Paulina Ellamova and her cavalry were stationed in an alley opposite the Police Headquarters, ready to deploy as a secondary invasion. She didn’t like missing out on the first wave action but she knew that to stay loose, available to deal with any unexpected developments, was the right thing to do. She and her riders watched as frightened cops and administrators fled the building, putting as much ground between themselves and the avenging Chavaliers as they could.
The albino pit ponies shifted nervously, restless, seeming to want to get to work.
Paulina sat straighter in the saddle as she saw a small squad of Chavaliers exit the building with a quivering fat man and Shelley Mary. Shelley Mary was bloodied and bruised, her clothing torn and filthy but she was unmistakable. Paulina spurred her pony forward.
“Where's Dalton?” she asked. Shelley Mary could only shake her head. “I don't know.”
“Is he still alive?”
“I think so. That person, whoever he is… or she is… ”
“O.M.? What about her?”
“She forced them to take her to Dalton’s cell.”
Pauline turned to her riders.
“Stay here. I’m going in.”
In Dalton’s cell, impasse.
“You can’t get out of here,” O.M. snarled at Thriel. “Not alive.”
“Then he’ll die, too. Is that what you want?” O.M. said nothing and Thriel continued: “But if you let me go, give me free passage to somewhere safe, I swear I’ll release him.”
O.M. laughed. “And I’d believe that – why?”
“Because you’ve got no choice.”
“There’s always a choice,” said a voice behind O.M. and Paulina Ellamova stepped into the scene, instantly assessing the stalemate.
“Then make it,” said Thriel, “whoever you are. Tell this this freak to let me…”
“Freak?” said O.M. quietly, moving closer to Thriel, who screwed the pistol so tightly into Dalton’s cheek that the Chavalier leader could not suppress a gasp of pain.
“Yeah, freak! Man? Woman? Whatever the fuck you are!”
“Doesn’t matter what she is or who we are,” said Paulina, putting herself between O.M. and Dalton, Thriel still shielded by the Chavalier leader. “What matters is a deal.” She dropped her head, shoulders slumped, and all the fight seemed to go out of her. “We want him safe and free,” she continued, looking up briefly, indicating Dalton with her eyes. “We don't have a choice. We just have to trust you.”
Thriel couldn’t conceal the smirk. Women just weren’t equipped for this kind of life-and-death stuff. He knew he was going to make this work, and would slaughter Dalton the moment he could. Dalton felt him relax and prepared his own next move. Paulina looked up, her face sad and defeated, her eyes locked on Thriel.
“It’s just not right,” she said petulantly and stamped her foot.
At that instant, Dalton ducked as far as his chains would let him, exposing Thriel’s head and upper chest.
The killer bolt exploded from the toe of Paulina’s boot and slammed into Thriel’s shoulder, throwing him back, the pistol flying from his grasp. O.M. caught it, and Paulina and the Chavaliers surrounded Dalton. “What took you so long?” he asked her.
“I thought you’d want to do it on your own,” she replied. “Didn’t want you to lose credibility.”
O.M. put one knee on Thriel’s chest, holding him down. His eyes were wide with fright and shock and he was losing blood fast from the shoulder wound.
“Freak?” she said quietly. “Man? Woman?” She produced her short knife. He could not take his eyes off the blade. “None of the above,” she continued. “Human being.”
She cut his throat.
The Revoltistas’ bombs were still blowing up their diversionary targets, causing a massive traffic jam, when Cerval, Thorsten, Evangeline and the rest of his party drove up to the Silencios’ headquarters in one of Cerval’s most elaborate and expensively customized hackneys. Cerval had lost patience with anonymity. This was do or die, and one way or another The Smoke would know his name.
The Silencios were headquartered in an old tenement building into which Pfarrer had poured millions of koronas, to make it one of the most luxurious dwellings in The Smoke and probably the most impregnable. It was constructed around a central courtyard, and the only way in was through an arched gateway barred by a massive iron gate with a guardhouse to one side.
The hackney stopped by the gatehouse. Cerval and Thorsten climbed down, Thorsten wearing a long duster coat which hid the prosthetic and the power pack strapped to his back. He looked like a gigantic hunchback, an irony that his misshapen forebears would have appreciated.
