The Falling Machine

by Andrew P. Mayer

  Wickham made a face that seemed halfway between sadness and disgust, and then let it vanish as he turned back to Sarah. “That's very good, Miss Stanton—very logical. I agree that must be a part of it.”

  While there were a number of large machines all around them, the object they were walking to was huge—even in comparison to all the rest. Two massive frames of iron stood on either side, each made from two pillars rising up three stories from the floor to meet at a point at the top. Held up by an axle in bewteen these enormous A-frames was a flywheel so large that it sank down into a cement-lined pit in the earth between them. And rising up on either side were two great pistons, each topped with a massive slab of curved metal suspended in the air at the top of the structure, hanging motionless as they waited for the power that would send them into motion.

  A set of wrought-iron stairs on the left side led up to a walkway suspended twenty feet in the air that ringed the entire machine. For all its massive size and weight there was something about its design that made it look almost ethereal, like a skeleton of an industrial beast

  It was also familiar. Sarah had seen a machine like it four years ago when her father had taken her to the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. It was called a Corliss engine, and it had been one of the stars of the show—a modern marvel of efficient steam power. The engine had provided electric current for the entire exhibition, bringing to life a variety of industrial machines that were used for producing screws and the like. This version was clearly Darby's attempt to improve on that original design, and she could only imagine what it was capable of.

  The old man pointed over to another object standing several yards away. “And do you have any idea what that is?” It was a sturdy-looking iron box fifteen feet long and seven feet high. Clustered around the far end were four tall tanks that looked a bit like mourners hunched over the end of a coffin.

  Out from the top of each tank a straight metal pipe rose upward. After a few feet the pipes angled together into a single tube that then made a hard right angle when it reached the ceiling. Steel fasteners held it fast to the roof as it snaked from one side of the cavern to the other, until it finally dropped down straight into the middle of Darby's Corliss engine. “Do they collect energy from the engine?”

  Tom reached the bottom step. “They do the opposite,” he said. “That box is the…fortified steam generator.”

  “Just so.” The Sleuth pushed forward. “Follow me, Miss Stanton, and pay close attention. I'm about to reveal one of the Paragon's most closely guarded secrets.”

  As a child Sarah had often been reminded that “curiosity killed the cat,” usually after being found somewhere she didn't belong, or after returning home with dirt smeared across one of her dresses. She could hear her father saying the words to her now using the stern voice he reserved for expressing disappointment.

  Of course he wasn't the only person who compared her sense of inquisitiveness with that of a deceased feline. Nathaniel had often reprimanded her for sticking her nose into places it didn't belong, warning her that one day it was going to get bitten off.

  But knowing a rule and following it were very different things, and although Sarah had known that Nathaniel and her father would be very displeased with her current actions, she was not going to miss the opportunity to help the Sleuth unravel a mystery. And clearly, whatever this machine in front of her actually did, it was well worth knowing more about if it truly was a “guarded secret.”

  Up close the apparent simplicity of the design of the box was revealed to be a by-product of the surprising amount of strength built into it. The entire exterior was constructed from flat sheets of thick boiler-plate iron, held together with quarter-inch rivets. Cut into its surface at regular intervals were a series of small glass portholes. Each one was covered with a sliding brass plate held in position by a pin and a wing nut, allowing it to rotate down once the nut was loosened. She found one that was already hanging on its hinge, and peered inside. The smoked-glass plug was at least an inch thick, and she could see nothing through it. She turned her head and looked up at the Sleuth. “A steam engine?”

  Tom replied, “It is not, technically, an…engine. A…boiler would be more precise.”

  She looked over the machine again. “Then I'm afraid I'm confused.” She pressed her hand up against it and felt the cool metal. “There's no firebox.”

  Tom, limping his way across the floor, managed to catch up with them. Wickham pointed at the metal man as he drew closer. “Tom has no flame inside of him either, but somehow he manages to find the power he needs to move.”

