The Brass Giant

by Brooke Johnson

  Only Emmerich.

  She placed the pages on the table next to the broken pocket watch and dropped into the chair. With the innards of the timepiece splayed across the tabletop, she poised her pencil above the paper and sketched the automaton’s main power source. Mr. Stricket was right. Whoever had constructed the pocket watch was a master clockwork engineer, the sort of person she aspired to be. Perhaps the same person had been the one to give her the watch, the one who etched their love inside. The only clue was in the decorative C on the case, and she had yet to figure out what the letter meant.

  Concentrating on transcribing the design, Petra didn’t notice the time. Not until Mr. Stricket interrupted her at twenty minutes past four did she finally stop working.

  He tapped on the door to the workroom and peered in. “Have you made any progress?”

  She flipped the automaton design over and traded her pencil for a screwdriver. The watch was in more pieces than when she had started, but luckily, she’d only lost a few pinions and three minuscule gears when the watch crashed against the door. Those she could easily replace with the spare watch parts from the shop.

  “I thought I’d take it apart to see just how it worked,” she said. “It’s unlike any watch I’ve ever seen. The design is magnificent.”

  “And I see you’re studying it well,” he said with a chuckle. He shuffled across the room and fetched a small flat box from one of the shelves. “You can keep the parts in here and repair the watch when we have our after-­hours meetings.”

  “Thank you.” Petra brushed the many pieces into the box and pushed it aside. Picking up the now-­empty watch case, she turned it over in her hand and examined the exterior. The glass would need to be replaced and the hinge straightened, but she would have it back to rights eventually. She rubbed her finger across the C, recalling again the way Vice-­Chancellor Lyndon looked at it, as if he had seen it before.

  “Mr. Stricket,” she called.

  He peered around the door. “Yes, my dear?”

  “Do you know what this stands for?” She brought him into the light and handed him the pocket watch casing.

  He ran his index finger along the C and adjusted his glasses. “I’ve not seen a watch with this particular ornamentation before. It certainly wasn’t mass-­manufactured.” He drew back his chair and sat down, flipping all three magnifying lenses over his spectacles. He tilted the watch into the light. “Yes . . . tailor made, and by a skilled hand. Fine attention to detail.” He turned the case over. “And real gold, not just gilded brass—­at least eighteen-­carat by my eye.” Lowering the watch onto the table, he flipped the magnifying lenses away from his glasses and tapped the front of the casing. “This ornamentation does seem familiar, though I can’t recall where I might have seen it before.”

  Petra visibly deflated.

  “I am sorry, my dear,” he said, patting her on the arm. “Old age does odd things to the memory. It will probably come to me in the middle of the night, when I least expect.” He smiled warmly.

  “Well, if you do remember, let me know.”

  “Of course.”

  Mr. Stricket returned to the storefront, and Petra folded the automaton designs and stuffed them into her apron pocket. It pained her to leave the pocket watch behind, but it was no good to her broken.

  “See you tomorrow,” she said, waving goodbye as she stepped through the door, intending to head home.

  Tolly stood at the bottom of the steps, his arms across his chest.

  Petra faltered for a moment, but rather than let him think he had upset her, she raised her chin and marched past.

  He grabbed her by the arm. “Petra, I wanted to apologize.”

  “Good,” she said, pushing his hand away. “You ought to.”

  He studied her for a moment. “Are we all right?”

  Her nostrils flared. “All right?” She landed a punch on his arm. “You ass!”

  He threw his hands up defensively. “I’m sorry, okay? What else do you want me to say?”

  She reared back again, but her fist fell limply to her side.

  Tolly rubbed his arm. “God, Petra, you charley-­horsed me.”

  “Good,” she snapped. “I hope it bruises.” He deserved as much.

  She left him standing there, still rubbing his arm.

  “Think about Saturday evening, okay?” he called out.

  Petra waved goodbye without responding and kept walking, pulling her automaton designs from her apron. She grinned. There wasn’t anything to think about.

  She already had plans.

