The sound of a clattering chain roused Legacy from her thoughts.
The Albatropus had arrived, bearing five small new patches to its balloon. Its ladder dangled overhead, and Vector was making his way down.
Liam, Gustav, and Vector worked to raise Dax’s body via the ladder. None said a single word, as if maybe it wasn’t real.
Halfway up to the airship, Dax’s boot, unlaced, slid from his foot and thudded to the ground below.
His rebreather was tied around his ankle.
Chapter Seven
Sophie Taliko sat alone at her vanity, peering at her own face in the light of the guttering candle. Her bay window was open, the pleasant breeze of the late August night causing the drapery to flutter behind her back. It was a beautiful evening, a beautiful room, and had once been a beautiful face. But now, Sophie’s fingers crept along and examined the stitchwork of her cheek.
Sometimes she knew that her Daddy was gone.
Sometimes she remembered clearly the terror of that Saturday.
But why would anyone want to remember such a horror?
Why would anyone want to be a disfigured nonentity? The best freedom for which she could hope was the borrowed identity of a dead peasant, an insurgent liable to face execution if they were discovered to have survived the collapse.
She slowly shook her head at herself, her eyes human but hard. Unshifting.
The other times were better. The times when she just kind of blurred away and entered a blissful catatonia. It reminded her of childhood: the invention of so many realities and personalities to assuage the loneliness of near complete isolation. Her automata had not been servants, but had been other princesses and courtesans, had been seamstresses and gardeners and cooks, fairies and witches and goddesses.
Maybe the other Sophie had been with her for a long time now, waiting for the chance, a need to precipitate. Maybe she had been an idle part of Sophie’s mind for years. Lingering in the wings, invisible, watchful. And then . . . then, Paulette had suddenly lunged at her. She’d ducked, and her best friend collided with the wall, skin shattering. When she’d clambered up from the spew of shards, an oily skeleton of brass, half-plated in fractured porcelain, the automaton had lunged at her and clawed down her face.
Sophie pushed the memory firmly away and rose the china mask from her vanity table, fondling the cool glass and admiring its eerie perfection.
Sophie-2.
The automata were so lucky. She’d always envied them their lives of smiling diligence. Machines without the mess of depression and desire, interpretations constantly being disappointed and adjusted. They were just the science of input and output. It was all so simple. Like ballet.
With a long, shuddering exhale, Sophie closed her eyes and rose the mask to her face. She tied the silken ribbon behind her head and breathed in. Out. In. Out.
Opening her eyes, she found that the pain of trauma and loss had evaporated, and she’d become the other Sophie. So beautiful, the delicate fluctuation of candlelight on her immaculate features. So clear and steady, the eyes.
Sophie-2 stood. Her only dilemma was being uncertain of what to do when in this blank space.
Perhaps some of the other bots would go to the arbor with her and play pretend.
At worst, Master Addler could always give her a task.
The Stray Bitches took turns pedaling their winged canoe up toward the sluggishly advancing island in the sky. The night was black as pitch, but the dull gleam of its dome was nonetheless impossible to miss. All four women were dressed entirely in black and armed to the teeth. They moored the apparatus at the exterior aerial dock and slid from its narrow cabin into the frigid breeze. The only flashes of light or color to contour their movements were the reflections from their weaponry.
“I don’t know if this is such a good idea,” Cookie whispered. “I heard that their automata killed, like, hundreds of people.” She cast her eyes about fearfully. “What if–”
“Then there is no better time,” Seraphim disagreed coolly. “Their defenses will be laid bare before us.” She glanced at Cookie while cutting a hole above the locked knob of the gate. “It’s a castle, darling,” she reminded the scared girl. The glass tinkled softly as it tumbled through the open circle and onto the interior aerial dock, shattering. Seraphim both winced and smiled at the sound, sliding her hand to the lock on the other side and twisting it. The gate fell open soundlessly.
The world beyond was slumbering, unsuspecting and luscious.
They entered the grounds from the right side of the castle, which gave them a view of the intimidating keep and stone parapet. Outside were winding paths, flowers and vines, the shadow of a garden.
