Cultwick: The Sweeper Bot Plague

by Stone, J.

  “Aha! I see the problem,” she declared. “It looks like the brain has been smashed down into the throat. I’m afraid there’s no cure for that.”

  “Doctor,” she said in a lighter voice again, “we’ve lost the patient.”

  “Hmm, looks like you’re right,” she answered herself in the deeper voice, putting a finger absent-mindedly to his wrist. “Please note the time of death, nurse.”

  She dropped the bloodied rod to the floor and opened the door to leave his office. “Thank the good doctor for his work. Check.”

  Fiona made her way to the sewer entrance in the room marked for waste disposal. “Oh, Ryn. You do know how to get dirty, don’t you?” she asked to no one, looking down at the rushing water at her feet. She held her nose and then jumped into the sewer hole saying, “Here I come, Rynny-Poo!”

  The water pulled and pushed her through a series of weaving pipes before eventually flushing her out and dropping her into a slower moving stream of sewage. Coughing up the water that had forced itself into her mouth, she climbed onto the side of the tunnel. Dripping wet, Fiona pushed forward in the dark, seemingly knowing exactly where she was going and what she would find when she got there.

  Somewhere nearby Fiona heard a squeaking sound and decided to take a short break to investigate. Still unable to see in the blackness, she used her ears to echolocate the source of the soft sound and grabbed up a sewer rat that had been scurrying around her feet.

  “Don’t you know, Mr. Rat?” she asked the creature, holding it up to her face. “You’re just food.” She snapped the rat’s neck and then bit into its belly.

  She worked the flesh, blood, and organs around in her mouth, prolonging the sensation as long as possible. After swallowing in a big gulp, she added, “nothing but food.” She threw the rest of the rat to the sewer floor and continued on her initial path.

  Fiona could tell she had found her quarry by the smell of rotting flesh coming from just ahead. She dove into the water knowingly and spent a few short seconds underwater. When she came back up, she held in her hand what she knew to be a shiny, emerald necklace. She stood back on the tunnel walkway and wrapped the metal chain around her neck, clasping it behind her.

  “There you go,” she said to the jewel. “Back where you belong.”

  Fiona played with the emerald hanging around her neck as she continued walking through the dark sewers. In the distance, she could see a bit of light peeking into the sewage system’s tunnels. The pipe eventually dumped out at the very far western side of Cultwick City.

  She continued outside to the edge of the desert. Her feet, still damp from the sewer water, were collecting sand from the ground. She walked west a bit and then looked back east to see the sun just coming up over the silhouette of the city.

  “Ah,” she said. “There’s that western sun I’ve been looking for. Now to find the jewel in the desert.”

  Chapter 7. Ryn the Heretic

  The morning light had just started to peek in through the window, and Erynn ran her fingers through the dark hair of the young woman sharing the bed with her. She breathed in the woman’s scent, noting her aroma of fresh strawberries. Erynn had stayed in the room above the Gem Saloon after a chance meeting the night before. Erynn and her companions arrived in the town of Dust Grove the day before, and she found herself in desperate need of working off some of the steam she had accrued over the past week’s events.

  She saw a dance hall girl from across the room, while she got a drink at the Gem; and she was quickly drawn to the beautiful young woman. She was performing a dance for one of the male customers, but Erynn was just as equally enthralled as the man was.

  The woman had dark black hair with sporadic blonde streaks along the tips, and the strands that came down over her face completely covered one of her eyes. At the sides, it was cut jaggedly in varying lengths, the longest strands of which just barely lay at her shoulders. Behind her tufts of hair, glittering metal shone through forming an array of earrings along both ears.

  Around her neck, she wore a tight, bronzed choker with cogs and other various mechanical designs etched into it, that Erynn found appealing. She had seen the machines of the engineers far less often out here in the west than she was used to back in Cultwick City, despite the fact chromesmiths and their machines weren’t looked down on in this region.

