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

by Peter Lawrence

  Alaina had been to Spasso several times, on spying missions for Cerval, and she thought a visit worth any risk. Ricardo and his babbling caused comment, and if he was in Silencio hands, even the most discreet thug would find it hard not to talk about this particular prisoner. What she would do if she confirmed that the Silencios had Ricardo, Alaina had no idea.

  “Fuckshitpissbollockdcuntanusarsewankastrack!”

  Pfarrer gazed at Ricardo, astonished. Behind the mirror, Horst Van Der Hudspith and Two-Face Puttick held their breath. No one had ever spoken to the Silencio boss like this in living memory and it was Rod-Carlo Gerriman who reacted first, lunging at the boy and smashing his fist into Ricardo’s face. He was a dab hand at abusing people who couldn’t fight back.

  “No!” It was Pfarrer’s voice, commanding and apparently furious. “Touch that boy again and you’ll have an appointment with Doctor Hudspith.” Rod-Carlo could not have been more shocked and, behind the mirror, Hudspith and Puttick were equally astounded. They watched as Pfarrer approached Ricardo and looked at him intently.

  “You’re a Babbler, aren’t you?” Ricardo nodded calmly. Curiosity outweighed stress in this moment. Even so, he thought it better to keep his mouth shut. Who knew what revolting combination of words would erupt if he opened it?

  “What’s a Babbler?” Hudspith whispered to Two-Face.

  “Beats me,” his assistant replied. “You’re the doctor.”

  Pfarrer laughed out loud. “My older brother was a Babbler,” he said. “I loved him very much. He was the sun, moon and stars in my world, but he mouthed off to the wrong person and was beaten to death. They didn’t know he couldn’t help it, but I cured them of their ignorance. They died knowing.” He laughed again. “They were the first people I killed. I was thirteen.”

  No one who heard this confession could believe that Pfarrer was opening up to this youth, one of a gang determined to destroy the Silencios. Routinely, Pfarrer spoke few words – most of them violent or obscene – but what no one realized was that Ricardo had stirred other, deeper emotions in Pfarrer’s dark heart.

  Rooseveldt Franklyn Pfarrer had been more or less sexless all his life, any nascent drives sublimated in violence. He and his brother had been brought up in a strict fundamentalist family, his father interpreting his faith as giving him the right to berate, beat and sexually abuse his sons. His mother looked the other way, too weak or frightened to protect them. Secretly, she probably welcomed the diversion of her husband’s desires, for she didn’t enjoy sex at the best of times. When Rooseveldt Franklyn’s brother grew big enough to resist his father, that sick man concentrated all his energies on the tiny, younger boy. But he underestimated Rooseveldt’s determined fury, his desire for revenge, and it was the younger brother who organized the father’s killing. A painful, prolonged death.

  Now, looking into Ricardo’s soft and apparently fearless eyes, Pfarrer felt the stirrings of emotions he had never experienced before, feelings quite different to those about his daughter or his dead brother. His brother was a fading memory and Keira was simply something he had made, an extension of his being and therefore to be admired just as he admired himself. But as he gazed at Ricardo, a tenderness welled up in him; a tenderness entwined with an unfamiliar form of desire. Outright desire was not a problem. Pfarrer took whatever he wanted – that was how Keira Specklestone came about. But tenderness? A terrible conflict, a strange and disturbing sensation, unknown and oddly exhilarating. How would the boy respond?

  “Untie him,” he commanded Rod-Carlo, who almost fell over himself in his desire to atone for the punch.

  “Have you ever been to Spasso?” Pfarrer asked Ricardo.

  “No, I have not,” Ricardo replied, lying, and hoping neither Hayden nor Anson would recognize him.

  “They do a pork shoulder braised in milk. Delicious. Restorative.” He turned to Rod-Carlo. “Take him to the guest quarters. The red suite. And find some clothes that fit.” He turned back to Ricardo. “I’ll pick you up in an hour.” Then to Rod-Carlo: “A single mark, one word of complaint… ” He had no need to continue. Rod-Carlo was pale enough.

  Behind the window, Doctor Horst Van Der Hudspith was almost fainting with surprise and thwarted sadism.

