The Hunchback Assignments (23 page)

“Stand still!” Octavia grabbed his shoulders. “I’ll use you as a ladder.” He put out his hand and supported her
weight, his legs shaking, the wood slats creaking on the scaffold. She stepped directly on his shoulders, then leapt onto the stone ledge above them.

Modo jumped up and grabbed the ledge, while Octavia knelt and took his other dirty, gloved hand. She heaved and pulled until his chest hung over the lip of the hole. Kicking and squirming, he wriggled the rest of the way onto the ground, and when he’d finally caught his breath, he stood up.

St. James’s Square! He’d spent hours perched atop the London Library, looking down at the peaceful garden. Now, the statue of William III on his horse had been swatted aside; the iron fence surrounding it had been flattened. A woman with a baby stroller was still cowering with fear behind a bench. Water streamed in an arc where the giant had broken a fountain in two. A tree, its roots covered in dirt, lay tossed across a bench. On the southern edge of the road a hansom cab had been overturned. One horse was still standing, the other on its side, kicking. A man’s legs stuck out from under the cab.

“We must keep moving,” Octavia said, hiking up the front of her skirts and tucking them into her sash. The pantaloons looked more like britches. “I’ll be faster now.”

“We can’t go yet,” Modo said. He darted over to the hansom cab, Octavia at his heels. Another man joined him; they grabbed the axle and lifted. Modo grunted, straining every muscle, raising the cab an inch, then another. People stopped to watch. “Pull,” he barked. “Pull the driver out!”

Octavia dragged the driver to safety. His shins were bent back at an awkward angle and he groaned, “Me gams! Me
gams!” Modo dropped the cab, only realizing then that it was a bobby who had helped him with the lifting.

“What strength! Good work!” The police constable tipped his canvas hat back. He looked Modo up and down. “Why are you wearing a mask?”

“A boiler accident.”

“You’ve been beaten all to pieces. You came out of that hole. What’s happening down there?”

Octavia grabbed Modo’s hand. “I’m sorry, sir, but I must get my brother to the hospital.”

As they ran across the square they heard him shout, “Halt! I want to speak with you!” They sped straight out the south end of the square and careered onto Pall Mall, passing the Travellers’ Club and Norfolk House. It was easy to tell where the giant had been: Wagons were overturned and people stared in horror in the same direction it had gone. Modo and Octavia dodged through the clusters of people, skirting halted omnibuses. Two men with sandwich boards displaying Patent Boot Black shrank back against the door to Queen’s Theatre.

“Where’s he steering that thing?” Octavia huffed as they ran.

“The shipyard?” Modo could picture the giant poking holes in the sides of ships. But if the Guild wanted to sink ships, dynamite would have been a much simpler weapon.

Partway down Pall Mall another statue lay shattered. Soon, Modo saw the giant slouching toward Trafalgar Square, coaches and carts scattering before it. With one arm the giant pushed over an omnibus, the horses neighing and breaking out of their harnesses, the passengers
inside screaming, the ones topside leaping to the ground. The giant plowed through the busy square, stepping past a bronze lion and smacking a claw against Nelson’s Column, chipping the granite. Modo expected the statue of Nelson to tumble to the ground, but it stood firm. The giant stepped into a fountain and out again, turning as though it had just made up its mind to go visit the National Gallery, then staggered in the opposite direction. Fuhr’s lost! Modo thought. It began to move clumsily down Charing Cross Road, the paving stones shattering like glass under its metal feet.

Modo and Octavia ran as fast as they could, but the giant was picking up speed. Its gait was no longer so lopsided. Fuhr was gaining confidence in its operation.

“The Parliament Buildings!” Octavia exclaimed.

“Of course,” Modo replied. If only he could climb to the rooftops, he’d move so much faster, but he could never abandon Octavia. He pushed past a stunned gentleman leaning on an umbrella and squeezed between two barristers in white wigs. He briefly lost sight of the giant, then the crowds grew more sparse and he and Octavia were able to run again.

Approaching the Parliament grounds they heard gunfire as the monstrous machine lumbered across the green lawn toward the Parliament buildings. The four guards fired away, gun muzzles flashing. Modo thought, No! Don’t hit the children!

He and Octavia ran across the yard just as the machine took two quick strides and swatted away the guards.

