Broken Hero (46 page)

Hannah flings herself backwards, her whole body collapsing back above the knee. She fires as she goes. The same tight pattern of sparks around its eyes.

The girder whistles over her, over me. A deadly blur that fills my world for a fraction of a second, leaving nothing but sheer terror in its wake.

Hannah is lying next to me, flat on her back. Still firing.

The Uhrwerkmänn grunts in frustration, abandons its girder, raises a foot to stomp down.

Well, it was a noble effort, and I suppose this means I won’t have to die alone.

And then… Maybe it’s the shift in weight that does it. Tilts the head back at just the right angle. Maybe it’s just a random fluke. Maybe it’s the universe saying, “Not yet, I’ve got plans for you.”

Hannah’s bullet finds its home.

There is a noise not entirely dissimilar to a pebble rattling in an empty paint can. The Uhrwerkmänn freezes. Hannah lies flat, the robot’s foot poised above her.

Its shadow looms. The moment hangs.

I lie there, breath coming in short sharp gasps, waiting for the foot to fall, for Hannah to be reduced to nothing more than an abstract stain on the floor beside me.

Another breath wheezes in. I reach out, push at her shoulder, but my hand is too weak to move her. She doesn’t even look at me, just at the Uhrwerkmänn tottering above her.

And then, slowly, the Uhrwerkmänn reaches the tipping point. It crashes back into the books, posters, papers, and shit that litter the room around us. Dust blooms, forms a dry dirty fog.

We lie there, both of us staring at the empty space the Uhrwerkmänn used to occupy. I haven’t a clue what to say.

“Holy fuck balls.” Hannah breaks the silence.

Breath manages to make its way back into my lungs. It comes back out in something that sounds a little like a chuckle.

“Jesus,” I manage. And then, “What…? Where did…?”

I look at her. She turns, looks at me.

“
Thank you
.” That’s where I should have started. Because I really, genuinely mean it. Honestly, in this moment, I could not be more grateful to see Hannah Bearings. “Thank you,” I say again. “Holy shit. I… I thought it was going to… just… going…”

“It’s OK,” Hannah says. “That’s…” And then she stops. There are words for this moment, but not for us in this moment.

So I abandon words and pick myself up so I can reach down, help her up too. It seems the best fit for the moment that I can manage.

“I was calling out to you,” I say, still trying to make sense of events. “You weren’t answering. You weren’t… You couldn’t hear me?”

Hannah shakes her head. She looks as confused as I feel. “I came here, trying to check things out like, you know, you asked. And there were Uhrwerkmänner in the corridor but they’re not the most observant bloody lot. Not that hard to sneak past.”

Given my experience I’m going to give some credence to Kayla’s insistence that Hannah is an infiltrations expert.

“So I get in here, and I can’t take any of this shit out with the tunnel guarded and all. So I figure I’ll just photo stuff. But where the hell to start? And I’m working that out when there’s this weird feeling in my head. Like when we set off that reality key that first time. And then there’s that archway over there appearing out of bloody nowhere.” She points to the wall, the pile of books, the recently arrived archway. “And then—” she pauses, twisting her head to the side, trying to recapture the memory. “And then there was noise, someone coming, so I hid. And there were bloody Uhrwerkmänner everywhere. Coming in and out, dragging things through here. Construction materials, bits of… themselves. Other Uhrwerkmänner. And I was hiding for-bloody-ever. And then I felt that feeling again, that twist in my head. And suddenly books were on the floor, and you were there, and that thing was coming at you. And I just…” She shrugs awkwardly.

“Went and saved my life,” I say. “That’s what you just did.”

She shrugs again.

And God, we are not good at this. I don’t know how to express gratitude to her. She doesn’t know how to receive it.

We stand in awkward silence.

“Erm,” I say. Down to business perhaps. “Any idea what’s going on through there?” I point to the archway.

She shakes her head. “I haven’t been through there yet,” she says, “but we should. There’s a ton of them back there. We should figure it out.”

The view through the archway itself is less than revealing. All I can see is a short passageway. Large stones making a wall that defines a corridor angling sharply to the right. Nothing visible beyond that. A few dull clanking sounds emanate from it.

But we were just screaming. Yelling. There were gunshots. We must have garnered something’s attention. We won’t be alone for long. But how do we close that hole? We have no reality key.

