The Doomsday Vault

by Steven Harper

This row house was small but newer—well built and free of drafts. The living room had a fireplace and the kitchen had a good stove, which meant the place stayed warm. A sofa, chair, divan, and several end tables were scattered about the front room. Click perched on the back of the sofa, and Kemp was in the kitchen with tea things. Little automatons crawled, whirred, and scampered everywhere, like autumn leaves at play.

  “I like this place,” Gavin said. “It’s very much you.”

  “I suppose I should hire a maid-of-all-work,” Alice said, “but I think it would make Kemp unhappy, and the little ones sometimes get nervous around too many people.” She spread her arms. “It’s freeing to be here, Gavin. I’m renting it with money I earned myself, and that means I can be myself. Whyever do you stay in those tiny rooms at the Ward?”

  “Most of my money has gone toward the ship, and my family,” he said. “But I’m glad you found this place. It’s more private.”

  “That it is.” She slid her arms around him, and his heart jumped. “No one to interrupt us here.”

  “Tea?” Kemp said, entering with the tray. Click chose that moment to leap at one of the flying automatons. It squeaked and shot higher. The clockwork cat missed and crash-landed on one of the tables, which tipped over and spilled him onto the floor. He scrabbled madly at the boards and rushed indignantly out of the room.

  “No interruptions?” Gavin grinned.

  “Have some tea,” Alice said, plucking a cup from the tray.

  “Darling? Can you hear me?”

  Gavin jumped. Alice dropped the cup and it shattered on the wood floor. It was Edwina’s voice, and it was coming from Kemp. The automaton stood completely frozen, still holding the tea tray.

  “Hello?” Kemp said, speaking as Edwina. “Alice, are you there?”

  “Wha-what?” Alice said. “Aunt Edwina?”

  “Oh, good. It works. Listen, darling, I don’t have much time, so listen quickly.”

  “What’s going on?” Alice demanded. “Where are you? You’re not going to attack another airship, are you?”

  “Not to worry, darling. I’m in my cell at the Third Ward. They call it a workroom or a laboratory, but it’s a cell, nonetheless. I’ve been pretending my grip on reality has slipped, but they still give me equipment to play with and I cobbled together this transmitter. Did you talk to the ambassador as I told you?”

  “You didn’t tell me to do anything, but yes,” Alice said, recovering herself. “We figured out what you meant.”

  “Then you know about the cure and why the Crown wants to suppress it. I realized this would happen, you know, which is why I set everything up the way I did.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Gavin asked.

  “Mr. Ennock is there? Good! This will make things simpler. Have you joined the Third Ward, Alice?”

  “Yes,” Alice said slowly. “I’m in training, but I’m in.”

  “Excellent!” Edwina sounded relieved. “I haven’t told you everything yet, so I need you to listen closely now. The clockwork plague is destroying the entire world, and not only by disease. One day, a clockworker will make something powerful enough to wipe out all life on Earth. This plague must end. Now.”

  Gavin’s thoughts went to the Impossible Cube, and he glanced at Alice. Her face was white. He reached for her hand, but she shook it off.

  “The Ward has my first cure, the one that works on one person at a time. They put it in the Doomsday Vault. They’re still looking for my second cure, the one that spreads.”

  “You said it was incubating,” Alice interrupted.

  “It is. They can’t find it because I put it in the one place they’d never look.”

  “I’ll ask,” Gavin said with a sigh. “Where?”

  “Inside me.”

  Alice’s expression became incredulous. “Inside you?”

  “There are places even the Ward can’t search, darling. Now that I have proper facilities again, I can finish incubating it. In fact, it will be done by morning. That’s where you two come in.”

  “I don’t understand,” Gavin said.

  “Both cures must be released. That’s why I arranged for the two of you to join the Third Ward. Once I was able to use the Ward’s facilities to finish the cure—”

  “You would need someone to break you out,” Alice finished. “No.”

  “Darling, you must. The Ward will never let this cure go. You need to break me out of this dungeon, and you need to steal the first cure from the Doomsday Vault.”

  “Edwina, you’ve gone mad,” Alice protested.

  “No. I’m quite sane, though I may not last much longer once the Ward realizes what I’m doing. It’s damned hard to work with someone watching. They think I’m growing blue roses. I’m actually quite close, come to that.”

