Falling Machine, The (The Society of Steam, Book One)

by Andrew P. Mayer

  The building wasn't huge, considering its original purpose—four thousand square feet with a forty-foot roof. But its current occupants didn't seem interested in using it for storage. There were a few crates around, but they were empty and open. The rest of the room was occupied by large pieces of machinery bolted to the floor, including a huge black metal tube that stood near the entrance.

  But the most notable feature was the long row of dismembered metal limbs hung carefully along the far wall.

  There was a whir as the photographic material in the back of Tom's head shifted the next slide into position. He rotated his head and fired another spark.

  After he had finished with his photographs the Automaton lowered his mask back into place, pushed his hand back into its normal position, and walked into the room.

  He weaved his way through the bulky machines. The first one was clearly designed for hand milling and rolling metal plates. Next to it sat a strange iron box with a series of metal wands sticking out from the side of it. Tom grabbed one by the tip and pulled. It came free, with the other end connected to a cloth-wrapped cord that ran back into the box.

  On closer inspection the tip of the metal stick was scorched. Near the base of the wand was a switch, but when Tom moved it nothing happened.

  He let go of the object, and the cord retracted. The stick slithered back to its metal home like a snake sliding into a hole.

  Tom walked on, reaching the row of arms and legs that hung on the far wall. They were all fit for a giant, and if they had been put together into the relative shape of a man he would have stood over twenty feet tall.

  Tom tapped one of them, and it sang out with a distinct metallic note.

  The limb was squat and heavy and lacked a hand, ending instead in an empty hole encircled with a wide metal ring. As the ringing faded he pulled down an arm from its hook. It was made from four rounded plates of dark iron, each with a long, flanged edge pressed together so that they formed a tube. Tom ran a finger along one of the joins, but there were no bolts of any kind holding it together. Instead the seam held thick beads of steel, and it appeared that they had somehow been glued together using the metal itself.

  Tom slipped his right arm down into it. The interior was empty, and his arm was easily able to travel all the way up its length until his hand found a crossbar that was placed just below the wrist.

  He grabbed the bar and rotated his own hand. As it moved, a series of metal pins fanned up from the end of it. He quickly realized that he could move the bar in multiple directions, sending out a different combination of pins each time, reaching out to send information to whatever weapon or hand this device had been built to interact with.

  Pulling his arm out, he hung the limb back onto its hook and examined one of the legs. It was as tall as a man, and the locking ring at the ankle was much thicker, with a second, reinforcing circle of metal above it. Wires poked out of the end. The interior was lined with a thick fabric, and a series of long wires travelled up and down the length of the limb, leaving just enough room for a human limb to fit inside. He stood the leg on the floor and lifted his face mask. He pointed the lens in his head directly at it and pulled back his thumb to let off another spark.

  Leaving the leg standing on the floor, Tom walked back across the warehouse, heading toward the giant tube that sat near the blacked-out windows.

  It was lumpy and ugly, covered with bands of steel and painted over with a thick layer of pitch that was flaking off in some places, oozing in others. The cylinder was the size of a steam locomotive but stood vertically, rising up toward the ceiling. Rather than the usual patchwork of brazed metal plates, the body had been constructed from a single rolled sheet of metal, formed into a perfect tube and sealed up the center with the same kind of boltless seam that had been used on the limbs.

  A large symbol had been drawn across its surface in white. The paint had bubbled and dripped, but it was still legible. Tom ran his hand across the side of it, letting his fingers trace out the image, a perfectly drawn Greek symbol: Ω.

  A ladder ran up the side, bolted to metal straps that encircled the tube every few feet. Tom grabbed the rungs and moved quickly and quietly to the top, his legs and arms making only a light tapping sound as they touched each one.

  Reaching the top, he pulled himself up through a hole cut into a wooden platform surrounding the broad slab of metal that capped the cylinder. In the center of it was a hinged door with a glass viewing portal and a brass handle sticking straight up into the air.

