Wormfodder rambled on about me for a bit too long before introducing Harold and then Crispin Kensington and right on down the line. Like a who’s who of geriatric eggheads, historians, and explorers. Men far past their prime physically, but legends in their fields of study and as mentally fit as ever (perhaps aside from Dr. Patrick von Patrick, explorer and botanist, who believed he was stuck on a commuter RailWorks line headed for the poppy fields of Ancient Edoro as he kept pestering Professor Kensington about the arrival time).Von Patrick’s eccentricity in check, I was proud to be in such great company, I do have to admit. No one compared to these great men. I was honoured to be considered one of their class.
And from the old, to the young. Frodderick beamed with pride as he readied to introduce the three young men. He took a cautionary, but brief, look to his notes and cleared his throat as he prepared to speak. The mechanism keeping his jaw in place locked opened, but with a little push, he managed to get his mouth in working order.
“Let us not forget,” his aged voice carried like that of a hinge creaking soundly in the night air, “or rather, let us for a moment remember, the contributors and their donations, those who have pledged their trust with The University, those whom made this endeavor at all possible.” There was the brief sound of general applause before Wormfodder continued, “These young men, the future of tomorrow, will continue an endeavor started so many years ago, the endeavor to explore and gain knowledge about the world in which we live. To preserve and enhance history for generations to come. To discover new and fantastic worlds that may benefit mankind and humanity ages from now. May I introduce to you these fine young men; Atticus Holding,”
The largest of the group, the rugby player, stood to applause and saluted the crowd.
“Devon Flatly.”
Devon stood up next to Atticus, short in comparison and seemingly skinnier than a flagpole. He gave a smile and nod to the crowd as he nervously slipped his hands inside pockets.
“And Endleman Whit.”
Endleman stood up, taller and more fit than Devon; poor Devon looked like a man squished between two larger men. Endleman smiled to the crowd and gave a big wave. The majority of the applause seemed to be from a gaggle of school girls who reckoned a liking for the handsome young man. Where were they when I was introduced? I surely don’t remember hearing them get excited during my introduction. But alas...
Set aside for them, in an orderly manner, their traveling packs. Two students unfurled a Clockwork Foundation flag styled with the emblematic gears representing The University, The Monarch, and The System of Numerical Guidance. They attached it to a decorative staff, an ornamental mast cast in fine detail.
“And with this flag supplied to me by The Clockwork Foundation, I send thee off,” Wormfodder took the flagstaff from the students and handed it to Endleman Whit who accepted it graciously as a declaration of allegiance with The Clockwork Foundation. He held the flagstaff up above his head for all to see and the crowd roared.
Atticus strapped his pack to his back effortlessly and helped Devon with his as he seemed to be struggling.
“God save The Monarch. For history and to the future with The University. And allow the numbers to count peacefully,” Endleman shouted one of the many slogans and mottoes of The Clockwork Foundation to the crowd who were now nearing the verge of a complete tizzy (this crowd wasn’t capable of a frenzy, too tame and far too reserved for that, but excited they were in their own meek way).
Atticus then handed Endleman his pack and they were off: Down the steps of the stage, down the center aisle of the audience, cheered on by their peers and the crowd alike. They marched forth as the band tore into a sweeping rendition of Chimes, The Clock Strikes by composer Edvard Vincenz. The crowd followed the trio from the courtyard through The University grounds to an awaiting steamdriver packed with supplies.
Harold and I followed with the crowd to see them off. Metro Sentry recognized us and waved us through a blockade to the front steps of The University’s main building. We had a good vantage point from which to see all of the action.
Atticus took to the controls of the steamdriver as Devon sat navigator and Endleman climbed atop the carriage as he firmly planted the flagstaff into a crevice between two pieces of metal on the steamdriver. The engine slowly chugged to life and grumbled a fierce release of gears just before the steam whistle blared in a quick succession of three bursts.
And like that, they were off.
Metro Sentry had the entire area under control. They had blocked off the road as onlookers crowded the sidewalk outside of The University’s front steps and even across the street. Harold and I stood atop of those steps that lead to the front doors of the main building of The University watching the festivities. It was quite the turn out, indeed. It was quite a lovely day for a send off. There seemed to be clouds sparsely edging in on the horizon and a fair wind blew in gently.
