by Jean Rabe
Johnny sighed. “Little comfort that. Are all my guests safe?”
“Our guests are unharmed. Everything is under control. Lady Espear has summoned the authorities. The garden staff has taken up arms to protect our home. Dick, Harry, and I saw no indication there were more than the four we apprehended, but we will assist the authorities in verifying that.” Tom bowed. “If you will excuse me, sir, I will greet the authorities. I hear them approaching.” His gears purred as he turned to take his leave.
Johnny shifted the ice bag on his head and put the intruder’s device on the nightstand. “It was your fast thinking and heroic efforts that activated my rescuers and alerted the house and the authorities. I am ever in your debt.”
“It’s nothing one wouldn’t do to help a friend.” She stepped over to the bed and sat on the edge, taking his hand.
By the time morning dawned, the authorities had taken the multitomaton’s, Sydney’s, and Johnny’s statements. The doctor stitched Johnny’s head. Dick and Harry cleared the debris from the explosion.
“Shall I have a contract for business drawn up?”Toiter hoisted a blunderbuss over his shoulder while looking at Sydney and Johnny. “A full partnership venture?”
“Yes, definitely.” Sydney smiled at Johnny’s bruised face.
“Hopefully, it will lead to full partnerships in many other ventures.” Johnny put his arm around Sydney’s waist. “That is . . . if you were serious about wanting adventure.”
“Oh I was. I am.” Sydney rested her head on his shoulder.
The Whisperer
Marc Tassin
Marc Tassin is the author of numerous science fiction and fantasy short stories. He has also written and edited material for the Shadowrun roleplaying game and for Dragon Magazine. Marc lives just outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan with his wife and two children, although each August he embarks upon a week-long pilgrimage to Indianapolis where he is a panelist at the annual Gen Con Writers’ Symposium.
“I don’t understand, Mr. Carmichael,” Avery whispered. “Why can’t I see Lily?”
The well-dressed fat man sitting across the table from Avery leaned back and tucked his thumbs into the pockets of his green silk vest. Before answering, Mr. Carmichael let out an exasperated puff of air that caused his substantial red moustache to flutter.
“We’ve gone over this already, boy,” Mr. Carmichael said. “The girl has the fever. She’s in no condition to travel. As soon as she’s feeling better we’ll have her brought straight down from the hospital to see you.”
Avery smelled scotch on Mr. Carmichael’s breath. It mixed with the musky aroma of Mr. Carmichael’s cologne, and reminded Avery painfully of his father. Avery looked around the cell. Workshop, he corrected himself. They didn’t like it when he called the room a cell. He glanced at the concrete walls, its solid metal door, and the hissing gas lamp mounted in a cage on the ceiling. For the thousandth time he wished for a workshop upstairs, one with a window.
“Perhaps,” Avery whispered, hesitating a moment before continuing. “Perhaps I could go see her?”
Again, Mr. Carmichael puffed.
“Out of the question,” he said. “One of those damned recruiters might see you. Healthy young man like you? They’d snatch you up and ship you off to the war before you could say ‘tea time.’ ”
Mr. Carmichael stood, walked around the table, and gave Avery’s shoulder a squeeze.
“And you know how people feel about your kind, son. They aren’t like Company men. They don’t appreciate your gifts like we do. You were committed for your own safety. Heavens knows how people would react if they found out just how much you ‘whisperers’ can do.”
Carmichael turned and walked to the workshop’s iron door. He rapped his chubby knuckles on it three times in rapid succession, and then looked back at Avery.
“As soon as Lily is feeling better we’ll have her brought down.”
With a clunk and the sound of gear teeth clattering against one another, the door slid slowly aside.
“Wait!” Avery whispered, pushing his chair back and getting to his feet.
“What is it, son?”
“How bad is she, sir? Is she really getting better?”
Mr. Carmichael stopped, thumbs tucked into his vest pockets again. He pursed his lips and his moustache stuck out like a hedgehog’s spines.
