by Clay Moore
“So you understand that what we’re going to have to do is go underground. This Toymaker has actually built a tunnel to the sewer. There are plenty of spaces in the sewer where are you can actually build a workshop and not worry about being flooded by the sewer. I’m going to need six people. I say six people because we include both men and women as agents. This is going to be possibly a deadly mission.”
“Deadly for the enemy,” said an agent.
There was a round of ”hear, hear” from the assembled agents.
Thomas smiled. The secret service was starting to come together and consider themselves to be a team. The director had told Thomas that this was because of William and Thomas acting as a team. Thomas was going to trade on that teamwork.
“I need about 10 agents to stay on the surface and go through everything in the toy maker’s shop. We’re going to strip that place pair of every piece of paper, book, anything. We will bring it back here, where the analysts are going to take a look at it. Then I need six people, as I said before.
“The six-man team plus myself we are going to go down into their excavation. We’re going to follow it to the sewer. We’re going to follow the sewer downstream until we find a workshop. If you find an automaton, you are to shoot. You may need to shoot more than once. I have reason to believe that the Toymaker has worked with human-sized automaton. Understand that this could be a problem. This device will have no regard for your life. There is no emotion such as we know it among them. They will be incredibly strong. Even the medium-sized automaton might be able to crush your skull with their hands.
“I think every one of us is not armed with the pneumatic guns. That should give us an advantage. You might be able to disable them with one shot in the chest, but you will have to shoot them more than one time if they keep coming.
“When we find Agent Hazard, we’re going to have to ascertain his health. If he can continue, then we must press forward according to the information he may have gleaned from them.
“On a personal note, I want to thank you all for coming so fast. It makes me feel really good. My sister also thanks you. And if I know her at all I know she would be saying for us to go get him back!”
The agents shook themselves out. 10 agents got together to be the ones to ransack the Toymaker’s workshop. With six agents coming on to delve into the sewers. Thomas was shocked when Gladys showed up as one of the six.
To make sure she was understood by all of the men she was dressed in slacks, riding boots, she had a leather belt with her holster and five magazines. She also brought a small metal sledgehammer.
Thomas did not know whether he felt angry or proud that his woman would come with him to get a friend out of trouble. He walked to her. She started talking before he could say anything.
“I am an agent just like every man here. I can shoot a gun probably better than half of these agents. I think I helped you make these magnetic guns. I—“
“Gladys, you do not have to justify your existence here. You were there with us in the defense of the house and the plans. I would be proud to have you fight with us.”
Thomas was glad to see the other men gave her a word and pat on the back. She smiled at everyone. This was the point that Thomas Derek took a position on the subject of Women’s Suffrage.
They went down to William’s gymnasium, where he had the weapon and ammo safe. Thomas had the combination to the safe. He spun the wheel and opened the large door.
The safe was actually a small room. Weapons were hanging from the walls with ammunition crates on the floor. What had once started as personal storage for William turned out to be the primary storage point for the entire Secret Service. Thomas took down a clipboard and wrote down how much ammunition he had taken. He handed out that ammunition to everyone in the assault group.
Both groups of Secret Service agents met in the parlor. Thomas had left his steel steed at the Street in front of the house. A couple of carriages took the rest of the Secret Service agents. Thomas led them to the workshop.
The agent group that would go everything in the upper floors Took over spaces and begin their job. Nothing untoward was found on that floor; They went to his office Abigail and rounding up all of the paper documents. Thomas took his assault group into the workshop proper where the trap door was still left open.
“I know what’s ahead so I will go down first,” said Thomas.
Thomas turned around and went down the ladder. He took out his clockwork flashlight and illuminated the antechamber to the tunnel that led to the sewers.
Thomas was surprised to win Gladys was the second one to go down the ladder. He hoped she didn’t claim to be number two simply because she was his intended. She walks to the other side of the opening into the tunnel leading to the sewers. She turned around and used her flashlight to illuminate the stairs leading down.
Thomas now had a new appreciation for his wife to be. Thomas was more worried about defending against something that may come up with the tunnel. She was more concerned about making sure people could see where they were going. He stopped worrying about whether or not she was worthy of coming because she already contributed to the group.
The other five agents came down very quickly once they could see the ladder. The five agents split up. Two agents followed Thomas, while three agents followed Gladys.
Side by side, they went through the tunnel. When they got to the sewer, they paused. They had to make a decision at this point. Do they go left, or do they go, right?
The decision was up to Thomas. When he went down the left way, he thought he heard something mechanical operating in that direction. That could have been his mind playing tricks on him. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that he was more concerned about getting to William. He was second-guessing himself. He went to the left. The group continued to advance down the sewers with Gladys on the left wall and Thomas on the right wall.
