LEGACY LOST (17 page)

Her eyes then ticked to the shadow which was eclipsing their balloon. The lumpy, cumbersome dirigible’s gas bag hovering overhead blocked much of the morning sky from view, though it still sprawled before them horizontally in its luminous, textured silver.

A deep shudder rocked the stern of the
Albatropus
, and several passengers cried out and murmured, rushing to investigate its source, while others burrowed into the berth or clung to the deck’s rail
.
Legacy went to investigate the source, and although what she felt was too distant and passionless to be construed as “fear,” it was a kind of stillness. A trepidation that instilled itself automatically in her hands and feet.

Bodies were crashing into the dirty floorboards and sending up plumes of rust with the force of the impact, driving deep dents into the infrastructure. With each body came the distinct shatter of glass – and Legacy realized what these were. They were not bodies. They were automata. Shards of white glass flew into the air, and everyone advancing instinctively threw their hands up and twisted their faces away. Stray gears, screws, and marbles popped and skittered.

Legacy lacked the instinct toward flight, however. She tucked
Mudflower
into the breast pocket of the dress to free her hands and dove closer, guarding herself from shrapnel by the border of the helm, where the creatures drove themselves down one by one. She peered up to see that the aerial dock of the Taliko island overhead was thronged in the things, leaping like lemmings.

The bodies – three in total . . . four, now – shuddered up from where they had sprawled, haloed by a powder of glass. Most of them had completely lost their porcelain coat, although one or two had a shard here or there still clinging to an eye or cheek.

“
Exa . . .”
It had to have been her imagination that they were calling her name, didn’t it? It had to have been!

Yet, even more consuming than this particular development was the Taliko island maybe twenty yards overhead, just beginning to move over their airship. Or had it come to a complete stop now? It was hard to tell which one was moving, how their angles related, in all the commotion and panic on the deck. Another twenty feet and the automata would have all bounced and slid from the balloon – or torn into its fabric and sent the airship hurtling to the earth below.

Regardless, the automata were pelting the ship and coming to a stand, little more than brass skeletons with crimson pinpricks deep in their eye sockets. Without their china coats, the robots lost all sense of gender and became sexless monstrosities.

Legacy would have wondered who had sent them, and why, exactly; if Kaizen had any hand in this, and if it had anything to do with her – but then, Kaizen and herself were the farthest things from her mind. She was doing math. If everyone fought, they could take minimal damage.

Another automaton pelted the deck, shattering.

One lunged for Gustav with the shrill grate of dry hinges, and was promptly swiped across the face. “Ah!” Gustav cried, holding his certainly broken hand. “Fuck!”

The deck shook as another landed. And another!

Legacy crawled backward, a trickle of self-doubt infiltrating this strange new emotional barrier that had formed its own chrysalis around her. There were too many of them. The odds continued to tilt away from Chance for Choice. What could she do? What would be the wisest course, the rational conclusion? Legacy crawled almost on top of Claire Addler before she saw the woman, gazing at the automata with such large, comprehending gray eyes. As if she’d seen the end of the world.

“You know, my father designed these,” she noted limply, as if she was merely saying, “You know, I don’t care for these cloudy days.”

“Well, is there any fucking way to stop them?” Legacy yelled back to her, though the women were practically hugging.

Behind them, Liam’s voice sounded in a strangled, animalistic caterwaul. She glanced just in time to see him smash an automata in the face with a legitimate anchor, sending it soaring over the rail in a shower of dislodged parts. For a moment, there came a wordless glimmer of pride that the difference engines had paired them together after all.

An eighth body landed on the deck with a strange crunch, and Legacy turned again, not waiting for Claire’s answer. Through the hedges of runners and crawlers and shouters and whisperers, Legacy observed that this eighth body did not spew glass or gears. This eighth body fell into a puddle of oil and cracked, opening, her blood joining the puddle in a sudden plume of red among the iridescent brown, its rainbows of green and purple. A human – a human woman – had leapt from the dock.

