Chapter XVII: Stolen

 

Three more days passed by, as normal as anything could be after I had been pulled out of my life and into a completely new one. It was an ordinary Triaday, just before noon, when everything went to hell. I had just finished stealing some food from the pantry, and was headed back to one of my several reading lairs upstairs, when I saw an unusual cluster of activity near one of the sitting rooms. Three of the servants, including Anna Plurabelle, were all standing by an open door and talking amongst themselves.

“What’s going on? Is this something I should know about?” I asked, trying to crane my neck enough to see into the room.

“Oh, Emma, I haven’t seen you in far too long,” said Anna. “How have things been, feeling well?”

“Ummm…” I looked down. Nothing felt sore, or sick, or anything like that. I wasn’t exactly in a great mood, but I didn’t have anything to feel bad about either. “Yeah, you could say I’m feeling well.”

“Very good, Miss Emma. I heard about the incident with the duel; absolute shame, that. Thank God that you came out of that ordeal safe and sound.” Anna smiled like a puppy seeing her owner return from a shopping trip.

I had a flashbulb memory, the look on Regan Leyrender’s face coming into the forefront of my mind for a split second. “Safe and sound, yeah… Anyway, is something happening inside there or are you three just standing around for no reason?”

One of the other servants chimed in. “It has to do with Doctor Care—Carchair—Charcharias. She’s setting up some kind of experiment. Or maybe it was a demonstration, I don’t recall.”

After all that I had seen of Charcharias’s workshop, I was highly interested of whatever experiments she wanted to be doing in the middle of the Halflance Manor. “Well, this has got to be interesting. Excuse me, can I get a look?”

The servants stepped aside for a second, letting me into the room. Sure enough, Dr. Charcharias was there, standing next to what appeared to be a pool table. Sitting atop the pool table was a large cylindrical machine, about the size of a trash can on its side, held off the table with a few short legs. On what I assumed was the business end of the machine was an array of thin metal plates, folded into a weird jagged pattern. 

Charcharias, who was examining a dial on the side of the machine, looked up as I stepped through the door. “Oh, Emma, nice to see you! Do you want to get a look at my—“

And then the machine burst into a fury of sparks and smoke. I nearly leapt back at the sudden noise, like a firecracker going off, before dashing in to make sure she was okay. After the plume of black smoke cleared away, I was thankful to see Charcharias uninjured, though swearing profusely in half a dozen languages.

“Do you need any help?” I asked, looking worriedly between Charcharias and the machine.

Charcharias sighed deeply, rubbing at the side of her face. “Make sure the vitometer isn’t on fire, will you? I need to sit down.”

I followed Charcharias’s instructions, looking back at what was apparently the finished vitometer. One side of the vitometer was an open panel, laying bare the intricate wiring and tubing system that was supposed to make it work. I guess Charcharias had been working on it when it exploded. I did a quick check, looking around and even briefly feeling inside the body of the vitometer. There were a couple of singed parts, and even one rather scary part that seemed to be sparking, but nothing on fire.

“It doesn’t look like anything’s on fire. Some stuff is burnt to shit though.” I looked back to Charcharias. She had pulled a cloth from somewhere, and was wiping the sweat and ash off her face.

“Of course it happened again,” said Charcharias. “I don’t understand, I double-reinforced all of the linkages that broke last time, it shouldn’t have gone wrong. Something keeps making all the circuits overload, but I just can’t figure out what.” She stood back up, shuffling over to my side.

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out. You seem pretty smart.”

Charcharias smirked. “Yeah, of course I will. It’ll just take three weeks and make me want to rip my eyes out first.”

I nodded. Graduate school had given me that feeling several times before. “So this is the completed vitometer? What were you going to do with it?”

Charcharias started looking around inside the vitometer, examining the wires one by one and remembering which ones had broken. “I was just going to put it through its paces, make sure that it would go off for living targets and not go off for unliving ones. I was also going to test how well it could distinguish between people in different states of health, multiple targets, things like that. As far as I know this is one of the first devices of its kind ever created, so I was going to see what it could do.” She turned back to me for a moment, rolling her eyes. “And then it burst into flames!”

“That sucks. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Sure, kid. Stand over by that tray and hand me whatever tools I ask for. They’re all labeled, so it shouldn’t be too much of an issue,” said Charcharias, gesturing vaguely off to the side. I hadn’t really taken note of it in all of the chaos, but there was indeed a small side table covered in various tools and devices. For the next couple of minutes, I stood by while Charcharias intensely studied the insides of the broken vitometer. Then Lady Halflance burst into the room, looking even more irritated than usual.

“Emma!” she said, stomping around like she was trying to pound grapes while she walked.

