The Falling Machine by Andrew P. Mayer Read Free Book Online Page A

rest with a small click. Hidden machinery clanked audibly behind the wall. There was a hiss, and then a pop as the gaslights flared to full brightness behind their reflectors. They lit a cramped stairwell.
    Sarah climbed to the top and reached a landing with two doors—one directly in front of her, and another to her left that she opened and stepped into. Inside was a cramped supply closet that was utterly free of the exotic weapons or colorful costumes that people often assumed must be stored everywhere. Instead there were simply rows of wooden shelves containing ink, pencils, pen nibs, cleaning supplies, and all the other mundane and sundry items needed for the care and maintenance of the Hall.
    Sarah pulled off her winter coat and gloves, folded them neatly, and placed them up on the highest shelf she could reach inside the closet. She slipped her hand behind one of the dusty boxes of paper and pulled out a large brown-paper envelope from the back. Inside it was a pair of beaded slippers. She sat down and pulled off her winter boots, replacing them with the footwear she had just found.
    Stepping out of the closet, she closed the door and put her ear up to the other door. “No one out here,” she whispered to herself, hoping it was true, and cracked it open.
    Sarah almost glided as she moved down the rust-colored marble floors of the main corridor in her slippers. She looked around constantly, still not sure that one of the building staff wouldn't run into her. In normal times that wouldn't have earned her more than a reprimand, but since the death of Sir Dennis she had been told by her father in no uncertain terms that she was to stay out of the building, and she had a destination that she could only reach if no one knew she was here.
    She made a right, heading down another long corridor. It was dimly lit, the gas lamps burning low. The yellow light reflecting off the red stone gave everything a dull orange glow, as if morning were just over the horizon.
    She heard what was clearly her father's voice echoing from in front of her. “Damn,” she whispered. Her path would take her past the main conference room, and it sounded like the Industrialist was inside of it, making one of his famously long-winded speeches, although she couldn't make out any of the words.
    In the almost four weeks since Sir Dennis Darby's death Sarah had seen her father only infrequently, and she had only really spoken with him once. Darby's funeral had been held in Central Park, exactly one week after “the bridge incident,” which was what everyone in polite society had taken to calling the murder. The papers had given the event much more lurid names, “Darby's Downfall” being the one she found most distasteful, for a number of reasons.
    The ceremony had been simple and short, the way that the old man had requested. Still, there were tens of thousands of fashionable New Yorkers who had made the trek northward to pay their final respects to the fallen genius. He was a beloved man, but Sarah was convinced that most of the mourners simply wanted a chance to take a closer look at the Paragons without having to expose themselves to the deadly dangers that normally came with being a bystander when the heroes went into action.
    Each of the other heroes had given a short eulogy, describing what it was that the Professor had meant to each of them. Nathaniel's had been the longest—an emotional ode to the man he called his “spiritual father.” She supposed it was supposed to be an epic poem, heroically describing how the Professor had struggled against death while only a few feet away from him the mighty Turbine bravely faced the Bomb Lance's harpoons until finally one of them had speared his leg and bound him to the “granite spire” of the still-unfinished Brooklyn Bridge.
    Like everything involving the Paragons, the official account had little relationship to the messy ambiguity of the events as they had actually occurred. They had also