by August Li
“What on earth?” she gasped. “What did they do?”
“Horrible things. Experiments. Torture. Things to give you nightmares, Lila. I’m going to find something to use against the men responsible, and make sure they can’t carry on their work someplace else. I have to.”
“Why? Why you?”
For many minutes he couldn’t answer, because he honestly didn’t know. “Because if I don’t, it’ll haunt me for the rest of my life, knowing those bastards are free. Wondering if they’re up to the same ghastly work. Some things just can’t be allowed. I have to put a stop to it, because there’s no one else. Does that make any sense to you?”
“Sounds like a bad idea,” she said.
Robin agreed. His idealism had compelled him to free Snowdrop, and that had gotten a good man killed and himself labeled a murderer. And for nothing. Nothing! His anger at the faerie’s indifference to him boiled up, and he took a long pull from his smoke. He wished he’d been so indifferent when he saw those photographs. Even now he could see them as clearly as if he held them in his hands. “I have to do it, or I can’t look in the mirror.”
“Alright. If you must,” she conceded.
“Thanks, Lila. You’ve been a true friend to me.”
At those words she started to sweat at her hairline and above her lips. She took out a rumpled handkerchief to dab at her face.
“Anything wrong?” Robin asked.
“Lady problems, is all. Ain’t been able to afford my tonic.”
“Well when we get to Halcyon, you won’t have to sell yourself anymore,” Robin promised. “I’ll get us money.”
“You’d do that?”
“Aye,” he said. “I insist.”
She hugged him around the neck and said, “When can we leave?”
“Tomorrow. I’ll go to the train yard tonight and take care of my business. It’s almost dark. You should get to the church.”
“I won’t miss that priest lecturing me,” she said as she stood to go.
Robin decided to wait on the hillside a while longer, until he had the full cover of night to conceal him. He closed his eyes, listened to the distant sound of a flute, and hummed along with the tune.
Lila had spoken truly. Robin found the station completely desolate except for some guards patrolling the walkways. Not even drunks or whores slumbered in the doorways and many of the shops stood closed and boarded up. Robin expected them to pay particular attention to the freight cars parked at the back of the tracks, but they barely bothered with them at all. They didn’t think anyone still lived who knew the contents of those cars. Likely they counted Robin among the dozens to have disappeared from Enline to follow the horned faerie gentleman. They’d recovered the bodies of less than half of the missing. Certainly they counted him among the dead.
Robin waited until the guards wandered to the opposite end of the station before he cautiously approached the last car in a line of four. He grasped the metal latch and pushed it up, finding it unlocked. He prickled a little at the ease of gaining entry, but he assured himself Bunge was simply overconfident. After all, what could the car contain aside from desks and machinery? Unless one knew what to look for, none of the equipment would look suspicious. Robin crept up into the dark, cavernous space. Wooden crates filled the car, leaving only a narrow aisle up the middle. After a few steps, Robin couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. He fished in his pockets. He’d always meant to buy himself some sort of gas lantern, but since he hadn’t gotten around to it, he lit the tallow stump he’d taken from an abandoned house. It provided only minimal light: a pool that extended only a few inches past Robin’s feet. He had to be careful not to blow it out as he held it up to the crates to read the packing lists stapled to them. The documents confirmed his suspicions, cataloging mainly furniture: cabinets, lamps, tables, and chairs. Cursing, Robin moved to the next stack of crates, finding more of the same. He inspected each box carefully, confident that he’d find something to incriminate Bunge, though he hadn’t planned on what to do with it yet.