  Chapter 5

  AS SOON AS her shift ended that Saturday afternoon, Petra headed to Pemberton Square in the first quadrant, her and Emmerich’s agreed meeting place. When she arrived, she sat down on a bench in front of the bank and stretched her legs, basking in the afternoon sun.

  The last two days were a blur.

  She had spent every spare moment finishing the automaton design, sneaking trips into the storage room during her shifts at the pawnshop, scribbling notes under the dinner table, and working by candlelight as she sketched through the night. She hadn’t slept properly in days.

  She pulled the designs from her pocket and flipped through the pages. She hoped Emmerich would like them. For her to spend hours on the sketches and have them rejected . . . she wasn’t sure she could handle it.

  “Miss Wade?”

  She looked up, and a reflection of the sun from the windows above blinded her. “Emmerich?” She shielded her eyes and recognized his wide grin. She sprang up from the bench and stuffed the sketches into her pocket. “You’re early.”

  “Did you finish the designs?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I hope you approve. I didn’t draw the linkages to exact form, only the basic frames and equations, but I thought you’d be interested in the power source that I came up with, a double—­”

  He pressed a finger to his lips. “Not here. We’ll discuss the details in the workshop.” He offered his arm, and once her hand was settled in the crook of his elbow, he led her across the square. “We should have the floor to ourselves today, but just to be safe, I thought it best we err on the side of caution. I’ve stored a change of clothes in my desk. I thought perhaps if you hid your hair, you might pass as a student. I know it isn’t very proper for a girl to wear trousers, but—­”

  “I don’t mind,” she said brightly.

  When they came to the center of the city, Emmerich led Petra north, up the road between the school and the second quadrant, instead of to the University front entrance. The street was wide enough to have a footpath alongside the blackened brick, a commodity mostly absent from the streets of the fourth quadrant.

  The University gleamed to their right, a monumental display of brass pipes and steam grates. To their left, the Regency-­style buildings of the second quadrant stretched high above, balconies and bay windows looming overhead. A jolt of jealousy gripped Petra as she realized that Emmerich lived somewhere among those grandiose suites with his family, while she lived in a one-­bedroom flat with a dozen others and barely a corner to call her own. She would bet he had his own bedroom—­a four-­poster bed, an armoire, and perhaps even his own toilet.

  They came to Delaney Road, the main thoroughfare through the second quadrant. Steam-­powered rickshaws wheeled up and down the road, spurting great puffs of steam and smoke as they darted in and out of the web of streets. The street bustled with shoppers, ladies in silk and satin fluttering behind their lace fans at the few top-­hatted gentlemen posturing outside the shops. Stacked atop the ground level department stores and sprawling restaurants, the lofty levels above housed a number of specialty shops and cafés—­chocolatiers, silversmiths, and milliners, even an apothecary and a florist. Elegant porticoes and painted windows overlooked the length of the street, whitewashed catwalks acting as metal footpaths for the bust
ling horde of finely dressed shoppers visiting the upper levels.

  As the two of them passed by, the trolley-­lift bell rang and the pedestrians in the center of the street cleared a path. Suspended by cables, an empty row of plush chairs descended from the aboveground trolley and landed in the middle of the road. Three women and two gentlemen climbed aboard, feeding coins into the automatic ticket dispenser before taking their seats.

  Petra would give almost anything to be one of them. Ever since she was a girl, she had wanted to ride the Delaney trolley—­a marvel of engineering—­but she never had a reason to. The finery of Delaney Road was not for the likes of her.

  Once the trolley passengers belted themselves in, the conductor flipped the controls, activating the drive motor. The row of seats rose from the street and rejoined the rest of the trolley car, where several beams locked it into place. Then the trolley-­lift engines rumbled and the locomotive rolled along the rails a few hundred feet before shifting gears and shooting up seven floors.

  Petra and Emmerich passed beyond Delaney, and he gestured ahead, toward the northern wall of the city. “There is a ser­vice tunnel ahead that leads to the lower student workshops,” he said. “It’s the best way for us to get in during work hours without notice.”

