Chainbreaker (Timekeeper)

by Tara Sim

  “The bleeding hell was that?” yelled a soldier from across the room. Some of the men had been thrown to the floor.

  Danny rubbed his chest and swore. Daphne looked around. “That didn’t feel like turbulence,” she said as the soldiers and kitchen staff ran from the mess. “C’mon, Danny. Something’s up.”

  She sounded frightened, and it doused Danny like a bucket of ice water. When he’d worried about something happening to the airship earlier, he had been in such a state of panic he’d barely been able to think. Now he felt oddly detached, like he was still in his cabin dreaming.

  The speakers in the hall crackled, and the sound of Captain Eckhart’s voice came through: “Everyone, please stay calm. There appears to be another airship on the same course as us. It banged up against us—probably an accident. I’m signaling the pilot now.”

  But on the word now, another bang sent those in the hallway hurtling into the wall. Captain Eckhart grunted in annoyance. Crewmembers shouted for everyone to please return to their cabins, but it was rather hard when the hull kept shuddering, forcing them to stagger like toddlers attempting to walk for the first time.

  “Gunners, to your stations! Everyone, to the emergency landing crafts on wings C and D!”

  There were loud, booming noises just outside the airship, striking repeatedly like thunder. Attendants ushered people to the emergency aircrafts. Another hit sent Daphne lurching, and Danny caught her.

  “Our things!” he yelled into her ear.

  “Leave them!”

  But he couldn’t. He had left the small cog in his trunk.

  He took off. Daphne yelled after him, and an attendant tried to stop him, but Danny took advantage of another rumble to sprint by.

  He didn’t know why he was risking life and limb for a piece of metal. But just as he couldn’t control his dreams, he couldn’t control his actions, and only one thought blazed across his mind: I can’t lose my only connection to him.

  As he rounded the corner, an explosion blew him off his feet. He landed hard on his shoulder with a loud pop. Groaning, Danny tried to get to his knees, but when he rolled over he gasped.

  The explosion had ripped a hole in the Notus’s hull, taking out the cabin next to Danny’s. All that remained was a jagged window into the Indian evening, a soupy mix of blue, gray, and red. The wind stung his skin and tugged him toward the hole.

  He scrambled to find something to grab onto, but the force of the wind dragged his body across the floor, and he shot outside with a scream. Even as he was falling, he searched for something, anything, until his fingers closed around a loose cable that had been rent free in the explosion. Danny dangled from the airship over a dark, barren stretch of ground, miles and miles from his feet.

  He let out a dry sob. His shoulder ached, but he clung onto the cable for dear life, the wind whipping his clothes and hair.

  He was going to die because he was an idiot who wanted to save a cog.

  And if he died, then Colton …

  The dull throb of gunfire split the air. The Notus shuddered each time it was hit, steadily losing altitude. He could barely feel his hands. His fingers slipped and he gripped the cable even tighter.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw something move. A bulky figure was climbing down the side of the airship. The more he stared, the more Danny realized it was a person swaddled in a thick jacket. Hope flared hot and bright in his bruised chest. Someone from the crew, maybe, who knew he’d come this way.

  The person climbed down a metallic rope that had been affixed somewhere on top of the Notus. When the person reached the hole, he swung inside without being sucked out through the hull; the ship must have repressurized.

  It was then that Danny noticed his supposed rescuer wore dark goggles and a kerchief around the lower half of his face, and a gun strapped to his waist. As Danny watched, the person detached a length of canvas rope from his belt.

  Danny could only hang there as the figure approached, his dark jacket flapping in the wind, the rope coil he held in one fist dancing like the head of a cobra.

  At the end of the rope was a noose.

  Danny scanned his surroundings for a way to escape, but the only way was down. The man knelt above Danny, ready to either lasso or hang him with it.

  “Stop!” Danny yelled, kicking his feet ineffectively through the open air. “Don’t do this!”

  To his surprise, the figure tossed the rope to him.

  “Grab onto it,” the man ordered.

