by Avell Kro
“This way, Watson!” Holmes cried out.
Watson cut across the back of the yard that Holmes had leaped into. Harry Houdini, Conan Doyle
and Professor Challenger were about ten yards behind him. They had joined the chase when they
saw the thief leap from the rooftop and land light as a feather.
A blaze of green and yellow energies cast across the street and burst into the sidewalk mere inches
from Holmes, who was already in the air and diving to his left.
Watson came to a halt to help his friend.
“No, Watson, keep after him!”
Watson gave Holmes a worried look, but continued.
Harry dropped back to help Holmes up, while Challenger and Conan caught up with Watson.
“What was that?” Harry asked.
Holmes looked at Harry. “Whatever it was; it wasn’t magic.”
“Least not any kind we’re accustomed to,” Harry shot back, his eyes fixed on the sidewalk that was
still burning only a few feet from them. The pavement was melting away, and a hole was being
eaten into the ground beneath.
Holmes moved to follow the others, then fell back, groaning with pain. He almost fel to the
ground, but Harry caught him.
“It seems the game is afoot without me, Harry, I have sprained my ankle.”
Harry watched Watson and his friends vanish as they took a hard turn down Turner Street and out
of view.
“The others will catch the blaggart,” Harry said.
Holmes eyed the burning hole. “God help us if they don’t!”
Chapter Three: The Bicyclist of Terror
Jamison Watterson was an elderly man who took his daily walk about the block of his home. He did
it every evening at exactly the same time. His life was like clockwork. You knew it was 8am
because that’s exactly when he came outside onto his front porch and watered his plants.
You knew it was Noon because he sat on his porch eating a sandwich, always made of pickles and
fish, with a dash of Worcester sauce and mayonnaise on it.
You knew it was eight pm and everyone’s time to get off from work because he would sit on his
front porch and eat a half loaf of bread with butter thickly spread upon it and fresh marmalade
heaped in glistening lumps on either end, which he would roll along the bread with his tongue to
spread and savor it better.
Eccentric, but kind and reliable in a tick tock sort of way.
Well, this evening was no different. It was two hours until bed time for him and most Londoners.
He had his small dog, Puddles, on a leash and was allowing it to sniff-sniff, dash here and there in
short bursts as he made his way along the street for one block in one direction, then onto the next
street for the same amount of distance, and then the same on the next, and back to home.
But this evening his agenda was severely disrupted when two constables, waving their nightsticks
and yelling angrily, chased one of the weirdest bicycles that Jamison had ever seen before. He
rightly guessed at that moment that probably no one else in this world had either. And he was
right.
The bicycle had a very, very small wheel in the back and a huge one in the front. But what made it
so different were not just the size of the wheels it was all the gears and nuts and bolts and devices
that were appended to the framework and the wheels of the device. And what was unmistakably
some kind of tubes on either side of the larger wheel, which resembled the Chinese rocket
launchers he had seen in the news.
And the man riding the bicycle was ten times as strange and though handsome, very, very peculiar.
He wore a hat shaped like a house with smoke coming from a chimney on it. He wore glasses that
were a deep shade of rose and had wiper blades that went back and forth on them. His hands were
covered with gloves made of some kind of copper that had numerous rectangles and triangle
shapes embedded in them.
His feet wore shoes that left a trail of fire behind him from their heels.
The bicycle made a humming sound and a kind of metallic sound like a train as its great gears
wound and meshed, emitting sparks and smoke all over the place.
The bicyclist slowed for a moment and an odd fellow carrying some kind of gun that was oddly
shaped, more like a fishing rod cut in two with multiple barrels and long sights that glowed at both
ends, ran from an alley and hopped onto the back seat of the bike.
Then this huge fellow came running into view wit blazing red hair and a long red beard that
appeared to have a life of its own as he ran after the two men racing off.
“Wait, fellow!” Challenger roared as he came out of the alley in a burst of speed, his long gun in his
right hand.
He was fol owed not even a second later by Conan, who also had a pistol in his hand.
The bicyclist put on a burst of speed to get away from the two men as they approached, only
several feet from the rear tire.
But the man on the back twisted around and sighted his odd weapon at Challenger. “I don’t want to
hurt you! Fall back!”
“You’ve already hurt me!” Huffed and puffed Challenger. “You’ve interrupted my chess game with
the good fellow behind me, who hasn’t had enough exercise and is gasping for air!”
“I am not!” Gasped Conan, and then stopped, bent over and began doing his best to breathe again.
“You are!”
“I may be gasping,” Challenger roared, but I am still quite capable of moving, Conan, my dear
fellow!”
Challenger kept after the bike.
The man in back fired his weapon.
But nothing happened.
The man fired again.
Still nothing happened.
