Clockwork Chaos (17 page)

“And why isn’t it working then, being you have such great expertise on the going and comings of prostitutes and their clients,” Sir Reginald said snidely.

“Other than your mother, I’m not really acquainted with many in that line of work,” Grimstone said with a wag of his eyebrows. The knight cop growled. The Spellpunk grinned.

“You still haven’t told me what wrong with my trap,” the knight cop said.

“What’s wrong? Besides you dressing them all in pink and giving them parasols?” Grimstone said.

Sir Reginald shrugged. “The parasols seemed the best way to hide the fact that they weren’t really damsels. And the pink was to make them look more girlish.”

“In the entire time we’ve been here, not one paying customer has come along and met with any of our ‘girls’. It probably looks too suspicious.”

“And how do you propose we fix that, Grimstone?” Sir Reginald asked.

Grimstone tilted his hat jauntily to the side, covered up the dragon top of his cane with the palm of his hand and strutted merrily toward the squires in women’s clothing.

The Spellpunk staggered slightly as if he had a bit too much to drink but not so much as to be incapacitated. The gawker floated out to follow, but Sir Reginald grabbed it with one meaty hand.

“Regulations or not, if you blow this trap, I will crush you myself,” the knight cop whispered. The gawker floated back behind the ivy, but its lens adjusted to keep Grimstone in a close up.

The Spellpunk had made his way across the street and put a hand on the wall that one of the squires in girls’ clothing was standing in front of as if to hit on her. And hit on her he did.

“Good evening, sweet lady. What will a crown and a loaf of bread get me?” The lad seemed horrified. It was the same squire that had let Grimstone in the area that the police had quartered off earlier in the day.

“Grimstone, what are you doing? This is very unseemly,” the squire whispered, as his eyes darted toward the hiding places of his fellow coppers, embarrassment not only storming his face, but taking up a stronghold on his face that it appeared ready to defend against all comers.

“Nonsense. The lot of you aren’t fooling anybody. You’re supposed to be out here to make money, yet you’re horrified that I am trying to engage your services. You put aside those Victorian mores and act like a woman of the evening. You should be working hard in an attempt to disengage me from my money, which means you don’t pull away, you lean forward, you smile, you giggle, you laugh. You put a wiggle in your step when you walk. So what we are going to do is you are going to take my arm and we are going to walk around the corner as if I were a real customer and we were actually going to do what a customer and a lady of the evening engage in for there to be an exchange of currency. That would make the lot of you look more likely to be prostitutes and less likely to be coppers.”

Grimstone led the squire around the corner, stopping once to squeeze his bottom. The squire almost clobbered him but managed to stay in character. Sir Reginald had seen the logic of the Spellpunk’s plan and had sent a knight cop to engage the services of another of his undercover squires. They too walked off, but around the corner on the other side of the block. A single squire was left alone acting nervous, which was good for his cover. A woman alone on the streets at night would be anxious. It wasn’t long before a man in a long wool coat and a hat lumbered down the street toward the squire. While it was not exactly a sweltering summer evening, it was not nearly cool enough to justify the scarf the man wore around his neck and face. Or the cloud of fog that seemed to follow in his wake.

“How much for the rest of the evening?” the man in the scarf asked.

“A crown,” the squire said in a falsetto that cracked only slightly. His gentleman caller didn’t seem to notice.

The scarfed figure reached in the pocket and handed over the requested amount. “Now come with me.”

“Where are we going?” the squire asked.

“I’m not paying you to ask questions. I told you to come with me, whore,” the scarfed figure barked. The squire seemed at a loss. He didn’t know if this was the killer, but he didn’t necessarily want to go off with a man who wasn’t, especially since he had no intention of providing the services that were paid for. His hesitation lasted longer than the scarfed figure was willing to wait, so he reached out and grabbed the squire by the wrist and pulled. The squire tried to pull back, but was unable to break the grip, so he took a swing at the side of the man’s hat with his parasol, which had the added value of being a large wooden club with metal inside to give it added heft. Sir Reginald hadn’t wanted any of his squires unarmed. The blow should have at least stunned the man. Instead all the squire got for his trouble was an ominous sounding metallic clunk.

