The Guild Conspiracy

by Brooke Johnson

  “It’s brilliant,” she said, her voice nearly lost amidst the cheers and shouts around them. “How long has this been going on?”

  “Started about midterm, last semester. You know about the failed automaton project, right? Some of the boys who work in the armory found the remains of it and got the idea to start a mechanical fight ring.”

  Petra pressed her mouth shut and nodded. So they had kept it then, the ruined prototype that Emmerich had so expertly smashed through the floor of his workshop—­now collecting dust in the armory. The failed automaton project. That was what the rest of them called it, not knowing she had helped design and build it, not knowing what her involvement had cost her.

  She recalled the events that led to its “failure” with vivid clarity. None of them knew what had really happened that day, not even Rupert. There were whispers, of course, and rumors, but the anti-­imperialist plot, the lies of her treason, the conspiracy to start a war, her involvement with Emmerich and the automaton . . . all pardoned and forgotten, erased from all records thanks to Vice-­Chancellor Lyndon.

  “Where do they get the parts?” she asked.

  “Discards and surplus from the workshops,” said Rupert. “Some of the richer blokes buy parts offshore and have them shipped in. Most of it is scrap, though.”

  In the center of the ring, Yancy quieted the crowd with a wave of his hand and then cleared his throat. “That concludes the inaugural competition of our mech fights.” Another boy brought forward an end table and handed Yancy a pad of paper and a pencil. “If you wish to participate in the next tournament,” he said, waving the paper over his head, “sign up by the first bell tomorrow and have your mech ready for the first round sometime next month, date to be decided. If you’re new to the fights, make sure you get the rules from me or John before you build your machine. Entry fee is a pound note—­or equivalent—­the sum of all entries to be rewarded to our next winner.”

  He dropped the paper and pencil onto the table, and a handful of students stepped forward to enter. Petra watched as they scribbled their names, one after the other, knowing she could outmaneuver every single one of them with a machine of her own.

  For six long months, she’d been stuck in boring classrooms, listening to dry lectures and permitted to do nothing more than scribble designs on paper and write academic essays. She missed the feel of a screwdriver in her hand, the smell of grease under her fingernails, the late nights of working with her hands deep inside a machine.

  She yearned for it.

  Rupert nudged her with his elbow. “Go on. Sign up.”

  Petra considered it, absently twisting the stem of her pocket watch between her thumb and forefinger. She could enter, write her name down and fight in the next tournament, finally have the chance to build something again. Yet . . . she knew they wouldn’t let her. Selby, Yancy, all the rest of them, they’d only laugh at her, mock her for thinking she could compete with them, for thinking she was their equal.

  She stared at the sign-­up sheet, the determination to prove herself burning in her chest.

  To hell with them.

  She’d win the damn tournament and show them just how good an engineer she really was. She belonged here, building machines alongside the best of them. She’d win, and then they’d see.

  She released the breath she’d been holding and stepped forward, heart beating faster. Leaning over the table, she took the pencil into her hand and pressed the point of graphite to the paper, quickly scribbling her name at the bottom of the list of entrants before she second-­guessed herself.

  As she penned the last letter of her name, the slip of paper whipped out from under her hand, leaving a long line of graphite trailing down the page.

  “This has to be a joke.”

  Gritting her teeth, she raised her gaze to the boy standing across the table. “Something wrong, Selby?” she asked, propping a hand on her hip. Rupert was at her side in an instant.

  Selby’s gaze swept over her disguise—­her brother’s old trousers and loose shirt, hair tucked into her hat. He wrinkled his nose. “Yance,” he called. “Come see who’s signed up for the next tournament.”

  Lyndon’s son wandered over, and Selby passed the paper to him.

  Yancy scanned the list of names, finally reaching the bottom. “Petra . . . Wade?” There was a disapproving murmur among the students as Yancy glanced up from the paper, a deep frown on his face as he recognized her through her disguise. “You can’t be serious.”

