The Stories: Five Years of Original Fiction on Tor.com

by Various

  “I shall die. I’ll simply collapse.”

  “…That he stopped and stood stock-still there in the square until she had passed, mouth agape, staring—as a child at his first glimpse of snow—until she had passed. As though, my Adelaide, he had turned to hard stone at a glance from Gorgon or Basilisk….”

  “Sebastian, that’s enough. You’re scaring the girl.”

  Adelaide had her hands pressed over her ears so hard they were beginning to ache, but nothing could block out the senseless violence of his shameful, awful tale.

  “And so, in summation—I’ll finish quickly in order to stop your apparently oncoming collapse, though of what, I know not—Miss Lucia Mapp has invited you to a dance at her house this coming Saturday, the better to meet the man…and, presumably, to steal him from you.”

  “But it’s the carpetbagger.”

  “Pardon?”

  “The carpetbagger. Papa’s carpetbagger.”

  “I’m sure he is not. He’s a perfectly lovely young man.”

  “You’ve met and spoken with him? You are in collusion with him? Collaborating?”

  “We’ve done nothing but,” Sebastian said proudly.

  Henry cleared his throat. “Not me, Ada. I haven’t met him. If you’d like, I shall hate him.”

  “No, don’t do that. I shall…somehow, I shall persevere. Only…”

  Sebastian leaned forward excitedly, noting a certain glint in her eyes and urging her on. He liked nothing better than tempting her into outrages against their enemies.

  “Miss Mapp…Does she…does she like him very much?”

  “Babbage. And here we thought you’d forgotten us altogether,” Lucia Mapp hissed, as the clockwork took Ada’s coat.

  “It has been too long, Miss Mapp,” Adelaide agreed. Not, of course, that she’d ever been invited, or even welcome, in the intervening years.

  “I’ve got some boys here that simply must be introduced to you,” Lucia continued, in her aggressive way, making no effort to move or to conduct Ada into the house.

  “Thank you so much for inviting me,” Adelaide said, and immediately bit her tongue: The matter had already been discussed. Revisiting the subject now would seem either gauche or—as Miss Mapp would take it—desperately grateful.

  Which she was not. It had taken two tall glasses of spirits in the Rocquefort kitchen before she would even allow Sebastian to dress her, and another ten minutes of deep breathing exercises (Henry had been studying the Orient) before she could exit the carriage outside. And of course Sebastian had immediately disappeared into the whirl of the upstairs dining room, where the dance was being held.

  “Don’t mention it, my dear,” said Lucia Mapp with that vicious grin on her face, clearly indicating that Adelaide had already mentioned it twice too many times. Mapp finally grasped Ada by the elbow and propelled her roughly up the stairs, pinching at her skin as though unwilling to touch her at all. The feeling was mutual. At the top step, like a clockwork thing, Miss Mapp burst into wild laughter at nothing at all, a shrieking operatic sound that preceded them into the room, where all movement stopped. And then they were standing at double doors thrown wide, looking at people with whom Adelaide had not spoken in five years or more. If she ever had at all.

  “Everyone, Lady Babbage is here! Let’s show her a good time, shall we?”

  Miss Mapp said this last with a condescending moue intended to signify that Adelaide was the victim of some misfortune or other, and needed all the help she could get. Or, possibly, that cannibalism was among the evening’s possibilities. Lucia thrust one sharp finger into the small of Adelaide’s slumping back, like the muzzle of a gun. Startled, she leapt forward, in a way she hoped seemed gay—imagining herself, briefly, as a gazelle in midleap—then stared blankly at the assemblage, who turned as one back to their amusements.

  She scanned the crowd for Sebastian or Henry, thinking briefly that she might strike up a conversation with Rupert Munro in order to embarrass Sebastian in turn, but then she spotted Sebastian in one corner. He liked to establish himself as far as possible from the food, within reason, and taking into account the room’s best light. He said this made him more of a commodity.

