The Tremblers

by Raquel Byrnes

  “But what if the hull is ripped?” Near panic gripped me as he darted about the room, pulling out drawers, searching through papers, all the while muttering angrily. “The sudden fissures and jagged…the jagged up-croppings, Father!”

  “Enough,” he snapped. “We will be fine. There hasn’t been a sinking in over a year.”

  “Y—yes, Papa,” I managed.

  A man comfortable with rules and regulations, he was proper and distinguished. He had only been like this when my mother teetered on the edge of life and death.

  “What are you doing?”

  He paused a moment, looking at me as if just remembering I was with him. “I’ve sent Sadie home to pack as well. She’ll meet us at the harbor. I’ve told her to board ahead of us, get things settled.”

  “I don’t understand…”

  “Why are you not gathering your things, child?” He snapped, peering out the window as a shiver rattled through him. “I may have been followed. I don’t believe so, but I can’t be sure. We must leave at once.”

  My eyes went to the aethergraph machine. Reminiscent of old typewriters, it sat on my father’s desk, brass keys gleaming in the flicker of the gas lamp. I prodded one of the etching rods that traced out the missives with electricity, bracing for the tell-tale shock of recent use. They were cold.

  If he’d sent an aether missive, it was before his trip. He bent to pull out his last drawer and a creased electro-rail ticket fluttered from his pocket.

  I picked it up, read the destination. Pennsylvania…what on earth? I’d been correct earlier. My father ventured outside the protection of New York’s Tesla Dome. But to what purpose? There was nothing out there. No chemist’s shops to deliver his tinctures, no laboratories to confer with colleagues, nothing but barren, poisonous wasteland and coal mines.

  “Why did you go to Pennsylvania?”

  He turned, his face going pale as he plucked the ticket from my hand. “Never mind that.”

  “But—”

  “The fog is cold this time of year, Charlie,” he cut across me. “Pack for rain, for snow.”

  “Why are we leaving? To where?”

  “I fear that they are closing in.” He pulled open a satchel and tossed in magnifying spectacles, calibration meters, and other scientific tools he usually kept in his laboratory on the topmost floor of our brownstone.

  I took in the tremors in his gloved hands and the sheen of sweat on my father’s brow and wrung my hands. I should call for the doctor. Flushed skin, erratic behavior, those were signs of fever. He was sick. He had to be to behave like this.

  “What is this about, Papa? Maybe I can help—”

  “Charlotte!” He yelled, straightening from digging in a drawer. I gasped at the tracer gun in his hand. Pointed to the ceiling, the tarnished handle and dusty gear works did little to hide its lethality. His service weapon, I’d only seen it once, long ago. My gaze went to a sword and scroll emblem etched onto the barrel. I didn’t remember that before. The gun shook in his hand as he grabbed my wrist with his other. “Do as you’ve been told!”

  “Papa!” I cried.

  His eyes swam for a moment before his expression softened. Tucking the weapon in his waistband, he pulled the gauntlet on his hand tighter at the wrist. “I am sorry. I only want to assure your safety, my sweet. Please do as I’ve asked. Quickly, Charlie.” He held my hand in both of his, soothing.

  “I will,” I nodded, grateful to have some semblance of my old father back. “Right away.” I hurried off, worry twisting a knot in my stomach as I blinked back tears. Once in my room, I shut the door and rounded the canopy bed to the speaking tube mounted on the wall near my window. Lifting the mouthpiece, I turned the dial, shifting the sound to Bindle’s quarters. “Please bring up the steamer trunks for my father and me. We’re to leave immediately.” Taking a breath, I eyed the drawers of my highboy dresser, debating. “And, Bindle, please send a messenger to retrieve the doctor. I fear my father is with fever.”

  An echoing voice warbled back through the tube. “Right away, Miss Blackburn.”

  Packing quickly, I tried to keep my mind on task, squelching the concern over my father’s strange behavior. With my lady’s maid gone to be married, I never quite got around to hiring another girl.

