The Flux Engine (20 page)

“How do you know?” Hickok asked.

“That smell, it’s spirits of heartshorn,” John said. “It’s one of the last things you add to flux. During the finishing process.”

“Looks like we got here just in time,” Hickok said, grabbing the tarnished brass doorknob. “Follow my lead.”

He turned the knob and pulled the door open. A foul, chemical stench, along with the smell of coal fires and soot, came rolling out from the dark space beyond and Hickok coughed before entering. As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness beyond the door, John could see that he stood in a small, bare room, with a low bench along one wall and a counter on the other that opened into an office beyond. There were several shelves, presumably for cans of flux to be displayed, but they were empty and dirty, as if never used.

A thoroughly disreputable looking man with greasy blond hair and a dirty smock stood at the counter, watching them expectantly, as if he’d been aware of their impending arrival for some time.

“Welcome to the Solomon Flux Works,” he said in an ingratiating voice, inclining his head to Hickok. “What can we do for you?”

“My name’s Hickok … Bill Hickok,” he said, adding emphasis to the name so the greasy man would be sure not to miss it. “I’m a territorial Enforcer and I’m here to see Professor Solomon about an important matter. Please ask him to step out here for a moment.”

The man’s ingratiating expression slipped toward sour and his eyes darted to the lone door that led from the office back into the building proper.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “The professor is out of the factory today; perhaps he’s in town. Did you ask at the clinic?”

Hickok pulled out the remaining bit of his cigar and relit it, puffing smoke in the greasy man’s face before answering.

“What’s your name, mister?” he said.

“Fredrick Longman,” the man said.

“Well, Fredrick, I know Solomon is here,” Hickok said, grabbing the front of the dirty smock with his left hand. “So the only question is, are you going to tell me voluntarily, or am I going to have to beat it out of you?”

The greasy man’s eyes bulged in horror, darting to the door again. Almost on cue, two armed men burst through it into the office. They wore rough clothes and long dusters under broad-brimmed hats. Each of them carried a pistol and neither looked like a lab tech.

The first man had a bushy blond beard and a pink scar across his nose; his gun was already raised as the door burst open, but before he could train it on Hickok, the enforcer moved. Jerking the greasy man over the counter, Hickok used him as a shield as he drew his pistol and fired. The blond bearded man spasmed as Hickok’s bullet hit him square in the chest and his own shot went wide.

The second man fired from behind his partner’s falling body and John ducked as the shells tore holes in the wall over his head. Hickok’s gun barked in response and a second body hit the floor.

“Watch him,” Hickok said, pushing the greasy man at John as the sound of running feet echoed from beyond the open door.

Taking his pistol in his trembling hand, John pointed it squarely at Fredrick Longman in his dirty smock. Fredrick’s eyes were wide with terror and fixed on the barrel of the pistol.

As soon as John had the man covered, Hickok flipped open the moveable panel at end of the counter, and moved to the office beyond.

“Talbot, Johnson,” a voice called. “What’s goin’ on in there? Did you get ’‘em?”

“Yeah,” Hickok called back in a gruff voice. “But the big one shot me.”

John was smiling at the ruse, not believing the men in the hallway bought it, when suddenly a hail of bullets tore through the wall. Hickok dove for the door, rolling through it into the hall beyond, and came up firing. Frederick shuddered, as if he were preparing to run, but John cocked his pistol, causing him to remain perfectly still.

“Where’s Solomon?” John demanded.

“He’s loading the flux, mister,” Fredrick said. “I swear that’s all I know. Please don’t kill me.”

More shots erupted in the hallway and John let his eyes dart to the door. Wild Bill Hickok was one of the deadliest pistoleers in the world, it was said, but how many men could he hold off alone? John jerked his pistol toward the exit.

“Get going,” he said.

Fredrick didn’t have to be told twice. He bolted to the door with the speed of a startled hare and tore off toward the path leading to town. As soon as he was gone, John moved. The firefight seemed to have headed down the hall, away from the door. When John poked his head out, he gasped. The interior of the flux works was one enormous room. Around the walls were the giant vats used in the various stages of mixing flux. High up near the ceiling, John could see shelves and shelves of chemicals, each attached by rubber hoses to networks of tubes and pipes that bore their contents off to the various vats where they would be needed. Enormous catwalks ran up the side walls, allowing access to the vats and the supplies. On the far wall, John could see the finishing tanks, each with blue flux glowing through round windows, indicating that they were full.

