The Doomsday Vault ce-1

by Steven Harper

  “Of course not.” Glenda turned. “Simon, buckle me in. Miss Michaels, use those clips to fasten your skirts round your ankles and preserve your modesty while you’re in the air. Next time, I suggest trousers. And you’ll want these goggles to protect your eyes.”

  Alice drew on the proffered eyewear. “Next time?”

  The big ship was already looming large, perhaps two hundred yards away.

  “Off we go, Simon.” Glenda caught up a fat pistol and leapt over the side. Alice gasped in automatic fear for her, but there was a hiss as the bottle on Glenda’s back came to life and the batlike wings snapped fully open with a whump. She caught the wind and glided away. Simon snatched a large pistol of his own and jumped after her to glide toward the larger ship, leaving Alice alone with Gavin on the tiny deck.

  “Aren’t you coming, G-Mr. Ennock?” Alice asked.

  Gavin’s mouth was set, and his fingers tightened on the helm. “I don’t fly that way. Pirates do. Come back if you need an air refill.”

  She nodded in understanding. “Wish me luck, then.”

  “Good luck, miss,” he said stonily.

  His stiffness slapped her hard. “Are you angry at me, Mr. Ennock?”

  “Nope. You’d better fly.”

  “You are angry at me.”

  “You made your choice. I’m happy for you. Marry him. Be well.”

  Alice’s mouth fell open. “Does everyone know about that?”

  “Anonymous telegram from someone named ‘L.’ ”

  “I’ll murder her,” Alice muttered. “Listen, Mr. Ennock, I-”

  “You’d better go,” Gavin said. “Look!”

  A glittering line of tiny brass machines rushed toward the ship. Even at this distance, Alice recognized them as her own little automatons. Her jaw tightened in anger. These little ones belonged to her, and someone had stolen them. Yet she also wanted to talk to Gavin. He was correct in that she had made her choice, but she didn’t feel right in leaving him like this.

  “I’ll be back,” she promised. She peered over the side at the dizzying drop to the Thames and the buildings lining it far below. What if the harness didn’t work? Then she saw the line of brass machines-her machines. Determination won out over fear, and she jumped.

  There was a terrifying, sickening drop, and then the harness wings snapped open. Alice swooped upward. The bottle hissed on her back. She was flying! The sensation quite took her breath away. She leaned left and right, working out hand and foot motions that made her turn and dip just as Glenda said. It was easier than she’d thought. Bright air flowed all around her body, and even though she was supported by the harness and a bar, she felt like part of the sky. Her hair came free and streamed behind her. Queen Boadicea had nothing on this! It was freedom. It was independence. It was life. She whooped aloud, not caring who might hear, and sped toward the larger ship.

  More than half her machines were whirligigs that could fly, and they were carrying spiders that couldn’t. On the deck of the large ship, the crewmen were watching, but were unable to do anything; their weapons weren’t accurate enough to hit such small targets. Simon and Glenda chased the whirligigs, but even laden with spiders, the little machines were far more agile than the gliders; the Ward agents had no more hope of catching them than hawks had of catching hummingbirds. Alice hung back, observing, trying to understand what the machines were attempting. Where was Click?

  One of the whirligigs dashed up to the dirigible. Like most airships, it consisted of an enormous cigar-shaped envelope of hydrogen gas. The ship part was suspended from a rope rigging beneath it. The whirligig dropped a spider onto part of the rigging between the envelope and the main ship, and the spider extruded a blade. The rope snapped with a discordant twang. Then the spider leapt to another rope and cut that one. Another whirligig deposited its spider on another rope. Twang! The rope parted. Alice’s skin went cold as she realized what was going on. They would drop the ship and crack it open, freeing the war machine inside.

  Crewmen clad in airman white were already swarming into the ropes, climbing agile as monkeys up to the attacking machines. One of them reached a spider, but a whirligig dived in and crashed into his face. He lost his grip and fell screaming into the Thames far below. More spiders attacked the ropes.

