by Michael Rigg
Clockwork Looking Glass
A Heart of Bronze Novel
Text and Cover Design
©2013 by Michael J. Rigg
SKYTRAIN PUBLISHING
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and occurrences are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Cover model used for illustration only and may not endorse or represent the book's subject.
Cover design by Michael J. Rigg
Images purchased for use through dreamstime.com
For more information about the author
visit www.riggstories.com
Contact the author: [email protected]
(And be sure to check your spam folder for replies)
This book is dedicated with all my heart, soul and being to the one person on this earth who continually inspires me, guides me and makes me a better man every day.
To my wonderful wife
Melanie
<3 ILYSM <3
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1, “Waking in the Sky”
CHAPTER 2, “Frustration Builds”
CHAPTER 3, “Welcome to Wonderland”
CHAPTER 4, “Pandora's Box”
CHAPTER 5 , “Damnable Dampness at the Checkpoint”
CHAPTER 6, “The Corporate Man Cometh”
CHAPTER 7, “Connecting the Dots”
CHAPTER 8, “Sparks over Philadelphia”
CHAPTER 9, “Tomatoes”
CHAPTER 10, “Curiosity from Below”
CHAPTER 11, “Night Crossing”
CHAPTER 12, “Collateral Damages”
CHAPTER 13, “Raymond Simcoe and the Lady”
CHAPTER 14, “The Daughter of Lazarus”
CHAPTER 15, “Addy”
CHAPTER 16, “Human Life”
CHAPTER 17, “Clockwork Memories”
CHAPTER 18, “Corporate Take-Over”
CHAPTER 19, “Alice in Wanderland”
CHAPTER 20, “Keys”
CHAPTER 21, “Homecoming Secrets”
CHAPTER 22, “House of Cards”
CHAPTER 23, “Tarnished Wings”
CHAPTER 24, “The Clockwork Carpenters”
CHAPTER 25, “Mystic Lady”
CHAPTER 26, “Spies”
CHAPTER 27, “Phantom of the Clouds”
CHAPTER 28, “The First Shots Fired”
CHAPTER 29, “Dogfight”
CHAPTER 30, “Getting Ahead”
CHAPTER 31, “Return of the Carpenters”
CHAPTER 32, “Tremors in New Yorke”
CHAPTER 33, “Alone at Last”
CHAPTER 34, “Closing Fists”
CHAPTER 35, “Return to Atlantis”
CHAPTER 36, “The Final Battle”
CHAPTER 37, “The Mirror”
EPILOGUE, “Monuments of the Citadel”
A Taste of Book 2
BRONZE HEARTFELT ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER 1, “Waking in the Sky”
My eyes fluttered opened to bright sunlight, a dry chill, a woman screaming and several men shouting.
I couldn't move my arms or legs. The skin of my limbs and neck were filled with cold lead and I could tell from the air rushing across my body that I was naked. I closed my eyes again, willing the apparition of feeling away, but I had no touch with reality. I had no memory. I had no name. I drew breath to scream but had no voice.
At least I'm breathing. But is that a good thing?
Barely turning my head, I could see that I was on a thick metal platform of some kind, rusty black with spots and stains of extinguished cigars or cigarettes and islands of chewed gum that had long since been ground into the plate around me. A ceiling stretched above me, an iron grid with bronze and brass fixtures for lights, elbows of pipes and ducts, placards and shingles of ornate signs with fancy lettering, though I couldn't focus enough to read them.
Would I be able to read them if I could?
To my left a woman screamed again. Another said, "Shocking!" Still another with a pronounced English accent exclaimed, "Did anyone see where she come from? Who she was with?"
At least I understand the language. At least I know English. Do I know any other languages? Where am I from? I wanted to scream, How did I get here?
