by Cat Rambo
She was awake.
She jolted upright, disturbing Laurel, who said something drowsily. Jemina stroked her hair with her right hand, settled the child back into her lap. Her heart still hammered uncomfortably.
She looked out the window into the darkness and could see only the reflection of the car’s interior for a moment. Then as her eyes picked out detail, she saw the stars hanging far overhead, the blaze of the Milky Way, a curdle of starlight spilling over the plains that rolled out as far as the eye could see.
Chuggadrum, chuggadrum, the sound of the wheels underfoot, the everpresent vibration working its way through her body as they hurtled through the night towards Seattle.
They’d promised her a laboratory of her own. A budget. Assistants.
Things she could do without interference. That was worth a lot, for a woman in a field that held so few other of her sex.
“I have nightmares sometimes too,” Laurel said.
Jemina’s hand sleeked over the curve of Laurel’s skull, cloth sliding over glossy hair.
“We all do.”
“What are yours about?”
“The war. What about yours?”
Laurel lay silent so long that Jemina thought she had gone back to sleep. But finally she said, “How my parents died.”
Jemina’s fingers stilled. She waited.
“We were in the house and they came,” Lauren said. “My uncle said they were supposed to stay on the battlefield and no one knew they went the wrong way.”
Her voice was subdued, thoughtful.
“Mama was upstairs singing to me. She sang a song she made up, ‘Laurel Finch, Laurel Finch, where do you wander?” She had a pretty voice, Mama did. It would have been all right, but papa heard them at the door and he went and opened it. That was how they got in.”
Jemina saw it in her mind’s eye, despite her attempt to force it away: the man mowed down, devoured with that frightening completeness that zombies had, before they moved on to the rest of the house...the song faltering, the mother trying to hide her child from the ravenous attack.
“How did you get away?” she asked.
“I jumped out the window and ran. I tried to get my little brother first, but it was too late, so I ran.”
“Your brother?”
“He was just a baby. He couldn’t run.” Laurel moved her head in slow negation. “Too late.”
Jemina closed her eyes, feeling the story wrenching at her heart.
These things happened in war. They were sad, yes, but unavoidable.
The wheels screeched as the train slowed. Both of them sat up to look out the window.
“Who are those men?” Laurel asked.
“I don’t know.” But she did, given the fact that the group had bandanas tugged up around their faces, and that many had pistols or Springfield rifles in their hands.
“They’re bandits!” Laurel’s voice was excited.
“Yes,” Jemina admitted.
They waited. Around them, everyone was abuzz, but stayed in their seats. The front door of the car swung open and two men entered, both holding pistols, red cloth masking everything except their eyes. Both were hatless, stringy hair matted with dust and sweat.
“We’re looking for a fellow name of J. Iarainn,” one called to the car at large. “You here, Mr. Iarainn? If not, I’m going to start shooting people one by one, cause according to the manifest, you’re in this car.”
Jemina held up a hand. “I am Jemina Iarainn.”
Her gender astonished them. They squinted at her before exchanging glances.
“You headed to Seattle and the War Institute to work? Some kinda necromancery?”
“Yes to Seattle, yes to the War Institute. No to necromancy. I hold joint degrees in medicine and engineering, specializing in artificial limbs.”
Exasperation kept her calm. Why should these dunces not believe a female scientist could exist? And necromancy -- she was, by far, tired of that label. She worked with devices for the products of such technology, but she wielded the forces of science, of steam and electricity and phlogiston.
“Right then.” The speaker had made up his mind. “You come with me and my friend is going to talk to these nice people and collect their cash.”
“Pretty little girl,” the other said, smiling at Laurel, a smile that chilled the base of Jemina’s spine.
“She comes with me,” she said, putting her right hand on Laurel’s shoulder.
“She your daughter?”
“Yes,” she said. Laurel’s hand reached up to steal into hers, trembling.
“Wait,” someone said from behind them.
