Odette Speex: Time Traitors Book 1 (3 page)

Sadly Cara set the photograph back down on the table. Ivy’s pride would never let her accept the gradual downgrade to older character roles. She resisted any demotion and used her considerable influence to maintain her principal status.

It was this stubborn arrogance that led to a disastrous performance of
Giselle
. After several stumbles, aborted leaps, and missed cues, many in the audience left. Those who stayed did so only out of respect for the aging prima ballerina. The critics were not so kind.

Days later her body was found floating in the Hudson. The circumstances were suspicious, but the authorities eventually ruled it an accidental death. The gossips ruled it a suicide.

Her memorial was attended by the great and powerful, as well as dancers from all over the world. Odette and Cara had stood at her graveside. Odell was conspicuously absent.

“How is he?” Odette asked with some reserve.

“Hmm. What?” Cara shook off her melancholy.

“Odell. How is he? I haven’t seen him in weeks. I think he’s avoiding me,” she added in a gruff voice.

“Never,” Cara said with certainty. “He would never avoid you. He’s just busy. He has some new rooms above the Royal Academy of Science and History and—”

“The Academy! Cara, that’s amazing! Such recognition! They don’t give space to just anyone and a commoner at that.” Odette’s pride and excitement quickly cooled as she realized that someone other than her brother had given her the good news.

She sat down heavily and rested her head in her hands. “I didn’t know. He’s worked so hard for this, and he didn’t even tell me.”

Cara sat down beside her and put an arm around her shoulders. Odette shook her head dejectedly. “He’s changed, Cara.”

“No,” she declared adamantly. “He would never change toward you, me darlin’. You are the only thing in this world he truly loves.”

Once Odette would have believed her, but now she wasn’t so sure. She tried to be comforted, but her friend didn’t know everything.

When Cara was away on one of her exotic business trips, Odette had visited her brother at his old university cubbyhole. She used her key to enter when no one answered her knock. She had found him there almost unrecognizable. Her self-contained and thoughtful brother was huddled in his cramped room. Disoriented and incoherent, he babbled on in a weirdly discordant accent.

For days she took care of him. She comforted him and answered the simplest questions.

“Where am I?” “What is this place?”

But there was one question she couldn’t answer.

“What have I done? Oh God! What have I done?”

He recovered gradually, regaining his wits and usual reserve. But he was different. He spoke with studied care and would tell her nothing. Only that he had been working too hard and fallen ill. He thanked her and hugged her awkwardly. At least that hadn’t changed. She tried to visit him as before, but he dropped by her place and attended her performances with less frequency.

Then, the night of the wedding and the now infamous cake incident that had destroyed her ballet career. She didn’t know how, but he had saved her from Lord Westchester’s wrath. He had saved her from prison.

As she struggled those six months on the Undesirable Roll, he always made sure she had a place to stay and enough to eat. Even after, when she was working in the taverns and clubs she caught glimpses of him watching her through the crowd. He never stayed long enough to speak with her. And now she suspected he even had something to do with her job at The White Swan.

He never said anything though. Odell never confided in her. He watched her with a puzzled, quizzical look. It was painful, but better than the look he had given her when she found him broken and frightened in his room.

He had looked at her with the eyes of a stranger. He had looked at her and not known her.

Chapter 3

Dr. Odell Speex
stood with his back to the room and gazed out the large picture window onto a city both alien and familiar. The rooms he now occupied were impressive. Yet more impressive, was his accomplishment of attaining them at only twenty-three years of age. Still, he couldn’t get over the strangeness of it all.

The Academy of Science and History occupied the site where, in another reality, had stood Federal Hall, the location of George Washington’s inauguration and where the Bill of Rights had been introduced to the first congress. The New York Stock Exchange and the Empire State Building, now the Empire Union Building, both stood in their appointed places. There was the Brooklyn Bridge and the Staten Island Ferry, but Ellis Island was unadorned by the Statue of Liberty.

Odell looked out at the street scene below. The aesthetic was a weird, awkward mix of both old and new. He thought it looked like a cheesy fifties movie version of the future combined with Victorian sensibilities. Or rather, the fifties that used to exist. In this version of time, the aristocratic age had been extended far past its expiration date.

Nothing reflected this schizophrenic combination of old and new better than the clothes. The aristocratic hold on society meant a rigid social structure that was reflected in the formality of dress. Men didn’t walk the streets in jeans or casual khakis. Women didn’t expose tanned legs in shorts and sandals. Not if they didn’t want to be accosted by a passing male or slapped with an indecency violation.

