Addleton Heights

by George Wright Padgett

  “All right, let’s get this over with,” I said, handing Janae the two pistols and my coat. “So, I’m just going to put it on, punch through the door, and take it back off, right?”

  “Wait a minute,” Sawyer said with a frown. “You won’t fit. Mr. Montague is a much smaller man. You’re too big to fit inside, and so am I.”

  “Well, can’t I just walk beside it with the headband thing on?”

  “Sorry, Detective, but that won’t work,” he said. “If I had the time, I could configure the settings to work that way, but time is the one thing we don’t have.”

  “I could do it,” Janae said.

  Sawyer didn’t seem to have heard her, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to have heard her.

  “There is an override to the thought command system,” Sawyer mused, “but someone has to be in the compartment.”

  “What about me?” Janae exclaimed. “Why can’t I do it? I’m smaller than Kip. It doesn’t have to be male brainwaves or something stupid like that, does it?”

  Sawyer was caught off guard. “Male brainwaves? What—no. Nothing of the sort.” The excitement returned to his voice. “Yes, my dear, you should fit just perfectly. You’re about the same size as Mr. Montague. I mean, your frame, except for your . . .” He stopped short of calling attention to her bosom. “Anyway,” he continued, moving faster than ever, “let me lift you inside, and I’ll show you how to control it.”

  She shoved my jacket and pistols back at me, and Sawyer helped her in.

  The master tink reached behind her and turned a dial inside the half-opened suit, making several pinprick lights of various colors light up along the seams of the arms, legs, and waist and around the opening for the head. The sound of a pneumatic hiss came from within the suit.

  “What’s that?” Janae asked. “Is it supposed to be tightening around me like this?”

  “Oh, sorry,” Sawyer replied. “I forgot to mention that. I lined the inside with inflatable pads to isolate internal bumping. It contours to the wearer’s shape so you don’t move around inside—snug as a bug in a rug, so to speak.” He paused and then asked, “You’re not claustrophobic, are you?”

  “I wasn’t,” Janae said with a scowl, looking down inside the suit as it enveloped her.

  “You’ll get used to it. Plus, you only need to wear it long enough to punch through the metal door upstairs.”

  I stepped back to give them room and put my jacket back on. “You really put Montague in this thing?”

  He slid a final slat into place. “He never trusted me. After I nearly dropped him one of the first times, he always had Berkeley do it from then on.”

  “Berkeley!” I exclaimed. “I completely forgot about him. I’ll be right back.”

  I took the stairs two and three at a time back up to the room where we’d left him bound. I swung the door open with weapons drawn. He was gone.

  I heard a crash in the foyer. I had the sickening feeling that I had my answer.

  I raced from the study, ready to shoot.

  Below, in the foyer, debris covered the right side of the marble floor below. At first, it appeared to be a canoe or a casket broken to bits by an axe. Then I recognized the silver components amongst the shards of wood—the grandfather clock.

  Janae moved around the room in the walking suit with the awkwardness of an inebriated toddler. She barely missed the huge columns. Every step was announced by a sledgehammer thud against the marble floor, followed by a scrape of the metal boots.

  So much for stealth.

  Every third or fourth step forced out short bursts of steam from the knee and elbow joints of the suit.

  Sawyer hastened to offer reassurances. “This version releases a lot of external steam vapor, but you’re completely insulated inside by the isolation pads, don’t worry.”

  “All right, all right!” she hollered in frustration. “Just give me a moment to figure it out!”

  Whether she intended to or not, the suit turned in my direction. Her heavy footsteps crunched what was left of the clock into smaller fragments. “Yeah, I got the hang of this now,” she announced with a fair amount of pride.

  “Well then, come up the stairs and break the door. We’re in a hurry, remember?”

  Without warning, the suit straightened up and ran backward at a high rate of speed. Obviously out of control, Janae let out an “Oh . . . oh . . . Ohhhhhh shit!”

  I moved down the first few stairs. “Watch out for the—” It was too late. The entry disintegrated into large wooden fragments that rivaled the mess of the grandfather clock on the floor. “—door,” I finished in a weak mumble.

