FIC: [Haven] CLOCKWORK, Chapter 9 (Audrey/Duke/Nathan, R)

[roseveare]

9.

Fixing the arm jangled Duke's every last nerve. He kept recalling yesterday and a maintenance session that had felt more like a sex act. He could only remember what he'd thought and felt while he was that guy, and not the history and context that went with it, and that made things difficult to recall at all... But the associations kept coming back as he rolled the little gears around in his fingers and gripped his other hand around the screwdriver's handle.

Yesterday, the metal body that focused his attention had been alive and alert with a reluctant receptiveness, although still metal. Today it was rigid and lifeless, unresponsive as though Wuornos was holding himself in for all he was worth.

Duke had a letter... two letters... three, damn it, and the last he was afraid to open, and had left it where it was, burning a hole in his breast pocket with the others. The two he'd read elucidated more or less the same thing, by two inarguably different hands: that there was something between himself and the automaton, something real and big, that he couldn't ignore however much he wanted to.

Nathan's letter was actually the easier. It said, in words scored deeply into the paper, formed with the uncertainty of someone who wasn't used to manipulating a mechanical hand:

You're the one who wanted to write letters and it seems like I have the time now, while you and Audrey snore, so here you go.

I'm not a machine. I'm as human as you are. In fact, we grew up together, and one time I even broke my arm sledding and you took me to the hospital. Plenty of real blood, and real bone sticking out, too. I don't know if any memories will make it through, but that one has as good a chance as any. Aside from that, we've been intimate enough that you damned well know I'm made of flesh and blood. Your Pinocchio jokes don't count.

I'm still a policeman, that much this Trouble got right. Even there, it threw in a demotion -- that's CHIEF of police, damn it, though I can anticipate how your alternate is going to love that revelation. But try bear it in mind when you're being an ass about the clockwork transformation. There's a world where I decide what is and isn't a valid parking ticket, Duke.

Love, N.

Duke had brushed the pad of his thumb over those final two words, wondering. Most of the letter was dry, and slightly cranky, and not exactly aiming for heavy emotional appeal. But the fact he'd chosen that manner to sign off was something Duke found hard to ignore. It was written less tidily and scored deeper than the other words, as though Nathan had hesitated and then just gone for it, gouging the word 'love' before he could change his mind.

Duke figured that even if the real thing was, well, real, it said something about someone's personality if they could be translated into a collection of metal and gears. Signing love was an act of significance.

Nathan's letter, he could have dealt with. Nathan's letter either knew what it was fucking doing and had the forethought not to freak him out with the details, or -- more likely -- the personality of its writer leaned toward those reserved tendencies anyway.

The other letters were a different matter. He'd found them while getting changed into the new outfits when they were shopping, though he hadn't had time to think about reading them until they were waiting for Audrey to be fit into that dress she'd bought and Nathan was standing in a huff surrounded by baggage. The letters were slightly wrinkled, as though the paper had been damp when they were written. The writing was scrawled and hurried. He had a recollection of writing them in a bathroom when he didn't have very much time.

The letter he'd opened and read, the one addressed to him, was nothing but details. It was like he'd written it with the specific aim to freak himself the fuck out. What had he been thinking, or had he even been thinking, when he wrote a pornographic treatise on the qualities of the real Nathan Wuornos' ass? Okay, there was a line or two in there about his eyes, but mostly it was the ass. And the absolute priority, apparently, of returning it to its full flesh and blood living perfection.

Then again, considering he had written it in the shower, and what had taken place before that, maybe he'd just been hellishly horny.

The semi-relevant part was in agreement with the real Nathan's input on the subject: He's everything you think except that he's real and none of it matters. You've known him forever and loved him almost as long, so try not to be too much of a dick to him, even if you don't remember.

Audrey hadn't escaped the attention, though the comments about her were both more restrained to start with and accompanied with for-the-love-of-everything-don't-show-this-to-her type pleas. Why he'd thought it was so important to protect her and but had felt free to land this mindfuck on himself, Duke couldn't imagine.