  Alice set her mouth and dived toward them. She knew every one of the machines like another woman might know her lapdogs. A whirligig popped up in front of her, but she grabbed it, twisted its arm upward, and depressed the switch underneath it. The switch released all the tension in the winding spring at once, and the whirligig went limp. With regret, Alice let it go-she had no way to carry it-and the little automaton dropped into the river. By now, she was within arm’s reach of the large ship’s rigging, and she managed to pluck a spider from its work as she passed by and deactivate it. This one she tossed down to the deck.

  There was a crack. Below and to Alice’s left, Glenda fired her pistol at a whirligig. A small bolt of lightning hit it dead-on. The whirligig popped and crackled and fell like a stone. Simon had circled around to the other side of the ship, out of sight, but there were still half a dozen spiders in the rigging now, all snipping at the ropes. Fully a third of them had already snapped, and the bow was dipping downward. Shouts and cries rose from the deck. The ship was losing altitude, and Alice didn’t know whether she was crashing or just trying to land. Alice swooped upward, snatched at a spider, and missed. Another rope twanged, and the parting strands slashed across her arm, opening up a biting cut. Alice gritted her teeth and leaned away, trying to decide what to do. Glenda fired at another whirligig, but the shot went wide and vanished into the distance. Another whirligig was converging on her. More ropes snapped on the airship.

  Alice’s mouth was dry. What was going on? Her automatons weren’t very intelligent. They could obey fairly simple commands and maintain themselves within limits, but they had no imagination or drive. The idea that they could adapt to new conditions-like the Third Ward showing up in gliders-was laughable. Someone was giving them fresh orders. But who? And where was the person hiding? On the ship itself? That didn’t seem likely. Not when the whole point was to make it crash. The ground? No. Too difficult to see. So where? The answer had to be here somewhere, but her inability to see it itched at her.

  Alice swooped past the rigging again and grabbed for another spider, but a whirligig popped up to interfere. Alice snatched it, deactivated it, dropped it. Then Simon popped up from nowhere, nearly hitting Alice’s left wing, and grabbed the spider she had missed. He pried it from the ropes and flung it away, but a whirligig swooped down to rescue it. There were only four spiders left in the rigging now. The humans might be able to win this and let the ship limp to home field. Alice’s heart pounded at the thought of victory. They could solve the mystery later if they just got the ship safely home. She guided her glider toward another snipping spider.

  “Help!” Glenda’s thin cry came across the open air. She was struggling with two whirligigs that had landed on her pistol arm. Alice instantly brought her hissing harness around and dived toward the other woman, but even as Alice watched, the two whirligigs managed to pull Glenda’s arm round with aching slowness. Alice tried to speed up, but she was still too far off. Glenda fought the whirligigs, sweat beading on her face, but her treacherous hand was forced to aim the fat pistol at the ship, and a whirligig wrapped its strong metallic fingers around hers.

  “No!” Alice screamed. She reached out, even though she was still several yards away.

  The pistol fired. A lightning bolt cracked from the barrel and struck the hydrogen envelope full in the center.

  The explosion started in the middle and worked outward, like a demon unfurling its wings. It consumed the envelope in fire, and the internal skeleton glowed red. A series of concussions thudded against Alice’s bones, and wave after wave of hot air shoved and tossed her glider about. She fought with fists and feet to keep it steady. Black ash and debris blew in all directions. The last of the airship�
��s ropes snapped, and the main ship, three stories tall, dropped two hundred feet straight down. It crashed into a warehouse on the Thames and demolished it. Alice grimly fought to keep her glider aloft and was vaguely aware that both Simon and Glenda were in the same predicament. The two whirligigs, their terrible job done, had abandoned Glenda. Below, the dust and ash and bits of flame rose from the wreckage, and fire continued to rain down from above as the remains of the envelope burned away and died. From her position above, Alice got an all-too-excellent view of the wreckage. The ship had cracked open from bow to stern, revealing a glimpse of the giant brass mechanical everyone was so worried about. Alice also caught sight of some of the crewmen’s bodies, their white leathers awash in scarlet. They would never fly again, or kiss their wives or embrace their children, and her machines had done this to them. Black guilt washed over her. Her gorge rose, and she vomited up the remains of her afternoon tea.

  “Damn it!” Simon shouted. He was gliding beside her. “Gesu e Maria!”

