“She’s mighty familiar,” a shop boy said over his beer. He passed the tattered photograph to a lean fellow with hair slicked back like a duck.
“That’s because it’s Beatrice,” the duck’s-head fellow said.
The younger fellow took it back. “Oh! I see it now. This confused me, friend. I’m used to seeing her in a uniform.”
I nodded at that. “Beatrice, eh?” I was hardly surprised. She wasn’t the first Irish girl to find a new name in America. A lot of old-blood Yankees hated learning new names. If they had it their way, every man on the planet would be John and every woman Jane.
“Beatrice Clermont,” Duck’s Head told me. “She’s one of Mr. Cabot’s people.”
James Danforth Cabot III. Not a man I wanted to cross. He was something of a wizard with money, just a few ranks below J.P. Morgan. He was known for buying businesses which were in trouble, like Icarus Unlimited was right now, and turning them around.
“What does she do in her time off?” I asked them.
“Time off?” Duck’s Head asked.
The rest of them laughed.
“Cabot doesn’t give his people time off.”
“She’s probably on the Stair-a-deck right now,” the younger fellow conjectured.
It was an unfamiliar word to me. “What’s that…some kind of machine that moves you, like a lift or something?”
They laughed. “Not at all. It’s the sterile deck, Sterideck for short.”
“Glad I’ve amused you guys,” I said with a smile. “Can you tell me the way?”
They gave me directions to the Sterideck but warned me that my investigations would probably stop there. It was an R-Deck, for Restricted. Only certain employees were permitted to enter, and then only after careful screening and training. It was unlikely that even an investigator would be allowed in.
The mention of the Sterideck created an odd sort of clamor in the place. Men started using technobabble and getting rather excited, so I decided to leave.
Adrenalin exploded in me like a firecracker. I was breaking into the best-guarded sanctum of the Magnocracy. Whatever those rich pukes kept in there, they didn’t want anyone to see it. It might hold all manner of secrets, secrets which would buy me a one-way ticket to an ice-water tomb if I were caught. It would be just like them to call the place where they sated their filthiest desires a “sterile deck.”
Chapter Eight
The place must have been run by Technocrats, because the sign overhead was painful to read.
Steridek
Controled Akses Onlee
I sighed and looked around. It occurred to me that if engineers ruled the world, we’d all be spelling like Moira. There’d be no way to tell an educated man from a slouch. I’d never considered the Technocrats—proponents of a strict merit-based hierarchy—to be egalitarian. In a way, I guess they were. The subject was worth meditating on later. I’m sure Verhalen would have loved to argue the point.
Near as I could tell, the Steridek had several points of entry. The most obvious (which meant the most guarded) was just off the main thoroughfare at the top of a non-corrosive steel flight of stairs. It was strangely utilitarian in this sumptuous artificial island. Technocrats were opposed to any ornamentation. Resources were considered precious and thus were utilized to their best effect.
I’d never heard of a Technocratic brothel, so I wondered if this was a façade. The crisp metallic lines and naked bulkheads of the Steridek might have been an ingenious way to discourage the attention of wives. The harsh ambience would be offensive to a posh consort used to silk drapes and Persian rugs.
The main entrance would be a last resort. There were, according to some rather helpful directories—too bad cities didn’t have them—two auxiliary doors in stairwells at opposite ends of the deck. The stairwells didn’t appear to be restricted, so I chose one and ascended. Thankfully, the directory was not written by a Technocrat. The thought of reading auxiliary in Fonetik made me shudder.
The stairwell was a Spartan affair designed for servants and clerks. Up one flight from the main level was a landing with a plain door to the Steridek which said Restricted. The stairs, of course, continued up to other levels.
No one was around, so I had time for some proper scrutiny. There was no handle and no visible lock, which made the Restricted sign unnecessary. There didn’t appear to be any way to open it from the outside.
I had the pry bar, of course. It was a stout enough door, but not stout enough to prevent that bit of mischief. The problem then would be getting in unnoticed. There was no way to tell if the door had an alarm installed. I knew from Verhalen that such devices could get quite elaborate. The simplest were bells like a storefront entry. The more expensive ones could trigger a lantern-flash at a distant guard station so an intruder might enter silently only to discover a mob of angry goons behind the first corner.
The other auxiliary door was probably identical, but I reconnoitered it anyway, finding the same.
That left the main entrance. In theory, subterfuge and lies were preferable to a forced entry, but after capturing the pretty-boy guard in the Solarium, I was hesitant to bring attention to myself. There was no way to tell if an alarm had been raised yet. Security might be extra scrupulous right now.
I reluctantly trudged up the iron flight to the Steridek’s main entrance. I could see a set of glass doors at the top, beyond which appeared to be a guard station. There was a desk with a man in a black uniform.
The guard was my only obstacle. I could tell from where I stood that the doors behind him leading into the Steridek had no locks.