But that was the other part of this Duke couldn't quite get a grip on, Nathan’s metal ass aside -- how the three of them were together and that worked somehow. He'd done threesomes, but they'd always ended with a quick "bye" in the morning before things could get complicated. Then again, apart from Evi, that was mostly how he'd done twosomes as well.

And how, how to take on board this revelation that their lives weren't real? This, everything he’d seen and done and felt, wasn't real. His childhood -- were his real parents as shitty as the ones he remembered? Was everything somehow equivalent but askew? Nathan had said he was still a cop.

The idea of nothing ever having been real hurt, and that didn't make sense because, well, his crappy childhood had been crappy, and he’d dragged himself out of it and at least done something with his life, but it wasn’t as though he’d ever had the breaks, and he'd pretty much figured he'd trade it in at the drop of a hat. But... where did that leave him, if all that hardship had been for nothing? If it was some kind of magically imposed memory instead of a life?

Feeling cheated as hell, he thought, that was where. He figured he understood how Nathan felt about the idea of not being a mechanical man who badly wanted to be taken seriously as a person in his own right. Audrey, with her confusion and her absent memory, didn't deserve to be left picking up after their freakouts, though, when she already had plenty to contend with.

It was a relief to finish the work on Nathan's hand, screw the plate on over the operational limb, and be able to turn away.

The train had been moving, gathering up speed since he'd started work on the hand, forcing him to compensate for the occasional shake. The terrain around Breinor wasn't exactly arduous or exciting, and he’d been too absorbed to pay much attention to the land they were headed through either way, though Audrey's gaze had long since drifted to the window. Nathan stood and fastened his cuff back down over his mended wrist, and Duke avoided looking at him because the automaton's aura of depression made him feel unaccountably shitty.

Duke had a strong urge to be moving, doing, and elsewhere. "We should go see what's on offer on this train. Long journey ahead. I didn't bring a book to read, did you?" He faked looking askance at the other two. His books were in the downed Cape Rouge with everything else he owned.

"We should stay here," Nathan said dully. "Safer to keep to ourselves in our cabins."

"For you, maybe," Duke said, his annoyance with the automaton rising again. "I guess it's easier when you can stand in the closet and switch off for thirty-two hours. The rest of us who need to eat will at least have to venture out for dinner." He touched Audrey's arm -- she was regarding the automaton with concern. "He doesn't have to come with us. Let's check out the entertainment car."

Nathan's head came up. "Looking to cheat at cards again?"

A spark of life. Duke grinned, even though the question hadn't been friendly. "I might be."

"I guess that's more honest than outright stealing the money." It was amazing that the tension in how Nathan held his metal body could so clearly give off those vibes of righteous indignation, but beyond doubt he did that extremely well. "Fine, then. I'll stay here."

From the looks he'd been getting for his uppity behaviour, before, it probably was for the best. "Okay, you chill while we go do our thing."

Audrey said with a particular intensity, "It doesn't matter what they think you are. You know what you are. What the others are doesn't reflect on you. Especially if you're real."

Nathan averted his gaze and didn't reply before she let Duke tug her out of the room. Duke's frustration burst out as soon as the door clicked to behind them, even though they likely weren't out of earshot. "That's all we need! A freaking depressed automaton!"

"He's had a shock to his world view," Audrey said, disapprovingly.

"We've all had that."

She squinted up at him. "Probably the one-two punch of his is a bit more extreme. We're both still human."

The train rocked their steps, jogging them from side to side along the lush wood-panelled corridor of the sleeper car. There were voices from some of the rooms, murmurs or louder laughter. Most of the light fed in through windows at strategic points in recesses between the rooms. Though there were gas lamps on the walls to eliminate the darkest corners, they were currently unlit, making it dingy and cramped. The land going past the windows was grey with coal dust and scarred from mining, and it was raining. Dust motes floated in the air inside the carriages, and they had the musty smell of not being aired often enough.

Train wasn't Duke's preferred mode of travel and a lot of this was new to him. He'd occasionally been forced to get on a train for short hops, to make deals in places where it wasn't financially or physically practical to take the Rouge, but this line was nothing like those of his experience.

