Chris Ward - The Circus of Machinations

A proud and noble Cornishman (and to a lesser extent British), Chris Ward ran off to live and work in Japan back in 2004. There he got married, got a decent job, and got a cat. He remains pure to his Cornish/British roots while enjoying the inspiration of living in a foreign country.

He is the author of the The Tube Riders series, the Tales of Crow series, and the upcoming Endinfinium YA fantasy series, as well as numerous other well-received stand alone novels.

Chris would love to hear from you:

www.amillionmilesfromanywhere.net

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A cold wind was whipping in from the south, bringing with it flurries of hard ice ripped off the top of seasons-long snow drifts standing like dirt-streaked grey sentinels by the side of the road. Victor Mishin stopped one more time to tie up his hood, but the string was frozen stiff. He scowled, cursing under his breath. Dipping his face away from the wind instead, he turned back to make sure the cart was still following.

From both sides of the road, the dead eyes of Breviks abandoned houses watched him with their broken door grins. From inside flickered torchlight, accompanied by the faint peal of nervous laughter. Many became temporary crack houses and brothels after dark, living crypts filled with the skeletal remnants of men and women put out of work by the closing mines and factories.

The first rock to clang off the outside of the carts casing made Victor jump. The echo of laughter from a shadowy alley that followed made him shiver.

We see you, old man.

It was the voice of a kid, throat dry from too many cigarettes and cheap local homebrew. Brevik started its youngsters early, and only a kid would ever call him old. Victor wasnt yet thirty.

Come on, he told the cart. We have to hurry.

The machines head snapped up, a vaguely humanoid oval. Twin lights at the front gave a wild flicker. Rolling, rolling.

Another stone landed in the snow at Victors feet. He grimaced. Even the prepubescent kids were built out of wire passed down through generations of miners with playful fists, and Victor was no fighter.

Level up, he said to the cart. We have to move. Now.

Roger that, partner.

The cart, a silver rectangle, rocked back on its caterpillar treads and lurched into an upright position. Smaller central treads unfolded from the ends of its main propulsion system. It was activating its sprint mode, but in the snow and ice its motors would only last a couple of hundred metres. It would have to be enough.

Move it, Victor said, as another stone clanged off the carts casing.

Shadows shifted behind him as he started into a run, morphing into the shapes of four, five, six kids as they bolted from the alleyway. Victor squeezed his eyes shut as the carts accelerator runners spun in the snow, then clunked as they caught on something buried under the surface.

He didnt want to turn around to see his most treasured invention pitch forward onto its robotic face as the group of laughing urchins descended on it, thrown stones rattling off the metal like machine gun fire, but he had no choice. The cart was dear to him; he owed it a single icy tear frozen against his face by the chilling wind.

He glared for one long moment at the feral children as they engulfed the cart in a flurry of thumping hands and kicking feet, then turned and hurried for home, feeling at least some scant relief that its sacrifice had allowed him to get away.

It was not yet four p.m. but full dark had descended upon Brevik like a galloping black horse, bringing with it a cold so dense it was like an iced blanket draped over the streets. The man in the shawl shivered. The cold made his bones ache to the very brink of what he could stand, but that chill gave comfort to the many scars on his savaged body.

Across the street, one of the brothels had fallen near silent, the last sounds the tired grunting of one last couple as they concluded their transaction. The man in the shawl headed out into the street, stepping through footprints left by others where he could, wary that the wind could be fickle and might choose to leave his tracks unburied.

The houses door hung on one hinge. The man in the shawl pushed inside, pausing a moment to listen to the rutting underway in a room to his left. A ratty carpet hid his footfalls as he peered in through a doorway to see a naked ass rising and falling between two skinny, pockmarked legs in the flickering light of a trashcan fire, accompanied by a series of halfhearted grunts and moans. The man in the shawl moved on, deeper into the house.

In a room near the back he found what he was looking for, an unconscious man plump enough to be new to this game. Two crusty circles of blood lined the mans nose, and purple bags hung from his eyes as if he hadnt slept in weeks. His body leaned against the window, and only ragged breathing indicated he still lived.

The man in the shawl reached into his jacket and pulled out a metal bar about two feet long, curved at one end for pulling up floorboards. He pulled back a strip of threadbare carpet and worked up a couple of boards. Then he dragged the man over and laid him on the ground with his forehead pressing against the side of the hole, his neck over it.

With expert precision the man in the shawl pierced the unconscious mans main carotid artery, then held his head steady while the man bled out onto the freezing gravel two feet below. It took several minutes before the man in the shawl was satisfied that any mess he made would be easy to clean up, then he set about sawing off pieces of the mans body and dropping them into a sacking bag lined with plastic. It was a crude operation, but the intense cold made it easier. Any blood that was spilt quickly froze into tiny droplets that could be brushed into the under-floor space.