Cultwick: The Sweeper Bot Plague (19 page)

“What exactly am I looking at, doctor?” she asked.

“This is fuel for the fire of rebellion,” the doctor explained.

“Perhaps we can leave hyperbole out of the conversation, Dr. Webber,” she said. “What is this?”

“I’m not being hyperbolic,” he stated. “This is the formula for the cure to the Sweeper Bot Plague.”

Alice looked up from the papers and stared into his eyes. “I had the understanding that you were ordered to destroy all of this information, doctor. It appears to me that you kept at least two copies of it.”

“I thought it prudent to
maintain at least one copy of the formula in case I ever needed to reproduce it,” he explained.

“And the other?” she asked.

“I suppose my pride wouldn’t allow me to destroy it,” he replied.

“
Pride,” she scoffed. “Lucky for you it’s not my place to judge your behavior at this point, but know that if you have brought dishonor to Cultwick it will be you who pays the price for it.”

Alice
abandoned all attempts of proper etiquette and abandoned the doctor in the room. She proceeded down to the safe deposit box room. In the middle of the room was a table on top of which was the box that the bank teller had mentioned. She flipped open the lid of the box to find a small mechanical device enclosed.

Listed on the contraption were the numbers, ‘1937.’ She stared at it for a few moments, but soon decided to
ignore it momentarily and move into the vault. When she arrived inside, she saw the giant automaton that was supposed to guard the vault. It looked quite powerful indeed, but it had been bested by the chromesmith. She walked behind the construct to find a long paper trail with the message, ‘I’m a dumb robot’ printed out repeatedly.

She
happened to look again at the device in her hand, which listed the numbers, ‘3938.’ Curious, she walked back to the room and watched as the numbers flipped back to ‘3937.’

Edwin soon came down to the room to join her and asked, “Did you find anything?”

Alice smiled at him and said, “I believe she left me a means to track her. And you? Did you discover anything from the dead robber?”

“He was nothing special,” Edwin said. “
Definitely a member of the rebellion though. It also looks like he may have been a chromite miner, which would support the suspicions that the confederacy is based in Chrome City.”

“Very well,” Alice noted. “Anything else?”

“The corpsman mentioned them watching out a window,” he began.

“Yes?” she inquired.

“I believe they may have been sending messages,” Edwin explained. “Let me show you.”

Edwin led Alice back to the main area and to a window near the front of the building. Smeared vertically down the
windowpane was a red mark.

Pointing out the window Edwin said, “There’s a window up in that house
with a strange paper shoved into the pane. Perhaps we should investigate that.”

Alice smiled to him and said, “I think you’re quite right, Mr. Hollow. Dispatch
a corpsman to retrieve the residents.”

Chapter 20. Rowland the Scientist

They had finally made their way back to Chrome City and to Hirim’s bar, the Arcadia Saloon. The bags had been emptied and their contents piled onto the table in the back room of the saloon. Erynn, Rowland, Germ, Vincent, Pearl, Hirim, and a couple of local rebels stood around the table staring at what they had accomplished and thinking what they had done to accomplish it.

They had not yet opened nor identified the bags from the
safe deposit boxes yet, primarily because they were too overwhelmed with the immense amount of coins and various other jewels heaped onto the table in front of them. The bag holding Tern was sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, and Rowland noticed Erynn eyeing it mournfully from time to time.

“Can you fix him, my dear?” Rowland asked of Erynn.

“No,” she answered. “At least not yet. I’m going to probably have to completely replace his chest. The screen and key input are completely borked, and the punch card reader is torn to shreds. Might even need to rebuild his chassis from the ground up. Luckily I think I can afford the parts he’ll need now.”

Pearl
, meanwhile, gawked at the overflowing mound of coins strewn before them, and eventually asked, “How much do ya think that is?”

“Enough,” Hirim succinctly stated. “Enough to hurt them.
Enough to fight them. Now, let’s see what those safe deposit boxes held,” Hirim told the others.

Rowland picked up one of the bags and placed it on another table
that was pressed up against the side of the room. Inside, he found drawings of several different weapons and details on how to construct them. One of the weapons, he noted, was an extremely large and intimidating piece of machinery. He looked over to Erynn who was still staring at the bag with Tern inside of it.

“Ryn, my dear,” he began. “Come take a look at these.”

She came over to him, as he handed her the papers. She stared at them for a few moments, shuffling through the various pages.

“These are weapon schematics,” she expl
ained. “And this one,” she said, pointing to the page with the large gun. “This looks ridiculously impressive. You could destroy armies with something like this.”

Hearing
her assessment, Hirim walked over to her and said, “Let me take a look at that.”

