The Amerigans, clearly agitated, seemed to be arguing behind their cracked wall. Some peered through what she thought were the seeing tubes she had heard about at university. Maybe she could examine one when they landed, she thought. But then the lead dirigible began to move up and backward, away from Viracocha’s Land, and the others went with it.
Ilyapa found widowhood to be tolerable. She thought of her late husband fondly, but without regret, as he had lived an extraordinarily long life. Immediately after the Coya was sacrificed, it became apparent that performance evaluations would be necessary in Ilyapa’s department. Khuno received an evaluation so unsatisfactory that the oligarchy sent him to work on the maintenance of mining devices far away, in the southernmost gold mine of Viracocha’s Land.
The new Sapa Inca wasn’t terribly complicated. His giant size allowed one of his specially-trained “brothers" to climb inside and operate his body when necessary. Although the Amerigans didn’t return to visit for a long time afterward, Ilyapa thought her step-son was much more handsome than his father had been, and she enjoyed working on his Voice.
Mary Sundown and the Clockmaker’s Children
Malon Edwards
I reach thirty-five miles an hour the moment I see the pinprick of light leading to the surface. My stride is smooth; my clockwork is fluid.
And then, I stumble. Another explosion has rattled the north passage of the LaSalle Street Tunnel.
It takes me just a fraction of a second to recover my balance and regain my speed, despite the incline and the sifted dirt and flakes of concrete shaken loose. It’s a treacherous floor. The Chicago River has found its way in, too. One misstep, and I won’t ever run again.
As the tunnel mouth looms large, I accelerate piti a piti—little by little. I hit forty-five miles an hour when I burst into the daylight and my feet touch the cobblestones on Kinzie Street.
I’m out! I almost shout to Marie-Louise through the aetherlink we once shared, but then I remember: she’s dead. Broken. Crushed by Zonbi Robot.
The very same Zonbi Robot leveling its Dahlgren guns at me now.
Lè Marie-Louise te eseye fè m fache—.
Ah. Excuse me. I apologize. Allow me to say that again.
When Marie-Louise tried to piss me off, which was often, she would say I killed papa nou—our father, the Clockmaker—because he built me last and I was the most difficult of his children to assemble.
Sometimes, when she said that, I would remind Marie-Louise papa nou crippled his once strong brown hands and blinded his once sharp brown eyes fashioning the fine springs and small gears he gave my three hundred ninety-nine brothers and sisters. Long before he built me.
Other times, I would answer Marie-Louise by showing her how long and shiny my middle finger is.
Like I show Zonbi Robot now. It doesn’t seem too happy about that. But then, neither was Marie-Louise.
It takes less than half a second for me to realize I’m not the target of Zonbi Robot’s Dahlgren shell guns. It’s aiming behind me, at the rebuilt Chicago Board of Trade Building.
Maybe Zonbi Robot thinks that’s where the Lord Mayor Jean Baptiste Point du Sable is hiding. Maybe it perceives the building as a symbol of our city-state wealth. Or maybe it just gets off on wanton destruction. I wouldn’t be surprised. Papa mwen, my father, built me to get off on speed.
But no matter what the building means to Zonbi Robot, I have sworn to protect the Lord Mayor. Until I am broken. Until this war ends. Or until I wind down.
I promised papa mwen.
Kounye a, I am all that stands between the jealous might of the State of Illinois and a living, breathing, functioning Sovereign State of Chicago. If the Lord Mayor dies, so does everything he’s given us. Freedom. Prosperity. Kreyòl.
So I do what I do best to ensure he does not die. I challenge Zonbi Robot to a race.
Marie-Louise first called it Zonbi Robot. The Illinois National Guard calls it Big Boy. Fè sans. Makes sense.
One hundred feet tall, it’s a massive coal-fired boiler with a Bonnet stack for a head, two soda-pop-shaped IX-inch Dahlgren shell guns for arms, and two 4-8-8-4 Union Pacific Big Boy steam locomotives for legs.
Every fifth step Zonbi Robot takes, black smoke belches out of a smaller diamond stack set in the middle of its back. I can only imagine the amount of coal and steam power it needs to ambulate.
As Zonbi Robot stomps with toddler fury around River North and Old Town and the Gold Coast, wispy, thin smoke wafts up from the deep, jagged footprints it leaves behind. When the rains come, those footprints will become miniature ribbon lakes matching the Great Lake to the east.
Zonbi Robot might be big and strong, and it might be able to stomp more than just mud holes in the earth, but I’m faster. Even faster than Marie-Louise was.
That used to be all that mattered to me. But now, I realize: ou pa ka mare pye lanmò.
You can’t outrun death.
But you can give her a hell of a race.
Bonjou, Zonbi Robot! I shout, throwing back my head and craning my neck to the sky. Do you want to race?
Zonbi Robot doesn’t answer. I’m not surprised. It’s not as sophisticated as I am.
Sa pa fè anyen. It doesn’t matter. It’s also not as fast as I am. Watch. I’ll show you.
Tankou moun fou, like a crazy person, I run right at Zonbi Robot. In six strides, I hit fifty-five miles an hour. In ten strides, I hit seventy-five miles an hour.
I am swift. I am deft. I am fleet. I've never run this fast before from a standing start.
I just hope I don’t wind down before I reach Lake Michigan.
I could never just leave it at the middle finger. Marie-Louise always pissed me off. She knew how to get my gears.
It was how papa nou made us. He built us in pairs. We always ran together.
Marie-Louise was my counterpart. She was my competition. She was my rival. Even when we delivered messages and packages west of the Mississippi River.
That had been our original purpose. We'd been built to bring word and comfort to the few remaining people between the Mississippi River and the West Coast after the bombs dropped.
It is a noble task, papa nou had told us, as he wound Marie-Louise and me for departure. He’d made sure each and every child of his was aware of the gravity.
Before each run, he made us recite:
We are the Clockmaker’s Children.
We deliver throughout the scorched land.
We are swift. We are fleet. We are cunning.
Our days are nights, and our nights are endless.
Yet, we run fast and nimble, guided by the faint, daemon-light of the glowing ashes.
We are the dawn on the horizon.
We are the hope of despair.
Four hundred strong, we are brothers and sisters of the gear.
But now, we are one.
It’s quite easy to avoid the slow-motion stomps of Zonbi Robot. I also have no trouble navigating the craters it leaves behind. I long jump those with quick-smart grace.
But each stride, as I now move at eighty miles an hour, could be my last.
The two wind-up keys in my shoulder blades, and the two keys in my hips, spin like mad. But my clockwork is still fluid.
For now.
One of the reasons papa nou built us in pairs was to ensure we had a partner who wound us before we ran down. He also made certain to assign us destinations not too far from one another.
If I delivered to San Diego, Marie-Louise delivered to Los Angeles. We would meet in Oceanside to wind each other before the run home.