Chapter one: How to make a killer statue
Exhaust shot from the machines back as it picked its way through the countryside on four massive legs. Weak morning light glinted off of its tarnished flanks. a wall rose above the tree line separating the city of Berlin from the sounding lands. Inside the wall structures practically built on top of one another crowded around dirty streets.
Despite the hour the streets were already clogged with clanks pedestrians hurrying on some errand or just wondering aimlessly under wet smog, trying to put off the day’s work for a few more minutes.
They moved along at a measured pace. Except for one figure that darted between the others, his gray coat blowing out behind him like smoke. He was Michael gear, just another of the cities countless orphans.
Unremarkable in most senses it would have been impossible for anyone that day to guess at what was to come. But like so many great events in human history it was triggered by an unremarkable person. Within a month Michael would be a wanted fugitive with a fortune on his head, traitors and army alike plotting his death. That he would inadvertently be the spark that started a war. No, no one would have guessed so much trouble could come from a simple thirteen year old lab assistant. Then again, he wasn’t alone.
Michael wove through the crowd, fatigued buildings watching him, uncaring. For the third time that morning he cursed under his breath. Sometime the night before his clock had stopped working and he had overslept. Missing the street car and having to run all the way to the university. Remnants of the clock and a half finished clank rattled around in his pack.
Ahead a metal beam bridge rose over a busy intersection in an attempt to ease the traffic. He reached the stairs and pounded up them to a narrow walkway. The bridge was deserted, but a crowd had gathered at the far end blocking his path.
Michael had to stand on his toes to see over the mass of people. in front of them the street had been torn up by a construction crew. Adding a new stature for the upcoming celebration of the three hundredth year of the lamb empire. All the capitals were being fixed up, London Paris Prague Berlin.
Michael pulled out an old pocket watch and checked the time. The people ahead of him shuffled along temporary walkways painfully slow. He would never make it to the university if he waited to cross with the crowd. And he was sure the dean was just sitting in his office waiting for a reason to stick Michael on some horrible job like cleaning the constructs cages.
Not that that was the worst the dean could make him do. Since he had been chosen to work at the university he’d had to serve under an insane spark that was convinced truffles held near endless power, had a clank he was repairing mysteriously turn on and try to make him into lunch meat, been forced to clean every corner of the school and somehow been blamed for most of the failed experiments of the last six months.
Of course most of that was because he was still just a general lab assistant and had been for three years. Two and a half longer than anyone else. All he needed to do to advance was build a single working clank. no one expected him ever move up.
He shoved the watch back in his pocket and looked for another way past the construction. There was a side alley just beyond the crowd, he ran down the confined space making up time. Rushing past the corroded pipes that covered buildings.
Having worked with sparks for the last three years Michael had learned that little details were often the difference between life and death. Even something as normal as the click of metal on stone could be a fatal noise. So when he heard it behind him he turned expecting the worst. He was not disappointed.
At the alleys mouth, hobbling toward him was what looked like a metal Doberman.
Dread settled over Michael as he recognized it. Two years ago the university had made a pack of cyanine clanks to act as guard dogs. They’d been discontinued and dismantled when they started attacking students. Clearly someone had missed one.
The clank was stalking him, quietly approaching. One of its sides was heavily damaged, slowing it and causing the clank to lean toward its left. There was nothing wrong with its teeth though. The metal spikes in its mouth began clashing together as the clank moved its jaw, practicing for its new victim.
Michael glanced around for anything he could use to defend himself with, besides the pipes which were secured with bolts and a few pieces of trash the alley was empty. With any kind of defense out of the question he fell back on the old lab assistant plan b. running.
He dashed down the alley. Stretching his strides as far as he could. The clank did the same. Its metal claws scraping along the ground. Digging into the coble stone. Only its damaged side kept it from catching him in the first thirty feet. There was no point calling out for help, no one was around to hear him.
Still it was gaining, teeth gashing. Spiked tail whipping, taking chunks out of the brickwork. Once one of them had a target they couldn’t be distracted.
Michael burst from the alley knocking over a woman in a puffed up dress. He ignored the shrill complaints she yelled after him.
