The Doomsday Vault

by Steven Harper

  “I do read. Let’s go.”

  They followed the tunnel cautiously, weapons drawn. Alice’s world narrowed to quiet footsteps, dripping water, and the scrabbling of rat claws behind Gavin’s strip of light. Gavin halted, and Alice nearly ran into him.

  “What is it?” she whispered.

  “That.” He pointed the light at the floor. A wire glimmered at ankle level above the bricks. Alice took the torch from Gavin and followed the wire along its length. It led to an enormous round weight suspended on a heavy pole at the opposite side of the tunnel. Tripping the wire would cause it to swing across the tunnel and crush whoever might be standing there.

  “It’s almost halfhearted,” Alice said critically. “It wouldn’t fool a child.”

  “Maybe it’s a distraction from the real trap,” Gavin offered. “Simon and I once went after a clockworker in Germany who cooked up—I swear I’m not making this up—a variation of Limburger cheese that exuded deadly gas. Except it turned out the Limburger was to cover up what he was really making.”

  “What was that?”

  “Exploding crackers.”

  She smacked him on the shoulder. “You did make that up.”

  “Ask Simon! Anyway, maybe something else is going on.”

  They searched for several minutes but turned up nothing. Alice grew cold, and her earlier excitement deflated entirely now that she was on her hands and knees in a chilly, damp tunnel inhabited by rats.

  “If there’s nothing, there’s nothing,” Alice said at last. “Let’s keep going.”

  Alice had to admit to a certain amount of trepidation as they both stepped over the trip wire. Still, nothing happened. They continued on their way and rounded a corner. The tunnel went on a little farther and ended in a simple door limned with light. They each pressed an ear to the wood. Nothing. Gavin set his shoulder against it and mouthed, Ready? Alice drew the net rifle and nodded.

  The door yanked itself open, and Gavin stumbled with a yelp into the space beyond. Painful light blinded Alice, and she fired the net rifle. It jerked in her hands with a muffled phoot. Gavin yelled again, and she heard a scuffling noise. Alice’s eyes adjusted and she could see. The space was a large underground laboratory filled with esoteric equipment. Lying on the floor in front of her wrapped in a net was Gavin. Standing over him was the strange clockworker in the long coat, top hat, and grinning skull half mask.

  “Halt, Edwina!” Alice fired the net rifle again. A pellet the size of a rugby ball burst from the business end and rushed toward the clockworker, but she twisted out of the way. The pellet exploded into a full-sized net that wrapped itself around a support pillar. The clockworker thrust a hand into one pocket.

  “Don’t move!” Alice barked. “I will fire, Edwina. You know I will.”

  The clockworker froze.

  “I could use some help down here,” Gavin said from inside the net.

  Alice didn’t move. “I want answers, Edwina. You’re not getting away, and you’re going to tell me why. Why would you send plague zombies to attack your own niece? Why would you leave me a house filled with death traps? And why didn’t you help me when I really needed you?”

  Aunt Edwina just stared at her, the skull mask hiding all expression. Gavin was trying to untangle himself from the net without much success. Words poured out of Alice in a geyser of acid.

  “Did you think that sending me a bunch of stupid automatons would make up for leaving me alone to take care of a sick old man all my life? You could have slipped me money, or visited in secret, but you didn’t. Was I that horrible? Was I that ugly and stupid? How terrible I must have been for you to abandon me when I needed you the most, and only your ticking clockwork automatons to comfort me.”

  “I’m sorry, darling,” Edwina said. “Truly I am. And I’m afraid it’ll get worse before it gets better.”

  Alice froze. The voice. The tone. It couldn’t be. “Louisa?”

  “Please, darling. Call me Aunt Edwina.” The clockworker swept off the mask and hat to reveal the face of Louisa Creek.

  Alice was struck speechless. All she could do was stare while Gavin continued to struggle within the net on the floor.

  Louisa—Edwina—clapped her hands in glee. “I know I’ve put you through a lot, darling, but look at you now! You’re wearing trousers! A true Ad Hoc lady. And you’ve trussed up that delicious young musician for yourself. How can the night get any better?”

  “What the bloody fucking hell is going on?” Alice shrieked.

