The Flux Engine

by Dan Willis

  It wasn’t a question so much as a statement of fact, but John nodded anyway.

  Morgan shifted the tintype to his left hand; then, with an easy flick of his arm, he drew his sword, pressing the flat of the blade against John’s cheek.

  “It really is a pity,” he said, more to himself than to John. “You have a great deal of potential.” He twisted the blade, forcing John’s head to turn. “Still, there might be a solution,” he said, a dark smile crossing his thin lips. “I recently lost my apprentice. I don’t suppose I could convince you to give up the search for your lost crystal and come work with me?”

  “What happened to your last apprentice?” John asked.

  “Most recently, she shot you in the chest,” Morgan said.

  John felt his cheek flush with anger, burning against the cold steel of Morgan’s sword.

  “Don’t take it personally,” Morgan said. “I taught her everything she knows,” he went on. “You saw how she easily she beat you. I can teach you that.”

  “So you’re some kind of assassin,” Robi said from behind John.

  Morgan chuckled.

  “Nothing so mundane,” he said. “I am the ultimate warrior. I serve my people and my faith by doing what the Builder needs done.”

  “Like stealing and murder,” John said. Robi’s words had emboldened him despite the sword blade still pressed against his face.

  “When the occasion demands it,” Morgan said. His voice was flat and emotionless, as if he were discussing tomorrow’s weather forecast and not murder.

  “I don’t think I’d like that.”

  Morgan’s dark eyes softened, just for an instant.

  “Is that your final word?” he asked.

  “It is.”

  “Very well, John Porter. You answered my questions truthfully, proving that you are a man of honor. Unfortunately, you know too much about dear Sira and me. I’m afraid I can’t let you live. As a man of honor, however, I will give you an honorable death, quick and painless.”

  A dozen possible actions charged through John’s brain, each one a way to escape the blow he knew was coming. He opened his mouth to say something, anything that might delay the inevitable, but before his brain could put words in his open mouth, something slammed into his back and drove him to the floor. A noise like a cannon deafened him and left his ears ringing. Sunlight poured into the dark room and John saw that the entire back wall of Fixer’s shop had vanished.

  Shattered machinery and bits of wall rained down around him as John tried to get up. Robi had been thrown into him hard and she lay unconscious in the rubble a few feet away. If he could get to her before Morgan recovered, he might …

  A shadow fell over John and he looked up to see Morgan standing over him, naked sword in hand. Morgan’s eyes darted up, staring beyond John to the hole in the wall. He looked back down at John, raised his sword, but before it could fall, another man was there, turning the blade aside with a sword of his own. John recognized the purple duster of Bill Hickok.

  Enforcers were supposed to be the best men the Alliance had to offer, specially trained to be deadly warriors. Morgan, on the other hand, could move like lightning crossing the sky. John couldn’t take his eyes off the two men. Morgan’s blade moved so fast it looked like a solid arc of metal yet Hickok matched him blow for blow. The ringing of their swords sounded as if someone had dropped a box full of handbells down a staircase.

  At first it seemed as though neither man had the advantage, but as John watched, he became aware of a subtle difference. As they fought, Morgan was gradually giving ground, backing away from Hickok’s furious assault. John realized that in less than a minute, the enforcer would have the bald assassin pinned in a corner with nowhere to go. Maybe then John could get some answers about Sira and where she took his crystal.

  As the thought crossed John’s mind, Morgan made his move. Spinning away from Hickok, he grabbed one of Fixer’s broken machines and threw it at the Enforcer as if it didn’t weigh a thing. Hickok dove aside as the heavy lattice of metal and crystal crashed to the ground, rolling to his feet, sword at the ready. Morgan, however, had seized full advantage of the distraction. He charged right through the wooden wall of Fixer’s shop, disappearing in a shower of splinters.

  As Bill Hickok darted to the hole, John realized this was his chance to escape. He reached out for Robi but his hand dropped onto bare floor. The spot where Robi had lain, unconscious, was empty. Somewhere during the fight, she had slipped away, unnoticed.

