Addleton Heights

by George Wright Padgett

  I stared at the coil rod in helpless frustration.

  “You should’ve taken my offer, Mr. Kipsey.” He paused, waiting for me to respond. When I didn’t, he said, “Your little skirmish in the courtyard is in vain. You’ve failed—you, the girl, Sawyer. All for nothing. I dispatched the mechanicals a while ago. Within the hour, Addleton Heights will finally be free from its coal dependence on the states. Our grand city will shed its shell to be reborn again into something greater.”

  He turned us back to face the figure on the other side of the room. From my new vantage point, I could see the larger black tubes connected to the mechanical’s side. He moved us toward it, speaking slowly, in time with the thuds of the walking suit’s metal footsteps.

  “You know, now that I think of it . . .” He sounded like he was speaking to himself. “How apropos that I transfer into my new form within the same hour as this new chapter of the city begins. It truly is a glorious day for the history books.”

  Transfer? What was he talking about?

  “Is that Elijah?”

  Surprised at the question, he answered with respect, “You really were a good detective.”

  Being referred to in the past tense was unsettling.

  “No, Detective. He is not Elijah. He is me . . . or at least soon will be, after the transfer. ‘Elijah’ is the name of the project . . . as in Elijah and Elisha.”

  I needed to keep him talking long enough to form a plan. “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, Mr. Kipsey, you disappoint me. Am I to believe that you don’t recall the two most well-known soothsayers of old Israel?”

  He stopped walking, and I was eye level with the nine-foot mechanical’s frozen pupils. They were blue topaz gems. He moved me forward so close that I thought he intended to crush my face into his metal one.

  “Beautiful, isn’t he?” Montague asked. “Anyway, when it was time for the prophet Elijah to leave this world—by fiery chariot, I might add—he tossed his cloak down to his successor. Elisha picked it up, and the text says that he felt the spirit of Elijah within him, a transference of power from God himself.”

  “So what, putting your mind in this machine is some kind of God-ordained event?”

  “That’s hardly what I’m saying, and you know it, Kipsey.”

  He leaned the suit forward, and my feet swept the ground, but I remained trapped in the embrace of his metal forearm. A hand—his human hand—went over the top of my head. There was a series of short clicks above and to the right followed by the soft whir of something coming on.

  True to form, Montague continued to speak through the entire process. “I am ready to shed the encumbrance of this mortal body, exchanging all of its weakness and infirmity for something more lasting and better conceived.”

  My only hope of breaking free was to get him to look me in the eye.

  His heavy footsteps took us back across the room to the glass bubble. “You know, Elisha went on to do twice as many miracles as his mentor.”

  I had to say something that would force him to face me. If he held me by my jacket again, I could slide out and blast him with the coil rod.

  I heard the click of more buttons to the side of me. A silver helmet connected to a rubber spiral cord slowly lowered a few feet in front of me. I was running out of time.

  I took a shot at provoking him to look at me. “But Mr. Montague, to make another Bible reference, you must be aware that even Lazarus eventually died again at some point. He didn’t live forever, and neither did your Elisha.”

  He paused and leaned forward, making me face the ground again. I suspected he was using one of his human hands to place the helmet on his skull. Would he be forced to remove the thought ring to do the transfer?

  The spear tip stuck into the chair beside us mocked me. I got a better look and determined that even if I could reach it, I wouldn’t be able to wield it while it was anchored in the chair.

  I got an idea.

  Picking it up was out of the question, but maybe there was another way.

  “Lazarus, huh?” he responded. “An interesting choice in topic from someone who himself will shortly taste death.”

  The area filled with new sounds: buzzing, beeps, machine chirps, and the clacking of gears twisting against each other. The entire chamber came alive. Sporadic flashes of light to the right of me caught my attention. Though their cause was out of my view, I was certain the pink bursts of light came from the glass oval behind us. A sharp crackle of energy accompanied each flash, and the temperature of the room bumped up a few degrees.

