The Scarlet Derby and Midnight Jay - Volume 1: Gallery of Rogues (9 page)

Mary Jane, on the other hand, had slid free of the mansion from the nearest second-story window, scaled the accompanying wall, and hid herself behind a pair of neatly cut shrubs. While under the somewhat modest cover, she shimmied out of her formal dress, and slid on her mask, assuming the guise of Midnight Jay. Stepping out of the shrubbery and into the street, she declared “I have to find Thaddeus. Without a doubt he’s already found Bellaco’s oil-extracting site, which means he could also be in terrible danger.”

O O O

Indeed, the Scarlet Derby was in peril, for he found himself in these small underwater quarters with the clock-faced thugs closing in on him, still recovering his breath from the near-drowning. In desperation, he reached for the glass vials on his chest, which contained a whole armory of gasses and chemical compounds. Rapidly, he took one in hand and held it aloft for the thugs to see.

“Not so fast! This bottle contains a highly concentrated amount of carbon dioxide! You lay a finger on me and I’ll suck all the air right out of this chamber!”

One of the thugs chortled. “You’re bluffing. If you did that you’d suffocate as well.”

“It’s a small price to pay to take out a crooked operation like this!” The Derby did his best to threaten, but the henchman was right, it was only an empty threat. His eyes darted around, searching for any other way out of this underwater rat trap. ‘What would the Midnight Jay do in a situation like this?’ He thought. Then he looked down and planed the heel of his shoe into one of the diver’s boots.

The diver yelled sharply, and dropped his helmet to hop up and down comically on the foot The Derby stomped on. “Looks like your overseer skimped on the steel reinforcements of your outfits!” The Derby scoffed. Grabbing the dropped diving helmet, he fastened it over his head and swung open the door to the chamber, flooding it with water once again. Without the rest of the suit, the helmet itself would begin filling with water in no time. So, without a second to lose he began to swim, and followed the length of hose that would no doubt lead to the entrance of this mysterious compound.

The Derby swam further upward until he reached the source of the above-ground air hose. Once he could feel his feet on solid ground, he turned around and tossed the diving mask back in the water behind him. He hoped fate would understand he’d had his fill of the river.

Turning back around, his eyes darted feverishly as he tried to get a bead on his surroundings. There were square grey walls and a square grey ceiling. Windows were built into the walls several feet higher than any man could climb. Obviously, this was a warehouse, not far from the river, where an underwater entryway into the oil digging site was built. The Derby walked silently, taking in the various forms of machinery in this factory. Chemistry sets abounded in this room, meant to facilitate the transformation of the crude oil under to that strange liquid he had found inside the dissected fish.

The Derby paused, and spun around at the sound of footsteps approaching. Quickly, he hid behind one of the chemistry sets. The footsteps drew closer. Had he been seen? There was no time to debate it. He quickly climbed out from under the table with his walking stick ready to strike.

“It’s just me, dear!” The Jay said startled, holding up her hands in surrender. She knew, once she was able to find where Bellaco was hiding his operation, she’d find her husband.

“Oh,” The Derby lowered his staff and stood upright, confronting The Jay in a much more polite manner. “How did you manage to find this place?”

“I checked the first abandoned building I could find right next to the river. It had to be where Bellaco was hiding his operations.”

“Bellaco?”

“Hector Bellaco,” the Jay gave a sigh shaking her head. “I promise I’ll never blame you for never wanting to attend one of those stuffy social events. Bellaco is the man who’s secretly harvesting the oil to make this strange chemical called petroleum.”

“Petroleum,” The Derby put a hand on his chin. “From the Greek word for oil, why, whoever he is, he’s on par with myself in terms of chemistry.”

“He’s a madman, dear.” The Jay dismissed. “He actually sought to kidnap me and use my fortune to legitimize this little operation.”

“What he’s doing beneath the river certainly can’t be legal either,” The Derby concluded. “So what shall we do?”

“I have no doubt he’ll be on his way here next, we should hide and then ambush him as he comes, then-“

The Jay was interrupted by a loud crash. They turned to see the corner of the warehouse wall had swiftly been rendered into rubble. A mechanical hand, holding a mass of concrete and brick moved aside to reveal the clock-face shaped cockpit of a structure so massive, not even the chunk of wall it ripped away gave a clue to its enormity.

