Engn

IX-1

IXThey were two days into the crossing of the great grass plain. Finn, squinting out through the back of the moving engine, could see the mountains of his home shrinking away, melting into the horizon. Up ahead, the track led straight west, directly towards Engn. He'd seen no villages out there, no people at all apart from another troop of ironclads on the road yesterday, heading out to the mountains. Only an occasional Switch House, relaying messages to and from Engn, broke the monotony.

He closed his eyes again. The hours and days passed in a daze. He lost track of time and of where he was. Sometimes he thought he was back in the Switch House, the engine's air holes the line-of-sight ports. He would jerk awake thinking there was a message to route, or that Mrs. Megrim had shouted something to him. At other times he was trapped inside a giant cylinder, the piston hurtling towards him to stamp him flat. Or he was drowning in coal, the ironclads lifting him up to hurl him into the engine's roaring furnace.

He no longer heard the rumbling noise of the moving engine except when its note changed. It slowed now, something different in the sound of its usual huffing rush, a rattling grate that sounded like bare metal rubbing against metal. He peered outside. Mid-morning. The sun beat down, the metal roof of his prison nearly as hot as the floor. They weren't due to stop to give him food and drink for hours yet.

Someone, an ironclad by his shape, heaved the door open. Finn shielded his eyes with his hands and squinted to see what was happening. An armoured gauntlet grabbed him and dragged him from inside the engine, sending him sprawling to the grass.

“Something for you to see, boy,” said the master from somewhere in the light.

Finn's eyes began to adjust to the glaring white. They had come to a halt upon a low rise in the ground. The ironclads had climbed down from their snorting, stamping horses and were gathered around the moving engine, peering into its workings. They shook their heads as if they couldn't agree was wrong with the machinery.

Finn turned to look the other way, ahead across the plain. The track ran off in an unbroken line from Finn's feet to the horizon. He could see grey clouds massing there, like the bulk and peaks of another mountain range. At one point the clouds formed a sharp funnel down to the ground, as if they were being sucked out of the sky. He had never seen anything like it. He wiped his eyes and looked again. Now he could make out buildings beneath the funnel, a great clutter of misshapen blocks with chimneys of different heights reaching up. A plume of grey smoke poured from the tallest chimney, widening into the delta that merged with the clouds. The whole sky was being made there – a sky of smoke from the chimneys of Engn.

“A wonderful sight, eh?” The master sounded happy for once, as if he and Finn were just old friends out for a walk. “Your new home, boy.”

Here and there, bars of sun through the clouds picked out the distant scene with white spotlights, glistening off metal towers and wheels nearly as high as the chimneys. It stretched all across the horizon: an entire, artificial mountain-range of machinery.

“That's Engn?”

“We'll be there tomorrow. Assuming these fools can fix the machine.”

The master turned and left to shout at the ironclads. Finn continued to gaze at the scene, trying to grasp the scale of what he was seeing. He stood there until a tug on the chain shackled to his leg nearly pulled him over backwards. The ironclads were attempting to jolt the engine back into motion. It spluttered and squealed but refused to fire. One of the ironclads lay on the ground, removed his helmet and wormed his way underneath the machine. Soon, only his legs and boots were visible. After several minutes of banging and clunking he began to squirm back out. Oily grime smeared his arms. In his hands he clutched a thick iron chain that had coiled around his wrist as if it were a living snake.

“Timing chain's broken,” the ironclad said. “We need to vent the steam, otherwise the engine will overheat. It could explode.”

“But you can fix it,” said the master.

“If we work through the night.”

“Then get to work.”

The ironclad nodded and prepared to work his way back beneath the machine. The master scowled, angered by the delay. He kicked the ground with his boot.

“Do we camp here?” asked Finn.

“Got no choice, have we? I suppose we'd better unshackle you in case the thing does blow up. You wouldn't be much use in pieces.”

The master took the key to Finn's chain and reached inside the engine to free him. Finn looked around. For the moment, no one was watching him. It would be a good time to escape. The engine was broken and the ironclads were all off their horses, huddled around the machine. His stomach fluttered as he prepared to run. But the grass plain stretched unbroken around him, vast and empty. Where would he run to? Sooner or later they'd catch up with him. He'd bide his time. Perhaps the engine would explode and kill all the ironclads. Maybe then he'd have a chance. If he could steal one of the horses, he could perhaps evade the master at least. He'd watched how the ironclads rode, the way they controlled their mounts. He could manage it, he knew.

“What's this, boy?” The master had turned to face him. He held the end of Finn's chain in one hand but in the other was a folded square of paper. Finn's heart hammered. It must have fallen from his pocket inside the engine.

“It's nothing.”

The master dropped the chain and stamped one of his feet down onto it to stop Finn running. He unfolded the paper.

“Well, well, secret messages. We were told you were a tricky one. A trouble-maker. Going to join the wreckers, are you? Going to overthrow us all?”

The master showed the scrap of paper to the standing ironclads, his grin broad. A murmur of amusement came from them. Standing there, the idea of being able to defeat any of them, even one of them, seemed utterly ridiculous.

