The Girl with the Iron Touch
Page 26

Any other circumstance and she might have smiled at his defensiveness, but Garibaldi was simply too much of a threat for levity. “Have you ever used one of those before?”
“No, but it works in theory.”
That did nothing for her confidence. “He could know you’re here now. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Maybe, though I doubt it at this distance with all the rock and metal around.”
He was so calm when his life was in danger, it made her want to slap him. Now she knew how he felt most of the time.
Muscles tense, on alert for any manner of attack, Finley spent the next ten minutes in a state of peevish irritation waiting for their friends to arrive. Patience was not one of the few virtues she possessed, unlike Griffin, who could probably outwait time itself.
Jasper and Cat were first. Cat, with her agility and clawlike fingernails, scampered up the wall with far more ease and grace than Finley had, and silently did a little scouting work as the rest of them waited for Jack and Mila.
Jack came out of the darkness like he was a prince of this place—an actual shadow come to life. Mila looked around cautiously. Was she worried to be in the place, up against her creator? Was she going to betray them? Finley couldn’t help but wonder at the girl’s loyalty. After all, she’d been a machine longer than she’d been anything close to human.
But the girl had her eyes, and a person knew their own eyes after a lifetime of seeing them stare back at you in the mirror. If Mila did plan to betray them, she hid it extremely well. What she did not hide was her infatuation with Jack. Was that how Finley looked at Griffin? She hoped not.
Cat returned after a couple of moments, dropping silently to the ground in a crouch. “Four automatons in the first car,” she informed them in hushed tones. “Three in the last where Emily and Sam are. Also, there’s something that looks like a big tank with a man in it.”
Griffin drew back. “Other than this man in a tank, you saw no other humans?”
“Besides Emily and Sam, no. The fella in the tank is in pretty rough shape. And Sam’s laid out on a cot. Looks like Emily’s going to do some sort of procedure on him.”
Both Jasper and Finley turned to Griffin, who had gone pale. “Griff?” Jasper asked.
But Finley had already jumped to her own conclusion. “He can’t…”
Griffin nodded. “He wants Emily to put his brain in Sam’s body. It’s the only explanation.”
“What is it with mad scientist buggers who want to stick brains in places they don’t belong?” She spoke a little louder than intended, but this wasn’t her first encounter with brain removal. It was a nasty business.
“We have to stop this,” Griffin told them. “We have to stop it now. Emily’s not going to do anything to hurt Sam, and her abilities don’t work as well on fully sentient machines. If she betrays Garibaldi, his cabal will retaliate.”
“Let’s go then,” Jasper suggested. “Whose takin’ care of what?”
“Jasper, Jack and Cat, the three of you should take out the automatons in the first car. Mila, I want you with Finley and myself. We need to take out Garibaldi’s lieutenants and will need the extra strength if Sam isn’t able to fight or needs to be carried out.”
Mila looked nervously at Jack. He gave her a small smile and a nod. “Give ’em hell, Poppet.”
Finley turned away, directing her attention at the train. “Let’s get this done, then.” She climbed up the docker with Mila and Griffin hot on her heels as the others set their own mission into play.
This time she was going to make sure Garibaldi stayed dead.
Chapter 17
Blood ran down Sam’s forehead. Emily mopped at it with a cloth, but head wounds were notorious for bleeding more than necessary. Knowing this didn’t ease her guilt for having cut him in the first place. He didn’t even flinch, though she felt him press the back of his hand against her leg.
Metal Face wheeled a smaller vat of goo over to the Machinist’s tank. “You will put the Master’s brain in this, to preserve it until you place it into the vessel.”
She was going to rip out every cog and gear and moving part this arse of a machine possessed and melt them down for scrap. However, it had just given her an excuse to stop hurting Sam.
And, more importantly, to end Garibaldi. “Fine. He will need to be removed from the tank.”
The spider clacked, its metal digging into her back.
“The Master will not be removed from the tank. You will have to do the procedure with him immersed.”
