The Inventor's Secret (20 page)

HARLOTTE HAD TO repeat what had
transpired within the temple of Athene three
times, and then Meg had to confirm what Charlotte had said before Ashley would believe it.

Charlotte found no fault in her brother’s assessment.
Meg sighed. “Maybe. But it’s all we have to work with.”
She’d been distracted, fidgeting and falling behind in their
conversation since leaving the temple.
“So our plan is to find a dead boy’s father and show
him Grave,” Ashley said. “That is a terrible, terrible idea.”
Charlotte shrugged. “I agree, but what else can we do?”

“I have another question that no one will like,” Coe

They all looked at him, and he continued, “If, as seems
likely, this trip leads nowhere, what then?”
An uncomfortable silence fell between them. Charlotte
was surprised that it was Grave who finally spoke.
“You won’t send me away, will you?”
Ash shifted uneasily on the trolley bench. “What do
you mean?”
“I want to stay in the Catacombs,” Grave said firmly.
“I think that’s what’s best for me. I like Birch. I’ll help him
with his work.”
“There’s more to it than that, Grave,” Ash told him.
“We don’t just live in the Catacombs. We’re hiding there.”
Grave nodded vigorously. “I won’t tell anyone where
you are. I promise. Just don’t leave me with that woman at
the temple.”
Charlotte gave an affirmative “hmmpf.” She wouldn’t
want to be sent back to the temple either. Creepy, rude
priestesses in their creepy, cold room.
Meg sighed again.
“Are you unwell?” Ash leaned forward to peer at Meg.
“I’m fine. Just tired.” She waved him off, but Charlotte
agreed with her brother. Meg didn’t seem fine at all. Her
face was drawn. Her gaze far away.
Charlotte reached for Meg’s hand. “If you need to rest,
go back to the mansion. We’ll come to you once we’ve finished this wild goose chase.”
“Have a little faith, Lottie.” Meg smiled at Charlotte.
“We don’t know that it’s a wild goose chase yet.”
Meg’s words made Charlotte’s skin crawl, though she
couldn’t say why.
“There’s the Hive.” Coe pointed to the front of the cable car.
True to its namesake, the Hive’s tall, cone-shaped structure dominated its platform. Plated in brass interrupted by
the rare window and steam vent, the Hive wasn’t a welcoming sort of place.
Even before the trolley arrived at its station, Charlotte
sensed the distinct change in atmosphere from the rest of
the Floating City. The other platforms exuded an ease that
bordered on laxity. The Hive, by contrast, was noisy and
harried. Passengers, wearing the plain gray garb that signified their status, rushed to exit the car, while others shoved
their way onto the trolley. The only thing that curbed their
pushy behavior was the sight of Coe’s uniform. When Coe
walked at the head of their small party, people moved aside
to give him wide berth. As he passed, nervous glances and
whispers trailed him.
Coe led them to one of the arched entrances at the
Hive’s base. Access to the interior was gained through narrow gates that opened and closed at the discretion of an
operator.
Coe cleared his throat to gain the attention of the wiry
man who sat in the gatehouse. The operator’s cap was too
big for his weasel-like features and kept sliding over his
eyes, making him more inclined to repositioning the cap
than opening the gate.
“Excuse me,” Coe finally said, rapping on the gatehouse window.
“Lay off or I’ll see you fined for disorderly conduct,”
the operator snarled, but when he looked up and saw Coe,
he straightened on his stool so abruptly that he fell right
off it.
Scrambling up and brushing readjusting his cap once
more, the operator stammered, “M-m-my apologies, s-ss-ir. How can I be of assistance?”
“We have an appointment with the Inventors’ Guild,”
Coe informed him.
The man’s beady eyes narrowed when he looked over
Charlotte, Meg, Ash, and Grave. “All of you?” The operator inquired of Coe. “Do you have papers?”
Coe smiled at the little man, but his tone was so cold he
might as well have drawn his pistol. “Military business is
not subject to your bureaucratic oversight. Let me talk to
your superior.”
“No, no, no,” the operator squeaked. “That’s not necessary.”
He pulled a chain that dangled from the gatehouse ceiling, and the metal barricade swung open.
When they were past the gate, Ash said to Coe, “He
could be talking about that if he heads to the tavern this
evening.”
“If he talks, Ott will know before anyone else does,”
Coe replied. “And he’ll make sure nothing comes of it.”
An amalgam of sound rose from within the Hive’s wide
base, spiraling toward its pinnacle.
“The workshops occupy the lower levels,” Coe told
them. “In the middle you’ll find a mix of specialty shops
and living spaces. The higher tiers are strictly residential.”
