The Albino's Dancer

by Dale Smith

  Schreck laughed in disbelief, and thrust a newspaper at Catherine.

  ‘They had this,’ he growled. ‘That is your handwriting, yes?’

  The paper had the club’s address scrawled across it. And yes, it was in Catherine’s handwriting.

  ‘I didn’t write this,’ she blurted. She ignored Schreck and pleaded directly to the Albino, seated quietly in his chair. ‘Please, I promise.’

  The Albino’s fingers didn’t move. He had nothing to say.

  ‘She’s right,’ Lechasseur said. His voice was clear and commanding. ‘We’re journalists. We got your address from a source in Wapping. We’re looking into the explosion in Shoreditch, a while back. Looking for a man named Knight – our source said you and he had a connection.’

  Schreck glared up at Lechasseur. He had to strain his neck to meet Lechasseur’s eyes, but still managed to treat him with disdain, as if the taller man was just another in a long series of things he had scraped from his shoe that day.

  ‘My client has had no connection with anyone of that name,’ he spat, glaring hard at Lechasseur. ‘And a journalist wouldn’t resort to breaking and entering to find that out.’

  The two men stared hard at each other.

  A loud, single knock echoed around the room.

  Everyone turned to look to the Albino. He was regarding Lechasseur with an expression of studied disinterest. His pink eyes eventually flicked away to Leiter. The giant took a step forward. With a single, economical gesture, the Albino indicated that his captives should be taken away. Leiter grabbed Lechasseur and Blandish by the arms, moving them toward the door.

  WAIT, the Albino’s finger danced on the keyboard. Not her. Catherine.

  Leiter released Blandish and instead let his cold fingers bite into Catherine’s arm again. Schreck leered at her as the cyborg dragged her away. She held his gaze, impassively. She knew what was coming, and what the Albino had in mind for Blandish. But there was nothing she could do except wait and have faith in her saviour.

  Lechasseur struggled in vain: Leiter dragged the two of them away with barely any effort.

  Chapter Four

  4A. 4 November 1951, 19:38

  Honoré ran. He tried to find his way back the way he’d come, but whatever the Albino’s club had been in its past existence, it hadn’t been designed with easy navigation in mind. He’d made just a couple of turns to try to get out of Leiter’s line of sight, and suddenly he’d realised he didn’t have a clue where he was. It didn’t help that he could practically feel the giant’s icy breath on his neck.

  Catherine could have directed him back to Emily, but he’d left Catherine behind. He did his best not to feel bad about it – there hadn’t been time to think, and she was probably safer away from him anyway, so that no further suspicion was cast on her.

  One moment Honoré had been in Leiter’s grasp, being propelled down a corridor, and then there had been a scuffle behind them, where Catherine was being dragged along by two goons, and Leiter’s icy grip had relaxed for just a second. Honoré had been thinking of Emily, and it was only when he’d heard Leiter giving chase that he’d given any consideration to Catherine’s fate.

  She would be fine. It didn’t matter: only Emily mattered.

  – Stop – ordered Leiter’s ghostly voice behind him.

  Honoré could see doors ahead of him: they looked like the doors to the Albino’s office, but then all the doors in the club looked exactly the same. Leiter’s hand brushed at Honoré’s coat, gripping for a second and then tearing. He didn’t have any choice. He threw his shoulder to the door: it opened easily, propelling him into blinding light.

  For a moment, Honoré was dazed. All around him was light, and even as his eyes started to adjust to that, he was disorientated by face after face looking up at him. To his left was the stage, a dancer with a greenish tinge to her skin having stopped in mid-gyration to look down at him in disgust. To his right was a blank wall. But ahead of him were nearly a hundred of the club’s loyal clientele. He doubted that they’d expected him to be on the bill, but there he was, caught in the spotlight.

  Leiter appeared in the doorframe behind him.

  Think, Honoré: do something.

  ‘A hundred pounds to the first girl to kiss the black guy!’ came a shout from the back of the audience.

