by Lavie Tidhar
She lay on a wooden table, an improvised stretcher with one foot shorter than the other three. Dozens of lenses and manipulators hung from coils and wires tied to the ceiling, all of them pointing at her body, analysing, accusing her. You're an empty vase, a dead tree. The smell of ozone and gaslight unnerved her, especially after two hours of breathing electrical air and smoke, half-naked under the holophotes. Not to mention the fear she had of falling from the table. Every time she breathed a bit too deeply, the table bent to one side, stopping with a sudden thump, a sound that served as an exclamation mark to the many, omnipresent tick-tocks in the room. Some of those sounds were strange to her, but some were not. Inside the wall of darkness, Chaya could only see the blue poltergeist inside Dr Cavalcante's eyes; Emilio, who had his goggles bolted to his face. It could be just fashion, or something far more sinister. He can see in the dark?
Suddenly, the clattering stopped. The lights came back on slowly, along with calmer, lower tick-tocks. Chaya could see the doctor walking to and fro in front of the analytical engine, exhaling gusts of white steam. He had some punched cards in his hands and was murmuring something to a machine hanging from his shoulders, a trump with a rubber tube linked to a rattling stenograph on his waistcoat, spitting metres and metres of hollowed-out paper.
"So?" Chaya sat up, relieved that the examination was over. "What does your oracle say?"
Emilio spoke over the brass trump, as he looked at the end of the room, at a table covered by a ziggurat-shaped tarp from which came the low sound of boiling water. "It says you ate chocolate today," he said rather casually.
"Just a tip," she smiled.
"It's quite toxic for golems."
"Just like a shot of cachaça, Emilio." Chaya was putting on her dress, careful not to let the dark chocolate bar fall from her pocket.
"And just as hard to get these days." Emilio turned off the stenograph and unfastened the apparatus from his torso. "You been smuggling? Look, Chaya, if people know you've been getting stuff from the Mauritzes, you're gonna be in some serious trouble, especially if the committee hears about it. The way things are, this could end with an execution."
"If I can't eat chocolate, I don't want to be part of your revolution," the golem said, a defying hand in her pocket. "I bought it at the station. Before I got here. On Earth."
The doctor shook his head and gave a short, dry laugh. "Okay, then. But you'll have to quit if you want to have a baby. That thing messes with your ecosystem, you know." He finally rolled up the paper and attached it to the feeder's tiny hooks on the calculator's rear. As soon as he did so, the engine re-initiated its mad rattling: the sound of a thousand clocks speeding up to the end of time. The analytical engine ate hole after hole, a data banquet digested by coiled guts and dented wheels, calculating, calculating, calculating.
"What's the deal with this committee?" She still couldn't understand the politics of the strike in Catalonia very well. She knew there was an area controlled by three or four anarchist trade unions, but each city block contained many different groups. Left and right wing communists, or whatever name they called themselves, everything depending on whoever their leaders were. There were other groups she'd heard the communists call republicans, but they could also be divided into those who wished independence and those who wanted to be part of some Earthly empire. Of the anarchists, Chaya could only see the difference between those who wanted action without much discussion and those who sought consensus for every single thing, be it the restoration of a house or the fair distribution of rations. Anyway, the uprising made some areas in the factory free from the consortium that used to run the mining and aether processing.
Emilio sighed, looking worried. He cleaned his insect's eyes with a ragged piece of red cloth and it seemed the blue that used to live in his goggles had dimmed. "Some far-off quarters have decided to form a ruling committee. The unions' and the parties' militias have been blended together and now they're like a regular army."
"Hey! That's fantastic. They could send some people here so Fritz wouldn't be so lonely at the front. Maybe he could take some time off." Chaya bit the bark in her nails. That was excellent news, wasn't it?
"Except they won't." He suddenly stopped cleaning his goggles. "It's been a month since they formed the army and not a single man has been sent to the front. And they have guns. Lots of guns. Too many guns, actually, but not even a blunderbuss has made it to this side of the war." He took a long pause to clean his mechanical fingers, using the same handkerchief he had used to clean his goggles. "People are saying there are spies killing anarchists."
The tick-tock stopped, and in its place, the sharp sound of a siren filled the air. Emilio turned to the analytical engine, already spitting out another bunch of hollowed-out paper. He picked up the paper and brought it close to his face, carefully reading the data in those empty lines.
"So?" Chaya panted.
Emilio lowered the paper roll. He had a smile on his face. "Call Fritz. We're ready."
"Hey, Beans. Message for you."
Fritz pretended he hated it when the guys called him names but, deep inside, he liked it. Beans was the only meal available on the front and to the militia's fanfare, it came locked up in a rusty can. He couldn't eat, of course, because of his mechanical physiology, but his camaradas in the troop said he had solidarity with the cans. Sometimes, a fat Yankee called Ernest would point a tin opener at him, saying he was hungry. Everybody would laugh. With the clocks inside his mind, he calculated that this attitude wasn't prejudice, or mockery, but banter. He was the exhaust valve for the tedium, the tension at the barricades, the long wait for an enemy that never came despite the news of troops manoeuvring some miles ahead. He finally calculated, with some fair bit of precision, that he was one of the guys, too. After all, he had the same black and red kerchief round his neck.
