The Guild Conspiracy (20 page)

“I told you—­”

“A
better
plan.” He turned away from her, kneading his forehead as he paced up and down the alley, his brows knit in concentration. “What about the prototype?” he finally asked, turning toward her. “How long would it take you to fix it?”

“A few minutes. Why?”

He started pacing again. “Say you repaired the prototype and removed the sabotage, would that not accomplish what you want? The minister would learn of the repair in the weekly production report, and he would have no choice but to forward the repair to the Royal Forces, or else their failure would be on him.”

“But it could takes days for that to happen,” she countered. “There are hundreds of these machines, Braith, with even more in production. If there are any delays, if war starts before the repair is fully implemented . . .” She shook her head. “It's too much of a risk.”

“It is a risk, yes, but one we can afford. Wars don't happen overnight. Once the Royal Forces is aware of the fault, they'll have no choice but to repair the machines—­all of them. They can't knowingly send faulty machines into battle. We just have to make sure the minister never suspects the truth of what you're actually trying to do.”

“You think that could work?” she asked, her heart beating faster at the possibility.

“There's only one way to find out.”

P
etra hurried to her dormitory and ditched her dress in her room, no need to change since she was already wearing her work clothes underneath. She delayed only long enough to grab a hat and change into a dry pair of socks and shoes before fetching her copy of the quadruped schematics from her desk. She riffled through the stack of pages until she found the design for the machine's base, where her sabotage connected through the primary gear systems. It had seemed so simple all those months ago. Sabotage the prototype. Delay the war.

How naïve she had been to think it would be that easy.

Stuffing the designs in her pocket, she left the bedroom and met Braith in the hall, pulling her hair back into a braid as she walked.

“You got them?” he asked, falling into step beside her.

She nodded, tying off the end of her hair. “We need to hurry, before Calligaris sends everyone home for the day. Someone has to be there to confirm the fault and verify the repair, or else Julian will cry sabotage and bury me for trying to fix it.”

Braith stopped her. “I won't let that happen,” he said, his voice full of conviction. “Petra, listen to me . . . Whatever happens now, I'm on your side. I'm with you.”

An hour ago, she wouldn't have believed it, but she had no doubts about his loyalty now. The choice she had feared for so long had come, and despite everything, he had chosen her.

Not his duties. Not the Royal Forces. Not the Guild.
Her
.

“I know,” she said, her voice cracking.

She only hoped he wouldn't come to regret it.

From the dormitories, they made their way to the workshop, the University halls still abuzz with engineers and students, the mood somber after the news of the airfield attack. Petra's heart beat like a drum in her chest, afraid that Julian would see through their fragile plan and figure out the truth of what she had done. If she failed to remove the sabotage, if she failed to pass it off as a legitimate repair . . . there were so many things that could go wrong, so many ways she might fail.

But there was more than her own life on the line now.

Failure was not an option.

She turned the corner down the long hallway that led to the Guild workshops, determined to stop for nothing until the quadruped prototype was repaired, when she ran smack into another engineer.

Braith caught her by the arm before she fell.

She brushed him off and glanced up at the engineer, relieved when she recognized him. “Yancy? What are you doing here?”

“I suppose I could ask you the same,” he said, looking her over. “I thought you were on leave today, a trip to the airfield.”

“We just got back a little while ago. Have you heard what happened?”

He nodded. “We just got the news. I was on my way to see if my father knew anything more about what happened. No one's saying much, but there's talk of anti-­imperialists behind it.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“Minister Goss,” he said “Just a half-­hour ago. We've been ordered to expedite production in light of the attack; the deadline has been moved to next week. We're scheduled to work in shifts until it's done.”

Petra glanced at Braith, the rigid line of his jaw all she needed to know that he understood the severity of the situation. “We need to get the workshop,” she said, her pulse racing. “Now.”

She turned to go, but Yancy touched her arm.

“Petra, wait. You should know . . .” He leaned close, lowering his voice to a whisper. “When the minister came by the workshop, he mentioned you. He seems to think you're involved.”

“Involved?”

“In the attack.”

“What?”

“I didn't catch everything he said, but before he left, he told Calligaris to telephone if you turned up. Something about the bombings on the airfield. That's all I know.”

Petra turned away, eyes searching blindly as her mind raced ahead of her. This couldn't be happening. Not now. Not so soon. She pressed a hand to her brow, their plan to repair the quadruped suddenly narrowing to an impossibly fine line. A single misstep and they would fail. She glanced up and her eyes met Braith's.

“We have to do it now,” she said. “Before it's too late.”

“You can't. If the minister thinks you're involved in the attack—­”

“Then this is the only chance we'll get.”

Braith frowned. “Petra . . .”

“It's over for me,” she said, shaking her head. “It was over the moment I stepped foot in the city. You know it as well as I do. But I still have a chance to make this right. I still have a chance to fix it. I have to
try
.”

He regarded her stonily. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she answered, not a hint of reservation in her voice. “And you?” she asked. “Are you still with me?”

“You know I am.”

“Then we need to hurry.” She turned toward Yancy, the frown on his face so like his father's. “Yancy . . . I wouldn't ask this of you if it wasn't important, but I need your help with something.”

Yancy arched an eyebrow. “Go on.”

“There's a repair that I need to make to the prototype,” she said, retrieving the quadruped designs from her pocket and offering him the pages. “An error I found checking over the schematics again. With production accelerated, it's important we fix it as soon as possible.”

Yancy took the pages from her. “An error?”

