Cultwick: The Sweeper Bot Plague (29 page)

She leaned down and said, “Don’t worry. She won’t hurt you anymore, Ryn. None of them will hurt you when I’m finished with them.”

Before Erynn could say anything
, however, Fiona jumped from the front of the car with an uncanny agility and landed on the other section of train, as the medical railcar slowed.

She let forth a sigh of relief, but soon remembered
that Alice had attacked Pearl and the others atop the railcar. She climbed up to the top of the medical car to find Vincent and Pearl pulling Lucy up from the side of the freighter. Erynn smiled to them as the train slowly came to a stop.

The skyship landed next to the train, and a ramp descended from the vessel. Out came Rowland, Germ, Hirim and a slew of other rebels.

“Did you see where that woman came from?” Erynn asked, as she jumped down from the train.

“To tell you the truth, I
thought she was a hallucination,” Rowland answered. “I am glad someone else saw it.”

“I would’ve probably been pulled under with
the train, if not for Fiona,” Erynn said. “Regardless, here are your medical supplies. Hope you can make that cure now.”

“Yes, yes,” Rowland replied. “Let us see what we acquired.”

Before Rowland moved to check the supplies, he turned and said, “Oh! I just remembered. I made a memory tonic. Like we talked about. That was real, right? I fear I may have dreamed it.”

“Yeah, that was real,” Erynn said with a light chuckle. “How does it work?”

Rowland pulled a small vial from his pocket and handed it to her. “It just requires an injection. Once a day would probably be optimal.”

“Thanks, Max,” she said eyeing the tonic.

Erynn slipped the vial into a pocket, and they proceeded to break the lock on the sliding door leading into the medical supplies. Once it was open, they unloaded the crates and moved them into the ship. Pearl grabbed a bulky burlap bag from inside the railcar, walked over to Erynn, and handed it to her.

“What’s this?”
she asked.

“Just somethin’
ya left back in the hotel,” Pearl explained.

Erynn sat the heavy bag on the ground and
opened the top. Inside she found the broken pieces of Tern that she had been slowly repairing.

“Thanks, Pearl,” she began. “I was a little worried I might have lost him.”

“Nah, I couldn’t’ve let that happen, kitten,” she said smiling. “I snuck him on there before we left Willow Switch.” After a brief pause, Pearl continued, “I didn’t wanna press ya back in the train, but what did they do to ya when they took ya?”

Staring into the distance, Erynn eventually answered, “They tried to get me to give you guys up.”

“They... torture ya?” she cautiously asked.

“A little,” Erynn replied.

“Well, it’s over now, kitten. Yer safe now,” she said.

Erynn looked at Pearl’s gentle face and felt a calming effect in her presence. “Yeah. Looks like they could use a hand.” She pointed to the rebels carrying the crates on board.

Once they had fully loaded the skyship, Rowland, aided by Hirim, quickly went to work preparing the supplies in the lab he had set up on the ship, while Germ showed Erynn and Pearl around the vessel. Vincent and Lucy, meanwhile, separately wandered about it on their own.

When they arrived at the
bridge, Germ introduced them to the pilot, “This is Samuel Stilts, our vessel’s captain. Master Stilts, may I please present Madam Clover and Madam Hicks.”

“Hey, there,” Erynn said.

“Greetings, ladies,” he replied and then turned to Germ. “Are we ready to take off?”

Germ looked to Erynn for the answer, so she answered, “I believe so. Where to first?”

“Willow Switch is the closest,” Samuel explained, “so we may as well start there.”

The captain prepared the ship for launch, with Germ assisting him in the endeavor. She noted that he quite seemed to be enjoying the experience, so she decided to check on Rowland down in the lab he had created.

Erynn and Pearl found Rowland hard at work, mixing the chemicals with Hirim supplying him the various ingredients. As the engines roared, Rowland poured the combined chemicals down a long, metal shaft in the wall. The chemicals traveled down the super-heated tube, slowly turning to a thick gas. Looking out the window, Erynn could see a steam billowing forth from the engines behind them.

“So that’s all there is to it
?” she asked, backing away from the window and holding her stomach.

“That’s it, my dear,” Rowland said. He continued to work without looking up at her. “We just have to fly over the plagued cities, and as people breathe in the air, their malady will be cured.”

“Pretty impressive,” she said walking further from the window.

“Indeed,” he said, quite pleased with himself.

“Ya alright there, kitten?” Pearl asked.

“Yeah,” she said breathing deeply. “
It’s just the height.”

