Retracing my path through the mansion, I rehearsed what I’d tell Janae. I heard the clamor of the crowd even before I’d made it back to the top level of the foyer. The anxious house staff of the mansion clustered together away from the liberated scrapes, but Janae, still in the walking suit, moved freely between both groups. Luckily, someone had had the good taste to drape the wall tapestry over Berkeley’s corpse. Both groups took care to avoid the blood-soaked spot.
“Kip!” Janae hollered, tromping up the stairs to meet me. “We’re ready to go up to him.”
Everything I’d prepared to say to her vanished. The room watched in silence as I told her in a low voice, “He’s dead, Janae. I watched him fry. But there’s something else.”
Her brow tensed. “What is it?” She studied me for a second. “What are you not telling me? Is it the Elijah thing? Kip, what’s going on?”
I exhaled and braced for her reaction. “Montague is dead, but he’d already launched the mechanicals by the time I got to him. I didn’t find him in the tower. He’d already come from there. There’s no way to get into the transmission chamber, even with you in the suit. It’s like a bank vault door, and we don’t have the code.”
She shook her head before the words ever came out. “No, Kip . . . no, it can’t be. We’re too close.” Tears came to her eyes. “Montague lied to you. That’s what he does—lies about everything. He’d say anything to keep from losing, even facing death. He’d lie to you if it meant he’d have the last laugh and accomplish his goal just to spite us.”
Every eye in the place was on us, though I doubt she noticed.
“That’s just it, Janae. He wasn’t dying when he told me all this. He thought I was going to be the one to die. I’m sorry, Janae, but it’s all true. There’s no getting up there now. Only three people had the code and they’re all dead and we can’t punch through that door.”
She took a long, deep breath, trying to force herself to accept what I was telling her.
A second later, she began to pace, shaking the landing where we were. “I need to think,” she said. “We gotta figure this out.” She paused, and I couldn’t judge if she was angry, about to start sobbing, or both.
I shot a glance down at the crowd we’d assembled. It was like they were waiting for a performance to begin. Waiting for us. I looked back up at her face. Her eyes were red with tears.
I sighed a drawn-out exhale. “There is a way.”
She sniffed. “What? What is it?”
“I have an idea,” I said slowly. “Admittedly, it’s a bad idea. In fact, it’s probably the worst idea I’ve ever come up with. Before I tell you what it is, you have to promise me something.”
“Anything,” she answered without pause.
“You have to do exactly what I say—no exceptions, no rebuttals, no arguing. You just do what I tell you.”
“If you’re sure it’ll stop the mechanicals, I’m in one hundred percent.”
“All right, I need to ask you a tink question first.”
“Sure,” she said, looking a little confused but eager.
“The transmission tower—it’s up high so it can telegraph, or broadcast, or whatever to the mechanicals, right? What if it was brought down?”
“What do you mean, ‘brought down’?”
“It has to send the command message from above for it to work, right?” I asked.
Her patience was wearing thin. “Yes, bringing it down would work. But how do we do that? Did you find explosives or something?”
“This would be more in the ‘or something’ category,” I answered. Pointing a finger at her, I asked, “You promise to do as I say no matter how bad of a plan you think it is?”
She huffed. “I told you already, I’m up for anything that saves the people beneath the city. Anything that does that is a good enough plan for me.”
“All right. I’ll hold you to it, then. Here’s what I need you to do . . .”
She lowered to her knees to shorten the distance between our faces. “Yes, go on.”
“Get everybody in here to the bassel, pack them inside, whatever you have to do, but get everyone off the compound in one trip down.”
“And then?” she asked suspiciously.
“You get on top and ride down to the street level with them.”
She looked puzzled. “But how does that—”
I blurted out, “I’m going to bring this whole place down. I don’t want their blood on my hands.”
“Bring the whole place down? The compound? But how?”
“The guns in the bushes have an extended range intended to ward off aerial assaults. I plan on destroying the hydrogen bladders. Once they fail, this entire structure will fall into the sea, including the control tower.”
It took a few seconds for the idea to sink in. Finally, Janae nodded in agreement, her blue eyes staring past me in a daze. “That actually will work. It should cut off the transmission from the control room tower and stop the mechanicals dead.” She returned her focus to me. “You said it was a bad idea, but that’s a great idea. What makes you think . . .”
A second later, a grimace formed on her face as the final puzzle piece snapped into place. She jerked from her knees to a standing position. “Oh, absolutely not! No! No! No!”
The joints of the suit expelled twin bursts of steam. “I’m not going to let you die up here just so you can fulfill some ridiculous ‘captain going down with the ship’ nonsense. No way, Detective, not on my watch!”
I allowed her to rant and then calmly added, “This isn’t my ship, and I’m definitely not the captain. But it’s the only way, trust me.”
“What are you trying to prove here? Do you want to die or something? ‘Cause a stupid plan like that sure makes it seem like it.”
“It’s the only card we have left to play. I’m not trying to prove anything. In fact, I’ve spent the better part of the afternoon trying my best not to die.” I placed my hand on the cold metal of the suit. “Believe me, if there were any other way . . . but there’s not.”