They sat behind the barricade mounted in front of the old Chateclair casino, a well-conserved building by the war's standards. His mates felt triply happy to see it still standing. The spot close to the neighbourhood's limits used to be the entertainment district for the factory's technicians and administrators. It'd be a shame if the next generation of workers couldn't have access to that architectonic marvel. Besides, the docking tower for personal dirigibles made an excellent observation post. Fritz was fighting against a loose piston in La Sigaretta, the steam-powered machine gun guarding the brothel's entrance, when he heard his name being called at the building's foyer. This was the soldier's third reason for being happy. The place was part of the postal service network, and its pneumatic tubes winding their way underground still carried, brought, and sometimes intercepted messages from all over Catalonia. He dropped the piston and hurried to the building.
"It's from your babe." Buenaventura winked, a letter in one hand and a wooden tube on the other. The boy was barely sixteen and was proud of spending his days watching the comings and goings of messages travelling in the pipe cathedral behind the counter.
In the message, Chaya said to come back quickly, everything's ready. Obviously, he understood the message, as did Buenaventura and other two or three militiamen with whom the motolang had shared his hopes. He smiled, showing off the letter, trying to explain to those hardened men alchemical processes he could hardly understand. But they did understand the joy of that moment and would've opened a nice bottle of wine if they'd had one.
The first bomb destroyed the casino's wall.
Fritz tried to free himself from the human wreckage over his body, tried to adjust his sensors, but there was only dust around him and a humming sound coming from the back of the room. It took him several seconds to recalibrate his optics and phones, but now he could listen to the shots and screams outside, and the moans of the survivors inside. He saw young Buanaventura crawling to the back of the counter, alive and in one piece. He decided to run to the street.
The second bomb exploded past the barricades, in the middle of the street, but Fritz couldn't see if anyone had been hurt. He t
hrew himself behind the mountain of sacks, between La Sigaretta and Ernest, who had just crouched after shooting through the wall of dust covering their position.
"Make this damn machine gun work, Beans." Ernest roared, as he knelt and shot his carbine along with three militiamen.
"What's happening? Where are they?" Fritz crawled closer to the machine gun. Bullets whistled over their heads. He was afraid the bullets would ricochet off him, hitting his comrades' hearts. On his left, a soldier's gun jammed and backfired, tearing the boy's brass face apart.
Ernest reloaded his hunting rifle and looked up. "They just popped up and opened fire. They closed the passage down the street with floating trucks and then started throwing their mortars at us." He locked the crank and closed his eyes as if praying. "For fuck's sake, where's that damn sentinel?"
Fritz managed to light the boiler, but he knew it'd be a long time before the high-pressure system could start working. Another bomb exploded, but he didn't know where. If You look after the atheists, too, please make the water boil faster. He picked up his janizary-carbine lying close to the sacks, calibrated his optics and the pulleys in his arms and, jumping over the barrier, aimed at the enemy. Beyond a blood-red haze in front of the church, there were three black floating trucks blocking the end of the street. It seemed the trucks had their paintings rasped off. Those weren't men from the Consortium, he was sure, nor from any other army he knew of. But there was something familiar about the soldiers throwing pulse grenades at them, holding brand-new, shining rifles. Tick-tock.
"Beans! Shoot!"
As soon as he got the lay of his gun, Fritz locked his aim at a soldier crossing the street towards a Stanley parked on the corner. Tick-tock, tick-tock. There were two more soldiers entrenched behind the automobile, a moving shield that could easily reach the Chanteclair.
"Shoot! Now!"
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.
His instincts were part animal, part clockwork, and both made him keep the running lad in his sights until he got close to the steamer. The boy had his head low, his right hand covering the ear, protecting his head or praying it could hide him.
"Shoot!"
His first shot at something mortal.
He pulled the trigger a second before the soldier could leap to safety. There was a report and a blast at the boy's neck. He fell dry, no screaming, his face crushing the car's bumper.
Fritz crouched down an instant before a bullet hit the camarada next to him. Ticktockticktockticktock. He pushed the dead soldier away and once again bent himself over the sacks. He shot once, twice, thrice, suppressing every possible movement of the enemy line. He was covering Ernest, ready to throw another grenade, when he heard a low whistling noise. Another bomb exploded close to trucks, but the rise of the high-pitched sound made the troops freeze for a second.
"Fritz," Ernest yelled.
"I'm coming, for fuck's sake, I'm coming." He dropped the carbine and almost threw himself over the steamgun. "Cover me!" The dangling piston insisted on slipping from his fingers, all damp thanks to the vapour leaking from the gun's opened valve. Even with suppressive fire, enemy bullets kept coming in his direction. He had to keep his head low like the boy he had just killed. After infinite seconds, he managed to fix the piston into position, but it took him another eternity to find a wrench amongst the corpses. The whistle grew louder and louder and, as soon as he turned the screw nut, the machine gun's long muzzle started to spin, steaming.