They approached the guardhouse’s slit window.
“Whatchoowant?” came a voice from the slit.
“I’m Cerval Frankenstein and this is Thorsten Laverack.”
“Congratulations. I’ll ask you again: whatchoofuckin’want?””
Thorsten stepped forward, surprising Cerval.
“Message for Mr. Pfarrer,” he said in his monosyllabic way.
“Yeah? What message?”
Thorsten had dialed up the prosthetic to full power and now let it rip, a thundering straight jab that thrust the hammer right through the slit, shattering stone as it went, and obliterating the guard’s face. Cerval sighed. “I know how you feel, Thor, I respect your emotions profoundly, but that doesn’t really help us get through the gate, does it?”
Thorsten looked at him with something like pity, drew the prosthetic back and slammed the hammer against the stone work once more, shattering it and, after two more blows, making a hole large enough to climb half into the guardhouse. There he reached for the gate control lever, and a moment later the gate rattled back. Withdrawing from the hole, Thor struck the open gate twice, huge blows that warped the iron and the rails on which the gate ran. It would not close again without major repairs. “We’re through now,” he said drily.
Cerval ran the hackney into the courtyard, and a moment later the remainder of his estate retainers, who had been hidden in the shadows, flooded into the Silencio stronghold and gathered around their leader.
“You know the plan,” he said, “search every room until you find him. And if you have to kill anyone, so be it. Everyone in this building is a murderer, either in fact or by proxy.”
The shadowy figures dispersed in groups of three. Cerval nodded to Thor and Evangeline, and they too faded into the building.
Cerval, Thorsten and Evangeline were deep in the Silencios’ headquarters when a shadowy figure materialized in front of them. Evangeline was about to shatter its windpipe with a karoeira kick when she recognized the shadow as Alaina.
“I know where he is. I can feel it.” She turned to Cerval. “And I want you to be the one to save him.” Cerval understood and did not argue.
“Show us,” he said. Alaina sped down a corridor and the others followed.
Franklyn Rooseveldt Pfarrer looked down on Ricardo. The youth was naked, held spread-eagled by the hideously mutilated Stefan Mueller, Taller, Shorter and a fourth thug whom Pfarrer did not recognize. Ricardo’s eyes were luminous with acceptance but Pfarrer saw something else there that came close frightening him – an emotion he had not felt for many years. This is not going to go the way you think it will, the eyes assured him. Is it important enough to die for?
It was as if the youth had spoken and the words enraged Pfarrer. He gripped Ricardo’s face, shoved thumb and forefinger into his cheeks, pressing them between Ricardo’s teeth so that if the youth bit down he would bite through his own flesh, then lowered his face to Ricardo’s and kissed him. The four Silencios looked away. Rape – homosexual or heterosexual – wasn’t a problem for them, but their boss’s weakness made them uneasy.
To Pfarrer’s surprise, Ricardo did not resist the kiss and when Pfarrer stood straight, he read something different in his victim’s eyes. Anticipation? Invitation?
Overwhelmed with need and lust, he ripped himself
naked and lunged at the figure pinioned on the bed.
At that moment, the door to Pfarrer’s chambers smashed open, the heavy timbers pulverized by a titanic mechanical hand which thrashed left and right, up and down, reducing the door to toothpicks.
Naked, Pfarrer dived for his discarded jacket, fumbling for the bespoke Stehling handguns he kept in both pockets. Each had five small-bore revolving barrels. Massive and accurate hitting power at short range. He screamed at his thugs:
“Kill them! Kill them! Kill them all!” The four thugs, overcoming their shock, were already in motion but were seconds too late. Thor’s monstrous arm swept right and left. Right crushed the anonymous thug’s skull, splattering bone and brain. Left hit Taller in the side of the chest, disintegrating the upper arm and caving the rib cage. Agonised, Taller fell to his knees. Evangeline catapulted herself at Shorter, both heels striking him just below the sternum and doubling him up. Cerval, following her, kicked the thug in the face, a foot uppercut which straightened him so that Evangeline’s follow-up collapsed his throat and he fell, both hands clawing at his windpipe, slowly suffocating.
