The Impossible Twins
The garden was quiet and shady, and the butterflies flashed blue wings as they fluttered around the rosebushes. Sarah was holding Helena’s hand, and they were walking down a small hill, towards a stream lined with trees and flowering bushes. She could hear heavy footsteps behind her, but she wasn’t afraid. They made her feel safe. Helena turned and smiled and said a word that Sarah didn’t recognize, татусь . It made Sarah’s head hurt.
She turned to look behind them and the Songbird was there, waddling along on it’s huge clawed feet, wings folded like a bat's. It turned its head with jerky movements to examine her with great glowing green eyes, first one, then the other. A faint whistling noise started playing from somewhere in the bushes and she felt Helena’s fingers digging into her hand. The small bones creaked as her grip grew tighter and tighter, and then the Songbird spread it’s wings out, dwarfing the two girls (because they were girls, children, she realised, in matching pinafore dresses and bare feet), and Helena screamed NO, and Sarah
Sarah woke up with a start, lifting her head too quickly and wincing at the sharp ache that started in her head and travelled down her back. She was face down on the slanted floor of the airship, and as she cautiously moved her limbs to the general result of pain, but not enough to indicate broken bones, she heard Helena shouting, and banging on the door.
“No, no, stop it! Sarah! We need to -” she pulled on the door, “ - stop them! He’ll come back. He’ll come back!”
Sarah watched blearily, then managed to make it to a sitting position.
“What…?” She mumbled, and coughed. When she’d spat up some blood, and pulled herself to stand against a wall, holding onto a chair to keep from sliding sideways, she realised there was music coming from outside. There was a plink-plink-plink of someone jabbing at a piano, trying to play a tune, but not quite getting it.
There were voices too, gently quarreling voices that were annoyingly familiar.
“That’s not it.”
“It certainly is.”
“Isn’t. Try again.”
“Here you are then,”
“Oh, god, not them,” Sarah groaned, and fumbled her way over to Helena, and the door.
“No, that’s the E.”
“No.”
“Sarah! Are you - we need to stop them playing. The whole song...it’ll. Call him back.”
“Hmm. No, that is not it.”
“Is. Is. Is. Pay attention.”
“No.”
“Yes!”
“Isn’t.”
“Is.”
“Isn’t!”
“Is!”
Sarah leaned against Helena’s shoulder, and joined in the effort to open the door. It soon pulled loose, and she swung it open, using it for balance. Then she tried standing on her own, and was pleasantly surprised to find she could. The airship had crashed right through a wall, and they were in some kind of space with a high domed ceiling, with statues of angels lining the walls, standing in niches. Helena had already jumped down to the paved ground, rubble and bricks providing a kind of stair.
She ran towards the two redheads seated on a bench before an upright piano.
“Stop! Stop it!” she shouted, but the tune had been picked out correctly, and Rosalind Lutece exclaimed in triumph.
“Ha! There it is.”
Helena grabbed the fallboard and slammed it down, barely missing the fingers of the Luteces, who looked at her as if she had committed a mildly embarrassing faux pas at an afternoon tea.
“What are you doing!” she hissed at them. “He’ll come back now!”
“The notes were correct.” said Robert Lutece.
“The instrument was not. ” said Rosalind.
“One needs both to get his attention.”
“ But if you know how to sing to him…”
“He will take you where you need to go.” Robert stood as Sarah, who had stumbled her way down out of the wreckage of the airship, joined the party, and he handed her a card.
Helena shook her head, baffled.
“You are the Luteces, aren’t you? I thought you…”
“We are where we are needed.” Rosalind cut her off.
“And needed where we are .” Robert added.
Sarah stared down at the card in her hand - ‘Songbird Defense System’ was written in elegant script next to a cross-section diagram of a statue head, all cogs and gears, illustrating how the tune was played on an interior whistle.
“So…” she said slowly, “Rachel uses these songs to control the Songbird,” she flicked the card with a finger. “Are there others we can use? Something to keep the bird off our bloody back?”
Rosalind sniffed.
“Perhaps you should ask the maestro herself.” she said.
“Well, that’s where we’re headed, but can’t you…” Sarah looked up to find she was speaking only to Helena, and sighed heavily. “Of course…”
Helena shrugged.
“They just…” she spread her fingers out theatrically, “vanished.” Then her fingers disappeared into her hair, and her eyes grew wide. “Maybe they learnt how to, hmm. Travel without using tears?”
“Well, at least they left the piano,” Sarah said sarcastically. The airship had crashed into the outskirts of Emporia, (she hoped), and the only way left to go was through the walkway the piano was blocking. She took another look at the card, then shoved it into her satchel. “Gimme a hand with this.” She leaned against the heavy wood.
With both of them shoving, it was easy enough to move it so they could squeeze through. When they emerged into the sunlight again, the clouds had parted above them and revealed a huge mansion floating some way up. Sarah turned to see Columbia laid out behind and below her, drifting in and out of clouds. There were flashes of light down there, the occasional echo of faint explosions, and flashes of red from the Vox banners that hung over half the city now.
Sarah absentmindedly ran her hand down the red sash she was still wearing, and thought about the small, sad smile on Daisy’s face. Maybe they’d see each other again, but for now she sighed, and put her out of mind.
There was much bigger fish to fry.
Helena was staring up at Comstock House, her coat sleeves pulled down so they covered her fingers, and she was pressing her lips together tightly. Clouds roiled around the base of the house, dark greys and black with flickers of lightning. Three towers, the central one taller and topped with an angel, rose from the already imposing building. The two on either side were fitted with searchlights, their glow dimmed by the sun.
Then Sarah was distracted by the sound of voices, shouting impatiently. As they walked further along the path, she could see a few of the smaller ships - the gondolas - hovering next to people gathered on the edge of the floating island. They were jumping across, one by one. A few people were complaining loudly about leaving their cases and trunks behind, and one woman was crying hysterically in fear, unable to even approach the edge and the open air that lay underneath.