  “Do you mean all this talk about making me independent was nothing more than a ruse to get me into the Ward so I could eventually break you out of it?” Alice cried indignantly. “I’m not a chess piece on a board, Edwina! I’m not a dog to jump when you say so.”

  “And anyway,” Gavin put in, “security is very tight. We couldn’t get you out, let alone break into the Doomsday Vault.”

  “I was afraid you might react this way, darling.” Edwina’s voice was tight. “That’s the real reason I brought Gavin into your life and maneuvered you into falling in love.”

  Alice gasped, and Gavin’s blood went cold. “What do you mean?” he said quietly.

  “When I had Gavin asleep in my tower,” Edwina continued, “I injected him with the clockwork plague.”

  Gavin’s knees buckled. The room rocked, and he went to the floor with his head between his knees. There had been a bandage around his upper arm when he woke up in the tower of the Red Velvet Lady. At the time, he had been mystified by it. Now he knew what it was for, and he wished he hadn’t. His gorge rose, and he threw up on the floorboards between his ankles.

  “You’re bluffing,” Alice said desperately. “It’s a lie. He’d be dead by now if it were true.”

  “No, darling. It was my own recipe, the slowed version, but he does have it. At least he’s not contagious yet.”

  “No,” Alice whispered.

  “There’s good news. You can cure him long before he becomes one of those unfortunates who lurch through alleyways. Just get me out of the Third Ward and break into the Doomsday Vault. And you’d better hurry.”

  The lights in Kemp’s eyes flickered out, then came back on. He turned his head left, then right. “Oh! Oh dear! Did I switch off? Sir! Do you require assistance?”

  Gavin stared at the stinking puddle of vomit. The revelation crushed him to the floor, and his back ached anew. A small sore on the back of his hand caught his eye. Was it a plague sore? In a few weeks, he would join the souls shambling through the shadows, hoping someone would throw him an apple.

  “I won’t let this happen again, Gavin.” Alice was kneeling beside him with her arms around his shoulders. Several of her little automatons perched on her shoulders. “I won’t. We’ll find a way into the Vault, and we’ll get Aunt Edwina out so we can cure you. I don’t care how impossible it is.”

  Gavin brought his head up. “I know how to do it.”

  Moments later, Gavin was sketching madly on a sheet of foolscap at Alice’s new kitchen table with Alice leaning over him. Kemp had been banished to Alice’s bedroom, however unfairly, and Click perched on the coal stove, heedless of the heat it put out. Several of the little automatons were lined up above the cupboards. Alice kept a continual hand on Gavin’s arm or his shoulder or his head, as if he might float away and her touch would keep his feet touching the floor. Thank God he wasn’t contagious yet. She couldn’t bear the thought of not touching him.

  A number of feelings battled inside her—fury at Aunt Edwina for doing this to Gavin and to her, guilt over her role in the entire affair, fear of what was going to happen next, and through it all, a growing and powerful love for Gavin. When he was nearby, she felt his presence, an
d when he was gone, she felt his absence. When he laughed, she was happy, and when he was upset, she wanted to tear London in two. And right now, she felt ready to destroy the world for him.

  “Doctor Clef is the key,” he said. “He finished his Impossible Cube earlier today, and Lieutenant Phipps said it has to go into the Doomsday Vault.”

  “So they’ll have to open it,” Alice breathed.

  “Yes. There’s a little ceremony surrounding any invention that goes in. An hour before sunrise, all the clockworkers are locked in their rooms, and the available agents stand honor guard in two lines—like this—while Lieutenant Phipps marches between them. She takes the invention to the Doomsday Vault, which is here. The guards open it, and she puts it inside. Then everyone has a breakfast of kippers and eggs and beer, including the clockworker who invented the device. If he’s gone completely insane, he sits at the table in a straitjacket.”

  “So we somehow sneak in when the Vault opens and hide inside until they all leave?”

  Gavin shook his head. “No. The Vault would close on us and we’d be trapped. There’s only one way to do it.” He put his pencil down and exhaled, long and slow. “Alice, if we go through with this, it’ll be a crime against the British Crown. I’ll be branded an American spy, and you’ll be a traitor. Are you willing?”

