Ikey chuckled. “I don’t know. He won’t tell me what it’s for until after I fix it.”
“Can you fix it?”
Ikey rolled his eyes. “Of course I can. I wouldn’t have told Rolfe I could if I couldn’t. You should come back here and take a look. You should.”
David glanced down to Gavril. “I…”
“No,” Ikey said with a nod to the divider. “You really ought to come back here and take a look at this thing.”
David stepped toward Ikey, then glanced back at Gavril.
“Take a quick peek. You’ve not seen anything like it.”
David shook his head as he approached. “I dare say I’ve seen more of those monstrosities than any man should.”
Ikey clapped David on the back and ushered him through the break in the curtains as he spared a glance over his shoulder to make sure they remained alone. Satisfied, he stepped up beside David as they stood before the mechanical ass.
“Rolfe is up to something,” Ikey whispered as he cocked his head closer to David. “I don’t know what, but it involves me having to give this thing a special set of instructions to do something six days hence.”
“Do what?”
“I don’t know. He won’t say. But I’m willing to bet it isn’t anything so simple as emptying bedpans. He’s not only threatened to send us on to The Old Chopper, but he says he has my friend, Cross as well.”
David turned to Ikey. “That’s great news! Or is it? Well, it means Cross is alive, doesn’t it?”
Ikey shook his head. “I hope so, but I don’t trust Rolfe. He thinks too much.”
David smirked. “Where’s the crime in that?”
“He’s thought himself in a circle. He’s already figured out how to justify whatever it is he intends to do.”
The iron and tin fingers of David’s left hand wrapped around Ikey’s right wrist and held his flesh hand up between the two of them.
“Do you know what I’d give up to have this back?” David asked.
Ikey stared at David and waited for the answer. The man’s complexion flushed and a fresh round of water blurred his eyes.
David’s mechanical hand opened with a set of clicks, and Ikey’s wrist dropped away.
“I would give twice that, whatever it took to spare Gavril this.” David lifted his own arms, the mechanical hand and the stump, before himself. His eyes staggered back and forth as if he wondered how each had gotten there—what hole or deep box had he slipped his hands into and come up clutching these disfigured forms?
“You’ve got to get Gavril out of here.”
Ikey patted David on the shoulder. He looked ready to crumple under the pressure.
“I’ve got six days—“
David shook his head. “Now!”
“Six days to fix this beast. In the meantime, Rolfe is granting us medical leave. We can stay in the infirmary as long as we stay out of the way and make like patients.”
David snorted and looked away. “No one will buy that. Rolfe doesn’t have patients. His job is to separate the salvageable from the wrecked and send them along to either the chopper or the undertaker.”
“We have to make it work. Six days. Then we get Gavril out of here. But you have to go, too. I need you to take care of Gavril while I look for Cross.”
From behind them, a thick, Russian accent said that Gavril would care for himself.
Ikey and David whirled around to find Gavril standing at the part in the dividers.
David smiled, lunged forward, and grasped Gavril around the torso.
“Ruka! Akkuratno, moya ruka!“ Gavril gasped as he held his splinted arm out, away from David as the man rocked him in his giant hug.
“Oh! Sorry,” David said as he gritted his teeth and glanced at Gavril’s splint. He stepped back, and in his smile, it was all he could muster to keep himself from wrapping his arms around Gavril again.
“You know way out of here?” Gavril asked Ikey.
Ikey nodded, then his attention dropped to the splint as well. In his mind, he tried to replay the motions needed to climb out of the pit, but they wouldn’t come to him in the light. He closed his eye, and the world got sharper.
“My arm?” Gavril said. “It is problem?”
“I’m not sure. Climbing is involved.”
“How much?”
“A few feet. Five. Seven. I don’t know. It was dark. I dug a tunnel out of solitary.”
Gavril let out a low whistle, then patted himself on the chest. “I make it. David will be helping.”
David glanced away, then turned back and said something in Russian. Gavril lifted his eyebrows and said something back, his words much faster, more clipped, growling like an animal.