As the two of them got closer, a few of the folks on the outskirts of the crowd saw them, and a man pointed at them and shouted the Vox! causing a ripple of frightened looks and children being swept up into parents arms through the crowd.
Sarah mockingly saluted towards the crowd, and just kept walking. Helena followed after hesitating for a brief moment, looking slightly hurt that children could be afraid of her.
“Where are they all going?” she asked Sarah in hushed tones.
Sarah shrugged.
“Away from here. I imagine some of ‘em will be leaving Columbia altogether, if they can,” She looked back over her shoulder. A few faces were still turned towards them, but in a kind of fascination, not fear. “Maybe some will help rebuild it into a better place. I mean, actually better. For everyone.”
Helena made a humming noise, and dug her hands into the deep green pockets. She pulled out a lollipop and yanked the wrapper off with her teeth before sucking it into her mouth, the stick travelling from side to side. Sarah rubbed a hand over her stomach, then felt around in the satchel for an apple. It was a bit bruised, but still good.
That’s probably a metaphor or somethin’ , she thought, and bit into it.
The walkway veered off to the right, and up some stairs under a sign telling them they were entering Prosperity Plaza. More angel statues towered over them - one held a key, the second a sword - the blank stone eyes staring out of faces that resembled Helena’s, and her own, made Sarah feel uneasy. Between them, water was cascading down over artfully placed rocks, pouring into a large circular pool, dotted with water lilies. Garden beds lined the walkways, park benches were placed in shady nooks and overlooking the view of the city below, as it slowly glided through the clouds.
The massive red banners that hung from the building up ahead looked both rudely out of place, and somehow fitting. They billowed in the gusts of wind that seemed to be stronger up here, but otherwise it was eerily quiet.
“Port Prosperity Station,” Sarah read out loud. Wide and shallow steps lead up to the doors, between two identical stone angels holding swords. Sarah kept half an eye on them as she tried the doors. Stone that came to life seemed hardly a stretch, after all they’d seen. But they remained frozen in place, guarding doors that wouldn’t budge when Sarah pushed down on the handles.
The back of her neck prickled with the sensation of being watched, but when she turned around in a circle, hand at the gun on her waist, she saw nothing, and no one.
She lifted an eyebrow at Helena, who crouched down and fiddled for a few minutes, and then door handles turned, and they were inside the station. For a moment she was reminded of London Central, a fuzzy memory of huge domed ceilings and people everywhere. She supposed this is what it would look like if a war had swept through it.
Curved stone steps led up to wide pathways on either side, sunlight flooding in through high arched windows to illuminate the scene.
Rubbing at the back of her neck, she avoided looking at the streaks of blood on the tiled floors. Statues had been tumbled, leaving piles of shattered stone. Must have been some work getting all the bodies cleaned up. At least we missed out on that.
She turned to Helena, who was eyeing the bloody tiles with an unreadable expression, then looked at Sarah with her head tilted.
As one, their faces turned upwards to a message daubed in red across a huge portrait of Sister Rachel that sat on the wall straight ahead.
TELL US PROPHET
DO YOU SEE US COMING?
Helena wrinkled her nose, then walked closer and sniffed.
“Paint.” she said.
Sarah thought she sounded a little disappointed. She herself tried not to notice how Rachel’s eyes still followed her, even under the red paint. She cleared her throat.
“So. That...music. It always call the bird?” Sarah asked, looking at Helena’s profile.
She nodded, then met Sarah’s gaze.
“Always. It used to…” her eyes wandered up and the corner of her mouth twitched upwards. “...make me happy.”
“What?” Sarah frowned. “Bloody hell, why ?”
Helena looked at her, round-eyed. The sun streamed through high stained glass windows and gave them a golden glow.
“He was my friend,” she said simply. She began crossing the tiled floor to the wide corridor that opened up on the right side. “He’d bring me food. New books. Science journals. After my sister…” she stopped, her hands clutching at each other. “After Rachel stopped visiting. He was all I had.” Her feet began moving again and she glanced sideways at Sarah. “Until you.”
Sarah opened her mouth. Closed it. A sick feeling in her stomach that felt confusingly like guilt left her speechless for a moment, then a surge of anger came up her throat.
“I can’t believe she just left you there!” she snapped, her fists clenching, wanting to punch something. Or someone.
Helena merely gave a lopsided shrug, although she avoided Sarah’s eyes. They’d mounted the steps and were now walking along a spacious corridor, lined with high stone pillars and more of the seemingly endless supply of angel statues.
Sarah reached out to grab her arm, but stopped herself just in time, running her fingers through her own hair instead.
“So,” she said, hoping to distract her, “if this is a station, there must be gondolas, or somethin’, yeah? To take us to Emporia?”
Helena chewed on her lip, and nodded.
They continued on down past scattered piles of deserted luggage, until emerging into the open air again. The metal limbs and cog wheels of a Motorised Patriot or two were scattered about among the pools of blood and bundles of clothing scattered over a balcony of sorts. Sarah poked her foot at a head with the jaw missing, all the gears exposed, and fake eyes popping out.
The gondola here ran on a cable instead of flying, and the two thick metal lines that ran upwards also supported huge angels, their arms outstretched, leading to a grand edifice of stone and arched windows. WELCOME TO EMPORIA was lit up in a shining arch between two glowing glass domes. It looked particularly striking against the darkening sky.
Some of the buildings that were visible had flames dancing in the windows; one that looked like a small fancy hotel on it’s own little floating island was fully engulfed. It lilted to the side, and Sarah supposed the whatever that was holding it up would soon fail, and send it hurtling down towards the earth. Thick columns of black smoke rose from several points.