I turn to the Uhrwerkmänner’s corpse, lying massively across the room. It must have a key on it somewhere. To get in here it must have one. So there must be a way to turn it back. But can I use it without magic?

“The rest of MI37 is coming,” I tell her. “We should wait for them.” I get down on my hands and knees, search the corpse, looking for the key. Maybe I could use it, close the archway, keep us safe ’til Clyde, and Kayla, and Tabitha all arrive.

Hannah walks slowly toward the arch. “But if we just do some recon…?” she says.

I find the key, reach out, take it. It is cold and flat, sharp edged in my hand. It is made of something that feels halfway between stone and metal. I run my fingers down the grooves in its sides. It has no obvious give.

“The Uhrwerkgerät is through there,” I say distractedly. I’d forgotten how out of the loop Hannah was. “They’re building it.”

I hear the scuff of Hannah’s feet and she whips around. “It’s the what?”

I push and pull at the reality key. Clyde made it look so simple. Something grates, something deep and internal, but there is no change in its external appearance.

“Yeah,” I say without looking up. “Just found out. Didn’t know that when I sent you here. Obviously. Well… hopefully obviously, anyway. I tried to call and warn you. But I think you were already underground.”

Silence. I don’t really mind. It lets me concentrate on this damn key. I need to close that door, buy us some time. At least until Kayla or Clyde arrives. Preferably both.

“I ignored your call,” Hannah says quietly. Almost as if it’s not really a statement for me.

I answer anyway. “Understandable,” I say. There’s no ire in my voice for once. It’s hard to be mad at someone who just risked their life to save yours.

“Not very professional of me,” she says. Something between embarrassment and humor.

And what the hell is up with this damn key? Does it have a child safety lock on it or something?

“Best that could have been expected under the circumstances,” I say. This really isn’t the time.

Another long silence. Electricity, I realize. The reality key is magical. It’ll need electricity to work. And I doubt Lang fitted this place with outlets.

“Yeah,” Hannah says. Her feet scuff again, turning away.

My cellphone battery? Do I just jam that in my mouth the same way Clyde does with a nine volt? That’s not very appealing.

“But—” Hannah continues. Then doesn’t.

I yank on the key again. Still nothing.

The silence from Hannah is still going on. It feels wrong. I glance up.

Hannah is frozen. Staring.

At the giant bloody Uhrwerkmänn that fills the archway.

Oh goddamn it.

It has its arm outstretched. A barrel protrudes from its arm, extends over its fist. A thick, greasy black pipe, swelling at the end. Like an enormous version of Hermann’s flamethrower.

Oh shit.

I stumble to my feet. The reality key is still in my hands. Some part of my brain that hasn’t quite caught up yet, still fumbling with it.

I plow a shoulder into Hannah as the barrel starts to hiss. Blue light shines through the exposed gears of the monster’s arm.

Hannah sprawls. I stare at the barrel.

Giant sparks crack down the Uhrwerkmänn’s arm. The blue light swells, bursts out down the barrel. Not a flamethrower then. But I don’t think it’s going to shower me with rose-petals and rainbows.

Shit and balls.

Sparks race to the barrel’s tip, seem to cluster there. And then one arches out, strikes me like a whip. I scream, feeling every muscle in my body tense.

The key suddenly gives in my hands. A grinding jerking movement that feels deeply and profoundly wrong. Planes of movement that shouldn’t be possible. Stone intersecting with stone, passing through stone. And light flashes bright, blinding me from everything, from the flame racing down the barrel about to turn me into part of a nutritious breakfast.

Something wrenches at the inside of my head.

And then back. Back in the same room. Still waiting to die.

But the archway is gone. The archway that the Uhrwerkmänn was standing in.

And so is half of the robot.

We have shifted realities. And the Uhrwerkmänn stood on the threshold. Half in. Half out. When the wall of broken bookshelves reappeared it cut the creature in two, neatly bisecting it from brow to heel, making it less of a threat and more of a Damien Hirst artwork.

And then it starts to fall. But not away this time. There is no away now. There’s a great bloody wall in the way. It falls forward. Toward me. Toward Hannah, lying where I knocked her.