“Wreckers? What are wreckers?” he asked.

“Oh, very clever,” said the master. “Do you think we don't know all about your secret plans?”

Finn's insides fizzed with alarm, clenching his stomach like a fist. They knew. They knew everything. How did they know? The pact with Connor and Diane was his only hope, his only light in the darkness. Without that he had nothing.

“What plans?” he asked. It sounded unconvincing even to him.

The master shook his head. “Everyone we take has secret plans to wreck the workings, boy. Save the world. You're no different, I'm sure.”

They didn't know everything, then. Maybe, somehow, he still had a chance.

“So, you once wanted to destroy Engn, too?”

The master stepped forwards, looking like he intended to strike him. Finn cowered back from the blow, eyes closed. But it didn't come. When he opened his eyes again the master stood before him, shaking his head.

“Perhaps I did. Childish fantasies. They don't last once you grow up a bit and find out how the world really works. Don't worry. We'll soon have that defiance beaten out of you.”

Watching Finn's eyes, he tore the square of paper into half, and then into halves again, and again, until he held only scraps.

“Open your mouth, boy.”

“Why?”

The master did strike Finn, then, a blow to the side of his head. Finn seemed to feel his brain bang into the side of his skull.

“Do as you're told,” said the master. “Open your mouth and keep it open.”

Finn opened his mouth. The master began to stuff the squares of paper inside. “Now chew them up and swallow them like a good boy.”

Finn's mouth was already parched but he did as the master told him. The taste of the ink made him retch.

“Swallow!”

The side of his head where he'd been struck thudded with pain. With an effort he swallowed the paper down. It felt like sandpaper on the back of his throat.

“Show me!” said the master.

Finn opened his mouth again to show him the paper was all gone.

“Very good,” said the master. “Now, follow me.”

The master strode away from the broken machine, yanking Finn along after him with the chain. He stopped some distance away from the machine and sat down. He hooked the end of the chain through his own belt and locked it in place, ensuring Finn couldn't escape. Then he lay down and closed his eyes.

“Sleep if you want. Just make sure you don't disturb me, boy.”

Finn sat down. There was a rock embedded in the ground near his hand. Could he prize it out? Bash the master over the head and escape? When he was sure the master was asleep, he set about working the stone free. But it was too large, buried too deep. After an hour of scraping away the skin of his fingers he gave up. It was no good. He would never be able to escape the ironclads. At least he still had his secret. Still had that hope. He lay down, losing himself to fantasies of seeing Engn, that vast mountain range of machinery, explode in a fireball. Later, he slept and dreamed dreams of his old life back home.

“I wanted to talk to you about Matt,” said Finn.

His father was stripped to the waist, fixing one of the Baron's threshing machines. To Finn they always resembled giant beasts, the raised chutes their heads. They were the largest machines they had in the valley. This one stood near a field cable point from which his father powered a light so he could inspect the interior workings of the machine. The cables under the fields were buried especially deep so that ploughs didn't cut through them, and there was no line of lightning-stakes, only marker posts embedded in the hedgerows to indicate the line. In the summer, they used the cable points to power pumps to water the crops. His father had to dig down deep to find the outlet, sealed in a waterproof metal case.

Finn peered at the blackened, oily mechanism of the thresher, trying to make sense of its workings. His father, not looking round, snorted with amusement at Finn's words. “What about him?”

“Well, the thing is, when you work at the Switch House, you see all the communications passing through. I mean, you're supposed to, to check everything is functioning.”

“Aye, and so Mrs. Megrim gets to know everybody's business. She knows our secrets before we do.”

“Well, she's not the only one.”

His father turned to look at him. His hands and wrists were black with oil. The spanner in his hand was black, too, so that hand and spanner looked like they were joined. Like he had a spanner for a hand. “If it's something about Matt then you shouldn't be telling me. You shouldn't be telling anyone, should you?”

Finn sighed and looked around at the field, an expanse of mud and spiky stubble from the previous year's harvest. “I think I should. There are things people need to know.”

His father looked at him, eyes narrowed beneath bushy black eyebrows. “Oh?”

Finn stooped down to pick up the bottle of cider his mother had given them and unscrewed the top. He handed it across to his father.

“The thing is, he's been sending messages to Engn.”

There was a pause while his father drank. He handed the bottle back to Finn. It was smeared with black oil.

“Messages about what?”

Finn sipped at the sweet, sharp drink. “About us. He tells them everything about us.”

“Such as what?”

“He said I was clever, quick-witted.” He didn't mention everything Matt had said. Still physically weak. Might make a good master one day if he could be tamed.

“He told them about you?” asked his father.

Finn nodded. “He must have told them about Connor, too. And Shireen, and everybody. I mean, how else could the ironclads know about us all? Someone must let them know.”

“Surely he would encrypt messages like that.”

Finn set down the bottle and pulled the rolled-up tube of papers from an inside pocket. He handed them over. “There are still ways to read them if you know how.” He hoped his father wouldn't ask for details.

His father unfurled the sheets and began to read, brow creased, lips moving with each word. Finally, he looked back at Finn, his face flushed red beneath the grime and the black of his beard.