by J M Bannon
Dimetri put his magnifying lens back over his eye and inspected the fabric at the elbow of the suit. The cloth made of fine wire, he assumed of similar metallurgy as the plates. Magnified, it was mesmerizing to see how tightly woven the metal fabric was. Again, he pushed back to admire the work. He had just finished installing one of the synchronizing clocks for his newest portal system in the chest piece.
The new Nexus had been built in the Palazzo. This third iteration that had been built in the cellar of the mansion was entirely different in that Dimetri had incorporated what he had seen in the number loom into the design. That gave the Nexus mark III a far more precise calculation for establishing coordinates for navigation, improving travel distances and speed. It still was not powerful enough to send this suit to Caiaphas’s final destination, but the plans were in motion to resolve that.
His work was going faster than planned. With the Haddon Hall workshops and the support of the Sheffield steelworks, his designs were being forged into parts from Giuliani’s exotic metals in short order. Now with the Nexus up and a gate hidden at Haddon Hall, that trip no longer required airship travel with its long times and conspicuous nature. Being a mute, Dimetri hated to interact with others in public. When he traveled over to Haddon Hall to do the initial installation of the portal, it required him to spend time in aerodromes and pass through immigration. All the time he felt like everyone was looking at him and judging a freak who couldn’t or wouldn’t speak. Soon when Caiaphas said so, his inventions would be made public and he would have the notoriety of Fletcher and his Mechanist Man.
The Russian was particularly proud of the project he had just completed. With the inclusion of the clockwork in the armor he would have a method to track the wearer and if needed, give them a lifeline back. God only knew what was at the location that required such complex calculations to find and so much power to project and focus on.
The design of the armor’s clockwork was similar to the devices he had set on the table next to the armor. They looked like tiny pot belly stoves. Ones that could fit in the palm of your hand. Short and stout with a metal body. This was armor to protect the intricate clockwork inside from the harsh environments they would see. Built entirely from the aetheric alloy, the devices he called beacons would be left at various locations where the wearer of the suit would explore the aether. Over time they could harness the beacons to coordinate positions. Each beacon was designed to send out a frequency as a unique signature. Again, Giuliani’s metallurgy acumen delivered a special alloy for tuning forks that when struck by the clock mechanism would resonate at a unique frequency. An accumulator would sense the frequency. With several beacons placed he would be able to use the information to calibrate the Nexus navigation system. In the end, his coordinate system would still require good old exploration to associate a name with a place on his map.
Dimetri was excited about how they were to push his inventions and even happier that he was not the one who would be traveling. He wasn’t concerned about the Nexus being able to deliver a connection to another world, he worried about what was there to greet them when the door opened. A tin suit may not be enough to protect a man from the indigenous population of the worlds they explored.
19
Tuesday the 9th of July, 1861
7:40 P.M. Parliament Clock Tower, Westminster, England
“The view is astonishing,” admired the Countess.
“Yes, indeed it is,” replied Dennison. He was staring at the Countess while she looked out the leaded glass window in the belfry of the Westminster Clock Tower. She was like no other woman he had met. A bit forward but her modernity was part of what attracted him. They had seen much of each other this past week, lunches, dinners, evening strolls, and tonight Edmund Dennison surprised her with a personal tour of the clock tower.
“And that is Big Ben?” asked the Countess pointing at the huge bell.
“Yes, it is the largest bell in the biggest and most accurate clock in the world. Everything up here is one of a kind,” he finished, smiling at her. “We should leave, the hour will strike soon, and you’ll go deaf if you're up here when that bell rings.”
She smiled back, “What is below?”
“You saw when we walked past the clock faces where the lamplighter tends the gas light, so the clock faces can be seen at night and behind there, the clock works,” said Dennison.
“I have something for you, Mr. Dennison,” said the Countess. She reached into her handbag and took out a small box. Holding it out to him on the palm of her lace-gloved hand.
“A gift?”
“Yes.”
Dennison felt a bit foolish that he hadn’t thought of giving her something first, but this was a good sign if she had thought so much of him to buy him something. He took the small box and opened it. Inside was a tie pin. An expensive looking one of some strange metal set with a gemstone. He took it out of the box to examine the stick pin.
“What is this made of?” asked Dennison.
“One of my companies is involved in a venture that makes exotic metals. This is forged from what we call aetheric steel,” The countess took the glove off her left hand then took the pin from his hand. She moved close and removed the stick pin he wore in his cravat. She placed it in her hair bun and gave him a smile. Just before putting the aetheric pin in his cravat she stopped. The countess took his hand and extended his index finger in her hand. She looked into his eyes and gave a devious grin. He eyes followed hers down to the tip of the finger she held when he felt a sudden sharp prick. She had stabbed his finger with the tie pin. A drop of his blood came up. She took his finger and placed it in her mouth the whole time staring into his eyes. He felt the wet warmth of her mouth on the tip of his finger. His heart was racing, and his passion flared.
