by Stone, J.
“My plan is to conscript aid from a loyal member of the church to journey with me to the western towns to find the heretic, Erynn Clover. Together we will hunt this woman down and bring her back here, to Cultwick City, to face the justice she so rightly deserves.”
Crowley asked, “You said you had something else on this Newton woman?”
“Yes,” Alice began. “As you may already know, Fiona Newton managed to escape the center two days ago. It is unclear as of now how she managed to accomplish this feat, but in the process, she killed half a dozen guards as well as Dr. Blake Norton. He was the scientist responsible for the experiments she was undergoing.
“Before her escape, however, I made a decision to plant a bio-tracking chip inside Ms. Newton’s skull. I believe we can use that to track her, while she is simultaneously tracking the heretic.”
“Why did you have this chip implanted in the woman?” asked Councilor Price.
Alice paused a moment before saying, “When I interrogated Ms. Newton she made vague threats concerning her impending escape. While I didn’t expect she would make good on these claims, I thought it best to err on the side of caution.”
Councilor Price raised an eyebrow and asked, “Why do you expect her to track down the heretic, Erynn Clover?”
“The shared consciousness experiment,” she explained. “Ms. Newton seemed to be seeing or somehow otherwise experiencing what the heretic was experiencing. In addition, she seemed infatuated with Erynn Clover and bluntly declared that she would find her.”
“You mentioned conscripting help?” Crowley asked her.
“That’s correct, sir,” she answered.
“Do you have someone in mind?” he inquired.
“Edwin Hollow,” was her reply. “I’ve worked with him before, and I trust he will put the church’s interests as a top priority.”
“Ah, yes,” Crowley began. “Mr. Hollow will prove a useful asset in your hunt. He is currently interrogating a suspected rebel down on the tenth floor. Have the man stationed outside this room take you down to him.”
“Yes, sir,” she added.
“Do you have anything else to tell us, Operative Page?” Crowley asked.
“No. That is all for now,” she replied.
“If you are able to bring in this heretic before she is able to cause more damage, it may be time for you to receive a promotion,” he explained.
“Thank you, sir,” she said.
“The Cultwick Empire thanks you for your service, Operative Page,” he told her, standing up from the table. “Continue your good works and bring this heretic to justice. We intend to make an example of her. Our authority won’t be disrespected. Remember, preach the gospel, but only use words when necessary. You’re dismissed.”
Alice began to leave the room when she heard Crowley from behind her, “Oh. There’s one more thing, Operative.”
She turned back to face them, “What is that, sir?”
“See that this Newton woman does not become another problem,” he told her.
“I will see to it, sir,” she replied.
Alice exited the council chambers, as the council members themselves left through a door in the back. Outside the room, she was met with an assistant to the council. She was preparing to ask him to take her to Edwin, but he already seemed to know where she needed to go.
“I have been instructed to take you down to the tenth floor,” the young man said.
Alice nodded and followed the man. They got onto an elevator and the assistant closed the door behind the operative. He pushed a button labeled, ‘10’ and pulled down on a lever at the side of the compartment.
When they stopped, he opened the doors for her and guided a hand outward indicating for her to exit. She did so and waited just outside the doors as he closed them shut again. He then proceeded to guide her down the hallway to a room labeled, ‘Interrogation 3.’
“Here you are, ma’am,” the young man said. “Go on in and Mr. Hollow will be with you presently.”
The room she entered was dark except for on one side, which had a window opening to another room. The assistant closed the door, and she moved forward to look through the glass.
On the other side was Edwin, holding pliers and a hot poker - steam slowly flowing upward from the red-hot tip. Strapped to a vertically turned table was a half-naked man, littered with sores, cuts, and burns. Clearly, she thought, the two of them had been in discussions for some time.
Edwin was wearing thick, dark goggles over his eyes, allowing no light to pierce through his eyes. His typically neat, sandy-brown hair had become disorganized, though his mustache’s curls were still in typical order. A devious smile crept across his face, as he pressed the poker against the rebel suspect’s skin.
