Underneath it stood two men. “Not really a gift if they're asking for other folks ta pay for it,” said the shorter man. He was dressed in a worn tweed greatcoat, his misshapen kepi cap pulled down tightly to protect him against the cold. Sitting on the frozen ground next to him was a large carpet bag, held shut by a brass latch.
The other man was much taller, pushing past six feet by a good few inches, raised up even higher by the heels of his polished black boots. His clothes spoke of wealth and power, the brocade patterns in his long black coat tracing out the Greek omega symbol over and over again in a fine gold thread. His face was hidden—wrapped up with a scarf so that only his eyes were visible between his coat and his hat. “You shouldn't mock their goals, Murphy. It's no small thing to plan a great endeavor.”
“As you know, Lord, nothing ever happens without a solid plan.” He rubbed his gloved hands together. “I don't think Eli will be meeting us here tonight.”
“No, perhaps not. I was hoping…” He nodded. “I was hoping that Eli might have survived.”
Murphy scanned the park again. “It was an accident.”
“Death by Automaton….It was an accident that took years to perfect.” He clapped his hands together. “I would have called it providence had it turned out differently. To discover some proof that I'm not the only man able to survive the process would have been a great relief.”
“Maybe if you'd gone back to help him…”
“There is no cure, no medicine that would have saved him. Live or die—that is all there is.”
“Then it is what it is.”
A few yards away from them the ragged figure stood up from his bench. A liquor bottle dangled from his left hand and he stumbled toward the street with a weaving gait. His back was hunched, with a severe hump poking up from his right side. His wandering motion made it appear as if he was heavily inebriated, but he took another pull from the bottle.
The Irishman nodded in the vagabond's direction. “Maybe we should ask that one if he's seen anybody?”
The tall figure turned his head to look. “He appears fairly close to death himself. But go ahead and ask him if it will settle your conscience.”
“Aye!” Murphy yelled out. “You! Come over here.”
The figure stopped, looked up at them for a moment, and then began to sway in their direction. The bottle slipped free and landed on a clear patch of concrete. It shattered into glass fragments, instantly indistinguishable from the ice all around it.
As the vagabond moved closer it became clear that he was also well bundled up against the cold. He had a large piece of cloth wound around his head, but it was not nearly as stylish as what the tall man wore. He stopped a few feet away and held out his hand. “Coin for a war veteran?” The voice that rose up from the pitiable figure was horse and ragged, but each word was spoken slowly and deliberately.
“My master and I are looking for a friend of mine. I'm wondering if you might have seen him.”
“What did he look like?”
The Irishman stepped forward. “Oh, you'd notice him. His skin would be black. Not brown like a negroid's, but gray.”
The figure shuffled for a moment. “No. Ain't seen no one like that around here.”
“You're sure?”
“Yah.”
Murphy dug into his pocket and pulled out a coin. “All right, old man. Go find yourself someplace warm to sleep.”
The vagabond's gloved hand reached out and grabbed the man's wrist. The coin clattered to the ground. “What the hell?” He tried to pull his arm back, but it was held fast. “Let go of me!”
The ragged man lifted his head and let the Irishman look into his false eyes. “Hello…Murphy. I've been…looking for you.” He swung the man around him, letting him go after he'd completed three-quarters of a circle. The Irishman retained his balance long enough to stumble backward a few paces before his feet lost purchase on a strip of ice. The air was forced out of his lungs with a tremendous grunt as he landed flat on his back.
The force of the maneuver dislodged the cloth from the Vagabond's face. His metal mask was now clearly visible. “Your friend…Eli is dead.”
The tall man smiled when he saw Tom's face. “The Automaton? But this is too perfect. I've been trying to figure out how I was going to track you down. With you being on the run from your friends I had assumed you'd stay in hiding until I at least threatened the Stanton girl. This makes everything so much easier.”
Tom reached up and pulled away the rest of the cloth. The material fluttered down to land on the snow. “You are…Lord Eschaton.” His voice had returned to its usual musical timbre.
“Yes, Tom. And it's good to hear you call me by that name.” He held out his right hand. “And even better to see you again.”
Tom didn't respond to the gesture. “Again? Do I know you?”
“No reason you should remember me. But I was there at your birth—the midwife at the beginning of your marvelous life.”
Lord Eschaton reached out with a gloved hand and lifted up the right side of the Automaton's jacket until it slid off his shoulder, revealing the bulky iron arm hiding underneath. “Eli mentioned that you had figured out a way to incorporate new materials directly into your body. That's a most impressive trick—far from your creator's original design.”
“I am able to reason beyond my basic functions.” Tom shrugged the coat off and let it drop. “I can learn new things.”
“Remarkable…” Lord Eschaton began to walk around him. “But how do you manage to do that, Tom? Where exactly do you remember it?”
Tom continued to turn so that he could face the taller man at all times. “It does not need to be explained….I just…am.”
“Cogito ergo sum, Tom? By all accounts you've bridged the great gap between thought and machine. No wonder the Paragons are terrified of you—something greater than they can comprehend.”