Contrary to what Nathan probably thought, he didn't usually risk stealing large sums of money from the grossly rich in so casual a fashion. People like that had influence and pursued their grudges, and it was far too chancy. But the situation had warranted action and like hell was he going to show doubt in front of the clockwork cop. Better to be taken for a great crook than a petty one, anyway, and Nathan was probably still going to arrest him at the end of this for either infringement.

That was the problem with automata. No discernment. No sense of scale.

To get through to the entertainment car, Duke and Audrey had to bypass the dining car via a narrow passageway. His attention pulled that way by a metallic clamour and the sound of voices, Duke caught a glimpse through the glass window in the door at the end. Waitresses were setting up tables but Duke spotted something else that caused his heart to jump horribly in his chest.

Cops. Real cops -- flesh and blood ones, anyway. Breinor's, from the uniforms. He noticed cops, alright? Two of them were talking to the Maitre D'. Duke didn't know how they'd got aboard, hadn't seen them on the platform before they left, but then they had been running late when they boarded the train.

Paranoia about that stolen wad of money returned full force.

Audrey stumbled into him in the narrow passage, and his pause at that window really had taken too long. He made himself move. Audrey's small, steadying hand on his shoulder became a point of focus he was deeply grateful for.

"What's the matter?" she whispered, waiting until they were well away from the open doorway.

"We need to lose the money," Duke said. "And I mean lose it. At the cards tables -- get a good spread around the other guests. We need to do it now."

"You think the bills are traceable?" she asked.

"I don't know." He'd pushed down his misgivings about that thick, new wad of cash at the time. If it had come straight from the bank, those bills could be new-minted, sequential, known. With such a large monetary theft, of course they'd notify the police. Since the theft had occurred in the station, they'd probably checked with the ticket desk first thing. Maybe they'd been able to figure out from the amount of suspect bills the ticket desk had just exactly which fare the thieves had paid, how many of them they were, and which train they were on... "We can't risk it."

Lunch was to be served late, at 2pm, in concession to the late leaving time. That gave him just over an hour and a half to get to work disseminating suspect cash throughout the passengers on board the train. Blowing an unreasonable amount quickly would only draw attention, so he had to be smarter than that. Try to move around the money rather than outright lose. Win back some honest cash so they weren't out of pocket.

The games tables weren't an ideal environment at the moment, less densely populated than they would be later, but he needed to start this as soon as possible if the cops were going to search and question passengers… Duke headed for the most lively game and peeled some bills from the remnant of the wad in his pocket to offer up with a sly smile. "Room for one more?"

He started by matching the bets of the other players before injecting some subtle encouragement to go higher -- subtle enough that he hopefully would not be remembered as the one to advocate it. At first he played conservatively to win, and used sleight of hand to tuck winnings away in a different pocket to the bills he needed to lose. It was more than enough pocket change -- even the starting bets were large, comparable with the amounts he usually only saw moving an airship full of cargo around. After upping the stakes, he set about a subtle losing streak that hopefully wasn't too extreme to stand out if anyone was questioned about who'd lost big. Once the suspect bills were in the game, winning didn't benefit his goals.

Audrey hung off his arm and was kind of doing her best, but he had a pretty good idea that she wasn't these folks’ idea of a lady. In fact, there was a significant chance that this crowd would take her to be with him for, well, immoral purposes. Even perhaps that she’d been hired to accompany him for immoral purposes.

Much as he probably shouldn't wait for someone to make that assumption and provoke Audrey's wrathful reaction to it, there was no chance he was broaching the subject himself.

Duke was a sociable guy, but still he was unprepared for when the game hit a sort of rhythm and his fellow players started making conversation. The gentleman on Duke's left... was a gentleman, and that was probably all of the problem in a nutshell. Clothes impeccably tailored and with an upturn to his nose, slick, smooth hair and thin, soft hands moving over the cards, he looked like he hadn't done a day's work in his life. There was definitely a judgemental sneer on his lips for Duke. The fellow eventually made himself ask, in an effort at civility, "So, are you journeying to Heppa for business or pleasure?"

