She put her finger to his lips. “I would not belittle their gift.”

  James looked back and forth between her and the two Dolls a few more times. She knew he would not think her insane, but it was a bit much to ask him to believe. That two small clay figures had saved her from a crazed criminal.

  Finally, he took her hand, kissed her palm, nodded, and helped her up.

  They walked over to the small figurines, picked them up, and then he escorted her to her room. She placed them respectfully on her vanity, and smiled. New plans were already developing in her head.

  “You are not going to reuse those brains are you?” he asked.

  “Not now,” she agreed. “I can understand those children wanting their 'little protectors' nearby. I can build more. For the time being, these two deserve a little break.

  ”Tomorrow, I will begin building a new one.”

  Knowing he might never really understand what happened here, James simply accepted that his love had found a purpose. One from which she would not be easily swayed. He smiled as he admired her resolve.

  “Since you will not have Nora to supply you with newspapers while you work, I will happily take on that task.”

  Marcia looked at him gratefully. “Together, we will rescue the Lost Children.”

  The Gears Of Justice

  Brent Nichols

  Vancouver, 1888

  The piercing blast of a steam whistle brought Kim Jensen's head snapping up. She rose from her seat in the parlour of McClane Mansion, one of Vancouver's grandest estate homes and secret headquarters of Team Justice, and ran to the secret panel on the back wall. She pressed the nose of a small bronze satyr and a section of the wall slid back.

  Henry McClane, known to the world as the Harpoonist, sat peering intently at a telegraph set on the table before him. The rest of the team rushed in, Wu pushing Dan "Crusher" Carter in his wheelchair. The three of them watched impatiently until the telegraph fell silent and McClane looked up.

  "Bank robbery," he said crisply, "on Water Street. A gang has taken hostages. The coppers have them surrounded. It's a standoff for now. Looks like a job for us."

  "Right," said Carter, "let's go." He was the team's leader, in spite of legs that had been withered by polio. With more active pursuits denied to him, he'd turned to science as an outlet for his considerable energies. He was the mastermind behind the tools that made Team Justice what it was.

  Kim led the way down a short secret passage leading to the stables behind the mansion. She hopped into the cab of the Justice Wagon, a steam-powered carriage that was the talk of the west coast. She grabbed a lever beside the driver's seat, dragged down hard, and heard a rumble as lumps of coal tumbled into the banked boiler fire.

  She felt a familiar pang of anxiety as the fire rose. Not three feet behind her, hungry flames were lapping at the coal and flickering upward to heat the wagon's boiler. She told herself for the thousandth time that she was perfectly safe, but the old scars on her back seemed to pucker as the flames behind her rose.

  Wu clambered up into the cab beside her. His Typhoon costume, a leather mask and a long, loose-fitting black coat, were already in place. He was the only member of the team to disdain the power of steam. He could do things with his hands and feet that should have been impossible. When Kim demanded to know how he did it, he would smile and explain that "chi" was his steam.

  She could hear Carter and McClane thumping around in the back of the carriage. A knock on the back of the cab told her they were ready to move.

  She glanced at the steam gauge on her dash. Nearly there. This was always the hardest part. Before dashing pell-mell into danger and adventure there was a frustrating period of sitting idle, waiting for the steam pressure to build.

  She pulled her own mask into place. It was all the costume she needed, since her role was to drive the Wagon, always remaining in the cab. Most of the world didn't even realize Team Justice had a fourth member.

  At last the needle touched the red line and Kim pushed forward on the drive lever. The Justice Wagon slid smoothly into motion, the spring-loaded doors of the stable swung open as the Wagon pushed its way through, then snapped shut behind them.

  She watched the mirrors mounted over the estate's front gate as she rolled up. No traffic was in sight, as was usual in this quiet district. Someone in the neighborhood had to suspect that Team Justice was headquartered nearby, but so far their lair was more or less a secret.

  They rolled out onto the street, Kim turning expertly with tugs on the steering levers. As pressure built in the boiler, she was able to increase speed. Traffic made way for them as they moved into a busier part of town. She rarely had to pull on the cord for the steam whistle.