Erynn handed him the paper
, and he seemed impressed with what he saw.

“Everett,” he said to
a young man in the corner, “Go down and talk to Emma. See if she can get started on building something like this for us.

“You got it,” Everett said, taking the schematic and leaving the back room.

“Who’s Emma?” Erynn asked.

“We’ve got her working on constructing us some weapons,” Hirim explained. “The two of you working together probably could get a lot accomplished for us.” He turned back to the table and continued, “
What else do we have?”

Pearl looked up from the bag she had been sorting through and said, “This
one was yer postmaster’s. It’s got various I.D. papers and some sorta ledger.”

“Anything interesting?” he asked.

“Just started lookin’, but I’ll let ya know if I see anythin’,” Pearl explained.

“What about the doctor’s
things?” Hirim asked. “We find those yet?”

Germ spoke up next, holding up a piece of paper. “I found something, sir
,” he told Hirim, “but I haven’t a clue as to what it is. Perhaps Master Rowland could take a look.”

The rat
handed the paper over to Rowland, who was forced to adjust his spectacles to clearly read what was scribbled on the paper. It was full of mathematical equations and drawings of genetic diagrams. The paper was titled, ‘SBP Trials 130 B.’

“This is...” Rowland began, “This is...
so simple. So... completely, and ridiculously simple...”

The others waited for him to finish, but when he
didn’t Germ prodded him, “It didn’t look simple to me, sir”

“
Of course not,” Rowland bluntly stated before looking up at the others. “This formula… It is the cure for the Sweeper Bot Plague.”

“There isn’t any cure though,” Erynn reminded him. “That’s what you always told us.”

“Well, yes, but that is because the empire always said that one did not exist,” the professor explained. “This formula, however, is the ridiculously simple cure for it.”

“There’s really a cure for this thing, doc?” Vincent asked.

“So it seems,” Rowland responded. “There is one strange thing, though. This document is from fourteen years ago. To my mind that would suggest they found this cure fourteen years ago.”

“You’re saying they had this for fourteen years and have yet to cure a single case of the plague?” Erynn asked.

Rowland simply nodded to the young chromesmith.

“All these years they’ve been saying it’s our duty to help them find the cure by giving ourselves up, and they’ve been sitting on the cure the whole
damn time?” she asked again.

“Why bother curing the plague when you can sell a treatment instead,” Vincent explained. “There’s no money in it.”

“He’s right,” Hirim agreed. “Cultwick has grown rich from the suffering and death of its people. There’s nothing they won’t do to advance their causes. Even if that means lying through their teeth for more than a decade. They controlled who lived or died. I wouldn’t be surprised if they infected people who spoke out against them.”

“It would have been easy enough to do,” the professor commented, still studying the formula.

“I take it from you saying it’s a ‘simple’ formula, that you could make this stuff, doc?” Vincent asked. “Cause I sure would like to not have to inject myself with your concoctions every few days. Even better would be if you’d stop randomly injecting me.”

Rowland looked up from the formula and said, “Yes, it’s easy enough to make. There is a problem though.”

“Of course there is,” Vincent said.

“The formula
would be easy for me to create, but it requires some rare items,” he explained. “Things that I do not have and do not have any way of getting now that I am a fugitive.”

“You could make it if you had the supplies though?” Hirim inquired.

“Absolutely. I am a genius after all,” the professor reminded him.

Hirim slightly rolled his eyes and then asked,
“Would it be an injection then?”

“Not actually,” Rowland answered. “This particular formula is for an inhalant. All you
would have to do is breathe in the mixed tonic to be cured.”

“So what would you need to do this, Dr. Rowland?” Hirim asked.

“Gecyth Plasma, Eresaka Absorbers, Ionic Gamma Purifiers, a few other easier to find items, and a small laboratory setting to mix everything in the right proportions,” Rowland explained. “Oh! And maybe a bit of ether to help me relax.”

“Well, there is a medical supply train that runs every few weeks from Willow Switch back to Cultwick City,” Hirim
suggested. “Whatever the western towns manage to harvest, ends up going back to the city to be used in their experiments. We’d just need to know when the next train is scheduled to go through.”

“It looks like this ledger might tell us that,” Pearl said. “I think it’s a copy of the shippin
’ schedule fer Willow Switch and Ash Cloud.” She flipped forward through the ledger several pages before stopping and dragging a finger across the paper. “It looks like there’s one scheduled fer one week from yesterday,” she told him.

“So, what?” Erynn began. “Hijack the train and have Max create the cure? But how do we disperse it?”

“A skyship,” Hirim said. “We go to Pendulum Falls and steal a skyship. I’ve heard the empire’s Dreadnought Prime is currently being repaired there.”