  Honoré looked, but the lights still blinded. Leiter bore down on him from behind... and then suddenly stopped. The giant couldn’t get to Honoré: a crowd of the Albino’s dancers had suddenly appeared around him, each clamouring to be the first to lay lips on him. They started to pull and scratch – at him, at each other – desperate to earn the drunken philanthropist’s hundred pounds. And soon it wasn’t just the girls that were mobbing him: gentlemen were pulling at the girls who had, until a few seconds earlier, been paying attention to them, trying to get them to remember who’d bought their last few drinks.

  Honoré gripped his coat and pushed on through: at the other side of the auditorium, he could see a dark doorway leading back into the depths of the club. Standing in it was Catherine, waving frantically to him. He risked a quick glance over his shoulder and saw Leiter stuck in a tide of writhing bodies: whoever had built him had obviously programmed him not to make a scene in front of the customers, because with his strength he could easily have powered through the crowd to catch Honoré... but he didn’t.

  ‘How did you get away?’ Honoré asked Catherine.

  She gave him a strange look that suggested she wasn’t entirely sure herself, and pulled him back through the door.

  ‘We don’t have much time,’ Catherine said, pushing the door closed. ‘You remember the bunker? That’s where they’ll be going.’

  ‘We can still stop them,’ Honoré said. ‘Which way to his office?’

  She pointed down the corridor.

  ‘But they’ll have gone.’ She placed a slender hand on Honoré’s chest; a sympathetic gesture. ‘We have to go back in time, and stop them killing him.’

  Honoré stopped in his tracks. He remembered Li’s report: two dead bodies. Catherine’s eyes were misty blue as she looked up at him.

  ‘Who was he?’

  She smiled sadly.

  ‘He was my lover.’

  Honoré nodded. They both had someone to lose, someone on whom history was making slow overtures. He felt a chill run down his spine, and made for the door to try to shake it loose.

  ‘We’ll stop them,’ he said firmly.

  ‘We need to go back!’

  Honoré shook his head. The corridor outside the dressing room was clear. The way back to the Albino’s room was to the left.

  ‘I can’t travel without Emily,’ Honoré explained. ‘She’s the engine. I’m just the map.’

  ‘We don’t need her,’ Catherine said, a little too sharply for Honoré’s liking. ‘There’s a belt – the Albino pulled it from the rubble. It will be your engine. We can go back and save them all.’

  Honoré allowed himself a second.

  ‘It’ll work?’ he asked.

  Catherine paused, for just a moment.

  ‘It’s damaged,’ she admitted. ‘But I can repair it. I’ve just never had a reason to before now: I can’t use it without the navigation belt. But now you can do the navigating.’

  Honoré nodded.

  ‘Go get it. Fix it. Bring it to the office,’ he said, determined. ‘With any luck, we won’t need it.’

  And then he headed off down the corridor. He didn’t look back, didn’t need to see Catherine standing there giving him the evil eye: he had to try to save Emily first, if he could. The image of her falling through time with the Albino’s hand clamped on her arm wouldn’t let him be. He’d dragged her into this without thinking. He started trotting, then running: he wasn’t going to be too late.

  The Albino’s office appeared in front of him: he didn’
t even bother with the handles, just let his momentum carry him through. He stood there for a moment, panting.

  Emily looked straight at him.

  ‘Honoré!’ she said.

  Honoré couldn’t take his eyes from the Albino: standing behind her, he reached out and let his pale fingers sink painfully into her soft flesh. Honoré could see the contrast between them: the warm, living flesh; the cold, dead. He moved forward, but the picture was fading even as he moved. Before he had a chance to stop them, the Albino and Emily disappeared.

  For a moment, there was nothing.

  The lawyer, Schreck, coughed.

  ‘Frisk!’ he shouted. ‘Stump!’

  The lawyer looked at Honoré, and smiled.

