The Brass Giant

by Brooke Johnson

  “So I heard. How is your back?”

  “Better,” he said, turning south, away from the University. “The doctor finally cleared me to the leave the house, much to my mother’s displeasure. She worries there will be another attack.”

  Petra sobered at the thought. “You don’t think there will be, do you?”

  Emmerich frowned. “Not from the Luddites.”

  They continued down Medlock, walking in solemn silence until Petra found the words to speak. “You said we needed to talk.” The words felt heavy on her tongue, and her heartbeat quickened with anticipation. “In your note. What did you—­”

  “Later,” he said, forcing an unsteady smile onto his lips, a smile that did not reach his eyes.

  Her heart stuttered, panic sinking deep into her chest. “Emmerich, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he said, coming to a stop. “The only thing you need to concern yourself with now is getting properly dressed.” This time, when he smiled, it was genuine, lifting the whole of his face as he looked into her eyes.

  “Dressed?”

  He gestured toward the nearest building, and Petra saw that he had led her to her home.

  “You can’t very well work on the automaton wearing that, can you?”

  He waited in the street while she ran upstairs to change into Solomon’s clothes. No one seemed to pay her any mind as she darted in and out of the apartment, but she did hear a faint whisper of “odd” from one of her siblings. They could think her odd. She did not care. She joined Emmerich downstairs, newly outfitted, and they made for the University.

  The lobby bustled with students and Guild members, many of them arguing over missed deadlines and late term papers, others dithering over the conditions of their projects and work spaces in light of the attack.

  Petra and Emmerich navigated through the dense crowd, bumping shoulders with students and Guild men alike. Petra held her hat firmly to her head as they headed up the stairs and across the upper workshop floor, afraid someone might recognize her from her blunder at the University all that time ago. It seemed ages since that day, far longer than a ­couple of months. Had she guessed then that she would soon be working on a top-­secret Guild project, she wouldn’t have believed it.

  She couldn’t help but grin at the thought of working on the automaton again. It had been dull working on nothing but ordinary machines—­pocket watches and desk clocks, nothing more challenging than a grandfather clock to occupy her. The automaton was a feat of clockwork engineering—­and she had designed it. She doubted she’d ever be happy repairing simple machines again, not after creating such a technological marvel.

  Lost in her thoughts, she didn’t watch where she was going and collided with someone. She glanced up, an apology working its way up her throat, but the words died on her lips. Hugh Lyndon glared back at her—­his graying, dark blond hair parted strictly down the side, frameless spectacles glinting in the electric light, the permanent frown line wrinkling his forehead. Petra’s mouth went dry.

  If he recognized her, he made no show of it. She quickly averted her eyes, muttered a hasty apology, and scurried after Emmerich. As they climbed the stairs at the back of the workshop, she glanced toward the crowd of men, certain that a certain pair of glasses glinted in her direction.

  The moment Emmerich opened the door to the Guild offices, she shoved through, terrified that Lyndon and the Guild coppers would follow, that they would find her. She hurried down the hall to Emmerich’s office, expecting men to throw open the door and arrest her at any moment, but the hallway remained quiet and empty.

  Emmerich pressed his key into the office lock, and she immediately squeezed through the open door and pressed herself against the wall, grateful to be out of plain view. She exhaled a relieved sigh, the familiar smells of the workshop—­the metallic tang of polished brass, the robust scents of grease and oil—­relaxing her. She’d forgotten how it felt to stand here, enveloped in the resonant hum of the University walls, surrounded by whirring gears and groaning linkages hidden behind the walls. She breathed it all in, the sense of rightness driving all thoughts of Lyndon and the Guild from her mind.

  Stepping away from the wall, she strode across the office and examined the automaton. In her absence, Emmerich had finished the arm mechanisms and fitted the joint transmissions in the automaton’s rib cage, but nothing else. The plating lay in a heap at the base of the crane, and the pieces for the double mainspring lay on the worktable, ready to be assembled.