I crossed my arms. “Oh boy, here to berate me again. You’re worse than my biological mother.”

“An object of mine has been stolen. I don’t know anyone else who dislikes me enough to do that.”

“Really, Halflance? That’s the best reasoning you can come up with? Maybe Nemesis stole it, she has enough of a hate boner for you to try something that stupid,” I said. 

Lady Halflance’s eyes narrowed. “I doubt that a psychopath who wants me dead would take the time to steal one of my tea sets.”

“I don’t even fucking drink tea, I have no reason to steal something like that. You’re only going after me because you want a reason to get pissed off,” I said, crossing my arms. “Don’t think I don’t know how you work.”

“Actually, I’m asking you because I’ve already asked several others and they’ve all denied it,” said Lady Halflance, deadpan.

“Well go ask more people. I’m sure you’ll find the mysterious tea thief if you look for long enough. Or more likely it’ll turn out you just forgot where you put them, and this was all for nothing.” I turned back to Charcharias, who had been watching the entire argument with a bemused expression. I didn’t want to have to deal with her bullshit anymore.

“You little…” growled Lady Halflance.

Just then, someone else opened the door. “Lady Halflance, there’s someone who wants to speak to you.” said Rook, standing in the open doorway.

I immediately turned back, and Halflance followed suit. “Very well then. I will listen to her. Who is it?”

“See for yourself,” said Rook, stepping aside. Then, stepping through the doorway with the heavy thudding of steel on wood, came an all too familiar figure. It was a lone Mechanodrone, unarmed and stooped over under the weight of its heavy armor.

Seeing an agent of Nemesis, I instinctually flipped the switch back into smartass mode. “Wow, four Mechanodrones couldn’t stop us so you figured one would do the trick? That’s some really interesting logic there, Nemesis.”

With the sound of grinding metal, the Mechanodrone turned toward me. “Emma Farrier? Fascinating, the ward of the Halflance family with blood on her hands, here to fight me as well. I am not here for violence, not this time, no matter how much Lady Halflance may deserve it.” As before, Nemesis’s voice was distorted and tinny, changing in pitch wildly from word to word, making it impossible to recognize.

“Then what the hell are you here for?” Lady Halflance leaned forward, narrowing her eyes at the Mechanodrone’s visor.

“I am here to—“ Nemesis stopped, a muffled coughing fit emerging from the Mechanodrone’s speakers. “I am here to ask a question, and deliver a message.”

Lady Halflance looked confused, which matched my own feelings on the matter. “So what’s the question?” I asked.

“Lady Halflance, scum of Amrinval, my one true enemy, queen of greed and vanity… when was the last time you saw your wife?”

Lady Halflance instantly went pale. Her eyes went wide, all anger towards Nemesis replaced by sheer terror. “Last night, as I fell asleep. She was in bed, beside me.”

“And yet, when you awoke this morning, she was nowhere to be seen?” If I could see Nemesis’s face, I can say with 100% certainty that there would have been a maniacal grin on it.

“No, no that’s impossible. She was in the manor, she had no reason to be out!” Lady Halflance, for the first time since I had met her, was losing her composure.

“Well, it’s rather funny that you say that,” said Nemesis. “I was walking along with a few of my Mechanodrones, minding my own business, when I suddenly came across Colonel Sir Margaret Halflance herself, dressed up to the nines, out in the city in the middle of the night. And now…”

There was a brief rustling sound through the speaker. Then the voice of Sir Margaret came over the Mechanodrone, screaming in rage and anger. “I’ll fucking kill you, you arsehole! Let me go! When I get out of here, I’m going to jam…”

“Salt the earth, she’s energetic,” said Nemesis, putting the microphone (or whatever it was) back on herself. “Now then—“

In a second, Lady Halflance had lunged forward, grabbing the Mechanodrone by  the neck, leaning in. “Give me my wife back, you godforsaken bitch!” Spittle flew from Halflance’s mouth, her face twisted into a mask of inhuman rage.

“Tut tut, Lady Halflance, remember who you are talking to.” For how utterly enraged Halflance was, Nemesis was completely and totally nonchalant. Then a series of quiet clicks came from the head of the Mechanodrone. With a pop and a hiss, the visor of the Mechanodrone slammed open, revealing a human face behind it. She was unspeakably pale, with swollen, infected veins around her sunken grey eyes and thin, cracked lips. Her expression was vacant, dim, with a slight dribble of spit leaking out of the corner of her mouth.

Seeing the face of this mutilated girl right in front of her own, Halflance glared for a moment longer, then stood up. She wheeled around, finding a table and leaning over it, resting both hands on the tabletop and breathing heavily. She raised up one arm, balled into a fist as if she was trying to smash the table in half with her bare hands. Then, slowly, she relaxed, her body sagging under its own weight.