The dress code for the poor was pretty simple, whatever they could afford. Usually for women this meant rough-spun dresses with long, wide skirts and serviceable shoes. Working men wore wool or heavy cotton trousers and loosely fitted jackets.

Wealthy men decked out in finely tailored suits with shiny leather shoes or boots. A hat was mandatory, as was a walking stick. He often saw men mix it up a bit with colorful ties and cravats. Evening wear was always black.

For upper-class women, the length of a hemline had not progressed much past the Edwardian period. Skirts could be lifted above the ankle, but only if a boot encased any exposed leg. As for the rest, it was hard to pin down. Plunging necklines, exposed backs, tightly corseted waists—women could accentuate any other parts of their bodies, and they did. For evening wear, skirts were almost transparent and made of fabric that clung and left little to the imagination. But the legs were always covered or hampered in some way.

Odell understood this fixation with women’s legs. It was a cheat. Modesty had nothing to do with it. Not if the prevailing fashion was any indication. Restricting freedom of movement was its only purpose.

His shapely lips formed a sneer. He hated cheats. If men wanted to win this battle of the sexes, they needed to level the playing field. Otherwise it was just one grand deception. He wasn’t opposed to deceit as a rule, but he mostly tried to fight fair.

“Stop moping,” drawled his companion, misinterpreting his expression. “You have more money and prestige than you could ever have imagined.” The man who spoke was a few years older than Odell. He sat in a large, winged leather chair. His handsome face was a mask of genteel and completely false concern.

“In due course you will be elevated to the peerage. Maybe, Old Man, I’ll do the honorable thing and condescend to marry Odette.”

Odell turned from the window. He resembled his sister in a larger, masculine way except he was fair where she was dark. Wide blue eyes, a noble nose, and a generous mouth were topped off with unkempt blond curls. He was tall and where his companion was broad and muscular, Odell was slender and athletic. Like Odette he moved with grace and there was strength in his long, tapering fingers and bare forearms.

He observed Lord Westchester through veiled eyes and said in an even, unemotional voice, “Never go near my sister again.”

Odell’s superhuman composure had always unnerved Drake, but he didn’t let it show. “Really, Speex, I don’t know why you should care.”

“Let’s just say I do and leave it at that.”

“Would it surprise you to learn I have feelings for her?”

“It would surprise me to learn you have any feelings at all.”

“A hit! A palpable hit!” Lord Westchester laughed. He took the thin cigarillo out of his mouth and blew smoke through a wolfish grin.

Odell looked at him with distaste and handed him a small crystal tumbler in which to flick the ashes. “The carpet’s new,” he said blandly.

The Earl of Westchester pushed himself out of the chair and stood. Snuffing out his cigarillo in the glass, he wandered over to the window.

“It is a bit hard to get used to, I have to admit.”

“You seem to have adjusted.”

“Well, let’s just say this timeline has its advantages.”

“This timeline was never supposed to happen. That wasn’t our deal.”

“Our deal?” Drake raised his eyebrows. “Our deal was for you to transport me back to my ancestral beginnings.”

Odell looked at him coldly. “To recover your family fortune, not change the course of history.”

Turning his back on Drake, he walked over to the desk and pulled the telephone to him. It looked like a toy. A replica of the old-fashioned pedestal telephones of the early twentieth century. “I’ve got a call to make and an appointment with the governors of the Academy in thirty minutes. You can stay if you like. I won’t be back until late.”

His Lordship recognized the dismissal and smiled tightly. “You take a lot of liberties for a commoner,” he said with feigned lightness.

A flicker of annoyance crossed the impassive features. “Well, my peerage is in the works, Old Man. Until then, you’ll have to admit I’m an uncommonly valuable commoner.”

Drake set the glass down. He tipped his hat onto his head and sauntered toward the door. “I was thinking of taking in the ballet this weekend. Saturday… I think… a new one. The theater is in an ungodly part of town, but it might be worth a look.”

Odell replaced the receiver. “You won’t spoil this for Odette. Find another ballerina to bed, Drake. That seems to occupy most of your time. And, as I always say, one should focus on one’s strengths.”

The earl smirked and flicked an imaginary piece of dust from his sleeve. “I’ve had no complaints.”

Barely suppressing a smile, Odell shuffled some papers and looked down at them. “Yes, I’ve often had cake thrown in my face in gratitude for a night of passion.”