“How in the devil am I supposed to do that? Climb into the bloody thing with him?”
“There is an airtight port through which you will slip your hands.”
“Well, you lot have certainly thought of everything, haven’t you?”
More chittering and clacking.
“The Master designed this tank in the event of an emergency. We simply followed his schematics.”
Who simply designed a life-support system “just in case”? Perhaps it was a good idea, but a morbid one. It made her think of Mr. Tesla and his “death suit” that they’d seen in New York. It was a suit that allowed the genius to access the Aether in spirit form. It was also terribly dangerous as it actually required him to die and enter a stasislike state. It seemed humans, the scientifically minded ones at least, were either tempting death or trying to prolong life. Surely that was an indication of madness. And she was one of them, because she’d practically slapped death in the face—twice. Both times for Sam.
“It’s going to get bloody in there.”
“It is the Master’s blood. His body will reassimilate it.”
Ew. “How am I supposed to get the saw in there?”
“There is a full array of medical and surgical equipment in a box beneath the floor of the tank. Everything you will need is already there.”
Garibaldi truly had thought of everything.
The lame metal arachnid skittered alongside her as she left Sam and went to the tank. A stool had been placed at the head of it for her. How very considerate.
“You should get that leg fixed,” she told it.
It ignored her. Perhaps there was a God after all.
As the other automaton had explained, she could put her hands into the tank. Basically she slid her hands into gloves that had been made from a thin membrane of some kind, possibly the flesh of a sea creature. The glove kept her hands dry but allowed for almost the same degree of sensitivity as bare skin. Fascinating.
Perhaps she’d keep Garibaldi’s brain so she could study it. Luckily, she thought this just as she felt a sharp pinch on the back of her neck—the spider was connecting to her.
She’d just located the box of surgical tools when the onion-shaped machine started wailing. “Intruders! Intruders!”
Emily barely had time to react before Sam leaped off the table, restraints snapping like fine thread. His boot came down hard on the onion, leaving a huge dent in its outer shell. It stopped wailing.
But it was too late. The door flew open and in ran Finley. She went straight for Metal Face, using the force of her body to take it to the floor.
The spider stopped clacking, and instead made a humming noise. Its body began to fold outward, increasing its bulk, and its legs started to ratchet, increasing the length of each one—all but that one broken one. It removed its limb from her neck just as Emily feared it might kill her, and jumped into the air, landing on Mila, who had come in behind Finley. It screamed as the girl snapped another of its powerful appendages.
Now was her chance. She could kill Garibaldi now….
“Emily, don’t!”
Her head jerked up at the sound of Griffin’s voice. She had the saw in her hand. All she had to do was flick the switch to engage its motor and she could cut right through Garibaldi’s brain.
How could Griffin stop her from eliminating this danger not only to them but to the entire world? He wouldn’t—not without reason.
Emily set down the saw. She began to remove her hands from the gloves but suddenly, Garibaldi’s own hands came up and grabbed her wrists, yanking so hard that she smashed her cheek on the metal edge of the tank. She cried out.
Griffin started toward her, but the car began to rock and shake. Emily turned to one of the windows and saw a flash of metal outside. A lot of metal.
Garibaldi had called in reinforcements.
Glass shattered, spraying inward. She ducked behind the tank to protect herself from the sharp slivers. Automatons of all shapes and sizes began to crawl through the holes. They burst up through the floor, and one even ripped a hole in the ceiling, through which it stuck its sharp, birdlike beak.
This was the collective Metal Face had mentioned. She had stupidly thought it was just a handful of machines, but of course it wasn’t. Small was not the Machinist’s style.
Sam seized the automaton’s beak, pivoted so that it was over his shoulder, and pulled. The head popped off with a loud snap. No blood, though. Thankfully, the thing had not evolved that far.
Emily struggled against Garibaldi’s hold on her arms. A man that destroyed should not have such strength. His arms, like his legs, should have been ruined.
