Boneshaker (The Clockwork Century 1)

“No, ma’am,” Squiddy told her, but he didn’t look at her.

“Really? Is that so?”

He held the door for her, and she emerged up into a spot that was still underground, but with a perilous canopy of broken street looming over their heads. The afternoon drizzle of sun cut around its edges to illuminate the pit.

He said, “Yeah, that’s so. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“It’s just that you said he gave you the helmet. And I heard you might owe him money sometimes, that’s all. I thought maybe you’d seen him. I’m just curious. I wondered what he looked like. ” She figured he’d heard the rumors—it seemed everybody had—and since Squiddy didn’t know of her chats with Swakhammer and Lucy, he wouldn’t know that she’d already made up her mind about the mysterious doctor.

Her guide scrambled up behind her and let the door drop down. Once it had closed, it was all but impossible to spot; its exterior had been fixed with detritus, and when it swung out on those croaking hinges, it must’ve looked like the earth itself was opening to let them out.

Squiddy finally said, “I’ve owed him money once or twice, that’s a fact. But really I just owe his men. I used to run with them, a little. Not much,” he added fast. “I never worked for him proper-like. But I’d run an errand or two for some extra food or whiskey. ”

He stood beside the door and looked as if he’d like to scratch his head, if he could reach it. “When the walls first cut us off in here, we didn’t have it all figured out right away. Times was hard for a few years. Aw, times is hard now, too. I know. But it used to be you could die for breathing. It used to be, you were fighting the rotters for spoiled fruit peels and rat meat. ”

“You did what you had to do. I understand. ”

“Good, good. I’m glad you’re the understanding kind. ” He flashed that yellow-toothed smile. “I thought you might be. You come from a fair sort of stock. ”

At first she didn’t catch his meaning, but then she remembered why they’d taken her in so quickly. “Well,” she said, because she wasn’t sure what else to say. She’d spent twenty years trying to prove she wasn’t a thing like her father, and now she had his reputation to thank for her own safety in a very strange place. She wondered what he would’ve thought of it if he’d known. Privately, she suspected that he would’ve been appalled, but then, she’d been wrong about him once or twice before.

So she said, “I appreciate you saying so. ” And she didn’t ask him any more questions. She’d rather listen to his silence than listen to his lies.

“Now tell me, Miss Wilkes. What are we looking for, precisely?”

“Some sign,” she said. “Of my boy, I mean. Anything at all that shows he might’ve been here. ”

“Like what?”

She thought about it as she poked her way through the debris. Chunks of decaying wooden walkways hung over the edges of the shattered streets, and splinters rained down to settle on her hat. There was no wind and there was no sound. It was like standing underwater in a stagnant pond. All around them the dirty yellow air hung in place. At any moment, Briar thought, the world might freeze and she would stay there, stuck in amber.

She said, “Like anything different from last time you were here. Like footprints, or… or things like that. I don’t know. Tell me about what I’m seeing, could you please? I don’t understand. Where are we, exactly?”

“This is where the Boneshaker cut through under the street. The street fell in. We’re standing on it now, but up there”—he pointed at the jagged ceiling above—“that’s the rest of the street. And the walkways. And whatever else was up there sixteen years ago. ”

“Fantastic,” she said. “It’s dark down here. I can hardly see a thing. ”

“I’m real sorry. I didn’t bring a lantern. ”

“Don’t apologize,” she told him. She picked her way around to a spot that seemed to be the back, or the edge, or some far corner of the pit. Directly in front of her, a black chasm opened up in the shape of a crushed circle, and disappeared deeper into the earth. Beyond a few feet, she could see nothing of where it might go or what it might hold.

She called into it. “Hello?” But she didn’t use her loudest voice, and she would’ve been shocked to receive an answer.

None came.

“We can go up to street level, if you want. Over here,” Squiddy said. He led her to a steeply cut ledge and pointed at the boards and bricks that had been jammed and stacked together. “It’s a climb, but it’s not bad. You can see better up there. ”

“All right. I’ll follow you. ”

He scaled the slope with ease, scampering like a man half his age, until he crested the edge and stood, backlit against the lip of the gaping hole. Briar came up behind him and took his hand when he offered it. He pulled her over the edge and beamed inside his helmet mask. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Sure. ”

If she’d been asked to pick ten words to describe the scene before her, “beautiful” wouldn’t have made the cut.

If she hadn’t known better, she might’ve guessed that it had hosted a war in some other time; she might have assumed that some terrible scourge or blast had destroyed the whole landscape. Where once there had been stately structures that held money and the bustle of patrons, now there was only a long, open wound in the ground. The wound had gone rough around its massive edges, and it was beginning to fill with rubble.

In one place there seemed to be a stack of rounded river boulders. A closer look revealed them to be skulls, crusty and gray. They’d collected in a low gully, having rolled away from their forgotten bodies.