  “Why drag it out?” I said, playing a bluff to get him to hold me away from him to look at me. “Why wait?”

  “Patience, Mr. Kipsey.”

  Another series of switches clicked from behind me. This time, the wall lamps dimmed as if straining for their allotment of the room’s power.

  “Did you know that I was a widower?” he asked. “In fact, most of my life I have spent as a widower.”

  More clicks and a new whirring sound forced Montague to raise his voice. “When my wife died, we were very young . . . very young. I never thought that I could love again, but . . . I was wrong.”

  The walking suit turned, allowing him to reach for a tube above my head. The gasses in the oval swirled around like shaving water circling down a drain. Every flash looked like pink lightning in the bubble, a tiny tempest under the glass.

  The rod pushed through the chair was still out of reach. To my surprise, he removed one of the metal arms securing me. Ever so delicately, the great fingers of the suit’s hand twisted a brass wheel to the right of the storm in the bubble. A steady burst of steam shot from openings in a brass tube with a whistling sound and then died.

  “Since then,” he continued, “I’ve devoted my life to Addleton Heights. In all that time, I’ve searched for one with whom I could entrust the well-being of the city, someone competent, unmoved by bribes of filthy lucre or swayed by a thick-headed populace who only live for the day. Someone beyond extortion, a man who’d love her as I have.”

  The arm moved back into place against my midsection, but we were closer to the chair, closer to the gaff coil rod.

  “I searched for a very long time for my replacement until it became painfully evident that there wasn’t one to entrust the future of the city to. That’s when I commissioned Mr. Sawyer to begin the Elijah project.”

  I wondered how much of Rodger Gardiner’s tinkage had laid the groundwork for the thought-wave breakthrough.

  “Commissioned?” I grunted. Still trying to provoke him to change his hold on me, I added, “Commissioned him by allowing him to live, you mean.”

  Montague took another massive step. We were directly in front of the gas swirling in the bubble. The controlled storm in the glass had intensified.

  “It’s nearly ready,” Montague said with a sense of wonder. “It won’t be long now, not long at all.”

  He snapped out of his daze and said, “Mr. Kipsey, if you’d be so kind.” His metal arm swung out, giant fingers pointing to a red hand lever on the wall. “Would you pull that toggle if I lean you in close enough? It’ll initiate the transfer.”

  “Why should I do anything for you?”

  Before I even finished getting the question out, the remaining metal arm pressed harder against my ribs. I called out in pain, but he kept tightening like a metal boa constrictor crushing its prey.

  “All right!” I screamed. “Just . . . make . . . make it . . . stop!”

  “Very good,” he said, leaning in.

  Gasping for air, I yanked the lever down. It clicked into place. This time, every gauge, light, lamp, and monitor went dark. The area was bathed in the otherworldly pink-orange lightning from the bubble.

  Montague returned to the spot we were at before, but I still couldn’t reach the chair.

  “In a few minutes, you will witness the pinnacle of man’s science firsthand,” he announced. “You should feel honored.”

  “Wit
ness it and then die?” I replied.

  “You know, the problem with you is that you’re not willing to make the tough choices for the good of the city, and though you’ve lived here your entire life, you don’t love her as I do.”

  “Sorry to inform you, but I’d hardly call what you’re doing love,” I said with poisonous sarcasm. “If you’re going to kill me, just get it over with.”

  I had to entice him to look me in the face. Time for the people of the Under was running out. Time for me to get him near the coil rod was running out. Who knew what’d happen once he transferred into his mechanical likeness?

  “Over with? Over with?” he said with a chuckle. “What’s your hurry, Kipsey? Don’t worry, you’ll die soon enough. In fact, I’ll make snapping your spine the first act of my new body. I won’t kill you in here, though. I’ll carry your limp and broken body outside and lay you next to that harlot that cut me. I honestly can’t decide which of the two of you I’ll enjoy exterminating first.”

  This was it.

