by Michael Rigg
She must have heard him approach because she quickly picked up her pace and dashed into a dark side corridor. As she scrambled in the darkness, she slipped. Bryce rushed up behind her, but the ice kicked his foot out from under him on his next step and he fell forward, grabbing at her where she scrambled to find her gun in the darkness. Bryce took Alice by the arm and shoulder and pulled her back and to her feet. She squirmed in his grasp, breaking free and preparing to attack him when he shouted in a low whisper
"Alice! Alice, it's me, Bryce!"
~~~~~~~
Lucien Howard "popped" into existence on the bridge of the HMS Independence just a few feet from Lady McFerran herself.
Standing dazed, his wide bespectacled eyes taking in his new surroundings as the battle raged outside the viewport before him, Lucien said, "I knew it! I knew that girl was a witch!"
Lady McFerran merely turned and smiled at him, motioning for the sailors on guard to stand down and resume their posts. She said, "Welcome aboard, Mr. Howard. You're just in time to see an empire fall."
~~~~~~~
Captain Hayden of the Imperial attack sub Stravitskov paced the bridge of his vessel. Unlike the Republic which, as he understood it, was far below the surface at the gates of Atlantis, the Stravitskov was adrift on the black waves trapped between the glories of aerial combat high above and corporate intrigue far below.
~~~~~~~
Also, unlike the Republic, the bridge of this submarine was located in its nose giving its crew a perpetual view of the sea below the surface even as the vessel's hatches were exposed to the air above. The long bronze squid-shaped vessel was tipped with a heavily reinforced glass dome in its nose protected by a spiderweb lattice of riveted bronze and steel, a portal over twenty feet in diameter through which the bridge crew could easily see the sizzling frame of a burning airship as it crashed into the sea in front of them, shreds of its covering peeling away like the shark-torn meat of a dying dolphin, its crew charred and burned before finding the cool relief of the icy Atlantic.
"Which one is that?" Hayden asked.
His first officer squinted toward the forward view. "Looks to be the Advantageous, sir."
"Advantageous, eh?" The captain sighed. "One of ours then."
"Yes sir."
Hayden paced, furious that all he could do was sit and wait while history unfurled far above and below him. He couldn't break orders without word from the admiral, Mr. Thorne or Mr. Hearse, so there was no—
"Sir!"
The entire bridge crew spun toward the excited shout of the bosun stepping through the bridge hatch.
"What is it, Tremlin? Can't you see there's a war—"
But the captain's voice stopped short as Teivel Hearse stepped onto the bridge, his suit hanging in bloody tatters from his chest, his wet stringy hair pasted to the sides of his head—well, the part of his head that was still intact. Hayden knew Hearse was a ghoul. He'd heard the rumors and the firsthand accounts, but he'd never expected to meet him, at least not like this.
"M-Mr. Hearse, sir?"
The ghoul glanced with his one remaining eye to each staring man on the bridge, all of them gaping at his torn and ragged form, dripping on the deck. Hearse glared. "I have orders for you, Captain."
"S-sir?"
Hearse nodded toward the enormous portal. "Take us down."
"Mr. Hearse?"
The ghoul's shout made every man jump and scramble at their controls. "I said take us down! Now!"
Hayden turned to the crew on the bridge. "Blow all tanks! Prepare to descend!" He looked back to Hearse who was plucking at the wet strands of his hair trying to pull them over the ruined side of his face. "W-What's our heading, Mr. Hearse?"
"Atlantis."
Hayden swallowed. "B-But, Mr. Hearse, the Republic is the only Imperial submersible rated for—"
"I said Atlantis! Now!"
~~~~~~~
As the Stravitskov dipped below the waves and dove straight down for the city of Atlantis, airships exploded high overhead and crashed down into the boiling ocean below them. The Imperial wall was breaking with Lady McFerran's onslaught as plane by plane and airship by airship the Imperial fleet buckled.
