The Rise of Ransom City (47 page)

The elevator took a very long time to reach the upper floors. The machinery ticked like a clock, creaked like an old house in a storm. I have taken riverboat-rides that did not seem to last so long. There were two private detectives in there with us, one at Adela’s side and one at mine, so we were not free to speak. She looked afraid and unsure. I tried to buck up her spirits, through signals of my eyebrows and fingers and significant glances. The detectives were well trained and discreet and they said nothing. Adela stared ahead. After a while she took my hand and squeezed it, maybe for comfort and maybe just to shut me up. I recall that her hand felt cold.

The detectives searched us twice, at the beginning and the end of the elevator-ride. I blustered and cracked jokes to show I was not intimidated.

Mr. Baxter’s room was the same as it was before, except for the addition of a second telegraph device and a few more assistants. The curtains were drawn. Cold electric-light came from white tubes that hung from brackets from the ceiling— that was different too. The lawyer Mr. Shelby was present, looking disheveled, his hair all gray and wild, like a man who has been woken in the middle of the night or a Vampire who has been woken in the middle of the day. The representative of the Line Mr. Watt was not present. The detective Mr. Gates appeared behind us without warning, closing the door. He was a consummate professional.

Baxter did not rise from his chair. He looked even smaller than last time, and I was not sure that under his blanket he had any legs at all. He cleared his throat for a while before he could speak.

“Ransom,” he said. “And who’s this?”

“Listen Baxter,” I said, “I’m here to—”

“You’re here to come work for us. I know it even if you don’t. Are you tired of being played with yet, Professor Ransom?”

“Damn right I am. The first thing I want is an apology. The second thing I want is—”

“I don’t mean by me, Professor— I am not a sporting man and I don’t play games. I mean
them
.”

I was kind of bewildered by this line of conversation, and looked to

Adela to see what she made of it, but she just stood with her hands folded into her sleeves and her head down like a Silver City Nun at evening prayer.

“Not the whore up on the hill— not that buffoon Jim Dark, either— and by the by Professor Ransom I heard you got shot at down below. It was Mr. Dark, of course. I don’t have a lot of fellow-feeling with Mr.

Dark but I understand the temptation— though in this case I imagine he wanted to stop you talking to me. My detectives can do only so much to police and protect you. That’s why you won’t be leaving here again,

Mr. Ransom. You won’t be making any more of your damn speeches—”

“Now wait— now just wait— the whole city will soon know I’m here, Mr. Baxter—”

Adela said something but I did not stop to listen— I said, “You can’t—”

“No, I’m not talking about the Adversary at all. I’m talking about the others. The Folk, as the vulgar call ’em. Dragged kicking and screaming, they should be. I’m going to be straight with you now Professor

Ransom because there’s not much time left. Trouble-makers at Juniper

City. Gone too far. Listen. Last chance before the Engines take matters into their own, what’s the word— last chance to deal with the human face, Professor Ransom. Don’t look at me like that, Gates— I know my own business. Ransom, I know what the Process is. I know even if you don’t. I know where you found it. You think it was an accident, Ransom— you think they don’t have plans? You think they weren’t watching— you want that? You like being used? Them or the Adversary or the

Engines. , Ransom, this is your last chance and your best offer. You’ve played a good game and you’ve made things hard for us here in Jasper— you’ve shown me I have to make a deal. Well, this is the deal. I’ll tell you the truth. This is as good a deal as you’ll get. You’re at the top now— well done. I’ll tell you things even the Adversary doesn’t know. I’ll tell you how to take your destiny in your own two hands like a man and—” There was a sound of metal scraping. Mr. Baxter and Mr. Gates both turned to look at the telegraph devices— I guess they thought it was a message coming in. I knew better. The sound was familiar, happily so, and for a fraction of an instant it made me feel like I was back home backstage at the Ormolu, and I smiled.

It was the sound of a certain spring-powered device that Adela and I had developed for the use of the Amazing Amaryllis and Wise Master

Lobsang and Mr. Bosko and the other players of the Ormolu Theater. It could be hidden under a long sleeve— like the ones Adela was wearing— and when triggered it could project a variety of items rapidly into the hand, including watches, cards, rings, flowers, and in this case a tiny silvery pistol, hardly bigger than a finger. The pistol must have been her work alone— it was not mine.

Onstage the device had seemed almost silent. In Baxter’s big tiled room it echoed like an Engine accelerating, or maybe that was just my imagination.

Anyhow Adela had the gun in her hand in an instant and she fired.

She got Baxter in his chest, cutting short his speech— his head fell back and his shirt turned red.

Then one of the telegraph machines
did
begin speaking— I do not know what it was saying but it was very fast and high and ugly. Adela said that she was sorry, so very sorry, then she lifted the silvery little weapon to her own chin. She pulled the trigger and the silvery little cylinder rotated and there was a crack and a puff of smoke and a red hole opened in her left cheek. Her eyes rolled back and she moaned but did not drop the gun. The cylinder rotated again.

I jumped for her and grabbed her arm. So did Mr. Gates. I guess we had different reasons for trying to keep her alive, and I do not think he had her best interests at heart. We got her arm down and then I did not like the look on Mr. Gates’s face, so I took a swing at it. Gates grunted, spat, and hit me back. I fell over.

“He’s dead,” Mr. Shelby said. “He’s dead. I don’t believe it. He’s— he’s dead.”

The security men were holding Adela now, and they held her with blank expressions on their faces as she struggled, making noises that were not at all like words, and as Mr. Shelby began to berate them mercilessly for their incompetence. Gates strode over to the telegraph machine and tore off the paper, cursing at Mr. Baxter’s assistants, who all stood around looking like puppets. My nose bled.

“Somebody get Watt,” Gates said.

“Don’t,” Shelby said.

“Do it— they got to know. They got to know now.”

“How did this happen? What do we do now? What will they do?” I could not think very clearly or very well down there on the floor. I got up and made a play for Mr. Gates’s gun— that was not my worst idea ever but it was a long way from my best and pretty soon I was back on the floor again.

“You stay there, Ransom. You think it’s over now? This was your plan, Professor? The old man was telling the truth— he was the last chance at the human face. What’ll happen now— shit, I don’t even know what’ll happen now.”

I guess the rest is history.

Even while Mr. Gates’s security men dragged me out by my arms, the late Mr. Baxter’s office was already filling up with anxious assistants— with ambitious young schemers— with elderly executives crestfallen and hunched under the burden of the secret they now had to bear— with Officers of the Line, blank and professional. The telegraphs had both started to speak, like the Engines already knew what happened. I kicked as they dragged me down the hallway, the security men I mean, not the Engines, while meanwhile secretaries’ made-up faces peered out of half-open doors, watching me go. They just about hurled me into the elevator, the security men, and then that whole rattling brass contraption dropped like a man being hanged. My breakfast got away from me.

I won’t record for posterity the sub-basement cell in which they held me, except to say that in Ransom City there will be no jail-cells, not ever. I was there four days before Mr. Gates came to visit me.

“Where’s Adela?”

“Not a social call, Professor.”