The Hangman's Revolution (30 page)

(On a side note, there is evidence that this minced meat was later collected and fried by a German immigrant who many credit as inventing the hamburger.)

Chevie shook her head in an attempt to dislodge the fog of exhaustion that deadened her thoughts and sapped her brain, and she set herself to chasing after the tank, without any plan other than to keep the steel behemoth in sight.

She followed the canal to the bridge and from there onto Camden High Street, which in the space of the minute or so since the tank had appeared had become a scene of panic and bedlam. The population had abandoned any efforts to hinder or communicate with the tank and were hell-bent on evacuating the area as fleetly as possible. Chevie struggled against the flow of human exodus as people flooded down Camden High Street, ran down the banks of Regent’s Canal and, in some more hysterical cases, threw themselves from the low bridge into the canal itself.

Chevie abandoned the footpath and ran directly down the road itself, dodging the occasional cab that bolted for the suburbs. The panic increased a notch when the tank’s gun barrel spat flame and steel at a wagon that had been abandoned in the road, reducing it to a set of splinter-topped wheels. Amazingly, the pair of horses hitched to the wheels were for the most part unscathed, except for the tail of one, which burst into flames like a straw torch. The horse ambled to a nearby rain barrel and extinguished its tail therein.

I like that horse, thought Chevie. He doesn’t scare easily.

Chevie ran in the tank’s wake, knowing that she could not hope to catch the armored vehicle unless it stopped, a fact she was more than a little glad of, as she had no idea what she would do in the event she closed the distance between them.

I have no weapons, she realized. And I don’t think they will open the hatch if I knock politely. So it probably makes sense to hang back until a plan occurs to me.

Hanging back
was in itself something of a plan, but even this fell apart when Chevie found herself suddenly flying through the air and rapidly gaining on the tank.

Now I can fly, she thought. I wish I had known this earlier. It would have been handy in the catacombs.

Vallicose was in the grip of rapture like she had never known. A potent combination of religious fervor and what the ancient Celtic warriors dubbed the
warp spasm
, a particularly frenzied form of red mist that has been known to actually alter physical features. Indeed, Clover Vallicose was barely recognizable now as she piloted the sixty-ton tank along Gower Street. Her features were twisted in an expression very similar to hatred but which was actually a rare look of sheer bliss. If Vallicose were indeed to awaken on the following morning, she would find four of her facial muscles stiff from use after years of dormancy. Not that thoughts of the next day mattered one fig to Vallicose. She gave no thought to surviving her holy mission; in fact, a large part of her would prefer to die gloriously so that she could all the sooner claim her eternal reward.

Through the narrow viewing port, Vallicose saw a gray slot of street in the dying winter light. She was, of course, familiar with the standard gears and pedals of an armored vehicle, but this tank was rigged for a crew of four, and only the auto-loader slung to her left allowed her to fire while she navigated. Aiming, however, was out of the question and could only be accomplished when the tank was stationary. For now she would have to be satisfied with shooting at whatever lay directly in the tank’s path. But not for much longer. Already the clock face of Big Ben was in sight, the tower of which cast a shadow over the Houses of Parliament. Her ultimate target.

The internal temperature rose quickly as the engine conducted heat through the entire structure, and Vallicose felt as though she were inside an oven. She smiled in the face of such adversity, for her reward would be all the more deserved. In her delirium she heard the voice of God telling her to fight on, and in the clouds of flame and smoke from the tank’s exploding shells she saw His face, smiling and encouraging her to do His work.

“I am coming, Lord,” she said through gritted teeth. “I am coming home.”

Chevie realized almost immediately that she was not in fact flying but suspended four feet above the ground, held aloft by an iron grip on her belt. It was disconcerting enough to rattle and thump along the side of a vehicle of some sort, but not knowing whether this was a rescue or an assassination attempt made her helpless swinging all the more distressing.

Should I twist free? she wondered. Or trust the owner of that iron grip?

Twisting free would be the best option, Chevie decided, as she could count on one finger the amount of true friends she had in this timeline.

So she planted her feet against the olive green side panel of the vehicle and push/twisted with every ounce of the meager energy left to her after the sewer spelunking expedition.

