The Guild Conspiracy (15 page)

“Of course it won't be easy. Nothing worth doing ever is.”

P
etra sat on the floor of her subcity office, slowly tightening the bolts around the mech's fuel tank—­newly repaired and no longer leaking after the damage it had taken in the match against Darrow. In just the last week, she and Rupert had reequipped the machine with freshly sharpened blades and new plating, every wire and linkage retightened and examined for even the slightest damage. Just a few final touches, and it would be done. She twisted the final bolt into place and withdrew her hands from the mech's innards, wiping the sweat from her brow with the edge of her sleeve.

“Finished?”

Petra glanced up from her work to find Braith sitting astride her desk chair, his arms folded over the back.

“Almost,” she said distractedly, averting her gaze as she wiped her hands on a stained grease rag. “I just need to replace the plating.”

She stood up and went to the toolbox to fetch her welding supplies, turning her back to him. She let out a sigh, a steady headache gnawing at her brow. Things had been uneasy between them in the last week, ever since their argument in the workshop. She couldn't even look at him for more than half a second, waiting for the moment he decided to turn her over to the Guild for trying to sabotage production. But for whatever reason, he hadn't yet. And it was like a constant storm brewing between them, just waiting to let loose. At any moment, it would break, and she would drown in the torrent.

Some days she wondered if she deserved it.

She donned her welding gloves and lowered a pair of goggles over her eyes, turning back toward the mech. She had doubts now, about what she was doing—­about what she had already done—­but there was no taking it back, no stopping it. All she could do now was try to find a way to stop the war before anyone found out.

Sitting down in front of the mech, she fired up the portable blowlamp, and began welding the last square of metal into place, focusing on the bright flare of fire against metal. She hadn't tried to sabotage production again, not since the argument with Braith, though it pained her to see the prototype coming together so quickly. Already, some of the engineers had begun constructing the piloting controls, and the gyroscopic sensors were scheduled to arrive with the next shipment of parts. There were still months of work ahead—­weeks of testing each system and ensuring everything worked in perfect synchronization—­but the quadruped was slowly beginning to take shape.

She was running out of time.

Finishing the weld on the mech's plating, she switched the portable blowlamp off and slid the goggles off her face, reveling in the sore muscles earned from another night's hard labor. She stretched her arms overhead with a satisfied sigh. She had missed this.

The rattle of the dumbwaiter chute made her jump, and she slipped off her gloves, swallowing hard to smother her rapid heartbeat. Probably just Rupert again. He had left a ­couple of hours ago to finish up some last-­minute homework in the library, but said he might be back later, if she and Braith were still here when he finished.

The dumbwaiter clattered to a halt at the bottom of the chute, and Rupert climbed out, the sight of his sandy-­blond hair and familiar smile putting Petra at ease.

He joined her beside the mech and looked it over. “Nice work.”

Petra wrinkled her nose. “It's passable,” she replied, scrutinizing the irregular edges of her amateur welds. “But it'll have to do. The fight's tomorrow.”

“Nervous?”

She shook her head. “Not this time.”

“Fletcher's certain to put up a fight.”

“Well, so am I.”

She turned toward her battered little machine, broken and repaired three times over now, and fought hard not to smile. Already, her metal fighter had won her the respect of her fellow engineers, more than she ever could have dared to hope for at the beginning of the semester. She had shown them what she could do, what she could build. Now all she had to do was win the tournament and prove herself to the few who still doubted her.

“Before I forget . . . I brought you something,” said Rupert, producing an envelope from his pocket. He held it out to her with a genteel bow. “For you, milady.”

She snatched the envelope from his hand with a playful shove. “What's this?” she asked, glancing at the writing scrawled across the outside of the thick paper:
For Miss Petra Wade
.

“Just open it.”

Arching her brow, she flipped the letter over and broke the seal—­the Guild signet imprinted in the metallic wax—­then unfolded the paper and read:

To Miss P. Wade,

Regarding your request to visit Hasguard Airfield under the supervision of your assigned military escort, Officer Cadet Braith Cartwright, and student engineer Rupert Larson for purposes of recreation, the Guild council has agreed to temporarily alleviate the restrictions placed upon your person, in consideration of your continued cooperation in matters concerning both the Guild and the Royal Forces.

Providing that your cooperation continues, you are hereby permitted to travel to the Hasguard Airfield as requested, via the Chroniker City–Milford Haven ferry and by carriage to the airfield, on the date of May 27th, 1882, to return that same evening. Some limitations will remain in place while you are abroad, and upon returning to the University, you will revert to your prior restrictions. If you have any additional concerns or questions regarding your upcoming trip, please bring them to my attention.

Sincerely yours,

Vice-­Chancellor Hugh Lyndon

Petra glanced up at Rupert. “What's this for?”

