Mad Tinker's Daughter

by J. S. Morin

  Click.

  The first lock was released.

  Chipmunk glanced back to the tunnel as Pick set to work on the second lock. At first, her intent had been a casual glance, after which she would have gone back to watching the master lockpick at work. However, she saw Rascal, trying frantically to get her attention and look nonchalant at the same time. Chipmunk peeked further around the corner and saw a young kuduk couple, strolling the tunnel arm in arm.

  “Get down,” she said in a commanding whisper.

  Pick folded his roll of tools in half to hide any metallic glare, then threw himself prone atop them. Chipmunk and Hayfield turned away from the tunnel and packed in as tight as they could against the door.

  “...and then I told your father that I was going to take the internship at Boff and Sarthstone,” one of the kuduks blathered to his companion. “It’ll be six months, but you’ll only be a day away by thunderail.”

  “You’ll write of course?” the female kuduk asked.

  The voices were drawing near. Chipmunk felt her breath quickening. She glanced up at Hayfield. The former crashball star caught her look and held up two fingers—the problem was that it was his two-fingered hand. Chipmunk couldn’t tell if he wanted her to wait, or was giving a count of their targets, if they were going to jump out and accost the kuduks.

  “Well, I’ll be frightfully busy ...”

  They sounded harmless, but harmless could still scream for the head-knockers. Chipmunk tried to get clarification. She put a hand up over her mouth, directed her eyes over toward the tunnel, and shrugged. Hayfield’s brow furrowed; Chipmunk didn’t know whether he was deciding, or trying to figure out what she meant.

  “... you’ll find the time if you truly want to ...”

  Hayfield looked back at her and gave a nod. Chipmunk cupped her hands in front of her chest, then pointed to herself. She made a rather crude gesture and pointed to Hayfield. Hayfield nodded again. At least basic anatomy made charades easy.

  “... well, I didn’t say that I—”

  Chipmunk and Hayfield jumped out as the couple reached the doorway. Chipmunk had her gloved hand over the kuduk woman’s mouth before she uttered a sound. Hayfield skipped the niceties and clobbered her companion with the butt of his pistol.

  “One sound and I vent you,” Chipmunk said. She pushed the woman into the doorway, leaning heavily since the kuduk, despite being only a bit taller than her, must have weighed nearly as much as Hayfield. She pressed the woman’s head against the wall, still covering her mouth. “Just stay calm and you’ll be fine. Your friend’ll have a headache, but we can end your courtship in a quick snip if you give us trouble. Got it?”

  The kuduk woman nodded. Chipmunk could guess that other kuduks found her attractive. She had smooth skin by their standards, and her sidelocks were braided and beaded in the latest fashions. Her dress was the sort of faux conservative that was growing in popularity; it covered her to the neck but the material of the bodice stretched tight. It looked uncomfortable.

  Hayfield dragged the unconscious kuduk man in, ruining the expensive silk suit coat he wore.

  Pick set back to work on the second lock. Chipmunk didn’t watch him, but kept her eyes fixed on those of the kuduk woman. Even through the lenses of her goggles, Chipmunk could not escape the intimate feeling of looking someone right in the eye. Those kuduk eyes were so human-like, but wrong at the same time. The corneas had flecks of silver in them that glinted in the light; the pupils were octagonal instead of round—details you only noticed close up.

  Click.

  The second lock was open. Pick packed up his tools in a matter of seconds, and rolled them up once more. Hayfield grabbed the handle and opened the door. He took the limp kuduk by the collar and dragged him inside. Pick and Chipmunk followed with their prisoner.

  “Tie her up,” Chipmunk ordered to neither Pick nor Hayfield in particular.

  “With what?” Pick asked. “We don’t got any rope.”

  Chipmunk looked around. The accoutrements of a pawn shop ruled out nothing at all. It was conceivable that nearly anything could be somewhere tucked away among the musical instruments, decorative tableware, and antique tools. Chipmunk began a perfunctory search, but wasn’t hopeful of finding anything of use.

  “Tuurg is wearing suspenders,” the kuduk woman suggested in a small voice.

  Chipmunk spun about to glare at the woman. Why would she help us? Chipmunk saw the woman glance away, but she hadn’t been looking in Chipmunk’s direction in the first place.

