Driftmetal IV

by J. C. Staudt

  Chaz smiled at me from the darkness, then shushed my complaints and motioned for me to follow. I soon discovered that we weren’t in a ventilation duct at all. This was some section of the palace’s attic that doubled as an access bay for escape tube maintenance. After about a hundred feet, the roofline dropped off. There, I found a damaged and sullen-looking group of people I knew huddling together like refugees.

  “Oh my dear sweet Leridote,” I breathed. “I thought for sure they’d nabbed you guys… or worse. I was about to… I didn’t know what I was about to do. Bring the whole place down around me.”

  Sable stood and rushed into my arms. She was trembling. Her clothes were wet, and it looked like she’d been crying. She stood there, clutching me like a child, but she didn’t say anything. She didn’t even seem to mind that I was soaking wet myself and smelled like a dumpster full of toilets.

  I took a moment to count. I’d left nine people behind when I’d left that chamber the day before: Chaz and Blaylocke; Sable and Ezra; Thomas and Rindhi; Thorley and Eliza; and Maxwell, the former Regent of the whole entire world. Now I counted only seven among the shadowy masses huddled around me. “Who’s missing?” I asked. “We’re two people short.”

  “It’s Thomas and Blaylocke,” said Thorley in his broad baritone. “There’s a way through to the rest of the attic. They went off to explore hours ago… to see if there was another way out. They haven’t come back.”

  “What happened down in the pod room?” I asked.

  “We secured the hidden door from within,” said Ezra. “Then early this morning we heard the robots trying to break through. We climbed up here to hide. They made a big ruckus down there; tore the place apart looking for us. After a while, they left. We’ve been hiding ever since. We took turns keeping watch over the vents in case you showed up.”

  “So what’s with all the blood?”

  “Oh… uh… Blaylocke and the Regent kind of… got into a bit of a tussle. Political debate, lost tempers, you know… one thing led to another.”

  “Blaylocke beat up the Regent?” I said, laughing. “Too bad I missed it. So the blood had nothing to do with the robots, then.”

  “Nope. We were all tucked away up here safe and sound before they even got in.”

  I shook my head, exasperated and relieved all at once. “That was a dirty trick. I was sure you were all goners. Blaylocke’s getting a piece of my mind when he comes back. Come to think of it, I’m surprised they didn’t send the robots in sooner. Of course, the synod probably spent most of last night trying to quell the riots in the streets. And bringing in all that weird machinery they’re building in the throne room to keep themselves alive.”

  “I would’ve told you all that if you’d answered my calls,” said Chaz. “At least you brought the parts I asked for.” He favored my backpack with a hopeful grin.

  I pulled out my comm and slid open the back panel to let the water inside pour out onto the floor. “Sorry ol’ buddy,” I said. “I brought the parts, alright. But there isn’t much left of them by now. I doubt you’ll find enough working tech in here to light a bulb, let alone rebuild my remote.”

  Chaz took the backpack anyway. After he’d spent a moment examining its contents, he looked at me and crinkled his lips. “This is… unfortunate. What happened?”

  “I jumped off two buildings, swam through a river of sewage, got chased by robots, hit by a car, stabbed with a hood ornament, and threatened with a gun that’s probably older than I am. I’ve developed a high tolerance for unfortunate.”

  “I thought I smelled somethin’,” said Ezra, wrinkling his nose.

  At the back of the attic, Maxwell Baloncrake stood up and hobbled toward me, pressing a blood-soaked ball of fabric to his cheek. “While you’ve been gallivanting about, we’ve been trapped here, waiting on your return. Now you’ve come all this way, and you haven’t even brought a means of escape?”

  “What are you worried about, Max? The fleet is on its way to do battle with Maclin’s legions. You remember the fleet, don’t you? The ones you were so confident were coming to your rescue? Well, you’re about to get your wish. They’re walking into the very same deathtrap you law-lovers are all too stubborn and stupid to see coming.”

  “Why would they attack Roathea?” asked Chaz. “Didn’t you warn them?”

