Steam City Pirates

by Jim Musgrave

  “Monotechnological, I assume, is similar to the Judaic religion’s use of the term ‘monotheism’? As in, a belief in one God. In your example, it means belief in one technology, correct?” asked Doctor Adler.

  “Quite right, Doctor. It is interesting you should compare the two. The Society also uses science as a theist uses religious fervor. These renegades are committed to stopping a nuclear holocaust, just as your religious people would be committed to stop the Holocaust that occurred during World War Two. The citizens who follow the Society become zealous believers who are fanatically attached to the Society and its credo of pseudo-justice. By stopping progress, they can stop computers from being invented. And, by stopping computers they stop the accidental destruction of Earth. However, this act by the Society also stops the creation of another universe. In addition, this Society, we suspect, would establish a reign of terror far worse than an accidental nuclear tragedy.” Franklin placed his small hands together and then forced them apart, suddenly, spreading them up and outward to demonstrate an eruption of some kind.

  “This terrorism has yet to begin, however,” I said.

  Franklin walked over to the time machine and began to inspect its outer crystal module. “You see, our primary job at the Network is to collect the spiritual sparks of humans on any planet, in any universe with higher life forms. We collect them just before the cataclysmic event occurs. Once we have collected these electronic life force waves, we can then distribute them to the designated planet in the new universe that has been born as a reaction to the catastrophe. The new planet has a decidedly more evolved habitation potential for human life, and we, of course, make tweaks to the collected spirit sparks so they will not be as belligerent in their next lives.”

  “I see how it would be difficult for your Network members to approach citizens of the doomed planet in an attempt to recruit them to your cause. Our culture has a social bias against people who are physically out of the norm,” I pointed out. “Also, an argument that endorses any kind of alteration of the body, much less the complete obliteration of it, would also be frowned upon by our citizenry. We would like to assist you in your effort to stop the Society by attempting to enter the underground caverns of these Steam City Pirates. I believe if we combined our abilities, we can create a clever subterfuge.”

  “Subterfuge! I enjoy the use of your antiquated terms. What did you have in mind, Detective O’Malley?” Franklin pointed to the time machine. “Does it involve your time machine? If so, then perhaps you would also like to see ours. It has done away with the physical properties of this ancient model. We transport digital waves, but you must first be converted into a spirit wave,” he added.

  “No, I don’t believe we require time travel at this juncture of the investigation,” I said. “I would like to use your access to the Central Park entrance in order to simulate a time travel kidnapping.”

  “I can see where you’re going with this. You want to duplicate the arrival of a kidnapped inventor so as to trick the Society into accepting you into their fold,” replied Franklin.

  “Yes. Can you administer an anesthetic to Jane the Grabber? If so, then we have a young mazikeen who can then replicate her body and become part of our ruse. I shall impersonate the inventor who is escorted down into their headquarters. We must first do some research in order to find the perfect invention to assist them in their pirating adventures,” I explained.

  “Certainly. I have some very unique sedating accouterments. They were a scientific breakthrough in the First Century,” Doctor Biggs-Pemberton pointed out.

  “Once she is unconscious, we must also dismantle her time travel mechanism and duplicate that technology so we can use it to fool the Society. She must not escape while we carry out our plan, as you can imagine what would then result,” I said. I was thinking about the consequences in my mind. They were not good.

  “I like your plan, Detective. Our Network is quite advanced technologically, but we have had little use for subterfuge for many hundreds of years. Thus, our metaphorical and investigative thinking skills have atrophied quite a bit. If you can kidnap this woman, then your Seth can duplicate her,” he said. “As for the invention you could bring to the Master Inquisitor, I believe I have the perfect answer. This leader of the Society, Abraham Toky Manette, is a cyborg. His body is mostly robotic, which means he is a combination of human and mechanical parts. One of his obsessions is to create the perfect steam-powered warrior robot. He has not been able to accomplish this, so he has sent Jane Haskins all over the time-space continuum to search for an inventor who can do this. You can tell him you are such an inventor, and he will be overjoyed. You can then create a steam man warrior for him based upon the plans I shall provide. In addition, we can create another warrior to duel with Manette’s steam man. Inside our steam man we can hide me and other members of the Network! We shall be a Trojan Horse! Once we can get our robot inside their domain to fight their robot, in a battle royal, we can open it and attack them with our collection of midgets! If we can kill this leader, Manette, and keep Madame Jane the Grabber prisoner, then we shall have won!”

