“With that taken care of, please enjoy the meal my chef has prepared for us.” He sat down and stroked his mustache as he eyed a particularly buff and blond man to his left. So that was the way he swung. Less trouble for me.
Much of the polite conversation left the room as the patrons served their own plates. I placed some of the roast, a small pheasant, and a slice of rare beef upon my plate and ate with relish. I usually tried to only eat protein while on assignments. More than a few scientific articles claimed meat promoted proper brain and muscle growth, so I took advantage of the menu this evening.
Mr. Grey seemed content to nibble on this and that, while he surveyed our guests, and thankfully, ignored me. I may have to work with him, but we didn't need to get chummy. The less he knew about me the better. To my misfortune, the jovial man with the port belly on my left had different ideas.
“My dear, I don't believe we have been introduced, I am Mr. Duttingtop, at your service. What may I ask is your name?” he muffled through his hairy chops.
“You are quite forward, sir. So much so, in fact, that I feel that it would be quite inappropriate for me to share such a personal thing as a name.”
“Ah, I see, you wish to follow the captain's lead with all the mysterious masks and enigmatic atmosphere. Are you traveling with anyone? It would be a shame that a beautiful young lady such as yourself... to be alone...” This was shocking and appalling behavior from Mr. Muttonchops, who probably was making plans to corner me in a small, dark hallway with or without my enthusiasm, later that night. He was large and rather imposing. Definitely a man used to getting his way and it would be prudent to end this decidedly.
I slowly reached my hand into my pocket, shoved the pistol end through my skirt, and started to lean in close to touch its tip to Mr. Muttonchops’ thigh in the blind hope of at least educating him that I was not one to have a quick romp with, when Mr. Grey interrupted me by laying a hand on my shoulder.
He replied casually, “My cousin is lovely and worldly, Sir, but you are mistaken. I am her chaperone for this journey. She just loathes having a babysitter chase her around the world. You see, her parents are sending her to stay with an overbearing aunt that we believe will rectify her lack of manners.” Then he lowered his head slightly, for emphasis, and said, “I hope that you will understand the situation more thoroughly now.”
I supposed that I should thank Mr. Grey for sparing me the trouble of explaining to Mr. Van Moot why I had to kill Mr. Muttonchops during a nighttime tryst. I supposed that his family might not like his true personality coming to light. Though, truth be told, I would only have to fill out a few papers after the killing, since a lady had the right to protect herself with firearms. There probably wouldn't even be an inquiry, but I that I should exert some effort into trying to stay off the grid. Sigh.
I said, “Thank you, cousin dearest, for making the situation perfectly clear for Mr. Duttingtop.”
Mr. Muttonchops nodded to Mr. Grey and then to myself in understanding. He didn't waste even a precious moment before he leaned over to a thin brunette on the other side of the table and proceeded to flirt outrageously with her and her husband.
I stole a glance at Mr. Grey and he smiled, as he said, “No diversions.”
I repeated, “No diversions.” I only hoped that I didn't turn out to be a diversion for Mr. Grey.
Chapter 4
Truce
“A truth is what nature shows us about ourselves, not the armor we dress ourselves up in every day.”
-Martha Wittingborough, A leader in the Suffragette Movement of 2166.
From Dorian's Journal of Memorable Quotes to Live By
The rest of the dinner was blissfully uneventful. I exchanged a few pleasantries with an elderly lady who sat across from me. She wore too much jewelry, and liked to talk about Maxi, her Pekingese, that she had to leave at home in New Amsterdam while traveling to see her ailing sister in Beaumont. Whenever she spoke of her sister, she averted her gaze and seemed a little too nervous to me. I believed, contrary to her stories, that her rendezvous was with a lover, and because of such, I tried not to stare at the pink diamond sitting upon her ring finger. Finally, the captain excused himself and we followed suit.
Mr. Grey insisted on escorting me to my room, due to the fact, that he asserted that we should keep up the rouse that he was my cousin, and hence needed to escort me everywhere. We stopped once on the way back to my quarters to examine the athletic room. It was quite large with numerous weights, pull-up bars, climbing ropes, and large, mysterious silver balls. Entirely unimpressive, I concluded. Since I was a woman, it was all about the weapons and a well-placed hit. I could never gain enough muscle to make a go of the usual hooligans that I normally came up against, so it was up to the bullets, darts, or even precise pressure point hit. Then I could bring the best of them down. Mr. Grey seemed equally disappointed, since he merely snorted once and continued our sojourn to my room. Judging by his lithe, but toned build, it was obvious he was a User through and through.
When we reached my hatch, he said, “Of course, I have the room next door, if anything unpleasant decides to visit you during the small hours of the morning. I would be pleased to be at your disposal.” He concluded his offer of services with a flourished bow.
Once he straightened, he reached for my hand as if to place a kiss upon it, but I pulled it behind me. He grimaced, nodded his head, and went into the next room down from mine. The smell of linseed oil followed him.
