The Incorruptibles (Book One, Frankenstein Vigilante): Frankenstein Vigilante: The Steampunk Series (Frankenstein Vigilante. The Steampunk Series.)

by Peter Lawrence

  More specifically, if Dalton was fingered for the sabotage, he would lose credibility and, of course, give the Commission all the excuses they needed to have him arrested and executed. His control of ReForTin would be reassigned to iron, coal and steam interests who would know better than he how to exploit the technology.

  Or bury it.

  Dalton persuaded Samwell to proceed as if he were actually going to carry out the murderous raid, and made his own plans to foil it.

  Rupert Gilchrist Bass stomped around the newsroom of The News Of The Smoke, his ample paunch bouncing with each step. As he passed by them, his reporters hunched over their cast-iron typewriters with intense concentration. They hated working under Bass’s direction, and much preferred organizing their own leads and stories. If Bass commissioned a story, it was always going to be a pain in the neck. They were all used to their copy coming back striped with thick blue lines, comments like WE KNOW THIS! and SIMPLIFY, SIMPLIFY! scrawled in the margins – sometimes with such force that the paper was ripped.

  Bass approached Carly Matsudaira, his Chief Sub Editor. Though he could not afford to show it, he was intimidated by Carly, partly because she was built like a masaki wrestler, partly because she always fixed him with an unblinking, malevolent stare. Carly was smashing away at her typewriter with such force that her solid mahogany desk swayed and creaked.

  “Carly, I’ve got a job for you.” She gave him her trademark basilisk stare: “I’ve got to finish this, Rupert.”

  “Er... you can finish it later.”

  “No. It’s urgent, got to be done by the end of the day or all hell will break loose. That’s what I was told.”

  “By whom?”

  “By you.”

  “Oh... right. Well... carry on.” Carly renewed her attack on her typewriter, with such force that the ‘A’ key actually flew off and pinged Bass’s nose. He flinched, looked as though he was about to explode, thought better of it. He picked the offending key and handed it back to Carly in silence. She smiled a shark-like ‘thank you’ and jammed it back in place.

  Running his fingers through his sparse hair, Bass shuffled up to Ignacio Pullinger, the Night Editor, who was just finishing his shift.

  “Ignacio, I’ve got a job for you.”

  “No can do, boss” said Ignacio, pulling on his coat. “Got a doctor’s appointment.”

  “Well cancel it.”

  “If only,” said Ignacio. “Trouble is, I’ve got a virus.”

  “I don’t give a fuck, I’ve got a story that needs covering.” Ignacio glanced down at his flies. “And it’s contagious, you see. Really contagious.”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” said Bass, taking several steps back. Ignacio took the opportunity to make a break for it, reaching the door of the newsroom just as it opened to reveal Shelley Mary Ventura.

  She stood to one side to let Ignacio pass, and entered.

  “Where the bloody hell have you been?” shouted Bass, making sure his voice could be heard in every corner of the newsroom.

  “On a story.” said Shelley Mary quietly.

  “For three fucking days?” screamed Bass. “Your AvCom disconnected? Bill not paid? You could have sent a fucking karrier! A journalist’s first responsibility is to keep in touch with her editor. The newsroom. Someone on the fucking paper.” Her calm infuriated him. “Anyway, what sort of society do goes on for three days? Or were you shagging one of those posh boys you hang out with? Gallivanting around on his bloody yacht?”

  “I don’t hang out with posh boys. And I only report on the society do’s because that’s all you’ll give me.”

  “That’s all you’re any bloody good for!” But, suddenly, Bass saw an opportunity. Lowering his volume and pitch, he continued: “As it happens, though, I may have something for you. A tip off. A very big story.” Shelley Mary tried to disguise her suspicion. She was near cast-iron-certain she knew what he wanted from her. “Why me?” she asked. “Why not one of your stars?”

  “You always file your copy on time. Your grammar’s correct.” Great, thought Shelley Mary. A ringing endorsement of her journalism: punctuality and correct grammar. “So,” continued the odious editor, “I’ll give you a chance and you can show me what you can do.”

  “What’s the assignment?” Shelley Mary asked, excited despite herself.