  It wasn’t much like him, but for a moment Honoré decided that it might be nice if he could pound the lawyer’s face into the next morning. He didn’t get the chance to do much about it, though: as Schreck stood there and smiled, two burly looking men appeared in the broken doorway – the goons who had been manhandling Catherine down the corridor. Honoré looked at them, and thought about the fact that he’d missed his chance to stop Emily travelling through time.

  Schreck smiled. The two goons joined him.

  ‘Let’s see how tough you fight,’ one growled, ‘when you’re not hiding behind women’s skirts.’

  Honoré pushed up his sleeves

  4B. 23 February 1951, 03:02

  .... and, in an instant, they arrived.

  For a moment, Emily had a sensation of grey, concrete walls hemming her in, pressing down on her, and then she was on all fours trying to cough out the acid taste in her mouth. Her palms touched dusty, grey floor, and she saw each and every person who had ever walked that earth, spiralling back to the first human being in England and still back further. Her stomach turned, and there was no way she could stop the vomit from coming. Even as it hit the dusty ground, she was thinking that this was what Honoré saw – perhaps all the time. How did he survive it without going mad?

  A foot came into her line of sight, then disappeared again. Emily spat the taste out of her mouth and raised her head: the Albino was pacing around a long, dark corridor, touching the damp walls with reverence – as if he had returned to his spiritual home after many years of travelling. Perhaps he had: Emily could guess that this was the bunker of which Honoré had spoken, but she had never found out what it had been, just what had happened to it.

  She wished Honoré was here now: she was unused to arriving in unknown times without him by her side, at least to share the disorientation. She wondered where he was, what he was doing: he must be as scared for her as she was for him. The thought popped into her mind that she might never see him again. She pushed it to one side, and checked her watch. She looked up, and saw the Albino looking down at her impassively.

  ‘Where are we?’ Emily asked, and then realised she’d be waiting a long time for an answer.

  She wondered briefly how he had survived, before his machine had been built. There were ways he could make himself understood, but never to hear your own voice again, never to cry out or laugh. To sit forever in silence, while all around you people wasted their voices on babble... Perhaps that was why he didn’t seem to have any time for others.

  ‘I know you can’t speak,’ Emily said, as carefully as she could. The Albino turned and looked at her, impassive. ‘But you can still communicate. I know I’ve got my instructions... but none of them seems to fit with this, and I don’t know what you want me to do.’

  The Albino didn’t acknowledge her, just started walking away down the corridor. Bare bulbs hung from the ceiling at irregular intervals, and his skin strobed light then dark as he passed through the shadows. Emily found herself wondering if he’d ever killed somebody, but then pushed the thought out of her mind and hurried to catch up. He didn’t want her dead, not yet: he still had to get home.

  She had to get home too. She was in no hurry to die.

  And yet she did always seem to find herself going to places where she wound up a hair’s breadth from death – why was that? Because she could? Was it as simple as that – just because nobody else could go to the places, see the things, that she and Honoré could, she somehow had to do it, no matter what the risk? No, no, if she was honest, she knew that wasn’t it. Maybe it was for Honoré, or maybe he just did it because he could tell it was what Emily wanted. Needed. But that wasn’t it for her.

  If she was honest – and she so rarely was – she was here, dancing on the knife edge, just to make sure she realised she was alive. So much of her life was lost to her, her memories swallowed up by a darkness she could barely comprehend. It wasn’t coming back, she knew – had known for longer than she cared to admit – and so she had so many lost thoughts to make up for. When Honoré had told her about the bunker, she could have refused to leave the house until she was certain the danger had passed, but... walking into certain death, making her escape with seconds to spare, saving everybody: wouldn’t that be a memory to cherish?

  And all she had to do was survive.

  The Albino stopped dead ahead of her, his eyes on something he found far more fascinating than Emily: she was merely transport; fit to get him here, but that was all. Emily crept up to his side and followed his gaze. In front of them, the corridor opened out into a vast chamber, its roof far enough above them to be lost in the gloom. Lamps stood around; bare bulbs on thin stocks planted at irregular intervals into the raw concrete. They threw strange shadows, and it took Emily a moment to realise what she was looking at.