I turned my head slightly, wincing against the weakness and stiffness. Squinting to my left, past the light goose flesh skin of my shoulder, I saw sky and distant towers and smoke stacks. The sky glowed, azure without a single cloud. There were only thin streams of industrial smoke and steam, and the thrumming of distant flying machines. Small motorized balloons, biplanes, and winged carriages kept to their unseen lanes of traffic out beyond my metal horizon, too distant for me to see their riders and pilots. In the foreground, closer to me, stretched a long angled flag pole topped with an eagle. A huge flag the size of a bed sheet flapped in the heavy high-altitude wind that whipped by. The flag held a field of white stars on midnight blue in the upper left corner, the rest as red as the inside of my eyelids when I closed them against the brightness.
I wish I had the answer to the screams and questions around me. My eyes pressed closed as I struggled to come up with anything, even my name. I tried to move, to force myself to at least roll to my side, to cover myself, but I was as helpless and vulnerable as an insect caught in a web.
I lay paralyzed, my body humming as though charged with electricity while my brain struggled to connect the dots. I couldn't think. I couldn't conceal my nakedness. I couldn't even speak to alert the crowd beyond my line of sight that I was as shocked as they, that I needed help, that I needed... something, anything, someone who knew me. What's my name? Where am I? What day is this?
Hot tears rimmed my eyes and streamed down my temples to my ears, chilling my skin where the wind touched their tracks. My whole body shuddered internally with fear and confusion, my mind racing over the last few seconds as they were the only memories I had to review.
A man shouted, "Leave her be!" Then came the grumbles of the crowd as they parted to make way for the new voice. "Why don't y'all give the lady air," the man said in the voice of a Southerner.
English? American South? I know these accents, but don't know me? Do I have an accent? The voice was young but deep, hardened with authority and confidence. My eyes opened and I saw his face. He leaned over me, his penetrating brown eyes seeking consciousness within my own. His face was angled, sturdy, and somewhat weathered but not from toil or age. It was hard to tell his age, because he exuded both youth and wisdom. His sandy hair moved behind his ears as the wind brushed it.
"Can you hear me, miss?" the man asked, speaking slowly and deliberately. "Did you fall? Where the devil are your clothes? Can ya tell me your name?" I saw his shoulders move as he covered me with a long woolen coat. I could feel the warmth of the lining, the scratch of the wool, and knew he must have taken it off to cover me. I caught the glint of an insignia on the starched dark gray collar of his uniform. A policeman? Soldier of some kind? I opened my mouth but still couldn't speak. I couldn't even lift my head, only stare wide-eyed in horrific wonder as the stranger covered and protected me, my vision blurring between blinks as I cried silently. He turned and called out, "Call Emergency Services! Did y'all see where she came from? Was she attacked? Who did this to her?"
I wanted him to shut up, to stop calling out to them and arouse still more attention. My jaw worked slightly and my tongue moved against my teeth, but I still couldn't find my voice. My head
lolled slightly and I could feel strength returning to my limbs, but I could only watch helplessly.
The crowd only grumbled amongst themselves in response, apparently more concerned that this man was interrupting the biggest mystery of their day. Some edged closer, a few looked around at others, one or two here and there decided they'd seen enough and moved on, but no one jumped to answer the Samaritan's questions.
"On the way, Bryce," said another man as he moved up and knelt with the effort of age and weight next to the blond cop-soldier-whatever. The larger man sported a bushy mustache and spectacles beneath the thin brim of a round bowler rimmed with a dark brass band. His pink lips flapped with his jowls as he spoke excitedly in a British accent. "Bryce, what do you think you're doing? If you're doing this to purposely miss the meeting, your father—"
"My father can go to blazes, Lucien. This woman needs help." He looked down at me softly. "Are you injured? Can ya move?" There was feeling in his eyes, his voice. I could see by his movements and tone, and the way he looked at me, that his intentions were heartfelt. He was concerned despite the voiced suspicions of the large man in the bowler.
That man seemed more concerned about everything but me. "Emergency services are on their way. Come on! Someone else will tend to the lady. Leave your coat if you must, but we can not miss this meeting!"
