Unobtainium 1: Kate on a Hot Tin Roof

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘Sir!’ The constable at the door was out of breath and he had burst in as though the Hounds of Hell were on his heels.

  ‘Constable Matthews, there had better be a damn good reason for entering my office without knocking.’

  ‘Sir, she’s been sighted. Someone caught sight of her near Limehouse.’

  ‘Limehouse? No one has searched in that area, have they?’

  ‘No, sir. We’ve been concentratin’ on Soho and Whitechapel cos we knew she knew the area.’

  ‘I want squads out there looking in every place a woman could be hidden. Move, Constable!’

  Stepney.

  The streets were swarming with men in uniform. It looked like they had drafted in every constable they could find to hunt her down and Kate had to wonder whether the crime level in the rest of the city had gone crazy tonight. They were searching through every alleyway and dosshouse, knocking on every door, and generally making life a misery for the residents.

  More importantly, as far as Kate was concerned, the blimp was in the sky overhead. It had been a calculated risk: allow a policeman to see her on the street, make sure she was seen, in fact. The news had reached the ears of her hunters and they were out looking for her. The policemen below would eliminate the possibility of using the undead creatures; Kate doubted very much that they wanted anyone to know about those things, though she had heard a few rumours that afternoon. Someone else had seen them and the locals around the docks were nervous.

  Also, the police combing the streets would, naturally, have forced her up to the rooftops. The police did not know about that, it seemed, while the Germans did. She was, indeed, on the rooftops, but she had concealed herself sufficiently well that the airship was unlikely to spot her and now she was waiting, waiting for her chance to capture one of the hunters.

  They were moving around in twos, which made things more difficult, and she was on the edge of the search territory, which reduced their numbers in her vicinity, but she felt it likely that they would look atop the building she had selected sooner or later.

  It was close to midnight when, grunting from the climb, two men clambered up onto the top of the tenement Kate was stationed on. They were hunting by moonlight, their use of lights restricted by the men below, and Kate was hidden beneath a grey blanket which more or less matched the slates she was lying beside in the lee of a chimney stack. Neither saw her as they passed and, silently, she slipped out behind them, her sword already drawn and ready. Raising the weapon, she brought the pommel down on the back of the trailing man’s skull and the second turned at the sound of his colleague falling. His rifle began to rise as his eyes widened, and Kate stepped forward, running the blade through his chest. He looked at her, his hands going limp about the gun he was holding. The rifle clattered to the rooftop and then he joined it, unmoving.

  Then, wrapping the unconscious man in her camouflage blanket, she hoisted her prize onto her shoulders and started for Wapping.

  Wapping.

  The man woke up to find himself tied firmly to a bed frame. Beside him, Kate sat quietly, his knife in her hands. It was a long, broad-bladed hunting knife with a wickedly pointed tip and he had employed it several times in a manner designed to inflict pain upon his victim. He had never imagined that it might be used on him, but then he was dealing with a woman…

  ‘Might I know your name?’ Kate asked. She had been waiting the better part of forty minutes for him to awaken and now that he had, she wished to push things along as expediently as possible.

  ‘Leutnant Heinrich Dittmar,’ he replied. ‘That is all you will get from me.’ He had a German accent, but his English seemed good.

  ‘Leutnant? That’s like lieutenant?’ She got a nod. ‘I’ll remember. Leutnant Dittmar, my name is Kate and I am the girl you have been hunting for these past several days, as I am sure you are aware. I wish to know why I am being hunted and who it is who wishes me captured.’

  ‘I will tell you nothing.’

  ‘No, Leutnant, you are mistaken. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with pain. I spent the first five years of my life at the mercy of my father who utilised me as one would a laboratory rat. He taught me all about pain. I know that, eventually, you will do whatever I ask, because your entire life will turn about avoiding more pain. Even when you know that there is nothing you can do or say to stop it, still you try.’