Fuhr yanked on a lever and the giant’s iron claw
smashed the second-story windows of Parliament. Another lever made the giant kick down a door. Orderlies streamed out like ants.

“How do we stop it?” Octavia shouted.

How? Modo still couldn’t believe that something so horrendous existed.

There was a clattering behind them, and they turned to see a black carriage bounce off the road and onto the grass; the snorting horses stopped just before trampling Modo. He backed away and stood next to Octavia. The driver was a soldier in an unfamiliar black uniform, a rifle in a holster beside him. He jumped down, straightened his jacket, and opened the door to the carriage.

Holding a top hat, out stepped Mr. Socrates.

“A
h, you
are
alive. Good,” Mr. Socrates said, putting on his top hat. “A few of my other agents weren’t so lucky.” His left eye was bruised, and despite his jaunty manner, he looked tired and somehow older. His suit needed pressing. Tharpa stood behind him. A neatly stitched slash now embellished his jawline.

“So, Modo, what exactly is the contraption?” Mr. Socrates asked.

Modo wanted to grab Mr. Socrates and hug him. But he had enough control not to blurt out his joy. “Mr. Socrates—your eye. What—”

“It’s none of your concern, Modo,” he snapped. “I asked you a question.”

“Yes, sir,” he answered, forcing himself to concentrate. “We saw it being built in a chamber below Saint James’s
Square. The missing orphans power it somehow. Fuhr is in control of it.”

Mr. Socrates watched calmly as the giant smashed its claw into the windows of Westminster Hall and dragged out a hapless occupant.

“Impressive,” he said. “The Guild engineered this right under our noses. I’d thought the young men who attacked their parents were the real threat, but no, they were merely a decoy, throwing us off the track of the larger plan. This machine is … well … beyond all imagination.”

“Prince Albert is part of the machine,” Octavia said.

“He is?” Mr. Socrates reached into his greatcoat, took out a small telescope, and looked through it. “I see. That complicates things. And Miss Hakkandottir?”

“Underground,” Octavia said. “She said they’ll sink the machine in the Thames when they’re done.”

“That’s not good news.”

“Not good news?” Octavia said. “That’s a bloody understatement!”

“Watch your tongue, Miss Milkweed,” Mr. Socrates said. “Even in times of crisis it’s important you maintain your composure.”

“My composure is fine, thank you very much, considering what has been done to so many orphans!”

Modo became distracted from their quarrel by a niggling thought. There was something about the giant he just couldn’t put his finger on. It was made of tons of iron, sheet metal, gears. Even with so many children built into the body of the machine, it was impossible that they could
bear the weight of all of that and keep the giant standing upright for so long. Something else was at play. But what?

A team of muscular brown horses pulled a large, steel-plated carriage across the Old Palace Yard. It stopped at Mr. Socrates’ signal. “I received a telegram informing me there was an event down here. I brought reinforcements.” The doors opened and soldiers in black uniforms climbed out, carrying rifles. Three unhooked a small field gun from the back of the carriage.

“In a few minutes our problems will be solved,” Mr. Socrates said.

“But what about the children?” Octavia asked, incredulously.

A flash of concern crossed Mr. Socrates’ face. “We will do our best to prevent unecessary deaths. It is all we can do.” He turned toward an officer. “When you have your weapon set up, fire. Begin by aiming at its head, at the man who’s controlling the machine. Do what you can to avoid the children, and most especially the young man at the center of the giant. You won’t want to kill Prince Albert.”

The officer went pale. “Prince Albert, sir?”

“Good, you were listening. So aim well.”

The officer saluted and marched back to his men.

“There must be a better way,” Modo said. What if Oppie was struck by a shell? “You can’t fire at it.”

“People are dying as we speak,” Mr. Socrates said. “Important people. You have to make hard choices in this business. We can only do our best.”

At that moment, the field gun’s boom nearly deafened
Modo. The shell struck the metal shield behind Fuhr and exploded, clouding the shoulders of the giant with smoke.

“Excellent shot!” Mr. Socrates shouted, but when the smoke cleared, they could see that Fuhr was unharmed. As though the shell had been little more than a pesky fly, he continued to bash at another part of the building.

“We’ll have to try another approach,” Mr. Socrates said.

