The White City

by John Claude Bemis

  A hush settled over the galley. Marisol and Redfeather exchanged worried glances. The Pirate Queen held her cigar an inch from her lips, neither drawing on it nor lowering it, as she thought.

  “Buck’s already been exposed—” Big Jimmie began.

  “He’s too weak from the fever,” Si said. “I’ll go. Someone’s going to have to do it, and it might as well be me.”

  “No,” Conker growled.

  “Yes!” Si snapped. “You can’t get sick. We have to destroy the Machine somehow. It all depends on you, Conker.”

  “If I go in, I don’t reckon the Darkness will get me sick,” Conker said.

  The Pirate Queen swished her cigar back and forth. “Wishful thinking and fool’s hoping isn’t going to—”

  “I’m saying the Darkness won’t affect me,” Conker said.

  He was met with a series of frowns and confused mumbles. “Why would you think that?” the Pirate Queen asked.

  “When Stacker took my father’s hammer from me at the roots of the Wolf Tree, I was shot twice. Once in the side and once in the leg.”

  “I didn’t know you were shot,” Si said. “You never told me you were injured!”

  “Because I wasn’t injured.” Conker stood and pulled the tail of his shirt from his pants. “Not really. I didn’t want to say nothing.” He looked anxiously at Si. “Because of your hand and all. Didn’t seem right, you losing your tattoo and me healing so easily. But see …” He pulled up the shirt. The Pirate Queen and the others leaned forward over the table to look at Conker’s waist. His skin was smooth and unblemished, except for what could have been a pockmark.

  “It healed almost immediately,” Conker said. “The leg too.”

  “What?” Redfeather stammered. “What … how could that be?”

  Conker dropped his shirttail and sat again. “I slept almost a year in the waters of that siren well—”

  “But gunshots aren’t the Darkness,” Si argued.

  Conker gave a firm gaze. “One of Jolie’s sisters came to the well, just before I woke. She took water from the well to heal her sisters in the Terrebonne who had been sickened from the Darkness. The sirens believe their waters can protect against the Darkness. I reckon it to have done the same for me.”

  “But you don’t know!” Si snapped.

  “I know,” Conker said in a low voice. “I feel it in me, just as certain as I feel the power of the Nine Pound Hammer when I hold it. I’m going with you, Mister Lamprey. I’m getting back my father’s hammer. So enough arguing. Tell me more about the service entrance.”

  The wagon rattled over the paving stone thoroughfares of the silent fairgrounds. Big Jimmie drove the team of horses, with Mister Lamprey and Malley on the bench at his side. The wagon had tall sides, big enough to carry half a ton of garbage at a time. Conker huddled at the far corner of the wagon, steeling his senses against the stench as the pirates dumped great bins of half-eaten food, discarded brochures and leaflets, and other soggy, fly-ridden trash around Conker. Unfortunately, the Hall of Progress was at the end of their route.

  Jostling in the back in the dark, Conker heard Mister Lamprey’s voice whisper through the plank siding, “We’re almost there. Go ahead and get in the bin.”

  Conker stretched his cramped muscles before climbing over the garbage to the back of the wagon. Conker lifted the canvas flap and peered around. The fairgrounds were nearly empty. Another sanitation crew was driving their wagon in the opposite direction. Big Jimmie was leading them past the long fountain, the pearly white buildings all around, the golden statue of Big Mary perched at the far end of the fountain, gleaming in the moonlight.

  Conker climbed into the bin. It was little more than a large iron box on wheels hitched to the back of the wagon. He settled down, his weight silencing some of its noisy clanking as it rolled.

  After a few moments, the wagon slowed. Conker felt a descent as Big Jimmie led the horses down a ramp. “Little ugly, little ugly, and big ugly,” a voice called out, followed by the chuckles of two other men. Three agents at the exit, Conker noted.

  “Evening, fine sirs,” Mister Lamprey said. His boots clapped to the stones along with Malley’s. Conker heard the pitchforks scrape as they took them from the wagon’s side. “And a fine evening it is. The ever-present perfume of refuse wafting in the night breeze.”