  She supposed at some point she must have wondered what it was that gave Tom his power. She had taken to assuming it was some kind of spring wound up inside of him, although she had never been told that was true, nor seen anything to support that theory. Exposed to the light of reason the idea of the Automaton being a man-sized wind-up toy suddenly seemed ridiculous. “Then I'm afraid I don't understand.”

  The Sleuth nodded, then smiled. “Perhaps it will become clear when I show you how the machine works.”

  Pulling off his right glove, he used his bare hand to slip open the second button down on his gray shirt. He reached under his tie with his left hand and pulled out a dull metal key on a chain. “Does this look familiar to you, Sarah?”

  She stared at it for a moment; then her eyes went wide with recognition. “That's the key! The same one Sir Dennis was wearing! But…the Bomb Lance stole it!” She reached her hand up toward it and then drew it back. “If you have it, then…”

  “I did nothing sinister to get this, I can assure you. It is simply a copy of the other.” He pushed open a small clasp and slipped it off. “One of only three that exist in the world.” He put his ungloved hand on her shoulder. “And I must trust that you will let no one else know that I have it.” The intimacy of the request felt almost…fatherly, although her own father rarely ever took her into his confidence. When Alexander Stanton wanted something from someone it was expressed as a statement, never an inquiry.

  Wickham lowered his gaze to catch her eyes. “I hope you understand the magnitude of what I'm telling you.”

  Realizing that she had been lost in her thoughts, she quickly glanced up at him and nodded. “Of course, Mr. Wickham! I'll guard your secrets with my life.” As the words came out of her mouth Sarah felt like a character from one of the boys’ adventure magazines that she had “borrowed” from Nathaniel when they were growing up. She had suddenly become young Jim Hawkins heading off to Treasure Island with a map in his hand. “But why did he want that iron key? What does it open?”

  He held the dull metal closer to her, his index finger and thumb wrapped around the ornate metal head. “Not iron my dear: lead.”

  She looked closer. “Another one of Dr. Darby's magical door openers?”

  “What would lead you to that conclusion, my dear?”

  “Lead is too soft for a normal key. It would twist apart the first time you tried to use it.”

  “Just so.” Grabbing the top of the blade end he tugged upward. The lead covering slid away, revealing a slim rod of a brighter metal underneath. It gleamed brightly, but Sarah realized it wasn't a reflection. The key cast out an unearthly light of its own.

  She stared at, mesmerized. “It's like a mirror….”

  The Automaton was standing next to her now, and his voice surprised her. “Please…Sir Wickham. The exposed metal can be dangerous.”

  He slid the lead cap back onto it and handed it to the metal man. “Place it into the machine, Tom, if you would be so kind. We're going to give Sarah a demonstration.”

  Tom took the key and nodded.

  Sarah pursed her lips. “I have more questions now than when we started.”

  “Have patience, my dear. The lion's share of solving a mystery is piling up questions until there can only be a single answer for them all. It should begin to become clearer very shortly.”

  On the end of the iron box nearest to them
was a thick iron door a foot across. It was held in place by a hinged bolt locked into an iron claw, and screwed down against the end of the machine. Tom put his hand up against a large brass wing nut that held the bolt in place, and he gave it a hard turn.

  Once it was free it spun smoothly and quietly, rotating quickly up along the bolt until it reached the end of the thread. He shifted the bolt to one side and opened the hatch.

  Sarah attempted to peer into it, but there was a sheet of black rubber blocking the view. “What does it do?”

  “Just a little more patience, my dear, and then I'll explain,” Wickham replied.

  Tom removed the lead cap from the key and placed his arm through the rubber curtain. When he withdrew his limb the key was gone. He closed the hatch and screwed the bolt back down.

  The Sleuth took her hand and walked her over to the darkened windows on the machine's side. “Darby once said to me that he thought steam was what time was made from—the invisible hand of God that pushes man into the future. He believed that it was steam that allowed the angels to fly, and that one day, if harnessed properly, it would free men from all labor and war.

