Heart of Steam & Rust (Empires of Steam and Rust) (10 page)

“Just try to rest,” she whispered.

“Did you get Rostov?”

“Yes. We did. And the traitor as well.”

He smiled and closed his eyes. “It’s over, then.”

“Not quite,” she whispered in his ear. “Tell me what you know about a certain Dr. Freund.”

THIRTEEN

The train sat in a ramshackle railroad yard east of Perm, near the Ural Mountains. It had taken Lina half a week in Moscow to track the train down, and another three days to reach it. An airship would have been considerably faster, but she didn’t want anyone aboard the train to know she was coming. Thanks to her psychic gifts, no one who’d aided her investigation would be talking. None of them remembered helping; some didn’t remember meeting her at all.

Pyotr would have come if she’d asked, despite the fact that he was still recovering. He’d been moved from Vilnius to the same secure hospital she’d first woken in. She didn’t want him tagging along, though. She didn’t even want him to know what she was doing. She’d made an excuse about needing to go away for a few days, to try and replenish her witchy supplies. He’d accepted her explanation without question. She’d kissed him and told him she’d see him in a few days, which was a lie.

She was going
home
.

Cautiously, she left her “borrowed” car and approached the train. It blended in with the old railway yard perfectly. Its design was at least twenty years out of date, and rust covered much of its exterior. Yet, something about it set off a tingling in Lina’s brain.

A deep thrumming came from the locomotive’s engines—new engines, not old—and the scent of ozone permeated the air. She could not peer inside the train’s dirty windows, and she saw no sign of engineers or other workers. The entire yard lay deserted, save for the rusting hulks of other trains. Yet, as she walked closer, the train began to move of its own accord.

It rolled down the track away from Lina, and she had to sprint to catch up. It kept moving, building steam as it went. She managed to snag the rear railing. The impact nearly yanked her arm from its socket, but she pulled herself onto the hindmost steps just in time. Another moment and the train would have been beyond her grasp, perhaps forever.

She paused on the rear platform, catching her breath, clearing her mind, preparing. Did they somehow know she was coming? Was that why they’d started to pull out of the station? No. How could they? It was only coincidence. She would proceed as planned.

Her investigation had turned up almost nothing on Doctor Freund, but it had revealed that he spent nearly all of his time on the train—probably the very train Rasputin had spoken of. Freund was a shadow; he had no official government connections. Finding and boarding the train was the only way she would get to talk to him—the only way to obtain what she wanted.

Now that she had arrived, her scheme was simple: She would find the good doctor, wherever in the train he might be, and force him to take her home.

She drew her revolver and opened the door that led from the observation platform into the rearmost compartment.

The insides of the car surprised her; they looked practically new, unused. The interior was generously lit and decked out with first class seats, polished oak tables, and lushly carpeted floors. She smiled. This was the level of luxury expected by top officials. The outside of the train car had been merely a front. No doubt remained in her mind now: She’d come to the right place.

Quickly but cautiously, Lina moved through the deserted lounge car and into the next. This one housed a kitchen—all gleaming stainless steel and ordered pots and utensils. After that came several compartments filled with maintenance equipment. Every one lay deserted, and in every one the lighting grew progressively more dim.

The compartment beyond maintenance was almost pitch black, and housed long, burnished steel chemical tanks. With each car Lina moved through, the powerful thrumming of the engines grew louder, stronger.

The next compartment door didn’t open as easily as the earlier ones had. She had to holster her gun and pull it aside with both hands, and as soon as she had it open, it began to close again.

Light blazed out from within, but she slipped inside quickly as the door slid shut behind her. It took a moment for her eyes to adapt to the light. She seemed to be in a laboratory of some kind. At the far end of the room, a slight, balding man in a lab coat worked at a bench filled with electronic equipment.

Lina drew her gun and leveled it at him.

He turned, slowly, unconcerned, and gazed at her through thick, round glasses.

The sight brought a flash of memory to Lina, the first memory she had of this world: two pairs of eyes, staring down at her. One pair belonged to Rasputin; the other hid behind just such glasses.

