by Beth Cato
The gremlin squawked and rubbed its face against the bars. Rivka laughed and scratched the wrinkles right between the ears. It leaned harder into her touch. The skin of this one lacked any seams. It was a born gremlin, one of the newer generation. Not that it made them any less repulsive to people.
Both its wings were gone, and judging by the bandages girthing its shoulders, it was recent. Fortunately, this one had a separate set of arms. She looked to the next cage. The gremlin there was shy, pressed against the back wall, granting her a clear view of its empty back. Both cages had red flags. Both gremlins lacked wings.
Broderick had said the wings for Lump were just about done. They’d be grafted after the metal legs.
Lump was made of the flesh of living animals.
Lump had such a large body, one that she could only assume had a heart, lungs, and all the body parts any person needed to survive. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of gremlins would have been required. How many more were needed? Were other animals sacrificed, too?
Lump’s current pain had overwhelmed her with its cruelty, but in truth it had been multiplied beyond count.
Rivka trailed her hand along the bars. Gremlins mewed, those with hands touching her as she passed. This sordid cycle of creation needed to end. She was going to find a way, magic or not. Apprenticeship or not.
She proceeded into the laboratory. Mr. Cody had joined Tatiana.
“Well! Good to see you again, young mechanist,” said Mr. Cody. His thumbs were tucked into the pockets of a red-velvet greatcoat. “Were you visiting my little gremlins?”
She sucked in a breath. That’s why he let her be here. Before, he had made it clear he knew about the one-man band she fixed at his party. She had impressed him with her skills. Was that a good or bad thing?
“Yes,” said Rivka. She glanced at the circle. Miss Arfetta was sprawled on the floor, her skirts edged high to reveal thick layers of lace. The mechanist stooped over her, a large wrench in hand as he twiddled with a massive mechanical knee. Broderick stood to one side, taking in everything, fidgeting with his hands at his back.
“I was just telling Mr. Cody that the latest news says three other Arena teams are starting work on behemoth chimeras. Isn’t that fascinating?” Tatiana ended with a guileless smile.
“Yes, well.” Mr. Cody didn’t look quite as pleased. “They’ll try, but so many Tamarans are leery of magic and its full potential. They want the grand results, the glorious entertainment, but they haven’t spent decades on smaller chimeras as I have, or studied medician lore.”
Rivka’s mind raced as she took all this in. “You’re saying that everything you do to gremlins, they’ll do worse?” Tatiana rested a hand on Rivka’s back, just beneath her hair.
Mr. Cody gave her a mournful nod. “Shoddy workmanship, dreadful results. Mind you, my own efforts have included plenty of failures, but as a scientist, my methods follow certain standards and procedures.”
She balled her fists at her hips. “You have standards? What about the little gremlins? What about—” A sudden, hard tug on her hair stopped her diatribe.
Tatiana cast her an innocent smile. “Right now I’m wondering about this chimera that’s being made, and the one you had in the Arena before. Chi, I think Alonzo called it?”
“Yes. Chi.” Mr. Cody shook his head in disgust.
“Chi succeeded in the Arena because of the strong bond he formed with Alonzo and Miss Leander, right?”
Rivka opened her mouth. Her hair was jerked again. What the hell was Tatiana up to? Rivka silently fumed. She didn’t want to shove back or cause a scene. She had to trust that Tatiana knew what she was doing.
“Yes. I wish I hadn’t lost that one so quickly. I could have learned so much.” Mr. Cody shot Tatiana a withering glare; he clearly had not completely forgiven her for her role in Chi’s loss. “It was a peculiar thing. Gremlins actually gossiped about Miss Leander, spoke of her as a friend. Your brother seemed to be well regarded by association.”
“Spoke of her?” Rivka echoed.
“My very first gremlins have human voice boxes. Few of them are left, but they often act as translators, representatives.”
Human voice boxes. Rivka felt ill.
“How do you plan to do things differently for this behemoth chimera, then?” asked Tatiana. Her hand slipped from Rivka’s back. “It looks somewhat different than Chi. Lighter, maybe faster. And now maybe it’ll go up against other chimera gladiatorial teams.”
