Pistons and Pistols

by Tonia Brown

  “Actually, you should thank Atom.”

  Rose swung her legs to the edge of the bed. “No. I can thank him back at the Widow.” She tried to stand, but failed to get to her feet before Dot was pushing her down again.

  “You aren’t going anywhere, at least until I’m satisfied you’re well enough to fly. And besides, the young man has been waiting this whole time to speak to you.”

  “He has?”

  Dot nodded.

  “Fine,” Rose said. “Send him in.”

  “I’m here,” Atom said at her left.

  Rose started at the sound of his voice. He had been so quiet she didn’t even realize he was sitting there.

  Dot added, “The lad spent the entire time by your side. I couldn’t pay him to leave.”

  “Where was my devoted Click this whole time?” Rose asked.

  Dot laughed. “He was right in the bed with you up to the last hour or so. He took a break to stretch his legs and see how the others are getting along. Speaking of which, the coal bins are quite full. We should be ready to go within the hour. That is, if you are healthy enough.”

  “I think I’ll be healthy enough.” Rose narrowed her eyes at the boy. He smiled weakly at her. Something was on his mind, she could sense it. “Dot, will you leave us for a moment? I need to thank Mr. Loquacious properly.”

  “Aye, Captain.” Dot closed the door behind her.

  Atom stared at Rose in silence.

  “Thank you,” Rose said. “Again.”

  Atom nodded. “It was my pleasure.”

  “Yes, well. Let’s not make it a habit.”

  “You wouldn’t want folks to think it was dangerous to travel with you.”

  Rose laughed. “No. I wouldn’t. Now, what’s on your mind?”

  Atom looked away. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Atom?”

  He stared at his mechanical hand as he said, “She found out.”

  Rose had suspected as much, but it was pitiful to hear him put it like that.

  “I don’t know what to do now. She…she seems so upset.”

  “She has every right to be. I told you to be upfront. Women love many things, but honesty is a prize valued above all others.”

  “You’re right, of course. But…”

  With an impatient sigh, Rose asked, “But?” She hated playing cupid to these star-crossed lovers.

  Atom looked back up to her. “Everyone knows. They all found out.”

  This was a surprise. “How?”

  The young man explained the circumstances of his great unveiling.

  Rose grunted when he was done. “And what did everyone say?”

  “I didn’t give them a chance to speak. I came straight here after I vented the mines.” He slumped lower in his chair, the perfect picture of melancholy. “I bet they can’t even stand to look at me.”

  “Okay, mister man,” Rose said as she swung her legs to his side of the bed. “This poor pitiful me act is getting pretty old.”

  “Excuse me?” Atom watched her with confused eyes.

  Rose got to her teetering feet and pointed at him. “You are not excused. In fact, you are hereby on probation until you can learn to get a hold of yourself. I will not have one of my crew always so depressed. It brings down overall morale. Shall I have Click teach you how to be happy? I know he enjoys instructing the women, but he might be inclined to take you on as a pupil.”

  Over the next moment, the young man’s face went through a series of changes. First was the droopy frown he’d seemed to favor the better part of the previous day. This was soon replaced by a curious look, which gave way to gaping-mouthed surprise. “You consider me part of your crew?”

  Rose smiled wide. “Of course. A man who saves my life not once, but twice, is always welcome on my crew.”

  “But I’m not a—”

  “And so help me,” Rose said over him, “if you so much as hint that you aren’t a real man one more time, I’m going to ram that mechanical hand where the sun don’t shine. Do you understand, sailor?”

  Atom smiled at last. “Aye-aye, Captain.”

  “Good, now help me to the ship. We need to get some distance in before the sun gets too high. I have this feeling in my bones that we’re being followed.”

  “I will, in a moment. First I need…I need to ask one more thing. Or rather. Oh dear…I don’t know how to approach this.”

  “Just spit it out, Atom!”

  “I heard you in the mine.”

