The Chronological Man: The Martian Emperor

by Andrew Mayne

  “So, do you think this is a fake, too? Should we poke around inside him just to find out?” asked Henley. He turned to the green man. “If you’re not the genuine article, maybe there’s no harm in me softening you up a bit?” He raised a billy club to hit the unconscious man.

  “AAAAAAAARGH!” screamed Smith. “He’s in my brain!” He leaped toward the corner of his cage and clutched at his hair. “Get out! Get out of my mind!”

  Henley lowered his club and looked at Smith, confused.

  Smith pointed at him and screamed. “He’s the one you want! Violate his mind!”

  Henley quickly pushed the gurney into the adjoining cell and then locked it shut. He hurried out of the hallway and slammed the door behind him.

  “Sorry for almost spoiling the ruse,” whispered Smith as he sat back down.

  The man in the other cage spoke in a Brooklyn accent. “No worries, my friend. I could have taken his club at any time. Better this way, though. Felix? How are you, pal?”

  “Magnificent,” growled the hairy dwarf.

  “I’ll have us free in no time,” said the green man.

  “I’ve tried the locks. They’re a bit more difficult than they look,” said Smith.

  “That’s why your friends sent me.”

  “And who might you be?” asked Smith.

  “He’s a friend of mine from the boardwalk at Coney Island. It sounds like your man Roosevelt and Miss Malone went to him for help,” said Felix.

  “How?” Smith looked at the bolted door dejectedly.

  “Haven’t you heard of the World Famous Harry Houdini?” asked Felix.

  “Er, no,” said Smith.

  “Soon the world will know my name,” came the other man’s voice followed by the sound of clanking metal.

  Smith looked up from the floor at the defiant young man standing in front of him in a triumphant pose and grinned. “Pretty good, kid. Pretty good. So is the green paint part of your gimmick?”

  Houdini looked down at his green body. “Um, no. That was Mr. Roosevelt’s idea.”

  Escape

  Roosevelt looked across 5th Avenue at the crowd of men gathered in front of the building. Several of them had the heavy black coats of the mysterious “health department.” Others looked like hired thugs brought in to protect the building during the Martian panic. “It’s a fortress,” he muttered.

  “It’s a zoo,” replied April. They’d followed the black carriage from City Hall on foot and watched it go into Central Park and then vanish in a service building behind the zoo. “That building seems small.”

  “Most likely it leads to an underground passage to a basement below the park.”

  “They’re keeping him hidden underneath a zoo?” April was infuriated by the notion.

  “Actually, it’s quite clever. If this Contral figure is in the business of collecting all the strange things he finds in the cities and what comes crawling off the docks, putting them under a zoo makes sense. Who would question the cages and strange noises?”

  “It’s inhuman,” said April.

  “I think that’s the point.” Roosevelt stomped out his cigar. “Some of those men look like they work for Boss Croker. Of course he’d have a hand in this nasty business.”

  “I see a few policemen, too,” said April.

  “Damn. I don’t know how our Coney Island trickster can help Smith escape that.” He looked down the street. Several police wagons were blocking off the streets to the north. He checked his watch. “It looks like they’re getting ready to pay the ransom. Any other day I could raise an army to take them on. But today? All the armies are spoken for. I even saw naval men mounting cannon and machine guns on roofs around the park.

  “Miss Malone, we need to think of a plan. In the meantime, we have to make sure that once we get Smith sprung, he stays sprung. I don’t want this health official grabbing Smith again in all the commotion.”

  “Dynamite the building? Seal off the fiend’s lair?” There was fire in April’s eyes.

  “Your fondness for Smith is quite touching. I was thinking more on the lines of an exposé. If we reveal the secret prison, perhaps that would force Contral into the light. When our Saturn Prince was mugging in Pulitzer’s window, I think I may have seen Nellie Bly looking out. After her undercover work as an inmate at Blackwell Island’s asylum, she’s developed quite the reputation for uncovering this sort of chicanery. There’s a telegraph office two blocks over.”