Comstock House was even closer now, looming just behind Emporia, searchlights circling and what looked like hundreds of windows glimmering with soft light.
She walked to the edge and poked her head out over the railing, still feeling that second of vertigo as she looked down. It wasn’t as bad now - either because she was used to the height, or because the clouds and the gathering darkness made it hard to see the ground.
The clouds were heavier than before, and grey. The parts of Columbia she could see hung with red banners, and some of the buildings down there burned as well, the smoke mixing with the clouds and making them look even thicker. It looked like the Vox had taken over the entire city by now - and left Comstock House for the two of them.
Sarah wondered if maybe she should have asked Daisy for help. An army of her own.
She shook her head at the thought. Fighting for their own freedom was one thing. Fighting her battles was quite another, and she couldn’t ask that of anyone. Not anymore.
No, this was for her and Helena to do. The more she thought about it, the more she felt that Sister Rachel wanted them to come to her. That she was waiting for them.
Of course, that meant walking into her territory, like walking into a bloody mousetrap. Or a spider web. She scratched at her scalp, and turned back around, scoping out the area again.
A timetable framed in ornate wrought iron sat above a short balcony, and stairs swept around on both sides, leading down to a gondola sitting in dock, all polished wood and shiny brass trimmings, the huge wheel that wound the cables sitting just behind it.
There were even a few trees, branches curving gracefully outwards, and Helena lifted her face, watching the silvery leaves shimmer in the wind, and running her fingers down the rough bark of the trunk.
“I miss the garden,” she murmured.
“Garden?” Sarah echoed, rubbing the bridge of her nose as an ache came and went. “You had a garden in the tower? I didn’t see it.”
“I...no,” Helena frowned. “It must have been a dream.”
“Yeah…” Sarah said slowly, “A dream. A garden...with blue butterflies, and -” She stopped as the ache came back, sharper, and her hand automatically wiped her nose, but there was no blood this time.
Helena looked at her with wide eyes, drawing closer and whispering, as if someone would hear them.
“Yes. The butterflies! And it felt…”
“Safe,” finished Sarah, and then she shrugged. “At first.”
Helena nodded.
“Sarah,” she continued to whisper, twisting a finger in her hair. “Do you. Can...Rachel really be a prophet?” She stared up at the tree again, “When she would visit me. Sometimes she would look... Hmm. Strange. Her eye would shine. And then she would be very quiet.” Her head tilted. “They call her The Prophet. She must have…” Helena pulled her finger out of her hair and waved her hand.
“ Prophesied something”, finished Sarah. Her eyebrows rose as she remembered Ava from the beach. “She says there’s going to be a war. And not this one,” she gestured at the burning buildings of Columbia. “Down below.” She turned to Helena, hesitated, then spoke in a rush.
“When I first arrived here, in Columbia, I had a...dream. Or maybe it was a vision. I dunno. But I saw a city on fire. New York, but bigger. And Sister Rachel was there.”
Something caught Sarah’s eye and she started down the steps to the gondola, waiting until Helena was beside her before she continued.
“You were there too,” she said bluntly. “At least, I think it was you. It was definitely your hair. But you had actual wings, feathers and all. Like an angel.” She reached out and slung her arm over Helena’s shoulders. “You were crying. Then...Rachel threw fire at me and I woke up.” She shrugged. “I’d nearly bloody drowned gettin’ baptised, so I just…”
She waved a hand dismissively.
Helena pressed against her side, humming, then said hesitantly,
“If she’s really going to start a war. We have to stop her.” Her gaze shifted from Sarah to the sprawling city beyond her. “What’s she done...we can’t…”
“Let it happen again,” Sarah finished.
They walked aboard the gondola. Sarah checked the back cabin while Helena unlocked the front. There was a dead man - presumably the previous driver - slumped in the narrow space behind the door and blood was splashed across the rear window.
Someone had dragged a finger through it and written NOWHERE TO HIDE, letters dripping red.
Sarah turned away, and shut the door behind her. She joined Helena in the front cabin. Before setting her hand to the lever, she nudged the girl and pointed with her chin.
“They’re back.”
Behind each hovering angel on the cable lines was a platform holding a billboard, and on the first two platforms, facing each other, were Rosalind and Robert Lutece.
Sarah yanked at the controls and the gondola started to travel forward and up. Just before they reached the first set of platforms, Robert pitched a baseball across the air in front of them, and Rosalind swung a bat, hitting the ball with a crack.
Sarah stared at them as they passed, but they ignored her.
Helena grinned, seeming to forget their troubles - at least for the moment.
“I hope we get to talk to them again,” she said enthusiastically. “I want to know. How they do that .” She pointed.
The Luteces were ahead of them again, on the next platform to the left.
Robert was seated at an easel, paintbrush in hand, studying Rosalind as she posed holding an apple aloft. Their clipped English accents were audible as they spoke to each other in raised voices.
“I told you they’d come,” said Robert.
“No, you didn't.” sighed Rosalind.
“ Righ t, I was going to tell you they'd come.” he reasoned.
“ But you didn't.” she retorted.
“But I don’t .”
“Are you sure that's right?” Rosalind asked.
As the gondola slowly passed the duo again, their voices sounded like there was an echo, like they were coming from two places at once. She could hear waves slapping against wood and there was a smell of salty air - and then it was as if the world snapped back into place, and no time at all had passed.
Sarah glanced at Helena, but she didn’t seem to have noticed anything strange. She ran her hands through her hair, then leaned against the counter above the lever and craned her head to look back at Robert’s painting. She blinked.
It was of himself.
“I was going to have told you they'd come?” he was saying doubtfully.
“No.” Rosalind’s voice was an exact mix of frustration and patience.
“The subjunctive?”
“That's not the subjunctive.”
“I don't think the syntax has been invented yet.” Robert opined.
“It would had to have had been.” she said confidently.
“Had to have...had...been?” he mused. “That can't be right.”
