The Inexplicables (Clockwork Century)

by Cherie Priest

  Zeke ignored him. “We want to help you,” he said to the creature. “We want to help you feel better, and go outside where your lady friend is waiting for you. You want to go back outside, don’t you?”

  “He don’t understand you!”

  “He understands what I mean. He knows I’m not—”

  Whatever else Zeke planned to say, it was lost to a moment of terror when the sasquatch jumped smoothly to his feet. He leaped and squatted like an oversized ape, his legs shorter than its arms and his posture far top-heavier than a man’s.

  Zeke let out a squeak and dropped the ax handle.

  It clattered to the ground.

  The sasquatch put one foot forward, then another. With every step, he gained confidence and speed. Rector thought about throwing the pickax; he thought about turning and running; he thought about finding another weapon, maybe grabbing Zeke’s ax and giving it a toss. But there was only time for thinking, and no time for doing.

  No time to do anything but watch, and wait for the next breath and heartbeat. Wait for him to seize Zeke like he’d taken Houjin.

  Except Zeke didn’t have anything edible to offer. Nothing except himself.

  But by now, Angeline had caught up to them, swung around them, and gotten behind the sasquatch.

  When she leaped out of the fog it was a thing of beauty. She flew with her net flung out before her, and landed just behind the sasquatch, just within range to throw the net, and pull it tight.

  The sasquatch staggered. He was moving too fast to stop outright, or even turn around; but he tottered and tried to hold his feet steady. He spun like a dancer, and his spine bent and shifted, struggling to hold himself steady.

  Angeline reached out with one long leg and kicked as hard as she could. She caught the creature in the soft spot behind his knee, and his knee buckled. The whole beast went down, toppling with a rolling shudder and then a low cry that shook any rooftops left standing.

  The princess stood above the creature with her hands straining against the pull of the net.

  “Boys!” she cried. “Help me move him! Help me tie him!”

  All three lunged toward her, now that the beast was down. They wrestled with the ropes and dodged the grasping fingers and groping hands of the imprisoned thing; and when Angeline told them which way and how far, they began to shove, prod, and manhandle him back toward the jail. The irons there were rusted and the bars were uncertain, but he had to go someplace, and he couldn’t come downstairs. He couldn’t go to the underground, and he couldn’t go to the tower. He had no place of his own, not while he was as sick as the fox but a hundred times its size.

  It was an hour of heavy work and terrible labor, for the sasquatch did not agree with his handling, and his four captors were working against the air, and the filters in their mask. They rolled the protesting brute when he couldn’t be compelled to walk or crawl.

  But at times, Rector felt that he wasn’t fighting very hard. He was tired and sick. He had just had a meal for the first time in days. He didn’t want to be brutalized into a jail cell, but he didn’t know that that was coming. And he was still strong enough that Rector shuddered to consider how strong he must be when he hadn’t been breathing poisoned air for ages.

  Something that size can’t help being strong, he thought. Something that big is dangerous because he outweighs you, not because he outruns you or outthinks you. It was almost funny, now that he looked at it. It stunned him that he’d ever been afraid of him in the first place … at least until a swing of one shoulder knocked him flat onto his back and took the wind right out of his chest.

  “Watch yourself,” Angeline said. “He’s stuck, but he’s tough.”

  Rector picked himself up. He leaned forward, bracing his hands on top of his thighs. He took a moment to catch his breath and said, “I don’t think he meant that one.”

  “I don’t think he did either. Are you hurt?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Then come back to the party. We’re almost there, and he’s almost done fighting.”

  Houjin said, “That’s good, right?”

  “Yes and no. When he’s too tired to fight, he’s too tired to be bullied along. Let’s get him settled before he faints away altogether. I don’t know if we can carry him.”

  By the time they reached the old prison on the hill, the sasquatch was barely able to stand. They’d worn him out with the journey, or so Rector hoped—otherwise, he would spring to life the moment their guard was down and kill them all, that was his personal suspicion. He watched the sasquatch exhaustedly as Angeline guided him into the sturdiest-looking cell. There was still a wall loop made to anchor chains and leg irons, and when the princess gave it a hearty yank, it didn’t budge. She affixed the net thereunto, tying it with careful knots.

