Addleton Heights

by George Wright Padgett

  The page that followed contained three more entries: F. Davenport, P. Davidson, and H. Guthrie. These weren’t locations but names of Commonwealth members.

  Janae approached. “May I see that?” After a moment, she handed the book back. “I don’t think what you saw in Chinatown was a statue. Who would refer to a statue as a ‘mechanical’? A sculpture just stands there. ‘Mechanical’ means it does something. I know you said it didn’t move when you were there, but maybe it was waiting.”

  “Waiting for what?” I asked.

  She held up Sawyer’s tinkware. “Waiting for a command, maybe. I don’t know, but I doubt Alton Montague would display anything of value outside a service portal. I don’t know all of these locations, but the five or six I do know all have platform openings to below.”

  I turned the page back to the names of the three Commonwealth officers. “What about these? They’re names of city officials. They’re nowhere near portals to the Under. We’ve got to warn them.”

  “Warn them of what?” Janae scoffed. “‘Just wanted to let you know that Mr. Montague is sending an early Founder’s Day gift to you that’ll snap your neck?’ That sounds absurd even if it is true. If the transmitter receivers work like this one does, we won’t be able to prove anything, and we still don’t know what’s going on here.”

  I turned the page and stared at the address before me for a few seconds. Holding my index finger on the entry, I flipped through the pages that followed. The remainder of Hennemann’s burgundy booklet contained scribblings that I was familiar with: an underlined inscription of JASON O, the address of my office he’d received from Chief Ormond, the Densmore brothers’ names next to the sector numbers written in their handwriting, and so forth.

  I thumbed back to the page with the strange address.

  Janae could tell something was up. “What is it?” she asked. “What did you find?”

  “This address is to an old iron-works warehouse,” I explained. “As far as I know, it hasn’t been used in years, not since the new foundry was set up in the Cliburn sector. It’s less than two miles from here.”

  “So what’s in there, and how does it fit in with all of this?” she asked.

  “I honestly have no idea, but it’s peculiar that a warehouse that’s been vacant for half a decade is a fresh entry in this book.”

  She nodded. “Hopefully, something that will help convince Davenport and the others what’s going on.”

  “Fancy a late-night stroll, then?”

  She lit up at the invitation. “Why, Mr. Kipsey, is that a proposition?”

  I moved over to the window and slid it open. With my hand extended into the cold air, I asked, “Do you want it to be?”

  Within a half hour, we’d reached the cast-iron gates of the warehouse.

  Even though I don’t consider myself a gunman—in fact, I’m a pretty horrible shot—I had both Hennemann’s and Fitzpatrick’s weapons drawn. I led with Hennemann’s. Though I’d had cleared out the backstrap under the hammer of Fitzpatrick’s pistol, now was not the time to find out it still wasn’t working.

  We were out of range of the hazy glow of gas streetlamps. In the pale moonlight, Janae pointed at a section of fence with a metal sign. Large lettering warned:

  PROPERTY OF MONTAGUE STEEL

  ALL TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED TO THE FULLEST EXTENT BY THE COMMONWEALTH OF ADDLETON HEIGHTS

  The metal door of the building groaned and creaked on its hinges, letting out a sharp whiff of sawdust. Once inside, Janae ran a gloved hand along the wall until she located a portable lantern.

  “I take it the Re-Viewer doesn’t shine any external light?” I asked.

  “Not while it’s in the brainwave memory capture mode,” Janae said. “So if the user can’t see anything, that’s what will be recorded.”

  I struck one of the Club Whiplash matches. I honestly can’t say what I expected to find in the cavernous warehouse, but what we saw was as puzzling as anything I’d encountered over the last twenty-four hours.

  “What are those?” I asked, pointing at the perfectly aligned rows of satchel-sized wooden cubes before us in the dim light.

  “I have no idea, but whatever they are, there’s a lot of them.”

  Not the answer I’d expected from my tink companion. “Thirty rows across, and if that’s thirty rows back, that would make it a count of—”

  “It’d be nine hundred, but there are more like forty or fifty rows back.” She advanced to one of the mini crates on the corner.

