Cassidy St. Claire and The Fountain of Youth Parts I, II, & III

by A. H. Rousseau

  After rummaging in some drawers for a moment, he exclaimed “Ha! Found it!” He turned around with a compound magnifying glass, with multiple lenses that could click in front of the primary lens. He walked back over to the table as Anna's gaze darted between the hand and George before she finally and quickly placed the hand on the table and backed away. “Maybe we can get some more light in here. Anna, could you hit the ceiling switch?” he asked, pointing to the wall. Anna nodded and walked over, clicking a large switch into place. The hum of an electric motor and the clanking of metal signaled the opening of a large door on the ceiling, which slid open with a resounding thunk. This bathed the table in light. “Perfect,” George said, leaning down to the hand with his glass.

  George's magnified eye darted about, analyzing the insides of the hand. “Ah, much better. Now let's see what makes this thing tick, shall me?”

  He looked away and grabbed a set of fine-tipped tweezers on the table and used them to venture inside the hand. As he looked, his expression went from almost casually curious, to focused, to shocked. “My... god,” he whispered to himself. “Anna, you... you absolutely have to see this,” he said as he handed the magnifying glass to Anna, who took it and leaned over the hand, doing her own inspection. George stepped back with his hand on his mouth in awestruck contemplation.

  “It... It...” she started before looking up at George. “I've never seen micro-hydraulics on this scale. Never. Who's working on a scale like this?” George shrugged, still wide-eyed with surprise. “Can I try to open it?” Anna asked, looking at Cassidy.

  “Of course. Do whatever you want. I'm simply hoping that you two can give me a clue, a hint, anything to help understand what the hell happened to me,” Cassidy said.

  Anna delicately flipped the hand over, revealing stitching in the suede skin that covered it. “She looked up at George. “Knife?” she asked. George reached under the table and produced a small razor with a fine point. Anna used it to cut each individual stitch, allowing her to fold the suede down, revealing a visibly-hammered metal surface with a multitude of recessed bolts holding it together.

  “Looks like a little bolt of some sort,” George said, squinting. “Maybe a socket wrench or something.” He turned around and, after moving aside a large sheet of wood in the corner, opened a number of drawers before returning with a pile of small socket wrenches. He and Anna tried a few before she finally found one that worked. She worked out each bolt as everyone stood transfixed around her. With the last of the dozen or so bolts removed, she tried to remove one of the plates with her finger nails before grabbing a screwdriver. With a sudden “pock!” one of the three curved plates that covered the arm moved out of place. Anna put the screwdriver down and delicately lifted the plate up, revealing a wonderland of complex gearing, small tubes, and wires. Anna gazed inside.

  “I've... never seen anything like this,” said Anna.

  “I don't think anyone has ever seen anything like this,” added George, his mouth open in amazement. “This is the stuff of fantasy.” George stepped back and ran his fingers into his hair. “You removed this from a mechanical man who escaped in a giant flying machine.” George paused, his eyes wide, chewing his cheek. “This is unparalleled, even for you. This has genuinely surprised us.”

  “So how much of a chance is there that you two can manage to tell me something about it?” asked Cassidy.

  “Now? Almost zero,” replied George. “We'd need... weeks maybe, to figure out how this works.”

  “I figured,” said Cassidy in a low tone.

  “Well, no, ironically, that actually tells us something!” George, said in an upbeat way as he walked around the table to a pile of papers and began digging around. “If this was even remotely close to stuff being manufactured, Anna and I would know where to begin. This is so cutting edge, there are only a few guys in the world who could have done it.” George held up a paper and scrutinized it briefly. “Ah ha, here it is,” he said. He walked over to show it Cassidy, tapping a photograph of a man with his finger. “This is professor Alfred Jacobson. He's a lead medical researcher over at the university. A true pioneer. He's applying machinery to medicine in ways no one has ever seen. Artificial hearts, kidneys, legs. I guess it's kind of a long shot, but he may be able to provide you with some immediate insight into the hand.”