  “She’s right,” Hayfield said. He held back Tuurg’s coat. “We could probably tie her up with these.”

  “Chipmunk, you gotta come see this,” Pick called from the back. “The safe’s tumbler’n’dial, not much I’m gonna be able to do with it.”

  “Be right there,” Chipmunk called back. First though, she looked where the kuduk woman had been staring before Chipmunk had noticed her. She rummaged through the shelves: teapot ... phonograph ... a rack of cheap-looking necklaces ... a chain and pulleys ...

  No, wait! That’s not tackle!

  “Aha! Slave chains,” Chipmunk said. “Not sure who’d be pawning that, but this is an auction kit. Hayfield, get her out back.”

  Hayfield towed the wide-eyed kuduk woman into the back storeroom, full of shelves, where Pick was examining the vault. Chipmunk followed in a clatter of chains, half dragging them along. The links were each the size of her thumb, meant to make walking a chore. The manacles were sized for an adult human male, but they fit the kuduk woman well enough. She winced each time one snapped shut around a wrist or ankle. Chipmunk threaded the chain through the spark conduit in the corner of the room before locking the last ankle in place.

  “I didn’t see a key around, but the head-knockers’ll figure something out,” Chipmunk assured the woman. “Now pick that chin up.” The kuduk woman shook her head, chin tucked against her chest. “You make this hard on me and I’ll put the chain around the steam pipe first. You’ll have a nice warm night of it.”

  “Why are you doing this?” the woman asked. “I can’t go anywhere.”

  “Consider it a civics lesson,” Chipmunk replied. “Come morning, you’ll get let loose. Some poor bastard—probably more than one—wore that to auction and never got a collar off the rest of his life.”

  The kuduk woman stared back defiantly—as defiantly as one can while keeping their chin down. Chipmunk pointed to the steam pipe, then to Hayfield, then dangled the collar in front of the woman’s face. She raised her chin and squeezed her eyes shut.

  Click.

  “There, now. That’s not so bad. Just like a human now, eh?”

  “Chipmunk, quit foolin’ with her and help me with this thing,” Pick said. “This is your plan.”

  “Fine, one of you get a gag in her,” Chipmunk said.

  She left Pick and Hayfield to deal with the kuduk woman, and turned her attention to the vault. It was set into the natural stone of the wall, but looked like it was steel construction, not using the stone for the back or sides. The front face bore a quarter-turn handle and a numbered dial. The handle was grimy, its chrome sheen worn off with years of use. The dial was scuffed from frequent contact with rough fingers.

  Chipmunk put an ear to the door and tugged at the handle. It twisted a fraction of a degree in her grasp before the bolt inside stopped it solid. She moved her ear and tugged again, repeating the process several times until she had a good guess of where the bolt was that held the door shut.

  “Stand back,” Chipmunk ordered. Hayfield and Pick packed themselves into the corner with the frightened kuduk woman. Chipmunk drew her coil gun and took aim at the spot where the bolt lay behind half an inch of steel. As she steadied her shot, she looked down the barrel and saw both it and the door at once. She had an idea.

  Chipmunk took the coil gun and emptied the ammunition into her pocket. With a grunt, she jammed the barrel of the gun over the handle.

  Pick had been ducking, with hi
s arms raised over his head. He peeked as Chipmunk wrestled the coil gun into position. “Hey, what’s that you’re—”

  Clang.

  The handle to the vault ricocheted off the ceiling as Chipmunk’s coin gun held its position in the air and ejected the handle, tearing it clear off the vault. The handle clattered to the floor, glowing red, with a thin trail of smoke wafting from it.

  “Whoa!” shouted Hayfield.

  “Keen gears,” Pick said. “But ... uhh ... how we gonna get it open now? Weren’t the handle holding it shut, ya know.”

  Chipmunk didn’t answer, but used her boot to finagle the end of the glowing handle back into the barrel. She scooped it up in barrel of the gun and carried it back to the vault. The vault door had a hole where the handle had been torn free. Inside, Chipmunk could see the inner workings of the handle assembly. She lined up the barrel with the hole—with the broken end of the handle pressed to the safe—and pulled the trigger once more.