  ‘You are a woman–’

  ‘Women go through childbirth, Leutnant Dittmar. We are more resolute in the face of pain than men. But beyond that, did they not tell you what I was? I am part animal. I am stronger and faster than you. I heal abnormally quickly. My father thought it wondrous and used his scalpels freely, knowing that I would heal no matter what.’ Reaching out with the knife, she hooked one of his shirt buttons, pinging it off his chest with ease. ‘It’s sharp. That’s good. The edge will cut and you will feel nothing for a second. Then there will be the sting, the sharp, biting knowledge that nerves have been severed that continues long after the wound begins closing.’ She snipped off another button. ‘Have you fathered children, Leutnant? I ask because if you hold out long enough, I will be forced to ensure that you never do.’

  ‘I will tell you–’ Kate let the point of the blade slide into the skin over his breastbone and then drew it down an inch or so before lifting it away again. His teeth gritted and his fists clenched. ‘If I tell you what you wish to know, my fate will be worse than death. There is nothing you can do which can compare to that.’

  Kate looked at him for a second. ‘Oh, then I shall let you go now. I do not wish to engage in this torture and if I can do nothing to persuade you, then I shall free you. Of course, I must blindfold you and deliver you to your comrades for I do not wish my location known. I am quite sure they will welcome your return.’

  ‘But if I return unharmed…’

  ‘I’ve seen them. The dead things. Do they have a name?’

  ‘We call them “necromenschen.”’

  ‘I assume one must be dead before the procedure can be carried out? Or can they do it to you while you are still live? I would assume that would be the more horrifying alternative.’

  He was silent for a few seconds, and she allowed the room to remain quiet, waiting for his response. ‘If I tell you, you will let me go. There is no prison which they cannot take me from. My only chance is to run and hope I am too much effort to chase down.’

  ‘You have my word, Leutnant.’

  ‘I do not know why they want you. I have orders. You are to be taken alive at all cost. His plans depend upon it and he will not allow anything to disrupt his plans. That is why he came personally to London. He would see you taken and shipped back with him. He cannot stand this island and would not set foot on it otherwise.’

  ‘He?’

  ‘You cannot guess?’

  ‘Leutnant, my grasp of politics is weak. I would not know the name of the King were it not etched into the coins and the name of our Prime Minister is a fact I have never considered worthy of attention.’

  ‘Von Auttenberg. Count von Auttenberg. He amasses knowledge and those who can use it. You must be needed for one of his experiments. Like the necromenschen, he experiments in other transformations, but they have always been failures. Some of the things he has had made… It is… abscheulichkeit.’

  ‘Thank you, Leutnant. One last question. That was not our deal and you may decide to say nothing. I will not hold that against you. Where is it that they go when the sun rises? They have an airship which is almost invisible in darkness, but it cannot remain airborne in daylight without being seen.’

  ‘They have taken a warehouse to the east of the docks, past the double bend in the river. If you go there you will be taken. They have many men, but there is also Nachtigall. She will see you if you go.’

  ‘Nachtigall?’

  ‘It is a bird which sings in the night.’

  ‘A nightingale?’

  ‘Yes. She is his second. It is said she makes the bullets sing from her rif
le.’

  The sniper on the blimp. ‘Thank you, Leutnant Dittmar.’ Kate reached out and cut the rope holding his right wrist before placing the knife on his stomach and retreating across the room. ‘I wish you luck in your escape. Might I suggest the far north? It is not difficult to become lost in Scotland.’

  He cut his other bonds and sat up. ‘You are not the animal we were told to hunt for, Fräulein. I wish you the same luck. I fear you will need it more than I. Von Auttenberg seeks you, but you are but one of his plans. The greater one is a weapon, a device so destructive that nations will cower in fear of his wrath. He seeks nothing less than the dominion of the Earth, Fräulein, and he will let nothing stand in his way.’

  Poplar.