Challenger got a big grin on his face and sighted his long gun on the man. “Stop or I will shoot! And
my gun has bullets in it!”
A garbage can lid flew from a nearby alley and struck the bike in its larger wheel’s spokes. The bike
let out a horrible sound like that of shattering glass and a wolf’s roar, then the whole thing fel over,
taking both men down to the pavement.
Challenger ran up and Watson ran up and leveled their guns at the two strange fellows on the
ground.
The man who had been fleeing them let go his weapon and sighed unhappily. “It wasn’t supposed
to end this way.”
Harry came into view from the alley, helping Holmes walk.
Conan glanced at Harry. “Nice shot, good fellow!”
Harry grinned. “I practice a lot.”
Chapter Four: Doors to Everywhere
Emily Stoppocket eyed the incredibly complex Door World machine and sighed. Her long blondish
hair spilled like a geyser, sprouting from her crown and bursting over the top of her head and
spilling in huge tumbles down her back, across her shoulders and over her ears.
If one didn’t look closely, they’d think she was just a lovely young woman and no more. But they’d
be wrong. Not only did she resemble someone we know quite wel , but she carried a pistol on each
hip that were holstered in gleaming leather holsters.
Instead of a dress she wore leather pants with a blade sheathed on each hip below the pistols. Her
shoes were boot like and covered with tiny metallic buttons. Her blouse was metallic looking, but a
rich shade of pink in contrast to the burnished iron of her leather pants. She wore a watch on her
left wrist that had several other devices built into its sides.<
br />
About her neck was an intricate device that glowed brighter when she neared the Door Worlds
machine and lost its glow when not. Her ears had earrings that were made of some kind of glowing
crystal of a bluish shade to match her eyes. Her lips were a stark blue as was her makeup.
But one thing you’d never make a mistake of, unless you were a total fool, she was no girly girl. She
could fight with the best of them and shoot better than the best. A woman to be reckoned with.
Sharp as a blade and clever to top that.
Almost Pixie looking she shook her head and looked to Magnum Boyd. “It’s incredible; but how in
God’s name do you know what to do with it?”
He smiled condescendingly. “Elementary, really.”
“Educate me,” she insisted.
He gave her a stern look, but upon the impish look on her face, relented. It was hard to resist any
insistence from this woman. She was smarter than ten of his best men put together and as sexy as
hel as far as women went these days.
Magnum was dressed similar to Emily, but instead of petite leather pants, he wore baggy ones with
clasps of leather at the cuffs and glistening silver stars that held them tight.
He wore a bronze colored shirt that was fluffy at the cuffs, with tiny glowing buttons holding the
shirt closed. When he walked the buttons winked on and off, like miniature light bulbs, which if
you got close enough to him, you would realize they were…miniature light bulbs. But of a different
nature. Shaped like tiny dragons.
But his shirt was also unique and like Emily’s had a mechanical gear like texture to it, though the
metal woven into it was lighter than hers and more flexible. But don’t let that look fool you, it could
withstand a direct stab from a sword’s tip without being pierced.
His shoes were leather as well and had pipes on their outer rim which protected the leather sides from wear and tear. The heels were buttressed by small machine like metallic emblems with
blazing light coming from small windows.
He never was in the dark, Emily mused again to herself as she smiled at Magnum.
His hands were immersed with rings. Every imaginable jewel was carved into the living metal of
the rings. Diamonds, garnets, sapphires, rubies.
He and Emily were both first class matter manipulators, as melders were known to the masses. It
took years of study, brilliant minds and an incredible enthusiasm for very, very boring details. They
were the ones who could merge machinery into common cloth, wood and metal, giving it the
steam punkish elements that all things of their world held.
But even though they were first class melders, they were also soldiers. Warriors of the World as
they were known. They helped keep the world safe from interlopers and cross world jumpers.
Sometimes they even adventured to other worlds in search of criminals. Or those who refused to
obey the law of the One: Thou shalt not interfere in the World of another.
Without her and her types the steam punk world they lived in would be merely another copy of
the Victorian worlds still immersed in the horse and buggy eras, with no reasonable means to fly
without a machine, or submerge beneath the water without an underwater craft and no way for a
man or woman to take flight without a machine to the stars.
Though flight was possible without the intricate machinery that made up their personal lives,
most citizens preferred not being stuck with having to use the more bulky and sometimes unsafe
vehicles that traversed time, space and water.
Speaking of which, one of their many trips to that alternate earth that had conventions in honor of
steam punk inventions and people still fascinated them to no end. Personally, they found it cute,
but overall wondered if they were so bored with their own world that they resorted to fantasizing
about other worlds to get by in their day to day life.
But more likely he thought, as he appraised his beautiful friend and fellow soldier once more.