“You didn't think I forgot, did you?” he asked, a huge grin on his face. “Your birthday is next month.”

She blinked at him and ran the dates through her head, realizing that he was right; her eighteenth birthday was only a few weeks away. She had almost forgotten. She glanced down at the letter again. “They're letting me go to the mainland?”

“By special request,” said Rupert, nodding toward Braith. “Courtesy of our resident officer cadet. It wouldn't have been possible if not for Braith.”

She glanced away from Rupert and turned toward Braith. “
You
did this?”

“It was Rupert's idea,” he said, standing up from his chair. “But I was the one who petitioned the minister for approval, filing a request through Colonel Kersey on your behalf.”

“But why would you do that?”

There was more to the question, but she didn't need to elaborate. He knew what she meant.

“We put the request in weeks ago.”

“Oh,” she said, deflating a little bit. “Before—­”

“Yes.”

“And now?”

He held her gaze with icy clarity. “That's up to you.”

There was a challenge in his words, and she knew the threat that hid there without him having to say another word. If she made any further effort to sabotage the quadruped, their tenuous friendship would end and he would hand her over to Julian without a second thought.

Rupert nudged her arm, breaking the silence. “So what do you say?”

She held Braith's stormy gray gaze—­one minute as tumultuous as the ocean, the next as hard as solid steel—­the unspoken question still lingering in the air.

Finally, he spoke. “As long as you promise to keep yourself out of trouble, I see no reason we shouldn't go.” His eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch, the tiniest shift in his expression. “But you have to promise me, Petra,” he said. “Promise me you'll stay out of trouble, and we can forget what happened the other day—­on my word as . . . as your friend.”

She swallowed hard and nodded, her throat tight. “I promise.”

And she meant it.

Trying to sabotage the quadruped further was a wasted effort. If playing the part of the compliant, subservient girl was what she needed to do to earn a trip to the mainland for her birthday, so be it. But in the meantime, she would wait. She would watch, and she would listen, learn what she could about the war, about the conspiracy and the politics behind the conflict, and hopefully discover the evidence she needed to bring Julian down from the inside.

If not . . .

Well, she'd rather not think about that.

 

CHAPTER 11

T
he recreation hall was full to bursting with students and engineers by the time she arrived for the semifinals. There were only four fighters left now—­herself, Fletcher, Morgenstern, and of course Selby—­their mechs an impressive display of engineering skill in the center of the room. She took her place among them and awaited the coin flip that would decide which pair of opponents took the first fight of the night.

The energy in the room was palpable as Yancy stepped into the middle of the ring. “All right, lads,” he said, readying the heavy coin. “Heads to Selby and Morgenstern; tails to Wade and Fletcher.”

He flicked the coin into the air and it landed on the floor with a ting.

Tails.

Petra let out a slow breath as Selby and Morgenstern withdrew from the ring, leaving her and Fletcher on either side of the wide circle.

Fletcher had fought against Selby in the finals in the last tournament, and she could see why. The mech standing before her was a towering display of brute force; it had two stocky legs, a cylindrical rotating center, and a terrifying turbine of an engine roaring in the center of its massive chest. Dozens of dents and scratches ornamented the plating where previous opponents had tried to pierce the multiple layers of metal—­but to no avail. The machine was an impenetrable vault on legs. Well-­armed too.

Sharpened blades augmented its right hand, attached to the arm at twisted angles, and a massive spiked pincer completed the left arm, large enough to crush her mech in half if she got herself caught between its jaws. The jagged barbs glimmered menacingly in the electric spotlight.

There was one peculiarity to the machine: a thick, mechanical tail jutting out of its backside, its use unknown.

Yancy stepped forward, quieting the crowd with a wave of his hand. “Fighters at the ready?” Both Petra and Fletcher nodded, and Yancy raised his fingers to his lips, inhaling a deep breath.

Petra honed her focus to a fine point as across the ring Fletcher's machine crouched, ready, waiting. Her throat tightened, her heavy pulse drowning out all other sound. Then came the whistle, sharp and clear, and the two mechs launched into battle.

Petra dived to the right, testing Fletcher's maneuverability as she narrowly ducked beneath the first snap of its lethal pincer, and then weaved around its broad pelvis, activating the supercharged blowlamp in her mech's arm and scoring a deep mark into the cylindrical waist. But before she could pull out of reach, Fletcher turned on a pin, and the mech's massive tail whipped around and caught her machine's legs, blocking her movement as a spinning bladed fist slammed into her from behind.

The sound of crumpling, tearing metal echoed through the room, the attack plastering her mech to the floor. Her machine screeched forward on its face and skidded to a stop, a great dent where its right shoulder used to be. Petra jimmied the controls and forced the machine to stand before Fletcher could mount another attack, but the movement in her right arm was jerky and slow, the joint severely damaged.