“Balderdash gas,” Claire murmured.

“
What?
” Legacy yelled, turning back to her.

“Before he started to work for the castle . . . he had built some things for the house. Perhaps he has reused the old passcode. They say that, as you get older, you know . . . you can’t remember anything else
but
the past. It was their reset trigger, in the event of a . . .” Claire’s wide eyes followed the track of an automaton that had caught fire thundering past them. It careened into the forecastle, where Izzy, up above, dumped a pail of water onto its head. The thing jittered and went still.

“It’s worth a try!” Legacy shouted.

“There’s an amplifier on the forecastle,” Claire told her. “I’ll go first.”

The two girls had only just begun their crawl toward the forecastle, during which Legacy’s hand was already crushed and Claire tripped twice, when the other girl gazed up with an uncharacteristic shriek, falling to her side and gesturing upward with a shaking index finger. “The island is lowering!”

Legacy followed Claire’s pointed finger to the royal castle and saw that it was, indeed, descending toward them . . . The thing couldn’t move quickly, the descent was slow, but the helm was riddled in homicidal automata and impossible to reach without a dangerous amount of hubris. The airship had been stilled for the funeral and now only nudged forward gently on the wind. Within seconds, the island would settle over top of them, pushing into their balloon and their cables, snapping, puncturing, sending them tumbling . . .

“We’ve got to get lower!” Legacy called, a vivid memory of Vector’s voice on their first night aboard flooding back to her.
If you need to lower Alba in the event of another thunderhead, climb into the crow’s nest and you can open the balloon and let out some air from there.

“
Exa
. . .” one of the automata rattled, having found the two girls amid the commotion.

“You go!” Claire called, pushing Legacy forward. The two girls scurried and scrambled up the forecastle’s ladder. “I’ll get the amplifier!”

“Fuck!” Vector bellowed, smashing the automaton behind them with a cannon rammer. Its jaw flew off and the machine froze. All three paused, as if to take a mere breath of relief, but then the automaton began its advance again, jawless. Vector jammed the rammer into its chest, where it became stuck, and the thing continued walking, Vector sliding along three feet in front of it. “It’s cool! I’ve got this!” he called raggedly. “What’s up guys!”

Legacy didn’t stop to talk. She vaulted onto the mast and shimmied toward the crow’s nest, a legitimate barrel which appeared to be strapped to the top with belts, directly below the far end of the balloon. She focused solely on this climb, though distantly registered Claire’s unique voice as it yelled that bizarre phrase again, and Vector yelled back that the amplifier was in the . . . something . . . they were too far away now, swallowed in the chaos of the entire ship. One steely glance upward told her she was almost there, but so was the island–

And it wasn’t just an island anymore.

It was Kaizen.

Kaizen was on the aerial dock, yelling to her as the wind rampaged around him, robbing his voice of any distance it could have had.

Maybe it would have been harder for her to ignore him before all this had happened. Maybe a part of her would have been happy that he was there, a part of her would have hoped he did come, to save her, or even to imprison her. But that part of her had been stifled by the horrors of this voyage, and now her sole desire was to prevent still more death from occurring onboard. Now she turned easily from her former lover’s outstretched hand, his frantic calls, and focused on the copper-colored plug at the tail-end of this gaseous balloon. She’d never opened it before, and wasn’t exactly sure how . . .

She gripped the protrusion of the plug, and then felt the world shift beneath her feet – how many times now? – as the island’s external aerial dock collided with the balloon of the
Albatropus.
She scrambled to cling to the barrel and secure herself. If she could just open this plug . . .

