The Hunchback Assignments

by Arthur Slade

Octavia patted his shoulder and motioned for him to move forward. Modo crept a few feet along and checked both ways at the opening. Gaslights dangled from lines on the ceiling. The crossing tunnel seemed new. It stretched to his right for a hundred yards. In the opposite direction the tunnel ended at a set of large loading doors. On the other side of the doors a foghorn echoed.

  “It must open onto the Thames,” he said. “Come on.” They stepped out into the tunnel, keeping to the shadows, moving toward the loading doors. There was a small door off to one side. Modo bent to it and listened. Seagulls. He opened the door an inch.

  Fuhr stood only a few feet away, exhaling cigar smoke. Modo glimpsed the wrought iron arches of Blackfriars Bridge. They had traveled further underground than he’d imagined. He backed away, pulled the door closed and put a gloved finger to his lips.

  Once they had snuck back past where they had come in, Modo whispered, “Fuhr was there.”

  “Ah, wonderful,” she said sarcastically. “What are they up to?”

  The possibilities were endless. At the very least they must be creating something destructive. What would they make under the city, hidden from the eyes of the police and Parliament? “A giant gun?” Modo finally said.

  “But surely those can be manufactured somewhere else?”

  Modo glanced back to be sure the door hadn’t opened. At least he’d hear Fuhr coming, hissing and spraying like a teakettle. A clanging of hammers was building at the far end of the tunnel.

  “At least we know what they’re doing with the children,” he said. “Slave labor. Now, what is it they’re being made to build?”

  “And how will we stop it?” Octavia added, searching the eyeholes of his mask.

  Modo allowed himself the luxury of studying her eyes. Even in the dull light they sparkled. He gave his head a shake and said, “I guess that means we’ll have to see where this track takes us.”

  28

  Into the Chamber

  In the end, it was Modo who came up with the most useful idea. They couldn’t just saunter down the tunnel; it was lit too well. So, hanging upside down, clinging with his hands and knees to the beams, Modo crawled along the ceiling, high enough that the gaslights couldn’t illuminate him. It took all his skill and remaining strength to inch along. The mask had slipped so that one eye was pinched closed. There was no place to rest, and he couldn’t look back to where Octavia waited for his hand signal to follow him.

  The tunnel curved. Modo lowered his hand near a gaslight and waved, hoping she would see that it was safe to come this far, at least. He rounded the corner and the light was brighter.

  Looking at everything upside down made his eyes sore. The tunnel opened into a huge cavern carved out of the earth and rock under London. Here and there forges burned as smithies hammered on metal, steam rising from their cooling troughs. Near one fire a long line of children stood next to rows of metal boxes. Along the far side, at the end of the track, was a passenger car.

  Modo motioned again to Octavia. A minute later she was at the edge of the cavern, crouched behind an empty trolley.

  “Are you up there, Modo? I can’t see you,” she whispered.

  “I’m here.”

  “Can you see what’s going on?”

  “They’re making the children lie down in metal beds.” It didn’t make any sense to Modo. “A hundred or more children. And they seem to be clamping them in somehow. And running wires here and there.”

  A flash of red hair. Even at this distance he felt a chill. “That woman, with the red hair, that’s Hakkandottir.”

  “She’s very pretty,” Octavia whispered.

  “Her heart isn’t.” Modo was shaking, having held himself aloft for so long. He heard a hiss, but he couldn’t see or tell which direction it came from.

  A second figure was clear in the distance. A man with white hair, wearing a white apron. It must have been Dr. Hyde. He was making the children drink from a flask, one by one. Modo could only see part of the structure that they were being attached to.

  There was another loud hiss and Octavia let out a surprised cry. Modo twisted around to see Fuhr holding her by her hair. Two more men, nearly as large as Fuhr, joined him. A hound snapped at Octavia until Fuhr bellowed, “Stop!” The dog immediately obeyed.

  Why didn’t it bark? Modo wondered. Then it came to him. The doctor must have removed its vocal cords. They weren’t guard dogs, they were killers.

  Octavia kicked Fuhr’s leg. It clanged, she grunted. “A sneaky little rat,” he chided. “What are you doing here, missy?”

