The Impossible Cube: A Novel of the Clockwork Empire (8 page)

“They seem to be reproducing,” Alice observed. “That’s good. Let me.”

She took the jar from Feng and carefully opened the lid just enough to allow perhaps a dozen of them to escape and fly off before she clapped the jar shut again. For a moment, she was back in London, in Hyde Park. Aunt Edwina’s shriveled corpse had just collapsed to the ground and the cloud of fireflies was pouring out. Gavin swept the jar through the cloud, capturing a number of them, while the rest descended upon London to sting and bite. Each firefly carried a tiny organism—a virion, Aunt Edwina had called it—that attacked and destroyed the bacillus that caused the clockwork plague. Eventually the hardy little fireflies would spread throughout the world and cure or inoculate the entire human population, but it would happen faster with help.

One of the fireflies landed on Alice’s neck and bit her. Normal fireflies didn’t bite, of course, but these were different. She only just stopped herself from slapping, allowing it to fly off instead while Feng shoved the precious jar back into his pack. “Now, let us see what we can find for food and oil,” he said, sounding more like his old self. “And perhaps female company.”

“Feng,” Alice warned.

“Male, then.”

“Feng!”

He pulled down his scarf and grinned rakishly at her from beneath the goggles. It wasn’t an expression Alice associated with Orientals. “That was a joke. Maybe.”

“Let’s just do our—” Alice cut herself off. In an alley nearby, a shadow shifted with a small groan, and two figures shuffled into view. They were both male, and dressed in rags. Blood and pus oozed from a dozen sores on their hands and faces. In several places, skin had split, revealing red muscle. Their bodies were thin, almost emaciated, and they smelled of rotting meat. One of them reached toward Alice and Feng, but flinched from even the indirect sunlight afforded by the side street.

Feng drew back with a hiss. “Plague zombies.”

But Alice was already moving. She strode forward, stripping off her left glove. One of the zombies had enough brain function left to look a little surprised. Most people shunned or fled plague zombies—anyone who touched one was at risk for coming down with the clockwork plague and joining their ranks, steadily losing brain and body function until they dropped dead.
Only one in a hundred thousand victims became clockworkers, and no one wanted that, either. Plague zombies lived as pariahs, turned out and spurned even by family. They usually survived by scavenging garbage in the streets. Most of them starved to death before the plague finished them, and their corpses rotted in alleys and sewers because police and other city workers refused to touch them.

Alice approached the first zombie. Mucus ran from its half-rotted nose, and it babbled something incoherent at her. Alice’s gorge rose, and a lifetime of fear slapped her hard. Her mother and brother had died of this very plague, and it had made her father into a cripple. Still, she forced herself to raise her metal-clad hand. She couldn’t save her family, but she could save the person standing in front of her, and she would.

The iron spider’s eyes glowed red, and its clear tubules, which remained painlessly drilled into Alice’s arm, flowed constantly with Alice’s blood. She swiped at the zombie with the gauntlet and the claws made four light cuts across the zombie’s shoulder. Blood from the hollow claws sprayed over the wound as the zombie recoiled. The other zombie started and slowly moved a hand to his cheek. A firefly zipped away, leaving a green phosphorescent streak in the air. Alice, who had been ready to slash at and bleed on him as well, checked herself and stepped back instead.

“Are you well?” Feng asked.

“They can’t infect me,” Alice said. “Or you, for that matter. I gave you the same treatment. You needn’t be afraid of them.”

“It is hard to remember,” Feng admitted.

“It’s working,” Alice breathed. “Look!”

The zombies shuddered. One looked at his hands, turning them over and over, as if seeing them for the first time. The other licked his half-rotted lips and darted glances up and down the side street. Slowly, he took a step out of the darkened alley into the half-lit byway. The light didn’t seem to bother him, even though extreme photosensitivity was one of the early symptoms of the clockwork plague. As Alice watched, some of his sores stopped weeping. He gave a little moan that Alice could only describe as happy and he lurched toward the entrance of the street, where the market lay. The second zombie had vanished back into the shadows. Before Alice quite realized what was happening, the first zombie entered the square. Full sunlight fell across his face, probably for the first time in months, and he lifted his eyes to the sky in exultation.

