Addleton Heights

by George Wright Padgett

  If I could snatch Montague’s, we’d shut down his suit and end this whole thing here and now. I tried to position myself to jump on his back, but he began spinning her around, leaning far backward to offset her suit’s weight.

  He laughed and said in a boisterous voice, “What did I do with your brother’s body, Miss Nelson? I had Berkeley shove it over the rail of the east side of the compound.” His heavy footfalls picked up speed. “His body’s fish food in the ocean over a thousand feet below us. And that’s same thing I’ll do with your carcass when I’m done.”

  He released her on the last word, and she sailed across the room and slid to a stop against a column. The post fractured and split.

  There was a scream, an awful, almost inhuman wail, but not from her, and Sawyer was fine atop the massive staircase. Who had it been?

  Dizzy, Montague wobbled a bit as he stomped across the room to her. She rolled over on her side. Before she could return to her feet, Montague heaved her up by the ankles again.

  Then I saw Berkeley. The shoulder of her suit had crushed his lower legs.

  “Mr. Mont-a-gue . . .” Berkeley said in a sickening groan while clutching his bloody, useless calves and feet.

  I aimed my gun at the back of Montague’s fine white hair.

  Before I could take the shot, I heard the most revolting sound of my life: the sharp snaps of Berkeley’s bones being pulverized beneath his master’s metal feet. The cracking was like kindling being folded for the fireplace.

  I nearly retched.

  “Berkeley, that was a stupid thing to do,” Montague said. “Now you’re no good to me. I can’t have you like this. You’re useless.”

  He sobbed, “But Mr. Montague . . . please—”

  “I’m sorry, but like I said, you’re of no use to me now.” Still holding on to Janae, he lifted one leg and brought it down on the man’s chest.

  A crimson gush of blood sprayed in every direction, dousing the nearby column and part of Janae’s suit. She screamed and pounded at the side of Montague’s leg with her metal fists, causing him to stagger.

  I came to my wits and got off two rapid shots, but with his movements, the bullets ricocheted off the collar of his suit.

  With Berkeley dead, Montague came in my direction. “I’m surprised that you’d try to shoot an old man in the back. Not very sportsmanlike of you.”

  I dove to the floor and rolled to relative safety behind another of the columns.

  “Mr. Kipsey, are you really going to hide there and let me throw your woman? Not very chivalrous, if you ask me. Maybe I misjudged you.” He dangled her before me like bait as she threw herself back and forth, rocking the larger suit. “I’m certain her suit is more than enough to destroy that pillar if I can get up enough momentum.”

  With a massive heave, Montague started spinning Janae around again. “You saw what happened to Berkeley. At least he was recognizable. I’m going to stomp her to soup so you can get your focus back. It’s for your own good.”

  I couldn’t get a clear shot.

  The rifle near Berkeley’s crushed corpse gave me an idea. I bolted from behind the column, careful to avoid Janae’s spinning suit, then grabbed the gun and lay on my belly. Lifting my head off the cool marble out of range of Montague’s thunderous footsteps, I studied his leg movements. As he turned in a slow circle, I gripped the barrel of the gun tightly.

  When the moment was right, I thrust the weapon across the marble floor. It slid under his feet, and on his next step, he stumbled. As he fell, Janae went flying into the wooden steps of the staircase in the center of the foyer. The room shuddered as more deafening echoes rang out.

  “Janae!” I got to my feet.

  There was no response from the jagged hole in the middle of the staircase. To my far left, Montague started to right himself and stand up. I moved to shoot, but he anticipated this and shielded his head with a massive metal hand.

  I looked back at the hole in the stairs. “Can you see her?” I shouted to Sawyer, who cautiously moved to peer inside. Careful not to fall in, he dropped to his hands and knees on a step above the punctured area.

  Janae called out, “Mr. Sawyer, I can’t move anything! The suit is broken, and I can’t feel my body. Help me, Mr. Sawyer! Help me!”

  My heart sank. Had the fall paralyzed her?

  Sawyer gave a peculiar nod, looked up at Montague, and then scrambled up the stairs in the direction of the study.