As she twisted away, the gripper pulled her in, and the combination of forces resulted in Chevron’s body transcribing a wide arc so that she collided briefly with the head of the blinkered horse with its tail in a water barrel before being yanked back into the flat bed of the vehicle, where she landed on Thundercat Lunka Witmeyer.

“Horse!” shouted Chevie. “Horse!”

The two went down in a tangle of limbs, rolling into the amphibian’s bow, and the combination of vibration and hullabaloo from all sides made it impossible for Chevie to assess her situation. The only shred of information that she could pluck from the jumbled cacophony of sensory input was that she was in a clinch with the hated Witmeyer who had terrorized her so effectively in the academy.

I am not that person anymore, she thought, then said it aloud. “I am not that person anymore!”

She followed the exclamation with several lightning punches, reasoning that she was low on strength, so best to aim for the soft spots. Chevie put two further strikes into Witmeyer’s throat and was just about to deliver the killer third, when someone dragged her off.

“No!” she screamed, kicking out at the Thundercat. “Let me finish!”

She was not permitted to finish. Instead, a pair of massive arms came from behind and folded her firmly in their embrace until her vision settled, and Riley appeared in front of her.

“Chevron, oh Chevie,” he said, tearfully. “You have a knack for survival, so you do.”

Chevie was not prepared to let down her guard just yet.
“
‘So you do’? You sound like Missus Figary’s boy.”

Riley embraced as much of his friend as he could around the huge arms that were still holding her.

“I need to incapacitate Witmeyer,” Chevie whispered urgently.

“No,” said Riley. “She’s driving.”

Riley filled Chevie in on recent events while Witmeyer coughed and spluttered her way to her feet, and then to the steering wheel of their anachronistic transport.

“It goes on water and land,” said Riley, delighted in spite of the fact that they were for all intents and purposes in a warzone. “We were pushed down the canal by the flood, but Lunka managed to drive us onto the bank.”

“Lunka?” said Chevie. “It’s Lunka now?”

“You smell to high heaven,” said Riley happily. “Been toshing, have you?”

Chevie was not mollified by familiarity. “Maybe. While you guys have been cozying up with my mortal enemies.”

“She came a-cooing on King Otto,” explained Riley.

Malarkey opened his arms, for they were the ones that held Chevie, and he pushed her onto a bench. “Tell me now, Injun, is you gonna row in, or act out? If’n it’s number two, then I shall brain you without delay, but if you gives me your pledge that we stand on the same bank of the river, so to speak, then spit and shake and let’s be finishing this revolution for once and for all.”

A long speech under the circumstances, but Otto had always been overly fond of the sound of his own voice, and Chevie understood the gist despite the unfamiliar terms.

Spit and shake?
She did not fancy that.

“Just shake, Otto, okay? A big mouth like yours makes a lot of spit, and I’ve had enough disgusting liquid for one day.”

Otto grunted and shook, and during the shake both shakers were coincidentally thinking along identical lines.

Once this is all over, we two need to have a talk about respect.

“Hmph,” said Otto.

“Yep,” said Chevie.

And then all minds and eyes were trained on the tank bashing its way ever closer to Westminster.

In a world of jaded repetitions there are very few firsts, but on this day London was witnessing the inaugural trip of a motorized armored vehicle on its avenues, and as a postscript there was a horseless boat-cart trailing behind in the tank’s wake of crushed stone and metal.

This was the worst time of day to drive even a buggy into the city, with the offices discharging a glut of workers into the streets, and the taverns taking in what they could, and the remainder spilling onto the sidewalks, which were already three-deep with worthy professors and flighty scholars from the Bloomsbury academies and universities. Street traders marked their pitches with coarse halloos and hollers, endeavoring to make themselves heard above the clank and clamor of wagon, carriage, and cart.

“Where is he going?” wondered Chevie aloud. “He can’t escape in a tank.”

Witmeyer pointed toward Westminster.

“He isn’t trying to escape. Box has a mission.”

There was a shortwave radio on the dash, and its speaker crackled into life.

“Lunka? Is that you behind me?”

