And the Third Brought Fire

The cafe that Miss Tracy Rhina took Nix too was run by a family - clearly of second native descent, even if their braying American accents were kept as discrete as they could be - and had a table in the corner that a rather tough looking fellow led the two of them to before leaving them with cups of none-too-decent coffee and tea. Nix wished he had sugar to add as he regarded his tea. His voice was soft. "Now how do I know we're not currently being spied on?"

Miss Rhina had taken her coffee with cream. She was stirring it with a small spoon while a phonograph played a scratchy revivalist ditty crooning about a spirit moving within one's heart. She took the spoon out, tapped it gently on the saucer, and set it down before she took a drink from her cup of coffee. When she spoke, it was with amusement. "This establishment happens to be run by a family that is rather...intimately connected with the Redfaces. I have done enough favors for them that they're willing to make sure anyone who shouldn't be here doesn't stick their noses in." She set her coffee down.

Nix's brows drew in. "You have interesting friends," he said.

"I do!" she said, primly. "Now. I believe that you owe me some explanations - I caught only half of your little conversation with that strange man in the park, but I did catch his name. Mr. Jeremiah." She smiled, slightly. "And I did read on his lips that you are to rob a train coming in this evening?"

Nix frowned. "They have a gun to my niece's head," he said, supposing that the other secrets that the mysterious Mr. Jeremiah was holding over his head didn't need to be told to anyone. Doubly so not someone from the Daily Mail, even if he found every new thing her learned about Miss Rhina to be deeply fascinating. She matched wits and crossed blades with cultists on mainland Europe, and was on speaking terms with one of the most entrenched smuggling networks in the Colonies? By this point, Nix wouldn't have been shocked if she had blithely admitted that she regularly went to communist meetings, and could speak Mandarin and Korean.

Miss Rhina drummed her well manicured fingers on the table. "That is quite a sorry situation to be in," she said. "What do you know of this Mr. Jeremiah? Do you think he's a Red?"

Nix considered. His gut said...

"No," he said, shaking his head. "Though, wait. I was given a card..." His fingers patted his pocket - and felt the weight of his Colt. He took his fingers away before threatening to draw it. "I gave it back. But I remember the symbol on it."

"Do tell!"

"A...little hat, drawn over a chessboard, or a checkerboard I suppose. Two letters. M.T."

"Ahh..." Miss Rhina sat back slightly. "Good Lord," she murmured.

"What?" Nix asked, a flicker of hope flashing in his chest.

"It could be merely that they're trading on a famous name, or that they're trying to misdirect you, but..." Miss Rhina cocked her head. "Have you ever heard of the Mechanical Turks?"

"I...have heard of New Byzantine," Nix said, slowly. "That recolonized Ottoman satrapy-"

"No, no, those are actual Turks," Miss Rhina said, waggling her finger from side to side. "I'm speaking of an organization. It's at least a hundred years old - or, maybe, it simply has such an evocative name that it has been recreated by multiple people over the past century, since the War of Ascension and the Burning Times. The records are spotty. However, the very first report on the Mechanical Turks that I recall reading about was in 2077, the Clockwork Bomb Affair."

"They tried to blow up the pneumatic grid in London, right?" Nix asked, remembering it faintly from his days in school. His father had had him read history books, alongside teaching his brother about spirits - Nix had neglected a great deal of the books to instead listen in on those secret, hushed conversations, while taking down notes on every gruff, rambling word his father had said. His heart squeezed. That had been the closest that he'd ever been to his poor brother, and he'd never gotten a chance to get any closer before...

He cast the thought aside, frowning. "So, they're what? Bomb throwing anarchists?"

"Possibly," Miss Rhina said. "The actual motive of the Clockwork Bomb Plot was somewhat obscure. The bombs were meant to explode in the heart of the pneumo-system, to try and slay the actual goddess herself."

"I wouldn't call old Pisty a goddess

exactly

," Nix said, his technician's instincts ruffled.

"The bigger a spirit-"

"Size isn't everything," Nix said, hurriedly, shifting in his seat. "If size were all took, those pagan temples at Gaza and the Parthenon would have worked, wouldn't they? Complexity is the watchword. Pisty...the spirit of the Pneumatic Tube system of London, she's a bit more complicated than, say, a train or an airship, but she's not nearly sophisticated enough to be even close to our Lady Colossus. The tubes, at the end of the day, don't make decisions, they don't do additions or subtractions-"

"I take your point, Technician," Miss Rhina said, sighing and holding up her hand. "What matters is they were targeting a very highly ranked spirit. Interesting, no?"