Near the back wall of the car, Robin found a small, metal locker labeled “Documents.” He quickly knelt down to open it, holding his candle close to examine the papers within. Several leather-bound journals detailed the daily activity inside the facility, often in gory detail. Robin discovered that teams of elite soldiers, equipped with the latest weaponry, had gone beyond the wall to capture what the ledger called “subjects,” and that at least half a dozen of those faeries had perished under torture. The researchers had continued to experiment on the corpses, dissecting them and recording their findings in grisly diagrams. Robin stared a long time at a drawing of a deceased fey, the skin of his face peeled back to reveal the musculature beneath. His pale eye looked lidlessly forward, and his fair hair and pointed ear remained perfectly intact. Robin’s stomach clenched and cold sweat dripped down his spine. He couldn’t help but think of Snow, nor feel more resolute in exposing these atrocities. Stuffing the journals and drawings inside his shirt, he wished he’d have thought to bring along some sort of bag. He realized he could construct one. In order to do so, he set his candle down and slipped his shirt over his head. He tied the tails together and stuffed the documents down the neck, attaching the cuffs so the sleeves could serve as a handle.
Rooting through the locker, Robin discovered more incriminating evidence, including photographs of Maxwell Bunge observing the restrained fey as well as reports in his hand and bearing his signature. Robin decided he’d take these things to the press. The government approved of this so-called research, but he trusted in the decency of his fellow Anglicans. The common folk would be outraged, or at least he hoped.
A bright light at his back roused Robin from his ruminations. He lifted his candle and turned around to see a dozen guards with their rifles trained on him. Lila stood at the center of the group.
“I’m sorry, Robin,” she whimpered, holding out her hands.
“What? What’s going on?” But he knew. “You told them I’d be here?”
“I… I had to, Robin! I’m sorry.”
“Bitch! Traitorous bitch!”
“I haven’t got anything, Robin! I’m hungry! I need my tonic….”
“I said I’d look out for you!”
“Shut up, you two whores,” said one of the guards, threatening Lila with the back of his hand. He stepped into the car, turned the butt of his rifle toward Robin’s face, and struck before the young thief could even shield his head.
ROBIN WOKE to movement and the familiar click-clack of the train’s wheels against the tracks. They’d bound his hands with archaic iron manacles and leaned his back against the crates. His forehead throbbed where they’d hit him, and it took him many moments to focus his vision. Now that the train moved, its engine powered rows of bluish lights, allowing Robin to see clearly. Lila sat across from him, her face glistening with tears.
“Robin, I’m so sorry….”
“Just shut up.”
“But—”
“No! Don’t speak to me.”
“I guess I deserve that.”
“You guess?” Robin snarled. “Leave me alone.” He rested his head against the wooden boxes, wondering what in hell he could do now. The greedy whore he’d thought was his friend had sold him out, and now he had no idea where they were taking him. When he tried to wriggle out of his restraints, the metal cut his skin and he bled. At least his cache of documents still sat nearby, wrapped up in his shirt. They’d surely be recovered when the train reached its destination, though, leaving Robin with no proof of what went on in the research building. He sat imagining the fates awaiting him, each more unpleasant than the last. Finally he asked Lila, “How much did you get for me?”
She sniffled and wiped her face with her own bound hands. “They promised me fifty pounds and passage to Halcyon. But then they said I was a conspirator, and I’d be taken to Halcyon, alright. Here I am.”
“What did you expect?”
“I don’t kno
w, Robin! Fifty pounds is enough to start a new life. How long can I whore myself out? You can’t imagine how it feels to sell your body, to be treated like a piece of meat! How long can I depend on you to support me before you get caught and shipped off to the Colonies?”
“Well, now you can get shipped off to them all by yourself,” Robin hissed. “I’ll be executed for Lambert’s murder. If I’m lucky. How could you do this to me?”
She covered her face with her hands and sobbed. Robin looked around desperately, trying to find some way to free himself. He pushed back against the crates and got to his feet. It took him a few minutes to acclimate to the motion of the train, especially without his arms for balance. He tried the doors at either end of the car, finding them, predictably, locked from the outside. He looked again at the crates and boxes, locating one marked “Equipment: Second Floor.” If Robin remembered correctly, the second floor had housed the metal-working machines.