  Danny clutched tighter to the cable. His fingers were past numbness.

  “Grab hold of the rope!”

  “Who are you?” Danny demanded. “Are you with the Notus?”

  The man, losing patience, unstrapped his gun and pointed it at Danny’s face.

  “Grab the rope!”

  Danny couldn’t move. He hung there like a worm on a hook and stared at the dark lenses of his soon-to-be-killer’s goggles.

  Before the man could pull the trigger, something collided with his head and he tumbled to one side. Daphne stood in his place, a length of pipe clutched tightly in her hands. She panted as the wind made a wild mess of her long hair.

  “He has a gun!” Danny yelled.

  She saw where it had fallen and kicked it out of the hole. It plummeted to the Indian plain below.

  The man quickly leapt to his feet, but before he could round on Daphne, she smacked him again with the pipe and he lost his footing, following his gun out into the approaching night.

  “Shit!” Danny watched the man fall. He was going to die.

  But then the man threw something. A disc shot up into the clouds, trailing another metallic rope behind it. The man swung from the rope as he was pulled upward by an unseen force. He looked over at Danny, then flew out of sight.

  Daphne dropped the pipe and reached for his hand. The rope had slithered out, so Danny had to pull himself up the cable before he could grab onto Daphne’s forearm. She steadied herself against the hull and heaved, face red, teeth bared.

  Danny crawled back into the airship and scrambled to one side, away from the hole. He leaned against the wall, gasping hoarsely. Daphne’s own breaths were high and wheezing.

  She looked out of the hole, and he followed her gaze. Another airship, larger than the Notus, with a high bridge at the front and a long, bulky body, rose up into the air. That was all Danny had time to notice; the ship was little more than a dark mass as evening fell in earnest, an ominous cloud climbing back into the sky. The other clouds swallowed it into their company.

  When Danny and Daphne could move again, they hurried from the corridor toward the emergency aircrafts. Attendants shoved them into a small carrier ship with some of the soldiers, then latched the doors behind them.

  Danny sat in a cold metal seat as he was strapped in. He couldn’t lift his arms.

  An announcement was made. The engine started. They took off.

  Something touched his thigh. It took all his effort to look down and see Daphne’s hand resting there.

  “Danny,” she whispered. “Are you all right?”

  I’m alive, he wanted to say, but no sound came out.

  “What happened? Who was that?”

  He couldn’t even shake his head. Daphne said that maybe he was in shock, but it was all right now. They’d be on the ground within minutes. He wanted her to be quiet; for everything to be as still and silent as he was.

  As if his body heard the plea, he closed his eyes and passed out.

  As the plane landed, he roused himself. Daphne hovered at his side, and an attendant came to take Danny’s pulse. She gave Danny two small, white pills.

  Daphne eyed them distastefully. “Isn’t there anything else?”

  “They’ll calm him.”

  Danny was forced to swallow the pills, which scratched his throat on the way down. Others were getting out of the plane, grimly murmuring among themselves. A soldier said they were an hour’s drive from the military base. Another said help was coming.<
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  Danny sat under the supervision of Daphne and the attendant. When they heard shouts coming from outside, he forced himself to stand. His legs were wobbly, but he had to see what was happening.

  The Notus fell toward earth, but the captain had deployed an emergency balloon to inflate over the airship. It wasn’t enough to keep the ship in the air, but the balloon allowed it to drift slowly to the ground. A few smaller ships flew toward it from the direction of what Danny assumed was the nearby military base. They looked like birds of prey waiting for the mammoth to die.

  “I suppose we’ll be able to recover our things after all,” Daphne said. Her hair was a mess, and there was a scratch on her cheek. Danny’s shoulder and chest still hurt, and his hands were rubbed raw.

  When she felt his gaze, she looked away from the Notus and met his eyes. He swallowed. The pills felt trapped at the bottom of his throat.

  “Thank you,” he croaked.