“You young people are resilient. I’m certain she’ll recover and be back here in no time.”
At this, Mr. Carmichael pulled out his pocket watch and snapped the cover open.
“Fiddlesticks,” he said. “I’m running late. Got to go, Avery, but don’t you worry about Lily. We’ve got lots of work for you today. We just received a shipment of ethereals we need you to whisper. We don’t want you distracted, now do we? Take care, son.”
Mr. Carmichael stomped out, and the door clattered shut behind him. Avery thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out the little clockwork device he’d hidden there. It whispered to him in its tiny mechanical voice; the voice only a whisperer could hear.
“Yes, no. Yes, no. Yes, no. Yes, no.”
They weren’t allowed to make things on their own, and they certainly weren’t allowed to whisper them, but Avery didn’t care. His heart ached without Lily. The people at the London Marvel Company’s asylum weren’t unkind, but Lily was special. After five years in the asylum, Avery had finally met someone who truly cared for him.
It started as a friendship, Lily chatting pleasantly with him whenever she brought his food, but it blossomed into something wonderful. Avery’s chest tightened just thinking about her. How badly he wanted to see her. They’d even talked about what they might do if the Company ever allowed Avery to leave, about how they’d move to Somerset and start a farm there, far from the noise and stink of the city.
“Yes, no. Yes, no. Yes, no. Yes, no.”
The whispers of the little device pulled him out of his reverie. He could no longer avoid it. Avery raised the device to his mouth and whispered to it.
“You listened to all, just as I asked. You heard him say she would be better soon. Now tell me little friend- truth?”
“No, no. No, no. No, no. No, no.”
Avery slumped into the chair. Lily was not well, and she was not getting better. Lily was going to . . . .
Avery covered his face with his hands and wept. A long time later, when the tears subsided, or perhaps when he just had no tears left, a strange calm slipped over him. Nothing mattered any longer. Not the threats the Company made against him or his estranged family. Not his fears about the outside world and how much they despised his kind. Not concern over what might become of him.
Nothing mattered except for Lily.
Clenching his fists, feeling a heat rise within him, Avery made a plan.
Like one of the clockwork devices Avery worked on every day, the serving girl arrived at precisely 7:55 p.m. with his supper. She brought it on a tray and sat it on the table next to the many contraptions the Company had brought him to whisper to. Meanwhile, a uniformed guard, an electro-pistol tucked snugly into his belt, watched steely eyed from the door.
When the girl went to leave, Avery leaped from his seat, grabbed her about the shoulders, and dragged her to the floor. The tray and its contents clattered across the concrete. The poor girl screamed and fought against Avery. It took the guard a full three seconds to even register what was happening.
As Avery wrestled with the girl, he pulled her in close and whispered, “I won’t harm you.”
At that moment the guard’s hands clamped down on Avery and yanked him off her. As the guard pulled him away, Avery saw a look of utter bewilderment on the girl’s face.
“Get off her, ya crazy bastard,” the guard shouted.
He spun Avery around and cocked back a fist. Rather than pulling away, Avery used the momentum to tumble into the guard. Avery wrapped his arms around the man, put his lips to the guard’s ear, and whispered.
The guard released Avery and stared blan
kly into space. Avery stepped back, shaking with a mix of fear and exhilaration. He’d never tried this. He hadn’t known if it would work. As the guard drew his weapon Avery recoiled, fearing that he may have misjudged the extent of his power.
“I will help you,” the man said in a voice devoid of normal intonation. With his pistol in hand, the guard walked out of the room.
“You . . . you whispered that man,” the girl gasped from the floor behind Avery. “You can’t do that. It doesn’t work that way.”
Voices came from the hallway.
“What are you doing, Jenkins? Put that weapon away before I—”
The sharp zap of the electro-pistol discharging echoed in the hall, accompanied by a short scream. The girl covered her mouth and made a squeaking noise.
“Merciful heaven,” she gasped.
