Angel of Brass (4 page)

Jin leapt blindly, even as the smiling men
came rushing in. His mechanical legs carried him high into the air,
and his claws found purchase in the brick. His boots scrabbled
wildly, the claws of his feet digging into the lining as he
instinctively sought purchase. The soles at least found traction,
and he hauled himself up, scrambling for the edge of the roof.

Agony lanced through his left foot, so
intense that he almost lost his grip. Not daring to slow down, he
hauled himself over the edge and collapsed onto the flat roof of an
apartment building. One of the smiling men had gotten off a shot;
there was a hole in his boot, from bottom to top, and he could
smell scorched leather and melted rubber.

Biting his lip, he dragged himself to his
feet. Something important had been hit; the foot didn’t want to
work at all, except to inform his nerve endings of the damage. At
least the knee and ankle were intact, so he broke into a shuffling
run, every other step sending a spike of pain through his leg. He
could hear the smiling men shouting, and someone in the apartment
below screamed as they tried to force their way in.

He reached the edge of the building and leapt
to the slanting roof of the next house. Waves of agony poured up
from his foot when he landed, and he almost screamed. He found
himself on his belly, sliding toward the edge, and only the scrape
of his claws caught him in time.

I’ve got to hide
, he thought, sweat
breaking out over his body as he dragged himself to where another
roof directly abutted the one he was on.
I’ve got to find
somewhere to lay low. If I stay out in the open, they’ll catch me
for sure
.

There was one place where he’d already been
able to hide. One place he might go for help.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, Jin
turned toward the garage district.

* * *

“Good night, Molly!” Master Singh said as he
came to a halt beside the steam car she was working on.

Molly turned off her blowtorch and pushed her
welding goggles up on her forehead. Sweat stuck her hair to the
back of her neck and dampened her hands in the thick protective
gloves. “Giving up on the pie machine for the day?” she asked.

Singh nodded. He was a portly man, whose
luxurious moustache almost made up for his balding head. He’d
already put on his driving goggles—his personal steam car was his
pride and joy, and he drove it every chance he got.

“I’m having some difficulty getting the
ingredients added in the right quantities,” he said. “The machine
wants to put in two lentils and a cup of bay leaves, instead of two
bay leaves and a cup of lentils. But don’t worry, I’m sure the
solution will present itself soon!”

Privately, Molly doubted that the ingredients
would be the final obstacle, given that the machine was ultimately
supposed to roam the streets, take payment, and automatically bake
a pie for any customers it came across. A vivid image of a clanking
oven hurling pies at hapless passersby came to her, and she barely
choked back a laugh. “I’m sure it will. Tell your wife hello for
me.”

“Varuni wants to know when you’ll join us for
dinner again. My nephew, Pramit, will be visiting Eroe for the
Winter Festival in a month. He’s a fine young man. You could come
by then.”

Saints save me. Bad enough my mother wants
to play the matchmaker—does my boss have to do the same?
“I’ll
do my best,” she lied. “But you know how school is—if there’s a
test, I’ll have to study.”

Singh threw up his hands in despair. “Such a
serious girl you are! Young people need to have fun, not spend all
their time studying.”

“That
is
how I have fun,” Molly said,
with a smile to soften her words.

“Well, don’t stay too late. I worry about
you, after those goggleboys tried to break through the skylight.” A
distracted look came into his eyes. “Perhaps I could build some
sort of security automaton. It would have to be able to distinguish
between thieves and employees, of course...”

And that was the end of the pie machine,
Molly thought, as she watched him fire the boiler and climb into
the steam car, mumbling to himself all the while.

He’s a dear, but sometimes I’m amazed
Varuni hasn’t strangled him out of sheer frustration.
Shaking
her head, Molly went to the garage door and pulled it shut, then
flipped the sign from “OPEN” to “CLOSED.”

She’d never been afraid to be alone in the
shop before, but today it seemed very large, very shadowy, and very
quiet. The broken skylight had a sheet of plywood nailed over the
hole, which made that end of the cavernous space even darker. She
spotted what looked like a hooded figure standing in the corner,
making her jump, before she realized that it was only the
tarp-shrouded form of one of Singh’s abandoned projects.

