Capes & Clockwork: Superheroes in the Age of Steam, page 11
“Quickly,” Magus called. “To me!”
I gathered Liberator into my arms and followed Shrike as she went to him. We walked down the row to the disc, and on reaching it found ourselves in the room above. From here, the din of battle was obvious. Anika fought outside somewhere, giving the clockwork demons hell.
“Wait here,” Magus said and vanished in a swirl of shadow. When he returned minutes later bearing a small box, Shrike had gone, deaf to my insistence.
“She would not stay?”
“No, she went to help Anika.”
“Then we shall do the same. Leave the Doctor here; we shall return for him.”
I considered an argument, but decided just to check on him as the fight permitted. Gone in a flash, I sped out of the blockhouse to find Anika in the gateway, holding a defensive action against a horde of clockwork demons. Shrike had managed to ascend the wall and fired on them from on high, though her bullets were largely ineffectual.
With a good head start, I ran up the wall north of the gate to take stock. They stood ranks deep, dozens of them, waiting impatiently for their turn at Anika. A scant few struggled to gain purchase in the stone wall footing, but these models were not built for climbing. In fact, they were unlike any I had seen before. Each stood some six feet high, proportioned like a man, with two arms and two legs, but no head. A row of five lenses crossed the upper chest of each unit, serving as eyes, I supposed. Each was armed with a Maxim III and a bandolier of needles.
They moved as though a demented puppeteer jiggled a million strings.
Dropping down beside Anika, I shouted, “How are you? Can you hold out?”
His voice was amplified by the suit. “Yes. I am out of ammo, but,” he paused to skewer a demon through the lenses and push it off with the shield, “I can carry on for some time. If there are no more, I will hold.”
“I think that’s the lot of them,” I said and took a minute to check on the Doc, who remained unconscious but alive.
Slipping back into my scout role, I checked that no other forces converged on us before returning to the gate.
Magus had ended the battle. A wide pit had opened to engulf the automaton army. It slammed shut as I approached and the sorcerer collapsed. Shrike descended on one wing, with all the grace of a chicken falling out of a truck. As she and Anika checked on Magus, I retrieved the Doc.
“We have to make for the drop point, Liberator needs help.”
“Give him to me,” Anika offered, and Shrike helped me load him across the armor’s shoulders.
“Are you fit?” I asked Magus, now on his feet again. He replied with a nod and we were off. After scouting all the way up, setting off the flare, and doubling back, I pulled up beside Magus and Shrike.
“What happened to the fellow in the suit? Albert?”
Magus said, “He waits our pleasure in a kind of holding cell. We will interrogate him once we have returned to a place of safety and the Doctor has been cared for.”
“How about you, Shrike, are you all right?”
She nodded. “I have a couple of scrapes. They’re nothing.” Her breath was still ragged; there was more pain than she’d admit.
The path to the Asteria stayed clear and we were soon on heading for home. But the Doc, he didn’t wake up, and nothing but bad news awaited in New York.
*****
We made port just past dawn. Smoke rose in great columns on the Island. Once Asteria was locked into her berth, Captain White activated the news wire, and we hustled into the pilot house, freshly changed for civilian travel.
The Captain read the ticker tape out: “...riots in all five boroughs now, incited by the continuation of mysterious attacks in poor neighborhoods: The Bronx, Staten Island, Manhattan. Mayor’s office has declared martial law in HRH’s name, citizens are ordered to return to their homes by noon today....”
“I have contact with the police,” Anika said. “I will learn more and meet you at the Abbey,” and he was down the gangplank, his armor waiting in the hold.
“We have to get Adam to a hospital,” I reminded Magus and Shrike.
“The cars are on the way,” White said. I began to pace.
“In fact, Jordan, a hospital will do the Doctor little good. His wound is severe, but I can treat that at the Abbey. What concerns me is the hex.”
Shrike and I asked, “Hex?”
“Yes, Albert’s dagger was enchanted, and it has left a sort of curse on Adam. I cannot yet tell you more.”
“Yet? What are you waiting for?” Shrike spat.
“I must have the proper conditions to determine the nature of this magick, Miss Kensington-Smythe. We must get to the Abbey.”
The car pulled up then, and without a word, I bolted for the Doc, not slowing until I came to the hatch. The others were close behind and the cab screeched off, swinging onto the wide Aerodrome Avenue. It was going to be a long ride. The Abbey was in Brookhaven out on the Long Island, and we travelled poorly. Worse, we had to go through Manhattan to get there.
There were rioters and looters in the streets. Blocks of police in armor struggled against surges of angry protestors from all walks. There were soldiers moving in as we avoided the last knot of chaos and picked up speed across the bridge and through Queenstown and Kingstown, where rioting had not spread. Soon the city fell away behind us and trees closed in beside. Past a smattering of townships, we returned to Alton Abbey.
Thomasson, Doc’s valet, helped me get him upstairs and into his bed. We gathered the necessities and Magus cleaned and dressed the wound.
“What now?”
“I must examine his condition, and then confirm with our prisoner. It will take some time.”
“Get on with it, then,” Lysette demanded.