With all of the flux works’ machinery against the walls, it left the center of the long building empty, or rather it would have been empty normally. Now the entire space was occupied by a small transport airship. As John watched, a row of chugging Tommys moved back and forth along the upper catwalk, carrying drum after drum of flux to the airship. While the professor’s men kept Hickok busy, he was readying his escape.

Chapter 21

The Professor

Three bullets slammed into the wall at John’s left, showering him with dust and splinters. A fourth shot hit a moment later and he flinched and ducked behind a nearby barrel as a piece of wood drew a searing line across his cheek. He tapped his face where the splinter had hit him and his fingers came away wet with blood.

Clearly someone had seen him. It was time to move.

He darted from the door to the shelter of the catwalks nearby, hiding behind an empty steel vat. Across the open floor of the flux works, Bill Hickok was steadily driving the Professor’s thugs back. There appeared to be five or six of them, all shooting at the enforcer from the upper levels of the far catwalk. At least four of their companions lay draped over stairs and railings, evidence of Hickok’s accuracy. The enforcer himself had ducked behind a mixing vat on the lowest level, and was calmly pushing shells into the cylinder of his pistol. As John watched, he spun it, then scooped up a second pistol, dropped by one of the dead thugs. Thus armed, he charged up the stairs to the second level, firing as he went. One of the surprised thugs clutched his abdomen and with a ragged cry, tumbled over the railing, crashing to the floor below, where he lay still. As Hickok reached the second level landing, the thugs gave ground, backing toward the stairs that led to the top.

John spared a glance at the floor above, where at least a dozen Tommys were loading the airship with the Professor’s latest batch of flux. Hickok might have the thugs on the run, but if they reached the upper level, the Tommy handler would simply order the ten-foot metal men to rush Hickok. The enforcer’s sword and gun wouldn’t be much use against a Tommy.

John had to warn him.

He stood up to shout, but the moment he moved from cover another hail of bullets slammed into the wall behind him. One of the thugs was keeping him pinned down. The others seemed to be getting smarter, shooting in waves to cover each other and keep Hickok from getting off any return fire.

Up above, the Tommys continued their work. If the thugs could keep Hickok busy for just a few minutes more, Solomon would be free to leave and Hickok would have to face a dozen killer Tommys.

Unless.

He’d sent Tommys rampaging once before. Of course he didn’t have his mother’s crystal this time, but maybe he wouldn’t need it. He’d heard the harmonic of the broken crystal in the Prophet’s office. More to the point, he’d managed to change that harmonic, to fix it so that the Etherium Wireless would work. Tommys were just like the Prophet’s wireless; they operated on a series of commands sent out on a frequency generated from the handler box. If John could change that frequency …

No.

It was suicide. The handler was bound to be protected, hiding safely behind his line of impregnable metal soldiers. The only way to disrupt the Tommys was to physically touch the crystals—the ones locked away inside the handler box.

Of course, those weren’t the only crystals.

There was a second set, the receivers, housed under a simple metal lid on the back of each Tommy’s head.

That was it. He had a plan.

It wasn’t a very good plan, and there seemed to be an uncomfortable number of ways it could go wrong and kill him, but at least he wouldn’t have to shoot anyone. That was a bonus.

John peeked around the mixing vat and almost immediately two bullets tore by him into the wall. Whoever was watching him hadn’t given up. He was going to have to run for it.

He took a deep breath and charged. As soon as he rounded the vat, bullets started hailing all around him. If he stopped he would be an easy target, so he ran, charging up the stairs and onto the second floor landing. The bullets stopped abruptly and it took him a moment to realize that the body of the airship now hung between him and the raging gun battle on the other wall’s catwalk.

John took a moment to catch his breath. He could hear the men beyond the airship trying to keep Hickok pinned down. There was another gurgling cry and something clattered down the metal stairs to the wooden floor below. Professor Solomon’s thugs were getting desperate. Hickok was picking them off one by one.

Moving quickly across the landing, John mounted the last set of stairs, the ones that would carry him up to the level of the airship’s upper deck. Climbing quietly until his head came level with the deck, he peeked carefully over the top of the deck.