Ticktockticktockticktockticktock…
Fritz pulled the trigger, wishing someone had already placed the ammo belt into the feedway. The noise was so loud every soldier this side of the battle was thrown to the ground. It was the sound of a jackhammer crushing the wall of sacks, cars and people standing less than three hundred metres away. Drifting his range, Fritz watched the Stanley dissolve under La Sigaretta's fire. The car was torn to pieces: wheels, chassis, seats. Bullets of hell-knows-what calibre pierced its hull as if it were made of paper. He slowly turned the gun to the enemy's central position and thrust the black trucks away with the violence of a thousand lead wasps. He lost connection with time.
"Stop it, Fritz!"
The ventilation system had been down for more than two weeks now, so the steam had already turned into a muddy cloud made of smoke, dirt and blood. The troops behind the trucks broke up and ran away. Two soldiers trying to hide behind the blockade were torn apart by the hellish gun.
"Stop it, Fritz! This thing's gonna blow!"
He was thrown out from the machine by Ernest and another militiaman he didn't recognise. All three hit their backs to the ground, their voices screaming all right, all right, it's okay, I got him. The tin soldier just stared at the city sprawling over him, failing to see any human beings walking the streets at the sphere's opposite half. It seemed there was no-one at the casino's tower, too.
They both woke up to the sound of the locomocycle roaring inside the hotel's garage. They'd ended up falling asleep after a night-long procedure and were still bound together by wires, sensors and robotic hands. They could sense the smell of ozone and boiling chemicals in the air, and heard the sound of a thousand processing clicks from the analytical engine. Both had guns under their pillows.
"It was supposed to be my turn," Fritz said, partly asking and partly answering. "I just turned off. Sorry."
"No problem." Chaya smiled. The only thing still beautiful in this godless world. "It's all right."
The door blasted open and they both pointed their guns at whoever was coming in. Emilio raised his free hand, the organic one, making sure the non-human couple could see his face and recognise him. "Thought you heard me coming," the doctor said.
"The power of habit," Chaya said, uncocking her Luger. "How's the city going?"
"Empty. Except for militiamen, not many people are willing to walk the streets these days. Those who have food at home have no reason to go out. Those who don't, won't find any outside." Emilio closed the door behind him with some difficulty. He had a small wooden box in his mechanical hand.
Fritz rested his gun on the improvised stretcher and tried to stand up. His joints creaked loudly. His body was all twisted and warped on the left side, especially his knee, though his right shoulder also cracked. "Any news from the front? How are the men doing?" Four days ago he'd been promoted to captain. Not that it meant anything, since the militiamen followed whoever they thought worth following rather than those with military rank. They'd been close to lots of bombs in the past few days, he and his friends, but maybe because he'd got used to the mortars or maybe because of the nature of the explosives, none of these had hurt him any more than the first one on the Chanteclair had. Actually, it still hurt. "Did they retake the casino?"
Emilio lowered his head and crossed the laboratory towards a tarp-covered table. The sound of boiling water came from it. Only when he walked past Fritz, did Emilio notice how injured his friend was. Gunshots, scraps, deep cuts. Were he human, he'd be dead by now. "No. No, I don't. No news," he said, pointing to the hidden table. "Last thing I heard was that the Committee issued some kind of edict saying the militias are now illegal." The doctor looked over his shoulder. "They'll find us. Sooner or later, they'll take the neighbourhood. It's over. Then they'll make an agreement with the Consortium and life will be as it used to be before the strike. Or even worse. And I think you two should pack your things and go back to Earth now. An aethership will leave in about three hours. You've nothing to do with this war."
"And you do?" The automaton was craving for an argument.
"Fritz, dear, I think Emilio might be right," Chaya said. She tried to find some comfort on the stretcher, but the wires wouldn't let her.
Fritz shook his head. He had his revolver back in his trembling hand. The bomb might've loosened some pulley in his shoulder. "We're so close now. You said that. Besides, there's nothing for us down there, on Earth. Nothing."
Emilio and Chaya stared at him. The tick-tock in him seemed to have vanished, or
at least couldn't be noticed above the noises in the lab.
Dr Cavalcante sighed. "So, if we're to finish this experiment, we better get back to work." He pulled the covered table and brought it to the space between the couple. The myriad of cables, tubes and wires on the floor got stuck between the table's rusty wheels. Emilio took the brown tarp off it, uncovering two once-green cylinders and a series of transparent alchemical glass vials the size of pressure pans. The vials were mounted like a ziggurat and were full of boiling liquids, each one of a different colour. The yellows were on the edge of the table and the blacks were actually extremely dense reds. There were also some transparent ones and others reflecting light in gold and silver patterns. At the top of the glass pile, there was a bigger, double-sized vial. It was completely empty and uncapped. "Okay, we've been through this before, but just to make sure you got it right," Emilio said donning his waistcoat and the stenograph. "I'll plug the drains into you and then attach it to the uterus up there and, and then I'll link it to the aetheric fusion tank down here, as well. If we're able to produce enough sephirotic reaction, well, we'll proceed to surgery. Ready?"
They exchanged nervous glances and smiled, confirming their willingness to move on.