The scarfed figure strolled away, dragging the disinclined squire in his wake. The lad at first stumbled and then ran to keep up. Sir Reginald held back until he saw the scarfed man reach into a special pocket on the side of his long woolen coat and pull out a long metal blade. He blew once and three times rapidly on a whistle and the Steam Table coppers moved in. Eight men, two knights, and six squires, rushed the man. Each was equipped with their own specially weighted club. Dozens of blows rained down faster than hail during a spring storm, none of which affected the scarfed figure in the slightest. Next the men tried to wrestle him to the ground and were tossed aside like rag dolls for their trouble. The only thing the melee accomplished was knocking the killer’s hat off and tearing his long coat, revealing a silver metallic body beneath.

“Blazes, it’s a tourist!” Sir Reginald snapped, moving in himself. Although the knight cop was a giant among men in both strength and bravery, he was a weakling when compared to the might of a metal man. The knight cop did his best to pin the mechanical arms to the tourist’s side but his grip was broken and he too was tossed aside.

The gawker had left its ivy perch and followed, moving in for a close up of the mechanization. The tourist swiped at it, but the sphere dodged it easier that a horsefly avoiding an old mare’s tail.

Both Grimstone and the undercover squire had returned to the scene running and breathless.

“What do we do?” the squire asked. Instead of answering, Grimstone reached his hand inside the neckline of the squire and down into his brazier. “Grimstone, what the hell are you doing?”

Grimstone put his hand out and with it the four pairs of socks that the squire had used to augment his chest size. “Figured you wouldn’t need these. How far away is the nearest zeppelin airship?”

“Five minutes or so,” the squire said.

“Go contact them and get them here.”

“On whose authority?”

“Mine. Remember, the Queen asked me to poke my nose in. Tell them to pilot right over me and drop anchor, minus the anchor. Trust me, in the long run, Sir Reginald will thank you. Now run,” Grimstone said, tossing one pair of socks aside before sneaking up behind the tourist and the three exhaust ports that were hooked up to his back. Grimstone shoved a pair of socks in each. He raised his cane over his head and used the tip to push the stockings further in. The tourist continued to move, although much more slowly.

“What did you do?” the mechanical automation demanded.

“You bug eyes can project your consciousness into these robots, but you’re foolish enough to bind yourself to the themes of this world, meaning you are allowing them to run on steam-based technology. That means I block your exhaust pipe and you have to slow down.”

“You can’t stop me. No human can match the strength of a tourist,” the automation said. Stepping forward, the machine seeming to actually strain with the effort, pushing harder until its internal pressure built up and two of the three pairs of socks were shot out of the exhaust tubes like woven cannonballs.

Grimstone stuck his cane between the tourist’s legs as the mechanization took his next step. The result was a very ungraceful fall that brought the unfortunate squire the tourist was holding down alongside the mechanization. There was a trough meant for watering horses on the front of a nearby building and Grimstone ran toward it. Sir Reginald had a similar idea and followed him. The two men picked up the trough, carrying it between them back toward the tourist, although even Grimstone would admit that Sir Reginald bore most of the weight. The automation was back on his knees when they dumped the water down his pipes.

The water ran all over the automation but the robot was waterproof except his exhaust pipes, which quickly filled up and then poured down into the section that burnt coal specially designed to last a day without being replaced. The water was enough to put out the fire within and stop the automation from moving.

Unfortunately the steam-powered Ripper didn’t seem to be playing by the rules because even as the fire within burnt out his limbs began to become active again.

“What the blazes is happening?” Sir Reginald said, bending forward to try and pull the automation’s leg out from under him to knock him back down. The tourist only wobbled.

“Obviously he has managed to modify the mechanical shell,” Grimstone said. “An obvious violation of the rules that govern visitation of the playworlds.”

“How do you even know that? Not even the knights are privy to all those rules.”

