by L. C. Mawson
Ruth nodded as she levelled her disrupter.
Michel launched himself away from the guard and Ruth pulled the trigger.
The disrupter spluttered in her hand.
The guard used the chance to get across the room, launching itself out of the covered window, causing daylight to flood the bedchamber, momentarily blinding Ruth.
“Are you okay?” she heard Michel ask her.
“Yes, I’m fine, can you go after the guard?”
“No, he’s too far for me to catch up, but I think I have a better idea.”
As Ruth regained her sight, she saw Michel head out into the corridor and pick up the man who was still struggling to get away, dragging him back to the room.
Michel said something to him in French.
Ruth raised an eyebrow as the man answered, waiting for Michel to translate.
“I asked him where the guard went, given that the mission was to protect him.”
“What did he say?”
“They’re meant to return to the manufacturer if they’re damaged.”
“Even if it means abandoning their mission?”
Michel relayed the question.
“Only if they fear that they may become inoperable,” Michel translated back from the man. “It seems that our thief doesn’t want anyone else to get their hands on the mechanical men.”
“Possibly because there is a way to track them using the parts.”
“Or because they don’t want anyone else to be able to reverse-engineer the designs. Right now, you’re the only other party with the knowledge, and you are refusing to sell them. That gives them a monopoly.”
Ruth sighed. “Well, we have one of their defunct guards now. Hopefully I will be able to use the parts or something to identify where he came from, and where his brother went.” She turned to look at the terrified man. “Tell him that he can go as long as he promises not to tell anyone about us.”
Michel relayed the message back to the man, who nodded enthusiastically. As soon as Michel and Ruth stepped away from him, he bolted, leaving them alone.
Ruth moved over to inspect the downed guard as another thought came to her. “Of course, he wouldn’t have been able to tell them much more than the other guard probably will. We may have lost our element of surprise.”
9
Ruth got to work as soon as she arrived back at the ship, and didn’t stop until the next morning. Ivy and Michel stayed by her side, helping to dissect the mechanical guard.
Ivy was more than happy to dive into the work, but Michel seemed noticeably disturbed. Ruth made an effort to finish her work as quickly as possible.
“What is it?” Michel asked as Ruth hesitated over the now defunct aether core.
“Do you see this?” she asked as she inspected the valves around the core with a pair of tweezers. “The aether transfer process they’re using is based on my old designs. It creates a harmonic resonance as the aether is transferred into kinetic energy. I eliminated it because it can interfere with navigational equipment, but if I alter the valves around your aether core, I can have them resonate in tandem. You should be able to use that resonance to figure out where in the city they’re concentrated.”
“Which will mean their factory,” Ivy continued with a grin.
“Hopefully.”
RUTH WAS BACK ON THE ground almost immediately with Michel and Ivy in tow. Modifying Michel to detect other mechanical men had been far easier than she had thought it might be, which she was glad for. After Michel’s obvious discomfort at his non-operational counterpart, Ruth figured that a walk through Paris would be the best thing for him.
“Can you feel anything?” Ruth asked him, wondering if her tracking system was working.
“Yes, I think so. Like a light buzzing coming from all directions.”
Ruth frowned.
“There are probably mechanical men all over the city,” Ivy reasoned. “Not many, but enough to give signals in every direction.”
Ruth nodded in agreement before turning back to Michel. “Is it stronger in any particular direction?”
Michel pivoted on his heel, making several rotations before abandoning that attempt in favour of walking in a small circle. The circle eventually became a spiral as Michel kept walking, and Ruth became hyper aware of how many eyes were now on them.
Michel eventually came to a dead stop.
“That way,” he said, pointing down the street.
“Lead the way,” Ruth told him with a grin.
IVY AND RUTH FOLLOWED close behind Michel as he led them down the Parisian streets. His pace was swift, thanks to some of the more recent additions Ruth had made to his legs, and Ruth found herself wishing that she had worn fewer skirts. She was, after all, in Paris. Anything went here, and it probably wouldn’t get back to London, if Thomas’ escapades were anything to go by.
Eventually, Michel slowed with a frown. “I think we are almost there. It is almost unpleasant now.”
“I’m sorry,” Ruth said. “I will deactivate it as soon as we’ve found them.”
Michel nodded before leading them to the row of factories. Ruth recognised that they couldn’t be more than a couple of streets away from the abandoned factory she and Thomas had encountered the mechanical gunman in.
Michel approached one of the factories, and Ruth could hear the sound of metal straining through the wall. The machines inside were being pushed to their limits.
Michel walked around the building in a full circle before declaring, “This is it. There are... so many inside.”
“Dozens?” Ruth asked, a little disquieted at the thought. That many would be a force to be reckoned with.
Michel shook his head, his reflective eyes seeming wider. Ruth briefly wondered if he was afraid.
“At least a hundred of my siblings are inside,” he eventually managed, chilling her to the bone.
