The Chronological Man: The Martian Emperor

by Andrew Mayne

  He’d spoken to the president earlier in the day on the scratchy telephone. “What are you going to do about this Martian situation?” the president had asked.

  “What am I going to do?” Grant had answered back. “Unless you’re going to open up the gold reserve, there’s little I can do.”

  “Well, deal with it,” the president had replied before hanging up.

  Deal with it? There wasn’t much Grant could do. The Martians were whoever they were, could keep setting off all the fireworks they wanted, but he was in no position to meet their demands. Mayor of the most important city in the world or not, he was still just a mayor.

  He mumbled a goodbye to his gaming partners and trudged off to the coat room. His hands in his pockets and eyes staring at the floor, he avoided the rest of the club, lest he have to be asked one more time what he was going to do about this Martian business. Decorum prevented him from using the four-letter gutter response he wanted to use.

  As he donned his coat and the valet called for his coach, he wished for a moment that PT Barnum was still among the living, if for no other reason than to get the man’s assurance that this was indeed a “humbug.” Grant trusted the opinions of others more than himself. Except those idiots who paraded on the stage earlier that day and brayed on and on. For all of that intellectual power, not a common-sense wit about them.

  He shrugged and stepped outside and boarded his coach. His driver snapped the reins and the two horses pulled the carriage away from the colonnades of the club. There was a bit of a fog that night. Grant closed the door to avoid the foul smell coming from the bay.

  The carriage traveled two blocks and then took the side street so the horses didn’t have to watch their steps on the trolley track in the dark. Grant lit a cheroot and puffed away as he tried to think about nothing. He wondered if his sister would still be up. Most likely. She was a delicate sleeper. He’d hoped to hand her off to some eligible man sooner or later so he could finally take his own wife. Grant was the youngest mayor the city had ever seen. In his political ambition, he hadn’t stopped to get married. He knew he’d have to remedy that soon or later. It didn’t look well to be a bachelor in politics for very long.

  His mind ran through the faces of the politically connected young women who might make a suitable wife. When the green glow shot into the carriage, he pulled the shade down as to not be disturbed. Although, for a moment, he was amused by the ghastly specter form the smoke from the cheroot made in the green light.

  The carriage came to a stop. Green glow? Grant sat up. The horses began to make a whining sound. There was a bounce as Albert hopped off the driver’s bench and walked over to his door.

  Grant waited for the tap to come at his window, but it never came. He thought that odd. He opened the door at the sound of footsteps running away from the carriage. Albert’s tails followed after him as he retreated under the light of a gaslamp and kept running in the opposite direction.

  Grant set foot off the carriage and looked back in the direction his coachman had gone. There was the feeling of acid at his throat when he thought for a moment that this was some kind of assassination. Had he displeased Croker? Were the gangs making a move? He thought those days were behind the city. Nobody murdered politicians in the street anymore. There were far better forms of assassination now, chiefly the press.

  He looked down at the green cast on the ground and his memory clicked into place. His shadow shimmered and flickered in the mysterious light. He was too terrified to turn around. All of the Martian business had been just that up until now. It wasn’t real. It was just a sea serpent story in the Times. The president, the panic, everything he had to deal with was about the reaction, not the thing itself.

  His heart pounded against his sternum. He felt the urge to chase after Albert, but fear locked his knees. Still unwilling to turn around, he stood still.

  It was no use. Another shadow grew behind him. It drew closer. He could already tell it was much larger than his own. The shape was … the shape was inhuman.

  A hand grabbed him by the shoulder, and he let out a stifled scream. He saw a searing white light and then passed out.

  Frightened witnesses, cowering behind windows, saw three Martian men carry his body into their glowing craft and then ascend back into the sky. Too terrified to say anything, it was an hour before the first police station heard that the mayor of New York had been abducted by the Martians. But it only took twenty minutes after that before the newspapers started planning the morning’s headlines. The Martians had taken their first hostage.

  Railroad Car

  Smith opened the gate to the private train yard and held it open for Roosevelt. He saw the light from the main salon car and jogged across the gravel when he saw April’s shadow.

  “I’ve made the most interesting discovery,” he said as he burst through the door.

  April looked down at the bouquet of gardenias and smiled. He tossed them onto a couch and her smile changed to a frown.

  “I need a map!” He began digging through a cabinet behind the mechanical train map.

  Roosevelt entered and tilted his hat to April. He saw the bouquet on the couch. “Er, Schmitty.”

  “In a moment, Teddy. I’ll tell you everything. Sorry for making you wait.” Smith pulled out a map of the Spanish coastline and tossed it aside as he dug through the rolled-up sheets.

  Roosevelt picked up the flowers and handed them to April. “He bought these for you, I believe.”

  April smelled the flowers and grinned.

  Smith noticed her reaction. “Yes, of course. But the real reason is what I’m about to tell you.”

  Roosevelt rolled his eyes. “He really couldn’t wait to tell you. He refused to tell me anything until you were here.” He tilted his head to the flowers. “I think that’s his real way. Splendid job on the copper wiring.”

  April gave a curt nod and looked for a vase to put the flowers into.