Shaking, balanced precariously on the edge of panic, Avery hurried out of his cell.
“I’m coming, Lily,” he whispered.
Two hours later, Avery stumbled through the streets of central London. He’d left Jenkins back at the asylum with whispers of “Forget” and “Sleep,” and he’d been wandering ever since. Once or twice he thought Company men were following him, but each time it was just someone hurrying off on their own agenda.
He had to find St. Mary’s Hospital. He tried to remember where it was, but he was just a boy when his parents had sent him away to the asylum. Even if he could remember, the city had changed in those years. Where rows of quaint shops had once stood, great brick and iron towers now rose into the sky. Autonomous carriages clattered down the streets, jockeying for space and careening narrowly past one another. High above, rumbling airships trundled along between the towers, navigating iron canyons.
Avery tried desperately to concentrate, but the noise assailed him. Not just the usual noise one finds in a city like London, but the other noise; the noise of a thousand-thousand whispers. They filled his mind like the piercing hiss of a steam engine’s release valve on full, battered his senses, almost blinded him with their ceaseless cacophony.
“Go, go. Go, go. Go, go,” whispered a passing autonomous.
“Shine, shine. Shine, shine. Shine, shine,” hissed every lamp on the street.
“Sing, sing. Sing, sing. Sing, sing,” whispered the speaker on the wall of the café.
And they weren’t just whispering. They were whispering to him. It was as if they were children, trying to show him how well they were performing their tasks, trying to impress him with the skill and quality with which they accomplished their missions.
And there were so many of them. Far more than he’d whispered into being. How many other young men and women were locked in the Marvel Company’s asylum? He cursed himself for not checking the other cells.
And it brought him back to Lily. How they’d kept her from him, how even now she was surely fading, and how desperately he wanted to see her. Avery wondered what a hundred . . . two hundred . . . a thousand, perhaps, of his kind might do if they were free. And what if he shared what he knew? What if he told them the secret; that whispers worked on more than just machines?
“Go Spin Sing Run Flap Turn Sing Turn Go Play Rattle Push Up Down Go Spin.”
Avery covered his ears. It did no good. The whispers went straight into his mind. He slumped against the wall of an alley and slid to the paving-stones, his arms clasped tightly around his head. As he sat there, a smartly dressed young couple passed by. They gave him a glance, but hurried on when Avery let out a whimper.
Gritting his teeth, Avery clambered to his feet. Lily needed him. He had to find her. Stumbling out of the alley he whispered to the couple.
“Wait! Please!”
The woman stopped, despite the protestations of her escort, and turned to Avery. She looked beautiful in her long dress, the hoops making it sway like gentle waves on a lake.
“Are you all right, sir?” she asked, her voice kind but tinged with a hint of fear.
She smelled good. She looked like an angel. Avery thought that someday he would buy a dress like that for Lily. Lily always talked about the dresses in the fancy stores, dresses a serving girl’s wages would never afford.
“Sir?” she said, coming closer. “Do you need help?”
Avery whispered, “St. Mary’s. I can’t find St. Mary’s.”
The woman held out a gloved hand. Her escort stepped up beside her, frowning.
“Good heavens, Francis,” the man said, glowering at Avery. “What if he’s sick? And did you hear his voice? What if he’s one of those whisperers?”
“He wouldn’t be out on the street if he were a whisperer. Maybe he was in the war, like my brother,” she said. “Here, I won’t hurt you.”
“Open, open. Open, open. Open, open,” whispered an automated door on a nearby shop.
Avery winced against the noise, but the woman did not pull her hand away. She continued to smile at him, her eyes kind, if a bit sad. Reaching out, he took her hand. He could feel the warmth through the soft cotton glove.
“This way,” she said, still smiling and leading him down the street.
They reached the corner and she led him around to the other side.
“You see?” she said. “It’s just up there, on the hill. You’ve almost made it.”
Avery choked back a sob. Lily was so close. The woman’s escort came up beside him. Despite the man’s earlier comments, he too looked at Avery with a sad kindness.