Almost two hours into the battle, the empire had lost all but four ships and the Confederacy all but nine.
Since the battle was forged by a corporate maneuver rather than a military one, Admiral Terrace aboard the Victory didn't have the clearance or the ability to offer a surrender, so Lady McFerran and Lucien could only watch as the enormous Imperial flagship burned and sank toward the dark waves below. Burning men jumped from windows and open gangways to a certain death as the titanic warship twisted and burned toward the surface.
The wireless operator on the Independence came up behind the admiral and handed him a message. The admiral turned to McFerran and cleared his throat. "My Lady, the officers of the surviving Imperial vessels are offering their surrender." He nodded toward the viewport. "I can only imagine the presidents of Thorne & Hearse are as dead as their admiral and they have no other recourse."
Lady McFerran walked up to the viewport and leaned against the railing, staring at the flaming debris of two once mighty fleets. "What of their seafaring fleet below?"
"According to the wireless, ma'am, they're bowing to the officers above."
"I see."
Every man stared awaiting her orders. Lucien stepped up next to her and sought her eyes. "You can't be thinking of finishing them, my Lady."
She raised an eyebrow at the portly butler. "Can't I? It would end the Empire forever. Our corporations would seize their entire nation by default. I think it's ironic justice seeing as how this is how it all started, don't you?"
"Is that what this is about?" Lucien asked, his voice low so no one knew he was speaking to a Lady of Grace in such a tone. "Money? My lady, there are men dying out there, men who have thrown down their arms for you and the mercy of your leadership."
Lady McFerran turned toward the admiral and nodded. "Have all ships concentrate their fire on the remaining Imperials. Destroy them all."
Lucien took her by the arm. Lydia McFerran glanced from his hand to his face, incredulous at first, then gradually melting to the sincerity in his eyes. "Lady McFerran... Please."
"Mr. Howard," she said in a whisper, "I have it within my means to bring peace to the world."
"But at what cost? And to replace it with what? You'll be no better than the empire you've destroyed."
She turned and peered out at the haze of black smoke roiling from the flames of sinking airships as a trio of Confederate planes roared by. Finally, she nodded and smiled. Lucien released her arm. She clapped him on the shoulder and looked back at the admiral. "Belay that last, Admiral. Inform the Imperials that we accept their surrender."
She nodded to Lucien. "It's time we came together under the flag of a new Republic, don't you think?"
Lucien slowly smiled. "I live to serve you, my Lady."
“I'm in need of a new butler. You should consider the change of employer,” she said with a wink before turning away.
~~~~~~~
As the Stravitskov quickly descended to the ocean floor, its rivets and seems moaned and squealed.
The first officer, sweat streaming down his temples, turned to Captain Hayden. "Sir, we're already ten fathoms below the red."
Hayden swallowed hard and glanced to the ghoul standing next to him with his arms folded. Teivel Hearse merely stared forward, his red eye intently focused on the dark water outside. He remained still as a statue as every other man winced and cringed against the popping and whining of the sub as the pressure outside slowly threatened to crush them at any moment.
Hayden muttered to his first officer, "How m
uch farther to Atlantis?"
His first officer checked a chart, then a gauge. There was a whimper in his voice. "Still another fifty fathoms, sir."
"Prepare to—"
The ship continued to chug on its steep angle downward. Rivets popped and pipes burst. A loud squealing hiss shrieked through the hull. The sound broke Teivel Hearse from his thoughts of conquest and he looked up to find every member of the crew gone.
Uncrossing his arms, he shouted above the shriek of bending metal, "Captain! Captain!"
"They're not here."
Hearse spun toward the voice. Pandora stood dry as a bone, her scars and tears healed through her magics, near the aft hatch of the bridge. Her hands were behind her back and a wide thin smile creased her face.
"Bitch," Hearse spat. "Bring them back!"
Pandora slowly shook her head as a crack formed in the transparent dome behind Hearse. "No. I don't think so."