  Smith looked at a complicated map. “My way? Pardon,” he said in an absentminded manner.

  Roosevelt put a hand on his shoulder. “The flowers, waiting to tell Miss Malone your great revelation. Why just on the way here you were telling me what a keen mind she has.”

  “Yes. Of course. No need for me to compliment her. She knows her virtues.” Smith grabbed a map and unrolled it on the table.

  “You, sir, are astonishing,” said Roosevelt.

  “Thank you.”

  “That wasn’t a compliment.”

  “Oh?” Smith looked up from the map. April was pouring water from a pitcher into a vase with the flowers. “Gardenias. They smell quite pleasant. Anyhow, you can leave those for later.”

  Smith explained to them the second sun. Roosevelt and April exchanged looks.

  “I’m sure you might think I’m a bit mad.”

  “No. We both know you’re quite mad. That’s not the question. We believe you. In your own obtuse way,” said Roosevelt. “Explain to us what this means.”

  “A second sun!” said Smith. He looked from face to face, expecting them to make the connection. “I kept thinking that this Martian is such a showboat, he has to be right in front of our noses! Then I saw it!”

  “He’s hiding in the sun?” Roosevelt raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Did those men knock you about today?”

  “What men?” asked April in a protective manner.

  “Oh, the usual. Anyhow. Yes. He’s hiding in the sun. Not really.”

  Roosevelt shook his head.

  April looked down at the map. “I think I understand what he’s telling us.”

  “He’s not a circus pony tapping his damn hoof to answer arithmetic questions,” growled Roosevelt. “He can tell us in plain English! What did you see?”

  “There was no second sun,” said April. “He saw the Martian’s secret base.”

  “In the sky disguised as a sun? Not what I’d call inconspicuous.”

  “The sun was a reflection. Right?” asked April.

 
“Yes!” said Smith. His eyes lit up as he looked at April. “Visible only from one point near dusk.” He stabbed a finger on the map in the position where he was on the roof. He drew a pencil line straight across Manhattan to the east.

  “A building?” asked Roosevelt.

  “A building that isn’t there. Imagine a large stage illusion. The kind where a horse or woman is caused to vanish. Only, she’s still there. This Martian has built himself a secret base right in the heart of the city. Only we can’t see it,” said Smith.

  “Does any of this make sense to you, Miss Malone?” asked Roosevelt.

  “Yes. I think so.”

  “My god, it’s contagious.”

  “No, no. Look over my shoulder. What do you see?” said Smith.

  Roosevelt glanced up from the map and looked at the other side of the railroad car. “A window.”

  “Are you certain? What’s behind it?”

  “I can’t see behind it because it’s too dark out.”

  “Then what do you see?”

  “My face.”

  “Imagine a mirror high up in the sky that reflected the sky. What would you see?”

  “Sky? But at different times of the day I’d see opposite parts of the sky,” said Roosevelt.

  “Yes. But there’s a clever arrangement you can make with mirrors so you’d see the sky in back of it and never know it was there.”

  “Except for the seams,” said April.

  “Yes!” said Smith. He beamed at her.

  “But you could hide them in an unfinished building. Like one of those unfinished skeletons of steel,” said April.

  “What’s the tallest building in New York City?” asked Smith.

  “The World Building. Pulitzer’s office is on the top floor,” said Roosevelt.

  “Is it?” asked Smith.

  “It’s the tallest finished …. I see what you’re getting at. There’s that skeleton on Park Row. Still waiting for funds to complete it. Builders went bankrupt.”

  “It’s the tallest structure in New York but not the tallest building. People ignore it. Look right past it. If you wanted to lord over everyone in this city, everyone in the world, what better place than the tallest building in the world. Only nobody knows it’s even there. Hidden by a series of mirrors in the framework, you could hide an entire floor. You could even moor an airship there at night and nobody would know it was there if the weather was right.”

  “I don’t know. That’s an awful big hunch, Schmitty.”

  “I saw the reflection.” Smith pointed to Park Row on the map. “It was coming from that direction. I didn’t know that until I looked at this map.” He turned to April.

  “I think it’s an easily testable hypothesis,” she said.

  “Let’s go get my aircraft. The machinists should be finished with the modifications by now.”

  “Hold up there, Schmitty. It’s late at night. We need to go there with the police.”

  “But he could flee by then.”

  “I almost lost you today to those bogus health officials. Let’s plan this right. We need to get the police on our side.” Roosevelt was distracted as a metal chime rung out in the salon car.

  Smith walked over to his telegraph machine and examined a paper tape being spit out at a furious pace. “I cued it to look for mentions of ‘Martians’ on the wire.” He dropped the paper tape. His face went white. “It appears the mayor has been abducted.”

  “By whom?” asked April.

  “The Martians.”

  Roosevelt shook his head. “This takes things to a whole new level.”

  A Secet Base

  Smith, April and Roosevelt stood at the bottom of the unfinished Park Row building, gazing upward at the skeletal framework in the moonlight. Deputy Mayor Chesterfield turned to Roosevelt.

  “You think he’s up there?” The man had been dragged out of bed minutes after it was discovered the mayor had been abducted. Everyone was screaming at him to do something. Anything.