  When she was certain that the sasquatch would not leap up and murder the lot of them, she stood and put her hands on her hips, eyeing the unhappy creature with victory … but also pity.

  “Poor thing,” she said. “I hate leaving him all tied up like this, but what can we do?”

  Houjin brought forward the glass mask they’d toted all the way from the underground’s bottommost basement. “We can put this on his head, and see what happens.”

  “You think he’ll just let us do that?” Rector asked incredulously.

  She shook her head. “Not happily, but we need to try it. Here’s what we’ll do: I’ll take one of my knives and cut his head loose from the net, then one of you boys can put the helmet on him and make sure it’s all secure. Watch out for them teeth, though. Some of ’em are as big as my thumb.”

  The sasquatch was propped in a halfhearted slouch against the dirty wall.

  He flinched and growled when Angeline came toward him with a small blade, so he understood more than you might expect—Rector gave him credit there. But since she didn’t hurt him, he didn’t lash out. Instead, he held very, very still while she trimmed away the lines necessary to fully expose his head, as if he had popped through the neck hole of a sweater.

  She held his gaze for a moment, but it was inscrutable. His eyes were deep-set in a flattened face that was a mass of leathery brown-black wrinkles. Those eyes—which, yes, as Zeke had noted, were turning gold—told them nothing.

  “Inexplicable,” Rector breathed.

  And Houjin said, “Sasquatch.”

  “Here he is, boys. Only a handful of folks have ever seen him, or ever will, I expect.” She took the big glass helmet in her hands, and passed it toward Zeke. “You do it,” she told him.

  Zeke took the helmet and held it up, checking for cracks and testing its filters. The sasquatch’s eyes followed the globe. He tracked the thing up into the last slivers of light, watching it catch those rays and reflect them, bowed and broken, in the curve of the glass.

  Zeke lowered the helmet, putting it in front of the creature’s face and letting him get a good look. “See? It’s just a mask, like the ones we wear—but a little different.” As he showed the sasquatch, he appeared to be genuinely curious and paying close attention. “I’m going to put this on you. It’ll feel funny at first, but then you’ll breathe better. You’ll feel better, I think. I’m going to try it now. Let me do it, please? I don’t want to fight you for it.”

  To Rector’s frank astonishment, the brute held still, like he was kept in place with a madman’s jacket and not an oversized net made of fisherman’s yarn. He closed his eyes when Zeke lowered the helmet-mask, cringing when the seals settled around his neck. He stretched and leaned inside the device, gazing out at them with questions he couldn’t ask and they couldn’t answer.

  “I know, it’s a little tight. You’re a lot bigger than the folks it was made for. I hope it’s not too uncomfortable, though—and trust me, it’ll be for the best. The seal is snug, but it’s sitting against all that hair…” Zeke’s voice trailed off apologetically.

  Houjin mumbled, “I guess we’ll find out.” He was poking at the scrapes on his torso, doing his be
st not to scratch them. He realized he was being watched, so he quit worrying the minor injuries and closed his tattered shirt, then crossed his arms over his chest to hug himself. “Well, now what?”

  The sasquatch stared out at them, his head filling the fishbowl-shaped object to full capacity. His chest rose and fell with a little more difficulty than before, but he did not appear to be in any pain—or even, Rector noted, serious distress.

  Angeline observed this, too. “Now, we let him be. The sun’s down, or close enough to it, and we have trouble waiting tonight.”

  Zeke frowned. “We’re leaving him?”

  “Only for now, sweetheart. We’ll come back for him in the morning, but it’s best to keep him out of the way for now. Things are going to get messy inside these walls. Better he’s safe in here than roaming out in the park.” She paused, and said the rest as if she feared it was a terrible omen.

  “Or out at the tower.”

  Twenty-eight

  As night fell, the city grew more anxious with every stretch of every shadow.