Jemina gathered Laurel behind her skirts, watching the gun rather than looking to the voice. She recognized it nonetheless: the dandy they’d met on the platform.
“I’m Miz Iarainn’s guard, escorting her to Seattle,” he said.
This time, surprise at the claim prompted Jemina to look around. He had a gun in his hand as well but his posture was easy, relaxed, where the bandits’ was not.
“We don’t need you interfering,” one bandit said.
“All I’m going to do is follow along and make sure Miz Iarainn’s visit goes well,” he said. “You taking her somewhere, I’ll just meander thataway with you.” He cast a glance at Laurel. “Do some babysitting if need be of Miz Iarainn’s...daughter.” He winked at Jemina.
At least it was someone else for the guns to point at, she reflected.
They exited the train in a small group, Jemina and Laurel preceding dandy and first bandit while the second bandit remained behind.
Once off the train, she could see what had stopped it. A wagon had been driven across the tracks. The cowcatcher was within inches of it. If they’d been going any faster, there would have been a crash.
Another dozen men stood with the horses. The engineer and conductor both knelt in the long grass with their fingers laced behind their heads. Other men came from the other cars, most of them carrying canvas sacks that sagged with weight.
The bandit walked up to a man who was unmasked, who sat on a spotted horse.
“Boss...” he said hesitantly.
The man on horseback looked down. His brows knitted. “This the fellow?” he asked. “You brung his family along? What for?”
“The lady’s the fellow,” the bandit said. “T’other fellow says he’s her guard.”
“That so?” the unmasked man said. He drew his revolver and pointed it at the dandy’s head. “And why do you think she needs a guard?”
The dandy smirked. His gun remained trained on the bandit that had brought them. “I’m just...” he began.
The other man’s gun barked. The dandy’s eyes rolled up in his head and he slumped to the ground. Laurel shrieked; Jemina’s hands tightened on her shoulders, but she did not react otherwise.
The leader studied her. “You’re the scientist?”
“I am.” The levelness of her voice pleased her. “You’re the boss here?”
He laughed, a whip crack of a sound. “No. You’ll meet him, back at the camp.” He whistled shrilly. “Saddle up, boys.”
It felt as though they rode for hours through the relentlessly flat landscape. As they did so, Jemina realized there were folds and wrinkles to the land, and once or twice a distant smudge of trees marking, she presumed, a water source.
They came on the camp in one of these folds, so abruptly it barely registered before they were stumbling down a slope and being hauled down off the horses.
Jemina’s hands had been tied in front of her. She wiped at her face, leaving streaks of dust on the crumpled white gloves. Laurel pressed close.
“Come on,” the man who’d shot the dandy said.
He led them through a cluster of tents. It was almost noon now, and the sun pushed down with impatient heat. When they entered the largest tent, it was cooler there, but there was an undertone to the air that Jemina recognized, a sour sweet smell of carrion.
She was not surprised to see
the creature that sat in a makeshift throne made of powder kegs and chests. A ghoul. She’d seen a few during the war, come to feast after battles, but they had been easy enough to drive away. Now here was one that had co-opted humans to serve it. Judging from the chest that spilled out currency and gold to one side, it had no problem with finding its hirelings.
The face was red-eyed, the nose too broad, the cheeks too thick to seem human. The rasping voice seemed equally monstrous.
“You are the one traveling to the War Institute? We were given word you were coming.”
“Yes,” Jemina said cautiously.
“You are a necromancer then?”
She shook her head. This again. “No. I am an engineer specializing in artificial limbs. I’m going to Seattle to work with the War Institute on a new effort.”
The red eyes studied her. “What sort of effort?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.” But really, how hard was it to guess? Zombies plus specialized limbs. Super soldiers.
The lips pursed in disappointment. “I wanted a necromancer. An engineer is no use to me.” It flapped a hand. “Take them to a cell. I’ll eat them later.”
The bandit that escorted them seemed nonchalant, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette and refusing to reply to any of Jemina’s sallies.