  Rose shook her head. “Heard what?”

  Atom’s look was pained again, as if he carried the weight of the world. “I heard you speaking about your husband.”

  She could feel the color drain from her face.

  “I heard you say things about his death.” Atom focused on his metal hand, flexing it as he spoke. “I need to know. Did you really push him from the ship?”

  “I did,” Rose confessed. She sat down with a heavy sigh. “What do you intend to do about it?”

  “I didn’t mean to insinuate that I would take any action.” He looked up to her, his copper eyes full of a strange understanding. “I just wanted you to know that I was aware.”

  Rose breathed another sigh, this one of relief. “Thank you, Atom.”

  “He must have been a horrible man to drive you to such an act. A horrible, horrible man.”

  “Horrible doesn’t begin to describe Bill Madigan.” Rose motioned for his help, and Atom held her to his firm body as she limped across the room. Every bone and muscle ached, just as if she had been in a real tumble with the old man himself.

  “I’m sure he got what he deserved,” Atom said.

  “I don’t know about that. But thank you for your sympathy, and your silence. On that note, I must say that if all of our adventures are going to end up with us in bed together sharing secrets, perhaps we should just become lovers.”

  He tensed under her, trembling like a wind-driven leaf.

  “I’m kidding,” she whispered, then laughed.

  Atom laughed with her, a nervous titter. “Click seems quite the step up from such a monster.”

  Rose stopped her limping to look at Atom. Such wisdom from a man who didn’t even think he was human. “Yeah, I suppose so.”

  They started across the room again, heading for the door.

  “Do you love him?” Atom asked.

  Rose snorted a small laugh. “I would like to, but I don’t know if he can love me.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s too wild, Atom. He could never settle for just one woman.”

  Atom smiled wistfully. “I’ve never seen a man more in love.”

  “I have,” Rose said, eyeing the blushing young man as he helped her to the door.

  * * * *

  Atom Loquacious was made of clockworks.

  Well, seventy-seven point seven percent clockworks, as the professor put it.

  It sounded like an awful lot of metal for one being to bear, but as beings went, he bore it well. Gabriella would have never guessed he wasn’t one hundred percent human. He was only twenty-two point three percent real flesh, and almost zero blood, but did that make him less human than those around him?

  Everyone had questions, except for Jayne, who knew, of course. It made sense that the tinker knew. She was the one who had repaired him on the ship when he injured his shoulder. The reason he needed Jayne instead of Gabriella. Not because he cared for Jayne more, but because his wellbeing depended upon her talents.

  She had a hand in saving Atom’s life.

  Gabriella saw the tinker with new eyes, and newfound respect.

  It didn’t take long to load the coal into the bins, considering the miners had abandoned huge carts of the stuff in their rush to get away from the gas. The work might have gone much faster if Atom had helped, but he was hiding from the women, as if ashamed of his terrible secret.

  When the work was done, the crew should have taken a rest. But who could sleep with such news on the mind?
Everyone was brimming with questions about Atom and his strange makeup. Since the actual clockwork man was unavailable for questioning, the professor paired with Jayne to give a detailed lecture on Atom’s design. The crew gathered around a copper-topped dining table in the professor’s house, while the miners went back to work beneath them. The professor and Jayne listed everything they knew of Atom, which turned out to be a surprising amount. Jayne brought along a few diagrams to help illustrate their points.

  It seemed that everything along his spinal cord, from brain to base, was living flesh. His brain, his eyes, his tongue, so on and so forth, were slightly altered, but still chiefly made of flesh.

  “What do you mean by altered?” Click interrupted.

  “Enhanced,” the professor said. “His nervous system has been ramped up to a remarkable degree. He feels pain on a level we shall never comprehend.”

  “And pleasure?” Click asked.

  The professor nodded with a wicked grin that Gabriella found most inappropriate.