  Aunt Sadie helped me prepare when I had parties and often brought her own maid. Now, as I struggled in my gown to fold and jostle things into a satchel on the bed, I wished I’d attended to details more efficiently. Arms burning with fatigue, I tossed silver monogrammed brushes and bottles into the portmanteau standing open on the dressing table. Wincing at the scratches I likely caused by not wrapping them first, I tried not to think of what Aunt Sadie would say when I unpacked on the steamer. My gaze stopped on my wool cloak. My father said to prepare for cold, for snow.

  Where could we possibly be going? Europe’s disgust at our country had not eased since The Great Calamity. The former government, greedy for gold buried deep in the Dakota Territory’s gulches, had unwittingly triggered the fury of earthquakes.

  The destruction we wrought on the seas, the vapors that invaded their shores, all of it served to keep our citizens both unwelcome and distrusted in foreign lands. The worsening ice shelf to the north of the city-states made passage to Canada impossible and the quake fissures cut us off from the southern lands and continents. Perhaps Papa meant to take us up to Maine? The thought of boarding a metal-clad sent a shiver of fear rattling through me, but I forced myself to continue packing.

  My hand toppled a jar on the edge of the bureau and it crashed to the floor. Dozens of polished stones clattered across the wood planks and rolled under the bed and dresser.

  “Oh, no,” I cried, kneeling with a heavy sigh and staring at the multicolored mess. I pulled the small burlap parcel from my inner pocket and unwrapped it, dropping the smooth blue rock in my palm. It gleamed in the gas lamp lights, polished to a high sheen with little hands. I ran the pad of my thumb over the tiny T scratched into the underside, frowning. What would become of little Tommy and Moira while I was gone? Perhaps I could leave word with the trade broker in The Boroughs?

  “Hurry, Charlie,” my father’s voice came through the metal grill speaker on my wall.

  I stood. Searching for hair pins, I dug through the other adornments piled in the drawer. There, nestled in the clutter, my mother’s Bible sat tucked under a mess of ribbons. It was something I held in my hand at church; a proper accessory for Sundays. Like everything else in my life, it was nothing more than show. The lettering on the spine glinted with the gas lamp flame, and I hesitated, an old anger rising. I snatched it up, my hand trembling as I let the thin pages fall open to my mother’s favorite section. To Psalms, the desperate words of an anguished king. I’d read them all to her, over and over, at her bedside as a child.

  I gritted my teeth, reading the notes my mother wrote in the margins while influenza leeched her life away. Words of faith and prayers of trust.

  But let all who take refuge in you be glad; let them ever sing for joy.

  I never understood that. How my mother, so faint and pale from the struggle to simply breathe, could talk of singing for joy. I remembered how we prayed together back when faith seemed to make anything possible. When, before The Great Calamity, the doctors could have saved her. Clenching my eyes, I tried to stave off the flashes of memories flooding over me.

  My father at my mother’s grave in her family crypt, his spirit as broken as the barely standing walls. The feel of icy rain as it bore down on our heads, the cold digging into my collar and chilling me until the ache of my heart reached deep into bone. That year, my seventh, had been nearly unbearable. From the loss of my mother to the near ruin of my home country. All the death, destruction, fear, and uncertainty had so unnerved me that I did not breathe easily for years.

  And now, my father teetered once again on some kind of edge. Desperation clawed its way through me, and I hurled the book across the room, choking on a sob.

  Where were Y
ou when she cried for You? When I did?

  The steady chug—chug of a steam carriage pulled me from my tortured thoughts, and I wiped the tears away angrily. I did not have time for childish sniveling. Rushing to the speaking tube, I called for Bindle.

  “I believe the doctor is here. Please show him to my father’s rooms at once.”

  I glanced at the timepiece ticking on the mantel over the fireplace. It was nearly eleven at night. No answer. Checking the dial, I turned it to the ‘all call’ position, and my voice echoed through the brownstone. “Bindle?”

  Striding for my door, I froze at the sound of our front door creaking open. The perimeter alarm on the wall panel flashed red, and I silenced the buzz with a flick of a switch.

  Heavy footfalls sounded below, followed by a muffled voice.

