The Dream of Perpetual Motion by Dexter Palmer

Author:Dexter Palmer [Palmer, Dexter]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: SteamPunk
ISBN: 9780312558154
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2011-01-31T13:00:00+00:00

TWENTY

Harold starts awake to the irregular sound of metal violently striking metal. Bang. Bang . . . dong. Huh? Whazzat. Someone’s in here.

The room he’s in is empty, except for himself and a single typesetting mechanical man that is quietly going about its business, seemingly oblivious of the nearby clamor. From where he is sitting, Harold can see through the doorway into the next room, where the presses are. Two men are in there, moving back and forth in front of the door, in and out of shadow. Something about their silhouettes is strange: their heads are oddly geometrical, the tops of them shaped like perfect cones, tapering to a point with some kind of tube sticking on top. One wields a double-bladed axe; the other has what looks like a length of lead pipe. “I swear to Christ if there’s one thing I hate,” he screams, “it’s movable type! Seems to me that type is meant to stay put! You know?! So that you can get a good clear look at it. So you can take the time that you need”—(ssswishCLANK!)—“to figure out what it’s saying. But some crazy sons of bitches who think that everything that can be invented ought to be came up with this bullshit movable type: you try to read a book made out of it, and it says one thing, then you put it down because you have to answer the door or go pee or something, and when you come back to it the type’s gone and moved all around and it says something else entirely! But I swear that tonight, tonight my friend, I am going to teach that shit to stay”—ssswishDONK!—“put!”

Common sense says to run. The duties of a security guard are not in Harold’s job description, and the idea of getting beaten to a pulp is not appealing, by axe or by pipe. But the room’s one exit is blocked, and when the two thugs finish tearing apart the merchandise in the room they’re in, they’ll come in here, and that’ll be it.

So he can hide. But where? There’s no room for him in any of the closets; crawling under a table is a dumb idea. Then he has it: a clever man in this situation would hide in plain sight! The lighting in the room is dim, and most of the walls are in shadow. Against one of the walls are two mechanical men, standing at attention in the dark. Harold quietly tiptoes around and cuts off the few lights in the room, feeling a little brave now, feeling sly, even (and the typesetting tin man goes on working in the dark, the only illumination in the room now coming from his scanning eye, moving across the page from left to right and right to left).

Harold runs over to the wall and stands still next to the rigid tin men, wedged between one of them and a locker. He can’t see three feet in front of him. This is going to work, he thinks.

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