Helena clapped her hands.
“Ha!” She exclaimed, then glanced at Sarah, noting her scowling face. “They seem to want to help,” she said.
The Luteces were now on the platform ahead and to the right, along with a gramophone. They waltzed in a tight circle and continued their conversation in fond tones.
“Odd, isn't it?” Rosalind asked as she stepped with precision.
“What's odd?”
“The facts that sometimes we…”
“...finish each other's sentences?” queried Robert.
“Exactly.” Rosalind said with satisfaction.
“It would be odder if we didn't.” Robert pointed out.
“Hm.” Rosalind tilted her head and smiled at her brother.
“They seem to be out of their bloody minds,” muttered Sarah.
They’d reached the top of the line now, and as she looked back down, she couldn’t see the Luteces anywhere. The gondola slowed to a halt. Sarah looked up at another huge domed ceiling, another grand set of stairs. She sighed, and followed Helena as she skipped off the gondola in her baggy trousers. Tinny music drifted down from the fluted trumpets that sat in the corners of the ceiling, a jaunty tune that did nothing to dispel Sarah’s irritable state. Every time those two smug redheads showed up, she somehow forgot everything she wanted to ask them. And then once they were gone…
By the time the two of them had reached the top of the stairs, Sarah was left with the vague sense that she’d forgotten something, and then she was distracted by the strange crackling sounds that seemed to come from everywhere.
It sounded like lightning, and she thought about the stormy clouds about the foot of that huge mansion.
“Comstock House must be closer,” she called to Helena, who’d ran ahead. “You hear that?” There was no answer and Sarah sped up, panicking, but Helena was just around the corner, standing in front of a large poster mounted on the next set of stairs.
It depicted the tower, a golden halo around the carved facsimile of Helena’s face, her wings and arms outstretched to encompass the words ‘ The blood of the Prophet shall sit the throne and bathe in flame the mountains of man!’
Helena turned as Sarah joined her, eyes wide.
“One of those Patriot tin men was spouting that line,” Sarah pointed out. “It’s just...more propaganda.”
Helena shook her head, hands fidgeting in her pockets.
“I think,” she said quietly, tilting her head, “Rachel has...plans. For me.” She slid her hands out of her pockets and examined them, turning them over and over. When she looked back up at Sarah, her eyes were shining with tears. “I don’t want to...what if she makes me…?”
“She won’t.” Sarah clasped Helena’s hands in her own, rubbing her thumbs back and forth against the palms in a soothing gesture. “We’ll stop her, yeah? I won’t let her hurt you anymore.”
As Helena sniffled, and nodded resolutely, Sarah smiled at her, while inside her stomach tightened. Maybe she should face Rachel alone - what if this leash she had on the girl wasn’t just to keep her in Columbia…
She didn’t want to fight Helena. And she wasn’t sure she could, even if she had to.
They both walking, mounting the stairs and following the corridor as it turned left, then right, and led them to another set of staircases. Sarah looked longingly at the bar that sat opposite the stairs but kept walking, past the shuttered offices and scattered rubbish.
At the top was an atrium with steps leading up to balconies on three sides, overhung with long swatches of red fabric. The two of them stopped as they saw the small group of people on the other side, several of whom drew weapons at the sight of them.
Sarah lifted her hands, palm outwards, her red sash obvious.
Helena waved, grinning.
The Vox members relaxed and the guns were lowered, and they resumed their hushed conversation. A few of them watched Sarah and Helena as they crossed the wide paved floor.
Sarah realised that they’d caught up with a clean-up crew when she saw the pile of bodies behind the group. Most of them were in blue uniforms, and a few in red, but there were also ones in the ordinary clothes of the citizens of Columbia. She saw Helena blanche at the sight of a few limp children, her hands tucking themselves away in her sleeves.
“They didn’t ask. For any of this.” Helena had tears in her eyes, and Sarah reached out to touch her face gently.
“Did you?” Sarah asked softly, while her mind raced. Bloody trouble with wars is, no matter how necessary they seem, people always get caught in the crossfire . Helena sighed and gave her a small, sad smile.
Are they just throwing them over the edge of the city , she wondered, feeling vaguely horrified at the thought of a rain of dead bodies falling on the ‘Sodom below’.
But there were carts, and tarps to cover them, and she thought she heard the words ‘fire purifies’, so she decided that there must be incinerators up here somewhere, and it clearly wasn’t her problem.
She tugged on Helena’s hand gently and they kept walking. The walkways were spacious, lit with stylish lamps, and adorned every so often with elegant advertisements for Vigors, Sky-hooks, and the various businesses of Emporia. There were several for the Emporia Algonquin, with the motto “Fortune, Faith, Family’. As long as you were wealthy and white, from the looks of the family depicted, she thought bitterly.
Arched leadlight windows let in what was left of the sunlight. They eventually came to another gate - this one already wide open, the ornate lock in pieces on the floor.
An archway at the other end stated that the turnstiles below it led to Downtown Emporia.
Finally.
There was a hole broken through the stone wall to the right, the rubble still smouldering. As she looked closer she saw charred remains, and quickly turned away, covering her nose and mouth with her hand. The smell was sickly.
“One of those Firemen, looks like,” she said, realising Helena was right beside her, screwing her face up at the sight. “C’mon.” Over on the left was a store that stood surprisingly open and relatively untouched. The register had been upturned and emptied but nothing was on fire.
Helena’s face lit up as she saw the shelves and shelves of books, and she dashed forward before Sarah could stop her.
“C’mon,” she protested, “I didn’t even stop at that bar this time!”
But she ambled in after Helena anyway and set about poking at random books. She’d never been overfond of reading, or at least not the idea of sitting in one place long enough to.