  “What are you doing?” I yelled as Montague moved to the staircase with slow methodical steps. “Help her!”

  I pulled the trigger of the gun, but nothing happened. I quickly did the math: Hennemann had fired a shot back at my office when Janae shocked him, and I’d spent the remaining five bullets.

  Janae called out again, “Mr. Sawyer, I can’t move! Something’s wrong with the walking suit. I’m trapped in here. Help me!”

  My blood boiled at Sawyer’s cowardice and all his hypocritical talk of a noble death. I yelled, “Janae, I’m coming to help you!” I tossed Hennemann’s gun and pulled Fitzpatrick’s pistol out of my jacket.

  “No!” she screamed from within the hole. “Stay back, Kip!”

  I paused in confusion.

  Montague dove into the enormous gash in the stairs.

  A second later, he soared backward as if he’d been kicked by a mule. He skidded into what remained of Berkeley.

  “You little harlot, I’ll make you pay for that!” Montague shouted as he worked to lift himself onto his elbows.

  Janae broke through the bottom of the hole and climbed the side of the staircase that was still intact.

  Montague wobbled on one knee with the top of his head exposed and facing me. I rushed for the thought ring—it was at the perfect height.

  Wrong move.

  He batted me away with his bulky forearm. I slid across the floor backward. Winded and seeing spots, I cradled my ribs in agony.

  Janae beckoned to Sawyer and me. “Come on, I’ll punch through the door like we planned.” She took the steps four at a time until she reached the top landing. “You two know what to do after that.”

  Sawyer sprinted to the entrance of the hallway and looked down. “Come on, Detective!”

  Montague was on his feet and headed for the stairs.

  An unexpected blast of steam erupted from somewhere.

  There was a heavy thud and a crunch on the landing. The wood creaked from the extra weight. When the steam lifted, Montague was at the top between Sawyer and Janae. It only took a second for him to level a hard kick at the midsection of her suit, sending her barreling backward through the study’s mahogany door. He tore the hole in the door larger to accommodate his suit and disappeared inside.

  I rolled to my side to push myself off the marble floor. The sounds of destruction spilled out from the study.

  I didn’t have time to rest.

  I hobbled over to Berkeley. Smeared streaks of crimson pointed to the puddle of gore collected around his body. His teeth were red, and blood trickled from his slack mouth.

  Holding my breath, I closed my eyes and felt his pockets—first his coat and vest, then his trousers.

  More alarming booms rang out from the study. I could only pray it was Janae doing damage to the old man’s walking suit.

  Finally, I located what I was looking for and snatched the blood-soaked keys to the mansion. I turned away and dried the keys on my pants, only because every inch of the other man was covered in blood.

  The distant rumble of combat ceased.

  Had Janae subdued the old man, or was it the other way around?

  Thirty-Two

  It was no surprise to see that the study was a mess of scattered books, charts, and papers. What I didn’t expect was to find neither Janae nor Montague. But there was a huge, jagged hole in the wall.

  I could feel the tremor of their metal feet as I entered the opening. There was no sign of Sawyer in the dimly lit area, just Montague with his back to me twenty feet away and Janae at t
he opposite end of the room.

  I lifted the gun.

  Montague must have seen Janae’s eyes widen when she recognized me, although she didn’t make a sound. He turned to see me as I fired Fitzpatrick’s gun. The change in his stance was enough for the high shoulders of his suit to deflect the shot.

  Dammit!

  Steam noises from his suit hissed as Montague stomped toward me. Pure adrenaline forced me to run instead of shooting again. Before I could get away, he plucked me up and then hurled me against the wall like a rag doll. I landed face down with a groan.

  I had to think fast or I’d end up like Berkeley.

  The ground quivered as Janae approached.

  “Stop it right there,” Montague ordered, “or I’ll crush him before your pretty blue eyes.”

  The movement stopped, but Janae argued, “You’re going to do that anyway, regardless of what I do. You won’t be happy until you kill us both.”

  Her negotiation strategy baffled me, but it forced him to pause and consider her words.

