The Falling Machine

by Andrew P. Mayer

  The drunk man had slowly snuck up on Tom from behind, raising his shillelagh. The Automaton wheeled his massive right arm up and behind him, landing it firmly against the man's chin.

  Struck hard by the blow, the man flailed his arms as he tumbled back down the stairs, dropping his weapon but managing to grab the stone railing on his way down. His momentum was stronger than his grasp, and as he wheeled sideways his feet slid out from underneath him.

  Losing his grip, he tumbled down the rest of the stairs and landed headfirst on the sidewalk. He sat there unmoving, and if the snow had cushioned the fall it was impossible to tell from the way he had fallen.

  Tom's eyes clicked again, then popped and jiggled around in an inhuman manner. “I didn't mean to hurt him.” Something had become stuck in the cold. “I am…sorry.”

  “That one? That one you can kill.” She closed her eyes and nodded. “He's a stupid drunk, so maybe you are a hero after all.”

  “I…assure you that I'm—”

  She nodded. “Murphy's apartment is on the top. Him and his no-good took over the whole floor.” Her shoulders sank as she continued. “Stole it. Wouldn't let nobody in and kicked all the tenants out, even the nice lady whose husband ran away on her.”

  Tom started to move past her when she continued. “But you won't find McAuliffe in there.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Gone.”

  “I'll wait.” He took a single step upward and then turned back.

  “You can wait all winter. He's not coming back.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “Left his friend to die up there. Like a dog.” Her foot scuffed the snow. “Such a thing, Eli so sick now and all…”

  “…Elli?”

  She tried to make the name clearer through her accent, “E-li. Eisenshmidt. Smart boy, like a whip. He was going to be a rabbi, but once his mother passed away he stopped talking to God….” Her voice trailed off for a moment, and she waved away something invisible. “That Irishman, the good-for-nothing, he said he was his friend, and then left him. No friend would leave you alone to die.”

  “I am told every…person dies alone, in the end.”

  She wiped away a tear that had gathered at the corner of her eye and then looked at the Automaton more closely. “Not you I think, golem.”

  Tom nodded. “I appreciate your…help.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a coin, and pressed it into her hand.

  At first she looked at it as if she was going to protest. But when she saw the golden dollar he had placed there, the woman closed her mouth and shuffled out of the way.

  The Automaton opened the door and entered into the darkness of the front hallway. Flickering yellow stripes of light appeared as the ground-floor residents peered out through thinly opened doors, looking to find out more about the commotion outside.

  The wooden floorboards creaked under the weight of Tom's steps as he mounted the stairs and moved slowly and steadily upward, stopping only to turn and head up the next flight of steps. Besides the groans of the wood, the only sounds were muffled whispers behind the walls.

  When he reached the bottom of the third stairwell Tom stopped in front of a thick wooden timber that barred the way. The beam had been painted red and was bolted to a hinge so that it could be easily lifted to provide access. The word “STOP!” had been crudely painted across it in large white letters, with an omega symbol drawn to the right of it.

  Tom lifted the gate out of the way and went up the stairs to the landing. A huge omega symbol had been painted on the wall, with “The Brotherhood of Eschaton” lettered underneath in neat block print. Tom quietly ran his hand across it.

  There was a door to the right, and although it was locked, the wood splintered easily enough when he shoved it with his massive right arm.

  The inside of the apartment was dark and cold. All the walls had been ripped out, turning the space into a long tunnel with a single window at the far end that had been plastered over. Wooden workbenches of different sizes and shapes were pushed up against the wall. They looked similar to the ones Darby had kept in his basement, with tools and metal objects strewn across them.

  Pausing in front of one of them, Tom reached down and picked a large metal box out of a pile of parts. It was the barrel of a Gatling gun, and the harness and handle of Rapid Fire's weapon sat nearby.

  Tom put it down and left the workshop by the door he had entered. He walked back into the corridor, and as he began to explore a loud groan came from an open door on the far end.

  “Murphy? Is that you?” The voice was familiar, but sounded weaker than the last time Tom had heard it. “Did the boss make you come back for me, you sorry Irish bastard?”

