by E. C. Jarvis
Within the large foyer, scores of people rushed to and fro beneath giant paintings depicting the last line of Emperors before the fall of the dynasty. Larissa stared up at them, their foreboding presence an odd extravagance for an administration building in one of Daltonia’s largest cities.
The country had been a Republic for almost eighty years. Larissa wondered why there wasn’t a picture of the first President, Henry Hague Senior, or their current President, Hague Junior, and made a note to ask the Professor about it as soon as she managed to find her voice.
The Professor pushed the snow off his shoulders again. Larissa turned to speak; instead she was knocked to the side by a tall oaf who appeared, huffing and puffing.
“Professor! Thank the Gods you’re here.”
“Mr. Mendle,” the Professor barked as he brandished his cane in the man’s face. “How dare you act so rudely to my companion!”
The taller man spun around and glared at Larissa for a moment. He wore an open white shirt, displaying the dark brown hairs on his chest, and a pair of black suspenders that held up his trousers. She noticed a brass pin on his collar that read “Cid Mendle – R&D”. His hair was a ruffled mess of dark, reddish-brown curls with silver streaks, pushed back from his face by the thick goggles wrapped around his skull. Despite the heat, he wore thick leather gloves.
“My apologies, Miss,” Cid sputtered at Larissa. “Professor, it’s extremely urgent, sir, since the trains have stopped, you know, and the airships are grounded, you realize, and the machine—”
“I understand.” The Professor turned to Larissa, his cool blue eyes catching hers as the corner of his mouth softened into a half-smile. “I’m afraid, my dear, that I will have to take my leave of you.” He stepped in closer and she felt her heart racing. “I do hope you have a safe journey home. Good evening.”
With that he brushed past her, heading with Cid towards a travelling walkway that led to the upper floors. It wasn’t until she had watched him turn out of sight that she realized she hadn’t spoken a single word to him.
I suppose I’ll be taking my corset off myself tonight.
CHAPTER TWO
Larissa hated using the cab system; a collection of burrows that sprawled throughout the city underground. It was serviced with filthy carts connected and moved by pulleys, and usually riddled with unsavoury characters who took interest in pretty young women. Especially those who were dressed in revealing attire. Despite her misgivings, the journey was mercifully uneventful. She pushed through the door into her tiny apartment and set to lighting the fire.
So cold.
She collapsed into her high-backed chair and absentmindedly picked at the faded fabric; Imago, her cat, jumped onto the arm and looked at her with disdain. She petted him, then removed her boots. Her feet throbbed from standing in those high-heeled contraptions all day. After kicking them to one side, she grasped at the lace of her corset and flung it away. Too cold to take off her cloak, she settled back into the chair, curling her legs under the black ruffles of her short skirt before Imago landed in her lap. The fire gently cracked and hissed to life, and Imago began to purr.
Larissa frowned at the framed cameo of her parents on the wall above fireplace, still feeling uncomfortable about having used her father’s infamy to secure the job at Greyfort’s. Would she ever stop feeling as though something didn’t quite fit? Even if that was possible, she still had no clue where to begin trying to correct it.
Perhaps if she had even a small inkling of where her father had gone, she might make some attempt to find him. Yet Father was lost to the world and his exploits consigned to history; her only link to the man she couldn’t even remember was the stone on the chain around her neck. Such a pitiful memento. Her eyes fluttered and her head fell back against the chair.
Just for a minute...
Larissa was unsure whether the knocking or Imago’s claws in her leg woke her. The fire was nothing more than smouldering embers. She jumped out of the chair, unceremoniously depositing the cat on the floor, and opened the door.
“Miss Markus,” the Professor greeted her. She felt her face begin to burn as she realized her feet were bare and her chest was covered by only a silk blouse beneath her cloak. She blinked at him, searching for something to say. Was he really at her door? She had been thinking of him all week, plagued by images that might make a harlot blush. She squeezed her thighs together and tried to suppress the inappropriate things that came to mind.