The Derby gasped “Wha-what in the name of Josiah Willard Gibs is that thing?!”

The Jay just clicked her tongue, “He must have had more than just an engine in that room.”

“What room?!” The Derby asked in a surprised voice.

There was a crackle. The mechanism moved upward revealing a very large megaphone just below its clock-faced window. The voice that boomed forward was obviously that of Hector Bellaco. “Attention intruders! You shall pay with fresh blood for mangling my operation!”

“I’ll explain on the way up,” The Jay said as she darted out the door of the warehouse.

The Derby followed, and naturally questioned. “You’re not actually planning on scaling that monstrous mechanism, are you?”

“I don’t see any other way of stopping it.”

As the two of them stepped outside, they were able to see the full width of the devastating mechanical weapon. It was armored and shaped like a train car, made by riveting together several large sheets of metal. A hatch on the underbelly of the device, like that on a submersible, was the most obvious entrance. Shame that it was suspended several feet in the air by a pair of enormous hydraulic metal legs.

The Jay Huffed, and immediately leapt for one of said legs, prepared for a long climb. She wrapped her legs around the long metal shaft, holding her umbrella horizontally and pulling herself up the lengthy metal leg slowly but surely.

“Take my hand.”

The Jay turned to see her husband eye-to-eye with her. She’d managed to climb a good ways up the mechanical leg when her husband fired the grappling mechanism from his cane and wrapped it around the hatch underneath the enormous machine. He was now using it to take the easy way up.

“Are you going to give me another lecture about gadgetry?” The Jay asked in between grunts as she continued to climb up.

“I didn’t even think it,” The Derby stammered “I just reasoned that I nearly drowned in an underwater prison cell all alone, and you nearly got kidnapped all alone. It’d probably be best for us to stick together from this point on.”

The Jay nodded in agreement, and took the Derby’s hand. She pulled herself into an embrace with her husband, holding her arms around his waist as they continued to ascend towards their entrance to the device.

“Not a bad way to travel, wouldn’t you say?” The Derby asked idly.

“No, I admit it’s a bit easier than my way would have been,” The Jay replied, holding her head on his shoulder.

“You know, I could easily put a mechanism like this on your umbrella, all it would take is an-OOF!” The Jay hit him lightly on his chest, reminding him sharply not to continue his attempted lecture on gadgetry.

“Sorry, dear.” He replied, and they continued upward.

Once they reached the top the Derby twisted the hatch to the left, and sprung it open. They bound down a few inches as they dangled underneath, then the Derby climbed up the remainder of the chain and inside the insidious device.

Once inside, they saw Hector Bellaco at the controls. He pulled on four rows of levers, each making a different leg of the quadrupedal device move forward, and a dial just above which made the device rock left and right, stabilizing it. The Derby glanced at the controls and thought that was the ticket: all he had to do was turn that knob, putting the machine out of balance and stop its rampage. Bellaco would have to somehow be driven away from the controls.

“Hector Bellaco, in the name of all that is good and just, you are under arrest!” The Derby shouted.

Bellaco spun around. “So, you’ve finally decided to show yourself, you masked saboteur.”

“Funny,” The Jay said idly “I was half expecting to fight a few more henchmen up here.”

“Sadly, the red-hatted one took out the last of them when he exposed my underground operation,” Bellaco said regrettably.

“I don’t usually like to criticize, but you’re rather new at this whole villain business, aren’t you?” The Derby said with a chuckle.

Bellaco gave a snort. “I’m not a villain! This operation will herald the world’s progress! It will create a new future of prosperity for mankind!”

The Jay gave a laugh. “And you think you’ll do that by kidnapping heiresses, secretly mining under public land, and building enormous war devices?”

“It’s what has to be done to secure the oil!” Bellaco insisted.

“Two wrongs don’t make a right, Bellaco,” the Derby said, raising his hands for fisticuffs “And we’re two rights which right all wrongs, right?”

“Right! I suppose…” The Jay replied, raising her hands the same way.