  Tom walked over to it and gave it a tug. The hinged door opened smoothly until it moved past the tipping point and fell against the iron plug with a slam that echoed through the room.

  He pulled his thumb, and the light sparked brightly, illuminating the hole.

  A second later another light flickered out from an unexplored corner of the room. Tom's attempt to spin around and locate its source was interrupted as he was struck by the bullets rising from the warehouse floor. They exploded as they hit him, throwing him onto the wooden platform. His desperate scramble for balance was lost as his feet snagged against the edges of the hole he had climbed through.

  Tom tumbled over the edge, bouncing against the ladder once before he crashed to the floor, and lay there motionless as a cloud of steam rose up through his clothes.

  The gas lamps around the walls flared up, melting away the darkness in the warehouse as their fire burned brighter.

  A man stood next to the wall, his hand leaning on the gas control handle. He was just a few inches shy of five feet tall, covered in a long white smock made from thick quilted cotton smudged with long gray streaks, with a thick leather apron strapped tightly over the top of it. A pair of large brass goggles hung down from a heavy collar wrapped around his neck Like the rest of him, his face was lean and pointed, and there was something about his features that gave him the look of a perpetually angry insect, his face framed by curls of hair that spilled out from all sides underneath a dirty bowler hat.

  But none of these things was his most noticeable or striking feature. That distinction was reserved for the object that sat where the right arm of a normal man would have been—a small Gatling gun, black smoke still rising up from the brass barrels that had just been fired. The back of the gun was set flush against a squat metal box above his shoulder that was clearly designed to feed ammo into the device.

  The contraption was held in place by the collar, along with a brace that traveled down to a metal belt strapped around his waist and upper thighs.

  His pulled his left hand free from the gas control and held it out in front of him. The barrel of the gun swiveled around to meet it, and he grabbed the end of the brass handle sticking out of the side of the weapon.

  “I gotcha,” he said. The voice was surprisingly deep considering his lanky frame, and layered over with a thick Yiddish accent.

  Tom lay in a heap, unmoving on the floor. Wisps of dark smoke curled up from where the bullets had struck his body.

  The man took a few steps closer to him, the gun held pointed down at him. “All right. What kind of schmuck would be stupid enough to come breaking into my lab so late at night?”

  He kneeled down and tried to shove the body over, but he could barely move it. “You're heavier than you look, my dead friend.” Bracing the top of his gun arm on the floor the man tried again, managing to roll Tom over completely this time.

  His face mask had somehow survived the fall intact, although it had come loose from the top of his head and was sliding around on its hinges. The photographic lens had been smashed in the fall.

  The gunman jumped back in surprise. “You! I know you! You're the Automaton!” A broad grin split his almost-lipless face. “I shot the Automaton! Oy, I don't believe it!”

  “Oh, Eli, so much bad luck, and now a little good!” he said to himself as he nudged the unmoving figure with the gun barrel, “Maybe today is your lucky day!”

  In a single movement the Automaton's hand swept out a
nd swept the man's legs out from under him. “Today is not over yet.”

  There was a loud crack as the gunman's back brace smacked against the floor. A moment later it was followed by an involuntary groan.

  Tom rolled up and over, then attempted to leap back onto his feet. Instead he stumbled and almost crashed to the floor. Using his momentum he tried again, managing to rise up to his knees before Eli was able to crank his gun.

  The weapon fired wildly, a thick puff of black smoke blowing out of the end of the barrel after each shot. Wherever the bullets collided with various metal objects inside the room, they exploded with a flash. Others smacked into the wall, sending out chips of brick in all directions.

  Tom attempted to get out of the way by dropping to the ground, but an exploding bullet caught his right side, sending him spinning across the floor.

  Eli scrambled to his feet and pointed the gun at the sprawling Automaton. “There's nitroglycerin in these bullets, machine-man. You try that again and I'll shoot so many of them into you, the only thing you'll be good for is a sieve.” He moved a step closer. “I'd rather have you working, but if not, then not.”