  As she knelt down, I took the lantern from her and peered over her shoulder. Though the container had hinges on the back of the lid, there was no lock.

  “What does it do?” I asked once she had it open.

  She poked around for a moment at the vertical slats inside. “Well, these are cell partitions, and this appears to be a plate separator. I’m not sure what this membrane here is for or how this coil factors in.” She began to mumble as if I wasn’t there at all. “I’m guessing these are some kind of terminal posts . . . and judging by this grid here . . .”

  “I’m not a tink. What does it do? Is it a weapon? Or an explosive?”

  “These are all mines,” she said.

  “A mine?” I took a step back until I realized she was laughing.

  “Do you really believe I’d poke around in this if there were explosives?” She chuckled. “Boom!”

  “Not funny,” I said, feeling my face flush.

  “Well, my best guess is this converts and stores electrochemical cell energy into electrical energy.”

  “Which means it’s what?”

  “You know, like a separator that permits the transfer of ions for things like a telegraph circuit, but these are much, much more. What’s in this box could offer energy for a long time.”

  “Energy? You mean like . . . it’s a battery? Batteries for what?”

  She closed the lid and returned to her feet. “For anything, I suppose.”

  We spent a few minutes searching for answers, but the warehouse was empty save for the wooden cubes that ran the length of the place. Though still unclear about its purpose, we took one of the heavy battery boxes to show the Commonwealth and made the sleepy trek back to the office.

  It was past midnight, and we both agreed that our plan had to be executed during daylight hours. No guard, even my new friend Trudeau, would fall for Montague’s niece traveling to see him in the wee hours of the morning. Plus, we wanted to be sharp and on our game.

  With Hennemann out of the way, it was unlikely that I was being pursued. I took comfort in the fact that my address was relatively unknown. Chief Ormond had telegraphed it to Hennemann, and he’d written it in the burgundy booklet that was in my pocket. Hopefully, Hennemann wasn’t expected to check in. I’d just have to hope for the best.

  Once inside, I offered my hammock for Janae to sleep in. At first, she protested, saying the smell of the photographic chemicals was offensive. But when she saw me setting up my two office chairs facing each other for my sleeping accommodations, she reconsidered.

  I was anxious about returning to Montague’s. Without a doubt, this was the biggest gamble of my life, and circumstances had forced me to go all in with my chips. I replayed every conceivable scenario in my head over and over, hoping our bluff would work. I mentally rehearsed every word I’d say to get us past the compound’s security and into the study. At some point, I fell asleep to these twirling thoughts in my brain.

  PART THREE

  Twenty-Four

  I don’t know how long she’d been standing over me. “Wake up, Kip. It’s time to go.”

  Disoriented and looking through blurred vision, I needed a moment for everything to register. The dress we’d bought from Mrs. Stoltey’s came into focus. I rubbed the crust from my eyes and noticed her uncovered arms. “No gloves today, huh?” I yawned. “What time is it?”

  “Morning. Well, at least for a little while longer. Do you always sleep this late? It’s almost noon.”


  A sharp pain in my lower back flared. Sleeping in the two chairs facing each other had been a mistake. With a grunt, I attempted to inch myself into a reclining position, something more dignified for a detective. That only pushed away the chair under my legs, and I crashed to the cold wood floor—not dignified at all.

  Janae gave me a hand up. The grip of her long, cool fingers was firm. Without intending to, I found myself staring into the most impressive feature of her dress, where the fabric dipped to highlight her cleavage. I wouldn’t mind falling a thousand times to get that view.

  “Hey, I took your blanket,” she explained as she hoisted me up to a wobbly standing position. “I got cold in the middle of the night.”

  I waved it off and struggled to tuck in my shirttails. “That smell . . . you got breakfast?”

  “Yeah, I went down to the inn at the end of the street. Told ‘em I was working on a case with you, and they added it to your tab.”

  “I bet that got them all talking,” I mumbled to myself. “Miss Talbot downstairs didn’t see you, did she?”

  “Went out the fire escape like last night. Your eggs and coffee are on the file cabinet.”