Despite his vigorous work, Edwin’s clothes were still quite neat and clean. He had rolled up his white shirt’s sleeves and taken off his red vest and black bowler, laying them on a nearby chair.
The young man that had guided her down to this floor entered Edwin’s room and said something to him. This caused Edwin to look back at the glass where Alice stood and nod. Edwin grabbed his vest and bowler hat and left the room. He rolled down his sleeves and slipped the vest on as he exited the room.
The door to her room soon opened up and she slightly turned her head to see Edwin entering the room. She continued to look through the glass at the man being questioned and placed her hands behind her back.
“Has he told you anything yet, Mr. Hollow?” Alice asked.
“Not yet,” Edwin answered. “But he will. It’s just a matter of time now.”
“Well, I may need you to hurry and finish him up sooner than later,” she said.
Edwin nodded and said, “I heard you might have a job that needs my attention.”
“That’s correct,” she declared. “The heretic, Erynn Clover. I’m sure you’ve heard of her.”
Edwin simply nodded to her and narrowed his eyes.
“I have been tasked with finding and retrieving her,” Alice explained. “The council said I could bring you along to assist in this endeavor, as I suspect I will need someone with your particular skill set to track her down.”
“It would be my pleasure, Operative Page,” he said.
“We’ll be traveling out to the west,” she continued. “We’ll take the train out to Willow Switch and then find transport down to Ash Cloud.”
Edwin nodded and then looked back into the room with the rebel suspect. “Interesting that you say that, ma’am. We’ve heard chatter that the Chromework Confederacy is planning something in Ash Cloud. Is there any relation?”
“I’ve heard the same, but I don’t have any proof that the heretic has joined up with the rebellion as of yet,” she explained. “Finish up with this one, and then we’ll take the next train out of Cultwick City.”
She turned to exit the room, before turning and adding, “And Mr. Hollow, be sure to bring your tools.”
Chapter 14. Ryn the Countess
“I feel ridiculous in this thing,” Erynn said to Pearl with an overly expressive frown.
“Trust me,” she replied. “This is exactly what those rich types back in Cultwick City wear.”
Erynn was standing in the middle of a basement room in a house owned by a rebellion sympathizer, Gerrit Callahan. She was trying to fit into a long, slender red dress with a series of gold circles lining down the fabric from her chest to her navel. Behind her, Pearl attempted to squeeze together the strands of string to tie close the back of the dress.
Draped along the dress’ waist were a series of interlocking gold hoops that formed a belt. The sleeves of the dress were composed of large puffy bubbles of fabric that flowed clear down to her wrists. The base of the dress pressed tightly against her contours, as it squeezed tighter and tighter the more it approached her feet.
Having finally managed to tie the cords along back of the dress, Pearl stated, “Now, all we need to do is pull yer hair down to disguise yer face. Ya have be
en posted on too many flyers fer too long, kitten.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Erynn responded. “Don’t suppose these rich types just wear masks, huh?”
“Nothin’ so easy, kitten,” Pearl replied. “We’ve proven the dress fits… sorta; let’s get ya out of it, so we can get yer hair ready fer this afternoon.”
Pearl and Erynn set to taking off the uncomfortable dress, when Erynn asked, “I imagine this whole situation is a lot different than working in the Gem back in Dust Grove.”
“So far it’s been a sight safer,” she joked. “Used to get all kinds comin’ in there thinkin’ that just cause I danced fer ‘em, I was willin’ to sleep with ‘em. Got beat on more than my fair share.”
“Why’d you put up with it?” Erynn asked, as she began dressing herself back in her normal clothes.
“There ain’t a whole lotta options fer a girl out west,” Pearl explained.
“What about your paintings?” Erynn asked.
“No one wants those things,” Pearl said. “Yer the only one who seems to like ‘em.”