She nodded, showing him the faulty axle plate. “If you look here, where the trains overlap through the regulator, the gears are connected to conflicting drive systems. If left intact, once the quadruped is fully operational, these will rotate in opposition. With enough pressure, the tension springs linked to the regulator will snap.” Causing the sabotaging clockwork system to set off, but she didn't mention that. “Complete immobilization of the primary systems in a matter of minutes. It wouldn't have shown up in the initial tests because—­”

“Because the intersecting systems aren't connected yet,” he finished for her, drawing his finger across the paper to the main transmission in the war machine's base. “I see what you mean.” He glanced up from the schematics. “But why do you need my help?”

“I can repair the fault,” she said. “But with the council's suspicions and Julian out for my blood . . . If the Guild arrests me before I can finish the repair and file the report myself, someone else will need to do it in my stead—­someone I trust. Will you help me?”

Yancy regarded the schematics again. “Shouldn't we go to my father with this? He could—­”

“We don't have time,” she said. “I've already wasted enough as it is.”

“Petra, if you return to the workshop now, with Calligaris waiting for you—­”

“I know,” she said. “Trust me, Yancy. I wouldn't risk it if I thought there was any other way. I can't tell you why, but it's imperative the repair is filed today, as soon as possible. Can I count on you?”

“Of course you can,” he said with a nod, giving the schematics back. “Just tell me what to do.”

P
etra paused at the door to the workshop, her heart in her throat as Yancy slipped inside and disappeared over the edge of the catwalk, his footsteps loud on the rungs of the access ladder. She gripped the edge of the doorframe, the sounds of electric-­power tools whirring beyond her sight—­the hiss and flare of a lone blowlamp, the deep knell of a sledgehammer driving a peg—­her quadruped coming together piece by piece. She inhaled a shaky breath.

Repair the prototype. File the report. Fix the army.

That was the plan. She just hoped it worked.

“Petra, are you sure about this?” asked Braith, standing at her elbow. “If the minister thinks you had a hand in the airfield attack—­”

“What choice do I have?” she spat, more anger in her voice than she intended. She turned away from the workshop floor, her chest tight. “If I don't fix the quadruped—­”

“Then someone else will,” he said, taking her arm and pulling her away from the door. “Let someone else repair the fault. Let Yancy take care of it. Show him how to fix it, and we can get you out of here before—­”

“No,” she said, pulling herself away. “I can't leave this to someone else. I
won't
. This is
my
mistake,
my
responsibility.”

“Petra—­”

“I
have
to do this, Braith,” she whispered. “I have to make this right. Whatever the cost.”

He let out a heavy sigh. “Then do what you need to do and get out of there,” he said. “We may still have a chance to escape if you act quickly enough. Don't give up yet.”

She glanced up at him, the urge to say something itching at her throat, but she didn't have the words—­only fear. And regret. She didn't deserve such loyalty, not from him. “I'll try,” she said quietly, and then she was through the door and over the catwalk, sliding down the ladder to the workshop floor.

Her feet hit the ground hard and she turned on her heel, holding her hat firmly to her head as she walked slowly toward the quadruped. It stood like a great metal spider in the center of the room, the harsh electric light glinting off its sharp, angled legs and smooth brass dome.

Yancy was already at the base of the machine, talking animatedly to one of the elder engineers, his welding goggles pushed above his brows as Yancy gestured toward the quadruped's base. Another engineer lay underneath, busily welding sheets of plating to the underbelly while two others began mounting the left-­hand Agar to the piloting cabin. It was terrifying really, the unfinished edges and fragmented construction almost grotesque compared to the neat rows of completed quadrupeds she had found in Rupert's warship. Frankensteinian. Emmerich would have found some sort of ironic poetry in that.

Yancy caught her eye as she approached and joined her beside the machine, leaving the other engineer to his work. “Merle's going to run the numbers again,” he said to her, “but it will take Calligaris's approval before they can investigate the possibility of repair—­if the fault does show up.”

Petra frowned. “We don't have time for that.”

“Not likely.” Yancy gestured over her shoulder. “Looks like Calligaris knows you're here.”

“Dammit.” She turned toward Calligaris's desk. Already he had the telephone receiver to his ear, his eyes fixed on her like a hawk. She swallowed hard. “How much time do you think we have?”

“Ten minutes? Five?”

She grabbed a screwdriver from the nearest toolbox, curling her fingers around the heavy wooden handle. “Give me a hand with the ladder.”

Yancy helped move the ladder to the quadruped, and then she was up the rungs and inside the unfinished cabin, landing on the exposed floor beams with a clang. Her eyes swept the chamber, taking in the chaos of uncompleted mechanisms, the unmounted control panel leaning against the wall, the dashboard a tangle of wires and linkages. The pilot's chair was absent, the floor nothing more than a frame of metal crossbeams, but the array of gears beneath the cramped dome had the look of a finished machine. The engine transmission and connecting drive systems had been completed nearly a month ago. Every single axle, linkage, and gear fitted together according to Petra's flawed designs—­down to the sabotaging axle plate.

“Yancy, you there?” she called.

Outside the dome, the ladder creaked under his weight, and a few seconds later, Yancy hung over the open hatch, blocking the overhead light. He heaved himself over the edge and dropped into the cabin with a thud.

“Need some help?”

“Just pay attention,” she said. “I can only show you this once.”

She crouched over the exposed floor and pointed out the faulty axle plate with her screwdriver. “This is the axle plate here,” she said, reaching down into the machine's base. “Removing it will prevent the mechanical failure, but it will also deactivate the regulator. Without it, the pilots will have to adjust power distribution manually, likely leading to a drop in mechanical efficiency, but the quadruped will function as intended.”

She pulled the first screw loose and passed it up to Yancy.

“Could we not reconfigure the axle plate to adjust for the rotational disparity?” he asked, watching as she removed the next ­couple of screws. “If we implemented a secondary transmission between the interconnecting mechanisms, or maybe added another gear train to redirect the load from the main drive, we could bypass the tension issue and still keep the regulator intact.”