The Flux Engine by Dan Willis

Fixer asked, suspicion on his face.
    “I was trained as a Thurger,” John said. “I can recognize most crystals by sight.” It was a lie, but he doubted Fixer would believe he could pick them out by their sound.
    “All right,” Fixer said after a long moment. “You trade me the good crystals out of that box, and maybe identify a couple more I got laying around, and I’ll let you use the Neuro-Chromatigraph.”
    They shook on it and John quickly separated the useful and reparable crystals from the junk in the box. He noticed with a pang of guilt that there were at least two hundred dollars worth in the pile, yet he had paid the woman only twenty. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but he hated the thought that he’d abused the woman’s trust. Just because he was surrounded by thieves didn’t mean he had to become one of them. There probably wasn’t any way to find the woman and make amends, but John resolved not to take advantage of someone like that again.
    The decision made him feel better.
    Once John finished with Fixer’s crystals, the portly man levered himself out of his chair and led them through his maze of junk to an enormous fan mounted in the back wall. He touched the end of a bolt sticking out from the fan’s housing and the whole thing slid to the side. The room beyond the hidden door was almost as large as the shop out front but with none of the clutter. The skeletal frameworks of machines stood at regular intervals along the walls like clockwork sentinels. Most of them were in various stages of construction, missing crystals or gears or levers, but some were whole, silently waiting for Fixer to need them. Thick rubber hoses connected the working devices to a steam line that ran along the wall about waist high. None of the valves were open and the machines were all still and silent.
    Fixer led John and Robi through the room to a workbench in the back where a machine sat covered with a canvas tarp.
    “Sit here,” Fixer said, pulling up a stool for John.
    The machine beneath the tarp was at least a Third Order device, with gears and cogs that moved its crystals in and out, back and forth, and round and round each other, multiplying the effect of their interactions by at least a factor of ten. It was the most complex machine John had ever seen. There were six separate groups of crystals mounted on gears, each one designed to interact with a sister set, then move on to another. Gears, cogs, and wheels stuck out everywhere and glass bottles of various chemicals hung suspended above the device with black, rubber hoses hanging down into its guts.
    Fixer opened a drawer in the workbench and removed a thin copper plate from a cardboard box. Being careful to grip it by its edge, the portly man deposited it gently in a steel pan that slid out from the side of the Neuro-Chromatigraph. He opened several of the valves connected to the rubber tubes, letting their liquid flow for a few seconds. John coughed as the strong odor of chemicals wafted out of the metal tray.
    “Put this on,” Fixer said, handing John a metal circlet that reminded him uncomfortably of the Tommy control crown. A bare copper wire ran from the circlet into the Chromatigraph and John was careful not to touch it as he put the circlet on.
    “Okay,” Fixer said, opening the valve on the steam line. “Close your eyes and think about the person you want. See them in your mind.”
    John closed his eyes as the Chromatigraph’s steam piston began to chug back and forth. He tried to picture the dark-haired girl as the gears inside the machine turned and the harmonic whine of the crystals ramped up to a pulsating screech. The noise was nothing like the harmonious sound the Tommy motivator made when he’d used his mother’s crystal. This sound set his teeth on edge.
    He could feel pressure from the metal hoop, as if it were boring into his head with some invisible force. John fixed the image of the tattooed girl in his mind just as the