Brasswitch and Bot Read online

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  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  The crackle-tram lurched and the butterflies already quivering in Wrench’s stomach took flight. The summons to Clifford’s Tower, the regulators’ headquarters, was quite normal, or so her foster-father had said. A random screening interview triggered by her upcoming fourteenth birthday. It was a mere formality, he’d assured her, his fingers worrying the wax-sealed envelope, and for anyone else it might have been.

  Wrench straightened her brass-rimmed spectacles and glanced across the aisle at a bookish gent with a skew bow tie. Affixed to his bowler hat was the cog and spanner emblem of a university engineering professor and his critical gaze hadn’t strayed from Wrench since she’d boarded at Holgate Lane. The row of upmarket terraced houses at the tram stop were the homes of engineers and mechanics, the steel-forged backbone of the Victorian age. She adjusted the cuff on her apprentice’s overalls; she was a part of that now, or at least she wanted to be. They didn’t allow women to study at the university and perhaps the professor didn’t approve of female railway engineers either. She wanted to tell him to park his peepers, but he was gentry, not another steam monkey at the coachworks, and besides, he might be part of her interview board.

  Metal screeched on metal and the crackle-tram lurched again. Wrench gripped the handrail atop the seatback. Something was wrong; she could sense it.

  “NO BRAKES!” shouted the driver.

  With a violent shudder the crackle-tram surged down Mickelgate Hill. The street’s shops flew past, their bright awnings nearly scraping the windows. A corset-maker’s mannequin suspended as a sign dashed against the roof, sending a thunderous drumming through the speeding tram.

  Wrench’s heart kicked up a gear. Surely the engineering professor would know what to do?

  The driver heaved at the friction brake. “Brace yourselves! She’s out of control,” he yelled.

  An elegant lady seated opposite raised a lace-gloved hand to her forehead and fainted with an exaggerated sigh. The carriage swayed alarmingly. If it jumped the rails it would roll and crush them beneath the heavy iron chassis, just like . . . no. She needed to focus. This wasn’t like before. She was older now, an apprentice engineer, she could stop this. Wrench slung her tool belt over her shoulder and, grabbing the seat backs for support, she strode down the aisle.

  “Young man, sit down. Let the driver deal with it. That’s what he’s paid for,” blustered the engineering professor.

  Wrench ignored him and ignored the flushing of her cheeks. With her mess of mousy hair, baggy overalls and chunky hobnail boots she was easily mistaken for a boy.

  “No passengers past the yellow line,” commanded the driver, still hauling at the brake.

  “Nuts and bolts to the chuffing yellow line.” Wrench stepped up to the engineer’s maintenance hatch and braced herself against the driver’s console. She slid a screwdriver from her tool belt and levered the hatch open. It took a tram engineer three months to learn the intricacies of the switches, rheostats and circuit breakers revealed beneath. She glanced through the domed windscreen. In less than thirty seconds they’d collide with the traffic on Ouse Bridge. People would die if she couldn’t stop the crackle-tram. She had no choice, whatever the cost to herself.

  Wrench reached out with her mind. The power surging through the tram’s callan motors was bright in her senses. She took hold of the magnetic fields surrounding the stream of electrons and, easy as breathing, she shaped them to produce a counter force; the motor now acted as a brake, not an accelerator. She flicked a switch on the control board and channelled the electrons back into the batteries.

  Electricity crackled beneath the tram, arcing across the carbon brushes. Insulation melted on overheating cables, sending wisps of greasy smoke curling into the carriage. Wrench’s face contorted with the effort. The engineering was taking the strain, but it felt like she was stopping all forty tons of crackle-tram with her brain.

  Above the granite arches that bridged the turbulent river Ouse, a broken walkomobile blocked the road, one of its steel legs buckled and collapsed. Traffic queued back to the stationary trailer of a Tadcaster Brewery dray that loomed large in their path. Stacked high with beer barrels, the solid steam-powered trailer would provide for an unforgiving collision. Wrench turned up a rheostat on the control panel and pain pierced her skull. Teeth clenched, she forced more power into the batteries.

  Its motors screaming, the crackle-tram nudged into the back of the dray. Frothy white plumes of beer fountained into the air. Wrench dropped to her knees, panting. Her body ached, like she’d worked a double shift welding coach wheels. She trembled uncontrollably, a combination of adrenaline, fear and elation. Someone stepped behind her, their boots clacking on the hard wood floor.

  “What did you do?” asked the university professor.

  Wrench stood, shakily. “I saved us.”

  “Yes, and we’re all jolly grateful, but what exactly did you do?”

  Panic squeezed Wrench’s chest like a steam vice. They mustn’t know her secret. “I rerouted the motor through the bifilar coils, so they act as a regenerative brake.” The explanation was at least partly true and may have been enough to bamboozle a layman, but the professor frowned and fiddled with his tie.

  “That’s not possible. Not without a reductive circuit and only the new B twenty-sevens have those.” The professor jogged the control panel door wider and looked inside. “This is truly fascinating. Show me what you did, please. You may have unwittingly discovered something of great scientific importance. Either that or the crackle-tram stopped by magic.” He gave a little laugh.