  “I wanted to wait until you came back to finish it,” he said, joining her in front of the half-­completed automaton.

  “What if I never came back?”

  “This is our project, Petra. I would have left it unfinished.”

  She couldn’t help but smile.

  Working in comfortable silence, they sat at the table, fitting the mainsprings for assembly. Emmerich concentrated on winding the mainspring around the arbor while Petra carefully fed him the weighty ribbon of metal. He worked slowly and deliberately, clamping the coiled spring at careful intervals to contain the residual tension. At even the slightest slip, the mainspring could snap out and strike one of them, causing serious injury.

  Each mainspring for the automaton was over one hundred feet long and needed to be tightly wound into a two-­foot-­diameter barrel. No one had ever built a mainspring so large. At such a size, the residual tension should provide enough energy to power all the automaton’s mechanical systems—­in theory. She and Emmerich had only their calculations to go by, and though the numbers seemed sound, there was the very real possibility that the mainsprings might not deliver enough energy to the machine’s main systems. If the mainsprings failed, they would have to forge new ones and try again until they got it right.

  Emmerich finally latched the end of the mainspring to the arbor, and Petra held the wound spring firmly in the barrel as he left the worktable and prepared the crane that would lift the devices to their proper place on the automaton’s back. Two massive gears sat below the crane, each one over two feet in diameter and weighing two hundred pounds apiece. Carefully, they rolled the first loaded barrel to one of the gears, and Emmerich clamped the two pieces together while Petra quickly spun bolts into place with the power spanner.

  They repeated the process with the second mainspring, both of them covered in grease and sweat by the time they finished attaching the gear and barrel. A streak of black oil smudged Emmerich’s cheek and greased his hairline, both their clothes marred with dark stains where they’d wiped their hands clean.

  “And now the hard part,” he said, eyeing the exposed automaton.

  The automaton’s innards gleamed in the electric light—­gears, rods, bearings, cams, sliders, and pulleys fitted together in a masterpiece of mechanized art. Petra noticed several cylindrical mechanisms that she hadn’t designed, built into spring-­loaded hinges around the arms and in the chest—­probably last minute additions to the design changes requested by the Guild. Had she been helping Emmerich instead of hiding away in her apartment, she might know what they were for.

  “Help me with the winch,” said Emmerich from the other side of the automaton. At the base of the crane, he turned the winch lever down and slowly fed a length of cable onto the floor. He then carried the hooked end of the cable up the fifteen-­foot ladder standing next to the automaton and threaded the winch cable through a secondary pulley system built into the crane. “All right. Turn it off,” he said, letting the weight of the hook pull the length of cable to the floor. “And attach the cable to the first barrel.”

  Petra shut off the mechanism and carefully hooked the cable onto the mainspring barrel as Emmerich positioned himself on the ladder. Once he was ready, she returned to the winch and pushed the lever up. The gears behind the wall grated as the cable pulled taut, the crane groaning and creaking as it took on the full weight of the mainspring barrel.


  “Slowly,” said Emmerich. He carefully guided the barrel to the automaton’s back, and when it came to the proper height, Petra released the winch lever and brought the crane to a halt. Emmerich held out his hand, keeping the barrel steady against the automaton frame. “Power screwdriver.”

  Petra removed the spanner head from the electric power tool and fastened the screwdriver piece to the gear base, locking the screwdriver shaft into place. She pressed the clockwise switch and the tool spun musically.

  Emmerich carefully pushed the barrel into the first empty chamber in the automaton’s back, and Petra passed the screwdriver up to him, steadying the base of the ladder as he fastened the mainspring barrel to the frame. They repeated the process with the second mainspring, more quickly than the first. Their measurements had been perfect. The barrel gears lined up seamlessly with the winding gear, locking into place without any difficulties.

  Emmerich exhaled forcefully and stepped down from the ladder, wiping his forehead with his shirtsleeve. “Well,” he said, placing his hands on his hips. “Let’s see if this thing works.”