Seraphim and Dot shared a smug glance, delighting in their victory as Tilde sneered, searching for any potential defenses to crop into their path, and Cookie gaped.
Little did they know, advancing toward the grand hall, that every member of the royal family remained awake.
“The fact of the matter is, Neon, that Kaizen was never meant to rule a duchy,” Olympia told her young rebel Casanova, she sprawled and nude in her bedchamber, he examining her gilded vanity. The lovemaking had come to a close an hour or so ago, but they still idly plotted the future of the “Taliko nobility,” if such a thing existed anymore. “He was always too soft. While other boys played war, he watched birds. In a way, I wonder if it would be doing him a great kindness to destroy this rebel ship you mentioned, heedless of consent, and allow him to take the credit for having the steel of spine to do it himself. At first, he may be heartbroken–”
“He’s doubtlessly in love with her,” Trimpot added blithely.
“–but in the end, thankful, as it may be the only way to express . . . What?” Olympia’s eyes drifted from where they’d been fixed to the ceiling, then panning to where Trimpot stood, smelling her wilting bedroom flowers with distaste. Trimpot glanced over to her and strode from the vase to her armoire.
“In love with the rebel girl, Exa Legacy,” Trimpot articulated. “He had her arrested without bringing formal charges against her. Why? Of course, to the untrained eye, it would appear that he wished to imprison her indefinitely and to not have the courts interfere, which would have been wise, but let us look closer. There was no evidence that he ever truly searched for her in a prosecutory sense following the Massacre, even though there were multiple sightings, including an encounter at the broadcast station in which she was allowed to escape.”
“Kaizen was shot!” Olympia disagreed.
“A lover’s spat.”
“My son may be a dreamer, but he’s not an idiot,” Olympia went on. “What point would there be to such a love? Imprisonment? Death? Poverty, at best? Poverty, at best!” she shrilled, as if she couldn’t believe her own ears. “I mean, Malthus and I . . .” Olympia gestured as if she were literally throwing their marriage over her shoulder. “But still, I stayed. I stayed because I knew that anything else was social suicide.”
Trimpot migrated to her bedside table and plucked a long feather from where it had been laid following their indiscretions. He trailed its loose plumage along her fleshy side. “Even I?”
“Especially you,” Olympia purred.
Trimpot flicked the feather back onto the bedside table and joined her on the bed, although his mind was still apparently elsewhere. “In fact, there was no evidence he ever intended to arrest her at the so-called ‘friendly debate’! As if it was really intended to be a friendly debate! And then, compounding all this are his repeated attempts to convince us all that Legacy is dead when he’s known, he’s known since the first night off, that she was alive and well.”
Olympia made a face. “If only Sophie had been the first born. But then again . . .” She sighed. “That was another broken egg. Will we need to offer you yet another stipend to keep your peace on that score?”
Trimpot rolled onto his back and beheld the former duchess. Unlike his other relationships with women, few and tentative, this was not solely m
otivated by some sense of parasitism or opportunity. He understood Olympia. The callous way she spoke of her own children was exciting.
“Broken eggs have uses,” he noted, ignoring the question. In truth, he didn’t know. Maybe? “Sophie, in particular, is hopelessly mad and has no legal identity. This could be very useful. Particularly in the perpetration of a crime. Consider the possibility that Kaizen is not shamed from holding any sort of official title. He would become a powerful enemy, and could be quite vengeful, having lost his old girlfriend and all. But Sophie . . . Sophie is like a sculptor’s clay. And no one can blame her, can they? No one can blame the mad, abused as children, for what they do. Ironically, it would be this betrayal that would enable the vengeful Kaizen to hold some sort of–”
“What are you suggesting?” A shadow passed over Olympia’s face, and for a moment, Trimpot feared he’d mis-stepped.
“I suppose I’m suggesting that your youngest daughter is quite capable of murder,” he answered boldly. “And you and I, my mistress, are of far too genteel a persuasion for such vulgarities.”