“Ah, you’re trying to sell me something. Do go on, I like your technique.”
“What are you doing?” Rivka whispered.
Tatiana kept her intent gaze on Mr. Cody. “I want to be the jockey.”
“What?” Mr. Cody guffawed. “You?”
Blood rushed to Rivka’s head, her fists balling at her hips. “You can’t, Tatiana. That wasn’t . . . you said . . .”
“I said?” Tatiana glanced at her long enough to roll her eyes.
Rivka was speechless at the betrayal. Tatiana had planned this from the start. All her hints about the laboratory and what it might contain. She had never cared about saving the gremlins. This was all about the glory of riding in the Arena.
“Miss Garret, have you piloted anything? Or driven anything, like a cabriolet or an automated cycle?”
“No. But I can do it.”
“That medician, Miss Leander, put this idea in your head, didn’t she? You, a jockey. Balderdash.”
In the circle, Lump’s torso heaved with breaths. Miss Arfetta and the mechanist continued the procedure.
“Alonzo rode your other chimera to great success. And you knew my father as an elite pilot, too,” said Tatiana. “Some of the mecha pilots are my age. I’m lighter than they are.”
Mr. Cody’s smile was thin. “You’ve done some research on this subject, my dear.”
Enough was enough. Rivka forced herself from numbness and took several steps away from Tatiana. “Mr. Cody, what if you stop your experimentation once Lump’s body is complete? What if he doesn’t go in the Arena at all?”
Tatiana emitted a squawk of protest. Rivka silenced her with a glare.
“Pardon, but did you say ‘Lump?’ Did you name my wondrous chimera Lump?” asked Mr. Cody.
Rivka pointed to the room behind her. “Those caged gremlins are missing body parts so you can piece together your ‘wondrous chimera.’ They are alive and suffering. They can’t fly. Some don’t even have arms.”
Broderick, Miss Arfetta, and all the men in the room stared.
Mr. Cody’s manner shifted. “Medicians can’t work with the dead. It makes it especially tricky to move internal organs. Timing and temperature must be just right. Did you know electricity can be used to restart hearts and motivate blood flow? We fuse magic and science to create something extraordinary.”
“You’re doing this to make a spectacle, to entertain people in the Arena. It’s cruel.”
“Life is cruel. Science studies the elements of life. It can’t help but be cruel.” Mr. Cody shook his head. “I didn’t expect an urchin from Mercia to be soft as gelatin. You’re like those theatre raggers from a few years ago, rallying to save horses. You don’t see the big picture. My Arena bouts are important to people. They bring welcome distractions. Happiness.”
Of course. Mr. Cody needed to appear as the benevolent august and distract people with his machinations. The opinion of the people was everything. It’s how he stayed in office, earned his wealth.
“Mr. Cody!” Miss Arfetta strode toward the copper circle. Lump’s first leg appeared to be attached to his body now. “This interruption is outrageous. We’re in the midst of an operation.” Her black-gloved hands were glossy. Miss Arfetta’s gaze shifted to focus directly on Rivka’s harelip, her own lip curled in contempt.
“Do you want this beast to suffer? To die?” Miss Ar
fetta asked. “It’s bleeding as I talk to you. You should thank whatever you hold holy that you have no magic, that you cannot hear the suffering in its song right now.”
“Then go help him!” Rivka snarled. “You’re choosing to stand there. How can you call yourself a medician, make money off doing that?”
“Mr. Cody, I won’t work in her presence.” Miss Arfetta folded her arms and continued to stare.
Lump couldn’t suffer more, not because of her. Rivka turned away. “I will go. For Lump’s sake.” She managed to keep her voice cool and even. Her steps were controlled and precise, her chin held high; she almost burst out in hysterical laughter at that thought. Wouldn’t Grandmother be proud to see her now?
Compared to Mr. Stout, Mr. Cody and Miss Arfetta were nothing. Rivka refused to cower before them.