He reached over his head, wiggled the heavy box to the edge of the one it rested on and ducked as it fell to the floor. The wood cracked upon impact, and Robin stamped on it until it split open. Metal pieces spilled out and slid across the floor. He knelt down to sift through them, looking for something to free himself from the manacles. He found some small files that he might be able to pick them with, but he wasn’t very good at opening locks that way so he kept searching.
He couldn’t guess the purposes of most of the large gears, pistons, and casings, and he couldn’t see any use for them in his current situation. Searching around, he found another crate from the second floor and smashed it open. It contained steel sheets, levers, jointed arms, and bolts to hold it all together. Robin lifted the heavy components out one by one and stacked them beside his knee. Near the bottom, he found a flexible, foot-long blade. As a test, he dragged its serrated edge across a piece of copper tubing, and it cut through with ease. Unfortunately, Robin couldn’t hold the blade in a way that let him work on his restraints.
“Lila,” he said, hurrying to crouch in front of her, “cut me loose from these.”
She looked at the saw he pressed into her hands and then back at his face. “Why don’t you cut me loose? How do I know you won’t leave me behind?”
“I’ll cut you loose next,” he said, getting frustrated. “I’ve never given you a reason not to trust me, have I? Hurry up now. I don’t know how long we have. Cut there, where it’s started to rust.”
She set to work, but it took her almost an hour to sever the chains that held Robin’s wrists together. With his hands free, he managed to get Lila loose in half that time.
“Now what?” she asked.
“I don’t know. We need to find some way out of this car.” Outside, the wind whistled along the train’s sleek metal body. Robin wondered how fast they traveled, if they’d survive a jump to the ground. He’d worry about that after he figured out how to open the door. “Search these crates,” he told Lila. “Look for anything we can use to cut through the metal.”
Both of them set to work searching. Robin found a crowbar and tried to pry the doors apart, but the heavy latch on the outside held. He heard Lila gasp, and went to see what she’d found. A large box held a stack of thick, canvas mats stained with blood and other things. “My God,” she gasped.
“This is good,” Robin said.
“This is disgusting! That’s blood, ain’t it?”
“Yes, but we can use these. We can wrap ourselves up in them if we have to jump while the train’s moving. They might save us.”
“What were these bastards up to?” She stared with horror at the gore-stained cushions.
“Don’t think on that now,” Robin said. “Keep looking.”
Before long they’d been through almost every crate without finding anything useful. Robin didn’t have much hope as he kicked at the last wooden box. As soon as he moved it, a cold draft pushed the hair away from his face and the sound of the train grew louder. He knelt down to investigate a three-foot, square grate held in place only by a dozen screws. While grateful to have found something, Robin worried about exiting the train so close to the wheels. He could see them moving in a blur, kicking up sparks where they met the track, only an arm’s length away. If he caught an arm or leg between them, he’d lose the limb and be lucky not to get dragged to his death. On the other hand, he liked his chances better than he liked them at the hands of Maxwell Bunge. He found a screwdriver among the rubble and set to work.
The screws were tight, but Robin managed to get half of them out before the train started to slow down. He knew that it would take the locomotive quite a while to stop completely, so he abandoned his tool and kicked at the vent with all his might. He only succeeded in bending and warping it before he heard the hiss of the brakes. He and Lila hurried to stack the cases back up in case one of the guards came to check on them. Lila sat down and held her hands together, while Robin picked up the crowbar and hid himself between two columns of boxes.
Outside, he heard men working on maintaining the train: filling the boiler, dumping coal down the chute, checking the wheels and the couplings between the cars. His heart beat fast and sweat broke from his pores when he heard the latch at the back of their car sliding up. “Get ready,” he whispered to Lila, who looked waxen and pale in the bluish light.
The door opened with a metallic groan. Robin peered around and saw two men entering the car. Their rifles remained strapped to their backs. “Where’s the other one?” asked the guard on the left. Both of them approached Lila. “Where’s your friend, whore?” He bent down and grabbed her face.
