Jeremiah Willstone and the Clockwork Time Machine

by Anthony Francis

  “Like the prophet,” Jeremiah said politely. “No relation.”

  “No offense, Miss . . . ah, Commander Willstone, but in my business it pays to be skeptical,” Zenta said, though Jeremiah swore from his unflapped expression that her title came as no surprise to him. He probed at her story from several angles, clearly trying to find out more about her history, expressing feigned surprise that she was descended from the author of the Neopromethicon, the book he called Frankenstein. “Your uncle, the ‘Baron,’ told a similar story, that he was from a different copy of the Earth, one in which there was no America, but an empire called Victoria—”

  “The Liberated Territories of Victoriana.” Jeremiah’s eyes tightened, ever so slightly. “So . . . do our stories match?” she asked. “Are they credible? Because, really, I don’t know how I could prove the existence of an alternate reality to you. I have trouble believing it myself.”

  Zenta pointed his pen at her. “Now there’s a spark of the real person at last.”

  Jeremiah quirked her lips up. “I do always aim to be polite, sir, but I thought lathering it on a bit thick might help, you being an older white male in authority in a patriarchal society,” she said. “We don’t have many of those where I come from anymore.”

  “Old white males in authority, or patriarchal societies?” Zenta asked.

  “Either,” Jeremiah said. She leaned back, stretching her wings slightly, then clanked her wrists in the cuffs. “Are these necessary? I’m doing my best to freely cooperate with you, sir. And I’m not saying ‘sir’ just to butter you up. It is my usual habit.”

  “You made some very serious-sounding death threats about those wings,” Zenta said. “That doesn’t sound very cooperative to me. Our culture may be based on freedom, but our government expects compliance. It’s a protocol, designed to protect the lives of the people we ask to deal with our potential enemies. If you don’t cooperate, our natural reaction is to make things difficult.”

  “On this point, sir, I am not prepared to yield. I’ve waited my whole life for these wings,” Jeremiah said. She turned the petal of her lower left wing inward, marveling at the flex of the long multi-jointed arm it was attached to, curving the arm in so that the petal was held horizontal above the table before her. The coppery channels atop the petal sparkled with fire as energy pulsed through them; beneath the petal, the membranes folded up on its underside cast a ghostly blue-green glow on the table. She lowered the wing further, then, as best she could while still cuffed to the ring, gingerly reached for it with her human fingers. “My whole life.”

  The soft, fleshy pads that her human part knew were fingertips touched the ridged surface of the copper wing that her Scarab part knew were part lifting body, part tensor radiator. Brass filigree slid beneath fleshy whorls and ridges; gold fire warmed human capillaries as they brushed past each other. The Scarab marveled at the exquisite sensations of a sentient creature’s hand; the human marveled at feeling the feedback of the weight of this new strange limb.

  “These are . . . so far beyond anything I ever expected,” she said. “But now I know I’ve been waiting my whole life for them. Jeremiah thirty years, and the Scarab twelve thousand. The last thing I want the moment I’ve gained my wings is to see them bound by hands unknown, with no idea of when if ever I’m to get to flex them again.” She shuddered at the thought of her wings being bound, a visceral reaction, from viscera she didn’t know she had. “Forgive me. After spending most of its time on Earth in captivity, I think the Scarab has become a touch claustrophobic.”

  “Fair enough,” Zenta said, watching as Jeremiah reluctantly released her own wing and let it creak back to its resting, “dragonfly” position behind her. He opened the folder, scowling slightly, then asked, as if to the air, “Who am I talking to, ‘Jeremiah’ . . . or the ‘Scarab’?”

  Jeremiah considered that. The answer surprised her.

  “Both and neither.” As Zenta’s scowl deepened, Jeremiah explained, “We merged, sir. I remember being the Scarab and remember being Jeremiah. But I’m a single consciousness. Not ‘we.’ Just ‘I.’ It’s like . . .” Jeremiah held out her hands. “You, you humans, that is, have brains in two parts, like two little fists. They’re independent, specialized for language and images, even have their own separate memories, but they feel as one, you feel as one, because the two halves of your brain are joined together by a cable half as thick as your wrist.”

