by Michael Rigg
“Frustration builds,” Thorne muttered. “It may not have come to war if we could make Landry listen to reason. Contracts are only paper. A man’s word is gold. I gave Lord Landry my word that he could have the acquisition in exchange for a service route…. Though I’d much rather have the property myself. That old bastard has no idea what he's sitting on—unless he does. He did send his soldier boy of a son to negotiate, didn't he?” To Perek Grubbs, he said, “Find the Landry boy and tail him. I want to know where he's gone and why, and why after coming all this way he would simply turn around and leave.” Thorne's chin quivered slightly and tears of anger made his tiny black eyes glint even more. Through gritted teeth, he said “Find me something I can use. He’s up to something. I know it. Frustration’s building Grubbs. Building.”
Perek's smile was as greasy as the hair on his head. "My pleasure, Mr. Thorne."
“And on your way out, send someone back in.... Anyone.” He chewed his lower lip and pinched the bridge of his nose before turning slightly to his partner. A single tear ran down his cheek. “It pains me to have to do this, you know, but frustration builds.”
“I know,” Wolfe sighed as he produced a pair of ear plugs from a vest pocket and fingered them into place within each ear. "Look. We have Atlantis now." The large man shrugged again with considerable effort. "I don't know why you're so frustrated. This came relatively easy."
"Precisely. It was too easy. The Landrys are up to something, Nigel. I can smell it. If Jefferson Landry defaults on the property, we get that—but he gets the sea lanes! How the hell can a lane to the Confederate Royals be more important than Atlantis? How? Hm?"
Wolfe knew that any rapid series of questions from his partner were rhetorical, especially when he slid into one of his “frustration builds” tirades.
Shortly after Perek Grubbs left the conference room, a young woman entered wearing a pinstripe blouse and long ruffled skirt. She held a stenographer's pad in one hand as she pulled a pencil from the blonde bun atop her head. Her voice was thin and quiet. “You sent for me, Mr. Thorne?”
Smiling and blinking rapidly to clear the tears of his eyes, Thorne said, “Close the blinds, Marjorie.” Turning to his partner, Thorne said, “I didn't think he'd send the girl, but what am I to do?”
Nigel Wolfe shrugged and turned his attention to the New Yorke Globe on the conference table before him.
Marjorie pulled the brass lever that lowered the shutters of the Thorne & Wolfe offices, snuffing out the blue sky and promenade and replacing them with reproductions of Renaissance-era prints. Once they all clacked into place, the secretary asked, “What else may I do for you, Mr. Thorne?”
“Frustration builds, Majorie.”
“Sir?”
Bradford Thorne reached into his suit jacket and withdrew a chrome-plated revolver. He fired two shots into Marjorie's chest. The girl was dead before her body hit the floor.
“Feel better?” Wolfe asked as he turned a page.
Nodding slightly, Thorne blew out a puff of air and a quavering laugh as he tucked the smoking pistol away. “It does wonders, Nigel. Wonders.”
CHAPTER 3, “Welcome to Wonderland”
Lucien, the portly butler piloting the car, handed back a small booklet of paper bound in leather and a pencil while I sank back into the carriage seat as far as I could. I pulled the Captain's coat closer around my shoulders and watched the two men closely between glances out at the distant horizon and long drop below.
I struggled to slow my breathing and calm my heart. What I knew was that I could feel my heart. At least I knew I could move, scream, fight. I didn't know anything else, but I knew that much.
I don't know where the strength or skill came from, but the punch I landed on Bryce's jaw felt... natural. A part of me woke up and took charge, a part of my subconscious defended me. But now I'm helpless again. Naked, alone, confused. If I hadn't been in a flying carriage hundreds of feet above New York, I would have made a run for it, naked or not. But up here I have no choice but to hear them out, at least until we land and I can escape.