At this, Olympia smirked, her lashes lowering. “You, my love? Genteel?” she mocked him, skating her fingers down his nicely toned abdomen and slithering around his member, idly stroking the muscle awake. “That’s adorable.”
Trimpot lost his train of thought, thighs stiffening. For the first time in his life, he felt a genuine swell of infatuation for a woman. He supposed this was because he couldn’t tell who was using whom, and their little dance of manipulation itself was so exciting.
Meanwhile, Sophie sat at Master Addler’s workbench, examining one of the large brass keys intended for use with an automaton which had yet to be forged. The porcelain mask he had so kindly designed for her was still tied snugly over her face, though it appeared that no one was awake to look upon her. Correction: no one with the prejudices of a human mind was awake to look at her. The wall, however, was lined with her robotic friends, their keys all twisting in their backs, their marbled eyes alive with a fleck of red. Here, with them, in her mask, Sophie felt more comfortable than she’d felt in . . . maybe her entire life.
“Paulette-2,” Sophie called to one of her personal automata. Paulette-2 was one of the more beautiful bots, in Sophie’s opinion. Most people could hardly tell the difference between one automaton and another. Frankly, Sophie found that to be offensive. Paulette-2, by comparison with the others, had wider, cat-like eyes and a coy, almost smug mouth which betrayed her hidden intelligence. The woman coasted over to Sophie with a jerk and a clatter, swinging into a low bow, her long, raven-black hair swinging with her. “How does it feel to have your key turned?” Sophie wondered.
“I feel alive,” the girl replied, pulling erect. “I feel useful. I feel loved. Thank you for asking. Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?”
Sophie considered this. Had she ever felt alive? She couldn’t truly remember a time that might qualify.
The masked girl stood and began to unbutton her stained white chemise. “I would like you to put this key into my back,” she instructed her porcelain friend. “And spin until I tell you to stop.” She shrugged the fabric away from her shoulders, allowing it to fall open and expose a pale swath of skin.
She sighed with relief as the brass key ground against her skin. Certainly it wouldn’t be long now . . . and all her pulleys and gears would finally churn, awakened . . .
“Oh, my god,” a hard female voice muttered.
Sophie whirled, and Paulette-2 froze in her task as if confused by the sudden movement, the bloodied key still gripped in her hands.
Standing at the entrance to the machinist’s chamber was an older woman with short red hair, bright blue eyes, and a weathered face. One glance at her was all it took to determine that she was an enemy. This stranger wore a cutlass on her hip and had already drawn a spear gun. She pointed it between Sophie and Paulette-2, uncertain which would move first. If it weren’t for the blood running down Sophie’s back, she wouldn’t even be sure which one was real.
“We’ve only just been fixed, you know,” the masked girl greeted the newcomer tonelessly. “And here you are. More bad people to hurt us.”
Dot hesitated, morbidly curious as to whether or not this thing was a woman or some strange new bot, some synthesis of body parts and machina.
“Paulette-2? Let’s kill her,” the mad girl suggested.
Paulette-2 pivoted, holding a large brass key with a bloodied tip in one hand, the embers of her marble eyes flaring brighter. Dot found her fingers and depressed the trigger of her spear gun, sending a harpoon directly into the automaton’s guts. There was the crunch of glass, and a spray of nuts and bolts onto the floor. The brass key tinkled as it fell from the automaton’s spasming fingers. The masked girl wailed and dropped to her knees, pounding the floor with her fists. “No! Valkenhayn! Ariela! Belladonna! Maureen! Kill her!”
Four automata shuddered to life from where they had lined the wall, keys twisting silently in their backs.
Dot yanked the harpoon; though it was attached to its gun via a cable, the thing appeared to be jammed between some gears, another spray of parts emitting from Paulette-2’s guts. The young girl shrieked again and snatched up the key on the floor. In all her years of piracy, this was undoubtedly the most disturbing sight Dot had ever seen. If only she’d been thinking more clearly, she would have abandoned the damn harpoon. The masked girl stalked forward, bloodied key in hand.