“We’ll do everything we can to free them,” Ruth said, knowing that she was making an assumption that they didn’t want to be there. Still, saying, “And I can deactivate them if they have chosen the wrong side,” seemed a little callous. Especially when Michel had just referred to them as his siblings.
“Look,” Ivy said beneath her breath.
Ruth turned to her to see that she was looking up at a balcony across the street. Ruth just barely saw a pair of reflective eyes watching them before their owner disappeared.
“Come on,” Ruth said. “We should get back.”
10
“That had better not be what I think it is,” Ruth said as Captain Hall placed an aether powered device in front of them.
“What is it?” Ivy asked.
“It’s a bomb,” Captain Hall answered as he glared at Ruth, daring her to go through with her clear protest.
“We’re not blowing up a factory. There’s no way to ensure no collateral.”
“The damage to the surrounding area would be minimal.”
“But still existent. And we have no idea how guilty anyone is. The workers may not know what they’re involved in.”
Captain Hall sighed. “If you have another plan, I would be happy to hear it, but we cannot leave until we are sure that no more mechanical men can be produced.”
Ruth fell silent, finding her lack of military strategy knowledge a hindrance.
“Maybe we can evacuate the factory or something,” Ivy suggested.
“Do what you will,” Captain Hall told them. “Just don’t jeopardise the mission.”
IN THE END, RUTH DECIDED that she and Michel should be the only ones to go. She knew how to set the bomb, and she was also the one most familiar with her plans, meaning that she could get them back without the fear that she had picked up the wrong pieces of paper.
If anyone else accompanied her, it would have drawn more attention, but Michel, while built to slightly different specifications, would hopefully blend in with the other mechanical men.
“Ruth,” Michel said as they finally approached the factory. “I am..
. uneasy.”
“That is to be expected. I would be lying if I said that I was at ease with this myself.”
“I know, but... I am worried that I will prove insufficient.”
“Insufficient?”
“When it comes to protecting you. If there are as many of my siblings inside as we suspect... I could stand a chance against that many humans, but not mechanical men.”
Ruth stepped forward, trying to give him a reassuring smile. “That is why the plan is stealth. With any luck, we won’t have to fight anyone.”
Michel nodded, but didn’t seem entirely convinced. Ruth thought it was sweet that he was so concerned for her, but this wasn’t the time.
“Follow me,” she said as she found a side door that hadn’t been locked.
The factory floor was so busy that Ruth felt immediately secure in the assumption that no one would notice her. She had dressed herself in a plain brown dress and tucked her hair into a plain braid to avoid drawing attention.
Everyone on the floor was noticeably scruffy, but Ruth spotted a particularly well dressed man climbing the stairs up the opposite wall.
“I suspect the offices may be upstairs,” Ruth said, indicating to the small room that the man had entered. It was suspended from the wall by metal beams and seemed to make up the entirety of the upper floor. “If the plans are anywhere, they will be there.”
“Perhaps, but now we know that it is occupied,” Michel said.
Just as Ruth was about to curse their luck, the man headed back down, holding something she couldn’t see in his hands.
“Now it might not be,” Ruth ventured, leading Michel around by the wall to the stairs, doing her best to avoid the eye-line of the well-dressed man until he left the factory.
“What if it is?” he asked.
Ruth shrugged as she led him up the stairs. “Say we got lost. If all else fails, I shall cry.”
“Cry?”
“Men never know what to do with a crying woman.”
They reached the top of the stairs and Ruth could see through the office window that it was empty.
“Keep guard while I look for the plans,” she said to Michel as she brought one of her tools from her pinafore and used it to unlock the office door.
Michel nodded, standing in the door as she crept through.
The office was a mess, with pieces of paper everywhere. It looked like someone had been trying to add to her designs, but she could tell at a glance that most of the additions would only ruin the mechanical men.
She rifled through the papers, sure that the original designs had to be there somewhere. After a few moments, however, someone spoke from outside the door, forcing her to duck down behind the desk.
“What are you doing up here? Mechs aren’t authorised to be in the office.”
“I’m not in the office,” Michel replied as Ruth dared to peek over the desk, seeing that he was being questioned by the well-dressed man, who was now followed by two mechanical men of his own.
“You know what I mean,” the man replied with an irritated wave of his hand. “What are you doing up here?”
“I’m not sure,” Michel said after a moment.
The man sighed. “Great, just what I need: malfunctioning mechs.”
“I’m not sure,” Michel repeated, seemingly playing up the malfunctioning angle.
“Get him down to maintenance,” the man told the two mechanical men - or mechs, as he appeared to be calling them - behind him.
“Incorrect model,” one of the mechs replied.
“What?”
“Incorrect model.”
“What do you mean ‘incorrect model’? Just get him down to maintenance.”
“Incorrect model.”
The man looked as if he was about to hit the mech, but he paused as realisation seemed to strike him. He turned back to Michel. “The mech’s right. You don’t look like them. Your face is wrong. You’re one of The Owl’s machines, aren’t you?”
“I’m not sure,” Michel repeated, impressing Ruth with his commitment to the role.