  “I don’t know. We think there’s something suspicious going on,” said Roosevelt.

  Chesterfield looked to the precinct police captain. The short man just shrugged. Behind him stood two dozen men with billy clubs in hand.

  “Are we supposed to climb up there like monkeys?” asked a sergeant.

  “We’ll leave that to your mother,” mumbled a man farther down the line.

  “We’ll all look like monkeys if we go up there and find nothing,” said another.

  “Well, Schmitty? How do we get up there?” asked Roosevelt. Inside the fenced-off construction yard, there wasn’t a crane or an elevator to be seen.

  Smith walked toward the side of the building. “Here. Have a look at the ground. Fresh tire tracks and hoof prints.”

  Roosevelt and the captain knelt down to the ground. Roosevelt reached out and sniffed the dirt.

  “It’s fresh, all right.” He looked up at Chesterfield. “Something is going on here.”

  The captain aimed a lantern into the building. Steel girders cast shadows on the concrete foundation. The entire first floor looked like it had been stripped clean of spare tools or buckets after the property went into receivership.

  Smith moved toward the center of the building. The metal frame formed a lattice forty stories tall. Toward the center, something blacked out the sky.

  “There’s something above us,” said Smith.

  “Just a floor,” said the captain.

  “Look closer.”

  The captain squinted his eyes. The underside looked like it was gray at first. Portions of it began to move.

  “You’re looking at the western sky,” said Smith. “Teddy? Are you superstitious?”

  “Only when it counts. Step aside gentlemen.”

  Smith and the captain backed up as Roosevelt pulled his revolver from his holster and aimed it upward. He pulled the trigger and then ran backward a dozen feet.

  The shot echoed through the metal girders. There was a pause and then silver pieces of glass began to rain down from above and smash into the foundation. For several seconds, there was an enormous racket as more shards fell from the great height and shattered on the metal girders.

  The deputy mayor and his men looked confused.

  “Well, that proves that part of the theory.” Roosevelt put his revolver back in his holster and picked up a piece of broken mirror. He tossed it aside. “Now, how do we get up there?”

  “What about this?” April was standing by a metal box bolted to a girder. A thick lock hung from it.

  “I think that’s too small to be an elevator, miss,” said the captain with an air of condescension.

  “Perhaps so, captain. But do the builders usually attach something to the electrical mains before they’ve even put in a floor?” She pointed to a thick conduit leading from the box into the foundation.

  Smith hurried over to the box. “It looks like this might be a controller of some kind. If I had my tools, I could pick it.” He began to search his pockets.

  Roosevelt nudged him out of the way.

  “No need to shoot it, Teddy.”

  “Posh, my friend. I don’t solve everything with a gun. Miss Malone? May I bother you for a hairpin from your delicate head?” April handed him a pin. Roosevelt shoved it into the lock and jimmied it for a moment. It came open.

  “Very impressive, Mr. Roosevelt,” said April.

  “A trick I learned from a trickster at Coney Island. A most clever young fellow.”

  Smith pulled open the box. There was a large lever. The captain stepped over and reached a hand out to grab it. Smith swatted his hand away.

  “Easy there. It’s likely booby-trapped. Probably the full current going through there.” He pulled a leather glove from his jacket.

  The captain pulled his hand away dejectedly, but his heart beat at the prospect of coming so close to be electrocuted. Smith gave the handle a tug. An electric motor whirred to life above them. Far above, a metal cage descended toward them. It
took several minutes to reach the foundation. When it reached ground level, it made a loud metal noise as it came to a standstill.

  Roosevelt, Smith and the captain peered inside the empty cage. There was another switch on the inside wall.

  “Deputy mayor, care to join us?” asked Roosevelt.

  “I’ll let you be the vanguard.” The man took a step back.

  The captain motioned for a half-dozen men to join him inside the lift along with Smith and Roosevelt.

  Smith saw the expectant look in April’s eyes. “Next lift?”

  She nodded and watched as the men ascended in the elevator. Her curiosity at what they would find burned in her chest.

  “So, what do we do if we find any Martians?” asked the captain as he pulled his revolver from his holster and checked it.

  “Arrest them, I suppose,” said Roosevelt.

  Smith and Roosevelt exchanged glances as the elevator climbed upward. They could see the city through the girders out beyond them. Streetlights flickered and windows glowed as people went about their lives that night. Word had spread about the mayor’s abduction and the city was fully awake.

  “Impressive view,” said Roosevelt. “Like gazing down from Mount Olympus.”

  “Pulitzer is going to piss himself when he finds out some trespasser has a better view of the city than he does,” said the captain.

  The elevator came to a stop at the top floor. A large metal door stood before them. One of the policemen reached down and grabbed the handle at the bottom.

  “Be ready for anything,” said the captain. His men held their guns at the ready.

  Roosevelt moved to the front of the lift. “Don’t shoot unless you have no choice. And don’t be distracted by what you see.” He looked back at the men behind him and received some half-committed nods.

  The policeman pulled the door up to reveal the Martian secret base.

  Stellarium

  “My god!” exclaimed one of the policemen as he saw the hideous bodies standing before him.