The Rise of Ransom City

by Felix Gilman

  I would like to say that we eluded the Linesmen through some ingenious stratagem on my part, some piece of story-book cleverness, but as a matter of fact all that happened was that the Linesmen steadily fell further and further behind. I have already written about the Ransom System of Exercises I think and this was an advertisement for its benefits— and Adela had good breeding I guess— and as for the Linesmen, I guess that living bent double in a submersible cannot be good for anyone’s health. They looked smaller and smaller as they ran, not only because they fell behind but because they got more and more hunched. Slowly terror ebbed away and relief mounted, the balance tipping in favor of elation some time around our entry into the district of Hoo Lai. The Linesmen were determined but the flesh can do only so much. Each time we turned a corner there was a moment until they turned it behind us, and each time that moment got longer. We could all of us understand the mathematics of this situation but the Linesmen kept coming anyhow, determined to play it out, until eventually we turned a corner and the Linesmen did not appear behind us until we’d already turned the next. The C.S.V. by this time must have long since submerged itself and retreated up-river, its cargo undelivered. It is possible that our interruption of the C.S.V.’s delivery delayed the Battle of Jasper, at least briefly, though of course it did not stop it. I do not know what happened to the Linesmen— whether they were retrieved, or whether they just hid out in Jasper until they could be re united with the invading forces. I do not care. Anyhow by the time Adela and me turned onto Swing Street the Linesmen were long gone, and we were no longer afraid at all, in fact we were both pretending that neither of us had ever been afraid. We had forgotten our differences. We were congratulating each other on our courage under fire and our cleverness and our mutual genius. We’d survived the Linesmen together and were now firmly allied, neither of us alone in the world anymore or afraid of anything. The voices in Adela’s head were silent. We started talking big plans, though to all outward appearances we were just a young and bohemian Jasper City pair staggering home after a long wild night on the town, laughing and arms around each other’s shoulders and quite naturally after all we’d been through together turning and doing what in the romance-novels they might call locking our lips together, with her tugging at my wild & unruly hair and me running my hand down her back. I stumbled on the sidewalk and fell back with her pressed against me, hearts still hammering, the both of us falling together against the ornate façade of Harriman’s Theater and causing a sign that advertised a night of wonder to swing back and forth. Some small boys hooted. Delicacy forbids me to say more.

  CHAPTER 20

  THE ORMOLU

  When we got back to the Ormolu Mr. Quantrill yelled and threatened to send both of us away.

  “You’re fugitives. The you-know-what is looking for you.”

  “The Line,” Adela said. “Those were men of the—”

  “Stop that— don’t talk politics in my office— get out the both of you before you ruin me.”

  “The way I see it, Mr. Quantrill, you’re no less a fugitive than the two of us.”

  “I’m not— I didn’t— they didn’t— ah, but at least I wasn’t carrying a gun.”

  I said nothing. I guess Mr. Quantrill was thinking about whether that would make any difference to the Linesmen if they tracked him down, and I guess he decided it would not, because the fight went out of him.

  “We’re in this together, Mr. Quantrill. The best thing we can do is to go on as before.”

  “What business does the Line have in Jasper?” Adela said. “Why would you let them tell you what you may or may not do? Back home we would never have—”

  Mr. Quantrill took that as an insult and started to yell again, and kept yelling until suddenly a wicked smile crossed his face and he sat down.

  “Well, Mr. Rawlins. Maybe I’m stuck with you. But I was promised an inventor and since the two of you don’t seem to be able to agree on which one of you that is I guess I’ll have both of you— at one wage, mind.”

  Adela looked so surprised and happy that I could not bring myself to protest. Besides, I could not forgo an opportunity to work with the inventor of the self-playing piano, even if she was a little mad, and even if it meant that I would go hungry.

  “Don’t look so shocked, Mr. Rawlins. Count your blessings. At least you’ve got work. Now go and do it.”

  Well, nobody likes to hear that but it is usually good advice.

  It was a good summer.

  Together Adela and I made a device that could be hidden beneath the Amazing Amaryllis’s frilly sleeve and could project one of half a dozen cards into her palm, the selection being made by firm gestures of the wrist. Amaryllis said that it was clever but not a whole lot of use, and besides it made her wrist chafe. We made a mechanical orange tree that appeared to bloom on command. Amaryllis liked that more. That was the first difficult thing we made together, and Adela was surprised and delighted to find out that I was not a fool, that in fact I maybe was what I said I was. She kissed me. We made a mechanical dove— I regret to say that it could not fly, but it appeared to fly, which was good enough. It swung on wires out to the cheap seats and back. Its feet could hold and release rings or watches, returning those items to the audience-members from which they were borrowed with passable accuracy. We made these things for the most part out of junk. It is astonishing what kind of junk can be found in Jasper City.