  Wickham let out a sigh, and for a moment he looked very old. “He had visions beyond any man I've ever met. And he made so many of them come true. But I'm much more cynical than he was, I'm afraid. I told him that I thought steam was a demon born from fire, and that it will only work for mankind when caged behind iron walls. Even then, it's always trying to find a way to slip free from its prison and kill its master when his attention wanders.…”

  Tom opened a panel on the side of the machine. There were a series of small levers inside, and he pulled them down, one by one.

  “That's a dark view of something that gives us so much and asks for so little in return,” Sarah said.

  “Whether its intentions are good or evil, there are practical limits to what steam can do. It takes time to build pressure, and it must always be regulated. Too little gives you nothing, and too much can destroy the vessel that gives its power shape. And that energy is always an unstoppable force that must be balanced and tamed with gears and belts.” Wickham looked over at Tom and nodded. “He's like that, you know.”

  Sarah wasn't sure exactly what Wickham was trying to imply, but she knew that sometimes it was better to say nothing, especially when men like Wickham were lost in a tale.

  Or at least that's what she assumed Wickham was like. She had seen him often enough over the years, occasionally at the house, and at whatever Paragon functions her father had taken her to. She knew that he and Darby had been close friends as well, but she could only remember a handful of times she had actually seen them together.

  But she had only spoken with him a few times, mostly when she was much younger. Wickham could always turn a phrase, and had always appeared to her to be the very definition of “grown-up.” He was the kind of person who would squat down to make eye contact with a seven-year-old girl in order to say things like “How are you doing today, child?”

  And no matter how she replied, even if it was something as simple as “We're going to get ice cream!” he would look at her seriously, as if she had said something profound. Then he would suddenly smile, look up at her father, and wink. “She's going to break hearts when she grows up, Alex. Her father's first, I'm afraid. No doubt about it.” And Sarah would feel confused, proud, angry, and embarrassed—all at the same time. Some things never changed….

  The Automaton walked to the far end of the box and turned a wheel that stood in the middle of the tanks. The machine shuddered slightly, and through the darkened windows Sarah thought she could see a light beginning to glow. It was a simple pinpoint at first, gray and dim, like the moon coming out from behind a cloud.

  “But Darby wasn't satisfied with just having a demon in a bottle,” Wickham continued, and put up a finger up in the air to punctuate his point. “He wondered if you could tame it. Make steam now, but then use it whenever and wherever you wanted it, tapping however much, or little of it, that you needed.”

  The light quickly grew brighter, transitioning from moon to sun, and after a few seconds she found herself squinting. The glow seemed to almost be liquid, filling everything with a colorful glow, while darkness clung to the outline of everything it touched as if the world were an illustrated picture in a children's book. It lit up the machine like a relief, squeezing out from every portal, bright as day, even though the glass had been almost pitch black at the start.

  Sarah held up her hand and stared at it in the strange light. “Steam without coal to heat it?”

  “Steam that has the power of coal trapped within it, but thousands of times more powerful. The hand of God without the volatility of a demon controlling it. This is what Darby called ‘fortified steam.’” He pointed to the Corliss engine. “Now, Tom, show Miss Stanton what it can do.”

  The metal man turned an ornate brass handle sticking out from one of the tanks. The box rattled for a moment, and then it let out a noise like a distant scream.

  Across the room the metal arms of the Corliss engine began to move. The pistons turned slowly at first, like the legs of a horse laboring to pull a heavy carriage out of a muddy ditch.

  The light from the box dimmed slightly, and the flywheel turned faster. Then, in a flash, the whole contraption was at full speed, chugging with the gallop of a steam engine, except that with each turn it expelled far less steam than would be expected, and without the oily wet hiss that usually accompanied it. The weights that had seemed so impossibly heavy before were now spinning at an almost dangerous pace. There was a vibration in the floor as it moved.

