Steam City Pirates

by Jim Musgrave

  “You can go, Detective. I can supervise our activities tomorrow,” said Doctor Adler. “I have been rather recalcitrant lately, and I want to make amends. Tell me what you want done, and I’ll be certain it’s accomplished,” he added, tightening his necktie.

  This was not really good news to me. I knew this was an option I could take, but my horrible fear of traveling through time was what I did not want to face again. I had been fortunate thus far with my trips, but it only took one mistake to lose it all. If I had landed in a security zone during the war, then I would have been immediately arrested. I also still had the lingering fear that I was tampering with God’s domain, and I would be punished. Or, I would do something that could cause a catastrophic event to occur somewhere.

  This journey necessitated my traveling almost 500 years into the future. What would life be like then? Perhaps I would not have the required breathing apparatus. Manette had said the future was ecologically damaged. In addition, this prison was not on Earth. I would have to figure a way to travel up to the lunar surface once I landed in the correct time and place. I could perhaps use my British accent and bluff my way up there. Or, I could commit a crime in order to get myself incarcerated. The key advantage of time travel investigation is that one can return to the same moment one left if the controls are working. However, I am not certain the controls in my time machine are always working. They had worked twice, but what about the third time? If I were late tomorrow, then my information about Biggs-Pemberton would be useless, and my fate would be cast to the winds.

  “All right. I’ll go. What I need to find out is too important not to make this journey. What needs to happen tomorrow is that we must have a plan in place for the things that might occur. First of all, Seth, I want you to go up in the balloon with Professor Lowe. If they decide to use the submarine again, then they will certainly bring in their own balloon to collect their booty. I want you to stop this from happening, Seth,” I instructed the lad with a firm voice.

  “Yes sir, Detective. I can fly if I need to, correct?” he asked, a tremor in his voice. “Also, I can change shape if it’s necessary, right?”

  “Of course! We must use all of our collective abilities if we are to succeed tomorrow. If we don’t, then we are certain to lose. Remember that the future of the world could be in the balance, and we will now be showing our hand. Once they know who we are and what we can do, we shall be marked for destruction—all of us.” I looked directly at the two women when I made the last statement.

  “We understand the dangers, O’Malley,” said Becky, taking off her bonnet, furrowing her eyebrows, flexing her biceps, and shaking her blonde locks. “You just take care of yourself,” she added.

  “What about the steam man battle?” McKenzie asked. “What do we do when Franklin’s little leprechauns inside the steam man Michael start going after the leaders of the pirates?”

  “You must back them up as long as things are going normally. I should return before the battle starts, and I’ll have the information we need to know about Doctor Franklin Biggs-Pemberton and his entire group of little people. If they are part of the multiverse Network, then we will help them overthrow the Steam City Pirates. However, if I discover something that proves Franklin and his men are imposters, then we must play our cards after we have seen theirs. Let us hope I will then have the Ace we’ll need to hide up our sleeve.” I was getting more anxious about this time travel business the more I talked about it. Why had I ever agreed to be the time traveler in this group? Oh yes. It was my hero’s calling. Didn’t a hero have to die to be heroic? I hoped not.

  “What about me, O’Malley?” Becky asked. “What can I do while you’re gallivanting in time?”

  “Becky, I want you to visit John Kennedy and tell him what is going to happen at the amusement park. Tell him we’ll need all of the men he can provide to assist us at a moment’s notice. If we must go after Manette and his group, then Kennedy will help us do that. If we must go after Biggs-Pemberton and his group, then he will help us with our effort in that regard. Of course, depending upon what I find out, we may have to go after both of these groups. God help us if we must,” I said.

  “I will make certain he knows all about what we are planning, Patrick,” said Becky.

  “You do that. Missus Mergenthaler, I would like you to keep an eye on this Archduchess who is opening up the amusement park. I don’t want her getting in the way of our counter-offensive.” I also wanted Bessie out of the way when her son was up in the balloon. I knew she would be very emotional about his wellbeing.