  Adela acquired new clothes and cut her hair. At first she stayed in one of the rooms at the Ormolu, same as me. Later when Mr. Quantrill increased our wage she moved into a tiny room in the Gate. I said I guessed it couldn’t compare to the mansions of the Deltas. She said it didn’t matter.

  We made flashes and bangs. We made more contraptions out of mirrors than I can possibly recall, some of which were designed to conceal and others to spy. Some of them were cleverly hinged and folded so that they could make doubles, so that they could reproduce Amaryllis in shining sequined triplicate. Some of them were so tiny they could fit in the Amazing Amaryllis’s other sleeve, some of them were cabinet-sized, and some of them were so big that nobody in the theater would ever understand what they were looking at. The theater was always full, sometimes so full that boys and girls sat on the steps or perched precariously on the balcony. If you doubt me you may consult the newspapers. We got favorable notices. Once a full row at the front was occupied by serious-looking young men in brown or gray suits, who I was told were a party from the Baxter Trust. Mr. Quantrill was making money and so he was happy, though in truth it was not really because of Adela or me or any of the things we built but because it was summer, and Swing Street was booming, and like I have said there was a mania for magic. He increased our wages anyhow.

  We made secret weapons— we made smoke, fire, and light. That was what people wanted and that was we gave them. Very modern-looking devices that spun gears and flashed sparks, or things that looked like ancient runes of the Folk and emitted stinks and vibrations at frightening and exciting frequencies. It was not required or expected that these devices do anything, merely that they be strange and wonderful and a little alarming. Adela and I drank in all the coffee houses on Swing Street until morning every morning sharing wild ideas, challenging each other to greater and greater feats of impossibility and absurdity. That was how Adela came to make the Automated Orange Tree, which I have already mentioned, and the famous Calculating Serpent. Both were more hers than mine.

  On three occasions we were interrupted while we were dining by representatives of rival theaters looking to hire us away. We would not. We dined together frequently— I had developed plain and simple tastes out on the Rim, she craved fine food. On this, as on most matters of politics, we agreed to disagree. On another occasion while dining we were approached by a representative of the Baxter Trust looking to purchase the patent for some of our flashes and bangs, but the price he named was an insult— we agreed on that. Once I saw Mr. Merrial Carson in one of the bars on Swing Street, and he saw me
and tipped his hat and waggled his extraordinary eyebrows at the two of us in a gesture I did not quite understand. Not once did we see any soldiers of the Line on Swing Street, and we decided that we had escaped them entirely. We were both very proud of that.

  Together we made four different kinds of transforming or traveling or vanishing cabinet, and though my vanity makes me want to describe their mechanisms, we both signed papers to the effect that we would not, and those promises are still binding, or so I believe, despite Amaryllis’s death and Mr. Quantrill’s and the razing of the Ormolu itself. We discussed a great many more ideas which we never had time to bring to life, and never shared with anyone. We were like a corporation or conspiracy of two, the best in the whole city.

  The Beck brothers, Dick and Joshua, both read the preceding pages. Both of those excellent fellows are now grinning like bandits and Dick Beck keeps winking. So let me be clear. With the exception of that first instance after the duel, and one other occasion after the first delirious perfumed performance of the Automated Orange Tree, there was nothing of the romantic sort between the two of us. That came later— too late. While we were together at the Ormolu our communion was on a higher plane. She was the first person I had met in all my life who I thought might— if I could only tell her— understand my dreams & notions &c. That was more than enough. As a matter of fact I spent much of that summer pursuing the affections of an actress at the Dally Theater, who later escaped the Battle of Jasper unharmed— I shall not name her. She was pretty and good-natured and she did not ask difficult questions about who I was and so far as I know never once thought of shooting anybody for any reason. Adela received flowers backstage almost nightly from a young insurance agent, who I regret to say did not— escape Jasper that is. I have nothing against him and I was not jealous and when I warned him what he was getting into it was for his own good. Anyhow I shall not wax romantic. There is too much History and Politics I still have to write about.

  The truth is I was sometimes somewhat terrified of Miss Adela Kotan &c &c Iermo. She was brilliant and beautiful and ingenious but I could hardly forget that on our first acquaintance she had been quite determined to shoot me— though she seemed to have forgotten that incident entirely.

  Her temper was fiery, her ambition and her curiosity were at least the equal of my own, and in intellect she exceeded me. She could not understand why I was content to idle away my summer working for tricksters and theater-people, who she regarded as a very low form of life. As soon as she was fed and housed she began planning greater things.

