Amaretto looked at the stairwell with trepidation. She wasn't sure that she actually wanted to walk up the stairwell. She looked to her aunt, who seemed to be shifting things around in her purse. “You wouldn't by any chance have anything in there that could fly us up this flight of stairs would you?”
Katherine looked up from what she was doing and then said, “Don't be ridiculous,” then in a lower tone, “Gravity is far too much of a problem in this dimension.”
Amaretto rolled her eyes and then looked at the ring on her finger. It still shined, but the pearl that was at the center of the ring seemed a little more dull than it once had been. She looked at it and rubbed at the stone in the center. Her aunt took it as a nervous sign and shook her head.
“No use in doing that. I suggest that you walk behind Johanna and I, but you stay in front of Alice. It would be safer for you that way.”
She simply nodded and then said, “That sounds good.”
Johanna started up the steps of one of the helices and began to vanish from sight. In her hand was the large weapon that Katherine had given her and Alice tapped her foot on the ground. “If you don't know what you are going to do, then do nothing, cause if you don't go after her, we will lose her.”
Amaretto sighed and then hurried after Johanna with her aunt. Katherine had stopped rummaging in her purse, and Amaretto could swear she had taken nothing out. Katherine however had a huge grin on her face.
The first flight of stairs they saw no one. The gentle hum of generators could be heard throughout the stairwell. The stairs themselves were open to the outside, so they could see the inside of the large tower chamber that they were in. As they wound their way up, the whole room seemed to spin around them. At the first landing, they began up the second set of stairs and Amaretto noticed that the walls of the inside pillar of the stairs that they were winding around had a set of interconnected gears were adorning the pillar. When she paused for a moment to gaze at the strange gear motif, she gasped. Barely noticeable to the naked eye, the gears were all turning. She immediately pointed it out to her aunt.
Katherine shrugged and then said, “The Cloister runs on it's own power, the gears are what are powering the generators that are downstairs along with eh steam engines that power the rest of it. The gas lighting is new however, I'm sure that the chandeliers are all gas powered as well. Though they may look like candles, those are all fueled by natural gas.”
Amaretto was impressed by this. “How do you know all of this? Have you been here before?”
Katherine didn't say anything at first and then said, “I have been here to New Machina once before. Though during that time, Mother Chime had not yet shown up. The Queen had just ascended to the throne. It was a very nice place, though I can say I had not yet heard of Johanna and Alice yet.”
“So you have traveled though other worlds before.”
“Nothing like this, but sometimes, my charges have been on a different plane of existence. Though I never had to travel that much.”
“Tempus eluded to that much,” Amaretto responded.
Katherine cocked an eyebrow. “You and Tempus getting along then I see?”
“Not like you think,” Amaretto responded.
Katherine shrugged her shoulders slightly and then continued up the stairs after Johanna. Alice walked up behind Amaretto and smiled at her.
“Thank you for doing this. You didn't have to, but as it goes, it is very brave of you. You really didn't have to do this.”
Amaretto bit her tongue and prevented herself from agreeing with Alice. “Didn't the watchmaker vouch for us?”
Alice smiled. “He did, but even still, we were supposed to help you, not the other way around.”
Amaretto mumbled under her breath, “Oh you're helping us, you just don't know it.” She paused on the step that she was on and was about to say something when she heard something. “Did you hear that?”
Alice looked at her a little perplexed. “Hear what?”
Amaretto waved her hands at Alice signaling her to be quiet and then strained her ears. It was faint, but she heard it. She quickly looked out the side of the stairwell and saw what it was that she heard. IronMen were coming across the inside of the Cloister and heading towards the stairs. She pointed them out to Alice.
Alice cursed under her breath and Amaretto caught the last bit of it and was surprised at the bit she heard. “Alice, that was foul!”
Alice grumbled and aimed one of her guns and shot out of the side window of the stairs. There was a metalllic hum and then a buzzing noise as the gun fired. There was the familiar screeching of metal and then a bang as an IronMan fell to the floor. Alice looked smug and Amaretto was surprised.