There was a pile of books and toys in one of the front corners that looked like it had been set up for a book-burning, and when Sarah drew closer, she saw that it was made up of those bloody awful Duke and Dimwit stories, dolls depicting both the title characters, and posters ripped up into shreds. Her hands automatically patted her pockets for matches, but stilled as she realised the entire place would probably go up in flames, and she didn’t think Helena would approve.
When Sarah walked deeper into the store and found a polished wooden staircase, she followed it down to find walls lined with books, and a cosy alcove in the middle with lamps and sofas. Helena already had a small pile of books in her arms and a determined look on her face as she studied the high shelves. Sarah tilted her head to read the spines but the names - Planck, Thomso, Zeeman - left her blank. She put a hand on her satchel, still heavy with ammo and other sundries, and gave her a doubtful look.
“I’m already carryin’ enough, Helena…”
Helena clasped the books to her chest and looked at Sarah with big eyes, and lips that seemed on the verge of trembling.
Sarah almost smiled, but quickly turned it into a frown, crossing her arms.
Helena sighed and looked at the books in her hands, picked out a few of the slimmest volumes and secreted them away in the big green coat. Her trousers were looking a bit grubby, but they were still in one piece. Sarah had a vague feeling that once it got dark again, the wind would turn cold.
The metal of the turnstiles creaked as they passed through, and beyond lay a long room leading to an elevator, a set of high arched windows flocked by red velvet curtains looking out onto the darkening sky, and elegant chandeliers hanging from the high ceiling. Two curved counters sat in front of the windows, newspapers still sitting in piles on top of them, next to empty registers.
ANARCHISTS LOOSE IN OUR FAIR CITY! read the headlines, giving Sarah a small sense of satisfaction. “Death too good for ‘em!” says Warden Watts.
But not too good for you, I bet , thought Sarah. Whoever he was, Watts was most likely dead now.
The elevator at the end of the room had a call-button unlike any Sarah had seen before - numbers on dials that turned to present different combinations as she ran her fingers over them.
“It’s just a simple dual-dial lock,” Helena said knowingly. “The code…” she hoisted herself up on the nearest counter and lowered her head to look behind it, boots in the air, “...will be here. Somewhere.”
“Yeah, course,” Sarah tried to sound blase, and went to look around the other counter, before Helena made a satisfied sound and waved a small ledger at her. Sarah grinned, and took a step back towards her, freezing as a whistling noise began to pipe out from behind the first red curtain.
Helena dropped into a crouch, holding a finger to her lips, and Sarah ducked down, raising her eyebrows. They were both hidden from the window, and she motioned for Helena to join her. The blonde silently crawled over, and when Sarah opened her mouth, she covered it with one hand, the other pointing upwards.
There was a beat of silence, then the building shook slightly, plaster dust falling like like light snow. A loud metallic shriek echoed outside, closer, and closer, and the building shook again.
Another second of silence left Helena and Sarah staring at each other, hands entwined without them even noticing. Then the window exploded inwards in a shower of glass and splintered wood, and the two of them pressed closer against the counter as a green light passed around the room.
Odd little noises filled the air, like the trills and warbles of a bird coming out of a metal pipe. Sarah shifted a foot, having sat on it awkwardly and the light turned orange, the noises taking on an urgent cast. Helena held onto her hands tightly, pulling as Sarah leaned back slightly, just enough to peer upwards and into the face of the Songbird. It’s head was turned sideways, the great amber eye aimed at the other end of the room, and Sarah stared at the cracks that covered the surface of it, remembering how close it had got in the water before the pressure had forced it to withdraw.
She very carefully lowered her head, trying not to breathe too loud, meeting Helena’s eyes again and seeing the incredulous relief there. They watched the amber light sweep the room again, then there was a loud screech, the sound of metal claws scraping and huge wings opening, and the Songbird was gone. A cry floated back through the air, already at a distance.
Sarah squeezed her eyes closed, feeling a sudden surge of adrenalin make her legs jerk beneath her. She grabbed the counter edge and lifted herself up, gazing out the broken window, ready to duck again at the first sign of wings. Helena stood beside her, still holding onto an arm.
“I won’t go back,” she said in quietly determined voice. She squeezed Sarah’s arm tightly. “Promise me. You won’t let him. Take me back.”
“Course not,” Sarah replied, “We’ll find a way to stop him.” She almost winced as Helena’s fingers dug into her forearm. “I promise.”
“I won’t go back,” Helena repeated, “and if he…” Her eyes flicked down to the gun on Sarah’s hip, and then back up at Sarah. “You need to...”
Sarah shook her head in horror.
“I’m not gonna shoot you! I’ll stop him. I’m never gonna let them take you again, Helena!” Her voice cracked, and she looked out the window at the outline of floating buildings and clawed her hands through her hair.
“I won’t go back.” Helena said again under her breath, letting go of Sarah’s arm and walking quickly to the elevator to fiddle with the dials so they read 0451. The door pinged and opened, revealing a window-enclosed box which would have granted amazing views, had the glass not been covered with long swathes of red fabric. The wind made the fabric ripple and lift, enough to catch glimpses of elaborate stonework and the glint of Sky-rails.
Sarah jabbed the one button, and they travelled downwards, stopping after barely half a minute. The doors refused to open, with Sarah’s fist pounding on the button only producing the sound of gears grinding and whining.
“Bloody hell,” she snarled, hitting it one more time in frustration. “They must’ve blocked it.” The red fabric flapped in the wind, and she looked down onto a balcony, then up at the Sky-rail through the gaps.“Looks like we go out this way.” She pointed and slid the satchel off her shoulders, weighing it in her hands, and studying the windows. “Stay back, yeah?”
The satchel swung forward and crashed through the pane closest to the wall. Sarah carefully pulled it back in, then reached through the hole and grabbed hold of the Vox banner to pull that inside as well. She draped it over the remaining glass, holding an end out for Helena to hold, and then methodically smashed the remaining glass. The fabric ensured the glass fell harmlessly downwards, and there was soon an empty frame for them to jump out.