  And she squeezed her fists together, as best she could in the cuffs.

  “It’s called the corpus callosum,” Zenta said, then apologized. “Dad’s a neurosurgeon.”

  “Really? Capital. So you’ll understand what happened when”—and she winced, struck by a pang of embarrassment—“when I-the-Scarab first attacked I-the-Jeremiah.” She opened her fingers, wriggling the left into the right. “My brain sent fibers into her brain to learn its structure. When we merged”—and she brought her fingers together—“our brains made more new connections than all the connections of the corpus callosum of the human brain. We became one.”

  “I’d love to take your word that you ‘became one,’” Zenta said darkly, “but I think I do understand what happened when it attacked you—and that description sounds like the original Jeremiah might actually have been destroyed. Am I really just speaking to the Scarab?”

  “No and yes,” Jeremiah said. “We . . . I . . . am something new. The Scarab . . . did not evolve to merge with other species of intelligent life. We are the only intelligent life form on our world; we . . . they . . . are parasites on creatures no more advanced than your cows—”

  “So that’s what he wanted with that transgenic cow,” Zenta said suddenly.

  “Yes, as a stepping-stone towards this,” Jeremiah said and explained her uncle’s original plan, then the heroic efforts that had gone into saving her. “But I don’t think anyone expected precisely how it came out: a complete new life form, the merger of Jeremiah and the Scarab.”

  “Jeremiah Scarabina,” Zenta said, with a sudden grin.

  “I rather like that, but the Scarab do not take names. So I shall remain Jeremiah Willstone.”

  “As you wish, Commander Willstone,” Zenta said, staring at the folder thoughtfully. “I think I’m starting to understand this incident at last. I was baffled when Christopherson appeared, then twice as baffled after briefings from Agent Vallejo and your team—”

  “Marcus?” Jeremiah said, sitting up slightly. “How is he? And Patrick and Georgiana—”

  “All fine,” Zenta said, raising his hand. “You’ll see them in due time, but first—”

  “If you’ve been briefed by my colleagues,” Jeremiah said, “why the interrogation—”

  “I had to verify their story—and understand yours,” Zenta said, pulling out of the folder . . . her own commission papers. Bloody hell, they’d been in her cabin; that meant they had the Prince Edward, of course they did—she called them—but she hadn’t expected they’d’ve had the time to search it so thoroughly. How long had she been out? Her Scarab half had logged it, of course, but she couldn’t yet calibrate it to any human measure. Zenta said, “According to this, you’re the ranking officer on the Prince Edward not corrupted by what you call Tea, but you’re, well, corrupted in your own way—”

  “And you can’t trust me,” Jeremiah said bitterly. “Of course you can’t.”

  Jeremiah exhaled, glancing away, wings flexing, and Zenta leaned back.

  “And I do think I’m starting to understand you,” Zenta said. “I’ve read the notes of the second Roswell incident. The Scarab are fearsome opponents. We don’t really ‘have you’ in custody, do we? You are, as you said . . . freely cooperating?”

  Jeremiah shrugged and glanced at her cuffed hands. “These seemed to give your man a . . . needed sense of security . . . even if it was false.” Zenta shifted uncomfortably, and she looked
evenly at him. “Please take it as a gesture of good faith.”

  “Well, then,” Zenta said, relaxing. “Commander Willstone, to be completely frank, I wasn’t just checking your story . . . I was gauging your character.” She raised an eyebrow, and he returned the gesture. “I have to ask a difficult question, and—well, shall I get to it?”

  “By all means.”

  ———

  “All right, Commander,” Zenta said, leaning forwards. “We want you to join our side.”

  59.