The man across the table answered robustly before Duke could open his mouth. He was short and stocky, wearing an over-decorative ruffled shirt, with an expansive style of his own and brighter clothes than everyone else present. It seemed he had little care for fashion and every care to enjoy his money as he pleased. "Nobody but you would go to Heppa for pleasure, Aspen! Maybe you've never been before, eh? They hound out 'pleasure' there! Probably a law against it!" He elbowed Duke in friendly conspiracy.

Duke could get behind that gripe, for sure. "I think there is. Watch yourself, walking around with that attitude. Why, the last time I was there, they almost arrested my girl!" He slipped an indicative arm around Audrey's shoulders and jogged her fondly. "And do you know what? We to this day don't have a clue why!"

He managed to bury the "oof" as she punched him under the table.

"They're quite against any fun at all," his ally agreed, eyes sparkling.

"I was never arrested," Audrey said, letting her annoyance show. "They had no cause."

"My dear," declared Mrs Murphy, whose first name remained a mystery to Duke, but possibly to the rest of the table as well. "I'm sure they did not." She was dressed in dark colours with few frills in evidence and only a little relatively plain jewellery. She was travelling alone but for her maid, which had been remarked upon by two of the men, and Duke was leaning toward the theory she was a widow, but couldn't be sure. Perhaps she was only a widow to her husband's interests. She spoke to Audrey in an arch tone that hinted her thoughts didn't tally with the words spoken, but they contained less judgement than Duke might have feared. She looked at the man identified as Aspen. "I, too, am going to Heppa for sightseeing purposes, Charlie. The towers are remarkable, and word has it there are several new automated public art installations since my last visit, though I must say that the old ones were well worth a repeat visit in themselves."

Duke felt his view of Heppa take a sideways jar. "Really, the towers?" It slipped out almost without thought. "I always thought them useful, but ugly."

"Progress is never ugly," Charlie Aspen said.

Duke couldn't quite work out how to respond to that with diplomacy before Mrs Murphy laughed without restraint and flicked her hand in dismissal. "Coal is the ugliest thing of all. Steam is ugly! Now we exist coated in dust, with the sky dulled and grey, but we embrace it anyway, for the advantages." She slapped down her cards. "If any of you boys can beat that, I'll eat my hat."

The brightly dressed man did, but nobody called her on the promise. Instead, he remarked as he shuffled the cards, "I am going to Heppa for business. Coal, as it happens, has its benefits."

"I didn't dispute it," she responded tartly. "And I am well aware of where your business interests lie, Mr Rush."

Duke had to stop his head from jerking around too sharply. He knew the name. Arnold Rush controlled half the coal mining and haulage this side of Heppa. That he had made his fortune from business probably singled him out from most of the other occupants at their table.

Audrey noticed his reaction and her eyes conducted a subtle, searching scan of both himself and Rush. She settled for asking, "How do you enjoy working in coal, Mr Rush? Your suit looks pretty clean to me."

He grinned back. "The ones I wear on site are not. It's a dingy business, but has been kind for me, apart from a persistent and tedious cough." He returned his attention to Duke. "Where does your business lie?"

Duke supposed no-one had to be particularly astute to tell that he did not come from money. "Airships," he said. Over the next few minutes, the Crocker Airship Co. was born, along with the tale of the company flagship downed in a pirate attack. Less strictly true, he made the addition of their need to travel to Heppa to retrieve the downed craft and fill in the relevant paperwork. "I'd be flying to Heppa, if it wasn't for that loss. I'm hoping enough repairs can be made for us to fly back."

"Pirates are so tedious," Mrs Murphy exclaimed, in the kind of voice she might use to comment about the weather. "You hear about such things happening more and more."

"I can not fly," said Aspen with a shudder. "Give me the rail any day."

"I have heard," said Morris Wastra, coming back into the conversation and the game from his semi-doze with a burst of speech interrupted by a hiccup as the table politely ignored his state of inebriation before lunch, "that there are even bandits on the rails these days."

"A train was stopped in Querul," Mrs Murphy said, nodding, and the conversation turned to a resounding condemnation of criminal activity that had Duke trying not to squirm in his seat. Audrey was punching him under the table again, though it was entirely possible others would take her subtle movements as something else.

