and acted upon given specific variables. Its main engine told it to dig and how to dig and what to do with the debris. The secondary, “thinking” engine housed protocol for what to do should something out of the ordinary happen, such as if the digger hit a wall, or needed to adapt for terrain, obstacles—anything that might impede it reaching its objective.
She picked the dome up and opened the latch on its back panel. The two small hatches squeaked lightly on their hinges, revealing the engine within. The gears that moved the punch cards were silent.
Griffin studied the mechanism. “What am I looking for?”
She handed him a magnifying glass. “Use this. Tell me if you see anything strange.”
He took the ebony-handled glass and held it above the dome, leaning down to peer through it. What he saw made him frown. Tiny veinlike tendrils entwined with the machinery, like a young lady’s hair around a finger. “Are these what I think they are?” he asked, glancing up at his pretty friend.
She nodded. “Organite pathways. Somehow they were introduced to this automaton’s thinking engine. I believe it was through The Machinist’s oil. The sample you gave me still had living beasties in it. They reacted when I had it near a power cell—as though it was attracted to it.”
“Did they cause a malfunction?”
This time she shook her head—impatiently. Sometimes Emily forgot that not everyone was as intelligent as she—or were privy to the same information. “No. The engine works exactly as it should. If anything, the Organites made it work even better. The machine reacted to a situation without the benefit of punch cards.”
“It became sentient?” There was no hiding his incredulity.
Emily’s eyes brightened as she practically danced on the balls of her feet, clad as usual in heavy boots. “Yes! Isn’t that amazing?”
He arched a brow. “I suppose that’s one word for it.” So was
The Organites lived off rock from deep inside the earth, and the ore was a result of that. One was part of the other, so when energy from the ore is released, any nearby Organites were going to be drawn to it and interact with it. In the case of the automaton, the Organites were drawn to the cell in its thinking engine and changed how the engine functioned.
“That’s what happened to us!” he exclaimed. “Last night we saw what the Organites had done inside Sam’s body. It was because of the power cell in his heart. We’ve all been exposed to power cells our entire lives. It’s the combination of using the Organites and power cells that caused the leap in our genetic evolution.”
He wanted to crow in victory. The mystery of the machines was solved! But then he stopped and his smile faded. Anyone out there who happened to spend much time around the ore and material that contained Organites could be “unusual.” Slight traces of Organites were in the water, in the soil. The ore was used in thousands of places and items. God only knew how the people of Britain—of the world—had been altered. It was too much to even contemplate with so much else going on, but once they caught The Machinist and put a stop to whatever he had planned, it would be something for he and Emily to explore further. He’d worry about ramifications then.
“The automaton kept repeating a phrase when I interacted with it,” Emily told him a few moments later when they were somewhat calm again. “
Good God. “Is that even possible?”
She shrugged. “He’s changed them. Whether or not they can reason remains to be seen. If I could take a look around in the train tunnels where it was working I might find a clue as to how drastically its programming was altered. It may have been given a new task—which we interrupted.”
“It’s been six months,” he reminded her. “Any clue is probably long gone.”
“But finding the spot where it dug might provide information.”
She had a point, and for the first time since stumbling into this mystery, Griffin had real hope. “I’ll contact the company laying the new tracks. They’ll be able to tell me where the digger had been working for the months leading up to the attack.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we were close that day. The metal probably attacked Sam and those workers because it thought they were trying to stop it from doing its task.”
“Bloody hell,” Griffin said on a groan. “Almost torn apart because someone mucked about with a machine’s engine. What I want to know is how did The Machinist know this would happen?”
She shrugged. “It could have been by accident. Could anyone who worked with your parents have talked about them?”
Now it was Griffin’s turn to not have an answer. “I don’t know. As far as I know they were all sworn to secrecy. Queen Victoria knows, obviously. She was the one who demanded the Organites be secret. She feared what might happen if they fell into the wrong hands.”
“Like now?”
He hated not being able to find his way through this puzzle. “Even if someone did break their vow of silence, they would have had to tell the person exactly where to locate the entrance to the cavern on my estate. It’s not that easy to find.”
His head snapped up as pieces of this infernal puzzle began to fall into place. “Unless they already knew.”
Emily blinked. “Beg pardon?”
It all made sense now. “The gardener—the groundskeeper—that suddenly up and quit. My steward said he got into the cavern. He even stole my stationery to cast suspicion on Finley. He did know my parents, and he knew Finley’s, as well. The Machinist was involved with my parents’ work, possibly even with the expedition itself.”
Emily’s eyes widened. “Saints preserve us.”
Something sharp gnawed at Griffin’s belly, stoking a fire that had burned inside him for a long, long time. It filled him with an unbearable yearning for vengeance. He lifted his head and stared straight into Emily’s eyes.
“What if my parents’ deaths are connected? What if The Machinist killed them and everyone else involved in their work?” Something raw bloomed darkly inside him. Was it possible that he could be so close to his parents’ killer?
“You can’t know that for certain,” she said, a wary expression on her face. “Don’t go doing anything hare- brained.”
Oh, he had no intention of doing anything impulsive. He had to be more careful than ever now. If The Machinist had known his parents and Finley’s father, then he knew their secrets, and he knew their weaknesses. He would be hard to catch, but Griffin would catch him.
He would end this, and give his parents justice.
The black in her hair had gotten longer, more present. Finley couldn’t ignore or deny it any longer, just as there was no denying what caused it. It started when she began working with Griffin on controlling her other half —when the two halves of her personality began trying to merge into one. Last night she had managed to retain some semblance of control, and her shadow had become an even larger part of her rather than something she tried to keep at bay.
She twisted her hair back and pinned it rather messily on the back of her head. She was still a little stiff and sore from her fight with Sam, but the bruises were already fading, even without the benefit of Emily’s “wee beasties.”
Was Sam completely recovered this morning? Griffin must have discovered her gone by now. Was he upset, or glad to be rid of her? It didn’t matter. She’d made the choice to leave and now she had to go forward with it.
She slipped into her shift and an Oriental dress of violet silk with dragons embroidered upon it in gold thread. The dress was long, but had slits up the sides for ease of movement—if she got into a fight, she’d be able to use her legs. A few weeks ago she never would have thought of such a thing. She had changed so very much during her short time under the Duke of Greythorne’s roof. Most of it for the better, she hoped.
Though, when she thought of how she’d used her legs against Sam, under Griffin’s roof, it made her feel sick.
After attaching her stockings to her garters, she slipped into her boots and left the bedroom. She suspected
