The Girl in the Steel Corset tsc-1

by Kady Cross

  She nodded. “As fast as I can.”

  “I know that feelin’. You ever need somethin’, don’t you hesitate to find me.”

  Throat tight, Finley agreed. “You, as well, Jasper.” She walked out the front door into the dying daylight. Evening was descending upon the city, but darkness couldn’t come fast enough and end this wretched day.

  The stables were open and she helped herself to the same velocycle she’d taken before. She’d have it returned to the house the next day, but for now it was the only thing that could get her out of there as quickly as she wanted to be gone.

  Goggles kept the wind out of her eyes, but they were no protection for the tears that threatened. She pushed them and all thoughts aside, focusing only on her destination as she sped through the congested streets. Coach men waved their fists at her as she cut in front of them, and people shouted as she passed, but she ignored them, bent low over the steering bars as she flew through the city.

  When she reached her destination, she parked the cycle on the street, disabling the starting mechanism so no one could steal it. Too bad she hadn’t known how to do that the first time, she wouldn’t have had to lift the bloody heavy beast onto a roof.

  Then she climbed the stone steps and knocked on the door. It was the only place she could think to come. The only place where she would be accepted and not questioned.

  When the door opened, she looked up into the eyes of the person standing in the threshold. “I need someplace to stay,” she said. “Just for a little while.”

  Jack Dandy stepped back, opening the door farther so she could step inside. “Hullo, Treasure. I wondered when you’d come.”

  Chapter 16

  She was gone.

  Griffin stood in the doorway of what had been Finley’s room and stared dumbly at the bed that hadn’t been slept in, at the wardrobe emptied of most of its contents. He didn’t fool himself into thinking she’d be back. He knew she’d taken everything she could with her.

  He should have known she’d bolt after what happened yesterday. He should have talked to her, but he’d been too preoccupied with Sam and the strange discovery Emily had made while performing surgery.

  Sam’s body had instinctively tried to fix itself, and the Organites in his blood had strengthened that ability.

  There was so much they could learn from Finley, who had been born with the Organites in her blood. And now she was gone, and he blamed himself. He should have known she’d take responsibility for the fight with Sam, even though his hotheaded friend had been the one to cross the line.

  He left the empty room and walked down the corridor. He had to find Finley and bring her back. But where could she have gone. Her mother’s? Griffin stopped dead in his tracks.

  Jack Dandy.

  He swore—long and loud—and didn’t care who heard him. Of course that’s where she would go. Dandy didn’t make her feel judged. He accepted her as she was—or at least he accepted the darker aspect of her personality.

  Finley didn’t belong with a fellow like Jack Dandy, who was as morally ambiguous as a human could be. She belonged here, with him—and the others. But he couldn’t think of a reason why that should be true. Oh, he wanted to help her, and knew that she would be an asset to their team, but what did she get out of the situation? A roof over her head? Someone using her for what she could do rather than appreciating her as she was?

  He came to a halt in the corridor, uncertain of what to do next. He had enough money and power to do whatever he wanted but he had no idea how to tell a girl that he wanted her as part of his life, part of his family.

  Jasper had come by to tell him he’d put word out with several associates. No word on The Machinist just yet, but according to gossip, the automaton attacks weren’t random. They were planned.

  Had the villain targeted Sam and later Finley? Or had the two of them merely gotten in the way of his plans? He didn’t know—couldn’t work it out—and the helplessness made him grind his teeth in frustration. He was not helpless.

  He should go check on Sam, who had been carried up to his bed the evening before by four strapping footmen. Emily had taken first watch while Griff tried to sleep, then they switched until a surly Sam told him to get out of his room and stop hovering.

  He would have to talk to his friend about what happened. It wasn’t going to be easy. Part of him wanted to do a great deal of violence against Sam for attacking Finley. But as angry as he was, right now he was also profoundly relieved that his friend was alive.