  “Looking for roasted nuts,” she said.

  Modo inched across the beam, hoping to drop down and save her. He would at least have the element of surprise on his side.

  “All by yourself, are you?” Fuhr growled suspiciously.

  “Yes. Just lost.”

  “People don’t come this far down these tunnels without a purpose.”

  Modo would have to shinny closer and time his drop perfectly. But before he could move, Octavia shot him a look, which he assumed meant Stay where you are.

  “What you looking at?” Fuhr grumbled. Modo hugged the beam and held his breath as Fuhr’s eyes passed by him. Then Octavia was yanked into the cavern, along the tracks toward the passenger car.

  Modo cursed. If only he’d acted, he could have beaten them!

  But he had to admit the truth: Fuhr was more than he could handle. Add a dog and two henchmen and it would have been impossible.

  Octavia was gone. How on earth to rescue her? He stayed still for a full minute, trying to figure out his course of action. If he retreated, there was no guarantee that he could find Mr. Socrates. Even if he could find him, would Mr. Socrates deem a rescue necessary? Of course he would. It was Octavia.

  Modo decided to forge on, crawling upside down along the crossbeam to the edge of the tunnel.

  A dog was guarding the entrance. Its ears flicked. Modo stayed perfectly still as, hackles raised, it sniffed in a circle right below him. It settled a few feet away and Modo eventually felt safe enough to move. When he couldn’t go any further without dropping, he stopped.

  Scaffolding was rigged along the high walls. Hammers banged on metal, their echoes filling the cavern. He spied a spot where he could leap across and land on a darkened platform. He’d be hidden by the height of the platform and shadows and could glean a better view.

  But the distance meant he had to leap. If anyone happened to be looking that way, or the dog heard him, he’d be doomed.

  Arms, he thought, be strong! He lowered his legs and swung himself back and forth a couple of times, letting go at the end of his arc. He hit a rock wall, but kept his balance when he landed on the platform. He thanked Tharpa, silently, for all the training.

  He got his first right-side-up look at the chamber. Gaslights were strung both across the ceiling and closer to the ground, illuminating the metalwork. How many children were lying down in perfectly fitted frames, one next to the other? Several tall men were with the doctor, moving from child to child. They leaned over and attached each child to his or her compartment with large iron wrenches. The bolts in their shoulders held the children in position. The structure had a few higher extensions, and large rectangular extensions that looked like small towers.

  The whole chamber was warm and moist, as though they were inside the belly of a whale. Modo looked at the lit windows of the passenger railcar. If Octavia was anywhere, she was there.

  No time like the present. Modo dropped down onto the ground.

  Good! No one had seen him.

  He caught a flash of movement and turned. A hound leapt at him out of the shadows, jaws open.

  29

  The Crick Crack Is the Best Way

  “Are you alone?” The red-haired woman stood inside the passenger car, holding a glass of wine in her metal hand. Octavia tried to give her a nasty look, but it was made difficult by the way the man holding her had twisted her neck. She yanked her arm, testing his grip. Not
much chance of breaking free.

  “I’m not alone,” Octavia said. “A whole regiment of marines is coming.”

  “Ah, you are young and full of spite. I remember those days.” There wasn’t so much as a glimmer of kindness in her eyes, only determination. What had Modo said her name was? Hack. No, something Nordic so it ended with dottir. Hakkandottir. The woman went on: “A pity we don’t have time for conversation. Who sent you here?”

  “Queen Victoria,” Octavia answered. “Got a messenger pigeon from her this morning.”

  Hakkandottir took another sip of wine, then squeezed the glass till it shattered. “Alan sent you, correct?”

  “Alan?”

  At that, Hakkandottir laughed. “Forgive me, you don’t know that Mr. Socrates’ first name is Alan. The old spider is still hard to kill.”

  Octavia remained expressionless. Did that mean Mr. Socrates had survived the attack in the house?

  “He’s desperate, sending a child to spy on us. His Association falters.”

