Page 62 of Girl, Reborn

11:20. Almost time.

Beside him loomed his masterpiece – thehydro-mechanical vindication engine he'd dreamed up in grief's darkest pits. Amonstrosity of gears, cogs, pipes, all spinning, churning, gulping down theseconds like a temporal black hole. At the bottom the dam operator – FrankHollister – gasped and flailed, churning the inky water to froth.

Not long now. The clock knew. It measuredpoor Frank’s life in drips and drops. Seth closed his eyes and let the soundwash over him. The rattle-clank of the gears, the suck-slurp of the water, theoperator's panicked glugs echoing up the basin. A symphony to make Beethovenweep.

This was it, the culmination. The lastspluttering gasp in a year-long opus of vengeance. He'd started at the top, thekings and kingmakers – that smug prick Toledo, poster boy for the New Liberty.Ayers, egghead extraordinaire, with his specs and his clipboards and hisfucking flow calculations. Then the builders, the drones. Clancy, foreman tothe damned, barking orders and brown-nosing his way to the top.

And now, the cherry on this sundae. Mr.Dam Operator himself, the man with his hand on the spigot. Probably spent hisdays whistling jaunty, turning dials and yanking levers like some kind ofcartoon. Merrily flushing Seth's home down the cosmic drain.

Well, he wasn't whistling now. No, thosechoked-out whimpers had a distinctly un-merry timbre. Seth cocked his head,savoring each watery bleat. He'd replay them later, in the dead hours beforedawn. Splice them into his dreams until the only lullaby he knew was the soundof a man drowning.

11:22.

He was good with his hands, always hadbeen. A mason, a maker. He'd built so much over the years – homes, hospitals,even that cute little sculpture ticking away in the town square. But they wereempty gestures. This was his true calling, his pièce de résistance. Amonument to retribution, a machine of judgement. Justice, at long last.

And Jessie would finally rest easy.

When he found her in the creek, it wasn'tsuicide splayed out in the silt – it was murder. They'd killed her sure as ifthey'd held her head under themselves. The politicians, the planners, thetoadies and enablers. They'd buried her in paperwork and cowardice, damned herwith cooked books and cocked-up studies. So much blood on so many soft,uncallused hands.

Well, Seth was an old hand at wet work.And he'd built them a gallows to swing from. All it took was stone, steel, anda drop of madness.

Seth stepped forward and peered over thebasin's rim. There was the operator, suspended like an insect in amber. Hiseyes stared up, unseeing. Dead moons in dead sockets. Seth filed away the imagefor his mental scrapbook. Another ghost to hang on the family tree. Four down.A matching set to lay at Jessie's worm-gnawed feet.

He turned to his tool table, picked up thehammer and tested its heft. These tools were for insurance mostly, in case oneof the Big Four lucked their way out of his contraption. But this time, maybehe’d put the hammer or the hacksaw to use. He could take a souvenir –something to remember Mr. Dam Operator by. A finger, an ear. Something to slipunder the pillow and dream dark dreams upon.

Because once Frank Hollister gurgled hislast, there'd be no one left. No more cogs in the machine that ground his worldto dust. The main players, the shot-callers who'd signed Liberty's deathwarrant, they'd all be rotting at the bottom of Seth's masterpiece. Toledo,Ayers, Clancy – a triumvirate of bastards laid low by their own hubris. And nowHollister, the late-shift lackey who'd kept their doomsday clock ticking. Hisnumberless hours at the switch, his countless tugs at the levers. Each onedraining a little more life from the land like a vampire sucking marrow frombone.

Well, who had their hand on the valve now?

Seth closed his eyes, let the sweetanticipation wash over him. It'd been a long road, a hard road. Paved withblood and madness and the screams of drowning men. But he'd walked it gladly.

For Jessie. Only ever for Jessie.

His baby sister, his shining star. The onepure thing in a filthy world. He'd cradled her when she was a squalling babe,watched in awe as she took her first wobbling steps. Braided her cornsilk hairand wiped her snotty nose and scared off the monsters under her bed.

And when she'd needed him most, he'dfailed her.

Oh, he'd told himself he was helping.Working round the clock, scrambling for jobs that paid more than peanuts.Anything to keep them afloat as the river of red ink rose higher and higher.Jessie would handle the farm, keep their parents' legacy limping along. She hadthe green thumb, the magic touch with soil and seed. She'd coax life from dustand ashes, keep them solvent for one more season. One more turn of the wheel.

But you can't sow crops with dust, can'tirrigate with sweat and prayers. And while Seth broke his back building otherpeople's dreams, his own crumbled around him.

Sometimes, in the darkest hours of thenight, he swore he could hear her. Whispering secrets, singing lullabies. Alittle girl's lilting giggle. It was a sweeter kind of madness. The only scrapof humanity he had left.

He wondered what she'd think of him now.This blood-soaked wraith, this avenging golem built of grief and stone. Wouldshe recoil in horror, flee from the monster wearing her brother's skin? Orwould she smile that secret smile and tell him he’d done the right thing?

Seth liked to think she'd understand.She’d see the beauty in this design. All the things he’d built to honor her andsanctify her memory.

Because that's what this was, in the end.A memorial, a tribute. A love letter written in water and blood.

In the basin, Frank Hollister let out areedy wail. Seth smiled and drank the sound in like fine wine. Yes, plead. Beg.Pray to your uncaring makers, little cog. See what good it does you when thewater swallows you down.

11.25.

Already, Hollister's thrashing was weaker.The drowning rattle, the aquatic swan song. Soon, he'd be still and silent.Pinned like a butterfly in Seth's collection.

And then it would be over. The scales balanced.The blood debt paid. The ghosts of Liberty laid to rest in watery graves.

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

---