Tommys marched in two long lines running from a ramp that led down to the airship’s hold from a stack of flux drums on the far catwalk. There were only a score of drums left. The Tommys would have them loaded in no time. Of the Tommy handler, there was no sign.

The deck of the airship floated easily almost six feet from the edge of the catwalk. There wasn’t a boarding ramp on this side, but the jump didn’t look that far.

“Up there,” someone suddenly called from below.

John looked down in time to see a group of men storming in through the lower door. One of them was Fredrick Longman, now armed with a shattergun. As soon as he spotted John, he fired, sending shards of crystal ringing off the stairs and rails of the catwalk.

“You take that one,” Fredrick said to his companions, pointing off to the far side where Hickok and the thugs were shooting it out. “I’ll get the kid.”

Frederick came thundering up the stairs faster than he had any right to be able to. John gripped the handle of his pistol, but couldn’t seem to jerk it free of the holster. He could see the fire in Fredrick’s eyes as he rounded the second floor landing and charged up the last set of stairs.

John tore his glance free and ran. Sprinting as fast as he could, he hit the edge of the catwalk and jumped. For a stomach lurching second he seemed to hang above the empty space, suspended between the glass ceiling above and the wooden floor far below. His feet hit the deck of the airship with a stinging thud that threw him off balance and he staggered.

Regaining his balance, John ran straight at the opening in the deck where the Tommys were loading the last of the barrels of flux. Someone had been standing behind the pilot house, out of John’s view, and he heard the man gasp as John shot past him and leapt atop the nearest Tommy.

“Hold it, kid,” Frederick called but John didn’t stop.

Sticking his finger in the hole of the access plate, he pulled, wrenching the thin metal covering open and exposing the array of glowing, singing crystals beneath.

Two things happened together. Frederick fired and the Tommy spun around, attempting to reach John with one of its tree-trunk sized arms. The crystal shards meant for John slammed into the protective plating that covered the Tommy’s arm and John held on tighter. He’d grabbed the Tommy on its back, near the stack from its boiler. The metal was hot and he’d already broken out in a sweat.

His fingers touched the vibrating crystals as their song exploded in his mind. It wasn’t the pure, harmonious song of his mother’s crystal, nor the ordered melody of the Prophet’s wireless; this seemed dull and heavy, as if the Tommys needed nothing more than a simple chord of sounds to keep them moving. Almost as soon as he looked for it, he found it. Buried beneath the ham-fisted rolling of sounds that drove the Tommys lay the link to the handler. It seemed thin and fragile, as if any interference at all would shatter it, leaving the Tommys standing, directionless.

John drew together the various elements of the Tommy harmony, pulling the sound into something new, something of his own making and will. Then, with an almost contemptuous effort, he reached out and shattered the thread binding the Tommys to the will of their handler.

Somewhere nearby a man screamed in agony. John couldn’t see him, couldn’t force his eyes to focus. His vision came in multiple, fragmented parts and he knew he was seeing once again through the eyes of Tommys. He saw a metal hand with long, thin fingers grab Bill Hickok and throw him violently along the catwalk where he smashed into a stack of empty barrels.

John focused his will and the Tommy turned around. Behind it a knot of leering men were rushing forward to finish Hickok off. John’s anger flashed through the Tommy and it charged, lashing out at the men and throwing them in all directions.

His consciousness flashed to a different Tommy, one standing near where Hickok had landed. John sent it off to dig the enforcer out, then he changed again. This time he saw Frederick Longman running across the deck of the airship with his shattergun. A sweep of the Tommy’s arm sent him hurtling across the deck to collapse in a heap against the aft rail.

John grinned, reaching out through the connections to find new Tommys and give them orders; he needed them to sweep the airship and find Professor Solomon.

Something heavy slammed into his side and John cried out. Spasming in pain, his hands lost contact with the crystals and the Tommy he clung to lurched to a halt, sending him tumbling to the deck. Through a haze of pain, John looked up to see a man in a white lab coat with an oversized wrench bearing down on him. He reached for his pistol but hesitated, the face of the air pirate suddenly before his eyes.

The wrench swept down, catching John on the side of his head. Stars exploded in his vision and he blacked out.

His consciousness swam in and out of focus. He had a vague sensation of being carried, then dumped unceremoniously on a hard floor.