“You were right.” She sniffled. “It’s an awful plan.” She turned her back on me. “Isn’t there a way to set the guns on automatic or something? Is there a way that you don’t have to be standing up here when the final bladder fails?”
“No,” I answered solemnly, moving back into her field of vision. “There has to be fingers on triggers. Janae, you promised me you would do whatever I said.”
“I didn’t know you were crazy when I said yes.”
“It’s not crazy. It’s . . . unfortunate. None of that matters, though. It’s the only way we can save the lives of the people in the Under—your birthplace.”
“So why you?” she asked. “Why do you have to be the one to do it? I’m a better aim than you anyway—you even admitted it.”
The crowd below grew restless and began to murmur.
“Well, for one, since this entire thing started a couple of days ago, all I’ve done is react to things. I reacted to Hennemann taking me prisoner, reacted to Montague forcing me to investigate for him, but this—this is my choice . . . a choice to do something that will help people.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” she said. “Choosing to die.”
“It’s not stupid to me,” I said. “Plus, it’s my idea.”
She scoffed. “You do it because it was your idea? I have more right to it than you. It’s the place I’m from. Who knows, maybe this suit could survive.”
“We’re talking about a fall into the ocean from over a thousand feet,” I reminded her. “And if the impact didn’t kill you, you’d still sink like a stone in that thing.”
Her face contorted into an angry scowl. “Why must you be so stubborn all the time?”
“There’s one more thing,” I said with a smile.
“What’s that?” she asked in frustration.
“You’re trapped in that suit. I suspect that you can raise your hands out of the top like Montague did, but
you can’t fit into the gun’s straps and maneuver them in the direction they need to go.”
Completely out of arguments, she was speechless.
“It’s all right, Janae. I’m not afraid. If this is the final thing I ever do, that’s not a bad trade off.”
Her mouth fell open. “But . . .”
I took advantage of her stunned silence to address the crowd on the lower level. In a loud voice, I said, “My name is Detective T. H. Kipsey, and Alton Montague is dead.”
Dr. Howarth had snuck into the assembly at some point. He whispered into the ear of the person standing beside him.
I paused to allow the gasps and murmurs to subside. “The reason that I’m addressing you now is that before he passed, Mr. Montague launched an attack on innocent people living in the Under.”
This time, I raised my hand to stifle the chatter. “At this very moment, a group of automatons are climbing down the city stilts to puncture the metal barriers that keep the ocean out of that area. I can’t allow this to happen.”
The tension in the foyer was palpable, but I didn’t stop. “The automatons are responding to a transmission signal coming from a tower here at the mansion. I’ve determined the only way to stop them is to destroy the tower, and the only way to destroy the tower is to bring this entire complex down by taking out the twenty-four hydrogen bladders holding it up.”
As expected, a cacophony of shouting ensued with this announcement.
Howarth yelled up, “Why should we believe you?”
Before I could answer, Janae stepped forward and belted out, “Any doubters are welcome to stay around up here and find out what the detective says is true.”
I raised my hand. “This is Janae Nelson. Everyone will follow her outside to the sky ferry and ride it down. There should be time enough for you to arrive safely before the compound falls.”
A large man in soot grey and black stepped forward and raised his hand. “Detective Kipsey, sir, how do you intend to explode the gas bladders?”
“I have access to some high-powered firearms.”
“Stupid idea,” Janae mumbled from behind me.
The man took another step forward and raised his hand again. “If I follow your meaning, you intend to stay up here as the mansion falls.”
Gasps echoed through the group as I acknowledged it.
“I’d like to stay and help you,” he said.
I descended a few of the steps. “Is that ring on your finger a wedding band?”
The question prompted him to look at it. “Yes, sir, it is.”
I took another step. “Is your wife still alive?”
He slowly lowered his hand. “Yes, but the flooding will drown—”
“I’m not going to allow the Under to flood.” I was at the halfway point of the mangled staircase. “Sir, your wife is going to need you more than me.” I motioned to the group of scrapes around him and recognized Ninya, who’d been trapped with Sawyer. “All of your families need you. You’ve done your fighting for today.”
I took a few more steps and reached the marble floor. “You have my promise . . . all of you. Now go.”
The foyer erupted with clamor.
“Make speed!” I shouted as the group headed for the entry.
Janae joined me as the last of the people exited through the broken front door.
“Make sure they make it down safely,” I said, looking straight ahead.
“Yeah, I will,” she said and paused. “Thank you, Kip.”
“Goodbye, Janae.”
A lump as hard as a marble formed in my throat as I watched her run through the door into the snow.
Thirty-Eight
Except for the dead bodies strewn about and the flaming debris, the vast courtyard took on an eerie calm. It was as if the estate knew what I was about to do and welcomed me in.
I made my way to the first gun. I turned the handle at the base. When the topiary separated enough, I untwisted the binding cord. Next, I leaned the gun back at the sky as far as it would go and let the bullets fly, aiming for the steel cage harness securing the floating bladder.
The discharge sounded like the tightly wound head of a snare drum pelted with hail. A high-pitched squeal sang out as the gas ignited. A brief moment later, the sky exploded with the force of ten thousand cannons.