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I set my pocket watch to chirp at five o'clock the next morning, and then I settled into the little bunk that I was to sleep in. A tiny flat, gold cuckoo head would slide in from the left side of the face of my watch tomorrow morning when the alarm was set to go off. It would then travel across it until it disappeared back under the face on the right side, not to be seen again until the next time I set my alarm.
Daybreak was at six-fifteen and I planned to use this opportunity to see the sunrise. It was a rare treat to see one, since I lived under the perpetual twilight of smog that smothered the cities in the Republic. After all, one must make the most of small pleasures. This expedition could be the one time that I actually did die for good.
This Republic of the Americas made a wonderful place to live anonymously. There were the usual paper-pushing industries, since stacks of paper trails followed everyone, but very little was centralized. The individual territories paid little heed to each and tried to fly under the radar as much as they could in regards to the federal government. The forging of one's identity was still a thriving business. There was always someone trying to hide from the government, the bill collector, a bounty hunter, or, sometimes, even themselves. S.O.A.R. was the best at what they did. The Society made it very difficult for certain key people to find you.
The Republic as we know it is thirty-two territories and states strong; the last acquisition was the purchase of the Oregon Territory in 1846. It forced the Native Nation into the southwest regions of the North American continent. Each of the territories was nearly completely self-governing. The main purpose of the loosely organized federal government was to regulate the territories in three ways: movement, military, and magic. The three M's, as the dailies coined it. The current President was Patton Edison, a descendant of Thomas Edison, whom was the first in a long line of the Edison Dynasty in the White House.
Even though it appeared Thomas Edison was a Man of Science and hence, had no magical abilities, he made it his business to regulate all things magical. Once he was elected as President, every newborn had to be registered with the federally licensed Board of Magic Registrar, usually by an Olfactmagerie, or Sniffer as they were commonly called. Their sole qualification was to be able to sniff out the magical potentials of the infant. But if no Sniffer could be found, then a Registrar would simply sample the blood of the newborn and submit it to the federal government office for determination by an in-office Sniffer. Some blood kindles magic, some doesn't. Mos
t of the time the blood was inherited, leading to family dynasties. Occasionally, it showed strong in a pauper born in a den, more than likely the unfortunate product of a solicited encounter. But be you poor or rich, all of the Users had to be regulated. Their blood was powerful, and those who controlled it, were in turn, even more powerful.
To help keep the dynasties in check, the federal government invited all blooded children to federal boarding schools for indoctrination. Once they graduated, they were free to live their lives in a manner their families saw fit, but more often than not, they went into politics or federally appointed positions that utilized their magic skills.
All adult blooded were to donate a pint of blood each month to the federal storehouse in lieu of taxes. Their blood could then be used by federally employed magic users, who needed it for government business or wars. The names of the blooded were kept in the Federal Registry, and in times of war, they were the first drafted into battle, because all battles between nations were inherently now magical in nature. Certainly, there was a place in these wars for technological weapons, but if you went into a battle without magic, it was hard to fend off an illusionist's dragon whose claws and tail may not be real, but the magically imbued fire of one would burn you just the same.
It was a matter of historical debate when magic first surfaced. Some claimed it was with King Arthur's Court. Others claimed it went further back to the Egyptians, and a few heretics claimed that it was even Mesopotamia that held the cradle of magical civilization. Urban legend indicated that it was our forefathers' fault for inbreeding with the tribes of the Native Nation that bordered the Republic.
Sometime in the mid-eighteen hundreds, the tribes united to form a conglomerate that is now known as the Native Nation. There were always rumors lurking about how they were the monster in our back yard, and if they chose to, they could pose a direct threat to the Republic at any time of their choosing. Currently, treatises held everything in tentative check.
Coincidentally, our elected officials decided to end our westward expansion in 1846. However, these concerns were matters for historical theorists. The facts were that magic became common about three and a half centuries ago, just prior to the reign of Queen Victoria in Great Britannia.
The first recordable documentation came with the refutable evidence of a photographed fairy in the late 1800's. As it turned out, they were not fairies after all, but rather were brownies. Unfortunately, for the taxonomists, first official contact with Fairies remained elusive at best, unless you are a very special and a very mundane child, as I had been.
I used to be an Ordinary, one without magic, much to the delight of my father. He was a bank manager by day, and by night, he led the local chapter of the Science First organization that promoted Ordinary people's rights. It was more as if he felt that Ordinaries should remain the ruling class, since Users, people with magical abilities, were still a trivial minority, but a fast growing one. According to the last census, Ordinaries outnumbered the Users by a ratio of thirty-to-one. He would campaign to his deathbed that Users were not some advanced evolutionary version of man, as some had argued, but rather an abomination of God.
Due to one of life's little ironies, while my birth may have been Ordinary, my childhood became infused with magic, which is what allowed me to elude the registry. My father, right up to his deathbed, refused to believe that his perfectly normal little girl now held more magic in her blood than most of a blooded family's combined magic. I truly felt that he thought I was directly responsible for the loss of his two sons. He wasn’t far from the truth. What he didn’t realize was that I missed them too.