Another passerby was helping the woman to her feet when the clank broke from the shadows, leaping over them. It landed on its damaged side, one leg gave out and it stumbled. In seconds it was back on its feet. Back on Michael trail.
The clank quickly made up the distance. It was just feet behind him now. They reached the corner. Micheal dove to the side as the clank lept at him. It overshot.
Traffic screeched as the clank plowed into a delivery truck. The side of the vehichel crumpled in, the truck surved under the force of the blow into oncoming traffic. Other moterests turned to avoid the truck.
One sheered off a firehydrent, water shot skyward and sizzled on heated metal. The truck managed to stop before it went onto the sidewalk. Clouds of steam rolled across the road. Dazed pedestrians helped the driver out of the truck.
The clank burst from the steam, it was further down the street then micheal. He spun and ran, the clank only took a second to pick him out of the crowd.
Ahead of them was another construction site. They were pouring cement in thick columns to support the street above the sewer. Scaffolding was set up for the workers to cross on.
Michael’s tendons threatened to rip with every step now. His lungs felt dry and brittle with every breath. There was a heat behind his eyes as they strained to find anything that could keep him alive. A weapon, or better yet a peace keeper.
Nothing, there were seconds until the clank could strike at him. Some primal instinct though spurred him on, praying for a miracle.
He ran across the boards ignoring the nearby workers, they would not help him. The clank followed, its weight causing the scaffolding to bounce. The damage on its side had also thrown off its balance and its foot slipped from the narrow surface.
The clank fell into the top of the open column, as it thrashed it hit the scaffolding sending the structure over. As its weight pulled it into the cement Michael fell out into open air. Falling twenty feet to the construction sites floor.
His life was spared only by luck. The workers had tossed all of the empty bags of dry cement into one corner of the site, he came down hard among them. Not that he was entirely spared.
Michael took several burning breaths trying to refill his lungs. Shadows ate at his vision but they were slowly receding. The Construction workers were approaching him now. Unsure if he was in trouble or the cause of it.
Michael ignored them. The form that the clank had fallen into was bulging near the bottom.
Three knife like claws sprouted from the cardboard side. Wet cement oozed out around them like a festering wound. The claw drew downward widening the tears.
The entire form sagged and ripped open spilling the clank and three tons of wet cement across the construction site.
It rose to its feet. Eyes locked on Michael. The construction workers had run towards safety when they saw the clank burst from the foam.
It took a step towards him. He could hear gears stripping as they were worn away by the cement that had penetrated it. Large clumps still clung to its side.
He was backed into a corner. His nose filled with the smell of his own blood from a cut above his eye. He either died here or survived by a miracle. Death looked much more likely.
It steps were shaking now. Slowing it down even more. The back legs tensed and the clank leapt at him. Deadly claws ready to taste a fresh kill.
He closed his eyes and turned away, trying to hide from his fate. The clanks claws sank in deep.
Michael waited for the searing pain, it did not come. After a moment he cracked an eye open and saw the clank just yards away, unmoving.
As far as miracles went this one was a bit anticlimactic. No burst of lightening or intervention by the construction workers. Who were still hiding. No crane suddenly collapsing to crush the clank. it was the minute pieces of cement that had wormed their way into the machine.
It had worn away the clanks gears, hardening, clogging its inner working. It weighed the clank down causing it to fall several feet short of Michael and thrash around weakly.
The clanks eyes were still bright though, still fixed on him. Promising if it ever moved again it would find him. Michael could have sworn that when it growled at him he heard it talking. She said you have to die.
He stood up, shaking almost as badly as the clank had been. The workers, seeing the danger was over, had started to approach him again. Michael grabbed his pack from the pile of bags and ran towards a ramp leading up to the street.
Oddly running seemed easier then walking right then. He turned back to face one of the workers as he climbed the ramp. “That thing belongs to the university, talk to them.”
He kept running another block before he finally stopped, hands on his knees. He pulled a water bottle from his pack. Taking a long drink and coughing at the end as he tried to finish it off and breath at the same time.
He waited, trying to keep the water down. His insides felt raw but after a few more moments rest he started towards the university again. Nearly dying wouldn’t be an excuse as far as the dean was concerned.
