by L. C. Mawson
“Well then, try it,” Ruth said.
Michel nodded, closing his eyes in concentration as he appeared to be trying to feel out the resonance of the new core.
“There,” he said. “I can feel it, but it’s much quieter than the other one. It may be difficult to find him with it this sensitive.”
“Well, it’s better than nothing,” Ivy said with a sheepish shrug.
“There’s nothing you could do about the aether core being small,” Ruth told her. “You did as good a job as I could have.”
Ivy grinned as they got up to leave.
“Alright, Michel, lead the way.”
THEY WANDERED FOR WHAT felt like hours, and Ruth couldn’t help but glance to the sky line every few moments. The sun was about half way through setting and she wondered if Captain Hall and his men were at the factory yet. Of course, if they were, she wondered what they would make of the situation. Would they ascertain that she and Ivy had escaped, or would they think that they were dead? No one else had perished, to their knowledge, so it was entirely possible that they would figure out that they were alive, but it also stood to reason that they would know that the man in charge had also made it out. And that he had Ruth’s plans. Ruth doubted that they would be subtle if they got to him first, and then she wouldn’t have proof that she wasn’t the traitor. She doubted Queen Victoria would take her at her word.
“Are we close yet?” Ruth heard Ivy ask, drawing her attention back from the skyline.
“I think I have an idea of which direction we should be heading,” Michel said as he turned a corner. “Actually no, wait just a moment,” he added about halfway down that street, taking another turn.
“Right, this way,” he continued once they were a sufficient way down the next alley. “I am certain I have it now.”
Ruth gave an unsure raise of her eyebrow, but Ivy followed along quite happily.
After zig-zagging through several more Paris streets, earning more than a few stares for their state of dress and Michel’s obvious inhuman qualities, they reached a hotel.
“In here, I think,” Michel said.
“They’re not going to let us in the front door,” Ruth muttered, wondering what exactly to do. They looked like the most common of people and they had no money to hand. There was no way such a nice establishment would even tolerate them in the lobby.
“Then we don’t go in the front door,” Ivy said, moving around the side of the building.
Ruth and Michel followed close behind as she led them to a side entrance. They slipped in fairly easily, finding themselves in the kitchen.
One of the chefs yelled something in French, which Ivy responded to with more yelling. They went back and forth for a few moments, and Ruth was sure that they were about to be kicked out, only for the chef to leave and Ivy to lead them up through to a set of maintenance stairs.
“His room is on the third floor,” Ivy said as she led them up.
“And the chef just told you that?”
“I told him we were maintenance.”
“And what was the yelling about?”
“The kitchen was noisy. Also, he didn’t like us trudging through it.”
“But not enough to kick us out?”
“He may not like it, but if we actually worked here and were late with repairs because of him, the boss would have had his head. So, he let us right through.”
Ruth nodded, accepting Ivy’s words.
“So, are we close to the spider?” Ruth asked Michel.
He shrugged. “I think so, but it is so difficult to tell with this small core.”
“Well, hopefully he’s still in his room. Or, at least, your plans are.”
Ivy nodded as they reached the right room.
Michel pushed at the door, right where the lock was, fracturing the wood around it so that it opened.
“Who’s there?” a voice called. It sounded young, not like the man in charge at all.
As they opened the door, Ruth saw a man standing in the middle of the room. On the bed next to him was the briefcase that the man in charge had been carrying. The man in the centre of the room was short and skinny, with freckles all over his face that were partially covered by his ginger-brown hair. Ruth actually felt kind of bad about scaring him, even if he was in possession of her plans.
“You’re her!” he said, seemingly shocked. “He said you wouldn’t come...”
Michel strode over to the boy and grabbed a hold of his shirt before effortlessly lifting him off the ground.
The boy whimpered as he started to cry and Michel seemed a little startled by the reaction.
“Put him down,” Ruth said gently. “He’s not going anywhere.”
Michel did as he was asked, placing the boy down on the bed as Ruth took the briefcase for herself. She opened it to see her plans. Or, rather, what was left of them. Her little spider seemed to be doing a rather good job of tearing them up.
“Does everything you build eventually develop a mind of its own?” Ivy asked as she watched the spider crawl into Ruth’s hand.
“I don’t know, but this is truly becoming fascinating.”
They turned their attention back to the boy.
“What’s your name?” Ruth asked him.
“Jean.”
“Jean, can you tell me if these were these the only copy of the plans?”
The boy shook his head. “There were others in the office at the factory.”
“Taken care of,” Ruth told him. “Any more?”
He shook his head.
“So, who is he? Your employer?” Ruth asked.
The boy shook his head again, this time harder. “I can’t, Miss. Please. He’ll kill me.”
Michel took a step towards him. “What makes you think we won’t kill you?”
The boy whimpered once more.
Ivy stepped towards him, putting a hand on his shoulder. He flinched away but quickly relaxed as he realised that she had no intent of hurting him.
