Virginian

by Mark J Rose

  His thoughts of Celia were almost enough for him to put the vision of John Newcomb’s corpse out of his mind, but they weren’t enough to forget the man who was responsible for his murder. When they finally arrived at Covent Garden, Patrick did his best to cast the thoughts of Matthew Miller from his head. For tonight, he vowed to leave life’s complications behind and enjoy the opera with the alluring woman that faced him. He looked forward to watching her mingle and her smiles as she bathed in her newfound popularity.

  Patrick stepped from the carriage and then reached up for his wife to help her onto the ground. She was a breathtakingly elegant woman. They walked into the opera house, hand in hand, enthusiastically greeting London socialites, a few of whom Patrick thought, were fine people. Patrick let Celia take the lead owing to her familiarity with the great families. Many of the men, though, came forward to talk to him about this and that, and Patrick tried his best to play to Celia’s satisfaction. Even as the Industrial Revolution took hold in England, the path to government power still led through the minefield of the noble families.

  All the niceties, though, made him a tired by the time that they took their seats in the right-most elevated box that overlooked the opera stage. The two men who drove the carriage stood outside the door of the box. They sat there for a while, talking about the people below until a commotion along the floor interrupted them. They both looked down to see what was happening. “There,” Celia said pointing. “It’s Dr. Franklin. I recognize the dress of the young lady beside him. She was at the masquerade. A delightful young woman, but somewhat distracted.”

  Even after a decade, Patrick recognized her too. “Her name is Sarah Morris Mifflin,” Patrick replied. “She is the wife of a cotton merchant that does business with Ferguson Industries.” Patrick looked twice to believe his eyes. Benjamin Franklin, Matthew Miller, Sarah Morris, and Thomas Mifflin were ascending the stairs to seats in the box directly across from them. Patrick seared with anger, and he blinked away the jittering in his mind that spoke of something ominous.

  The people he considered to be among the most deadly in London had come to the Opera to taunt him on the one night that he wanted to escape the world. It felt as if he had only now revealed the serpent, and it was already standing before him and hissing. Patrick’s feeling to confront them directly was overwhelming. “I should go and give my regards to Dr. Franklin,” he said trying to keep his voice calm.

  “Should I come?” she asked.

  “No,” he replied. “I may be required to speak plainly.”

  “As you wish, my husband,” she replied while smiling knowingly. “I’ll keep an eye out though, should the plain-speaking become threatening.”

  Patrick nodded, stood and stepped from the box. One of his bodyguards followed while the other remained standing outside the door to protect Celia. The journey down the steps and to the opposite side of the opera house was short. Unlike Patrick’s box, there was no one standing guard. Everyone in Miller’s party was facing forward, watching the actors set up on the stage. Patrick leaned down and tapped Matthew Miller’s shoulder.

  Miller looked up at him surprised.

  “You came here to antagonize me?” Ferguson asked coldly.

  “What are you talking about I thought you were coming to welcome us.” Miller stood from his seat, now aware of the anger on Patrick’s face, and backed away. Miller looked relieved when Patrick chose not to close the distance.

  “You came here to antagonize me,” Patrick repeated.

  “We came at your invitation.”

  Patrick leaned closer to Miller. “I did three tours of the Middle East. I know what a modern gunshot wound looks like. I’ll make you pay.”

  “Modern gunshot wound? I’ve never used my weapon.”

  Ferguson looked at him threatening. “It’s the last man of mine you’ll murder.”

  Miller went to reply, but a shockwave shoved the words back into his mouth as the opposite wall of the opera house disintegrated. The blast pushed both men off their feet and slammed them into the back wall of the box. Now on the ground, Patrick’s ears were ringing, and his mind was stuttering from the concussion. There was rubble everywhere. He reached up, grabbed the back of a chair to pull himself to his feet to see where the blast had originated. He looked across the opera house to where his wife had been sitting, but now there was only a gaping hole in the wall. Miller, too, had pulled himself to his feet, staggering and shocked. He had taken the full brunt of the explosion in the face. “You son of a bitch,” Ferguson yelled. He dived and grabbed Miller’s throat.

  Chapter 44

  Red Wire

  Matt was riding fast on his motorcycle, driving into a pitch-black horizon. He looked at the mayhem that chased him and guessed at whether he could stay out in front of the maelstrom. He twisted the throttle, and he felt the motorcycle jump forward to travel faster through the future than he had ever gone, but time increased its pace behind him, first to match his speed and then to close the distance. Matt became desperate for the acceleration necessary to outrace his destiny.

  Time was close enough now to see events lapping out with tendrils and trying to trap him. The long fingers snapped around like bullwhips as he stayed barely out of reach. Men lay dead in his pastures, horses screamed and stampeded from burning stables, and a factory exploded. Matt held the Walther and fired as rapidly as he could pull the trigger until cannon balls overwhelmed him. At the very end, she was there, buried under the grand oak next to her mother and father. He knew then that speed wouldn’t be enough; he’d need skill and cunning.