  She attempted to reconstruct the self-playing piano. She marked out a zone of space backstage like a conjurer drawing his magic circle and she filled it with wires and paper punched with holes and strange unmusical sounds. Black and white keys were scattered about its perimeter. At first I was delighted to watch her work, but we both pretty quickly understood that she could not rebuild it. The plans were lost and the moment of inspiration was lost. In my experience it is often harder to rebuild than to build for the first time. Anyhow it hurt to watch. I do not know if she still blamed me for the loss of the prototype. She said she did not but sometimes she had a look in her eye that frightened me. I have spent a lot of time in war-torn places and I have seen the look in the eye of mothers who have lost their children, and that is what it reminded me of. It was her soul. I wish I had saved it.

  She said it didn’t matter. She visited the Yards and took notes on the deplorable working conditions and began to talk about Automation of the processes there. She wanted me to go into business with her. She wanted to approach Mr. Baxter with her ideas. I advised her against it.

  “He’s a thief,” I said. “He will steal your ideas and give you nothing.” She frowned. “I haven’t forgotten that you—”

  “If you want another apology it’s yours. Just steer clear of Mr. Baxter and his untrustworthy Trust.”

  “You always talk as if you know more than you’re willing to say,

  Hal. Here you are working for play-actors for pennies—”

  “There are worse fates. Let the stage-lights fall on the Amazing Amaryllis, let Wise Master Lobsang and Mr. Barnabas Bosko struggle with fame. I’ll work backstage and be happy. That’s hard-won wisdom,

  Adela—”

  “There it is again— you drop hints. You talk as if you know Mr. Baxter personally, you talk about politics and about the Great War as if you played some great part in it, but all you are is— oh, I don’t mean it that way, but—”

  Of course I did not explain the reasons for my low profile. Nor did I like to lie. I waited for her to depart, then I returned to my work. I had commandeered a corner of the Ormolu’s basement, hidden away behind rows and rows of costumes and painted scenes. In one corner of the ceiling there was a little light from a hole up at street-level, and in another corner there was a trap-door that led to the stage above.

  Behind my workplace there was a door boarded over that led who-knows-where. Probably like most things beneath Jasper there was some picaresque ancient history of crime or politics behind it, but I did not investigate. There were rats, with whom I was willing to establish friendly relations if only they would meet me halfway.

  I started to reassemble the Apparatus down there.

  I can’t say I had any real plan for what I would do if I could re-create it. As I worked I daydreamed that I might confront Mr. Baxter with it. I wrote letters to him in my head, telling him that my spirit was unbowed. I imagined showing it to the world, refuting his libel in one bright undeniable flash of Light. The truth is that more than anything else I needed to know if it could be re-created. I was not certain. I stripped wire from junkyards. I liberated springs of all kinds from conjurers’ top-hats and mirror-tricks. I sawed wood. I was able to commission the blowing of glass personally, after Mr. Quantrill showered us with money on account of what Mr. Elmer Merrial Carson wrote in the Jasper City Evening Post about the wonders of the Automatic Orange Tree. I had no choice but to steal the magnets I required, I confess it, from the electrical generators stored in a ware house belonging to the

  Northern Lighting Corporation. This theft too was written about in the newspapers, though it was beneath the notice of Mr. Carson. It is hard to do anything in Jasper City that escapes the attention of the newspapers, I have found.

  I brewed up the acids and alkalis I needed in an old porcelain bathtub, which had previously been used as a prop in risqué comedies. This process caused Mr. Quantrill some anxiety, not least because it produced odors that could be detected by the more sensitive members of the audience upstairs. Adela was curious. I told her to wait and see. That made her angry, as I recall— at that time her own work on the self-playing piano was frustrating her.

  I built the frame. I used parts of an old typewriter and I used some old brass breastplates that had formerly been employed in opera, and which Mr. Quantrill did not miss.

  Lastly I reproduced that red-sun-of-creation sigil that had always been at the heart of it. It was there in the wires and in the tubes and in the play of the magnetic fields. The snake eating its own tail, the always-ascending staircase &c &c. It was warm to the touch. When I passed a charge across it there was a glow so faint that it was visible only by night, and then only if you closed one eye and stared. Adela asked again what it did and I said it did nothing so far. I did not want to tell her what it was. I kept on working.

  You may recall that when I first came to Jasper, I tried to find my sister Jess. I failed. She had left her last known address, maybe because after Professor Harry Ransom And His Terrible Secret Weapon got famous it was hard being his sister. Well, I do not want you to think I am a quitter. I kept on asking around after her. I came up with this ingenious plan: I persuaded Mr. Quantrill to authorize me to hire dancing girls and concession girls for the Ormolu Theater, and under cover of that purpose I made inquiries all along Swing Street. I felt like a story-book spy, an Agent-in-training. Rumor had it she had left Swing Street. I followed her trail to a
low and sinister hotel in the worst part of Fenimore. I shall not describe that place. From there rumor pointed the way to the Floating World.