The Havoc Machine

by Steven Harper

  A spider clung to the edge of the boxcar. It stared at Thad with cold, mechanical eyes. Sofiya saw it at the same time Thad did and she stifled a gasp. Thad’s knife was still in his hand. He threw. The knife spun through the air like a deadly little star—

  —and flew past the spider into the fading evening light. The spider skittered sideways, then turned to scamper down the side of the boxcar.

  A silent beam of red light flashed over Thad’s shoulder. It struck the spider, which burst into a thousand component parts. Thad spun. Sofiya held a small rounded pistol of glass and brass.

  Go! she mouthed, and started down the ladder. Thad followed. When they reached the ground, the train whistled again and jerked forward.

  “Dammit!” Thad grabbed Sofiya’s hand and together they ran toward the front of the train. Far ahead of them, the locomotive’s wheels spun, gained traction, and jerked the train forward again. The crowd of peasant men, now smiling, waved at the train. Thad ran past the animal cars and reached the passenger car, which was already gaining speed. He reached for the rail at the side of the car’s tiny staircase and missed as the car lurched forward.

  “Faster!” Sofiya panted. “We can do it!”

  But the train was speeding up. Still holding Sofiya’s hand, Thad lunged and missed again.

  A smaller hand grabbed his. Nikolai was there, clinging like a monkey to the rail. Metal fingers bit painfully into Thad’s flesh, but he didn’t let go.

  “Jump, Sofiya!” he shouted, and wrenched his other arm around to help her. Sofiya leaped, and how she avoided tangling herself in her skirts, Thad couldn’t imagine. She landed on the staircase beside Nikolai, still gripping Thad’s hand. Thad stumbled and fell. The train dragged him now, legs bumping over dirt and stones, past the staring peasant farmers. His shoulders were on fire and his hands felt torn in half, but Sofiya and Nikolai didn’t let go. They hauled him upright, and Thad managed just enough purchase for a small jump of his own. The others yanked, and he landed on top of them. Sofiya and Thad lay panting in a pile with Nikolai while the ground rushed by beneath them and the wheels clattered only inches away.

  “Can you rise?” Sofiya shouted over the noise. “Only, I can barely breathe.”

  Thad sorted himself out, got himself upright, and helped Sofiya and Nikolai to their feet. Sofiya shoved the pistol under her cloak. “I think my arms are longer,” Thad complained.

  “Let’s go back inside,” Nikolai said. “That was scary.”

  The mood in the passenger car was lighthearted, even a little jubilant, as the trio slipped into the back. The circus had managed one of its most difficult performances and passed. Dodd raised his cane and hat at the front. Thad, Sofiya, and Nikolai dropped into their seats at the rear, unnoticed.

  “Well done, everyone!” he called. “It looks like our mysterious benefactor was right—everyone loves a circus. Especially the Kalakos Circus, the best circus in the whole damned world!”

  This brought cheers and whistles.

  “And,” Dodd continued, holding up a small sack, “Nathan has finished the accounting from Mr. Griffin, so I have the best present in the world—cash! Good silver rubles!”

  More cheers, wilder this time.

  “I’ll be coming down the aisles for each of you. Don’t spend it all at once.” Small laugh. “Assuming we aren’t stopped again, we should arrive in Saint Petersburg tomorrow afternoon at approximately one o’clock. We should also thank Thad Sharpe and our newest member Sofiya Ekk.” Dodd pointed to them with his cane. “They brought us Mr. Griffin, and without them, the circus would no longer exist.”

  Everyone turned in their seats to look at Dodd. Mama Berloni and Piotr the strongman and the dark-haired Tortellis and all the other performers smiled and applauded and stamped their feet. The gesture caught Thad off guard. He smiled uncertainly, then remembered himself and stood up in the aisle so he could sweep into a bow. Then he held out a hand to bring Sofiya up so she could do the same.

  “This is awful,” she said through unmoving lips. “They are so nice, and I feel like a traitor.”

  “Just smile,” Thad replied the same way, and they sat.

  The applause died away, and Dodd came down the aisle handing out money. Sofiya straightened her cloak. It had dirt and grease stains on it. Nikolai, still wrapped in rags and scarves on the seat next to Thad, picked up his book and opened it again.