  Near the end of the street, Emmerich pulled her into an alcove between two sizable ducts. Petra’s boots clanked against metal as they stepped onto a venting grate and warm steam billowed around them, dampening the hem of her skirt.

  Emmerich crouched beneath one of the ducts and opened a panel set in the ground, revealing the ser­vice shaft to the subcity. He held his hand toward Petra. “Let me help you down.”

  She gripped his outstretched hand and stepped down into the ser­vice shaft. The sweltering heat of the subcity enveloped her as she descended the ladder, the tap of her shoes sending tinny echoes down the passageway. Beneath her, the deafening noise of the subcity machines drowned out all other sound. She reached the end of the ser­vice shaft and hopped down from the ladder, the clang of her feet on the metal floor unheard amidst the heavy thrum and violent hiss of the subcity.

  Pipes lined the low-­ceilinged corridor, snaking in all directions, and as the tunnel went on, the floor fell away to more ser­vice shafts, leading to the utmost depths of the city. Petra itched to delve deeper and explore the engines that drove the University. Somewhere below, this stretch of subcity housed the University’s power hub, an unrivaled array of boilers and engines, powering the whole third quadrant above. Under the fourth quadrant, the subcity retained only an echo of the machineries, but it was a beautiful sight—­pipes, valves, and gauges neatly organized against walls and columns, leaving an open space of easily navigated platforms and spectacular views of gargantuan gear trains and engine control decks. Here, the subcity was compact and cramped.

  Emmerich touched her lightly on the shoulder. “Follow me.”

  He led her through the ser­vice tunnel, navigating the maze of pipe-­laden passageways with ease. Petra followed, beads of sweat sliding down the side of her face and collecting in the collar of her blouse. She tried memorizing the path, but after the eleventh junction she gave up. How Emmerich had discovered his way through without losing himself forever in the bowels of the subcity, she couldn’t guess.

  They came to the end of a narrow tunnel, and Emmerich offered his hand. “This may be a bit tricky.”

  A collection of vertical pipes stood before them like swaying trees, unconnected to ceiling or floor. The only means of stepping through the pipes was an uneven line of couplings, fixed with narrow footholds for the ser­vice engineers.

  Petra was unafraid of heights—­she had stood at the edge of the observatory deck without fear—­but with the dark, gaping maw beneath her, a pit of unknown depths . . . She shuddered. The pipes stretched for eternity, disappearing into infernal blackness. Her stomach clenched and she stepped backward into the safety of the tunnel, dragging herself away from the edge.

  Emmerich stepped onto the first foothold without hesitation. “It’s not far, and it’s steadier than it looks,” he said, holding out his hand again.

  Petra shut her eyes, steeling her nerves. She knew if she didn’t muster the courage to cross soon, she never would. Besides, if Emmerich could do it, so could she. She inhaled a deep breath and took his hand.

  She placed her foot on the first coupling, clinging to Emmerich’s hand as she steadied herself against the nearest pipe. The metal vibrated beneath her fingers.

  “What are these pipes for?” she asked, paralyzed. Her voice trembled as much as the pipe.

  “Water mostly,” he said. “Some are drainage pipes, and others push water to the tanks on the top level. Don’t worry,” he added calmly, squeezing her hand. “It’ll soon pass.”

  Finally, the pipe settled, and they moved slowly forward, Petra tightly gripping his hand as he talked her calmly from coupling to coupling. The pipes swayed with each step. “Just a few more steps, Petra, and we’ll be in the workshop.”

  There was a rumbling below, and the pipe she stood on began to tremble. Petra squeezed Emmerich’s hand.

  “Just hold on and wait for it to pass,” he said.

  She gripped his hand tighter as the water rushed through the pipe. The vibrations shook her entire body, and her foot slid a quarter of an inch across the narrow foothold. If she waited any longer, she’d fall. She had no way to brace herself, no way to reposition her foot. She hurriedly stepped across the gap to the next pipe, but as she moved between them, the pipe that held her weight quivered violently and her toes slipped from the edge.