  Jayne nodded as well, saying, “All of his sensory organs have been fitted with mechanisms that grant him fantastic abilities. His eyes see farther than ours. His reflexes are quicker than ours. His brain processes information faster than ours.”

  “What about downstairs?” Click asked.

  “Downstairs?” the professor asked.

  “You know,” Click said, motioning below his belt.

  Gabriella gasped before she could cover her mouth. Her rising blush finished the look of exasperated surprise.

  “Well…” the professor started, then puffed his cheeks as he contemplated the question.

  Jayne smirked but said nothing.

  “That’s enough,” Magpie said.

  “I’m sure I’m not the only one who is curious,” Click said. He winked at Gabriella, drawing a warmer heat to her cheeks.

  He was correct. Gabriella was curious. But if she were to learn such information, it would be at Atom’s discretion. In private. At a much, much later date. Not in some scientific lecture.

  “Click,” Magpie said. “Leave it be. If you’re so curious, just ask him yourself.”

  “Perhaps I shall,” Click said.

  Atom’s main organs—kidneys, liver, intestines and such—were gone, replaced by an intricate system of wires and cogs the likes of which neither Jayne nor the professor had ever seen. His body was covered with a flesh-like substance, which possessed innate healing properties and granted him a tactile sense, but again bore only a superficial resemblance to human skin. Aside from eyebrows, he lacked facial hair and body hair. He could drink normally, but took food in some convoluted fashion. He had no fingerprints on either hand.

  Gabriella interrupted the lecture to ask a single burning question.

  “Does he have a heart?”

  The answer was yes, but it too was altered. It didn’t beat like a normal human heart. Instead it housed the very source of his power, the battery that ran his entire being. Neither the professor nor Jayne seemed willing to elaborate on what that meant.

  So, in short, Atom Loquacious was part human, part appliance.

  “Are there any other questions?” the professor asked as the lecture drew to a close.

  “Yeah,” Magpie said. “How come you know so much about the kid when he ain’t even been here for a day?”

  Jayne shifted her glance to the professor, as if she were curious as well but knew better than to ask.

  “I’m glad you asked that,” the professor started.

  “Me too,” said the captain.

  Everyone turned with a gasp to see the captain limping into the room. But Gabriella’s gasp wasn’t for the state of her captain, which was horrendous. It was for the captain’s assistant, Atom. He kept his eyes to the floor as he helped her across the room to the nearest chair.

  Click stood to go to her side, but the captain asked him to return to his seat, assuring him there would be time for him to inspect her when this was done. With a reluctant grin, he did as instructed.

  “Thank you, Mr. Loquacious,” the captain said as she eased into a chair.

  Atom nodded once, then stood by her side, his eyes still cast to the floor.

  “You were saying, professor?” the captain asked.

  “Yes,” the professor continued. “I know so much about the remarkable young man because Grant came to see me just before he went missing, as you put it.”

  “You mean Doctor Loquacious was here?” the captain asked. “Seven years ago, just after he left his son on that godforsaken island?”

  “Yes. He told me, in great detail, all about Atom’s composition. I thought he was spouting lunacy, but now I see he spoke the truth.”

  “Indeed.” The captain turned her attention to the rest of the crew, eyeing each one as she said, “I know this is a lot for some of you to absorb. I am willing to give each of you the space you need to adjust to this new information. Does anyone have any questions for Atom you would like to get off of your chest now?”

  Click raised his hand.

  “Click?” the captain asked.

  “You’re staying with us,” Click said. “Aren’t you?”

  Atom lifted his face, his look of sorrow tearing at Gabriella’s soul. “You would have me? Knowing what you know?”

  Click grinned. “We’d be stupid not to.”

  The crew agreed with a round of “hear hear.”

  “Besides,” Jax said, “what good would a father-son reunion be without the son?”

  “If we can find the father,” the captain added.

  “Oh, I don’t think that will be a problem,” the professor said.

  A tide of curious faces turned his way.