  The door opened and Fuhr stepped in, joints hissing. A man with short gray hair and glasses entered with him. His withered right arm was encased in a series of metal rings that supported it. His tiny hand was enhanced by several large metal fingers, so it looked as though he were wearing an iron glove. The contraption hissed steam as he pointed at her. “She belongs to Socrates,” he said. “Her name is Octavia Milkweed. She’s a very low cog in his network.”

  “Thank you for your unsolicited opinion,” Hakkandottir said.

  Octavia never forgot a face, and she had seen this one with Mr. Socrates several months ago. He was a member of the Permanent Association, but at that time his withered arm had no fancy attachments. “Gibbons,” she said, for she rarely forgot a name, either. “Named after the ape, I assume. Is your new hand especially designed to stab people in the back?”

  “You witch!” he spat.

  Hakkandottir smiled. “She is a clever little serpent, but ignore her. We have more pressing concerns. Do you have news, Fuhr?”

  “Construction is complete. I must take the helm.”

  “Then do so. When our work is finished, you will dump the instrument in the Thames. We do not want them to have our wondrous creation, is that understood?”

  Fuhr nodded and said, “Understood perfectly, but understand this: Don’t be late collecting me. I’m not much of a swimmer anymore.”

  “I’ll be punctual, I promise. I’ll summon the Vesuvius now to ensure my arrival. Gibbons, go to the observational platform. You won’t want to miss the show.”

  When the two men had left, Hakkandottir went to a table in the corner. On it was a collection of peculiar objects: pieces of clockwork, a phonograph, darkened goggles, a telegraph machine. With her metal fingers, she tapped out a message on the telegraph. Octavia assumed it was wireless. She knew Mr. Socrates owned a similar device.

  “Would you care to let me in on your plans?” she asked, trying to shake the henchman off again.

  “We are about to strike a blow that will bring Britannia to her knees.”

  “How exciting.”

  “You mock me, child. Our interview is done.” Hakkandottir clicked her fingers together while saying to her accomplice, “Kill her. Don’t leave a mess.” She met Octavia’s eyes as she slipped on a long overcoat and left.

  The man tightened his grip on Octavia’s arms.

  “You don’t really want to murder me,” she said.

  The man jerked her forward a few steps. “I’m sorry, miss.” His breath smelled like rotten sardines. “Orders is orders. Any other day I’d just give you a ’ow do ya do.”

  “Let’s pretend today is one of those days.”

  He chuckled gruffly. “It don’t work that way, miss. Now, I’m not one of them brutal types; I’m not wantin’ you to feel the pain. You got any partic’lar way you prefer? Smotherin’ leaves a lovely corpse. Or ’ow about a quick crick of the neck?”

  “How about old age?”

  He laughed again. “You’re a brave one, and I admire that, miss, but I think the crick crack is best for both of us.”

  She tried to elbow him in the stomach, but he squeezed her arms even tighter. “Now, now.” When he released one arm to get a better hold on her shoulders, she slumped down. She pretended to weep, hoping for an ounce of pity in his heart. It only encouraged him to hurry.

  “I’ll be quick, miss, I promise.” He moved his hand to her neck. “Me father taught me this. On chickens, of course—’e weren’t no murderous sort—but the principle’s the same.” He now had a tight arm hold on her head, but her left hand was free. She snaked it into the opening in her dress, feeling about for the stiletto. Finding the handle she pulled it out and made to stab him in the leg, but he caught her hand and twisted it so hard, she let out a cry. The stiletto clattered to the floor. “You’re quick! Can’t blame you for trying.”

  Something boomed outside like a shell exploding, rattling the windows of the train car.

  “I’d better put the speed on or I’ll miss the show. They promised it’d be a big one,” the man said. Octavia pulled and kicked and tried to bite him. “Best if you don’t fight. It’ll all be over in—”

  The door banged open, striking the wall. Fuhr, sweaty and pale, stumbled in. He was disheveled, his clothes covered with a cloak, and had lost half his hair. He jerked his head, but his gaze didn’t focus on anything. In fact, to Octavia, he looked blind. Then his eyes seemed to focus and he fell to his knees. “Trouble,” he moaned, “trouble out there.”

  “Wot is it, sir?”

