by Felix Gilman
A very tall and very beautiful red-haired woman walked across the room and the crowd parted for her. She met with a man in a fine white suit and they spoke together for a while, arm in arm. It looked like a very important conversation, and I was sorry I could not hear what they were saying.
Half an hour had passed while I watched. No Agent of the Gun appeared behind me, weapon pressed to my back, all evil grin and twirling mustache and sulfurous breath whispering in my ear There you are at last Professor Ransom. . . . I got emboldened. I bought a drink for a young lady.
“I mean no offense,” I said to her. “No one could say you’re not pretty. But I’m kind of homesick, you see. Where I’m from everyone has skin kind of like mine— it’s a little place out West, you won’t know it— and I’m looking for a girl of a similar complexion. The heart wants what it wants, you know? Is there—?”
That kind young lady pointed me to another young lady who pointed me to a third, who I approached through the crowds and heat and smoke of the room. It was only when I got close to her that I realized she was not a flesh-and-blood person, but a remarkably lifelike part of a painting on the wall. I am not sure whether I had been pointed toward her as a joke or whether I had got turned around. I stood by the wall for a while and studied the painting. It was a mural, depicting a scene in the garden of an old-world prince’s palace, and as a man of the theater I took a professional interest in the tricks of perspective it played.
There was a scream from the other side of that wall. Neither the music nor the laughter stopped for it. Still emboldened, I investigated. I explored along the wall until I found a door, in the midst of a painted grove of ivy and shadows. I breathed deeply, touched the gun beneath my coat for luck, and opened it.
The door opened onto a very long corridor, with many doors on either side. It was lit by two red lanterns at its mid-point and beyond was a hazy red darkness. Out of that darkness a figure came forward.
Well I shall not play games. It was my sister Jess. She was a little thinner than when I last saw her and her hair had been cut short, and I guess all I could say about her outfit was that she has always been her own woman and it is no business of mine to judge. I was so overjoyed to see her that a tear came to my eye.
Speaking of eyes— hers widened. At the same time her mouth drew tight and thin. She made a gesture that when we were young and always sneaking into things meant get out. I guess you could figure out what it meant too, if you saw it. It was forceful.
There was that scream again, from behind one of the many doors.
Another figure came up behind my sister. It was that tall and beautiful red-haired woman, for whom all the crowd had parted. It made me dizzy to see her, because only moments before I’d seen her, or I’d thought I’d seen her, back in the room behind me, talking to Senators and Reverends and businessmen. She put a hand on my sister’s shoulder. My sister was still miming go but now only with her eyes. I did not. I was frozen. It was not until the moment I saw her that I recalled John Creedmoor speaking of his onetime colleague Scarlet Jen of the Floating World. I tried to push the thought from my mind. I felt like that woman could read what I was thinking the way Amaryllis pretended to and for all I know she could.
Behind me there was the sound of a gunshot, then cheering and laughter. Somebody stumbled backwards into me. I shoved him aside.
I swear I did not see either of them move but the next thing I knew the red-haired woman was on the far side of the big room, directing her guards to seize and question the unlucky gunman, and my sister was gone.
The gunman, as it turned out, was drunk and had pulled out his weapon and shot at the ceiling not out of malice, but by way of celebrating a piece of very good news that had just been whispered to him. Now that good news was leaping from ear to ear all across the room and back again, and although I was more concerned with what the hell had happened to my sister it found its way to me soon enough. Like they said in the newspaper the next day:
THE BATTLE OF JUNIPER CITY
Events in our one-time peaceful sister city of Juniper are on the march too quickly for your humble correspondent to keep pace. Last I wrote Governor-Elect Voll had declared independence from the Three Cities. Two days ago Governor-Elect Voll declared Juniper’s support for the reborn Red Valley Republic, that ill-fated empire of the western territories, that we had all thought long-gone. Reports from the High House are that Voll is now dead, murdered mid-speech by an uncaught assassin. Yesterday the forces of the Line came to Juniper, with Heavier-Than-Air Vessels and Ironclads and marching men. Today those forces have been beaten back, all the way to the banks of the River Ire, where it is said that the Angelus Engine itself was destroyed. How was this impossible feat accomplished? Lieutenant-Governor Bloom denies that the city’s armies were assisted by that Adversary of the Line, but also of all Decent People, which I shall not name here. Instead he says that the notorious Doctor Eliza Alferhussen and the one-time Agent John Creedmoor have entrusted their mysterious “weapon” to Juniper. Rumors fly thick and fast. Your own humble correspondent his own self has been pressed into the Second Juniper Irregulars, and writes from a tent on the banks of the Ire.
I guess by the time the news was out and had filled the whole room all the best business-deals were already made, and all that was left was for the yahoos and bumpkins who were last to hear it to celebrate or panic as they saw fit. There was only one gunshot but a whole lot of hooting and hollering and fists slammed on tables and glasses thrown and women treated roughly. I could not see my sister in all the chaos. The red-haired woman was surrounded by several Senators who all wanted her ear, and she seemed to have forgotten about me. The flames in all the room’s many fireplaces leapt higher and higher, cracking and snapping and charring the edges of rugs and couches and scarlet dresses and the feathers some of the women wore in their hair, not to mention their hair. I cannot say if the flames were celebrating or panicking or both. I fled, out through the back doors and through the rose-garden and down into the city below.