  Thunk. Grrrrrrrrrr.

  The steel vault door protested, but gave ground against the pressure of the coil’s magnetic field pressing the door handle in against it. Suddenly the constant pressure ceased, the groaning stopped, and there was a squishing, sloshing noise. The hole in the vault door issued forth a gout of steam and an acrid smell that reminded Chipmunk of the Errol Foundries on Tinker’s Island.

  Chipmunk’s goggles fogged over.

  She released the trigger and the gun still hung in the air, stuck in place despite her efforts to move it. She wiped her goggles clear, and saw that the trigger was stuck. It took a moment, but with a bit of leverage from a screwdriver, the trigger return spring broke the rune structure and ended the stationary hold.

  The handle was gone, melted and injected into the workings of the vault door.

  “Guys, help me pry the door open, quick, before it all cools in there,” Chipmunk said. She didn’t bother explaining the details of what had happened. There wasn’t time.

  She stepped aside as Hayfield took a small pry bar from Pick and popped the door open. The bolt did little to hinder him. Smoke rolled out of the vault when the door swung open and air rushed in to fan the flames within.

  “Shit, the money’s on fire,” Pick shouted.

  Chipmunk grabbed the burning stacks of bank notes and flung them on the floor. She smothered the flames with her coat.

  “The haul’s fine,” Hayfield declared. “Only a couple o’ stacks near the front got singed.” He started shoveling the money into a sack.

  “What’s that?” Pick asked, cocking an ear toward the front room of the shop.

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Chipmunk answered. She sat on the floor, too busy reloading her gun to pay him much heed.

  “Run!” a distant voice shouted. “Run! They’re coming!”

  “That’s No-Boots!” Pick shouted. He grabbed Hayfield by the arm. “Leave the rest, let’s move!”

  Chipmunk was already on her feet, scrambling for the door. Pick and Hayfield followed close behind. When she reached the front of the shop, No-Boots had the door open, his head poking in.

  “Rascal said to split up,” No-Boots shouted to them, panting for breath. “Knockers are on the way.” He ducked back out the door and was gone.

  Chipmunk heard the boy’s footsteps receding down the tunnel around the corner. Every girl for herself, she figured.

  Chipmunk dashed across the way to the lift station. She saw a squad of head-knockers coming their way. There were at least a dozen, and they were insurgency suppressors, not the usual club-and-fist patrols. They carried scatterguns and the ones at the front of the formation had cast iron bullet shields—semi-cylindrical moving barricades that could stop a military grade gunfire.

  “Hurry up and pry the gate,” Chipmunk told Pick.

  “I’m working on it. I’m working on it.”

  Hayfield looked down the tunnel and started shaking his head. “This ain’t good. Just run for it!” He took his own advice and bolted down the tunnel away from the enforcement officers.

  “Hayfield!” Chipmunk called after him, but it was too late. “Shit ... Pick hurry it up. I can get that lift cross-sparked before they get here if you get the damned thing open.”

  “Shut up! I’ll get it!” Pick wedged his pry bar in next to the lock that held the scissored gates closed. He hit the end with a hammer, driving it into the gap to have enough leverage to pry it open. With time to work, he could have quietly and neatly sprung the lock, but speed was the key right then.

  “Let me slow them down a bit,” Chipmunk said.

  One of the officers fired his scattergun. She smiled beneath her scarf as a gentle spray of lead pelted her. Scatterguns had notoriously poor range, but were a great distraction even at a distance. She’d start worrying once they got closer.

  Chipmunk leveled her gun. Through the sight she lined up one of the kuduk officers carrying the bullet-proof shields. She turned the crank on the dynamo to maximum power once more, and pulled the trigger.

  A streak of light issued from the barrel, accompanied by a hissing sound that lasted a fraction of a second. She felt no recoil from the shot.

  Clanggggg.

  The bulletproof shield rang like a gong, and in a moment’s panic, Chipmunk feared that the ball bearing had deflected off the barrier. Then the lead kuduk toppled, the shield fell loose from his grasp to clang once more against the floor. Chipmunk saw that at least two more kuduk had collapsed behind the one with the shield as they all packed tight for protection.