  “Now tell me what you were doing back there,” Sofiya said in a low voice.

  “Are you my wife now?” Thad shot back.

  “She’s the mama, you’re the papa.” Nikolai turned a page. “You have to do as she says.”

  “Do I?” Thad said, nonplussed. “I thought it was the other way round.”

  “Only in public,” Nikolai said. “In private, the papa listens to the mama.”

  “You have some firm ideas about how a family should act,” Thad said.

  “They are correct.” Nikolai’s brown eyes flickered up and down the page. One of his legs kicked at the seat. “You made me scared. I didn’t want you to be hurt or left behind.”

  “You don’t look scared.”

  “Many of my pistons are moving faster, even though I don’t want them to. That makes me hot and pulls my skin covering tight. It’s also hard to keep still. I am scared.”

  “Perhaps you should reassure him,” Sofiya said.

  “How?” Thad said. “He’s an automaton. He’s only following a preset program.”

  “Does a child of biology do anything more? You frightened him, and he saved both of us. Therefore it is your job to set things right again, whether he is a machine or not.”

  Thad ran his tongue around the inside of his cheek. “All right. Listen, Nikolai, I didn’t intend to frighten you or speed up your pistons or tighten your skin.”

  “You don’t mean those words.” Nikolai kept his eyes on the book. “Your voice is…is…”

  “I believe you want the word sarcastic,” Sofiya supplied.

  “Sarcastic. That’s wicked. Isn’t it?”

  Sofiya nodded, a small smile on her lips. “And so soon after you saved him. I wouldn’t have thought it.”

  “Why do you care?” Thad demanded. “What does any of this matter to you?”

  “Should it not matter?” Sofiya returned.

  “Look, I don’t want—all right.” Thad changed his tone. “I’m sorry, Nikolai. I didn’t want to scare you. Here.” And he patted Nikolai on the shoulder. “And…thank you. For saving me. Us. You did…good work.”

  “I think that’s better.” Nikolai gave a little sigh. “I feel…slower. That is the proper way for a papa to behave.”

  Thad wanted to be angry again, but he was just too tired. “Certainly, Niko, certainly.”

  This seemed to satisfy the little automaton even further, and went back to paging through his book. “‘The victim of the cuckoo’s brood parasitism will feed and tend the baby cuckoo, even when the baby pushes the natural-born offspring out and begins to outgrow the nest,’” he read aloud. “‘On the rare instances that the parasitized parents abandon the baby cuckoo to build a new nest elsewhere, the mother cuckoo who laid the parasite egg will follow the parasitized parents and destroy their new nest, thus encouraging them to continue raising her offspring.’”

  Sofiya leaned forward again and tapped Thad on the knee.

  “You still have not explained to me what you were thinking,” she said. “Or what you were doing. Or what you found.”

  Thad automatically glanced round, but saw no sign of spiders. “We must find a way to kill Mr. Griffin, and for that I need information. To tell the truth, I don’t think he’s on this train.” And he explained his reasoning.

  “No,” Sofiya said when he finished. “He is in that boxcar.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “He told me he would be there.”

  “And he would never lie?”

  “Mr. Griffin is very careful about his safety. Ocean liners sink. Airships crash.
Trains are not perfect, but they are the best choice. Being in a boxcar would not bother him in the slightest.”

  “How long have you worked for him?”

  “Not quite six months.”

  “Sofiya, you need to tell me everything you know about him. You have to understand that his only concern is his plan or his research. People mean nothing. The moment we become less than useful, he’ll have no compunctions about destroying us.”

  She nodded slowly. “I have come to see that over time. But I cannot escape him. I tried once, and it ended…badly.” She lifted her chin, and the scar became more visible in the glow of the train’s lanterns. “He does pay well.”

  “How much money is worth your sister’s life?” Thad countered. “Look, you know what I do for a living. And I can see you’re extremely intelligent and capable. Between the two of us, we can find a way out from under his thumb.”

  “He is far more intelligent than both of us put together,” she said doubtfully. “But…he does have weaknesses. I have seen them.”

  “Like what?” Thad tried not to pounce.