Witmeyer grabbed the handset. “Clove? Clover. It’s over. The army has been destroyed. Tell Box to stand down.”

The speaker crackled with what might have been bitter laughter. “The colonel was weak and mortal. Very mortal. Mine is the mission now. The Lord guides my hand.”

Witmeyer pounded the dash. “We were lied to, Clover. All these years we were working for men, not God. It’s time to make our own decisions.”

Vallicose did not speak for a moment; then: “You are no longer on the side of the angels, Lunka Witmeyer. You speak with the forked tongue of the devil, and I will not listen to another word.”

The radio went dead and up ahead, the tank’s large caliber gun fired an explosive round into the locked wheels of a knot of carriages, blowing them apart like kindling, flooding the street with a wave of panic. And as panic is never organized, the road was soon rendered utterly impassable by a jam of carriages and tangled harnesses.

Utterly impassable, that is, for an indigenous Victorian vehicle, but a twentieth-century tank would make light work of such obstructions. Vallicose opened the throttle wide and powered into the melee, rising on the backs of coach and livestock, its massive weight forging its own elevated road. It was an incredible sight to see and one that shocked even those from another time.

“I seen a lot of strange things in me time, being a gentleman adventurer,” said Malarkey. “But I ain’t never seen nothing like that. Can we follow?”

“No,” said Chevie. “We cannot.”

Witmeyer seemed determined to pursue her partner across the highway of trampled vehicles, but at the last second she balked and swung a sharp right onto the Strand with its multi-colored awnings, distinctive brick arches, and colonnades. If anything the traffic was denser on the Strand, leaving the pilot no choice but to avail of the first exit, which took the amphibian craft down a steep lane to the banks of the Thames itself, with its inviting expanse of black river and silvery swirls of seawater.

Inviting in the sense that, compared to the packed street above, it was uncluttered by vehicles.

Malarkey guessed what his beloved was thinking.

“Onward,” quoth he. “You are my Aphrodite and I shall be your Poseidon.”

“I have no idea what you are saying, my king,” said Witmeyer. “But I love how you say it.”

“All day,” said Riley to Chevie. “All day it has been just like this.”

All conversation, both romantic and mocking, ceased as the amphibious craft plunged down the embankment, crashed through a railing, decimated a stack of barrels, and shot like an arrow into the Thames. The prow dipped sharply before the buoyancy packs forced it back the way it came with alarming velocity. The passengers were rolled about like marbles in a bowl and came to rest in a single multilimbed, squirming heap in the bilges.

Otto was the first to speak. “Oh, my Lord,” he breathed. “Oh, my sweet Jehovah.”

For one of the embankment barrels had landed on deck, and the stencil on the cask said
BRANDY
.

He disentangled himself from the heap and crawled to the gunwale, peering over the side.

“Lordy lord,” he said. “It’s all going on today, and no mistake.”

Chevie was next out of the pile. “What now, Otto? More brandy?”

“Don’t I wish?” said Otto, pointing to a craft fifty feet off their stern. “Nah, it ain’t brandy, girl. It’s that boat.”

“We’re on a river, Malarkey. Boats are to be expected.”

“I will grant you that, saucy. Boats are indeed to be expected in this the busiest port in the civilized world. But most of ’em do not have
HMVS Boadicea
writ down their flanks.”

“
‘Boadicea’?” said Chevie. “Why is that name familiar?”

“Boadicea,” said Riley, crawling from under Witmeyer’s meaty thigh. “The warrior queen. Merciless and deadly.”

“That’s okay,” said Chevie. “We aren’t the bad guys.”

A cannonball whistled overhead, hammering the dock wall behind them, sending chunks of masonry spinning into the air.

“Speak for yourself,” said Malarkey, then he helped Lunka Witmeyer to her feet so she could pilot them away from the approaching flatiron gunship.

“
Cannon to the front of me,
” he sang airily.

“
Cannons to the rear.

I may as well be whistling.

It does no good to fear.
”

Witmeyer turned to Chevie and her eyes were bright. “Is he not wonderful?” she asked her fellow female. “Look at that hair.”