Vincent
entered the observatory and asked, “So what’s a bounty hunter have to do to get a cure around here?”

“Breathe,” Rowland answered
succinctly.

“I reckon I can manage that,” he said. “How long
till I don’t need your treatment anymore?”

“Everything should be cleared up within a couple days,” Rowland explained. “If you do happen to feel poorly, you can take a treatment. It should
not hinder the cure.”

“Fair enough,” he said. He too went to the window and watched the
heavy steam billow forth from the skyship, falling to the earth below.

They landed on the outskirts of Willow Switch to let Lucy leave. Hirim saw to it that she was paid for her help in the train heist, and she made her exit from the skyship. Vincent, Erynn noted,
didn’t say goodbye to his wife, but instead opted to hide among the numerous rooms of the vessel.

They soon left Willow Switch, and Ash Cloud appeared to be next on the target list. Erynn was quite impressed with how fast the ship moved. It had managed to catch up to the
speeding train headed for Cultwick City quite easily. They would be able to finish their goal rather quickly, it seemed.

After Ash
Cloud, they arrived in Chrome City, where they stopped to let Vincent off the ship. His horse was still stabled there, and with his transaction complete, he wished to go his own way.

As he walked down the ramp back into town, Vincent turned to Erynn and said, “I’d wish you luck, Clover, but in your case
you’re already brimming with an overabundance of luck… None of it good of course.”

“You could stay with us, you know,” she said.

“I got what I needed, and I got paid,” he explained. “This rebellion isn’t exactly my kind of thing. Doesn’t seem like a safe bet either.”

“Since when do you play it safe?” she asked.

“Fair point,” he answered. “For the time being, though, I think I’ll stick to the petty criminals. Oh, don’t suppose you mind if I keep this baby, do ya?” he asked patting the rivet rifle hanging from his belt.

“All yours,” Erynn said, as
Vincent left the ship behind, and wandered into town. Walking back inside the skyship, Erynn lifted the ramp back into position, and they set off among the clouds once again.

Next up on their journey was Pendulum Falls, then Dust Grove, Stonebrook,
Gulch Hollow, and finally Red River. Cultwick City was the big test though. They expected, however, that because the Cultwick Empire itself commissioned their ship, they would be allowed to fly the city’s sky unmolested. They would have to wait to find out for certain once they arrived though.

Before the night was
done, they had found their answer. Whether it was the black, starless night or the Cultwick ship, their errand was undisturbed. Several of the other skyships passed closely by them, but ultimately paid them no heed, as the steam billowed forth from their exhaust. They crossed over the city, knowing that as each citizen breathed in the cure, they were slowly eliminating the Sweeper Bot Plague. They still needed to distribute the cure to all the empire’s cities in the east, south, and north as well, but with the capital cleansed, their goal felt completed.

“Where do ya
go next from here, kitten?” Pearl asked, as they circled the city.

“I don’t really know,” Erynn answered. “We’ve ended one of the greatest threats to Cultwick’s citizens while simultaneously cutting off a huge source of the
empire’s income. I suspect that the operative that came after us will be the first of many. And who knows how Fiona is involved in all this.

“We’ve hurt the empire in a big way. They’re going to feel threatened and react accordingly. Two bounty hunters have already come after us, though by some strange turn of fate they worked with us rather than against us... mostly.”

“Maybe ya have just got one of those attractive personalities,” Pearl suggested.

Erynn smiled
and looked at Pearl, locking eyes. “It’s only going to get worse from here, Pearl,” she said. “Staying near me will be dangerous.”

“
Ya might just be worth the risk, kitten,” Pearl said before pulling Erynn close and embracing her warmly. After a few moments, Pearl pulled back and asked, “Hey... what do ya think it would take to find a room around here?”

Lightly biting her lip and smiling, Erynn answered, “I suspect we could find an empty one.”

Erynn took Pearl’s hand and led her down to one of the hallway’s Germ had previously showed them. The rebels Hirim had brought on board occupied most of the rooms, but there was one room still empty.

The pair entered the room marked 3E toward the end of the hall. Pearl continued inward, while Erynn lock
ed the door behind them. She turned, taking her hat off and threw it onto the bed, when Erynn saw her companion holding up a shiny, emerald necklace.

“Look what I found, kitten,” Pearl said holding up the jewelry.

“Where did you get that?” Erynn asked astonished by the sight.

“
It was just layin’ here,” she explained. “Why? Ya recognize it or somethin’?”