“You!” Sophie howled, her hand flashing up and down over the pirate woman’s face. “Need! To! Be! Fixed!” With each plunge, the brass key came away with more and more gore. Other parts, not of metal or glass, joined those of Paulette-2 on the floor. When, at last, the shuddering machine fell in a wet thud to the floor, Sophie stepped over it without the usual amount of considerate ceremony she afforded the metallic staff. No; her friends. “I’ll get Master Addler for you,” she told the bleeding lump. It did not respond. “Paulette, Valkenhayn, Ariela, Belladonna, Maureen. Come with me.” She sighed as if tired. “I suppose we’d better make sure the program hasn’t spread.”
Hearing the commotion even from the rooftop of the keep, Kaizen came back to himself and started down the spiral of steps. He’d been drifting, he supposed, both literally and mentally. Staring off into space, the wheel shifting idly in his hands, he hadn’t noticed the creak of an opening gate below. He was considering Neon Trimpot. The man would destroy him quickly and efficiently if he had a chance. I should use my powers as a duke – while I still have them – and imprison him for treason in the tower. I may have pardoned him before, but now I find him undermining my decisions . . . even if those decisions are related to a merciful and possibly compromised handling of the insurgents . . . which may cause the monarch to suddenly . . . decide that I was the weak link. That I’m the scapegoat. I’m the crack in the dam. Mom and Sophie both heard that message from her in the Hermetic device. And Claude would realize that I’d known, all along, that she was alive . . . Even he told me that she was the better prisoner to bring the monarch . . .
That was when the scream resounded from the keep below, and he abandoned the wheel to investigate.
Sprawled in the machinist’s chamber was a slender, aged woman whose clothing and body he didn’t recognize. Her face, though, was mangled beyond recognition.
Seraphim had been born with a shrewd eye for precious metals, and so gravitated naturally toward the royal sitting room. Even in the shadow, its glass cabinets gleamed with jewel-encrusted platework, authentic silver and gold spoons. Deeper within the shadowed parlor glowed self-illuminating and mysteriously shifting landscape paintings imbued with emotions tranquil and nostalgic: a golden savannah that seemed to lilt in an unfelt afternoon breeze, which melted then into a rich navy trench, silhouettes of fish passing in and out of its scope. But all that Seraphim saw were gilded silver frames, embellished with diamond and sapphire.
Tilde followed; as evidenced by Seraphim’s move to save only Tilde on the
Chrysalis, the two were kindred spirits and almost co-captains. Cookie filtered in as well.
“I’m off to those stairs,” Dot whispered in her harsh, craggy voice. “See what’s up there. If I’m not back in fifteen minutes . . . it must’ve been something really good.” The slender woman crept off in the direction of the castle keep, crouched low to the ground and her electric blue eyes peeking rapidly back and forth along the corridor as she went.
“Oi, do you reckon this is the castle of that young bloke from Icarus?” Cookie wondered loudly, staring in absolute wonderment at the moving paintings. It was now a rainy day on a sandy beach, the waves churning soundlessly and the sky overhead a billowing, textured silver. “The hot one? Every girl’s earl?”
“Yes, I’m nearly positive,” Seraphim replied coolly. She filled her knapsack with a row of candlesticks, moving in total silence save the occasional tinkle. She passed the faceplate of a classic clock, Roman numerals for hours and two stiff, jagged, black hands ticking onward. It too was luminous, as bright as a fluorescent pearl, and took up as much space as the huge portraits.
Otherwise, the room itself was cluttered in stuffed armchairs of rich leather, tables, a piano, and peopled in stiff automata who, though keys twisted in their backs, observed all this without intervention. Such was their way; if an imprint wasn’t present or issuing them an explicit command, they essentially went into idle mode. And, although Seraphim knew this and told herself not to be slowed, she couldn’t help but glance in their direction as she collected a set of goblets, pale liquor becoming gelatinous dregs, from off a table. She gave one goblet a quick sniff. Augh. Honeyed mead. Strong stuff. She glanced again at the automata. They didn’t move.
“I’m going to grab that rug in the hall,” Tilde said, stepping from the room.
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