Several more people wandered into the entertainment car and the game expanded, allowing Duke to further spread his dirty money about.

"Do you see that man?" Mrs Murphy leaned over and hissed to Audrey, who she seemed unexpectedly to have taken to as a female ally.

"The large man? With long black hair? He looks familiar..."

Duke had never seen the man before, though he was aware a stir of interest had been created when he'd entered the car. "Who is he?"

"That's Bradley Lock, the inventor."

Duke's eyebrows raised. Like Rush, he'd heard the name. He himself had noticed the man mostly because he had an automaton stationed at his shoulder, dressed to the nines as a butler. Duke had kind of hoped they wouldn't see any more. As an elbow decoration, they were expensive and rare, and the tin cop was already having a clockwork meltdown. Still, looking at this one did make him think how much more animated and human Nathan was by comparison.

Duke had never previously thought about how Heppa gave their police automata lives, homes, educations, hobbies. He was weirded out by that thought suddenly landing on him, while he looked at this automaton.

The man, Lock, didn't look like much, though the people nearest him seemed to be particularly fawning. He was stressing the seams of an expensive frock coat and his hair was long and curled. He raised his head and their eyes connected before Duke could duck his gaze. Lock's face flickered strangely, then wiped clear and he beamed and raised a hand. "Mr Crocker, is it not? Come, come, join me in a drink!"

Duke looked around his own table in an apologetic fashion which hopefully conveyed that he was sure the company was better here, but politeness demanded he accept the invitation.

Chance to spread his suspect money among even more of the passenger roster, he supposed.

He wasn't sure how Lock had found out his name, but the gossip had to spread like wildfire in this closed environment. Probably he should get used to everyone knowing his name, plus everything else that left his lips, while they were aboard the train.

Audrey planted her feet and clenched her fingers on his arm as he rose. She whispered urgently, "I... That man he... This familiarity, it's... I have a bad feeling about that man, Duke." Her eyes squeezed shut and she pressed her fingers to her head, close to the fading marks of her head injury.

He patted her fingers and covered for her. "Let's be polite and mingle." If Lock was someone dangerous and was somehow involved, it was probably better to play along and not reveal that they suspected. Duke had a creeping feeling about the man, too. Something in his eyes...

The press of fawners around Lock parted to let them in at the table. Two chairs vacated like magic. Duke glanced back and happened to catch Mrs Murphy's expression. He thought it looked dubious rather than envious.

"My good fellow. Airships, isn't it?" There was something sarcastic, biting, buried in the depths of that, not anywhere near openly enough to register on anyone not in the know. Duke quickly scanned back through his memory for anything about meeting this man before, but there was no real nagging familiarity, even though he'd swear in that moment that Lock absolutely knew the Crocker Airship Co. consisted of himself and one out-of-commission vessel. "And... the lady." His gaze fixed on Audrey too intently, with a hint of anxiety that seemed to dissolve at her responding pale, blank expression.

"Mr Lock, I hear," Duke rallied. "You seem to have a reputation."

"Not always the best of things. You do have a taste for fine machines, I noted. Did I see you with an N322 class automaton, out on the platform earlier?"

Duke had no idea what Nathan's technical designation was. "I guess that's true," he hazarded, and when Lock made a show of looking around, added, "He's cranky. The pile of bolts decided to stay in the cabin."

Maybe he'd admitted too much, but the truth made it harder to get caught in a lie, and if he positioned Nathan as defective from the start, maybe his less than subservient behaviour would be shrugged off when he finally ventured out.

Lock's eyes gleamed a bit. "An interesting choice, that series. Do you know how many of their features have since been discontinued? They learn a little too well. Almost the only buyer that seemed to regret the decision to scale back was Heppa municipal state."

"Really?" Duke managed not to sound like he was choking the word out, but his breath had just deserted him. Oh, this bastard knew. But how much did he know, and how? "That would explain a few things, but no, I did not know that. Picked him up recently at an auction." He eyed the stiff, expressionless automaton behind Lock. "To be truthful, I'd sworn never to own one, but he seemed to have a bit more about him." He made a laughing play of taking a step back from Lock's clockwork butler. "It's their stare that freaks me out."

