Engn

XXI-1

XXIFinn slept deeply in his wooden bed, and could have slept for twice as long, but a shake roused him from his slumbers. It seemed to be the start of a shift; people stretched and yawned and dressed all around the room. Finn did likewise, then followed the others into the long room where food had been set out: wedges of bread and cheese with hot tea to drink. He ate, feeling more and more hungry with each mouthful. There were no masters in sight. He looked around, hoping to pick out a friendly face, but saw no one he knew.

“I'm Aelth. You're to come with me.”

The blond-haired man from the night before had walked up behind him and now strode off without waiting. Finn rose and followed, his mouth crammed full of bread and cheese. Aelth led him back to the blue shelves.

“What is this place for?” asked Finn. “I mean, I don't know what to do.”

Aelth glanced aside at him. “Runners come in from all over Engn with the code numbers of the drawings they need. Each mechanism, each component, each detail has its own master drawing. It's our job to transcribe the required design at full size onto one of the rolls of paper. Then a runner can take it away to where it's needed and a new part of the mechanism can be built. Or a worn-out part repaired. But any mistake, however small, can be disastrous. Got it? The whole mechanism depends on us transcribing the designs correctly.”

Finn nodded. He thought about the self-governing valves. Was the design for those somewhere here? Was it possible, then, that a simple mistake had been made in the copying of that design, perhaps years ago? That the valves really were, or should have been, fully functional? But surely someone would have noticed?

“Watch,” said Aelth.

A runner arrived, out of breath and clutching a slip of paper. Aelth took it, examined it, then showed it to Finn.

“It's a D code, see? That means structural, so it's in the blue books, one for us. Red is wiring; black, water, and steam; green for the timing controls, and so on. It'll all make sense soon.”

“So, you dial this code into the book shuttle?” said Finn.

“That's it. But first you dial in your own code, so they know who has pulled which design, then the code for the drawing. The machine gets it, you transcribe it, then you put the book back. Think you can do it?”

“I don't have a code.”

“You just use the one they gave you when you arrived.”

“I don't have it. I mean, they didn't give me one.”

The man looked puzzled for a moment, as if Finn were a contraption he'd never come across before.

“Are you sure?”

“Well, yes.”

“Everyone has a number.”

“So I've heard. But I don't.”

“Are you sure you're even supposed to be here?”

“Well, I don't know really. I think so.”

Aelth examined Finn closely. “Well, we'd best see if we can get that sorted out first.”

He led Finn back past the blue shelves towards the raised wooden platform. Another scarlet-robed master sat on the chair, ruffling through a sheaf of papers. They stood and waited at the foot of the stairs for the master to look up. The wood of the steps was worn smooth, almost shining, by the passage of so many feet.

Finn wondered what, exactly, he was really supposed to be doing there. What Connor's plan was. Perhaps the idea was to sabotage some vital piece of the design. He could see how that might work. It wouldn't have to be much. Some tiny but vital detail transposed or confused. An easy, innocent mistake and one of the bigger mechanisms could be made to flood or explode. Finn imagined fires spreading, explosions triggering further explosions like a chain of firecrackers. It would be dangerous, though, very dangerous. How would they destroy the mechanism without endangering everyone inside?

The master rammed a wad of papers onto an iron spike on his desk, then looked down at them.

“Yes?”

“Master, this boy has no number,” said Aelth.

The master looked at Aelth, and then at Finn. He scowled.

“That's impossible. What happened to it, boy?”

“I was never given one,” said Finn.

“Of course you were given one.”

“Then no one told me it, Master.”

The master stood and descended. Finn though he was going to strike him, but instead the master pushed past and strode away to converse with a master in white some distance away. The two conversed for some time, their heads nodding. Finn couldn't tell if they were arguing or laughing together. Eventually, the master came striding back, a slip of paper in his hand.

“Here's your new number, boy. I had to go to a lot of trouble to get it. Don't lose this one as well.”

“I … I won't, Master.”

“Make sure you don't.”

Finn and Aelth made their way back to the blue shelves. Aelth spoke when no one else was close enough to overhear. “How did you manage to lose your old number? That's only supposed to happen when you die.”

“Like I said, I didn't know I had a number,” said Finn. “That's the truth. But there was an accident yesterday. I don't know, perhaps they thought I was dead.”

“You've been lucky, then. If you haven't got a number it's usually easier for them just to kill you to keep the records straight.”

“Really?”

“Really. Tell me: that master last night said he knew you. Was he a friend?”

Finn wondered what to say. “We just grew up in the same village. We didn't know each other very well.”

“I see.”

“Why do you ask?” said Finn.

“Oh. No reason.”

Back at the tables, Aelth showed Finn how to operate the book engine. Finn tried it for himself, dialling in the codes then pulling on the lever. The lever refused to budge.

“You have to wait until the machine is idle,” said Aelth. “It can only store two codes, the current and the next. It's locked out at the moment. If it had three codes it would go haywire.”

“What would it do?”

“Best you don't find out.”

When the machine was ready, Finn pulled the lever again. This time, the shuttle clattered up and across its cradle of rails, billowing steam, to pluck out a volume in the high, far corner of the bookcase.