“Can you walk it?” he said. “Should I call you a public autonomous?”
Avery shook his head, but never took his eyes off the hospital.
“No,” he whispered. “No, thank you.”
He pulled his hand away from the woman and started toward the hospital. He began slowly, but with each step he went faster until he found himself racing down the sidewalk at a run.
“Well now, there’s a miraculous recovery,” he faintly heard the man saying.
Avery arrived, out-of-breath, at the gates to the hospital. The monumental five-story brick building stood across a wide lawn, looking serious and academic, if a trifle rundown. Avery pulled at the bars of the gate and found it locked. From a small hut just inside the compound, a pebble eyed security guard wandered out.
“Can’t you read?” he said, and pointed to a sign mounted beside the gate. “Hospital’s closed for the night. Come back in the morning.”
“Please,” whispered Avery. “I have to find my friend.”
“Speak up, will you?” the man said.
“I need to see my friend. Her name is Lily,” Avery whispered.
The guard spat on the ground and then stalked over to the gate.
“I said, speak up. I can’t hear a damned thing you’re saying.”
“Please,” Avery pleaded. “I need to see her. She’s very sick.”
“Well she wouldn’t be in hospital if she weren’t, now would she?” the man said, sneering at Avery and stepping right up to the bars. “But that don’t change a bloody thing. Closed is closed. So go on. Come back in the morning.”
Avery glared at the stupid, selfish man. He felt his anger rise, fueled by the fear that he might already be too late.
“Open the gate and let me in,” Avery hissed.
The man blinked, his jaw went slack, and then he reached into his pocket and withdrew a huge ring of keys. He walked over, picked through the keys until he found a particularly large one, and unlocked the gate.
Avery pushed it open and rushed through. He stopped and turned to the man.
“Go sit in your hut,” he whispered.
The man wandered back to his guard booth as Avery ran up the hospital drive. When he reached the main building, he headed for the front door, but stopped short. Reconsidering, he went around to the back and located the staff entrance. A small metal box, with a pair of flickering red lamps on it, was mounted beside the door.
“Lock, lock, wait for the card. Lock, lock, wait for the card. Lock, lock, wait for the card,” it whispered.
Av
ery bent down and whispered to the lock, “Open.”
There was a click, the lamps flashed green, and the door swung inward. Avery rushed inside and closed the door behind him. He found himself in a room lined with lockers. He rifled through them until he found a long white coat. Pulling it on, he slipped out of the room.
The halls of the hospital were empty, although they were far from silent, at least for Avery. The whispers of a multitude of Marvel-made devices filled Avery’s mind. He shook his head to force them back and then continued on.
At each doorway he looked inside. Room after room after room was filled with rows of beds divided by white, hanging curtains. The patients that he could see were all sleeping, the sounds of their breathing mixed with the whispers of the machinery attached to them. There were a few nurses roving between the beds, but they worked silently, never disturbing their charges. Focused as they were, the nurses paid no attention to Avery.
Avery soon realized that he would never find Lily by searching every bed. Spotting a clipboard on the wall by one of the doors, he grabbed it. It had a list of names on it. He scanned the list and did not find her, so he raced to the next clipboard. Nothing.
Door after door. Clipboard after clipboard. No Lily. Despair crept into his mind. He wondered if Mr. Carmichael had lied about where they were keeping her. Avery hadn’t thought to confirm that. As he scanned what felt like the hundredth clipboard, a woman’s voice interrupted him.
“Excuse me,” she said, “but I don’t believe I know you.”
Avery froze, unsure of what to do. He thought about using a whisper on her, but despite its effectiveness, the ability frightened him. It felt wrong in some way, and he worried that there might be some unintended consequence. Trying to formulate a plan, he turned to face her and found a portly, middle-aged woman with a kind face, her hair up in a loose bun. With no other ideas, Avery did the only thing he could think of. He told the truth.