The adventurers disappeared from sight as they traveled off and the crowd began to disperse, but just barely. The festivities were to continue for many of them in University Square, but Harold and I ventured through the front doors of the main building as we made our way back to our office. I again remembered the envelope inside my jacket pocket and removed it looking at the red wax seal.
“What’s that?” Harold asked.
The soles of our shoes echoed in the silent, empty hallways. Our whispered conversation sounded of spirits conspiring upon midnight, just vibrating on the aether without certain or distinct grammatical form.
“I don’t know, something from an attorney.” I showed him the return address, “From TrustWorks, certified-stamped.” I broke the wax seal and removed the page from within. My eyes first skimmed through the entire document to make certain I wasn’t in some kind of dire legal trouble, which I wasn’t. I then went back and started from the beginning.
“Some kind of trouble, Arthur?” Harold inquired.
Harold fished his keyring from the front pocket on his trousers and unlocked our office door. With so many keys, he always managed to find the exact key he needed for whichever lock it belonged. Harold could, at times, be so quick and orderly. Those times were few and far between, for Harold always seemed to be lagging behind, rarely by anything less than two steps behind.
“No, no. No trouble,” I assured him. “It seems this attorney has a client who would like to get in touch with me. An antiques collector. Wants to meet me at his office.”
“The antiques collector?” Harold seemed confused. We entered the office and settled in.
“No, the attorney, this Scheckendale Kilmarten. He wants me to meet with him at his office.” I sat down at my desk, on the edge of the seat, and looked through the letter further, “He does suggest the 3rd.”
“Doesn’t quite take your personal schedule into consideration, now does it?” Harold quipped as he stacked books from his library wall for Geraldine.
“I don’t know. He’s rather vague in the letter.” I re-read through the message once again. I loudly skimmed through for Harold, omitting the paragraph which boasted my talents, “Dear, Dr. Monocle... I am an attorney through TrustWorks... my client, who wishes to remain anonymous at this time, would desperately like to meet with you regarding antiques, artifacts, and artwork... You will be awarded monetarily for your time... Please come see me at the address provided for a brief consultation regarding my client...” I handed the letter over to Harold.
Harold looked the letter through, “Sounds like a simple forgery case. I had to settle a case like this a while back, a couple getting their finances in order. The wife suspected a vase was a forgery, the husband claimed the vase an original and worth thousands. Turned out the husband got swindled.” He handed the letter back.
“Could very well be,” I said as I put the letter back inside the envelope and the envelope inside my jacket.
“Will you be meeting with him?”
“If I don’t, he’ll just get a TrustWorks-ordered appointment,” I reasoned. �
��Short notice, though, is a bother.”
“It’s not like his office is far,” Harold reasoned. “I plead of you, though, if you do go and are not interested, have Scheckendale, or whatever his name is, refer his client to me. I can spot forgeries from thirty stories high.”
“Yes, quite the competitive field, rooftop antiquities research,” I scoffed. “He’s lucky I even received this today. Had I not been on campus-” I removed the envelope from my jacket pocket and noticed something was off upon examination, “This wasn’t sent through PostWorks.”
“How do you mean?” Harold asked.
“There’s no postmark. No stamp. Someone came here personally and dropped it off on my desk.”
“Perhaps they delivered it in person and just missed you. Probably during your lecture. Which reminds me, Geraldine tells me she overheard you telling someone your lecture series was merely tentative. Having second thoughts?”
“Indeed,” I sat back in my chair and casually threw one leg over the other, my ankle on my opposite knee, I evened out my pants leg along my shin and twiddled with my shoelace until it untangled. “Worried you were going to have to spend a summer stuck in this office with a cranky, old, curmudgeonly grumple-frump?”
“Indeed,” Harold honestly revealed with a sincere smile.
“Don’t reassure yourself so quickly,” I told him, “do remember the key word is tentative.” I collected my belongings and carefully placed them inside my briefcase. I tapped out a quick rhythmical succession on the floor with my umbrella, “Well, I shall be off. Good day, Harold.”
