The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Ten

by Jonathan Strahan

  The mechanical George staggered tap-click, tap-click across the shop. It crashed into a wall and tumbled with a clank to the floor, then lay there whirring. Msieur swore again, words Ma would be mortified to know that Plaquette had heard. He snatched off one of his own shoes and threw it at the George. Billy Sumach gave a little peep of swallowed laughter. Msieur pointed at the George. “Fix it,” he growled at Plaquette. “I have to present it to the governor the day after tomorrow.”

  As though Plaquette didn’t know that. “Yes, Msieur,” she said to his back as he stormed through the door to the showroom.

  The second the door slammed shut, Billy let out a whoop. Plaquette found herself smiling along with him, glad of a little amusement. It was scarce in her life nowadays. “My land,” Billy said, “’Pears Old George there has got himself the jake leg!”

  The fun blew out of the room like a candle flame. “Don’t you joke,” Plaquette told him, through teeth clamped tight together. “You know ’bout my Pa.”

  Billy’s face fell. “Oh Lord, Plaquette, I’m sorry.”

  “Just help me get this George to its feet. It weighs a ton.” Billy was a fine man, of Plaquette’s color and station. Lately when he came by with deliveries he’d been favoring her with smiles and wistful looks. But she couldn’t study that right now, not with Pa taken so poorly. Together they wrestled the George over to Plaquette’s work table. There it stood. Its painted-on porter’s uniform had chipped at one shoulder when it fell. Its chest door hung open as a coffin lid. Plaquette wanted to weep at the tangle of metal inside it. She’d taken the George’s chest apart and put it back together, felt like a million times now. Msieur couldn’t see what was wrong, and neither could she. Its arms worked just fine; Plaquette had strung the wires inside them herself. But the legs...

  “You’ll do it,” Billy said, “Got a good head on your shoulders.”

  Feeling woeful, Plaquette nodded.

  An uncomfortable silence held between them an instant. If he wanted to come courting, now would be the time to ask. Instead, he held up his clipboard. “Msieur gotta sign for these boxes.”

  Plaquette nodded again. She wouldn’t have felt right saying yes to courting, anyway. Not with Pa so sick.

  If he’d asked, that is.

  “Billy, you ever think of doing something else?” The words were out before she knew she wanted to ask them.

  He frowned thoughtfully. “You know, I got cousins own a lavender farm, out Des Allemands way. Sometimes I think I might join them.”

  “Not some big city far off?” She wondered how Billy’s calloused hands would feel against her cheek.

  “Nah. Too noisy, too dirty. Too much like this place.” Then he saw her face. “Though if a pretty girl like you were there,” he said slowly, as though afraid to speak his mind, “I guess I could come to love it.”

  He looked away then. “Think Msieur would mind me popping to the showroom real quick? I could take him his shoe.”

  “Just make sure no white folks in there.”

  Billy collected Msieur’s shoe then ducked into the showroom. Plaquette hung her hat on the hook near the back and sat down to work. Msieur’s design for the George lay crumpled on her table where he’d left it. She smoothed out the sheets of paper and set to poring over them, as she’d done every day since she started working on the George. This was the most intricate device Msieur had ever attempted. It had to perform flawlessly on the day the governor unveiled it at the railroad. For a couple years now, Msieur had depended on Plaquette’s keen vision and small, deft hands to assemble the components of his more intricate timepieces and his designs. By the point he decided to teach her how to read his notes, she’d already figured out how to decipher most of the symbols and his chicken scratch writing.

  There. That contact strip would never sit right, not lying flat like that. Needed a slight bend to it. Plaquette got a pencil out of her table’s drawer and made a correction to Msieur’s notes. Billy came back and started to bring boxes from his cart outside in through the workroom door. While he worked and tried to make small talk with her, Plaquette got herself a tray. From the drawers of the massive oak watchmaker’s cabinet in the middle of the shop, she collected the items she needed and took them to her bench.

  “Might rain Saturday, don’t you think?” huffed Billy as he heaved a box to the very top of the pile.