  “Again, I must offer objections based upon my personal religious convictions. You, gentlemen, are toying with the dominion of our Creator. I cannot accept it, but I shall stand aside and allow you to perform your blasphemous activities. Please don’t expect me to personally assist you in any way, however,” Doctor Adler admonished us.

  “That’s quite all right, Doctor Adler,” I said. “You have helped us immensely already. I believe if we can accomplish this we may not need any or our services any longer,” I added.

  “First off, we need to locate this Jane the Grabber and lure her into a trap of some kind, correct?” The little doctor rubbed his tiny hands together.

  “Yes, and I happen to know she still runs some establishments in the Tenderloin area, as I had to confront her last year about some nefarious activities. She seems to have moved up in the world since then,” I said. “I believe we can find her at her main residence, the Palace Theater. How do we go about setting our trap?”

  “We need to lure her out of the Palace Theater and get her into a room or other location where she will be alone. I can then administer an anesthetic that will keep her unconscious long enough to deactivate her time travel mechanism,” Franklin said.

  “From what you told us about your dealings with this woman, I would assume she would be attracted by lucre,” said Doctor Adler.

  “I think you might have a good idea, Doctor. She was attempting to acquire all the brothels uptown in our last confrontation. Becky Charming had quite a few altercations with her about that. Perhaps we could offer some expensive real estate.” I was making a stab in the dark, as I knew Jane the Grabber was probably far beyond simple brothel management. She might even be a part-owner in the steam city businesses growing all over New York.

  “You said this woman was now traveling into the future to kidnap inventors. Why not give her evidence that an inventor in New York has a new creation she can acquire without having to leave the city?” Doctor Biggs-Pemberton’s voice sounded confident. I wondered if he had something he had already invented in mind.

  “I like it,” I said. “Give me more details.”

  “I can excrete a genetic component from the male mosquito. This can be engineered as a liquid that can be swallowed by a male client before he partakes in cohabitation with one of Jane Haskins’ ladies. It so happens that the male mosquito has the fastest orgasm in Nature. Imagine the profits to be made if every one of her brothel customers ejaculates in three seconds!”

  Doctor Adler’s face turned a beet color, and I just shook my head.

  “Three seconds you say? I shall have my Becky run the figures on that. It should amount to quite a tidy profit. How do we tell Haskins you came by such a potent drug?” I smiled in spite of myself.

  “Tell her I was working in the Amazon rain forests. Only female mosquitos acquire blood from mammals, so you can say I was b
itten so many times by the ladies that my orgasms gradually changed into that of a male mosquito. Tell her I made this drug from my own blood!” Franklin’s eyes grew large, and he giggled. “I call it Doctor Franklin’s Fast Fornication Formula.”

  Even Doctor Adler was laughing at the little man’s sudden sense of humor. As a plan, it was very creative, and I had little doubt that Hester Jane Haskins, a blood-sucker in her own right, would bite at this ingenious offer.

  “I will inform the others in our group about this plan. We will then get the word out to Haskins tomorrow. We can have Jane the Grabber meet us at Becky’s hotel room in the Plaza Theater District uptown. This is where you can sedate her, and we can kidnap her, and then Seth can take over from there,” I said.

  “I shall be more than happy to oblige. May this be the beginning of a strong and prosperous relationship!” said Doctor Biggs-Pemberton, alias Network Officer KCP3672.

  * * *

  “Doctor Franklin’s Fast Fornication Formula! I love it!” said Becky.