  Joseph looked at Cassidy. “You're not thinking of going now, are you? You can barely move.”

  Cassidy looked at Joseph with a patronizing expression. “Joe. What kind of fool do you take me for... of course I'm going now.”

  Joe rolled his eyes as be turned to make his way toward the door. “Oh for Pete's sake. I'll go get you a wheelchair.”

  Cassidy looked to George and Anna. “You two coming?”

  George was already putting on his tweed jacket. “Of course.”

  Anna stood there stiffly and shook her head slightly. “No. I have work.”

  “Ok then. George, do you have his address?”

  “It's on that sheet. Four or five paragraphs down, I think.”

  The sound of cracking, crunching, and ripping of metal suddenly filled the warehouse as the panel that had opened to let the sun in dropped from the ceiling to the floor, creating a massive, echoing crash. They all stared up at the now gaping opening in the ceiling.

  “You might want to get that fixed,” said Cassidy.

  ---

  The carriage pulled up to the gorgeously appointed revival-style house. Copper roofing and turrets rose from a foundation of tan bricks, with fleur-de-lis detailing everywhere it could have been fit.

  “...the tone of the engines, was it higher or lower pitched?” George asked Cassidy.

  “Rather a mixture of both. Imagine the sound that a gigantic bumblebee would make. That's, I think, a good approximation.” George leaned back in his seat.

  Sheng leaned over the edge of the carriage and spoke loudly into into the window. “We're here, Miss St. Claire!”

  Cassidy moved her arms around to stretch them. “Thank you Sheng.” She moved the small curtain to the side and looked out the window. “Wow. This is a gorgeous house,” said Cassidy, looking out the window.

  “Yeah. I'm not surprised he can afford it,” added George, “what with his fame and success. It was one of the first houses to be piped for gas, wired for electricity, and now wired for the telephone.”

  Cassidy looked at George with a disbelieving look. “The telephone? When did he get that?”

  “Oh,” George looked away in through for a moment, “two years ago, maybe. He really was one of the first. That's the only reason I know that.”

  Cassidy looked back out the window. “That son of a bitch. How did he get it so early?”

  Joseph gave Cassidy a slightly patronizing pat on her thigh, “You can compare biceps later. Let's just get this over with.”

  “Yes, dad,” replied Cassidy sarcastically. They stepped from the carriage and dropped heavily to their feet. Cassidy exited last and stiffly clicked her body from position to position as she tried to maneuver out of the door. “Oh! The pain!” she said as she finally dropped hard to one foot before slowly lowering the other foot down. George and Joseph watched the entire spectacle.

  “My god. You are just a specimen of health, aren't you,” commented George.

  “Shut up,” replied Cassidy. “Sheng, just hang out here for awhile. Hopefully we'll be back out soon.” Sheng nodded.

  “I've got my book,” he said.

  ---

  Cassidy's hand reached up and took hold of the polished brass knocker, giving it three solid impacts on the door. A moment passed before a short, middle-aged Mexican woman answered the door. “Yes. Can I help you?” she asked.

  “Hi. My name is Cassidy St. Claire, and these are my associates, Joseph Reilly and George Brown. We're here to see Professor Jacobson.”

  “Oh, I'm sorry. Doctor Jacobson is not seeing any guests right now. He is very busy.”

  At that moment, the bespectacled and ba
lding head of a chubby man peered around the door. “Cassidy St. Claire, as in the Cassidy St. Claire?” he asked.

  Cassidy's eyes made large movements to the left and right as she thought about her answer. Her eyes fell upon his as she answered. “... yes?”

  “This is quite a surprise. Please. Come in.” He opened the door wide as the trio walked in, Cassidy stiff as always. “Miss Hernandez, would you please get our guests some ice water.” The maid nodded and walked away. Professor Jacobson bowed slightly and motioned with his left arm to a door leading out of the foyer. “Please. Join me in my office.” The trio all nodded and spoke some quiet thank-you's. The Professor watched Cassidy walk with some difficulty. “Are you alright?” he asked.