No one is following me. No one is interested
in me at all. I have to stop being so jumpy, or I’m never going to
get any work done.

Determined to ignore her nerves, she pulled
her welding goggles back into place and turned to the steam car. At
first, the skin between her shoulder blades crawled, insisting that
someone lurked just behind her, but eventually her nerves settled
and she slipped into the rhythm of work.

Until, that is, someone knocked on the back
door.

Molly jumped in surprise, then swore an oath
that would have sent her mother into fits. A quick glance at the
clock showed that more time had passed than she’d realized. It was
long after hours; anyone with legitimate business would wait for
morning.

Not to mention knock on the front door,
rather than the back.

The knock was repeated, more urgently this
time, then hard enough to shake the door in its frame. Molly pulled
off her welding goggles and fished her spectacles out of a pouch on
her tool belt.
Could it be one of those men with the metal
teeth? Could they be following me?

The pounding on the door grew even more
desperate. Picking up a large spanner from the nearest worktable,
she made her way slowly in the direction of the door. “Who’s
there?” she called, and was glad her voice didn’t quaver—at least,
not too much.

“It’s me. The one who fell through your
skylight.”

Letting out a startled hiss, she hurried to
the door and unlocked it. The boy from the other night leaned
heavily against the doorframe, his copper skin drained of color and
his mouth tight with pain. When she gestured him in, she saw that
he was limping badly.

“Saints, what happened to you?” she asked,
locking the door behind him. “Fall through someone else’s
roof?”

A tiny grin flashed across his mouth,
followed by a wince. “Not quite. The smiling men caught up with me.
I managed to give them the slip, but I’ve been hurt, and...well, I
don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Smiling men?” Molly asked as she hurried to
support him. “The ones with the metal teeth?”

“Yes.”

She helped him to the nearest worktable,
where he could at least sit down on the chair beside it. So close,
he smelled...rather nice, actually, the scent of healthy male
combined with a slight whiff of machine oil. The heat of his body
soaked through his clothing, as if he burned with fever.

“Thank you,” he said, as she eased him into
the chair. “I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name the last time.”

“Molly Feldman.”

“Jin Malachi, at your service. Not that I can
be much service at the moment.”

“Here,” she said, dragging up another chair.
“Use this to elevate your foot. I know a few reliable doctors, but
they’re all up in Brasstown.”

“I don’t need a doctor,” he said, wincing as
he levered his injured foot onto the second chair. “I need a
mechanic.”

Molly couldn’t suppress a gasp at the sight.
The rubber sole of the boot was melted, and the leather on top had
a large, charred hole through it. “Blood of the saints, it goes all
the way through! We’ve got to get you to a hospital!”

Jin’s mouth tightened. “Look closer.”

Puzzled, she crouched down. There was no
stink of burned flesh, she realized, and no blood. There was,
however, the faint gleam of metal.

“It’s a prosthetic?” she asked, confused.
If it’s just metal, then why is he acting like it hurts? Is it
some sort of phantom pain?

“No.” Jin looked away, as if ashamed. “It’s
metal, but it’s a part of me.”

Molly sat back on her heels. “That’s not
possible.”

“Then why does it hurt so cursed much?” he
demanded, a harsh edge to his voice. “Here, look.”

He pulled off one of his gloves, rolled up
his shirt cuff, and held out his arm. From mid-forearm up, there
was smooth copper skin. From there down, overlapping brass plates
covered his arm, wrist, and hand completely. Frowning, Molly took
his hand and ran her fingers along the arm. The join between skin
and metal felt seamless. Although cooler than his fever-hot skin,
the metal was still warmer than the surrounding air. For a moment,
she thought it must be some sort of glove; then he gently flexed
his fingers, and inch-long claws slid like a cat’s from the
tips.

“This isn’t a glove, is it? Your arm ends
here,” she said, touching the join between flesh and metal.