“Legacy!” Kaizen’s voice was much closer now, but she didn’t turn to look at him. She had a task. She had to do it. She repositioned herself, bracing her legs firmly on either side of the barrel, and attempted to wrench the plug loose. It wouldn’t come. “I can’t stop!”
Well, neither can I!
she thought, thinking that perhaps Kaizen was referencing some kind of obsession with her while she tried to unhinge this plug . . . and then realized with a jolt that he had meant literally. The plug loosened in her hands and a blast of hot air hissed from within as the grate of the external dock shoved into the crow’s nest and could have cut her in half if not for the arms that bound around and lifted her onto the aerial dock.

Still, she lashed away from him and attempted to reach the plug, to help the others as the dock pushed deeper into the balloon. His arms were steel binding her waist and she kicked and stretched for the railing. The
Albatropus
began immediately to lower, lower, and fall out of range of the slowly descending island . . . with Legacy left behind, on the dock, with the duke, at the castle.

“No!” she shrieked, twisting in his embrace and struggling against him by pushing and kicking at his body against hers. “No, I can’t go! I don’t want to go! Stop! They’re my people!” She got enough space to snatch at the railing and drag herself forward, Kaizen still on her hips, kicked loose and flung a leg over the rail, then the other. The only thing now between wide open sky and a long fall were her two hands holding the rail, dress and hair whipping, heart pounding as she observed the airship of her companions far below. It had begun a swift descent with the rip of the plug, and she feared they might spiral, might crash into the earth hard enough to do more damage, and they would be stranded, stranded at least two hundred miles outside of Celestine . . .

The boat appeared to steady itself, though she could no longer make out the masts, the destroyed crow’s nest, anything below the balloon. And then it drifted far enough behind them that it was lost. She frantically scanned, leaning as far over as she could, but it was gone, gone, gone.

Kaizen’s arms came up around her waist tightly, as if she might fall, as if she’d lost her balance. It would’ve been easy, actually, but she’d been too focused to realize.

“Don’t, Legacy,” he said, and she wasn’t sure quite what he meant. Don’t fight? Don’t worry? Don’t jump? He lifted her easily from the ledge and dragged her back onto the dock itself, burrowing his face in her neck as he did so.

“I didn’t want you to!” Legacy shrieked nonsensically, whirling and shoving his chest hard. Her fragile hold on reality now cracked and shattered, someone entirely imbalanced stepped out. Her wet paint part? The core which could be so easily damaged now, and preferred to stay away and touch nothing?

In another world, maybe she could’ve been happy to see him. But after everything that had happened, she couldn’t help but hate him a little bit. He’d come between her and Dax when she hadn’t wanted him; this had all been some terrible accident, but he’d pressed his advantage and taken whatever he could get! And he’d abandoned the entire city to collapse! He’d turtled like a coward when the riots began, and if only he’d swept a firm hand through the business district, maybe, maybe that electrical cannon never would’ve discharged into the dome! Maybe her parents could still be alive, at least! And then she never would’ve left on the damn airship! Then Dax’s rebreather wouldn’t have worn out!

“I’m sorry, Legacy!” Kaizen spat, bringing his arms up to her assault as if his genuine response to being attacked by her was to attempt to hold her. “I had to!”

“Don’t touch me!” Legacy shoved at his chest again and fled across the aerial dock, toward its farthest end, where perhaps she could see if the airship
Albatropus
had landed safely. She caught the briefest of glimpses: a settled ship, a deflating balloon, little more than a shifting speck of grays and browns, indicating nothing of safety or health, and then it was gone, eclipsed by the underside of the dome.

She stared after the airship – her last vestiges of family – and just let the wind wash her. Just let herself go blank.

“Hey,” Kaizen’s voice called from behind her. She felt a hand rub her shoulder. “They’ll be all right.” Another hand came up at her waist and wrapped around, his head bowing into her neck. He sighed. “They’ll be all right.”

Legacy pursed her lips, shuddered with loss, and turned, allowing herself the vulnerability of hugging Kaizen back. For a second, it was nice. Her cheek on his chest, the beat of his heart. His hands, firm yet gentle, on her back. It was nice to be held. She hadn’t been held since Dax.