Then, she realized these were not Garibaldi’s arms. He’d possessed a metal hand with detailed scrollwork on it. When she looked into the tank, she saw that both of these hands were primitive, skeletal restraints. His real hands lay misshapen at his sides.
This was a security measure, designed to catch anyone who tried to tamper with the body. The arrival of her friends had activated them. She should be safe so long as—
What was that noise? That “clunk” she felt more than heard? She peered into the tank and saw that a third metal hand had appeared, only this one had wicked circular blades attached. Blades that were headed for her left arm.
Emily screamed. She pulled back so hard it felt as though her shoulders would pop right out of joint. She kicked the underside of the tank, the side front of it. Nothing stopped that grisly weapon. Any second it was going to slice through her flesh, muscle and tendons, and then it would cleave her bone like it was nothing more than butter. Once it did her left hand, it would come back for her right.
How could she work without her hands? How could she use her talent without her hands?
She continued to struggle, tears running down her face. She could feel the blade getting closer. Feel the breeze created by its vicious turning.
Griffin had her by the shoulders, trying to pull her back. He reached in with his own hand and tried to break the seal around hers that held them inside the tank, but it was no use. Emily sobbed. “I don’t want to lose my hands!”
The tank shuddered, as though struck by an elephant.
It was Sam.
The blade that had come so close to her wrist jerked back a bit, but then lurched for her once again. Sam straightened and threw his shoulder forward.
“Sam!” It was all Griffin got a chance to yell before Sam charged again. The force drove the blade against Emily’s arm. She screamed at the pain as the front of the tank smashed. Her voice was lost in all the other noise in the car.
Goo splashed to the floor, followed by a dense thud. She waited for the saw to strike again, but it didn’t. She opened her eyes in time to see Sam, the upper half of his body in the tank, the saw nothing but crushed metal in his bleeding fist.
She choked back a sob. He’d saved her.
Sam pried the metal fingers holding her arms open, freeing her from the tank. Emily pulled her arms free. Her left arm wasn’t cut nearly as bad as it could have been, but it was still a nasty gash. The goo in the tank contained organites, so she scooped up a handful and slapped it on the wound before wrapping a cloth she grabbed from the operating table around it, stanching the flow of blood. She tried not to think about what else might be in that glop.
But then she realized what wasn’t in the goo.
Garibaldi.
The fight had stopped. The automatons had been defeated. Jasper, Jack Dandy and the American Wildcat (when had she arrived?) came bounding through the door. They were a little bloody and bruised. The sleeve of Dandy’s fine coat was ripped at the shoulder and he’d removed his cravat to use as a tourniquet around that same arm.
They all stopped and stared at the two men on the floor. Garibaldi convulsed as though gripped by a seizure, and Griffin…
Griffin was trying to save him.
“Help me!” he cried, raising his gaze to Emily’s.
“Griffin, let him go!”
Griffin didn’t listen. He tried scooping up goo and smearing it over the man. Then, he rose to his feet and lunged for the ruined tank, slipping on the viscous-slick floor. He grabbed the breathing apparatus and pulled on it, but it didn’t have a long enough reach.
On the floor, covered in slime, Garibaldi’s body arched, held and then collapsed.
He didn’t move.
Griffin fell to his knees once more, heedless of the shattered glass and debris. His slippery fingers felt for a pulse, for a heartbeat, even for breath. Emily watched him do all three with a tightness in her chest she couldn’t explain, but her heart broke for him.
Hands limp on his thighs, Griffin lifted his bowed head to look at them all. It was obvious that none of them understood his anguish, but they felt it all the same, as though he was somehow transferring his emotions to them.
“He’s dead.”
Finley was the one who went to him, of course. She didn’t seem to mind the corpse just inches away, or the mess on the floor and on Griffin. She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tight. “It’s going to be all right,” she said.
Griffin laughed—a ragged, tortured sound. “No, Fin. It’s not.” He slipped his arm around her as Emily put her own arm around Sam. “It’s not going to be right at all.”