Ticker (5 page)

“You ought to be there when that happens,” I said. “Perhaps there’ll be a riot.” I didn’t want to think about such a possibility.

Neither did Marcus, it seemed. His gaze flickered about the room, monitoring the waning threat level. “You need a safety detail. I can spare two or three soldiers to man the doors.”

I flapped a hand at him, doing my best impression of Grandmother Pendleton, who did not suffer the advice of others. “Nonsense. I’ll have the locksmith around within the hour. Once Dreadnaught returns, she’ll make short work of the mess.”

Undeterred, Marcus peered hard into my face, as though trying to peel back the layers of lies and read the truth in my eyes. Whatever he lacked in battle instincts, that look of his burned me all the way down to my boots.

Sixteen years of swapping whoppers with my twin hadn’t been for nothing. I met Marcus’s gaze with my most guileless expression. “We’ll be fine.”

“Are you certain?” he asked.

“I am,” I said. “We are grateful for your prompt response.” He might have six inches and fifty pounds on me, but there was no need to shove him out the door. I lowered my voice to a stage whisper. “Don’t fret, Mister Kingsley. I won’t tell anyone that I laid you out flat in my entryway. I’m sure that would be bad for business.”

Blotches of red reappeared on his cheeks, like I’d slapped him. He turned and ordered his men out with a clipped, “We’re done here.”

We watched the soldiers depart in shared silence. Violet still had her arms about Nic’s waist, the brilliant spikes of her hair standing out in stark contrast to his bloody shirtfront. Her iridescent blue fingernails glittered when she trailed them over the holes in the cotton.

“You should go to the hospital,” she said to him.

“We’ve bigger problems than a little blood.”

“You’re lucky to have escaped with only a couple of scratches to show for it.” Sebastian’s expression took a turn for the serious. “Are you in pain? If you need something to take the edge off, I have these lovely little purple pills I picked up on my last trip to Bhaskara.” Taking a silver case out of his pocket, he offered it to Nic.

My twin smiled and shook his head. “I’ve told you that your habit of collecting foreign medications is a bad one, yes?”

“At least a dozen times. But you’ve no need of pills, foreign or otherwise, if you can survive an explosion and live to lecture me,” Sebastian said easily, opening the case and shaking out a tablet for himself. “I felt the tremor in my office halfway across town. Looked out the window to see smoke plumes and emergency vehicles headed your way. The broadsheet sellers are already squawking, but I like to get my information straight from the source—”

He was interrupted by a startled shriek that emanated from the kitchen. Seconds later, Dreadnaught entered the room. Her eyes were wide with horror, and she had her hand pressed to her mouth. If I was the “First of the Augmented!” (as dubbed by the press), then she was the less-heralded second. After reading about my surgery in the broadsheets, Dreadnaught arrived on our doorstep with her right arm half-twisted out of the socket, the appendage rendered limp and useless by a factory accident. As soon as my father could get clearance from the medical board at Currey Hospital, a team of research surgeons Augmented everything from the shoulder down. Only the brass glint between her sleeve and a black glove betrayed her.

“The kitchen is chaos. The goose I was roasting is blackened, vegetables are all over the floor, half the good china is smashed . . . Did a bomb go off while I was at the market?” While
each of us struggled to formulate an answer that would placate her, she contemplated us over the sea of ruin. “Would one of you explain what transpired here?”

Nic found his voice first. “Someone broke into the house while we were gone. Fortunately you weren’t here when it happened.”

While the housekeeper surveyed the mess in her hall with pursed lips, I couldn’t help but think it was the burglars who were fortunate they’d already made their escape. Dreadnaught removed her neat straw going-out hat, turned up the gas lamps and then her sleeves. Moving with the grace and speed of a hummingbird, she cleared the worst of the broken glass as we straightened the rugs and righted the tables.

She retrieved her hat and moved to the door. “I’ll fetch some refreshments.”

“Yes, please.” I was suddenly ravenous. When she returned, not only did I finish a cup of tea, but drank two more, consumed a plateful of sandwiches, and topped that off with a slice of lemon cake. The others watched me, no doubt fearing I might collapse face-first into the cart at any second, but I felt marvelous.