  “You all right?” Hickok asked. He sheathed his short sword and picked his way across the rubble-strewn floor to where John sat.

  “I guess,” John said, accepting the enforcer’s hand to help him to his feet. He wasn’t happy about being back in Hickok’s custody, but he was in one piece. And Robi had escaped, so it wasn’t a total loss. “What happened?”

  Hickok surveyed the gaping hole in the back of the building and shrugged.

  “I guess I used too much blasting gel,” he said. “Still, no harm done.”

  As John picked bits of wood out of his hair, he wasn’t sure he agreed. Hickok bent over and pulled something out of the debris.

  “So this is the girl who shot you?” he said, after blowing the dust off the tintype.

  “How …”

  “I was listening from outside,” Hickok said.

  John felt his heart sink. Now that an Alliance Enforcer knew the truth, he might as well shout it from the rooftops.

  “Nobody move.” The voice of Sheriff Batts boomed through the remains of Fixer’s shop.

  John turned and saw the man standing in the hole that used to be Fixer’s back wall, flanked by several deputies.

  “Well, hello John,” Batts said as he picked his way into the building. “Why am I not surprised to find you at the scene of chaos and destruction?”

  John didn’t answer. Morgan had said something like that, about him bringing disaster everywhere he went. It didn’t exactly do wonders for his morale.

  “Brady,” Batts said when John didn’t answer, “take Mister Porter back to his cell.”

  A burly blond deputy grabbed John’s arm. “Make sure he stays there this time,” Batts said as Brady hauled John toward the hole.

  “I want charge of this prisoner,” Hickok said.

  “Not a chance, Bill,” Batts said. “I’ve got this boy dead to rights for escaping custody, destruction of property, theft, and several other things I haven’t thought of yet. There’s no way I’m giving him over to an enforcer.”

  Hickok bristled at this, his wide mustache turning down in a frown.

  “I can get an order from the governor,” Hickok said, a clear threat in his tone. Batts laughed.

  “The Governor’s in Saint Louis to meet with the President,” he said. “I wish you luck with that.”

  Hickok threw Batts a shrewd look, then shrugged.

  “All right,” he said. “You can have him, but I want to ask the boy some questions before you take him away.”

  “Ask anything you want,” the Sheriff said.

  Hickok held up the picture of Sira. “I’m the only chance you have to find her,” he said quietly.

  “You just want the crystal, same as her,” John accused.

  “I won’t deny that,” Hickok said. “You know about resonance, right?”

  John nodded. Every Thurger’s first lesson was about how crystals vibrate at different frequencies.

  “Well your crystal is a very special type of crystal. The last time its resonance was detected … well, let’s just say a lot of people died.”

  John had no answer for that. He wouldn’t have thought his mother would have left him something dangerous, but he couldn’t deny what the crystal had done when he used it. Hickok pressed the tintype into John’s hand.

  “I need to find that crystal before your new friend here does something bad with it. Now are you going to help me, or are you going to jail?”

  John ground his teeth in frustration.
Hickok had him over a barrel and he knew it. If he went with the enforcer he might lose his crystal to some Alliance lab but if he stayed in jail, Sira would get away cleanly and do Builder knew what with it.

  “All right,” he said, trying not to think too hard about the decision he just made. “I’ll help you if you get me out of jail.”

  Hickok stuck out his hand and John shook it.

  “Done,” Hickok said. “Now raise your right hand and say what I say.”

  John raised his hand.

  “I, John Porter,” Hickok began.

  “What are you up to, Hickok?” the Sheriff asked, suspicion thick in his voice.

  John repeated the words, then continued parroting the Enforcer.

  “… Solemnly promise to uphold and defend the Articles of the Colonial Alliance and to enforce with justice her laws and the laws of her territories. May the Builder aid me.”

  “Okay,” Hickok said once John finished. “If you’ve got anything here, you’d better get it, we’re leaving.”

  “I don’t think so,” Batts said. He stood with his arms folded across his chest and a half smile on his lips that clearly said he had no intention of letting John go.