Now that the banner was out of the way, they could see the grand balcony on three sides of a central platform, on which stood another of the large angel statues. This one held a key in her hands, stone face tilted down. Behind her was a stone building topped with a dome flanked by brass eagles, wings spread. It was the same style as every large bank she had seen in New York.
Beyond the dome, the towers of Comstock House were still visible, searchlights bright now against the dim sky.
“Financial District,” Sarah read aloud from the arch above the angel. Harmony Lane was directly ahead of them, to the left of the angel, large curved gate closed, and to the right was a gate to the Market District. That one was open, so Sarah shrugged and pointed. “That way?’
Helena nodded.
“I think,” she mused, “either way will get us there.” Her mouth moved as she chewed the inside of her lips for a moment, and her eyes flicked around the area, then to the sky. Her hands moved as she fiddled with the thimble on her finger. When she was satisfied there was no sign of the Songbird, she pulled her Sky-hook out of hiding and slid her hand into it.
Sarah followed suit, and jumped first, a moment of panic giving way to exhilaration as the hook caught onto the rail. After they’d both leapt to the safety of the middle platform it was an easy walk to the open gate.
The clouds were dark now, coiling endlessly in on themselves, and the sound of lightning cracked. Not thunder, Sarah noticed, just the endless noise of lightning. Flashes lit up the clouds.
Through the gate was what would have been an elegant covered walkway, if not for the still smouldering fires and occasional smashed window. Many of the stores were closed, doors shut and gates locked - some with cheery “Back in 5 mins!” signs in the windows. Sarah guessed the resistance - or lack of - the shopkeepers had a lot to do with the condition their stores had been left in.
Past the walkway and up some steps were more shopfronts - a burning delicatessen, untouched bottling works, a closed confectionary store which distracted Helena for a few minutes, while Sarah turned around to see open air and the back of the huge bank-like building, red banners flying everywhere she looked, smoke spiraling into the sky and, when she squinted, the nothingness that the buildings were sitting on. She still got a little dizzy, and quickly looked away, dragging Helena away from the window of chocolate boxes.
The path led to the right, and a higher set of stairs, and more room for gardens. The greenery of the bushes and trees softened the grey stone of the streets, and many of the stores were the restful creamy colour of sandstone. A row of wooden market stalls had been left in disarray, baskets upended and vegetables scattered over the cobbles.
“What a waste,” Sarah muttered. Helena dashed ahead to a wide round fountain that sat in the middle of a plaza encircled by garden beds, but it was dry. As she turned back to Sarah, she spotted something and called out, pointing emphatically.
Sarah followed her finger to see a wide double shop-front, undamaged, with ‘Lutece Laboratory’ etched across both windows in elegantly curved letters. Above the door was a sign similar to those back in the tower.
‘DANGER!’ It read. ‘Risk of Death or Serious Injury! By order of the Columbia Science Authority.’
Sarah smirked, and crooked her head at Helena. She wasn’t going to pass up a chance to poke around in those annoying buggers business.
The double doors opened inwards. The small antechamber within was in some disarray - bookshelves half-emptied, a floor lamp lying on it’s side, filing cabinets obviously rifled through. A set of odd metal globes stood in a corner, wires leading from one to the other.
It had the same air as the rest of Emporia, deserted, but Sarah felt that it had been empty long before the Vox had arrived.
When she pushed through the second set of double doors, she was surprised to find a homely looking interior, not the sterile laboratory she was expecting. Helena kept close to her side but looked around with interest. There was a carpeted staircase leading up on the right, and what looked like living rooms to the left. The entrance hall was wide and inviting, with wallpaper in warm colours, and a desk and bookshelves set up under the stairs.
Sarah and Helena walked slowly in a circle around the ground floor, through the front living room, armchairs and side-tables looking rather incongruous next to small standing chalkboards and oddly shaped glass equipment. Books were scattered over every surface.
The next room was large and mostly empty, apart from a chalkboard on the wall, and some furniture that had been pushed against the wall.
They both stared up through a large hole in the ceiling, the floorboards of the upstairs room visible over the gouged plaster.
“What the hell..?” Sarah said, turning to Helena, who was examining the parquetry floor. A boot traced scratches and indentations, then she looked up again.
“There was something here. Equipment? Something...big. Heavy.” She pulled at a blonde curl. “It must have been...important.” Now she had both hands in her hair. “Maybe it’s how they can travel?”
“And now it’s gone.” Sarah rubbed her chin. I bet I know who took it, she thought, which means, yeah, it’s important. When she met Helena’s eyes, she could tell she was thinking the same thing. Then she could feel her scalp crawling, and the air shimmered in front of them.
Sarah took a step back, tugging Helena back by her coat. They watched as a ghostly image of an upturned table and some plates drifted past, as if caught in a breeze, and faded away. The afterimage of a tear hung in the centre of the room, then shrank to nothing.
“What was that?” Sarah hissed. The hair on the back of her neck was standing up. Helena’s eyes were wide.
“Hmm. It was almost like. An echo? A minor quantum loop?” She gazed around. “Possibly. The act of being observed…hmm.” Her face screwed up in thought, and Sarah threw her hands up in confusion, walking away to poke around some more. There was doorway leading back out to the hall, but before that, a kitchen. Like the other rooms, it served two purposes - there was a stove, and canned food on the shelves, pots and pans, as well as a bench covered with medical equipment, flasks and crucibles, piles of paper with equations and notes scribbled on them.
The bread on the sideboard was hard to her touch, but the cheese smelled alright, so Sarah broke off a chunk to nibble on as she made her way back to the desk in the hall.
She froze with her hand halfway to her mouth when she saw the photographs that lay on it.