  “Might,” Plaquette replied. “Might not.” His new bashfulness with her made her bashful in return. They couldn’t quite seem to be companionable any more. She did a last check of the long row of black velvet cloth on her workbench, hundreds of tiny brass and crystal components gleaming against the black fur of the fabric. She knew down to the last how many cogs, cams, and screws were there. She had to. Msieur counted every penny, fussed over every quarter inch of the fine gauge wire that went into the timekeepers his shop produced. At year’s end he tallied every watch finding, every scrap of leather. If any were missing, the cost was docked from her salary. Kind of the backwards of a Christmas bonus. As if Msieur didn’t each evening collect sufficient profits from his till and lower them into his ‘secret’ safe.

  Billy saw Plaquette pick up her tweezers and turn towards the mechanical porter. “Do you want Claude?” he asked her.

  He knew her so well. She smiled at him. “Yes, please.” He leapt to go fetch Claude out of the broom closet where they stored him.

  Billy really was sweet, and he wasn’t the only one who’d begun looking at her differently as she filled out from girl to woman this past year. Ma said she had two choices: marry Billy and be poor but in love; or angle to become Msieur’s placée and take up life in the Quarter. Msieur would never publicly acknowledge her or any children he had by her, but she would be comfortable, and maybe pass some of her comforts along to Ma and Pa. Not that they would ever ask.

  ’Sides, she wasn’t even sure she was ready to be thinking about all that bother just yet.

  Plaquette yawned. She was bone tired, and no wonder. She’d been spending her nights and Sundays looking after Pa since he had come down with the jake leg.

  Claude’s books had excited Plaquette when she first heard them, but in time they’d become overly familiar. She knew every thrilling leap from crumbling clifftops, every graveside confession, every switched and secret identity that formed part of those well-worn tales. They had started to grate on her, those stories of people out in the world, having adventures she never could. Pa got to see foreign places; the likes of New York and Chicago and San Francisco. He only passed through them, of course. He had to remain on the train. But he got to see new passengers at each stop, to smell foreign air, to look up into a different sky. Or he had.

  He would again, when he got better. He would. The metal Georges would need minding, wouldn’t they? And who better for that job than Pa, who’d been a dependable George himself these many years?

  But for Plaquette, there was only day after day, one marching in sequence behind another, in this workroom. Stringing tiny, shiny pieces of metal together. Making shift nowadays to always be on the other side of the room from Msieur whenever he was present. She was no longer the board-flat young girl she’d been when she first went to work for Msieur. She’d begun to bud, and Msieur seemed inclined to pluck himself a tender placée flower to grace his lapel. A left-handed marriage was one thing; but to a skinflint like Msieur?

  Problems crowding up on each other like stormclouds running ahead of the wind. Massing so thick that Plaquette couldn’t presently see her way through them. Ma said when life got dark like that, all’s you could do was keep putting one foot in front the other and hope you walked yourself to somewhere brighter.

  But as usual, once Billy set Claude up and the automaton began its recitation, her work was accurate and quick. She loved the challenge and ritual of assemblage: laying exactly the right findings out on the cloth; listening to the clicking sound of Claude’s gears as he recited one of his scrolls; letting the ordered measure take her thoughts away till al
l that was left was the precise dance of her fingers as they selected the watch parts and clicked, screwed or pinned them into place. Sometimes she only woke from her trance of time, rhythm, and words when Msieur shook her by the shoulder come evening and she looked up to realize the whole day had gone by.

  Shadows fell on Plaquette’s hands, obscuring her work. She looked around, blinking. When had it gone dusk? The workroom was empty. Billy had probably gone on about his other business hours ago. Claude’s scroll had run out and he’d long since fallen silent. Why hadn’t Msieur told her it was time to go? She could hear him wandering around his upstairs apartment.

  She rubbed her burning eyes. He’d probably hoped she’d keep working until the mechanical George was set to rights.

  Had she done it? She slid her hands out of the wire-and-cam guts of the mechanical man. She’d have to test him to be sure. But in the growing dark, she could scarcely make out the contacts in the George’s body that needed to be tripped in order to set it in motion.