  She had moved during the day. There were still policemen searching the streets, but they were easy to avoid and she moved east a few miles before finding the highest point she could, watching the skyline as the sun went down. There would be no chance of meeting a messenger at Aldgate tonight, but if she could identify their headquarters then she could go to Charles with the news and see what could be done.

  There was, of course, every chance that she would miss the thing climbing into the sky. If that happened she would just have to try searching every warehouse she could find until she located the one she wanted. That might take days and she hoped it would not come to that.

  The sun was well down when she saw it, a dark shape barely visible as a greater blackness in the night, but it was rising perhaps a mile to the east and a little south. As she watched, it started in her direction and she covered most of herself with her blanket and kept a track on it as best she could until it had gone over. They were continuing to look for her around the East End. She wondered how long they would continue to search if they failed to find her.

  The warehouse they had selected seemed perfect for the job. There were large doors leading onto what had to be a marshalling yard of some sort with a high wall around it. They would be able to pull the airship out and then take it up with minimal chance that it would be seen on the ground. Still, if they kept doing this they would eventually be seen. Of course, that assumed that anyone in the area would bother reporting a balloon being deployed in the dead of night.

  She climbed the wall of the building slowly, carefully, and quietly. The woman Dittmar had warned her of would likely be aboard the airship, but there would certainly be others inside. She found no doorway on the roof, but there was a vent which she prised the cover from and slipped inside. Someone had installed a chimney-like system for conducting air into the building. It was not an easy task to struggle through to a point where she could look down on the interior, but she managed it.

  There was a large, open space, presumably for the blimp, and a couple of vehicles. There was the suggestion, from their placement, of more, but those had presumably transported the search teams out into the city. A few guards sat around the room looking bored, but none looked up at the vent. Guns rested on tables around the room, large quantities of guns, some of which Kate had never seen the like of before. These were rifle-like weapons, but with quite wide barrels and unusual tubes and pipes set along them. A thicker pipe ran from the upper part of the stock to a backpack.

  Shuffling back from the vent, Kate lay down and closed her eyes. She would wait here until dawn and the return of the airship. She wanted to see the thing in daylight, and perhaps see the Nightingale in person.

  21st August.

  The sound of voices from below woke Kate and she shuffled forward to look down again. The huge doors at the front of the room were being opened. It was still dark outside, but the light from within was quite sufficient to reveal to her cat-like eyes the shadowy shape of the blimp, as men, or rather necromenschen, began dragging it inside. Clearly the dead men were stronger than normal, a point to make note of.

  The blimp itself was black and made of some form of canvas, but of a very tight weave. To Kate it looked as though the material had some odd optical property; the light seemed to fall into it, absorbed by it and vanished into nothing. She spotted a gondola beneath it with three guns mounted at the front but could make out little detail aside from that. She was beginning to consider the entire exercise a waste of time and discomfort when she saw the woman.

  This had to be Nachtigall; she was the only woman there and she was quite the beauty in a severe way. Not especially tall, she was above average for a female, and dressed in the same sort of uniform as the rest of the airship crew. Her walk, her hips, and the fairly expansive cleavage she displayed through her half-unbuttoned blouse gave away her femininity, but little else did. Her hips swung as she walked, but it was more of a swagger, and there was a cigarette between her lips which she took frequent drags on. Her hair was a short, blonde crop mostly hidden by the peaked cap she was wearing. Across her back was a rifle fitted with a large, telescopic sight and a heavy silencer. She looked annoyed and her shouted orders spoke of weariness and irritation even if Kate could not understand the words.

  Von Auttenberg’s people were starting to realise that they had missed their chance. They had certainly seen no sign of her in two nights and one of their own had gone missing, two if they had never found the body of the Leutnant’s companion. Their Colonel would be displeased. More men would be joining the ranks of the necromenschen, though Kate doubted Nachtigall would be among them.

  Kate pushed back from her vantage point and lay down. The search teams had been out all night and would need rest. They would likely retire soon and she would make her escape then. The urge to attack was strong, but it would be futile and she would be handing herself over to the people hunting her. So this was not the time to assault them; this was the time for stealth, and then the sharing of information. As soon as she could, she would go to see Charles.