  I put a hand on my hip. “Chaz. Let me just tell you, buddy. I did everything I could to persuade those muttonheads to hold back, short of setting a robot loose in the crew cabin. You can’t stop a warmonger from mongering, just like you can’t stop a lemming from leaping into the Churn. I warned Kupfer. Spent quite a long time doing so, in fact, and he still didn’t listen. Admiral Pearson is another story entirely. That filthy law-loving lackwit is attacking because, well… he’s living up to his reputation.”

  Max lowered his hand to reveal the gash Blaylocke had left on his cheek. His shoulders slumped. His breath began to heave, and he collapsed to the ground as if he’d lost the will to stand. “Let them come, then,” he whispered. “Let them come, and be joined in battle, to the destruction of all. My wife and my children are dead. The light has gone out of this world. It is not I who reigns, but death. Death take us, and may the end come swiftly.”

  I reached down and slapped him. “Come off it, man. The President of the World doesn’t lie down and cry like a baby just because things look grim. And I’ll let you in on a little secret: your family’s probably not dead. They have been locked up for a day without food or water, though, so I’d imagine it’s not a pretty picture out there.”

  Max blinked up at me through his tears. “Maclin hasn’t killed them?”

  “Maclin doesn’t even know where they are. So look… you can lay there pissing and moaning about how life’s not fair, or you can suck it up and get back on your feet, and we can do something before your fleet gets crushed and your family gets murdered. So what’s your excuse now, Max? Because it sounds to me like you’re all out of ‘em.”

  Max climbed slowly to his feet. He faced me and wiped away the tears with the back of his sleeve. “I am prepared to do anything. Anything. To save my family.”

  I nodded. “Let’s hope you don’t have to, Maximilian.”

  7

  Sable was still hanging onto me like a child. I crouched a little so I was at eye level with her. “Listen, Sable. I need to tell you something. I think—I’m not sure, but I think—Nerimund might still be alive.”

  Her eyes flicked up. She searched my face, as if she suspected I might be playing some cruel joke on her in her time of mourning. “What makes you think that?”

  “I saw him. Out on the lawn. His statue, his wooden form. It was lying in the grass. Badly burned, but intact. And I could swear to you, I saw something happening… something… changing. Something alive.”

  Sable didn’t smile. But the shift in her features spoke of that subtle fluctuation between despair and hope, like a sliver of light allowed into a pitch-black room. She sniffed, wiped her nose, and kissed me on the chin. “I hope you’re right. But how are we going to get out of this?”

  I bit my lip, thinking. “Well, my original plan is out. Right, Chaz?”

  Across the attic space, Chaz was tinkering with the pile of electronics, brushing aside pieces of broken glass to get to the components he needed. “These are all looking pretty shot, Mull,” he said. “I could rebuild this thing with a few parts from one of the robots. What do you think it would take to disable an automaton and bring it up here?”

  “A miracle or two,” I said. “Would it have to be a Mark-Seven?”

  “I don’t think so. Any model should work.”

  “Chaz… I’m really sorry for getting those parts here in such bad shape. But if this is some kind of punishment—”

  “It isn’t,” he said. “There are parts in the robots’ heads, the back panels, and the sensor arrays that should get us up and running.” He brushed his long black hair behind his ear and kept working.

  I believed him
. “Okay, so you’re saying if we want to take control of an entire unit of robots, we can do it by bringing down just one of them. That sounds like an incredibly poor design on Maclin’s part. How is it possible that they’re so vulnerable?”

  “They’re not,” said Chaz. “Well, not really. The parts I need each have certain components I can use to make different parts. Parts that don’t do the same things they used to do.”

  “Before I met you, I used to think being able to hotwire a hovertruck was a neat trick,” I said. “Well… bringing down one robot shouldn’t be too hard, right? Let’s pool our weapons together and see what we’ve got.”

  The pile we made was unimpressive, to say the very most of it. One hand pulser, one revolver with four pulser rounds, and a laser pistol. Ezra had a few mods that could pass for weapons, but that wasn’t the case with Sable, Thorley, or Eliza. A Roathean biomechanic had removed their knife and cutlass augments before they went to prison. Blaylocke did have a flecker sword. But of course, he wasn’t around at the moment.