“I hereby volunteer for the train,” Erynn said. “Heights and I don’t get along real well.”

“How many fake id’s did we get from the postmaster’s box?” Hirim asked Pearl.

“Hmm,” she said, as she sorted through the papers. “Looks like three separate ones.
I’d go with Ryn to the train if that’s alright.”

“Vincent,” Hirim said. “I want you to go with the girls.”

“So you’re just volunteering me now?” Vincent asked.

“We’ll need someone on the train used to stealing,” Hirim began. “Besides, that train will be carrying your cure. That should give you the proper motivation. Meanwhile, Rowland, Germ, and I will head to Pendulum Falls to retrieve a skyship. I’ve got a few contacts there that might could help us.”

“I have always wanted to ride in a skyship,” Rowland said.

The professor placed the medical formula down on the table, when his gauntlet began to sputter sparks once again. “If we’re to part ways, Ryn, perhaps you could fix this contraption first,” he suggested.

Erynn looked over the gauntlet and then asked Hirim, “Where’s
this Emma woman?”

“Emma? Couple doors down,” he said pointing in the direction.

“Does she stock general chromesmithing parts or just weapon components?” she asked.

“
She has a variety, but you’ll have to go find out for yourself if she has what you need,” he said.

“Come on, Max,” Erynn said, walking to the door.

Rowland followed along behind her, as they exited the Arcadia. The streets outside were fairly barren, while they trudged through the muddy road toward Emma’s building. Two buildings down they saw a rickety building holding up a banner that stated ‘Em’s Spare Parts.’ Erynn and Rowland went inside where Everett and Emma discussed the schematic they had found.

The building smelled of
oils, grease, smoke, and gunpowder. His mind was instantly transported back to the lab he and Erynn shared. He thought of the day she had received the letter from the Lottery Office. She had been working in her corner of the room, spreading the same scents throughout the lab. He missed those days, but his life had become much more interesting.

Emma
, the owner, had on a pair of worn jean suspenders over a dirty white shirt. Her blonde hair was tied back behind her head similarly to how Erynn wore hers when she worked. Hanging around her waist was a leather tool belt with a variety of metallic instruments.

“Can I help
y’all?” she asked looking up from the schematic.

“They’re the ones that found this, Emma,” Everett explained.

“That right?” she inquired.

“Yeah,” Erynn began. “I need some parts to fix his gauntlet.” She indicated back to Rowland and the device on his hand.

“That looks like a pretty complex device,” Emma said.

“Yeah, fairly,” Erynn agreed. “Built it for him a few years back, but the parts eventually wear out, and I have to occasionally fix it.”

“Well, look around and take what you need,” she said. “I’ll get Hirim to cover the cost, so feel free to splurge.”

Emma and Everett went back to discussing the schematics, while Erynn l
ooked through the supplies available. Rowland followed along aimlessly behind her, as he had never accrued much knowledge or understanding for chromesmithing of any kind. That had always been Erynn’s world.

One of the few times their two fields had intersected had been the creation of the gauntlet he wore on his hand. The need had arisen after Rowland had created a specific
biological augmentation. He developed a method by which he could harness elemental properties - electricity, fire, ice, and wind, and exude them from his palm.

When he released the energy, however, it caused him physical
duress and took a great deal of energy from him. Erynn had come up with a device that allowed his augmentation to harness the power stored inside the contraption rather than him. It had been an incredible success, but he was unable to take off the device. It had become a part of him after he had used it so extensively.

Erynn seemed to have acquired everything she needed, so she turned to him and said, “Take a seat.”

Rowland sat at a nearby table in Emma’s shop, laying his gauntlet hand on the table. Erynn sat opposite him and laid out the various pieces she had found. She took her tools and the components and began to repair the gauntlet.

She had also constructed his spectacles and respirator after the success of the gauntlet. He was her first client as a chromesmith, and over the years, he had given her constant accolades for her creations.

“Would you stop shifting so much,” Erynn said.

“It tickles,” he explained.

“Well, we’re almost done,” she replied. “Hey, got a question for you, Max.”

“Oh?” he asked.

“What is Amizance?” she timidly inquired.

“You mean the drug?” Rowland confirmed.

“You tell me,” she answered. “You’re the doc, doc.”

“It is a bit of a mystery pill, really,” he began. “It has been vaguely linked to a plethora of different uses.”

“Like what?” she asked.

Rowland took a deep breath and released it loudly through his respirator. “Well, it has been studied in relation to attention span, depression, memory,
substance abuse – I tried it once, but it just did not have that kick I was looking for.”