  “I’ll get right on it,” said April. She started down the sidewalk and then glanced back at Roosevelt. “Say, this isn’t a ploy to get me out of the way while you charge in?”

  “That would be foolhardy, Miss Malone. I’m outnumbered.”

  “I’m not sure if that’s a satisfactory denial,” said April.

  “It’s the best I can do. Please hurry.”

  Smith peered between the gap in the door as Houdini tried to work the lock. Contral and Henley were standing over the teleportation device, trying to figure out how it worked.

  “Looks like Miss Malone was in my junk chest,” said Smith.

  “I could use some of it here. I’m having trouble with the lock.” Houdini gave the door a slight shove. “I think there’s a bar on the other side.”

  “I don’t see how we can get past that without alerting Contral and his goon.”

  “I think there’s a ramp on the other side of the double doors. At the top of that is the building I was led in through. I heard Contral talking to some men out there,” said Houdini.

  “And I bet they’re armed.”

  “Maybe we should wait for nightfall?” asked Houdini.

  “I don’t know how much time we have. We need to stop the Martian plot, not to mention get our friend Felix to a proper doctor.”

  Felix scratched his hairy chin. “I appreciate watching you two working on ze delicate lock. Perhaps finesse is not what is needed? I think I have a solution if you two would oblige me.”

  “What are you thinking?” asked Smith.

  “You know, before the boardwalk, I spent some time in the circus. You could say I have a certain animal magnetism.”

  Contral was frustrated by the teleportation device. The switches appeared to do nothing. He was contemplating reviving the green man to ask him how to get it to work. He wanted to uncover its secrets before Croker or the military men asked around about it. Time was of the essence.

  Henley stood over the device and regarded it with a skeptical eye. The whole thing smelled fishy to him. He was about to comment that the switches looked like the kind he’d seen in a parts catalog when he heard a scream from the locked menagerie.

  “The green man! He’s trying to walk though my wall!” Smith screamed from behind the door. “He’s stuck!”

  Contral’s eyebrow shot to the top of his forehead. He grabbed the keyring off his desk and ran to the door.

  “Wait!” shouted Henley. He grabbed a shotgun from the rack. “This could be a trick.”

  Contral nodded and waited for the man to point the gun at the door before lifting the barricade. He set it aside and turned the key. “This better not be a ruse, Mr. Smith.”

  He swung the door open. The gaslamps had been put out and the entire menagerie was in darkness. Contral took a step back. He wasn’t sure if he should go inside or lock the door and grab a lantern. Henley turned to him for instructions.

  A loud snort came from within the corridor. Henley raised the gun but was too late. An ivory horn knocked it out of his hands. He threw himself to the side as the white rhino burst through the doorway. Contral shrieked and was thrown against the wall as the animal bucked his head into him.

  “Take that, you filthy cretin!” shouted Felix from atop the creature.

  Henley pulled his legs to his chest as the small wolf man rode the rhino into the center of the chamber. The creature thrashed around and knocked over the desk and tables. He looked down at the dropped rifle and reached for it. A green foot kicked him in the jaw and he was out
cold.

  Smith and Houdini jumped out of the corridor and delivered a barrage of kicks and punches to the men.

  The rhino battered his head against a large door.

  “I think he smells the fresh air!” shouted Felix.

  Smith ran over to the outer doors and threw open the bar blocking them. The rhino knocked them into splinters and then charged up the ramp.

  “Here!” Houdini handed Smith a black overcoat.

  The two of them chased after Felix and Brutus up the ramp. Using his spike like a fireman’s ax, the rhino ripped open the wooden door at the top of the ramp and sunlight poured in.

  “Get zem!” Felix urged the rhino toward the crowd of men standing in front of the entrance.

  The men scattered at the sight of the furry man astride the magnificent white rhino. Furious, the creature flipped over a carriage and stomped it to splinters. Felix struggled to stay on the animal’s back. Smith and Houdini ran through the gap and stood back while the rhino snorted and charged the men in black coats. Finally all of Contral’s men fled.

