Jack Kane and the Statue of Liberty (22 page)

He held his hand out. “Partners.”

She looked at his hand before gripping it and shaking. “Partners.”

“We’ve got work to do…partner.”

Her cheeks turned a pretty shade of pink. If he wasn’t worried enough about getting ready for the upcoming battle, he would be frantic about Betsy. Sure she’d been right about the British conspiracy, but could she handle herself in battle? There was only room for one person inside the battle mech, and being that he built it, he had to be the one to operate it. If they had some communication device to use during the battle it would have been far better.

He’d have to dwell on that later. The battle mech would take time to get started and to get its weapons prepared, additional fuel loaded, and figure out the best route to take to Battery Park. So much to do, and so little time to get it all done. He continued into the yard’s main building.

Betsy cleared her throat. “Excuse me, Mr. Kane. Could you please direct me to where a lady might…clean up? If you don’t mind.”

He stood with his mouth open trying to figure out what to say, then bowed. “My Lady Wilkes. If you would allow me to escort you inside, I shall show you the facilities before I get to work preparing for my upcoming battle.”

“Why, Mr. Kane. Don’t you mean our upcoming battle? I do think we shook hands solidifying our position as partners.”

Once again he stood with his mouth open trying to think of how to respond.

She assisted by placing her fingers under his chin and closing his mouth.

“I stand corrected, Ms. Wilkes. Your assistance will be most appreciated.”

“Now, if you’ll lead the way, Mr. Kane. I shall take care of my business then we’ll get prepared.” She smiled then leaned in and kissed Jack softly on the cheek.

She took interminably long ‘washing up’, and he found himself fidgeting with the tools on the table. He took out the two halves of his damaged mask and laid them on the workbench.

The dent in the back of the helmet matched up with the large bump on the back of his head. He scratched it and got a nagging feeling once again he was forgetting something. He tried to play through the events of the day from the explosion, to the next explosion, to Sohmer and Company, but there was something about the day that eluded him.

He shook his head, picked up a mallet, and pounded out the damage to the helmet. He couldn’t have been more than three or four blows into the repairs when someone grabbed his arm.

Betsy put a hand to her head. “Please stop that. I’ve got quite a headache. Surely there must be a quieter way to repair your mask than with such a crude implement.”

“Well, there is.” He held up a bigger hammer.

“Perhaps you can fix that later. Let’s get your battle mech ready.” She turned to head into the back of the workshop.

“Well, the helmet is an important part,” he argued.

“Then we’ll fix it after I see the battle mech.”

“Well then, Ms. Wilkes, please follow me.” He left the mask and hammer on the table and led Betsy through the maze of rooms to the furthest one in the back. It was also the largest. The one that held the battle mech. Jack’s pride and joy. So much of himself had gone into its making.

He flung the door open. Even under the pale lights of the workroom, the mech was magnificent. He was proud of the work he’d done building and testing it. Surely there wasn’t a better mech in all the city.

With a chassis patch worked together from seven pot-bellied stoves, four for the outside layer and three for the inside, and a set of tracks taken from a broken-down track loader, the battle mech was an impressive twelve feet in height.

On the right side it had a long, thin arm with cutting claws at the end. On the left, a shorter arm held a length of chain with a wrecking ball. In the center of the pot-bellied exterior Jack set up the control center. He couldn’t help but be proud of his masterpiece.

“What is that?” she asked, shaking her head.

“That,” he put special emphasis on the word, “is my battle mech.”

“Jack, please don’t tell me you’re serious. This isn’t the battle mech you’re about to take up against Felonious.”

“Do you see an error in my design? I assure it’s quite sturdy. I even installed a cast iron dome that covered the control center in case something happens.”

“You’re serious? It looks like I could kick this, this thing and it would fall apart.”

Her words hurt and deflated him, but he needed to explain to her how wrong she was. “Oh, I assure you all the bolts are properly in place. It’s quite sturdy.”

“Couldn’t you have at least, I don’t know, cleaned it? Polished it? Made it out of something shinier?” She shrugged and shook her head.