  A single figure, pacing back and forth as he waited for something. Emily looked to the Albino – her Albino, silent at her side. Then she looked to the figure pacing up and down: another Albino, there in front of them. Except... looking between them, she could see the differences: her Albino was obviously older, his face networked with wrinkles and scars; the younger, his face was a fresh-laid egg.

  Emily looked to her mute Albino, but he didn’t look back.

  Suddenly, there was a blinding flash of white light that blossomed and then disappeared, completely. So completely that Emily found herself momentarily thinking she had been plunged into absolute, pitch darkness, simply because of the sudden shift between complete light and everyday dark. When her eyes recovered, she saw that there wasn’t just a single figure before them any more: the younger Albino was looking up respectfully at two new arrivals.

  Emily recognised them immediately, despite the differences.

  One of them was the giant, Leiter – electrodes and valves and God-alone-knew-what inserted into his flesh. But he seemed different – the Leiter who had caught Emily and Honoré sneaking through a broken window into the Albino’s club had been cold and blank, little more than a clockwork computer hidden inside dead flesh. This one was different – still half man, half machine, but augmented also with piercing blue eyes and a dazzling smile: he seemed so much more alive, not just than the Leiter that Emily had seen, but than any of the people around him now. He stretched his muscles and looked around him, and then to his companion.

  The companion was the dancer, Catherine.

  Emily looked to her Albino, but he wasn’t there for her.

  Looking back, Emily saw the younger, unscarred Albino step forward and hold his arms out wide. The newcomers both looked at him: both seemed to be challenging the Albino to test Leiter in some way. He was already a giant of a man, even without the pistons and diodes, and yet... Emily found herself wondering how he had fallen, how he had given away his last spark of humanity.

  The younger Albino stepped forward, and Emily was presented with a new puzzle.

  ‘Leiter, you’re looking...’ the Albino said, and let the sentence die. ‘And you must be Kate. My name is Burgess. You’ll be staying with me from now on.’

  Kate looked to Leiter. He smiled.

  4C. 4 November 1951, 19:41

  It was simple
enough to do; so simple that Catherine was surprised the Albino had obviously thought she would never work it out for herself. All it took was a single push in the right place, and the panel just shifted. Smooth, easy. Inside, it revealed darkness... and deeper in was the belt. The belt was nothing – a destroyed, cindered nothing – and yet the Albino still kept it hidden, just in case.

  Thought he kept it hidden. Thought no-one knew.

  This secret hideaway in the back of the club was where he kept all his broken toys: the Albino was a hoarder, and he would never throw anything away, even if he couldn’t get it to work the way he wanted. Like Catherine. Instead he locked them away in here, piled on top of each other and forgotten about, and waited for someone to find them who knew what they needed. Like Catherine.

  Catherine took the belt and pressed a hidden plate. The inner workings revealed themselves, surprisingly well-preserved: the fire that had burnt and charred the casing hadn’t managed to penetrate any deeper. The only reason the belt wouldn’t work was that one of the connections had been jarred loose, and a valve had been broken. The wiring was a simple fix, but the valve would need to be replaced. Harder.

  She started to dig through the store, looking for something she could use. Even at a first glance, she knew that she wasn’t going to find anything – most of the Albino’s hoard was truly beyond repair, salvaged from numerous visitors to this place that he had intercepted violently. There was a psi-gun that seemed to be in full working order – Catherine presumed that the Albino didn’t possess the mental discipline required to use it – but it didn’t contain the parts she needed. Everything else was useless. She was trapped.

  – Catherine –

  Catherine didn’t turn around. There was only one creature in the whole of creation who spoke with that mechanical rasp: she didn’t need to turn to know he was towering over her.

  ‘Hello, Leiter,’ she said softly, looking at her hands.