  “I do not think I can stop him! I think he wants water!” Felix shouted over his shoulder as the rhino ran toward the nearest pond.

  Roosevelt watched the escape from across the street. Frozen in amusement, his newly lit cigar fell to the ground. He turned when he heard the sound of small feet running toward him on the sidewalk.

  “I reached Pulitzer himself! They’re sending a staff of photographers and reporters right now to find out what happened to the Saturn Prince.” April looked at the expression on his face. “Did I miss anything?”

  Gold Tribute

  “I assure you I’m quite all right, Miss Malone,” said Smith. She’d been pestering him ever since she realized that he was barefoot and nearly naked under the thick black coat. Contral and his henchmen had vanished when Pulitzer’s pressmen showed up. Now they were headed uptown to follow the latest turn of events.

  Across the street, Brutus was grazing on a shrubbery under the protective watch of a fire crew from Brooklyn that Houdini had befriended. Felix sat atop the pump truck and watched the crowds that had gathered. They’d found a doctor to sanitize and tape up his surgical wounds.

  As interesting as the furry man was, the crowd was watching the procession of police and soldiers who were guarding the gold bullion that was being brought into Central Park.

  “So they’re going along with it?” asked Smith.

  “Indeed,” said Roosevelt. He pointed to several rooftops where men were setting up machine guns and cannons. “The president thinks he can drop them from the sky.”

  “What about the mayor?” asked April.

  “I think he already considers him a casualty of war.”

  Smith looked at the setting sun over the buildings across the park. “The Martian Emperor has to know they’d try something like this.” Something didn’t sit right. “I’m all for trying to catch his hand in the cookie jar. I still think his threats are hollow. But … but I have to think he’s anticipated this.”

  “The latest instructions were to place the gold bricks in the main fountain. The military has been given instructions to shoot at the craft if they take them. What do you think the Martian trickster has planned?” asked Roosevelt.

  “Something clever.”

  The procession around the metal carriage carrying the gold had filed into the center of the park near the fountain behind the trees. The crowds were being pushed back off the surrounding streets.

  A horse-mounted battalion of police paraded down the avenue. “Return to your homes! Curfew is in effect!” Fire bells and alarms began to sound off from around the city.

  “Do we sit back and let them pay the ransom?” asked Roosevelt.

  “No.” Smith took another glance at the mounted artillery on the rooftops. The soldiers were scanning the sky with their binoculars, looking for any sign of the Martian airship.

  Roosevelt could see the look in Smith’s eyes. “You want to take the fight to the sky?”

  “If we can avoid getting shot at,” said Smith.

  “The machinists finished the modifications a few hours ago. I saw to it while you were in captivity.”

  Smith turned to April. “Miss Malone, I want you to keep an eye out on things here.” He looked over at the fire wagon Felix was sitting on. “See if you can charm a flare gun from the firemen over there. Use it if you see something. We’ll watch for your flare.”

  “There does seem to be a lot of pump trucks here,” said April.

  “I noticed that, too. I hope they’re not expecting a conflagration.”

  Roosevelt lost count of the fire crews. “Anybody with a badge is trying to get a front-row seat to this boondoggle. Probably hoping the Martians drop a few bars.”

  Twenty minutes later, Roosevelt looked out the window of the dirigible as it ascended and watched the lot recede. The machinists had cut out a slot on either side of the cabin for him to stick his elephant gun through. He was testing the range of motion he could get with his rifle and how quickly he could reload. Mounted underneath the craft was a belt-fed Gatling gun with a firing button on Smith’s control stick.

  “How low can you keep this contraption?” asked Roosevelt

  “A few dozen feet off the street. Just above the power lines and telegraph cables. Why?”

  “I was wondering if it was to our advantage if we masqueraded as a parade float a little lower. I think the citizens of New York won’t pay us much bother, but I’m worried about those trigger-happy soldiers on the buildings.”

  Searchlights had already begun to scan the skies in a sweeping pattern. Despite the curfew, people were outside and standing on the roofs of their buildings, awaiting the arrival of the Martians. Lanterns glowed across the the city.