  Glenda, her face pale, swooped over to join them, and they circled tightly over the wreckage like ravens over a battlefield.

  “This must have been the thief’s plan from the beginning,” Glenda said. “Destroy the ship so he could get to the war machine. We have to land and guard it before the clockworker can get to it.”

  “It’ll be hard.” Simon pointed downward. Ash continued to rain from the sky. “Crowds are gathering, and police. The clockworker could be any one of them.”

  “No,” Alice said. “Something’s off. How could he know exactly where the ship would crash-land? What if it had landed in the Thames and he lost the mechanical? And that machine is enormous. What is it-three stories tall? How would he manage to spirit it away without being seen?”

  “Clockworkers are insane,” Glenda said. A wind was rising, and they were nearly shouting now.

  “This was too carefully planned for someone who’s lost touch,” Alice said. “Look, there’s no way for your anonymous clockworker to actually steal the machine. Not with this plan.”

  “So you’re saying the thief doesn’t want the machine at all,” Simon shouted over the wind. “Why do all this, then?”

  “A distraction,” Glenda hazarded.

  Realization slammed Alice like a rock hammer. “Where’s Gavin?”

  She turned back for the little airship without waiting for an answer. Her heart lurched as she scanned the sky. Already the smaller airship had turned away and was flying steadily off, and just visible on the deck were two figures, not one, and the taller figure wore a familiar top hat. Alice’s hands went cold. No, no, no, no. What did the grinning clockworker want with Gavin? Revenge for foiling his attack on the bank? Or something entirely more sinister? She clenched her teeth. The time to ask would be when she had her hands around the lunatic’s throat. But even as the thought crossed her mind, a red indicator light on her left wing’s control bar flashed. Her air bottle was running out. With the airship now so far away, Alice had no hope of catching up. Her heart sank, and she felt sick. She was losing Gavin again, both metaphorically and physically. She would never-

  No. Damn it, no. Not this time. Alice turned and dived for the ground.

  “What are you doing?” yelled Glenda behind and above her. “Alice!”

  But Alice ignored her. The glider shot downward with stomach-dropping speed toward the wreckage. The flames had gone out-hydrogen fires always ended quickly-but the crowd around the massive ruin remained uncertain, giving the area a wide berth. Alice brought the glider lower and, averting her eyes from a gory mess on the splintered deck, managed her first landing without losing her feet. She smelled burned wood and flesh. With shaking hands, she unbuckled the harness, flung the wings aside, and ran toward the gaping fissure that rent the deck from bow to stern. Simon landed a little ways from her.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded.

  “No time.” Alice dropped into the dim hold and landed on the chest of the brass war machine, her shoes scrabbling on the metal. It was a mechanical, somewhat similar to the one Patrick Barton had used, but much larger and more human-shaped. It had a head instead of a bubble, with vestigial eyes and even a mouth, but the top was clear glass, with a place for the controller to sit and direct it. Alice’s skilled, practiced eye ran over it, gathering instant details. In seconds, she found the switch that popped the dome open, and she lowered herself into the seat therein. Because the giant was lying on its back, Alice was consequently lying on her own back. She pulled the dome shut and looked around at the switches, dials, and pulleys. There was always a logic to this sort of thing, and her talent, the one that allowed her to understand and assemble clockworker inventions, let her see exactly how it all fit together. She pulled a lever and spun a dial. Steam hissed, and somewhere deep inside the machine’s chest, a boiler roared to life. Power boomed through the pistons, and Alice made the machine sit up. It cranked upright, shouldering aside debris with easy power.

  Alice was panting with fear and worry. Every moment it took to work this out meant the clockworker was getting farther and farther away with Gavin. Under Alice’s direction, the mechanical got to its feet. Bitter-smelling coal smoke leaked from the joints, and she found herself three stories above the wreckage. Below, Simon looked up at her from the ruined deck in openmouthed surprise. Glenda swooped in for a landing of her own. Alice didn’t stop for explanations. The little airship was already dwindling in the distance, following the Thames. Alice moved her feet, and the metal giant walked. The crowd screamed and scattered. Treading carefully, Alice stepped clear of the ruins and onto the thoroughfare that went alongside the river. Then, her mouth a grim line, she started to run.