Another rivet exploded, then another. Gunshots of broken bronze and steel rippled through the submarine.
Pandora frowned mockingly and nodded behind the ghoul. She said one final thing before transporting to safety.
"Isn't that dome made of glass?"
The witch's thunderclap was lost in the roar of the dying ship as Teivel Hearse spun to face the enormous forward portal. His single red eye grew wide as he prepared to transport himself out of the ship before it was too late, but his rage had confused him and he froze unable to budge. He opened his mouth and said, "I—" just as the pressure of the Atlantic's depths crushed the Stravitskov like a tin can, her forward portal of thick glass cracking and imploding into a million razor sharp shards tearing through the ghoul's body a split second before the ocean's depths crushed him into oblivion.
The dazed crew of the Stravitskov were found wandering aimlessly in the center of a Confederate airfield hundreds of miles away. Thankful to be placed under arrest as prisoners of war, instead of crushed like water bugs, each man obediently preceded their Confederate captors lead by General Strong.
Pandora was nowhere to be found.
CHAPTER 37, “The Mirror”
I held Bryce like I never wanted to let go, breathed in his scent and relished the scratchy wool of his jacket against my cheek when I rested my head on his chest.
When I finally realized it was really him I didn't care how he managed the miracle of his arrival in Atlantis. After all I had seen in this world nothing would surprise me anymore. I just knew it was him and didn't want to let go.
It was Bryce who finally eased me away so he could find the glint in my eyes through all the dim greenish light in the Atlantian catacombs. "Alice... Alice, are you all right?"
"I'm fine, Bryce, but how—?"
"Pandora. It's a long story." He glanced to the ceiling. "Hell's payin' up stairs. There's a war goin' on over this place."
I frowned a little and started to shake my head, but he held me by the arms and glanced around as if suddenly hearing a noise. "We have to get you out of here before Thorne doubles back."
"How— I mean, no."
His eyes found mine.
"I can't, Bryce. I have to be here. I just know I do. I feel it. Something's unfinished, I..." I felt the skin of my forehead pucker. "Wait. I thought you wanted to try to send me back. Why are you trying to rescue me now?"
"That's exactly why. We can't see you safely to your own reality with Thorne and his armed goons about. He'll kill us both if he finds us, now come on." He took me by the hand and started to lead the way back toward the submarine.
I held my ground and tugged back. "No."
He stopped and looked at me, a deep sadness as blackish green as this ornately-carved cave filled his eyes.
"I mean..." I dropped his hand and tried to search his expression in the dim light. "I have to see it, Bryce. I have to see what brought me here."
I caught a shadow of a smile on his face. "Then we go together. I ain't leavin' you again."
I smiled brightly and took his hand, led him carefully over the ice patch where we'd slipped, and turned down the next corridor.
"How do you know this place so well?" He asked as he glanced around at the ornate rock-and-ice carvings that had morphed from thick leafy forest to ornate reproductions of ancient homesteads, possibly pre-historic. Bryce paused for a moment to run his fingers over the carved matted tresses of a little girl holding the hands of what appeared to be her mother and father. The man looked to be dressed in some kind of leathery smock, the woman bare-chested and belly distended. The man held a spear, the woman a fistful of dead fowl by the neck. "What is this?"
I stopped and backtracked to his position. The moss was growing more abundantly in this and the adjoining corridor and we could more clearly make out some of the carvings. "As we make our way closer to the center of the city, you'll see all kinds of these carvings. They appear to be artistic renderings of key moments in history.”
“Mine or yours?”
“Everyone's. You'll see.”
I shivered as the memories returned. The Atlantians, the Carpenters, whatever they were, had somehow artistically created a map of human culture throughout time. In the "sky" above the prehistoric family was a symbol: three open circles joined by a line. I pointed to it and told Bryce that was the symbol from my back.
He looked at me, his strong face lined with concern. "The trinity?"
I shrugged. "I'm not sure what it means."