Lock's smile twitched. "Yes. A pity about the face. Human musculature is an amazing thing... and the human eye! Impossible to truly duplicate in artificial materials."

"You’re saying they scaled them down to something less because they were too human?” Audrey spoke up, her voice almost enraged. “But that’s… so sad.” Duke could see her hesitate, and opt to choose a lesser word, one the person she was purporting to be might use, and swallow most of her outrage. “Does he have an opinion on that?" She leaned forward and fixed her eyes on the butler. "Do you?" She searched his face, waiting for some kind of response to gage how much he was like Nathan.

"I do not," the automaton said.

"Butler shares my opinions," Lock said. "A more recent model than yours, perhaps, but he has been with me since new."

Duke shrugged. The emphasis on that suggested there was an insult buried in it, but he hardly cared. He didn't own Nathan, so no skin off his nose. Besides, if this guy did know that Nathan was really a Heppa cop--

Audrey was still working on the automaton, morosely testing him for humanity with her eyes. Duke elbowed her. "Well, shall we play cards?" He reached for his money, prepared to lose another wad.

Did Lock know about the money? Duke thought uneasily. He might not. Duke didn't know the source of Lock’s information. If he really was some kind of genius, perhaps it was crazy guesswork. If he was in league with the people who were hunting Audrey, and knew she'd been on Duke Crocker's airship with one of Heppa's police automata, it still did not mean he knew about the money or had any links with the police Duke had seen on the train.

Lock grinned and let the game resume. Audrey was tense at Duke's side, and he knew she wanted to leave. He might be able to excuse himself after one game, but staying for a few more would be better for appearances.

"Unlucky," Lock declared as he scraped the winnings in. He didn't play like a genius. Duke had had to cheat to lose.

"I'll catch up in the next game," Duke said.

Audrey was glaring at him. "Next time, I'm playing," she said crisply, to cover it up. "His luck has been horrible today," she told Lock.

Lock looked amused. Duke shifted as a few of the fawning gentlemen snickered at the declaration.

Lock made a few neutral comments about automaton technology that Duke didn't fully understand, while Duke proceeded to lose the next game and promised himself he’d make the third game the last. "We really must go freshen up for lunch, after this," he said, primarily to Audrey, but added a smirk for the audience, "If I lose this next game, I really will give you my bank."

The man to the right of Lock dealt the cards and Duke had his ready to put down when Lock said, in a low, silky voice projected at just him, "They say it's a cruelty to use the N322 for more subservient purposes, with that level of sentience. Still, I can't help but admit some curiosity. I don't usually lend Butler out, but I might be tempted to propose a temporary trade..."

Duke felt his jaw drop. He surely hadn't heard that right, or at least interpreted that right. Lock couldn't have meant that-- Dimly, his brain registered Audrey's snapped response of, "No, that's not happening," and the snickers of the hangers-on sounded surreal. Unreal.

"No. Thank you." He bit off the words, hoping he made them sound enough like an insult. He dropped his cards without looking at them, nor anyone else's. "We'll excuse ourselves now."

Lock's brows went up, unapologetic. "Did I misread you? So easily done. Of course, if yours is a refurbished Heppa municipal automaton then he might not be equipped for that kind of use. Who knows how they strip them down, there?" His hangers-on tittered, though Duke had the impression most of them didn't know what they were laughing at. Lock had... had assumed he was a part of some secret club? A clockwork fetish underground? Was that where he’d been angling from all along? To think Duke had figured that if he claimed Nathan belonged to him that would alleviate the potential for scandalous assumptions...

"Come on," he said to Audrey, getting up, angry and making little effort to hide it. Now he knew how Nathan felt... Although probably it was a different angle on the situation to be considered the type of person who'd keep a sentient sex toy, rather than to discover that you were a sentient sex toy.

"Don't you want your winnings?" Lock asked.

Duke had no intention of turning back, but Audrey leaned over and grabbed the cash from the centre of the table, fisting her hand around it.

"We're going," she said forcefully. She glared Duke on ahead of her out of the carriage.