London didn't smell like a capital city; it smelled like a dying furnace.
The steam carriage barreled down the cobblestone streets of the outer districts. The thick, yellow-grey fog clung to the brick buildings, heavy with the stench of raw sewage and burning coal.
But beneath the smog, there was a sharper scent. Fear.
The "Y" note virus had reached the capital. The financial heart of the British Empire was in full cardiac arrest.
Alex sat in the passenger seat, his golden eyes spinning. Click. Whirr.
Through the reinforced windshield, the streets were a blur of absolute chaos. The Bank of England's suspension of paper currency had triggered a mass panic.
Mobs of starving dockworkers and furious merchants surged through the narrow alleys. They were smashing shop windows, looting bakeries, and setting fire to trash barrels. Mixed among the rioters were the ragged, shivering figures of "Blue Drop" addicts, their veins glowing faintly in the dim light, desperate for their next chemical fix.
Napoleon gripped the steering levers, his jaw clenched tight. He laid on the heavy brass steam whistle.
WHEEEEEEEE.
The deafening shriek parted the sea of rioters just enough for the massive iron carriage to plow through.
Alex monitored the dashboard. The brass pressure gauge was buried in the red zone. The glass dial was completely cracked.
"The rear boiler is compromised, Sire," Napoleon shouted over the roar of the mob. "The iron is fracturing!"
Alex didn't blink. He calculated the structural integrity of the overheated tank. "Maintain speed, General. We are exactly two blocks from Threadneedle Street."
Napoleon shoved the throttle harder.
The carriage hit a deep rut in the cobblestones. The heavy chassis bounced violently.
CRACK.
It wasn't a small sound. It sounded like a cannon firing point-blank behind their heads.
The overworked rear boiler ruptured.
A violent, deafening hiss of pressurized white steam exploded into the cabin. The temperature instantly spiked.
The heavy iron drive-wheels locked up completely.
The carriage skidded sideways. The massive metal tires screamed against the wet stones, tearing up chunks of granite. Napoleon fought the levers, but the steering was dead.
The black iron beast slammed violently into the side of a brick bakery.
The impact shattered the carriage's right headlight and crumpled the thick iron fender. Brick dust rained down on the roof.
Then, silence.
The only sound was the high-pitched hiss of steam venting from the cracked boiler into the freezing London fog.
The vehicle was dead.
Alex didn't hesitate. He kicked his heavy iron door open. The hinges groaned and snapped.
He stepped out onto the wet cobblestones. His internal furnace immediately flared, adjusting to the damp chill of the city. Steam rose from his damp grey coat. He was running at a steady 104 degrees.
Napoleon shoved his door open and stumbled out. The General instantly drew his flintlock pistol, his eyes sweeping the chaotic street.
Charles stepped out last.
The boy immediately shivered. He pulled his oversized coat tight against his small frame. The ambient heat of the burning trash barrels fifty yards away wasn't enough to satisfy the thermodynamic void inside his chest.
Charles's golden eyes swept the alleyway. They locked onto a shadow near the bakery wall.
An emaciated man, his clothes little more than rags, was huddled against the damp bricks. His skin was pale blue, and his hands shook violently. A Blue Drop addict in the final, agonizing stages of chemical withdrawal.
The man looked up at Charles with glassy, bloodshot eyes. He held out a trembling, filthy hand, begging for a coin.
Charles didn't see a human being. He didn't see suffering.
Charles saw a 98-degree meal.
The boy's shivering stopped. His golden eyes flared with sudden, predatory hunger.
Charles took a step toward the dying man. He reached out with his small, pale hand. He didn't want to comfort the addict. He wanted to place his palm flat on the man's chest, freeze his blood solid, and drain every ounce of thermal energy from his dying body.
A heavy, leather-gloved hand clamped down on Charles's wrist.
Alex stepped between his son and the addict.
Charles didn't look up. He reacted on pure, feral instinct.
The boy snarled. It wasn't the cry of a frightened child. It was a guttural, inhuman hiss that vibrated in his throat.
Charles's fingers clamped around Alex's thick leather glove.
The thermodynamic void activated instantly.
Alex gasped. The heat drain was massive and violent.
A ring of solid white frost instantly crystallized around the leather of Alex's glove, biting deep into the flesh of his wrist beneath. The localized temperature dropped to sub-zero in a fraction of a second. The agonizing, burning pain of rapid frostbite shot up Alex's forearm.
Alex didn't let go. He didn't flinch.
He looked down at his son.
"No," Alex commanded. His voice was a flat, vibrating rumble of absolute authority.
Alex pushed his internal furnace higher. 106 degrees. 108 degrees.
He forced a surge of boiling heat down his arm, fighting the boy's unnatural suction. The leather glove began to smoke. The frost on Alex's wrist melted instantly, turning into a ring of blistering, second-degree burns.
The intense heat transferred into Charles's cold fingers.
Charles whimpered, a sudden, very human sound of pain. He snatched his hand back, cradling his fingers against his chest.
Alex stared at his son. The golden gears in his eyes spun rapidly, analyzing the boy's pulse and pupil dilation.