“Her appetite seems good,” Sebastian said with great diplomacy as he bypassed the tea service and headed for the liquor cabinet.

“I’ve seen horses eat less in one sitting,” was Violet’s way of putting it. “Now tell me what happened at the factory.”

In between bites, the morning’s events came out in a rush. When I described the explosion, Violet lost her appetite and passed me her untouched slice of cake. Hand hovering over the Gentian Amaros, Sebastian blinked twice and moved straight from herbal aperitifs to hard liquor. I finished with the Vitesse ride across town, finding the house upturned, and Marcus’s arrival on the scene. Had the carriage clock not been smashed, I’m certain I
would have heard it ticking in the utter silence that followed my narrative.

Violet commenced cracking her knuckles, just as she always did when perturbed. “Do you have any idea who’d want to break in?” she asked, working her way through the letters in BAKE.

I should have been stuffed with cake and tea, but lemon sponge couldn’t fill the dreadful hole in my stomach. Shaking my head, I tapped out yet another message on my RiPA. “We should have heard from my parents by now.”

“If you’re feeling well enough, we ought to drive down to the courthouse to meet them.” Sebastian finished his drink and set his glass down on the tray.

Before I could agree or Nic could offer an argument, the pipes in the wall set up such a rattling that we all cringed. Rising from the chaise, I made my way to the vintage Calliope in the corner. It hadn’t been used with any regularity since Papa installed the PaperTape machine, but it still had the capacity to send and deliver message cylinders all over the city via pneumatic tubes. It was a great gleaming thing, thanks to Dreadnaught’s many hours of polishing. As a child, I’d been fascinated by the receiving tray that looked exactly like an enormous lion’s head.

The message cylinder arrived with the clatter of metal against metal. When I reached into the feline’s mouth, a sharp tooth grazed my skin. The scratch was a line of red crimstones in the gaslight. Blood dribbled between my fingers and onto the message cylinder. Cold and smooth against my hand, it bore none of the usual decorative etchings and lacked a maker’s mark to identify it. Rolling it over, I noted the grooves in the brass, tested its weight, and examined the clasp. Not locked, thank goodness. Lacking a key, I’d require a combination of three explosives to get this open,
two of which are illegal within Bazalgate city limits and the third rumored never to have existed at all.

“Open it, Penny.” Nic’s command was softly voiced.

“Do. I’m always in the mood for a good mystery,” Sebastian said.

Flicking the clasp, I extracted the typed missive within.

Master and Miss Farthing:

We politely asked your parents for the notes and the diagrams pertaining to the more complicated Augmentation procedures, but they declined to relinquish them. Your parents are now residing with us, having graciously accepted our invitation to reconsider the matter. We suggest most firmly that if you care to see your mother and father again, you will locate the items they refused us. You have until noon tomorrow, when we will deliver your next set of instructions.

By the time I finished reading, I’d gripped the paper so hard that it was crumpled along both edges.

“How did they sign it?” Sebastian wanted to know.

“They didn’t.” I read the note over again, seeking out some clue that would tell us who’d sent it. Without warning, the paper spontaneously burst into flames and disappeared into a cloud of cough-inducing smoke. Yelping, I danced back.

Nic rushed to check my hands. “Are you badly burned?”

I shook my head and held them up. “Not even singed. What
was
that?”

Sebastian offered an answer. “It’s high-security stationery. Only meant to be read once before combusting.”

“Just how do you know that?” Violet asked.

“Remember my moving-picture project?” Realizing his tie was crooked, Sebastian straightened the bit of silk. “A sample of ‘spypaper’ came with my orders for the nitrocellulose film we’re using to shoot the first movie. Fun to play with, but damned dangerous stuff to have hanging about the place.”

Violet went to pour a generous lemon and Fizz. “Don’t you think the Edoceon must be responsible for this? They’ve been pushing for an Augmentation ban since Warwick was arrested.”

“They were protesting at the Heart of the Star this morning,” I said, the memory cracking open like the bottle under the Vitesse’s wheel. “They shouted threats at me. One of them said the tables were turning.”