“What do you want?” she said, defeated.

Nemesis coughed from out of the speaker on the Mechanodrone, then collected herself. “That’s much better. Put together the sum of no less than one million dinars, and deliver them to the corner of Greystoke Avenue and Almpasser Road. Leave them there for my people to pick up, and I will consider returning your wife to you.”

Lady Halflance glared over her shoulder at the Mechanodrone. “Choke on a cock.”

Nemesis chuckled. “I’ll inform the brothel of your request, Lady Halflance. You have 48 hours to comply with my demands. If you refuse to listen to reason, I’ll make sure you hear your wife screaming.”

By this point, I had had about enough of this. Not to mention that if Nemesis kept taunting her, Halflance might break down and kill another Mechanodrone. There was some small, insignificant part of me that hated seeing her so hurt as well. I quickly circled around the back of the Mechanodrone, which was focused on relaying Nemesis’s message. I pulled the revolver from my hip that I kept for exactly this scenario, and carefully pistol-whipped the control box thing on the back of the Mechanodrone’s neck. I had to do it a couple of times, but after the third whack, it finally collapsed to the ground, motionless.

“Someone get me some warm water,” stammered Dr. Charcharias. “And someone get a message out, call for an ambulance. There’s very little I can do for her here.” Charcharias knelt down at the side of the Mechanodrone, checking her health.

Lady Halflance looked down at the sad scene, saying “I’ll pay for her treatment, if she makes it…Fuck.” A single tear spilled down her cheek. I, meanwhile, was thinking.

I don’t know what it was about this situation exactly that kicked my brain into overdrive. Maybe I’m really good under pressure. Maybe adrenaline does the same thing to my head that it does to my muscles. I remembered everything I could about what Nemesis had said, the whole deranged monologue running through my head like lines in a shitty school play.

“That expression she used, ‘salt the earth’, is that particularly common around here?” I asked.

“I’ve never heard it before,” said Lady Halflance. “Why do you ask?”

“Because I only know one person who uses that expression. Her name is Esther Nettle, and she’s one of Lady Leyrender’s students. Given how unlikely it is that two different people decided to use the exact same expression by complete coincidence, I’m going to guess that she’s Nemesis.”

“That is… the flimsiest reason to suspect a person I have ever heard,” said Lady Halflance.

“I have more reasons than just that. Esther has a consistent cough, just like Nemesis,” I paused, trying to pull together all of my evidence into something coherent. “Also, the reason why I accused Lady Leyrender of being Nemesis in the first place was because in one of the backrooms of her workshop there was a lot of shady stuff, stuff that connected her really strongly to Nemesis.”

Lady Halflance pressed her lips together, considering. “Alright, maybe it is her. What the hell do we do about it?”

I shrugged. “That’s still a lot further than we’ve gotten before… Actually, I have something. I don’t know what it is, but it might be a clue.” I dug into my pocket, retrieving the green stone that Nemesis had given me earlier.

Lady Halflance’s eyes immediately snapped to the stone, locked onto it like a hunting eagle. “Where did you get that?”

“Esther, or Nemesis, or whatever we want to call her, was at the duel. Remember the sick-looking woman with the really curly hair, sitting with Leyrender’s people? That was her.”

“And to think, the enemy was so close at hand, and we didn’t know anything about it…” said Lady Halflance, staring off into space. I didn’t really know what to say to that, so the room fell silent for a while. Then she refocused on me. “Go on.”

“Anyway, she gave me this rock crystal thing right before the duel. Said she found it and was using it as a good luck charm. Maybe this could tell us where she lives, or something.” I wasn’t very convinced in myself, and it showed in my voice. What can I say, I’m a bad liar.

Lady Halflance extended her hand, gesturing for the stone. I gave it to her, and she began to inspect it, turning it over and over in her hand and looking closely at the smooth surface. “I’ve seen a material like this before.”

“Wait, you have? You’re saying this is useful? What is it?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I saw Margaret working on something similar in her study. If she was here, she might know…” Lady Halflance winced, more tears coming to her eyes.

“Hey, don’t cry now. We’re going to get her back, together,” I said. Why I was comforting a woman who not five minutes ago I was arguing with was beyond me.

“She was always more versed in matters of science than I was,” said Lady Halflance, voice wavering. “Maybe if I had paid more attention to her, spent a little more time with her, I could remember…”

“Trust me, most of what she talks about is not this useful.” Miss Rook had apparently been listening to the whole conversation from outside the door. “Thankfully, listening to Sir Margaret speaking to herself is one of my minor duties around the manor.”