  Her lips thinned and she turned back to the falling airship. “You’re welcome. It’s your own fault, though. Who’s daft enough to run for their things when they’re told to evacuate a crashing airship?”

  “Me.” For some reason she laughed that clear, throaty laugh of hers. His lips trembled.

  “Who was that man, anyway?” she asked again. “Why was he about to shoot you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He wasn’t Indian, was he?”

  “No.” The skin Danny had seen between goggles and kerchief was white. “He spoke like us. English.”

  They watched as the Notus skidded along the ground. Great clouds of dust rose up in a desert storm as steam billowed into the air with a hiss. The balloon deflated, blanketing the airship as if it were a funerary shroud.

  Danny felt woozy and detached; the pills were already starting to work. “I wish I could have seen his face when you hit him with that pipe.”

  “Me, too.” Daphne laughed again, quietly, and this time he joined her. Then he laughed again, louder. She did, too. They couldn’t stop. Danny had to put a hand over his mouth when the other survivors turned to glare at them. The attendant hurried back to offer Daphne the same pills she’d given Danny.

  They sat in the dirt and laughed, hysterical, grateful, tired, alive.

  Military autos from the base came to retrieve the soldiers and crew. Danny and Daphne climbed into the back of one, the night veiling their blank, weary faces. Daphne had refused to take the pills, instead slipping them in her pocket. But she was now just as quiet and calm as Danny.

  They jostled in their seats as the auto rumbled over bumps and pits. Danny closed his eyes and reached for his pocket before remembering that the cog wasn’t there. What would Colton have done if Danny had died today, on the first leg of his journey? He recalled his mother’s concern, the insinuation that Colton could not control his emotions. His father’s claim that he always put Colton’s welfare before his own.

  And it was true. The first thought blazing across his mind hadn’t been pain or death—it had been what that pain would do to Colton.

  But I didn’t die, he told himself firmly. Not today.

  The image of the strange man swam behind his closed eyelids. Had he been trying to save Danny, or hurt him? Had he been singled out or chosen only because his idiotic actions had put him in harm’s way?

  He may have dozed off, for when he next opened his eyes, the plain outside had changed from an arid yellow to a grass-stained green. Trees were scattered on either side of the dirt road, swaying gently with the breeze. The auto rattled on toward the cantonment. Beyond that, Danny saw the dark forms of city buildings like slumbering giants.

  The British private driving the auto pulled up inside the perimeter of the cantonment, past the stone wall. Squat buildings lined the road, many windows still lit. Soldiers, British and Indian alike, meandered outside under the pale moon.

  “Took a hell of a time, but here you are,” the private said. “Welcome to Agra.”

  The last time Colton had gone to London, he’d been mostly unaware of his surroundings. He was therefore completely unprepared for what awaited him.

  Upon entering the city proper, he was greeted with the smell of ash and sweat. And the noise. He first mistook the crowd for a roaring beast lying in wait for him, but it was only people jostling up and down the street, yelling, mumbling, hawking. More people than he’d ever seen before, a frightening, teeming swarm poised to discover who he really was at any second.

  Colton ducked into a foul-smelling alleyway, clutching the front of Danny’s overcoat. He waited for the throng of people to disperse, thinking maybe they were all going somewhere together.

  No such luck. The crowd was unending.

  He slowly made his way through the twists and turns of the streets. There was so much to take in—the autos, the machines, the smoke, the shops. Behind windows, automatons worked as clerks. Outside, vendors called out that newspapers were only one shilling. A little boy chased a dog down the street, his mother calling after him. A constable directed traffic at an intersection. Pigeons congregated in messy areas, flew into the air when someone walked by, then settled back about their business.

  Colton kept his head down and his hands deep in his pockets. That’s what Jane had instructed him to do. She’d been quite clear on what he was not to do: talk to anyone; stop for any reason; buy anything except a hansom cab ride (they had given him money just in case, but he didn’t know how to use it); or get distracted from his goal.