  “Come back in half an hour and I’ll brief you.”

  “But… ”

  “Half an hour!” and he hustled her from his office, locking the door behind him.

  Alone and privacy guaranteed, Rupert Gilchrist Bass took a bottle of VitaBeena from his private drinks cabinet. A powerful energy drink. Most people sipped one when faced with a particularly tiring task, and Bass was hoping that his next encounter with Shelley Mary would be exhausting. He was, in fact, addicted to VitaBeena and could barely keep his eyes open without consuming at least two fluikins – four litres AMS – a day. The carbonation was the cause of his chronic flatulence, but he thought it better to be alert and farting than comatose. He lunged for the double-locked and private drawer in the most secure of his filing cabinets. He needed as much energy as he could get.

  Three, maybe four ricros high, the wave rolled along the River Latta. Due to P. G. Maguire’s delicate calibrations, it didn’t leave behind it mass devastation of the kind that had occurred fifteen years earlier. On that occasion, a mysterious malfunction at the Rowland Dam had caused a city-wide inundation, drowning several hundred people and sweeping away the shanty towns that had sprung up along the river banks. By coincidence, there had been several days of unrest in and around the shanties, which came to an abrupt halt when the river washed them away homes, along with the families who lived in them.

  This time the tidal wave just took out a few houseboat colonies and sank a few of the low-lying barges that transported coal and timber to The Smoke’s factories. As it flowed downstream, the banks of the Latta burst, but the flood waters extended only a few ahms – each ahm just over a yard AMS – inland.

  There weren’t many islands in the river, but the few that did exist, mostly to the North, were inundated, totally covered as the wall of water surged downstream. There was one island south of the city, however: Eel Pudding Island, just off Battersby Park.

  The wall of water surged over it, obliterating the undergrowth, taking with it squirrels, moles, badgers, nesting river birds. As it reached the centre of the island, it flooded the open shaft that led down to Doctor Efrain’s secret laboratory.

  In the lab, Yip Harbottle strained against his bonds, his breath coming in short, muffled bursts behind the greasy rag that had been used to gag him. He was chained to a lab table, eyes bulging, as the water poured in. Already, it was several feet deep, the surface littered with floating jars, tubes and blueprints.

  Watching Yip were two men, both big and bulky but one shorter than the other, dressed head to foot in diving outfits, oiled canvas attached to heavy iron boots and copper helmets. In the fully-equipped dungeon in which he had been held, the men had forced – tortured – Yip to reveal the whereabouts of Doctor Efrain’s riverbed lab, and now they had brought him here. They were under instruction to make a statement, create a little spectacle.

  The water was already up to Shorter’s crotch, but he was unconcerned. He held a black box with a large lens at the front, a button at the back, its surface covered with a thick rubbery substance. It was an underwater silvographa. Ironically, Doctor Efrain had invented the unit’s waterproof cover.

  Shorter held the silvographa out in front of him, aimed the lens at the struggling Yip Harbottle, the water now up to his waist. He pressed the button on the back once, the solid click indicating that an image had been captured. Taller nudged him, pointing to the rising water level and the lift shaft, through which water continued to pour; but Shorter shook his head, pointed at Taller and then at Harbottle. Taller got the idea, waded over to Harbottle, stood beside him and made rabbit ears behind his head with the fingers of his glove. Shorter took ano
ther ’graph, made a thumbs up sign. This was a real piece of theatre; Pfarrer would love it. Circulated through The Smoke it would surely discourage anyone else from harbouring or working with Doctor Efrain.

  Taller waded back to Shorter, and the pair headed towards the lift shaft. Although the lift capsule itself was in pieces, just visible beneath the rising water, the rings of the emergency ladder provided a way out. Taller first, the pair ascended the shaft, soon disappearing into the downrushing water.

  Yip Harbottle strained against his bonds, but he had been savagely beaten over the past few days and had little strength. He had endured as best he could, and although he eventually told his tormentors the location of the lab, he had not given up Efrain’s location. The truth was that he didn’t know exactly where the Doctor was hiding out, and the constancy of his answers persuaded Shorter and Taller that they might have the wrong man. On the other hand, who cared who he was? He would still be a fine example of what might happen to anyone associated with Efrain.