She bypassed the gremlin room. It was only when she was far down the hall that she began to jog as fast as her tight Tamaran skirt allowed. Her eyes burned with checked tears. She punched the buttons at the lift. Footsteps raced behind her. She tensed, ready to confront Tatiana, ready to scream and rage. Instead, it was one of Cody’s men.
“I’ll operate the lift, miss,” he said, panting. He didn’t meet her eye. She wondered if it was because of her harelip or her tears. “Where do you want to go?”
She thought of home. Her old home, before she met Miss Leander or Mr. Stout. The high towers of Mercia, with their rickety catwalks and tramways between buildings, the skyline forested with billowing smokestacks and foul gray skies. Her building, its paint peeling, furnaces cranky, the glowstone lights in the hallways so ancient that their enchantments scarcely worked at all. Her kitchen, perfumed with yeast and sugar.
“The roof. I need air,” Rivka said, the words hoarse and slurred.
At the top, the cage doors opened to a brightly lit hall.
“Go left and up the stairs to the access door,” he said.
Rivka barely noticed her surroundings as she followed his directions. She opened the door to find yet another stairwell. Wind nipped through the wooden slats and reminded her that she hadn’t spared the time to grab her hat and coat. Birds rattled in the darkness of the eaves.
The view from the roof was far different from anything she had known in the high-rises of Mercia. Both cities had towers and compact populations, but here buildings were not quite so compressed, or stained dark by coal coke. Gray clouds thickened the sky, the faint taste of rain on the air. Four black-steel mooring towers were spaced along the roof, none of them occupied by airships.
She leaned on the icy railing. Mr. Cody lived on the famed plaza of Tamarania. The Arena was just next door—a lower, squat building with a magnificent stained-glass dome. It had mooring towers as well. A crane loaded goods onto a fat airship.
Things clattered and fluttered around her. Rivka jerked back. A gremlin—no, several gremlins—landed on the railing feet away. More sounds made her turn around. The shanty of the stairwell had a roof lined with green bodies. She hadn’t heard birds in the eaves, but gremlins.
“Does Mr. Cody come here to capture your kin?” she asked, her voice choked again. “You shouldn’t let him grab you. You should fight back. You don’t know what he’s doing.” A gremlin hopped closer, its black nose twitching. “Or maybe you do,” she added softly.
Rivka braced herself against the railing. Directly confronting Mr. Cody had done nothing. What would make the man realize that he wasn’t simply building metal constructs like a mechanist did but living creatures? Even Tatiana intended to use Lump for her own pride and glory. Could Rivka persuade anyone that gremlins weren’t tools to use and discard?
The wind dried tears on her cheeks, stiffened her skin. She barely flinched as a gremlin landed on her shoulder. Then another. One perched atop her head, its feet struggling for purchase in her hair. Her sob turned into a giggle.
Then, with a mad flutter, they took to the air. Rivka heard a throat clear behind her.
Broderick stood there, long and lanky in his white medician garb. “I—you don’t mind if I join you?”
She turned away. “What, don’t you have work to do?”
He snorted. “You saw how much actual magic I get to do. I set things up, then stand there. I happened to knock over the mechanist’s wrenches just now. Miss Arfetta ordered me away, full of reminders that I’m a terrible apprentice, that I’ll never be a full medician.” He leaned on the railing where the gremlins had been a moment before.
“You shouldn’t believe her.”
“Oh, I don’t, most of the time. She’s a leaky gasbag, never pleased with anyone. You should see her go shopping. She makes clerks cry.” He gazed out on the plaza. His hair, done in a hundred tight braids with metal beads, chimed softly beneath the wind. “I know I’m not a good medician. Not simply because of the lack of practice but because the work she does ask of me, it’s . . . bad.”
Rivka stilled. “She has you do the dirty work. You’re the one who harvests from the gremlins and eventually kills them.”
He flinched, not meeting her eye. “They’re not human, but they’re alive. I can hear the life in them, the way it fractures with each limb, each wing. Did you know an arm by itself in a circle still sings for a while?”