“Good day, Arthur. See you on the morrow.”
“On the morrow, indeed.”
10
My feet carried me through the halls of The University from my office. I walked with my umbrella in hand, tapping it upon the ground as I walked. I felt alone so deep into the North Wall. The North Wall represented the boundary of The University and University Metro, two distinct geographical destinations. The North Wall was actually, on The University side, a hallway filled by windowless offices and storage rooms. Well, all for but one office was windowless. I had taken it upon myself as a project of sorts to expand my view onto the world. Being on the third floor of the North Wall, a window is splendid. If our office were on the ground level, I’d have reconsidered completely for fear of scuttlers and other such roamers and creepers of the night. A window is just a rock-throw away from being a gaping hole in a wall.
From the North Wall there was one entry/exit into The University/University Metro. From the outside, on the opposite side of the avenue, for metro blocks in either direction, there was this vast stone and brick wall punctuated with a double doorway in the middle and, about a block and a half down, our office window three stories high.
The wall at the ground level was littered and marred by bill posters. Advertisements ranging from Aether Ships Unlimited and Ed’s Automaton Services, to the Royal Opera in Haverton Falls and glaring, insidious posters for the Lamp Lyte in Rust Waters covered the wall. (And, incidentally, from the long history of bill posting along The Walls comes the term, “Haverton falls into rust waters,” which sums up the state of the Unified Metro in a splendid double-meaning. From the upper class down to the lower class, like fresh water from the source flowing and traveling to the drain.)
Inside, the hallway was sparse as I came upon the North Wall foyer. The hallway opened up into a very modest and simple entryway. The echo of my footsteps altered slightly as I crossed beneath the vaulted ceiling. I made my way from the old double doors and out onto the sidewalk I stepped. Crossing that boundary was to enter another world altogether. One’s senses were assaulted in a bombardment of sounds and visuals and movements galore.
The complexly jagged skyline was an ever-changing beast from above, looming down. From just the right angle one could see, beyond University Metro, the taller buildings of Haverton: smoke stacks, factory rooftops, and tenement buildings reaching skyward. Clock towers and Works buildings sprung like spires of the metroscape.
The cobblestone sidewalk beneath my feet was worn with time. There were steamdrivers, carriages, and horses consuming the road and amassing a busyness of transport. The aether crowded with the noise of engines blaring, steam whistles screaming, the rickety racket of raucous contraptions taking to the cobblestone carelessly. Within the sound, a balanced murmur of a mixed populace about town weaved within it all.
Across the avenue there were Metro Sentry tending to a crashed steamdriver, a rather stylish to-do with a front-mounted engine- In fact, there wasn’t much to the contraption other than the engine and the small cabin for its pilot; snug like a pea pod, it looked. Now, though, it was junk. What was once an interesting modification of wagon wheels was now a complete mess; merely kindling and scrap iron. The engine seemed spared from the damage of the crash by the rather monstrous front plow affixed to the frame.
The real victim in it all, seemed to be the one who got it the worst, the MetroMaton who felt the full brunt of the plow affixed to the steamdriver. The bucket of cogs and gears malfunctioned frantically, its legs jammed and mashed into shreds of metal while bits and pieces of iron innards bent, snapped, and sprung under duress.
“Maaaaal-function... Please assist...” It sporadically and intermittently sputtered from its voice box in its odd buzzing tone of a voice, like that of a tin toy parrot. It occasionally dinged and chimed, with a random bit of grinding gears sounding in between. Its arms pushed and shoved futilely against the massive vehicle parked atop of him.
I could hear the pilot shouting at the sentry officer. He was claiming the automaton had jumped into the road before he had time to apply his brake. I didn’t stay around to see how matters turned. Just another pilot of the road carelessly feeding the flames of his steam engine with a disregard for safety and responsibility.