Charlotte let her head drop back, and she turned in a
slow circle, so she could gaze up at ring after ring of the
Hive. An elevator bank served as a structural foundation
at the center of the Hive, and at each level, bridges extended outward from the elevators like spokes on a wheel.
“Do many artisans choose to live where they work?”
Charlotte asked.
“They don’t have a choice,” Coe answered. “Artisans
assigned to one of the Hive guilds are required to live
within this structure.”
At Charlotte’s startled reaction, Coe added, “It’s their
concession for being allowed to reside in the Floating City
rather than with most laborers in the Commons.”
The Inventors’ Guild occupied a quarter of the Hive’s
ground levels, its door labeled with a brass plate bearing
the guild’s crest. But when they passed into the guild itself,
Charlotte was certain they were in the wrong place.
Every wall was lined with shelves brimming with stacks
of paper. They could barely find space to move through the
room due to the easels, drafting boards, and desks—also
covered with papers, charts, and sketches—squeezed into
every nook and cranny.
Despite the overabundance of inanimate objects in the
guild, not a living soul was to be seen.
“Where is everyone?” Ash asked.
“Someone must be here,” Coe said, but he sounded uncertain.
Charlotte threw him a questioning glance, at which he
shrugged.
“Inventors are notoriously unreliable. Their minds are
set to their tinkering, and they make little effort to ensure
that the bureaucratic side of the guild runs smoothly.”
“Here.” Charlotte pushed past Coe to a desk that at
first glance seemed to be part of the general clutter, but
that Charlotte noted was much larger than the others in
the room. Clearing off a layer of papers, Charlotte discovered a button inlaid upon the desktop with the word assistance etched above it.
Charlotte pushed the button, and a trumpet fanfare
sounded around them. Coe knocked over an easel, and
Ash cursed until he was out of breath.
Somewhere behind dunes of paperwork, a voice piped
up. “Is someone there?”
“Yes!” Charlotte called. “We need assistance!” She
hoped invoking the official button word would improve
her chances of getting help.
A short man whose helmet was twice the height of his
head and seemed to boast a built-in telescope, magnifying
glass, and astrolabe, rolled up to the desk—rolled because
he was riding around on a narrow, wheeled plank controlled by two small hand cranks attached to a long metal
tube at the center of the plank.
The man arranged the scattered pages on the desk into
misshapen stacks, then twirled the ends of his waxed mustache as he peered at Charlotte.
“Guild identification?”
“I’m not a guild member,” Charlotte said.
The man snorted in disgust. Rearranging more sheets
of paper on the desktop, he pointed to the space above the
button Charlotte had pushed. In the newly cleared space,
Charlotte read member assistance.
“Oh,” Charlotte said. “I’m so sorry, but—”
But the man had already turned his apparatus around
and was wheeling away.
“Wait!” Charlotte called after him.
He paid her no mind, disappearing whence he had
come.
Shoving all remaining papers off the desk, Charlotte
found another button with the label visitor assistance.
She slammed her hand down on the button.
A moment later, the same man returned on his strange
transport.
“May I be of assistance, miss”
Charlotte stared at him. “But you were just here.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you offer to help me then?”
“I was here to assist on guild matters,” the man replied.
“But you’re the same person,” Charlotte argued.
“I am,” he said, returning her stare without blinking.
Charlotte stared so hard that she thought her eyeballs
might drop out of her skull.
Coe came to the desk and moved Charlotte aside.
“We need to locate one of your members,” Coe told the
man.
The man’s nose gave a rabbitlike twitch when he took
note of Coe’s uniform. “Our members spend their time on
diverse projects throughout the Hive, sir. The guild hall is
simply our repository for member records and idea claims
and accident reports.”
Coe gave a knowing, but disgusted nod, so Charlotte
said, “If we tell you who he is, can you tell us what project
he’s working on and where we can find him?”
“Of course, miss,” the man replied. “What is his guild
identification?”
“Hackett Bromley,” Charlotte answered.
“That’s not an identification.”
“That’s his name,” Coe pointed out.
“Yes. But what is his identification?”
Despite his familiarity with the inner workings of the
Inventors’ Guild, Coe’s patience had run out. “Do I really
need to know?” He put his hand on his gun holster, but the
man didn’t notice.
“Yes. If you don’t know the identification, you’ll have
to look him up.” He pointed at a teetering tower of papers
in the room’s far corner. “All guild registration papers are
there. Of course, we haven’t had time to alphabetize them
yet—”
Coe reached across the desk, grabbed the man’s helmet,
and lifted him off his feet.
He choked and sputtered as the helmet’s chinstrap dug
into his throat.
“I don’t have time to look it up,” Coe said calmly.