I ran all the way to Adela’s apartment. I was eager to tell her the news about Juniper. I changed my mind a dozen times on the way down, sometimes thinking I would say that we should flee at once, sometimes thinking I could enlist her in a scheme to save my sister— I entertained a number of wild schemes involving disguises, tunnels, rope-ladders, hot-air balloons, and I don’t recall what else. I do not know what I had decided or if I had decided anything as I knocked on her door. Anyhow I regret to say that she did not answer.
I started to worry.
I went back to the Ormolu. It was late and dark and even Swing Street was empty. I was afraid with every step that Scarlet Jen of the Floating World would swoop down on me, red dress billowing like wings— well, it had been a long night and I have a fanciful kind of imagination, as I guess you know by now. I held on to my gun under my coat. I entered the Ormolu and fell into bed. I was too tired to undress but could not sleep in my own attic room because of the light of the moon and the bigness of the sky and the occasional sounds of shouting from the street, so I went down into the basement and lay on my back on the warm earth where the Apparatus had been. That was where I was when Mr. Baxter’s detectives caught up with me.
CHAPTER 22
THE DETECTIVES
“Harry Ransom?”
“Professor Ransom, if that’s what you call yourself.”
“Is this it? This junk? Is this it? Is it? Answer, damn you. Wake up.
On your feet.”
“Don’t move. Stay on the floor. Don’t you dare move.”
“What? Who are you? Who are you people? All right— I’m not moving— I said I’m not moving.”
“You bastards— how dare you.”
“Listen, Ransom. We know who you are. You’ve led us all on a hell of a chase and fair play to you. Don’t make trouble now.”
“I’m not— leave that alone.”
“This is the so-called Ransom Apparatus? Well then this is the property
of the Northern Lighting Corporation and the Baxter Trust and Mr. Baxter his own self, Mr. Ransom, and as their deputized agent I’ll touch it if I please.”
“How dare you, you ——.”
“That is the property of the Ormolu Theater, sir, and— listen, Hal, what is this, what do these people mean, Ransom?”
“Listen, Mr. Quantrill, I guess you don’t have much reason now to trust me, but my advice to you is not to ask questions and to get out of here while you can.”
“You stay where you are, Quantrill— is that your name? Quantrill. All right. Stay where you are. And will somebody gag that fucking woman? Hite, Copper, what’s the problem, she’s hardly five feet tall.”
“She bit me, boss. She’s real mad.”
“Leave her alone.”
“What’s her name? Who is she? Quantrill— give a name.”
“Adela Iermo something Kotan something else, I don’t know. That’s what she said. I don’t know. I don’t know what this is all about. Take ’em both.”
“Don’t tell me my business, Quantrill.”
“Have your men pack up everything in this room, Detective Gates. Carefully.”
“Right under our noses. Right in Jasper. All this time.”
“Hal, is this about what happened the other night— that light— what is it?”
“Shut your mouth, Quantrill.”
“I have my rights. I’ll sue— your boss doesn’t scare me.”
“Shut your mouth, Ransom.”
“Get up.”
“Stay where you are.”
“Mmmpphh. Mmmm-mmm. Mrrrgg.”
“Harry Ransom, sometimes Professor Harry Ransom, my name is Charles Elias Shelby, attorney at law. My colleagues here are detectives in the employ of the Baxter Detective Agency. I represent the Northern Lighting Corporation and the Baxter Trust and Mr. Baxter personally.”
“I know what you represent, Shelby. Your boss works for the—”
“I’d advise you to avoid further slander, Mr. Ransom. Now this here is an order of the high court of Jasper City, Mr. Ransom, enjoining you from further infringements on the property and licenses and good name of Mr. Baxter and the NLC. You may consider this service of process.”
“Careful of him, Mr. Shelby.”
“This is all a lie— the Process is mine, nobody else’s, your boss and his bosses may think they own the whole world but they don’t.”
“Mmph. Mmph.”
“The law is the law, Mr. Ransom. The voice of authority has spoken and the game is over.”
“Careful, Mr. Shelby.”
“All of this is over, Mr. Ransom. That is the meaning of the word injunction, which you will see here, and again here, on this order. Only a word, all of it only words, but words of great power. I think you understand about words, Mr. Ransom. Why, what else is there? Now in this instance the power of this word is the power to set the world back on its proper course, to put an end to these shenanigans and japes and nonsense and to say who’s who and what’s what and who owns what. This is a word that commands you to be silent. To be still. We are going to seize your device, Mr. Ransom, and what’s more you shall never be permitted to build it again, or anything else, no matter where you go. The law is the law the world over, Mr. Ransom. Furthermore—”
“Now, Mr. Shelby, just hand him the paper and don’t—”
“Hey—what’s that— under his coat?”