  She went through the wall like it was Chinese paper. Sawyer had been right, the suit was a cannonball with legs and arms. Judging by the rhythmic thud in the snow outside, the impact hadn’t even slowed her.

  As I descended the stairs, Sawyer glanced my way with the guilty look of a child caught feeding the dog under the table.

  I asked, “It’ll stop before she runs backward off the edge of the compound, right?”

  He shrugged as we scrambled to the jagged hole that had been the front door. “Yes, of course. It should . . . I mean, I certainly hope so.”

  Through the opening, I saw her in the distance. She’d managed to stop some seventy yards out in the snow. I was relieved, of course, but also grateful that I wasn’t nearby. She proceeded to curse up a blue streak that would make a sailor’s captain blush.

  The two of us returned to the warmth inside. I turned to him and said, “This is taking too long. Montague already knows I’ve returned.”

  He shrugged. “What can we do?”

  “Wait!” I said, holding up a hand. “Do you feel that?”

  “Feel?”

  The ground quaked in rhythm but out of synch with Janae’s walking suit in the courtyard—and from a different direction.

  With my free hand, I grabbed Sawyer by the shoulder and forced him to face me. “A minute ago, you told Janae ‘This version of the suit releases a lot of steam.’ This isn’t the only one?”

  The thump I felt through the soles of my boots got stronger.

  Sawyer’s baby face trembled. He was barely able to form the words, “There’s another one, the finished product. The one Miss Nelson’s in is only the prototype.”

  Like a bass drum of a funeral march, the thumps continued. We both turned to determine the source, but the cavernous foyer threw echoes around.

  “How do you stop the suit? Can you do some of that mirror-within-a-mirror stuff that you and Janae were talking about?”

  Thud.

  “Answer me! Mr. Sawyer, can you use the transmitter thing to stop it?”

  Thud.

  He shook his head slightly. “No, nothing like that.”

  It was getting closer, and the scrape of the step could now be heard between each thump.

  “There has to be something. Think, Sawyer, think!”

  Thud.

  He was on the verge of hysterics. “There’s not! Everything is controlled by the thought ring!”

  “The gold headband thing, right?”

  “Yes.”

  Turning to the right, I saw a walking suit emerge from the hallway. Janae’s suit was about nine feet tall. I guessed this one to be over twelve.

  I raised the gun and waited for a shot between the columns that even I couldn’t miss.

  It was clear this suit was a more refined version of Janae’s. While the one she wore was boxy in design, this apparatus had sleek, elegant lines and a shiny black breastplate, and I recognized its operator—Alton Montague. The suit made his head look comically small, but it was him, all right.

  “Addleton Heights pigeon-shooting champion four years in a row!” he announced in a loud voice from the far end of the foyer. A figure moving in time with Montague’s cumbersome steps aimed a rifle at us from behind him.

  “Every spring after the first thaw, I host a pigeon-shooting competition in the back courtyard. It’s for members of the
Addleton Heights elite.” He brought the powered shell to a deliberate halt. A burst of steam vapor punctuated the stop.

  “Berkeley shoots in my place on the roster, for obvious reasons, and he’s come in first the last four years in a row.”

  “That’s right, Mr. Montague,” a voice behind him said. It was Berkeley.

  Typically, I’m not a violent man, but in that moment, I felt a twinge of regret for not having Janae electrocute Berkeley into a state of paralysis.

  “Go ahead and shoot him, Detective,” Sawyer whispered behind me. “Even if the butler gets his shot off, Mr. Montague will be dead, and we’ll save all of those people. Ours will be honorable deaths.”

  I tried to recall ever seeing the “honorable death” section of the cemetery.

  “I’m not that great an aim,” I whispered back. I considered getting out Fitzpatrick’s gun for Sawyer, but the tink could be an even worse shot than me.

  Montague continued his boast. “I’m sure if Berkeley can shoot birds flying through the air, he can hit a target like you, Detective.”

  “Just say the word, boss,” Berkeley replied, still hidden.