  Her emerald green dress was cut short in the front and longer in the back; black ribbons raced up the center of her midsection up to her endowed chest, and the excess strands were tied into a simple bow between her breasts. Running up the length of her legs were black stockings that ended just below the cut of her dress.

  Adorning the bare skin of her arms and back were series of intricate tattoos. Interlocking shapes wound together to make beautiful designs. There was a tattoo of a clockwork heart, one of roses wound into cogs and mechanical parts, another of metallic wings spread out across her back, along with many others. However, one in particular caught Erynn’s eye. The design was of a mechanical owl that reminded her of an automaton she had constructed for an eccentric investigator back in Cultwick City.

  The dancer’s movements had Erynn completely mesmerized even across the full length of the saloon. Her customer, however, a railway worker with too much liquor and not enough manners became violent with the dancer, and Erynn felt obligated to step in and help the woman.

  She bashed the man in the back of the head with the butt of her pistol and the local sheriff had come in and taken care of the drunkard from there. Presumably, he spent the night in lock up, and hopefully, she thought, he would awake with a terrible headache the next morning. Erynn discovered the young woman’s name to be Pearl Hicks, and it turned out that Pearl was as equally fond of Erynn as Erynn was of the dancer.

  The two women spent the night together, giving Erynn the release she had needed. Pearl told Erynn a bit about herself and the town she worked in, and Erynn related to Pearl what had happened back in Cultwick City. Erynn felt it a relief to have someone to relate all of her troubles to that wasn’t Rowland or Germ or even worse, Tern.

  “Clover?” Pearl asked at one point, smiling. “Aren’t those suppose ta be lucky?”

  “Not in my experience,” she had told Pearl.

  Erynn could tell Pearl still yet slept - her chest pushing back against her own with each breath she took. She attempted to synchronize her breathing so that when Pearl breathed in she would be breathing out, because Erynn had no desire to wake the other woman up and end this moment. She saw this as a pause to the troubles she had been having ever since opening up that awful letter.

  Looking around Pearl’s room, Erynn saw more than a dozen paintings adorning the walls. The brushstrokes were bold, thick, and expressive of the scenes they depicted. Staring at the various canvases, Erynn found she was capable of feeling the emotion that went into the paintings. Many of the images were of nature, city scenes, portraits, and even a few self-portraits.

  Her mind changed focus, and she wondered whether the professor and Germ had made it out all right for the evening. She also hoped that they had taken care of Tern in her absence. She had changed his active punch card from the ‘prison escape’ mode back to his basic program, so she expected he wouldn’t have caused any trouble for them.

  During the course of the evening Pearl had told her about an organization starting out in the west without any solid form yet, but with a name - the Chromework Confederacy. Apparently, a group of individuals had begun to attract followers with the specific intent of putting an end to the tyranny of the Cultwick Empire.

  Pearl didn’t claim to know much about the movement, but what she did know had intrigued Erynn. She knew she had to find and meet with these people. Erynn had seen firsthand the atrocities being committed by their government, and she felt it was her obligation to do something to put an end to it.

  Maybe sometime today, she thought, she could scour the town and find someone who knew more about the rebellion. Surely, someone in town would have met
or at least know of a member of the organization and could lead her down that path. Erynn was finished standing by as the empire spread its disease and filth further and further throughout the world.

  “Mmm,” Pearl moaned, waking up and shifting her eyes toward Erynn. “Mornin’.”

  “Morning, Pearl,” she replied. “Sleep well?”

  Pearl sat up and put her back against the headboard of the bed, pulling the covers with her as she moved, “Of course, I had my heroic defender to protect me,” she said smiling coyly at her companion.

  Erynn followed suit and sat up with Pearl, “Just doing my duty, ma’am,” tipping a mimed hat as she spoke.

  “I half wondered if ya’d be here when I woke up,” Pearl said.

  “I couldn’t very well leave my damsel in distress, now could I?” Erynn said. “Plus you’ve got access to that amazing bath. I must’ve smelled awful last night. I haven’t managed to get truly clean, since I got out here.”