I left the avenue of the North Wall, around a corner, down Grand Meridian towards metro center. I made my way through, sidestepping the rabble and averting any trouble on the path. A shadow passed from overhead, a clockwork airship blotted out the sun from the sky as its four large oars propelled the three-balloon heavy vessel through the aether. There seemed to be quite a few out and about on this lovely day. The air was warm. There was a vibrancy upon it all. I could see the sentry airship fluttering towards this direction, I could hear its bell ringing at a frantic and frenzied rate. As it gently glided overhead, the bell tore through the aether into my ear hole like a spike being driven into the ground. I winced, fearing my monocle would shatter under sonic duress. It floated on, leaving an echoing of ringing bouncing within my head.
Across the street, beside Venkle’s newstand, a newsboy shouted from the top of his lungs, “Gazette special edition! Read it here! The Chasm at war! Gazette special edition! Insectoid Six call it war! Read it here!” I feared the poor lad would forget to breathe and collapse if he kept up like he did. He kept repeating the news item, chanting it like a Southland shaman would during intense meditational exercises. Although, I doubted the young newsboy was under the influence of hallucinogenic tea as a Southland shaman might.
Grand Meridian Avenue ran from the North Wall through University Metro, through Haverton West, through the Wintershine District, and ended at the section of The Walls which keep Haverton Falls separated from the riffraff, if I may term it in such vernacular. It was all by design.
Haverton Falls, along their side of The Walls, wasn’t by any means impoverished or lower-class, but were considered so just because of their proximity to that boundary. You could often find the gilded living here, those who adored keeping up the appearance of being wealthy and having coin to flaunt and flounder away. Fakes and posers, each and every one. They were monetarily wealthy in the moment, but little if nothing to account for. It seemed a strange and tragic illness to fall under. A fever in which one craved material belongings and icons of status, and in return, they gave back vomitous nothing. For the truly upper-class, it was like having a buffer that was just satisfactory.
No one in the upper-class wanted to live on that boundary, but life on the other side of The Walls is what some strive for, so for the gilded, it satisfies their need.
The entire Metro system was baffling and an awful system which pushed distance between those rich with coin and those without. Everything seemed to push towards the slums of Rust Waters and into Finn’s Sinkhole, what others called, “Gateway to the Sewers” which wasn’t entirely untrue, but rather crude. Rust Waters separated maldeviants from maldeviant underdwellars, like a border town in which the peoples of two vastly different countries mingled.
Walking the cobblestone and taking in the metro scenery never failed to help add a little spring to my step. There was something about the energy in the aether, what I referred to as the ambient heat of the randomosity machine working beyond the determination of time. A certain palpable energy hung heavy like a fog, but without being a hindrance or something of an obstruction.
If one listened closely enough, there was a hum to it all. It was in the ears as well as in the eyes and on the skin.
Little fleeting moments of bliss interrupted by mechanical distraction is often the case I find myself in when strolling a relaxing gait through the metro. This, as an elevated train swung through on the upcoming cross street. Sparks fell from the rail and withered into nothing before they could even touch the hats upon the heads of the tallest men on the street. I always expected to see (perhaps secretly wished to see) one of those brief smoldering embers make its way down far enough to the top of a man’s hat. Encourage the notion, not to set a man ablaze, but just a little hole burned into the top of his finest hat. The confounded and dumbfounded often display expressions of priceless value in these situations. Indeed.
I clumsily passed through a group of hooligans on their way to the pub. By the smell of it, they were coming directly from another pub as their slurred speech literally sprayed a slew of semi-intelligible spittle with a slander of insults. Being called “old man” has no effect on me; I’m old, I’m a man, so be it. Though when I suggest that someone do stop acting like such an arse, the slovenly and slobbish do get offended so. Feeble-minded booze hounds, devoid of intellect and creativity, turning pubs, ale-houses, saloons, watering-holes, bars, and the like, into holes of depravity teeming with unprovoked acts of violence and provoked acts of vengeance, often tenfold in comparison. Where once a gentleman could loosen his hinges and let his doors swing free, have since become places where one would want to keep their hinges rusted shut and the door locked tight. I don’t blame the drink, though I do blame their low intellect and lack of courtesy.
Spectacular Moments of Wonder with Dr. Monocle: That Certain Gentleman Page 9