I dive on top of her. No real thoughts in my head. Just some dull stupid version of anger, that after having gone to the trouble of actually saving us, I’ve managed to just put us in more danger. I have no real illusions that my body will stop a ton or more of metal from crushing Hannah to death—hell, the annihilation of reality subsequent to my death will do for her regardless—but it just seems like the right thing to do.

The front half of the Uhrwerkmänn lands. The floor quakes beneath us.

But we do not die.

After a moment, I become aware that I am lying directly on top of Hannah, and holding her very tight. If Felicity walked in right now, I’d likely have some explaining to do.

As it is, I think I have some explaining to do.

“Erm,” I say, which seems as good a way to start as any. “Just, you know…” I push myself off her as quickly as I can. “Well…” I finish.

Hannah looks at me, then to the side. The Uhrwerkmänn’s splayed arm has landed perhaps six inches from where we landed.

She looks back at me. “Little bit bloody close that,” she says. Her eyes are very wide.

“Well,” I try again, “you know. You’d just saved my life. Wanted to, erm… well, just repay the, err…”

“Yeah,” Hannah says quickly, mercifully cutting me off. “I mean, erm, thank you. Like a shit ton.”

“Not a problem.” I reach out as if to shake her hand, realize what I’m doing and turn it into an awkward pointing gesture. “Fellow team members.” I point back at myself. What the hell am I doing?

Hannah looks awkward. “Yeah, but I quit,” she says. Then, just for a moment, she looks as if she wishes she hadn’t.

“Well,” I say, “papers probably haven’t been processed yet. Once they are, you’re on your own. But up until then…” I shrug.

“Yeah,” Hannah nods. “Until then.” And is that a smile at the corners of both our mouths?

Maybe this whole shit show would have all gone so much more smoothly if Hannah and I had had our lives mutually threatened earlier on. Though that might have been a slightly more contentious team building exercise than the night-club trip.

There is a sound from behind us. A door being opened. We spin. Hannah points her pistol. I point the reality key. I’m honestly not sure why.

Kayla looks at us both. She has a black eye, is missing one shirt sleeve and is dripping blood onto the carpet.

“Put that down, you silly feck,” she says, “feckin’ cavalry’s arrived already.”

“Oh thank Christ for that.” I collapse down onto what’s left of a desk. It wobbles ominously.

“Shit,” Hannah says, looking at Kayla. “What the bloody hell happened to you?”

Kayla shrugs. “Other way around. I feckin’ happened to about ten of those mechanical bastards out there.”

That seems to take Hannah back a step. Though it’s possibly a lesser blow than the one I land when I clap Hannah on the shoulder and say, “Don’t worry, eventually you get used to her saying things like that.”

Kayla’s eyes flick back and forth, suspicious. “What’s with the feckin’ camaraderie bullshit? If I have to fight feckin’ doppelgangers today,” she says, “well, that’s feckin’ it. Big German bomb or no big German bomb, I’m going home after that. Feck with your head, doppelgangers do. They’re my feckin’ limit.”

“Oooh!” says a voice from behind Kayla. “Doppelgangers? Really? I’ve read all about them, but never actually met one. Should be fascinating. Though watch out for the poisonous spit.”

Clyde pushes his way into a field of crumpled brows.

“Hello,” he says. “Sorry it took so long to get… oh wait, are you the doppelgangers? Well I must say that really is quite impressive. Really took me in at first. I never thought it would be that—”

“I am bloody Arthur,” I say to Clyde. “This
is
Hannah.” We don’t have time for this now. There is the bisected half of an Uhrwerkmänn lying unguarded in a reality not too far from here.

Clyde nods, then slows. “Wait,” he says, “you would say that if you were a doppelganger…”

“Clyde,” I say, “there are no doppelgangers here. Kayla was making a joke.”

Clyde’s eyes narrow. “If you were the real Arthur, you would know that Kayla doesn’t make jokes.”

Kayla wheels on him. “What? I’m funny as feck.” It is possibly fortunate for Clyde that I still have Kayla’s sword.

Clyde, pressed up against the wall, flicks his eyes from me and Hannah to Kayla. “You’re all doppelgangers!” he gasps.

This job makes too many implausible things seem possible.

“Clear the damn doorway already. A pissing queue out here.” Tabitha shoves her way into the room. “No damn doppelgangers in here,” she snaps at Clyde. “Goddamn idiot.”

For some reason Clyde smiles at this.