  In the other corner sat Henry Wootten in a high-backed Chippendale, reading aloud from—yes, it was—Queen Mab, to a group of those younger underclassmen who’d followed him all through school. His curious celebrity was something of a thorn in Sebastian’s side, although whether he were jealous of the crowd or of Henry—or simply bewildered by the phenomenon—Ada was ever unsure. As, in truth, was Sebastian. Henry’s readings were the only time his voice rose above a dull monotone, and she found them delightful. As, in truth, did Sebastian.

  She wondered whether Sebastian would forgive her abandoning him for the more passive diversion of Henry’s Shelley, but a violent jerk of Henry’s head—as he continued his ribald tale, addressed to the assembled fawners and cavilers that formed the core of his squadron in these instances—put that thought out of her mind entirely. At least as part of Sebastian’s set, she wouldn’t be called upon to tempt any vile ministrations.

  And then a hand crept out of the ether, touching lightly that selfsame elbow which had so recently played arena to Lucia Mapp’s abuses. The hand was attached to an arm, soft with spun-gold hair, that itself led to a rounded, muscular shoulder. This shoulder was covered in a velveteen tunic-coat with a high collar and a gold chain across its chest, which chest she found barreled in a decidedly lovely way. The breeches beneath were not quite as short as Sebastian’s late knickerbockers, but showed a finely turned calf above cheekily gleaming monk boots. And past the tunic—bore it a cape, as well? Really?—and the ruffled shirt it covered, past the collar and the chain, was a face both angelic and strangely discomfiting, topped by white-gold curls.

  “Carpetbagger! Touching my elbow. That’s a…”

  He smiled expansively, nearly winking.

  “That’s a liberty, sir.”

  “Maximilian Willoughby at your service, lady. I note that you have not yet reclaimed your elbow, for all your fretting on its behalf.”

  “Maximilian Willoughby. I am…making your acquaintance, sir.”

  “That’s correct, Lady. Am I correct in presuming that you are, in fact, Lord Babbage’s daughter Adelaide? I have never seen you up close.”

  “I am she. I heard that you were spying on me in the market, with the children.”

  “Another liberty, I’m afraid.”

  “It is difficult, Mr. Willoughby, to take notice of strangers in the midst of one’s upheaval. Time slows to a…I find that I cannot concentrate on…”

  “Good lord, Lady Babbage. Your clockworks are sparking.”

  She looked around herself hurriedly, worried about Commonplace, before remembering that her steam-brain was nowhere in the neighborhood. She looked back at him, confused. She thought only of her elbow.

  “We’ll find you a seat, and a drink. I’ll serve your every whim. And whilst I am doing so, you can labor to produce a comprehensible sentiment.”

  “You’re making fun of me, Mr. Willoughby. And me in the realm of my enemies…”

  “You called me a carpetbagger, Lady Babbage. And as to the other, I have a cunning plan for your enemies, if you don’t mind. It involves turning Miss Lucia Mapp quite blue.”

  Curious, but intriguing. All at once, she began to see this Willoughby as part of a complex equation, and herself the variable.

  “…Blue?”

  “Green, rather. It involves turning that Miss Mapp quite green.”

  He smiled, pleading, and she remembered to wait just a moment before nodding in a fashion she was nearly sure displayed a level of friendly distrust.

  “You may find refreshment for us both, Mr. Willoughby. And then we shall discuss your scheme.”

  “Nothing would make me happier, Lady Babbage.”

  “Adelaide,” she said with a smile, and felt her back going quite straight. He was only a problem to be translated, af
ter all. No sense letting her posture suffer for that.

  With a cordial in hand and this Maximilian Willoughby seated in a slightly lower chair that evened their gazes, Adelaide had begun to feel quite warmly at home. The jealous glances from the schoolyard girls—crowned by the hissing hatred of Miss Mapp—proved more of a tonic than the liquor itself.

  As Mr. Willoughby detailed his plan—a simple pretense indeed—she found herself nodding and laughing on cue, leaning forward at times to touch his arm or knee as though she were enraptured by his every word. The blush on his cheeks traveled slowly to his neck and remained there for the duration.