  Fear seared through me. I crept to the landing and peeked over the railing. Our front door opened with a click, and four men, their gray hooded cloaks billowing, stole into the front room. Their rifle gear works glowed purple with the hiss of a building charge. I blinked, confused. Union Security Soldiers did not break into private homes.

  “Charlie,” my father hissed from his office doorway. He motioned to me, his lips in a tight line as he held the tracer gun down by his thigh. “Come here, quietly.”

  Quaking, I flattened myself against the back wall and slid toward his office. My mind misfiring with panic, I covered my mouth with a palm suppressing a sob.

  What of Bindle and the doctor?

  I passed underneath a framed watercolor, and my chignon caught on the edge, toppling it to the floor with a crash.

  A jagged vein of light snapped up from the floor below, the blast burning a gouge in the wall.

  I screamed, diving to the carpet, and in a blur of movement, my father stepped from the doorway and fired quick bursts at the security soldiers scrambling up the stairs.

  They dove for cover, a shout of pain echoing up, as my father yanked me into the office. He slammed the heavy metal door and slid the locking bar into place. Pulling a mesh screen from a hidden panel in the wall, he stretched it across the doorway and secured it in place with latches before activating a small box engine near the wall. A huff of steam escaped the vents, and grim heaviness settled over me as a shield of light spread across the wires, humming to life and glowing blue.

  “Is this a last stand, Papa?” I croaked, understanding now his near fanatical preoccupation with security. I thought it a natural result of living through harrowing battles on the Dark Continent. I never dreamt any real danger lurked.

  “Not if I can help it.” He handed over the tracer gun and positioned me facing the door. “Cover the door, Charlie. Burn anything that enters.”

  Holding the weapon, I fought my trembling hands to keep it aimed. The heavy metal and mahogany burned hot with a cycling charge. Gear works whirred at its core, sizzling and sparking when I placed my finger on the trigger. A paper drifted to the floor next to me with scrawled equations. I looked at them, confused. My father limped to the aethergraph machine, cranked the handle, and began to type.

  “Who is that for?”

  “A friend,” he said under his breath. The paper carriage dinged and he pushed it back to the left, his fingers flying over the keys. “At least, the closest thing to one in this mess.”

  Something slammed into the wall pulling a cry from me. Energy pulsed across the mesh as it took the brunt of a blow that bulged the door. I squeezed my eyes shut and a frantic whisper ran through my head. Please let it hold. Don’t let them get to us.

  “What are you doing?” My father pointed to the tracer gun in my grip. “Eyes on the enemy, Charlie!”

  Another blow rattled the door in its frame and sent the mesh sparking. Half the shield lost its charge, and my stomach lurched. “It’s failing,” I cried, looking behind me for my father. “Papa, what do we do?”

  “One more moment...” The aethergraph traced out a missive, the recording paper scrolling out a copy. My father squinted at it before throwing the paper into the lamp. It flared it to ashes. He hit the button to deliver the message and then tossed the machine onto the floor, stomping it with his mechanical leg until it was broken ruins.

  “Did you call for help?” The office door protruded further with another crash. I shook where I stood, frozen with utter panic. We were trapped. How could we hold trained soldiers off until help arrived?

  “You’re getting out of here.” Pulling me to the window, he picked up a book end. “Cover your eyes.”

  “But the authorities…if we just wait—”

  I screamed as he smashed the window, hitting the last jagged piece free before holding out his hand to me.

  “The men on the other side of that door are the authorities, Charlie. Don’t you understand?” My father looked at me then, his eyes full of anguish. “Our only advantage is they do not know how much we’ve discovered. There is still time.”

  “No, I don’t understand. I don’t know what’s happening!” I tried to struggle free, to embrace him, but he propelled me toward the window sill.

  “Listen, my child,” he panted. His eyes, rimmed in red, held mine. “Something terrible is happening and I may…” he held up a battered journal. “I may have found a way to stop it.”

  “Stop what, Papa?” This ranting petrified me.

  “We must make our escape or there is no way to stop it. No way to go back,” he said, holding my shoulders. He shook, his eyes wide. “Now, take my cloak. Get out onto the ledge.”