Drake’s eyes hardened and he dropped the smooth demeanor. “I didn’t want to bring you back. I would have preferred leaving you for dead in the past.”

“I’m well aware of that,” Odell replied, now smiling openly. “But you would never have gotten back again without me.”

Drake’s mouth flattened to a thin line as he pulled something from under his elegantly arranged cravat. It was an uncommonly beautiful crystalline object dangling from a gold chain. “Yes, you were clever enough to make sure this key responds only to you.”

“It’s not a key, exactly. It is simply a mechanism to control access to the machine,” said Odell in a bored tone, careful to hide the hungry desperation he felt upon seeing the object.

“In other words, a key,” said Drake. “You know you won’t get anywhere near this until you change it so that I have access as well.” He swung the object in a tantalizing little arc.

“As I’ve told you before,” replied Odell, “to change its codes would take something called a computer. You remember computers, Charles? Their existence depended on technology and materials developed over the whole course of the twentieth century. At least back in the world that used to be, before you decided that you weren’t important enough there. You should have instructed your eighteenth-century aristocratic minions and their idiotic descendants not to repress innovation and scientific inquiry for the past two hundred and fifty years.

“We’re lucky they’ve gotten as far as the basic use of electricity and this,” he said indicating the pedestal phone, “might not have happened at all had brave men like Tesla, Bell, and Marconi not defied the prohibition on reading the scientific works of men like say, Benjamin Franklin,” he said with quiet savagery and was happy to see Lord Westchester wince. “They suffered for it though, didn’t they? So, here am I trying to develop entire technologies from scratch. Even with parts from the escape pod, it will take time, lots and lots of time. Ironic isn’t it?”

He picked up a sheaf of papers. “You know, on reflection, I think I’ll make that phone call after meeting with the governors. Close the door when you leave,” he said as he grabbed his coat and brushed past his guest.

Lord Westchester slammed the door shut on Odell’s departure. He was furious. He picked up the crystal tumbler and threw it against the large stone fireplace. He wanted to tear the room apart, just as he wanted to tear Speex apart. Breathing heavily he dropped his large, well-proportioned frame into a chair.

At last, he began to recover his composure and a smile played about his lips. His confidence revived. After all, he had changed the world. From an irritating chaotic society run by little men, snotty scientists, and corrupt politicians to one ruled by an aristocratic elite among which his lineage placed him as one of the most influential and important. This was his world. Except Odell was right, it was not quite the world Drake had expected to find after the successful completion of his mission.

He got up and went into the bathroom. Charles gazed at himself in the plain wood-framed mirror. He splashed water on his face and smoothed back his long dark locks. His reflection stared back at him, dark sloe eyes set above high cheekbones, a mouth that was wide, thin-lipped but not unattractive. It was a face expressive of danger and self-importance, a combination that many women found irresistible.

He had been certain Odette found him so. Her avid response to his lovemaking had convinced him of this. But her subsequent avoidance of him and the Paper Liaison… my God! He shook his head. That must have cost Odell a pretty penny.

He wanted her, but it was more than that. He knew if he could control the sister, he could control the brother. And he had to.

He went out to the cobbled street where his personal steam-powered hansom cab awaited. The driver held the door open as he climbed up into the lushly upholstered interior. But no amount of padding could cushion him from the jerk of the vehicle’s start or the bumping of its thin wheels against the cobblestones. He sighed as he compared the sleek lines and smooth ride of a Mercedes to the awkward box that now carried him, jolting toward his well-appointed yet ill-lit mansion. No, this was not the world he had expected, the one that had been planned. The one he had taken for his own.

Charles Drake ground his teeth in annoyance. He looked out the window and saw that they passed through an unsavory part of the city. The very same that housed the upstart company for which Odette now danced. 

On a corner, a ragged woman bared a dirty breast and leered at him calling out obscenities. There was an enormous population of peasants and commoners to bow and grovel and scrape, most living in utter squalor. The smell was appalling. He had believed that advances in robotics and farming would have eliminated the need for most of them, leaving just a small clean servitor class of technicians and artificers, artists and sexual playthings.

He had not thought things through clearly enough. But he could use that machine of Odell’s to make everything come out right. Just some little changes here and there. It all depended on that jumped-up commoner. And right now, he wasn’t cooperating. Charles would have to make him.

It was the sister. She was Odell’s weakness.