One showed the door of her office back in New York, with the words ‘Her office, 108 Bowery, New York, NY’ in red ink curving over the black and white image.
The other depicted the lighthouse that had led her to Columbia. Here the red words said simply 'Only one obstacle’.
Sarah felt her skin tighten with anger. They’d been watching her? Like they’d been watching Helena here in the tower? Had anyone sent them to hire her, or was this all just part of one of their sick experiments?
And what did the second photograph mean?
“Only one obstacle…” she muttered, picking up the print and crumpling the edges in her tense fingers. The dead body in the lighthouse? Had the Luteces killed him to clear the way for Sarah? Did that mean Rachel had known she was coming all along? Even in this reality? She became aware that her head was aching, and she dropped the photograph back on the table, staring at them as she dug her fingers into her scalp.
The sound of Helena’s footsteps roused her and she shuffled the photographs into the other papers lying on the desk, hiding them on some instinct she didn’t understand. When she turned, Helena had a satisfied look on her face and her hands waved in the air as she started to talk.
“I think they had a device. That opened tears. And controlled them! There were notes...a progression of the Lutece Field!” Her hands stilled and she looked down at them, swallowing. “Maybe that’s why. They were studying me? In the tower? It was them, wasn’t it?”
Sarah looked away, chewing her bottom lip.
“Yeah. Yeah, I think so.” she said softly, feeling unbearably guilty. Why, she asked herself, you didn’t put her there. “But it was Rachel who put you there.”
Helena raised her eyebrows at the urgency in Sarah’s voice.
“Y-es?” she said, giving her a puzzled smile. “I remember. Shall we - “ she pointed upwards.
Sarah pushed away from the desk, nodding. They passed a multitude of framed photographs on the way up, but none of them showed the twins as children. There were several of a serious looking young girl who evidently grew up to become Rosalind Lutece, but none of Robert. Old-fashioned wedding pictures were sandwiched between a shot of the angel tower, and one of Big Ben on the London skyline.
At the top, Sarah nearly tripped over a cable as thick as her leg. It snaked from the other end of the landing into what appeared to be a bedroom, the one with the hole in the floor. The two other doors were locked and gated. Helena looked at the cable and the metal box it came out of.
“A kind of...power generator?” she mused out loud, then pointed. “Look. More.” They stood in the corners of the bedroom, the cables reaching towards the vaguely circular shape ripped out of the floorboards. Sarah gazed around the room, then, wondering why even as she did it, got down on the floor next to the bed and lifted the edge of the quilt that covered it.
Nothing but a wooden panel.
She sat back on her heels, chewed her lip, then bent forward and ran her hand along the edge of the polished wood, grinning as her fingers found a slight bump. She pressed it, there was a click, and the panel swung outwards, revealing a sizable space containing a few more notebooks, and several voxophones.
Behind her, Helena gasped. Sarah looked up at her and smirked.
“Oldest trick in the book,” she said smugly, hoping like hell it wasn’t obvious she was as surprised as Helena. She handed her the notebooks, then pulled out the voxophones - all labeled with Rosalind Luteces name, and dates ranging from the 1890’s to the previous year.
Sarah made herself comfortable on the floor, grabbing a pillow to sit on, and started sorting the voxophones into order from oldest to most recent, tilting her head at the floor beside her.
“Gonna listen with me? Could be something useful. Or, y’know, science-y.” She wriggled her fingers. Helena nodded, already in the middle of a notebook, and dropped down onto the pillow next to Sarah, leaning companionably against her side as she continued to read.
Sarah pressed a lever and the precise tones of Rosalind Lutece filled the room.
- When I was a girl, I dreamt of standing in a room looking at a girl who was and was not myself, who stood looking at another girl, who also was and was not myself. My mother took this for a nightmare. I saw it as the beginning of a career in physics.
Helena huffed in quiet amusement, and Sarah tossed the voxophone on bed, starting the next one.
- I had trapped the atom in mid-air. Colleagues called myLutece Field “Quantum Levitation”, but in fact, it was nothing of the sort. Magicians levitate. My atom simply failed to fall. If an atom could be suspended indefinitely, well -- why not an apple? If an apple, why not acity?
“Still sounds like magic to me,” admitted Sarah, moving on to the next recording.
- The Lutece Field entangled myquantum atom with waves of light, allowing for safe measurement. Sound familiar,brother? That's because you were measuring precisely the same atom from a neighboring world. We used the universe as a telegraph. Switching the field on or off became dots and dashes. Dreadfully slow -- but now, you and I could whisper through the wall…
Sarah stiffened, meeting Helena’s wide-eyed stare.
“Wait, what?” She replayed the voxophone, listening carefully, then sat, head swimming. “They’re not twins. They’re - “
“The same person,” finished Helena. The notebook had dropped from her fingers and she was holding Sarah’s hand tightly. “But from different...keep listening.”
1893Brother, whatComstock failed to understand is that ourcontraption is a window not into prophecy, but probability. But hismoney means the Lutece Field could become the LuteceTear -- a window between worlds. A window through which you and I might finally be together.
“So, this Father Comstock, the one who created this city,” Sarah said slowly, “He thought he could use Rosalind’s invention,” she waved at the gaping hole in the floor. “To, what, see other realities and pretend to be a Prophet, and...I dunno, manipulate everyone?” She shook her head. “I guess Rachel took over in more ways than one.” She hesitated, then told Helena what Daisy had told her, about Rachel cutting short Comstock’s sickness.
Helena looked more sad than shocked.
“He was a bad man,” she said simply, still holding Sarah’s hand, and leaning over to start the next voxophones.
- You have been transfused,brother, into a new reality, but your body rejects the cognitive dissonance through confusion and hemorrhage. But we are together, and I will mend you. For what separates us now, but a single chromosome?
