Automatic Woman Part 13

"Lucky me," I said.

The last of my money got us one way tickets to Budapest, with stops and changeovers in Cambrai, Brussels, Stuttgart, Munich and Graz. I'd come this way as a young man sent to war. I'd taken the opposite path home as an older, more cynical man. When I'd first ventured south, I'd been fleeing the life of a cobbler, fleeing the life of a man who never left the grit and horses.h.i.t of the city streets. I was fleeing my father and his life. When we're young, often we don't know the value of what we have. I loved my father despite hating his life. I joined the service to see the greater empire and claim adventure. My father died in the five years I spent adrift. He died and no one in my family knew how to reach me. I came back to a city lessened by his absence and stayed because my military service taught me that there is no such thing as the better place. All the places we live in our lives are tainted by the pettiness of human interest and the only happiness is that which we make for ourselves, independent of location.

Mary and I boarded our train in France. We played the role of the married couple poorly. Our relationship was too fresh. We held hands, we kissed openly, and we did not exhibit the tired silence of a couple long wed.

I let my mind wander to that time of old marriage, if we reached it. I saw us getting to Budapest. An acquaintance of mine from the army ran an inn in the English expatriate section of town. I'd find work with him, guarding the door, breaking fights, making sure the employees were not dipping into the till; basic strongman work. I'd play the role of the thug and Mary and I would find a little home for ourselves, an inexpensive flat. She would take to nesting, hanging cheap marketplace rugs on the walls. She would master Hungarian delicacies. Each morning I'd come home from work to the smells of cinnamon and c.u.min and b.u.t.tered flaky pastry. She would grow fat and heavy with child. Not on purpose, but not by surprise either. We would have a little girl, who I'd name Irene after my mother.

I'd start acquiring the tools of a boot maker. Start moving away from strongman work, because violent hands are not meant for the fathers of children. I have an intimate knowledge of cobblers' tools; welting stands and lasting stands, puller bars, cutters, snips, and stamps. I'd use our flat as a shop, creating decorative boots for market retailers. Eventually I'd open a shop of my own and Mary would have another child, a son to go with our daughter. I would teach him how to make boots and how to be a man. My daughter I would love unconditionally, though I can't imagine what I'd have to teach her. Our pa.s.sion for each other would recede, but we'd build a friendship through the raising of our children. We'd grow old, our children would grow old, and all things would be well in our beautiful simple lives.

I saw this dream in my mind like a kinescope collage of moving images. Everything was real, everything came true and happened and our lives were no longer burdened with fear and desperation. I was convinced that I'd been granted a premonition, that Mary and I would get away, would gain our lives and our freedom.

We were captured two days into our travels.

Twelve.

Charles Darwin Discusses the Difficulties of Life and Travel Mary and I switched trains at the Munich Central Station. We were seated in third cla.s.s amongst the common folk. Like travelers on our way to country families or transplanting to separate jobs or doing whatever it is regular people do when they are not fugitives.

I should have known; perhaps in the back of my mind I did know. It was a foregone conclusion that we would be found.

I left Mary to use the car lavatory. It was short, cramped, and set up like a hall closet with a toilet installation. The lav smelled wrong, but this was not unusual. Lavs tend to not be homes of pleasant scents. What was unusual was the type of smell, a faint whiff of circus animals, manure of horses and elephants and other strange beasts. I hadn't smelled anything like it since Darwin's office.

Walking back to our seats, I caught Mary's eye. She was pale and panicked; she shook her head as if to tell me to run away, to flee. Mr. Stevens, Darwin's personal secretary, sat next to Mary, blocking her into the window seat. A gazette lay open across his lap and hands. I tucked my hand into my jacket and clutched the handle of my Colt Army.

"Excuse me, mate." I drew back the hammer of my pistol. Stevens looked up from his paper.

"You're in my seat," I said.

"Am I?" Stevens c.o.c.ked whatever pistol lay under his gazette. "No need to get upset," he said. "There's a much better seat waiting for you in the luxury caboose. Our employer would like to speak with you."

"If you..." I started. Stevens interrupted me.

"If you don't get moving things are going to turn b.l.o.o.d.y chaotic here. If our employer meant you harm you would not have the benefit of seeing my face. Now be a good fellow, and I'll keep an eye on your missus." Stevens winked at Mary.

I tightened my grip on the pistol and looked at her. She saw my eyes, my hand, my face, and knew more about my intentions than any mind reader could have gleaned. It was at that moment that I truly fell in love with her.