Eyes wide in disbelief, Erynn said, “That’s my necklace...”
She took the emerald from Pearl, and at its touch, her memory was augmented. “Fiona brought it back to me,” she said.

“How do ya know?” asked Pearl.

Erynn put a hand to her forehead and said, “I can feel her in my head.”

Epilogue

Within days of the dispersal of the Sweeper Bot Plague cure via the Dreadnought Prime, the malady was almost completely eliminated. Hirim and the Chromework Confederacy, returned to Pendulum Falls in the skyship, establishing a makeshift base of operations out of Samuel’s factory, and there, they worked to ensure that any citizens that missed the treatment were administered the aerosol-based cure they needed. A call to arms was raised, and the rebels scattered throughout the empire were all instructed to converge in the mechanical city to prepare for their next steps.

The empire, alternatively, began a smear campaign against the rebels, explaining that the cure was deployed from the empire’s own flagship and that they were therefore responsible for the act. Back in Cultwick City, Empress Mary Elizabeth Arkmast IV spoke out regarding the cure, convincing the majority of the city’s population that the rebels were attempting to take credit for something that they simply were not responsible for.

Alice’s death at the hands of the escaped mental patient, Fiona, took the Cultwick Council and its leader, Desmond Crowley, by surprise, but in her absence they turned to her companion for answers. Edwin Hollow had survived the fall from the train, and while recuperating from his injuries in Bedlam Asylum, he assembled a report detailing the events that he and the operative had witnessed during their time in the western frontier. With aid from various nefarious sources, Edwin managed to piece together the identities of all the involved parties of the Ash Cloud bank robbery. He vowed that Alice’s death would not be in vain, and that he would help to recapture Erynn and put a stop to the confederacy’s plans.

Though she had escaped the operative and the interrogator, Erynn was still marked as a heretic by the empire, left with the disfiguring scar on her hand and the fatal genotoxin flowing through her veins, slowly and painfully destroying her from within. She informed Rowland of the injection, and he immediately set to work on developing a cure for her. With the confederacy at their disposal, supplies were more readily available, but there was much work ahead of him. Sleep evaded
the professor in the weeks ahead, as Rowland experimented on a series of lab animals, mixed together chemicals, and took a variety of different samples from Erynn to further his research.

Germ assisted the professor in his efforts to save Erynn, in both the laboratory and beyond. Though the confederacy had earned a tidy sum of cash through the bank robbery, there were certain items simply beyond the reach of merchants. Special medical supplies and shipments had to be retrieved by less lawful methods, and Germ joined with other rebels to raid Cultwick warehouses for items that they were in desperate need of.

Pearl and Erynn, though having known each other only a brief time, had already grown quite affectionate and enamored of one another. Unable to return to her life in Dust Grove, Pearl chose to focus on bringing her lost memories to the surface through her paintings while also helping Erynn through the oft times debilitating effects of the genotoxin. Despite the years of self-imposed isolation out west, Pearl had made a meaningful connection with Erynn as both a friend and companion, and she wanted to nourish that, developing it into something she could cherish.

Erynn, meanwhile, assisted the confederacy in constructing defenses for their new home in Pendulum Falls, rebuilding Tern after his destruction, and finding an elegant way to administer the memory treatment to Pearl that Rowland had concocted. Additionally, after mysteriously reacquiring her mother’s emerald necklace within the
Dreadnought’s hull, a deluge of foreign thoughts had flooded Erynn’s mind. She finally developed the direct connection to Fiona that the scientists of the center had originally intended for her. Through it, she was able to witness and live out the memories stored within the highly unstable woman, and Erynn still found herself trying to reconcile the strange thoughts that she had inadvertently gained access to.

The bounty hunter, Vincent Rourke, returned to Chrome City with his health restored and compensation in the form of a bag of coins for his efforts. Within the Arcadia saloon, he managed to drink and gamble away most of the funds, spending the last of his money on a bottle of whiskey. His
recent infection and seeing his frequently hostile and confounding wife again had taken the fight out of him, so he simply wished to sit in the shadowy bar, until he passed out from the drink.

Then there was Fiona Newton, who had come into her horrific abilities with an all too gleeful disposition. As her infected army of the dead steadily grew, she rode the train back to Cultwick City. Thanks to the train cars full of passengers, she managed to find dozens of minds to feast upon
during her journey. Her plans for the future were mercurial at best and her alternate mind, Newton, had begun to disguise the future from her, as she sat in blood-stained clothes waiting for her arrival back in the city that had created her.