Once he had the book in his hands, Finn crossed to the table Aelth directed him to, and set to work copying the required plan. It was very simple: a right-angle shaped piece of metal that looked like it slotted into something. He copied out the design carefully, drawing it life-size by using the scale marked on the drawing in the book. His first two attempts went badly wrong. On the first, he scored holes in the thin, crinkly paper, right through to the wooden table. On the second, his calculations went wrong and two lines that should have met didn't. The black-haired woman, working next to him, glanced across to give him an instruction as he worked on his third attempt.

“Don't smudge your lines as your draw. Rotate the paper if you have to.”

“Okay.”

“Check that angle is ninety degrees. If you draw it wrong, they'll construct it wrong.”

“Okay.”

His third attempt, when he finished it, looked perfect to Finn. The woman – who introduced herself as Ciara – cast a glance over it and nodded her head. It would do. Finn rolled up the design into a tube, and a runner came to take it from him. Finn heaved the great blue book back to the shelf and typed in the code to return it to its correct slot.

The next design Aelth assigned him to copy was more complicated, a spiral-shaped structure, part of a pump perhaps. This time he only took two goes to copy it accurately, and Ciara only had to correct him once.

Occasionally, he looked up from his work and flexed his right hand to relieve the cramping pain from holding the steel pen. He took the time to study the others around him, just as he had back in the Valve Hall. Apart from Ciara and Aelth, three others worked at their table: a woman and two men, all of them older. They looked like they'd been there for many years. After maybe an hour the woman had glanced up to meet Finn's gaze, her eyes narrowed as if trying to remember something about him. “I'm Maeve. This is Garvin and this is Colm.” She'd said no more, returning to her work with a frown.

He worked for eight hours, the only respite the walk to and from the bookshelves. He soon learned to make the most of that, walking slowly, taking his time to wait for the shuttle. Back at the table he worked methodically and in a week was copying the blueprint designs without mistakes.

His table mates kept themselves to themselves as they worked, rarely speaking, only stopping occasionally to stretch fingers or backs. As far as Finn could tell, they each copied their designs flawlessly. Ciara, despite her age, appeared to be responsible for all of their work. Each time one of the others completed a piece they would show it to her, and she would approve it or tell them what needed fixing. Clearly, she was in a position of some power. Finn thought about that as he worked. If one of the others introduced a deliberate flaw into their work, she would know about it. If, on the other hand, she made a mistake, deliberate or otherwise, no one would know. No one checked her designs.

He also noticed she and Aelth communicating silently, flashing glances full of meaning at each other, indicating someone or something with a nod of a head. One of the masters strolling by or some detail of a diagram. It was subtle, but clear if you looked carefully. Perhaps they were together, a couple. Or perhaps they were scheming, waiting for the opportunity to act. Wreckers, maybe. On the other hand, they might have been placed there by the masters to keep a close eye on everyone. He had to bide his time, find out more about them all.

One evening, trudging back to the side room where their wooden beds were laid out in a line, Finn found himself walking alongside Aelth once more.

“So, how long have you worked here?” he asked, trying to sound as if he wasn't really that interested. He stretched his fingers, staring at them as if they were what really occupied him.

“Oh, a year or two now.”

“Were you somewhere else before this?”

“Why do you want to know?”

Finn shrugged as if it didn't matter. “Just wondered. I used to be in the Valve Hall; I wondered if you'd been there too.”

“No, never. I think Maeve said she'd been there once.”

Finn glanced around. No one else was near. Over the clatter of the shuttles, no one else would be able to hear them.

“Assembling the valves?”

“No, delivering a blueprint. Sometimes when there isn't a runner handy, we have to take them ourselves.”

“But in the Valve Hall they just assemble the parts already made by someone else.”

Aelth shrugged. “Maybe they wanted to check something was correct, then.”

“So, Maeve and the others, Garvin and Colm, they were already here when you came?”

“Yeah. Been here years, those three. So long they've become sloppy. That's why the masters made Ciara their supervisor.”

“You mean they make mistakes? In the diagrams?”

Aelth looked at him for the briefest moment, eyes narrowed. Finn could see he was wary. “There was trouble some time back, some mistakes were made. That's when they appointed the table supervisors.”

“Ciara.”

“Yeah, Ciara.”

“She seems very smart.”

“I suppose so.”

Weeks went by. Aelth and Ciara gave Finn more and more complex diagrams to copy out. Ciara rarely had to correct him at all. He began to settle in. At first, he expected the ironclads to come for him and drag him away. Either that or he feared one of the boys from the Valve Hall arriving, Graves or Croft or Bellow. In the flashing of the skylight, outside on the roof, he had scratched a message. Don't believe the masters. The postern gate is the escape. Sometimes he regretted that, fearful that one of the others would see it and follow him. He wasn't sure which would be worse: that or the ironclads.

But no one came and, slowly, he became more relaxed. Ciara, Aelth, and the others were friendly enough, although no one talked that much. They weren't like the boys back in the dormitory at least. Most of the time he was left alone, which suited him fine.

As he worked away each day, he thought more and more about what he was supposed to do. It looked like Connor had gone out of his way to ensure he, Finn, worked in the Vault. You will be shown the way, boy. Do what you are supposed to do and all will be well. Wasn't it likely, then, that he'd placed Finn at this particular table for a reason? One or more of the five must be wreckers. Finn studied them all as casually as he could but came to no conclusions. He longed to talk to one of them about it but didn't dare. Not yet. One word to the wrong person and the ironclads would come for him. He surely wouldn't be able to escape again.