  We were inside her best hotel room in the Plaza Hotel in the Theater District. Rebecca Charming used many of these suites in her call girl business. We decided this room would be the most attractive, and it was large enough to accomplish our kidnapping of Jane the Grabber. It had French furnishing, with violet curtains, fringed Victorian lamps, King Louis XIV paintings on the walls, and a huge canopy bed in the adjoining room.

  “I sent a Western Union telegram to Haskins,” I explained. “This would seem to be the proper mode of communications for a scientist who is visiting America and staying in the Theater District.”

  “I was informed by Miss Charming that you successfully impersonated a British professor from Oxford in your recent kidnapping case, Detective. You Americans seem to be impressed by our accent. I am hoping Miss Haskins will also be impressed by my accent,” said Doctor Franklin Biggs-Pemberton.

  “I believe she’ll be more impressed by saving over a thousand dollars per week in her brothels. Your drug will prove to be the lure that gets her over here, Doctor, not your credentials. Patrick had to pretend he had an elixir from the planet Mars which would give white racists a powerful boost in evolution. Let the good doctor hear your speech, O’Malley. It is quite impressive,” said Becky.

  I had considered the interesting developments that had occurred since my fictional portrayal of Oxford England Professor Ronald Wentworth. My panspermia serum was a complete fabrication, and yet, now, I was involved in a real world adventure that far surpassed anything I might have imagined.

  “All right. You must imagine that I was speaking before a group of white racists and eugenics believers. As a professor, I was claiming to have the drug which would give them a superior life form. I stepped up to the podium inside the Presbyterian Church and said, ‘Panspermia is being injected into a variety of advanced species on inhabitable planets all over the universe. It is God’s will that white men become the most advanced race ever to breathe life! I am here to say that I have the formula for the genetic booster serum, given to me by one of these alien beings who arrived outside London in 1865. I am now prepared to offer it to your organization in return for your allowing me to become a lifetime member. I want to share with you the coming glory of racial superiority and a life that will be almost limitless.’ These rubes were applauding and asking me if they could be the first ones to take the serum. I was quite proud of my subterfuge,” I said.

  “My word, you certainly have an excellent British accent. You must have practiced,” said Franklin.

  “Yes, I did. I practiced for an entire month with a visiting Oxford professor who taught at Columbia University. Becky introduced him to me. We should now get to our places. If all goes well, Hester Haskins should be arriving shortly.” I walked over to the clothes closet and stood in front of it.

  “I shall now disappear. Good luck with your intrigue, gentlemen,” said Becky, and she opened the door to the hotel suite.

  “Once we get her anesthetized, we can take her over to the Mount Sinai Hospital laboratory so that Seth the mazikeen can duplicate her person. We can then store her in a safe place until we can carry out our mission under Central Park,” I said, and I stepped into the closet.

  “Good day, Miss Charming. I am very happy to have met you. Perhaps we can socialize under more pleasant circumstances in the near future?” Franklin smiled. He enjoyed the fact that Becky treated him as an equal. I could hear it in the tone of his voice when he addressed her. He had a great deal of respect for her attitude towards him.

  “Good day, Doctor. Good luck with your intrigue!” she said, and she exited the suite, closing the door behind her.

  It was fifteen minutes into the hour when I heard the knock on the door of the hotel room. I could also hear Doctor Franklin’s steps as he walked over to answer it. I then heard the conversation between Hester Haskins and my compatriot. I held in my hand my Colt pocket revolver in case the little man had trouble injecting the drug into Jane the Grabber.

  “Miss Haskins! You were supposed to come alone. Who is this man?” I could hear the panic in little Franklin’s voice, and I held my pistol more tightly. I placed my finger over the trigger.

  I heard the door shut. I held my breath, waiting for what came next.

  “We have had a change of plans, Doctor Biggs-Pemberton. John will be escorting you to our place of business. You didn’t think we were going to miss out on a golden opportunity to have our very own inventor, did you? Yes, I work for others, but my main preoccupation is to advance my own profits. Take him, John!” I could hear the scuffling taking place outside the closet. This was my only chance to save my little friend, so I took it. I drew back the curtain to the closet.