A woman screamed, and then another. Shouts and cries erupted all over the market as people scrambled all over themselves to get away. Box stalls tipped under the stampede and wood smashed. Alice only heard—the buildings at the entrance of the side street restricted her view. All she saw was the zombie standing in the sunlight like a misshapen angel, oblivious to the chaos around him.

“Oh dear,” Alice muttered.

“Perhaps we move along now,” Feng said.

Another sound made Alice turn. At the mouth of the alley stood the second zombie. With him was a crowd of others—males, females, children. All of them wore torn, filthy rags that dripped blood and pus. Their skin was as tattered as their clothing. Some were missing fingers
or even entire limbs. All of them huddled in the alley, not daring to go into the half-light of the side street. The second zombie, the one Alice had scratched, lifted an arm toward Alice in supplication.

Alice felt abruptly overwhelmed. She couldn’t move or speak. “Oh,” was all she could manage.

“What do we do?” Feng asked.

A small child limped forward, dragging a useless foot. Alice couldn’t even tell if it was a boy or a girl. It held up its arms to Alice like a toddler asking to be picked up. Alice wondered who its parents were, how long it had been on the streets, scrounging for food, spreading disease, hiding from painful daylight in cellars and under dustbins, in pain, wondering what was happening and why no one was helping. She jolted forward.

“I will help you,” she said, addressing the child, but speaking to them all. As gently as she could, she scored the child’s arm and wet the wound with her own blood. The child gasped and lurched backward, then straightened. The cure wouldn’t regrow the bad foot, but at least the disease would stop devouring flesh and bone. Alice didn’t pause. She flicked her claws at the next zombie, and the next, and the next, working her way through the fetid alley in a red haze. The spider grew heavier and heavier, and her arm ached from swinging. The smell of blood hung on the air, mingling with the soft groans and yelps from wounded zombie flesh. Alice’s entire world narrowed to bricks and blood, and she lost all sense of time. She could save them all. Swing, slash, bleed, and move on. Swing, slash, bleed, and move on.

“That was the last one,” Feng was saying. “Alice! You can stop!”

Alice came to herself. The last zombie was shuffling into the light, and the screaming had died down from the marketplace, and whether it was because the people had become tired of running away from zombies or because they had all fled, Alice didn’t know. The strength drained out of her, and Feng caught her before she collapsed.

“Sorry,” she murmured. “I didn’t know it would be like this.”

“You helped so many,” Feng said. “That was a fine thing you did.”

“But there are still more. I need to save them.”

“They will be well. The cure will spread to them quickly enough.”

“I’m thirsty.” Alice’s mouth was dry, and her head felt light. “So thirsty.”

She was only vaguely aware of Feng half leading, half carrying her somewhere. Eventually, she found herself sitting at a table with a plate of fruit, bread, and cheese before her and a mug of cider at her elbow. A muscular arm encircled her like a warm wing and drew her close.

“Are you all right?” Gavin demanded.

She leaned in and soaked in his scent, his strength. “Yes. I just needed to eat.”

“I found him at another market,” Feng reported from across the table. “He was unaware that the zombie was your doing.”

“I thought it was a chance event,” Gavin said, “so I moved on to play somewhere else, without all the
screaming and stampeding. I had no idea you were in trouble.” His voice was tight with tension.

“I’m fine. Really.” Alice sat up to emphasize her words and noticed for the first time the little tavern where they were sitting. It was low-end, with straw on the wood planks and a bored-looking pair of daughters serving bread and beer drawn by their mother, who held forth behind a scarred bar. Alice, Gavin, and Feng occupied a freestanding table near the fireplace, which was empty this late in summer. The faint smell of dead ashes and old alcohol hung on the air, and the working-class patrons were still talking quietly, not drunk yet. “No need to worry, darling. I was just caught a little off guard. Next time, I’ll know better.”

“Next time?” Gavin echoed. “What next time?”

“Next time I heal people,” she said.

“You’re not going to keep doing this?” he asked incredulously.

She pulled away from him. “Of course I am. I have to help, Gavin. The clockwork plague needs to be cured.”

“That’s what the fireflies are for.”