"Hurm," Nix said, frowning. His tea was growing cold. "What do you think I should do?"

"Well, of course, you must protect your niece," Miss Rhina said, shrugging one shoulder.

Honestly, Nix hadn't been expecting that response. His mouth opened - but Miss Rhina continued before he could say anything.

"And you should take me along in confidence," Miss Rhina said. "I will keep a record of everything that happens, and then once we've solved the riddle of these Turks, I will take your story to the authorities. They will know you are not to blame and I will break yet another mightily important new story to the Empire. We both win."

Nix frowned, weighing his options. "And what if I have to do..." he paused.

"I've interviewed cultists and demon worshipers," Miss Rhina said. "I assure you, if you do anything even remotely close as bad...I will tell you before you step over the line."

Nix tapped his fingers.

He had never been someone who took long in making decisions - even risky ones. But...damn it all, he wished that Miss Rhina had been a spirit. Spirits didn't hide their thoughts behind demure smiles and little polite words. Still...Miss Rhina, at least offered a ghost of a chance. He nodded. "Agreed," he said. "I have to get to a train station - Mr. Jeremiah said he was sending an agent. One of their associates. I don't know who they are, but Mr. Jeremiah said that

she

-" Miss Rhina arched an eyebrow. "-will arrive on a train from New England."

"You'd better get to the station then," Miss Rhina said, then stood.

"And you will hire a telephone," Nix said.

"I...I beg your pardon?" Miss Rhina asked. "I don't think that we'll be able to drag around miles of copper cable-"

"Trust me," Nix said. "I'm a Technician."

Miss Rhina frowned. Then she smiled. "I believe this is going to be a very interesting news story, Mr. Nixon."

Nix inclined his head, downed the cold tea, then left.

***

Though time, politics and technology had shifted Burned York off the trade lanes of the sea and the air, one of the few buildings that had survived to the 22

nd

century had been her Grand Central Station - but the damage had been so extensive that, in the early days of the century, her Lady Colossus had decreed that the whole station would be rebuilt in a grand new style. It was now dominated by a vast brass relief replica of the famous painting

St. Turing on His Deathbed.

The gaunt professor, his head turned up to heaven, his eyes peering into some impossible infinity, his body clad in the robes and toga of a Grecian philosopher. His arms, spread to his sides as he sprawled on his bed, held in one hand a clipboard, and in the other, a bushel of hemlock. The edges of the relief had been added to - the original painting, which Nix had seen in one of his visits to London, during happier times - had a kind of stark, beautiful realism that contrasted with the ahistoricity of it.

For one thing?

Saint Turing had taken cyanide.

But the edges were all classic Colossus over-emphasis. There were figures representing the five pillars of the Eternal Empire: A soldier, a naval officer, a technician, a scientist, a miner, all of them holding their hands up to ward off dragons, snakes, eagles, roosters and bears. The very tippy top, placed right where Saint Turing was looking, was a fluttering British flag.

The terminal itself was bustling with people and the happy voices of trains.

Nix walked through the glass and brasswork that arched over it all, waving away a puff of steam, and smiled. He loved to watch trains - and he loved them most in Grand Central Station. It was part of why he worked in the Colonies. Well, that and his secrets and his extended family: only in the Colonies could one see such a profusion of trains. There were ancient coal burners with flat faces and primitive boilers, bedecked in tribalistic talismans and daubed in first native war paint. Those trains had their spirits actually instantiated on the smokeboxes on their fronts, with solemn faces carved into steel and iron, with eyes set into sockets made of polished glass and brass, and those spirits still animated the vast blinking eyes, and spoke to passengers and crew as they disembarked. And yet, they ran next to modern atomics that bore the symbols of the Lady Trinity, who had been constructed in an era where it was understood that a fetish wasn't needed to make a spirit animate. Those had their spirits sitting atop their engines, waving cheerfully at people, or walking among the crew, handing out luggage and helping them disembark. And mixed between these two extremes were trains of every other kind and type.