  Haskins’ bartender and enforcer, John Allen, stood near the bed holding the doctor in his big arms. Franklin was squirming frantically in his grasp, but his struggle was in vain. Allen was at least a foot taller than when we had last met in the basement of the Palace Theater, and there were unexplainable bulges beneath his red overcoat and green frock coat. He wore a green top hat, and when his gaze met mine, I had the distinct feeling he was not the same John Allen.

  “O’Malley! I should have known you’d be in the mix. You can drop that silly weapon. The Society has improved our evolutionary status much better than your preposterous panspermia elixir ever could.”

  Jane Haskins wore a black and gray outfit. Her dress was short, with vertical stripes of alternating black and gray, and she wore long, sheer silk stockings with black vertical stripes. Her squash-shaped hat had black netting and was gray in color with black spots around the brim. Her brief coat was black leather with knives in holders going down the sleeves, and the gold time-travel clock was there directly below her bosom. Her hair was silver gray and long, and her lips were maroon. She stared at me with conviction in her brown eyes.

  “Drop the doctor or I shall shoot!” I said.

  “Go ahead,” said Allen. “Bullets are quite expensive in these post-war times,” he added.

  The bullet from my pistol traveled in its usual lethal trajectory that I had seen rip open the chest of many Confederate soldiers during the war. Instead of flaying the flesh with deadly accuracy, however, I heard a sizzle, and then I saw a puff of powder and smoke when it hit Allen’s head. This was not metal on his head, as the bullet did not ricochet. Instead, his skin had been treated with some kind of covering that was resistant to any foreign projectile intended to pierce the skin.

  “Good shot, marksman!” Allen said. “Sorry your ammunition cannot match your obviously perfect aim.”

  “We need to leave, John. Take care of O’Malley,” said Haskins.

  As I stood there, my revolver limp in my hand, I watched Allen as he set down the doctor onto the carpeted floor of the hotel room. “Watch our little one, Madame, if you will,” he said, and he turned toward me. His eyes began to bulge, and soon they were glowing bright green. From under his coats there escaped six snake-like appendages. These appendages were
writhing like serpents, and I had no time to duck for cover, as all six of them struck out at once, faster than King Cobras, and my entire body was instantly engulfed by these constricting demons.

  As I thrashed about the room, I could not escape the hold of these emerald-green snakes. The more I struggled, the more tightly I felt them squeezing the life from me. The room began to float before my eyes, and everything grew hazy: John Allen and his long snakes became a dull, moss-covered Frankenstein’s monster. Jane the Grabber’s body melted into a gray ooze, and I finally passed out from lack of oxygen.

  Chapter 9: Containing a Journey with Our Hero into the Belly of the Beast

  “I am afraid you’ll have to help me with these two.”

  The voice was coming from somewhere, but I had no conscious awareness of time or place. I gradually began to feel my limbs, and as I opened my eyes, the dull blur of light slowly dissolved into a focused view of the Palace Hotel room. I sat up, shook my head to get the cobwebs out, and stared at little Doctor Biggs-Pemberton. He was standing between the supine bodies of Hester Jane Haskins and John Allen. They were obviously unconscious, and my surprise at this fact superseded my own discomfort.

  “How did you do it?” I asked.

  Franklin smiled over at me as if he were talking to a child. “I believe you might call it my Napoleonic Complex. Whenever I must face danger, I always manage to carry an equalizer. In this case, I have an injection blowgun. I was able to formulate a little drug very easily from opium and mandrake root,” he said, holding up what appeared to be a short hollow skewer made of bamboo. With his right hand, he took out of his pocket a small hypodermic needle with a feather on the end. “The drugs are readily available in your liberal society. I simply place this dart inside the blowgun and ‘phhht!’ Two large ogres are felled by one small Homunculus David. It’s rather ancient medicine, but it is very functional. I also knew the chemical that could penetrate the protective covering of their skin. I worked for Manette as an inventor for a year.”