Jin stared at his hand, as if reluctant to
meet her eyes. “The flesh part does, yes.”

“That isn’t possible,” she said again, as if
she could somehow convince herself that what she was seeing wasn’t
real. “And if it was...this is advanced. This is far past anything
we have, far past anything even the Xatlians have.”

“I’m not a gear boy. I don’t understand how
it works.”

She let go of his hand and very carefully
touched his boot as she peered through the hole. “And your foot is
the same.”

“Both my legs. My other arm, too.”

It isn’t possible. Except that I’m seeing it
with my own eyes, so it must be.

“All right. I believe you.” She let go of his
boot and looked up at him. “So you came to me for...repair?”
Customers usually want me to fix their tractors, not
themselves
.

Jin grimaced at the word, but didn’t deny it.
“I came here because I don’t have anywhere else to go. You’re the
only person I know in the whole city, and I hoped that, since you
helped me once, you’d do it again. Could you repair me?”

“I could try, but I’m not sure if I can do it
by myself,” she admitted.

Jin looked alarmed. “It has to be someone you
can trust. The smiling men are still looking for me, and I...well,
I can’t let them take me.”

“And you trust me? You barely know me.”

“You could have turned me in before, but you
didn’t.” His dark eyes finally met her gaze once again. “Are you
going to now?”

She looked at him for a long moment, at his
high cheekbones and pretty black eyes, at the brilliant parrot
feathers knotted into his black hair. The body beneath his
waistcoat and trousers seemed slender and fit, the muscles of his
arm lean rather than bulky.
Just because he’s handsome doesn’t
mean I should get mixed up with whatever trouble he’s in. I’ve
fought too hard to earn the life I have. If the police get
involved, I could get thrown out of the institute.

Still, I couldn’t hand anyone over to
those smiling men
. She didn’t know what they’d do to him, but
she guessed it would be a lot worse than getting in trouble at
school.

“Of course I won’t turn you in,” she said,
tugging down his shirtsleeve to his wrist. “And to answer your
earlier question, yes, I do trust him. Liam Two-Gears has been my
best friend since I started at the institute, and I know him as
well as I know anyone.”

She rose to her feet as Jin put his glove
back on. “It’s Thursday, so Liam will be working late in the lab.
Pretend to be drunk, and I’ll hail a hansom cab.”

Jin looked perplexed. “Drunk?”

“The driver is going to remember an injured
boy. But a drunken boy, stumbling home on the arm of a friend? That
happens every night. As for taking a hansom, it’s cheap, and there
are hundreds of them on the street. That means less chance the
smiling men will be able to track you.”

For the first time, he gave her a smile; it
transformed his face and lit his dark eyes from within. “Oh. That’s
clever. Do you do this often?”

Molly turned away to hide the blush that
touched her cheeks. “Help strange boys avoid even stranger men? No,
but there’s a first time for everything.”

Chapter 4

As the cab pulled up at the institute gates,
Molly glanced at her companion. “No disappearing act if we’re able
to fix you, all right? This is the second time I’ve gone out of my
way to help you. The least you owe me is an explanation.”

Jin nodded, even though he didn’t look happy
about it. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Molly. I really didn’t mean to
drag you back into all this. I just didn’t know where else to
go.”

Well, that’s sad
. “It’s all right,”
she said, patting him on the knee of his uninjured leg. It felt
hard through the cloth, although again it was noticeably warmer
than the cold air inside the cab.
I wonder how the heat is
transferred, and why? Are living nerves embedded in there
somehow?

Once the cab had departed in a rattle of
harness and clop of hooves, Molly guided Jin through the gates. A
pair of statues stood to either side: Saint Velma, patroness of
knowledge, and Saint Hobart, patron of learning. Both wore scowls,
as if to impress upon those passing through the gates that
attending the institute was a serious business indeed.

Once past the glowering statues, buildings
loomed up on every side like disapproving professors, their brick
and marble façades shrouded in shadows. Fortunately, it was only a
short walk—or stumble, in their case—to the Applied Engineering and
Automaton Design building.