  “In a moment,” Montague answered. “I’d like to learn a few things first.”

  “Told you he’d want to talk,” I mumbled. I cocked my head to the side. “Is the suit weaponized?”

  “No, Detective. It’s a mobility suit.”

  “Good. Slowly move to the side so Berkeley can’t shoot us both.”

  All of a sudden, Montague took a few steps forward and blurted out, “What did you two do to my clock . . . and my front door? That was from France!”

  I readjusted my stance. With him moving closer, I had a slightly better chance of hitting my target. Every bit would help.

  Berkeley modified his aim too.

  “Does Marcus know you’re here?” Montague asked.

  “Marcus Hennemann is dead,” I said, feeling sweat trickle down the back of my neck.

  He thought on this for a second. “Hmmm . . . killed the big oaf in his sleep or something?”

  I didn’t dare look toward the door and draw attention to Janae. If Berkeley was as good as his boss claimed, the element of surprise was our only hope of overcoming them. I needed to keep him talking and try to send Sawyer to tell her what was going on. I took a few slow steps to the right, which made Montague angle a little more away from the door to face me.

  I shouted, “You call him a big oaf? That’s all you have to say? He worshiped you.”

  His eyebrows rose in apathy. “A lot of people worship me. In truth, it’s the power that they revere. They’re just too stupid to recognize it. What about you, Mr. Kipsey? Do you long to take your place at the top?”

  I squinted and tightened my grip. “I think I’m doing all right where I am.”

  “Suit yourself. I hope you got a good price for the mech graph arm.”

  I moved to the side of one of the columns, and he slowly angled the suit in my direction again.

  “Mr. Kipsey, obviously, your return to my estate without him is a prime indicator that things have deviated from the original plan. The fact you now point a pistol in my direction also tells me that you’ve had a change of heart along the way. I so did hope that we would become friends, I truly did. I sensed such promise in you.”

  I clicked the hammer back.

  The gesture did little to frighten him. He only seemed more annoyed. “But I am a businessman. Therefore, I see this turn in the game as an opportunity to renegotiate and augment our previous agreement.”

  “To be clear, I only agreed to work for you to get out of here before,” I snapped.

  “Don’t presume me to be so naïve, sir. I knew that.” He replaced a snarl with the mask of a smile. “But if you bested one of my top men, I should consider you a formidable jack worth his coin.”

  Keep him talking, I thought.

  “Are you seriously offering me his position right now?” I braced the hand with the gun by grabbing my wrist.

  “Isn’t that what you’re here for, to take your place as a hireling instead of as my associate? If you’ve sought to impress me by subduing Hennemann and Berkeley, you’ve done so.” He whispered down to Berkeley at his side. I braced for whatever was to come next.

  By now, Sawyer had managed to shift a good ten feet to my left, and I could see him continuing to inch away from the corner of my eye. I needed him to go to Janae but couldn’t figure out how to convey it to him without Montague knowing.

  To my astonishment, Berkeley shifted the aim of the rifle toward the ground.

  The weight of the pistol in my grip insisted that I lower it, but I didn’t dare give in.

  “So what’s it going to be, Mr. Kipsey? Today is the beginning of a new era for Addleton Heights, a day in which the city will be set free of its coal dependence from the outside. Are you with me?”

  “A new era, huh?” I reminded myself to keep the conversation going as long as possible.

  The sound of Sawyer yelling, “Shoot him!” recharged the tension in the air.

  Berkeley raised the rifle again, probably out of reflex.

  “Shut up, you sniveling coward!” Montague shouted. “Men are speaking here.”

  “Alton Montague!” I shouted. “I’m placing you under citizen’s arrest for crimes against the city of Addleton Heights.”

  “Crimes against the city?” He scoffed. “I love the city! All I do is for Addleton Heights, more than you could ever know. But now that you’ve revealed your true intentions, I have a question for you, Mr. Kipsey.”

  He paused, and his intense eyes studied me. “Just so I know just how much to punish Police Chief Ormond for recommending that I hire you and bring you into my home, did you even bother to look for Jason O., or had you already made up your mind to go against the Commonwealth when you left here? Did you learn anything at all, Detective?”