  “Relax, Doc.,” said Two-Face. “I reckon you’ll be working on Rod-Carlo before the month’s out.”

  Bass’s AvCom trilled. When Bass answered it, Spalding told him quietly that four men were on their way up to see him. He had tried to stop them but they had simply brushed past him. One was tall, one was short and the other two were box-shaped.

  The four men blazed through the building ripping doors open and dragging out every employee they found, savagely beating them as they demanded to know Bass’s whereabouts. Only when they confronted Carly Matsudaira were they forced to pause, briefly backed down by this powerful and fearless woman.

  “If you’re looking for Bass,” she said scornfully, “why don’t you just go to his office?” From their expressions, she realized that meant nothing to them and she sighed. “He’s the Managing Editor. He’ll be in the Managing Editor’s office. That way.” She pointed. “It says Managing Editor on the door.” After a brief hesitation, the four enforcers headed in that direction. “Would you like me to spell that? Managing Editor?” Carly called after them. One, the boxiest, turned back.

  “If he’s not there,” he warned, “we’ll be back.”

  “He is there,” she replied. “And if you come back, I’ll be waiting.” Boxiest considered about going up against her but on second glance thought better of it, particularly as his three companions were already some way down the corridor.

  They burst into the office whose door surely was lettered ‘Managing Editor. Rupert Gilchrist Bass’ and they looked around. The room smelled as it had recently been occupied by a zoo animal, but there was no sign of one.

  “Baa-a-sss!” boomed Tall. “Where are you?” There was no answer and Boxiest turned back.

  “That bitch lied to us. Let’s do her over!” But just then, one of the metal filing cabinets let go the longest, wettest, foulest flatus blast that any of them had heard. A beat later, they realized that it cannot have been the cabinet itself and they ripped the door open to find the cowering Managing Editor, excrement pooling around his ankles. Filling the air with every obscenity, every profanity they knew, they dragged him out from his hiding place.

  “Oh,” said Short. “Doctor Hudspith’s going to enjoy working on you.”

  Whatever foul matter remained in Bass’s lower colon ejected itself with such force that it almost blasted him free of the thugs’ grasp.

  Alaina had slipped into Bonne Gamage just before it closed for the night, flashing a fistful of koronas. Half an hour later she, who generally favoured practical pinafore dresses, emerged dressed to the nines: black knee-length spat boots in the softest leather, six inch spike heels and discreet silver buckles; silk ruched skirt over pale pink translucent silk underskirts; soft black leather sleeveless blouse over a tight lace bodice; a broad leather belt around her narrow waist; scarlet choker – a slash of colour around her neck – and to complete the look a little ‘top hat’ fascinator with raven’s wings and a fine veil. She enjoyed the style of the costume although its purpose was to remove her as far as possible from her regular look, to disguise her from Spasso’s staff and any Silencio who had a silvograph by which to identify her.

  When she entered the restaurant, she thought she might have gone too far. Everyone, from the hostess to the waiting staff, looked twice at this striking, fashionable young woman, and when she asked for a quiet table – she pointed to one that had a clear view of the restaurant floor – they fell over themselves to oblige. Anson Cloudesley himself brought her a menu.

  “I’m waiting for a friend,” Alaina breathed. “I do hope she comes.”

  “Oh, so do I, ma’mselle – particularly if she’s as beautiful as you.” He couldn’t help himself and when he returned with a pink prosecco he had a red mark
on one cheek.

  Alaina was sipping her drink and pretending to flip through the menu when she felt an almost overwhelming surge of energy, a force that made her lower her head and breathe deeply. When she looked up, she saw Franklyn Pfarrer, his hand on the arm of her much taller twin brother, both surrounded by a phalanx of Silencios.

  She knew that Ricardo felt her presence in the restaurant, even though his back was to her.

  Anson greeted Pfarrer unctuously, his wife as coldly as she dared, and if they recognized Ricardo they gave no indication. They might have sensed something odd in the way that Pfarrer kept a grip on the youth, something they had never seen before, but it didn’t pay to volunteer anything in the Silencio boss’s presence.