  “I shall be upon her like sour cream on a bagel,” joked Bessie. She had on her Queen Victoria black dress again, and she did not seem too concerned about Seth being a major part of our plan.

  “Thank you all. I would like you to know that no matter what happens tomorrow, I think you are all brave, noble and patriotic. Now I must leave for the future. Pray for me, if you would. Your prayers are especially welcome, Rabbi,” I added, looking directly at Doctor Adler.

  “Would you do the honors, Seth?” Doctor Adler asked the young mazikeen.

  “Certainly,” Seth said, skipping over to the time machine and standing in front of it while I cautiously approached my nemesis.

  “Seth, what would you advise the others do if they must confront your opposite? You know, Miss golden teeth?” My own teeth were chattering as I stepped inside the cold confines of the time machine.

  “If she has changed shape, look for the image she has duplicated. This person will probably be nearby unless she has planned ahead the way we did with Jane the Grabber. Also, remember that when she is invisible, she has not disappeared. If you can hear her, then throw a coat or cloak over the place you believe she might be. It will wrap around her corporeal form. Other than those two techniques, I cannot think of more. Each mazikeen has his or her own quirks. We are, after all, half-human,” he smiled at me through the crystal cocoon I was now occupying.

  “Thank you. Well, I guess shall I bid you all adieu,” I said, preparing myself for the inevitable fear to take hold of me once more.

  “Wait a moment, Detective,” said Seth. The boy walked over to a wooden chest I had not seen inside the sanctuary before. It was protected with a big padlock, and when the key was inserted, Seth raised his eyebrows and looked over at Doctor Adler. The rabbi walked over to the chest and opened the heavy lid for the boy. Seth stooped over and withdrew a brass clock with copper hands on its face. I tried to remember where I had seen that clock before. Jane the Grabber! It was the same time machine clock that Seth had used while impersonating the infamous Madame from the Palace Theater. He had duplicated hers!

  “This time machine is the one you want to use,” said Seth, strolling slowly over to my crystal capsule holding the clock by its chain.

  I climbed out of my old machine and stood next to the boy. He looked up at me and grinned.

  “Why is that?” I asked.

  “Because it has another home button,” said Seth.

  “Another home button? I don’t understand,” I said.

  “You know how I pushed this home button when we traveled to the underground pirates’ caves?” Seth pointed to a small red button on the top of the clock next to the stem piece.

  “Yes, I do remember. You pressed it, and we were able to go together,” I said.

  “This other button was placed there for the Grand Inquisitor Manette. When pressed, it takes the time traveler to July 6, 2344. I discovered this button whilst I was playing around inside the clock. It was hidden within behind the gear mechanism and marked with a reset label. The date was inscribed directly under it, so I determined it must be the default time-travel button.” Seth handed me the clock. It was cold and about ten inches in circumference, and Seth had attached a copper chain to it that I could wear around my neck.

  “Put it on, Detective,” said Seth.

  I reluctantly did so.

  “You will now be able to take one other person back with you,” sa
id Seth, smiling.

  “But, according to Doctor Biggs-Pemberton, it will violate the multiverse Network’s laws,” I pointed out. “What if they send out enforcers to arrest me?”

  My lover, Rebecca Charming Jones chose that moment to walk up to me. She placed her lovely lips close to my ear and whispered, “If you get arrested or hurt in any way, Patrick James, I will not marry you when you return,” she said.

  I felt my heart soar. I had been pursuing Becky ever since our days in the war together wallowing in the mud across the South—she, as the Madame in charge of the troopers’ unit of prostitutes—me, as a trooper in charge of taking care of General William Tecumseh Sherman. She helped me learn how to use my intuitive powers to find clues and, most importantly, overcome my dreaded fear of women and intimacy. She also is the most intelligent, bravest, and most beautiful woman I have ever known. The strangest event in my life had happened to me because I had never asked Becky to marry me. It was she who was now asking me, and I had my best reason for returning home safely from my journey.

