Mr Hook's Big Black Box

Ferrari Delguessimo: Courage Under Fire

I panicked for an instant, then my training reasserted itself. I grabbed at my handbag, and pulled off the dangling metal dog figure from the strap. This wasn't actually a designer name bag, and the tag didn't mean it had cost a fortune. It wasn't even the tag that had originally been attached to this zipper; but it was a fairly decent folding knife for its size.

The seat belt was pulled taut across my lap, which meant there was a chance it wouldn't release. Some mechanisms tend to stick when they're under tension, for some reason. I pressed the button and, as I'd expected, it didn't move. The next step in the standard escape routine was to cut the belt, and I had a knife in my hand ready. But my hair was hanging down onto the roof of the car, only an inch away. Maybe there was an easier way, that wouldn't blunt my knife. I braced both hands against the roof, and my feet on the bottom of the passenger seat in front of me. With my weight removed, the seat belt was slack enough to easily release. Then I lowered myself down onto the roof, and tried to peer out through the crazed white pattern of the windows.

I couldn't see a thing. Something had flipped the car over. I could hear screams in the distance. And the light coming in through the windows had the distinct orange tint of flames.

"You alive?" I asked Trevor, still immobile in the front seat. I could have checked, but if his instincts were ready for a fight I didn't want to be reaching for him from behind.

"Just," he gasped, "My head's spinning, might have a concussion. First priority is to get away from here, get our hands on some big guns."

"What's happening?" I asked, "Did we hit something? Did Spenser's men do something?"

"Something hit us," he grunted, "It's probably still out there, from the screaming. And it looked like a golem. No, don't ask questions, you won't like the answers. Just imagine it's a clockwork robot, powered by a steam engine with its boiler operating at two thousand atmospheres or more. We don't know who made them, or when, or what kind of alloy they invented to make it withstand that kind of pressure. But we know that it's fast, it's heavy, and it can take on a modern main battle tank with ease. During a survey conducted in 1906, we found reports of three in the world, of which one was no longer functional, and the other two were in the possession of the fledgling Golden Pointer."

"This is no time to joke," I growled as I tapped the broken window with my handbag. The door was bent out of shape too badly, I knew without trying it would never open. But if I could knock the glass away I'd be able to get out. Judging from the screams, our enemy was probably on the other side of the vehicle, so I would have some cover for long enough to get Trevor free. If he'd just give me a straight answer. "Seriously, you're the CO here. What are we facing?"

"I told you," he gasped.

"Yeah, you missed out the bit about an ancient Egyptian pocket calculator, and the Mayans having their civilisation jumpstarted by aliens."

"No, that's the Chinese. And I'm not joking, take a look for yourself. Everything you know is wrong. That's the big secret. Why do you think I've been so depressed since I got promoted? I know the truth, and it's bullshit. We're living inside a tinfoil hat's wet dream, and we'll never be famous even posthumously, because this crap is never going to be declassified, just because nobody would believe it."

I didn't know what to make of that. The car had just been turned over, this certainly wasn't a time for joking. But the stuff he was coming out with was so ludicrous, he couldn't have expected me to believe him. I didn't know what game he was playing now, or if he'd hit his head harder than he thought. I shook my head and squeezed out through the window. I didn't have time to waste on crazy speculation.

We were in a field, with long grass. It could have been a farmer's meadow, or it could be a playing field that hadn't been mowed for six weeks. I turned around and saw the damage to the side of the car. Two large dents, cut through the metal across the middle, as if it had been hit with a massive axe. I didn't know much about mechanics, but to my untutored eye it looked like that blow could have been powerful enough to send the car spinning through the air. I stood slowly, peering over the car's exposed underside at whatever was causing so much screaming.

I froze. I should have stuck my head up, got a glance at the situation, and then ducked down again to take stock of what I'd learned. But I didn't. I looked across the field towards the roadside, and just froze. I saw a giant mechanical shape smashing through cars like an enraged elephant. It was a machine, maybe twenty or thirty feet tall, in an approximately humanoid shape. It was also very clearly some kind of giant clockwork death machine.

I hunched down again, looked over at where Trevor was struggling with his own seat belt. It looked like the car had taken more damage on his side, and the steering column was somehow bent over his legs. I couldn't easily get closer, but I wanted to help if I could.

"Clockwork," I gasped, "Straight up? I still don't believe it's a hundred years old, though. Need a knife?" He grunted an affirmative, and I handed him the cheap bag-tag knife. I still had a sword on my belt if I needed a weapon.

As I waited for him to get out of the car, I peered over at the golem, and I knew the description he'd given me was about as good as anything I could come up with. It was beyond belief, but I couldn't doubt what my own eyes had shown me. The thing was fighting now, as groups of police and men in suits attacked it. They were trying to damage the gears, or to force it off the road, but maybe they didn't realise that they were forcing it back into the field we were in.

I heard a near-constant sound of gunfire, different calibres and types. But this thing was a genuine monster, and it seemed to shrug off their firepower.