Though he outwardly denied that I had changed, he had to recognize the truth as he aged... and I hadn’t. In addition, my mysterious yearly disappearances that my mother had stopped reporting to the authorities must have stung.
It was a tremendous relief, when I finally moved out and we didn't have to pretend that my strange absences continued happening at all. Shortly after, both of my parents died. I died too, according to the documents I held in a safe in a bank in New Amsterdam. Conveniently, their estate was inherited by a Miss Mary Peters, and after a sufficient number of years, she died and it transferred to Miss Lily Tinks. Currently, I am Miss Wendy Michaels and only the Society knew of my real identity.
I wrapped my moth-nibbled copy of The Metamorphosis into an oiled cloth and then placed it into my carpetbag. I then began contemplating the ways this mission was different compared to my previous assignments. One reason was that only one S.O.A.R. representative was usually present when giving me my new assignment, but we had three Board members yesterday. Also, I always worked alone, ever since my last partner died too many years ago. It was unanimously decreed that I should not have another partner assigned with me, due to the certain risk taking behaviors that I exhibited in my missions.
My last suspicion was that I had been exclusively assigned wet assignments for the last seventy years. Assassination was the one skill that I knew I was good at, but this was more of an investigative venture with a possible retrieval. Nevertheless, here I was saddled with Grey. All I could conclude was that something BIG was happening. I racked my brain to try to dig up everything I could remember of Tesla. Fortunately, he was once a very famous man, indeed.
I was aware of a competition of currents between Tesla and Edison not long after the emergence of magic. In fact, they both were accused of magic, back when magic was looked at with even more suspicion than today. Now, recent historical consensus claimed that they were, in fact, scientists, not magicians.
Not very long after some dicey public demonstrations, one involving electrocuting animals, it became apparent that Edison's D.C., direct current, would be the Republic of America's main new energy source, cementing his Presidential campaign. This technology was ultimately bested, by Tesla's own revelation: A.C., or alternating current. A glorious invention, so much so that even the current President Patton Edison today had no complaint employing it to his benefit when he saw fit on rare occasions.
As a result of Thomas and Nikola's tumultuous relationship, Tesla broke ties with Edison and went to work exclusively for the more progressive George Westinghouse to develop his A.C. technologies more fully. Their relationship was definitely parasitic, however. Westinghouse would patent whatever Tesla discovered and would only give Tesla a stipend for his work. Nevertheless, Tesla found solace in his work and, as rumor would have it, his pigeons. That was a long time ago, though. Who knew what the man was like today? What were his motivations going to be in this affair, if any?
The last I heard, Nikola Tesla had died of the ripe old age of eighty-seven. But how could Tesla be immortal without magic? Let me clarify, immortals were extremely rare and that just because you had the blood, did not guarantee a long life. Had his experiments unveiled a scientific equivalent of the Fountain of Youth? If he dad, what players would come to the table for a chance to gain what only the gods deserved to have?
Both the magical and ordinary persuasion would kill for a drink or shock of whatever Tesla was using and never age or die. Also, how did the zombies figure into this equation? Whether they are revenants or deaders, eventually they would breakdown over time, with some sooner than others. Of course, this leads to their eventual second and permanent demise, which meant that they were not in fact, immortal. I would have to consult Grey to determine what he thought, when I saw him tomorrow.
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It would appear that Mr. Grey had the same idea as I did, for when I boarded the observation deck, he was already there, leaning on the railing to see the sunrise. We both wore our nose resplugs, since they were equally effective in filtering out pollutants as they were at increasing the dwindling oxygen levels, due to our high altitude.
I adjusted my gloves and greeted him, “Good Morning Mr. Grey.”
He smiled, “Charmed, I’m sure, Miss Edwards. Looking forward to meeting your long-lost Auntie?”
“Indeed, Mr. Gr
ey,” I leveled at him, unamused.
I didn't see anyone else at the moment on deck, so I leaned in close and whispered, “It appears that we have had the same thought.”
He stood aloof and said, “And what, do pray tell, were we thinking?”
I inwardly sighed. I had alienated my only ally. I swept my hands at our endless vista, in response. He nodded in understanding, and then we enjoyed the wind on our faces, the noise of the turbines in our ears, and the watercolorist's dream of colors on the horizon. We stayed that way in companionable silence for more than ten minutes.
Eventually, I had to buck up and discuss the details of the case. Now seemed the perfect time to do so. So, I slowly extended my hand and said, “Truce?”
He looked down his aquiline nose at my proffered hand for a moment and said nothing. Then he resumed looking over the railing towards the East.
I faltered. I slowly lowered my hand and the corners of my mouth. Desperate times called for drastic measures. I methodically removed each of my fingers from my glove. I touched the small tattoo and then slowly raised the peace offering.
Mr. Grey slid a glance at my hand and then he looked at me. His dark blue eyes crinkled in a smile and he grabbed my hand. His grasp was warm and dry. It was surprising, since I hadn't physically touched anyone skin to skin in decades. You might be surprised at how many pulses you can check with gloves on.
Tesla's Revenge Page 3
