The August entry note described how Nelson had stumbled across an accounting inconsistency involving controlled materials from the Northern Union states below. He’d approached Montague for an explanation, and Montague had played it off.
It was the hidden page of the October notebook that made a shiver run down my spine. It said Montague had sent thinly veiled questions down to the Babbage group on how to flood the Under using seawater from the Atlantic.
Judging by the lack of rustling noises, Janae was done changing. I turned to face her. She looked white as a sheet. In her quivering hand was one of the two ledgers I’d left on the floor, the one marked “December.”
“Janae, the message in Morse Code . . . what exactly did it say? Did it read ‘I am destroying the Under’ or was it ‘AM destroying the Under’? ‘AM’ for ‘Alton Montague’?”
“Kip, I’m so sorry. There’s no upper- or lower-case letter distinctions in Morse Code. I thought it was ‘am destroying the Under’ and they left off the ‘I’ by accident. I didn’t know it was ‘AM’ for ‘Alton Montague.’” She was shaking. “It’s true. He really plans to do it.” She turned the notebook to show me crudely rendered schematics.
“I know, Janae.” I held up the October ledger. “Your brother said it in here. He mentions things like tidal power and wave motors, but I still don’t get why Montague would go to all the trouble.”
“I know why,” she said, biting her bottom lip. “He’s planning to use the mechanicals to puncture the embankments below. When the ocean comes pouring into the Under, he’ll have an unlimited supply of natural energy.”
“Yes, but for what?” I asked, moving closer to her.
She held up the November book. “In this one, Jimmy tells how he discovered a new accounting code for a business called ‘Montague Power Company.’”
“The batteries!” I exclaimed. “Will that work? I mean, is it sound tinkage to use the ocean waves to charge all those batteries we saw?”
She handed me the ledgers, but my eyes were on her.
Janae nodded solemnly. “Jimmy’s not much of an artist, and there’s plenty that he didn’t quite understand, but the gist of it’s there. Montague is going to do away with coal energy for the city—and do away with all of the people down there.”
It hit me like a mule kick. “Everyone would have to get”—I corrected myself—”buy . . . one of those batteries to have power on the platform.”
“He’d control everyone even more than he does right now,” she added.
I looked at the diagrams, but my mind swam with the revelation. “Not just Addleton Heights. That’s where he’d start his plan, but I doubt he’d stop there.”
“That’s exactly what Jimmy says here,” she said, pointing to the ledger she’d handed me. “He says he thinks Montague Power Company would expand to the Northern Union and Confederate states and maybe even Europe.”
“Montague hinted about something like that to me a couple of days ago,” I said as a sense of urgency swept over me. I scooped up the other ledgers. “We’ve got to get these to the Commonwealth immediately so they can stop this.”
Janae was motionless. “Yeah . . .”
I paused to look at her. “What?”
She didn’t answer, but I could tell her mind was sorting through something.
“Look, Janae, I got what I came for. You can find Montague and confront him if you want, but I’m—”
“No, it’s not that. I want to stop him . . . we have to stop him. I know that I came up here to see him, but this whole thing hinges on flooding the Under, and the metal men are going to do that. If communication with the metal men can be stopped or redirected, we can stop them from puncturing the steel walls.”
Her words were fast as she held up the brass communicator. “I don’t know how they work. I mean, I know it’s through these devices, but I don’t know how to send a message to all of them at once. I don’t even know what we’d say . . . what commands they’ve been programmed with . . . but we’ve got to try.”
She shook her head. “I can confront Alton Montague when he’s in a jail cell on his way to the end of a hangman’s noose, but for the moment, we have to make sure the mechanicals stationed around the city never reach the bottom.”
I studied the intensity of her blue eyes for a second. “All right, I know what to do.”
The statement stunned her. “You do? You know how to stop them from climbing down the stilts?”
“We find the man who created them.”
Twenty-Eight
We hastened back through the study. With my back to the foyer, I closed the door as quietly as possible, and that was when I heard him.
“You two shouldn’t be here.”
“Uh . . . Kip?” Janae said as she nudged me.
My grip tightened on the ledgers as I turned to face the man the voice belonged to. It was the butler. “Oh, hello . . . Berkeley, is it? Your name is Berkeley, right?” I asked, stalling.
He ignored the question. “I said you two shouldn’t be here. What are you doing with Mr. Montague’s books?”
For once, I welcomed the click and whirling sound of Rodger as Janae went to work on the manservant. As expected, his slender body toppled to the floor in a shaking heap. We waited until the charge had finished its work in him, and then we dragged him back into the study.
“We need to bind him with something,” I said, placing the ledgers on the floor and yanking off my tie. “Something to gag him with too.”
“I’ll be right back,” Janae said, rushing to the far end of the enormous room. While I tied his hands with my neckwear, there was a faint ripping sound from the opposite end of the study. A moment later, Janae returned with strips of frayed material. “At least we’ll get some good out of it.”
“That was a very expensive dress you just destroyed.”
“Yes. Yes, it was.”
Berkeley’s moans of agony only hastened our binding of him. The clock was ticking against us now. His absence from his duties would only go unnoticed for so long before someone searched for him. Why couldn’t it have been the servant we saw earlier instead?