  Matt turned the handlebars of the motorcycle hard to the right, hoping to outmaneuver the snapping bullwhips, but he was going too fast to make the turn, and the bike flipped. Pain seared through him as he rolled side over side until he finally scraped to a halt on the pavement. He had a single moment of absolute solitude, until everything he had tried to outrace smashed into him like a wrecking ball. Hot shrapnel peppered his face until it tore the flesh from his skull.

  “Matthew, wake up!”

  Matt opened his eyes to Ben Franklin. He was in his bed in Franklin’s house on Craven Street. “What happened?” Matt asked groggily. Words came from his throat, but they were only a whisper. Moving his jaw made the skin around his face feel like cracking plaster. He reached to brush the stiffness away, but Franklin grabbed his wrist and laid it back down on the bed.

  “They’ve only just scabbed,” he said. “They’ll scar if you tear at them.”

  “What happened?” Matt repeated in a scraggly whisper.

  “’Twas a bomb in the opera house,” Franklin explained. “Celia Ferguson and her escort are dead.”

  “Patrick Ferguson?” Matt replied. He was having trouble controlling his mind. Visions of the future were still peppering his face.

  “He’s fine,” Franklin said, repeating, “His wife and an escort were killed.”

  Matt was finally was able to put Franklin’s words together without them being diluted by jittering visions. “Accident?” Matt asked.

  “A bomb planted where they sat.”

  “Who lit?” Matt whispered.

  “Sarah said ‘twas something call a time bomb.” Franklin showed him piece of charred plastic with two insulated wires. The insulation that covered the copper wire was black and cracked. Franklin pushed the wires out from their resting place under the grey plastic. The red and black insulation was still intact. Matt’s thoughts swam through his throbbing head. “I found this,” Franklin said.

  “From the future,” Matt whispered.

  “Sarah said it,” Franklin replied.

  “Future,” Matt repeated.

  “Do you remember Ferguson tried to kill you?”

  “Why?”

  “He thinks you planted the bomb. He tried to strangle you. Thomas Mifflin punched him to pull him off.”

  “Why I can’t talk?”

  “Yes,” Franklin replied. “You didn’t plant the bomb?”

  M
att closed his eyes and shook his head. Even the fact that Franklin had thought to ask the question cut him to his soul.

  “I’ve seen explosions, cannon fire, mortars and the like,” Franklin explained. “There was no smoke or smell,”

  “Who?” Matt whispered, but then his world went black, and he slipped into the shadows.

  Chapter 45

  Muse

  Brian’s cab was almost at Scarlett’s London house. The distraction of passing wagons pulled Brian out of his visions and then to the ambition that sustained him. He would never have predicted how much making one man suffer could give him so much purpose. He admitted too that his growing fascination with Scarlett was affecting him in ways that he had not expected. Even he was not immune to Scarlett’s charisma. Her presence had made it easier this last time to extend his stay in London for six months, and even to think about visiting again.

  Brian reached up to massage his temples. The headaches were still severe, but like his last two trips, they were starting to subside. Brian had submitted himself to a full battery of physical and mental testing before and after each of his previous two trips. There didn’t look to be any lasting physical effects except for some striking changes in his brain. MRI scans documented a three percent increase in brain neuron density after his first trip and an additional two percent after the second. It was not surprising that headaches were a side effect of the wormhole; the capillaries that fed these growing neurons with oxygen lagged far behind the neuronal growth rate. His new brain cells were starving for oxygen.

  Hypoxic stress aside, Brian’s increase in brain volume had manifested itself into a seventeen-point rise in his already high IQ. His intelligence and memory had grown to an astounding level. He could now play chess against himself in his mind. Another interesting side effect of the wormhole was an ability to predict events before they happened. His prescient skills were minimal after the first trip and mostly came in the form of dreams. They increased dramatically after the second journey, and since his third, he could dream at will. When he allowed himself to look down that hallway in his mind, he could see time as a separate dimension.

  There was some mental danger in not keeping his distance from the visions. They were like walking along the slippery bank of a rushing river. You could easily lose your balance, slide in and be swept away. He had learned to pull himself out of the river on those occasions when he did fall, but it was getting harder as the premonitions became more vivid.

  His prescience made him aware of two futures that were diverging, although the four-dimensional map of time wasn’t always so easy to interpret. Understanding time was like communicating in a foreign language that you barely spoke; you caught words here and there and tried to read body language and facial expression. His visions of the future had given him two high-probability outcomes: one presented as static and “normal,” and the other as a purposeful manipulation.

  There was nothing in his mind that told whether one future was better than the other, but it was sure that Matthew Miller was driving toward the manipulated timeline. Despite Brian’s growing skills, forecasting the actions of either Ferguson or Miller were difficult. Brian could only infer from the empty holes that engulfed the events around them like explosions along the flight path of a bomber. Some holes connected to the normal future, some led to the manipulation, and they were often too entwined to sort out.

  Brian had spent days in the dark playing and replaying sequences of events in his mind until the conclusion was unmistakable. Miller and Ferguson were in an alliance to change the future and had already caused the death of one anti-American Member of Parliament. Miller and Ferguson were willing to kill to accomplish their goals, and Brian saw no reason not to match their intensity. Brian understood where they were coming from. If they shared even a small amount of his ability to travel across time, they too were recognizing that biological life was trivial in comparison to the energy that composed the universe.