  Tom opened the door and stepped into the apartment. “I told you Lord Eschaton wouldn't abandon me!” the man yelled. It was followed by a burst of coughing, and then a series of short gasps, as if Eli were being choked.

  Most of the apartment was taken up by a large coal stove. A few clothes hung above it along a thick piece of rope that had been stretched across the room, but the iron was cold and the interior was dark, any embers having burned out a long time ago.

  The coughing subsided. “Murphy? Why aren't you answering me?”

  Tom opened the door to the back room and stepped inside. “Because I am not…Murphy.”

  Eli was lying in a small bed, covered in a swath of sheets and blankets that he had tucked around his frame to ward off the cold.

  Shaking as he moved, the man reached over to the small table at the side of the bed and slid open a box of wooden matches. He pulled out one and struck it against the bed frame. It exploded violently into flame. “Ah. The golem.” He held the fire up against the edge of a candle until it lit. “I should have guessed you would find me.”

  “Hello…Eli.”

  “How do I look?” As the candle guttered into full brightness the extent of the man's sickness became more clearly visible. Despite the cold the covers were thrown back, and he lay stretched out on the bed, naked except for a pair of dirty white cotton briefs that were tied around his waist. His withered arm was folded tight against his side, as if there were a child hidden underneath him.

  “I cannot ‘see’ you, but my…senses tell me that you're not well.” Every inch of the man's exposed flesh was mottled and gray except for marbled lines of pure white that streaked across his body. Occasional blisters had formed on his skin, filled with a translucent pink liquid.

  But it was his head that had clearly borne the brunt of his illness. It was swollen and misshapen, with weeping sores everywhere. His hair was mostly gone. Only a few clumps remained. “What do you think of the new me—the monster that a golem created?”

  Tom took a step forward. “I have no…opinion.”

  “That's nice of you.”

  “This was from the…fortified smoke?”

  “You got it.” He let out another series of long, unhealthy-sounding coughs.

  “‘A miracle,’ I thought! The building collapses, but somehow I'm still alive. The smoke makes me tough, I think, so I looked for you, hoping to take you back to him. But you'd escaped somehow.”

  “I broke through the back wall.”

  “Through the wall. Why didn't I think of that?” Eli lifted his hand weakly and waved a finger at the side of the bed. “Can you get me a glass of water? I can't stop sweating.”

  Tom obliged, grabbing the badly chipped pitcher that stood on the wooden table and pouring out a full glass. He held it out to him.

  Eli tried to lift his good arm, but it was clear from his wildly shaking hands that he no longer had the meager motor skills needed to hold anything. “I'm afraid I can't move so much anymore. My body keeps getting harder. I'm stiff like a thousand-year-old man….It's not so easy to talk, too, but for you I'll spare a few words before I go.”

  Tom lowered himself down next to the sick man, slipping his left arm underneath the pillow to lift up Eli's head.

  Eli groaned, and the
n grunted as he stiffly and slowly rose. “How do you like your new arm?”

  “I liked the old one better.” Tom helped him up. When he was high enough Tom tipped the glass into his mouth. As the water touched his lips the gray coloring on his skin started to swirl and move, as if it were being repelled. The smoke parted for an instant, making a visible path on the surface of his skin as the liquid slid down the entire length of his throat. It stopped when it reached his stomach, and then closed up behind it. Eli looked down. “Can you see that, golem? It's some kind of miracle, all right—just not the good kind.”

  “I can't see it, but I can sense it.”

  “Strange, no? The smoke reacts to the water, even though it's in my skin. It's like a coat, but there's no way to take it off.”

  Tom lowered Eli back onto the bed. The white lines along Eli's body twisted and flashed as he did so, like cracks opening and closing in his skin.

  Eli glanced up at the Automaton's iron right limb. “How did you do that, with the arm?”

  “I can repair myself.”

  “But a whole new arm…”

  “Since Darby died I have had to learn how to take care of myself.” Tom lifted up his borrowed limb and waved it around. “Given the…events since I last encountered you, this has turned out to be a useful…tool.”