With a sigh and crossed fingers, I passed under a sign reading Hav Yor Badj Redee For Inspekshun.
The man in the black uniform looked up from his dime novel. His eyes swept over my attire with a bored expression. “You lost?”
“I don’t think so,” I told him with mock hesitation. “I was told to come here. This is the…um, Steridek, right?”
“Ayep.”
I feigned relief. “I have an important message for Beatrice Clermont.”
“Do ya, now?”
I nodded.
“You aren’t a telegram boy.”
“No, I’m not. I was sent by her employer. It’s a verbal message. We didn’t want to entrust it to a cable.”
His look curdled. “You got a permission slip?”
“Oh, of course,” I said, reaching into my pocket. I let my features sag. “Christ alive! I left it at the pub.”
His face softened with laughter. “That’ll teach you to have a drink on the job, fellah.” He leaned back and opened his book again.
I looked longingly at the door for a moment.
He glanced up. “You better run back and get it, friend.” He chuckled to himself. “I wouldn’t want to be you if they caught you without a chit.”
The last comment made me turn and start down the stairs. A plan was forming, a reckless plan. The mention of permission slips made me want to act fast.
My entire misadventure had felt too easy. Now I knew why: I’d been lucky. It made perfect sense that no one of my class should be allowed to wander the place without some kind of authorization. All those clerks in the bar had them. They just didn’t mention it because to them, this was normal. If you weren’t a Magnate or a relative, you had to have your papers with you at all times, like a negro in the Confederacy.
I tried not to look too suspicious as I made for an auxiliary door. Once there, I put my coat on so I wouldn’t have to carry it and drew my pry bar. With a deep breat
h, I thrust it in and levered hard. The wood chipped and cracked, but after several moments of grunting, I broke the latch and got it open.
For a brief second, I caught a glimpse of a harsh white blur.
I didn’t pause to look, though. I spun around and dashed down the stairs then back to the main entrance. I waited at the base of the stairs until I saw the guard at the desk put his novel down and run through a side door in the direction of the auxiliary exit.
I bolted up the iron steps and pushed open the glass doors, making for the portal opposite the one used by the guard.
Inside was a strange disquiet. The floor was tiled white and the walls were smooth plaster. The whole place was eerily white, as if I’d wandered into an enormous fog bank. Even the lights were crisp white rather than the dull yellow of gas lamps. It looked like the rumored illumination-source Edison was working on. I only knew the stuff existed because Verhalen raved about it. The Magnocracy loved its secrets. God forbid that foreign countries or even poor Americans have better light.
Even the doors were white, though a few had windows in them, strange black squares that seemed to float in my vision. When I stole a peek, the rooms were all dark. One was lit, though, at the end of the hall.
A strange vibration came through the soles of my shoes, then started bleeding out of the walls and sharpened to a sound in my ears. It was a clicking noise, a terrible roar of snap-snap-snap over and over again, like a thousand Irish dancers in brass clogs.
What the hell was little Bridget Cleary doing in this place?
I looked through the door and froze. Inside was the largest assembly of Babbages I had ever seen. They stretched for what seemed like miles—row after row of shining brass tubes and pistons and gearwork all hammering away, ferociously answering question after question in eerie codes they spat by the yard from their output centers.
In front of this metallic maelstrom were half a dozen people dressed entirely in white. They wore white pants, white shirts, white gloves and white smocks. They even had white hoods and white masks, like surgeons.
I had found Archimedes, the Magnocracy’s most powerful difference engine.
I pushed the door open and looked at the people inside. “Is Beatrice Clermont here?”
It was a simple enough request, I thought, but they responded as if I had a barrel of gunpowder.
“Out!” one cried.
Another waved his hands while a third screamed inarticulately, as if I’d twisted his jimmy with pliers.
“Get out of here!” One of the “doctors” pointed at me with a quaking finger. “You’ll ruin everything!”
“Heavens above! He’s wet!” one of them screamed incredulously.
I looked down at my overcoat, still damp from the snow and ice I’d collected during my walk outside. “I’m leaving,” I told them sheepishly. “But is Beatrice Clermont here?”
“Out!” the first one repeated sharply.
One of them glanced at another. “Do you know this man?”
“No, but I’ll take care of this,” he answered. I realized, after a moment, that the voice was feminine, with a polished accent, as Anglo as it got.
I stepped into the hall and watched the female doctor expectantly. Before she could say anything, I scrutinized her eyes and brow. “Bridget?”
“You ass!” she scolded, slapping me hard. “You’re that damn detective, aren’t you?”
I looked back in at the other people in white. They were staring.
I reached into my pocket out of habit but stopped myself. “Yes, I’m Donovan Schist. You probably don’t want a business card.”
She only scowled.
“Your family is worried about you,” I whispered.