  He fetched the winding stem, a large bar with a square peg end, and jammed it into the center of the winding gear between the two mainspring barrels.

  Petra handed him the winding rod. “What if it doesn’t work?”

  He sighed. “Then we figure out what we did wrong and try again.” He took the winding rod from her grasp and slipped it through the stem, where it locked into place, forming the complete key. He pressed his palms against the underside of the left rod. “Ready?”

  Petra reached her hands over her head and grasped the metal rod, her palms tingling. A few dozen turns and the automaton would have enough power to run idle for a week. For their current purpose, they only needed about three full windings to test the automaton’s capabilities.

  Slowly, they turned the winding key, the clicking of the pawl against the barrel gear sending shivers down Petra’s spine. Again they turned the key, and again, until the winding gear had turned three revolutions. Together they removed the key and set it aside. The gears inside the automaton shifted, and a steady, deep hum reverberated outward from the primary gearbox.

  “So far so good.” Emmerich pushed his hair out of his face.

  Petra could hardly contain herself, as if the dizzying elation spreading through her body would bubble out of her mouth in fits of giggles at any moment. Her heart thumped hard against her ribs, beating in rhythm to the automaton’s balance wheel.

  “Petra,” said Emmerich softly. “Come here,”

  She turned away from the automaton and joined him at the crane, and he carefully lowered the machine to the floor. The jointed plates of its feet spread outward for stability as its knees buckled under the full weight of all the moving metal, the automatic gear systems whirring into action. Gears grated and knocked as the automaton balanced itself, the primary gearbox reacting to the electrically transmitted signals assigned to the gyroscope in its pelvis—­another of Emmerich’s brilliant designs.

  He climbed the ladder again and detached the automaton from the support frame still connected to the crane. When he returned to the table, he slipped his hand around Petra’s waist and brought the wireless control apparatus in front of them. “If you would do the honors, my lady.”

  Petra’s fingers twitched toward the control switches. “Are you sure?”

  “This is as much your automaton as it is mine.”

  He squeezed her tightly to his side, and she breathed in the saltiness of his sweat, the engine grease on his skin. She touched her fingers to the walking control, and a tingle ran up her arms. Slowly, she pressed the walk switch forward.

  The automaton responded with a grating of gears, a clanking shift, a shudder, and its right foot lifted from the ground. Utterly ecstatic that the automaton moved, Petra released the controls, and the automaton’s foot, hovering a mere two inches off the ground, stomped down. The floor beneath them shuddered.

  Emmerich, grinning broadly, wrapped his arm around Petra and hugged her against his chest as he took hold of the control apparatus, twiddling his fingers across the control switches as if the movements came instinctively.

  The automaton stepped forward with a long stride, crossing a third of the workshop in a single step. Turning, it raised its left arm, then its right. It crouched, spun, walked, kicked, and punched flawlessly. At the end of the performance, it swept into a deep bow, executing the motion with humanly grace.

  Petra spun around in Emmerich’s arms, gazing into his eyes as he placed the control apparatus on the table. “Emmerich,” she whispered, in utter awe of what they had created together. “It’s perfect.”

  He smiled at her and gently wiped a smudge of grease from her cheek. “It wouldn’t exist if not for you.”

  She trembled at his touch, the exhilaration of completing the automaton flowing through her body. They actually did it—­they built the automaton—­and she felt as if she could do anything, be anything. She searched his eyes, aware of his grip on her waist, tugging her close, her hands pressed against his chest, his heart thudding against her fingertips. Her pulse quickened and she felt her breath seize in her throat as her gaze fell to his lips, daring herself to bend to her desires.

  “Petra, I—­”

  She silenced him with a kiss, pressing her lips hard against his as she slipped her arms around his neck and rose up on her tiptoes, breathing in his warmth, the heady scents of grease and oil mingling with the saltiness of his skin. Unknown passion welled within her, and she leaned harder into the kiss, emptying her heart of everything she felt for him, everything she had tried to ignore, desire she had so long kept hidden beneath uncertainty and doubt.

