The Falling Machine by Andrew P. Mayer Page A

single movement was obviously an agonizing effort, and he could only stand for a few minutes at a time before he slumped back down into the mechanized seat that Darby had constructed for him. The strain was rapidly aging him, and his fiery red hair and beard were streaked with lines of gray.
    Stanton wondered if Hughes ever considered the cruel joke that it was the same man who had been responsible for creating the armor that gave him the power of ten men who had also built him a chair that allowed him to act with barely the power of one.
    Out of the corner of his eye Alexander saw Nathaniel rise up from his slouch. “May I take a look at those papers, Industrialist?” Turbine's chair had been carved to make it look like he sat on four columns of rising smoke with an angel at the top of each one, their arms stretched toward the heavens.
    “Of course, Turbine.” Alexander picked up the pages, straightening the short stack by tapping it against the table a few times before he handed it over.
    The nonfunctional “dress” version of the Turbine costume that Nathaniel wore was an off-white sweater with matching breeches. It was far more lightweight than the woolen body stocking that Darby had given him to wear when he was using his flying apparatus. It also lacked the interwoven metal threads that sparkled in the sunlight when the Turbine flew through the air, but the cut was definitely dashing.
    Nathaniel's actual “flight jacket” hung heavily over a tall crossbar on the back of his chair. Cut from layers of asbestos and wool, there were dark streaks down the back of it where the column of fortified steam from his flying apparatus had soiled it. Stanton had told him that he would be glad to pay to have a similar-looking jacket constructed from lighter material, but Nathaniel had told him that he liked the authority he felt he gained from wearing the real thing.
    Stanton rose up from his chair, the leather of his costume creaking slightly as it shifted around him. Perhaps his dresser was right—maybe he had started to gain a little weight recently. And grief could turn a man to skin and bones, or expand the waistline rapidly. If his sorrow had to choose a form he would rather it was the former, but it seemed the latter would be the outcome of the pain he felt from Darby's loss. All the responsibility that had been thrust upon his shoulders had driven him to consume more strong drink and rich food.
    Less than a year ago he had still been the head of a major railroad. He couldn't begin to imagine how all this would have affected him if he had still had that to deal with.
    It was obvious that selling off his shares in the company had been the right thing to do, but he missed the work terribly. As Alexander Stanton he had felt both comfortable and useful in his offices in Brooklyn. There were days when there seemed to be no problem he couldn't solve from that room. Crisis after crisis had reared their ugly heads, and he had smacked them all down. When he sold it, his railroad ran almost the length of Long Island.
    But even before Darby's death the mantle of being the Industrialist had taken up a great deal of his time, and it was getting harder and harder to make excuses for his life as “The man whose gears grind for justice!”
    And now, without a leader, the city was vulnerable to anyone who might decide to attack. And whoever it was who had killed Darby was still out there, waiting to strike again. Villains always had plans, and this plan was clearly far from over.
    Nathaniel started to mumble out loud as he read the damning paragraphs over again. He spoke softly at first, but soon enough the mumbling gave way to coherent speech. “‘After his heart has been fully installed into the new body that I have prepared for him, I request that the Automaton replace me as the leader of the Paragons.’” Nathaniel shook his head. “‘This may seem like an outlandish request, but he will be a benign and logical authority,