“You think I’m going to shy away from a fight? No, this cause is all too important for me.” Bellaco reached back to one of the control levers and pulled loose the round knob at the end, revealing a long pointed sword.

The Jay rolled her eyes. “Why do all of these criminals always have to keep their weapons in such silly places?” The Jay raised her umbrella, and took to fencing. She easily matched Bellaco’s movements, deflecting shot after shot, but surprisingly Bellaco was able to bring his sword back up faster than The Jay could close in for a definitive knockout. One more thrust, and the Jay reared back with Bellaco’s sword thrust just a centimeter before her very nose.

“You’re pretty good at this,” The Jay said, unfazed as she struck the sword back down again.

“Oh, I grew up fencing,” Bellaco said idly.

Suddenly, the two of them felt the ground yank upward beneath them. As they were fighting, the Derby managed to grab ahold of the balance control and worked actively to capsize the enormous mechanism.

“Wait, you fool!” Bellaco shouted back, but it was too late, the entire massive machine began to lurch forward. As the floor they stood on turned on its side, Bellaco flopped forward, first falling against The Jay, and then landing against the sideways wall with his sword plunged dangerously close to her head.

The Jay opened her eyes, and turned her head to see that Bellaco had stuck his sword into the wall of the machine, piercing straight through it. He had missed stabbing her head by just a few inches. Impressive, if it weren’t a complete accident. Raising her head, she saw her husband’s feet dangling above the both of them. He obviously held on to the control levers to keep from falling sideways like they did.

“Thanks for breaking my fall,” Bellaco murmured, his voice low enough for only The Jay to hear. “I knew you were special from the moment I saw you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” The Jay replied coldly.

Bellaco gave a chortle. “There’s only one person who would have known that I had tried to kidnap Mary Jane Preston, and that would be Mary Jane herself.”

The Jay gave a gasp. She didn’t realize it at the time, but she realized that by accusing Bellaco she’d given away her own secret identity.

“Your secret’s safe with me, but I’m afraid I am going have to insist,” Bellaco’s voice slithered into the Jay’s ear, making her shudder. “You must join my cause. Help me build my new future, as partners, and perhaps even as lovers.”

The Jay slowly thrust both her open-palmed hands over the surface of Bellaco’s chest. “You’re forgetting just one thing, Bellaco: Judo.”

“Judo?” Bellaco asked, blinking.

The Jay jerked up a leg, flinging Bellaco backwards through the clock-shaped glass that was his cockpit. He yelled as his body slowly began to fall downward.

The Jay merely stood, pulled her gloves back up to her shoulders, exhaled sharply and said “Judo.”

Seeing that the capsized machine once again possessed some stable ground, The Derby hopped down from the control lever he was hanging from, and went to his wife’s side. “Are you okay, dear?”

“Fine, he didn’t lay a finger on me,” She said, though she bit her lower lip. A lifetime of protecting her secret, and she, just the slightest bit of carelessness gave it away to one of the most despicable men on the planet. Though Bellaco promised he would keep her secret, he really had no reason to, and the treachery that was his sinister plan was proof enough he wasn’t one of the most honest people in the world.

Together, they walked to the shattered clock-faced windshield, and looked down. They were still a couple of stories above terra firma. Bellaco’s vessel had landed sideways against a partially broken wall, destroying the greater part of his sinister petroleum factory. Thankfully the fuel-processing engine of the device had shut off and nothing had caught fire. There was plenty of evidence of Bellaco’s deeds remaining for The Constable to believe their story.

A good amount of the Thames River also jutted out underneath them. The Jay looked down at the floating water below. “No sign of Bellaco. Do you think he-“

The Derby shook his head. “Given the trajectory he probably landed in the river, and, instead of risking another fight with you, he instead decided to swim for it.” The Derby chortled, but the Jay didn’t know whether or not to feel relieved. She continued to question “Do you think we did the right thing by thwarting his scheme?”

The Derby took one more step and took the Jay’s hand. “An underhanded man like him could never rise above the disorder they created and claim they have changed the world for the better. I can only hope whoever discovers this method of fuel in the future will instead use it with the safety of the environment, and the security of mankind’s future in mind.”

The Derby wrapped the chain from his grappling hook around one of the exposed beams of the mechanism, “We should get going.”