  I could feel that my hair was doing something odd. Patting it down, I asked, “You carried both breakfasts up the fire escape?”

  “Yeah, so?” As if defending herself, she added, “I wasn’t wearing this dress, of course. I just changed into it a few minutes ago.”

  I followed the glorious smell of coffee to the file cabinet. “Dress or no dress, carrying all that up here was quite a feat.”

  Crunching the toast was heavenly. Crumbs liberally fell to the floor. As the fog lifted from my brain, I saw a grouping of neatly arranged components in the corner and moved to it.

  “What’s this?” I asked between bites.

  “That’s what was in the box from the warehouse. I was looking it this morning. Don’t worry, I can put it all back together for you to take to the Commonwealth. I just wanted to get a better look.”

  I made my way back across the room to my coffee. “Learn anything else about it?”

  She scratched the back of her head. “Well, yeah. I’ve seen lead-acid batteries before, but nothing like that. Theoretically, what’s in there could be replenished and used again after the charge drained out.”

  “Used again, huh? Replenished with what? What’s the original energy source?”

  She shook her head in defeat. “I honestly don’t know the answer to this one.”

  It was obvious she didn’t like admitting the tinkware was beyond her. She changed the subject. “Well, anyway, I was thinking about that steam carriage, and I think we should take it. I mean, first of all, it fits our story. No one knows that the big man is dead but us, and wouldn’t Mr. Montague’s niece arrive in style?

  “I imagine we’d get preferential treatment if we rolled up to the municipality sector in that thing. Plus, it means we could get to his compound a lot faster. Oh, and I thought up a name for myself. I wanna be Mary Elizabeth Montague from New Pennsylvania.”

  I finished the eggs and dabbed my mouth, doing my best to appear indifferent. “New Pennsylvania, huh? Have you even been down to New Pennsylvania?”

  Her bottom lip crept out ever so slightly. “No, I’ve never been off the platform, but Mary Elizabeth has.” She offered a curtsy, studying my reaction.

  I couldn’t repress the slyness in my smile. “Janae—I mean Mary Elizabeth,” I said mockingly, “be honest with me. All of those are good reasons, but the main thing is that you want to ride in that contraption. Am I right?”

  “Ride in it? Hell, I wanna drive it!”

  “Do you know how to operate something like that?”

  “Sure,” she said and then added, “I mean, how difficult can it be?”

  “So you’ve never operated one. That’s what you’re saying, right?”

  “Not that one exactly . . . All right, no, but I’ve used equipment that’s like it. It runs on steam, and I can operate any type of tinkage that uses steam.”

  Without answering, I walked past her to the darkroom and retrieved a pail. “I’ll make a deal with you,” I said, handing it to her. “Take this to the horse trough on the street. Use it to fill up the carriage boiler. There’s an opening in the panel on the right side. I’m going to change clothes and use the water closet down the hall, and I’ll meet you down there in a few minutes.”

  “Got it.” Janae already had the window to the fire escape open when she turned to ask, “What do we do with the body in the back?”

  “We can’t very well dump him on the street in broad daylight, if that’s what you mean. Hey, is that my camera bag you have there?”

  “What, this?” she asked, pulling the black zippered bag out of where she’d stuffed it in the pail. “I thought I’d use it to carry Rodger. You know, just in case we run into any trouble.”

  “What about this?” I held up the Re-Viewer.

  “What about it?”

  “Shouldn’t we take a piece of tinkware like this in case we need to record memories of something?”

  “It’s not like it records the sounds of the memory, just the visual, so if your idea is to trick Mr. Montague into some kind of confession to show city officials, you’re out of luck. Plus, Mary Elizabeth wouldn’t carry around such a thing.”

  I had to give her credit, she’d thought this Mary Elizabeth thing through. Or did she just want to avoid a record of her meeting with Montague?

  “I don’t mind if you take that bag. Hennemann destroyed the camera that went inside it anyway.”

  “Thanks,” Janae said. “So, I had an idea about the body.”

  “I can hardly wait,” I said under my breath.