“This isn’t the first playworld that I’ve visited. Or the firstprivy, which is where the bug eyes belong. But this is the one they’ve hidden my daughter on, so I’m staying until I find her.” Grimstone looked right into the gawker’s eye lens as he spoke. “And then I’m coming for the ones that did this to us.” He turned toward the tourist. “Now if you don’t come quietly, I’m going have to report you. Oops, I think I have. They don’t take to kindly to rouge tourists, do they? Throws off the whole entertainment dynamics. Can’t have the camera fodder catching on and getting ideas of their own, can we?”

“And just how do you think you can do that? No one from a playworld can visit our home,” the tourist said.

“True, but I can always phone it in. Or I guess telegraph it to be more era-specific. Or did you miss the floating broadcast center up there?” Grimstone said, pointing to the hovering gawker.

Instead of showing worry, the consciousness hosting robot laughed and waved at the floating globe. “Hi, Mom.” The mechanization turned back to Grimstone. “Yeah, I may be in all sorts of trouble, but if I’m entertaining and get good ratings all will be forgiven. And what could be better ratings magic than killing the notorious Jackson Grimstone?”

“Jackson Grimstone kicking your mechanical posterior I’d imagine, at least if the number of gawkers stalking me at any given time is any indication.” Grimstone rammed his cane into the wrist joint of the hand holding the squire and the grip loosened. The Spellpunk pulled the boy in a dress free. “Go on and get yourself out of here, Miss. This is man’s business.” Grimstone laughed and pointed his cane at the metal hand with a knife. A single electrical blast shot out, temporarily shorting out the hand so when Grimstone hit it with his cane, the knife fell to the cobbles. “Back home that comment would have gotten me in trouble with the PC police.”

The tourist rose to his feet. “I’ve watched you. You criticize me for cheating, but you have knowledge of higher-level tech, making people think you have magical powers and using it to your advantage all the time,” the tourist said.

“And there is no time like the present,” Grimstone said, pulling a handful of large marbles from his pocket and tossing them on the ground where the chemicals mixed with each other and the air, creating large clouds of smoke. “Now you see me, now you don’t.”

The mechanization swung his arms wildly in the haze. “Just because I can’t see you doesn’t mean I can’t kill you.”

“But it does help my odds a wee bit, don’t it?” the Spellpunk said, his voice suddenly above the tourist.

“What?” the tourist yelled, craning his neck upward in time to see Grimstone soar by. “You can fly?”

“Under the right circumstances,” Grimstone said, wrapping a rope tied lasso-style around the chest and under the arms of the metal visitor. The Spellpunk yanked twice on it. “Going up.”

With a lurch the rope tightened and the tourist launched upward, his legs clearing the ground in an instant.

“What the hell?” the tourist said.

“I control the forces of light and darkness. Simple levitation is well within my powers,” Grimstone said.

“You of full of shite. You control nothing,” the mechanization said, craning his neck back to see the outline of a zeppelin soaring above them. “You think lifting me off the ground will stop me? I’ll climb up this rope and rip your head off and piss down your throat.”

“See, this sort of thing is why we don’t allow tourists to use our plumbing facilities. You’re just too dumb to figure out how to use a water closet.”

The tourist reached up and pulled on the rope with one hand, then the next.

Grimstone wagged his finger at the mechanization. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

“You’re not me. I’m smarter,” the tourist said.

“That remains to be seen,” Grimstone said, taking a swipe with his cane at the floating gawker who had followed them into the sky before putting his walking stick in his mouth. Both hands free, he ascended higher up the rope with the mechanization following behind.

The tourist climbed slowly and steadily behind the scrambling Grimstone, quickly closing the gap. Grimstone reached the side of the airship and shouted “Permission to come aboard.”

“Granted,” a deep voice boomed and the Spellpunk scurried over the hull.

“Grimstone, in a moment I will be onboard that airship and kill you, then scuttle it,” the tourist said.

“Not really on the agenda for today, old boy.” Grimstone twisted the dragon’s left ear and a long blade sprung out of the carved mouth. Grimstone slipped the blade under the rope.

The tourist was not close enough to grab hold of the hull, so he looked down, amazed at how high the airship had climbed in so brief a time. “No!”

“Oh, yes,” Grimstone said, slicing through the rope.