  The room went silent. Gavin stopped moving within the net. Even Louisa/Aunt Edwina seemed at a loss for words.

  “Well?” Alice asked dangerously. “I want an explanation, Louisa or Aunt Edwina or whoever you are, and it had better not involve transplanting a human brain.”

  “Of course, darling,” she agreed. “But why don’t we help your young man out of that net first? Unless you want to leave him all tied up and helpless.”

  “He’s not my—oh, never mind. Just stand over there and don’t move.”

  She looked hurt. “You don’t trust me.”

  “Should I?” Alice knelt down. “Hold still, Gavin. Squirming only makes it worse.” She twitched him free, and he rolled away. He’d lost his hat and torch, but his pistol was in his hand.

  Edwina wrung her hands. “Don’t be too put out, darling. I put the kettle on the moment you entered the park and sent my helpers up to ensure you came down here instead of haring off to the Third Ward. I have eyes all over, you know.”

  “You know about the Ward,” Gavin said.

  “Obviously. Oh, Alice, may I give you a kiss? It’s been so long. Well, it hasn’t really, but you thought I was Louisa Creek.”

  “Don’t come close,” Gavin warned. He still had the pistol trained on her, and in his other hand he held a syringe. He flicked the cork away with his thumb.

  “I’m confused.” The angry geyser had ended, leaving Alice feeling empty and uncertain. “I don’t know who’s who or what’s what.”

  “You already figured out that I’m your aunt Edwina,” the woman said. “I adopted the guise of a wealthy Ad Hoc lady and arranged for your invitation to the Greenfellow ball so I could become your friend. I had no idea that idiot Norbert Williamson would make a serious run for you. He set me back months.”

  “Father and Norbert arranged for that invitation,” Alice said weakly.

  “No, darling. The old dear was a stiff-necked traditionalist to the end, wasn’t he? His business contacts were long dried up, and your former fiancé is a perfect liar. I arranged for the invitation. I was sure you wouldn’t recognize me. It’s been almost fourteen years, and Louisa wears padded dresses, a wig, and an excess of cosmetics.”

  “But why?” Alice cried again.

  “Could we discuss this sitting down?” Edwina asked. “I have tea. You can still shoot me whenever you like, Mr. Ennock.”

  Gavin thought about it, then gestured with the pistol. Only now did Alice notice how tight his face was, how stiff his movements. He was angry, too. But of course—Aunt Edwina was the Red Velvet Lady who had drugged him, tested him, and locked him in a lonely tower. Seeing Gavin in distress brought her a twist of pain, and Alice wanted to comfort him, to put her arms around his shoulders, but this wasn’t a good time.

  Edwina led them around the edge of the laboratory. It was equipped with glassware and the newfangled Bunsen burners. Three microscopes stood on a table surrounded by notes and glass-topped dishes. The strange musical instrument she had used to control the plague zombies hung on one wall.

  “None of this is about automatics,” Alice observed.

  “No,” Edwina said. “I’ve moved on to other fields. Come, sit.”

  A long laboratory table held tea things, including a tray of cakes. Aunt Edwina poured tea into three cups, then took hers and a cake to the far end of the table, where she sat down, still wearing her long brown coat. Alice sat opposite her. Gavin, in an understandable display of bad manners, half sat on th
e table itself, his pistol trained in Edwina’s direction. Neither he nor Alice touched the tea or cakes, though Alice was glad of the chance to sit down.

  “Much better.” Edwina sipped her tea, and Alice saw her friend Louisa in her movements. Strange grief touched Alice’s heart. In a way, Louisa had died. “All right. You know I suffer from the clockwork plague.”

  “You’re a clockworker,” Gavin said flatly.

  “I don’t care for that word, or for the term zombie,” Edwina said. “These people are infected with a deadly disease, and they deserve compassion, not fear or scorn.”

  “How did you survive it for so long?” Gavin asked.

  “Through a great deal of research and hard work, Mr. Ennock. You might say the clockwork plague has allowed me to survive the clockwork plague.”

  Alice stiffened. “Your work with zombies. All this medical equipment. You’re working on a cure.”

  “More than that, darling. I’ve found one.”