David shook his head and responded.
Gavril made an emphatic motion with his left hand as he nodded at Ikey.
Color fell from David’s face. He shrugged his shoulders and opened his mouth, but nothing came out; not English, not Russian.
Gavril said one more sentence, then turned to Ikey.
“I help you find your friend.”
Ikey smirked. “I thought I was more trouble than I’m worth.”
Gavril’s bottom lip pressed out as he shrugged a shoulder. “Yes. But you save my arm, you save David’s life. I prefer you in my debt.”
David said something more in Russian.
Gavril shook his head. “Please, David, when in Rome, be speaking English.”
David blew a pursed breath through his lips and glanced away.
“Do you need help at that?” Gavril asked with a nod at the mechanical ass.
“Not right now. I’m studying the schematics while I wait for Rolfe to bring back my arm.”
Gavril nodded, surveyed the makeshift room, then wobbled off to his bed.
As David stepped after him, Ikey grabbed the man by the shoulder and held fast.
“Where did you learn to speak Russian?” Ikey asked.
“Neighbor’s grandmother,” David said without looking back. He wrenched his shoulder free of Ikey’s grip and took off to hover beside Gavril, ready to catch the man should he topple. Ikey grinned at the sight. Neither appeared capable of providing support to the other. But there they were, at each other’s sides.
Ikey turned away. For a moment, he thought of his days in Cross’s house, fresh from the hospital. Rose never hovered over him, yet she always appeared when needed. That was her way. Self-reliance was a religion to Rose; a way of navigating the world. She shared that with him.
Ikey turned away and blushed. Cross never got that, did he?
Ikey rubbed his palm across the rough fustian of his trousers as he stared down at the automaton once more. Regardless of Rose’s own beliefs, Ikey had others counting on him. Whether Rolfe knew of Cross’s whereabouts or not, it seemed doubtless that Rolfe couldn’t be trusted. So it was up to Ikey to fix the automaton and leverage it against him. Whatever the man wanted it to do, it seemed important that it be ready to go in six days. Such an unforgiving schedule would give him some room to bargain, should he need to strike a different deal.
Ikey sighed. First things first. He reached for the ledger.
Chapter Twenty-One
The following morning, at the sound of iron feet tromping over the wooden floor, Ikey sat up in bed and whipped the blindfold from his face. Rolfe entered the infirmary with two of the mechanical asses on his heels.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Rolfe said in the gray light that filtered through the high windows. “I trust each of you slept soundly.”
David slipped out of Gavril’s bed and stretched his arms over his head. “It’s a funny thing. I’ve become so accustomed to sharing a bunk, that it is impossible to sleep well on my own anymore.”
“I’m sure it is,” Rolfe said. He motioned to the mechanical asses. One set a wooden crate on the desk with a thunk. The other placed a large box of tools next to it with a jangle of metal. As they did so, Rolfe lit a candle, then handed it off to one of the mecha
nical asses. In turn, it lit each of the gas sconces along the wall.
“Nurse Luca will be along shortly with breakfast,” Rolfe said. He motioned to the crate. “Ikey and David, you will find your respective augments in that box, repaired and ready for use.”
Ikey tossed back his sheet and hurried to the crate. Sure enough, his arm lay curled inside, resting on the folded yoke. The hand had been disentangled from David’s. In the toolbox, a large variety of tools sat heaped together. They appeared solid and well-used, cared for. They couldn't have belonged to Rolfe, whose clean hands and trim nails suggested a life that handled only medical tools.
Rolfe helped David secure his hand, then David and Rolfe helped Ikey into his yoke and arm.
As promised, Nurse Luca came along with bread, butter, and sausages in a basket. As she set the basket on the desk, David leaped for it. Nurse Luca stepped back, then excused herself to make tea. Ikey hefted the toolbox in his mechanical arm. It felt good to have the augment on again. It felt balanced. And though he missed the feel of a toolbox in his hand, the reassuring weight of it, it felt nice to be wholly capable again.