A magnificent fireball brighter than the sun hung in the air. Though far above the courtyard, I could feel the heat when the bladder ignited. It was oddly satisfying. The now-lifeless suspension cables fell like long, black snakes hitting the side, and I moved on to the next target.
When adrenaline pumps through the body, it distorts time, stretching it out like a strip of taffy. That being said, I can’t be sure exactly how long it took to puncture the first six hydrogen bladders of the twelve on the back side of the compound. However, I do know that by the time I’d made it around to the front of the mansion, Janae had already dispatched the sky ferry. The bassel and its passengers took the final trip down that the transport would ever make.
Since it wouldn’t do to have the compound shift from a horizontal to a vertical angle but not fall, I methodically shot out every other bladder. There were two dozen in all, twelve on each side. In order for my plan to work, I decided to double back and rupture the rest after the first dozen were destroyed. I suspected I wouldn’t need to burst all of them. At some point, gravity would finish off the job for me, probably around number fifteen or sixteen.
The platform had already begun to shift slightly from side to side like a cart rolling back and forth on a track. The stabilizing fans beneath the compound worked double time to compensate for the change. I did my best to ignore the queer sensation and focus on the task at hand. In an odd way, the act became routine and streamlined as I went.
Returning to the courtyard to finish the back six, I sighed at the thought of Montague’s cicada skin in a jar and his dissertation about change. When he lectured me in his study on that first night, I’m certain that he never envisioned his estate crashing into the sea.
The thick smell of smoke filled the air. I had the sense of a shopkeeper closing up the store after a busy day of trade. In truth, I was more like a marionette clipping his own strings in a solitary act of annihilation.
Every bullet I spent brought me closer to my own end. Maybe Sawyer had been right about using one’s final moments for something for the good of others, his so-called noble death. I didn’t feel remorseful or bitter about my fate, but rather a peaceful satisfaction for how I’d spent my thirty-three and a half years. Life is a series of trades, and I had no regrets—save one, but I found consolation in knowing she’d be safe now and I’d done my duty.
I shot out another of the floating bladders. When it collapsed in flames, the courtyard began to sway. I felt like I was on the deck of an airship in a windstorm.
It wouldn’t be much longer. The suspension cables of the remaining balloons were already stretched to their limits, and I could hear a deep metal groan over the crackling fire of the airship wreckage.
The final unused topiary gun on the back side of the compound had been sculpted like a large cat doing a handstand on a ball. On my way to it, I passed a moderately damaged Charon skiff. Though its front end was embedded in the snow, it appeared to still be in working order. For a brief moment, I weighed the possibility that I could return to the craft when the compound fell, start it up, and figure out the controls in time to fly it. Then I saw that the steering column had come dislodged, and I dismissed the notion.
As I bent to work to free the gun from inside the bush, I heard the distant rhythmic stomp of a walking suit. I quickly stood and saw a blurry figure approaching through the smoke. I wasn’t surprised to see Janae’s battered and dented walking suit. I was infuriated. Only one of us needed to make the sacrifice. Whatever she was up to meant an unnecessary death. The wry smile on her face added to my frustration at her waste.
I waited until she finally made it to me to speak. “Janae, what are you doing
here? You just couldn’t let it go, could you? We’re both going to die up here.”
“Speak for yourself, Kip. I’m not dying up here. I’m here to rescue you, you big mumper.”
“You promised me,” I said. “There’s no point in both of us having to—”
“Don’t kick up a shine,” she said while moving her massive metal hand to the side like she was flicking at a gnat. “I sent everybody down on the bassel like you said, but I came up with a plan too—a rescue plan.”
“What plan?” I grumbled.
She waved a hand up at the hydrogen balloon overhead. “You finish with all of this, and we ride down the bassel line.”
“They’re sending it back up? That won’t work,” I said in protest. “As soon as I shoot out another couple of these, this whole place is going to fall. There’s no way the sky ferry can make it down before the compound crashes into the ocean.”
“I never said we’d take the bassel down, I said we’d use the line,” she answered with an infectious grin.
“Ride down the naked bassel cable? You’re crazy.”
“It’s the best offer you’ll get all day,” she said with eyebrows raised. “I’ll clamp on with these and let gravity take us down to the guard station at street level.” She demonstrated by opening and closing the metal fingers of both fists a few times.
Shaking my head, I told her, “You really are crazy, you know that? Crazy and the most stubborn person I’ve ever met.”
“I could say the same thing about you. Take a chance, Kip. Your odds of survival are definitely better with me than if you stay up here when this place goes down.” Her lips curled into a mischievous grin. “Now, let’s blow this thing and go home.”
I returned to my work. She watched over my shoulder as I prepped the weapon. Tilting the gun back, I asked, “You ready?”
She nodded.
I turned back to the gun and drew in a deep breath.
In no time, the gas balloon ruptured in a brilliant fireball, sending strands of cable flailing.
I’d expected an instant reaction to eliminating one of the final supports, but the compound simply swayed again, though more fitfully. I’d taken a few steps toward another of the unused topiaries when Janae said, “Yeah, that did it.”
Addleton Heights Page 37