I went down to the kitchen and made a sandwich. The dog got half. Then I checked the news wires and waited for somebody, anybody, to give me some good news.
Anika came knocking just after three, looking plenty tired. “Tovarisch Jordan, good to see you.”
“You too, big fellow. What’s the news?”
“Thousands of people were killed while we were gone. Thousands. I think you say, ‘we jumped the cannon.’”
I did not laugh. “I’ll get the others. Meet us in the kitchen and help yourself.”
“Spasibo.”
I jammed upstairs, and came into the Doc’s chamber just as a dark cloud swallowed Magus.
“What....”
“He’s gone to ask Albert a few unfriendly questions in some kind of dimensional something.”
“Oh. Anika’s back, in the kitchen.”
“We can’t leave Adam,” she retorted.
“Thomasson is right here, Lysette. He’ll be fine. Come on, there’s work to see about.” She followed reluctantly.
Downstairs, Anika sipped vodka by the giant iron stove, where Cook fried sausages and toasted bread.
“We should not have gone north,” he said. “It would have been better to stay. Now we must protect the people, and Liberator cannot help us.”
“Wait a minute! Don’t you dare question Doc’s call.”
“I would not do such things. He could not have known,” he told me with a hand on my shoulder. “The police are overwhelmed, and the army has come to help. It is not so good, though. Many police are taking advantage. Some settle scores, others just steal. I do not know how the soldiers behave, but if they are like Russian troops, we cannot hope for more. In this madness, the demons are killing everyone.”
“All right, so what can we do?”
“We must find the demons and destroy them. All of them.”
“How?” Shrike asked.
“The first thing,” Anika explained, “is to upgrade our offensive capability. You both are not so good against a foe that ignores many bullets, with no organs or pain.”
“I was thinking,” I jumped in, “that if we could target the organs they do have, like lenses for eyes, we could do pretty well.”
“Still, Jordan, you have no good way to break lenses. Bullets and fists sometimes will crack them, but often only bounce away. Let us go to my workshop. I have some things”
Shrike stayed with Doc while we boys went out for supplies. Borrowing the Doc’s box lorry, slow and tough, and swinging by the Aerodrome to load up the armor first, we finally slipped into the wharfside warehouse that served as Anika’s shop. Inside were stacks of crates, old machines and three broken down petrol autos.
Anika found his way with a flashlight, leading us to an office. Once inside, he rolled a bank of filing cabinets away to reveal a hidden panel. As we descended the ramp, Hooke engines hummed to life somewhere below and lights powered up, revealing a subterranean workshop that was almost as cluttered and dirty as the warehouse above.
He went immediately to work filling crates with parts, tools and weapons. These we loaded on a heavy cart and trucked steadily out to the lorry. By the time the last load was ready to go up the ramp, I was sweaty, worn-down and more than a little thirsty. Anika took note and we soon shared vodka from iced glasses over a table piled high with schematics, maps and technical manuals.
“Why here?” I wondered aloud.
“The price was good.”
I laughed. “No, I mean why are you here in New York, Dmitri? I know things are bad for your people at home.”
“Ah. It is complicated.” He drained his glass and poured another. “This city, with all these other towns pressing in, it is like the world, but smaller. It is different to London and Moscow and Paris somehow, as if the newness of it helps to balance the forces that play against one-another.”
“I think I know what you mean. With all the people who live here, from all over, and the different things they do, the lives they live, New York is another culture entirely.”
“Yes! That is it, but also those cultures now struggle and burgeon against each other. The world grows too fast, Jordan, and unless every person can learn to accept the others, soon there will be only smog and fear for the poor and the weak.
“I came here to help make life better in the greatest city of all. It was right to come. Now that we are working together, we can make much more change for the better.”
I nodded and tipped back the last biting sip. “Let’s go. I want to check on the Doc.”
“First, take these. I made for a woman, but you are small, so they will fit.”
He helped me don the pair of thick leather and steel bracers, and taught me to activate the Hooke-actuated blades, about eight inches long.
“We will replace knives with spikes, I think. Will be better against the demons. Now we go. I too worry for Doctor Huntington.”
As we hustled back through Manhattan, insofar as the lorry could hustle, the rioting had begun to threaten revolution. The massive lights that lit the streets had gone dark. Many buildings stood in shadow like colossal tombstones, but at their feet swarmed masses of humanity. Walls of coppers pushed protesters away from Times Square, and we took numerous turns in order to find a way through.
Approaching the bridge to Queenstown, I looked out my window to see a battle a few blocks up 1st Avenue. Anika stopped the truck and leapt into the back as I darted up the street. A gang of children was fighting a group of some fifteen coppers, who swung their truncheons reluctantly but effectively. The sergeant shouted, ordering them to press forward and take down these rampaging mudlarks and pickpockets.
Anika was exiting the lorry behind me, so I dashed forward and vaulted to a now-tattered awning and then up to a fire escape above the melee. Down the alley, behind the children, huddled a mass of women and smaller children. Some were Jews, and I immediately realized that there could be real trouble here.