“Ow,” he groaned, pushing himself up into a sitting position. His side throbbed and glowing orange stars still floated lazily before his eyes.

“Right over there,” an unfamiliar voice said and there was the sound of another body hitting the deck of the airship. From the sound of the groan, it was Hickok.

“Ah,” the voice said, seeming more focused on John. “I’m glad you’re awake. I was afraid I’d hit you too hard.”

John’s eyes swam back into focus, coalescing on a tall man in a white lab coat who stood over him. He had a square face and a pug nose that appeared to have been broken at some point. His hair was coal black but with streaks of gray that appeared to emerge from his bangs and race backwards along the top of his head. Perched above his forehead was a pair of heavy goggles with lenses of green bottle-glass and he wore heavy, vulcanized work gloves that covered him to the elbow.

“Professor Solomon, I presume.” Hickok gave voice to John’s thoughts.

“And you must be the infamous Wild Bill Hickok,” Solomon said. “You’ll have to forgive the handcuffs, but I’ve heard some extraordinary things about you and it simply wouldn’t do to have you getting loose.”

John’s eyes darted to Hickok. The big enforcer was missing his duster and a good portion of his shirt. The flesh that showed beneath the ragged holes was bruised a dark purple. Hickok’s hands had been bound behind his back, but John could tell that wasn’t necessary. From the bruised flesh and Hickok’s shallow breathing it was obvious the man had several broken ribs.

John cursed himself. He hadn’t stopped the Tommys soon enough.

“Now who might this be?” Solomon asked, his eyes turning to John. “That was quite something you did with the Tommys, young man.” He spoke in an easy, almost friendly manner, a smile on his face. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I’m John Porter and I used to be a Thurger,” he said, trying to make it sound casual. “I picked up a few tricks.”

“I’ll say,” Solomon said, nodding. “Most impressive.” If he had further questions, he didn’t ask them. He turned to a metal table clamped to a nearby wall and began rummaging through a leather bag on it.

For the first time John realized that they were aboard Solomon’s airship. Almost on cue, there was a lurch that made the ship shudder, and John felt it rise up through the air.

“Ah, here it is,” Solomon said. He withdrew a sealed jar full of amber liquid from the bag along with a slender leather case. With practiced motions, he withdrew a long syringe with a fat, round body and attached a long, slender needle to it. He thrust the needle through the lid of the jar, and pulled on the two round finger-loops at the back of the syringe to draw the amber liquid up into its body.

“And now,” he said, holding the syringe upward and pressing the plunger until a thin jet of fluid emerged from the needle. “I would very much like to know why the famous Bill Hickok has come to visit me.”

Without warning, Solomon suddenly jumped on John, jamming the long needle into the gap of his collarbone.

“Don’t struggle,” he said, pinning John down with his knee while he pumped the syringe empty. “You’ll just make it hurt more.”

John was about to answer, but the flow of warmth that erupted in his shoulder at the injection site had suddenly caught fire and burned.

“Solomon,” Hickok yelled as John stifled a cry. He tried to rise, but paled as his broken ribs twisted inside him.

The syringe clicked as the plunger hit the glass and the last of the amber liquid disappeared into John’s shoulder.

“That ought to do it,” Solomon said, standing up and turning back to the table.

“What was that stuff?” Hickok demanded.

John wanted to ask the same question, but the pain in his shoulder was intense and he’d broken out in a sweat.

“That,” Solomon said, taking a second bottle from his bag, “is something I discovered in my work with the Leakers. It infects the subject with Flueric Hemophilia about fifty percent of the time.”

John felt his sweat suddenly run cold.

“Unless,” Solomon went on, filling the syringe from the second bottle. “I administer this antidote within five minutes.”

John’s muscles suddenly tightened, pulling his back up into a taut arch, like a bow.

“Flueric Hemophilia is really an amazing disease,” Solomon said, watching John with dispassion. “It changes far more than the victim’s blood vessels. The entire digestive tract is altered so the body can break down and absorb fresh blood.”

“Damn it, man,” Hickok snarled through the pain of his broken ribs. “What is it you want?”

Solomon tore his gaze away from John. “I want to know why you are here,” he said in an easy drawl. “I want to know who sent you, and what they know. I’d suggest you answer quickly,” he said. “Johnny here doesn’t have much time.”