Imago jumped onto the chair and turned his head away, pretending not to watch.
The Professor glanced down the hallway nervously. “May I come in?”
“Yes...yes, of course,” she breathed.
“I apologize for leaving you so abruptly earlier. You should know I am not in the habit of breaking dinner-date engagements.” He paused to remove his cloak and hat, neatly placing them on the chair beside the cat. Larissa heard her heartbeat pounding in her ears. “Then again, I’m not in the habit of making dinner engagements.”
“It’s not a problem,” Larissa said, looking at her feet and clutching her cloak around her body.
“I could still take you out.”
She froze and somehow managed to suppress a frown. Out was not what she had expected. She looked around at her apartment, wondering if a man of his stature felt uncomfortable in such a humble setting.
I’m not ashamed—at the very least it has a bed.
Perhaps her quiet voice and all-too-shy reaction to him had made him second-guess his approach; perhaps he thought she wasn’t ready. She was ready, more than ready. Gods, if only she could muster the courage to say so!
He gently brushed his knuckles across her cheek, and her body responded with a shiver, bolstering her nerve.
“Or we could stay here,” Larissa said. Her pulse raced and she allowed her cloak to slip down her shoulders, the thin straps of her silk shirt falling with it.
The Professor stepped forward, clasping her shoulders and preventing the shirt from falling completely. He ran the tips of his fingers along her necklace, tracing his nails across the skin behind the silvery-white stone at the end of the chain. His fingers continued down the front of her chest and she held her breath. He brought his mouth close to her lips.
“Miss Markus, I cannot recall a time when I have been so easily seduced.” His blue eyes studied her, and she pushed up on her toes, parting her lips, expecting him to bend down and follow her lead. Instead, he reached down and collected her cloak from where it had pooled around her feet and brought it back up to cover her shoulders.
“However, I’m afraid I do need to stay close to The Hub this evening. It is a critical time. Perhaps you’d like a personal control-room tour?”
What?
“Oh. Um, yes, that would be delightful.” In spite of the sudden change in his demeanour and her utter embarrassment, the prospect of being allowed into a place that was usually so secretive thrilled her.
“Good, then let’s leave immediately.” He turned his attention to Imago, roughly rubbing the cat’s head and giving Larissa time to redress herself.
She finished strapping up her boots, half-eyeing a more practical pair sitting beside the door but dismissing them in favour of the sexy-yet-painful pair. The Professor stepped forward, wrapped her arm through his own, and led her out, marching down the hallway to the cabs.
Awkward silence hung over their journey back to the Hub. She played back the moment she opened her door to him over and over, wondering if she had done something wrong. She wasn’t a complete stranger to romantic encounters, but something about the Professor turned her into some sort of novice school-girl angling for her first kiss.
Even though he had rejected her, she was still a quivering bag of hormones; she lusted for him, and she was as sure as she could be that he felt the same way toward her. Yet here they sat, travelling through the night. He was domineering, arrogant, and utterly charming, and she had fallen for him in spite of herself.
Only a few w
eeks earlier, he had bumped into her in the street. She had toppled off the path, twisting her ankle yet landing neatly in his arms. It had seemed a little like a ridiculous fairy-tale at first, but when he invited her to dinner at The Praze as recompense, she almost choked on her tongue. It had seemed a whirlwind romance ever since.
The Hub was quiet now. The crystal light shades in the foyer had dimmed, the steam from the furnace rising in eerie trails through gentle streams of gaslight. The travelling walkway to the upper floors had ceased working for the night, so they had to climb the stairs. Sounds echoed through the emptiness; a door slamming in the distance, quiet whispers seeping through the air vents. The Professor gripped her arm that remained looped through his, slowing his pace to give her a chance to negotiate the steps in her high-heeled boots.
Why didn’t I put comfortable shoes on instead?
