The Falling Machine (4 page)

S
arah heard a grunt rise up from the Bomb Lance's prone form as she walked toward him. When she got close, she pressed the tip of her black boot up against the Irishman's shoulder and pushed him. He shifted over, rolling back the moment she stopped. Sarah lifted up her skirts slightly, swung her boot back, and then gave a good solid kick to the man's ribs. He groaned loudly.

Frowning, she put her heel against the brass frame he wore and gave it a hard shove. “Roll, damn you!” she yelled, and gave him another shove. He spun over onto his back while she stumbled in the other direction. “You're going off this tower!”

Swimming back to consciousness, the Irishman used the harness to block her foot as she attempted another kick. “That'll be enough of that,” he said in a drowsy slur. He hooked her leg with his arm and pulled her down in a flurry of skirts and ruffles. “I'm not supposed to hurt you….”

Down on the ground, Sarah's feet flailed until one of them connected with his chin. He batted back at her with his brass-clad arm, knocking her legs away before she could hit him again. He was clearly awake now. “But you do that again, lass, and I'll skewer you.”

There was blood in his eyes from where he had been beaten down by the Automaton, and he tried to wipe it away. The polished iron barb at the end of his arm glittered as he brought his arm up to his face. He switched to his left.

When he looked up, the Automaton was moving toward him, the sawn-off end of a harpoon in his hand. The Bomb Lance held up his right arm and fired. The metal tore cleanly through the right side of Tom's chest until the wooden peg at the end caught in the armature, spinning the machine-man around and throwing him down to the ground.

The Irishman rose to his feet and took a moment to survey the scene. He nodded approvingly to himself. “Good enough for a day's work.” He ran toward the foot bridge and sprinted onto it, heading back toward the anchorage.

Sarah knelt down next to the Automaton. “Tom, are you all right?”

He tugged at the harpoon. “It appears to be stuck.” He wiggled it back and forth a few times and then pulled on it again. It came free, catching a steel spring and uncoiling a ribbon of metal as he pulled it out of him. “I am going to stop him. Please help…Nathaniel.”

Rising up, harpoon still in his hand, Tom walked to the edge of the footbridge. The Bomb Lance was fifteen yards away, moving as quickly as he could back to the anchorage, but forced to flee from them in a straight line. Tom flung the man's weapon back at him.

Out on the wooden path the Irishman slowed his run, then came to a stop as fast as he dared. As he was plucking out his handkerchief from his jacket pocket to try to wipe away the blood, there was a crashing sound. One of his harpoons had smashed through the slatted boards a few feet in front of him. He turned to see the metal man standing at the edge of the bridge tower. The Automaton dropped into a sprint and headed toward him.

Sarah watched Tom go and then turned back to Nathaniel. He was grimacing as he tried to use the arms of his jacket to stanch the wound. “It's not a mop,” she said sternly. Sitting down next to him she grabbed the coat from his hand and tore a long strip from the sleeve.

“Finally, you notice
I'm
in trouble,” he replied through gritted teeth.

She stopped what she was doing and stared at him. “Look at me.” He refused to make eye contact. “Look at me, Nathaniel! ”

Responding to the urgency in her voice he turned to see that there were fresh tears in her eyes. “What is it?”

Her face was a mask of anger. She pointed at the body a few yards away. “He's dead, Nathaniel. That's Sir Dennis Darby's dead body lying not ten feet away from us, and you want to cry to me about the fact you were ignored while he died.” She roughly pulled up his leg, and began winding the cloth strip around it. “I won't have it!”

“Ow! Sarah, I…” She stopped, and he stared into her eyes for a moment.

Then he turned away, reaching into his jacket pocket to pull out his flask. Sarah frowned, but said nothing as she continued to work on his leg.

The Automaton and the Bomb Lance were both at a full run when the Irishman reached the end of the footbridge. Tom was twenty yards away, but closing at a good pace. The Irishman lifted his arms into the air. The harness responded and reloaded both arms. He aimed them at his opponent and leaned back into the supports on the back of his harness. “Where there's a will, there's a way,” he muttered out loud.