  Cassidy looked at him for a moment before realizing what he was talking about. “Oh, right. I, uh, I got into a fight with giant washing machine last night and came out on the losing end. This is the result.”

  “My lord. One moment,” said the Professor as he walked over to a cabinet against his office wall. The office was impressive. Vaulted ceilings with elaborate detailing flowed down into walls of dark wood and wrought iron. Various cabinets and shelves were scattered all against the walls, surrounding a dominating desk which sat with its back against a wall of large arch windows and french doors overlooking a small garden and the tall, red brick buildings across the street. The area of the office nearest the door was filled with a large, mechanical-looking horse, made of polished metal and iron. The Professor walked back over to Cassidy with a glass jar with a large cork in the top. “How strong is your stomach?”

  “Umm, strong, I suppose. I've never had any problems.”

  Miss Hernandez walked in with a tray with four glasses of ice water and a pitcher. The Professor pulled the cork out of the bottle and dumped three hard tablets into his hand and gave them to Cassidy, dropping them into her open palm. “Swallow these,” he said.

  Cassidy looked down into her palm, scrutinizing the objects. “What are they?” she asked, looking up at the Professor.

  “Acetyl Salicylic Acid,” he replied. “It's a pain killer but can cause stomach problems. Take all three.”

  Cassidy dutifully put each of three giant pills in her mouth and took them one by one. After she was done, she made a distasteful smacking sound with lips as she grimaced a bit. “Ugh. They taste awful,” she said.

  “It's an acid,” replied the professor in a flat, almost-sarcastic tone. “Here,” he handed her a bowl with peanuts in it. “Eat these. Having something in your stomach will help.” Cassidy took the bowl and started eating peanuts. “So, with you treated, what brings you here?” The Professor spoke as he placed the jar on his desk, put his hands in his coat pockets, and leaned against his desk.

  “Advice on something we've found ourselves in possession of,” replied Cassidy. She turned to Joseph and motioned with her hand. Joseph walked over to the desk and unwrapped the hand, its metal panel loosely bolted back into place. The Professor leaned down to look at it.

  “Oh. Here,” said George, handing the Professor the necessary tool to remove the panel.

  “I won't bore you with the details,” Cassidy began, “but I removed this from the arm of a man who was using this as though it was his own hand. It afforded him strength, speed, and apparently the ability to fire flares out of it. I believe that this man had an integral part to play in both the robbery of my company and the murder of an employee. I brought it to my own experts, but they're at a loss, saying it's beyond anything they've ever seen, and they recommended I bring it to you. So here I am. What can you tell me?”

  The professor adjusted his glasses and leaned down to look at the hand. He poked at it a bit and nodded a few times. He reached into his drawer and pulled out a long metal skewer, using it to poke around inside of the arm's workings. He hadn't been at it for more than a few minutes when he put his skewer down and looked up.

  “Sorry,” he started. “I wish I could tell you more, but it's actually pretty common stuff. Nothing very special at all.” Cassidy looked at him with a degree of disbelief apparent on her face. “I can appreciate why someone without training or education in the field could be amazed by it, but it's actually nothing special. There could be a hundred men who are capable of this.”

  “Is there anything you can tell us about it? Anything at all? Any lead? Any hint of its origin.”

  “Well, it appears to be purely mechanical. If a man with a missing arm was using it, he may have been articulating it with movements of his upper arm, or maybe the injury that cost him his natural arm was only partial, and there were muscles still functioning enough to control this.”

  “Yeah, but that doesn't explain how he was so strong.”

  “He may have been very fit. Perhaps he ate a great deal of chicken or something.”

  “This guy was far more than fit, he was a colossus. Could the arm have had... a separate power source somewhere that he was controlling?”