Alex realized, with cold, mathematical terror, that the boy's "appetite" was escalating. Charles was no longer just surviving on ambient heat. He was actively hunting human entropy. The leash was slipping.
Ten feet away, Napoleon watched the entire exchange.
The General's face was pale. He silently cocked the hammer of his flintlock pistol, shifting his weight. He took a deliberate step backward, putting more distance between himself and the pale, glowing-eyed boy.
"We walk from here," Alex said, his voice completely devoid of emotion.
He turned away from Charles and marched down the alleyway.
They turned the corner onto Threadneedle Street.
The riots hadn't reached this block yet. The street was wide, paved with immaculate granite blocks.
At the end of the avenue loomed the Bank of England.
It was a massive, windowless fortress of pale grey stone. Thick Corinthian columns guarded the entrance. It looked less like a financial institution and more like a mausoleum for the empire's wealth.
Alex stopped fifty yards from the main steps.
His golden eyes spun, focusing on the roofline.
Click. Whirr.
The thick stone parapets of the Bank appeared solid to a normal man. But Alex saw the heat signatures.
A dozen bright red silhouettes were crouched behind the stone statues lining the roof.
Rothschild's Liquidators.
Alex zoomed in further. He didn't look at the men. He looked at the long, polished barrels of their Baker rifles resting on the stone ledges.
He saw the dull, heavy gleam of the ammunition loaded in the chambers.
Silver musket balls.
A frontal charge up those wide, exposed steps would take exactly twelve seconds. In that time, the snipers would fire a volley.
If even three of those highly conductive silver spheres lodged in Alex's super-heated flesh, they would act as catastrophic heat sinks. They would drain his thermal energy instantly, plunging his core temperature into a fatal, irreversible crash.
"Snipers on the roof, Sire," Napoleon whispered, raising his pistol. "I count twelve. They have the high ground."
"They have silver," Alex corrected.
Alex looked around the wide, empty street. He calculated the angles, the distance, and the required velocity to breach the bank's heavy mahogany doors before the snipers could track a moving target.
He needed a distraction. He needed momentum.
Alex walked over to the edge of the cobblestone street.
A massive, cast-iron streetlamp stood on the corner, bolted deep into the granite sidewalk. It was ten feet tall, thick as a man's thigh, and topped with a heavy glass gas lantern.
Alex wrapped both his hands around the thick iron base.
He closed his eyes.
He visualized the furnace doors in his chest opening wide. He dumped raw calories into his bloodstream, pushing his metabolism into a hyper-accelerated burn.
110 degrees. 115 degrees.
Steam exploded from his coat in a thick, white cloud.
He channeled the massive thermal output directly into his palms.
The cast iron beneath his grip began to groan.
Within seconds, the black iron turned a dull, cherry red. The intense heat softened the rigid metal at the base.
Alex planted his boots, squared his shoulders, and pulled violently backward.
CRUNCH.
The thick iron streetlamp snapped off at the superheated base like a dry twig.
Alex hoisted the ten-foot pole onto his shoulder. The glass lantern at the top shattered, raining jagged shards onto the cobblestones.
He turned to Napoleon and Charles.
"Stay close," Alex ordered. "Do not break my slipstream."
Alex gripped the heavy iron pole with both hands, lowering it like a massive cavalry lance.
He sprinted.
His boots cracked the granite paving stones with every impossible, heavy stride. He moved with terrifying, unnatural speed, closing the fifty yards to the bank in less than three seconds.
"Fire!" a voice screamed from the roof.
The Liquidators stood up behind the parapets. A dozen Baker rifles cracked in unison.
But they were too slow. Alex's sudden, explosive acceleration threw off their aim.
Silver bullets rained down, sparking violently against the cobblestones inches behind Alex's heavy boots.
Alex didn't slow down. He didn't flinch.
He hit the wide stone steps of the Bank of England, driving his massive legs upward.
Ten feet from the entrance, he leveled the iron pole.
He slammed the jagged, broken end of the heavy cast-iron streetlamp directly into the center of the massive, twelve-foot-tall solid mahogany front doors.
BOOM.
The impact sounded like a cannon strike.
The heavy iron pole acted as a battering ram, driven by the impossible kinetic energy of a post-human biology.
The reinforced mahogany shattered instantly. The thick brass hinges screamed and tore free from the stone doorframe.
Alex, Charles, and Napoleon crashed through the splintered ruin of the doors and vaulted into the grand lobby of the Bank of England in a cloud of dust and flying wood.
Alex dropped the bent iron pole on the polished marble floor. It hit with a heavy clang.
He stood up, steam rolling off his shoulders, and scanned the massive room.
The grand lobby was completely empty.
There were no teller cages. There were no guards. There were no desks.
The only sound in the vast, echoing chamber was the rhythmic, deafening clack-clack-clack of a surviving Babbage Engine calculating data behind a reinforced wall.
Then, a heavy, metallic grinding noise echoed from above.
Alex turned around.
Thick, solid steel drop-shutters slammed down over the shattered mahogany doors, sealing the entrance behind them with the heavy, final thud of a coffin lid.
The lock mechanisms engaged with a heavy CLACK.
They were sealed inside.