The wind at Louvre Square carried a faint burnt smell.
Vivian pulled her tattered felt hat even lower and hid half her face with her tall collar. Clutched tightly in her hand was the morning paper—the front page plastered with the “notorious duo” wanted notice featuring her and Cicero.
“Is this artist from the Cubist school?” Vivian glared at the portrait of a woman whose grimacing face looked as if she were constipated, gnashing her teeth.
“If you speak any louder, the Gendarmerie over there will be painting your memorial portrait instead.”
Cicero stood in the shadow behind her. The former priest was forced to wear a coarse cloak that reeked of salted fish. Even his cane was wrapped in rags, making it look like nothing more than a fire poker.
“Now’s not the time to discuss aesthetics.” Cicero’s voice was low, tinged with weakness.
Though the stitches from last night had stopped the bleeding, the pain had clearly robbed him of sleep.
“The important thing is that thing.” He gestured toward the center of the square with his chin.
Hundreds of people had gathered there, the crowd seething and bubbling like a pot of boiling oatmeal—overflowing with a feverish energy.
At the center stood last night’s “Queen Automaton,” now positioned in the middle of the Napoleon Courtyard, but its head was nowhere to be seen.
It was draped in a deep red “robe” fashioned from velvet curtains, and its hands were not idle, gripping a giant oil painting frame.
“That’s…” Vivian squinted. “Delacroix’s ‘Liberty Leading the People’?”
“A forgery.” Cicero commented coldly. “But that doesn’t matter.”
What mattered was what the automaton was doing.
It raised the painting high overhead, as if showing off its spoils.
Then, from deep within its “throat,” came a sound like a pressure cooker releasing steam.
“Hoo——!!!”
A pillar of crimson fire blasted out of its neck cavity.
In an instant, the flames swallowed the painting. The canvas curled and blackened, and the Liberty Goddess who had been brandishing the tricolor flag dissolved into ashes.
“Wow——!”
The onlookers didn’t scream or flee. Instead, they erupted into thunderous applause.
“So avant-garde!” A gentleman with a monocle was flushed with excitement, clapping wildly.
“This is so much better than those painters who only do still-life apples!”
“Did these people donate their brains?” Vivian could hardly believe it. “That thing is burning Louvre’s collection!”
“To those whose cognition has been ‘corrected,’ this is just a grand piece of performance art.” Cicero gripped his cane tightly.
“The Order of the Dusk placed cognition-disrupting effects on the automaton. They want to weaken the concept of the Republican System in Paris by destroying artworks symbolizing the Revolution.”
“In plain language, please.”
“It’s burning away the anchors of this history from people’s subconscious. If it burns all the paintings in the square, when folks wake up tomorrow, half of Paris may start thinking the Bourbon Restoration isn’t such a bad idea.”
The automaton dropped the charred frame, then grabbed another from the box by its feet.
This time, it was “Marat’s Death.”
“We have to stop it.” Cicero tried to step forward, but the wound on his left arm made him stagger, his face turning deathly pale. “Damn it…”
“Enough. Wounded folks sit this one out.”
Vivian sighed, taking off the battered hat and plopping it onto Cicero’s head.
“If I die, remember to burn my pension for me. I want francs, not Underworld Money.”
“What are you doing?” Cicero frowned. “Physical attacks are useless. We need to find a logical loophole—”
“Screw logical loopholes.” Vivian rolled up her sleeves. “When dealing with fires, let’s be scientific.”
She pointed to a brass-colored metal post at the edge of the square.
It was a newly installed Steam-Pressurized Fire Hydrant in Paris.
Vivian darted through the crowd and waves of heat like a nimble wildcat.
She zigzagged her way closer to the hydrant.
The automaton seemed to sense something. It had no head, yet its fire-spewing neck suddenly swiveled in Vivian’s direction.
“Sss——”
A tongue of flame zipped past Vivian’s scalp, singeing a few strands of her hair.
“What the hell is this!” Vivian shouted as she sprinted. “No history book ever said the French Queen could breathe fire!”
She slid in, kneeling beside the hydrant.
Fire hydrants of this era were, frankly, very…steampunk. It had a single handle like a submarine hatch, with a metal tag reading “Pull Down in Emergency.”
Vivian gripped the cold iron handle with both hands, took a deep breath.
“Open… up!!!”
She yanked down with all her might.
“Boom——!!!” The sound was like a cannon shot.
A furious torrent burst from the hydrant like an enraged dragon.
In Vivian’s plan, she should be stylishly clutching the hose, aiming the stream at the automaton, ending this farce like a heroic firefighter.
In reality, the recoil was so great that she—
Was catapulted right off the ground.
“What the—————!!!”
All Vivian saw was a blur as the ground vanished beneath her feet. She traced an utterly ungraceful arc through the air.
The crowd roared even louder.
“Look! The Flying Woman show!”
“Amazing!”
Cicero, standing in the shadows, watched the flailing figure soar overhead and pressed his hand over his face in agony.
“Lord, if you’re watching, please avert your eyes.”
Vivian hovered in the air for about two seconds—enough time to review her short, ridiculous life.
“Thud!” A dull sound.
Vivian felt as if she’d landed on a searing hot iron.
She stiffly looked down.
Her legs were clamped tightly around the Queen Automaton’s… shoulders.
