Arcadia Snips and the Steamwork Consortium Part 31

Mr. Peabody was immediately seized by a paralyzing shock. "...what?"

"Yeah, you heard me," Snips said, holding out her hand.

"Now give me my hat. Before I come over and take it."

"You are bluffing," he said. "There is no way Daffodil could have shut down the calculation engines."

"He entered an equation of his own. They're down, Mr. Peabody. So sorry that we broke your master plan, but it was stupid. Deal with it. Hat, now."

Mr. Peabody's eyes grew dark; his voice was infused with fearful trembling. "No-you idiots! Do you have any idea what you've done? What you've caused? This was the path of least harm! All the years I invested-to stem the loss of life that the alternative would bring about!"

"I've heard enough about your war," Snips said.

"I'm not talking about the war," Mr. Peabody snapped, and then he threw a switch.

The airship shuddered; an ancient groan swelled up from its engine as beams of wood splintered. A thick gout of steam surged up through the cracks, engulfing the deck in a hot and choking fog.

Snips coughed and threw herself to the floor. Mr. Peabody gripped the wheel and began to turn the ship back towards the center of Aberwick.

"Where are you doing?" Snips asked, fighting for breath through the dissolving cloud of steam.

"Back," Mr. Peabody said. "Back to finish the job I started, in a way I prayed I never would have to."

Snips drew herself to her feet, realization hitting her. "You don't mean-"

"Though we prefer the more subtle tools, the Society has never been above using violence to attain our ends," Mr. Peabody shouted above the roar of engines. "Especially when the stakes are so extraordinarily high!"

"No!" Snips cried out. "You have no idea what the h.e.l.l you're doing!"

"I know precisely what I am doing," Mr. Peabody said.

"You have forced my hands, Miss Snips. I am left with no alternative. Arcanum's device has already been activated."

Snips charged, but the ship was rocky; Mr. Peabody was able to intercept her while she was still wobbly on her feet. He struck her across the side of her head with the b.u.t.t of his pistol, sending her down to the deck. Looming over her, he held the ship's wheel in one hand and brought the barrel down to her temple with the other.

"For the war to stop, Aberwick must die, Miss Snips. Either by maths or by fire, it will not survive this night."

"You don't know what it can do," she said. "No one does."

"Tonight, we will find out," Mr. Peabody said.

"I won't let you-"

"So much as twitch and you'll be dead," he added. "Stand still, and I'll allow you to behold the horror you have brought about."

"If you think I'm just going to sit here, you're sorely mistaken," Snips hissed.

Mr. Peabody's eyes swept out to the city before him. "It does not matter. Nothing will save Aberwick. Not this time. No last second reprieve, no manna from heaven. No knight clad in vestments of white riding upon a valiant steed-"

The roar of the second airship was deafening. Snips' hat was thrown from Mr. Peabody's head; he turned, staring at shock as the second compartment speared up through the air and slammed into the side of his ship, sending both he and Snips tumbling.

Snips s.n.a.t.c.hed the rim of her hat in one hand and drew her crowbar out from her belt with the other. When the ship righted itself, she leapt to her feet and brought the weapon down in a savage blow across Mr. Peabody's wrist, forcing him to release the pistol.

"Tell me how to turn the bomb off!" Snips roared, kicking the pistol off the deck.

Mr. Peabody stumbled back, nursing his injured wrist. "It can't be deactivated," he said, grinning. "Good day and good night, Miss Snips."

William sprang out from the second ship's mast, leaping down to the deck where Snips now struggled with Mr. Peabody.

Though the Society initiate was no stranger to violence, Snips had been trained to fight on the streets-she kicked, spat, and clawed, snarling like an unleashed wildcat. Mr. Peabody was forced back further and further.

"Miss Snips!" William cried out from the other side of the deck. "The whole ship's shaking!"

Snips turned; Mr. Peabody leapt at the opportunity and seized the crowbar in Snips' grip. The two of them briefly struggled as the ship quivered beneath them. With a violent curse, Snips struck Mr. Peabody in the stomach with her knee, releasing the crowbar and shoving him off the ship's back end. The Society initiate flailed as he was flipped over the railing, falling into the city below with Snips' tool held in hand.

She spat over the side after him. "Burn in h.e.l.l."

"Miss Snips!" William repeated, reaching her at last. "What on earth is happening?"

Snips straightened and sighed. "It's too late," she said. "He activated the bomb."

"The bomb?" William asked.

