The Chronological Man: The Martian Emperor

by Andrew Mayne

  A crowd of curious people was watching from Waterloo Bridge. Several coaches had stopped to look at the calamity.

  Alfie remembered the trivial fact that the obelisk was one of three. It had a mate in Paris and one in America. He hurried back to Lord Nigel’s house to report to him what just happened. The dogs protested at the shortened walk and reluctantly followed on his heels.

  Across the ocean it was still dark in New York City, but the city was awake as police and firemen patrolled the streets, looking for signs of their missing mayor, and newspapermen rushed the morning paper out for delivery.

  Several hundred people saw the bright flash of green light over Central Park. Some said the light came from the sky. Others said from the monument. Physicists tried to explain it was a trivial matter afterward.

  All would agree that after the flash there came a loud explosion followed by a shower of sparks in the middle of the park. The first man on the scene was a police lieutenant who’d been standing guard over the Martian obelisk.

  When he reached the foot of Cleopatra’s Needle, smoking chunks of stone littered the ground. The tip had been blown apart as if it had been smited.

  Telegraph offices around the world were besieged by a signal from no apparent source, just as they had been the night before.

  President Harrison’s butler woke the commander in chief with the urgent missive that had been handed to him. Through bleary eyes, the president read the message that had been transmitted to the world:

  MARS STRIKES. NO MAN. NO CITY. NO NATION IS SAFE. SURRENDER NOW.

  Already alarmed by the news of the mayor’s abduction, the strike against all three cities was the breaking point. The president had enough. He bolted from his bed in his nightgown. “Get the secretary of war and the secretary of the treasury to my office immediately. I need to know how much gold we have on hand!”

  Captive

  When Smith first came to his senses, his nose told him he was in some kind of zoo. There was the smell of exotic animals in the air – meat eaters and herbivores all under one roof. There was straw underneath him, and he could clearly tell he was in a cage. A gaslamp cast a small glow in the hallway before him and sent dim light through the bars in front of him. The rock wall behind him felt damp and dank like a cellar.

  He pulled himself against the back wall. Naked except his boxers, he pulled his knees in for warmth.

  “Well, this is an unfortunate situation,” he said to himself.

  “That it is, monsieur,” came a gravel-sounding voice down the hall.

  “Hello? Is someone there?” asked Smith.

  “Oui. I am a prisoner like you.”

  “And what was your crime?”

  “Curiosity. I wanted to find out what was at the other end of the bottle. Zen this … this rat catcher and his men captured me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of my charm. My wit. My way with the ladies.”

  Smith paid close attention to the voice. Besides the accent, he could pick up other details. “You’re a wolf man of sorts, aren’t you? Etes-vous du Québec?”

  “Oui. Have you heard of me?”

  “No. It’s just that you have a very high timbre for such a low register, it suggests a small diaphragm and esophagus, but your vocal chords are quite dense. The work of Doctor Brown-Séquard has revealed an excess of a hormone known as testosterone could cause this. In your case, I would imagine it would make a very hirsute man, making your stature as a dwarf all the more interesting.”

  “Oui, but it is what’s on the inside that counts. I can tell that you are the ‘clever man’ that this maniac has been obsessing about. It would seem he finds you almost as interesting as these Martians.”

  “I’ve only seen a small dose of his attention, and I don’t care much for it.” Smith stood up and examined the door to the cage. It was padlocked shut with a huge lock. “I have much more serious business to attend to than his games.”

  “I’m sure you do, but this man takes his games very seriously. By the smell of things, they can be quite fatal.”

  “Well, my friend, I don’t plan on you or me staying around long enough to find out.”

  “You would help me escape?”

  “Of course. We peculiar men must look out for each other.” Smith got to his knees and searched the straw on the floor for anything that could be used as a tool.

  “They come, monsieur.”

  The sound of a key in a lock echoed down the hallway. Smith sat back down. He heard a loud snort from another cell.

  “I’d say bless you, but I don’t believe that was you sneezing,” said Smith.

  “No. That was one of the other guests. He’s not as talkative as you.”

  “I see,” said Smith.

  The door opened and two sets of heavy footsteps walked toward his cell. One of Contral’s men set a chair down in front of the bars. Contral unbuttoned his coat and sat down. There was a large clipboard in his lap. He uncapped a pen and opened a folder.

  “What year were you born?” asked Contral as if it were a mundane interview.

  “Pardon me?” asked Smith.

  “You heard the question.”

  “It’s a personal matter,” said Smith.

  “It’s a mere formality I ask of all our guests.”

  “I decline.” Smith looked away.

  Contral nodded to the man standing to his right. He wore a black bowler and a heavy black coat. The man slapped a billy club in the palm of his hand.

  “If you choose not to answer the question then Mr. Henley will be forced to step inside to assist.”

  Smith could still feel the bruises from the abduction. But that was when they caught him by surprise. “Just Mr. Henley? What about his partners in crime?”

  “They’re doing other tasks. But I can have them here in a moment,” said Contral.

  “That might be advisable. Should Mr. Henley step into this cage unassisted, I’ll conduct my own examination using his club.”