With his finger still in her mouth and staring at her face he saw her wince. Then let out a giggle with the tip of his finger between her teeth. She held up her ungloved hand where he saw a drop of her blood on her index finger. As she moved her finger towards his mouth, he willingly opened it. The metallic taste of her blood on his tongue was strange and thrilling. He was so aroused, he worried that the lady was too much for him to handle. That he would look boyish and a fool to her.
She placed the pin in his cravat. Removing his finger from her mouth and hers from his. She pulled him close and kissed him. He thought she was muttering something, but her lips were pressed against his, it felt as if the muttering was in his head.
“I imagine that you’ll never think of wearing another pin and I will always have a fond memory of our first kiss when I see it.”
“Countess —”
“Please, Elena.”
“Elena, you are an amazing woman.”
“And you’re very special to me Edmund. How about we look at the clock works?” suggested the Countess.
“An excellent Idea, that is where you will see my work and why this clock is so spectacular,” replied Dennison as he ushered her around the wall and through the door. There in the center of the room was a long iron table with the clockwork mechanism. The time train, the striking train, the movement train all interconnected with the tick-tock of the pendulum.
The countess moved around the mechanism and looked at the workings with interest, “I see that there is a drivetrain that goes through the floor, is there more below?”
Dennison paused. While he had every intention of asking the Countess to be his wife he was bound by Crown secrets to not speak of Project Sundial. They had only just tested the portal system a few weeks ago with Detective Caldwell stepping from the portal Nexus below to a test gate at the naval station at Greenwich.
“It’s just some counterweights and what not,” said Dennison.
“Oh, I see, should we go?”
“Yes, let’s move along, on I have reserved us a table at the Penberthy Music Hall.”
“That sound’s exciting.” The two began their descent down the three hundred steps when the Countess stopped one floor bel
ow the room they were just in. There was a heavy metal door.
“What’s in here?”
Dennison repeated his lie, “Just some more of the clock mechanics.”
Her look changed to a bit more serious, one of a person concentrating.
“You wouldn’t be hiding something from me, would you Edmund?”
He had a thought, suddenly it was apparent why shouldn’t he trust her with all of his secrets. I really should just show her. He pulled out a set of keys and unlocked the door. He held open the door for the Countess who stepped through into the rooms that kept the equipment of Project Sundial.
“Edmund, tell me what you are up to here.” The Countess cooed.
He felt sleepy almost dreamlike he could hear himself speaking even though he didn’t wish to share. “This is a secret project of Her Majesty that allows for the transportation of a person instantly.”
“How did you come by this knowledge?”
“Rose Caldwell had seen a similar device in Lago d’Orta Italy. She was able to understand its operation, and with my help and others we have recreated the machine,” relayed Dennison. He felt helpless as if the words just fell out of his mouth.
The countess walked around looking at the equipment. She reached into her handbag and pulled out a piece of paper handing it to Dennison, “I would like you to set the machine to these coordinates and open a portal,” she instructed.
“I can’t —” Dennison couldn’t finish his sentence he felt so sleepy, and the thoughts just seemed to flit away.
“Edmund, we are together now, you don’t want to ruin that do you?”
“No.”
“Then help me. Put in the coordinates.”
He felt paralyzed like he was out of his body watching him take involuntary actions. He thought this had to be some strange dream he would wake up from then he heard the Countess’s soothing voice.
“Edmund, this is just a silly dream. You and I are married and have been together for years. You are asleep, and this is all a silly dream that you must see to its end.”
He set the controls and lowered the gate. The water pan above the copper sheet began to drizzle then flow water at its edges, sparks of electricity were a sign of the gate forming. As the gate opened a stocky man with a thick brown and beard stepped through.
“Edmund, this is Dimetri. He is the one you and your friends stole the technology from.”
Dimetri gave Edmund a smile.
The Countess put her hand on Dennison’s face and looked into his eyes, “Edmund, in this dream, Dimetri is going to need your help to make some improvements to your design. If you truly love me and want us to be together forever, you will do what he asked and not share this with the others on your project.”
Being with the Countess was all he wanted now.
20
Wednesday the 10th of July, 1861
7:30 A.M Haddon Hall, Bakewell, England
Alfie Fletcher’s concentration broke as he heard the chugging of the lorry. He looked around the torso of his mark three design for Azul. Outside the window the flatbed lorry from the Bessemer works pulled up. The bed was stacked high with wooden crates holding the parts he had requested.
Giuliani’s aetheric alloy delivered a new palette for the mechanist to create from. Although his work was more sculptural in that he was building a three-dimensional human form. Fletcher's mind went to the analogy of oil painting and the introduction of new colors to his work.