  “She’s not there,” I said. “In fact, she’s downstairs right now gathering up the people who rode in on your airship. I was sent to scout out where you were and then report back to them.”

  I paused to see if he’d taken the bait.

  “Come now, Mr. Kipsey. No more bluffs. I know for a fact that she’s lying on her back in the snow. I put her there.”

  The moment I’d been waiting for arrived. Montague released the reverse bear hold on me. I dangled several feet above the ground as he stared into my eyes to see if I was bluffing. Atop his head was the silver helmet, which, according to him, was already transferring his essence into the customized mechanical on the back wall. He applied pressure to his neck wound with his human hand. His face was a horror drenched in blood.

  “I know that’s where she was,” I said, “but she’s not there anymore. Look me in the eye to see that I’m telling the truth.”

  My ploy was working. He moved me a foot closer to himself. “You must take me for a fool,” he said in a slur. “She’s in the snow.” The transfer had begun, slowing the speech centers of his brain.

  I tried to get my bearings on the exact position of the rod and chair. I was careful not to draw attention to it with my eyes. The pulsing flashes from the oval bubble couldn’t have been more disorienting.

  “You’re wrong!” I said, shouting above the escalating noise of the parlor. “Sawyer had the prototype suit equipped with a manual override. Janae’s a tink—a level eight coggler, in fact. She figured it out.”

  His eyes widened into large circles, the only area of his face that wasn’t slick with crimson blood glistening in the flashing light. He wagged his head from side to side. “No, it can’t be.”

  I was nearly in position. I’d only have one chance.

  Montague scoffed like a publican filled to the brim with lager. “I don’t know what you think this farce will achieve, but I’m onto you. No more bluffs, no more . . . poker playing.”

  He shifted, and my ankle gently bumped the coil rod pole. I was situated perfectly above the chair.

  “Mr. Montague, you’re mistaken. We haven’t been playing poker. We’ve been playing chess.”

  I swung my boots out toward his suit’s steel abdomen to build momentum, then swung back and kicked the spiral shock coil with all my might.

  The chair tipped, falling in the direction of the glass.

  I couldn’t see the impact over my shoulder, but it didn’t matter. A second later, I heard it shatter, and a loud hiss filled the area.

  “Checkmate, you prat!” I yelled.

  “What . . . what have you . . . done?” Montague screamed in horror. Both of his human hands fought to remove the electrified silver helmet, but the lightning from the glass orb ran free, latching onto any nearby metal. The shocks forced him to yank his fingers away with a yelp. Every few seconds, the coil of the rod that my kick had embedded in the bubble recharged with a crackle. Each time it charged, it emitted its own bright blue blast of power in our direction.

  The hand of the walking suit on me relaxed, and I fell to the floor as it swung back to his side. I scrambled to the far corner, careful to duck beneath the electrical arc between the silver helmet and the half-shattered orb.

  As I turned around, Montague clumsily staggered toward me through the haze of gas billowing out from the broken glass oval. A noxious sulphur-like odor made me cover my nose with a sleeve.

  The ribbons of pink lightning trailed after Montague’s helmet. Desperately clawing at the apparatus on his head, he accidently knocked the thought ring to the floor. The walking suit halted instantly, trapping him inside. He begged in the same fractured-type sentence that Berkeley had used to plead with him in the foyer. “Help . . . me . . . it’s not . . . transfer’s not . . . complete . . . I can’t . . .”

  I looked past him at the mechanical on the opposite side of the room to make certain he was still dormant. “What’s the code to the tower room?”

  “Can’t move . . . I’m trapped . . .” he said, his blood-soaked face wild with terror.

  “Focus on me! What’s the eight-number sequence to get into the control room in the tower?”

  The coil rod had more than it could take and erupted with a painfully loud explosion. The blue blast shook the room.

  I fell to my knees, but Montague was frozen in place, facing forward. “Oh, God . . . what was that?” he cried out.

  “What are the numbers?”

  With him immobilized, I had leverage. But I couldn’t get the code from him if his brain was fried.

