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  “My last girlfriend was a Brute.” Sullivan grunted. He stepped out after her and froze. The four men that had been out of place at the spirit phone were heading their way. They had guns in their hands and the one in the lead was screwing something on to the end of his that could only be a sound muffler. They saw each other at the same time. They began running his way with murderous intent.

  “You set me up,” Sullivan said to Hammer. “Should have known.”

  “No wai-” Hammer began, but then she jumped back as a bullet struck the wall next to Sullivan. “Hell!” She ran the other way, but they weren’t shooting at her. The gunmen were aiming for him.

  The door marked IV was heavy and solid, but so was Sullivan. He flared his Power, increased his mass, and slammed his shoulder into it. The lock failed and he crashed inside. It was another large space, but so cloaked in shadow that he couldn’t tell how big. There were only a few red emergency lights flashing above.

  The floor was made of a metal grate. There were darker shapes on each side, tall units, shaped like standing coffins built to hold giants. They stretched into the distance. Pipes and cables stretched from the ceiling into the tops of the devices. He passed at least five of the things, before Sullivan ran to the side and took cover behind one of the units. He hid just as the feet of his pursuers hit the metal floor.

  “Come on out, Heavy. We just want to talk.”

  And sell me a bridge in Brooklyn. Sullivan stayed mum. He’d let them all come inside, then he’d Spike them through the roof. Light beams flickered back and forth. Some of them had hand torches. He crept around the cold metal edge and spotted the four silhouettes. They were confident, but he’d see how confident they’d be when up became down. Sullivan focused and Spiked hard.

  Gravity didn’t change. He tried again. Nothing happened. Confused, Sullivan pulled back.

  “You feel that?” one of the men asked.

  “Yeah, I felt it.” Their leader raised his voice. “You trying to use magic on us, Sullivan? It won’t work. You might as well come out in the open and face us like a man. I want to get out of here before this place falls down on our heads.”

  It was rather unnerving to have his magic not work on demand like it always had, but Jake Sullivan wasn’t the panicking type. He was, however, the analytical type. First he took inventory of the Power gathered in his chest. It was there, he could feel it, but it was like something was keeping him from using it. It was like a blindfold for his eyes or earplugs… Everything was where it should be, but muffled.

  Concentrating, he felt the spells etched into his flesh. They were still alive with Power, but it was as if he couldn’t access them. The laceration on his head should have been tingling with Healing magic, but it wasn’t. Even his Grimnoir ring felt dead.

  Interesting. Somehow these men were blocking his access to the Power. But that puzzle would have to wait. He had to get out alive first, which meant either taking out four armed men with just his hands or escaping. Smart money was on escaping.

  Sullivan moved quietly down the grate. He had the wall to his right and the giant coffins to his left. If he was lucky there would be another door at the other end.

  “We going to do this the hard way then, Sullivan? Your call.”

  Sullivan hit the far wall. It was a dead end. There was a heating vent he thought about trying, but who was he kidding? There was no way in the world that he would be able to fit in there, and he didn’t want the indignity of getting shot in the ass while his shoulders were stuck in a duct. That meant fighting his way out. His hand landed on something leaning against the wall. It was a big spanner. Nice and long with all the weight at the end. Perfect for cracking skulls. Sullivan took the wrench in hand.

  He risked a peek. The leader gave some hand signals. The four men spread out, one on each of the far walls, two in the center. Once they were formed up, they all started walking his way, torches bobbing along ahead of them. They were treating this like a pheasant hunt, walking the field, down the levies in a line, keeping an eye on each other so he couldn’t sneak between them, until he had nowhere else to run. They intended to flush him out.

  The gunmen were halfway down the room, nearing where Sullivan was clutching his spanner, when there was a loud rumble from the hallway. At first he thought that another part of the building had fallen down. The rumble came again and he realized it was a footstep.

  “What the hell was that?” The flashlight approaching on his side bobbed away.

  “Quiet!” snapped the leader.

  Sullivan used the distraction to his advantage. He covered the distance between the coffins swiftly. The light came back around. Sullivan caught the man by the gun hand and swung him facefirst into the nearest metal coffin. He tried to fire his gun, but Sullivan blocked the hammer with his thumb. He tried to push away so Sullivan clubbed him on the back of the head with the wrench.

  Lights flashed his way as Sullivan shoved the dazed man into the open. The others opened fire. His victim took a round in the chest and sprawled forward. Sullivan felt a bullet burn across the back of his hand. He dodged back around the coffin, but the pistol he’d hoped to secure went bouncing across the grate to disappear into the shadows.