“Bastard’s got a gun, damn it!”
“Get him.”
“Wait—I wasn’t—”
“Get it!”
“Ugh. Ow.”
“Mmmphh!”
“Got it— got it.”
“What were you planning with this? Eh? Ransom? What are you doing in Jasper City anyway?”
“Conspiracy to murder I’d call this, what do you say Mr. Shelby?”
“Why, that may very well be, Detective.”
“I didn’t know. I swear on my mother’s grave I didn’t know.”
“Listen, Quantrill— you shut your mouth and you keep it shut, understand? This man is a thief and a fraud, who stole from Mr. Baxter, and nobody wants it to get out what kind of people work here, do they?”
“No sir. No sir. My lips are sealed. He was never here, as far as I’m concerned.”
“You coward, Quantrill— you still owe me money.”
“The Injunction commands your silence, Mr. Ransom. Don’t make me ask the detectives to enforce it.”
“That’s lawyer-speak for shut your damn mouth, Ransom. Now stand up.”
“Please, Detectives, don’t damage him. Now. Now listen. My employer wants to talk to you, Mr. Ransom. Frankly I have advised him against this course of action but he says he likes to look a man in the eye when he deals with him.”
“Mr. Baxter wants to talk to me?”
“Who else? Will you come peacefully, Mr. Ransom?”
CHAPTER 23
MR. ALFRED P. BAXTER
It was the first time in my life I had ever traveled in a motor-car. The windows of this conveyance were made of dark glass. The interior was shadow and murk and seats of a black substance that was unpleasantly soft and uncomfortably hard, both at the same time. I was watched from across the shadows by the faces of Mr. Shelby, attorney at law, and Mr. Gates, officer of the Baxter Detective Agency. Shelby’s face was round and pink and moist, like a new-hatched chick, or a tub of ointment. Gates was brown and stubbled and hard. He wore a blue blazer with a military collar, brass studded. I could not make out the meaning of his insignia. I could not make out the operations of the motor-car, either. You will understand that my curiosity was elsewhere. I can report that there was a bad smell and a nauseous vibration, and that the driver operated his horn so often to clear the streets of donkeys and carts and small boys that it was like one long continuous note of alarm, somehow perpetually rising in pitch and volume.
I was removed from the motor-car and led across an expanse of concrete in the shadow of Mr. Baxter’s Tower and through a servant’s entrance into a long corridor of smooth stone and electric-light that ended in a row of a dozen or maybe more ornate and fabulous brass doors, each of them numbered.
This was also the first occasion on which I rode in an elevator.
Of course it was no surprise that Mr. Baxter’s Tower should be so equipped. As everyone well knows, Mr. Alfred Baxter made his first fortune with the elevator, at the age of no more than twenty-five. The ingenious invention had made possible the tall buildings of Jasper and Gibson and Juniper, an explosion of commerce— what he called in his Autobiography,“the conquest of the sky.”
We took the last elevator. Inside it was made of red leather and polished wood and gold and brass. A hot electric-light hung from the ceiling. Its motion was as smooth and silent as the car’s had been herky-jerky.
I guessed that we were in Mr. Baxter’s private elevator, because the thing stopped nowhere between the ground and the highest floor of the building. I could not say how many times over the years I had day-dreamed about riding that elevator! But I had never day-dreamed about Mr. Shelby, or Mr. Gates, or Mr. Gates’s two ill-favored associates, who stood with their hands on their nightsticks and did not bother to disguise their eagerness to beat me.
Adela had been left behind at the Theater. I was both pleased and sorry that she was not with me. So had Mr. Quantrill. I did not miss him at all.
There was a sensation in my head and feet as we ascended that I cannot describe to anyone who has not had occasion to ride in an elevator.
Mr. Gates lit a cigarette and Mr. Shelby shook his head in disapproval.
The doors opened and Mr. Gates shoved me forward.
How shall I describe Mr. Alfred P. Baxter? First I’ll say that he existed, and that by itself was something of a surprise, because I had sometimes suspected that he was nothing but a name, with no body attached. It was not much of a body but it was not nothing.
You saw the room first, not the man. It was a wide and high-ceilinged room wi
th curtains on the windows and bookshelves on the walls and a number of writing-desks, on one of which sat a typewriter of unusual size. On another sat what I later discovered was a telegraph-machine. Electric-light spilled from a corner across a floor of gray tiles and long black shadows. Two young men in white shirts stood in another two corners, both fairly quivering with eagerness to be useful. I knew their type and quickly disregarded them. In the last corner of the room a man in a black suit with close-cropped black hair stood beside a leather chair. At first I thought he was Mr. Baxter, but of course he was many years too young. Mr. Alfred P. Baxter could not have been less than eighty years old.
The old man himself occupied the leather chair. When he moved I started in surprise, and I felt Detective Gates stiffen.
Mr. Baxter’s thin arm reached from beneath a blanket— and not to beckon me forward or acknowledge my presence in any way, but only to pull closer the mouthpiece of a small metal tank, from which he inhaled or imbibed something or other. Then he coughed.