  Contral shook his head. “I thought you were an intellectual. I doubt you have much capacity for violence.”

  “What about me would make you think that?” Smith turned to the man and glared. “Please, send Mr. Henley in now. My odds are much improved right now if it’s just you and him.” Smith jumped to his feet and ran to the front of the cage.

  Contral jumped back in his chair. Henley stepped forward and slammed the club at the bars where Smith was gripping them. The wooden shaft clanged against the bars as Smith slipped away. Smith dropped to his knees and punched the brute in the testicles.

  Henley let out a moan and then collapsed to the floor, his eyes watering. Contral slid his chair backward as he looked at the fallen man who was hyperventilating and doubled over clutching his groin.

  Smith stood up. “Predictable and clumsy. Where were we?”

  Contral tried to regain his composure. He pretended to check something off on the folder while making certain that he was out of Smith’s reach. He looked up when he heard the sound of something hitting metal. Smith had grabbed the club and was now brandishing it inside the cage.

  “It’s a pity Henley didn’t have a keyring on him or I’d be checking off boxes with your blood,” said Smith.

  Contral’s pen hand fell to his lap. There was something menacing in Smith’s gaze – almost animal. For a moment he was uncertain he had the right man. The man he expected was supposed to be some kind of rarified intellectual and not some savage brute who played by dirty rules. He glanced down at his henchman, who was struggling to get to his feet.

  “Mr. Smith, you’ll find we have all kinds of measure to get your compliance. The first ones are civility. From there it descends into more physical means. And finally, if you can’t tell me the things I want to know, I’ll take them from your body, organ by organ.”

  “To what end?” asked Smith.

  “The betterment of society, of course. Mr. Henley, once the tears stop streaming down your face, would you be so kind as
to fetch one of the tools we use for more difficult specimens?”

  Henley pulled himself to his feet by leaning against the far wall. He glowered at Smith. “Gladly.”

  “Why are you sitting here when there are alien visitors that are so much more interesting out there? After all, I’m only human,” asked Smith as he sat back down.

  “Are you human? There’s some question about that.”

  “Quite.”

  “I’ve heard rumors of other words. Vampire?”

  Smith rolled his eyes. “Bring your neck closer and I’ll try a taste. Better yet, set me free in the sunlight.”

  “I’ve found that doesn’t work like the legends.”

  “So you believe in vampires?” asked Smith.

  Contral nodded. He held his arms apart. “A great many interesting things try to sneak their way into this city. You would be amazed by the things I find skulking in basements. They all end up here.”

  “And what about our friends from outerspace?” asked Smith.

  “So, you believe these Martians are genuine?” Contral seemed genuinely interested in Smith’s thoughts on the matter.

  Smith decided to toy with the man’s curiosity. “One hundred percent. I’ve been to their secret base and have found physical evidence that is utterly convincing. Speaking of secret lairs, where are we?”

  Contral shook his head. “I wish I could believe you. As to your whereabouts, that’s a secret we plan to keep. But I think the location would amuse you.”

  Henley came running back down the corridor and whispered something in Contral’s ear. His expression turned to shock.

  Contral quickly stood up. “We’ll continue this interview later. It seems our Martian visitors have declared war.”

  The two men hurried back down the hall, slamming the metal door shut behind them.

  “He is not a man that likes to be made a fool of,” said the man in the other cell.

  “Pity he’s such a fool.”

  “Yes, but he’s a fool that likes to cause pain. I have the scars to show for it.”

  “You don’t mean?”

  “Oui, he loves to slice things open and look inside. I fear if I don’t get this infection treated soon, I may die,” said the small wolf man.

  Felix La Court, otherwise known as the The Ravenous Wolf Boy, looked up from his poorly stitched wound when he heard the sound of something echo down the hallway. “Sacrebleu! What was that?”

  Smith held the two ends of the billy club he’d broken with his bare hands and regarded the sharp-splintered edges. “I think it’s time for sharp sticks.”

  Surrender

  President Harrison looked at the faces of his Cabinet as they sat around the conference table. One looked more grim than the other.

  “You want to do what with the gold?” asked Treasury Secretary Charles Foster a second time.

  “Use it as bait,” said Harrison.

  “You can’t be serious.”

  The president had spent the entire morning concocting a plan with his secretary of war, Stephen Elkins, and come to the idea of the ploy.

  Elkins spoke up. “It’s a gambit. Either these Martians are what they say they are and we really do have no choice but to pay tribute and avoid the destruction they threaten us with or they’re not, and we uncover the ruse.”

  “But how?” asked Foster. His duty was to safeguard the gold deposits of the United States. The idea of pulling them out of the vaults and just handing them to whomever was repellent to him. “I mean, we still think this is an elaborate hoax, correct?”

  “We don’t know what to believe. But we know we must take action,” said Harrison.

  “But the damage to the monuments could be sabotage. It seems so flimsy of evidence to turn over our gold deposits.”

  “There’s another detail, something we haven’t shared outside this office,” said Harrison. He nodded to Elkins.