  And she hesitated. He was right. She tried to set aside thoughts of Gavin and to think of the situation clearly, as would an automaton. This plan went beyond merely breaking a few societal rules. This plan was outright treason. The sentence for that was transportation to Australia at best, hanging at worst, and her title wouldn’t protect her. The plan, if it worked, would topple the British Empire and change the course of history for thousands, millions of people. Did she, the daughter of an unimportant, impoverished baron, have the right to make that choice?

  Did the Third Ward have the right? They had a vested interest in keeping the status quo. Without clockworkers, the Third Ward had no reason to exist. On the other hand, they were more informed, more aware of the wide world. They knew what was proper.

  Alice opened her mouth to answer Gavin just as a brick crashed through the front window and tumbled across the floor. Both Alice and Gavin started, then rushed to the broken frame to peer outside. Norbert Williamson swayed on the sidewalk, just visible in the yellow lamplight. He held a bottle. On the street stood his mechanical carriage.

  “You thought you could hide from me, you bloody bitch?” Norbert yelled. “You owe me a child and a title!”

  A pang went through Alice’s stomach. “Oh God.”

  “I’ll take care of him,” Gavin said with clenched teeth.

  “No.” Alice laid a hand on his arm. “I will.” And before he could protest, she was out the door.

  “There you are, you whore,” Norbert growled. He gulped from the bottle. “Did you enjoy fucking him?”

  “Not nearly as much as you enjoyed watching your friends use those machines, you may be sure,” Alice replied primly.

  Norbert didn’t seem to notice the dig. “You’re coming home with me. I’ll teach you manners and lock you up long enough to make sure the boy didn’t pollute you with his spawn.”

  A crowd was gathering. People opened windows and peered out doors. Alice became aware of every pair of eyes, every judgmental look, every knowing nod. The carriage stood in front of her. It would be so easy to bow her head and climb into it, ride smoothly away from all these unfair, world-shaking decisions, these choices she had never asked to make. All she had ever wanted was a quiet life with a quiet husband.

  But that was a lie, too, wasn’t it? It was a lie she told herself. She’d been telling herself she wanted these traditional things . . . and why? Because it was her fault the clockwork plague had torn through her family, killed her mother and brother, crippled her father, and wanting traditional things would set everything aright. Except Father was dead, and now the person she loved carried the plague. The tradition, the lie, would cause Gavin’s death, and the deaths of thousands more.

  “No,” Alice whispered.

  “What?” Norbert growled.

  Alice straightened, standing tall before the neighbors who came to stare. Gavin stood in the doorway. “I said no. I am Alice, Baroness Michaels. I am not going back with you, Norbert Williamson. I love Gavin and always have. Go back home to your factory and your money and your filthy machines. I hope they rip your cock off.”

  Norbert flung himself at Alice. Gavin shouted a warning from the front steps, but Alice saw him coming. She stepped aside and gave him a shove that carried him straight into the wall of the house. He smashed into the bricks and staggered backward, dazed and with a bloody nose. Gavin hoisted him by belt and scruff and flung him into the carriage. Alice smacked the emergency switch for home, and the carriage rushed away.

  Alice found herself in Gavin’s arms. He tipped her chin back and kissed her, right there on the street in front of the little crowd. His embrace was solid as an oak tree, and the kiss electric as a lightning bolt. She gave herself up to it, and to him.

  “I do love you,” he whispered.

  “And I love you,” she said.

  A smattering of applause broke out, then grew louder. Alice broke away from Gavin. The crowd clapped and cheered. “Great job, love!” someone shouted. “You showed him!” “Wish I had your courage!”

  Laughing, she dashed back into the house with Gavin close on her. With the door shut, he kissed her again and pressed his body against hers. She felt his urgent hardness, and her own body responded. “I’ve never wanted you more than I do now,” he whispered.

  “We don’t have time,” she replied with regret. “It’s only a few hours until sunrise, and we have to break into the Doomsday Vault.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Lieutenant Phipps marched past Gavin with the glowing Impossible Cube. As the most junior agent of the Third Ward, he was at the far end of the double line of agents lining the corridor, the end farthest from the Doomsday Vault. Another agent played a military drum. Every beat snapped to Phipps’s footsteps. Each agent, and there were nearly twenty, wore a dress uniform of black linen with red trim. Several sported body machinery similar to Phipps’s, and all of them, even Simon and Glenda, carried side arms. Alice, who was still in training and not yet technically an agent, was nowhere to be seen, but Gavin knew she was hiding halfway up the stone spiral staircase that led back up to the main floor.