“Thank you for your awareness, Rook. Do you know what this is, then?” Halflance still looked like she was about to break down crying.

“Yes, I do. This stone was quarried hundreds or possibly even thousands of years ago, from a quarry which has long since been depleted, to build the city that once stood where Amrinval now stands.” Rook pointed towards the stone, still in Lady Halflance’s hand. “This piece is carved, which means that Nemesis must have obtained it from the ruins buried beneath the city.”

“There are ruins buried beneath the city?” I asked, suddenly very loud and very interested. “Why didn’t anyone tell me there were ruins beneath the city, that’s awesome!”

“Those ruins are incredibly dangerous and unstable, nobody in their right mind would explore them without an entire expedition backing her up, if not more,” said Lady Halflance.

“And Nemesis is clearly not in her right mind, as evidenced by all the murder,” responded Rook.

“So you’re saying that you think Esther has been going down into these underground ruins? Why?”

Suddenly Dr. Charcharias, who up until this point had been more concerned with  her patient on the floor, butted in. “She’s using it as a base, where she takes people to turn them into Mechanodrones. Rook, you said the people who constructed those ruins used this green stone for everything, yes?”

Rook nodded. “Most things, yes.”

The realization slammed into me like an out of control dump truck full of self-awareness and knowledge. “Unity…” I said under my breath. Seeing the odd look on Rook’s face, I continued. “Unity, the one girl who survived being turned into a Mechanodrone. She said that the only thing she remembered about Nemesis’s lab was the overwhelming color green. Green as if it was made entirely out of that type of stone.”

Lady Halflance started massaging her temples, squeezing the tears out of her eyes. “So you think that Esther is making her laboratory in the ruins? How would she be getting to and from the surface?”

“Yes, I do,” said Charcharias. “And if I remember, don’t some of the sewer passages end up in the ruins anyway?”

“True, very…” Lady Halflance stopped, brow furrowed. “Emma, what did you say her name was again? Nemesis’s real name, that is.”

“Esther Nettle.”

“I’ve heard that name before. I think she was— I know why Nemesis wants me dead,” said Lady Halflance.

“Well then? Spit it out.” Rook was leaning against the wall, half-focused on us and half-focused on her own thoughts.

“Before I hired Amina to serve as my personal physician, I invited several other women of science to apply for the position. Esther was one of them. Her knowledge of engineering and automations was astounding, but I couldn’t in good conscience hire someone who was so poor as a surgeon. I passed her over for the position.”

“So… you think she wants you dead because you didn’t hire her for a job. That’s the reason for the murderous feud?” I said. I was really getting tired of people’s petty bullshit.

“She’s clearly not the most rational of people,” said Halflance. “She wouldn’t be the first woman I’ve met who takes any slight to be a grave insult.”

Dr. Charcharias stood up, looking angrily at Halflance and myself. “It doesn’t matter why she wants to do it. What’s important is that she has Margaret, and we need to get her back. I need to stay here and tend to this girl, but you two can… go fix the damn problem.”

“Right. Maybe now that we have a better idea of where Esther is keeping her lab, we can get Unity to remember a little more about what happened. It won’t be good for her mental health, but it might be what we need to save Margaret, and everyone else she’s keeping down there,” I said.

“Very well.” Lady Halflance turned to Charcharias. “Unity would be at Amrinval South, yes?”

“Yes.”

“I want to come with. Unity knows me, and I think she’s still thankful for how I saved her life. Obviously. I think having me there would make her a lot more open to talking, assuming she has anything extra to say,” I said.

“Alright then, come with me.” Lady Halflance immediately set off, hurrying out of the room and gesturing for me to follow. With her much longer strides, I almost had to jog after her to keep up. The two of us wound down through the halls and chambers of the manor, out into the yard, to the garage. 

There, a young valet in a fetching outfit greeted us, looking very surprised and unready for an appearance by the lady of the house. “Lady Halflance, Miss Farrier, how may I help you.”

Lady Halflance was in no mood for formalities. “Amrinval South Hospital. Immediately.” The valet nodded, almost terrified by her mistress’s state, and rushed off to warm up the steam carriage. While we waited, Lady Halflance turned back to me, speaking in low tones.

“I seriously hope that this plan of yours is enough to work, Emma.”

“Because you’re going to kick my ass if it doesn’t, and you don’t want to get blood on your shoes?”

Lady Halflance either thought I was serious or simply stonewalled the joke. “No. Because I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do with myself if I lose Margaret. I’ve already lost Parker, and I don’t think I can live with her gone as well.”

Author's Note: Chapter is a day late on account of my internet being down. The normal schedule will remain unchanged.