Glancing to the bowler, the man called Bryce spoke with clipped fierceness. "Did ya see her, Lucien? Did ya see where she came from? I was faced in this direction before she appeared here out of thin air! Now how in blazes do you suppose that happens?" Before the other man could speak, he quickly added, "Exactly." Glancing down to me, Bryce added, "Apologies, miss. Please excuse my language."
His ice gray eyes wide, Lucian leaned into Bryce's face and spoke in harsh but low tones. "Exactly yourself. My God, man, this could be a trap. You know what the Atlantic contracts could mean to your father, and you know what a snake Bradford Thorne is! He's capable of anything to keep you out of that office!" Lucien pointed to the wall of windows to my right, painted in an arch of letters that read THORNE & WOLFE, INC. NEW YORKE.
"Are you suggestin' what I think you are?" Bryce glared at Lucien with a cautious warning born out of some pre-established context I knew nothing about. The jowly man floundered slightly before speaking.
"You said yourself she appeared from nowhere. What if she's a witch?” Lucien lowered his voice to a whisper but I could still hear the anxiety. “What if Bradford Thorne put her here to distract you from the contract meeting? What if she puts a hex on you, or me, or us both?"
Of course I knew nothing of this Bradford Thorne they spoke of. I didn't know Bryce or Lucien or the offices very close to where I lay helpless. I didn't think I was a witch, but it gave me some hope in that I at least knew what a witch was, and knew enough to plead for understanding with my eyes, the only way I had to communicate.
The young officer looked at me, the softness departing somewhat from his own eyes as he appeared to consider this. He touched the side of my face. His palm was gentle but not rough, more the hand of a commander than a laborer, but it was warm—or rather my skin was freezing. I began to tremble under the coat as the freezing deck below my back started to bite through to my bones.
"Of course she's not a witch" he said to me more than his friend. “That doesn't mean she wasn't placed here by witchcraft.” Bryce glanced around as if making a quick survey of the crowd. I still couldn't speak, only weakly open my mouth. I mouthed the word 'no' but that's all I could offer. I could feel my lips and chin trembling as my body started to react from the cold. Oh, God, please don't go into convulsions!
Bryce looked back down into my face and smiled slightly. "These are not the tears of an evil thing, Lucien. Can a witch posses such beauty in the throes of helplessness?"
"Bryce!" The Englishman urged. “You've told me on countless occasions that anything is possible, so why the devil aren't you listening to me now?”
Ignoring Lucien, Bryce leaned slightly closer so that I could see his brown eyes dart between my own as he spoke in a whisper. "If you are a witch. Or, if I discover that you are in cahoots with Bradford Thorne, I will have my father's man here bodily throw you from this platform." Then he added a wink to cushion the threat, a silent promise that he would do no such thing.
Or so I hoped.
Not that it mattered. Nothing was making sense. I couldn't even remember the appearance of my own face in a mirror. I didn't know my name, and I most certainly didn't know what the two men were talking about. All I could do was tremble and shake my head slightly from side to side not so much in response to Lucien's accusation, but out of confusion. No. No, I have no idea who you are or where I am!
And, as my body awoke, I became colder by the second.
"She knows nothin'," Bryce said to Lucien quickly as I felt his hands and arms work their way under my body, below my shoulder blades and the backs of my thighs. He was so warm, his arms almost burned my freezing skin.
"Bryce! By God, what in blazes are you doing?"
"Emergency Services be damned as well. I'm not leavin' her in the hands of that Yankee Thorne, and I'm not leavin' her to freeze."
Lucien grumbled as he straightened his wire-rimmed specs. "That Yankee holds your father's purse strings, Bryce. You can't do this! You'll curse the Holdings!"
"I can, I will, and I am." Bryce said as he shifted his weight. "And since you've established we're under threat of a curse from this poor girl as well as the Yankees, I choose to do the gentlemanly thing.”
“Bryce!”
“Poor girl's gonna catch her death up here in this cold." I could feel myself rise and curl into his arms. I wanted to lift my head and arms, to hold him so I wouldn't fall, but I was still as helpless and weak as a newborn fawn. My left arm dropped free and drooped. My head lolled back and the world turned upside-down.