  “You don’t think our disguise is enough?” asked Smith.

  “Probably a better ruse near ground level. Fewer amateurs will take shots at us, too. I hope.”

  To make the craft as un-Martian as possible, Smith had a seamstress sew a banner on either side advertising Old Miss Malone’s Fresh Soap Co. Roosevelt had an even deeper chuckle when he found out that April had no idea Smith had done that. “I’m sure she’ll love the ‘Old’ title.”

  “I wanted it to sound like a brand you would trust,” said Smith. He thought she’d find the moniker amusing. “I was in a hurry.”

  “Better hope the Martians see us first,” Roosevelt quipped before he climbed into the craft.

  Smith guided the craft down 3rd Avenue. People looked up from the sidewalks and streets and waved. Smith was amused by how putting an advertising logo on the craft, even in the middle of a crisis, seemed to make the thing seem like it was no big deal. He’d wished he’d thought of using the ruse earlier. He wondered what other sins he could hide in plain sight behind an advertising slogan.

  They reached the intersection of 83rd and 3rd. From there they could see into the park and the searchlights scanning the skies. Below them, a police sergeant guiding traffic and hurrying people home stood in the middle of the street. He looked up at the dirigible, just ten feet above his head, and blew his whistle, trying to direct them on.

  Roosevelt leaned out of the window and waved down to the man. “Don’t mind us, sergeant. We’re undercover,” he shouted down. He then flashed him an ID card. The sergeant nodded, touched his finger to his nose and then continued directing traffic. “There you go. All one big happy civil servant family.”

  Smith pulled the dirigible into a climb.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Roosevelt. He pulled his lap belt tight.

  “Hold on tight.” Smith pointed to the sky. “The Martians are here … and they brought friends,” said Smith.

  “Good god! It’s an invasion!”

  Invasion Force

  A dozen green dots glowed in the sky like an emerald constellation hovering over the city. Higher up and farther out, more green orbs began to appear. To the crowd in the park, the millions of dollars of gold b
ricks in the middle of the fountain no longer seemed as interesting. The policemen who’d put them in position retreated behind sandbags set up around the perimeter and looked up at the night sky.

  April was standing on top of a zoo building. Houdini’s firefighter friends had kindly offered her the use of a ladder to get a better view. There had been some arguing before between the different fire crews. One had already connected its pump wagon to a hydrant in the expectation of flames. The Brooklyn crew had argued with them for a few minutes, but the other team stood their ground.

  A green disc glowed brighter than the others and grew larger as it descended. A crowd standing on a sidewalk across the street let out a collective gasp as it began to draw near.

  April wasn’t sure what to believe. She shared Smith’s skepticism, but the sight of all the green dots in the sky was overwhelming. She could tell even the firemen and police were nervous. As the disc first began to appear, several people made the sign of the cross. She could understand the biblical overtones.

  April felt a chill down her spine. The presence of all the green discs in the sky was overwhelming. What if Smith had been wrong? What if these really were Martian conquerors?

  She looked at the tops of the buildings where she knew men with cannons and machine guns lay hidden under blankets. Would one accidental bullet start a war? What would happen if the Martians did to the city what they did to the Statue of Liberty? Would anybody see morning?

  The green disc came to a hover several hundred feet over the fountain. A bright beam of light shot out from underneath it and lit up the gold bars in the fountain. The light was dazzling.

  The policemen closest to it had to look away from the bright light. The bars began to shimmer in the glow. Smoke started to envelop them.

  “They’re melting!” shouted a man.

  April looked closer. The bars indeed appeared to be evaporating in the middle of the fountain. It was as if the light was dissolving them. Or was it transmitting them like her mythical Saturn Prince? What had seemed like a gag earlier that day when they discussed theatrical magic tricks Houdini could use, the idea of employing some flash pots and a trick vanish and calling it “transmitting” seemed a clever enough ruse. Now she wondered if it wasn’t a real technology, commonplace to the Martians.