  One of the agents gave a weak laugh. As the bin was unhitched and began rolling, Conker lay flat against the grimy metal floor. The Hall of Progress loomed above him, and then he passed through a doorway to a hallway illuminated with a dim electric bulb.

  “Good evening, sir,” Mister Lamprey called, as a way of telling Conker that only one guard was posted inside tonight.

  Lamprey had said there was usually a second one, but occasionally just the one. Before they left the Snapdragon, the pirates had offered Conker a ridiculous assortment of weapons, but Conker had passed on firearms. He had no experience shooting. Instead he settled on a blackjack and Jolie’s shell blade that he still carried.

  Conker checked the knife wedged into his belt with one hand and brought the heavy, leather-covered club up to his chest with the other as he prepared for his exit.

  The bin jostled abruptly, and Mister Lamprey gave a howl. “That’s it, you stupid mick. Third time you’ve run this bin into my heel.”

  “Then pull faster!” Malley snarled.

  “Boys!” the agent called.

  “Pull faster? Pull faster?” Mister Lamprey growled, his voice moving to the side of the bin. “I’ll pull your ears off faster than you can say John Brown!”

  “Let’s see you try.”

  “Cut it out, you two,” the agent barked, coming closer now. “Hey … hold on now.”

  There was a scuffle of feet and the slaps of fists on flesh. Bodies knocked into the side of the bin, and it tipped onto two wheels.

  “Enough!” the agent said, attempting to break up the fray. “Hey! Ow. Stop it.”

  The bin rocked again, and before it could settle, Conker threw his shoulder into the side to topple it over. The bin landed with a loud clank. Conker saw the agent’s back as he tried to pull the two fighting pirates apart. Then he spied the doorway, the one Lamprey had said led to a stairwell to the upper floors. Dashing for it, Conker pushed open the door and pulled it nearly closed.

  Putting an eye to the crack, he watched the agent pull Lamprey and Malley apart. “Quit acting like a pair of mongrels and get to work.”

  One of the guards from outside came to the exit. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” the agent said, putting his bowler hat back to his head and brushing the sleeves of his black suit. “Right, boys?”

  Lamprey and Malley exchanged venomous glances and then lifted the bin upright before picking up their pitchforks and going to the trash chute. Conker closed the door and started up the steps. As he reached the first landing, he heard footsteps above. Quietly scuttling back down, Conker looked for a hiding place. He spied the recess beneath the stairs and squeezed into the space.

  The footsteps descended. Conker saw the back of an agent. The black-suited man paused as he reached for the handle. Don’t look back, Conker willed. The leather handle of the blackjack creaked as he squeezed it. The agent opened the door and went out to join the others. “Look, it’s little ugly and little ugly.…”

  Exhaling sharply, Conker came out from the shadows and ran up the steps, stopping at the door on the next floor. He cast a quick glance down the stairs and then up to where the stairwell continued for many more flights. All was quiet and dark.

  He eased the door open and peered out. The main floor loomed in shadows, an enormous cavern filled with darkened displays and exhibits. From what Lamprey had said, the stairs should put him at the northeast corner of the Hall of Progress. The Nine Pound Hammer was at the center. Conker headed down the first aisle, crouching and then stopping every few yards to listen.

  Across the hall, faint voices sounded, their muffled words echoing softly i
n the expansive space. Other guards. As he continued, Conker hoped that they would never expect an actual intruder and would simply carry out their rounds with little attentiveness.

  Conker peered around at the tall exterior walls to get his bearings. He was nearing the center. He came around a huge contraption and spied a tower at the hall’s center. It was framed with metal girders and had wires, tubes, and cables running through it. A support structure for the ceiling, Conker thought. Buck had said there was a sort of mechanical lift called an elevator in the tower that led to the rooms above where he had been captive to Stacker Lee.

  The windows above were darkened. Conker wondered if the clockwork killer was up there now, watching the floor.

  Conker lowered his gaze to the base of the tower, where a tall, stage-like display was covered in velvet curtains. He moved into the aisle and slipped closer. A figure stood in his periphery. Conker whipped around with the blackjack.