An ornate door guarded the control room on the top floor; the Professor pulled a brass key from his waistcoat pocket and unlocked the door, which slowly swung inwards. He gently clasped her hand and she felt a fluttering in her stomach at the touch. Perhaps it was a promise of more to come later. She felt a smile tugging on her lips and tried to suppress it, lest she get carried away and start stripping clothes off again.
A humming came from up ahead and as they drew close, the corridor opened out into a colossal room. They came to a balcony and Larissa looked down on the area below. All around, the space was filled with an array of machines. Men in blue overalls busied themselves by monitoring a system of brass poles linked to intricate connecting cogs that clicked around in automation.
In the center of the room stood an enormous machine built of brass and silver, the like of which Larissa had never seen. She spotted Cid bent over an open hatch as he mumbled incoherent expletives to himself. Cid turned slightly and gave them a disapproving glare.
“This is my machine.” The Professor’s voice was laced with pride. “It is nearly complete.”
“What does it do?”
““It’s a small-scale fission reactor, used to generate power through a sustained chain reaction. The heat generated from the reaction with the core element is passed through a fluid, which releases steam. The steam powers a set of turbines, which pass a charge to a generator.” He paused.
Larissa tried to maintain a captivated expression, but he may as well have been speaking Eptoran. The Professor’s expression softened as he realized she had no idea what he was talking about, and she bit her tongue. She didn’t want him to think of her as an idiot.
“This will give us incredible power, make our furnaces obsolete, and block out the winter. With this, we’ll be masters of our enemies. His face darkened with another pause. “I need only one more element to make it work.” He let go of her hand. She shifted uneasily on her feet and gazed at him.
What?
“I am a man of honor, Larissa. If I give my word, I do not go back on it. And I am going to give you my word, now.” He closed the space between them as he reached out to lift her chin with the slightest touch of his finger.
“I will be everything you desire, everything you need. You will never want for anything again. If you ask for my love, you will have it. If you wish to be married, I will be yours. If you want me gone and to leave you free, you need only say the word. I will give you everything and anything within my power to give, you must understand this. I ask for only one thing from you.”
Her heart thumped so hard against her ribs she almost couldn’t hear him speak. Eventually, she mustered enough courage to speak.
“What is it you want?”
“This.” He reached up and touched the silvery-white stone hanging from her neck.
“My necklace?”
“It’s Anthonium, a precious and incredibly rare element. There are deposits of it hidden somewhere. However, I cannot gain funding to search for it until I have proven that this machine works. And to do that I need only a small piece. The only small piece I have managed to find, I tracked down to its last owner.”
“My mother,” she whispered.
“And that is how I found you.”
A lump began to form in her throat. “So that’s all you wanted from me? You sought me out for this?” She gripped her necklace.
“At first. However, now I want the Anthonium...and you. I am a greedy man, after all.” He reached up and pushed a curly lock of hair behind her ear. Her mind fell silent as she scanned the room again. The workers and Cid all looked up at them.
Greed.
A small voice at the back of her mind seemed to shout a warning; she had been vaguely aware of its presence for days now, along with an uncomfortable fluttering in the pit of her stomach. Mother would have called it a premonition, as she had a tendency to feel signs in everything, but Larissa had stopped paying attention to Mother’s whimsical notions a long time ago.
Her arms moved as though propelled by an absent force. She unclipped the necklace and dropped it into his expectant hands. The Professor immediately bent down to kiss her with such passion that she stumbled backwards. He caught her, swinging his arm around her waist. He didn’t stop kissing even as he held the necklace over the balcony and let it slip through his fingers down to Cid.
Their passionate embrace continued as the machine hummed to life, filling the air with static. The Professor tightened his hold on her waist and she slipped into heedless bliss as a warming glow wrapped around them.
CHAPTER THREE
“By the Gods!” Cid yelled. “It’s working, Professor. It’s bloody working.”