  Plaquette rose from her bench, stretched her twinging back and frowned – in imitation of Mama – through the doorway at the elaborately decorated Carcel lamp displayed in the shop’s front. Somewhat outmoded though it was, the clockwork regulating the lamp’s fuel supply and draft served Msieur as one of many proofs of his meticulous handiwork – her meticulous handiwork. If she stayed in the workshop any later she’d have to light that lamp. And for all that he wanted her to work late, Msieur would be sure to deduct the cost of the oil used from her wages. He could easily put a vacuum bulb into the Carcel, light it with cheap units of Tesla power instead of oil, but he mistrusted energy he couldn’t see. Said it wasn’t “refined.”

  She took a few steps in the direction of the Carcel.

  C-RRR-EEEAK!

  Plaquette gasped and dashed for the showroom door to the street. She had grabbed the latch rope before her wits returned. She let the rope go and faced back toward the black doorway out of which emerged the automaton, Claude. It rocked forward on its treads, left side, right. Its black velvet jacket swallowed what little light there still was. But the old-fashioned white ruff circling its neck cast up enough brightness to show its immobile features. They had, like hers, much of the African to them. Claude came to a stop in front of her.

  CRREAK!

  Plaquette giggled. “You giving me a good reminder – I better put that oil on your wheels as well as your insides. You like to scare me half to death rolling round the dark in here.” She pulled the miniature oil tin from her apron pocket and knelt to lubricate the wheels of the rolling treads under Claude’s platform. It had been Plaquette’s idea to install them to replace the big brass wheels he’d had on either side. She’d grown weary of righting Claude every time he rolled over an uneven surface and toppled. It had been good practice, though, for nowadays, when Pa was like to fall with each spastic step he took, and Plaquette so often had to catch him. He hated using the crutches. And all of this because he’d begun taking a few sips of jake to warm his cold bones before his early morning shifts.

  Jamaica Ginger was doing her family in, that was sure.

  Her jostling of Claude must have released some last dregs of energy left in his winding mechanism, for just then he took it into his mechanical head to drone, “... nooot to escaaape it by exerrrtion...”

  Quickly, Plaquette stopped the automaton midsentence. For good measure, she removed the book from its spool inside Claude. She didn’t want Msieur to hear that she was still downstairs, alone in the dark.

  As Plaquette straightened again, a new thought struck her.

  The shutters folded back easily. White light from the coil-powered street lamp outside flooded the tick-tocking showroom, glittering on glass cases and gold and brass watches, on polished wooden housings and numbered faces like pearly moons. More than enough illumination for Plaquette’s bright eyes. “Come along, Claude,” Plaquette commanded as she headed back towards the work room – somewhat unnecessarily, as she had Claude’s wardenclyffe in the pocket of her leather work apron. Where it went, Claude was bound to follow. Which made it doubly foolish of her to have been startled by him.

  She could see the mechanical porter more clearly now; its cold steel body painted deep blue in imitation of a porter’s uniform, down to the gold stripes at the cuffs of the jacket. Its perpetually smiling black face. The Pullman Porter ‘cap’ atop its head screwed on like a bottle top. Inside it was the Tesla receiver the George would use to guide itself around inside the sleeping-car cabins the Pullman company planned to outfit with wireless transmitters. That part had been Plaquette’s idea. Msieur had grumbled, but Plaquette could see him mentally adding up the profits this venture could bring him.

  If Msieur’s George was a success, that’d be the end of her father’s job. Human porters had human needs. A mechanical George would rarely be ill, never miss work. Would always smile, would never need a new uniform – just the occasional paint touch-up. Would need to be paid for initially, but never paid thereafter.

  With two fingers, Plaquette poked the George’s ungiving chest. The mechanical man didn’t so much as rock on its sturdy legs. Plaquette still thought treads would have been better, like Claude’s. But Msieur wanted the new Georges to be as lifelike as possible, so as not to scare the fine ladies and gentlemen who rode the luxury sleeping-cars. So the Georges must be able to walk. Smoothly, like Pa used to.

  The chiming clocks in the showroom began tolling the hour, each in their separate tones. Plaquette gasped. Though surrounded by clocks, she had completely forgotten how late it was. Ma would be waiting for her; it was nearly time for Pa’s shift at the station! She couldn’t stop now to test the George. She slapped Claude’s wardenclyffe into his perpetually outstretched hand, pulled her bonnet onto her head, and hastened outside, stopping only to jiggle the shop’s door by its polished handle to make sure the latch had safely caught.