  “Nothin’ a good scrubbin’ didn’t fix, kitten.” Pearl smiled and then asked, “So, yer new in town, ya have already gone and made enemies with a disgruntled rail worker, ya have endeared yerself to the best dance hall girl in town, and yer on the run from the empire. What now?”

  “Last night you mentioned that rebellion group, the Chromework Confederacy,” Erynn stated. “Do you know anyone in town who works with them? Or even someone who might just be able to tell me more about them? Anything would be useful.”

  “Oh, kitten,” Pearl said. “Ya really don’t wanna go and get mixed up with them. They’re dangerous folks and I don’t need ya gettin hurt or worse on accounta somethin I told ya ‘bout.”

  “Does that mean you won’t help me?” Erynn asked.

  “I didn’t say that now,” she said. After a brief pause, Pearl added, “I know one person. From what I’ve heard round town his brother is in deep with the group yer seekin.”

  Erynn gently placed her hand on the side of Pearl’s face and gave her a light kiss on the opposite cheek. “You’re one of the good ones, Pearl Hicks.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she replied.

  Erynn hopped out of the bed and began getting dressed. When she slid one of her arm stockings up over her left forearm, she covered up a tattoo of a four-leaf clover.

  Pearl noted it and asked, “A little ink, hmm?”

  “Yeah, nothing like all yours though,” she explained. “A four-leaf clover seemed appropriate considering my name. Not that it’s improved my luck much though.”

  She resumed getting dressed and then continued, “So, I need to check in with the professor, but do you think you can introduce me to this rebel guy today?”

  “If yer sure that’s what ya wanna do, kitten,” Pearl said. “I’ll do whatever ya need. Though I suggest ya talk it out with that professor ya told me ‘bout first.”

  “Fair enough,” Erynn responded. Before she left, however, Erynn looked again at the painting-lined walls of the room. “Did you make all these?” she asked.

  Pearl bashfully nodded and said, “Yeah, I know they’re no good though.”

  “What are you talking about?” Erynn asked. “These are beautiful. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong. I realize that’s of course subjective, but they’re still wrong.”

  “Thanks, kitten,” Pearl said looking up at Erynn.

  She leaned back onto the bed, where Pearl had stayed to watch Erynn clothe herself, and gave Pearl another kiss. Erynn walked down the stairs to the saloon where there were already a few customers and games of dice happening. Exiting, she passed a couple workmen repairing one of the windows by the door.

  She knew that Rowland and Germ had bought a room for the night from a nearby hotel, the Seventh Night Inn, so Erynn headed in that direction. Not many people were active in the dusty streets so early in the morning, and Erynn was mostly alone for the walk to the hotel. She went up the stairs on the outside of the building to the room they were staying in and knocked at the door.

  There was a shuffle and the sound of something being knocked over from inside. It was soon followed by a timid voice, “Who--who is it?”

  “Germ... it’s me,” she said.

  “Oh! Madam Clover. Just one moment.” Inside she could hear more shuffling and eventually the sound of locks being undone. The rat butler soon opened the door and let her join him inside the room. He carried with him a novel, with a finger stuck in a particular location.

  “You seem a bit jumpy, Germy,” she said, as she walked inside the room and shut the door behind her.

  “Quite, ma’am,” he started. “After you disappeared last night, the professor and I spotted a wanted poster with our pictures on it.”

  “I don’t see Max, now. Is he not here?” she asked.

  “No, ma’am,” Germ explained. “He was up most of the night, gibbering on about that vicious potato of his. This morning, Master Rowland went to ‘scout out the area,’ as he called it. I’m all alone here, aside from that horrid potato, and as we all know, I am no fighter.”

  “You’re not talking ill of Gerald, are you Germy?” Erynn asked playfully.

  Germ allowed himself a small smile and said, “What I would do to that potato if the professor--”

  Before Germ could finish the sentence, Rowland came through the door. “There you are! You should have spent the night here,” he said to Erynn.