“Don’t you wish for some breakfast?” Rolfe asked as Ikey carried the tools to the back of the infirmary.
Ikey glanced at Rolfe over his shoulder and shook his head. “I’ve got work to do. I’ll eat later.”
Rolfe followed Ikey back. As he stepped behind the divider, he cleared his throat. “Nurse Luca is not sympathetic with our situation. I’d like to ask you to please play the role of a man in recuperation while she is about.”
Ikey dropped the toolbox on the bed next to the automaton. The clank was music to his ears. “You want this thing fixed in five days, correct? Then help me set it up on its end. I’ll get the head.”
Ikey whipped the sheet off the beast. He worked his fingers under the top end of the cylinder, he then turned and glared at Rolfe, his remaining eyebrow cocked up.
Rolfe shook his head, then stepped up and grabbed the mechanical ass’s knees. Together they twisted the thing around and sat it up so that the bulk of it leaned against the wall. Ikey dug around in the toolbox and came up with a spanner. He eyed the head of it, then studied the bolts along the top of the mechanical ass’s cylinder. He dropped the spanner back into the toolbox with a crash, then dug around for a larger one.
“Please,” Rolfe said as he grabbed Ikey’s wrist. “I need you to be a tad more subtle in your work.”
“If Cross was here, I could afford to take more care.”
Rolfe leaned in. “Then task David with playing the role of your assistant. Whatever is required. Because if Nurse Luca should develop any concerns, and then take such concerns to the wrong ear, there is nothing I can do to save you or your friends.”
“Or your mechanical ass,” Ikey said.
“Precisely. So please exercise some care. There is a lot riding on this mission.”
“If you told me what, I might be inspired to exercise more care.” Ikey said as he pulled a second spanner out of the toolbox, eyed it up, and approached the automaton.
Rolfe sat on the next bed. “Your friends’ lives aren’t inspiration enough?”
Ikey fitted the spanner over a bolt and twisted it around several times before dropping the spanner to the bed. He then undid the bolt the rest of the way with his fingers.
“My friends concern me a lot. But you’re hiding things from both me and Marlhewn. You’ve given me no reason to trust you, but you have given me several reasons to be concerned. How do I know you won’t carry through with your threat even after I finish fixing this beast?”
Rolfe stood and straightened his waistcoat. “Keep it down over here until I can get rid of Nurse Luca for the day. Once that is done, I’ll return and explain it further. Can we make that deal?”
Ikey plucked his spanner up and moved to the next bolt. “I’ll take that deal.”
Once Rolfe stepped out, Ikey grinned at the mechanical ass. Rolfe might not be such a tough nut to crack after all.
True to his word, Rolfe came back to the partitioned room shortly after he gave Nurse Luca a set of instructions designed to keep her out of the infirmary all day. He then returned with a saucer and a cup of tea rattling in his hand, which he then presented to Ikey. “I thought you might be ready for a break.”
“Actually, I could use a hand. Put that over there.” Ikey waved a hand at the next bed, where the head of the automaton sat disconnected and staring at the wall.
Rolfe placed the cup on the next bed. When he turned back around, his eyes roamed over the headless automaton. “It looks so much more innocuous without the head, does it not?”
Ikey nodded. He climbed onto the bed with the automaton and sat it completely upright so that no part of it touched the wall. “I need you to help me twist this cover off, then lift.”
Together, the two of them lifted the cylindrical cover off and set it aside. With the cover off, Ikey took a moment examine the intricate and compact workings that spiraled around the interior of the beast.
“Can you purchase these things?” Ikey asked as he prodded at a collection of gears and timing chains in the automaton’s interior.
Rolfe shook his head. “They’re property of the parish. Issued by the Lord of Kerryford himself.”
Ikey arched an eyebrow. “The Lord of Kerryford?”
Rolfe looked to the floor and shook his head. “A man whose blood has been replaced by coin, his heart a ledger book.”
Ikey glanced at the hand-copied manual lying on the other side of the automaton. “Is he a proper lord?”