  The words hung in the air for a long moment. Finally, Edwina took a bite of cake and washed it down with tea. The gesture seemed so prosaic. After a pronouncement like that, the earth should move or thunder should roll. Instead, there was only the click of china. Finally, the last bits of strength drained out of Alice, and she slumped again. “I think you need to start at the beginning, Aunt Edwina.”

  “Which one, darling? Genesis has two accounts of the creation, which—”

  “Not that beginning,” Alice interrupted. “Are you . . . ?” She trailed off.

  “Mad?” Edwina flicked a crumb away. “Of course, though some days are worse than others. That was a small joke to break the tension.”

  “We like tension,” Gavin said in a flat voice. “Just explain.”

  “No one appreciates me,” Edwina complained. “All right. Eight or nine years ago, not long after your dear mother died, Alice, I came to myself in the middle of my own house. The place was a wreck. Clockwork devices were everywhere, including a new valet who told me his name was Kemp. I had built them all in a mad fugue. I realized the disease that plagues our family had turned me into a rare genius, and I was enjoying a rare moment of lucidity after a prolonged period of madness. I managed to turn my newfound intelligence toward two areas—keeping my finances in good order so I could continue to build whatever I wanted, and finding a damned cure.”

  “And succeeded at both,” Gavin said.

  Edwina nodded. “It didn’t happen all at once, of course. I learned that the plague is caused by a type of bacterium, to use the word coined by Doctor Ehrenberg. It’s an organism so small, only a microscope can see it. It’s actually a kind of plant, and very pretty, with tiny—”

  “Aunt Edwina,” Alice interrupted. “The cure?”

  “Right.” Edwina rubbed her forehead. “I fear I’m heading for another bad spell. I still get them. After a lot of work, I gained some control over the plague. I could speed its course, or slow it down. The latter meant I wouldn’t die, but it was only a treatment, and it was difficult and time-consuming to make. I was spending nearly all my time just keeping myself alive. But then I made a breakthrough. An actual cure. And that’s why I’m on the run, darling.”

  “I don’t understand,” Alice said, but that was a lie. Terrible understanding was growing like a mushroom inside her, pushing out everything else she’d been feeling and filling her with airy decay.

  “At this point, the Third Ward broke into my home. They came looking for me, and I had to flee.” Edwina produced a handkerchief and wiped delicately at her eyes. “I had only a few moments’ warning, just enough time to nip out. The cure was locked in my laboratory safe.”

  “But the Third Ward found it,” Gavin said, and Alice remembered the wall safe that had been ripped open in Aunt Edwina’s basement workroom.

  “They did”—she gave her eyes another delicate wipe—“and they destroyed my laboratory so I couldn’t continue my work.”

  “So Phipps lied,” Alice said. “She said the Ward left after your first trap killed one of its agents, and she said the Ward didn’t know who demolished your laboratory. Why did she lie?”

  “You know the answer to that, darling,” Edwina said.

  “Because,” Alice said slowly, “Phipps didn’t want me to know the cure existed.”

  “Or because you’re lying now, Edwina,” Gavin pointed out.

  “Why would I lie now, dear boy?” She sipped her tea again and made a face. “Cold.” She reached over to a nearby table, pulled a Bunsen burner over, lit it like a pet dragon, and held her cup over it. “The Ward left me little to work with—a few drugs, some rudimentary equipment, and the early stages of my research. I built a second laboratory down here and lived as Louisa Creek up there.”

  “I want to know why you grabbed me off the street,” Gavin growled. “What did I ever do to you?”

  “A perfect segue, Mr. Ennock,” Edwina said. “This is exactly the point where you came in. My plan to create and disperse a cure wasn’t working quite right, so I had to expand it. I needed Alice.”

  “That’s not an explanation about me.” Gavin’s face was hard with a hatred Alice had never seen before, and it chilled her.

  “I’m trying to stay chronological, Mr. Ennock, as Alice requested. We’re arriving at you.” She shut off the hissing burner and added a sugar lump to her tea. “I needed a way to get my cure back from the Third Ward. But Ward headquarters are tightly guarded, and the Ward knows how plague geniuses think. My only hope of getting at it was to draw out my dear niece, Alice.”