  The character of the street changed abruptly: suddenly every building was brand new. It was two years since the Great Vancouver Fire, and the city had been reconstructed with astonishing speed. Almost no evidence remained of the conflagration. The last of the rubble had long since cleared away, and new construction was everywhere.

  Kim liked to think of it as a good omen. Like Vancouver itself, her life had been destroyed utterly by the fire. Like the city, her life was going through dizzying growth and change. Unlike the city, though, her personal scars lingered.

  Almost every aspect of Vancouver was changing with bewildering speed, and Team Justice was a product of that change. It was only three years since the railroad had linked Vancouver to the rest of the country, and already they were eclipsing Victoria as the most important port in Western Canada. The city grew exponentially, explosively, and faster than anyone could keep up.

  Vancouver had only had its own police force for two years, and already the original force had been disbanded and replaced by provincial special constables. The civic fathers were adjusting as quickly as they could, but the criminal underworld reacted even more quickly, turning Vancouver into a hotbed of smuggling and vice. Team Justice was on the front lines of the battle to keep organized crime from conquering the city completely.

  And the battle was heating up. An explosion tore the air as they turned onto Water Street, and Kim caught a brief glimpse of a fireball roiling skyward, somewhere ahead. Then the Bank of British Columbia came into view. She could see police stumbling back from the bank or crouching behind whatever cover they could find.

  Three men burst from the bank's front doors. Bandanas covered their faces. One man held a shotgun; the others carried pistols. Taking advantage of the confusion in police ranks, they took off sprinting down Water Street, running directly away from the Justice Wagon.

  Kim grinned wolfishly and gave the engine more steam. A fit, motivated man could outrun the Wagon for a short time, but the steam engine never got tired.

  They raced along the street at a break-neck pace, Kim fighting the urge to whoop, and the fleeing bandits started, glancing back over their shoulders. Kim was closing the distance when they cut sharply to the left, dashing down a side street toward the waterfront.

  She took the corner at high speed, wincing as she heard large objects sliding and thumping in the back of the Wagon. She hoped Carter was in his suit already. He would be having a hard time of it, otherwise.

  They were nearly to the waterfront. There wasn't much street left in front of them, and Kim moved her hand to the brake lever. But the men swerved to the right and dashed into a dilapidated warehouse.

  The Justice Wagon roared in behind them, Kim hauling on the brake lever, and the wagon shuddered to a halt. Kim's adrenalin rush started to fade. From here on, she would be a spectator, locked in the cab watching while her teammates rounded up the bad guys.

  The bank robbers were nowhere in sight, but they couldn't have gone far. Typhoon gave her a grin, threw open the side door, and sprang out. She heard a thump as the back door of the Wagon dropped open, then the steady thud of massive footsteps as Crusher came lumbering out.

  The three of them gathered in front of the Wagon. Typhoon in his long black coat and dark leather mask was the least prepossessing one, but quite possibly the most dangerous. The Harpoonist made a dashing form beside him, with burgundy trousers tucked into tall boots, and a burgundy jacket flaring around his hips. A harness on his back held two metal cylinders, tanks of compressed air stored at fantastic pressures. A bandolier across his chest held a selection of steel harpoons, and a hose ran from one of the pressurized tanks to a harpoon gun in his hands.

  Crusher, however, was the showstopper of the group. In his powered suit, McClane was able to stand upright. His entire body was encased in a framework of copper and steel. He weighed a fantastic amount. A dozen strong men couldn't lift his suit, but he could move in it, and wield tremendous force.

  There was a boiler built into the back of the suit, and it was the secret to his abilities. Crusher stood only a bit taller than a normal man, with metal plates under the soles of his feet and a curved steel framework over his head, but his steel body was strangely thick, to allow for a firebox, water tank, condenser, and insulation.

  Kim wanted to cringe every time she looked at him. So much heat, so much fire, only inches from his skin. It seemed horribly dangerous to her, and she didn't like to even be near him when he was in costume.