“Please,” Ivy said. She indicated to Ruth. “These are her plans and he stole them. We just want to make sure he can’t do any harm with them.”
“You’ve already destroyed the plans,” the boy said. “He’ll probably kill me for that alone...”
“Then help us to arrest him. He won’t be able to hurt you then.”
The boy looked at Ivy before turning to Ruth, seemingly examining them for any signs of deceit.
“It would be a shame for you to get hurt over this,” Ruth told him, hoping to reassure. “I want to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
He nodded. “His name is Mr Banks. He never gave a first name. I know he worked with others, but I never knew their names, either.”
Ruth sighed. “Well, hopefully Captain Hall will be able to make use of that information.”
“Should we wait for Mr Banks to return?” Michel asked. “I assume he would be back for the briefcase and boy. We can arrest him then.”
“I’m not sure it’s a legal arrest when we’re on foreign soil without permission,” Ivy said under her breath so that only Ruth could hear her.
“I would rather avoid the word ‘kidnap’, though,” Ruth explained.
“I see your point.”
Ruth turned her attention back to Michel. “Yes, we should wait here to arrest him. It will make for quite the surprise, I should think.”
Just as they were about to settle in to wait, they heard a large crash below them, followed by the sound of dozens of boots on wood.
Ruth sighed. “A pound says that’s Captain Hall.”
“There’s no way I’m taking that bet,” Ivy told her as the aforementioned boots arrived on their floor.
“Secure the area,” she heard Captain Hall yell just before he made an appearance at the door.
“Lady Chapelstone?” he asked as he peered inside the room. “Where’s Mr Banks?”
“He left. We were waiting to apprehend him when he got back. How did you know to come here? Or that Mr Ban
ks was running this whole operation, for that matter?”
“We interrogated one of the factory workers.”
Ruth sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose as she decided that she probably didn’t want to know what that interrogation had entailed.
“Well, I don’t suppose he would be fool enough to return now that the hotel is occupied,” Ruth said as she folded her arms. “We have destroyed all copies of the plan, however. Now its only location is here.” She pointed to her temple.
“Unless he memorised it.”
Ruth shrugged. “Given that he couldn’t figure out how to upgrade the design, I highly doubt that.”
“Does this mean we can go home?” Ivy asked.
Ruth turned to Captain Hall and gave him a pointed look.
“I still want to sweep the city for this Mr Banks.”
“And risk being seen? The occupation of this hotel has probably already alerted the local authorities to our presence.”
Jean stepped forward. “I... I know where he usually goes in town. I could take you to the different places to look for him.”
Captain Hall nodded. “I will accompany you on my own, then. That shouldn’t draw any more attention.” He turned back to Ruth. “I shall attempt to be swift in my search. I want to be on the way back to London by sunrise. You and the others should head back to the airship and wait for my return. Thomas has been worrying over you.”
Ruth nodded with a slight smile before leaving the room, Ivy and Michel following close behind.
“Hear that?” Ivy asked. “They’re on a first-name basis now.”
Ruth just smiled, her words having left her in the wave of exhaustion that had swept over her mind.
15
The trip back to London was a fairly uneventful one, though it solidified Ruth’s hatred of air travel. Ivy and Michel kept her company in her room as she did her best to keep her breakfast down.
“What do you think Thomas is doing right now?” Ivy sang in a way that insinuated that he was enjoying Captain Hall’s company.
“I’m sure I don’t want to know,” Ruth told her as she watched intently out of the window, hoping that it would settle her stomach. Unfortunately, it did little to help.
“I’m more concerned about the fact that Mr Banks got away,” Michel said.
Ruth sighed, turning to him only to see a disconcerted look on his face that she had never seen before.
“He doesn’t have the plans,” Ruth reasoned. “It’s unlikely that he’ll be able to restart his operations.”
“Do you honestly think that will stop him?” Michel asked. “He not only got a look at those plans, he also knows about your disrupter, which is a much simpler design.”
Ivy moved over to him, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Michel, trust us when we say that we won’t let anything happen to you. And, if he does start up his operations again, we’ll stop him. We promise.”
“SO,” QUEEN VICTORIA said, staring Ruth down in that way that shook her to her core.
It took all of her strength to keep her gaze.
“You let this Mr Banks escape?”
Thankfully, Captain Hall stepped forward at that. “Ma’am, he escaped the city before we could apprehend him, but he no longer has the plans. It’s doubtful that he could cause us any more problems.”
She regarded them both for a moment before nodding. “I shall have an eye kept out for any future trouble, but it seems that you have done an adequate job for now.” She turned to give Ruth a particularly stern look. “I think that any of your unused plans would be safer under my protection, don’t you?”
Ruth’s stomach clenched at that. Her unused plans remained unused for a reason. Plans that had potential military use - uses that could result in devastation - weren’t something she was happy to put in anyone else’s hands.