  A brass man stared at him. Conker brought up the club but paused. The clockwork figure did not move. Blackened slits were cut through the metal where his eyes should be. A circular cone formed a mouth that appeared to be making a surprised O. Conker poked the clockwork man’s chest. The brass figure tipped back a fraction and then settled on its feet. Watching a moment longer, Conker decided the figure must have been shut off for the night.

  He passed several more of the coppery figures, each perched motionless with strange mannequin-like tilts of their metal arms and awkward cocks of their heads. Conker crouched low when he came to an intersection in the aisles.

  From his vantage, he spied it: the Nine Pound Hammer. It hung horizontally, fastened with clasps to a velvet-covered wall. Pasteboards of text spread below it, the words that Redfeather had repeated for them. Several feet in front, a low iron fence had been placed to cage out visitors.

  Conker looked around, listening to distant footsteps slowly tapping against the marble floor and the low voices of the agents talking as they made their rounds. He took a deep breath and then dashed for the iron fence.

  He was about to put one leg over when a voice said, “It’s not what it seems.”

  Conker swung around.

  Stacker Lee held his long pistol at hip level, trained on Conker. He said, “Didn’t that idiot Buckthorn tell you—”

  Conker lunged, his shoulder plowing into Stacker. The gun fired. A bullet lodged, hot and stinging, in Conker’s stomach. The two toppled, Conker coming down heavily on Stacker. The clockwork killer’s crisp Stetson fell from his head and slid on the smooth marble. Stacker grunted and struggled beneath Conker’s weight. Conker reared up with the blackjack, as Stacker jabbed the barrel against Conker’s temple.

  Conker rolled aside before the shot erupted. He grabbed the iron fence and hurled it around at Stacker. The railing knocked him backward into several of the clockwork men. Stacker disappeared under the falling figures.

  Conker dropped the blackjack. Voices shouted and feet echoed through the hall. Warm blood spilled down Conker’s leg. He turned to the display. The hammer—that was all that mattered.

  Bullets rang out around him. Gunfire filled the hall like cannon blasts. Conker rushed to the display, one hand grabbing the Nine Pound Hammer’s handle, the other bracing against the display’s wall. The velvet tattered in several places as bullets ripped into the curtains. Conker broke the Nine Pound Hammer free from its bracings with a heave.

  Something felt odd about the hammer, but he had no time to wonder as he wheeled around and saw a dozen agents coming at him. Stacker was climbing out from under the brass men and looking about for his pistol. The wound in Conker’s stomach seared, and he realized that although it might heal, he would never survive a shot to his chest or his head. The siren water could not protect him from that.

  “Stop!” agents cried. “Stay where you are. You’re surrounded.”

  Conker shoved the Nine Pound Hammer into his belt and leaped at the velvet display. The wooden structure fell backward, toppling against the steel girders of the tower. Conker grasped at the fabric, pulling as he climbed over the fallen display. A bullet grazed his ankle, and another caught him in the shoulder. But he kept climbing until he reached the tower’s spiderweb of girders.

  Reaching back, he snatched the velvet curtain and tore it from the display. He threw it over his head and shoulders and climbed, pulling and leaping as he grasped the girders. The curtain hung like a cape, and as the gunfire erupted, bullets swished through the curtain and sparked off the girders. Stacker began ascending after him, followed by several of the agents.

  At an opening in the framework, Conker crossed into the interior of the tower and grasped the dangling cable of the elevator. With a leap, he swung to the other side of the tower’s interior to put more of the structure between him and the agents’ gunfire.

  “Nowhere to go!” Stacker called.

  A groan emerged from above. The cables hanging through the middle of the tower began moving, one up, the other down. Below, a small structure began to rise through the tower’s center. The elevator.

  Conker climbed quickly, but the clockwork killer ascended even faster. Stacker Lee reached an arm through the girders, his long pistol aimed at Conker. Conker leaped before the gun fired, the velvet curtain falling from his shoulders. His fingers grasped at the cables, and he grunted as the friction burned his palms. He fell, only a few feet, before his boots thudded heavily on the top of the rising elevator. Conker steadied his stance and looked up. The shaft where the elevator reached the upper-level rooms was approaching fast. He’d be crushed by it.

