Free The Girl With the Iron Touch by Kady Cross Page B

metal arm. Automatons had abducted her from King House. Why? Who had sent them? And why would they take her? Yes, she was the smallest and the weakest of their makeshift family, but it wasn’t as though she was anyone important.
    Unless, of course, the people behind her abduction knew about her “talent” with machines. That was impossible, of course. However, her knowledge of mechanics, logic engines and invention wasn’t something she ever sought to hide. She’d even had some of her papers on the topic of the future of automation and the possibility of “adaptable” machines published by the Royal Society.
    But machines didn’t need sophisticated logic engines to learn and adapt. She knew this because of the Queen Victoria automaton the Machinist had constructed.
    Queen Victoria. The memory flooded her mind, bringing a rush of dizziness that made her want to vomit. She had seen that awful creature before being knocked out.
    Once it had looked like a real person, moved and acted like a real person, but all of its organic compounds had been taken from the actual queen. A flesh-and-metal hybrid that could adapt and change because the organites in its living tissue made it sentient.
    She thought they had destroyed it. Obviously someone had put it back together and hadn’t done a very good job of it. If it was running about on its own, this was very bad, indeed. The Machinist had programmed it to take the place of the true queen. Was it still trying to obtain that goal? Or had it moved on to something else?
    The machine that had ripped Sam apart had acted against its programming because of organite infestation. Someday another automaton would do the same thing and then the organites wouldn’t be their secret—not anymore. And if it wasn’t machines, it would be someone looking into all the “special” humans that seemed to be cropping up. Eventually people were going to want the beasties for themselves, and then the world would be in a lot of trouble.
    But that was not what she needed to fret over at this time. She’d never been the sort to fly into histrionics and she wasn’t about to start now. She had survived worse things than being kidnapped, and she would make it through this, too. She would survive. She would escape, and she would put an end to the “Victoria” once and for all.
    First item of business was to clean up the blood and give herself a thorough inspection. Fortunately, there was also a looking glass in the room. It was ancient, its wooden frame warped and scarred. The mirror itself wasn’t in much better shape, but it didn’t matter that it made her appear as long and as wiggly as an apple peel, she just needed to see the damage.
    The wound on her head looked worse than it was, as those injuries often did. Once she cleaned up the blood she could see that it was more of a lump than a cut. A nasty bruise was beginning to form around the area, and she realized she was most likely concussed. Fortunately for her, she had enough organites in her system that she’d heal much quicker than she ought.
    After cleaning up and inspecting herself for bruising, wounds or perhaps injection sites, she began poking around her surroundings, learning every inch of the cell. As she examined the door for a possible weakness, the heavy iron slab swung open. She jumped back to keep from being struck. The lump on her head throbbed in punishment, and her stomach clenched as the room seemed to swim around her. Blasted concussion.
    Moving quickly was not good. She lurched back and stumbled as the back of her legs met the cot. She sat down hard. That hurt her head, too, but at least she wasn’t in danger of falling down—or was closer to the floor if she did.
    Long, multiple-jointed legs entered the room first. The creature that crossed the threshold resembled a large metal spider, with a baby doll head perched on top. Its logic engine whirled and clicked, but Emily had the feeling that was more for movement than