“Platitudes won't save you, Murphy.” The voice came from behind him, wrapped in a Western drawl and a blast of tobacco smoke. The Bomb Lance turned to see a man in a ten-gallon hat and oiled duster standing behind him. “But Doc Dynamite is here to rescue your Catholic ass anyway.” The man lit the stick of explosive in his hand from the cigar in his mouth and then threw it out onto the footbridge.

“So you
finally
decide to arrive,” said the Bomb Lance. “You were supposed to—” The Texan grabbed the edge of the Bomb Lance's brass frame and used it to fling him down the stairs. He jumped after him as the dynamite exploded with a deafening bang. A rush of air and smoke blew over their heads. The Bomb Lance rolled over to look at him. “You were supposed to be here an hour ago.” He stood up and checked that his frame was still in working order.

Doc Dynamite's features were so rugged and leathery that it seemed impossible to tell whether he appeared to look old for thirty or was a young-looking man twice that age. But he had an easy smile and blue eyes that would have seemed almost friendly if not for the scar that traveled across his face from the left side of his forehead to the right of his chin. He wore a plain striped shirt, a worsted cloth jacket, and a bandana around his neck, with a faded yellow duster over everything. His denim jeans were tucked into a pair of red cowboy boots with two large yellow letter “D”s stitched onto each one. “Tell it to the frog. He could barely get that contraption of his up into the air.” He pointed behind him, where the balloon sat parked on the roadway thirty yards behind them, belching black smoke from large engines on either side. “The decrepit Frenchy kept bitching about how the cold made everything impossible to do.”

He reached into the pocket of his jacket and handed the Irishman a bandana. “Look atcha. You're a mess.” He winked at him. “Even for a Mick.”

“It's good to see you, too, Jay, now the job's almost done.” He wiped away some of the blood. “‘Almost’ being the main word in that sentence there.”

He stood up. “Now let's see if my little friend solved your problem, because someone shot up a rocket, and the rest a’ the Paragons are on their way.”

They walked up the steps in time to watch the severed end of the footbridge slide away from the bridge frame and land with a distant crash into the construction yard below. The other end was still attached to the tower above them, and the remains dangled straight down toward the river.

The Bomb Lance wiped his eyes again and then peered down over the edge of the anchorage. “Looks like we destroyed the damn thing.”

“I don't think so, partner,” the Texan replied. He had pulled out another stick of dynamite from inside his duster and was using it to point over to the left side of the bridge. The Automaton balanced on top of the suspension wire.

“Well I'll be damned.” The Bomb Lance held up his left arm, aimed his harpoon, and fired. Tom moved a few steps down the cable toward them and the harpoon sailed harmlessly past him.

The Irishman grimaced as he watched his attack miss.

“I'm going to reckon that there is the famous Automaton,” the Texan said as he grabbed the Bomb Lance's right arm. Pulling out a roll of gauze from his coat pocket, he used it to bind a stick of dynamite to the harpoon, tying it in place with surprising grace. “Too bad we're going to have to blow him to hell. I've always wanted to see what that thing looked like up close.”

“That must be a damn shame for you, cowboy, missing out like that.” The Bomb Lance pumped his arm again, and then held it up to fire.

“Just try and get it somewhere near him,” Doc Dynamite instructed, drawing deeply on his cigar and making the ember glow bright red. “And it's a short fuse,” he said as he touched it to the paper, “so fire fast.”

The harpoon wobbled as it flew, and the Automaton was clearly going to dodge it easily. When it exploded, the Texan let out a war whoop followed by a “Kaboom!”

The concussion shredded Tom's clothes and threw him off the cable. As he fell, his arm snapped out to snag one of the vertical supporting wires that dangled down, waiting to be connected to the roadbed that had yet to be built. The leather glove covering his hand shredded and burned as his momentum was violently redirected. For a moment he almost seemed to be floating in the air; then he swung his other arm around and grabbed the wire with both hands. He swung slowly back and forth as he climbed back up.

