clouds on fire. Danny took a moment to breathe in the autumn air and spotted a dirigible airship passing overhead, leaving a contrail of steam in its wake. He watched the ship until it passed above the massive clock tower across the square.
At one end of Parliament stood the tower some called St. Stephen’s, others called Big Ben. The feud about the tower’s real name was well known, especially among the mechanics who worked there on a regular basis. Ben, of course, was the name of the enormous bell within, but Danny preferred it over the stuffy-sounding St. Stephen’s.
Much of his training had taken place within that very tower, where the smell of oil and the whir of autom
ation had become as natural as drawing breath. He had once noticed a man standing at the back of the class, taller than the others, with a dark blond beard. The man had caught Danny staring and winked.
While the others debated, fourteen-year-old Danny had quietly stepped aside and asked him which name he preferred. The mechanic had thought about it, listened to the clockwork for a while, and smiled down at him.
“Big Ben. It has more presence.”
Seventeen-year-old Danny now slid into the driver’s seat, willing the auto to start. It did, although an ominous ribbon of dark smoke coiled through the engine’s white steam. He pulled out and drove by the Gothic cathedral of Westminster Abbey, past each scowling gargoyle. A couple of mechanical gargoyles prowled the upper lip of the roof, guardians made of gears and springs rather than stone.
He passed the clock tower to cross Westminster Bridge, congested with autos that released a heavy fog of steam. Whenever he was close enough, he could sense Big Ben’s natural energy, the fibers of time ingrained in every living thing around it. It felt bright, powerful. It felt like life. One moment of time could be enjoyed before it drifted into another, and another, until it became the future, present, and finally the past. It was the sole reason London thrived.
If anything irreversible were to happen to the tower—or to any clock tower, for that matter—time in that city and its surroundings would simply stop, its inhabitants trapped until the clock was fixed. It was no wonder the protesters hated them.
Sometimes, Danny hated the clock towers, too.
He drove through Lambeth and reached home just after dark. The street was draped in shadow, relieved only by the soft glow from the row house windows, including his own. That meant his mother was home. She tended to work later hours now, something she would have never done when he was younger. When his father was still around.
The last few meters were the toughest for the auto, but it made it all the way to the curb before sputtering to a halt. Smoke billowed from the bonnet, like ghostly visitors had hitched a ride and this was their stop.