  The guns were quieter with the mufflers attached, but the bullets sure made a lot of racket as they punched holes in the sheet metal he was hiding behind. There was a lull as empty magazines were dropped and new ones slammed home.

  “We got you now, Heavy. Nowhere for you to hide.”

  There were three of them left and they knew exactly where he was. He was pinned down. They’d fan out and soon enough one of them would have a clean shot… He had to get out of here. It was hard to hit something with a pistol in one hand and a flashlight in the other, which might give him a chance, but he’d probably still get ventilated. Sullivan prepared to run for it.

  There was a metallic thud as something shook the grating. “Greetings, EGE guests. Allow me to help make your visit a pleasant one,” a new voice boomed.

  “What the hell is that?”

  Sullivan peered around the corner. It was the thing he’d glimpsed in the hall. The flashlights gave him a better look at it this time. It was shaped like a man, mostly. The head was a disproportionately small oval ball with two rectangular glowing eyes. The torso was round too, like a pot-bellied stove. The arms and legs were too long and too thin, with bones of pipe encircled in metal skin. The feet were huge and splayed like a duck’s, probably so that the mechanical oddity could keep its balance.

  There was a scratching of a record, like an automated player making a new selection. “Due to the delicate nature of EGE scientific equipment, no weapons are permitted in EGE Shelved Projects areas. Please, place your weapons on the floor and wait for an EGE representative to secure them for you. Thank you for your cooperation.”

  “Well, ain’t that something? It’s one of those mechanical men I read about in Popular Mechanics. Welcome to the future, boys.”

  “We don’t have time for this. Shoot it, Willis.”

  There was the muffled snap of a silenced pistol and a ding noise as the bullet bounced off the mechanical man’s rounded torso. It barely even swayed.

  The record player scratched and rattled as a new track was put on the turntable. “Warning. Please desist from damaging or defacing EGE property.” Logically, Sullivan knew that it was impossible for the prerecorded voice to know, but he could have sworn the mechanical man sounded annoyed.

  Willis shot the mechanical man four more times.

  This time there was no warning. The mechanical man raised one arm. There was a loud clack that Sullivan recognized as the charging handle being worked on a Browning 1919. The thunder of the 30-caliber machine gun filled the room. Sullivan covered his ears.

  The three men twitched and jerked as shell casings spilled from the machine’s arm and fell through the floor grate. After a ten-second burst, the firing stopped, and the smoking metal arm was lowered. They were well past dead.

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nbsp; The mechanical man made a rumble as its torso swiveled toward the coffin Sullivan was hiding behind. The record player scratched. “Due to the delicate nature of EGE scientific equipment, no weapons are permitted in EGE Shelved Projects areas. Please, place your weapons on the floor and wait for an EGE representative to secure them for you. Thank you for your cooperation.”

  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.

  — H. G. Wells, Anticipations of the Reaction of Magical and Scientific Progress Upon Human Life and Thought, 1901

  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.

  Whisper didn’t seem to look down at Faye just because she wasn’t educated, fancy, or worldly, so since Whisper was only probably five or so years older, Faye hoped that they could be like sisters or something. Faye’s only real sister had died of a fever back when she was really little, Delilah was dead, and Jane was hardly ever around, so it would be nice to make friends with another girl.

  She hadn’t gotten to speak to Mr. Bryce or Mr. Bolander nearly as much. Mr. Bryce seemed to treat talking like it was a contest to see who could say the least, and if that was the case, then he was the champion. He was a tall, bony, suspicious type who seemed to scowl a lot and was always watching people with shifty eyes that she could barely see under the edge of his bowler hat. He reminded her of the scarecrows they’d had back when she was kid, back when crops actually grew in Oklahoma. She didn’t know what Mr. Bryce’s Power was. Probably something sneaky.

  Mr. Bolander was a broad man, with the big arms of somebody who had worked hard his whole life. He seemed really friendly, with an easy manner and a genuine smile, but Faye hadn’t gotten to speak to him much at all. He was a Negro, which meant that his quarters were in a different part of the dirigible, and there were only certain hours when the coloreds aboard were allowed to eat in the galley. There hadn’t been any Negroes where Faye had grown up, and in fact she had only spoken to a few in her whole life, so the whole thing about shooing them away from everybody else seemed odd to her. Why bother? With her Power, she could kill every single person on the Minotaur without even trying hard, but nobody treated her funny. Now she was different. But Mr. Bolander was the one that had to keep away from polite company because he was browner. If folks were that rude over looks, it was tough to imagine how they’d treat him if they knew he could shoot lightning bolts out his eyes.