The Bomb Lance shook his head. “I don't believe it. Nothing kills that thing.”

“That's because it ain't alive. Now stop flapping those Irish lips and get another spear ready.” He held up the dynamite. “We'll blow him up for sure this time.”

The Automaton clamped one hand over the other until he reached the main cable. He hefted himself up onto the main cable as the second dynamite-tipped harpoon flew toward him.

This time he ran down the cable, letting it explode behind him. The force of the blast ripped away the remains of his jacket and shirt, revealing the rows of clockwork cogs underneath. He rose up into the air slightly, and for a moment Tom seemed to be almost skating down the thick wire, the energy of the blast propelling him forward.

As he reached the end of the cable and was about to step onto the anchorage, a harpoon slammed directly into his torso, halting his movement. An instant later a second spear found a weaker spot and tore straight through him, pulling out some of the gears and wires from his body as it exited through his back. As he began to slide off the wire, the Automaton threw himself into the air. His graceful landing was interrupted by a stick of dynamite that exploded underneath him, throwing him back into the air. He landed flat on his back, his brass frame smacking into the stone of the anchorage with a clang.

Doc Dynamite and the Bomb Lance were standing only ten feet away. “I think we broke the bronco, Murphy.” The Texan said it with a note of triumph in his voice.

“Why don't you toss one more of those bombs of yours at him to make sure, if you don't mind.”

“It's called dynamite, and we're too close.” The cowboy pulled out another stick, lit it, and casually chucked it. “We'd best run.”

They headed down the road toward the balloon, and the Automaton jerked up behind them. His porcelain faceplate had been shattered and blackened by the blast, and it was clear by the way he twitched as he tried to move that the explosions had done something unpleasant to his mechanisms. His arm reached out and grabbed the dynamite stick, then hurled it back toward the other two men. It exploded in midair as it sailed toward them. The force of the blast knocked both men to the ground, smacking the air out of their lungs, leaving them gasping and coughing.

The Automaton stepped out of the smoke, standing only a few feet away from the Bomb Lance. “You will give me the…key.”

The Irishman got up to his knees and pointed his right arm at Tom. The Automaton grabbed the spear and twisted, then yanked the harpoon completely out of the frame. There was a popping sound as the metal wires tore free from tension, then a plink as they snapped. He threw the harpoon and a chunk of the frame over the edge of the anchorage.

“No more of that.” He stepped on the Irishman's chest and leaned forward, letting his considerable weight keep the air from coming back into his lungs. “I want the key.”

The Irishman fumbled for his pockets, but couldn't get more than his fingertips into them. “I can't reach…”

The Automaton grabbed onto the man's elbow with one hand and used the other to tear the rest of the frame completely off of his right arm. His hand no longer encumbered, the Bomb Lance dug down into his pocket and produced the key.

“Thank you.” Tom reached out to grab it and then jerked back as three bullets from Doc Dynamite's gun tore the rest of his face away. The glass lens of the camera underneath shattered. “How d'ya like the taste of lead, you hunk a’ junk?”

Tom staggered for a moment and then lunged at the Texan, leading with his fist. It wiped away the Texan's smile as it cracked into his jaw.

Doc Dynamite tried to roll with the blow, but it was far too late. He tried to talk, and screamed, “Ooo oke my od am ace!” The Automaton tried to attack again, but failed to connect as a harpoon smashed into him. The impact was much weaker than the previous shots had been, but it was still enough to knock him down. The Bomb Lance's last shot had also been the final one for his frame, and the remaining tension wires escaped their bondage, hanging slack from his shoulders and arms.

Doc Dynamite reached into his coat, but the Irishman grabbed him and yanked him down the road. “At eh ell?”

“We need to go, you idiot! The Paragons are here!”