  “The gas. Exploded. The experiment. Failed.” He put his hands on the desk and crawled to his feet, his sides heaving. Blotches scarred his face, as though he’d been splashed by acid. He stumbled closer to them, gloved hands squeezed into fists. She heard a smack and a groan. Her captor fell back.

  “Wot’s that for, sir?” he cried, dropping Octavia. When she tried to get up, he kicked her in the stomach. She curled into a ball and looked up to see Fuhr knocking the man’s head back. He smacked him a third time, straight on the jaw. The man fell, cracking his head on the desk on the way down to the floor, where he lay in a heap.

  Octavia got to her knees, holding her stomach. Fuhr’s face seemed to be bubbling. He lurched forward as though he was about to fall on her. Where, where was the stiletto? There!

  “Stay back!” she hissed as she snatched it from the floor and pointed it at him.

  He blinked and staggered, found his balance. “Octavia,” he said in a familiar voice, “it’s me. Modo. I … I’m here to save you.”

  30

  The Wicker Man

  “Modo?”

  To his relief, Octavia’s look of horror turned to one of stark confusion. “But your face! You looked just like Fuhr.”

  He turned away, fumbled for his mask, and shoved it back into place, quickly tightening the ties. “A mere trick: a sleight of face, instead of hand.”

  “It was more than that.”

  He rubbed the sideburns from his face and showed them to her. “Dog hair. From a hound. I fought one of those beasts off just now. It nearly devoured my arm.” He displayed his torn sleeve, stained with patches of his blood. “I shoved a steel bar in its mouth.”

  She was still gazing doubtfully at him when another loud bang shook the train car, followed by an engine coming to life. “Later you’ll have to explain that little face trick,” she said, a hard edge to her voice. “You’re keeping a secret from me. But we’d better see what’s happening out there.”

  Modo pushed the door open a few inches. They could see men backing away from something that moved noisily inside the swirling smoke and steam. Hakkandottir, Hyde, and another man observed from a scaffold ten feet above the action. The second man turned.

  “That’s Mr. Gibbons!”

  “Yes. And he has a brand-new mechanized arm.”

  “So he betrayed Mr. Socrates.” Modo clenched his fists.

  “There’s not much we can do
about that right now. What are they waiting for?”

  At that moment, Fuhr rose up out of the great cloud of steam, standing on a footplate, harnessed upright to a protective steel shield that curved around his back. He puffed on a cigar and manipulated a number of large levers. Two metal arms with pincers for fingers swung into the air, grabbed onto the edge of the cavern, and pulled the rest of the machine higher. Each arm was constructed of rectangular metal boxes, and inside each box a child was bolted. The machine swayed from side to side, metal screeching as it rose, revealing more of its torso, and then Fuhr pulled back on the levers. A giant foot pressed onto the rocky floor and the machine stood at its full height.

  Modo gaped at the sickening sight. It was fully fifty feet high and looked like the skeleton of a human body, with Fuhr at the head. There were even glowing filaments running like veins through the appendages and rib cage and up the spine of the structure. The shoulder bolts held the children tightly in their metal frames.

  Each time Fuhr jerked on a lever, the children crouched, then pushed and straightened their backs as one, and made the giant move. At least a hundred children powered the machine. It boggled Modo to think they could be strong enough, even in their altered forms, to move all that iron. He couldn’t see any sign of another engine, though.

  “Is Oppie trapped in there?” Modo couldn’t even begin to comprehend the boy’s terror.

  “I imagine so. Along with Ester. It’s the most wretched thing I’ve ever seen,” Octavia said.

  Fuhr made the arms swing up and down. Two metal claws—the hands—opened and closed. The giant lumbered forward.

  “It’s a wicker man,” Modo exclaimed.

  “What?”

  “I saw an illustration—a giant wicker man that the Gauls would use as a cage for human sacrifices. They’d burn the people inside.” He stared at the machine. “That schematic I stole from the Balcombe house! We thought it was a suit of armor. We just didn’t have the right dimensions.”

  Workers were shining lights on the machine, revealing a larger square at the heart of it. The groaning figure inside the square was not a child, but a young man.