  Unfortunately, without something to occupy his thoughts, the journey down to the lab was a long, hellacious one.

  He tugged on his cravat. The knot that had been hardly noticeable just a few moments ago now seemed to choke him. He knew it was all in his mind, but it didn’t change the fact that he hated this infernal lift and the darkness that closed in on him like the brick walls on all four sides.

  One hundred fifty-nine, one hundred sixty. Just a few more bricks and it would be over. He breathed deep, calling on the Aether and the runes on his body for strength and calm. He despised this cowardly aspect of himself, but he’d hated enclosed spaces ever since his parents’ deaths. He’d dreamed of it—or perhaps it had been a vision—but they’d died in a carriage, trapped like animals. Ever since he took his velocycle when he had to go somewhere, avoiding his steam carriage unless it was necessary, such as the visit to Finley’s mother.

  Finally the lift jerked to a stop. Griffin pushed the gate open and pressed the release latch for the door in front of him. He took a deep breath as he stepped into the laboratory.

  “You really need to do something about that condition of yours,” Emily’s voice greeted him.

  “I know,” he replied. He pushed a hand through his hair as he walked toward her. “Tell me something I don’t, Em.” It was more plea than sarcasm.

  “Well,” she began, “I did some tests on the automaton—the one that almost killed Sam.”

  Griffin loved how she always worked that almost in there whenever she discussed the attack. The machine had killed Sam. His ruined heart had stopped just before Emily gave him a new one.

  “You didn’t start it up again, did you?”

  She scowled at him, but with her big eyes and freckles she only succeeded in looking like an annoyed pixie. “Of course not.”

  “What did you find?”

  “Come see for yourself,” she said, crossing to the workbench where she tended to do most of her mechanical work. Griffin followed after her.

  “Like I said last evening, the automaton spoke to me, or rather, it spoke. I’m not sure if it was addressing me or just running something that had been told to it.”

  Griffin frowned. “Told to it? Or programmed into it?”

  She made a face. “It’s pretty much the same thing, lad, at least in this case. It told me someone messed with its thinking engine—the one where all its commands are stored. Up until now I’d been looking for defects in manufacture or an incorrect input in its operation system. But The Machinist didn’t change the metal’s programming, he enhanced it. The reason I didn’t notice it before this is because I didn’t physically look for it—I simply ran diagnostic tests. Plus, I think the tampering has become more apparent during the months the automaton has been in storage here, in the dark.”

  He tilted his head. “You have my attention. Show me what you found.”

  Emily gestured to the bench. There sat a small dome about the size of a full-grown man’s skull. It was the metal shell that housed the automaton’s thinking engine. It was small because most of these kind of laboring mechs had two separate engines—one for normal operations, movement, power, etc., and another for specialized commands. This smaller engine could be filled with a number of punch cards which the machine sifted through and acted upon given specific variables. Its main engine told it to dig and how to dig and what to do with the debris. The secondary, “thinking” engine housed protocol for what to do should something out of the ordinary
happen, such as if the digger hit a wall, or needed to adapt for terrain, obstacles—anything that might impede it reaching its objective.

  She picked the dome up and opened the latch on its back panel. The two small hatches squeaked lightly on their hinges, revealing the engine within. The gears that moved the punch cards were silent.

  Griffin studied the mechanism. “What am I looking for?”

  She handed him a magnifying glass. “Use this. Tell me if you see anything strange.”

  He took the ebony-handled glass and held it above the dome, leaning down to peer through it. What he saw made him frown. Tiny veinlike tendrils entwined with the machinery, like a young lady’s hair around a finger. “Are these what I think they are?” he asked, glancing up at his pretty friend.

  She nodded. “Organite pathways. Somehow they were introduced to this automaton’s thinking engine. I believe it was through The Machinist’s oil. The sample you gave me still had living beasties in it. They reacted when I had it near a power cell—as though it was attracted to it.”