“Doctor Freund, I presume,” she said.

“Pavlina Ivanova,” he replied, his voice high and reedy, “I’ve been expecting you.”

The notion shot a chill through her. She stared at the man, trying to read him—and that gave her a second shock.

She got … nothing. Lina couldn’t read this man at all. Even with the most well-guarded minds, she usually got something, a surface feeling at least. Even when Yakov had shut her out, she could still sense his emotions. Even with Rasputin, she got
something
. But with Freund...! His presence felt flat, like a machine … or an empty voice in space.

He glanced at her only occasionally as he moved around the lab. Couldn’t he see that she had a gun on him? Were his glasses so thick, his eyesight so terrible?

“Doctor,” she said, “you are going to take me home.”

“Am I indeed?”

His finger moved toward a button on his workbench.

Lina tried to pull the trigger, but her finger didn’t move.

The next moment, her entire body felt as though it was on fire.

She screamed, but no sound came out of her mouth, only swirling eddies of blackish dust. Her chest felt like it was being crushed.

She fell to her knees, gasping for breath, the gun clattering from her hand onto the floor. The dust swirled around her head, a tiny black cloud, before dispersing into nothingness.

Freund walked over to her and put one slender hand under her left armpit. As she tried to stand, he guided her backward, onto the top of a stainless steel table with a slightly upturned lip running around the edges.

“That wasn’t very nice, trying to shoot me,” he said, his tones betraying a slight Prussian accent. “It’s a good thing I implanted a post-hypnotic compulsion not to harm me. Oh, I may need machines to accomplish such mesmerism—unlike Rasputin, or yourself—but I am naturally cautious by nature. You see, Colonel Ivanova, I know you are not who you seem, and the simple fact is … I don’t trust you.”

She leaned on her elbows, trying to raise herself up, but her body felt so heavy that she only got part way.

“H-how...?” she managed to gasp.

He smiled, showing twin rows of perfectly formed white teeth whose bottom edges looked vaguely pointed. “I worked on you a rather long time, you see, and much of that time you were delirious. You did quite a lot of talking, Colonel. Quite a lot.”

Through her pain-wracked mind, one word slowly sank in:
Colonel
. Not
“Captain!”
He
did
know who she was!

“Did you think that bringing you back to life was a simple process?” he asked. “Did you think it happened instantly?”

“R-Rasputin said—”

“Oh, I’m sure he took all the credit, him and his God and his metaphysical mumbo jumbo, but the simple fact is, you were very lucky, my dear girl—lucky that I happened to be in Vilnius the night you died, performing another experiment; lucky that the night was cold, preserving your tissues until I got to you; lucky that I had the machinery necessary to nurture the tiny spark within your cells, keeping them from corruption. Because, as I am sure Rasputin told you: you were quite dead.”

“N-not me …
her
.”

“Let’s not quibble, Colonel Ivanova. Though perhaps it hasn’t occurred to you that, on your own world,
you
may be as dead as Lina Viktorovna Ivanova is in this one. In fact, I cannot see any other reasonable explanation for why Rasputin should pluck your consciousness from the void, rather than that of his intended pawn.”

“But … I’m
alive
!”

“Your mind is alive, yes. But, on your world—wherever it may be—your body could be just as dead as poor Lina was when we found her corpse near the docks in Vilnius.”

She forced herself to sit up, her mind swirling, her stomach threatening to heave its contents onto the table. She was weak as a kitten, and her chest felt as though someone were sitting on it. “I … don’t believe it,” she managed to say.

“Believe what you like, but whatever you believe, I have neither the power, nor the desire, to send you home again.”

“But …
why
?”

“Because, my dear, I need allies, and I think you will make a very useful one. My work here is expensive, both in terms of currency and political capital. I need more sympathetic ears in the hierarchy if I am to continue my experiments. Your counterpart might have been loyal to Rasputin and the Empress, but you... I believe I can convince you that your allegiance should be only to me.”