Pieces fell together, but none of them made sense to me. These men were trying to help me. They were taking me away to find answers, not to hurt me. The concern between the one called Bryce and the one called Lucien surrounded their own lives, their schedules. They acted as though I belonged here, that I was a riddle they could solve. But I didn't even know where I was. That must have been evident in my eyes, my cries of terror, because the captain was very gentle, very calming. I could sense his concern, sometimes his brown eyes would flash with panic, mirroring my fear, but they were mostly watchful, wary, and careful. Something deep inside me cautioned me to pay attention. Maybe they could help me, help me make sense of all this.
Taking the pad and pencil, Bryce passed them to me with a worried grin. "Here's to hopin' you can remember somethin' that will help us."
My first thought was that I could use the point of the pencil as a weapon. Maybe I could take out the captain, but... I looked down below, to the back of Lucien's head, the brass knobs and controls of the flying carriage. Don't be crazy, I told myself. Ride this through. See what happens. Tell them what you know. That too seemed to be part of my instincts or training. I could fight, but I could also reason. Hundreds of feet above the city was the place for reason because there wasn't room for anything else.
I accepted the writing materials after tucking the collar of the coat around me. Surprised I remembered how to write, or that I even had a handwriting style, I pressed the pencil tip to a blank page and wrote the first thing that came to mind. Then I handed the pad back to Bryce.
"What did she say?" The butler called back.
Bryce read the note and shot the man a worried glance. I watched the steel cable in his jaw flex as his teeth worked around my words. "She's wantin' to know what we did with her clothes. She wants to know where we're taking her."
"She does have a point, Bryce. Um, does she not know her own name?"
"Lucien, I sincerely doubt the young lady knows her name if she doesn't know how she got to the 98th floor Trade Center platform without even a stitch o' skivvies." He turned to me with a blushing nod and touched his eyebrow. "Apologies, ma'am, for my ... colorful language."
The corner of my mouth twitched an involuntary smile that I quickly squashed. Handsome and helpful as he may be, I didn't want to let Bryce Landry into my mind until I've had a chance to explore it myself. For all I knew, these men could be my enemies, the ones who caused my amnesia.
And this world... Surely, this was where I was from, but can amnesia explain a complete erasure of reality and not just snapshots of memory? My face must have betrayed my fear. I wanted to cry, but couldn't. The sensory overload was almost too much.
"Now now," Landry spoke softly, his voice rising just above the carriage motors, "I know this must be difficult for you, but I really am tryin' to help. My father's man there will tell you that I am truly a gentleman—"
"To the core," the butler huffed into the rear view mirror, “Or should I say to a fault.” The look on Lucien's face in the tiny rear-view mirror, despite the huff, was sincere and lined with concern around the crow's feet of the eyes behind the specs and goggles.
I was desperate to talk but could only squeak as my throat burned from the exposure of the air and the chill, and my scream. I motioned for the book and pencil again and Bryce handed them back gently, adding, "Take your time, now. Lucien and I are takin' you to Philadelphia. I have friends that can get us over the Line to Seven Orchards. You'll be safe there. Mother and Adeline will care for you, get you mendin'. Then we'll find out where you're from, where you're bound, and get you there."
I could feel his eyes on me, probing, studying, trying to find what I couldn't tell him, as I lowered my head and scrawled. This time I filled an entire page of the notebook, stopping only once to tuck a whipping strand of red hair behind my ear. When I finished, I handed back the pad. I held on to the pencil in a white knuckled fist.
Landry raised his voice and read to the butler, "I don't know my name or how I got where you found me. I don't recognize this place or you people." He stopped and looked at me. My eyes left his and fell to the pad as he continued. "There is somethin' familiar about all this, but it seems wrong. Who are you?" He looked up at Lucien again and said, "Then she wrote 'what is this place'? and underlined it enough to dern near dig a hole in the paper."
The butler’s eyes fell from the rear view. Maybe he was saying 'you're on your own,' or maybe he too was as lost as the captain who sank back in the seat next to me.
"You really don’t know, do you?” Landry asked with a gentleness that was overtaking his suspicion. “Do you know what day it is? Any names or places. Anything at all?”
He handed back the notebook and I turned it to a new page before writing more. I didn’t know how to explain the vision that had flashed in my mind, or what it meant, or how it fit into anything.