  Elkins straightened his tie and stood up. “We have in the war office an entire department devoted to mapping foreign terrains and enemy capabilities. It’s one of our most secret divisions. The intelligence there could very well plot the course of a war before it ever starts.”

  “We’re all aware of this,” said Foster.

  “Yes, but what you may not be aware of is the fact that we have our own telegraph system used to send encoded communications. Less than two dozen men in the world know the existence of this system. Nor the location of the transmitters and receivers. At the moment we were receiving the ‘Mars Attacks’ transmission, our central telegraph received a series of unusual signals. At first we thought there was some kind of malfunction. They didn’t spell out letters or words. Just dots and dashes. One of the men who works in the office is quite clever and made a realization.” Elkins motioned for two men holding a banner to step forward. “These gentleman, from my office, were able to assemble the message. They took the paper strips that came from the telegraph machine and laid them out in rows. We’ve assembled them for you.” He nodded to the men to unfurl the banner.

  The bottom of the canvas unrolled and touched the floor, revealing the image. Made of thousands of dots, the entire image was six foot by six foot. It showed an aerial view of the White House.

  “For the last two hours, we’ve been receiving another image. We suspect it’s one of our strategic naval bases. Now, taking photographs from balloons is nothing new, we did it in the Civil War, but the quality of this is quite good and appears to be taken from a much higher altitude than we’re capable of. And the real point is, I suspect, that given the recent abduction and attacks, is that a power capable of taking this photograph,” he pointed toward the ceiling, “right over our very heads is a serious threat. They could just as well drop bombs as take photos.”

  “So we give in?” asked Foster.

  “No. We draw them in,” said Harrison.

  “We assemble several of out battle cruisers around Manhattan. We place heavy artillery on tops of the buildings. We place the gold in the middle of the city, like they’ve asked. And when they come,” Elkins slammed his fist into his palm, “we either reveal these hoaxers for what they are or give the Martians a bloody nose.”

  “But is that wise? What if they are Martians?” asked Foster

  “Better now to find out the color of their blood,” said Harrison. “We will not yield to them in the long run. We must draw them in and see if we can hurt them.”

  “And if they are what they claim? And they strike back?” Foster pointed to the aerial image.

  “Then god help us all,” said Harrison. “I’ve already spoken to the prime minister and the president of France. They’ve indicated that they, too, have received strategic images like the one before you. The three of us are willing to work together if this threat proves real.”

  “Yes, but what about the gold?” Foster was overwhelmed by the direction of events.

  “Safe as anywhere,” said Elkins. “I’ll have every gun and cannon on the Eastern Seaboard trained upon it. Nothing will get off that island.”

  “Elkins, will you see to it that we place the Martian flag?” asked Harrison.

  The man nodded.

  “It sounds like we’re surrendering,” said Foster.

  “I prefer to think of it as throwing the gauntlet down,” replied Elkins. “Calling their bluff.”

  Foster could tell the man’s confidence was sincere, but the thought nagged at him that the Martians, or whoever, had already thought several steps ahead of them. The photograph was just one example.

  The Plotter

  Smith laid back in the straw and stared up at the ceiling. He ignored the itching sensation and the damp and the cold. He tried for the moment not to think about the smells and what they informed him of his surroundings. He was stumped. The Martian Emperor had eluded him. Just when he thought he was about to rip away the curtain and reveal the machinations and find the culprit, he found yet another set piece and stage. The effort of the men behind the scheme had surprised hi
m. The secret Martian base, high above the city, the three-fingered handprint. It was all planted evidence to challenge his skepticism. His skepticism. Smith thought that over for a moment.

  The man masquerading as the Martian Emperor was quite clever. He managed to outwit the world and Smith. But those little clues he’d left behind seemed almost superfluous. Why go through the effort? It wasn’t like the head of the police or any of the other government agencies were going to find that hidden base. None of them had even paid attention to April’s discovery of the prior airship event in Edison’s yard. Why even use an airship and an alien disguise?

  Then there were the footprints. The proof in Central Park that the Martians had the fantastic strength they pretended to possess. All of these details were left behind not to fool the authorities but to stymie the one man who would look past the charade, a man capable of accepting the fantastical but not ready to believe it on questionable evidence. This Martian Emperor was taunting him. The plot was some grander scheme Smith had yet to understand, but the side plots were directed at him.

  His current predicament was one more stumbling block thrown in his path. The men in black coats and the deluded Ebelin Contral were rocks and branches thrown on the trail to slow him down. Too focused on the Martian Emperor, Smith had allowed himself to carelessly fall into the clutches of one more man trying to pry his secrets from him. The secret operating room and cruel experiments had all the signs of a man associated with his nemesis the White Apothecarians. Were they connected to the Martian Emperor? Smith wasn’t sure.

  Contral seemed genuinely fixated on the Martian. Smith read his reactions as being genuine. He was just as baffled and curious as everyone else. It had to be a separate plot, perhaps something involving the strange men who guided his enemies’ actions or maybe by someone unconnected but knowledgeable of them and their deceits. The one connection Smith was certain of was the connection to himself. The would-be Martian Emperor knew about Smith. The technologies he possessed could have come straight from his own mind. And perhaps they did .…