- When I finally brought mybrother through, he seemed to lack the capacity to square his own reality with this one. I suspected such a thing would happen, yet had no means to accommodate his distress. His behavior was that of the feebleminded. He hemorrhaged nearly continuously from his nose. Naturally, I was able to transfuse him from my own veins and thus avoid catastrophe. In the end, it was music that proved therapeutic and grounded his thoughts. A middle C vibrates at 262 Hz, no matter what the universe.
Sarah automatically touched her own upper lip, half expecting to see blood. Her fingers came away clean. An idea was rolling around in the back of her mind, and she suspected in Helena’s too. But she felt that neither of them wanted to say it first.
Are we like the Luteces? Same face, same person, different reality?
She grabbed the next voxophone and jabbed at the lever.
- That ghastlyFink fellow has been busy of late. He has sent his minions out to prowlthe city, on the lookout forTears wherever they might appear. They are armed with camera and One could only presume he is no longer content to steal patents from his own reality. No surprise, then, his scientific "breakthroughs." I imagine I could also appropriate parlor tricks likeincinerating trees with the snap of my fingers. But the universe offers more delicious fish to fry.
Sarah laughed. “So both the Finks were stealing ideas through the Tears! Albert with the music and Jeremiah with the vigors...I wonder where they came from?” She lifted her free hand and flexed it to produce sparks, watching them spit and then subside.
- Father Comstock is dying. The metastasis has aged him so quickly. Why does this Comstock decay, while a Comstock in another world remains fit? If genetics are destiny, what accounts for the difference? Perhaps exposure to the contraption? Hm. It merits further study.
“Last one,” Helena noted, looking down at the voxophone on the floor. The others were now scattered over the bed. She fidgeted. “I thought maybe. If they’d been watching me…”
“Oh, shite,” Sarah looked at her. “There were probably more back in the tower, I didn’t...sorry.” She squeezed Helena’s hand, feeling her sigh resignedly. Then she pressed the lever on the last voxophone.
- Sister Rachel has sabotaged ourcontraption. Yet, we are not dead. A theory: we are scattered amongst the possibility space. But mybrother and I are together, and so, I am content. He is not. The business with thegirl lies unresolved. But perhaps there isone who can finish it in our stead.
“Rachel killed them,” Helena said. Now her voice was shocked. “But - “
“They’re alive,” Sarah said, wonderingly. “We’ve seen them. Talked to them. They...Helena, they were the ones who hired me to come here and find you. I dunno why I didn’t tell you that before.” She chanced a look, and found Helena gaping at her. “They said your family were looking for you.” She exhaled noisily. “Bring us the girl and wipe away the debt,” she recited, then frowned and rubbed her head. “But I still don’t...what are they? Alive or dead?”
The lights flickered off, and then a familiar voice made the girls hands grip even tighter together.
“Why do you ask what - “
“ - when the delicious question is when?”
The lights came back on, illuminating Rosalind and Robert Lutece standing close together in the doorway. Robert looked at Sarah and Helena, the corners of his mouth holding the hint of a smile. Rosalind gazed over at the space left by the hole in the floor, lips tightening in umbridge.
Then they resumed speaking in the odd back-and-forth way the had.
“The only difference between past and present...“ explained Robert,
“...is semantics.” Rosalind rejoined.
“Lives, lived, will live.”
“Dies, died, will die.”
“If we could perceive time as it truly was…” Robert said thoughtfully,
“...what reason would grammar professors have to get out of bed?” Rosalind added snarkily.
Helena suddenly dropped Sarah’s hand and stood up, advancing on the Luteces. They stood still, raising identical eyebrows.
“You were watching me, In the tower. You. You helped Rachel keep me there. Why. Why didn’t you...” She jabbed a finger at one, then the other. “Who hired you? Where is my family? I don’t…”
Sarah’s frozen feet finally moved, catching Helena’s arm as she realised the girl was crying, and pulling her close. She glared at the Luteces over the blonde curls as Helena sobbed into her neck.
Robert sighed.
“Perception without comprehension…”
“...is a dangerous combination,” Rosalind finished somberly, all traces of her earlier sarcastic tone gone. “Your family is closer than you know, Helena.”
“Chin up!” Robert added encouragingly. The lights flickered again.
“Wait!” Sarah cried out, but they were already gone. “God DAMN IT!” She kicked the floor, then held dug in her pockets for a handkerchief, eventually finding a cleanish one and wiping Helena’s face. “Damn it,” she muttered again, “Every time they show up, I forget to punch them, then they bloody disappear again.” She held the now damp hanky out, and said “C’mon, blow your nose.”
Helena took it and obediently make a honking noise into the cotton square, then abruptly sat on the end of the bed.
“Do you think,” she began, eyes flitting up to Sarah, then lighting on different points around the room. “That we’re like them?” Her shoulders drooped. “I mean…”
“I know. I thought it too.” Sarah admitted, sitting next to her. “I mean, it would explain why we look alike. But,” she scratched at her head. “There’s something not right. I mean - “
Helena finally looked straight at her.
“It doesn’t feel. True?” Her eyes were wide and greenish-brown and exactly like Sarah’s own - but they weren’t Sarah’s eyes.
“Yeah,” she nodded, “It doesn’t feel true. Not in my gut.” She slipped a hand inside her coat and over her waistcoat. “We’re...something. But we’re ourselves, yeah?”
“Yes.” Helena relieved smile made Sarah grin back at her, and then they were hugging again, and laughing in a giddy way, like they’d made it through a hurricane together. After a few minutes, they broke apart, and Sarah stood, pulling Helena up after her.
“Guess we can’t put it off anymore,” she said. “Time to go to Comstock House.” She fancied she could still hear the crackling of those storm clouds that surrounded it, even in here.
“Yes.” Helena straightened her coat and combed her fingers through her hair, mirroring Sarah as she did the same. “It’s time.”
They walked down the stairs, side by side, and headed back out into Emporia.