The metal had a strange green tint and felt light but at the same time had a peculiar density to it. Most important for Fletcher’s work was the parts he drafted were cast and milled to such precision. He scrapped his mark two design when it finally dawned on him while working next to Giuliani that the metallurgist had the ability to craft small, precise parts. Where the mark two was an incremental change, the mark three was revolutionary. With the support of the local Sheffield steelworks they were creating parts with the craftsmanship of the most exquisite handmade clockworks but at an industrial scale.
From the other side of the automaton torso, his assistant Daniel Bell moved into his field of vision. Looking directly at Alfie but he could not see his eyes until Daniel flipped up the magnifying lens he wore to do the work. Daniel had been assigned as an apprentice by the Guild and had been an indispensable resource for Alfie as well as a quick study.
“I’ll get the parts unloaded,” said Daniel. He got up from his stool and went outside and began talking with the driver. The smoke plume from the engine and the noise had alerted the staff to the approaching truck and laborers seemed to appear from nowhere to unload.
He heard Giuliani’s heavily accented English through the glass. Alfie’s laboratory was one of the long Tudor halls of Haddon Hall. He had chosen it for its size and the amount of natural light it had. The wall was mostly small panes of leaded glass. While they let in an abundance of light, they were slightly opaque from the lead warping the glass. Daniel went to the large double doors at the end of the hall and opened then so the men could begin stacking the parts on the benches.
Alfie rose from his stool, and his mechanical arm went to grab a rag to wipe off his remaining hand. Although still attached his hand like other parts of his body was pocked with scars from the shell burst in the Crimea that almost killed him.
The road from there to here was a dark and winding one that today he was happy to have made, but that wasn’t always how he felt. He still struggled with achieving what he dreamed. As a soldier, he wanted to serve his country and fight alongside his mates. That dream ended when the Russian shell burst and killed most of his platoon.
As he struggled to recover he dreamed of one-day creating mechanical limbs to give him and his fellow veterans some level of normalcy. His handicap though never mentioned limited his options. He was never fully accepted by his local chapter house always feeling like an outsider and never getting a full hearing on his ideas. It wasn’t until he was visited by Rose Caldwell, another of societies outsiders that he felt understood. She had read one of his papers and sought him out asking that he help her to create a mechanical body for a spirit trapped within her friend. He did not question her sanity because she didn’t question his ability to make his ideas a reality.
Now he was part of a massive project sponsored by the Mechanists and his every word hung on and wish granted. He was in the English countryside in a manor with a state-of-the-art laboratory and a team of fabricators at his call to do the work. If he wanted he could just stand and direct, but he was so excited to see his new design come to fruition he did much of the work himself.
He made his way outside walking up to the Italian, “Professor Giuliani is everything in order?”
Giuliani was running calipers across parts and confirming dimensions of components.
“Yes, so far so good. Part of our work here is to validate my practices about product quality. Too many operations stuff up the works once they begin producing parts en mass. I seek the first part and the one-thousandth part to be identical,” stated Giuliani.
He had spent little time in the laboratory of Professor Giuliani to understand how he was able to command the metal to hold such exacting dimensions and his mind pondered at times how the Italian designer was able to mill and shape such a durable substance. He favored to frequent his days in his laboratory working on the project, but at some point, he needed to spend some time learning more from his coworker.
After unloading a few more boxes, the truck drove away with the bulk of its load to be brought into Giuliani's lab.
“I will be over there in a moment to help unload, but I have some more business with mechanist Fletcher,” said Giuliani to the laborers.
“How are you today, Alfred?” asked Giuliani.
“Excellent, the progress is so much faster than expected. I am so used to scraping up parts or trying to figure out who could make something and here I just sketch it up, and just days later the parts are here,” Alfie expressed gleefully.
&
nbsp; “The Sheffield Mechanists have a vested interest in supporting the Countess’s project. They will be in a position to license the process I am perfecting and will profit from the expedited manufacture and mass fabrication. I do have one word of caution Alfred; eventually, this work will result in the deaths of others. While what we do is to improve lives, man seems set to make war, and these English mechanists are all too ready to improve the death count by adding more steam power to the machines of war.”
“I know all too well what it feels like to be maimed by that machine,” Alfie acknowledged.
“On a lighter note, how comes your mechanist man?”
“Very well and I have wire-typed my chum Azul to come up for a fitting,” said Alfie.
Giuliani chuckled, “From what I have seen the new design is far more stylish.”
“Please come in and have a look.”
The two men entered the workshop and went to the human-shaped structure in the middle of the studio.
“I must say what an improvement it is. Your friend will be pleased with his new form,” complimented Giuliani.
“I should hope so. Beyond the improved aesthetics, the range of motion and action speeds are augmented.”
“Mr. Fletcher, there will be more mechanists joining us. Some will be here to assist your work, others that will work on confidential projects, so do not take offense to some of the mechanists who may be a touch introverted and secretive,” cautioned Giuliani.