And her rear was planted squarely atop the automaton’s fire-spewing stump.
Deathly silence.
Even the clapping spectators froze, as if contemplating the deep artistic symbolism of “riding on the Queen’s neck.”
“Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot!”
Vivian jolted as if pricked by needles, but to avoid falling, she had to sit even tighter—just like perching on a preheating oven door.
The automaton didn’t throw her off.
On the contrary, the fire it was gathering suddenly extinguished.
The white-gloved hands rose slowly, tentatively feeling for its shoulders.
They found Vivian’s thighs, then slid up to her waist.
Finally, its hands paused in midair, as if cradling a precious treasure in the void.
A faint, static-laced voice drilled straight into Vivian’s mind.
[Head…]
Vivian stiffened.
[My… head… is back…]
The voice brimmed with joy and grievance.
“What the…?” Vivian stared, dumbfounded.
Before she could react, the automaton suddenly straightened its back.
It began tidying its clothes, dusting itself off, then, with elegant courtly steps, started parading across the square.
It took Vivian perched on its neck as its head.
“Wait! Stop! Where are you taking me?!”
Vivian tried to get down, but the automaton’s hands clamped her ankles tightly, with such strength it was terrified its newly found “head” would fall off again.
The crowd erupted into shrill screams.
“The Queen is back!”
“God save the King!”
Some even began to kneel.
“This is truly social death…” Vivian thought despairingly as she gazed down at the sea of heads.
Tomorrow’s front page would surely read, “Girl Thief Rides Queen, Occupies Louvre.”
“Wave your hand.”
Cicero’s voice suddenly came from within the crowd.
Vivian looked down and saw the man in the stinky cloak squeezed to the front row, shouting up at her.
“What?”
“It’s on a ‘parade’!” Cicero held the thick Saint Canon, seemingly searching for something inside.
“If you don’t cooperate, its logic will collapse, and you really will be barbecued!”
Vivian forced down the urge to leap off, adjusted her posture to look as dignified as possible.
She raised her right hand and gave the classic royal wave.
“Greetings, comrades.” Vivian said expressionlessly to the fanatic French below, “Thank you for your hard work, comrades.”
The automaton became even more animated. It began to skip lightly, each step ringing out with a metallic clang.
But just as Vivian thought this absurd parade would last forever, a strange emotion suddenly flooded into her body.
It was a tidal wave of despair and grief.
Vivian seemed to see countless pairs of malicious eyes, to hear deafening curses, and to hear the chopping fall of a guillotine…
The fear was so real that she instinctively gripped the automaton’s shoulders.
“Don’t be afraid.” The words slipped out, and even Vivian was surprised.
The automaton’s steps suddenly faltered.
In that brief moment, a purple afterimage flashed in from the side.
Cicero moved.
His cane jabbed precisely into the automaton’s intricate knee joint.
“Though it’s rude to interrupt a lady’s promenade,” Cicero’s voice rang out coldly, “this farce must end.”
“Crack!”
Cicero gave a sharp twist.
The automaton’s right knee gave a dreadful metallic shriek, its body lost balance, and crashed heavily to the right.
“This is your rescue plan?!” Vivian screamed in despair as she toppled with the automaton.
“Bang!”
Dust billowed.
The automaton crashed to the ground, its components scattering everywhere with a clatter.
Vivian managed a roll before landing, but was still left dizzy and aching.
She sprawled on the ground, feeling every bone in her body cry out in protest.
Before her, the automaton lay completely still.
Its core gears were still whirring, emitting a faint crackle of electricity. It stretched out a hand, as if trying to reach the fallen “head,” but its fingers stopped just a centimeter from Vivian.
The grief did not fade; it only deepened.
Almost involuntarily, Vivian reached out and grasped the automaton’s cold metal finger.
“…It’s all right now.” She murmured.
Whether it was her imagination or not, she felt the icy finger give a faint, gentle squeeze in her palm.
And then, it went limp.
At that moment, the once-cheering crowd seemed to awaken from a dream, staring at the chaos and the ruined automaton in confusion.
“Let’s go.”
Cicero yanked Vivian to her feet. “Before this bunch of fools realizes they were just bowing to a pile of scrap.”
“Wait.”
Vivian shook him off, quickly reaching into the automaton’s chest cavity.
“What are you doing, some kind of scavenger’s compulsion?”
“Shut up.”
Vivian withdrew her hand, a still-warm piece of metal in her palm. It was the core part of the fire-spewing device, etched with a line of tiny Latin script.
[To my imperfect world, and the tomorrow that will never come.]
Vivian’s heart gave a fierce thump.
“That’s not Madame Eiloti’s handwriting.” Cicero glanced at it.
In the distance, police whistles sounded—the Gendarmerie was coming.
“We have to go.”
Hats pulled low, the two slipped into the tangled alleys beside the Louvre.
In the darkness, Vivian suddenly stopped and looked back.
“What is it?” Cicero asked.
“I was just thinking… if I had a memory I wanted to burn, would I breathe fire too?”
Cicero looked at her, a complicated light flickering in those deep eyes.
“If you could breathe fire,” he said lightly, “I’d have to raise your rent. Fire insurance is expensive, after all.”
Vivian rolled her eyes, just about to retort.
Suddenly, the metal plate in her pocket grew scalding hot.