  Only a few blocks to scurry home under the steadily burning lamps, among the sparse clumps of New Orleans’s foreign sightseers and those locals preferring to conduct their business in the cool of night. In her hurry, she bumped into one overdressed gent. He took her by the arms and leered, looking her up and down. She muttered an apology and pulled away before he could do more than that. She was soon home, where Ma was waiting on the landing outside their rooms. The darkness and Pa’s hat and heavy coat disguised Ma well enough to fool the white supervisors for a while, and the other colored were in on the secret. But if Ma came in late –

  “Don’t fret, Darling,” Ma said, bending to kiss Plaquette’s cheek. “I can still make it. He ate some soup and I just help him to the necessary, so he probably sleep till morning.”

  Plaquette went into the dark apartment. No fancy lights for them. Ma had left the kerosene lamp on the kitchen table, turned down low. Plaquette could see through to Ma and Pa’s bed. Pa was tucked in tight, only his head showing above the covers. He was breathing heavy, not quite a snore. The shape of him underneath the coverlet looked so small. Had he shrunk, or was she growing?

  Plaquette hung up her hat. In her hurry to get home, she’d left Msieur’s still wearing her leather apron. As she pulled it off to hang it beside her hat, something inside one of the pockets thumped dully against the wall. One of Claude’s book scrolls; the one she’d taken from him. She returned it to the pocket. Claude could have it back tomorrow. She poured herself some soup from the pot on the stove. Smelled like pea soup and crawfish, with a smoky hint of ham. Ma had been stretching the food with peas, seasoning it with paper-thin shavings from that one ham shank for what seemed like weeks now. Plaquette didn’t think she could stomach the taste of more peas, more stingy wisps of ham. What she wouldn’t give for a good slice of roast beef, hot from the oven, its fat glistening on the plate.

  Her stomach growled, not caring. Crawfish soup would suit it just fine. Plaquette sat to table and set about spooning cold soup down her gullet. The low flame inside the kerosene lamp flickered, drawing pictures. Plaquette imagine
d she saw a tower, angels circling it (or demons), a war raging below. Men skewering other men with blades and spears. Beasts she’d never before heard tell of, lunging –

  “Girl, what you seeing in that lamp? Have you so seduced.”

  Plaquette started and pulled her mind out of the profane world in the lamp. “Pa!” She jumped up from the table and went to kiss him on the forehead. He hugged her, his hands flopping limply to thump against her back. He smelled of sweat, just a few days too old to be ignored. “You need anything? The necessary?”

  “Naw.” He tried to pat the bed beside him, failed. He grimaced. “Just come and sit by me a little while. Tell me the pictures in your mind.”

  “If I do, you gotta tell me ’bout San Francisco again.” She sat on the bed facing him, knees drawn up beneath her skirts like a little child.

  “Huh. I’m never gonna see that city again.” It tore at Plaquette’s heart to see his eyes fill with tears. “Oh, Plaquette,” he whispered, “What are we gonna to do?”

  Not we; her. She would do it. “Hush, Pa.” It wouldn’t be Billy. Ma and Pa were showing her that you couldn’t count on love and hard work alone to pull you through. Not when this life would scarcely pay a colored man a penny to labor all his days and die young. She patted Pa’s arm, took his helpless hand in hers. She closed her eyes to recollect the bright story in the lamp flame. Opened them again. “So. Say there’s a tower, higher than that mountain you told me ’bout that one time. The one with the clouds all round the bottom of it so it look to be floating?”

  Pa’s mouth was set in bitterness. He stared off at nothing. For a moment, Plaquette though he wouldn’t answer her. But then, his expression unchanged, he ground out, “Mount Rainier. In Seattle.”

  “That’s it. This here tower, it’s taller than that.”

  Pa turned his eyes to hers. “What’s it for?”

  “How should I know? I’ll tell you that when it comes to me. I know this, though; there’s people flying round that tower, right up there in the air. Like men, and maybe a woman, but with wings. Like angels. No, like bats.”