  Hanging over everything was the knowledge—the absolute certainty—that violence waited on the other side of that bleak horizon when the sun was lost and the walls held only darkness. Together, the whole underground held its breath. The men at the Station, the Chinese in their district, the Doornails in the Vaults, the former pirates up at Fort Decatur … everyone took the logical precautions, stocked the necessary weaponry and supplies, and waited to hear that it was time to go.

  Houjin had disappeared upon returning from their adventure with the sasquatch.

  Rector assumed he’d gone to lie down or find Mercy Lynch to see about some salve for those scratches; but Zeke reminded him that, no, Houjin had business back at the Station with his alarm clocks and dynamite. If he was scratched up at all, he’d see Doctor Wong or work right through it. He was tough, that’s what Zeke said.

  Angeline had left them to pursue some interest of her own, though she hadn’t specified what. So it was only the two boys for the moment, killing time inside Maynard’s with a number of other men who were likewise waiting for word.

  When word came, it arrived from down below.

  It came on the silent feet of messengers who slipped up from the tunnels to warn the assorted factions that It’s here, it’s now. They’re moving, and we must move faster.

  Packs were hoisted onto backs. Masks were checked, and clipped to suspenders and belts. Goggles and spectacles with polarized glass were jammed quickly onto faces, and warm, shuttered lanterns were readied. They needed light, but not too much light. They needed to see, but not be seen.

  As the men filed out the door, Rector and Zeke fell into line behind them, joining the flow. They’d already talked it over between themselves, and with the lumberman Mr. Miller. Their plan was not to make for the Station, but to head toward the tower. There, they would serve as lookouts, manning the perimeter and helping identify the enemy should the fray become heated.

  They’d been given lanterns that were different from those the other men carried. These had been designed by the late Dr. Minnericht, and Yaozu called them spotlights. They were gas-powered and heavy—like a larger version of the focus beams Rector had seen a time or two before—but when they were lit and aimed, they directed a brilliant, steady light for many yards. They would use these lights to blind the tower men, and single them out.

  “We aren’t going to kill anybody, are we?” Zeke had asked.

  Rector told him, “No, that’s a job for other people. We’re just here to watch our own. It’s us or them, Zeke. Us or them.”

  Now that the moment had come, Zeke was valiantly holding his composure in place—better than Rector, maybe. Rector shook beneath the load of his oversized lamp. He felt uncommonly sweaty, and his heart wouldn’t stop banging around in his rib cage. He was nervous, that was all. He knew it, but that didn’t make it any easier.

  On their way out the door, a woman’s voice called Zeke’s name.

  It wasn’t his mother, thank God. It was Lucy O’Gunning.

  “Zeke, baby.”

  “I’m not a baby, Mrs. O’Gunning.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” she said. She seemed to wrestle with some internal question. Her brows furrowed, and her mechanical arm fidgeted with the edge of her apron. “I only mean … your momma doesn’t know you’re off to join them, does she?”

  “I’m old enough,” he said calmly. “And Momma’s up at Fort Decatur with the captain, helping with the ships and hydrogen.”

  The last of the men exited Maynard’s, leaving just the three of them standing on its threshold. Mrs. O’Gunning was nearly too worried to speak. She spoke anyway. “You don’t have guns, do you?”

  “No,” Rector assured her. It wasn’t true. One of the Station men had let him borrow one. But he was semiconfident Zeke had nothing on him except the miner’s pick.

  Zeke held his ground. “We’re only playing a supporting role.”

  “Yeah? And who told you that?” she asked, knowing as well as Rector that it wasn’t the way Zeke usually talked.

  “Yaozu. He wants us out of the way, but he knows we can help. We’ll be real careful, Mrs. O’Gunning, and we’ll be back tonight for some cider, if you’ll let us have any. I think we’ll all be celebrating before long.”

  A new voice chimed in. “I don’t.”

  Now Zeke started stammering. “Hello … Miss Mercy.”