  “And why not?” she asked. Her face burned, heat rising up her cheeks, but she refused to back down. “I’m a student. I can pay the entry fee. Let me fight.”

  Selby scoffed. “The very idea.”

  A titter of laughter rolled through the crowd of students.

  “What would be the point?” he went on. “You’ll just lose.”

  “Isn’t that for my mech to decide?”

  “You can’t possibly think you might win?”

  “I know it,” she said, stepping closer. Her heart beat faster, filling her with an empowering defiance she had kept quiet for too long. She jabbed a finger into his chest, meeting his cold gaze with one of her own. “I’ll win your little tournament, and when I beat your miserable contraption into scrap, you’ll see who the better engineer is.”

  Selby glared daggers at her, roughly pushing her hand away. “You have no idea what you’re up against, Miss Wade,” he spat. “This is our domain, not yours. Go back to your stitchery and whatever else it is you women do.”

  Petra inhaled a slow, measured breath, her teeth clenched hard. “Is it because you’re afraid to face me, Selby?” she asked, keeping her voice level. She could see the tension in his face, flushed with contempt. Provoke him enough and he would let her fight. He had too much pride to back down from a direct challenge. “Afraid to lose to a girl? Is that it?”

  He scowled, grinding his teeth. “As if I’d be afraid of you,” he hissed. “Fine. Enter the tournament if you must. But you’ll get no special treatment. No handicaps for being a girl. You fight by our rules, win or lose.”

  “I wouldn’t have it otherwise.” She offered her hand. “Deal?”

  Selby glowered at her open palm.

  “John . . .” said Yancy, glancing between them. “She can’t fight; she’s not one of us. She’s—­”

  “No,” said Selby. “She isn’t. And when she loses, it will only prove we were right about her. She doesn’t belong here. It’s time she recognizes that.”

  Yancy eyed his friend a moment longer, the conviction in Selby’s expression unyielding. “All right, then.” With a resigned shake of his head, he turned toward Petra and regarded her warily, his frown so like his father’s. “Entry is a pound note, date of first fight to be decided. Have your mech ready in time and you’re in.” He slowly stuck out his hand. “Welcome to the tournament, Miss Wade.”

  The fighters and spectators disbanded then, returning the room to its usual state. They replaced the rugs and positioned the furniture over the haphazard scorch marks and grease stains. Petra stood out of the way, a nervous laugh bubbling up her throat. She gripped the brass railing at the wide window overlooking the city, grinning to herself.

  After so many months of playing the part of the meek, obedient girl, subdued by the Guild in exchange for her freedom, she finally felt herself again. And though the Guild still refused to acknowledge her, refused to give her access to the workshops, she now had the mech fights. It was a small thing, a small victory, but it was enough.

  Rupert joined her at the window, hands in his pockets. He leaned his back against the railing and nudged her lightly. “Nicely done.”

  She laughed, her chest tight with the thrill of the last hour. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into that.”

  “You needed less persuading than I thought.”

  “Is that why you brought me h
ere?” she asked.

  “Why else?”

  She suppressed a smile and gazed out into the brilliant night sky. “You know me too well.”

  They stood in silence for a time.

  “Do you think I can do it?” she asked. “Do you think I could win?”

  He faced the window next to her, settling against the railing with his shoulder touching hers. She found comfort in that solid presence. “Of course I do,” he said companionably. “Once you face them in the ring, no one will doubt what you can do anymore. You belong here, Petra. This is your chance to prove it.”

  “Supposing I can actually build a mech in time,” she said, reality starting to sink in. “In case it escaped your notice, I don’t have one, and with only a month to build one, I’d need—­”

  “But you do have one.”

  “What?”

  “You do have a mech.”

  Petra frowned. “I do?”

  Rupert nodded, a mischievous smile on his lips. “Come on,” he said, pushing away from the railing. “I’ll show you.”