  Sarah knew that what she was seeing was remarkable. “So quick…” was all she could say.

  The machine continued to spin faster, and what had been a steady thump was quickly becoming a minor quake in the floor beneath them.

  “Enough, Tom!” said Wickham.

  The mechanical man slammed the handle back. Robbed of its incredible power, the engine began to slow immediately. As he pulled back on the levers, the light inside of it began to dim.

  “That…was amazing,” Sarah gasped. “Such power!”

  “Just a practical example of fortified steam being applied directly. It can also be stored indefinitely at room temperature and released when needed. That's what those tanks at the end are for—the tamed demon.”

  “And it's totally safe?

  Wickham shook his head. “Totally? No. There is an invisible vapor released by the element hidden in the key that can sicken anyone exposed to it for too long. The lead acts as shielding, and protects us from its rays. Sir Dennis theorized that too much exposure to the steam itself might have similar effects.”

  “Now I can see why someone might want to steal it.”

  “The truth be told, my dear, it is the source of almost all of the Paragon's miraculous powers.”

  “But neither Darby nor my father ever mentioned it.”

  “That's because it's a secret. Without it they would simply be mortal men dreaming of miracles. Even some of the Paragons are unaware of how the steam is produced, or how their own devices truly work.” In the background the Corliss engine slowly ground to a stop, the last of the momentum draining away.

  Sarah cocked her head in thought. “But the Bomb Lance knew what it was he wanted, and exactly where it was hidden. How did he find out?”

  “More questions…” Wickham pulled out a silk handkerchief and quietly coughed into it. “That is a mystery that I still must solve—but not the only one.”

  “Before…you said that there were three keys. Where's the third?”

  A smile spread across the old man's thin lips. “You've grown up to be a very clever girl. It's a shame that a mind such as yours must be trapped inside a female form.”

  Sarah found herself taken aback by his remark. “I may be limited in some ways, Mr. Wickham, but I assure you that in others I'm as capable as any man.” Almost without thinking she thumped her fist against her chest
as she'd seen Nathaniel do so often when he was angry. “More so in some cases!”

  He let out a short laugh. “Ha! I have no doubt you will always let the world know what you're capable of, Miss Stanton, but it's more a question of attraction than equality.” His gaze turned to look at something in the distance, and then his grin soured into sadness. A moment later the emotion vanished from his face, like a ripple fading away in a vast lake. “But no matter; I've already said too much.”

  He turned to the Automaton. “Come over here, Tom.”

  The metal man came toward them, moving with his slow, broken gait. Wickham pointed at the Automaton's heart, still visible inside his chest. “To answer your question, the third Alpha Element lives there. That key is what powers Tom's heart. He carries his own source of fortified steam.”

  Sarah looked up at Tom with new eyes. “But it's so powerful! It moved that huge machine like it was made of paper!”

  “I am limited by this…body,” Tom interjected. “But I am learning to go beyond my…limitations.”

  “Now Sarah, you are the third person in the world to know the truth about Tom.” He coughed again into his handkerchief. “It's far too cold and damp in this place. I don't know how Dennis could stand it day in and day out.”

  “But then why tell me all of this? I'm not a detective. I just came down here to…” She let the words trail off.

  The Sleuth widened his eyes. “Yes, Miss Stanton. That would be my next question for you. What exactly was it that you came down here for?”

  “It was,” she stared down at the ground, “Sir Dennis's final request. He wanted me to help Tom. There's another body—a new one, that he built for him. I was supposed to come here and help Tom use it.”

  The Sleuth turned to face the mechanical man. “And what happened to that body, Tom?”

  “It is gone. Someone has taken it,” Tom replied.

  The Sleuth appeared concerned. “Do you know who took it, Tom, or where it went?”

  “It disappeared the same day Sir Dennis died,” he replied.

  Sarah's eyes opened wide. “But who would have known?”