“So you decide to barge into the Steridek and risk contamination? You could have disabled Archimedes! You could have caused thousands of dollars in damage.” She tore her mask off, revealing she was, in fact, Bridget. “A single mote of dirt would put that engine out of order. We would have to spend days searching all the machinery to clear it. And…and moisture? That’s even worse, you clod!”
“This could have been avoided,” I snarled, “if you’d just come down to my office and explained things to the Clearys.”
She motioned me away from the door so that her colleagues couldn’t see.
I didn’t bother to hide my examination. “You dyed your hair.”
She had bleached her mane with lye or something so that it was a stark white like her uniform. She was quite pale. The blond hair, combined with her naturally high cheekbones, gave her an Anglo or a Teutonic appearance.
“This needs to stop,” she growled. “I’m not a Cleary anymore.”
“Guess you dyed the Irish out of you too, eh?” I shook my head. She wasn’t anything like I pictured her. This was a tall, cold woman with an unflinching, almost imperious stare that belonged on a statue, not a person. I would have preferred a beaten-down whore.
“This is none of your concern, detective. Go back and tell them you can’t find me.” She looked around. “People are going to get hurt because of you.”
“People are already hurt because of me,” I assured her. “But just understand that you can’t run away from your past. It always catches up to you. Always.”
“Go take your nickel and send them back to Ireland,” Bridget said dismissively. She turned to leave, pulling her mask up over her face.
I grabbed her elbow as she went. “You owe them a goodbye, if nothing else.”
She stopped to glare at me. “I could call security right now and have you drowned like an unwanted puppy.” Her lips twisted into a sneer. “But it looks like I don’t have to.”
I released her arm and turned. Several men in black uniforms had entered the corridor behind me. The guard from the desk was with them. As I watched, they drew batons for my imminent beating.
I turned back to her in resignation. “I thought I would find a whore. I guess I was right.”
She reached for the door.
They could have asked me to come with them, but that’s not how intruders get treated in the Magnocracy. The first one to reach me knocked my right leg out from under me. A second member of the pack slipped his baton under my chin and started to choke me.
I watched her open the door without a backward glance.
“Your Uncle Jack was right!” I shouted. Rage bubbled up inside me. “He wrote you off when I showed him the letter.”
She hesitated.
“Shut your gob!” One of the guards delivered a vicious baton-strike to my guts.
I gasped, but didn’t collapse. When I looked at Bridget, I didn’t see a beautiful Anglo woman but the rankest sort of traitor. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was shouting at myself as much as at her, shouting at a man who’d betrayed his people, breaking their kneecaps so the robber barons might throw me a soiled greenback every now and then like a bone to a dog.
“Don’t worry,” I told her from the floor. “They came for their daughter but I guess they’ll have a nice holiday instead. What’s losing a daughter when you get to ride an airship?”
“I said enough!” My tormentor tightened the truncheon against my throat and stopped the words at my trachea.
Bridget unexpectedly froze. She slowly turned. “Let him speak.”
To my shock, the guard loosened his grip. Bridget Cleary might have been a nobody, but Beatrice Clermont could order guards around.
I hadn’t expecte
d that response, but I rolled with it. Clearly, Uncle Jack’s dismissal had wounded her. “Yeah,” I went on coldly, “Uncle Jack knew what type of person you are. It was Ma Cleary who wanted to find you. She was bawling like crazy when—”
“You said they took an airship.” Her green eyes were wide with alarm. “Which one?”
“The Starling Skyline.” My head was pounding, so I wondered if I’d heard her right. I was confused as to why, of all the things to discuss, her family’s vacation plans should be one of them. “They wanted to visit some relatives in Alexandria.”
“Alexander,” she corrected, glancing away. “The Starling runs to Rushford Lake for the vacation cabins.” She marched back to me. “Think now—what day did they go?”
I thought I detected a faint quiver in her voice.
I shrugged. “Dunno. A few days ago.” All the bruises and breaks suddenly pained me. “I’ve had a lot on my mind. This isn’t the first beating I’ve gotten this week.”
Her gloved hands grasped me desperately. “Think, damn it!”
“Like three days ago,” I answered hastily. She had a strong grip.
Her green eyes burned into mine. “I need you to find them. I’ll—I’ll pay you, of course. Go up there and find them. I’ll wire you with instructions when I get the chance. Just tell them I want to see them.” She turned away and put a small fist in her mouth.
I stared blankly, too shocked to respond. My captors were just as confounded.
“Go,” she whispered without turning. “Take him to the ferry and let him go.”
I didn’t have to be asked twice, though my tormentors did. Clearly, this wasn’t the usual protocol.
I was almost as relieved to leave the Steridek as I was to escape a beating. The place was surreal, as if I’d stepped into someone else’s dream. Bridget’s new look bothered me just as much as the surroundings, like she was one of the Weird Sisters in a Shakespeare play, pale and strange with power.
Cruel Numbers Page 9