Lord Eschaton began unwinding the scarf from around his head. “But I know your real secret. I know what it is that truly separates you from humanity, beyond even your clockwork body.”
Tom cocked his head to the side. “And what is that?”
Underneath the silk, Lord Eschaton's skin was gray—darker in shade than Eli's had been, and completely free of any white streaks. The top of his head down to his nose was covered by a form-fitting leather mask. “You don't think with your head; you think with your heart.” His words spilled out into the cold with his steaming breath.
The mask's features were blank and smooth, painted with a black gloss so thick that it almost seemed to gleam in the gaslight. Painted onto the center of it in gleaming white, in the same broad strokes that had been used on the fortified smoke cylinder and the tenement wall, was the Omega symbol.
Tom took a step backward. “You've been tainted by the…smoke.”
“You said you visited Eli.”
“He died in…agony.”
“That's a shame.” Eschaton pushed his face closer to Tom's. He smiled broadly, his lips pulling back to reveal the whiteness of his teeth shining out in stark contrast against his darkened gums. “I'm sure you were a great comfort to him in the end.”
“He told me where to find you. What do you want with the…Paragons?”
“Always straight to the point, when it's what you want. A trait you've taken from your creator.”
Lord Eschaton took a step back and continued. “All right, let's get to it, then. What I want from them is exactly what they want for you: destruction. They are an obstacle to my plans.”
“Plans for the end of the…world.”
“Indeed.” He swept his arms out to his sides, holding his palms up in a grand, theatrical gesture. “This great city, this industrial era of man—it's all reaching its end. With or without me, it's just a matter of time.”
“There is a great deal left for us to…discover.”
“Us?” Lord Eschaton let out a chuckle. “How long do you think it will be before mankind has managed to infest every
corner of this planet and squander all its precious resources? Five decades? Ten?” His voice gained volume with every word. “By the end of the year this park will be lit by electric light from a steam engine powered by coal. Then it will be the city, and one day the world. It will burn brighter and brighter until we have squeezed out the world's last drop of fuel.”
“It is called…progress. Humans discover to survive.”
“More Darby nonsense. I thought you said you were capable of learning, but it turns out you may not be much more than a fancy telegraph machine tapping out the words of a dead man.”
Lord Eschaton drew in a deep breath of the cold night air. “Yes, progress, but where is it leading us? This is a broken world, already overflowing with humanity—armies of poor and starving wretches are allowed to live and breed based on the needs of keeping a few rich men satisfied.”
Tom shook his head. “Sir Dennis said that the greatest success of…technology is that ultimately it…eases the lives of all men.”
Eschaton furrowed his brow. A single white line snapped into existence straight down the center of his face. “And yet thousands more are born into poverty every day.” He took a moment and smiled. “I only want what Darby wanted. It was the proper solution that he was always afraid to grasp.
“I don't just want a more efficient world, or a faster one. Those are meaningless dreams. We ride trolley cars across the city, and steamships over the ocean, but none of these things truly make our lives better. And there are so many more of us now. “
He reached up and pulled the glove off of his left hand. “I want a future for the human race where we can make scientific pursuits that lead not just to quantity, but to quality.”
“And to do that, you believe you must…destroy.”
Lord Eschaton clapped his hands together, the leather smacking against his smoke-black palm. “Just so! We must immanetize the Eschaton! The time has come to destroy this world so that the better one may be born.”
When he opened them, his hands contained nothing, but he pantomimed a small planet cradled above them. “The new world will no longer be built on fear and war, or any of the products of man's hatred and the rising tide of humanity. It is a world that will be built on nobler pursuits, and it will have room for more than just humans. It could be a place where an entire race of intelligent machines might find a home.”
From a few feet away Murphy stirred and moaned.
Tom cocked his head to the side. “Tell your…man to stay down. I will have no problem finishing what we started at the…bridge.”
Eschaton nodded. “Do as he says, Murphy, at least for a little while longer. Tom and I need to finish our conversation.”
Murphy groaned out his reply.
Tom turned his head so that his glass eyes were facing Lord Eschaton again. “What you are…proposing is wrong.”
“And what does the concept of right and wrong mean to a machine? What ethics lesson about the fundamental nature of humanity should I take away from something that isn't even human? What can I learn about life and death from something that has never been alive?”
“I am what…Sir Dennis made me.”
“Cast in the image of his god.”
“Just so.”
Eschaton stood silent. His eyes traveled across Tom, following his outline up and down. “This has been a most enlightening conversation.” Lord Eschaton shrugged off his coat and threw it in the direction of Murphy. “But now I know your position, and I don't think words change anyone's minds.” The Irishman had managed to get to his hands and knees, and the coat landed on his back.
“But I'll be sure to keep your ethical dilemmas in mind after I've activated your brother. He will be a being created in my image. I'm sure he'll want to know something about you.” Underneath his jacket Eschaton was wearing a clean white shirt stuffed sharply into a pair of tweed pants. Suspenders held them high up on his broad frame. The Omega symbol had been stitched into the hem in yellow thread.