  “Draw me out?” Alice came upright again. “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “You were so timid after the clockwork plague struck the family down, darling.” Edwina got up to pace, and Gavin tensed. “No, that’s not the right word. I think the Americans call it hidebound. You wouldn’t budge outside the safety of traditional society. All that talent gone to waste. My dear, stubborn brother wouldn’t let me see you because he thought—quite rightly—that I’d try to corrupt you into Ad Hoc society, but he decided a few presents couldn’t hurt, and he let my little automatons through. I had already been working on you for your own good, hoping those little machines would stimulate you enough that you would start to chafe and finally break free of your father. I didn’t send you help of the monetary sort because then you would have had no need to break free. My hope was to starve you into the open. By sheer luck, the groundwork for furthering my plan was already there. I just needed to act on it.”

  “What does this have to do with kidnapping me?” Gavin demanded. He had gotten to his feet as well, tense as a lion.

  “Patience, Mr. Ennock. You waited in my tower for weeks. You can wait a few minutes more. The problem was, you stayed stubbornly with your father, Alice, and refused to try anything on your own. So I involved myself more directly.”

  “You disguised yourself and became my friend and mentor,” Alice said dully.

  “Exactly! What better way for me to mold your thinking than to become your best friend? After I met you, I took Patrick Barton home with me from the Greenfellow ball and drugged him senseless so I could—”

  “You drugged Patrick Barton?” Alice interrupted. “What for?”

  “I had to. I did tell you I would leave the ball with him.”

  “Oh my God,” Gavin whispered. He sank back to his perch on the table, and his revolver shook. “You infected him with the clockwork plague. That was why he showed no signs of the disease before the ball, and that was why he became a clockworker so quickly afterward.”

  “I injected him with my own accelerated recipe, yes. Mr. Barton did everything I’d hoped.”

  “And that was?” Alice asked, feeling more than a little sick. For a moment, she had been lulled into seeing Aunt Edwina as merely odd, someone who dressed up in strange clothes and played an elaborate prank. But the incident with poor Patrick Barton slapped her back into sensibility. Aunt Edwina was completely mad.

  “I’m getting ahead of
myself.” Edwina sipped at her cup, realized it was empty, and tossed it over her shoulder. It shattered on the stone floor behind her. “After the ball, I arranged that little plague victim riot so you would get some exposure to the Third Ward, Alice. I didn’t have high hopes that you would come out of your shell right then, so I continued with my plan—until that idiot Norbert Williamson whisked you away into betrothal, anyway. I tried to talk you out of it, but I was handicapped by having to be subtle. It was infuriating. So I had to bring in Mr. Ennock.”

  “I don’t follow this.” Gavin was clearly expending a lot of energy holding on to his temper, and Alice was afraid he was going to leap across the table. “Tell me why you kidnapped me and held me. Why you killed those airmen just to grab me again.”

  Edwina nibbled a cake. “Frankly, you enchanted me, Mr. Ennock. Your fiddle and your voice and your natural charm—irresistible! In addition, you’re young and strong and have no children. Perfect material for the Third Ward, if only they noticed you. I suspected Alice would find you as attractive as I do, and I was fortunate to learn that she took all those rides in Hyde Park. I dressed in red velvet so you would notice me, and I paid you plenty to ensure you would play there often. And when the time was right, I hired a pair of men with a rope and a sack. Then it was just a matter of time before Alice rescued you.”

  Alice’s mouth fell open. “You locked Gavin in that tower because you wanted to introduce us?”

  “Well, obviously! Good God, girl, I practically threw the two of you together!”

  “I don’t believe it,” Alice said faintly. “It all comes down to a maiden aunt who plays matchmaker—clockwork style.”

  “Why did you leave the traps running?” Gavin said. “They almost killed us.”

  Edwina stared at him. “I couldn’t deactivate the traps. The wrong person might get in.”

  “Indisputable logic,” Alice muttered.

  “Mr. Ennock is worth a few traps, don’t you think? He’s much better looking and far more talented than dull, drab Norbie.”

  Anger thundered through Alice. “How dare you manipulate us this way.”