But then, after this incident, she couldn’t really say that they were much safer with her.
The thought occurred to her that she could destroy them, much like she had destroyed those for the mechanical men, but that thought made her blood run cold. She told herself that she would never be able to forgive herself if she destroyed those plans and then they became necessary, but, in all honesty, she couldn’t deny that pride played a small part in it.
“I’ll have them brought here right away,” Ruth agreed, ignoring the churning of her stomach telling her that she was making a grave mistake.
BOOK THREE
LADY RUTH AND THE AMERICAN ESCAPADE
1
Ruth stepped away from her workbench to be greeted by an all-too-familiar sound.
Silence.
Of course, it was never truly silent in London. That was impossible. No, she could hear the sound of people in the streets, along with the mechanical clacking of machines, some of which she was most likely responsible for.
No, it was never truly silent in her townhouse, but it was still eerily so. The sound of people outside could never, after all, replace the sound of people within the walls.
When Ruth was young, she had imagined that she would love to live alone. It seemed the perfect solution to her difficulty with people, but now it simply left her alone with her thoughts for far too long, which was its own special kind of torture.
Thomas had been the first to go. Ruth had expected it sooner or later. He couldn’t remain a bachelor forever, she had told herself before she had known that his tastes lay with other men. After that, she had assumed that he would get bored of nannying her at some point. In the end, both of her suspicions had come to pass. He had fallen for Captain Hall, the man who had been in charge of keeping an eye on Ruth when she was suspected of treason.
Thomas had started following Hall on his missions a few years ago, pretending to be some kind of consultant, and Ruth had seen little of him after that.
Then had been Michel. The mechanical man she had constructed, who had inexplicably gained sentience. Despite being made of metal, he wasn’t mechanically minded himself. While Ivy and Ruth had spent their days on their projects in the workshops, he had read every book they had available. And then he had read any he could get his hands on.
In the end, Ruth had been the one to approach him about getting a more formal education. With his incredible intellect, and the unique opportunity he posed, it wasn’t difficult to get Oxford to take him.
So, that was Michel out of the nest.
Last to leave had been Ivy, to Ruth’s surprise. Ivy had been her student, and Ruth had thought that she would leave much sooner. She had been a quick study and had ambitions of her own, and yet she had stayed.
Ruth had started to feel guilty about that after a time. She felt as if Ivy was only staying out of pity for her, and she didn’t want to hold the young woman back like that. Not when she had so much potential. So, Ruth had talked to Ivy about potential future ambitions and had eventually arranged to have her work as an airship designer for the Crown.
Which just left Ruth. All alone, just as she had always wanted, and yet far lonelier than she had ever anticipated.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door, perking her up as she remembered that it was time for Michel’s monthly check-up. She rarely saw him between the visits on the last of the month, so she cherished them whenever they came.
“Michel,” she greeted as she opened the door.
“Ruth,” he greeted with a smile that looked as human as possible with small ceramic plates instead of skin. “I see you haven’t hired any servants for the house.”
She ignored the suggestion for what felt like the thousandth time. It was always the same suggestion from either him or Ivy. While Ruth would readily admit that she was too absentminded to keep the house in good condition, she didn’t want to invite strangers into her home. No, it was better to do without, reputation, mess and loneliness be damned.
“Follow me,” she said, leading him up to the workshop. “How are things? How is Oxford?”
“It is pleasant enough.”
/>
“Still making friends?”
“No, I feel I have made the appropriate amount now. However, I am retaining the current ones.”
“That’s good. How are your studies going?” she asked as they entered the workshop and she brought out her tools.
Michel started to bare his chest without having to be asked. “Well. My professors are always impressed by my ability to retain information, though some make snide comments about me being more suited to sciences.”
Ruth couldn’t help but smile a little as she started to examine the inside of his chest. “Well, we both know how I feel about the arts.”
“‘A lot of pretentious old men who like to dictate the standards of culture to the rest of us’, I believe was what you said last time we had this conversation.”
“That is entirely possible.” She gave a hum as she finished up her inspection. “Well, there’s a little wear, but nothing that needs to be addressed right now. I’ll make a note to look again next month. Is there anything specific that has been troubling you that you would like me to take a look at?”
Michel looked away awkwardly at that. “I... I have been wondering if my aether core might be malfunctioning.”
Ruth frowned. It had looked fine to her. But she got out her aether detector anyway, moving it over his chest.
“The readings look fine to me,” she said. “And, if it was, the secondary core would kick in to compensate. What makes you think it’s malfunctioning?”
“It feels as if there are occasional... disruptions to the flow of energy.”
“The secondary core should definitely be compensating for anything like that. Is anything causing it? Does it happen around any other aether-powered devices? It could be interference...”
“I... No. I don’t think Ivy carries aether-powered devices on her.”
Ruth’s eyebrows shot up into her hair. “Ivy? This happens every time Ivy is around?”
“Yes. What do you think it means?”