  “You don’t understand,” Hickok said in an easy manner that reminded John uncomfortably of Morgan. “I’ve just made young John here my deputy.”

  “What?”

  John was surprised to find that the exclamation came from himself.

  “That doesn’t change anything,” Batts said. “I can arrest deputy enforcers.”

  “That’s true,” Hickok admitted, stroking his mustache sagely. “But I think you’ll find that you need authorization from the governor to do that. Now, if you send a message to Saint Louis by etherium telegraph, you should have your answer back in a few days. Until then, however, you have no authority to arrest my deputy.”

  John thought Batts was going to draw on the enforcer. The sheriff’s hand kept twitching toward the hilt of his pistol and a pulsing vein stood out on his forehead. It was clear he was thinking fast, trying to find some way to hang on to John, to make John his prize and not Hickok’s.

  “Fine,” he said at last. “But I want you and this walking disaster area out of my town by sunset.”

  “Fine,” Hickok said. “Let’s go, Johnny.”

  Numbly, John followed the enforcer out the hole in the wall and onto the sunlit streets of Sprocketville. He’d never been thrown out of a town before, and now he had to leave his own home. Probably forever.

  Bill Hickok paused a moment, looking down into John’s face, then he clapped him on the shoulder.

  “Been a hell of a day, hasn’t it, son?”

  John had to admit, it had.

  Chapter 9

  Family Ties

  The second Robi cleared the broken hole that was Fixer’s back wall she turned to the right.

  Run.

  At the alley’s end, a dirty machine shop leaned as if its peeling boards were tired. A filth-encrusted window faced the alley under a flat roof ten feet up. Robi could hear shouting and commotion coming from the street. It wouldn’t take curious onlookers long to find their way to the scene of the blast. At least she was still ahead of Batts and his—

  “There you are.”

  A man-mountain in a red waistcoat burst around the corner, throwing his arms wide. Robi didn’t know which of Batt’s deputies this was, but it didn’t matter. He lunged forward, trying to wrap her up in his enormous reach, but coming at her straight on was a mistake. Robi dove forward, tucking her head down, and rolled between the deputy’s legs. As she came up, her hand closed around the loose dust of the alley; before she was fully on her feet she turned, flinging the grit into the deputy’s face as he whirled around.

  “You bitch,” he swore, charging at the spot where she’d stood.

  A moment later he slammed into the window of the machine shop, scattering the glass in a rain of green shards. Robi kicked the stunned man behind his knee, knocking him down on all fours, then, before he could clear his vision, she leaped up on his back and vaulted up, catching the roof above with both hands.

  Grunting with the effort, she pulled herself up and rolled away from the edge, lying perfectly flat.

  In the alley below the deputy was swearing as he got the dirt out of his eyes. Robi pressed herself flat against the roof and tried to quiet her breathing but she needn’t have bothered.

  “What happened?” Batts’ voice floated up from below.

  “The girl got past me,” the deputy said.

  “Stay here,” Batts said, disgust in his voice. “Try not to let any more children escape. And clean up, your face is bleeding.”

  The sheriff’s footsteps receded down the alley, leaving the grumbling deputy behind. He might look for her but he would never think to look right under his own nose. Or above it, as the case might be.

  If someone’s chasing you, find a place to hide and let them go by. The old man …

  The old …

  Robi’s limbs began to shake and her eyes filled with tears. She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood but she couldn’t stop. Her body contorted as sobs wracked her and she stuffed her fist into her mouth to muffle the sound. She lay there, trying not to move until the worst of it passed.

  Her face burned with shame. The last time she cried was when the old man died. It had been over a year, but the memory of it still twisted in her guts like a knife.

  O O O

  It had been a simple job.

  Break into a heavily-guarded, high-security Alliance lab, steal a sealed canister from a vault, and get out clean.

  Easy.

  It had gone smoothly. Then it all fell apart.