“Other people are apparently blind, Pearl. So, what was it that made you stay with us?” Erynn asked, sitting in a nearby chair. “I would have thought you’d go back to Dust Grove after we made it to Chrome City.”
“I didn’t always live out west, ya know,” she said standing behind Erynn and starting to run her fingers through her hair. “I grew up in Cultwick City, like y’all. They took somethin’ from me. Somethin’ I can’t even remember now.”
“What do you mean?” Erynn asked.
“The earliest memory I have ain’t that old,” she explained. “I remember runnin’ through the streets of Cultwick City. Don’t even know what I was runnin’ from. I was just runnin’. Everythin’ before that was taken from me. Don’t even know my real name. I just remember flashes from before. When I do, I paint ‘em.”
“All those paintings in your room were memories?” Erynn inquired.
“Yeah,” Pearl answered. “But I painted enough to remember that someone, some aristocrat in the city, did this to me. Took my memories, stole my life from me.”
“We left all those behind…” Erynn said trailing off, as she spoke.
“It’s alright,” Pearl responded. “I’ve spent years wallowin’ in the past. I think I should focus on my future now.”
“Well, I appreciate you staying with us,” Erynn explained. “And I’m sorry... for what they took.”
“Thanks, kitten.”
While Pearl began styling Erynn’s hair, Erynn worked on a device that they would need in their upcoming bank robbery. The idea is that it would send out a homing beacon to another device allowing them to easily find it and make their way to it.
She would enter the bank later today, posing as a wealthy citizen of Cultwick City and prominent member of the aristocracy, on travels. The confederacy had supplied her with papers identifying her as the Countess Elise Upton. While in the bank, she would open up a new safe deposit box and place the beacon inside the box. Getting near the vault would also give her an opportunity to look at the vault door and see what exactly she would need to do to get inside it.
Germ was in another room working on digging a tunnel from the basement of the house to the underground safe deposit box room. Until she placed the beacon in the box, he was relying on his rat senses’ to guide him. In the adjacent room, Erynn could hear him scratching at the earth along with the help of the son of the man who owned the house.
Vincent, Rowland, and Hirim were off planning their piece of the scheme. They would feign a bank robbery, intending for one of the tellers to hit the red button. This would lock down the bank vault and the door to the safe deposit boxes, which would give them the time they needed to open all the boxes and make their way into the main vault.
Erynn also knew she would need some way to open the safe deposit boxes, and she wasn’t yet sure how she would accomplish this task. Perhaps some sort of explosive or a drill, she wondered. Maybe she would just go with the brute force method, by updating Tern with a new program and tool, allowing him to break into the boxes. She realized that it was very possible Tern would have the strength to tear the locks off the wall. She would need to do a few calculations to decide the best course of action.
“Ya got that thing working, yet?” asked Pearl.
Erynn turned the two devices over in her hands for a moment before answering, “Maybe, want to help test it?”
“Whatcha need, kitten?” she asked.
“Take this one,” Erynn said, as she handed Pearl one of the contraptions, “and go somewhere upstairs. I’ll come and find you with this one,” she indicated to the other device, which she still held.
“I think I can handle that,” Pearl said and began to head up the stairs.
Erynn turned to check her appearance in a nearby mirror. Pearl had restyled her hair so that several hanging strands concealed part of her face. Looking at her reflection, she hardly recognized herself. Maybe this plan really could work, she thought to herself.
She turned a knob on the device in her hand and a set of bulbs illuminated a series of numbers inside. Erynn approached the stairs, and the numbers began to decrement slightly. She walked up the stairs and went in whichever direction caused the numbers to drop the fastest.
It wasn’t long before Erynn found Pearl standing in one of the rooms on the top floor looking out the window at the bank. “Ya really think yer lot can pull this off?” she asked.
“It’s starting to look that way, yeah,” Erynn answered, as she knocked on the wooden wall at her side.
“Well, I guess yer device works. Does that mean it’s time for ya to get ready?” Pearl inquired.