  “Now that is outside of my expertise. My work with power sources are of the tiny kind, intended to power incredibly small machines. If he had some large motor, I wouldn't know.”

  “Alright, let's assume that he had some small power supply that was producing lots of power. What could that be, even just theoretically.”

  The professor thought for a moment before shaking his head. “I'm sorry. I just wouldn't know where to start.”

  “We could leave the hand here,” Cassidy said. “Perhaps you could find time—“

  “I wish I could, I do, but I'm an exceptionally busy man.”

  “Very understandable. I could pay you whatev--”

  “I'm sorry. But there's just no way I could fit it into my schedule.”

  Cassidy nodded with disappointment. “Alright. I'm sorry for pressing, you can appreciate my curiosity with this thing.”

  “Oh, certainly!” replied the Professor. “I only wish that I could have been more help. I just don't have the time, really. In fact, I have a meeting with a critical client in less than an hour.”

  “Yes, yes. We'll get out of your hair, then,” said Cassidy.

  The Professor stood up straight and motioned toward the exit. “I'll see you to the door.”

  Cassidy was the last one to leave the house, and she turned as she exited. “Again, professor, thank you for your time.”

  “My pleasure. Good day.” With that, he quietly shut the door. Cassidy glanced up the wall of the house, giving the perimeter a cursory analysis before walking away with Joseph and George. Upon arriving at the carriage on the other side of the street, they formed a tight circle.

  “Thoughts?” asked Cassidy.

  “He's lying,” said George quickly.

  “I had my suspicions, but why do you think so?”

  “I can only assume he thought that neither of us were technically informed, otherwise he never would have tried feeding you that horse shit about the hand being commonplace. This is technology bordering on magic. It is beyond everything in the journals. He should have shit his pants when he saw it.”

  “And on top of that,” added Joseph, “he barely looked at the damned thing. He poked at it for, what, one minute? Maybe two? No doctor would make an assessment that quickly.”

  “I don't know. My doctor barely does anything to me before telling me it's all in my head... asshole” added George. “Baaah, regardless, I'm telling you something that is absolute fact. No sane man would have called that hand uninteresting.”

  Cassidy glanced away in thought with a furrowed brow. “Why would he lie?”

  “Maybe he's the one who made the hand,” said Joseph.

  “I... I doubt it,” said George, his face expressing deep thought. “He would need a huge facility with highly skilled technicians.”

  “Maybe he just helped in the design,” replied Joseph.

  “Whatever the reason,” interjected Cassidy, “he didn't jump back in surprise, meaning that he's associated with the hand and he wants to keep that association secret.” Cass
idy glanced away from the group and back to the Professor's house. “Look at this place. How does a professor afford it, even one like him?”

  “Maybe,” said Joseph. He also glanced toward the house. “He could also just be a mad scientist.”

  From a carriage slightly down the road, a young man approached the group. He was dressed formally, with a clean-shaven, boyish face, a pinkish complexion, and dark black hair slicked into a tight curl atop his forehead. The trio stopped to look at him.

  “Good afternoon,” he said clearly with a slight bow. “I'm terribly sorry for the intrusion, but I couldn't help but overhear you discussing Professor Jacobson. I, um...” He paused as he thought. “I apologize, introductions first. My name is Gideon Atwater. I work for the U.S. State Department. I am here investigating the possible kidnapping of a professor, Karl Hoffman, in New York and some clues led me all the way out here, to Professor Jacobson. May I ask what your business with the professor is?”

  The trio stared at Gideon with flat, unwelcoming expressions for a moment before breaking them to actually respond to him. “Ummmm,” Cassidy began. “Yes. You may. But first, and I apologize for responding to your question with a question, but the professor who was kidnapped. What was he a professor of?” asked Cassidy.

  “No apologies needed. He was most famous for his work in micro-hydraulics, but he worked in a number of fields.”

  George immediately looked to Cassidy. “That can't be a coincidence.” Cassidy nodded.

  “What?” asked Gideon.