Pfarrer could not believe what happened next. Sure he would reach at least one of his handguns, he was shocked to feel a different hand in his jacket pocket – a hand already curled around a gun and withdrawing it from that pocket. He turned and saw that it was Ricardo who had beaten him to the draw and was now jamming the multi-barreled Stehling deep into Pfarrer’s mouth.
“Or would you prefer it in your arse?” the boy hissed. Pfarrer twisted, reaching for the second weapon, but Thor’s monstrous alloy claw fastened itself around his neck and lifted him up into the air. The tiny, naked gang boss jigged and flailed impotently while Thor’s prosthetic hissed quietly, leaking high pressure steam from its relief valves. Pfarrer saw that all eyes were on him and simply could not comprehend what had happened to him, how the moment, his sexual triumph and relief, could have turned into this moment of ultimate humiliation.
“Look out! Ximan!” Alaina screamed and a moment later Stefan Mueller’s Ximan opened up, its gunfire deafening in the room.
Thor hurled Pfarrer into the stream of fire and the Silencio boss’s body was ripped apart, falling to the floor in three pieces.
At the same time, Cerval threw himself at Mueller, flattening the thug’s nose with his forehead, stunning the Silencio. Cerval stood and slammed the side of his foot down on Mueller’s throat, destroying the hyoid just as he had Mueller’s colleague’s all those weeks ago in Efrain’s laboratory. He watched, pitilessly, as Mueller’s life faded.
“Cervie,” Thor whispered and Cerval turned to see Evangeline in Thor’s arms, her legs shattered by the Ximan, blood pouring from the wounds. He felt his own blood drain from his face and could not move. Nor could he speak, although a silent scream filled his head.
Not again.
First he mutilated his oldest friend. Then the love of his life.
Sacrificed to his ego. Hubris. Who the fuck was Cerval Frankenstein to think he could change society?
Alaina and Ricardo were already at work with tourniquets and bandages and Cerval came to life. He stroked her cheek and Evangeline opened her eyes. She was obviously in agony but clamped her jaws and refused to let even the faintest whimper escape.
“We’ll get you home,” Cerval said. He wanted to add that everything would be alright but he knew it wouldn’t. Her wounds were too severe and she had lost a huge amount of blood.
And where’s home? Cerval wondered, as he cast a last look around the room. A slaughterhouse.
The Incorruptibles had won the battle but it did not feel not like a victory.
oOo
28
THEY WERE GATHERED around a conference table in the Incorruptibles’ headquarters. Now that The Smoke knew its location and its occupants’ roles in the violence that had brought a strange hiatus to the city-state, the building was protected by a coalition of UnderGrunt security guards organized by the implacable O.M.
At the table, Cerval, Thorsten, Ricardo, Alaina, Shelley Mary, Dalton, Paulina and key members of the Commission which had apparently recognized The Smoke’s new real politik and was prepared to negotiate. Law Enforcement was represented by an older ex-captain known as ‘Bar One.’ He had once stood against Thriel and suffered greatly for his temerity.
Rupert Gilchrist Bass, too, was present. Shelley Mary believed that, given a second chance, Bass might revert to his earlier, crusading better nature. However, newly humbled, he was uneasy and every now and then, when his rotten innards were about to betray him, retired to the room next door.
Doctor Pedro Robledo Efrain, too, had reluctantly accepted an invitation to attend the meeting. He was still mourning Yip and anyway thought of himself as a backroom operator not a conference table contributor.
This first meeting, an initial attempt to plan a way forward, should have had a triumphant and hopeful feel to it but it was sabotaged by the emotional undercurrents flowing between the participants.
First, there was Cerval’s mood. His almost psychotic guilt had kicked in. Not only had he reduced his oldest friend to a one-armed freak, Evangeline was going to lose both legs despite Efrain and his surgical team’s skill and attention. All this because Cerval was arrogant enough to believe he could cleanse The Smoke and change human nature.
Then there was the obvious and immediate antipathy that filled the air between Cerval and Dalton. It was so clear that even Shelley Mary, the least instinctive person at the table, recognized it. She simply did not understand it. These two men should not just be allies but friends. Look what they had achieved! And now a better future for The Smoke was in their hands.