  Cold spread through Wrench’s veins and she shivered. Why did he have to use the M-word?

  A straggly-haired woman lifted an arm and pointed. “She’s a witch!”

  Wrench stared at the professor. Her fingers picked at her tool belt. “Tell them it’s science. They’ll believe you. Please.”

  “I’d convinced myself I was mistaken earlier – I thought you were a boy – but now I’ve heard you speak I’m certain,” said the professor. “You’re Finnian Chester’s daughter, aren’t you?”

  Wrench exhaled. Her father had been legend in the world of engineering, designing locomotives like no other, their futuristic beauty matched only by their power. He had been hailed as a visionary of the industrial age, until the accident at least. If the professor knew of her father, surely he’d help. “Yes, I am,” she said, a spark of hope rekindling.

  “I always thought there was something unnatural about him.” The professor backed up the aisle as if Wrench was contagious. “Nobody normal should have such a command of machines.”

  “She’s a Brasswitch,” shouted the woman with straggly hair. A collective gasp filled the carriage.

  “It was just science. Honestly,” protested Wrench. She looked from the suspicious-eye
d passengers to the driver. He too shuffled away, refusing to meet her gaze.

  “Somebody, fetch the regulators,” said the fainting woman, who had made a miraculous recovery.

  Wrench clenched her fists and the lights in the crackle-tram flickered. It wasn’t fair. She wasn’t a Brasswitch. Not once had she used her powers to destroy machinery or cause harm. “I saved you all. There’s no need for the regulators.”

  The driver rapped his knuckles against a window. “They’re already here.”

  Outside, a blue-uniformed constable stood, hands on hips, surveying the chaos. Next to him, their backs ramrod straight, waited two men dressed in the madder-red suits and black bowler hats of the regulators.

  Wrench hauled at the crackle-tram door. Latched secure, it didn’t budge. Her mind reached out to the locking bar. It would be simple enough to open with a little mental encouragement, but the proximity of the regulators terrified her.

  The driver banged on the window again and the regulators’ heads turned slowly towards the crackle-tram. Their black tinted goggles gave them a soulless look, which matched their cruel reputation. They strode closer. Wrench’s heart thumped like a compression engine and her legs trembled. Stopping the crackle-tram had left her too exhausted to flee.

  With the hiss of steam pistons, the door slid open. One of the regulators stepped inside. His pointed black goatee sharpened a cruel, narrow face that crinkled on one side with burn scars glossy as waxed paper.

  The driver bowed his head, his cap held in his hands. His voice trembled, weak and afraid. “Sorry about the accident, Sir. The girl did it. She’s a Brasswitch.”

  Wrench raised her eyes to the professor. “Help me, please,” she mouthed.

  “Whatever happened here, it wasn’t science,” said the professor. “She’s not one of us.”

  The regulator drew his pistol and pressed the barrel to Wrench’s head. “You are under arrest on suspicion of being an aberration.”

  The cell was sparse. One table and one electric chair. On the table sat a file, neatly bound with brown twine. In the electric chair sat Wrench, neatly bound with brown leather straps. Somewhere behind her a transformer hummed, ready to deliver ten thousand times the voltage required to light the single Edison bulb that hung flickering from the ceiling. The heated filament cast an orange glow on dirty lime-washed walls splattered with blood. It was like a vision from hell. Wrench shivered, imagining that for many it had been.

  The cell’s heavy iron door swung inwards. The regulator with the scarred face marched into the room. He was taller than she remembered, his pointed beard accentuating his angular face and reedy body. With a theatrical air, he locked the cell door, pocketing the key in his waistcoat. He approached the table and placed his hand flat on the file. “I am Captain Flemington of the Aberration Regulatory Cabal and I will be your interrogator for today.” He no longer wore his hat or goggles, but his grey eyes were as cold as the smoke-tinted glass.

  Wrench swallowed, her mouth dry. There was something deeply unwholesome about the way he’d said “interrogator”, although, to be fair, being strapped in an electric chair in a dungeon below Clifford’s Tower hadn’t exactly left her with a terrifically positive mindset.

  “I’ve been watching you for some time, Miss Wren Chester-Harris.” Flemington paused, stroking the point of his beard, letting his words sink in. Wrench’s gaze flicked to the file. It was over an inch thick and stuffed with papers and photographs. What had they seen? What did they know about her?

  “In fact, I’ve had a special interest in you. Ever since the crash of the Drake.”

  Wrench flinched, as if she’d been physically struck. It was eight years ago but the horror of that day was permanently stamped on her brain. The Drake had been a revolutionary new express train designed by her father, a miracle of modern engineering. On its final test run it had crashed, killing seven, including her parents.

  Flemington smiled, obviously pleased with the hurt he’d caused. “The regulators became involved when they could find no reason for the brakes locking on. I wasn’t part of the original investigation, but I have a theory about what happened. Would you like to hear it?”

  Wrench was certain that she wouldn’t. Whatever the monster in front of her said, he only meant to cause her more pain.