“Not at all. Not in the traditional sense. He started out as the son of a businessman. When his father died, he took over the family business. Before long, he took over everyone’s business. He owns much of Kerryford, and his holdings extend out across Greater London. He is the Lord of Kerryford in that he is the lord of his domain.”
“Sounds like a charming chap.”
“It’s his doing that brought you here.”
Ikey froze, then looked over at Rolfe.
“It is,” Rolfe said with a nod. “He owns Marlhewn. It is no accident that his workhouses are full in good times and bad, though it has been mostly bad since the war began. He’s the one who started offering augmentations to his workers, then demanded them when his workers took injury or worse. When the war robbed him of all the able-bodied men in this country, he decided to craft his own workforce.”
Rolfe nodded at the mechanical ass. “These things are daft. Heartless. Soulless. They have no mind, no imagination, no awareness. They can’t think of things to fear, and so they fear nothing. A workforce without fear isn’t a very controllable workforce.”
“Controllable? But these things do what they’re told, don’t they?” Ikey asked.
“For a price. A pretty price. Look at it.” Rolfe swept his hand at the machine. “Look how intricate and detailed that rubbish is. Tiny gears. Clockwork innards. It's all costly to produce and assemble. Why bother with that when a few thousand lonely Britains on a cold night will manufacture you a workforce for free?”
Ikey stared at Rolfe.
“You get my meaning, right? Children, Ikey. It’s cheaper to cajole people into working like automatons for next to nothing than it is to build these and have them do the work.”
Ikey turned his attention back to the automaton. His brow furrowed. “I could instruct this one how to build others. They could assemble themselves.”
Rolfe smirked. “The ruling class knows full well that, if given leisure, the lower classes would find time to demand more of life than the pittance thrown to them now. That, in part, explains the augmentation program. Beyond the obvious reduction in recuperation time and loss in productivity, augmentation guards against brooding time. A man with nothing to do but heal has a remarkable capacity to contemplate his situation as he stares at the walls around him, and nothing is so dangerous as a wounded man with time to think. Get these men and women back on the line as soon as possib
le. Patch them up like machines. Treat them like machines. Soon you think of them as nothing more than machines, and they regard themselves as such.”
Ikey fished a pick out of the toolbox and poked around in the mechanical ass’s innards. “Do you believe me, then? About how I ended up with my augments?”
“I do. You’re not the first I’ve heard such a tale from.”
A small latch inside the automaton popped. Ikey reached out with his mechanical arm and removed a square-shaped rack of gears and coil springs studded with rods. He set it aside and peered deeper into the machine. “Yet you choose to work here?”
“It’s a poor medication that does not do its work at the site of the disease.”
Ikey took a deep breath. “You talk a lot, but never say much, do you?” He leaned into the vacancy he had created in the mechanical ass’s structure. He searched for the point at which the creature’s functioning broke down.
“I may not say much that you want to hear. How simple it is to believe that the world is like the contraption before you, eh? It either works, or it does not. And if it doesn’t, you will find a finite problem, a kink in the machinery. You will fix it, and it will be restored. But what would you do if you examined that thing up and down and never found a problem?”
Ikey stood up and stretched his back. “If there wasn’t a problem, it would work.”
Rolfe waved a hand before himself. “For the sake of argument. Say that it doesn’t. Pretend that there is nothing wrong, yet the machine still doesn’t work.”
“Your point?”
Rolfe shook his head and held his palms up by his shoulders in mock surrender. “Never mind. I don’t want to disturb you. I’d rather you fix the machine.”
Ikey sucked in a breath of air. He wanted to say something, something biting. Something Cross might say. This man was obviously a brick shy of a load, but his words left Ikey feeling unsure of himself, a little daft and thick in the head.
He turned back to the automaton. Rolfe might think he was an idiot, yet he was entrusting Ikey to fix the machine. “Say, there is something wrong with this thing, right?”
Rolfe chuckled and shook his head. “I suppose so, my dear man. I suppose so.”
Tin Fingers: Book 2 in the Arachnodactyl Series Page 22