  The Price of Freedom

  “I’M . . . SORRY,” Jeremiah said. “I didn’t quite get that—”

  “Join us, Jeremiah,” Zenta said urgently. “If Lord Christopherson is right, your homeland is being undermined from within—and we need a defense. Join us, and let us provide you a base of operations so you can fight back. Change your flag from Victoriana to America—”

  “What?” Jeremiah snapped. “I’ll not betray Victoriana—”

  “But Victoriana has betrayed you,” Zenta said, tapping the folder, and he then betrayed how much he knew by giving a full accounting of the taking of the Prince Edward—and how much worse things were back home. “If your Lady Georgiana is correct, you left at least three of those navigation devices in the hands of your superiors, who we believe are possessed by the Black Tea. Worst of all is your Dame Alice, whom Lord Birmingham assures me—”

  “—has the ear of the Crown,” Jeremiah finished. If he spoke true, he’d revealed, almost in passing, that he’d caught the whole crew. Again, it stood to reason if they had the Prince Edward, but she’d hoped, somehow, that someone would have gotten away. “God, it sounds bleak.”

  “Don’t give up hope just yet. You have no idea how formidable we are,” Zenta said. “Three hundred million of us and nine thousand nuclear weapons. But even we don’t want to be one time jump away from a more advanced country with invisible airships possessed by the Black Tea!”

  Jeremiah considered. What kind of man was Zenta? The braggadocio about their weapons was precisely the kind of attitude that she’d expected—and the kind of firepower she needed. And he seemed dead set on getting her help—no, not just dead set: he seemed to be desperate.

  What was going on here? If all they wanted was time travel and invisibility, surely they could take the ship apart and study it—or split the crew apart and study them. But Zenta seemed to want the ship and its crew and even her, whole. Why? This felt like a trap . . . or perhaps a lifeline.

  She wasn’t sure which . . . but she didn’t see any other options.

  “Well,” she said, “Marcus did say you wanted our invisible airship quite badly—”

  “We have it in custody, if that’s all we wanted. But what we want is your cooperation.”

  “I . . . should love to accept, sir,” Jeremiah said. “But I’m not the mission commander. I’m a field operative, and I can’t speak for the disposition of our airship, much less the crew entire. And speaking of the crew, sir, I return to my two immediate compatriots in custody—”

  “They’re well,” Zenta said. “And the rest of your crew, and your airship. All well.”

  Jeremiah’s eyes tightened. She thought of scanning the building, seeing if she could find them, but then that would involve taking her eyes off the man right in front of her, and seeing his reaction, and understanding his real game.

  “Well,” she said. “I believe you have me over a barrel, sir.”

  “It was not a threat,” Zenta said. “Your friends are fine—”

  “Then I’ll need to see them,” she said. “Before I agree—”

  “You can see them,” he said, “whether you agree or not.”

  Jeremiah’s eyes opened wide. “That’s . . . quite reasonable.”

  Zenta smiled. “I try to be,” he said, standing, fishing in his pocket. “Shall we—”

  “If . . . I was to agree,” Jeremiah said, and Zenta paused. Jeremiah gathered her thoughts: he had offered the deal to her, and she didn’t want the decision to fall into another’s hands—nor did the Scarab want to end up in a cage. “If I agree and make the case to Lord Birmingham—”

  “Commander,” Zenta began gently, “Lord Birmingham is—”

  “If I agree,” she said quickly, “I have conditions. I must be free to fly.”

  “Free to . . . fly?” Zenta said. “As in . . . access to secured flight range—”

  “No. As in access to everywhere. As in free to leave this facility and to become a part of your world,” Jeremiah said. “If you want me to be one of you, you must treat me as one of you. As if I were a new recruit from your world, a citizen, with all the powers and privileges—”

  “We can’t . . . we shouldn’t do that,” Zenta said. “You’re a walking secret—”

  “You’d be surprised how far you can get simply never confirming things officially,” Jeremiah said, blinking at him like a fresh little innocent. “Ah. I see you are familiar with the strategy. How has it worked for you?”

  “You’ll . . . attract quite a lot of attention,” Zenta said, eyeing her wings. “Everywhere you go, people will stare . . . and, God, think of the YouTubes—”

  “Then let people stare,” Jeremiah said. “It would be a welcome change. Much of my military career involved worming my way into new cultures without drawing attention to myself. I’m tired of hiding out while I do my work. I just gained my wings. I have to be free. I . . . I must fly free.”

  Zenta stared at her, his eyes glinting.

  “Very well,” he said. “I can agree to those terms, but there’s a price—”

  “So where is this Scarab that you have captured?” demanded a voice as the door burst open. A tall, striking woman in a dark leather catsuit strode into the room—then stopped dead, staring at Jeremiah. “But . . . wait, what?”