Nix took a moment to look for the trains coming in from New England and saw that he had at least a half hour to wait. And so, he found a bench near an old coal burner from the 19

th

century, and smiled at the huge face carved into the front. "Hey there, old chugger," he said, warmly. The huge eyes swung around and a cheerful, deep voice came from lips that could just barely move in time with her words.

"Oh! Hello there! Are you to be in my new load? Oh, no, I see, you're a technician! Hah, here to check any of us out?"

"No, sorry," Nix said, smiling. The thing about old fetish-trains was that their expressions did change, but sometimes it felt like you had to look away and look back before the subtle changes actually fixed themselves. "I'm here to pick up a friend whose coming in on the New England line."

"That one's run by my friend,

Racing Horse

," the train said, happily. "She's such a peppy thing, young too. She was built in, oh..." Those eyes swung up, considering. "1914, I think."

Nix shook his head. Only a spirit could measure time like that...

He passed time in some cheerful conversation - hearing about everything that the old train had seen in her time on the rails - until at last, the train from New England came wheezing into the station. As she came to a stop, Nix stood and walked over to watch people disembark. Every woman he saw was either an Englishwoman in company with men and other women, or a native - usually second native - who looked like she'd rather talk to anyone but him. He waited, and waited, and finally, everyone was off the train, and still there was no sign of his contact. He frowned, then looked for the spirit - but then a voice came rasping out through the bustling station.

"And when first it was found, the sinful Manhattan was tamed by the ax! When the second time came, it was chastised by the holy flame - by her word it was done!"

Nix turned back.

The last passenger had stepped from the train.

He...or she...was taller than Nix was by a full head, and broader too. That effect was made all the more pronounced by the thick black robes that they wore despite the relatively warm day - that swept down to the tips of steel shod boots. Their head was covered by a leather cowl and a broad brimmed black hat, while a beaklike muzzle covered their face, goggles their eyes. Their hands were gloved in leather that creaked as they flexed their arms, then spread them wide.

"I have come to this sinful city to wash away the inequities of our day..." The raspy voice continued - and Nix heard a feminine tenor, despite the tone and the words. The giant of a woman continued to walk towards Nix, boots

clomping

loudly, accentuating every word she uttered. "In the glorious blazing blue light of our Lady! Trinity, praise her." She bowed her head slightly to Nix, that bird-mask of hers almost touching Nix's cheek. "Do you worship at her feet, Technician?"

Nix frowned. "I do," he said.

"Then...let yourself be

purified

."

The woman grabbed onto Nix's hand, and before Nix could stop her, the woman had laid across his wrist a pendant. It had a gray-black color, and was warm to the touch - but it brought with it the faint

tingle

of Trinity's blessing. Nix hissed and jerked backwards, shaking his hand. "Are you insane-" He started.

"You are blessed, Mr. Nixon! In the name of Sainted Daghlian and Sainted Slotin, martyrs to our sacred lady, Trinity. I am pleased to make your acquaintance," she said, her gloved hands taking Nix's hand, squeezing. "I am Sister Vengeance Zimmerman, of the 1

st

Church of the Lady Trinity and Her Signs Following."

"You're a Radwalker," Nix said, horrified. "That was

thorium

."

"The blessed stone finds you pure-"

"Put it in a lead box, are you insane!?" Nix spluttered.

Zimmerman placed the radioactive pendant into the same small lead lined box she had withdrawn it from. "I have been informed by my associates that you are in need of a righteous shepherd through the valley of darkness. And lo, I heed the call. I am here."

"I don't quite see how a priest is going to help me-"

Zimmerman walked past him - brushing him aside with a rustle of leather and clink of metal. "I bring not the open palm of a shepherd, but the whip used to chasten Wall Street. Our foes number both in flesh and spirit alike - you!" She turned, pointing her finger at him. "Are Technician, no? The spirits shall be yours to handle. And to me will be the men, and like the Pharaoh's armies, they will find themselves withered by the scourge of God! You merely need step aside."

"They're Christian too, Radwalker," Nix said. "They have Trinity's protection."

"Their Sin ejects them from the holy brotherhood of Christ the Engineer as surly as man is born to Sin and that woman is filled with vice and wickedness, cast from the mold of Eve such as we are," Zimmerman said, with utter certainty. "Thus, I seek my perpetual purification in fire."