  With a wider grin than Click’s, the professor said, “I know where Grant was headed from here. And knowing him, he’s probably still there.”

  Atom gripped the table, as if to keep from falling over at the news. “You know where my father is? Then tell me, man! I beg you.”

  The professor shrugged. “He went to see his sister. To seek shelter in family arms.”

  “Sister?” Atom echoed.

  Jayne narrowed her eyes at the professor. “He doesn’t have a sister. I did a dissertation on his professional and personal life when I was in school, and I can say with some authority that he has no siblings.”

  “I’m not surprised you don’t know about her,” the professor said. “He kept it quite the secret. She was the Loquacious family shame. Of course, her being the madam of a world-renowned bordello is bound to make a man forget his family ties.”

  His words were a verbal slap to every crewmember’s face.

  “What does that mean?” Atom asked, clueless of the facts.

  “Atom,” the captain said. “Ruby, the woman who paid us to bring you to her, is your father’s sister. She’s your aunt.”

  Atom furrowed his brow. “If she’s my family, why would she seek to harm me?”

  No one could answer that.

  Shaken by the news of his relations, Atom turned and stalked from the room.

  The captain looked to Gabriella. “Go to him. He needs you.”

  Gabriella caught up with him just outside the house, where he was walking toward the town. “Atom? Where are you going?”

  “I need to find out what she wants.”

  Gabriella touched his arm. “Please stop and talk to me.”

  He came to a rest, but wouldn’t look at her. “Why would you want to talk to me? I’m not a real man, remember?”

  “I’m sorry I said such a terrible thing. Please, believe me.”

  When Atom did face her, his look was almost too much for her to bear. She ached with him, for him, hurt to see him so upset. If she could have moved the moon and stars to take away his pain, she would. It dawned on her that she would have done anything to see him smile again, and if that wasn’t love, then she supposed she would never know what love was.

  “She’s my family,” Atom said. “Why would she want to hurt me?”
/>   “I don’t know,” Gabriella admitted.

  “I have to know. I have to go to them. They’re my family.”

  Gabriella grabbed his arm before he could step away. “No, they’re not.”

  He shook his head at her, confused by her words.

  “Atom, a family doesn’t abandon you for seven years with no hope of returning. Family doesn’t send a cargo ship to pack you up and bring you back like some kind of object. Just because that man made you doesn’t mean they’re family.”

  “Then tell me, what is family if not those who made you?”

  There was a time when she didn’t know the answer to that question. A time when, if asked, she would have just shrugged and gone about her spoiled rich girl business. But in the last six months, Gabriella had learned what family was.

  Real family.

  “Family isn’t always who you share blood with,” she explained. “Sometimes family are those with whom you find yourself aligned through fate or circumstance. These are the people who lift you up. These people cherish you not because you are their creation, but for the person you really are. Real family is those you choose, not those forced upon you. I love my father with all my heart, but the rest of my blood kin never understood me or loved me. I never felt at home with them. Not really. But the Widow…she is my home now. Everyone aboard appreciates me for me, not for who I can become or as a mere reflection of someone else. The Widow is where my family lives.”

  Atom held her gaze with his as he considered her words. “Is everyone aboard the Widow your family?”

  “Yes.” She paused to lay her hand against his cold, metal fingers. “Including you.”

  He smirked. “Then I am like a brother to you now?”

  “No. Not a brother.”

  “An uncle?”

  “No.” She raised his metal hand to her face, nuzzling against the cool feel of his fingers. “Not an uncle.”

  His hand jerked against her skin, as if he were nervous to touch her in such an intimate manner. “A father?”

  She shook her head.

  “Then what does that leave?” he asked.

  “If I am neither your sister, nor your aunt, nor your mother, what kind of family title is left for me to take?”

  Atom’s hand trembled against her face as he whispered, “A wife?”

  She lowered her eyes, trying her best to act shy, despite the fact that she had set him up for just such a question. “Mr. Loquacious. What are you implying?”