"Bryce, I beg you!"
"Lucien, go and fetch the aero. I'm takin' her home."
"You're mad!"
"I'm gonna git mad if you don't do as I ask, man. Now go, and be quick about it."
Lucien's voice returned, closer this time. I could see his upside-down woolen vest, the chain to his pocket watch, and his loud paisley tie. I closed my eyes. He grumbled at Bryce, "If she turns out to be a witch—"
"She'll be answerin' to us on our own soil not here at the top of a Yankee tower, Confederate territory or not," Bryce quickly answered. "Once in the aero, Lucien, wireless Mr. Thorne with my apologies and tell him there was an emergency. I would be more than happy to reschedule. You tell him I'll cross The Line any time he needs me."
It was obvious by his harder tone now that he wouldn't accept any argument from the Englishman, a tone that must have been acknowledged by Lucien with some finality as the round-bellied gentleman turned and cut through the crowd to fetch the aero. I could see the upside-down throng begin to break up, the more erudite business types already bored with my presence. Others still watched, agape and whispering giggles or chuckles to one another. I caught the gazes of young women giving Bryce a look of awe, or were they actually swooning over his selfless gentlemanly behavior? Everything was so odd, so twisted. None of it made sense though I seemed to understand it.
I felt myself move. Then I was jostled and hefted as Bryce adjusted the cradle of his arms to support my head against his shoulder so it wouldn't dangle and risk him bumping my head into an arch or guardrail. My eyes were close to his neck. I could see the insignia more clearly now, the letters C.S.A. embraced by a gold wreath over crossed swords and flanked by the twin bars of his rank. I could smell his cologne, a spice that was warm and cradling like his arms.
And I saw more. I saw the crowd more clearly for the first time and right-side up. Men in topcoats and women in long layers of Victorian dress, some with bustles and lace necklines and others with bodices and crinoline, most wrapped with fur or fleece. Top hats, bowlers and some western-style cowboy hats covered the heads of almost every man. Some carried walking s
ticks or canes, others satchels. A man and woman standing near an iron staircase to a lower level marked 'PROMENADE B' wore flared riding pants and knee-high boots, black leather jackets and leather pilot caps with earphones and goggles. Pilots, my mind reasoned, though I couldn't be sure of anything. There was nothing to remind me of who I was or where I was from. I just felt that this was all wrong somehow, that these things—or I—shouldn't be here.
Again, I tried to speak as Bryce rushed me through the parting gawkers, but I could only whisper breaths without form. I saw flashes of things: iron rail posts. a brass clock with ornate numbers showing a time of 2:02.
A small carriage powered by steam, a multitude of small propellers and metal heat-breathing ports hovered up to the landing where Bryce carried me, moving faster now. We passed a small cafe overlooking the city far below, a hand-painted sign in the window advertising ice-cream for 25 cents, a newspaper stand with the New Yorke Globe for 10 cents. In the carriage, Lucien now added a wide pair of goggles over his spectacles. His mustache twitched with displeasure as Bryce brought me toward the hovering aerocar. Lucien pulled a tall lever and a wide plank with two grappling arms unfolded and clamped to the platform, holding the vehicle steady like a tightly moored ship.
As Bryce gently lowered me into the back seat of the carriage, careful to keep his gray long coat tucked around my naked body, he smiled at me. It was a tender, apologetic, Samaritan smile that made me feel safe amongst all this strangeness. The seat under my back and behind was leather but heated, and I could feel the springs under it. Bryce pulled at the sleeves and urged me to try to slip the coat on properly, but I simply remained huddled and motionless. I could feel blood flowing in my limbs again, but I was still very weak.
"There," he said softly, but loud enough to be heard over the hissing and grumbling of the aerocar's engines. He reached over and fastened a safety belt around me, excusing himself for his reach, before climbing in next to me and telling Lucien to depart.
"I won't say it again, captain," Lucien warned loudly over his shoulder as the car began to drift away from the tower.