  “I heard about you beating up the Iron-Clad.”

  “Did you build his…armor as well?”

  Eli closed his eyes and rolled his head to the side. “Is this going to be an interrogation now? Because if you came here to get my secrets, golem, I can promise you that most of them—” The coughing started again. “Most of them, I'm taking to the grave.” He managed a smile.

  Tom put down his arm. “I came here to find…Murphy.”

  “That miserable Mick is long gone. When he figured I was going to die, he ran away. Then I thought, maybe the boss, he would save me. I mean he's been through the same thing. Maybe he knew…”

  “Who is the…boss?”

  It was intended as a chuckle, but the sound that actually came out of Eli's throat was a deep, rusty rasp, followed by a series of wheezes. “You still don't know, you poor sap? The mighty, mighty Paragons, greatest goyim in the history of the world, and altogether you know less than nothing. Lord Eschaton has your friends wrapped all the way around his little finger, and none of you even know a damn thing.” He started to laugh again.

  “Murphy mentioned the…Children of Eschaton that morning when he killed…Darby.”

  The horrifying wheezing stopped. “That's because he was supposed to tell you that. Give you a message.”

  “Where is he?”

  Eli began coughing again. It was the same as before, but a note lower. The intensity seemed to double with each exhalation, until finally it caught somewhere between a rumble and the smothered screams of a man being strangled to death. The white streaks began to move again, shaking and jumping across Eli's entire body.

  Tom stood up and pointed his right arm at Eli. Steam began to pour out through the hole. He waved it back and forth, spreading the mist across the sick man's body. The instant it touched his skin the gray disappeared. At first it simply parted, and then it spread out, rolling back the darkness that covered his flesh like the sun burning through a morning fog. After a minute the taint had disappeared entirely, and Tom dropped his arm back down to his side.

  The coughing slowly passed, and Eli gulped in the air, drawing it down deep into his lungs. He lifted up his left hand to look at it, and his eyes widened at what he saw. “You've cured me!”

  Tom shook his head. “Doubtful. Even if the…poison is gone, your…brain is still dangerously enlarged, and the…sores on your skin may become infected.”

  Eli ignored the words. “It's a miracle. A miracle is what it is!”

  “Perhaps. If it is, will you revise your opinion of…fortified steam?”

  Eli laughed. It was a very different sound than the rasping chuckle he'd made only a few minutes before. “Maybe that Darby was onto something after all.”

  Tom reached over and grabbed the pitcher from the table next to him. He tilted his head backward, farther and farther until it almost leaned against his back. He poured the remaining water down into a tube in his neck.

  Eli sat up. When he tried to move Tom placed his left hand on the man's bare chest, his fingers spread wide. It took only a small amount of effort to push Eli back down onto the bed and hold him there. He placed the pitcher back down, and his head slowly lifted itself back into place.

  The little man struck out with his fist. It made a loud crack when it connected with Tom's mask, which was followed by a very human yelp of pain. “Damn it, golem. What's the matter with you?”

  “Flesh versus metal usually has a clear winner.” The Automaton's arm didn't move or flinch as Eli tried to pull it away from his chest. “Now tell me about…Lord Eschaton.”

  “Do you even know what Eschaton is?”

  “Yes. It is a…Greek word. It means ‘last.’”

  “Close. It means ‘the end.’ The end of everything. You, me—the world! Everything you know!” He grunted as he tried again to pull the metal arm away. Tom pushed harder, sinking the man deeper into the straw mattress.

  “And why would you want that? Wouldn't the end of the…world be the end of you as well?”

  “Maybe? Maybe we're reborn in this new world.” Giving up fighting the metal arm he reached over and rubbed the stunted limb on his right side. “And what did I have to live for, golem? I'm not like your fancy rich friends in their uptown apartments. For a freak like me this world has not very much. What I wanted, I wanted to be left alone and to build stuff. But instead I got grief.”

  “The woman…downstairs said you were once close to becoming a rabbi.”