  The carriage slowed abruptly, and the driver turned. “Eighty-five, Strand,” he said. Brian hopped out. His head throbbed from the concussion of his feet against the ground. He reached out to steady himself against the carriage.

  “You all right, sir?” the driver asked

  Brian wasn’t sure how long he’d been standing there in pain. He acknowledged the concerned face of the cabbie. “I’m good,” Brian said finally. He reached into his pocket and handed over the coins.

  “Thank you, sir,” the driver said as Brian stepped back.

  Brian watched the cab drive away through blurred vision as it disappeared into the night. He turned himself to Scarlett’s row home. There was light coming from the door’s upper window, helping him to see the hole for the skeleton key. He jiggled it around until the key slid in and then he turned it until the deadlock receded from its hole in the doorjamb. The solid oak door made a “click” and swung open. He stepped in and closed it quietly behind him so he could surprise her. He did this despite the fact there was some risk in startling Scarlett, owing to her propensity for keeping a pistol nearby.

  Brian walked through the hall, past the steps to the upstairs bedroom, and looked toward the darkened stairway with some anticipation. Maybe he could convince Scarlett to go up there tonight. She was in the parlor at an oak workbench, surrounded by bright oil lamps, fixing a fake diamond into a gold setting. She had become a capable jeweler in the last six months. The image of her starting a jewelry shop and earning money in some legitimate enterprise made him laugh. It was loud enough for her to hear.

  “I’m busy,” she said without looking up from her work.

  “I know better than to disturb you,” he replied.

  “Was it you?” she asked, still looking down at the ring.

  “What?”

  “The Gazette.”

  He looked around for the London newspaper.

  Chapter 46

  Scarlett

  Scarlett glanced up from her jewels and waited for Brian to finish the article. She suspected as soon as she read it that he had been involved. Scarlett set everything down on the table, looked him up and down, and reconsidered why she stayed. Her attraction had been for hire for so long, it was hard to remember what kind of man she preferred. Was this new ruthlessness physically alluring, or was it just another kind of currency? Scarlett trafficked in character, and character was essential in London. It was tangible like gold or land. If you controlled it, you determined its value and could exchange it for other assets.

  Scarlett had become a wealthy woman by hiring herself out to men of extreme worth. These men were brutal when it came to managing money, companies, or people and she was brutal when it came to controlling their good name. They entered her life with affluence and family, and in the end, they were willing to traffic their assets for hers. She was not without compromise, and many negotiated hard to leave their fame unscathed. Like any skilled negotiator, she took the time to understand the person sitting across the table. She never asked for more than they could afford. Many merely shrugged their shoulders at the cost, and a few had been willing to sit at the table a second time, and some, even a third.

  Scarlett had not known what to think of Brian Palmer when he had first tracked her down. He came with a handful of fake jewels that were the best she’d ever seen. The only way she knew they were fake was that he had an endless supply. Brian had left one with her, told her where she could find him and then walked away. She remembered turning the brilliant in her fingers, round and round. It was heavier and colder than a real diamond. She remembered breathing on it to shine it against the fabric of her dress. It fogged easily, and that surprised her. Scarlett knew immediately why no one bought them as loose stones; they needed a story. It took her some time to learn to set them, but she was a natural at coming up with a narrative.

  Her tales had additional credibility when they came with a tight bodice and a bosom that testified on her behalf. She liked to put the jewelers in categories as her sham played out. Some doubt
ed her story from the beginning and greed brought them the rest of the way. Others fell for the fiction that she was an impoverished mistress, with tears in her eyes, selling a ring that her ex-lover had given her after using her indiscriminately. Alternatively, she was a scorned wife vying for revenge against an adulterous husband. Those who pitied her still only offered about half of what the brilliant was worth and so their complicity in the ruse was uncommon sure. Even if the jewelers believed that the stone was fake, they’d have no qualms about passing it on to some trusting customer at a discount price.

  She watched Brian drop the paper on the table and saw his feigned look of dismay.

  “Wasn’t me,” he said simply. Scarlett knew that was what he had to say.

  “It doesn’t surprise me that ‘twas someone.”

  “Wasn’t me,” he repeated.

  “People like Ferguson make many enemies in the course of their business,” she explained. “’Twas only a matter of time before someone had enough.”

  He dropped the newspaper on the table. “So there,” he said. “It could have been anyone in London.”

  Chapter 47

  Goodbye

  Patrick stood dumbfounded and numb as the procession of people walked from St. Paul’s Cathedral. He had never been a fan of long funerals, so had asked the priest to take no more than an hour. There would be an additional day for people to line up to view Celia’s body at Ferguson Manor. Patrick’s eldest daughter, Catherine, was his only child to stand by his side. She was only seven years old, but she was already demonstrating her mother’s poise as she accepted people’s condolences. She smiled politely at comments that ranged from compassionate, to amazingly tone-deaf and inappropriate if said to Patrick, let alone, a seven-year-old girl.