“That had to be at least a hundred feet!”
Alice smiled smugly. “One hundred and forty-five.”
They heard Katherine call down the stairs, “What was that?”
Amaretto yelled back up the stairs. “IronMen! Coming fast on our tail and towards the stairs!”
Katherine's voice floated down a little agitated. “Then hurry it up and move your arses up here!”
Alice giggled and Amaretto giggled with her. They both began to rush their way up the stairs. As they did, they took note that there were indeed quite a few IronMen rushing the strange staircase. They caught up with Katherine and Johanna rather quickly and Amaretto tugged at Katherine's sleeve. “Will they be able to catch up with us?
Katherine shook her head. “As long as we keep moving, there should be no way, but we have to keep moving. We've only gone up one flight of stairs.”
As if to enumerate her point, they reached the second landing of the stairs.
Amaretto muttered under her breath, “I hate these stairs.”
They continued up the strange staircase, pausing every now and then to allow Alice to get a shot in and fry one of the IronMen. By the time they reached the fifth landing, Amarettto was so sick of her surroundings that she complained about it right there.
“Just be happy that there was no IronMen on the stairs,” Katherine said. Almost as if on cue, there was a hiss of steam and a clanking in front of them. Katherine shook her head. “Me and my mouth.”
An IronMan turned the corner on the stairs and then raised it's arm up to point splayed fingers at them. Large knives switch-bladed out of his fingers and he then took a leap forwards at Johanna. Alice fired her gun and the IronMan fell to the ground and hit the stairs at a funny angle. He jerked down the stairs, leaving a large gouge on the step just before Amaretto. Amaretto looked to her aunt and Katherine looked back at her with an equally surprised look. There were large clanking sounds as it fell and then the familiar hiss was heard as it ejected the heart that was within its chest.
Amaretto frowned. “Why on earth does it do that?”
Katherine looked confused. “Does what do what?”
“Why do the IronMen eject their heart like that?”
Alice spoke up at that moment. “Johanna and I have been thinking about that from reports that we have heard in the past. We aren't sure, but we think that when they took the old guard and were replacing them with the new IronMen, we think that they were the same people that used to be inhabited the guard. We think that they went through something that replaced their original hearts with the new iron ones.”
Amaretto made a face. “That's gross. It sounds like a really bad Egyptian ceremony.”
Katherine nodded her head. “You have to remember that during this time, they were really into artifacts of other cultures. Egypt was one of their favorites. Britain even went so far as to make Egypt a protectorate because of the Suez Canal. Although the country was never formally annexed, the British remained in occupation until 1922 and maintained a substantial military presence until 1954.”
Amaretto thought for a moment and then said, “I thought that the Empire fell in 1783?”
Katherine smirked. “You actually remembered your history classes?”
“We're currently studying it right now.”
Katherine smiled as she continued to follow Johanna up the stairs. “There is that, however, there is also the fact that the time line says that Britain’s second empire lasted till 1850 before it moved into the Imperial Century which lasted until 1914.”
“So then, if this is the Second great British Empire, does that mean that we are still in the same time line?”
Katherine shook her head. “No. The time line may be similar, but that does not mean that time runs the same. That means that even though you may seem similar things, the exact time is not going to be similar.”
AS soon as Katherine said that though, another hiss could be heard and Johanna suddenly took her sword and slashed forwards. In front of here, there was a gurgle and a crunching of what sounded like gears. An IronMan plummeted past the small group and they continued up the stairs. Passing by the sixth landing, they continued up the stairs. Alice turned around and then shot down the stairwell in several spots.
The stairs rumbled and then cracked and then fell into the spaces below. There was a scream and a shattering sound and a crunching noise as several IronMen were destroyed in the resultant rubble.
Katherine gasped. “That was a priceless piece of architectural history! How could you destroy it like that!”
Alice shrugged. “It stopped them from coming up the stairs right?”
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