  The old man went to meet with the client. Robi had seen him once, big, with broad shoulders and olive skin—Hawaiian maybe, or a South-Sea Islander. The old man called him Kest. Clearly they knew each other, but Kest wasn’t one of their regular business associates.

  Maybe that was why he went alone. Took the canister and ordered Robi to stay behind.

  But Robi didn’t stay.

  As soon as the old man was gone, she sneaked out and ran to the meeting place. From the roof of a building across the street, she watched the exchange through a pair of binoculars. Kest was there, all square jaw and iron gray hair. He brought several men with him, dressed in hooded green robes. Once Kest had his canister, his men attacked. What they didn’t know, couldn’t have known, was that Hiro Laryn learned his skills from his father Yuguri Takahashi. Yuguri hadn’t been a thief. Yuguri had been an assassin.

  Hiro had done a lot to sever ties with his father, including taking a Western surname. What Hiro had not done, however, was forgotten Yuguri’s training.

  Hiro took down the men in the green robes quickly, then turned to the window to make his escape. Before he could flee, however, another hooded man appeared. He moved so fast it was as if he’d sprung right out of the ground. Without challenge or warning, he raised a pistol and shot Hiro in the back.

  Robi watched in horror as blood spread across her father’s shirt. Mortally wounded, the old man reached out and jerked off the man’s hood, clutching it as he crumpled to the floor.

  O O O

  The man beneath it had had sunken eyes and a large nose in the middle of an egg-shaped, bald head. That face was seared into her memory and it haunted her nightmares.

  Now the face had a name to go with it.

  Derek Morgan.

  Every night when she missed the old man’s voice bidding her good night, she thought of what she would do if she saw him or the gray-haired man again. She’d make them suffer for what they took from her. She’d make them pay.

  No matter what.

  “I’m sorry, old man,” she choked.

  He’d been right there, standing in Fixer’s shop as easy as you please—and she froze. He’d almost killed her. Worse, it had been easy for him. Her life was in his hands so quickly she hadn’t had time to think.

  The stabbing pain came ag
ain and Robi gave herself to it, sobbing as quietly as she could. She’d always thought her father prepared her for everything, but in that moment she knew it wasn’t true. The only way she could kill Morgan was if she saw him coming from far enough away to use a flux rifle on him. Even the enforcer had had trouble with him.

  Robi suddenly sat bolt upright on the roof as the full magnitude of the thought struck her.

  The enforcer.

  Morgan hadn’t come to Fixer’s shop looking for her, he didn’t know her from Eve. He was looking for John. On top of that, John knew or guessed something about Morgan, something Morgan didn’t want known. That was why he tried to kill John.

  Robi looked around, suddenly realizing where she was, and pressed herself flat on the roof again. Below her, on the street, the enforcer and the sheriff were arguing, presumably over John’s fate. It didn’t really matter who won, the important thing was that Derek Morgan couldn’t afford to let John live. That meant he’d be back to finish the job. All Robi had to do was wait and watch—and steal a flux rifle. If she kept close to John, sooner or later, Morgan would be back.

  “I’m sorry, dad,” she whispered again. She wiped the tears from her eyes. “I let you down this time but I swear that I’ll get that bastard when he comes for John. I won’t fail you—not again.”

  The voices on the street raised and Robi ventured a quick look over the edge of the roof. The enforcer had his hand on John’s shoulder and Batts seemed angry. Clearly the enforcer had prevailed in the custody battle.

  “I want you and this walking disaster area out of my town by sunset,” Batts yelled as John and the enforcer turned to leave.

  That could be a problem.

  Robi’s travel bag and all her gear were back at the hotel room she’d rented when she first arrived in Sprocketville. It would take her at least an hour to get back there, sneak into her room, and get her things. If the enforcer took John to the train station, she might have a chance of catching them, but what if they left town some other way? She was sure Morgan would track them somehow, but what was she to do?

  The sun already hung low in the sky. Whatever the enforcer intended to do, he had to do it soon. Hickok seemed to be leading John in toward the center of town, where Robi’s hotel was located. If she ran straight there, she would beat Hickok and John.