Mary shook her head. I released my gun and withdrew my hand from my jacket.

"Good decision, mate. See you soon." Stevens returned to reading his paper. I went about-face and made the long walk to the back of the train. We were six cars from the rear. Dining, baggage, pa.s.sengers, a group of soldiers; everything in the world stood between me and the slow walk to my destination.

A lean Arabic guard lounged outside the luxury cabin. He opened my jacket, regarded my firearms and beckoned me through the door. It was strange to me that I wasn't disarmed. What game was Darwin playing?

The caboose was adorned with lavender papered walls, thick carpet, overstuffed couches and a crystal chandelier that jostled with the train's b.u.mps and shakes. Bram Stoker sat on one of the couches, Charles Darwin on another. A second Arabic guard stood behind Darwin, motionless, expressionless. Stoker and Darwin were drinking giant snifters of brandy.

"Mr. Fellows!" Stoker rose and offered me his hand. I didn't take it.

"How did you find me, Darwin?"

Darwin looked into his amber gla.s.s. He examined the brandy like a gypsy regarding a crystal ball, like a mystic source of knowledge and answers.

"Mr. Fellows, do you know how much of an imposition it is for a man of my age to travel? And the expense of traveling with suitable accommodations is... substantial. If it weren't for the fact that my good friend Bram has an investigative a.s.signment in Transylvania..." Darwin nodded at Stoker. "Well, I would be much more upset than I am."

"How did you find me?"

Darwin waved his stick fingers to dismiss my question as though it was beneath him.

"At some point in time, I a.s.sume Lord Barnes told you his all-encompa.s.sing hypothesis of humanity. How greatness is dictated by breeding, schooling, luck, and specialty?"

"I heard him say something to that effect."

"His absurd little bit of science is really the genesis of our rivalry. I've long said that man's greatness is nothing more than his survivability. A young man can attend the best schools and die of tuberculosis before reaching adulthood. Well-bred parents can produce monsters. We see this in the royal families of Spain. Luck is a fool's notion; it does not exist. All the world runs on cause and effect. If you are run over by a horse, it is because you stepped in its path, not because the forces of fortune are conspiring against you. And specialty, while useful, does not make up the entire equation. Specialty is food without water, bread without yeast, rain without cover. Survivability takes in all factors and focuses on results. The better man is the man who can survive the longest. Take yourself and Abraham Silver for example. He was an employee of mine, set against Barnes. You were two men of similar skills given similar tasks. In all things he seemed your superior. He was elegant, well-spoken, better educated, and less restricted to moral attachments. And yet here you stand before me while he rots in a pine wood box. You are the survivor, thus you are the greater man."

"Get to the point, Darwin. I'm not here for your lectures."

"You asked a question, Mr. Fellows. You cannot ask a question without receiving a thorough answer. Here is mine. I know how to find you because I see everything."

"Pardon?"

"I see everything. I told you a moment ago that there is no such thing as luck. It would be more accurate to say there is no such thing as chaos. Ours is an orderly universe. Every event, every action and reaction is predictable. If you strike a ball with your hand the exact same way with the exact same strength over and over again it will always fly in the same direction. If this train strikes another train, the damage will be based solely on the speed of both vehicles and the point of impact. We accurately predict the days and seasons based on movement of our planet around the sun. We predict rain based on cloud formations and the better our view the more accurate our prediction. There is no such thing as chaos, Mr. Fellows. There is simply what we can observe and what we cannot observe."

"That's not true. I've been to war. Some men were lucky and survived. Some men had no luck. They were consumed by illness or torn by blades or bullets. We all went the same way but some of us came home and some of us didn't."

"Mr. Fellows, it is predictable that men will die in war. They always have. It is predictable that there will be survivors. There always have been. And if you were to put in front of me a regiment of men, I could unfailingly tell you which ones would come home and which ones wouldn't. I could see which ones were faster, which ones were smarter, which ones were too brave or of weak const.i.tution- all elements for accurate prediction. This is my gift. This is why I can look at trees and animals and tell you their accurate ancestry; this is why I knew that you would flee London and seek Mr. Alder Clemens of Budapest. I have access to your Central Bureaucracy file, I know your service record, and I've observed you personally. You cannot take an action that I cannot accurately predict."

I pulled my pistol from my holster and pointed it Darwin. b.o.l.l.o.c.ks to order over chaos! Darwin did not look alarmed.