  I hoped that Seth was correct about this reset button being a trip to 2344. What if I were to land in a wasteland where the air was poisoned, and I was immediately struck dead? Manette told me he was sent by the scientists to escape the nuclear devastation that was to occur above ground. If I did not return to the same place, then I would be directly in the atmosphere that was so gruesomely described by those witnesses at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 Japan.

  “Good luck, Detective!” said Doctor Adler.

  “Farewell, darling,” said Becky.

  Seth, Bessie and Walter McKenzie all waved at me as I pressed the reset button inside Jane the Grabber’s clock. I immediately felt the vibrating energy rush through my body, and I thought the others must have seen steam coming out of my ears, as I had the distinct impression that my body was exploding into space.

  This time, I lost consciousness. It must have been the extra time I was traveling that put me out of touch with reality. I dreamed I was lost as a boy in Kilkenny, Ireland. My mother was calling me from the far end of a deep tunnel, and it seemed as though I could never reach her. My legs were like rubber, and I could only take a few steps at a time in slow motion.

  When I came to my senses once again, my mother had disappeared, and I was inside of a great arena. All around me were rows of seats that extended upward in an amphitheater shape. I was the center of attraction, it seemed. I had no understanding of why all the hundreds of people should be out there gazing down at me. How could they have known I was coming?

  “Why are you looking at me?” I asked them. I noticed that my voice was being amplified out over the seated audience in this vast circular arena just outside the globular covering of my bright empty space.

  “We were notified that someone had reset,” said a voice from outside. I could not make out from which person this voice was emanating, as none of these faces was distinguishable from the next. They all had the same gray, pear-shaped visage, and there were no mouths below their noses that I could see. These beings almost resembled the aliens of the fantasy that I had described to the World Eugenics Collective in the mystery involving the kidnapping of Doctor Arthur Mergenthaler. My aliens were from the planet Mars, however, and this was supposed to be beneath a mountain in Colorado.

  I decided to take a chance and address these people with what I knew and what I wanted to know from them. I realized everything in this case, perhaps even my own life, was hanging in the balance, but it was time to establish a connection with the future.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I possess a time machine that was first given to one Abraham Toky Manette. He is now living in New York City, and the year is 1869. He told me his duty was to save this planet because of its imminent destruction by nuclear weapons. Do you know about him and his supposed duties?” My mouth felt dry, and I was hoping I would be able to get this over pretty quickly.

  The same voice came out over the dark crowd. “Yes, he was sent on his mission by us. The world will end in conflagration and radiation poisoning if the technology is not kept in check. He was sent to establish a blockage in the space-time continuum with steam monotechnology.”

  I had half of my problem addressed. Now I needed to obtain the answer to the other half. I took a deep breath. The same gray population stared down at me.

  “I was also told that there is a multiverse Network of officers that wants to stop the human computer Manette from doing his job. The man who told me this is Doctor Franklin Biggs-Pemberton. He told me he represents the freedom of time travel and the creation of new universes. The resultant destruction of the Earth, therefore, according to Doctor Biggs-Pemberton, is a necessary evil. Is this man telling me the truth?” I could hear many voices conferring at once, but the heads of the audience did not move toward each other to communicate in normal human ways. Instead, I believe they were conferring together by telepathy or brain waves.

  Finally, they had an answer for me. I listened carefully.

  “You have come to us from the designated era wherein we have sent our agent Abraham Toky Manette. He is not human, but he is very wise. We do not know your name, and we do not care who you are. This man Franklin Biggs-Pemberton, Warden, HMPS Lunar Facility 8, is not telling you the truth because we are the Network. He was our warden at the prison on the lunar surface. He was also in charge of the miniaturization of offenders from the nearby galaxies. We gave him the authority to do this, but he began to rebel. He sent miniature men down by spacecraft to spy on us, and the result was what you have perceived in your city. Franklin Biggs-Pemberton is an escaped criminal, and he is extremely dangerous. Biggs-Pemberton was able to stow away on a journey to your era along with our agent, Manette, by making himself microscopically small.”