I hid his quaking body behind one of the parlor chairs while Janae peeked out of the door. “It’s clear,” she said in a low voice.
We made our way through the foyer and across the courtyard without incident. Luckily, the sky ferry was still docked at this level. We climbed aboard and began our descent to the worker level.
“How do you know that Mr. Sawyer will help us?” Janae asked, settling into her seat. “I mean, if he’s the one who made the mechanicals, why would he want to stop them?”
“I’m not sure what exactly is going on, but based on what I saw of him the other night, there’s no love between him and Montague. I got the impression that Sawyer’s being blackmailed into working for him.” I scratched the back of my neck, remembering the scene. “He turned as white as a ghost when Montague threatened someone named Marjorie.”
“Marjorie? Is that his wife?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Wife, fiancée, sister, who knows? But it got him to snap to when he heard the name. Regardless, remember that it was Sawyer who slipped me the device and sent us the message. He’s got to be on our side.”
She nodded. “How do I look?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, tucking the multicolored ledgers under my seat for safekeeping.
“I’m about to meet the greatest living tink mind. I want to look good.”
“Since when do you care about that?”
In her eyes, I saw that I’d gone too far. I’d cut her to the quick, and she clamped up.
“Janae, I’m sorry. That didn’t come out right.”
We rode in silence for a few minutes.
As the bassel lowered into the darkness of the tunnel, I announced my plan. “When we get to the guard outside Sawyer’s holding area, let me do the talking. We need to keep a low profile.” I held the pistol up in the ferry’s lamplight. “I’d also
rather not use this if it can be avoided. The sound of a gunshot would alert the Babbage workers on the same level.”
She wound Rodger a few times. “Are you afraid they’ll fight us?”
“Maybe, but I’m more concerned that they’ll notify Montague that we’re here. Right now, the only thing we have on our side is the element of surprise.”
“Oh, right. Good idea.”
A few moments later, the ferry slowed to a stop at the worker level of the compound.
I exited the compartment cordially, saying, “You’re Reggie, right? Mr. Montague wants Sawyer up there immediately.”
He looked me over and then stared into the bassel. “She’s changed clothes. Why does she look like that?” The burly man tugged at his red beard as he stood. “And what’s she doing down here?”
My offer of a handshake went ignored. Instead, the man pressed my chest with his truncheon, making me grimace in pain. “And why didn’t Berkeley or someone telegraph me to get Sawyer ready?”
“Mr. Bailey, I think it would be wise for you to do what Mr. Montague requires without any—”
Janae stepped onto the landing with us. “You sure ask a lot of questions for a grunt.” A second later, Reginald Bailey met Rodger.
He collapsed to the metal floor with a thud and convulsed. His eyes rolled back in his head as he let out a groan like a dying rhinoceros. Somehow, he managed to roll to his side and reach for Janae’s ankle.
She stepped back dangerously close to the edge of the platform, where a chasm straight down to the ocean gaped between the platform and the bassel.
That he possessed any bodily control after being shocked astounded me. He still crawled in her direction.
Janae didn’t retreat this time but bent to shock him again. “Just stop moving, you big oaf,” she scolded. “Just stay down.” Winding Rodger furiously, she looked up at me. “Something’s wrong. It’s not working right.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, taking another step backward.
“Rodger’s not releasing the full voltage!” she shouted. “Something’s wrong with it.” As if to demonstrate, she administered another jolt to the fallen man.
Bailey managed to roll to his stomach and feebly inch forward despite the electricity coursing through his system.
He was unstoppable.
Janae was on the verge of panic. The device that always put her in control had betrayed her.
I drew my gun. “Bailey, stop.”
He propped up on one elbow, then the other.
Janae maneuvered to the other side of him, away from the opening, blocking my line of fire.
Bailey sluggishly made it to his hands and knees like a drunken bull.
“Stop moving!” Janae yelled, adjusting Rodger, probably to a higher setting.
“Janae, wait!”
I felt a dull charge travel through the metal flooring into my boots. The unexpected tingling startled me.
As he lumbered to the side, time slowed. I saw the inevitability of it before it happened. I shouted, “Janae, don’t let him—”
Before I got the final word out, Reginald Bailey disappeared with a scream through the opening between the bassel ferry and the edge of the platform.
After peering over the edge for a moment, she turned to face me. She was horrified. “It’s like my father, how he screamed as he fell. I didn’t—” she began and abruptly stopped.
The look on my face must have said it all.
“Kip, I didn’t mean for him to—”
“I know, Janae, but . . .”
A tear ran down her cheek. “What? What is it?”
I paused. A man had just fallen to his death, and I didn’t want to belittle the significance of that, but the pragmatic part of me rose front and center. “He had the keys.”
“Oh,” she said. She looked at her feet. “I didn’t mean for him to fall. I promise, I was just trying to make him stop. I never intended—”
“I know you didn’t.” I sighed. “Get your lockpicking thing from the bassel.”
My request snapped her back into the moment, but instead of returning to the sky ferry, she moved to the steel gate and gave it a tug. Crouching for a better look, she answered, “It won’t work. This is like a jail cell lock. The Jimmy only works on normal keyholes.”