  I took advantage of the moment. “Jason!” I shouted, face down in the rug. It muffled my voice. “I know who Jason is.”

  “What?” Montague asked, bending down to hear me.

  He took the bait.

  Drawing in as deep a breath as the pain in my chest would allow, I prepared for the greatest bluff of my life. Still facing the carpet, I said, “I found out who Jason O. is. He’s on his way here with the Commonwealth.”

  He pulled at the back of my jacket like a cat lifting the scruff of her kitten’s neck. As he twisted me around in the air to look at my face, his widened eyes caught a glimpse of Fitzpatrick’s Colt M1892. “Why you—”

  I pulled the trigger even as I fell, and the pistol recoiled against my wrist just before I hit the ground hard on my back. I rolled as best as I could toward the opening to the study.

  Montague shouted in pain. I hadn’t killed him, but the bullet had connected with something. He stumbled around the room, and then Janae charged at him. There was a crash, and the blow knocked him on his backside.

  He swung at her with his left arm. She lifted both fists high above her head to strike, but as she swung downward, he rolled to the side, and the suit absorbed the blow.

  I’d grazed his head with my shot, and blood flowed liberally down the left side of his temple. Montague had freed his real right hand from the walking suit to staunch the head wound.

  I made it back to my feet and readied the pistol for a second shot.

  Janae kicked at him in an attempt to roll him back over to make a better target for me.

  Sawyer popped up from behind a sofa in the far corner of the room. “The thought ring, Detective! Get his thought ring!”

  Before I could get to Montague, he’d tripped Janae, causing her to crash to the floor in my direction. He crawled to Sawyer’s corner, where he shoved the couch aside with his one metal arm. Holding up his blood-soaked human hand, he roared at the inventor, “This is your fault, you blasted scrape of a tink!”

  “I’m done,” Sawyer said in a quivering voice as he rose to his feet. “It’s over. I’m no longer doing any tinkwork for you.”

  “I really don’t have time for this,” Montague grumbled while clamping his one mechanical hand around the man’s wrist. “We’ll just see about what you will and will not do.”

  “Stop where you are, Montague!” I shouted with my pistol aimed at him.

  He laughed with his back to me.

  “I’m serious,” I said, closing the space between us.

  “Of that, I am sure. When we first met, you mentioned you were something of a poker player. Well, chess is my game, and in chess . . .” He turned with Sawyer in front of his face, blocking me from getting a clear shot. “ . . . a good chess player plays three to four moves ahead. ‘Plans within plans,’ as a rather portly baron friend of mine used to say. Clearly, you being a poker player, you didn’t plan for this.”

  Montague backed away with Sawyer in front of him. When he reached the double doors on the right side of the chamber, he kicked them open with his massive metal foot and was gone.

  Janae bounded up to me, and we reached the doorway at the same time. She stated the obvious. “Kip, we have to have Sawyer to shut down the mechanicals.”

  “I know,” I said, motioning to the door. “I know.”

  The open doors led into an immense greenhouse. The warmer air was sticky and damp and carried on it the pungent aroma of plant life. Every green and yellowish hue of the color spectrum was washed in the bright afternoon sunlight that poured in from above.

  As Janae led the way, I craned my neck up at the trees and plants threatening to push through the glass ceiling at least eighty feet above my head. It was a botanist’s dream, serving as a testament to Montague’s will against the elements. Nowhere else on the Addleton Heights platform had lush grass during January, not to mention the assortment of various fauna exhibited in the conservatory, but that, of course, was Montague’s point—there was nothing he couldn’t tame. The plan at the moment was to force the north Atlantic Ocean to do his bidding.

  The distant sound of Sawyer’s cries for help snapped me back into the moment. Janae had heard him too, stopping long enough for me to catch up to her. She cocked her head to the left, then right, trying to determine their location. “This place is a jungle. They could be hiding anywhere in here.”

  I pointed with the pistol. “Look at that over there, that trellis. The corner of it is broken.” Large, deep footprints in the grass proved this was the path he’d taken.