  At a predetermined point, they rose together and repaired to a balcony, just outside the softly waving, diaphanous curtains Miss Mapp or her clockwork had placed before the double doors for just this purpose: To obtain a moment of privacy in such a way as to communicate a desire for anything but privacy. It was a very long walk, but also a very short one, in which Miss Mapp’s claws dug into her palms just as Willoughby’s palm pressed itself to Ada’s; and Sebastian gained first Henry’s eye and then Ada’s own, nodding approval; and the eyes of the room, without a cease in the prattle, followed the pair like clockwork things.

  “…And we shall wait out here until such time as a frenzy develops within. Just as they’ve stopped waiting for us to return, we shall enter again—I shall have your hand in mine, if you like—and separate. You will retreat to one corner with Sebastian and refuse to discuss anything that occurred, and I will rejoin Miss Mapp’s nasty cabal and do the same. I will charm her to within an inch. And just as she is coming apart at her seams, we shall leave the party together. It will be discussed for weeks.”

  “But my reputation,” Adelaide demurred, although her objection, she knew, lay closer to his charming of Miss Mapp.

  “We will retire to the Rocquefort house in full view of its inmates, and Sebastian and Henry will join us there. Their actions are beyond repute.”

  “Henry’s, perhaps.”

  “Indeed. And then, we will part ways. I will have shaken off my pursuer, and you will have no more trouble from her ilk.”

  “Part ways, you say.”

  She wasn’t entirely sure about that, although Papa’s dispute with the gentleman would most likely hinder any attempts to see him again. And wasn’t it all pretense, anyhow? He certainly kept saying that, which helped Ada keep her mind in order. Maximilian Willoughby was a tool in a plan, all the more useful for supplying the plan himself.

  With any luck, after this, Lytton would stop worrying about her fortunes altogether and return to their usual pastime of ripping one another to shreds. She would be left to her work so she could crack the secret of chaos computation without hindrance, securing her family’s future without the prying, patronizing eyes of Lytton hopefully matching her with every failed Lothario in every house.

  “…Or perhaps that is best, after all.”

  For a moment, she thought she could see a certain disappointment in his eyes at that. Was this not a tableau, after all? Was the rascal playing some game outwith the game they planned together? She’d not have it.

  “Lady Adelaide, at that time, you may tell me whatever you like. To stay, to go, to disappear. With your father’s violent reprisals ringing in my ears, I fear my business in the Counties is concluded. I shall return home with my devices in hand, and try once again to make a life for myself in your absence.”

  “And if I should ask you to stay?”

  He grinned once again and placed his cape about her shoulders. There was barely a chill in the air, but she realized she’d been shivering slightly.

  “Lady Adelaide, anythingyou command, I should follow it to the letter.”

  She heard herself laugh correctly. Not too high or silly, not too mordant or ironical: Delighted, in an understated fashion. Neither grateful for the attention, nor desirous of more.

  “You’ll get yourself into trouble thinking that way, Mr. Willoughby.”

  “I am already in trouble, Lady Adelaide. The very thick of it.”

  He turned, looking out over the balcony at Lytton spread below, and she shook her head. Boys.

  At Rocquefort’s, they continued to drink. Perhaps it was this that caused the trouble.

  “Oh, Adelaide. You are a natural adept of the Compartmental Arts, as I always suspected. We should have got you out of the house much sooner!”

  “Compartmental Arts?” asked Willoughby, and Ada’s confidence failed, suddenly and catastrophically; it faded away as though it had never been. She blushed, shaking her head again, and looked to Henry for aid.

  He cleared his throat. “Ah, he means the Computational Arts. Adelaide’s gift for steam-brains and clockwork is the envy of all Lytton.”

  “Not that the scholars recognize it, I surmise, for all that,” said the carpetbagger, and Sebastian nodded violently.

  “She’s got her steam-brain eating out of her hand,” Sebastian said, taking said hand roughly in his own. “Tell him, Babbage! Tell him about the Communication Test, and chaos computation. And the voices! Tell him about the voices; they are his area of expertise.”

  She nodded, squeezing Rocquefort’s hand, and looked once again into Willoughby’s eyes. Their color was unique.