"You won't shoot me because you care about Mary. This is not a difficult thing to predict either. You have taken risks for her before, held her own safety above your own. That includes coming to this very cart instead of fleeing the train or attacking my secretary."

I put my gun away. Darwin was right. Any action I did now was tempered by my desire to keep Mary safe. That was my main priority.

"I had a good idea where you were going. The rest was just confirming your location through contacts and setting up this meeting."

"What do you want with me?"

"Our little game is not done. You are not done. We have much to do. Lord Barnes has been hurt. Taking the Bow Street Firm from him is the most damage I've ever done. He is on the ropes, but he is not finished. Lord Barnes is a worthy opponent. He has gone to ground. He has found a hiding place that I have yet to uncover, so I must draw him out. Or rather, you must draw him out."

"I thought you could see everything. Why can't you see him?"

"Lord Barnes has similar skills as myself, though not as well practiced. He has hidden himself in a place I cannot reach, and yet I know he will surface to come for you."

"Why me?"

"Jacques Nouveau is dead. He was slain by an a.s.sa.s.sin's bullet in his workshop the morning after Bow Street burned. With Nouveau gone, you are his next target, then Bram, then Stevens. These are the players of this game and when he has finished with them, when he has eliminated everyone who has any knowledge of Saxon's automatons, he will have held me to a tie. He will hunt for you. He will find you. He will send men against you."

"I'm your bait?"

"Yes."

"And what if I don't want to be your bait?"

The Arab guard made a subtle movement, a shifting in the way he stood, in where his hands were positioned.

"I'm going to present three scenarios, Jolly. Three possibilities that are within your capacities. Scenario one:; you come with me. We leave Mr. Stoker in the capable hands of Mr. Samir," Darwin nodded at the Arab, "and return to Oxford. I put you and your mistress in a well-provisioned cabin. Lord Barnes sends men against you, and we capture them using my immaculate planning. The soldiers lead to Barnes, and this ends. Scenario two: you refuse me and make a last stand in this car. You and Samir will fight to the death. You will eventually overwhelm him with your strength, but his brother outside will stab you in the back. A fatal wound I'm afraid. Also, Mr. Stevens will strangle Mary and throw her from the train. Scenario three: you agree with me in the car but decide to turn rogue outside. You shoot Mr. Stevens, claim your lady friend and leap from train into Lake Balaton, which we'll be running parallel to in five minutes. You meet your friend in Budapest, gain employment, but are picked up by Budapest authorities within two weeks. There'll be an international bounty on you for the murder of Dr. Saxon and you'll have additional charges brought by your flight from justice. You will be extradited to London, convicted by a judge who sits firmly in the pocket of Lord Barnes, and hung from the neck. Your mistress will either be executed for aiding in your escape, or will be ignored by Lord Barnes and undoubtedly return to a life of prost.i.tution. To say her pimp is upset is an understatement. Murderous would be more accurate."

Darwin took another sip of brandy and rolled it around in his mouth before swallowing.

"So you see, Mr. Fellows, if you review the most likely scenarios, you will find that only one works in your favor."

"What if Barnes kills me?"

"I trust in your survivability more than his. It's a gamble I'm willing to make."

"What happened between you two? Why all of this? I get the feeling that this really isn't about automatic women."

"You don't need to know."

"If I'm going to dangle from your fishhook, I have a right to know why."

"Fine, it is about Saxon's experiment, in part. His technology is new and vital and whoever claims it can absorb our former colleague's greatness. Though to be honest I have no idea how Saxon got his Swan Princess to act on her own. She's rea.s.sembled, you know. We have her in a cage, pacing and snapping her teeth at any who approach. With Saxon and Nouveau dead, I can't imagine we'll ever truly know unless I find an engineer equal to their abilities. We've made replicas, but none bear her life, her aggression. They are machines of war but no more useful than a sword or a gun. They only operate under specific instructions and the break-down rate is phenomenal. Not to mention the expense. Without knowing Saxon's secret, the automaton experiment will come to an end."

Stoker cleared his throat.

"Don't you step in with your tale of magic Shiran runes, Bram. I'm not going imprint Babylonian mumbo-jumbo on precision machinery. If that is the secret then I refuse to accept it. Our world is a world without magic and unexplainable rubbish."

"What about G.o.d?" asked Bram.

