The Mechanical War

Chapter 3

I ran out of paper then. I'd filled up the sheet front and back, and written in letters so tiny I was sure they'd need a magnifying glass to read them (they—or, well, Andrew— didn't, of course. To reach any position of power in the military, good eye sight was a thing of absolute necessity. Ma said that it was so that they could look through sights on those big old Coal-Rifles and make the mark, but as I said, I never really trusted her much).

Well, I sat there alone in that little room they'd taken me to. It looked like an office, and I wondered for a moment if it belonged to that boss of theirs, Andrew. It had a desk and a globe, and a little brass microscope on one little table near the door. Against most of the walls were bookshelves, lined with, well, books, and a glass ball, like the kind one of those wannabe Gear and Smoke Mystics used.

There were daggers on the wall, but they were all in cases, and they'd handcuffed me to the chair anyway. Not that that was much of a problem. See, I'm not much of one for violence, but when it comes to taking necessary actions, I'm not one to waste time. So I did the logical thing, and I broke it, that good old—probably antique, but I don't have an eye for them, like a lot of gals—chair, and I was free. I mean, it wasn't exactly somethin' that I did right away. The whole time I'd been writin', I'd also been workin' at the chair, wrenchin' my wrist up and down, an' trying to break the arm of that thing. And eventually, though I'd finished writin' (I wanted to seem... complacent if anyone walked in to check on me), I got it. I broke free of the chair, if not the cuffs. Now those daggers were beginnin' to look real wonderful.

Taking them out of the cases was easy enough, sure (I didn't want to set off any alarms, if there were any), but finding one that would actually work, now there was a bit of a problem for me. See, it's not like there's an instruction manual for a dagger or anything, but, well... they were old. They were flimsy, more for decoration that anything else. But there was one of them—one dagger—that looked like it would be useable still. It was a pretty thing, to tell the truth, steel, mostly, but its hilt looked like it was silver, and I knew it must have been an expensive piece to make. See, there were words carved into the blade that looked like they were German, and that hilt that I mentioned, it had a silver lion carved around it.

T' tell the truth, it looked like somethin' from before the Reform, but that was near impossible, the way everythin' had been rebuilt and replaced. Even books from the time were mostly gone; there were maybe one or two that had been approved by Queen Caroline in the entire catalog of acceptable texts. Actually, it looked like those two would have been at home among the rest of the books lining those shelves, but really, I didn't care that much. I had a dagger now, after all, didn't I?

Well, I stood there, waiting, right by the door, which was locked from the outside, for a good hour or so, but no one came in. Another hour. Still no one. Well, I got mighty tired of standin' there, all alone, so I decided to look around the room. I did have the time, after all, an' I always was a little too curious for my own good, or so my Papa told me on many an occasion. Well, I had just picked up that special glass ball I was talkin' about when the door swung open.

I'd like to say I leapt into action. I didn't. I more... stumbled into it. I've never been that graceful of a girl, and sure I can fight, but if it comes down to whether or not I actually should, well, there's a question I really don't like to answer. See, people tend to get hurt when I'm fightin', but mostly, it's myself.

Now this time, I was lucky. It was only Stone Eyes, come back in to check on me and bring me dinner, I think, 'cause he had a tray of food in his hand, and I do have to credit him with not droppin' it even in the (short-lived) chaos that ensued. See, I leapt right on him, an' knocked him over, 'cause really, I didn't have it in me to stab him (he did have such a nice grey eye, even if it was all I liked about him, really), and I probably couldn't have, anyway, so instead I just took off running.