Fiddlehead (The Clockwork Century 5)

“So this is your plan? Bring me back to Washington to see my sentence carried out?”

“That’s someone’s plan. Maybe when I left the District that was my plan, but it’s not anymore. If you ride with pirates, you get ideas. ”

“Ideas?” Haymes asked, raising an eyebrow as if she sensed an opportunity.

She sensed wrong.

“You see, over the last few weeks I feel like I’ve really … gotten to know you. Uncomfortably well, if you want the truth. And if I take you back to face justice, you’ll only writhe loose, or buy your way free of it. ”

“You have great faith in me. ”

“Faith? Of a sort. I have faith in your bank accounts and your wiles. I have faith that you will absolutely do the most awful things necessary to have your way. I don’t know how you became such a monster, and to be frank, I do not care. ” Maria’s hand settled on a checklist beside a lever.

“Then why are we still talking? You’re awfully chatty for someone who doesn’t want information or conversation. ”

“Oh, you know. Just killing time while I figure out this … system. ”

The checklist read:

• Activate overhead light source.

• Close control room communication vents.

• Seal observation door.

• Close emergency doors.

• Pull to release gas.

A second checklist beside it read:

• Before exiting, close off gas.

• Turn on fans.

• Wait for window to clear.

Maria didn’t know what it meant about the window clearing, but she understood everything else well enough to proceed.

“What are you doing?” Haymes asked, as Maria closed the communication portal, cutting off the last word. She said something else, but Maria didn’t hear it.

“They’d hang you,” she muttered, staring down at the controls and making sure she knew what came next. “Or shoot you. Either way, it’s better than you deserve. This is more fitting, I think. ” She looked over at the door and saw that yes, it was sealed. She couldn’t close the emergency doors from within the control room, but she had a feeling it wouldn’t matter.

Katharine Haymes dropped the bag and ran to the window, hitting it with her fists. She shouted, but Maria couldn’t hear her; the glass was uncommonly thick. She wondered if even a bullet would break it. It was almost like the windscreens of a big airship, and maybe that’s what it was. Something very similar, at least.

Haymes had thought of almost everything.

Maria pulled the lever. She pulled hard, and it drew down slowly. She did not hear the hiss of gas spilling through the tubes and out of the tanks, but she could see it: a yellow jet of air, puffing, curling, and falling to the floor like syrup.

Katharine Haymes stopped pounding on the glass. She took a step back away from it, collecting her composure as the room began to fill. Stoically she stood as the gas pooled at her feet, hiding her boots and the hem of her skirt. She remained there without budging as it crawled up her thighs, and covered her to her waist, then her breasts. Her breathing faltered, but she stayed strong, holding back the coughing fit that her body begged for until the last moments, when the poisonous air flowed down her throat.

Maria could still see her through the murky air, a shadow of a well-dressed woman, standing stock-still save for clenching and unclenching her fists, until she fell to her knees, then to her hands and knees.

Then to the floor, where she writhed and twisted.

And then stopped moving altogether.

When Maria had asked the Fiddlehead how many people would die from the gas, and how many would turn into shambling fiends, the machine told her that 70 percent would die but keep walking. Maybe Haymes was in that fortunate 30 percent who’d stop for good. Maybe she’d poke her head up again momentarily, as the noxious fumes tugged at her nervous system and puppeted her into cannibalism.