What’s their fucking problem?
Paulina knew exactly what the problem was: Dalton’s unease. Though he was the Chavaliers’ respected leader and a hero of this brief revolution, Dalton remained an UnderGrunt at heart and was not comfortable in the presence of wealth and privilege. No matter how altruistically Cerval had acted, he remained a super-affluenzo, a Topper, in Dalton’s eyes, highly educated and unshakably confident. Had anyone told Dalton how riddled with guilt and introspection Cerval was, Dalton would not have believed it because like many men of his upbringing Cerval could hide any deeper fear or emotion.
Paulina knew, too, that she was contributing to the disconcerting electricity in the room. Cerval intrigued her. She believed he might be one of those rare men who could match her demands and she wasn’t a woman to hide her beliefs to spare anyone’s feelings. Shelley Mary recognized those feelings and was hurt and indignant. Dalton was plain jealous, which surprised Paulina because they had only briefly been lovers and that a long time ago. Since then, they had been the closest and most trusted of friends – or so she had believed until now.
Cerval, dark and introspected, had no clue as to Shelley Mary’s or Dalton’s jealousies. He did not know of Paulina’s speculations about him.
The tensions were obvious to Thorsten, Alaina and Ricardo and the three Incorruptibles were concerned about Cerval, their friend and leader.
The Commission delegates were quiet and cautious, assessing the strength of this new axis of power in The Smoke. Could it be vitiated? Suborned? Destroyed? They paid lip service to the reconstruction of The Smoke but their demeanour betrayed their insincerity, their pure self-interest – and that did nothing to help the mood in the room.
The putative Police Chief, Bar One, was equally quiet, overawed by the enormity of his task. He knew how few honest officers he had and how hard it would be to control those who had made small fortunes in the recent heydays. How long would it take him to recruit and train a new and clean force?
In the absence of a strong and focussed leader, the meeting became its own entity and, without really attempting to address any of the questions the rebellion had raised, was headed to adjournment, decisions postponed to another, easier day.
Then the door crashed open and Colette Garcia Cognizo strode in.
“No on
e invited me but I’m…”
“We know who you are,” said Cereal forcefully. “What are you doing here? We already have Commission representatives at the table.”
“I want to make a deal.”
“Not the time or place,” replied Cerval.
“I think it is. I read the manifesto.” She turned to Shelley Mary. “A somewhat hectoring homily, perhaps, but you make your points.” Shelley Mary nodded, was about to speak, but Colette continued. “You want to spread The Smoke’s wealth? I can help you.” It was an unlikely claim, coming from one of The Smoke’s richest and most backroom-influential Toppers, descended from a long line of raiders, hoarders and carpetbaggers. She turned to Dalton Trager Rhineheart before anyone could speak.
“ReForTin.”
“What about it?” replied Dalton, as discomfitted by her as he was by Cerval.
“It’s the future.”
“Of course,” said Efrain, about to expatiate, but Colette cut him short.
“I’m addressing Mr. Rhineheart,” she said curtly and the others at the table were so surprised at her rudeness that she was able to continue seamlessly: “I want the technology,” she said to Dalton. “And I have the resources to develop and exploit it. You do not.” The others looked to Cerval, who certainly could amass those resources, but he had a curious expression on his face and was watching Dalton.
“I can make you very, very wealthy,” said Colette to Dalton. “You and your entire Chavalier following. Wealthy beyond an UnderGrunt imagination. As wealthy as the richest Topper here.” She turned to Cerval as she said those words. “So,” she continued, “that would be a redistribution, would it not? Of wealth and the power that goes with it. What’s your answer, Mr. Rhineheart?”
All eyes were on Dalton. There was no doubt that everyone in the room expected him to reject the proposal, perhaps violently. Everyone except Cerval, who knew the power of money. Every affluenzo in The Smoke wanted more, even if that meant taking everything from everyone else. How he had escaped that gluttony, he had no idea.
The Incorruptibles (Book One, Frankenstein Vigilante): Frankenstein Vigilante: The Steampunk Series (Frankenstein Vigilante. The Steampunk Series.) Page 21