  Richmond.

  ‘I confess that I am concerned,’ Charles said as he paced before Antonia’s drawing room fireplace. ‘We have had no word from her. Your young friend has tried to make contact for the last two nights and I am loath to endanger her further in that neighbourhood.’

  ‘Charles, Chastity is not an incapable woman and she is most determined to assist us in any way she can. I am also concerned, but we can continue to try. Would that we had anything of import to pass on when contact is made. Please sit down, you are making me dizzy.’

  Sweeping into a seat, but sitting on the very edge as though he might leap up again at any instant, Charles said, ‘My apologies, but my nerves are on edge. Longford persists in his accusations, and my work suffers. I was close to perfecting a new pharmaceutical based upon Kate’s blood, but my concentration is sorely disturbed.’

  ‘Another wondrous healing elixir, Charles?’

  ‘I believe I have isolated some of the chemicals released as her body heals itself. This process is far more complex than the chemistry of the purification process, but I have some indication that I can trigger accelerated healing in another using complex molecules which are natural to the body, but do not normally appear in such large amounts.’

  ‘That is most excellent news, Charles.’

  ‘Indeed, but I am interrupted every day by the Chief Inspector and his questions, often ones he has asked the day before. I believe his intent is to catch me in a lie, but since he never asks anything I must obfuscate the answer to, he has failed entirely in his plan. I admit that his confidence in Kate’s guilt appears a little shaken these past two days, and also that I came here in the hope that he will not attempt to confront us both at the same time.’

  ‘I believe that he will not. The last time we spoke I put doubt in his mind regarding the deaths of two of his officers. A man of such conviction as Chief Inspector Longford cannot afford doubts. Now, drink your tea and attempt to relax, if but for a moment. There is little in this world which cannot be countered by a firm resolve, a quick wit, and a good cup of tea.’

  Knightsbridge.

  Charles glanced at the tall, thin man standing across the street as he waited for Harroway to
open the door. Forgetting his keys on the way out had just put a cap on his annoyance at the entire situation. The policeman did not even try to appear unobtrusive, which was a further annoyance.

  ‘I neglected to pocket my key before leaving,’ Charles grumbled as the door opened.

  Harroway, as usual, acted as this were nothing of note. ‘Your mind is on more pressing matters, sir.’ He waited until Charles was inside and the door closed before adding. ‘You have a visitor, sir. I took the liberty of placing her in the laboratory once she was made presentable. Her attire is somewhat unconventional, but I believe her appearance will be most agreeable.’

  Charles frowned at the manservant as he handed over his coat, and then what he was not saying hit him. Not quite running, Charles bolted for the door to the laboratory.

  Kate was sitting on a stool, hands resting in her lap and knees together, as though she were at a dinner party in a fine gown. Charles’s eyes bulged a little at the display of skin he was faced with, but he got little chance to summon his wits as she threw herself across the room at him. ‘Sharles!’ Thankfully, as he somewhat delicately returned her hug, his hands found suede rather than flesh. He was having quite enough trouble with the fact that her barely restrained chest was pressing against his waistcoat.

  She seemed to recognise that she was embarrassing him a little, broke the hug, and stepped away, smiling. ‘You’ve not seen me in this before, have you?’

  ‘I have not. It is… most becoming if a little…’

  ‘Abbreviated? Tight?’

  ‘I believe both adjectives fit well, as do the clothes. My dear Kate, it fills my heart with joy to know that you are still well and free, but I suspect you have a motive other than reassurance for breaking your self-imposed exile.’

  ‘I have uncovered the man behind our recent misfortunes, Sharles. It is Count von Auttenberg. I am told he requires me for experiments of some sort. Sharles, they have an airship which has been made to vanish into the night sky. I am firmly of the belief that they took my father from Pentonville.’