by Tara Sim
“There you are, miss,” the pilot said as he emerged from the front cabin, pulling up his aviator goggles. She noticed a tattoo on the inside of his wrist, a set of wings to symbolize Caelum, Gaian god of the sky.
Many pilots used it as a good luck talisman. Her father had had one in almost the same spot, an inch above his wrist. She remembered being small and tracing the black lines it made on her father’s ochre skin.
“Was it a good flight?” the pilot asked.
“Very good, yes.” She caught a glimpse of the copilot inside, an automaton fastened to the seat beside the pilot’s. The automaton turned its head this way and that, as if surprised to be on the ground again. “You’ll fly me back this afternoon?”
“Of course, miss.”
Outside, the bright sunshine was deceptive; a cold wind came up from the sea, and she was thankful for her thick trousers and coat.
The man sent to greet her stood just off the gangplank. He looked her up and down with consternation, blinking repeatedly. “Ah … Daniel Hart?”
She frowned. “No, Daphne Richards.”
His eyes lingered on her trousers, a corner of his upper lip curling. “Ah. Would you be the apprentice, then?” He looked back at the airship, as if expecting Danny to walk out after her.
Her voice came out frostbitten. “I’m the mechanic.”
“Oh. I see.” Now he was determined not to look at any part of her. “Well then, Miss Richards?” He gestured to the auto.
Daphne sat in the back as the man drove her into town. He glanced at her a few times in the rearview mirror, but she invited no conversation. She had experienced this before—men and women disapproving of her clothing and her profession. They would be shocked if they could see the other women of London: auto mechanics with grease in their hair, fisherwomen in from the coast with tattooed arms.
Matthias had told her what to expect when she had been his apprentice. That the men, especially the older ones, would look at her as if she were a joke. Or an insult.
“But I’m not doing anything to them,” she’d argued. “I just want to be a good mechanic.”
“And that’s all that matters. Don’t mind anyone else or what they think. You do what’s best by you.”
Daphne tried not to think of the driver’s face when she’d said she was the mechanic, the way he had waited for a man to come and announce he was her escort.
Why did he think Danny Hart was coming with me, though?
The town didn’t take long to drive through, and soon they were at the base of the clock tower that overlooked the sea. The two faces, one facing north and the other south, gleamed in the sunlight. Although she noticed the limestone had eroded away on one side, likely from sea salt, there were no crumbling bricks or obvious signs of neglect.
“Here we are, Miss Richards. Bernice Tower. Beautiful, no?”
“Very.” She opened the auto door without waiting for him to do so for her. “I won’t be needing assistance. I should be no more than two hours.”
The driver stammered a little, but under her cool stare he simply said, “Aye, Miss Richards.”
She walked to the tower entrance and breathed in deeply, enjoying the briny smell of sea air. It made the town feel fresh and clean. Daphne allowed herself a moment to think about how much her mother would enjoy the seaside.
She entered the tower through a well-oiled door. From what she’d seen so far, it appeared there was nothing wrong, but the report said various little hiccups kept occurring. The escapement for the pendulum had gone off, making the clock sputter. Life moving in jerks rather than the smooth flow of seconds. But another mechanic had cleaned that up.
She had come today to clean the clockwork and check for anything out of the ordinary. The maintenance crew reported that the cogs were grinding together and the gears were struggling to turn. She could feel it the closer she came to the clockwork, a tug that didn’t feel normal. Like wind pulling instead of pushing.
Climbing the steep wooden stairs, she set her bag down on the landing and looked out one of the narrow windows. The sun sparkled on the ocean’s surface.
Far below stood a tall statue of a woman. Her dress was etched with the scalloped pattern of seashells, her hair long and flowing like seaweed. She pointed a stone finger toward the sea. Oceana. Dover had maintained the old shrine as well as they had maintained the tower.
Daphne turned and got to work. She laid out her tools and studied the clockwork. It was impressive, and she took a moment to appreciate the cogs and gears and chains that worked together to pull time forward.