  Weak as he was, Yip’s heart would not accept his fatalism and began to beat wildly, as if to escape his body and find its own freedom. With a massive mental effort, Yip slowed that heartbeat, calmed himself, composed himself for death. His final mental images began with the model of the brownstone with the hydro-electric water system that he and Doctor Efrain had been working on the last time they were in the lab. Somehow, he knew, electricidad would save The Smoke.

  Then those images gave way to visions of his children and his wife. Despite his self-control, his acceptance of his fate, tears gathered in his eyes, ran down his cheeks, mingled with the rising waters of the River Latta.

  And so Yip Harbottle died.

  oOo

  11

  DONALD NATHAN PITTS was anxious about his interview with Cerval. Like almost everyone on the Frankenstein estate, his family had been there for nearly three hundred years, specializing in one particular skill: blacksmithing. But Donald Nathan, who was the same age as Cerval and Thorsten and had often joined them on youthful adventures, was a rebel and his father was threatening to expel him from the family business because the boy refused to forge iron and alloys the traditional way. Instead, he was experimenting with an ore extracted from a cluster of fallen meteorites, having left the estate, regardless of lurking Manus or Mancits, to recover what he had seen falling from the skies.

  It had taken Donald Nathan more than a year to figure out how to forge this new ore. His father had been angered by the time ‘stolen’ from the family forge but Donald Nathan had resisted that anger and as his techniques reached perfection, the material was proving phenomenally strong and light. Experimental ploughshares fabricated from it sliced through stone as if through mud slurry; and horseshoes fashioned from it appeared not to wear at all. That durability in itself was one of Donald Nathan’s father’s concerns. If horseshoes didn't wear out, if ploughshares didn’t break, what work was left for a smith?

  “Donald Nathan,” said Cerval, hurrying into the room where Donald Nathan was waiting for him, “I’m tardy – and so sorry to keep you.” They shook hands, formal as ever, and Cerval winced. Years of hammering iron gave his friend a grip that could crush oak. “Thorsten just came round from his latest surgery.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  “He’ll be fine.” Cerval forced his optimism. In truth, who could know how Thor would respond to the massive skull surgery required? “Especially once we receive Doctor Efrain’s designs and your family can construct the necessary components.”

  “That’s what I want to talk to you about. Dad’s already working on the skull.” Cerval picked up on his friend’s hesitancy. “But?”

  “He’s using a bronze alloy.”

  “And?”

  “And I think we should use the new material I’ve been working with.”

  “I don’t know, Donald. You said it. It’s new. What if it’s not what you think? It’s Thorsten’s skull at risk. His life.”

  “Trust me, Cervie.” He used the diminutive by which everyone knew Cerval before he inherited. “This is a miracle metal. If it even is a metal.” He reached into the canvas bag at his feet and brought out a dome not unlike a skull. Passed it to Cerval.

  “It’s light!”

  “Yeah, it’s light! An eighth of the weight of bronze – and look, this is less than a quarter the thickness of a human skull.”

  “Very impressive, Donald.”

  “That’s not all. See these little marks?” Cerval looked, noticed five tiny dents, closely spaced. “So?”

  “I set this up and fired a Ximan at it from five ahms.”

  “Five ahms! And that’s all that happened?”

  “That’s all. The bullets just disintegrated when they hit.” Cerval looked at the dome more closely. It was like onyx in colour and texture. Ominous, in a way. He turned his attention to the young smith.

  “You know we’ve got to fabricate a whole new forehead for him. The left side of his skull, and there’s a hole the size of a chicken egg at the back.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Then off Cerval’s surprise, apologetically: “I’ve been talking to Gori.”

  “You told him about this?

  “Thor’s my friend, too, Cervie, and I’ve known his dad since you and I and Thor were babies. I know this is right for him! Much better than any other material we have available. My dad’s a genius – but, in this case, he’s wrong. Dead wrong!”

  “What does Gori say?”

  “He thinks we should go for it – but he and dad go back, too, and he’s worried that if he sides with me he’ll humiliate the old man.”