  Taking a step toward him, I steadied the gun. “What did I learn? I learned that you intend to flood the Under, though it means killing all of those people down there. I learned of your plan to use seawater from down there to generate electricity for rechargeable batteries for your latest enterprise, Montague Power Company. I learned that you intend on assassinating Commissioner Davenport and two other Commonwealth members with your mechanicals.”

  Get him talking about Davenport, I thought. “Did they refuse you something? Do you think they’ll try to block your plan?”

  My words hung in the air for a moment as I wondered what Janae was doing.

  Montague was noticeably impressed. “Hmmm. All that in a day and a half? Are you sure we can’t sort this out? I could really use someone with skills like—”

  I was nearly in range now. “I learned the most important thing. I learned you’re a monster.”

  The click of Berkeley’s rifle got my attention.

  Montague no longer tried to uphold the farce. Just like a player at the table flipping over his cards, he let me see his true self. “Monster? No more a monster than the boot is to the anthill.”

  I needed to get this conversation back on track. “So you haven’t started it yet? You haven’t sent the mechanicals downward?”

  “Not that it should matter to you, but I was going to do that after Berkeley helped me with my bath. Today is a momentous day in Addleton Heights’ history, and my father taught me to dress up for such occasions, even if no one is around to see you.”

  All at once, there was a commotion near the front entrance. It was the sound of more wood hitting the marble floor. The noise was followed by Janae saying, “Mr. Sawyer, I think I’ve got this figured out. You see, what I was originally trying to do was—”

  Her words stopped short along with her movement. The suit hissed small bursts of steam from the arm and leg joints.

  Without a doubt, Montague was stunned, but so was Janae, and we lost the element of surprise.

  “Who the blazes are you, and what are you doing in my walking suit?” Montague asked in disbelief. H
e shot a look at Berkeley.

  “She’s the one that shocked me, sir.”

  Janae seemed embarrassed she hadn’t noticed either of them right off. She clomped a few steps toward him, but I was still closer.

  “Mr. Montague,” she said, seemingly unfazed that he was in a walking suit of his own, “I’m here to talk to you about my brother, Jim Nelson.”

  Montague looked in my direction and snorted. “Nelson had a sister? Really?”

  She boldly took another step. “Yes, and I want to speak with you about how you—”

  He cut her off and looked back at me with a naughty grin. “Well, Mr. Kipsey, methinks I understand it all now—why you’re up here and what has made you refuse my generous offer.” His laugh was contemptuous. “A man can find himself doing the most irrational things for a warm bit of cunny.”

  I felt a breeze as Janae raced by me toward Montague. She let out a roar as she collided with him. Berkeley dodged and managed to get off a shot, but it either went wild or deflected off her suit.

  The impact echoed like a cannon blast. His larger suit was imbedded in the wall, knocking cracked pieces down to the marble floor. As he struggled to get free, she took a few steps backward and rammed him again.

  Sawyer bolted toward the stairs as Berkeley reloaded.

  “Put it down, Berkeley!” I yelled, and I fired a shot of my own. The rifle fell, and he grabbed his shoulder in pain.

  “What did you do with my brother’s body?” Janae screamed at Montague, slamming her shoulder into him again.

  She blocked any shot I might’ve had.

  From the safety of the stairs, Sawyer yelled something about the thought ring.

  Berkeley ducked behind a column, and I scanned the floor for the rifle but couldn’t find it.

  There was a loud blast of steam, and the wall behind Montague shattered. He lunged at Janae, and she fell backward in surprise.

  Montague bent and somehow hefted her up by the ankle joints of her suit. She tried to wriggle free but only managed to rock him a bit. His suit wasn’t just larger—it must have been twice as heavy and powerful.

  I barely avoided being trampled as he stepped past with her into the center of the foyer. Her blonde hair ran across the scarred marble floor as she flailed against his legs. It was impossible, but the suction cup of the thought ring remained attached to her temple.