He let the man kick at the air a few more times before
dropping him. The man fell onto his backside.
“It’s just the system, sir. I’m only trying to explain how
it works!” The man yelped, his mustache quivering.
“You’ll change the system as I see fit, or I’ll have you
hanging in Boston by the end of the day.”
Meg must have wanted to put an end to Coe’s threats,
because she rushed to the desk. “We told you his name:
Hackett Bromley. Just tell us where to find him.”
The man rubbed at his reddened throat. “He’s consulting on weapons development at the Colonial Espionage
Bureau: Mechanics Division. Second ring. North sector.”
“Thank you,” Meg said. She grabbed Coe by the arm
and hauled him away from the desk. “We don’t need to
waste any more time.”
Charlotte was more than happy to leave the Inventors’
Guild office behind. She would have been even happier to
see a torch put to the place. They took the elevator to the
Hive’s second level and walked the circumference of the
ring to its north end. The mustached man hadn’t misdirected them. Coe opened a door bearing the plate: CEB:
Mechanics Division.
To Charlotte’s surprise, Grave went through the door
first. Ash and Charlotte hurried after him. The room was
full of long worktables. Goggled men wielding tools were
hunched over contraptions of all shapes and sizes. They
were astoundingly dedicated to their craft. Not a single
man looked up when the door banged shut behind Coe.
“It’s probably best if I handle this,” Coe told them.
Moving to the fore of the room, Coe cleared his throat,
then announced in a booming voice, “Gentlemen, your attention please.”
A dozen pairs of eyes, made unnaturally large by their
owners’ goggles, were suddenly on Coe. No one moved,
nor did anyone speak.
“Mr. Hackett Bromley,” Coe said, “would you please
identify yourself?”
At the fourth table back on the right side, a man slid
from his stool and removed his wool cap.
“I’m Bromley, sir.” He stepped into the space between
the two rows of tables.
Charlotte held her breath. Though his skin was ruddy
rather than colorless, there was no mistaking the resemblance to Grave.
Behind Charlotte, Meg whispered, “Not a goose chase.”
“If you’d step outside with me, please.” Coe returned to
the door and opened it.
While his fellows went back to their work, Bromley
came forward, twisting his cap in his hands. He was almost to Coe when he noticed Grave standing beside Ash.
Bromley halted, his mouth forming an O of surprise. Then
he looked at Coe again. And bolted.
With a shout, Coe dashed after Bromley, leaving the
rest of them to scramble behind the pair. Coe chased
Bromley along the ring’s perimeter, but as they ran, Grave
passed Charlotte, Ash, and Meg, gaining steadily on Coe
and Bromley. Rushing past Coe, Grave reached out and
grabbed the back of Bromley’s leather apron.
Grave pulled up suddenly, and Bromley jerked back
with a cry.
Coe spoke low and quickly. “Grave, take him into the
side passage. We can’t have him causing a scene.”
Though the boy was half Bromley’s size, he had no
trouble wrestling the terrified inventor off the main walkway.
They huddled in the narrow corridor. Grave had Bromley pinned to the wall.
“Oh, my boy, my boy.” Bromley was trembling. “What
have they done to you?”
“Why did you run from me, Father?” Grave asked him.
“Father?” Charlotte edged her way closer to Grave.
“Do you remember him?”
“Yes,” Grave answered. “He’s my father. The Maker.”
“What’s he talking about?” Ash frowned.
“I have no idea,” Charlotte said quietly. “He didn’t
know Rosemary—and she claimed to be his mother.”
Bromley was gazing at Grave as if he didn’t know
whether to be relieved or to despair. “What have you told
them about me?”
“Nothing,” Charlotte answered for Grave. “I have no
idea why he recognizes you when he hasn’t been able to tell
us his own name.”
As if seeing for the first time that their party comprised
more than Coe and Grave, Bromley gave Charlotte a puzzled look. “Who are you? You can’t all be from the CEB.”
“None of us are from the CEB, chap,” Coe said. “But
don’t think for an instant that makes us less of a danger to
you.”
“But you’re military,” Bromley said to Coe.
“I’m not in research,” Coe replied. “And that’s all you
need to know about me for the time being.”
Bromley cringed and looked at Grave. “Can you let me
go, boy? You’re hurting me.”
Grave tilted his head, as if confused by the statement,
but released his grip on the older man. Rubbing his upper
arms, Bromley stared in wonder at Grave.
“So strong,” he murmured. “I suspected that, but there
was no way to be sure.”
“We have a lot of questions to which you seem to be the
only one with answers,” Ash said, drawing Bromley out of
his musings. “Is there somewhere we can talk privately?”