When I finished, I slowly passed the notebook back.
Landry read to Lucien, “She says, ‘It’s September 11, 2001?’ She marked it with a question. She says something happened to the World Trade Center today. Again, a question. She wants to know what happened and how she fits in.”
Lucien glanced up to the mirror, an unspoken question to Bryce that the officer could only answer with a shrug. He turned to me and said, “Miss, what gives you the idea that it’s—?”
“The Center bridge!” Lucien called back as he lowered the altitude of the carriage to pass under a long airship crossing our path. “She must have seen it.”
“Oh,” Landry frowned. “So you don’t know for sure? You saw the date on the bridge between the trade buildings?”
I nodded and offered a slight shrug beneath the heavy coat.
“It’s actually September 7, 2015. It’s almost the anniversary of the day that damnable sign froze on its tracks, rusted through they say.” He lowered his voice and muttered an aside. “Damn Yankees don't know how to keep anything runnin'.”
I reached over and tapped the pad, emphasizing my other question.
Bryce Landry chewed his lower lip and said, “The only thing that ever happened to the Center of Trade is corporate takeover.” He passed the notebook back to me and explained, “I take it you don’t recall the Confederation’s Order of the late ‘90s authorizing corporations to take control and ownership of government holdings? It's what makes the towers Yankee property despite the fact we won the war. As to how you might fit in....” He let that float as he tried to meet Lucien's eyes in the rear-view mirror. The butler only sighed and turned away, shaking his head slightly.
His words may as well have been foreign gibberish. I had no idea what he was saying. I simply stared at Bryce, trying to find something familiar in his face, his eyes, his accent, anything that would connect me with the place—or time—I belonged. Again, I opened my mouth to speak but could only rasp. I could feel my voice returning. It just wasn’t back yet.
Bryce studied me and saw that I didn’t know what he was saying. He tried, “To put it simply, my dear Irish, our government relinquished control to independent corporations. Some say it’s a mistake. They say the Confederation Order will give the Empire of the United States an opportunity to re-open old wounds, to start a third Civil War. It's part of why I was in New Yorke, to meet with a dastardly Yankee in an effort to appease my father and stave off meddlin' Imperial control.”
Lucien spoke up, “Ah! So now you understand the true depths of those contracts you failed to sign.”
Bryce glanced at me before speaking up to Lucien. “I understand that default on the seabed allows us to keep the lanes open. What could be more important than the Norfolk locks?” Bryce looked at me apologetically and waved an impatient hand at Lucien's reflection. “Not the time nor the place, Lucien.”
He turned and gazed toward the horizon, the afternoon sun framing his face with a dark golden-orange halo. “I say war won’t happen again. It hasn’t yet, and won’t. The Empire has corporations of its own, like Thorne & Wolfe, where we found you. They have enough money, enough power. Those contracts—”
“Bryce, no,” Lucien called to the mirror. “Don't give her too much information.”
“How else is she to learn who she is and where she's from?”
“Thorne could have brainwashed her. She could be a plant, a mole!”
Bryce looked at me, his dimples creasing around his disarming smile. “Are you a mole, Irish?”
On a fresh page of the notebook, I wrote, ‘Irish?’ I tapped it with the pencil’s eraser and looked to him for an explanation.
Bryce laughed, his smile bright and harmless. “Sorry, m’lady, but until we can determine your name and lineage, I’m just gonna call ya as I see you. The auburn tint of your hair, the beautiful green of your eyes, your alabaster skin. I would bet that when you find your voice you’d treat us all to a handsome brogue.”
I’m Irish? I didn’t think I was. I shook my head ‘no’ but was even more reluctant to speak. What if I had—I don’t know what they'd call it, an ‘Imperial’ accent? What if I'm the enemy? Would they push me out of the sky car?
Lucien called back, “You’ve had enough history with Irish women, Bryce, don’t you think?”
Ignoring the butler, Bryce turned his attention on me and looked me up and down, not in a leering fashion but as someone might size up a project. Again with the smile. He held a large hand up to his chin, then tapped his lips thoughtfully with his index finger.