  Tom said nothing. Instead he grabbed his thumb and pulled, sending out a blinding flash from the exposed crystal in his wrist.

  Eli turned the crank, blindly spraying bullets in Tom's direction. Two of them smacked into the Automaton's chest armor, tearing apart his shirt, with a third ripping through his right arm and exploding inside of it. Everything below the elbow shattered, leaving only gears and wire dangling from the damaged end.

  “I've had enough of your tricks,” said Eli. The Automaton leapt straight at him, covering the ten feet between them in an instant.

  Eli tried to turn the crank, but it wouldn't move. He looked up to see the fingers of Tom's left hand closed around the barrel. “Get off me, golem!”

  “No.” Tom turned in a circle, taking Eli with him. The moment he had reached exactly 160 degrees he let go, sending his opponent flying against the black tube. The gunman's hat flew off his head as he sailed through the air, and there was an audible clang as the brass back brace slammed into the iron cylinder.

  Tom closed the gap and once again grabbed the barrels of the gun. “What is your full name…Eli?”

  The man shook his head, as if something had been lodged in it. “Rapid Fire.”

  “Your real name.”

  He smiled as he looked up at him. “You can go to hell.”

  Tom took a step back, lifting up his opponent by his gun arm. He rotated slowly to the left and then shifted quickly to the right. The iron cylinder thrummed like a muffled bell as the man was slammed back into it. Eli let out a choked gasp of pain.

  “Tell me your name.” There was no reply. Tom repeated the slam, harder this time.

  “Okay, okay. Eli Schmidt.”

  The Automaton was silent for a few seconds, and the iron continued to softly ring behind them. “Now tell me what this machine does…Eli Schmidt, or I will throw you into it again.”

  “Do your worst, golem. If I tell you, then what I get is worse than death.”

  Tom pinned the gun and Eli up against the cylinder. He held the remains of his right arm straight up in the air and then rotated the jagged stump ninety degrees so it hovered above the man's neck.

  Eli winced and looked away. “What do you think you'll learn if you kill me?”

  Tom rammed his stump down into the space where the gun-arm attached to the collar. He wedged his arm to the left, and the sound of grinding gears rose out of his chest.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Disarming you.” The sound of gears stopped for a moment, and Tom wiggled his arm deeper in. The grinding began again.

  After a few seconds there was an audible “clank,” and the gun assembly cleanly separated from Eli's shoulder, leaving only the wiggling pink stump of his arm poking out of the harness. It was a foot long, with a withered hand squirming on the end of it Tom stepped back, and the gun-arm came with him, the base of it now attached to the remains of Tom's right arm. As Eli watched, his eyes wide, it retracted back into Tom's body, drawing up tightly against his shoulder.

  “My mother always said that good people shouldn't steal nice things.”

  “I never had a mother.” There was a series of clicks, and then the barrel jerked around in a series of spasms. “I have modified your weapon,” Tom said, “so that I do not need to use my free hand to fire it.”

  In a smooth motion the barrel rotated 180 degrees to point directly at Eli's face. “Now, tell me what the machine is for…Eli Schmidt.”

  “All right, all right.” He slumped down and exhaled, almost as if he were relaxing. “It's the Omega engine.”

  “And what is the purpose of it?”

  “Not so smart as you look, are you? And no offense, but you don't look that smart.” He turned his head upward and glanced up to the platform above them. “I mean, you went up there and you still haven't figured it out?”

  “…Fortified steam?”

  “Fortified smoke! Ten times more powerful than that weak shvitz Darby invented.”

  The gun on Tom's arm twitched threateningly. “Darby created me.”

  “So he did, my mechanical friend. And you are a very amazing golem—truly a marvelous machine—but the world doesn't so much need you anymore.”

  “And why would you say that?”

  “I've read all of Darby's books.” A little grin appeared on Eli's face. “He wanted you to fill men's hearts with hope. Show them a better future, and maybe they'd follow the angels, he thought. Prove tomorrow can be better than today. But some of us know better.”