More likely they were just tired of a world filled with people who lived only to consume and
control the lives of others.
Emily smiled. She had triggered him once more. His eyes were easy to read. The set of his feet, his
stance, always gave him away.
She was quite good at what she did. And he didn’t realize, and she prayed he never would, that
manipulating matter also included working with thoughts and habits. Were she a rogue she could
easily have manipulated him into securing treasure for her, like the Matter Pirates did, with their
steam and electric powered balloons and aerial contraptions.
She cleared her throat. Back to business.
Magnus snapped alert again. “Sorry, my mind must have wandered off again. Too long hours I’m
afraid.”
“What about those two rogues, the pirates that managed to steal in here and transport to that
alternate universe you recently visited?”
He nodded. “You mean the one dominated by that brilliant detective you admire so much?”
She didn’t respond. Matters of the heart were not open territory to others to explore; neither in
her or others for that matter. She did stop at some things. She would never manipulate a man’s
heart; and she would wish the same of men towards her.
Magnus, while a bit stuffy at times, would never demean or belittle her…in public or private. He was
too good a man for that. And he knew her as well as her him by now. She smiled. In some ways he
reminded her of her father and his ability to hone in on the most complex of problems and refine
the problem and section it off until each detail unveiled revealed a complete and perfect picture.
Deductions became clarity.
She chose to ignore the slight tease that Magnus had just given her about the heroic man she had
seen from a distance. It was forbidden love, she knew that. But still, one could dream.
“They were not caught by us.”
“Your tone implies that they were caught, however.”
“They were!
She leaned towards him, once again stirring his hormones in a deliciously tempting way that he
could never win his way to resolving on a personal, let alone intel ectual level. He could never
explain his feelings to her, because he couldn’t even explain them to himself.
“Here’s what we must do!” She told him.
Her words startled him and neither he nor she noticed that the World Doors machine was very
quietly building up a head of steam.
Chapter Five: Scotland Yard
Cyrus McCormack the Third grinned like an idiot as the Inspector grilled him, but never said a
word. And that was killing Inspector Bloodstone, who was used to idiocy, but not to being ignored.
“No one fires a dangerous weapon in my city,” the Inspector roared. “Nor do they ignore the laws of
decency and safety.”
Cyrus finally responded. “This is not my city.”
The Inspector was about to throw something at the man’s smug face, when Constable Evan,
standing in the doorway to prevent the man from escaping shook his head.
The Inspector sighed, rubbed his forehead and said, “I don’t know where you come from, but
where I come from people have respect for the law.”
“If they did,” Cyrus finally spoke up, his grin wider than ever, “…Then why would you even exist?”
The Inspector jumped up and pointed at the door.
“Co
nstable, throw this man’s ass into the darkest, most disgusting cel we have!”
Constable Evans moved to take the man away, and then stopped at the sound of voices behind him.
Holmes and Watson came into the Inspector’s office, followed by Challenger, Conan and Harry.
“Good morning, Inspector,” Holmes greeted warmly, then promptly sat down and crossed his right
leg over the left, and then his hands over his right knee and waited.
A moment later Edison and Tesla also walked into the office, which by now was getting pretty
crowded. Tesla had the weapon in his hands that Cyrus had been firing at Holmes and his friends.
“This thing is remarkable!” Tesla said in an offhanded greeting to the Inspector.
Cyrus saw where Tesla was about to press and jumped up, “Don’t touch that…”
But Tesla had.
A blast of energy seared the air, narrowly missing Inspector Bloodstone and blasting a hole very
near the head of Cyrus, who made a very, very loud sigh of relief and collapsed back into his chair.
“…Button,” Cyrus finished, shaking his head in dismay.
The Inspector, feeling overly crowded and just a short distance from exploding at this sudden
interruption, pointed to the doorway. “Conference room. Now!”
Chapter Six: Conference Room
Cyrus sat at the far back, handcuffed, watching sullenly as the man on the cycle was brought into
the room. The man, very tall, and extremely solemn looking with long sideburns, a mustache too
thick for his lips and huge luminous eyes glanced at Cyrus, nodded, and then was sat down at the
large table between Holmes and Conan, who was taking notes on a small notepad.
“Byron,” Cyrus greeted. “Did they treat you well?”
Byron grinned. “If you don’t mind a cute little furry thing crawling up into bed with you.”
Cyrus laughed.
Watson sat near the door, his eyes closed, napping.
Harry was absent mindedly shuffling a deck of cards and doing small tricks with them, his mind
elsewhere.
Challenger had his long gun out on the table and was cleaning it, his eyes locked onto the face of
Cyrus, a suspicious look in his eyes and a stone face, which is very rare for a man who tends to be
loud, boisterous and playful to the extreme.