  “These aren’t gonna do a thing to the robots,” I said, taking my weapons back. “We need something else. Something better.”

  “Last night the commoners were knocking robots over in the streets just by pushing them down,” said Eliza, making one of her rare contributions. “The weight alone seemed enough to break them.”

  “It’s one thing to knock them down while they’re standing still and programmed not to hurt you,” I said. “It’s another to deal with them when they’re in motion. When they can react.”

  “When is the fleet set to arrive?” asked Max.

  “Nightfall.”

  “That only gives us a few hours…”

  “Yeah, so we’d better get moving. First we’ve got to find Tom and Blaylocke. Show me the way through to the rest of the attic.”

  They led me over to where the flooring ended. Beyond a section of bare wooden beams, I could see a slanted opening in the sidewall no bigger than the gap between the legs of a sawhorse. Thomas and Blaylocke had crawled along the beams, they explained, and shimmied through the opening on their stomachs, being careful not to put too much weight on the flimsy plaster panels. One slip-up and they might’ve fallen through to whatever room was below us.

  “I’ll go find them,” I said. “And whatever’s been keeping them over there, I won’t let it prevent me from getting back.”

  “You sure you don’t want me to come with you?” asked Thorley.

  “Stay here and keep an eye on everyone. Chaz, you do the best you can with whichever of those parts aren’t ruined. If we do end up bringing down a robot, I need you to have that thing ready as quick as you can.”

  Chaz nodded. “Kind of hard working up here without a light or my magnifiers. It’ll be slow going.”

  “Chaz?”

  “Yeah?”

  “If you can’t do this, there’s no one in the world who can.”

  I took off my yellow raincoat and lowered myself onto the beams, crawling along toward the small triangular opening. My left arm ached every time my hand came down on the wood. The skin around the laceration from the hood ornament was red and inflamed, the start of what might become a hideous infection if I didn’t have it treated. Rinsing it with poop-water probably hadn’t helped.

  There were nails sticking down through the roof, so I had to stay close to the beams and keep my head low to avoid taking a sharp one to the cranium. When I neared the opening, I shone my eyelight ahead, hoping for a glimpse of whatever was beyond. Something was blocking my view, though. I crept closer.

  The obstruction turned out to be just a slanted corner in the roofline. I couldn’t see anything until I’d gone far enough to stick my head through the opening and look to the left. The space beyond was cavernous. The roof came to a peak high above, splotches of old wood wet and rotting from rain and disrepair. Ancient discarded furniture, wall hangings, paintings, and tapestries stood on an island of plywood flooring in the middle of the room. Surrounding that island was another huge area of exposed beam, which was attached to the plaster ceiling of whatever room or rooms were below.

  I squeezed through the opening and crawled down another lengthy section of beam before the roofline sloped away enough to let me stand. I made it to the island and immediately saw footprints in the dust, traces of Thomas and Blaylocke’s passing. Following them through the maze of rubbish, I came across a few things I was pretty sure were worth a few chips. If I’d been here to pull a heist, I might’ve just hit the mother lode.

  Toward the center of the island was a trap door with a folding ladder, but since the dusty footsteps continued past this point I didn’t stop to open it. Gradually, the island narrowed until all that remained was a pathway of flooring between two crossbeams. This pathway rounded another corner in the roofline and ended at a door. Not another trap door, but an upright door, set into a wall and standing on its hinges.

  Curious, I crept over and put my hand on the knob. I pressed my ear to the door, thinking that maybe as soon as I got the chance, I’d have some cochlear implants put in for just these sorts of occasions. I could hear the distant percussion of workers binding the palace’s exterior with cement reinforcements, but from beyond the door there was only silence.

  The handle turned easily. I stepped back and put a hand on the wall to brace myself. The hinges squeaked, and I froze. After a few seconds, I leaned forward and squinted through the crack.