  Flemington leant forward. The warped skin of his burn scar glistened beneath the Edison bulb. “Last month I investigated an incident at the coachworks. Torr Morton, a fitter with a wife and children, was crushed when the brakes on a shunter failed.”

  Why was he talking about Torr? He’d been her shift leader at the coachworks until the accident, and it had been an accident, nothing more.

  “Industrial-related fatalities don’t normally concern the regulators, but I had a special interest in the case.” Flemington’s eyes burned with hatred. “YOU!” His face inches from hers, he shouted, “You are an aberration and a killer.”

  Wrench wanted to lean away, wanted to get away, but the restraints prevented her. All she could do was screw her eyes tight shut and not think about the flecks of spit peppering her skin or what unpleasantness the enraged regulator had in store for her.

  She sensed Flemington move back. Then pain stung her cheek.

  “Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

  Wrench opened her eyes. Not because she’d been ordered to, but so she’d be ready if the regulator slapped her again.

  Flemington sat back and took a moment to calm himself. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and then continued. “You were on Morton’s shift. Everyone I interviewed said he was hard on you. Said he didn’t like having a girl on his team. The other shift leaders teased him, and he took it out on you, claiming it wasn’t safe. He was right. You made the shunter’s brakes fail. You murdered him.”

  Wrench didn’t want to remember that day. The terrible shrilling of the shunter’s whistle. The panic on the driver’s face and Torr’s expression of terror when the shunter slammed him into the buffers. She couldn’t stop it; she’d been too far away. Torr had seen to that, giving her the task of counting washers rather than letting her get stuck into any real engineering.

  Flemington smirked at the hurt in her eyes. Then his face hardened, anger furrowing his brow. He slammed a fist onto the table. “You interfered with the brakes on that day, you interfered with the brakes on the crackle-tram today and you interfered with the brakes on the Drake. You killed . . .” Flemington clenched his teeth, biting back the words. The muscles in his neck tightened. “You killed your parents, Brasswitch.”

  A tear trickled down Wrench’s cheek. She loved her parents and missed them every single day. How could this excuse of a human being suggest she was the cause? She wanted to reach out and stop his heart, squeeze it until it beat no more, but her powers only worked on machines.

  Flemington wagged a finger at her. “They said I was wrong. Master Regulator Leech told me the crash of the Drake was an accident. I didn’t believe him. I kept an eye on you, and today I’m vindicated. You are an aberration. A Brasswitch.”

  Wrench tried to shake her head. The leather skullcap with its metal electrodes stopped any movement. “Please, Sir. I’m not. I’m innocent.” Was she though? She didn’t understand her powers, not fully. Could she have used them unwittingly? She’d researched the crash of the Drake too. Her father’s reputation had been destroyed and she’d wanted to clear his name. Despite her best efforts, she’d never determined how the brakes failed, or been able to explain why she was the only survivor. What if Flemington was right? What if she had killed her parents?

  Flemington tutted. “It would be nice if one of you freaks admitted it for a change. Then again, that would stop all the fun.” He stepped behind her. The sharp clicks of switches operating cut the air. The transformer’s hum became more intense and Wrench sensed the sudden electrical surge through its coils.

  “I’ve triggered a simple clockwork timer,” said Flemington. “In a little under two minutes the circuit
will complete, and you will be electrocuted. Unless you use your powers to stop the clock.” He leant close to her ear. His warm breath stank of garlic sausage. “Tick-tock,” he whispered.

  Was Flemington telling the truth? She knew that the most dangerous aberrations were executed, their deaths trumpeted in the newspapers’ obituaries, but she’d always assumed that was after a fair trial to determine their guilt. Could Flemington really murder her where she sat without recourse? Wrench let her mind explore the cogs, gears and electric cables. Apparently, he could. In ninety seconds, she’d be dead. It was like the witch drownings of old. Tied hand and foot, you’d be thrown into a pond. If you sank and drowned you were innocent, if you floated and lived you were guilty, and would then be burned alive. If she stopped the clock, a simple use of her powers, she’d prove her guilt, and who knew what horrors that would prompt. Maybe it would be better to let the electricity do its work, fry her brain and boil her blood. At least it would be quick.

  Flemington sauntered back in front of her and leant against the wall beside the door. “You know how when you walk on a carpet and it builds up static so your hairs stand on end? Then you touch some metal and you get that little prickle of a spark and it makes you jump? It’s not going to be anything like that.”

  Something heavy battered the cell door and it shook.

  “Flemmy! Open up. I need the girl,” shouted a deep bass voice.

  A look of annoyance flickered across Flemington’s face. “No one called Flemmy here, and no girl, just a soon-to-be-sizzled Brasswitch.”

  The voice boomed again. “The manual says we’re to call them Technomancers. Brasswitch is an apparently outmoded and inappropriate term in these days of enlightenment.” The door shuddered and a dent the size of a dinner plate appeared in the metalwork. “It also says we’re not supposed to kill them.”

  “I believe that’s more of a guideline than a rule.” Flemington winked at Wrench and whispered, “Thirty seconds.”

  “I don’t have time for this,” boomed the voice.

  Flemington pulled a pocket watch from his waistcoat and flipped it open. “Actually, she doesn’t have time –”