Horror silenced her. He shifted uneasily, and Rivka realized she should speak. “I didn’t know that. The only medician I’ve been around is Miss Leander, and she was . . . different. She could hear body songs without a circle.”
“I would go mad,” Broderick whispered.
Rivka stared out at the city. “The color tags denote what stage the gremlins are in, right? The ones missing wings are labeled red today . . .”
“Blue means they are new and need a full examination. Green designates that’s done, they are healthy, and I can proceed.” His voice sounded empty. “Red notes the primary harvest is done. Yellow means I need to do a final culling. Organs and skin. If a cage has that tag, I need to finish the task as soon as possible.”
Rivka tasted bile. “The gremlins in the cart were considered yellow, then?”
The gremlin who clutched her fingers the other day had been so alive, and she had wiggled free of its grip and abandoned it there. She had assumed the medicians knew best.
She was an idiot.
“You saw the cart?” asked Broderick. “Of course you did. Yes. It preserves them for the evening’s work. Miss Arfetta wants to keep a lot of skin ready in anticipation of Arena injuries. That’s going to be my major duty once Lump’s attachments are done.”
“Your major duty. You’re going to kill all of them?”
“If they’ve contributed any parts, yes. It’s more . . . merciful than releasing them. I’m trying . . . you see . . .” He took a deep breath to compose himself. “There’s a group that fights against gremlin abuse. Not a very popular cause around here. I get some gremlins to them, but they don’t have much money or enough space. And I can never sneak out enough of them. There are so many that . . .” He seemed to lose the ability to speak.
“I guess you expect me to ask how you can stand it since you know what you’re doing is wrong.” Rivka stared into her hands. Her fingers had turned ruddy with cold, but she welcomed the brisk air. “I’m not going to judge you like that. I know you hate it. I know you hate yourself.”
“But I keep doing it.” His laugh was choked. “I can’t even figure out why. It’s not even for money.”
“No. It’s never that straightforward. I understand that much. You’re not the only one who’s stained, Broderick.”
She caught his steady sidelong glance. “You don’t have to talk about it.”
“I can. I think you’d understand more than anyone. More than Grandmother, even.” Over the sprawl of the city, distant airships almost blended in with the clouds. “About the time of armistice last year, a man moved onto our tenement roof. He was badly scarred on his fac
e and wore a mask. We all took to calling him Pigeon Man because he lived up with the birds. He came down to our flat most every day to buy bread from Mama.”
Pigeon Man never said his true name. He never acted like he’d known Mama so many years before. He and Mama would have been so young back then—younger than Rivka was now. And the war had changed him. Those changes seeped far deeper than the burns across his face.
“Pigeon Man told me he wanted me to construct something for him. He had to gather the parts first. Weeks later, I was out on rounds when our building caught fire. Mama . . . hundreds of others . . .”
She drew quiet. Broderick said nothing. Even the wind slowed down to listen.
“Pigeon Man found me near the wreckage. He said he didn’t think the materials would be that volatile on their own.” Seeing Broderick’s confusion, she continued, “I didn’t know until then that what he wanted me to make was a bomb. He had stored the components on the roof.”
“You didn’t cause it, then. You hadn’t done a thing!”
“I know that. Most of the time,” she said, purposefully echoing his words. “Pigeon Man never acted sorry for what had happened. More . . . inconvenienced. Out of nowhere, he offered me a bakery to manage. He’d just won it by betting on a game of Warriors. I said yes, because it had always been Mama’s dream to have a shop of her own and not work out of the flat. Besides, where else could I go?”
She couldn’t say more, and not simply because of the tightness in her throat, or that the cold had shifted from being brisk to being painful. She couldn’t describe the months after, her numbness, his sneers, the beatings, the horror at finding out Pigeon Man—Devin Stout—was actually her blood father.
Rivka and Broderick stared out on Tamarania City. The roundabout below was packed with steam cars and automated cycles, and few horses and wagons. Mr. Cody had said something about Rivka sounding like people who had worked to save horses. She wondered what he meant.
Miss Leander had saved Rivka from Mr. Stout. Now Rivka needed to save Lump and the other gremlins in turn. It was only right.