"It was what nearly destroyed the city over ten years ago,"

Snips said. "A weapon to end all weapons. The Society's first attempt to prevent the war-by annihilating an entire city."

"My father's experiment," William said, aghast.

"No," Snips corrected him. "My father."

William stared at her. "What-"

"He was one of the founding members of the Society, along with Professor Daffodil and your mother," she told him. "Nigel tried to stop the war by destroying the city. Your parents stopped him."

William shook his head, finding himself confronted with more information than he could readily absorb. "How large will the explosion be?" he asked.

"I don't know. No one does," Snips said. "It just explodes, and explodes, and keeps exploding more, spreading out farther and farther-"

"How is such a diabolical engine even possible?"

"I don't know," Snips said. "I think someone in your family designed the original; Nigel stole the blueprints and built two of his own." .

"But Miss Snips," William said. "The last explosion didn't destroy the city."

"No," Snips agreed. "Your parents stopped it, somehow.

But I don't know how."

"But the Heap is still burning, is it not?"

"At the center," Snips said. "The fire is still going on, and on. No one can even approach it without getting burnt-"

"Still exploding."

Snips paused. "What are you thinking?"

"Perhaps my parents found a way not to nullify the explosion, but to contain it. Perhaps if we take the airship there, we can do the same."

"Better than nothing," Snips said. "Do you know how to fly one of these things?"

"I was conceived in the belly of an armored dirigible,"

William said. "I am familiar with its operation."

"Then aim us for the Heap," she told him.

The center of the Heap was aglow in the mid-day; it still burned, tendrils of flame swelling out from a pillar of smoke. It resembled a tornado of fire and ash, writhing in endless hunger for more fuel.

William finished the last adjustments to the airship's controls, stepping back. "That's it," he told her. "It's set to carry the ship straight into the heart of it. If my parents managed to contain the first explosion, it is reasonable to a.s.sume that their solution can contain a second."

"We don't even know how this works," Snips said, watching the burning column.

"We have no alternatives, Miss Snips. If it doesn't work, we shall soon know." Despite himself, William snorted and shook his head; Snips looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Are you all right?"

"It just occurred to me," he said, trying to stifle his laughter.

"We're on top of an armored dirigible, poised to rain down destruction on the city beneath me. I'm fairly sure I was determined to avoid this very sort of thing."

Snips slapped him on the back and handed him his umbrella.

"All right," she said. "Go."

"Funny," William replied. "I don't recall you having ever possessed the power of flight."

Snips glared.

"I mean, it certainly seems like something I'd remember,"

William continued. "'Oh yes, she can fly, silly me'. Or something like that."

"I'm not going," Snips said, turning back to the heart of the Heap.

"Yes, you are."

"No, I'm not," Snips said, shaking her head. "It's too risky.

If the ship doesn't stay steady-if the winds pick up-if anything happens, it could shift the airship off and cause it to miss its target.

Someone needs to stay and make sure it stays on course."

"No, someone does not," William said. "I did the math, Miss Snips. It will not miss."

"You don't know that."

"I know it well enough."

"There are too many lives at stake."

"Stop trying to go out in a blaze of glory."

Snips stopped, her throat squeezing around her words. "I don't need your help."

"Then help me instead," he told her. "For I have no intention of leaving this place without you, Arcadia."

She turned away from the Heap, facing William. And then, with a gradually melting reluctance, she placed her hand into his.

Together, William and Snips floated above Aberwick. They clutched at one another desperately, holding on for dear life; beneath them, Mr. Peabody's fiendish contraptions sank toward the swirling inferno that lay at the heart of the Heap.

As they drifted, a cold stillness seized the air about them.

William frowned; Snips shivered.

"Did the wind just stop?" she asked.

"I think so," William said. "I think-I think it is about to happen again."

"Huh? What's going to happen again?"

But William did not answer; instead, he searched the cityscape for the familiar face of a clock "Why did everything get so quiet? I can't even hear the wind. It's like-" Snips stopped. They pa.s.sed a sparrow, its wings spread; it was frozen stiff, hanging in the air like a Christmas ornament. "Uh."

"You can see it," William said. "Thank G.o.d. I thought I might be mad."

"What the h.e.l.l is happening?"

William struggled to maintain his grip on Snips with one hand and pulled his pocket watch out with the other. He showed it to her; the second hand was stuck on six. "Time," he said. "Time is -I think that it is trying to go backwards."

"Wait, what?"

"I know that it sounds absurd," William said. "But it has done this before. This is the third time-ever since this whole affair started. I think that-"

The hand jumped back a second.