  She raised one eyebrow at him and said, ”I got a room free for the night, met someone new, learned a little about the town, and to top it off had sex with a beautiful woman. I’m not really seeing a downside here.”

  “Well, when you put it like that...” Rowland began before trailing off.

  “Also, Pearl told me--” she started again.

  “Pearl?” he interrupted.

  “The aforementioned beautiful woman,” she answered. “Pearl told me about a group called the Chromework Confederacy. Apparently they are organizing in an attempt to overthrow Cultwick’s rule.”

  “That is good. Someone should do something about those tyrants,” Rowland said.

  Erynn slightly cocked her head sideways and took a step forward. She continued, “I’m glad you feel that way, because I’m considering joining them.”

  “It is good that someone is fighting back, but there is no reason it should be you,” the professor explained.

  “I was actually thinking us,” she clarified.

  “Us?” asked Germ.

  “Pearl is willing to introduce me to the brother of one of the members today,” she went on.

  “Out of the question!” Rowland yelled. “It is too dangerous. I just got you back from that awful facility – I am not going to simply allow you to get yourself killed trying to get revenge on them for what they did.”

  “It’s not about revenge, Max,” Erynn told him. “What they’re doing is horrible. What they did to me was horrible, but for me to allow it to continue to happen to others would be even worse. I’m not certain that I can do anything to stop them, but if I don’t try I might as well have died in that cage.”

  Rowland paused seemingly at a loss for words, but soon found them, “I cannot stop you, Ryn, but at least take Tern with you, if you are so dead set on going. Moreover, make sure to put in that bodyguard punch card you made. Who knows what kind of lunatics these rebels must be!?”

  “Ya, big softy, you,” she started and lightly punched his shoulder. “Where is Tern anyway?”

  “The hotel owner made us put him down in the barn next door,” explained the professor. “He said he might scare some of the other guests or staff, the myopic fool.”

  “Alright. I’ll go grab him. I’ll check back in with you two later.” She bid them both farewell and headed back down the creaky, wooden stairs outside.

  She turned a corner at the bottom and soon found the barn they had indicated and slid open the door revealing an awkwardly out of place Tern standing next to two horses - a rope lazily thrown around his neck and tied to a nearby post. Her rifle still hung around the automaton’s b
ack for safekeeping.

  “Come on, buddy,” she said to him. “Let’s get you out of here.”

  “Hello, debugger,” Tern said, seemingly at peace with his surroundings.

  Erynn slid the rope off his neck and tossed it to the ground. Next, she opened a compartment at his back, revealing a slew of punch cards contained inside. She grabbed the stack and flipped through quickly, able to discern at a glance what each was used for.

  Eventually she found the one she was looking for and placed the rest back in the compartment, closing it shut. The chromesmith made her way around to Tern’s front and slid the card into his chest slot.

  Tern went limp, as he usually did when she inserted a new card, and he soon booted back up and stated, “Your protection is assured so long as my drive spins, debugger.”

  “Good to hear, Tern, old buddy. Let’s go.”

  From there Erynn walked back to the saloon to meet up with Pearl and find this rebellion contact. She wondered if he would see her, if he would be any use, and if he really was the brother of someone on the inside of the group.

  She wondered if the rebellion was what she needed. Neither Pearl nor Rowland had been eager to see her get mixed up in it, but she couldn’t sit idly by watching the empire destroy lives.

  Erynn found Pearl waiting down in the saloon, dressed in more subtle clothing – tight black jeans, a loosely-tied dark green corset over a low-cut white shirt, with a brown hooded jacket.

  ”So this is yer automaton?” she asked seeing the pair come in the bar.

  “Yep. This is Tern,” she explained. “He was built using balanced ternary logic - giving him his namesake, punch card technology, and the structural chassis design of a classic Asimov model.”

  “I’ve no idea what ya just said, but it was very sexy,” Pearl remarked. “I’ve always liked mechanical workin’s like this, but they’re so expensive out here.”