The man smiled. “Well, you’re definitely not one of mine. She sent you, didn’t she? You’re a spy to retrieve her plans.” His smile faltered. “Which means that she knows that we’re here.” He shook his head. “It’s not as if she can storm the factory with British soldiers. Not on French soil. I’m guessing that’s why she sent you.”
“I’m not sure.”
The man rolled his eyes. “Take him away,” he told the other mechs.
Ruth clutched at her disrupter, but didn’t otherwise move. She hadn’t been able to shorten the refractory period, meaning that she could only take out one of the mechs. Not to mention that it wouldn’t help against the man.
If she revealed herself, there was no doubt that she too would be captured, which would do Michel no good.
Ruth felt the weight of the bomb - split into parts so that it wouldn’t go off - beneath her skirts. She knew that if Captain Hall had been there, he would have told her to ignore Michel and complete the mission.
But he wasn’t there, and Ruth wasn’t about to abandon Michel.
She gave the office another quick look, finding a locked safe, before sneaking back out.
11
“Let me get this straight,” Captain Hall said with a murderous glare after Ruth had finished informing him of how the mission had gone, “you not only failed to get the plans back and to set off the bomb, you also got your much more advanced mechanical man kidnapped by those who could reverse-engineer his systems?”
Ruth nodded solemnly, but Ivy stepped forward.
“You need to back off right now. She did everything she could and yelling at her isn’t going to change anything. Our focus right now should be helping Michel, not squabbling like toddlers.”
Captain Hall had the decency to look just the tiniest bit shaken at Ivy’s words. “Our priority is still the deactivation of the factory.”
“I don’t think anyone believes that has changed,” Ivy agreed. “But we also need to recover Mech. If for no other reason than to stop others from reverse engineering him. Ruth got a good look at the facility while she was there. We should be able to formulate a better plan now.”
“Assuming they haven’t changed their security.”
“By tomorrow? Possible, but I doubt by much.”
Thomas stepped forward at that. “They can do this, Edgar. Please, trust that.”
Captain Hall turned his glare to Thomas, but it softened immediately. “Alright. But at sunset tomorrow, I am going in with my men and we are ending this once and for all.”
“They can work with that,” Thomas assured him before turning to Ruth and Ivy. “Can’t you?”
They nodded in unison.
THE NEW PLAN WAS SORTED by the early hours of the morning, and had Ruth and Ivy leaving the ship before sunrise, dressed in brown jumpsuits that greatly resembled those worn by the factory staff.
“Are you sure your spider can handle this?” Ivy asked, giving it a wary glance as it sneaked up Ruth’s arm and under her sleeve.
Ruth shrugged. “I’ve not had time to work on it since we left London, but I can hope.”
Ivy nodded, though it was clear that she didn’t share her mentor’s faith. “So, do you think there will be guards?”
“I guess we’ll find out,” Ruth said as they approached the streets surrounding the factory. “Can you see anything?”
“Let’s see.” Ivy pulled on a pair of goggles.
“What are those for?” Ruth asked, admiring the craftsmanship.
“Well, when my navigational system went up in flames, I decided a change of project was needed.”
“Prudent.”
“Quite. Well, when you were working on the tracking system for the mechanical men, I got an idea. I designed these goggles to pick up the traces of aether that are invisible to the naked eye. They’ll be useless once it’s more widely used, but for now they are letting me see how many mechan
ical men are here.”
“Impressive. So, how many are there?”
“Several on the factory floor, but they keep walking in front of each other, so I can’t get an accurate count. There are six in position in the surrounding buildings, presumably watching for us, and one on the upper floor of the factory. I would assume that last one is Michel.”
“Alright,” Ruth said. “Can you figure out how to get us around to the south side of the factory? There was another side entrance there, and I don’t want to use the one from yesterday.”
“Yes,” Ivy said after a moment. “Back around that street and through the back alley. Follow me.”
Ruth followed closely after Ivy, who kept looking up through the buildings they walked past, presumably checking their position in relation to the mechs and ensuring that they didn’t move.
After several minutes of wandering, they arrived at the entrance.
“You’re sure they didn’t see us?” Ruth asked.
“As sure as I can be,” Ivy said with a shrug as she pushed her goggles back up onto her hair.
“Then that’ll have to do.”
12
The factory floor was just as crowded as it had been the day before, which meant that it was just as noisy and steam still concealed a large part of the floor.
They would be expecting any intruders to head upstairs immediately, meaning that the floor wouldn’t be so closely guarded.
“Can you ensure that the spider does its job?” Ruth asked as she let the mechanical creature climb down to her open palm, waiting for Ivy to receive it.
Ivy grimaced but nodded. “You owe me for this.”
Ruth rolled her eyes. “You know, it’s not a real spider.”
“It’s close enough.”
Ruth stayed close to Ivy as the younger woman inspected the machines around her, looking for a weak spot. Ruth didn’t interfere, for risk of setting Ivy on a path that she couldn’t complete on her own, but she couldn’t head to Michel until Ivy had completed her part of the plan.