Fletcher's machine roared again, and Petra tensed, an electric rush thrumming through her veins as she readied her mech for another charge. She dodged the first attack and landed a swipe across the mech's chest with her bladed fist, but the blades only scraped across the fortified plating, showering sparks on the floor. And then her machine was knocked off its feet again, caught off guard by the mechanical tail. She gripped the edges of her control panel, her fingers digging into the hard metal as she thumbed the controls, barely evading being crushed beneath Fletcher's massive legs before getting to her feet again.

The two machines met blow for blow, landing solid punches and glancing strikes, leaving crumpled dents and jagged gouges in their wake. The smell of scorched metal singed the air, and the heat from the two straining engines roasted the room.

After narrowly dodging another hit from Fletcher's bladed drill, Petra withdrew and assessed the damage to their machines. The two mechs stood on either side of the ring, both of them scored and scratched, spouting thick black smoke and leaking traces of oil and petrol onto the scuffed floor—­wounded but not yet beaten.

Fletcher's mech looked worse for wear. Half its tail hung at an odd angle, nearly sliced in half by its own pincer. Sparks crackled from torn wires as it dangled behind the machine. A swath of plating had been carved from its torso where she had landed a swipe of her bladed fist, and deep gouges marked the mech's central cylinder from her efforts to weaken its structure—­but she had paid for it dearly. Her mech's right arm was wrecked, the shoulder joint busted to hell and the connecting linkages and gears pummeled to scrap—­the protractible saw, bladed claw, and blowlamp brutally damaged.

She needed a better strategy. Brute force wasn't going to win this fight.

A spark from the mech's broken tail caught her eye, and she had an idea—­one that might win her the match. But if she failed . . . she wouldn't get a second chance. This was it.

Pressing her fingers to the controls, she darted forward, feinting right as if to aim another attack against the mech's narrow waist, but as Fletcher braced for the attack, she veered left, utilizing the wheels on the bottom of her mech's feet to change direction quickly. Taking him by surprise, she wheeled under the bladed arm and readied the electrified prong with a flip of a switch, diverting all mechanical power into a violent punch, right into the center of the machine's body.

The hooked prongs pierced the plating, and, activating another switch, she emptied the maximum voltage her portable battery could hold, straight into Fletcher's machine. The plating sizzled, and the acrid tang of scorched metal burned the air as smoke filtered out of the cracks in the machine's armor. The mech shuddered and twitched, the jagged pincher snapping open and shut. The twisted blades on its right arm spun wildly, both arms swinging wide as its torso twisted out of Fletcher's control.

Petra's mech jerked forward, tethered to the malfunctioning machine by the prongs buried in the plating, unable to break free. The bladed fist whipped across her mech's already damaged shoulder, the jagged blades scoring through the plating with an earsplitting screech. Linkages and cables snapped. Crumpled gears and shreds of torn metal clattered to the ground.

Across the ring, Fletcher fought to regain control, and the machine's pincer swiveled around, snapping violently over the heads of the watching crowd. Petra fumbled with her control panel and ducked her machine, avoiding the blow by inches. If she didn't break loose now, Fletcher's mech would tear hers to pieces.

Activating another of her hidden weapons, she fired up the supercharged blowlamp in the injured arm and tried aiming the flame at the smoking prongs still buried in Fletcher's mech. The damaged arm's jerky movements made it difficult enough without the faulty mech dragging her across the ring. Still, she concentrated on keeping the flame steady, slipping with every halting step of Fletcher's mech, melting through the tubing and copper wire a fraction of a millimeter at a time, until finally, the blue flame bit through the thick rod and the mech snapped free with a loud crack.

Fletcher's mech teetered, and the circle of students scrambled backward, shoving each other in an effort to get away from the falling machine before it crashed to the floor. It landed with a shuddering boom, limbs still twitching and groaning from the surge of electricity.

Shaking, Petra eased her mech to its feet. It was broken and beaten and falling to pieces, but still standing.

Someone to the side of the ring started to count, but despite the engineer's efforts to get the machine back on its feet, Fletcher's machine remained inert. Smoke poured out of its damaged plating, clouding the room in a gray haze, and fifteen seconds later, the match was over.

She'd won.

Petra lowered her control panel, heart hammering against her ribs as the students cheered her victory. She ran a trembling hand through her sweaty hair, a smile working its way onto her lips.

Yancy stepped forward. “After a thrilling and unexpectedly brutal match, Fletcher is hereby eliminated, and Wade moves on to the finals, her opponent to be decided after our next match: Selby versus Morgenstern.”

Fletcher caught her eye across the ring, and with apparent reluctance, he nodded. “Well fought,” he said, his voice carrying over the excited din of the other students.