But there was a tiny catch. Near the central cog, something clicked, and the surrounding gears had slowed as a result.
“Hmm.” Daphne crouched before the central cog. “What’s the matter with you, then?”
She closed her eyes and touched it, but couldn’t feel anything wrong. “Must be something stuck inside,” she said to the clockwork. “All right. Let’s have a look.”
Her mother had once said Daphne liked clocks more than she liked people. Daphne had never argued the point. That had been years ago, before her father died. When they still attracted curious gazes on the street, a family of odds and ends—a girl who wore trousers, a man with one foot in England and the other in India, and the woman who somehow found herself attached to them. It had gotten to her mother over time. The looks and whispers.
Then Daphne had been accepted as a clock mechanic apprentice, a profession her mother frowned upon. “First trousers, now this,” she’d muttered. “Thank God you have my coloring, at least.”
But when her father died, the accusations and the paranoia had grown worse, her mother’s mind deteriorating until the slightest provocation had made her attack Daphne with a knife.
Now that she was in the asylum, Daphne used her love of clocks to pay for her mother’s treatment. But funds were running low. She would have to ask the Lead for more assignments soon.
Daphne carefully removed each part to get to the heart of the problem. She cleaned the components as she went, time slowing as she did.
The clicking sound grew louder. Daphne frowned and unscrewed another gear.
“Be careful.”
Daphne whirled around. A little girl stared at the clockwork, her amber eyes wide. Blonde hair fell to her waist, sleek and shining. She wore a white pinafore with a bow on the back.
“What are you doing up here?” Daphne demanded. “This tower is for mechanics and maintenance crew only.”
The girl never took her eyes off the clockwork. Unnerved, Daphne glanced at the gears.
“Do you know what’s causing this?” she asked.
The girl finally met her eyes. She had a strange glow to her skin that Daphne couldn’t attribute to sunshine alone.
“Help,” the girl whispered. She pointed at the central cog. “You have to find it before—”
A metallic scream drowned out the rest of her words. Something struck Daphne and sent her sprawling across the room.
The air pressed in hot and close. Daphne’s mouth opened and closed until she could manage a ragged breath. She coughed, struggling to sit up, but a sharp pain in her shoulder made her cry out and fall to the floor.
Shouting. Churning. Daphne opened her eyes to slits and saw the little girl, bathed in ghostly gray light, still pointing at the clockwork. The girl was … flickering. Daphne’s ears rang, and all she heard was central cog.
She looked up and gasped. Cogs and gears littered the room. The clockwork frame was smoking, the air reeking of ash and melted iron.
It was then she realized what caused the strange grayness around her. The town of Dover had Stopped.
Time no longer moved, was something she could no longer control. A dream—a hallucination—a nightmare. Her vision doubled.
The little girl shouted, but her voice was fading and weak as she flickered again. Daphne struggled to listen, but the girl might as well have been chanting another language. Gritting her teeth, Daphne crawled towa
rd the clockwork. Her shoulder ached, and desperation bit her palms.
Do something, she thought. Have to do something.
Panting, she located the central cog, which hung crookedly off its frame. Daphne wasted no time and grabbed her tools to reattach it.
Her scratched-up hands were shaking. Time distorted, made her pick up her tools three times in a row three times in a row three times in a row, made her crawl across the floor again.
made her crawl across the floor again.
The little girl picked up the loose pieces and brought them to Daphne’s side.
Once Daphne attached the central cog, she focused on the others, working layer by layer. She was mesmerized by the blood pounding in her ears, a drumbeat keeping her on course. Slowly, the clockwork moved forward—one second one second, and then another. Daphne’s vision grew dark as she hurried to attach all of the pieces, to get them in the right order before she went under completely.
When every piece was in place, she put her hands on the central cog and closed her blurry eyes. The time fibers surrounding her writhed in turmoil, the ends frayed and stiff. She jerked them back together, and tied off the loose ends.