“He’s going to eat us,” Laurel said and burst into tears.
Jemina shook her head. “He’s not going to have the chance,” she said.
“Why not?”
They were locked in but alone. Jemina felt through her pocket for chalk. “Because I’m not a necromancer, but I am something better.”
“What’s that?”
“They call me a necromantic engineer.”
When the explosion came, Jemina scrambled to her feet. Out of the cloud of smoke, a figure stumbled.
Laurel screamed. “A zombie!”
“A summoned zombie,” Jemina said. She felt tired and old. Her forearm throbbed where she’d scratched it to get the necessary blood. “It lit the throne. Foolish to sit on a powder keg if you don’t expect it to blow up on you.”
Step by staggering step, the dead man came forward, hand gripping the keys, stuck out in front of him. When they extended into the cell Jemina reached out to take them. As she did, they locked eyes.
“Be at peace,” she said, and watched as the body fell.
She unlocked the cell. “Come on. We’ll see if there are any horses. Even if there’s survivors, they’ll be busy enough that no one should stop us.”
“You would think so,” a voice said.
The ghoul. It stood there, scorched but intact. “Foolish woman,” it said. “Now what will you do?”
“This,” Jemina said, pointing her left hand at him. The white glove fell into scraps as the bullet left the hollow chamber of her finger, revealing the brass and copper limb underneath, shining as he gaped.
“Silver bullet,” Jemina told him. Stepping over, she rifled through his pockets, removing valuables.
“Are we going to Seattle now?” Laurel asked.
“No,” Jemina said, filling her pockets with what she’d gleaned. “I’m done with all this.”
“Then where will we go?”
“Anywhere,” Jemina said and held out her human hand.
After all, this was a wild new world, even if parts of it were war-wracked. This was the Mechanical age, and its practitioners would be welcome in almost any town.
“Laurel Finch, Laurel Finch, where will we wander?” she said.
Laurel took her hand.
Afternotes:
This story came from an image of a small, scared girl getting on a train. It’s the same line that Elspeth and Artemus travel on, a story later, as they head towards events in Seattle, and Jemina will be visiting the locale of “Rappacini’s Crow” in an adventure yet to come.
Bryan Thomas Schmidt’s comments on the story’s ending were very helpful; the story is the better for his insight.
Snakes on a Train
Elspeth folded her hands in her lap, trying to keep her brows from knitting. She hated trains.
They were dirty, with bits of smut and coal blown back from the massive brass and aluminum steam engine pulling them along, and engrimed by successions of previous passengers.
They were noisy, from the engine’s howl to the screech of the never-sufficiently-greased axles as they rocketed along the steel rails with their steady pocketa-pocketa-pocketa chug seeping up through the swaying floor.
And they were oppressively full of people, all thinking things, all pressing down on her Sensitive’s mind, making her shrink down into the hard wooden seat as though the haze of thoughts hung like coal-smoke in the air and if she sank low enough, she’d avoid it.
She glanced over at her fellow Pinkerton agent, who returned her look with his own slightly quizzical if impersonal gaze. All of the curiosity of their fellow passengers was directed at him, perhaps the first mechanical being they’d ever seen, with silver and brass skin and curly hair, eyebrows, and moustache of gilded wire.
“They shouldn’t be keeping us back here,” she said for the third time in as many minutes. “If we’re his assigned bodyguards, they should let us up to inspect his compartment.”
“The porter said he’d tell them we were here,” Artemus said in precisely the same tone he’d used the first two times he’d said these words.
Elspeth sighed. Even as she did so, the porter entered the car and signaled to them.
“You go up two cars,” he said, and pointed.
They made their way through the creak and sway of a car identical to theirs, then the narrower corridors of a sleeper car. Artemus knocked on a doorway and they poked their heads into a compartment where their package stood with his daughter.