He said, “We have to get you some proper clothes before we reach the Philly Bridge, Irish.” To the butler, he called, “Can you set me up with the wireless, Lucien?”
“Who are you calling? Your father? Thorne?”
“Hells bells, no.” Landry glanced at me. “Apologies for the language, miss. I keep forgettin' I’m with a lady.”
I smiled, finally feeling the calmness exuded by the man in charge. He really was helping me, his words were sincere and actually complemented the butler's fear perfectly, or at least enough to let me know I could trust them... for now. I held the pencil tightly, turning my hand to conceal it.
Bryce said, “Lucien, wind up Philly two, nine-one, nine-four. Let’s see if we can open the box.”
“Good lord, Bryce, you are completely mad.”
“As a hatter,” he grinned.
That’s when I spoke my first word.
“Alice.”
Both men looked at me, Landry turning from the headset Lucien handed him, the butler through the mirror.
I said, "Alice in Wonderland... I... I recognize the reference."
“She speaks,” Lucien said.
“She did,” Bryce said evenly, but his gaze became slightly suspicious. “You’re familiar with Lewis Carroll’s work?”
I nodded slightly and cleared my throat. I tried, “It was my favorite story as a little girl... I think.”
Bryce pulled on the headset and adjusted the microphone boom in front of his lips. “Well, you’re not a lady of the Confederation, at least not a proper one.”
“I told you she was a witch!” Lucien shouted, “An Imperial, Bryce!" The butler's face tinged red around his goggles. "I knew this was all a trap of Thorne's. She's a Yankee witch!”
“I am not a witch!” My fingers covered my mouth and I looked to Bryce with an apology for my outburst. His Southern gentleness, it seems, was spreading. In my other hand, I turned the pencil point around and placed my thumb over the eraser to make it a more effective overhand stabbing weapon.
Bryce's warm smile returned. “I believe you.” He winked as he wound the transceiver handle embedded in the back of the carriage’s front bench seat. He studied me as he waited for the other end to answer, then, “Wilco, old man, let me speak to Pandora,” he said into the mic.
Between Lucien’s icy stare in the rear view and Bryce Landry’s veiled suspicions, I only wished I could sink deeper into the carriage’s rear seat cushions. I had the distinct feeling m
y lack of drawl was going to get me into trouble. I tightened my grip on the pencil.
Bryce spoke into the mic with his hands cupped around it, either so he could be heard above the open air noise of rushing wind or so I couldn’t hear him. Either way, my only company became Lucien’s glare. In those lined gray eyes behind the double lenses of spectacle and goggle I no longer saw suspicion. I saw hatred and pain. And, worse… desperation.
It didn’t surprise me what happened next. Though I didn’t know he was setting the controls of the flying carriage for auto-pilot, I knew he was taking the opportunity to do something rash while his boss’s son was busy on the ‘wireless radio.’
The carriage bounced and swayed only slightly as Lucien popped open the glove box again and withdrew a small black object that caught a glimpse of sun. He grunted and worked his bulk into a kneeling position on the front seat, facing me, and pointed the gun at my face.
What happened next was the first in a long list of surprises that involved me that day.
CHAPTER 4, “Pandora's Box”
Bryce Landry was just concluding the wireless call to Philadelphia as Lucien jostled the aero, suddenly shifting his bulk in the front seat as he drew something from the glove compartment.
"Lucien, what are you—?" Bryce began, stopping and widening his eyes as the small black pistol emerged in the valet's meaty hand and pointed at the woman who responded quickly.
In a whip-crack flash of action, she dodged to the side, swinging her fist with the pencil point toward the butler's wrist. Bryce also sprang forward, swinging his right fist while reaching for the weapon with his left hand. The blast from the pistol stung the air as a bullet thumped into the leather upholstery next to the woman's head. Lucien's head snapped sideways with Bryce's punch, the pistol coming free from Lucien's grasp as Bryce tugged it away. The woman's attempt at disarming him with the pencil was foiled, but she still delivered a sharp stab through the cuff of the butler's coat.