  “I built for her—for my machine—a quantum engine, and now engage in daily training sessions. Her syntax is improving, slowly. As is mine, with her. It has been a source of much enjoyment.”

  “And the Test,” Henry urged.

  “I bethought myself to one day link up the steam-brains of Lytton, all together in a train, and thus communicate house to house. But I wondered if we couldn’t also speak directly to them, to their computational mechanics, in order to learn logical answers to the questions that plague us. And so I devised a Test by which one would communicate over this linkage—think of it as a telephone—knowing not whether it was steam-brain or a real human personage on the other end.

  And the steam-brain that succeeded in tricking us, the highest percentage of the time, would be the…would be the best, somehow. And we would have learned how best to proceed.”

  “It puts me in mind of romance,” Sebastian said, to the uproar of his peers, for of course it did: The road to romance, from any point at all, was always shorter in his mind. Once their laughter had died down—and with much authentic apology, as was requisite by his decree, whenever Sebastian was interrupted—he continued.

  “One always wonders, does one not, whether we really know one another. Friend or enemy, or even—especially—one’s lover. Can we ever be sure, truly sure, that we know his or her deepest mind?”

  Henry looked down at his hands; Sebastian caught the movement and shook his head.

  “Oh, my Henry. Not our closest and dearest friends, of course. Not someone like you. Trust is not the issue. But in the wider world, the question remains: Are you, is he or she, are we really true? I thirst for authenticity in all things. So often, we merely play at love.”

  Willoughby looked at Ada and then away, picking at the knees of his breeches as though at a piece of imagined lint, or a stray thread too small to see. Adelaide’s heart broke for him—or, if it did not truly break, it twisted, at least, like steel in the fire, and she realized then that she had not repaid him for his kindness at the party.

  “Well, I’m sure that’s true. But that is the very crux of the Compartmental Arts.” She turned to her companion with a determined air. “Now, Mr. Willoughby. Tell me of your talking lanterns. I see no reason to halt progress, and my father’s distrust of vulgarity is a fragile thing at best. If you are very convincing, perhaps I can pass along a recommendation or a kind word to my father. I see no reason for you to go home empty-handed after all your efforts.”

  Willoughby shook his head, looking quite wounded, and spoke no more. Sebastian sighed, and Henry rolled his eyes slightly, before turning his gaze to Sebastian. What had she done now?

  “You all but called him a carpetbagger for the third time, Adelaide.”

/>   “How so?”

  “Your implication was quite clear: That you saw his devotions as a means to an end. You called his bluff.”

  “Well, what about authenticity above all things? Sebastian, if they were real, I see no reason why he shouldn’t have protested then and there.”

  “There is a distressing literality to your thoughts, Adelaide, which I have labored unceasingly to correct in all our years together. The train of your thought was apparent, in this case: We discussed Commonplace, and the Communication Test, and you immediately offered him a quid pro quo. As though he were a clockwork thing on the telephone. It was…”

  “Sebastian, I…that was not my intention! I wished only to rescue him from his dark thoughts, to give him something to hope for. A dusty one-room horror, you said. South Lytton, you said. Surely a bit of encouragement was…”

  “He already had hope, Babbage. He thought you’d stopped pretending.”

  “An adept of the Compartmental Arts, you said! I was doing it correctly. And now he…”

  “Did you like him, Adelaide?”

  “I don’t know, Sebastian. I haven’t the slightest idea.”

  “You certainly seemed to think of him as a friend at the party.”

  “Sebastian, he was incandescent at the party. I did think of him as a friend. I do.”

  “But you were cruel to him, afterwards.”

  “I was nothing like cruel! I was…Why do you boys think in this manner? Always, it’s needs and wants and crossed lines. Why can’t we…work together? As a team?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like you and Henry, or—and I do apologize—Gerald and Rupert. Why must there be all this mess, and triviality, and confusion?”

  “The simple and carefree nature of my friendship with Henry aside, this is what is done. If you cannot say with certainty that you like Mr. Willoughby, that makes every act—from the moment you arrived at Miss Mapp’s—a glorious achievement of cruelty.”