  “We take him out of the back and set him up in the front to look like he’s operating it.”

  “He weighs a ton. Plus, touching him last night was enough for me.” I tried to mask my embarrassment. “I don’t like dead bodies.”

  “Me either, but it would make sense that he’d be driving Mary Elizabeth to the—”

  “Bad idea.” I retreated to change my clothes. She couldn’t win an argument if I wasn’t in the room. “He stays where he is—end of discussion!” I shouted and closed the darkroom door.

  She slammed the window in frustration.

  Moments later, I had on a fresh shirt, vest, and trousers. I tucked Hennemann’s pistol in my belt and Fitzpatrick’s in a shoulder catch I’d fastened out of a small satchel.

  In the hallway, looking back in at my disheveled office and home, I paused. The morose sensation that I might never see it again bristled the hairs on the back of my neck. I still had the two airship tickets. We could just leave Addleton Heights—damn it to whatever Montague had in store for it and never look back.

  Something told me I wouldn’t get off that easy.

  “Are you out of your mind?” I shouted as I ran toward the steam carriage. “We agreed to leave him in the back.”

  Janae pulled at Hennemann’s wrists with all her might as she answered between fits of coughing. “I never agreed to anything. You went off and decided something I think is wrong, so I’m doing something about it.” She allowed his arms to fall to his massive chest and paused to cough and catch her breath.

  Upon reaching the vehicle, I slowed my pace. “So you’re just going to do what you please even though you promised you’d do things my way?” I could feel the rush of blood to my head turning my face red.

  Actually, I was impressed that she’d already managed to drag him a good two feet.

  “Look, you know how heavy this lunk is, so why don’t you grab a side and get this over with before your neighbors catch us out here? He’s too heavy for you to lift him back into the rear compartment without my help, and since I’m only willing to help you shove him in the front, you’ve got a decision to make.”

  I scanned the street for witnesses, then saw Miss Talbot’s street-facing bay window and sighed. One day you’re the peacock, the next you�
��re the feather duster.

  “We’re not even sure you can drive this thing,” I said. I hate to be forced to fold my hand, but she had me beat. She was right, we had to get off the street and out of view. Montague’s steam carriage was conspicuous enough.

  “Shut up and grab his wrist,” she commanded while bending to lift his hand again.

  A few laborious minutes later, a dead man sat behind the wheel of Alton Montague’s steam-powered vehicle.

  Janae would have fit next to Hennemann better than me if not for the plumage of her dress. Luckily for her, the carriage was operated solely by the regulator staffs and not foot pedals, or she would’ve been forced to do it my way.

  Grabbing her side door before she could close it, I said, “Drive down to the end of the street and back. If you do well enough with that, I’ll ride in Montague’s spot in the back when you return.”

  “I told you I can do this,” she huffed. “I’m a level eight coggler technician. I can handle this thing in my sleep. Now get in, ‘cause I’m leaving.”

  I stared at her. She was completely out of control.

  “You’d really leave me here?” I asked through gritted teeth.

  “I’ve got nothing to lose, honey. The plan is good, and I’ve got the perfect disguise. So yeah, I’ll go see Mr. Montague my own damn self. So what’s it gonna be? You stayin’ or goin’?”

  She knew she had me. I shook my head in disgust and shut her door hard. I swear I heard her laughing as I moved to open the doors in the back of the carriage.

  Even before I was settled inside, she jerked the three ivory levers toward her. The carriage didn’t roll forward. There was a rumbling that quaked the vehicle, accompanied by the shrill of steel scraping against steel. I imagined a fountain of sparks or even flames belching from the side of the carriage. I would’ve delivered a mocking “I told you so” if I wasn’t terrified.

  She must’ve tried a different combination, because a few seconds later, a new cacophony of clanging and banging noises filled the cab. This time, the metal beast did move—it lunged backward. It went a few feet before grinding to a halt. Looking through the length of the carriage, I saw a horrifying sight over dead Hennemann’s shoulder. There was a plume of black smoke that escaped up to the sky as the mechanical monster growled in frustration.