  Janae set off, but I held up my free hand to stop her. “You’re too loud.” I clicked open and examined the cylinder of the revolver. “I still have four bullets. I can move a lot more quietly through all this brush than you, giving us an advantage. I may even be able to climb one of these trees to get a better shot.”

  “So what, I just stand here while he tosses you around some more?”

  “Montague told me that he hasn’t activated the mechanicals yet. I need you to return to the hallway with the metal door and break it open while I try to free Sawyer. You’re the only one who can do it, Janae.”

  I didn’t like lying to her. I had Berkeley’s keys, and there was a good chance they’d open that door. But her suit really was too loud for us to sneak up on Montague. I needed her out of the way, and I couldn’t guarantee that she wouldn’t interfere in the heat of the moment.

  “Okay, I’ll be back in a toss.” She took a few steps in the direction from which we’d come and then turned to me. With sunlight gleaming off the metal of her suit, she said, “Be careful, Kip.”

  “Yeah, always,” I replied, returning to the path Montague had left. Pushing aside large, leafy vegetation as I went made me wonder why he’d chosen to leave the stone walkway. Going his way, he’d made it easy for me to follow, since he’d left a trail of trampled foliage in his wake.

  It didn’t make sense . . . unless he wanted to be followed.

  I wiped away the beads of perspiration that were trickling down my forehead, unsure if they were from the balmy air or the strain I was under.

  I slowed my pace and quieted my footsteps as the desperate tink’s voice became clearer.

  “Help me!” Sawyer shouted. “Miss Nelson, Detective Kipsey, we’re over here!”

  Finally, I caught the glint of Montague’s metal suit through the canopy of vegetation.

  My heartbeat sped up as I cautiously spread apart the foliage before me. The angled glass wall a few feet behind him distorted the reflection of his walking suit like a funhouse mirror. He dangled Sawyer by the legs like a fisherman holding a prize catch.

  I didn’t dare announce myself.

  The glass wall leaned inward sharply, preventing the planting of any trees in this section of the arboretum. Though the area was thick with vegetation, there was nothing to climb that could support my weight, so the idea of sniping him from above was out. Was that the only reason he’d chosen to confront me
in this spot?

  Charging Montague wasn’t an option either as long as he held Sawyer.

  Montague’s head turned from side to side like a predator scanning for prey. The left side of his face was still covered in blood.

  “Mr. Kipsey, I know you’re out there!” he shouted.

  My blood ran cold.

  “It really doesn’t have to be this way,” he said, still searching with his eyes. “Remember what I said when we first met?” There was a pause as he waited for an answer from me. Finally, he continued. “Remember how I said some men choose to squander their claim to the future?”

  My heart pounded, but I remained hidden.

  “You still have a choice here. Mr. Kipsey, since you’ve discovered my newest enterprise, I’m offering you a generous share in Montague Power. Everything you’ve done here today, whatever you did to Marcus Hennemann, even the fact that you shot me just now, I’ll count all of it as . . . let’s say we’ll categorize it all as passionate negotiations.

  “I’ll make you a very wealthy man. I could even have you added to a junior seat on the Commonwealth. I understand there’ll be some openings on there soon,” he added slyly. “Whatever you desire, I can make it come true for you.”

  “Don’t listen to him, Detective!” Sawyer yelled. “It’s a trap, and he’s a liar!”

  “Shut up, you fool,” Montague scolded as he dropped the man on his head.

  Sawyer curled up on the ground with his head in his hands, moaning.

  “Are you foolish enough to believe him, Kip?” Montague chided bitterly. “A man who willingly spent two and a half years working on my mechanicals, all while knowing their intended purpose? Do you believe a man like this? Someone who would go against his own principles just to stay alive, even locked in a cell? Or would you follow a man of destiny who does what he says he’s going to do?”

  He nudged Sawyer’s back with one of the suit’s metal boots. As the fallen man overreacted to his prodding, a sick expression of delight formed on Montague’s face. He teasingly nudged him, eliciting another gasp from the quivering man. The look of mischievousness turned dark as he lifted the metal foot above Sawyer’s body.