Fiddlehead (The Clockwork Century) Read Free Page B

goddamn piece of junk … it is the Fiddlehead!”
    Gideon objected to the “junk” part, but not too strongly, given that these people couldn’t tell a sophisticated calculating device from a relatively mundane printing apparatus. “Idiots,” he mumbled softly as he unscrewed the powder’s lid.
    “It’s huge,” one gunman correctly observed.
    “Sure is making a lot of noise.”
    While they talked over the printer’s racket, Gideon found an empty measuring glass and filled it with the aluminum powder. Then, with exceptional care, he added the chlorate.
    “Don’t worry about it: It’s only noise, not a weapon or nothing. Now where’d that nigger get off to?”
    Gideon paused, lifting an eyebrow. “Just for that …” He reached over his head, jabbing his fingers into the cabinet again, this time nabbing a vial of sulfur. With a gentle tap, he dumped the yellow substance into his mix, jostled it oh-so-gently, and turned once more to the map in his mind.
    Now he needed a spark.
    He considered the printing apparatus. He mentally examined the console and dismissed it, knowing it was too well sealed. The most obvious target was across the room where the wires emerged from the basement. They were hot now, their uninsulated ends casting small fizzes of light all along the switch box.
    The printer slowed. Its keys pounded down with less regularity, coming to the end of its instructions, to the very end of the answer Gideon needed … and the room fell quiet.
    Even Gideon’s ears were ringing, so he knew how strange the silence must feel to the men who weren’t accustomed to the outstanding drone of the metal keys. Still, he’d have only a few seconds while they shook their heads and found their bearings and a few seconds more than that before their ears calmed down enough to hear the hum of the big machine downstairs.
    He couldn’t let them notice.
    “You got the dynamite?”
    Gideon’s back straightened when he heard that word. He didn’t like it. Should’ve expected it. But would have to work around it now, and analyze the meaning of it later. His brain needed to stay on track, just the one track, which he’d narrowed down from many.
    He retrieved the paper, bundling it up under his arm and clamping it against his ribs. He tore off a blank strip from the edge, wadded it into a ball, and used it to stopper the small glass cup.
    The sound of tearing paper got the gunmen’s attention again. One of them shouted, “He’s over there!”
    But before the words were out of the man’s mouth, Gideon was on his feet. He flung the glass across the room and immediately turned his back, dropping back down behind the table.
    His aim was better than the gunmen’s, and his concoction was true. The glass shattered against the fuse panel and the powdered mixture exploded—and the room went blank with fire, a blinding chemical light, and a terrible smell.
    It threw a shadow so strong that Gideon squinted, even though he was crouched down on the floor and facing the other direction.
    “My eyes! Jesus Christ, my eyes!”
    “He had a bomb!”
    “Give me your dynamite!”
    “I can’t see! I can’t see anything!”
    “I can, a little bit—give me your sticks!”
    The idea of two half-blind fools playing with dynamite was not the sort of thing to make a man dally, so while the gunmen struggled with their explosives, Gideon seized the trapdoor ladder and withdrew into the unfinished cellar. At the bottom he kicked the final rung, bringing the ladder down with him. If the gunmen wanted to follow him, they could jump and break a leg.
    He climbed the steps to the exterior door and unlocked it, shoving it with his upper back. It was heavy, but it wasn’t barricaded from the other side. He knocked it open and stepped out into the crisp November night.
    His breath clotted in the air, and the stars looked like ice. He was free, and his unwelcome guests didn’t know it yet.
    But had the unwelcome guests brought