“There you have it.” Violet dispensed a second drink, sloshing out sparkling wine and citrus syrup in a fashion that made Sebastian shudder. Elbowing him aside, she handed the glass to Nic. “It’s not ‘reeducating the public’ when they destroy personal property and kidnap civilians. You need to file a report right now. The Ferrum Viriae can have the Edoceon under lock and key in less than a day.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple.” Much as I would like the mystery solved so swiftly, a different suspicion tickled the back of my mind again. “What if Marcus is the one who broke into the house?”

The rest of them stared at me, their faces painted in varying shades of confusion and dismay.

“You can’t think he would actually do such a thing,” Nic said. He was the spitting image of our father at his most worried; it was an expression the two of them perfected over countless doctors’ visits and overseas excursions to specialists. “He’s duty bound to serve Industria.”

“Precisely my reasoning,” I countered. “The kidnappers want the Augmentation schematics. For all we know, Kingsley wants to
use that information to build an army of Augmented soldiers. His men could have been dragging our parents out the back door even as I took the Pixii to him.”

“Don’t tell me you felled the great Marcus Kingsley with that pocket zinger of yours?” Sebastian asked. When I nodded, he looked amused and annoyed all at once. “Dash it all, I would have paid good money to see that! Other people would have done the same. We could have sold tickets.” He finished his drink and set the glass down on the occasional table.

“It was about as satisfying as you might expect,” I conceded, “but it doesn’t change the fact that I can’t call him back here. We can’t bring in the Ferrum Viriae. If Marcus is involved, we might be the next to disappear.”

“So if we aren’t ringing the police, what are we doing?” Violet asked.

“I have to find the Augmentation papers before the kidnappers contact us again.” I made my way to my father’s desk and started to sift through the mess.

“You don’t mean to give them the research!” Nic protested. “That belongs to Warwick.”

“And Mama and Papa,” I corrected, sorting through legal documents: our parents’ Last Will and Testament, the deed to Glasshouse, passports, four birth certificates, and two death certificates: Dimitria Beryl Farthing, Age: 18. Cygna Garnet Farthing, Age: One day.

Both were killed by “myocardial infarction with genetic complications”—fancy words to explain a condition that afflicted only my sisters and me, not Nic.

I set the certificates aside with trembling fingers. “I’ve no intention of giving them anything except a jail sentence, but you can’t catch a rat without cheese.”

“That’s a good way to get your fingers caught in a trap,” Sebastian observed, joining me at the desk.

“Come, come, Mister Stirling, don’t tell me your soul quails at a bit of subterfuge and espionage.” I lifted the will to my ear to confirm that the Mechanical Movement Seal still ticked, then held it up to the light. At the proper angle, the seal produced the three-dimensional image of Industria’s landmass overlaid with the Farthing emblem of a six-petal rose. “Still working. No one’s tampered with any of these.”

“Look through the rest of it,” Nic urged. “If we’re lucky, the kidnappers left a fingerprint on this.” He gestured to the message cylinder on the desk.

Below the legal papers, my father’s ledger contained notes on various projects, diagrams, blueprints, but there was absolutely nothing of a medical nature found within. The requested Augmentation notes, including the diagram for my clockwork ventriculator, were conspicuous only in their absence. “They’re not here.”

Sebastian’s nimble fingers sorted through everything again. “Maybe you missed something.”

“Or I’m looking in the wrong place.” I knelt next to Papa’s desk. Intricately carved out of redwood, it was honeycombed with hidey-holes. When I was young, my father used to secret chocolate bars and toys in it for me to find.

But this was no mere treasure hunt. Alternately using a penknife and a hairpin, I opened the first false-bottomed drawer and revealed a dog-eared copy of
Concise Remarks upon the Surgical Mechanization of the Human Anatomy
.

Violet’s nostrils flared with distaste. “Why does he own that piece of utter rubbish?”

“I very much doubt he was reading it for pleasure.” I turned the pamphlet over in my hands. Originally published under the title
Unvarnished Truths
, it had been surreptitiously distributed in the months preceding Warwick’s very public trial and anonymously justified the risks of his experiments and the deaths of those involved. After he was arraigned on twenty counts of murder, he publicly claimed authorship of the manifesto, and the treatise went into second, third, and fourth printings within a month. I’d read part of it, but Mama caught me and burned it in the hearth.