Nix did not know what to say to that. He groped for anything - but the only thing that popped out of his mouth was: "How can you be so sure they have sinned?"

Zimmerman turned and started to walk away, her robes swaying with a usually heavy weight - as if the fabric was laced with something more than just stitches and cloth. That weight made Nix's stomach drop as he began to worry and wonder what lurked beneath those folds. What was Zimmerman

carrying

there?

"I know, Mr Nixon, for God has placed them in my path to die."

Then she was around the train and gone.

***

The evening came sooner than Nix wanted. The time had passed in an uncomfortable quiet, as Sister Zimmerman and he had found a small apartment that Zimmerman had gotten through the simple expedient of being too large and too self assured to stop. Standing in the empty room, watching the military station where the train would be arriving, Nix counted the guards and felt his stomach sinking. Not only were their redguards - their uniforms more for show and terror than for the battlefield, where khaki and camouflage had long since taken precedence. They had the bulky armor that would turn aside some bullets, and automatic rifles that had magazines that could outshoot anything that most people could make, and they were backed up by automatons.

Nix hated automatons.

He

hated

them.

"Tell me of those metal beasts, the spawn of Satan," Zimmerman said, tapping her finger on the glass on one of the automatons.

"Those aren't spawns of Satan. They're close, though," Nix said, shaking his head. "Take an analytic engine - a piece of clockwork, made to add sums and do some basic maths. They have spirits. Then you coax those spirits into one of those." He nodded to the two limbed, articulated humanoform invention, steam hissing from vents on the back. The heavy machine gun that it carried looked like a Lewis gun, with a feed running into a box of ammo mounted on the back of the automaton's heavy frame. "They can make it go, though it does burn them out fast. But...damn it, analytic engines are so easy to please, they do anything you ask of them!" He made a fist, gently pressing it to the wall in anger.

"Spirits do not harm men. Men harm men," Zimmerman said.

"That's not even close to true, Sister," Nix said, bitterly. "But it's true, an analytic engine wouldn't hurt a fly, if they knew what hurting was. But they're

spirits

. Their creators tell them that human beings don't mind holes so much. And when we lie down? Why that's just us taking a quick nap, we'll be right as rain."

"Ah," Zimmerman said, her voice gruff behind her mask. "Lambs, in the hands of Wolves."

"I hate them," Nix said, quietly. "but it looks like they only have two. I...can distract them. Maybe even convince them to go home. But there are ten redguards there - with automatic weapons. We have a Colt revolver."

"And God," Zimmerman said, firmly. "And her Lady Trinity."

"I want a better plan than that," Nix said.

"Ye of little faith," Zimmerman said. God, she almost sounded amused.

"Faith and reason are the shoes on our feet," Nix said, quoting his father. "We can go farther on both than we can with just

one

."

"You are fortunate you are a man," Zimmerman said. "Were you a woman, I would chastise you such that you would not walk for a week. As it is, I mere can ask that you keep that sinful tongue of yours still, and consider upon the nature of God and his will. Now..." She turned back. "I believe I shall open the ceremonies. You will take advantage of my actions to deal with the engines. So long as they do not impede me, I shall be seen through the harrowing."

Nix sighed, slowly.

He was beginning to think that Mr. Jeremiah didn't really see Sister Zimmerman as an associate. "...are you a member of the Mechanical Turks?" he asked.

"Nay," Sister Zimmerman said. "I am merely rendering unto Ceaser."

Then she turned and started towards the door, thumping heavily on wooden floors. Nix rubbed his palm against his face - and then took his revolver out. He checked and made sure that she was loaded. His hand caressed the barrel, gently, and he whispered. "Let us pray we don't have to use you," he whispered.

Then he hurried after the Radwalker, before anything went too completely insane.

The doors to the apartment complex opened as the train pulled into the station. The evening stars were beginning to twinkle as the electric lamps came on with guttering, flickering glows - each one winking one, one after the other as the spirit of the city's electrical grid drew her attention to them individually. Sister Zimmerman strode towards the guarded gate, as if she was meant to be there. "Lo, for she saw the sun bloom on the Mexico sands, and knew she stood before the birth of the Destroyer of Worlds, and saw no evil!" She intoned, with the booming voice of a prophet speaking to the mass. The Redguards and the automatons turned their heads - one of the redguards had pulled his goggles and gas mask aside to start lighting a cigarette.