  “Did they cause a malfunction?”

  This time she shook her head—impatiently. Sometimes Emily forgot that not everyone was as intelligent as she—or were privy to the same information. “No. The engine works exactly as it should. If anything, the Organites made it work even better. The machine reacted to a situation without the benefit of punch cards.”

  “It became sentient?” There was no hiding his incredulity.

  Emily’s eyes brightened as she practically danced on the balls of her feet, clad as usual in heavy boots. “Yes! Isn’t that amazing?”

  He arched a brow. “I suppose that’s one word for it.” So was terrifying. Metal thinking for itself? There was no telling what wonders, or disasters might occur. It made sense now, however.

  The Organites lived off rock from deep inside the earth, and the ore was a result of that. One was part of the other, so when energy from the ore is released, any nearby Organites were going to be drawn to it and interact with it. In the case of the automaton, the Organites were drawn to the cell in its thinking engine and changed how the engine functioned.

  “That’s what happened to us!” he exclaimed. “Last night we saw what the Organites had done inside Sam’s body. It was because of the power cell in his heart. We’ve all been exposed to power cells our entire lives. It’s the combination of using the Organites and power cells that caused the leap in our genetic evolution.”

  He wanted to crow in victory. The mystery of the machines was solved! But then he stopped and his smile faded. Anyone out there who happened to spend much time around the ore and material that contained Organites could be “unusual.” Slight traces of Organites were in the water, in the soil. The ore was used in thousands of places and items. God only knew how the people of Britain—of the world—had been altered. It was too much to even contemplate with so much else going on, but once they caught The Machinist and put a stop to whatever he had planned, it would be something for he and Emily to explore further. He’d worry about ramifications then.

  “The automaton kept repeating a phrase when I interacted with it,” Emily told him a few moments later when they were somewhat calm again. “I’ll set you free. It may have been payment—a reward—for service. Or, The Machinist could see himself as a creator—giving life to machines.”

  Good God. “Is that even possible?”

  She shrugged. “He’s changed them. Whether or not they can reason remains to be seen. If I could take a look around in the train tunnels where it was working I might find a clue as to how drastically its programming was altered. It may have been given a new task—which we interrupted.”

  “It’s been six months,” he reminded her. “Any clue is probably long gone.”

  “But finding the spot where it dug might provide information.”

  She had a point, and for the first time since stumbling into this mystery, Griffin had real hope. “I’ll contact the company laying the new tracks. They’ll be able to tell me where the digger had been working for the months leading up to the attack.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if we were close that day. The metal probably attacked Sam and those workers because it thought they were trying to stop it from doing its task.”

  “Bloody hell,” Griffin said on a groan. “Almost torn apart because someone mucked about with a machine’s engine. What I want to know is how did The Machinist know this would happen?”

  She shrugged. “It could have been by accident. Could anyone who worked with your parents have talked about them?”

  Now it was Griffin’s turn to not have an answer. “I don’t know. As far as I know they were all sworn to secrecy. Queen Victoria knows, obviously. She was the one who demanded the Organites be secret. She feared what might happen if they fell into the wrong hands.”

  “Like now?”

  He hated not being able to find his way through this puzzle. “Even if someone did break their vow of silence, they would have had to tell the person exactly where to locate the entrance to the cavern on my estate. It’s not that easy to find.”

  His head snapped up as pieces of this infernal puzzle began to fall into place. “Unless they already knew.”

  Emily blinked. “Beg pardon?”

  It all made sense now. “The gardener—the groundskeeper—that suddenly up and quit. My steward said he got into the cavern. He even stole my stationery to cast suspicion on Finley. He did know my parents, and he knew Finley’s, as well. The Machinist was involved with my parents’ work, possibly even with the expedition itself.”

  Emily’s eyes widened. “Saints preserve us.”