  The woman’s head canted to the side. Her mouth opened slightly. She stared. Then she took off her sunglasses to peer at Jeremiah, inadvertently revealing her eyes—twin black pools of oil, just like Jeremiah had seen on Marcus.

  The woman was a full-fledged Carrier of the Black Tea.

  Jeremiah recoiled. She had physically recovered, but Zenta’s offer had thrown her for a loop, and she found herself mentally unprepared to take on the Tea. Before she’d just been fighting one Carrier from her world—but how many Carriers were already here?

  Frantically she scanned both the woman and Zenta, trying to figure out how much of a hold the black-catsuited woman had on him. And then she got her next shock: the woman was filled to the gills with the Tea . . . but in Zenta, there was not a drop of it.

  The woman seemed similarly shocked. She still stood there, frozen, head cocked, just staring at Jeremiah. She turned her head to speak to Zenta, but her eyes remained fixed upon Jeremiah’s wings. “But . . . this is the woman who—”

  “Yes, Ambassador,” Zenta said.

  “And this is . . . also the Scarab,” the woman said, still staring.

  “Also yes,” Zenta said, mouth remaining calm, but a twinkle in his eye.

  “That’s . . . that’s splendid,” the woman said, all at once regaining her composure. “I take it she purged Faulkner-Jain of and inoculated Birmingham and Vallejo from the rogue infection? And if she has Scarab eyes, she’ll be able to see it. Absolutely splendid. Has she agreed to help us?”

  “Help . . . you?” Jeremiah said, lip curling, pulling back slightly, making her cuffs clink.

  The woman at last noticed the cuffs—and scowled. “Zenta,” she warned, “I was told you’d caught a Scarab, that you were debriefing a woman who stopped a full-fledged alien invasion, but now I see they’re the same person, being interrogated! What is she charged with?”

  Jeremiah’s mouth fell open, but Zenta seemed to take the “Ambassador” quite seriously.

  “
She’s possessed by a Scarab,” Zenta said. “You yourself said—”

  “That the Scarab were incredibly dangerous,” the Ambassador said, eyes tracing Jeremiah’s new limbs. “But great big metal wings, while scary, are not a crime. And I also said that if we enforce the Tranquility Accords only when they are convenient, then they mean nothing at all.”

  Zenta pursed his lips, nodded. “We were just about to discuss the price of her freedom.”

  “It’s not a price, it’s a principle,” the Ambassador snapped, scanning Jeremiah’s wings, but then she seemed to realize she was staring, and her eyes refocused on Jeremiah’s face. “Forgive me, ma’am: I’ve never seen a Scarab before; I didn’t even know they implanted in humans.”

  “We don’t make a habit of it,” Jeremiah said.

  “Splendid news for humanity,” the Ambassador said, extending her hand, then withdrawing it in embarrassment. “Zenta!” she said, with almost marital disapproval, and Jeremiah realized the relationship between them was more than professional. “Can’t we dispose of those?”

  “Of course,” Zenta said, eyes twinkling, again fishing in his pocket.

  Jeremiah smiled, lifted her hands. “May I?”

  Zenta nodded. “By all means, go ahead.”

  One of Jeremiah’s long, spindly Scarab legs, which she had wrapped around her hospital gown like a belt, detached itself and picked at the lock. After a moment’s frustration, she reached out a larger pincer and snapped the center link of the chain with a small bang.

  Zenta smiled wryly. “Still, let me find the keys.”

  “No, that’s all right,” Jeremiah said, examining the cuffs, feeling them about her wrists. She was a bit inexperienced with her new limbs and could use a bit of a puzzle to challenge her. “I need to learn to use these pincers, and I’m sure when I do I can pick them.”

  Then she extended her hand to the Ambassador.

  “Commander Jeremiah Willstone, Victoriana Defense League.”

  “Greetings, Commander,” the Ambassador said, shaking her hand. Jeremiah got a slight tingle, but nothing like she’d felt touching Marcus and the Black Tea—and the Ambassador was unfazed. “I am the Operating Ambassador from Ganymede, a representative of the Black Oil.”