  “Hattie? So she wishes…I've got nothing to say to God anymore.” He rose up a fist and shook it toward the ceiling. “You hear that, Yahweh? You're a children's story! People should tear down your churches and burn all your books!”

  “But you don't…wish to die.”

  “Lord Eschaton has a plan for after the world ends. What's next is something better.”

  “I need you to tell me how to find him.”

  “Go to hell.”

  Tiny black dots started to grow on Eli's skin. “Just a name or a…location. Give me one of those and I will be…lenient.”

  “I don't need your pity, or your mercy.”

  “I helped you after you tried to…destroy me.”

  The dots were growing larger and faster—joining together to create dark patches across his skin. Eli coughed and held up his arm. A look of horror grew on his face as the gray returned. “What's happening to me?”

  “I told you that it was…doubtful I had cured you. You are still dying…Eli.”

  Eli reached up and grabbed the back of Tom's metal arm. “No! You're a Paragon. You've got to help me! I can't go through this again. I don't want to die!” He let out a moan, then a scream.

  “I'll try…Eli. But I need you to tell me how to find…Lord Eschaton.”

  Things were progressing rapidly now. The gray had covered Eli completely, and the white lines once again danced like living things across his flesh. One of them twitched across his chest, pulsing brightly. The smell of burnt skin rose into the air on a puff of smoke. Eli screamed. “You've got to help me, golem! In the name of God!”

  Tom poured more steam out from his arm. The gray parted, but this time it didn't recede. “It's no use. Please tell me what I need to…know before it's too late.”

  Every word Eli spoke came out of him as a croak. He jerked and twisted as his muscles began to violently spasm and constrict. “Tomorrow…The arm.”

  Tom held up his borrowed right limb. “This arm?”

  “Schmuck! No! Arm…at the square!”

  “I don't understand.”

  There was a wet snap as one of Eli's ribs gave way under the pressure of his own contracting muscles. He screamed, and his mouth stayed op
en, pulled wide as every tendon in his neck contracted and refused to relax. Smoke-colored tears pooled in the corners of his eyes and then rolled down across his face.

  “I need more!…Eli!”

  “Garden…Liberty…” he said, and then froze. His muscles locked into rictus, freezing him as a screaming statue. Tom placed his hand on Eli's chest. The heart beat once more with a thunderous boom—then froze.

  After a minute the white lines faded and turned to black.

  The sun had dropped below the horizon an hour before, and the clouds that had blanketed the city for the last few days had finally parted. For anyone who cared to look, the glowing remnants of the day were still visible, outlining the western edge of the city skyline in a rusty orange. Smoke and steam billowed up from the buildings, filling the night air with twisting columns of white. Frosted hotel windows all around glowed with yellow lights from the people who huddled inside them.

  But this was still New York City, and despite the treacherous roads and the cold, traffic continued to move up and down Broadway. As the final few wagons headed back downtown after a day of deliveries in treacherous weather, the tired iron-shod hooves of the draft horses clip-clopped against the icy cobblestones.

  The temperature was already well below freezing, but it still had farther to go. The bitter cold was gripping the city, refreezing the snow that hadn't melted during the day, leaving behind patches of ice that temporarily memorialized the remnants of the human activity that had passed through it. Full of frozen ruts and footprints, the sidewalks were now treacherous terrain.

  Madison Garden was empty now, free from the constant activity of the shoppers and tourists that filled it during the daytime.

  Only a single pathetic figure, dressed in rags, sat on the benches in Madison Square, rocking slowly back and forth.

  Only an occasional cheer—a muffled roar that rose from inside the arena at the north end of the park—could be heard punctuating the silence. Nearby, the flickering light of the gas lamps reflected dimly in the copper surface of the Torch of Liberty. The gigantic disembodied arm stood in the middle of the promenade, its hand holding the flame up just high enough to reach above the leafless, snow-covered trees. A sign at the base of it explained that it would be a gift to the people of America and that one day the torch would be raised high above the New York Harbor, but that there was a great deal of money still needed in order to begin the work to assemble the massive statue.