After about 200 yards, They came to an area of the sewer where a natural gallery was formed. This is probably the Area where they staged the parts that they needed to build the conduit. Thomas moved to the gallery; He saw the long pine box with the destroyed lock. Thomas knew that he was going in the right direction. Then he heard William’s voice.
“Just what is it that you wish to do,” William asked?
The was the cut of understanding
“my actual goal is a world of clockworks. There is no greed or envy in our world. There is not enough of us to make a difference, but one day there will be. Then there will be peace in the human world under the rule of the clockwork.”
“You think you can take over the world?”
“I am going to try. I have to get these plans. The Confederacy contracted with my father and I have to uphold that. I am hoping that the Confederacy will give us the gold that they promised.”
“The Confederacy does not have access to gold in the amount that you might need. The gold production areas are under the control of the North, the Union. They can only pay you the gold by taking it from someone within the Confederacy, or by taking Gold transports.”
“I am aware of that. If I have the plans to give and I tell them I have them, if they don’t give me the gold. They will not relish my revenge.”
Gladys looked at Thomas and whispered, “Who is speaking with William?”
“I only heard her speak once. I thought she was the toymaker’s daughter. Now, I understand it all. The toymaker exceeded his ability by actually producing an almost human automaton.”
Thomas spoke loudly enough for the entire group to hear. Thomas would love to have taken Evangeline alive. He corrected himself mentally and replaced the word alive with functional. Evangeline was just a simple machine.
“OK I need you all to be very careful. The gears and pulleys inside of the bodies of these automaton gives them immense strength. Aim at their bodies that will likely put them down.”
Thomas felt an immense relief at hearing the voice of his soon to be brother-in-l
aw. He was so glad that he did not have to tell his sister that William was dead. He personally thought that would be too much for her. Losing her husband and four months later losing her fiancé.
Thomas and William had been in tighter binds than this. William always seems to be able to pull off some sort of trick.
William had been hanging here for about three hours. He couldn’t get to his pocketwatch to find out just what time it was. Evangeline headed for some of her minions, and they started running around moving things. They were evacuating. That had to be in response to Thomas coming back with more men.
You have to find out if that was true, so he tried conversation to get an admission from her that there were people on the way.
“My Evangeline, there’s a lot of activity. What’s going on?”
“You know exactly what is going on. A group of your fellow agents are tearing my fathers office apart looking for any piece of information. I never thought that you would associate the spying with his toy shop.”
“Your fathers design of the toys is very distinctive.”
She looked like she sighed. “My father was too much of an artist. He liked to make pleasing designs for little children. Just got in the way of the real work.”
“What is the real work?”
“I want to carve out a nation where are my people can live in peace.”
“A nation of automata?”
“Yes! Is that such an impossibility for you to understand?”
“No, I understand what you want. I don’t believe your father was anything more than a mechanic. Who made your mind?”
“My mother, Dr. June Freud.”
“Doctor? Are you saying that your mother had a doctorate?”
“Yes, in a new line of thought called psychology. She studied what makes a human, human. It was this knowledge that she used to build my mind.”
“Your mind consists of aluminum tape with holes in it.”
Evangeline looked at William, wondering how he knew that. Then she remembered the other secret service agent, the one who is a gadgeteer. This one probably assisted the other one in dissecting one of the automaton.
“My father built that System to give the illusion of life to his toys. It’s what would’ve made him rich had he not listened to one of the Confederate spies.
“My mother took the simple code he wrote and made it able to hold more information. And then she came up with the idea of having eight tape players. That was how she was able to make me have the ability to make decisions. Another thing that she allowed was an additional tape player where I could write additional information or programs for myself.”
William was stunned. He wondered if it was even possible to do that. There were some gadgeteer’s groping for that particular idea, allowing a machine to have intelligence. He could understand the allure of that.
If practical machine intelligence could be built, William could see trains being pulled by self-aware locomotives. Oh, other forms of transportation could be given over to these intelligent machines. Machines could build machines. The one sticking point in his idea is if there actually was someone who wanted to harm the world. They could introduce to these machines the concept of their own superiority versus humans.
“What is your rated lifetime?”
“My father said that if I did not need to do any self maintenance I could possibly run for 20 to 30 years.”
“Have you already started to work on your replacement?”
“Yes, I have my mothers notes and no, your friend, the gadgeteer, will not find it. I brought it with me. I have made some further improvements in her ideas.”
William looked around the area, and he could find nothing that would look like a large notebook.
“You will not find it here. I am not that stupid.”