  Eli slowly moved his hand toward a pocket in his leather apron, never taking his eyes off the gun. “Darby was wrong. It isn't hope that makes people change, it's fear. Fear is the Omega.” Pulling out his hand, he flicked his index finger away from his thumb, launching a tiny object toward Tom. It was a round black lump, no bigger than a currant, and when it hit the ammunition box it stuck fast. “People must fear the darkness before they can see the light.”

  Eli dove to one side and rolled himself underneath the metal cylinder.

  Tom had just begun to spring into action when the black speck exploded, igniting the nitroglycerin in the magazine. The blast blew apart the weapon and tossed the Automaton into the air. He flipped over the steel rolling machine and into the rack of arms and legs on the far wall. Tom disappeared underneath a pile of metal limbs.

  Eli jumped onto the ladder and began to climb up to the top of the Omega engine. “I'm glad I got the chance to meet you, golem.” He was surprisingly agile despite his handicap. “Lord Eschaton, about you, he would never stop talking. ‘His masterpiece,’ he said. ‘Darby's masterpiece.’ I used to think it was the steam that was his greatest achievement, but now that I've met you, I think maybe he was right.”

  Reaching the top he stepped up onto the steel cap and reached down into the open hatch. “But now? It's time for you to go. You, mechanical marvel you may be, are also, I'm afraid, a false hope.” He drew out a metal tube, six inches long and an inch across. It gleamed dull and gray in the gaslight. “But first, we need one more thing.” He lifted a flap on his apron, slid the tube down into a slim leather pocket, and buttoned the cover in place with a practiced hand. He grabbed the brass handle and shoved it forward, bracing his feet in order to shut the door on top of the cylinder.

  Then he clambered quickly down the ladder, almost bouncing as he landed on the floor.

  “If I thought you had a soul, golem, I'd tell you to say hello to Darby in the afterlife for me.” Eli grabbed a valve wheel sticking out near the bottom of the cylinder. He gave it a spin, then pulled a flat handle next to it and ran.

  A hiss rose from the cylinder and became a squeal, followed by something that almost sounded like a sigh. A black cloud billowed out from the bottom of the Omega engine. At first it rose upward, the smoke piling up on itself as if it were something solid. The mass wou
ld have been indistinguishable from black mud except for a smoky haze around its edges. Bright flickers of light began moving around inside the darkness—thin white veins of lighting shooting up from the mountain of smoke.

  After it climbed up for a few feet, the cloud spilled forward, toppling over itself and spreading out across the floor.

  Tom rose up from underneath the tangle of lifeless metal limbs. The explosion had completely destroyed the Gatling gun, along with most of his jacket and shirt, and had scorched and pitted the brass chest plates underneath. His head was twisted around at an odd angle, and some of the struts holding it in place had been torn away, although it was still mostly connected to his neck.

  The Automaton grabbed one of the metal arms from the pile that surrounded him and pushed it up against the ragged hole in his shoulder. The sound of grinding gears began again, this time with a rhythmic pinging that emanated from inside the empty limb, its pitch rising higher every time, like a piano string being wound tighter and tighter.

  Eli jerked to a stop in front of the door. His hand moved toward the lock, only to find a hole in the door where it been broken off. For a moment he simply stood there, wide-eyed, staring down at the broken metal on the floor. His left hand clawed at the wood, and he slipped his fingers into the hole where the lock had been. Putting his foot up against the frame, he tugged until his hand slipped free. The door hadn't budged. It was as solid as a wall. “No, no, no!” The pool of black smoke from the cylinder was moving out in all directions with hazy black tendrils reaching out in front of it, followed by the ever-increasing mass of the central cloud as it hissed out of the Omega tank.

  Tom pushed away the metal limbs that surrounded him, stood up, and walked toward the middle of the room. His new arm, squat and oversized, hung rigidly at his side, unmoving as he walked. The pinging had stopped, although the grinding continued as he walked, and his head slowly moved back into place.