  Alaina watched discreetly from behind her veil as Pfarrer was seated at his usual table. The Cloudesleys removed all but one of the remaining chairs and the bodyguards were relegated to inferior tables dotted around the room. Ricardo’s chair was placed so that his back would remain to Alaina, but as he sat he turned around and looked directly at her. In that instant, she knew that while he was safe for the moment, somehow they would have to get him out of Pfarrer’s grasp quickly; but she had no time to think further because another guest was being shown to Pfarrer’s table: Rolf-Adolph Thriel, The Smoke’s notorious Police Commissioner.

  Thriel had been brought up in a Silencio family before he allegedly had an epiphany and joined the city-state’s police force. He rose rocket-like through the ranks, becoming phenomenally wealthy along the way. Under his command, The Smoke’s law enforcers made a mockery of their title, equalling the Silencios for venality, brutality and outright murder. They would have become a serious rival gang but for the fact that Rolf-Adolf owed everything to the Silencio hierarchy. He knew where his best interest lay.

  But, wondered Alaina, what is he doing here?

  She ordered rolled shoulder of lamb, served pink, with braised lettuce and fresh peas in cream. Despite the fear hollowing out her stomach, she was starving. She knew, too, that to remain unnoticed she must eat.

  “And your friend?” asked Hayden a touch snidely. She had forbidden Anson to attend to this mysterious and stunning young diner, but didn’t assign a regular waiter to the table because she wanted to satisfy her own curiosity.

  “I’m afraid I’ve been stood up,” said Alaina, keeping her head down.

  “Perhaps,” smiled Hayden, thinking not bloody likely – by man or woman.

  Waiting for the lamb, Alaina watched Pfarrer’s table. He and the Police Commissioner were in intense discussions. When Anson brought Rolf-Adolf a menu, Pfarrer waved it away emphatically. The Chief was apparently not going to be allowed to eat and Alaina felt his humiliation. The conversation continued and now Alaina began to receive waves of increasingly urgent thoughts:

  Tell Cerval! Tell Cerval! Tell Cerval!

  But tell him what? That Pfarrer had Ricardo? That Pfarrer was discussing something with Chief Thriel that was agitating her Babbler twin? What?

  In the end, Pfarrer himself would answer her questions but leave her with another: would she be able to warn Cerval?

  Where was Brutus?

  oOo

  24

  WHEN H. W. DERBY INVENTED THE PNEUMO, it rapidly spread beyond The Smoke’s retail outlets, linking many institutional buildings and businesses. Along with karriers, for many years it was The Smoke’s primary means of communication. But as The Smoke’s ruling cabal became increasingly powerful, it became more secretive and the pneumo’s privacy relied on its users’ discretion and honesty, the honorable decision not to read or interfere with any communication other than those personally addressed to a user. Unlike the pneumo, Silencio messenger services were private. And they were physically protected. Moreover, Silencio goons leaned on Smoke businesses to use their services. When the AvCom system was perfected, it, too, undermined the pneumo which eventually returned to its beginnings: internal retail transactions. But the pneumo’s city-wide hardware, its tubes, valves, gates and switch points largely remained intact, despite its official lack of use, because it was kept in working condition by UnderGrunt store clerks who, as well using it to retrieve change and receipts, swapped personal messages, jokes and news snippets. Pictures of cats were particularly popular. Dalton Trager Rhineheart and his wheelchair-bound pneumatic engineer, Florenza, easily persuaded these disgruntled shop workers to work the pneumo system on their behalf, to distribute their seditious propaganda citywide.

  However, in seeking to utilize the pneumo system for their own political ends, initially the distribution of Shelley Mary’s pamphlet ‘You Consume, We Starve!’ Dalton and Florenza had made a fatal mistake: to ignore the fact that even in the most downtrodden group there will be those ready to betray the group’s best interests for money.

