Mechanized Masterpieces: A Steampunk Anthology (32 page)

Fred grimaced at the thought of giving his report to his director, Edgar Griffith. The man would give him a dressing down to be certain.

“And we still have to clean up this muddle.” Mary swept her hand through the air over the dead bodies littering the alley.

“Right you are. We should send in a signal to summon a cleanup crew.”

“Already done.” Mary held up her wrist, waggling the intricate homing bracelet she wore.

“Excellent. And if we can keep the Peelers off our backs until we’ve taken care of everything, we might just make it out of this scrape without more misfortune.”

After leaving the cleaning crew—and Mary—to deal with the disposal of the evidence, Fred entered the offices of the Clockwork Department, secreted deep in the bowels of the Foreign Office of London. He went to his immediate superior, Edgar Griffith, to make his report, and found a scowl and angry words to greet him.

“Muggins is running us in circles! This morning’s debacle has us no closer to finding the villain! We don’t have his whereabouts or any credible information on what he is planning! He has the run of the city, and we have nothing! The man is making us look like fools!”

“True, sir, the skirmish this morning went to Muggins, but we have yet to assess any evidence found at the scene and we did capture another one of his beam guns.”

Griffith glared. “Yes, you did, but only after a very public battle. What were you thinking? Exchanging gunfire in the street like common thugs! And with a beam weapon, no less! Great Scott, man! Are you
trying
to bring unwanted exposure to this department? You can be thankful it was such an early hour and that most decent people were still abed!”

He sighed heavily. “You can’t keep having these very showy encounters with our foes, Fred, old boy. It’s all this office can do sometimes to keep these exchanges out of the papers. If word got out about these fantastic devices we keep under wraps, there’d be inquiries, a call for an accounting of our department, and that would never do.”

Fred took a deep breath. “Yes, sir. Next time I’ll do better.”

Yes, next ambush, I’ll just let them kill me.

“See that you do. Now get back out there and find Muggins.” Griffith waved his hand in dismissal and Fred left his presence.

A weary and thoroughly rebuked Fred left the Foreign Office with one task left to accomplish. He made his way through the late afternoon streets of London to the counting house of Scrooge and Marley. His adventure with Mary reminded him that he had happy news to impart to his Uncle Ebenezer, though he doubted the old man would wish him well.

Upon arrival, he found his uncle temporarily gone from the place, so he settled in to wait, leaning against the dividing doorframe so he might chat with Bob Cratchit, his uncle’s clerk.

Fred gave him a friendly smile, in hopes that he might brighten the mood of the clerk’s dismal workplace. “How goes it with you, sir? Is your family well?”

Cratchit put down his pen and looked up from his copying. “’Tis fine with me, Master Fred, and I thank you for asking. The family’s fine as well.” A slight frown marred his face. “Although, my youngest, Tim, has been feeling poorly of late. No doubt it will pass, and he’ll be right as rain again.”

“No doubt. Children are a resilient lot.” A noise from the adjoining room brought his attention away from the idle chitchat, and a gruff voice rang out.

“Who’s there? Who’s in with my clerk?”

“It sounds as if my uncle has returned.” Fred gave Cratchit a grin. “It is only I, Uncle, your nephew, Fred.” With a wave, Fred took his leave of the clerk and went to see his uncle, who was hanging up his shabby greatcoat.

“By what displeasure have you come to see me today, nephew?” Scrooge, now divested of his coat, shuffled to his desk and sat in his creaky, well-worn chair. “If you are looking for a handout, you will be sorely disappointed. I’m in the business of making money, not providing charity.”

“No need to fret, Uncle, I am not here for money, simply to impart some happy news. I am engaged to be married.”

“What! What nonsense is this? You barely have two pennies to scrape together and you want to burden yourself with a wife? Rid yourself of such youthful folly at once, is my advice.”

“I shall do no such thing, Uncle. Mary and I are in love, and plan to be wed.”

“Love? Bah, useless twaddle. No good for anything, and certainly not a reason to marry. Why you come to bother me with this tripe, I can’t imagine. Be off with you. I have work to finish.”

“As you wish, Uncle, but be warned, you shall be receiving an invitation to my wedding.”

“Bah! Be off with you I say, and take your silly notions of marriage with you.”

“Good-bye, Uncle, and despite everything, I do hope you attend the wedding.”

Fred slipped out the door and went on his way. The visit to his uncle went as he expected. Ebenezer Scrooge was not one for sentiment. With spirits in disarray, Fred walked back to his rooms to settle in for the night and put the difficult day behind him.

The next morning, as he sipped his tea and munched on buttered toast, a loud knocking sounded at his door. With a sigh, he left his breakfast and answered it. Mary burst into his rooms, flush with excitement, and waving a longish, much folded wad of paper.

“Yesterday may not have been the disaster we feared! Plans, Fred! We found plans hidden in the lining of one of their coats.” She waved the paper under his nose, causing him to step back and clutch closed his dressing gown.

“Calm down, Mary. Let me dress and we can discuss this development over breakfast.”