  “He never comes out in public, and I have never met him in person,” Sofiya said. “Like you, I have only spoken to him through the speaker box. He worries overmuch about his personal safety. This is both strength and weakness. He wants—wanted—Havoc’s machine very, very badly, though I do not know why he wanted it or what the machine did. I am surprised he did not lose his temper when you failed to bring it to him.”

  “I don’t like the word failed,” Thad growled.

  Sofiya waved this away. “His spiders do quite a lot for him, but they cannot do everything, which is why he hired me. And you. And the circus. Sometimes he makes me hire other men for him. I have already telegraphed Saint Petersburg for men to haul his boxcars away when we arrive.”

  “I wonder.” Thad drummed his fingers on the seat. “Perhaps the speaker box gives him some sort of…barrier or filter that lets him handle people effectively.”

  “Perhaps,” Sofiya agreed. “You took a terrible and foolish risk out there. If he had seen you, he would have assumed your horse taught you nothing and killed someone in this circus.”

  “He didn’t see me.”

  “He would have, if I hadn’t come. I just hope he doesn’t notice that a spider went missing.”

  Thad changed the subject. “Where did you get that pistol?”

  “I bought it.” She touched her skirt. “It will take a great deal of cranking to recharge the battery now.”

  “I can help,” Nikolai put in. “But I will need strong brandy first.”

  “Thank you, little one,” Sofiya said absently. “Perhaps later. What did you learn of him, Thad? Since you risked so much, I hope you brought something back.”

  “He travels with a lot of equipment,” Thad replied, “but I don’t think it’s all research or laboratory equipment. It’s for something else. A lot of copper and glassware. Delicate. That may be one of the reasons he needs to travel by train.”

  “Glassware. Hm. What did—”

  Two children tumbled into their seating area with giggles and gasps. They had dark hair and eyes and were clearly brother and sister. “Buon giorno!” the girl said.

  Thad’s Italian was poor—he was better with Eastern languages. But he could get along. “Buon giorno, Bianca e Claudio,” he said. Nikolai looked up sharply.

  “Chi è questo?” Claudio Tortelli asked, pointing at Nikolai. Claudio was eight, and hadn’t started flying with the family act yet, though he expected to soon. Bianca, a year older, was already flying with her mother Francesca.

  Thad hesitated again. This was awkward, and one of the reasons he had wanted to put Nikolai in one of the baggage cars or in the wagon car with Sofiya’s mechanical horse.

  “Il suo nome è Nikolai,” he said at last. “Lui è un…automa.”

  “Automa?” Bianca leaned forward, crowding into the seating area. “Non appare come un automa. Fammi vedere.”

  “She doesn’t think you’re an automaton,” Thad said to Nikolai. “She wants to see.”

  Nikolai, who had been watching this exchange with quizzical interest, set his book aside and pulled down the scarf that hid his face. Bianca and Claudio drew back at the metallic jaw and flat nose. Then Claudio leaned back in.

  “Mi piace,” he said. “Chi ti ha costruito?”

  “He likes it and wants to know who built you,” Thad translated.

  “Puh!” Bianca said. “Schifoso!” And she fled. Nikolai wordlessly rewrapped his face. Thad wanted to slap the girl. Sofiya sighed.

  Claudio gave another burst of Italian.

  “He wants you to play with him,” Thad said. “He says he has toys and things up where his parents are sitting, if you want to come.”

  “I should go play with other boys,” Nikolai said. “That is what boys do. May I?”

  “If the Tortellis don’t mind,” Thad replied slowly. “But his sister will be there. What she said wasn’t nice.”

  Nikolai’s eyes went blank for a moment, and Thad thought he heard a faint clicking over the clack of the train wheels. Thad’s earlier feeling of protectiveness slid away, replaced by a cold reminder of Nikolai’s status as a machine.

  “Sticks and stones will break my bones,” he said at last, “but words will never hurt me.”

  “Applesauce,” said Dante.

  “That’s the spirit,” Thad said woodenly. “Off you go, then.”

  Nikolai slid free of the seat and left with Claudio, both of them already experts at staying upright on the rocking aisle.