  The three men gazed around, then looked at each other and started forward, peering into the gloom. The warehouse was mostly empty, with a few scattered crates or piles of debris cluttering the floor. The only light came from small, grimy windows high on the walls.

  They spread out, Crusher walking down the middle of the floor, no doubt because he found it difficult to turn. Typhoon moved to the right wall, the Harpoonist to the left.

  The trap closed suddenly and with dreadful effectiveness. Something stirred in the rafters of the warehouse. All three men turned their heads to look, and something fell from the darkness. At the same time the floor seemed to heave around Typhoon. It was a cargo net a dozen feet wide, and it shot into the air as another net, filled with rubble to act as a counterweight, tumbled from the ceiling. The first net closed around Typhoon in an instant and yanked him fifteen feet into the air.

  Crusher began the ponderous process of turning his metal suit. A moment later, he lumbered heavily toward Typhoon. The Harpoonist moved to the center of the warehouse, his eyes scanning the darkness on every side.

  "No," Kim murmured, shaking her head. "Don't you see it's a trap? Stop following their plan!"

  It frustrated her endlessly that no one on the team would think strategically. When she told them as much, they would chuckle and tell her that her habit of thinking in elaborate circles was no good for an action hero. When you were fighting for your life you had to make snap decisions, guided by your instincts.

  Still, it seemed to Kim that a little bit of strategy wouldn't go amiss at times. Especially since a straightforward pursuit of some bank robbers turned into an elaborate ambush.

  Crusher stood below the hanging Typhoon and stretched up one big metal hand. At that moment, the second part of the trap was sprung.

  From behind her, a rumble made Kim peer into her side mirror. The door to the warehouse slid shut. The police, when they caught up, would see no sign of the Justice Wagon. There would be no escape, and no rescue.

  Well, Crusher would be able to open the door, or knock a hole in the warehouse wall if necessary. She switched her gaze to him.

  He was sliding sideways. Kim blinked, confused. Crusher's legs were perfectly motionless, but his feet were sliding sideways, one slow inch at a time. Finally one shoulder bumped up against a tarpaulin-covered shape against the wall.

  Carter squirmed, the metal suit mimicking his movements, and suddenly the suit pivoted and thumped against the tarpaulin with a muffled clang. Crusher was now pinned like a beetle with his back against the wall.

  As he flailed, the tarpaulin slid down, exposing thick coils of wire in a metal frame. It was some sort of electromagnet, tremendously strong, and it rendered him helpless.

  Kim saw the Harpoonist hurrying toward his teammates. Then the floor of the warehouse trembled and the Harpoonist froze.

  The wall at the far end of the warehouse exploded inward, and the Harpoonist threw up an arm to protect himself as splinters of wood showered him. Something moved in the darkness, and then lumbered forward into the light. Kim gave an involuntary squeak of dismay.

  It was a metal man. That was her first impression, and she glanced at Crusher, comparing the two behemoths.

  The new arrival was bigger than Crusher in every way. Nine or ten feet tall, it had legs as big as Crusher's torso and a body the size of the Justice Wagon. There was no head, just a massive steel body with enormous arms sprouting from each shoulder.

  Its movements were smoother and more graceful than Crusher's as well. Behind a cloud of horror, a part of Kim's brain coolly analyzed what she saw, and as she watched the colossus advance the pieces clicked into place.

  There was no operator inside the machine. With no need to make allowances for human limbs, the machine could do things that Crusher's suit could not. As it advanced, the hips flexed in unnatural ways and the elongated arms reached out toward the heroes.

  A cloud of vapor burst from the harpoon gun as the Harpoonist fired, not at the advancing behemoth, but at Crusher. The steel harpoon hit the wall above the electromagnet, and a cable separated in a shower of sparks. Crusher staggered forward as the magnet released him.