  Power stormed through her, and she exulted in it. The war machine was hers now, and she would use it to set things right, to restore order. People saw her coming and scattered long before she arrived, leaving an empty street. Her feet left deep gouges in the cobblestones and gravel, and buildings rumbled in her path. In moments, she caught up to the little airship, which, being slightly above her head, obscured her vision of the deck. Alice reached upward with a hand to grab at it, but her control wasn’t perfect, and she missed. The ship bobbled in the air and tried to gain altitude, but Alice grabbed at it again. This time her fingers caught the keel. It crunched a little, and she eased off, then pulled the ship down like a child taking a model down from a shelf. If the mechanical had been human-sized, the ship would have been the size of a pair of hatboxes, and it was easy to hold. The envelope bobbed up and down like a balloon on a string.

  Alice brought the deck down to eye level. Near the stern stood Gavin, his face pale and angry. He was chained by one wrist to the stern railing, and on his right shoulder was Click. The brass cat’s left claws pricked Gavin’s jugular. Click could slash deeper than any knife, and Gavin was being careful not to move. Nearby waited the grinning clockworker in his ragged coat and tall top hat. Alice’s stomach churned with fear for Gavin’s safety and hatred for the clockworker who was endangering him.

  “You!” Alice said, and her voice came out through the mechanical’s mouth. “Let him go!”

  The clockworker shook his head and gestured for Alice to back away.

  “I won’t let you have him,” Alice said.

  The clockworker drew a finger across his throat, a deadly gesture enhanced by the skull mask that covered the upper half of his face. Alice’s chest tightened.

  “You won’t kill him,” Alice said. “You went through too much trouble to get him, though I have no idea. . no idea why.”

  But even as she finished the sentence, Alice did know. The certainty stole over her with the clarity of a puzzle that locked together at last.

  “Aunt Edwina,” she said. “You’re Aunt Edwina.”

  Gavin went pale. “The Red Velvet Lady.”

  The clockworker cocked his-her-head. It all made perfect sense. Only Aunt Edwina, who had built Alice’s automatons, would have a way to take control of them. Only Aunt Edwina had
the apparent obsession with Gavin. Only Aunt Edwina was a clockworker who had dropped out of sight at the same time the clockworker in a skull mask had popped up in London. Now that Alice had the chance to look closely, in daylight, when the clockworker wasn’t jumping and moving around, she could see that he-she-was a tall, thin woman rather than a short, slender man. The male clothing, hat, and mask were a simple but effective disguise. People saw a man’s outfit and assumed the wearer was male. Alice herself had benefited from this on the trip back from capturing Patrick Barton. The world spun, and Alice clutched the mechanical’s controls. There would be time for hysterics later. Right now, she had other issues to deal with.

  She had intended to tell Edwina to let Gavin go again, but instead she blurted out, “Why, Aunt Edwina? Why kidnap Gavin and fake your death and destroy your house and start these rampages over London? What are you doing?”

  The clockworker made a gesture, and Click’s claws moved. Gavin made a noise, and a thin trickle of blood oozed down his neck.

  “Stop!” Alice cried. She had forgotten that, aunt or no aunt, clockworkers were still insane. “Aunt Edwina, don’t! I’ll let the ship go. Just don’t hurt Gavin.”

  “No!” Gavin croaked. “I won’t be a prisoner again.”

  “It’ll be all right, Gavin. But first-Click, give me your left forepaw, please.”

  There was a moment, and then Click’s left forepaw dropped away, just as it had when Alice had given the same command in Edwina’s tower. Gavin reacted. He ripped Click off his shoulder and threw him at the clockworker. Caught off guard, Edwina took the brass cat full in the midriff. She stumbled backward, then dived over the gunwale. Gavin yelled. Alice shrieked, her voice amplified by the mechanical. Then the clockworker rose up, supported by four madly spinning whirligigs, so tiny against their giant brother. She snapped her fingers, and three of the whirligigs sang a note, the same notes Alice remembered the clockworker playing at the Bank of England. Edwina snapped her fingers again, and the notes played a second time. Then she touched the brim of her hat and the whirligigs sped her away.