Something lit up inside her as her heart pumped, as her body struggled to remain upright, a tense power breathing down the back of her neck. Slowly, painstakingly, the fibers wove together in the pattern that should never have been broken.
She opened her eyes and swayed. The clockwork jerked, jerked again, and began to move.
The grayness lifted.
Time resumed.
Daphne took great shuddering breaths, her heart fluttering in her chest. She looked down at herself and saw patches of spilled blood. Her blood.
She toppled to the floor.
Footsteps thundered on the stairs, but she couldn’t turn. The little girl stood before her, amber eyes still wide. No longer flickering.
Daphne blinked, and the girl was gone.
Danny had taken a bite of toast when he received a call to come into the office.
“As soon as you possibly can,” the Lead said. He sounded grim, and suddenly the idea of Danny finishing his toast was rather unappealing.
He didn’t want to know what had happened to make the Lead sound like that. Ever since this whole affair with Colton began, Danny had been terrified he might receive a call like this.
Maybe Harland rang and said I looked suspicious, Danny thought as he drove toward the Parliament building, which cast a long golden reflection on the Thames. Maybe he did see me with Colton.
“Don’t make assumptions,” he muttered as he parked the auto.
As had been the case for the last several days, no protesters were outside the Mechanics Affairs building. Constables lined the front in case any decided to show up.
Yet the more Danny thought about it, the less sense it made for the protesters to have been involved. Maldon had been guarded night and day.
Unless they were only a distraction.
Danny climbed the stairs and greeted the Lead’s secretary, who showed him into the office. She acted kind enough. Perhaps there was nothing to be concerned about after all.
And then the door opened.
The Lead looked up from his desk. Daphne Richards sat in one of the chairs before him. She turned and stared Danny down, her eyes like blades of ice; the kind that could pierce the hulls of ships.
He had a feeling he was about to be sunk.
Danny swallowed and walked inside. The secretary closed the door behind him.
The Lead gestured to the vacant chair. “Sit.”
Danny hesitated, then pulled the chair a little farther from Daphne’s before he took his seat. Her hands were covered in bandages, and she had scrapes on her cheek and neck.
“Daniel,” the Lead said, lacing his fingers together on the desk’s surface, “you’ve been lying to me.” He glanced at Daphne. “Both of you have.”
Danny began to sweat. His tongue flattened under the weight of apologies and excuses, but he said nothing. Likewise, Daphne remained silent.
“Are you aware of what happened in Dover, Daniel?”
He shook his head.
“You were assigned to go to Dover and clean the Bernice Tower clockwork. Instead, without my consent, you traded the job with Daphne.”
“Sir, I—”
The Lead held up a hand. “While she was there, a peculiar thing happened. A bomb was hidden behind the central cog. The clockwork she was repairing exploded.”
Danny inhaled sharply. His chin stung with the memory of Shere—of Maldon’s tower falling, the gear gleaming in Lucas’s chest. He looked at Daphne, who continued to stare straight ahead, her jaw clenched. She could have very well been lying in a coffin today.
Because of him.
Your fault.
Danny’s fingers twitched as he fought the rising horror inside him. Over and over, he had sent others to their destructive fate. His next breath was a ragged sound torn from his chest, loud enough that Daphne looked at him.
I’m sorry, he mouthed. She turned away.
“Daphne was able to replace the central cog. Otherwise, she likely wouldn’t be here.” The Lead leaned forward. “Daniel, did you have knowledge of this?”
Danny’s body buzzed. He shifted his gaze from Daphne to the Lead and shook his head.
“Don’t lie,” Daphne snarled. “You wanted to trade jobs with me for a reason. First Lucas, and now me.”
“You think I killed Lucas?”
“It’s simple, isn’t it? Lucas and I were your competition, so you decided to do away with us for good.”
“Of all the idiotic—”
The Lead slammed his hand on the desk and they jumped. He glared at them, mustache quivering.