  I had to break into their soliloquy. Biggs-Pemberton had lied when he told me Manette was a cyborg. He was not. Manette was a computer man. “How small is Biggs-Pemberton? He is what we call a midget right now. A little over three feet in height.”

  “No, he was as small as a bacterium. He was a microscopic organism on the inside of Manette’s Nemes. We have not sent anybody to imprison or capture him because we have evolved past violence. We would not know how to stop a man like Biggs-Pemberton. He is the last of a dying breed in this small Milky Way galaxy. We thought he would be the one who could keep our violent ones peacefully in storage inside our lunar facility. Each prisoner comes from a different planet in a different galaxy, and even a different universe, so they had to be cared for with great delicacy and genetic know-how. However, that was not the case. This warden we appointed was quite efficient with drugs, and with genetic engineering, but he was also able to do one more thing that makes him especially dangerous to you. When we sent our agent Manette back to your era, we could not restrict the quantity of transmitted life-force waves. Our time travel is much more efficient now because we transfer the seed of each human, and it grows to full size once it reaches the destination. This is the way we populate new universes and the inhabitable planets therein.”

  “Yes, I heard about your repopulation program,” I said. “But what about Doctor Frankin? What did he do that is so dangerous?”

  “The warden was able to transmit the entire population of Lunar Prison Facility 8. The violent prisoners were all reduced to bacteria size, and they all traveled to your era along with our agent, Abraham Toky Manette.”

  “How many were there?” I was afraid to ask that question, but I now saw the logic of why I needed to ask it. Franklin had already informed me of his fellow members of the Network who were working with him in New York City. Now I could find out exactly how many of these prisoners there were.

  “Five thousand,” said the voice.

  “Did you say five thousand?” I asked. The number was far more than I had ever imagined was possible.

  “Yes. The entire population of Lunar Facility 8 escaped. This is why Doctor Biggs-Pemberton is so dangerous to you and to us. If he and his prisoners are not stopped,
then the future of the planet Earth will not continue.”

  I was still a bit confused about the logic of how it was to this Network’s advantage if they were still on Earth. I wanted to ask them, but I needed to collect my thoughts. I moved my eyes over the hundreds of the same gray faces in the arena outside staring down at me. Could this be in our future?

  “Won’t you be destroyed if Manette is successful at stopping the development of your technology which has proven to give the world peace for all time? Don’t you want to exist in peace and freedom?” I asked.

  “We know how to evolve and move to other universes. This universe is finite, just as all universes are finite. This galaxy is finite, as is this infinitesimal planet Earth. Only the Network itself is infinite. If we can plug the hole in the Earth’s technological disaster bubble, then perhaps the citizens can exist many more years without killing the ecology and the people with weapons of mass destruction as they have done, and its plague of violence won’t be able to spread to other universes.”

  At that same moment, I could hear a whirring sound, and I looked up to the roof of my globular cage. It was opening slowly to reveal the dull gray world beyond our confines. It was a scene from a Poe nightmare. Desolate and vast stretches of empty wasteland covered the landscape. Empty and ragged buildings that soared to the sky were torn apart as if they had been sawed in half with some kind of huge appliance. Skeletons dotted the empty roads beside torn vehicles of some kind. Carcasses hung out of the vehicles and were strewn about like jetsam on an ocean after a ship wreck. This was the nuclear holocaust! It had already occurred. The Network had come from some other universe to save us!

  The covering on the roof again began to move, and soon it was back to darkness. The over-soul voice again began to boom out over the area outside my cage. “If we can plug the hole in your time disaster, then we shall have accomplished our mission. You see, we are stardust. We are golden. And we must get ourselves back to the garden. Those are words from a song written by one of the artists in your future. Embrace the moment. You have no future other than your own. Farewell, visitor. We hope you have the information for which you came. Your mission, I am afraid, has just begun.”