Mr. Stitch

“A clock,” Beckett said. Everyone knew that.

“A clock, yes. It was a very old, primitive thing, with great stone wheels, powered by the river Stark. It’s still in the heart of the Royal Palace, deep beneath the Royal Hill. Do you ever wonder about that? A whole city, a nation, an Empire, with a stone clock as its beating heart. That is the people of Trowth in microcosm: complex, yes, but rigid, predictable, regular. We are a nation in which every man knows his place, and every man is pleased to fulfill it, and for two thousand years, everything in Trowth has happened precisely the way that it’s supposed to.”

“I don’t know,” Beckett said, thinking of Ettercap spies, of men transfigured by aetheric energies, of dreams poisoned, dead resurrected, and the laws of nature violated, “that I agree with that.”

“You wouldn’t, of course,” Anonymous John agreed. “You are employed by the crown to ensure that things do happen the way they’re supposed to. You and the coroners, alone, are permitted to encounter those things which violate the precision-engineered society of the Empire. When something violates that natural order, when someone reaches up to scrawl his name across the stone-carved laws of Trowth, it is Elijah Beckett’s responsibility to slap him back down.”

“And that’s you? The man scrawling his name or what have you? You’re a hero for being a criminal?”

“In my own, small way, yes. I am a cog that does not know its place. But if you knew, Beckett! My principal, he is the one that is genuinely new, the man rejecting the hide-bound traditions of the Empire. I have made a fortune breaking the law, you see, but he is the one that has seen the outcome: Trowth will collapse beneath the weight of its own history if it does not change. And he is the one who will change it.”

“And who is your principal?” Beckett had assumed that John was the top dog in this scenario; perhaps the night would turn out not to be a waste, after all.

“A secret,” John replied, and if he could have smiled, Beckett suspected he would have, “even from me.”

“So, what do you want from me? Want me to switch sides, maybe? Give over to your new man to save the Empire?”

Anonymous John turned to Beckett, fixing that unnerving, faceless gaze on him, then turned back out to the water. “That’s my assignment. To gauge your willingness to switch teams. I’ve been advised that, if you thought the stakes were high enough, there’s a small possibility that you’d be interested.”

“And what are the stakes?”

“High,” John replied. “Very high. The Empire is at risk, yes, but so is our very species. So, perhaps, is all life as we understand it. I can’t tell you how, or why; I can only tell you that the risk is…unfathomable.”

“And I’m just supposed to take your word for it?” Beckett began to reach for his revolver again. “A criminal? A liar and manipulator? A murderer?” He closed his hand on the grip of the weapon, and felt rage boiling up inside him. Valentine. You killed Valentine. “Sorry I’m not convinced. What’s plan B?” If there were no men aiming at him, John would be trying to close the distance, so the best choice would be to back away, draw and fire.

“I told him you wouldn’t be.” If there were sharpshooters, John would want to open the distance, so the best choice would be to move forward, strike at his face, then draw the gun. “Plan B is to kill you, ob-”

Beckett leapt forward, swinging at John’s head and pulling the gun from its holster. His clenched fist met the soft, spongy meat of Anonymous John’s face. Too late, Beckett realized that John wasn’t trying to move away at all, but had accepted the blow and moved forward, pinning Beckett’s gun against his body. No sharpshooters, Beckett thought, as he felt an icy brand between his ribs, the horrific, alien sensation of a foreign object violating his body. Wrong guess.

He tried to scream as John wrenched the knife from his side, but the pain was overwhelming; it paralyzed his lungs, and the only sound Beckett could make was a choked gagging. His hand spasmed and fired off a round, that ricocheted harmlessly from the street.

“It’s a dangerous plan,” Anonymous John admitted, as Beckett slumped against the railing. “I have no idea what will happen to your army without you in charge. But you can’t argue that it isn’t worth the risk.” John slipped an arm under Beckett’s and twisted his body.

Beckett felt his hips bang against the stone balustrade, then the sickening sense of weightlessness as he fell. He crashed into the freezing waters of the river. He struggled for a moment, but his clothes were soaked through and impossibly heavy before he could get his face above the water. The cold raced in through his limbs, killing the little sensation that he had left, as he drifted downward, carried by the current, the light closing off above him.

He attempted another half-hearted kick and then surrendered. His sense of being dwindled to a thin slash in the center of his body, a dimensionless presence surrounded by the empty shell of flesh. The pale speck of light above him, dimly blue, perhaps a street lamp, grew smaller and smaller, until all that was left was a hard blue spot, and then only the afterimage of the spot, a trick of his mind, desperate to believe that there was still some light left.

Well, Beckett thought, as the dark finally overtook him. At least it doesn’t hurt. He had a brief glimpse of tall brass towers, melted like sticks of wax, and then, nothing.

Thirty

For the third time in a year, Skinner found herself evicted from her home. This time, there had not even been any movers to threaten, nor any luggage to collect-all of her belongings were still locked up inside the house on Comstock Street. It was simply cordoned off, guarded by a few Lobstermen who politely but firmly insisted that she was not permitted inside. Where the Comstock Vie-Gorgon’s were was anyone’s guess; popular opinion had it that they’d gotten wind of their upcoming troubles, and made immediate haste for their luxurious country estates. Skinner sat in the rain outside the house, and considered her options. Again. They were sparse. Again. The familiarity of the situation did nothing to alleviate the despair that she felt creeping in around the edges, kept at bay only by a firm optimism that she would think of something.

It was Karine who came to the rescue, this time, and the thought of having to have to be rescued once again set Skinner’s teeth on edge. Two years ago she’d had steady work apprehending criminal scientists. Six months ago she’d written the most popular play in the history of the Empire. Now, she couldn’t even afford the train ticket she’d need to return to the countryside and live with her ailing father. When she thought about it, about William Gorgon-Vie, about Emperor William, fat and smug on his throne, making the laws that served no apparent purpose except keeping half of the population out of work and beholden to the other half-pets, essentially, kept around to be looked at and bear children, but nothing more, not even permitted to feed themselves-her stomach turned into a mass of churning bile. She wanted to spit in his eye. She wanted…Skinner wasn’t sure what she wanted, wasn’t sure of anything except that she was ferociously angry at someone, and felt more than a little guilty for snapping at Karine.

“Fine.” Skinner said. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It’s just, I’m sure you’d be welcome. Even if it’s just for a few days. We haven’t much, of course, but…”

Skinner waved her off, flushed a little with shame, but still too angry to apologize. “Fine.”

This was how Elizabeth Skinner found herself in Bluewater, in one of the ramshackle tenements inhabited by Trowth’s indige citizens. Bluewater was a site of frequent skirmishes in the Architecture War, but little strategic value, and the whole thing had, in recent years, fallen into the gauche and modern style of the Ennering-Vies. Or so Skinner was told; she had little personal interest in the architecture of the city beyond which families preferred high ceilings, as this affected her telerhythmia. Valentine had once tried to explain the many different styles and aesthetic philosophies that underpinned Trowth’s most complex and byzantine feud, but he might as well have been describing castles on the moon for all Skinner cared.

The Ennering-Vies preferred low ceilings, which made Karine’s family home cramped and hot, and preferred not to spend very much money on houses in Bluewater, which made them leaky and humid. This discomfort was compounded by the unusual numbers that the Akori presented. This group was how Karine introduced them-though she also took the time to provide a given name for every person present, Skinner had not been able to remember any except for Pogo-and Skinner was not sure if “Akori” was a patronym, or some manner of clan affiliation, or