“I think so,” Erynn said approaching Pearl from behind. “What do you think you’ll do after this?”
“Oh, I suspect I’m in too deep now, kitten. Yer stuck with me.” Pearl turned and smiled to Erynn. “So, let’s get ya back in that dress, hmm?”
The two women proceeded back to the basement, where Erynn squeezed back into the tight-fitting dress after a considerable amount of effort. In the adjacent room, they could still hear Germ scratching away at the ground, hurrying to get the tunnel started.
Once Erynn had managed to get inside the dress, she opened the door to Germ’s tunnel room and went inside. “Hey Germy,” she called out to the rat.
“Ah, Madam Clover,” he answered from inside the tunnel.
Slowly she could hear him scurrying back to the entrance. When he arrived, she noticed he had shed some of his clothes, and that he was covered in dirt from head to toe. His paws were caked in the earth and he had even taken off the monocle he usually wore.
Behind him was the little boy that had eagerly agreed to work with the ‘giant rat man,’ as he had called Germ. The boy actually looked to be filthier than Germ somehow.
“You look quite lovely, Madam Clover,” he said.
“Mmm,” she groaned shifting uncomfortably in the dress. “I’m leaving for the bank now.”
“Is that your beacon device?” Germ asked eyeing the two mechanical contraptions she held.
“Yeah, this one is the one you’ll keep,” she said lifting up one hand. “This is the one that will be in the bank vault.” She lifted the other hand. “Once I get it into position it should guide you directly to the safe deposit box room.”
Erynn placed the device on a nearby table along with the rat’s things. “Thanks for doing this Germ. I know how you hate getting dirty.”
“Think nothing of it, ma’am.” Germ returned to his tunnel and continued scratching at the ground. The little boy happily helped him by carrying the excess dirt out of the tunnel.
Erynn made her way upstairs bidding farewell to Pearl and grabbed the papers that had been left for her by Hirim. She tucked the papers and the device into a small purse picked out by Pearl and hung the thin strap around her shoulder, leaving the Callahan’s home.
She practiced a dainty walk through the streets of Ash Clo
ud, and watched how the other women moved as they went about their day. Erynn wondered how they could stand to wear such things. Her chest was tight and constricted, her toes were smashed and cramped, and her legs could hardly move forward or backward in the restrictive clothing.
Erynn managed to find her stride, however, and soon arrived at the bank, which was luckily only a few buildings down from the Callahan’s house. She opened the doors, triggering a bell above the doorframe to ring out.
Several townspeople were inside and talking to the various tellers stationed at the counters. Only one teller seemed unoccupied, so Erynn made her way to the woman.
“Excuse me,” Erynn said.
“Just one moment, ma’am, and I’ll be right with you,” the teller responded. She sorted some papers about and then placed them neatly under the counter. “Sorry, about that, miss. My name is Marjorie. How can I help you today?”
“I’d like to open a new safe deposit box,” Erynn explained.
“Ok, ma’am. Since this bank is only for use by certain pre-approved Cultwick citizens, I’ll need some proof of identification,” the teller told her.
Erynn began to rifle through her bag and pulled out the papers left to her by Hirim. “Here you are, Marjorie,” she said. “I think these are all you should need.”
The woman took the papers and glanced over them. “Okay, these look to be in order,” she said before handing them back. The teller took out a form from under the counter and began to fill it out. “Now then, I’ll put the box under your name, Countess Upton. Should anyone else have access?”
Erynn shook her head and said, “No, that won’t be necessary.”
“We have three sizes of boxes for use,” Marjorie explained. “Our flat boxes are mostly for paper documents, and then we have a multi-purpose box which can hold a random assortment of objects, and then the bulk box which can store larger items. Which one would you like, ma’am?”
“I suspect your multi-purpose box will suit my needs,” Erynn said.
The bank teller turned around and sorted through a few files before finding what she was looking for. “It says here you have an account already open with the bank. Would you like us to deduct the fee from that account?”