The Professor looked over the balcony, his eyes alight with joy. Larissa grabbed his neck and pulled him back to resume the kiss when an odd noise emanated from the door behind them. It started with a keen scratching at the bottom, as though a cat were trying to get in, followed by a series of distinct thumps at each corner. The Professor tightened his grip on Larissa’s hand, turning his back on the door as he swung his arm around her body.
The air inside the control room seemed to disappear, followed by the entire doorway compressing inwards with an almighty blast, sending shards of wood and chunks of plaster flying in all directions. The boom was deafening. In the aftershock, the Professor was slammed against Larissa and they both crashed over the balcony.
A shot was fired, causing a dull clunking noise, followed by a hiss. One final, massive explosion rocked the entire Hub to the core.
Darkness descended, enveloping everything. For a moment, she could feel only a bolt of pain through her body to the tips of her extremities. The numbing silence was replaced by a dull, uneven humming, and muffled voices came from somewhere nearby.
Larissa regained consciousness; the Professor lay on top of her, his full weight restricting her ability to breathe. At first, his crushing body was all she could focus on, until somewhere within the humming and voices she heard a feint whisper against her ear.
“Play dead.”
She felt the weight on her chest shift with speed, and willed her eyes to remain closed. Directly above, the sound of a fist connecting with flesh and bone cut through the air, followed by a pained cry.
“Good evening, Professor.” A deep and oddly accented voice hovered above Larissa. “Perhaps you’ll accept my invitation now that I have your attention.”
“Doctor, what should I do about this girl?” a second man asked, and Larissa felt a swift kick against her ribs. She sucked in a sharp breath but instantly held it, forcing her body to lie still.
“She’s of no use. She hasn’t got what we need. If she’s not dead already, she will be soon. Burn it, burn them all.” Scuffling noises amid mumbled protests slowly faded into silence. Time fragmented. Larissa’s head thumped with pain. In the few minutes that passed, she could barely tell up from down, seconds from hours.
Panic caught in her chest when she saw the roaring flames surrounding the Machine and burning the body of a fallen worker nearby. It was all she could do to wiggle her fingers and roll slightly to one side. In the corner
of her eye she noticed a glimmer. Lying neatly beneath the debris was the stone from her necklace, the Anthonium. She reached for it, the flames licking at her skin. The world around her lightened as though she were rising towards the sky, and then darkness descended once more.
. . .
She heard someone choking as consciousness returned, the coughing mixed with disgusting spitting noises.
“You dead, girl?” an unfamiliar voice called, setting off another round of his harsh coughing. She tried to open her eyes but her body seemed uncooperative. A sharp thump assaulted her ribs and inwardly she cried out, but still her body would not respond.
“Girl!”
A second jolt to the ribs was enough to bring her around. She felt gentle flecks of snow landing on her cheeks, running down to pool at the base of her neck as they melted. Another thump to her ribs alerted her to the searing pain throughout her body, her aching back and head, the bleeding cut on her arm, and the layer of bubbling burns on her exposed skin.
Carefully, she sat up; the world wobbled into focus, and she saw Cid beside her in the snow, his gangly legs splayed wide, hands on knees, staring intently at her. The ringing in her ears was replaced by the clanging bells of fire trucks, followed by shouts from people nearby. She gasped as she saw the Hub.
Fire engulfed the entire Hub, its structure collapsing in on itself. Metal beams twisted and contorted like live animals submitting to the flames; each of the four pillars buckled and swayed. A plume of thick smoke stretched up to the sky, mixing with the dark snow cloud above, the falling snow peppered with ash. The air wasn’t frigid enough to dampen the ferocious heat from the fire. The building that had stood for hundreds of years, filled with artifacts and history, was fading to a shell of dust.
“Well, that’s fucked,” Cid stated.
“What happened?” Tears pricked the corner of her eyes.
“Doctor Orother,” Cid muttered.