"G.o.d is the proxy in between science and the unknown. All things we do not know about we can attribute to G.o.d. The things we do find out about we can attribute to him also, but he is more useful as a catch-all for the unknown. How were the planets and stars formed? G.o.d did it. What energy powers the sun? G.o.d's energy. The list goes on and on."

Darwin turned back to me.

"Barnes and I both wanted what Saxon had. Now neither of us have it. Years ago Lord Barnes had my theories declared religious heresy. I was excommunicated from the Anglican Church. Even worse I've had to answer to every fool theologian since. I responded to Barnes' attacks with petty revenges, discrediting, media attacks, anonymous accusations of s.e.xual perversion, of mysticism. Lord Barnes defeated me over and over again. Not because he was the better man, but because I refused to go hard enough against him. He provoked my ire, and the destruction of his agency was the natural conclusion of my wrath. As I was saying, cause and effect. He will now react. He will react against you. I think we are engaged in the last act of a play that started with Lord Barnes' words and will end with destruction of everything he holds dear, including his own petty, overestimated life."

The cabin door swung open. Stevens and Mary entered.

"Oh good," Darwin said. "Have a brandy, get comfortable. At the next stop we will leave Mr. Stoker and begin our journey home."

Thirteen.

Jolly and Mary Enter Forced Seclusion Our return trip to London was significantly shorter than our voyage out. We arrived in Budapest, and parted ways with Stoker and Samir. Darwin booked us first cla.s.s pa.s.sage on the A.S. Sir Francis Drake, an English dirigible set for a return flight to London. The twelve hour flight to London consisted largely of Darwin getting drunk while Stevens and Samir's brother kept a watchful eye on Mary and me. The deeper the drunk, the darker Darwin's mood became. He got mouthy in his cups, pontificating on the functions of the living world, the causality of human interaction, and, of course, the right b.a.s.t.a.r.d actions of theHonorable Lord Barnes.

Lord Barnes was the founder of the evolution countermovement. He was the original naysayer of fitness and the origin of species. During our long flight I began to understand the depth and nature of Darwin's obsession. To be called wrong when you knew you were right, to be held as a fool, to be scorned and ridiculed, was too much for a man of his abilities and disposition to bear. It was during this time that I also realized that Darwin was insane. From age or drink or rage or some combination of those, he'd gone past the edge of rationality. He'd gone to a place where war and murder could be justified, and like all old men who have a taste for war, he'd enlisted younger, impressionable men to do his fighting.

Stevens and Samir's brother stood in silence. Stoic guards. I imagine they'd heard these rants before, but had become numb to the old naturalist's raw anger.

Darwin felt that the true sin of Barnes' attack on his theories, the truly infuriating thing, was that Barnes' movement was based on faith and thus impossible to counter. A faith-based argument need not follow the chains of logic and can thus never be overturned in fair debate. Darwin would spend the rest of his living days defending what he saw as truth, as scientific law. And when he pa.s.sed, for surely the day would soon come that old Darwin would shuffle off our mortal coil, his theories would continue to be disregarded. They would be held in scorn by people who did not follow logic, who would not read his books or follow his train of thought. People would dismiss him out of hand. His theories would never be counted as scientific laws because Barnes had fanned the fire of detractors. The old man broke into tears.

"Do you know what it means to hate, Mr. Fellows?"

I shook my head. I don't imagine I'd felt a hate like he did.

"Hate is so much more intimate than love. When you truly hate someone, you take a piece of their soul. They become part of you, they occupy your thoughts, your attention, like a wound that itches and stings but you cannot reach it. The one you hate is in your thoughts when you wake. They are with you in the quiet moments when you are alone, and they are with you in the dark of night. They enter your dreams. The one you hate lives inside you, Mr. Fellows. A man can always turn his back on love. There are so many songs and poems stocked full of such tripe. But there's no escape from hate, no turning away, no victory. I cannot expel Lord Barnes from my system, but I will hurt him. It gives me joy to hurt him. It's the last joy granted to this withering body of mine."

Darwin hiccupped and slumped into his couch. He returned to his place of dreams, the place of his thoughts. I a.s.sume Lord Barnes was waiting for him.

Time stretched as it does when you're bored or frightened. At some point Mary found my hand and squeezed it. I looked at her delicate fingers, up to her eyes, and suddenly we were on a separate island. We were our own ent.i.ty existing outside of danger and despair and Darwin with his violent goons. The lifts and whirls of the dirigible twisted my stomach and competed with the twists of Mary's smile. Darwin could keep his hate, keep his rants, his grudge. Nothing was more important than that which was in front of me. Darwin said I could turn away from love, and that was his weakness. I disagree. When you're in the thick of it, there is no turning away.

