The Flux Engine Read Online Free PDF Page A

rough from here on out.”
    Pain lanced through John’s body so quickly that he didn’t have time to react. His wound burned as if he were being branded with a hot iron.
    He screamed.
    John thought he’d felt pain before. Once his arm had been burned by a steam leak. Another time he’d smashed his finger in a flywheel. None of that had prepared him for this. It felt as if his ribs were being pried apart by a steam jack, one notch at a time. His body jerked and spasmed and his lungs were on fire. The bullet wound in his chest pulsed rhythmically and he could hear a wet, tearing noise issuing from it.
    Looking down at the wound, John blinked his eyes to clear them. A metal arm extended from a small hole in the brass coffin lid. A round, metal device was attached to its end with three long, finger-like appendages and a glowing orange crystal at their center.
    The crystal blazed with light and the arm moved over John’s chest.
    The slug had hit him in the left side, just above the heart. The hole it left slowly began to bulge outward, leaking blood like a fleshy volcano. The sickening tearing noise got louder, reaching John’s ears as vibrations transferred through his body rather than through the air. He watched in horror as his chest spasmed and the protruding wound suddenly spat out a wad of clotted blood.
    Pain hit him again, like someone digging in his open wound with a blunt instrument. Tears flooded his eyes and he threw his head back, grinding his teeth against the urge to scream.
    When the pain subsided enough he looked back at his wound. The orange crystal hung just over it now, the light from it pulsing in rhythmic bursts. His chest was even more distended than before. It gave a tremendous jerk and suddenly John saw a lump of smoky crystal emerge. Immediately the brass fingers clamped down, grabbing the slug and pulling it away from the gaping wound. Blood flowed freely now and John could feel himself getting lightheaded.
    Something stung him and he saw a second metal rod sticking into his forearm trailing a tube of amber liquid. More arms emerged from the brass lid, each with a different tool. Some had short, straight blades on their ends, other needles with spools of thread, still others with barbs attached to tubing with strange colored liquids in them. One of the barbs lashed out, striking like a scorpion into John’s neck.
    His vision began to fade, but before he lost consciousness, he watched in horror as the metal arms began to spin and dance, tearing into his wounded chest like a ring of rattlesnakes, striking and retreating only to strike again. A terrible keening wail filled his ears, the sound of a crystal engine at work, mixing with the unmistakable sounds of his own screaming.
    He looked up, locking eyes with the face outside the little window. He tried to cry for help, for an end to his suffering, but his strength had left him and he drifted away again into darkness.
    O O O
    “Is he dead?” a strange voice asked from what seemed a great distance.
    “’Course not,” a western accent replied. “The Rectification Chamber’s done its work. Now you just let the boy heal up for a few days and he’ll be good as new.”
    John managed to open one eye and an unfamiliar room swam lazily into his vision. It was round and white with a large brass box, like a coffin in the middle. At each end a nest of metal arms stood still and unmoving and a control crown hung from a stud protruding from the box’s side.
    “That’s too long,” the first voice said. “He didn’t do this on his own. I want to know who his partner was.”
    “Probably the same one that shot him,” mustache mused.
    “There’s no helping it,” accent said. “If you wake him up now, you’ll kill him for sure.”
    The voices went on talking but John could no longer understand what they were saying. A face drifted through his memory. The tattooed face of a young woman with a smoking pistol.
    Get up.
    Nothing.
    Get up and find