  I grabbed the lifeless arm of the walking suit and began to climb to his head. “I’m going to try and push the helmet off you.”

  He was hysterical. “Kip, listen . . . I’ll give you anything . . . anything you want. Just name it and it’s yours.”

  As I perched on the shoulder, there was a noise from the far corner of the room. The braces holding the mechanical fell to the floor with a clang. The brilliant blue glow of the creature’s eyes cut through the smoky haze. I didn’t know if it was coming to assist me or to kill me.

  “Help me, Kip!” Montague yelled as another whiplash of pink lightning zapped the helmet.

  “The numbers!” I shouted, waiting for the pause in the electrical pulse. I inched closer and extended one arm while clutching the shoulder panel with the other.

  The bolt of electricity subsided. “The sequence is one, seven—”

  This was it. I’d take off his helmet now to ensure he lived long enough to finish telling me. And by the time he’d given me all the numbers, it would be too late for him to stop anything I did.

  The doctor would be able to save him.

  We’d be able to save the Under. It was a fair trade.

  “—two—”

  I swatted upward at the helmet.

  Suddenly, I was on the floor at the walking suit’s boots, rolling in pain. My ears rang, and my head ached from a massive electrical shock.

  I was still in a daze as Montague’s walking suit crashed backward into the floor with a deafening thud. The helmet was still on Montague’s head. Though confused, I possessed the wherewithal to scoot in the opposite direction.

  Whether deliberately or not, the Montague mechanical had toppled the walking suit and was trying to get the helmet off Montague’s head.

  The discharge from the fractured orb changed from pulses into a steady stream of energy directed at Montague’s head. The stream grew, enveloping both human and mechanical. I scooted back more and shielded my eyes as the room glowed with the pink-white beam.

  At first, there was a single scream of agony from the fallen Montague. It was quickly joined by another, the deeper voice of the mechanical. They wailed in perfect octaves apart, “Nooooooooooo!”

  It was a horrible sound that penetrated every fiber of my being. I clamped my hands against my ears to block it out but could not. The burning of my throat alerted me that I too was screaming as all the moisture in the roo
m disappeared.

  Then it was over.

  The blinding light faded, and our voices went silent. The grinding machine noises, the beeps, the flapping of the serpentine belts, the crackle of lightning, the flicker of monitor gauges—all of it ceased, fading like a memory of a dream.

  Thirty-Seven

  “Good heavens, man!” Dr. Howarth exclaimed, bursting into the room. “What happened in here?”

  I shielded my eyes from the light pouring in from the hallway.

  “Oh, no!” he said, rushing to the downed walking suit. “Mr. Montague . . . Mr. Montague, can you hear me?”

  I acclimated to the light. Montague was in the last position I’d seen him in, but now, the mechanical was facedown with its metal head near the human version’s.

  The doctor pulled the silver helmet from his patient. “Mr. Montague, I need you to respond to me.” After a moment, he informed me, “There’s no pulse. He’s gone. Mr. Montague is dead.”

  I pushed off the wall, hobbled over, and peered over the doctor’s shoulder. Montague’s face was frozen in horror, mouth wide and dead eyes staring into nothingness. Moving around to nudge the mechanical with my boot, I studied the back of its metal head for movement. When it didn’t respond, I kicked the side of it.

  There was still nothing from the mechanical, but the doctor looked up from the walking suit. “What on Earth are you doing that for?” he asked, irritated.

  Considering that I’d zapped him into unconsciousness in the hallway, I had to give it to him that he didn’t mask his disdain for me.

  “I’m checking something,” I said and kicked the mechanical again.

  Howarth stood. “I don’t know what happened in here, but you killed him.”

  I ignored him and stepped toward the door.

  He rushed to block me. In an exasperated tone, he asked, “Did you hear me? I said you’re a murderer!”

  I massaged the back of my head. My headache had nearly faded. “I’m a murderer? If that’s true, Doctor, I suggest you get out of my way.” I pushed past him into the hall.