  The head-knockers scattered. It was a disciplined maneuver though, not a rout. Their advance slowed and spread wide, but didn’t stop. Chipmunk readied her gun to fire again, but found it stuck in the air once more.

  She pulled on it. Dammit. She pulled again, leaning back and throwing her weight against it to break it free. Dammit. Dammit. Dammit!

  She reached into a pocket for the ball bearing ammunition her gun used and threw a handful down the tunnel. From another pocket, she took a screwdriver and tried to use it as a pry bar to pry the trigger free again. There was a screech and a squeal of metal behind her. She turned and saw that Pick had opened the gates.

  “Leave it. Make another,” Pick told her.

  Chipmunk ground her teeth in frustration.

  “Come on. We’ve gotta move or we’re slag.”

  Chipmunk let go the stuck coil gun and rushed into the lift car. She wrenched loose the access panel and jammed the screwdriver into a tangle of wires, snagging two in particular. Levering the screwdriver against the outside of the panel, she yanked, and snapped the two wires free. She pulled down her scarf and stuck the ends of the wires in her mouth one at a time, biting down and pulling the insulation off with her teeth—she spit the ends on the lift floor and tried to ignore the gritty taste in her mouth. Tucking her gloves under an arm, she twisted the exposed ends together, bypassing the key switch that locked the controls out during off hours. The spark lights on the inside of the car blinked on.

  She pointed to Pick, who already had the control lever in hand on the other side of the car. He slammed it into the “down” position and the lift lurched. There was a queasiness in her stomach that disappeared in an instant as the floor began its descent.

  “We made it,” Pick said. He slumped against the cage-like wall of the lift car as bare rock passed by his head, inches away. He was breathing hard, but there was a smile on his face.

  A blast from a scattergun ruined Pick’s illusion of safety. Lead shot rang against the roof of the lift car, making tiny lumps like shivering flesh in the sheet metal. The lack of a follow-on shot offered less hope of a reprieve when it was accompanied by the rhythmic thumping of boots on metal rungs. Like a song sung in a round, every few measures another set of boots would join the chorus.

  “We oughtta hit bottom before them, at least,” Pick said. They both looked up, watching the roof though they could see nothing above the car.

  Chipmunk’s mind whirred. Where do we run when we hi
t bottom? How much of a head start will we have? What’s the next move?

  “No,” she said after a moment’s thought.

  “No?”

  “We’re getting off at layer four,” she said.

  Pick put up his hands and waved the notion away. “No way, no how. They’ll catch up for sure.”

  Chipmunk grinned. “Not if they follow the car down to layer five. You’ve still got your crowbar. We’ll pry our way back out once they’ve gone.”

  “You sure they’ll miss us?”

  “It’s dark in the shaft. The only light’s on the car. Only reason they’re not grabbing the side rails of the ladder and sliding down is they aren’t sure we won’t stop on layer four. We hit bottom and get out, they’ll be ten paces behind us with scatterguns.”

  “Yeah, but if we do stop at layer four... ”

  “They’ll be looking for the car to stop.”

  “I don’t like this.”

  “That’s a ‘yes’ if I ever heard one,” said Chipmunk. She clapped Pick on the shoulder. “Come on, the lift station is coming up.”

  The two of them waited by the broken safety gate for the lift car to reach the layer four station. As the floor came up to meet them, they timed the car’s speed and jumped over to solid ground. Pick caught the single bar lowered across the shaft to keep patrons from falling in as they waited. Chipmunk dove below it and rolled. Both scurried out of view of the opening as the car passed by.

  Moments later, they heard the head-knockers stomping down the maintenance ladder past them. Their mutterings amongst themselves were muted and distorted by echoes in the lift shaft. After some discussion, they heard a series of hissing sounds as one officer after another stopped climbing and used his gloves to enter into a controlled slide down the ladder.

  “Drinks are on me, I guess,” Pick said.

  “I’ll take a debt on that,” Chipmunk answered. “I have work in the morning.”

  “You should quit that rat trap, run jobs full time,” Pick told her.

  Chipmunk shook her head. “I learn too much there. I wouldn’t be able to cross-spark lifts or build my guns if I didn’t learn it all there.”