  Phipps reached the head of the double line, and the drum stopped. The four agents who guarded the round, two-story door to the Doomsday Vault saluted Phipps and turned to the Vault controls. Each guard knew only one sequence of instructions for opening the Vault, to ensure that no one person could open it alone. The first guard spun a large wheel that reminded Gavin of an airship helm, then spun it backward, then forward. The second guard spoke rapidly into a speaking tube. The third guard turned a series of dials set into the door. The fourth guard took a card from his pocket, punched a series of holes in it with an awl, and fed the card into a slot. A moment of silence followed. Gavin held his breath. With a dull booming sound, the great door swung outward.

  Lights inside the Vault flickered to life, revealing a wide, long tunnel lined with shelves. Strange objects, some of them moving, occupied the spaces. Gavin couldn’t see into the Vault very well from his vantage point, but he didn’t need to. He pulled from his pocket a small object of his own: two glass bulbs connected by a third, like an hourglass with a slight bulge in the middle. The top bulb held water. The small middle bulb held a cube of sugar. The lower bulb held a clear green fluid. Gavin twisted a small brass lever on the side of the device, and the water in the top bulb rushed down over the sugar cube and into the absinthe in the lower bulb just as Phipps entered the Doomsday Vault. The absinthe in the lower bulb bubbled and changed to a milky green.

  “What are you doing?” hissed Donaldson, the agent next to him. “Put that away!”

  Gavin flipped the glass lid off the device and forced himself
to drink, grimacing at the cloying taste of anise. By now, some of the others had noticed. They stared, uncertain what to do about this flagrant breach of protocol. Before they could make up their minds, a fluttering sound came from the stairwell, and a little automaton emerged into the hall, its propeller whirling madly. It held a red ball of the type Gavin had cautioned Alice not to drop in the weapons vault.

  “Sorry, everyone!” Gavin shouted.

  Phipps, still holding the Impossible Cube, spun in surprise just as the automaton dropped the ball on the stone floor. Pink pollen burst into the air and formed a sweet, choking cloud. The agents staggered as if drunk. Several dropped to the ground.

  Gavin was already moving, the taste of absinthe still in his mouth. He sprinted toward the Doomsday Vault and caught Lieutenant Phipps as she slid to the floor. The Impossible Cube had already fallen at her feet. It glowed like a piece of broken sky.

  “Wha—?” Phipps said.

  “Sorry about this, Lieutenant,” he said again. “I really am.”

  “Why?” Her eyelid flickered. “Why . . . Gavin?”

  Gavin hung his head in guilt. Phipps had turned a disgraced cabin boy into a full-fledged agent, and now he had betrayed her.

  Alice rushed down the stairs, her lips smeared green. Click and Kemp followed behind her, and the little automaton fluttered down to land on her shoulder. “We have to hurry. You said the pollen wouldn’t last more than an hour.”

  “Alice . . . of course . . . ,” Phipps slurred. “You want . . . the cure . . . wreck . . . world.”

  “It needs to be wrecked,” Alice said, “so it can heal. Kemp, Click—you two wait out here. If Lieutenant Phipps wakes up, hit her on the head.”

  “Yes, Madam.”

  Gavin snatched up the Impossible Cube. Dr. Clef had charged it, and no one had wanted to drain the charge before the ceremony. It felt springy, as if made of pine boughs. Together he and Alice hurried into the open Doomsday Vault.

  The long room inside was crowded with inventions, some on shelves and some on the floor. Some were easily recognizable as dangerous: a bomb the size of a sofa; a glass vial filled with black liquid and marked DEATH; an enormous energy rifle pointed at the ceiling. Others were a mystery: a single automaton with no features; a trumpet; a thick book; five live hamsters in a cage with no food or water. Each object had a small placard in front of it with a name and year. The very first one, closest to the door, was a large iron ball with spikes. The faded placard read RICHARD W., 1829. A chill ran down Gavin’s spine.