  “Dismiss feelings! Right now all that matters is Thor. He is the imperative.” Cerval gazed at his friend then spun and paced. He’d been making critical decisions ever since his father died but that didn’t make the process easier, or alleviate the guilt of bad judgment. Thor’s future, his survival, depended on his assessment of Donald Nathan’s belief in this new alloy. When he came to his decision, he was comforted by the fact that he knew his friend cared as much about Thorsten as he did.

  “I’ll talk to your father,” he said, then saw the unhappiness in Donald Nathan’s face. “Don’t worry. I’ll make it seem like it was his idea.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “We Frankensteins didn’t get to run this estate for nearly three hundred years without knowing how to manipulate people’s minds.”

  “Not to mention the rest of their bodies,” laughed Donald Nathan.

  “Well, it’s not something I’m proud of but in this case it’s an advantage. Give me a couple of hours. I’ll meet you at the armoury.” Donald Nathan hesitated and Cerval knew he had something more to say. “Yes?” he asked warily.

  “Well, I’m thinking, as long as we’re replacing maybe forty percent of his skull, why don’t we just make the whole thing out of this stuff? We can do it in three pieces. Cover the entire skull area.”

  Later that day, Brutus flew in. He’d been gone nearly sixty hours, and he was carrying the prosthetic blueprints which Doctor Efrain had been working on. As Cerval looked over them, he marvelled at Pedro Robledo’s solutions to what he had feared might be an impossible design brief.

  Sharing the blueprints with D’Arcy Lord Pitts – Donald Nathan’s spikey father – helped maintain the old man’s dignity. Nor was it an artificial move on Cerval’s part. Donald Nathan was breaking new ground in metallurgy, thanks to the rocks from the skies, but his father had been a working smith for forty years. He didn’t confine himself to big items like ploughs and horseshoes and broken tractors. He worked with the armourers to fabricate and repair weapons. People brought their timepieces to him for precision work. His skill, praised by Cerval, had lifted any design constraints Efrain might have had and now Efrain’s blueprints demanded his most delicate touch.

  So, as Thorsten Laverack recovered from the wounds and the survival-surgery which would have killed a lesser man, the various specialists on the Frankenstein estat
e went to work, building the components that would restore him to his fearsome pre-eminence among the Incorruptibles.

  oOo

  12

  RUPERT GILCHRIST BASS THROBBED. He felt as if his body – his entire being – was a single consuming erection.

  Earlier, when Shelley Mary had first appeared back at The News Of The Smoke’s offices, when he’d arranged for her to come back after hours, he’d unlocked his secret desk drawer – the one in which he kept his undercover AvCom – and pulled out a small round leather pillbox. Inside were a dozen bright red tablets that he’d bought from a low-level Silencio drug dealer. The dealer had assured him that the tablets, street name Viper Agua, would guarantee prolonged potency. Rupert wasn’t sure though. Relations with Madame Bass had ceased years ago, and, dates with his fist aside, it had been a long time since he’d enjoyed any kind of sexual encounter. Now he was planning such an encounter with an actual human being. Not just any human being either; a stunningly attractive young woman who, finally, was going to fall into his clammy grasp.

  Shelley Mary Ventura had rejected him humiliatingly once before and had had the nerve to refer to Bass Minor as a potted shrimp. But that was when she’d only just started at The News Of The Smoke, confident that her flair and journalistic competence would see her rise to the top. Ha! More fool her! She was lucky he’d kept her on at all, and her continual moaning about having to file simpering copy about celebrity nitwits was music to his ears. It confirmed his power over her, vengeance for the potted shrimp slander. Now was the time of reckoning, and he was ready to wield both carrot and stick. Metaphorically of course. Although come to think of it…

  Rupert pulled out his silver pocket watch. Almost time. He pulled back the blind on the window that opened out on to the office, looked out and saw that it was empty. Though he felt on fire, he shivered and, looking down, was simultaneously proud and embarrassed by the chemically induced tentpole he saw. He shoved it down but it would not remain parallel to his leg; he pulled it up, but it would not remain hidden beneath his gut. It was determined to protrude.