  Emmerich gathered her tightly into his arms, pulling her hard against him as he reeled backward from the force of the kiss. The feel of his breath mingled with hers, and she inhaled the intoxicating air as if it was the very breath that gave her life. She entwined her fingers through his soft hair, her heart racing as she tangled herself in his arms, losing herself in his lips. The tangy smell of metal and sweat, the way his hands pressed firmly into her back, drawing her against his chest, the taste of his tongue as he deepened the kiss with an intensity that stole the breath from her lungs—­she felt as if the world fell out from under her feet, an energizing tingle spreading from her mouth to her toes. Her hands slid from his neck to his chest, her fingers tenderly touching the wrinkled, sweaty folds in his grease-­stained shirt. Blood pumped beneath his hot skin, an electrifying pulse against her fingertips as she melted into the warmth of his body, never wanting to let go.

  Seconds might have passed, or perhaps hours. Perhaps time had stopped, letting the world fall by the wayside. Petra found she did not care. She could stand for an eternity in Emmerich’s arms, pressed against him with such force that their hearts beat as one machine, pumping life into them both.

  When finally their lips parted, she panted for breath, every muscle in her body aching to wrap herself in his embrace, to never again leave his side. He kissed her lightly a second time, a gentle brush of his lips against hers, and she found his control a cruel torture, wanting nothing more than to lose herself in his lips again. He gently lowered her to the floor and cupped her face in his hands. She expected triumph in his eyes, but all she saw was sadness. He placed a lock of hair behind her ear.

  “There is something I must tell you,” he said.

  Petra’s heart raced in her throat, a chill radiating through her bones as she searched his eyes for what he might say, what she longed to hear, the words that would slay the last of her doubts and uncertainties, a declaration of what she felt in her heart for him, returned willingly and passionately and without question. But he remained silent, the words still hidden behind his lips as he bowed his head with a frown.

  “Emmerich, what is it?” she asked, raising her hand to his face, reveling in the heat of his skin a
gainst her palm.

  He gently took her hand in his and stared deep into her eyes, his gaze dark and somber. “Petra, I want you to understand . . . everything I did—­all I ever wanted was to be an engineer, to build a better world through science. I never—­” He cut himself short, pressing his lips together in a firm line.

  “You never what?”

  “When I met you, I didn’t expect that I would—­that we—­” He swallowed. “I only knew that I could not lose you, not before you knew who you were, not before you remembered. If I had known what the Guild was planning, if I had realized sooner—­” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Petra.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The automaton,” he said, frowning. He left her side, leaving her cold and alone next to the whirring machine as he strode across the room to his desk and slipped a key into the lock above the second drawer. Even in the dying roar of the automaton’s gear systems, she heard the faint click. Emmerich retrieved a sheaf of papers and laid them on the table. “It’s a war machine.”

  The words struck her like a gunshot to the chest. “What?”

  “This is what we built,” he said, pointing to the schematics on his desk.

  She crossed to his desk and surveyed the designs, anger building in her chest as the realization sunk in. A war machine. She gritted her teeth, the papers trembling in her shaking hands. The automaton was a mechanism of destruction, of death.

  The basic design laid out in the schematics was similar to what she had originally drawn, but gear trains and sliders had been moved slightly to make room for the cylindrical mechanisms in the arms—­weapons, guns. She flipped to a detailed schematic of the arm chambers. Massive guns. Designed to shoot elongated, copper-­coated minié balls. The additions to the chest designs were grenade launchers, the same awful projectiles that had killed so many ­people in the square, that had nearly killed Emmerich.

  Petra clenched the design in her fist, tears splattering on the inked pages. “Why?” Her voice shook with anger. “Why would the Guild build this?” She glared at him. “Why would you build this?”