That package, one Joshua McCormick, was a short, brawny little man who held himself with a terrier’s alertness. His hair had retreated from the majority of his freckled brown scalp, but still tufted over his ears, which supported the frames of two brass-rimmed spectacles, the left one wider rimmed and more elaborate than the right. His daughter Belinda was unpacking McCormick’s trunk with an assistant’s familiarity. As Elspeth watched, she unfolded a trunk and set it against the wall so the myriad of tiny drawers and bottles it held were accessible, held in with straps against the train’s constant jostle.
Artemus said, “Sir, do you intend to undertake experiments here on the train?”
Professor McCormick shook his head, brows knitting. He folded his arms and glared over at his daughter. “Belinda. It’s true. I won’t be doing much on the train. If you unpack all of that, it’ll just be in our way.”
The daughter’s stiff shoulders told Elspeth of the daughter’s resentment. But she relaxed as the lack of emotions battering against her mind confirmed what they’d been told was a the case: the girl was a psychic null, whose thoughts could not be sensed and who would be able to withstand most mental powers.
It was one of the things she valued about Artemus—the absence of thoughts twitching her one way or another. She was looking forward to spending time with Belinda McCormick, if not her father’s roil of pride and greed and anger.
The Professor wheeled to address Artemus just as roughly. “I’ve told your superiors that your presence is unnecessary.”
Another thing Elspeth appreciated about Artemus as his ability to keep his voice modulated where Elspeth knew irritation would have wasp-whined her own tone. “I’m sure that’s true, sir. But there are definite and established dangers and not every train headed from Baltimore to Seattle has made it to its destination. Your expertise is important to the War Effort, and so we’ve been hired to make sure you get there as quickly and smoothly as you can. If you relax and let us proceed in our efforts, you’ll find the journey goes quickly and with a minimum of fuss.”
The Professor’s attention swiveled ponderously between the two of them.
“What sort of dangers have presented themselves?” he demanded, brows beetling in suspic
ion. “Not the made-up panics from the papers, mind you. The real dangers.”
“There have been instances of werewolves, which were responsible for the recent derailment of a train. And lizard-wizards, more than one.”
“Snakes?”
“That is the name some call them by, yes.” Artemus’s voice remained glassy smooth. “We have twelve hours before we reach Kansas City. I’d suggest you get settled and then go to sleep as early as possible. I’m told many people find the rattle of the wheels soporific.”
McCormick looked offended by the reminder of Artemus’s mechanical state. “And what are you? Is someone operating you remotely?”
“I’m automatous. This is my partner, Elspeth Sorehs.”
“A Hasidic.” The Professor’s eyes assessed Elspeth frankly, and his thoughts pawed at her. She forced down her reaction. He couldn’t know that what he was thinking was offensive. That was what almost all men did, thought in terms of what they would have been able to see if the fabric and stays were stripped away, how cupable her breasts, her thickly fleeced her thighs, this one no less than any other. She looked down at the floor.
“You will be in the cubby across the way?” the Professor addressed her.
“I will,” she said. “Mr. West...” She stressed the honorific and surname in a way that ratcheted the older man’s brows further upward. “Mr. West will be watching the corridor outside your cubby. He is unsleeping.” It would be a rare creature indeed that made its way past Artemus.
“The train will serve a late dinner in forty-five minutes,” the Professor said. “You will join us.” He turned and went back into the room where his daughter stood.
Elspeth rolled her eyes at Artemus. She stuck her head in their own compartment, eying the tiny bunks.
“Well, it’s snug,” she said. She sniffed at herself, ruefully noticing the sour tang to the fabric. That was the worst part of traveling, the lack of bathing facilities.
“There’ll be a bathhouse in Kansas City, and a four hour wait there, plenty of time,” Artemus said. “No need to act as though we were venturing into the heart of the wilderness.” His eyes glittered phlogiston-blue in what she’d learned to call his pranksome mood. “I’ll bet you that he says three things to offend you before the soup arrives. What do you think, my dear Hasidic?”