“You’re calling it the Jimmy now? Are you sure it won’t work?”
“Sorry, Kip. With most locks, the key completes the locking mechanism. Once the key is twisted in place, it becomes a part of the pin-and-release groove. My tinkware simply drills through all the hardware until there’s nothing left for the latch to hold onto. I can’t drill through something that isn’t there.”
I drew the gun. “All right, get behind me and cover your ears.”
“But you said you didn’t want to use the—”
“I know. Just get behind me.”
I pointed Hennemann’s massive gun at the side of the metal hardware connected to the locking mechanism. Pulling the hammer back, I said, “This is going to be really loud.”
Janae crouched. “I’m ready.”
I looked away and discharged the blast.
Twenty-Nine
The shot in the small area was painfully loud, even though I’d expected it. Thankfully, it only required a single shot. The metal juncture point that the lock connected to was mangled enough by the blast. I kicked at it twice, and the gate yielded and swung inward.
I suspected that Janae’s ears were ringing like mine, so instead of speaking, I motioned to her. She fell in behind me, and we moved down the corridor.
The well-lit hallway emptied out into a cluttered room with a high ceiling. Dozens of clocks of various sizes were mounted on the far left wall. Each of them swung their pendulums in time like a high-stepping battalion in a parade, their faces reading 2:30. A tapestry of cables, hoses, and metal tubes of various sizes wove through the rafters. If all that weren’t enough, the smell of grease and oil proved that we were in the workplace of a tink.
But where was the man? Had we risked coming down here for nothing?
In the chaos, I spotted a pewter-colored metal arm on a disheveled stack of yellowing diagrams. It confirmed that Sawyer was indeed the creator of the metal men—or mechanicals—dispatched across the city. I pointed out my discovery of the robotic limb, but Janae was far behind me. I must’ve had the same wide-eyed, glassy stare the first time I entered Montague’s library.
The ringing in my ears had mostly subsided, so I suspected the same was true for her. I called out, “Janae, I’m certain that you can find—”
She stopped in her tracks and pointed at something behind me.
Following the direction of her gaze, I turned and saw a pod dominating the back of the far wall. It looked like a giant elongated metal strawberry. Countless bolts and rivets covered its bronze skin. It was double the size of a horse carriage.
She slowly uttered a single word: “Bathysphere.”
“Who is—”
“A submersible,” she said in an astonished voice, moving to close the gap between us. “I’ve only seen diagrams of these types of vehicles, but this . . . this is . . .” Her voice trailed off.
I felt silly having drawn my pistol on it. Lowering the gun, I looked over my shoulder at her. “So it goes in water?”
Before Janae could answer, the craft emitted a pronounced hiss followed by a steady blast of steam. I put Janae behind me and aimed my weapon in the direction of the metal pod. The sound of Rodger being wound up told me Janae was at the ready.
As the vapor dissipated, the side panel of the small vessel detached and lowered, forming a metal ramp. It connected with the floor with a thud that nearly made me leap out of my skin.
I tightened my grip on the gun and forced myself to inch closer.
A man descended the ramp, oblivious to our presence in the cluttered workroom. I recognized the dingy white lab coat and the man’s bald-as-a-baby head.
“Mr. Sawyer!” I called, rushing to meet
him.
The man was so startled that he dropped his clipboard. Simple deduction told me the pod must’ve blocked the sound of me blowing the lock off the gate.
“Mr. Sawyer, we need your help. We’re here to break you out.”
He squinted and lifted his spectacles for a better inspection of me.
“It’s me, Kip.”
Confusion filled his face as he cautiously moved to me. “Detective Kipsey?”
“Yes, it’s me. Is anyone else in there with you?”
“What? No, just me. It’s only large enough for Mr. Montague’s chair in there.” He waved off the question. “You . . . you came. You got the message then? About Mr. Montague destroying the Under?”
Janae pushed past me. The brass receiver had replaced Rodger in her hand. “We have this, but it stopped working yesterday.”
Sawyer answered apologetically. “I had to quit for fear of Mr. Montague intercepting the message. He’s stepping up the timeline on the deployment of the mechanicals.”
“We read about what he plans to do with them,” I said. “How long do we have?”
“You read it? He’s initiating everything today. That’s why I’m getting his bathysphere ready. He plans to take this on its maiden voyage tomorrow morning to inspect the changes to the Under and check the buoy systems himself.”
My blood ran cold. Imagining Montague in the underwater capsule, I was about to ask Sawyer if he was able to trap him inside when Janae hollered, “We’ve gotta stop him!”
“Yes, yes, of course,” he mumbled. “Now that you’re here, there’s something we can do.” Then a look of panic filled his eyes. “Wait, how did you two get in here?”
“We shot the lock off the door,” I said. “You’ve got to come with us to stop the flooding.”
“Yes, the flooding. Then you did have the Chinatown tinks translate my message?” His countenance changed as if a point had been scored against an impossible opponent. “Sorry to send you way out there for that, but I’m not sure if Mr. Montague has spies within the tink guild or not. The Chinese consortium—”
Addleton Heights Page 27
