The wrench hit the floor immediately. Sullivan came out with his hands up.
Brief pause. “Thank you for your cooperation. EGE representatives will be along shortly. Please enjoy your visit to the Shelved Projects Branch.”
“Thank you,” Sullivan said. “You mind if I search those fellas?”
It took awhile for the mechanical man to pick the right record. “I’m sorry. I do not understand your question.”
“Great. Just tell me if I start to do something against the rules.” He picked the one that had been acting as the leader. Sullivan checked his pockets, careful not to get blood on himself. There was a wallet and a badge holder, which he took, though he was careful not to pick up any of the perfectly good guns that were lying around.
The mechanical man lumbered closer to see what Sullivan was doing.
“What are you?”
“I am an EGE Tele-Automaton Mark Five. I ensure the safety of the EGE Shelved Projects Branch.”
“How do you work?”
“Through a strategic partnership between Cseska Robotica and Edision General Electric, the EGE Mark Five series operates on a proprietary system combining state of the art scientific methods and ultramodern engineering.”
“Uh huh…” Sullivan could see the lightly glowing carvings on various parts of the mechanical man’s body. It was spellbound. Cog science had figured out a way to connect this thing directly to the Power. And thinking of Power… How had these guys been able to block his? Sullivan continued his pat-down and found something odd. One of the men had a small orange Bakelite box in his pocket. Sullivan opened it up and saw that it had some sort of gem inside. One fingertip set it spinning.
“Warning. Please desist from damaging or defacing EGE property.”
Sullivan looked up at the mechanical man. “What?” The mechanical man shook as he lifted the box. “This thing hurting you?” The glowing spells seemed to flicker. Sullivan took a step closer and the mechanical man drooped. The arms fell with a grinding noise and hung limp. The lights behind the eye holes gradually went dark. He walked over and knocked on its chest. It was dead or asleep. Sullivan looked down at the mysterious box, shrugged, and shoved it in his pocket.
Picking up one of the hand torches, Sullivan inspected the coffins. Now with more light, he could see that there was a porthole in each one. A quick look inside revealed that there was a different type of mechanical man in each one. Some looked quite a bit like his new friend, bulbous and odd; others were rougher, like boxes with girders for limbs; while a few were much more streamlined, man-sized and looking like a knight in a suit of armor. All had been spellbound, though these seemed inactive. Too bad he didn’t have more time to explore, but he had to get out of here.
He made his way out through the chaos. The facility had taken quite a blow from the collapsing spirit phone and the night shift was being evacuated. The power was out almost everywhere and from the smell, something had caught fire. At one point he saw some of the Navy people shouting his name, searching for him, but Sullivan kept his head down and ducked behind a fire truck. He didn’t know how many other enemies he had here. There was no sign of Hammer either. He stopped at the front office, which was luckily deserted, broke open the lockbox with one solid kick and retrieved his pistol.
Hammer’s giant Ford Hyperion was in the garage with the keys still in it. The starter turned over on the first try despite the cold. He didn’t like stealing, but it was a question of priorities. Somebody was going to come looking for the men that had tried to kill him, so he wanted as much of a head start as possible. He’d leave the Hyperion someplace it could be found easily and even top off the tank, but it served her right for setting him up. He hit the road and gunned it in order to leave Jersey behind.
The night had raised a lot of questions and not very many answers. Dead men calling, presidential assassinations, Pathfinders, dark oceans, devices that could quell magic, and mechanical men… It was enough to make a poor Gravity Spiker’s head swim. He needed help. It was time to call the Grimnoir.
Chapter 5
And how will the New Republic treat the inferior races? How will it deal with the black? How will it deal with the yellow man? How will it tackle that alleged termite in the civilized woodwork, the Jew? Certainly not as races at all. The world is a world, not a charitable institution, and I take it they will have to go. The whole tenor and meaning of the world, as I see it, is that they have to go. So far as they fail to develop sane, vigorous, and distinctive abilities for the great world of the future, it is their portion to die out and disappear. The world has a greater purpose than happiness; our lives are to serve God’s purpose, and that purpose aims not at man as an end, but works through him to greater issues.
UBF Minotaur
Somewhere over Nevada
It was frustrating sometimes. She seemed to have a stronger natural attachment to the Power than anybody else around, though she wasn’t nearly as strong as she’d somehow become on the Tokugawa, but she was mediocre at creating anything more than the most rudimentary of spells. Sure, she could Travel like it was nobody’s business, which was supposed to be one of the hardest types of magic to master, what with all the possible ways of crashing into things and dying, so why couldn’t she make this stupid communication spell work right? And now everybody was staring at her, wondering why the girl that had supposedly fought the Chairman couldn’t even get a stupid little spell to take.
Faye, Mr. Browning, and the new volunteers had left L.A. a few hours ago, catching the first blimp heading east. They were rushing back to help, though nobody really had any idea what helping meant in this case. It wasn’t like she could shoot or stab her way out of so many folks hating Actives. Moving made her feel like she was doing something though. Heck, on a blimp, even when they were sleeping they were moving. One nice thing about blimping was that the staterooms tended to have pretty comfy beds, which meant you could usually get a good night’s sleep on one, at least until your Grimnoir ring tried to burn your finger off.
It had been about five minutes since Faye’s ring had turned hot enough to wake her up. It wasn’t just her, either. All of the assorted Grimnoir aboard the Minotaur had received the same signal and it had been a strong one. Somebody really wanted to talk. They had gathered in the observation bubble because it was quiet and they could lock the door to keep out snooping crew members.
Since Faye had gotten here first, she’d volunteered to cast, and now she was regretting it. It was starting to frazzle her nerves, but she wouldn’t give the unfamiliar knights the satisfaction of seeing her fail. She redrew the design in the pile of salt and tried once again to concentrate on letting her own Power connect. Lance made it look so easy. Focus, he’d said, the Active provides the juice. You’re just a battery. The Power knows what to do based on what part of it you draw.
There were many different material components that could be used for spells. The Grimnoir had learned them through trial and error. The most common was good old fashioned salt or fine sand, because you could try again if you screwed it up. Even dirt would work if you were good enough. It was harder to do, but a spell could be scratched onto a glass surface, though she’d never managed to get one of those right.
Four knights had joined them in Los Angeles and now they were all looking at her. It wasn’t helping her nerves any. Faye had not had much time to get to know them, but most of them seemed like they would be okay.
The nice French girl didn’t talk much, but when she did, she talked with a funny accent. It made her sound exotic. She’d introduced herself as Colleen Giraudoux, but everybody else just called her Whisper, so Faye did too. She was very refined and pretty, with dark, elaborately constructed hair that was way nicer than Faye’s flat, straw-colored and constantly tangled mop. She even dressed fancy and wore a little bit of makeup around her eyes and on her lips and cheeks, which was a little scandalous in America even these days, but which was apparently perfectly acceptable in France. It seemed like all the young male passengers on the Minotaur kept looking Whisper’s way, and she never so much as blushed or batted a perfect eyelash with all that attention.