Boneshaker

It smelled the same, like wet mud and moss, and decomposing sawdust. It stunk like something unfinished and not yet born.

She shivered and clutched herself and her Spencer close, but the warmth of the freshly fired rifle didn’t do much to penetrate her coat. All around her, the others huddled together. Their discomfort fed hers, until she was so nervous that her teeth were rattling together.

Finally the trapdoor was as secure as it was going to get, and Swakhammer’s bulky shadow stood under the noisy roof. He said, “Lucy, where’re the lanterns at? We still got some down here?”

“We got one,” she said. Briar didn’t like the sound of her voice when she shaped that last word, like there was something faulty about it.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

Lucy said, “There ain’t hardly any oil in it. I don’t know how far it’ll get us. But, here, you take it, Jeremiah. You’ve got your tinder-strike, don’t you?”

“Yes, ma am.”

The object in his hand was about the size of an apple; and he struggled with it: His large, gloved fingers were too dull to move it.

“Here,” Briar said. She pulled off her mask and shoved it back in her satchel, and she reached out to take the thing. “Tell me what to do with it.”

He handed it over and said, “Don’t take that mask, off yet, missy. We’re going up before we’re going back. down.” Then he pointed at a thumb-shaped switch. “Press that down. No, faster. Harder. Shove it with your fingers.”

She tried to follow his instructions and, after four or five attempts, a splatter of sparks caught a thick, charred wick and the flame illuminated the tiny crowd. “Now what?”

“Now you give it back to me, and you put your mask back on like I told you. Lucy, you need help with yours?”

“Don’t be a dummy, boy. I’ve got it under control,” the barkeep said. With her one arm she pulled a folded lace-covering out from under her skirt and flapped it open. To answer the question on Briar’s face she said, “This is one of Mi

“Will an hour be enough?” Briar asked.

Lucy shrugged, and she popped the mask over her eyes and chin with a move that couldn’t have been smoother if she’d had two arms. “One way or another. We’ll find some candles stashed before that’s up.”

As all around her the other residents of the tu

“Nobody loves them,” Varney assured her.

“Except Swakhammer,” Hank said. He still sounded tipsy, but he was awake and on his own two feet, so his condition was significantly improved. “He loves his.”

The armored man cocked his head to the left and agreed. “Sure. But let’s be honest: Mine looks amazing.”

Lucy said through her compressed cotton and coal filters, “Who says men aren’t vain?”

“I never said it.”

“Good. So I don’t have to call you a liar. You men and your toys.”

“Please,” Briar interrupted. The closeness of the quarters made her restless, and the wet chill was seeping into her clothes. “What do we do now? Where do we go? Mr. Swakhammer, you said up and then out.”

“That’s right. We’ll have to come back and clean up Maynard’s later.”

She frowned inside her mask. “Then we’re going to another safe spot? A safer spot, I mean. Maybe I should take off now and see about finding Zeke.”

“Oh no you don’t. Not with those things swarming, and not on old filters. You’d never make it, crack shot or no. We’ll head for the old vault and regroup there. Then we’ll talk about clearing the topside and taking on the bank blocks.”

“Bossy old bastard, aren’t you?” she huffed.

“Yet quite reasonable”he said, without having taken any offense.

Willard lifted the lantern, and Swakhammer adjusted the glass. Soon the whole tu

Moisture glistened off the incomplete walls, and Briar was only somewhat reassured to see support columns rearing up from the earth and disappearing into the ceiling — the underside of Maynard’s floor. Shovels lounged against the walls and were almost consumed by them; the digging tools sank into the muddy surface and jutted against carts. From the carts, Briar’s eyes followed the scene down to the tracks beneath them, and then she realized that this was a deliberate place — not simply some cooling cellar.

“What’s going on here?” she asked. “You’ve been clearing this out, haven’t you?”

Lucy answered. “Always deeper, dear. Always deeper. For things just like this, you see? We can’t go up, not really. We don’t have the materials, or the wherewithal, or any safe means of doing so. These walls bind us inside as surely as they hold the world at bay. So if we need to expand — if we need to make more safe places, or create new roads — we have to go down.”

Briar stretched her chest to take a deep breath inside her mask, and she grimaced at the musty gray taste of the air she drew. “But don’t you ever worry? Like you’re undermining the whole place — like it might all come collapsing down?”

From the back of the group Frank said, “Mi

Swakhammer said, “He’s a goddamned monster, but he’s brilliant. The plans are his. He’s the one who laid it all out and told us how to pull the dirt away without hurting the building, but we stopped doing it about six months ago.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Long story,” he said, and he didn’t sound like he meant to expound on the subject. “Let’s move.”

“To where?” Briar demanded, even as she fell into step behind him.

“To the old vault, I said. You’ll like it. It’s closer to the bank, blocks. We’ll get out and take a look around. Maybe we’ll see if your boy’s been there.”

“Closer?”

“Right at the edge of it. We’re headed for the old Swedish Trust — the only one that didn’t go under. What happened was, the foundation was undermined by the Boneshaker; and the big metal vault was too heavy for the floor. So it sank. And we use it as a front door.” He lifted the lantern up high and looked back over his shoulder. “We got everybody?”

“We got everybody,” Lucy confirmed. “Keep moving, big man. We’re right behind you.”

In some places the way widened so far that the light from the wiggling flame couldn’t penetrate its edges; and in some areas the going was so tight that Swakhammer had to turn himself sideways to squeeze through.

Briar trundled along behind him in the middle of the pack, tracking that weak yellow light and chasing its shadows from inside her miserable mask.