The Furnace of Los
From his knapsack, Mercury took out two small knives and worked on removing the screws that secured one of the skylights. His hands were steady as he worked and I couldn’t help but be impressed by the speed with which he had recovered from his ordeal. In moments he had removed the metal frame that held the skylight in place and the workshop was breached. He uncoiled a length of thin rope tied around his waist and secured it to the metal frame with a knot, dropping the end into the workshop. We both looked down into the darkness. Beneath us lay the ghostly outlines of objects caught in the moonlight, but everything was vague and indeterminate.
‘After you,’ said Mercury.
The floor was made of timber and the painful pricks in the soles of my feet told me that it hadn’t been swept recently. Though my eyes had adjusted to the darkness, the clutter I had seen from the roof was no less confusing from where I now stood. I could see work surfaces strewn with tools and instruments, coils of wire and curved sheets of metal. Large wooden crates were stacked in the corner opposite the stairs that led to the ground floor. I hoped Mercury was sure of what he was looking for, because I didn’t rate our chances of finding anything worth stealing among this paraphernalia.
Guessing that any Phlogiston establishment would be plumbed for gas, I went in search of a burner. I stepped carefully between the workbenches, painfully discovering that boxes of nails and screws were stacked on the floor. On the benches themselves were vices and clamps that held paired rods of metal that had been bolted together to make levers. Some of these arrangements I could see—even in the moonlight—were very elaborate, with cogs, springs and counter levers attached to the skeletal rods. Elsewhere I saw what appeared to be metal casing with which to enclose the mechanisms. This workshop was Mercury’s idea of heaven and—not for the first time that evening—I wondered if this wasn’t some elaborate ploy of his to take a sly gander at someone else’s research. I could hear him behind me, making heavy work of lowering himself down the rope, and I cursed him for bringing me here. It was clear that there was something he wasn’t telling me about this workshop. The Phlogiston weren’t mechanics and I was sure clockwork instruments like these were on their manifesto of scientific apocrypha.
Nearing the tall crates, I almost came to a sudden halt. Straight ahead of me, standing between two wooden stacks, was a motionless figure. The moonlight reflecting off his bald forehead had given him away. He was facing me so he must have seen me and I was in no doubt that he was waiting for me to get close enough before he pounced. I silently cursed Mercury for not doubting the word of the Nestorians. I glanced at the workbench to my left and then forced myself to continue walking, hoping that the watcher had not noticed my eyes settling on him. There were less than a dozen steps before I would be on top of him. I cast around for a weapon, but the benches at this end of the workshop were clear. The watcher remained stock still, obviously intending to tackle me up close. But I was prepared for him: I balled my fists.
From behind, a voice whispered in my ear: ‘I shouldn’t, you might hurt yourself.’
I dropped to the floor, spinning on my heel and cutting upwards with both fists. But Mercury had anticipated me—the little man had stepped back unharmed and was grinning at me like a fool. ‘It’s a construct,’ he said. ‘Quite harmless whilst deactivated—though its metal skin would bruise even your hands, Angel.’ He waved his hands in front of the silent figure’s face. Now I could see that it had only a crude approximation of human features. The eye sockets were too large and deep, and they were inset with crystal. Its mouth and nose were also too large and seemed to serve no purpose—perhaps they were purely decorative, more for my benefit than its own. I felt as though I was looking at some monstrous cousin of the human race, a Neanderthal that should have been extinct, but had been somehow resurrected in durable metal.
‘What do the Phlogiston want with mannequins?’
Mercury had found a burner and was looking for a gas tube and an outlet. ‘It’s a construct. A mechanical mannequin, if you like. The tailor’s guild spent a vast sum of money several years ago to develop clockwork dummies.’
‘I remember. They weren’t very popular.’
‘Of course. The springs would run down too quickly. The mass of the gears, levers and other metal components was too large for the winding mechanism to cope with, so they kept breaking down.’
‘And there was I thinking that it was because customers found the jerky movements and unnatural poses too disturbing. They never sold a stitch.’
Mercury had at last found a rubber tube and a gas valve. He patted his pockets, looking for matches. ‘The idea caught on in Chemytown. I was told by an excitable mathematician that they had used ticker tape and punch cards to give later models rudimentary programming, allowing the constructs to perform simple duties. Though the problem of limited endurance persisted.’
I examined the face of my phantom foe. He didn’t look so tough now that I knew his ancestors modelled clothes. His skin might have been metal and his bones steel rods, but I was living, breathing, thinking flesh and blood. He wouldn’t have stood a chance.
Behind me, I heard the hiss of gas escaping and then the striking of a match. A scattered light bathed the room in butane’s soft radiance. The crystal orbs were suddenly alive, reflecting the flame, but I also saw my own pale eyes trapped in there. The dead eyes were strange windows, but to what? I heard a drawn out click—as if time had slowed—and I could have sworn that for a second one of the eyes darkened, that it had winked at me.
I never got the chance to ask Mercury why it should do that. I was falling backwards, my arms pinned to my sides, both of them burning with pain. I crashed down onto the floor with the construct on top of me. Its terrifying weight knocked all the breath out of me and I lay dazed and gasping. I heard the clicking and whirring of mechanisms inside the casing of the construct—like thousands of buzzing insects. It was alive! I was pinned to the ground, and for a second I thought that perhaps it had stopped, wound itself down like the tailors’ clockwork mannequins.
I felt rather than heard the gears in the arms shift and turn. The arms already held me in an unbreakable bear hug, but now they squeezed even tighter, determined to crush the life out of me. Before I could even recover my breath, it was being pressed out of my lungs. My elbows dug further into my ribs under the pressure, and I felt a burning pain in my chest. I tried to kick my legs, to knock it off me, but it did no good. I couldn’t move.
All I could do was stare into those dark, dead orbs, seeing my own fearful eyes looking back at me, alien and uncaring. In moments the blackness of unconsciousness would mercifully release me from even that horror.