Bryce glanced behind us as if suddenly sensing that we were being followed. He was right. I had sensed it since we left the slippery patch of ice where we'd fallen. They were coming. He said, "What do we do if we encounter one? I mean... didn't you say they told you not to come back?"
I nodded.
Bryce drew a breath and glanced around. "Then we have to get out of here. What if they—"
"It'll be all right," I smiled. "They won't harm us as long as we're together."
"How do you know that?"
I didn't know, to be honest, but I realized Bryce was way out of his element. Unlike me, he had suddenly found himself in an alien world surrounded by things he could barely comprehend. I, on the other hand, was getting closer and closer to where I was from. With each bend and junction in the underwater city I remembered more and more about what I had seen here before. I wanted him close to me when it finally all came together.
I took him by the hand and led him around a corner. We had yet to hear or find any sign of Bradford Thorne or his men, but I could tell we were getting close. The air was changing, becoming less dense. I knew we were within a few hundred feet of the center. I found a well-lit panel of carved rock and pointed to it. "Do you remember this from your history?"
The detailed carving showed a tall thin man with a beard wearing a stove pipe hat. One hand clutched his long coat and the other held a small scrap of paper. A sculpted crowd looked on and men with kepis and forage caps looked on from a close distance. Bryce shook his head. "That looks like Abe Lincoln, but I don't know what this is supposed to be."
"It's the Gettysburg Address. It marked a turning point in the Civil War leading up to the North's victory."
He looked at me, a crooked smile on his face. "North?" He pointed to Abe's stalwart face. "Your Atlantians missed their mark, Dear Alice. The North admitted defeat in early 1864. General Lee took—"
I poked a thumb over my shoulder. "If I'm right, you'll find an alternate history—your history—on that wall behind us." As Bryce moved to examine it, I closed my eyes and described it from memory. "It's General Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis at a table with Abe Lincoln. They're accepting the surrender of the Union army on the shore of the Mississippi somewhere, if I remember correctly."
There was a long pause as Bryce looked over the carving behind
us. Then he said, "This is my history, all right, but not what you described."
"What?" I turned and stepped closer. I reached down and tore a fist of glowing moss from the floor and held it up like a weak yellowish flashlight. I gasped at the first perfectly-reproduced image I saw. "Ray?"
Bryce nodded and pointed to the bearded man standing next to Ray Simcoe. "That there's Robert E. Lee at the commissioning of the Citadel in Baton Rouge, at what would later become the site of ADAM and EVE."
I reached up and touched Ray's face. My chin quivered slightly at a foggy memory that hadn't quite surfaced. "But this isn't what we saw." I looked at Bryce and explained. "I swear. As our team moved through the city we noted branches of different time lines breaking off." I looked down at the floor and pointed to a jagged V of moss from where I'd torn the piece I held. "I remember this hallway. I remember what was here. Ray was with us. How could he be..."
Then it hit me.
I pressed my hand over my mouth and spun around. At the end of the corridor where we stood was a junction that branched into three passageways. Before there had been only two. "Oh, God."
"Alice?"
"They were right. They warned us."
"Who? The Clockwork Carpenters?"
I nodded slightly as I made my way to the junction. "Ray altered history by stepping through the mirror. I followed him and altered it again. Every time there's a change it changes the city."
Bryce caught up to me. "I don't understand. Mirror?”
I cringed as more memories flooded back. I nodded at Bryce. “It's a portal of some kind, a time-traveling device, I think.”
Bryce looked to the junction in front of us. “So, the looking glass analogy is accurate after all."
I pointed to the wall to our right. A vast carved mural showing the post Civil War Reconstruction rolled around a corner. "That's my history." I pointed to the wall to our left. "That's yours. But, before Ray stepped through the mirror it wasn't like this. We had no idea it was an alternate reality. We couldn't make sense of it. It makes sense to me now." I shook my head, not quite sure if that were true. "Never mind." I took Bryce's hand and led him down the center corridor, the one that used to be the left passage the last time I was here.