She fought back a smile. “You too.”

Students swarmed the ring, congratulating her on her win. She grinned back at them through the handshakes and the pats on the back, buoyed by their adamant praise, but when she saw what was left of her mech, the triumph of her win died in an instant.

Half the mech's plating had been torn to shreds, scores of gears and linkages twisted and warped, pieces still falling from its gaping wounds. The right arm was a shattered husk, dangling from the flattened shoulder joint, and the left arm, though mostly intact, was now without the electrified prong, sacrificed to escape Fletcher's flailing machine.

Rupert elbowed through the crowd and wrapped her in a tight hug, his grin faltering at the look on her face. “What's the matter?”

She gestured hopelessly toward the damaged mech. “There's no way I'll be able to repair it before the finals. I might as well have lost.”

“Don't say that. We'll have her fighting fit again in no time.”

Petra conceded with a sigh, too exhausted to argue the point after such an intense match. She didn't even care to stick around and watch the fight between Selby and Morgenstern next, even though she'd be facing one of them in the final round. Assuming she had a mech to fight with. She certainly didn't share Rupert's optimism on that account.

As the floor finally started to clear for the next match, Braith helped her and Rupert cart the battered mech out of the ring, pieces still falling from its gaping wounds. Every clink of metal set her teeth on edge, more gears, axles, and linkages lost in this one fight than she could afford to replace before the finals. It would take a miracle to fix it—­if it could be fixed at all.

They pushed the mech halfway across the room, when suddenly, the door to the hallway slammed open. Bright light streamed into the room, followed by a squad of men in stark black uniforms.

Coppers.

Petra shrank back from the doorway as none other than Julian's right-­hand man, Mr. Fowler, walked into the room. Braith was at her side in an instant, his body blocking her from view.

“Tell me there's another way out of here,” he said.

She shook her head, her heart sinking. They were trapped.

“By order of the Guild council,” said Fowler, his voice cutting through the student's chatter, “this circus of engineering is banned forthwith. These machines are to be confiscated immediately, and—­”

A din of outrage followed, drowning out the rest of Fowler's words, and then Rupert appeared beside her, Yancy with him.

“Yancy knows a way out,” he said, glancing from Petra to Braith. “He'll show you.”

“What about you?” she asked, grabbing his arm.

“I'll stay with the mech and make sure they don't follow you.” He held her gaze a second longer. “Go. I'll be fine.”

Yancy touched her arm, pulling her away from the crowd, still in an uproar. “Follow me.” He led them to the back of the recreation hall, putting as many students and engineers as possible between them and the Guild coppers. He stopped and crouched beside the stacks of tables the students had pushed against the wall to make room for the mech fights. “It's just this way,” he said, gesturing toward the far corner. “There's a loose panel near the window. It's where we stash our contraband, but if you squeeze in and swing a left, you'll find a ser­vice ladder that will take you down to the maintenance room for the library, two floors down.”

He glanced toward the door, Fowler's men already combing through the crowd. “I'll hang back and keep them busy. I expect a few mentions of my father ought to stall them for a while,” he said with a wry grin.

Fowler's voice cut through the noise. “Where
is
she?”

The room quieted, and Petra froze, clinging to Braith's arm beside her. He took her hand and squeezed, the force of his fingers anchoring her to him.

Selby spoke first. “Where is who?”

“The Wade girl,” answered Fowler. “We had word that she was participating in this . . . tournament of yours. Where is she?”

“I haven't the slightest idea,” replied Selby.

“Go,” said Yancy, ushering her toward the back wall. “I don't know who snitched on you, but no one here will give you up. I can promise you that. You're one of us now,” he said with a wink. “Just don't get caught.”

Braith squeezed her hand again. “Let's go.”

The hidden passage was right where Yancy said. Braith found the panel and carefully pried it loose, ushering Petra inside. She crawled in through the square gap, squeezing between half-­empty whiskey bottles, cigarette cartons, and tobacco tins. The space was small, and she had to pull herself into an awkward crouch to make room for Braith, standing on tiptoe to avoid knocking any of the students' contraband over. One wrong move, and the collection of bottles and metal tins would topple, alerting everyone in the next room to their hiding place.

“Careful,” she whispered as Braith slipped in behind her. “There's a lot of stuff in here.”

Braith pulled the panel shut and stood, bracing his arms against the wall behind her as he found his footing. Petra barely dared to breathe, aware of how warm her skin was, the two of them pressed tightly together in the cramped quarters, close enough that she could feel the rise and fall of his chest. He smelled of tobacco and sweat and something else decidedly masculine, and for a brief moment, she wanted nothing more than to stay there, her body pressed against him in the dark, protected in the shelter of his muscled arms.