  There was a long hallway with doors running down either side. Dim daylight glowed through a small window at the far end. A short way down the hall, the floor was missing. I couldn’t tell whether it had collapsed or been torn out. The splintery hole that was left revealed a similar hallway beneath this one. And in that hallway stood two robots.

  They were as still as big dumb metal statues. They were facing my direction, and judging by their lack of movement, they had probably turned this way when the door squeaked. One more noise and they’d know I was here.

  I paused for a moment, thinking. I looked around, up at the peaked roofline, down at the floor. I was pretty sure I could take them on if I had to. A place like this gave me certain advantages, even without a plethora of augments to help me. But I still hadn’t located Thomas or Blaylocke. I decided there was no getting around it; I wasn’t going any further until I’d found some way to deal with the robots.

  Flinging the door open, I waved my arms and shouted, “Hey. Up here, you tin-headed freaks.”

  They looked up, registered. Both automatons crouched down to launch themselves up at me. I slammed the door.

  I bolted down the plywood path, then turned right before I reached the island and hopped off. My foot hit the first crossbeam, and I tottered in place for a stressful moment until I caught my balance. I swung my other leg and hopped to the second beam. I’d made it to the fourth by the time the first robot came crashing through the doorway.

  Come on, you dummies. Take the bait.

  They took the bait. The first robot didn’t seem to detect any difference between the covered flooring and the naked wooden crossbeams. He came straight at me. When he stepped onto the bare plaster, his foot plunged right through.

  He fell until the first crossbeam caught him by the groin. I could hear the wood straining against his weight, but it held him there, both legs flailing out below. That is, it held him… until the second robot followed. When its foot came down onto the beam there was a crackling sound, like the one a tree makes when it’s about to fall. Then it snapped, and both automatons plummeted through the hole. They hit the floor of what looked to be the palace’s grand ballroom, at least thirty feet below, and broke apart.

  I hopped back to the path, wanting to whistle or shout or pump my fists, but knowing I was better off remaining undetected by anyone who might’ve been practicing their dance moves down there when the ceiling broke open. No one seemed to be in this part of the palace at the moment, though.

  I ran back to the doorway, which was now a robot-shaped hole
, and leaned out over the open wound in the hallway floor. If the synod kept letting these monsters crash through walls like kids through toy blocks, there’d be nothing left of the place before long.

  “Tom,” I whispered aloud. “Blaylocke. You down there?”

  Presently, two meek shapes emerged from one of the rooms along the lower hallway. Now that I’d gotten a better look at the place, I understood what it was. A servants’ dormitory; old and unused for years, by the look of it. Max must have servants, I speculated. Why abandon a whole section of the palace? “What are you two goons doing down there?” I asked.

  “The floor collapsed while we were in the hallway,” said Blaylocke. “When the robots showed up, we hid. They just stood there and never left.”

  “Quit messing around and get up here.”

  “There’s no way up. The staircase is blown out.”

  “What do the rooms look like? Any beds in there?”

  “There was one in our room,” said Thomas.

  “Okay, I guess we’re going to have to do this the old-fashioned way. Grab a couple bedsheets and tie them together.”

  We managed to rig up a makeshift rope between the lower hallway and the upper one. I secured the rope to one of the intact crossbeams in the attic. Thomas began to climb up, but I stopped him. “We’re not going back just yet. First, we need to find a way down to that ballroom.”

  I slid down the rope. The lower hallway was dusty and run-down, with gaps in the floorboards and large sections of moldy, crumbling plaster. At the end of the hallway, I could see the staircase Blaylocke had mentioned. From here down, the stairs seemed to be intact.

  “That looks like a way to the ballroom,” I said, strolling toward it.

  “Hold on,” said Blaylocke. “What do we need to go to the ballroom for?”

  “Parts. Chaz needs parts from the robots to finish rebuilding the remote.”

  “Maclin’s operatives aren’t going to ignore a racket that loud. They’ll send someone to investigate any second now.”

  “Look, Blaylocke. Do you want to spend the last day of your life huddled together in a stuffy attic while the Civs drop bombs on us? Neither do I. Crawl back through if you want. I’m getting the stuff Chaz needs.”