Modo continued to wrestle with the notion that the machine worked at all. He felt in his coat pocket and pulled out the torn piece of paper that had Hyde’s notations. He skimmed it and two lines jumped out at him.

There were filaments all along the giant, glowing with light, so some kind of energy was lighting them. Not electricity. The source had to be on the giant. The filaments were attached to the children. Gyroscopes were spinning, proving that there was an energy source.
Harnesses the inner potency!

“Could it be,” said Modo, “that Dr. Hyde has discovered an energy inside the children that powers the giant?” He held the paper up to Mr. Socrates. “We found a portion of Dr. Hyde’s notes in their experimental chamber.”

Mr. Socrates took the scrap, sniffed at the scent of sewer that still clung to it, then examined it. “This is unreadable. I can’t make a decision based on a fragment of illegible handwriting and a guess.”

“But sir, I’m certain that I’m correct.”

“Even if you were, Modo, what difference could it make now?” He turned away. “Men! Load! Aim for the legs!”

“Nooo!”
Modo pulled on Mr. Socrates’ arm, and for an angry moment, he felt as though he were that child in Ravenscroft again.

Mr. Socrates jerked his arm out of Modo’s grip. “You’ve done your part. We’ll handle everything from here.”

Modo took a step back, dejected. He watched all the children moving as one. He thought of Oppie and how the boy had delivered him his food, taken care of him. There were a hundred Oppies in there. They didn’t deserve this. There had to be a better way.

He studied Mr. Socrates as he marched about, giving more orders. He doesn’t see the children, Modo thought. Doesn’t know them or their lives. He was never poor. Modo couldn’t control himself anymore, he began running with his telltale lope toward the giant.

“Hold fire!” Mr. Socrates shouted. “Modo, I order you to return!”

“Modo!” Octavia cried.

Her voice made him falter, but Modo charged on. He stormed across the grass, past the statue of Richard the Lionhearted.

The giant had its back to him and Fuhr was busy driving it toward another pillar, which he smashed. More people were flushed out of the building, while others looked out the windows, unaware of the danger.

The children were still silent, pushing and pulling with their legs and spines, faces set in angry determination. The
filaments running from their shoulder bolts glowed throughout the machine, sparks shooting. Their life energy, Modo was certain of it now.

Modo leapt at the metal ankle of the machine and latched onto it. The moment he touched the steel, the hair on his arms stood on end as though an electrical charge were going through him. He found himself face to face with a girl, her eyes wide and her features deformed by the tincture. The bolts in her shoulders held her tight inside the frame. Filaments had been attached to each shoulder bolt. One glowed bright red and the girl bent her legs at the same time as all the children in her row. As they lifted their legs, so too did the giant. “I’ll help you,” Modo cried.

The girl made no response; her eyes were blank. He climbed up the calf. The machine hissed as it moved. If he could free them, one by one, surely that would stop the giant and Fuhr, but there were too many of them and he had no way of undoing the bolts. His best hope was to stop Fuhr.

He climbed to the hips, then clambered over to the iron spine and headed up it, careful not to get his fingers crushed in the moving vertebrae. He imagined tomorrow’s papers with drawings depicting England’s own children destroying the heart of the Empire.

Fuhr smashed a gargoyle, taking out the wall behind it. Modo scrambled onto the shoulders, and found his balance on the small deck. Fuhr had his back to him, focused on the guards, who were firing at him. The giant reached down, swept them aside, then lifted its leg to step on one.

Now that he was so close, what to do? Fuhr was belted
in behind the levers, his back and head protected by the metal shell. Close up, Modo could see how much the head was like a giant helmet housing Fuhr’s body. The man sucked on a cigar as if he were out on a stroll, the smoke drifting into the air. The arms of his suit had torn, revealing his own metal limbs.

“Fuhr!” Octavia called. She stood a few yards in front of the giant. “Fuhr! You’re surrounded! Surrender now!”

Fuhr exhaled laughter and smoke. Then, to Modo’s horror, he brought the giant’s arm down toward her.

A
t the last moment Octavia darted out of the way and the claws thudded into the ground, tearing up the grass. She took a moment to look right at Modo, and he was certain it was an admonishing glance, then she dodged a second blow. She was trying to send a message to him, but what? He slapped the side of his head. Of course! She was providing a distraction.