  But London was so huge. He kept stopping to stare, whether it was watching a chimney sweep on a rooftop or a street performer juggling. If he caught someone looking at him oddly, he ducked his head and moved along.

  Most confusing of all, however, was that Colton could no longer use the senses he’d always relied on. In Enfield he could see and hear everything, but here he felt disconnected, isolated. Was this how humans normally felt? It must be terribly lonely.

  It took him a while to realize that street names were written on signs above his head. After that, it was much easier to figure out where he was. At one point, he found himself in a place called Piccadilly Circus, but it looked nothing at all like a circus; at least, not the sort he’d heard of. It was merely an intersection between large buildings with a statue of a winged man in the middle. If this was London’s idea of a circus, it was a boring one.

  He had to stop several times to sit on a bench, or on the curb, or somewhere out of the way. He was weak, but his strength gradually improved as he drew closer to Big Ben. London’s time wrapped around his body and hugged him, familiar and calming. It might have been Big Ben himself, welcoming him. Colton longed to pay London’s clock spirit a visit.

  No. No distractions.

  Mayor Aldridge had given him Danny’s London address, and he was at the point of collapse by the time he tottered through Lambeth and reached Danny’s street. He remembered this place also. The snow had been falling in soft, quiet flakes, the street darkened by night. Danny had leaned over him, worried and pale.

  Colton hesitated outside the gate. He had met Danny’s mother before, and though odd, she’d been pleasant enough. His father was another matter entirely.

  Maybe I should go to the mechanics’ office. It was right across from Big Ben.

  But he had promised to seek out Christopher Hart first. There was no telling what the Lead Mechanic would want to do with him.

  Colton opened the gate and approached the front door. From what Danny had told him, the Harts worked during the day and were home by evening. Above, the sky was red with dusk.

  Colton knocked. He strained to hear movement inside the house, annoyed that his senses were so dulled.

  He was about to turn and make his way to Big Ben after all when the latch scraped inside. The door opened, and a tall, long-limbed man stood on the threshold. He had green eyes and dark hair, with feathery black eyebrows. Colton briefly wondered if this was what Danny would look like in several years’ time. Not quite, he decided. Danny’s f
ace was sharper, more like his mother’s.

  But it was enough to make him pause.

  “Hullo? Can I help you?” the man asked. Even their voices were similar.

  “I … uh …” How was he going to do this? “Are you Christopher Hart?”

  “I am.” He took in Colton’s bag. “If you’re selling something, we aren’t interested, thanks.”

  “Oh, no, nothing like that. It’s—It’s about your son. Sort of.”

  Christopher blanched, and Colton winced. He’d said the wrong thing already.

  “Danny? Is he hurt? What happened?”

  “That’s not what I meant!” Colton raised his hands, and realized his mistake too late. Christopher stared at his see-through palms, glowing faintly in the dusk shadows.

  For a long moment, neither man nor spirit said a word. Then Christopher moved so he was no longer blocking the doorway.

  “Come inside,” he whispered. He looked up and down the street as Colton hurried through the door, then closed and locked it behind him.

  He whirled on Colton. “What’s the meaning of this?”

  Colton took off his cap and held it between his hands. Christopher’s eyes darted around his face.

  “Has there been news about Enfield?” Colton asked.

  “Not that I’ve heard. Why?” Judging from his tone, he’d already guessed.

  “It’s Stopped.”

  Christopher’s paleness was overtaken by an angry flush. All at once, Colton understood his second blunder.

  “I didn’t do it on purpose! That is, I didn’t want to Stop Enfield. We were attacked. My tower was hit. It was going to fall and Stop time anyway, so I had to detach my central cog.” He touched Danny’s bag. “We didn’t know what to do. The mayor told me to get help. I was the only one who could leave.”

  Christopher swayed. Wordlessly, he walked past Colton into a room that looked to be a kitchen. Colton cautiously followed. He’d only seen Danny’s bedroom on his last visit, and now he took in his surroundings: faded green walls, a telephone in the hall, portraits painted in muted colors.