  “Alone at last, my husband,” Sofiya said.

  Thad slumped in his seat. “Not you, too.”

  She laughed, the first time Thad had ever heard that from her. The sound was surprisingly free and rich and eased some of Thad’s tension. She was very beautiful, even in her dirty cloak and her hair coming undone. Thad decided he could, perhaps, enjoy a few moments of that.

  “I only make a joke,” she said. “But Nikolai seems to have cast us in a particular mold, no?”

  “What are we going to do with him in Saint Petersburg?” Thad said. “I can’t have him hanging about all the time.”

  “Why not? He seems to like you. Us. He is easy to care for—just give him a bottle of spirits from time to time. He might even prove useful.”

  “A clockworker built him,” Thad said. “I don’t trust him.”

  Sofiya twisted in her seat and looked up the aisle. Close to the front of the car, Nikolai and Claudio were playing on the floor between the seats with a set of toy animals. “And why not?”

  Thad folded his arms and stared out the window, though it was fully dark now and there was nothing to see. “He comes from a monster who killed a lot of people. Who knows what he’s programmed to do?”

  “Hm.” Sofiya crossed her ankles beneath her skirt. “You keep a clockworker’s parrot on your shoulder. That seems a contradiction for someone who dislikes clockwork machines.”

  In answer, Thad took Dante down from the seat back and held him out toward Sofiya. “Say it,” he ordered.

  “Applesauce,” Dante replied. “Doom, defeat, despair. Pretty lady.”

  “Say it, bird, or I’ll twist your head round backward.”

  “I love you, Daddy.”

  David’s recorded voice was loud enough that Tina McGee, who was once again sitting on the seat backed up against Sofiya’s, turned around for a moment to look. Thad waved at her and put Dante on the seat back once more.

  “I see,” Sofiya said quietly. “I understand, and I am sorry. Again.”

  “I keep him. It doesn’t mean I like him.” Thad gestured abruptly in Nikolai’s direction. “How does he do that? He’s only a machine. Machines don’t play games.”

  “It looks to me that he is learning to play. I think that is why he went with Claudio despite Bianca’s dislike for him. Did you not see his hesitation? He was caught between impulses—one that tells him to keep himself safe and one that
tells him to learn. The impulse to learn tipped him over the edge. Of course…” She trailed a hand over the arm rest of her seat. “…human beings do much the same, do they not?”

  “He’s not human, Sofiya.” Thad sighed. “I don’t know why you’re trying to convince me he is, but—”

  “No,” Sofiya interrupted. “He is not human. But…” She trailed off again to glance over her shoulder. “But he is not an automaton, either.”

  “Bless my soul,” Dante muttered. “Despair, death, doom, defeat.” And Thad was too tired to tell him to be quiet. He was leaning back to close his eyes again when Sofiya cocked her head inside her scarlet hood.

  “Do you think Nikolai should be destroyed?”

  Thad’s eyes came fully open. “I…don’t know.”

  “Could you push him into a furnace and watch his face melt into slag?” She leaned forward, invading Thad’s space. “Could you see his eyes dissolve into molten glass? Hear his voice break and crack into smoke and steam?”

  Thad realized he was pressed into the seat back and forced himself to stop. The image she conjured up was horrible, and it mingled with the sights and sounds of David’s last moments. His stomach roiled and mouth was dry. “Why are you asking me this?”

  “Answer the question. We need to know when we arrive.”

  There was only one answer. “No,” he replied at last.

  “Perhaps we should back away a bit,” Sofiya said. “Explore other ideas. Could you tell him he cannot stay with you? Could you put him out on the street and say he could never see or speak to you again?”

  “Probably,” Thad said.

  “Even if he asked you not to?” Sofiya continued. “Because he would. He would say it was a papa’s duty to take care of a child, and he would beg you to let him stay.”

  “I could give him to Dodd,” Thad said abruptly. “Dodd already asked to have him.”

  “As an attraction for the circus, yes,” Sofiya agreed. “He would probably even pay you a large sum of Mr. Griffin’s money for him, good silver rubles. And then you would see him all the time, working for Dodd, doing as Dodd said, and he could ask you every day to take him back. Could you do that?”