“Listen to me, the both of you! This is a most serious matter, and I will not have you squabbling like children. Four clock towers have been attacked and there are bound to be more. Two mechanics are hospitalized, and another is dead. You two could have died as well.
“Daniel. Please, tell the truth. Why did you switch assignments with Daphne?”
Danny’s mouth turned dry. He rubbed clammy hands against his trouser legs. “Sir … it’s hard to explain.”
“I don’t care. Explain.”
He sat stupid and uninspired until he blurted out, “I have a lover in Enfield.”
The room fell silent. Then Daphne scoffed.
“You wanted to trade jobs so you could get cozy with some Enfield boy?”
The Lead massaged his temples. “Is this why you requested to remain on the Enfield assignments?”
Danny nodded, blushing. The Lead sighed.
“You had no authority to trade assignments with Daphne without my consent.”
She bared her teeth at Danny. “Aren’t you going to question him? It’s suspicious, isn’t it? First he goes to a village that Stops, then he’s seen snooping around where he shouldn’t be, Lucas dies, and now this! And let’s not forget his father’s trapped in Maldon.”
Danny stood so fast his chair toppled over. “Don’t you dare bring my father into this! If you think I had a hand in that—”
“I don’t know a thing about your father. For all we know, he beat you and you fixed it so he’d never return.”
“Enough!” the Lead roared, standing. “Daphne, I agree that the circumstances are odd, but I believe Daniel had no part in what happened. Did you?” Danny shook his head, breathing hard through his nose. “Lord knows I should reassign you both to some godforsaken corner of England, but I’m afraid I have to take more drastic measures.
“Daniel, Daphne, you are both hereby dismissed from the Mechanics Union.”
The maroon carpet tipped under Danny’s feet. The whole damn world tipped.
“No,” he whispered under Daphne’s “What? But I didn’t do anything!”
The Lead looked as though he’d aged ten years in ten seconds. “I can’t be certain you aren’t lying about switching assignments. With the state of things, I
can’t take any chances.”
“But, sir, the committee.” Daphne’s eyes were wide. “The foreign exchange program. I need—I mean, I thought I was—I wanted—” She couldn’t finish.
The Lead drew a deep, weary breath. “Maybe when this whole mess is cleared up, I’ll consider reinstating you. For now, your hospital bills will be paid for, but you are no longer members of the Union. I’m sorry.”
Daphne was told to go home and rest. She turned to Danny with hate in her eyes, but whatever she wanted to say wouldn’t come out. She stormed from the office with a muffled sob. Danny hung back, certain that the Lead wasn’t through with him.
“I’m going to ask you one more time,” the Lead said softly. “Did you have any knowledge of the attacks?”
“Sir, you can’t really believe I had a hand in this.”
“What Daphne pointed out is incriminating. You know that, don’t you? Lucas said he thought your behavior was suspicious, and I must admit I wasn’t too pleased to hear you’d been to the Maldon site. And let’s not forget your little incident at the hospital.”
“But Tom and George were right there at the tower. They had access to the blueprints. Tom was at Shere before I was. He had pipes to build bo—”
“Do you have proof, Daniel?”
Danny’s silence was answer enough.
“You will leave those mechanics alone. Is that understood?” He waited for Danny to nod. “Now, answer my question. Did you know?”
Danny took a shaking breath. “No. I didn’t know anything about the attacks.”
The Lead didn’t look convinced. “Daniel,” the man said gently, “you’re going through a difficult time. Your mind may not be completely sound.”
“Sir, please, don’t do this.” Danny’s voice broke. “I’m begging you.”
The Lead passed a hand over his eyes. “I’m sorry, Daniel. I really am. But you can only have so many chances, and you’ve squandered your last one. I hope one day you’ll understand.”
AETAS AND THE END OF TIME
Aetas stood upon the solemn shore with outstretched hands, the time threads extended from his body as if he were a loom ready to be used. He didn’t dare stroke a finger across them to feel them vibrate with possibility as he once had. Now there were too many possibilities, and he had only one choice.