  Something sharp gnawed at Griffin’s belly, stoking a fire that had burned inside him for a long, long time. It filled him with an unbearable yearning for vengeance. He lifted his head and stared straight into Emily’s eyes.

  “What if my parents’ deaths are connected? What if The Machinist killed them and everyone else involved in their work?” Something raw bloomed darkly inside him. Was it possible that he could be so close to his parents’ killer?

  “You can’t know that for certain,” she said, a wary expression on her face. “Don’t go doing anything hare-brained.”

  Oh, he had no intention of doing anything impulsive. He had to be more careful than ever now. If The Machinist had known his parents and Finley’s father, then he knew their secrets, and he knew their weaknesses. He would be hard to catch, but Griffin would catch him.

  He would end this, and give his parents justice.

  The black in her hair had gotten longer, more present. Finley couldn’t ignore or deny it any longer, just as there was no denying what caused it. It started when she began working with Griffin on controlling her other half—when the two halves of her personality began trying to merge into one. Last night she had managed to retain some semblance of control, and her shadow had become an even larger part of her rather than something she tried to keep at bay.

  She twisted her hair back and pinned it rather messily on the back of her head. She was still a little stiff and sore from her fight with Sam, but the bruises were already fading, even without the benefit of Emily’s “wee beasties.”

  Was Sam completely recovered this morning? Griffin must have discovered her gone by now. Was he upset, or glad to be rid of her? It didn’t matter. She’d made the choice to leave and now she had to go forward with it.

  She slipped into her shift and an Oriental dress of violet silk with dragons embroidered upon it in gold thread. The dress was long, but had slits up the sides for ease of movement—if she got into a fight, she’d be able to use her legs. A few weeks ago she never would have thought of such a thing. She had changed so very much during her short time under the Duke of Greythorne’s roof. Most of it for the better, she hoped.

  Though, when she thought of how she’d used her legs against Sam, under Griffin’s roof, it made her feel sick.

  After attaching her stockings to her garters, she slipped into her boo
ts and left the bedroom. She suspected this room was the one Jack used on the odd occasions he slept at his Whitechapel address. It was decorated in cherry and ebony—rich velvets and sleek silks, with a massive four-poster bed that could easily sleep four adults. It seemed a little excessive, but then Jack didn’t strike her as the kind of person to do anything half-arsed.

  It had been nice of him to give her his room, however. And he’d been the perfect gentleman—not a title many would assign to him. He hadn’t asked any questions and she hadn’t volunteered any information. How could she tell him that she’d almost caused someone’s death? Yet, if anyone could understand how she felt, it was probably Jack.

  She walked down the narrow hall, the heavy soles of her boots making very little noise on the richly patterned rug. The same carpet continued down the winding staircase, covering the gleaming oak with a mantle of crimson, gold and navy.

  She found Jack in the library, where they had sat and talked the first night she came to visit him. It looked different in the light of day—not nearly so dangerous. Jack—she’d stopped thinking of him as “Dandy” somewhere along the way—sat on the edge of his desk, long legs crossed at the ankles of his polished black boots. He was in head-to-toe black today. Even his carelessly knotted cravat was a shimmering black silk.

  His long dark hair was still damp, waving about his shoulders as he spoke into a baroque-styled telephone. He must be rich indeed to afford such a contraption. “I don’t give a rat’s arse about etiquette, Knobby,” he growled into the mouthpiece. “If I tells you to do somefink, you does it. Is there any part of that your imbecilic brain don’t understand? Good. Now, don’t bother me again unless you ’ave something useful.” He dropped the receiver into its cradle with a curse.

  “Tsk, tsk,” Finley teased from the doorway. “What would your mother say if she heard you use such language?”

  Jack lifted his head. Perhaps it was vain of her, but she rather fancied his dark eyes brightened at the sight of her. “Well, if it ain’t sleepin’ beauty. Who do you fink taught me them words, Treasure? ’Twere me mum.” He grinned. “You look heartily refreshed this morning.”