  “Heading out to fight, are you? Well, I don’t guess anyone could stop you. But I’m not looking forward to a celebration, because I know who’ll be patching up those of you who fall out of trees, or get your fingers blown off, or get shot when the tower men realize they’ve been had.”

  Lucy O’Gunning nodded sadly. “You got the rooms set up?”

  “As best I can. Rector, you’ve moved your stuff out, ain’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good. That’s one more bed, plus the six we’ve got on either side. I pray we don’t need ’em. Miss Lucy, I was hoping I could trouble you for a few bottles of your highest-proof grain alcohol. Might want it later on.”

  “Sure, honey. I’ll get you what I’ve got.”

  Lucy reluctantly turned away from the boys and opened the door once more, it having closed itself behind them. But Mercy Lynch lingered, and she said to them, “Best take care of yourselves. I’ve seen boys younger than you made heroes, and made dead.”

  Zeke blushed, Rector would’ve sworn to it. “We’ll take care of ourselves.”

  “I hope so. You’re grown men, or close enough as makes no difference to anyone but your mothers. So stay alert, keep your head down, and don’t take any silly chances.” She left them with that, and the last thing Rector saw as she disappeared into Maynard’s was the battered Red Cross on her bag.

  Rector swatted at Zeke’s arm. “Don’t let her put you off. We got a job. Let’s go do it.”

  “I know, but…”

  “But nothing. Don’t let her see you going soft.”

  They stuck to the faster tunnels, even though it meant they had to wear their masks; and they took the hand-cranked mining carts with gusto, their fretful energy making double time on the straighter stretches, carrying them through the lines of track that took them up the hill at a steeper grade. At the tunnel’s end, where the tracks all stopped and the lanterns were turned up to their brightest glow, the travelers paused briefly to let their arms rest and their backs unwind from the effort.

  Then they loaded themselves back up like pack mules and struck out for the city.

  Each boy allowed himself one candle stub, carried in a hurricane glass. It barely did anything except tint the darkness yellow, but it was comfort enough to keep them moving forward. Someone standing half a dozen yards away couldn’t have seen them, so little light did the candles offer—and that was the idea, but it made for slow going.

  The blocks were darker than dark, blacker than night’s usual fall, because it fell on Seattle, where the ai
r was thickly curdled and surrounded by the wall and its omnipresent shadow, resisting any interference from the moon and candles alike.

  Upon reaching an unmarked corner, Rector asked, “Are we going the right way?”

  Zeke checked the compass Houjin had given him. “Yep.”

  “I never thought I’d say this, but I kind of wish Huey was here.”

  “We’d be better off with Angeline. Not saying he’s useless or anything, ’cause he sure as hell ain’t. But this has never been his part of town. She knows her way around better.”

  “I wonder where she went.”

  “So do I,” Zeke admitted. “Heck, she might be waiting for us. Or listening. You never know, with her. That woman’s got ears all over the place, and it’s a good thing, too.”

  “Sure is.”

  “We should probably be quiet.”

  “Probably,” Rector agreed.

  And they were quiet, for about thirty seconds. Then Rector said, “But it’s god-awful dark. And so quiet that I can’t hear a damn thing. Does that make sense?”

  “No, but I know what you mean. Hey—what’s…?”

  Zeke stopped abruptly, and Rector stopped in time to keep from running into him. “What is it?”

  “It’s the wall.”

  “It’s the wall, or it’s a wall?”

  “Can’t tell.” Zeke patted at the stones, running his candlelight up and down it. “I think it’s the wall.”

  “Did we really come that far? I thought we were supposed to turn up toward the park before we hit it.”

  “We were. But we didn’t.”

  “You’re shit for a navigator, Zeke.”

  “That’s what the captain says. And Kirby Troost. And Fang.”

  “I thought Fang don’t talk.”

  “He writes things down just fine, and he signs with his hands. I don’t read it too good yet, but I’m learning. Anyway, I’m pretty sure this is the wall. We overshot our turnoff.”

  “I think maybe you could be forgiven. It’s goddamn dark out here.”

  “We should really be quiet.”