Mary blushed, realising he stood before her in his night clothes, and sat down without another word. Fred left the room and came back more properly attired, wearing a smart suit, pressed shirt, and cravat. He found Mary had removed her pelisse and hat and made herself more at home in a plush armchair by the fire. The sight made him grin.

“Well, now, let’s see those plans.”

Mary rose and they both moved to the dining table, where she spread the paper across the surface, pushing aside the remains of Fred’s interrupted breakfast. Fred retrieved his repast and poured her a cup of tea as he looked at the unfolded document covering his table.

“Is that some sort of a design?” He frowned, taking a closer look. “It’s a mechanical diagram, for a—good heavens! A mechanical rat? What in the world could Muggins want with a design for a two-foot clockwork rodent?” Flabbergasted, Fred sputtered his words.

“I have no idea, but if the notations in the corner are any indication, we may find out at four o’clock today.”

Mary pointed at handwritten scribbling on the plans.

Fred peered at the writing, reading aloud. “
Initial testing. Hyde Park. Four o’clock
. And with today’s date. That does sound rather ominous, and that is definitely where we want to be this afternoon. We should pay a visit to Topper before we go.”

Mary smiled. “I already sent word. He’s expecting us.” She deftly folded up the plans and tucked them under her arm. “Shall we go, then?”

“After you, my dear.”

Fred and Mary soon found themselves threading through winding corridors deep beneath the Foreign Office, on their way to Topper’s laboratory. While both a friend and a colleague, Topper was also the agency’s resident inventor.

As they entered his sanctum, Topper greeted them, “Hello to you both,” and waved them forward.

As was his customary habit while in the lab, Topper presented quite the image, wearing his frayed and stained white coat, tarnished brass goggles, and shockingly unkempt head of hair. A dark smudge of unknown filth on his youthful, ruddy cheek completed the odd picture to perfection.

"I hear you have a bit of an adventure planned this afternoon. I have quite a few new gadgets that may aid in your quest.” He grinned. “Come, follow me.” He beckoned them like a schoolboy as he pranced across the floor.

“How’s that cantankerous uncle of yours, Fred? I heard you paid him a visit yesterday.”

“How did you—never mind. He’s as bad-tempered as ever.”

“He is a character, that one.” Topper turned his attention to Mary. “How are your lovely sisters?”

“They’re well. Matilda asked after you the other day.”

“Did she now? Excellent.”

Topper led them to a table, covered in all manner of mechanical wonders. Dozens of strange looking items littered the surface:  spheres, cylinders, weapons, small automatons, enhanced spectacles, and a jumble of assorted tools, wires, tubes, gears, nuts, bolts, and other metal parts.

“I see you’ve been busy,” Fred remarked.

“Oh, yes. I’ve made notable progress. Unfortunately, I’m still working on that portable, smaller version of Muggins’ beam gun. It would come in handy, I know, but no such luck today.”

He reached down and picked up a diminutive orb, made of brassy metal, gears, and fittings. “But this, now . . . this is quite the useful weapon. Simply turn the top half here,”—he mimed swiveling the ball’s top—“and you arm the device and start the countdown machinery. When the mechanism rotates back into position, it releases sleeping gas. And here,”—Topper pointed to what appeared to be a clock apparatus—“you can set the clockwork to different rates of rotation. You can release the gas after a few seconds, a minute, two minutes, five minutes, and so on, up to an hour.”

“Oh, that is very useful.” Mary picked up another contraption from the table. “What does this do?”

Topper beamed in pride. “That’s my navigation contrivance. Completely wearable—on your wrist—it is a miniature sundial, compass, and sextant. Excellent for wilderness or sea adventures, but not truly necessary for London jaunts.” Mary put it down in disappointment.

Topper picked up a metal wrist cuff, decorated with an array of small cylinders. “This—this is a much better choice. Each tube has a poison dart and can be rotated and fired by air compression. Also, it is easily concealed under the sleeve of a dress or jacket, or displayed as a fancy bracelet, if you prefer.”

Fred laid a hand on Topper’s shoulder. “Quite impressive, but do you have anything with a bit more firepower? Say, something that would stop a mechanical rodent in its tracks?”

“I have just the thing. Wait here.” Topper ran off to a back room and returned moments later carrying a leather case. He made room for it on a corner of the table and opened it to show the contents. Three parts of an odd-looking gun rested inside.

Fred snorted, unimpressed. “How do pieces of a weapon help us?”

“They don’t. However, when you assemble them . . .” Topper took the parts from the case one by one and rapidly built a fully formed, albeit strange-looking, weapon. He held it out for Fred and Mary to inspect.

“It’s a prototype. I’ve been working on it since you had your encounter with that signal-controlled automaton man at Oxford. I call it my scrambler gun.” A broad smile formed across his face. “You can see here,”—he pointed at some of the workings—“I’ve enhanced it with a clockwork operating panel, and it has been calibrated to fire an emission beam that will disorientate any automated command function in the subject you are aiming at. I noticed when examining the plans for the rat, that it had a component that used sound waves to direct movement and intent.”