  For a moment weightlessness seized her.

  She reached toward Emmerich instinctively, and his hand caught her by the wrist. Her sweaty fingers clung to his arm, and she swung across the empty void, slamming into a coupling as she struggled to hold on. A sharp pain stung her hip, but she was no longer falling.

  Emmerich held her by the arm with both hands, straddling the gap between two pipes. The muscles in his arms strained as she dangled beneath him.

  She gripped his wrists, her heart thundering in her ears. “Can you pull me up?”

  He nodded. Sweat slid down his forehead and dripped off the tip of his nose, landing on Petra’s cheek. With a deep breath, he lifted her a few inches. She stretched her leg toward the nearest coupling, trying not to think of how heavily gravity pulled at her. If either of them slipped, if Emmerich let go . . . She swallowed the tightness in her throat, concentrating on reaching the pipe. If she could secure her weight on the joint, she could easily climb back up to the footholds with his help.

  The darkness below reached for her, beckoning her downward, daring her to fall. She eased her leg upward, but as her knee grazed the coupling, the folded automaton designs started to slip out of her pocket. Panicking, she dropped her left hand and grabbed the schematics before they could fall. Emmerich’s grip tightened around her wrist as he strained to lift her, but her weight was too much. He hunched over again, lowering her out of reach of the coupling.

  With nowhere else to stash the designs, Petra unbuttoned the top three buttons of her blouse, dangling precariously by one arm.

  “What are you doing?” asked Emmerich, hastily glancing away.

  “The automaton designs.” She delicately removed the schematics and her screwdriver from her apron pocket and stuffed them down the front of her shirt and into her corset. Once they were safely tucked away, she grabbed onto Emmerich’s arm again. “Okay,” she said. “Pull me up. I’m ready this time.”

  Grunting with the effort, he lifted her a second time, higher than before. She raised her foot to the coupling and with Emmerich’s help climbed up to the next foothold. She braced herself against one of the pipes and stood, wiping the sweat from her face and hands with the hem of her apron. She started to tremble, shaking uncontrollably as a cold fatigue stole over her. Her head spun and she felt herself s
way, but Emmerich’s grip remained steady on her wrist.

  “Just a bit farther now,” he said softly. He gently took her trembling hands and positioned her arms around his neck, then laid his hands on her waist, pulling her close. She was intimately aware of how near she was to him, hardly a breath apart. “Hold onto me,” he whispered, looking into her eyes. “And watch your step.”

  She nodded and let him guide her the rest of the way, clinging to him as she sought the couplings with her feet. One step at a time they neared the other side of the swaying pipes, and when they finally reached the end and met the awaiting ledge, Emmerich tightened his hold on her waist and lifted her bodily onto the precipice. Once her feet touched the floor, he gently released her, and she backed into the safe stability of the wall, heart still pounding.

  “Are you all right?” He followed her onto the ledge and lifted a hand to her face as if to brush her hair from her eyes, but then hesitated.

  Petra’s cheeks flushed. She must look a wreck, all sweaty and bruised. She raised a shaking hand to tuck her hair aside and chuckled nervously, glancing away. “I’m starting to think that this might be more dangerous than it’s worth.”

  Emmerich dropped his hand and fiddled with the edge of his pocket, frowning. “Do tell me you are unhurt.” She heard the worry in his voice. “I should not have brought you this way. I didn’t think—­”

  “I’m all right,” she said, her heart thudding heavily in her chest. “A little bruised maybe, but otherwise I’m fine.”

  “You’re sure?”

  She forced a feeble smile to her lips and nodded, still trembling. “Yes.”

  Emmerich pressed his lips into a firm line. “Can you wait here while I fetch your change of clothes? I’ll be just a moment.”

  She nodded again, shrinking against the wall farthest from the swaying pipes as he ventured through the grate, leaving her alone in the dark, deafening tranquility of the subcity. She sucked in a deep breath and collected herself, trying not to think of what might have happened if she hadn’t been able to hold on.