  He led her to the lower levels of the University and keyed into the storage rooms near the Guild workshops. Each room was filled wall to wall with crates of tools and machine parts, the surplus stored in the wide hallway. Rupert dragged her to the end of the overcrowded corridor and slid open a panel in the back wall, revealing a cavernous dumbwaiter chute, at least six feet deep and equally wide.

  “What’s this?” she asked, peering down the dark shaft.

  “Our ride.”

  Rupert grabbed a lever inside the open panel and pressed it forward. A whir of gear trains and pulley cords hummed behind the walls, and the dumbwaiter platform descended rapidly, the gear boxes clicking and grating as it came to a screeching halt.

  “Found it my first semester,” he explained. “Goes up to the sixth floor and down to the third level of the subcity. There’s a network of them in the walls; it’s how the engineers move equipment from floor to floor.”

  Petra leaned into the chute and peered up the long passageway, the walls lined with guiderails and cables. “I had no idea.”

  Rupert climbed expertly onto the platform and held out his hand to help her onto the lift. “There’s a room at the bottom,” he went on. “An old subcity office, looks like it’s been abandoned. The door’s blocked by some old machinery, cutting it off from the rest of the subcity, so no chance of any engineers stumbling in on you while you’re working, and no one topside has reason to visit an empty office.” Once she seated herself across from him, he grabbed the lever and pushed it downward. The drive motors hummed, and he grinned. “Perfect place to build a mech.”

  The lift sank into darkness, the inner walls of the chute rising up and away. Petra hugged her knees to her chest, nothing else to hold on to as the dumbwaiter descended. The heavy thrum of the subcity grew louder, enveloping her in its familiar pulse. Finally, the platform slowed with a piercing screech and jolted to a halt, throwing Petra into the wall. She cracked her head against the metal guiderails.

  She winced, rubbing the sharp sting at her crown. “Ouch.”

  “Ah, sorry,” said Rupert. “Should have warned you.”

  There was a crack and a snap, and the dumbwaiter panel swung outward, letting a flood of warm light into the chute. The room beyond was small, hardly ten feet square. Several stacks of crates lined the walls, and a small desk sat in the corner, covered in papers, pencils, and other drafting utensils.

  Rupert hopped down from the lift and Petra followed, the room ripe with the smell of grease, burning coal, and hot metal. The thrum of the subcity pulsed like a heartbeat through the floor, engines roaring, the click of cranks and rhythmic thrust of pistons singing beyond the walls. Whispers of steam hissed musically through the network of pipes beyond the blocked doorway. The opening was stacked high with sections of tarnished machinery.

  Rupert gestured to the room at large. “Well? Do you like it?”

  She laid her hand on the desk, brushing her fingers over the bulky mechanical calculator and measuring tools, the smooth drafting paper, and the polished wood surface. An electric thrill tingled up her arm. “It’s perfect.”

  He grinned. “Wait until you see this.”

  Moving to the stack of crates next to the door, he dragged the topmost box from the column and carefully lowered it to the floor. With a crack, the lid pried loose, and he rummaged through the crinkled paper packing. “Help me with this, will you? It’s heavy.”

  Petra hurried to the other side of the crate and reached into the box. Her fingers met cool metal, a rounded joint roughly welded together by thick soldering lines. She positioned her hands around it, and then, on a count of three, she and Rupert hauled the ruined mass of machinery out of the crate and onto the floor.

  Petra stepped back and peered at the damaged hulk of metal, absently wiping her hands on her trousers. Charred scraps of dented and twisted brass, bolts and welds torn apart, crumpled linkages and melted gear trains—­the frame so brutally warped it was impossible to tell what it once looked like.

  “Well?” said Rupert. “What do you think?”

  She circled the blackened mass of machinery. “What is it?”

  “My mech.”

  Petra arched an eyebrow. “What happened to it?”

  “Darrow,” he said darkly. “Did it in with a supercharged blowlamp affixed to his mech’s arm. More like a flamethrower, if you ask me. Melted right through the shell and destroyed the transmission.”