Wasting no time, Robin raised his weapon and struck the man across the back of the skull. His stomach lurched at the sick crack he heard. The guard fell forward, and Lila quickly pushed his prone body off her lap with a squeal.
“You little son of a bitch,” the other man snarled as he swung his gun around to his chest. Before he could lift it to his shoulder, Robin swung the crowbar again, catching the man in the side of the neck and knocking him down on his knees. Robin hit him hard across the back of his shoulders, then the back of his head. Blood spattered Robin’s bare torso. Finally he fell still, and Robin reached for Lila’s hand to drag her to the open door. He leapt out of the car and helped her down, the thick metal bar in his other hand. Taking a second to look around, he saw that they’d left the moorland behind. Hedgerows separated fields of wheat and rye, and the station consisted of little more than a cement slab and a few wooden sheds. Not far in the distance, Robin saw a copse of elder and birch trees surrounded by ferns and bracken.
“There,” he said, pointing out the scrap of shelter. He and Lila ran as hard as they could, the stalks of grain brushing against their thighs. They made it to the patch of woods and Robin pulled Lila down by her elbow. As they caught their breath, men from the train fanned out in search of them. Robin swore and slapped his thigh as he realized he’d left his shirt, with all of his evidence, behind. He also wished he taken a rifle off one of the soldiers, but it was too late now. Despite his finesse at picking pockets, Robin decided he didn’t make a very good criminal.
The grain whispered and swished as a dozen men approached the trees where Robin and Lila hid. They lay down on their bellies, and Robin pushed some leaf litter over their backs. The crow bar hid beneath Robin’s body, poking him unpleasantly in the ribs. They hardly dared to breathe as the soldiers’ boots passed a few feet in front of them. They poked at the fern patches with the barrels of their rifles, and Robin thought they’d be found for sure. To his surprise, the soldiers left the trees and returned to searching the fields.
“They couldn’t have gotten away,” Robin heard a familiar voice saying. “Get a searchlight out here. I don’t care about the whore, but I want the boy alive.” The men returned to the train, and Robin pushed himself up on his hands and knees. He squinted into the darkness. Not far from the trees he saw an old stone fence with corn growing high on the other side. The tall stalks would award them some cover, and a proper fores
t, with thick oaks and dense laurel, waited up a hill at the far edge.
“We have to get into those woods before they come back,” Robin whispered to Lila. “Take off your shoes; we’ll need to move fast.”
She pulled off her heeled booties as she asked, “Why are you helping me, Robin? After what I done to you, why not leave me behind?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted as he stood and looked around. “I guess I just can’t stand to be completely alone. You might be a shitty friend, but you’re the only person I have in the world.”
“If we get out of this, I’m going to make it up to you,” she said. “I wish you’d let me make it up to you proper like. I wish you wanted that.”
“Just come on,” he said. “Run.”
They cleared the wheat field and vaulted over the fence. It seemed like they’d make it through the corn when a massive, square light turned the night into day. Bunge’s mechanically amplified voice said, “Stop. We have the two of you in our sights and will shoot to kill if you don’t come out.”
“What do we do?” Lila asked, clutching Robin’s elbow. As they hesitated, one of the soldiers fired. His bullet severed a stalk of corn only inches from Robin’s head.
“That was a warning,” Bunge said. “You won’t get another.”
“Robin—” Lila whimpered.
“Stay here,” he said. He walked to the edge of the cornfield with his hands over his head. “I’ll come out if you leave her alone.”
“You are in no position to bargain, boy,” Bunge spat.
Robin laughed loudly into the night. “I know of something precious to you, Mr. Bunge. Your flower.”
After several minutes of silence, a high-pitched whine sounded as Bunge disengaged from his amplifier. Two men approached Robin with their weapons drawn. “Come with us,” they said. “The girl can stay here.”