Pulling down the suspenders he began to unbutton the shirt. The body underneath of it wasn't defined as much as chiseled. The flesh almost seemed to be a stone relief, except for the occasional twitches that rippled through the muscles. It was as if his every fiber were held on the verge of contraction, and only sheer force of will kept him from rolling up into a ball.
“You were the one who stole my replacement body, then.”
The tall man let his shirt drop to the ground. “Not all by myself, no. I had some help—from more than one person in the end.” He flexed his muscles. They moved like steel plates scraping across each other.
There was a sound of ripping fabric as the hatch in Tom's left shoulder tore through his shirt. With a hiss, a rocket ignited inside of him and flew into the night on a column of smoke. It was quiet for an instant, and then the firework exploded, bathing the park in a shower of bright light. After the pattern faded, a bright flare floated slowly to the ground, illuminating everything around them in a shimmer of green.
The look on Eschaton's face instantly turned from amusement to anger. “But why tell them you're here? You're still a fugitive.”
“I am still a…Paragon.” Tom clenched his left hand into a fist. “You and…Murphy McAuliffe will remain here until the…authorities arrive.”
“No. We'll be gone long before then.” He folded his hands into fists and raised his arms. “But you still have something I need, and I'm curious to find out the limits of your power.”
Tom's left arm shot out in a blur and latched onto Lord Eschaton's left wrist. “I would ask you to listen to reason.”
Lord Eschaton smiled. “We've tried that.” White bolts raced down across his skin and gathered together at his hands. “But we simply lack common ground.” He smacked Tom with his right fist, sending electricity crackling through the air.
Tom was thrown backward, the force of the blow wrenching him away from Lord Eschaton.
“You see, Automaton? I'm more than just a man now.”
Tom had managed to stay on his feet. “Eli had the same reaction in his skin.”
The sparks were gathering around Eschaton's hands again as he stepped forward. “Because we were both bathed in fortified smoke.” This time the left fist crashed into Tom's face, denting his mask and throwing him sideways.
He followed his attack with an uppercut, and Tom stumbled backward a few steps before crashing into the park fence.
“The…smoke killed him.”
“A just punishment. He failed to capture you, and your destruction of my warehouse set my plans back by months.”
Using the gate as a brace, Tom launched himself toward his opponent. As he got close he swept out with the iron broadside of his massive right arm. It caught Eschaton along the side of his chest and swept him around. He landed on his knees in the snow.
“I felt that!” He rose up to his knees and clapped his hands together twice, each smack sending out a small cascade of sparks from his palms. “I actually felt it!” He clapped them together a third time, and tiny arcs of energy leapt into the air. After the fourth time, he opened them up wide to release a lightning bolt that arced across the gap between them.
The electricity sizzled and danced around Tom for an instant, and then faded away. Steam rose up from Tom's exposed metal parts, condensation dripping down onto the ground, the hot water poking small holes into the fragile crust that had formed over the surface of the snow.
Tom held up his left arm. “Is it my turn now?”
Eschaton smiled, the split of his grin revealing his dazzlingly white teeth. “We don't take turns.” He charged at Tom directly, jumping into the air, and kicked his right leg into the Automaton's torso.
There was a solid thud, but the grunt that rose up didn't come out of Tom.
Lord Eschaton tried to use his momentum to step back, but Tom grabbed the tall man's left arm. He pulled up his knee and punched it into Lord Eschaton's stomach.
The gray man staggered backward from the blow b
ut managed to find his balance after a few short steps. “Tom, you are a most surprising and outstanding piece of machinery.” As he rose up his hands started to glow again, brighter this time. “Darby's crowning achievement.” White streaks had started to coalesce around his fingers, snaking up from the rest of his body. The streaks of energy continued to gather until his arms were solid white all the way up to his shoulders. “I'm almost sad that I'm going to have to defile his memory.”
Tom brought up an arm to block the glowing forearm that smashed down toward him. “How is it that…Eli died and you survived?”
“I don't actually know.” A massive electric arc snapped out as their limbs pressed against each other. The crackling energy forked up to a nearby tree branch. It ripped through the wood and left it burning. “If I live for another hundred years, there may be no reliable way to rid myself of this curse, or share it.”
For a moment, neither man nor machine moved. They were locked together like a single statue, connected arm to arm. Then, almost imperceptibly, Eschaton faltered.
The gray giant crossed his right arm over the left and redoubled his efforts. “I only wish you could see the body that Darby made for you, Tom. It surpasses the one you have now in every way.”
And then it was Tom who was slowly being pushed back. “If only you weren't so much like your creator—so sure of your rightness about the future—I could have used you.”
There was a high-noted “tink,” the sound of metal snapping, and Tom dropped a few inches toward his knees. “It is not a…moral issue—it is what I was created for.” He lifted up his right arm and pointed the handless wrist at Eschaton. Pressurized white steam poured out of it.
Falling Machine, The (The Society of Steam, Book One) Page 28