The alley was a dead-end, terminating at a tenement’s back door, the only door, which hung broken from one hinge.
I jumped down beside the women. “Everything will be all right,” I told them. “We’re here to help.” The terror in their eyes was all-consuming, and focused not on me, but beyond me.
As I turned, dozens of demons erupted from the tenement, an expanding mass of dark, bloodstained wood and alloy claws. My heartbeat grew loud enough to silence every other sound. With a deep breath, I actuated my blades and charged forward.
We managed to win that battle, by the grace of Anika’s power and presence. Almost all of the civilians lived, and a few coppers, too. When we returned, bruised and bloody, to the abbey, Magus hadn’t returned.
He never did.
The Doc woke up three weeks later, but he was never himself after. He never talked about the coma, or even the battle at Fort Barrington. His power was weaker, too, but he pushed it to the limit every day. And I was always at his side, along with Anika and Lady Shrike. Other members of our team would come and go, and we eventually gave ourselves a moniker: Prime Movers.
It was a defiance. Hell, our every act became a defiance by the end. As a team, we managed to bring New York back from the threshold of total devastation. We would go on to foment the Second Revolution and help free America from submission to Anglish laws and technology. And when we finally learned who our real enemy was, we gave damn near everything to stop them. In fact, all of humankind helped pay the price.
But as Anika would say, “That, tovarisch, is another story.”
At the Quiet Limit of the World
David J. Fielding
His Majesty’s Luftschiff D-LZ132 Reichsadler glided safely into mooring position above the Empire State building and the ground crew secured the tether lines and clamps, enabling the ship to make ready to debark.
Professor Heinrich Gessler looked up from the research article he was correcting and over the rims of his glasses toward the front of the gondola’s lounge. There the stewards and flight crew were smiling as they ushered the passengers toward the exit and told them it had been their pleasure to serve them during the voyage. It had been a pleasant trip indeed, three days from Berlin to New York, with exemplary service and accommodations. Every need had been seen to, not one of those on board had suffered from any want. Yet, even with the first class treatment, the fine food and drink, there was the sense that everyone, the Professor included, was ready to be off the magnificent airship; to put their feet on solid ground once again.
He glanced at the seat next to him, where his hastily folded mack lay and the half hidden briefcase beneath it.
He resisted the urge to touch the case, to make sure of its presence. He knew it was there and what it contained, and that should be enough. But still he felt compelled to place a hand on it, to know it was occupying the space his eyes told him it was. The pages within contained a secret equation, an equation that both excited and troubled Gessler. He needed to get it into the hands of the only man he knew who would understand its ramifications. The equation was both blessing and curse, and in the wrong hands…Gessler did not want to think about that.
The pages within the case, and the equation on those pages were going to change everything.
Still, there was time yet.
Another glance told him that the long line of passengers was slowly making their way off the airship. He sighed, his breath blowing gently through his thick brushy mustache. He had never been comfortable in close quarters and rather than join in with the business up front, he decided to take advantage of what free moments he had left and once more turned his attention to the article. He made a mental note to reprimand Stieglitz when he returned in a fortnight. The man was sharp and a damn fine researcher, but he had a lot to learn about writing something that he might have to one day present before a committee.
Gessler made more notes and corrections, his pen making scratching sounds on the paper as he lost himself to the work.
After a time, he became aware of the silence around him looked up and around. He was surprised to see the lounge area was entirely empty. No passengers. No flight staff.
A whispered curse escaped his lips as he hurried to put the paperwork away. Now the flight crew was really going to think him an eccentric old fool! He stuffed the papers unceremoniously into his satchel and he slipped the strap over his shoulder. Then he stepped out into the aisle and grabbed his trench coat and briefcase.
It was then that he heard the menacing clomp of marschstiefel and the all too familiar clack of several maschinengewehrs being cocked.
*****
“So, this Hun professor, he’s a friend of yours?” Henry’s brow was furrowed with confusion.
The two men, one tall and one short, were moving through the rush hour crush along Fifth Avenue, the lemon-rosy sky above rapidly turning to a deep indigo now that the sun had set behind the city’s famous skyline.
Henry was the smaller of the two men, with freckled skin and a shock of golden hair. He was dressed in a shabby, ill-fitting suit, and it was painfully obvious he was unused to wearing it. He barely topped out at five feet and though he was over thirty, there were many who would’ve pegged him for a youth of fifteen.
The taller man was broad shouldered and square of jaw, with a rugged handsomeness and keen ice-blue eyes that turned quite a few female heads as he walked past. His suit was tailored for his athletic frame and his hat was tipped back to reveal his rust colored hair trimmed in the new undercut style. His smile was an easy and friendly one.
“That’s right, Hank,” the taller man answered. “Doc Gessler and I taught at Innsbruck for a couple of years before the war. We would sit up late at night discussing chem theory and physics. Really, really smart man. The Empire called him back when the fighting broke out and I went back to our side. Now that all the dust has settled, we can be friends again.”
“I don’t know, Nate,” Henry said, making no attempt to hide his skepticism. “I still don’t think you can trust a friend of the Kaiser; especially one who was the brains behind their weapons program.”