Weak as she felt, anger boiled up inside Lina. She tried to spit at him, but found her mouth too dry.

He laughed. “Would you rather die? Because that is your only alternative. Lie down and open your shirt.”

Her hands went to her breast, clutching her blouse protectively closed.

“So,” he said, “if that’s the way you prefer to play it....” He held up a hand-sized brass object and pressed a button on the side of it. Flashing, swirling lights filled the entire lab. She felt dizzy.

Then his hand was on her chest, pushing her backward, forcing her to lie down on the steel slab. She tried to resist, but couldn’t, as he arranged her arms by her sides.

A scalpel appeared in his bony left hand, and he cut open first her blouse, and then her bra. Dispassionately, he pulled the clothing aside, revealing her breast. “The device works best without clothing obstructing it,” he explained. “But first, look at your chest, Colonel.”

Unable to stop herself, she did.

“Tell me: Can you see the scar, my dear?”

“B-barely.”

“That, too, is due to post-hypnotic suggestion. I did not want you examining it too closely. I suggest now that you can see it clearly.”

As he said it, a raised, pinkish C-shaped semi-circle appeared on her chest, extending from her sternum under her left breast. The same scar Pyotr had described with his fingers. It was an ugly one, and the fact that she hadn’t been able to see it before frightened her more than the mere fact of its existence.

“What does the size and extent of that scar suggest to you, Colonel?”

She swallowed, mouth still dry. “That I was shot through the heart.”

“Exactly. Luckily, I was able to provide you with a new one.”

 Freund walked to a machine dangling from a long, crane-like arm fastened to the ceiling. Attached to the end of the arm was a broad disc, about a foot-and-a-half wide, made of black metal. He swiveled the arm over her body, and placed the disk above her breasts.

“Look here,” he said, indicating a nearby device Lina recognized as a video display—the first one she’d seen on this world.

As she watched, he flicked a switch, turning on the machine.

The display lit up, showing a weird greenish picture, like a fluoroscope or x-ray.

“Tell me what you see,” he commanded.

She had to work hard to keep her voice from trembling. “There’s some kind of machine in my chest.”

“That is your new heart, one of my own design.”

She didn’t want to believe him, but she knew it was true. With growing horror, she watched the clockwork thing inside her pulse and whir.
This
was the awful secret hidden behind the invisible scar!

“It is fueled by a special power source,” Freund continued, “a source that I vented from you earlier, when you were contemplating attacking me. I imagine that you’re feeling the effects at this point, as there can’t be much energy left in the device now.”

She
could
feel it, like a clock winding down. Her metal heart was gradually slowing; soon it would stop.

“No place in this world can re-charge that power source,” Freund told her, gloating. “The dark energy it needs can only be harvested from the World of Rust—the world where you were reborn. How does that make you feel, Colonel?”

It made her feel desperate, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of saying so. Instead, she asked, “What do you want from me?”

“Two things, and I’ve told you one already. First, I want your loyalty. Is that too great a price to pay for me to, again, save your life?”

“N-no.”

“So, you vow to serve me, even above Rasputin and the Empress?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” He lifted the machine’s sensor off her chest and returned the whole apparatus to its original position. Then he walked back to his lab table and began tinkering with his other equipment once more.

Using nearly all her remaining strength, Lina sat up. Her head swam; her chest felt as though someone was squeezing it.

“What more do you want?” she asked.

He glanced back at her, over his shoulder, as though he’d forgotten she was there. “Pardon?”

“The second thing … the other thing you want from me,” she said. “If I give it to you, will you recharge the heart?”

“Of course. Didn’t I say so?”

“But what
is
it? What do I have to do?” A million things flashed through her mind, and Lina found herself willing to do any of them—
any
.

“Isn’t it obvious, my dear Colonel Ivanova? I want you to beg.”

“Please, Dr. Freund—” she began.

“You know, even though that’s my name, over recent years, I find that I like another one better—the one that people whisper behind my back:
Dr. Fiend.
I think it suits my temperament, don’t you?”