  Splinters broke from the elevator’s roof as the agents within fired. Conker dove, missing the girder framework but catching a large tin pipe running up the interior of the tower. The pipe held firmly, but its sides crinkled as Conker squeezed tightly to it. He could hear a droning from inside.

  “You’re at the end, Conker!” Stacker called, climbing closer up the far side of the tower. “Can’t get into those rooms above. So it’s either climb down and hand over the hammer … or fall. That marble’s plenty hard down there.”

  Conker swung from the pipe to the girders. He looked up to where the elevator had disappeared into the uppermost level. Could he break through the floor above with the Nine Pound Hammer? Probably not before Stacker shot him dead. He looked down. It was a long drop. In the dimness, he could not gauge the distance, but he was certain it was too far. And even if he did manage it without breaking his legs or cracking his skull, he’d never get past the waiting agents.

  On the other side of the tower, Stacker watched him with sparkling eyes. “What’s it going to be?”

  Two other agents had nearly climbed up to Stacker’s position. Conker panted as his eyes darted around for some option.

  “Shoot him!” an agent roared from the floor.

  The two agents stopped their ascent and drew Colts from their belts. Conker climbed the last remaining feet, putting the wide tin pipe between him and the agents. Gunfire pinged and reverberated off the girders at his feet. Then one plunged into the pipe. An angry hiss formed at the hole.

  Conker’s eyes grew wide as he looked at the pipe. The vacuum tubes.

  “You’re cornered, Conker,” Stacker lilted.

  Conker pulled Jolie’s knife from his belt and plunged it into the side of the pipe. A howl of air erupted. Not blowing out, but sucking in. Conker dove at the hole. His shoulder broke through. The head of the hammer caught on the opening, and he kicked helplessly at the empty air. The darkness inside the tube howled with a great rush of wind, whipping his shirt and stinging his eyes. Bits of debris and garbage knocked against him.

  Conker roared and pulled until the hammer’s head at his belt broke through the tattered tin. There was a whoosh and he was sucked down the tunnel, garbage all around him. Battered and bashed about, Conker flew through the network which was twisting this way and that so he could hardly tell up from down.

  With a thud, he landed in a thin heap of refuse. The garbage
sucked down with him buried him. Conker stayed still a moment to regain his bearings. He heard Lamprey’s voice muffled through the trash, “That’s the last of it. Pitch it up, mick.”

  Before their pitchforks could spear him, Conker leaped up from the trash. Lamprey and Malley jumped back, and the agent’s eyes went wide. Conker drew the hammer from his belt. As the agent fumbled to grab his pistol, Lamprey stabbed his pitchfork down, pinning the agent’s foot to the floor. He howled, and Malley swung the handle of his pitchfork into the agent’s temple, knocking him out.

  “Let’s go!” Lamprey shouted.

  Another agent came through the doorway, firing his gun at Conker.

  Conker ducked behind the bin and shoved it toward the agent, plowing the man against the wall before he could take another shot. The third agent fumbled to draw his pistol as he came in. Before he had it leveled, Big Jimmie reared up behind him and brought a bludgeon against the back of the agent’s head. His bowler hat tipped forward over his eyes, and the agent flopped unconscious to the ground.

  Mister Lamprey wedged the handle of his pitchfork behind the wheels of the bin to trap the other agent and said, “On the horses.”

  Big Jimmie had already stealthily unhitched the horses from the wagon. Conker climbed on the back of the biggest of the beasts. Lamprey and Malley each leaped on a horse, and Big Jimmie cried “Hiya!” from his mount. The hooves of the animals clattered up the ramp and out into the moonlit thoroughfare of the Expo.

  Gunshots popped behind them as agents poured out from the Hall of Progress. But they were too far away, and without horses at the ready, the agents would never catch up. Lamprey led their horses on a winding path through the white buildings of the Expo grounds to throw the agents off their route.

  As they reached the waterfront, they slid from the horses and into the boat. Rowing out into the lapping waters, Lamprey looked at the empty shore and leaned back against the side of the boat. “Well, far from perfect, gentlemen. But we made it out in one piece, now, didn’t we?”