  The metal man advanced, and Crusher came forward, hopelessly outclassed but unwilling to admit it. Crusher raised his metal fists like a boxer, and the behemoth swung one massive steel arm. There was a crash of impact and Crusher was briefly airborne. He crashed hard on one shoulder, skidded across the warehouse floor, and landed with a thud on his back.

  The Harpoonist moved in, firing rapidly, and half a dozen barbed missiles bounced harmlessly from the behemoth's metal skin. Crusher, meanwhile, sat up and began ponderously shifting around, trying to get to his feet. The behemoth reached him in two quick steps. Instead of fingers the metal man had vast pincers for hands. One pincer closed on Crusher's right arm, and the behemoth's arm spun along its axis like a spool of thread. There was an angry screech of metal as Crusher's metal arm twisted and bent.

  The Harpoonist advanced, firing carefully now, aiming for the behemoth's joints at the shoulders and hips.

  "No," Kim shouted, banging her fists on the dash in frustration. There was a much more vulnerable target. "Find the operator!" she yelled.

  The Harpoonist didn't hear her, of course. He was totally fixated on the target in front of him.

  Kim's hands went to the door handle beside her. Then the behemoth pointed one arm at the Harpoonist and a gout of flame shot from his wrist. Kim froze, shrinking down in her seat. She couldn't face that, not for anything.

  The Harpoonist went into a roll, coming up behind some crates, and fired another shot at the metal monstrosity. The behemoth, meanwhile, caught Crusher's metal arm in two hands and heaved Crusher, suit and all, into the air. The behemoth's legs didn’t move, but his whole body spun at the waist and he threw Crusher bodily through the air, straight at the Harpoonist.

  For a long moment, Kim could see nothing but clouds of billowing dust. Her hands went to the Justice Wagon's control levers, and she hesitated, longing to throw the machine into reverse and batter her way through the doors behind her. It would be the best thing, she told herself. She would let the police in. She didn't move, however.

  As the dust settled she saw the three bank robbers gathered around the Harpoonist's inert form. Then a shape moved in the darkness at the far end of the warehouse, a tall figure in a long duster and a Stetson, his face hidden in shadow. His voice boomed out.

  "Bring him here! Never mind the others for now. They're trapped. Bring me the stickpin boy. He's the biggest threat. We'll do him first."

  Kim watched, frozen in horror, as they drug the Harpoonist across the floor. Gaslights sprang to life at the far end of the warehouse. The man in the Stetson had his back to her now, and he fiddled with a contraption that stood on a tripod. Kim recognized it as a camera.

  "Throw him in the chair," the man boomed. "We only get one chance at this. I want to get it just right."

  The henchmen dumped the Harpoonist's unmoving form onto the chair, where he flopped back, arms splayed, face pointing at the ceiling. Two men watched him carefully, hands on the butts of their pistols, while the third man drew a wickedly long knife and ran his thumb along the edge. Meanwhile, the man in the Stetson kept fiddling with his camera.

  Kim felt her stomach twist. She could only think of one explanation. They planned to kill the Harpoonist, and capture the moment of his death in a photograph.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block it all away, but her analytical brain betrayed her. She wanted to scream, to weep, to give in to her rising panic, but she found herself cataloguing the room, the people, and the objects, with a clinical detachment.

  And she discovered that she knew what to do.

  Her eyes snapped open. She double-checked the position of everything. It was all as she remembered. The only missing ingredient was courage. Could she do what needed to be done?

  She wanted a moment to gather herself, but the camera would be ready soon. She rose from her seat, surprised to find herself moving, and then wriggled through the hatch leading to the back of the Wagon. The rear door was down, and she slipped out.

  Crusher's bulk provided a vestige of cover so long as she kept herself low. She reached him in a crouching run and knelt beside him.

  "Dan!" she hissed. "Can you hear me?"

  "Kim." She sagged in relief when he spoke. He sounded hurt and weary, but he was alive. "Get out of here, girl. Save yourself."

  "Can you get out of the suit?"

  "No. I'm lying on the side of the hatch. And the pneumatics are all busted up. I can't move."