  Both Thriel and Pfarrer suspected that the manifesto itself must have originated in Harlesdon Marshes, for they had the rest of The Smoke under the tightest surveillance; but they weren’t sure how the manifesto had been introduced into the system. Their first move was to send investigative squads to every store and business which used the pneumo. These investigators asked brief and to the point questions and if they didn’t get brief and to the point replies they turned instantly violent. Word spread fast, and every pneumo user in The Smoke had all his or her records out and in full view when the investigators came calling; alibis, excuses and explanations. When it was confirmed that the point of origin wasn’t in The Smoke, there was a moment of doubt and puzzlement and a series of more savage interrogations began until one veteran of the pneumo system reminded them that it had all begun with Derby & Thoms in its heyday, when the Marshes was still a fashionable suburb.

  The investigators pored over silvographs of known subversives and enemies of the Commission. The gallery included pictures from the Senate bombing. It had been a set-up, of course, but it had gone wrong and so the images might be useful. Some showed a striking woman, always seen in military thigh-boots, but no one could put a name to her. Some showed Dalton Trager Rhineheart, whose name and reputation were just beginning to be known to Thriel and his agencies, and there were two pictures of Dalton apparently rescuing a dishevelled young woman at the scene of the bombing.

  On a hunch, Thriel asked Pfarrer to show the quivering Rupert Gilchrist Bass a selection of these images. The News Of The Smoke’s editor had already disappointed Hudspith by admitting, without a single scalpel cut, that the manifesto was written by the missing Shelley Mary Ventura. Now he instantly identified her as the woman Dalton had rescued during the Senate bombing.

  Pfarrer, Thriel and the Commission were surprised at Dalton’s involvement. What little they knew about him indicated that, up to this point, his only interest had been the development of ReForTin and the protection of the Chavalier way of life.

  Pfarrer and Thriel both felt that they had somehow missed some vital intelligence, and that made their subsequent response to the manifesto all the more savage. They prepared and briefed their attack squads, ordering them to move into the Marshes just before dawn, that time when the human body is at its least responsive. Derby & Thoms was to be smashed, and Rhineheart and the journalist brought in alive for interrogation.

  Thriel’s cops and Pfarrer’s Silencios were uniformed identically: black duster coats and black work boots. Full face cotton masks. They were going to brutalize, maim and kill and even though the weight of the law – written and practical – was behind them, they would be unidentifiable.

  They were driven to edge of Harlesdon Marshes in a procession of unlit hackneys but from then on they proceeded on foot, silent and purposeful. As they approached the Front Line, a handful of street people came out to peer at them. No one usually entered the Marshes on foot. They’d be stripped in a matter of moments, left for dead if they resisted. But the Marshians saw the uniforms, the masks and the Ximans and understood these visitors were not to be fucked with.

  The only Marshians who offered any resistance was a group of Revoltistas. This
particular unit had been thinking about joining the suicidal Dynamistas and so when a squad of black-clad invaders broke into their living quarters they were happy to fight back, igniting percussion and splinter bombs in the confined space. Both bombers and invaders were reduced to bloody pulp.

  At about the same time, another squad broke into the building where Noemi Galindo and Vincent St. Tilden lived, on the floor above the stables where they kept their ponies and chariot horses. Had either been more alert or had had some inkling that a raid on the Marshes was imminent, they might have wondered why the horses seemed so restless. As it was, Noemi and Vincent were taken entirely by surprise when a masked squad burst into their home and seized them. The leader of the squad took two silvographs from a pocket and compared the images on paper to the realities of Noemi and Vincent.

  “Nah,” he said. “This ain’t them.” The squad beat them to death and then Ximanned the horses below.

  Shelley Mary and Paulina Ellamova were still in the fur-covered bed. Unknown to them, Dalton had returned home earlier, found them asleep, and backed away smiling. He had known it would only be a matter of time before Paulina made her move but he hadn’t expected her to act quite so fast. He decided to visit Florenza, to make sure that the system was still running smoothly and that the manifesto was pumping through The Smoke. He had always liked Florenza, admired her independence, and tried to get her out of her basement world beneath the wrecked Derby & Thoms. But she always turned his efforts aside, kindly, and explained that she was quite happy with her own company; that she hated people to gawp at her wheelchair; and, anyway, had more than enough work with her various compressed air inventions to fill her days. As Dalton entered her workspace, she spun in her chair to face him, eyes sparkling.