  “That sort of thing is allowed?”

  Rupert nodded. “Oh, yeah. The rules are rather straightforward: don’t tell any of the professors or Guild engineers about the mech fights; no projectile weapons allowed; and mechs can only be constructed of copper, brass, or aluminum—­no steel. Beyond that, last mech standing is the winner. Once you’re in the ring, anything goes.”

  Petra blinked, staring at the misshapen machine at her feet.

  “I know it doesn’t look like much,” he said quickly, “but I thought you could use it for base materials. It took a beating there at the end, but the plating can be hammered back into shape, the engine is still good as far as I can tell, and most of what’s left can be reused or refitted.” He wiped the sweat from his brow with his shirtsleeve and shuffled to the stack of crates again, pulling another down. “I have some loose parts too. Between what’s left of the mech and all this here, you should have enough to build something battle worthy.” He set the crate beside the charred machine with a thud. “And if there’s anything else you need, we can probably get our hands on it. You’d be surprised what we can salvage from the workshops.”

  Petra lifted the lid of the crate of spare parts, filled with unfitted gears, dented cams, and flattened pipe. “Where did you get all of this?”

  “I’ve been collecting scraps after workshop lessons and finding busted pieces thrown out from Guild projects; I even traded dorm duties for a few of the harder-­to-­find parts. I wanted to make sure you had what you needed when the time came.” He paused. “Do you think you can build something out of it?”

  She surveyed the boxes of parts and the twisted hunk of metal that was once his mech. “I think so,” she said with a nod. “With the right tools, but . . .” She glanced up at him. “Why would you do this for me?”

  Rupert shrugged. “I know how frustrated you’ve been, barred from the workshops. I thought you might like something to work on, something a bit more diverting than labeling diagrams or writing up technical summaries.”

  Petra smiled. “I don’t expect you know many girls who would find this sort of thing diverting.”

  “Just the one.”

  She rose to her feet and rested her hands on her waist, eyeing the busted machine and crate of spare parts. After months of idleness, she finally had a machine to build—­a proper machine—­and it was hers. “Rupert, this is .
. . This is marvelous.” She glanced up at him, a sudden warmth welling behind in her eyes. “Thank you,” she said thickly. “I don’t deserve it.”

  “Yes, you do,” he said, slipping his hands into his pockets. “Besides . . . I can’t wait to see Selby’s face when you beat him in the tournament. That alone will be worth it.”

  Petra laughed, her spirits briefly unburdened of the weight of the last six months. She bowed her head with a smile and bumped Rupert’s shoulder. “Thanks,” she said quietly, looking at the damaged mech in front of them. “For everything. I never would have survived this place without you.”

  He shrugged. “It’s what friends are for.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Petra stared at the nameplate on the office door, and the name of her enemy stared back: JULIAN H. GOSS, MINISTER TO THE VICE-­CHANCELLOR.

  She had thought long and hard on his threats, considering every possible avenue of choice ahead of her, and it came down to one simple thing: she had do whatever it took to stop this war, and if that meant conceding to his demands and appearing to cooperate with his plans, so be it. She wasn’t giving up. Far from it. But as she stared at that name, it still felt like the worst decision of her life. The moment she walked through this door and offered to build his war machine, there would be no turning back. She would be his to command, his to control. But what choice did she have? It was either this or forced labor under the watchful eye of the Royal Forces. At least this way, she still had some freedom, some small chance of thwarting his plans.

  Petra closed her eyes, her hands curled into fists. She could do this, she told herself. She had to. It was the only way.

  She raised her hand to the door and knocked.

  “Come in.”

  Before she could second-­guess herself, she opened the door and went inside.

  “Miss Wade,” said Julian, with only a slight hint of surprise as he looked up from his desk. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  She swallowed thickly, her chest constricting as the reality of her decision stared her in the face. “I came to discuss my next proposal to the council.”