“It’s made from cast iron. It’s quite solid.” He pounded his fist on its side to demonstrate how sturdy.

She wrinkled her nose. “But, Jack. It’s not like your mask at all. This thing… It’s, well, it’s ugly.”

He cocked his head and squinted at his battle mech. “It’s mostly symmetrical. I guess I don’t understand.”

“You’re out there trying to be a hero, right? Well, what will people think of a hero who goes into battle driving that?” She motioned to the mech with both hands.

He didn’t know what to say. She was complaining that he hadn’t built something flashy enough? “It’s a vehicle built from scraps from the yard. I didn’t have anything shiny.”

“Isn’t there any paint or anything?” She looked around.

“Betsy, we don’t have time to paint it.”

She paced and peered into all corners of the room, looking under each sheet and poking into each pile in the room with many mutters under her breath.

“I don’t see what’s the matter with it. It’s a machine built from scraps people have dropped off at the yard. By all rights, it’s as much their battle mech as mine.”

That stopped her in her tracks. “Jack, you’re brilliant. I know exactly what to do now. Get it started. I’ll be back as quickly as I can.”

“But aren’t Felonious’ men coming here to pick you up before the battle?”

“Oh, I’ll be here in time for that. And I’ll have a little surprise.”

With that she ran from the room and, Jack was quite certain, from the yard. He would have stayed there and waited for her to return, but he had to prepare for battle and there wasn’t much daylight left.

Sixteen

With an ample load of coal getting the engine running hot, Jack tugged a cord from the ceiling to open the side door before too much smoke filled the room. He had spent a great deal of time getting the battle mech prepared, but it truly didn’t have any practical field experience. Even though the park lay only a couple blocks away, he would be able to put the mech through its paces and make sure everything operated properly.

Betsy most likely wouldn’t be returning. He hoped in the hour that passed she was able to accomplish what she set out to do. He also wished she was far away from the battle. Least of all he didn’t want her in the hands of Felonious’ goons. That was the deal they had made, though.

Black smoke belched from the rear of the mech as Jack pushed two side levers forward. Each lever controlled the speed of the track on that side. This gave him the ability to turn in place. The weapons were a combination of foot pedals and hand switches. As the mech idled, he took out his repaired mask and clamped it on his head, setting his hat on top.

The sun hadn’t dipped beneath the horizon. Glad to have the sun at his back as he made his way down the street to the park, he prepared to close off the top of his mech, but as he did a brilliant flash of light blossomed from his right.

~ * ~

Felonious hunched in the pilot’s chair of his mech and peered through the cockpit screen. His instruments warned him Jack’s mech approached. Now it was time to wait in ambush. He hid in among some trees beside the main street to the park.

He rubbed his hands together, his mech mimicking the movements with a loud screeching of metal. Felonious jerked and scanned around to see if anyone heard.

He was in luck. Nothing gave him away except a small flock of birds squawking into the sky.

Anticipation was hard, especially when victory was assured.

How best to destroy the meddling boy? Blunt force?

No, that would damage the boy’s mech too much, and there might be some technology worth claiming after the battle. Felonious shrugged and tossed a tree over the mech’s shoulder, narrowly missing a duck and her ducklings in a small pond.

What about…No. A gun would be noisy and attract unwanted attention.

He spied a gas lamp burning to his right and remembered the flamethrower attachment on the right arm. He’d been itching to try that particular gizmo. There simply hadn’t been a good opportunity before. Today would be the perfect time. Cook the boy a little until he surrendered, and then capture the technology.

Felonious’ audio pick-ups detected the heavy tread of Jack’s mech as it approached. Perfect timing.

Felonious aimed the flamethrower and waited until Jack appeared before he pressed the fire control button.

~ * ~

Jack slammed his hand on the button to close the clamshell cover and dropped to the floor. The inside heated immediately, and the dials for the boiler rose as well. He turned the turret so the boiler would be away from the source of the flame, but this also exposed the viewport directly to the flame.