In a trick of acoustics, William could hear Thomas talking to his people that he brought with him. Then he heard Thomas say something about waiting for William to get out of his bonds.
If that was what Thomas was waiting for, William was going to get it for him. He just didn’t want Evangeline to watch him use something she gave him.
He watched her eyes open up sharply. She told him that she had some sort of communication capability between some of the automaton. He attributed the eye-opening to one of these communications being sent.
William inserted the match stick into the lock opening of his handcuffs; He broke off the match. There were a brief flash and some heat. Then his right hand was free. He came tumbling down and landed on his feet. He went to where they had placed his equipment. He sent a cry down towards the waiting agents. Then he stopped on his belt, replaced his knife, put on his hat. The only thing but he could not do was put the device on that places a Derringer, his right hand. That device takes a little bit of time to put on, so he just put it in his coat pocket.
Thomas and the others arrived. William tossed the matches over to Thomas and told him, “you might want to find someone to make a ton of these.”
William took his handcuff key and unlocked it from his left wrist. He left the handcuffs where they fell.
“I’m sorry but I’m going to have to countermand whatever orders you have. Because I now know exactly what they’re going to do next. We have to get to the White House. She’s trying to carry out her father’s mission.”
“She,” Thomas asked? “is her father still alive?”
“The pine box you passed when you came in this way?”
“What about it?”
“It contained his body. Evangeline, the person we thought was his daughter, is in fact his invention. Evangeline is an automata.”
“I thought so,” said Thomas. “there just seemed to be something a little bit wrong with her, a little stiff.”
“You don’t know the half of it. When I came to she was being administered to buy specially designed automaton. They were turning her winding key. I think she is actually developing new automaton, some have specialized purpose like to turn the winding keys of other automaton.”
“She is developing an ecosystem. Automaton that actually defends the base. Automaton’s to actually see to the winding keys.”
“If they actually have automaton to work the winding keys, she can have them work 24 hours a day.”
Thomas just stared at William, as if he had just stated that he had seen a unicorn.
“Heavens,” Thomas exclaimed. “She could have hundreds by now.”
“It’s worse. When they talk amongst themselves they do not use English. I believe that they are using the Dot code as their language.”
“That stands to reason. Their metal tapes use that dot code.”
“I also believe that some of the automata are equipped with Communication equipment very similar to mine.”
Thomas stood for a moment coming to grips with the enormity of the situation. Then he said something that he thought only William would say.
“Let’s go get them we have the element of surprise.”
William restrained Thomas. ”And who is the one that is not thinking properly? I believe Evangeline knows where the plans are. I think she didn’t know until you guys came and we talked about it.”
Everyone looked around at each other sheepishly. The Secret Sevice agents wagged their tongues in the enemy’s base without thinking that they may have set up a way of getting information.
No one berated themselves more than William. He had let her manipulate him. She gave him just enough information that he had to act quickly.
“We have got to get to the White House now. Thomas and I have our steel steeds. We will go and alert the White House. The rest of you have got to get back to the mansion and see how many agents we can get to come and lend their electromagnetic guns defense of the White House.”
Gladys went to Thomas. Her eyes pleaded with him to come back with her or to allow her to fight along his side. Then Thomas said something that William never thought he would ever say to a woman that he loved.
“
I need you to browbeat some of the agents to get their ass down to the White House. Remind them that part of our deal is to defend the president and that means the White House. Then I also need for you to make sure that every single one of those agents brings back ammunition.”
Gladys’ eyes turn from despairing to loving in an instant.
“Yes, dear, I will do as you say.”
“Alright,” William said, “let’s get going. These people are not the type to kill themselves.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Second Try for the Prize
*****
ROWENA WAS IN the library when the tumult of the special agents getting ready for combat came to her ears. She left the library and stood in the parlor and watching the coming and going of special agents. One shocking thing was Gladys running by in her jodhpurs. Rowena cried out to Gladys, and she stopped running.
“Rowena! William is alive and very much kicking. Excuse me now I’m leading a relief force to the White House. I know he has been in the frying pan, but now he’s going to go into the fire.”
“And so are you, by the looks of it.”
“I put my foot down with Thomas and he let me come as part of his rescue party. And now I’m leading a relief column to help them. I just hope that we get there in time to make a difference. You know, Williams insistence on using his ammunition safe to hold enough ammunition for the special agents in the House to defend it from attackers. Now we’re going to use it to defend another house this one far more important than this place.”
“I’ve been helping William tend to those that were hurt. I think I’m something of a nurse do you think they might need me?”
“I don’t think William would let you.”
“The battle you just won with Thomas, I won mine before yours.”
“I would bring his doctors bag if you can. Who’s going to look after Johnny?”