The A.S. Sir Francis Drake began its descent. Darwin snored loudly in his chair. Stevens broke from his stoicism and took the seat across from Mary and me.

"It goes without saying that you'll miss your trial tomorrow," Stevens said. "Rumors will blossom in the underworld that you're in hiding and under the protection of Arabic smugglers. Those who have a deeper understanding will see Mr. Darwin's hand in this. They will a.s.sume that Mr. Darwin is repaying you for your part in the destruction of the Bow Street Firm. We have a nice little place for you outside of Oxford, in Marley Wood, ideal for honeymooners such as yourselves. Mr. Hannosh and myself will be attending to you and will be apprehending any a.s.sa.s.sins who attempt to snuff out your life."

"What if they succeed?"

Mr. Stevens cheeks dimpled as he frowned, giving him the air and look of petulant, mustached child.

"Were I a betting man, I'd say the precautions placed by Mr. Darwin give you a better than average chance. He'll never admit it, but he was greatly distressed by Nouveau's demise. He never makes the same mistake twice."

"What exactly happened to Nouveau?"

"It just so happens I was there. We were in his workshop in the Bureaucracy. He was pacing the room, muttering in French about gear ratios, about sentient life, about finding himself a new line of work. I don't think he knew I spoke his native tongue so his monologue was tragically unfiltered. All of a sudden, he turned, raised a finger in the air, shouted 'sacre bleu' and his head exploded. Top to bottom the whole back of his head was shorn off, like a Viking axeman sundered it. The walls, the Swan, myself, everything got a little piece of the great mind of Jacques Nouveau, the genius engineer, artist, Frenchman. At first I was speechless. The room was secure, our guards were out the front door, I was inside, and there were government agents crawling all about the place. Then I looked up. The ceiling had a near opaque skylight, maybe a meter diameter with a steeple slant. Across the street from Central Bureaucracy sits St. Clemens Dane. Whoever Barnes' hitter was must have scaled the bell tower and waited, rifle trained on about twelve centimeters of visible s.p.a.ce, through that G.o.d forsaken skylight. Lord knows how long he waited for Nouveau to walk his skull into the line of fire. An amazing shot, really. I can't wait to get my hands on the shooter."

I figured then was a good time to stop talking to Stevens. He was doing little to boost my confidence.

We landed on London Airstrip One, the first airport of the United Kingdom and a crowning achievement in our current rebuild. We disembarked before the other pa.s.sengers and were met on the airfield by two horseless carriages. I'd never actually ridden in one of these marvels; neither had Mary. We were escorted into the rear seating area where we were joined by Stevens. Mr. Hannosh placed himself in the driver's seat. Darwin took a separate car, I imagine to distance himself from this part of the adventure, to return to his pretend life as a benign scholar.

Mary kept silent, but the grip she kept on my hand spoke more than words. I envied her philosophy, accepting one day at a time, finding joy in the joyless. Her time as a prost.i.tute certainly prepared her for partnership with me. I'm the polar magnet of bad times and surviving days by the sweat of my brow or skin of my teeth.

The horseless carriage did nothing to calm my nerves. It rattled and hummed unnaturally. At one point Hannosh accelerated to pa.s.s a horse buggy and I swore by the whine of the engine that the entire machine would explode, would consume us in a ball of fire and steam. I observed Hannosh manipulate the lever. There were two for left and right movement and a third for drive levels. There were what he called gears, and foot pedals for acceleration and breaking.

We reached Oxford as fast as any train. We pa.s.sed the university and turned off the primary road onto a dirt path that bounced the horseless carriage unmercifully. We ventured deep into the woods, where elms and crack willows swayed and held a court all their own. The sun itself was held at bay in these thick woods, allowing only the shifting speckles and rays admitted through leafy branches and a never-ending breeze. The cabin was a rustic rectangle of stacked oak and mud mortar. It looked like a landscape painter's idea of country seclusion. Mary put her hand to her breast.

"Isn't it brilliant!" she said.

"I could die here," I said in grim seriousness.

She took my hand and held it to her breast and the smile on her face told me that my worries had not registered, that she had retreated to this moment and this moment was beautiful. I loved her for that.

Stevens lifted a canvas sack out of the carriage boot.