Taking a quick inventory of the controls, he tried to figure out what his best defense was. If he ran, Felonious would only follow Jack and continue to spray flame. If he stayed he would be cooked alive. He didn’t have any extinguisher of any kind on board.

Something on the control panel pinged. The temperature of the boiler continued to rise. He had only moments to decide what to do. He twisted a knob then pulled a lever. The mech bucked and rocked, and something crashed on top. The flame had gone out.

He dared a peek out the viewport, and Felonious was nowhere in sight, but neither was the street. Not only had Jack somehow wound up inside a building, he was several floors up.

~ * ~

Felonious stared in amazement. The boy had more talent than Felonious anticipated. He had not only managed to survive a direct flame blast, but also had an emergency escape protocol built into the mech.

Such genius! Too bad the boy had to go. He might have made a good minion, or even a lackey.

Felonious stared up at the hole in the building. Too far up to jump and nothing sturdy enough to climb. If it wasn’t for all the innocents, he could destroy it.

He had to open the hatch to catch his breath, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. Innocents! There was no such thing in this backward colony,

After a few seconds to let the laughter run its course, he slammed the cockpit lid back down.

Now, what to use to start destroying the building? He strode back and forth along the street twice, hoping to find something, anything both strong and heavy enough to damage the structure.

He spotted a cast-iron gas lamppost at the end of the block and marched to it. Grabbing it with both of the mech’s grapples, he tore the post out of the street. It came up with chunks of pavement still attached. A fine mist of gas hissed from a broken pipe in the pavement’s jagged hole.

~ * ~

Jack caught his breath as he watched the dials dip back down and out of the red. In his previous incarnation of a battle mech, the thinner, single-thick walls had ruptured when the pressure pushed into the red. The new double-thick walls not only held up to normal performance, they survived an attack.

Pivoting the turret, he scanned for a way down. Somehow he had to get out of the building and over to the park. Fighting on the street only endangered people. Felonious might have caught him by surprise, but Jack had a few tricks up his sleeve. Hopefully those tricks would be in working order. If only he had time to test everything properly.

He looked at the rear of the room. To all appearances a simple apartment. He pushed the two levers to control the tracks forward and the wall in front of him, which should have been getting closer as he moved forward, got further away. He cocked his head, curious as to why he might be going backward when it occurred to him—he’d rotated the turret and the controls were now reversed. He laughed until the mech tilted dramatically, and he found himself looking up at the sky.

~ * ~

Felonious took the cast iron light post and swung it against the building. It made a most satisfying clang and took a great gouge of brick and mortar out of the base of the wall. He broke into a rhythm—left, right, left, right—hammering the heavy light post against the brick. He had a nice pile of rubble built up when the post snapped.

A piece of pavement-encrusted post flew back at him, bouncing off the mech’s cockpit and crashing into its shoulder. The cockpit held, but one of the glass panels smashed, showering Felonious.

“Blasted post! Why couldn’t that young hooligan stay here and fight like a man?” he muttered.

He shrugged out of the pilot harness and rummaged around in a small cupboard behind the control seat. It took him almost a minute, but he eventually pulled out a repair kit, which held a patch for the glass cockpit. It wasn’t clear, but it would seal the hole from the flying metal.

He applied it to the cockpit and strapped himself back in.

Time to find another way to fight the boy. He backed the mech away from the building to consider his options.

~ * ~

The mech collided with the ground with an ear-splitting clang. Steam filled the cabin, and water sprayed up as well. Jack rotated the turret and shoved both levers in opposite directions. Slowly, and with no small amount of noise, the mech righted itself.

Through the viewport he saw Felonious’ mech—a tall, golden wonder that looked far more agile than the low, ugly mech Jack piloted.

It didn’t matter. The fight couldn’t continue on the streets or near buildings. Taking hold of the controls, he rammed Felonious to hopefully slow the man for a moment. Jack then pulled back hard on the controls and raced backward.

With his feet he rotated the turret to face in the right direction. His hand slipped off the right control, and the mech started to spin, crashing off a building, leveling a light post, running down a fence, and scaring a group of spectators—all at the same time.