  “What?” I reared back, but he wrapped his heavy cloak around my shoulders. The smell of leather and his pipe tobacco filled my nose. “You’ll be with me…right, Papa?”

  “Step out,” his voice broke, sending a shaft of dread through me. “Carefully, don’t slip.”

  “I will not leave you here,” I screamed, fighting him as he pushed and cajoled me out the window even as men rammed the door. Behind him, the mesh broke, and the door almost ripped from its hinges. I slipped, my high heeled boots skidding on the stone ledge.

  “Go, now, Charlie,” he growled.

  Breathing in gasps, I obeyed. Tears froze on my cheeks in the frigid wind. It whipped the cloak, tearing at my hair with fierce strength. Below me, the wan light of the street lamps cast shadows in the gathering mist.

  “Papa, please…”

  They slammed against the door, splintering it, almost through. My father paused, his eyes searching mine, and then he took in a ragged breath. His look of desperation sent my heart pounding.

  “Here.” Framed by the window, he handed me the journal. Wrapped with a silver chain, it fit in my palm. I shoved it into my bodice. “I can hold them off. Get to the grates.”

  “The what?” Confused, I reached for him. “Together,” I begged, motioning with my fingers, desperate for him to follow. “P—please!”

  He grabbed my hand, kissed my knuckles, then leaned out and pointed a grappling gun at the tall building across the street. He aimed high at the roof and pulled the trigger. The blast nearly toppled me from the ledge, the flash blinding. A clawed zip line flew through the night, the explosive tip burying into the brick of the far building with a resounding crack.

  “Hold on.” He secured the line, fitted the grappling gun’s leather loop around my wrist, and pushed his tracer gun into my other hand. “The tracer is fully charged. Use it. Do not hesitate. Do you understand?”

  “I will.” I nodded through tears, fighting the sobs bubbling up from my chest. In the room, the door gave way, a blinding shaft of energy tearing in through the buckled barricade. “What do I do?”

  “Find Collodin. Get to the gra—” A whip of light snapped through the doorway searing across his back. He screamed with pain, his breath sickly-sweet on my face as we nearly touched noses.

  “Papa!”

  Flailing, he slammed the lever on the grappling gun.

  The zip line snapped taut, yanking me from the ledge with tremendous force. I floundered, the mechanism wrenching me awa
y from him. Screaming, I tried to look back, to see my father, and watched in horror as purple lightning whipped out of a soldier’s weapon. The crackling lash wrapped around his body.

  “No!”

  Below me, a second explosion sounded from the street. I twisted on the line and spied the stranger. Riding a bizarre machine, he soared through the air in my direction.

  5

  Ashton Wells pushed the power-cycle to its limits, his eye on the gauge’s vibrating needle as he tore through the dark streets. Squinting through goggles, he swerved to avoid a horse-drawn taxi and caught the sight of the horse rearing out of the corner of his eye. Dark hair flying, tailcoat flapping, he sped around a delivery wagon, temporarily blinded in the white smoke churning out of its exhaust pipe. The cycle shook and Ashton feared it would rattle apart, yet he twisted the throttle even more. He must get to Blackburn. Hassled by the need to evade the security soldiers cost him precious time, especially when he learned of plans to take the old Colonel with force. He couldn’t let that happen, not without getting answers first.

  Nearing the brownstone’s address, he noted a small crowd gathering in the street, their heads angled upward. He followed their gazes and ground his jaw at the sight of the Colonel’s daughter flying through the air, barely visible above the street lamps.

  He was here for Blackburn, for what he knew, and yet her terrified scream pulled Ashton’s focus.

  Commotion in the window of the home told him the Colonel was under attack. The security force would take Blackburn in moments if he didn’t intervene. A soldier leaned out the window, taking aim at the daughter. A frisson of energy pulsed from the weapon, barely missing her.

  She screamed, flailing.

  Growling in frustration, Ashton veered away from Blackburn’s home, toward the daughter. Another cry spurred him faster. He flipped the rocket ignition and the force of the thrust slammed him against the seat as he shot skyward toward the roof. Pulling his tracer gun, he fired blindly at the building. The soldier dove for the floor.