“Every person I cure is one fewer person who dies,” she said with heat. “I can’t hold it back and wait on the chance that a firefly will bite.”

“And you’re putting yourself in danger!”

“It didn’t seem to be an issue when I came to rescue
you
!”

“That was low.”

Alice’s voice rose. “No lower than you assuming I can’t take care of myself.”

“Of course you can take care of yourself.” Gavin’s
voice rose to match. “It’s why Feng had to carry you in here.”

“I often enjoy it when people stare,” Feng said, “but I believe our plan was to keep to ourselves.”

Most of the customers were indeed staring at them. Alice, who noticed she was on her feet, sank slowly back to her chair. Her claws had pierced the tips of her glove. “I apologize, Mr. Ennock,” she said stiffly.

“Me, too, Miss Michaels.”

They finished eating in silence. Alice kept her eyes on her food and fumed, despite her apology. She had a duty to spread the cure. The plague had made victims of her entire family, ruined her life, and she wasn’t going to let anyone else go through the same thing. Her life was replete with sacrifices to the plague, and at last, at
last,
she could fight back. Was Gavin trying to control her the way her father and fiancé had tried to do? Infuriating! More than that, he was a mere commoner, with no right even to
speak
to her in such a tone. In some parts of England, a baroness like her could still have him…

. . . flogged.

Alice swallowed a bit of carrot without tasting it. Gavin had already been flogged. By the pirates who had captured his airship and shot his best friend and killed his captain. When she embraced him, she could feel the ropy scars through the thin fabric of his shirt. The thought made her ill. He had seen his share of sacrifice. He had already been hurt so badly, and now she was hurting him again. But iron pride stiffened her neck, and she couldn’t quite bring herself to apologize again.

“Did you earn much money?” she asked in a quieter voice. The other patrons went back to their drinking.

“A bit,” he said. “But not as much as I would have liked. I was interrupted by zombies, so—”

The temper flared red again. “Are you implying that I shouldn’t have—”

“I’m not implying anything. Boy, you’re hot under the corset.”

“Mr. Ennock!” She found she was on her feet again. “That… that…”

“What?” he said evenly.

“That… will be all.” She turned and marched out the door.

Angrily, she chose a direction and stalked away down the darkening street. Luxembourg had a number of yellow gaslights to light her way, but they were spaced widely, and each stood out like a giant candlestick in a pool of ink. Closed shops alternated with pubs and hotels. A lonely set of church bells rang a melody Alice didn’t recognize, and the cool evening breeze smelled unfamiliar. A lonely flyer for the circus, its colors muted by the gathering dusk, blew down the street. Music and sounds of men singing in French drifted across the cobbles, and a few people were scattered up and down the walkways. Now that she was outside in the cooler evening air, Alice realized she had no idea where to go or what to do. But she wasn’t going back to the pub. Not now.

A door banged open ahead of her, and a little man carrying a black bag hurried out of a building, pulling on his black coat as he went. Behind him came a woman wringing her hands. She was pleading in rapid French,
but the man ignored her. Normally Alice would have averted her eyes and continued on her way, but she caught the word
peste
—plague—and halted. The man yanked a small jar of paint from his bag, scrawled a large red P on the door over the woman’s protests, and jumped into a waiting hansom, which sped away. The woman watched the man go, then slowly returned to the building and shut the door.

Alice’s mouth went dry, and the spider hung heavy on her left arm. Then, before she could lose her nerve, she strode up to the door and knocked. It opened almost instantly, and Alice saw the hope on the woman’s face die, replaced with a guarded look.

“Oui?”
The woman had straight brown hair and tired, blue-gray eyes. Her hands were red and swollen from work, and she wore a limp brown work dress.

In her halting French, Alice said, “Is someone ill?”

“Why do you ask?” the woman responded. “Who are you?”

“Someone in your house has
la peste de l’horlogerie
, yes?”

“Non, non.”
The woman moved to shut the door. “You are mistaken.”

Alice, not quite believing her own temerity, blocked the door open with her foot. She could smell the dripping paint. “The doctor marked your door for all to see. Now everyone will avoid you and your house. I can help.”

The woman paused. “Who are you? We have nothing to steal.”