The Adventures of Phineas Frakture

by Joseph Gatch

  “I don’t recall borrowing any from her,” Phineas replied.

  “Not us, per se. She claims that our ships sank a couple of her transports out of France. Emperor Grant is obviously denying it. He claims we had no ships in the Channel and she can shove her accusations and her ships up that bustle of hers. Very bold statement, if I do say so myself. I tell you there will be war between us before the century is out. Germany is against us, France, Spain…the Russians seem to be the only ones we have not offended…yet.”

  “Let them come. We trounced Mexico and took Canada from the French…we have a larger empire than they could hope to defeat. They would be mad.” Phineas stacked his papers neatly and slid them into his case. “What of that coil I asked you to find?”

  “Mmm. I have a supplier in the city who says he has one to your exact specifications. A perfect fit. I am picking it up today, though I’m still at odds for what you could possibly need it for.”

  “A new engine that I have been toying around with. It works on the principle of magnetism. If it works like I predict, it will revolutionize engines as we know them, and we will no longer be slaves to the boiler.”

  “Well then, I shouldn’t keep your vision grounded. I will make haste so that you can blow yourself into the next world.” William stood, doffed his bowler, and loaded his pockets with the remaining crullers. “Don’t forget the Burlesque tonight. Abigail will kill you if you forget…again.”

  “You are going to get fat from all of those crullers,” Phineas called after him.

  Looking down at the floor where the recently cleaned broken glass had fallen, Phineas suppressed a shudder as he tried to control the fear that had overtaken him moments before. He had become a master of hiding it all these years, from colleagues, from his uncle, who had taken him and his sister in after their mother suffered her breakdown, and most importantly from his sister, whom he felt that he must be strong for in the absence of their parents.

  Phineas pushed aside the papers and picked up the discarded daily edition which he opened to the section that included the sightings. He stared at it, all the while forcing memories back into the dark recesses of his mind. With a quick tear, he ran the article into his study, opened his locked inner sanctum, and pinned the article to the wall amidst several hundred other similar accounts.

  Phineas quickly exited the room and locked the door behind him. Shaking, he slumped forward until his head rested against the door, and he banged it against the oak three times.

  “I understand, sir,” Mrs. Popkiss’ voice said from behind him.

  Phineas quickly whirled around and ungraciously stood up straight. “What do you understand, Mrs. Popkiss?” he asked, trying to compose himself as he spoke.

  “I’m not a fool, sir. I know what you have in there. All I can say is that I know how you feel. I’ve lost too, you know.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “Go. I have your suit ready for tonight, and there is a lovely, albeit ruffian at heart, young girl who will be expecting you to show her a nice time tonight.” She patted his shoulder, creating a small white cloud. “And, please, for the love of all that is holy, bathe until you are no longer covered in chalk dust.”

  EPISODE

  3

  “Thank you for remembering tonight, Phin,” Abigail said as they left the show. “Usually, I have to remind you three or four times before you put it at the top of your ‘to do’ list.”

  “Yes, well, I had some assistance in that realm…in the way of Mrs. Popkiss, Patterson, and my entire class…it was a conspiracy, I tell you. I can’t imagine why everyone was making such a fuss about a show.”

  Abigail Bentley looked hurt for a moment and then composed herself, knowing that this absent-minded professor that she was in love with couldn’t be to blame. “Is it because it is the anniversary of the day we met, possibly?”

  Phineas arched his right eyebrow and looked at her with curiosity. Her dark brown eyes pleaded with him to remember. “So we are celebrating the day that you ran me over with that two-wheeled contraption you were riding and the four hours after that when you followed me around asking if I was all right half the time and cursing me the other half? You are a sentimental one, are you not?”

  Abigail punched him in the arm and smiled. “You make it sound like an awful day, you sot.”

  “It was for me. I limped for a week.”

  She patted his cheek. “Poor thing. That’s what you get for walking in the middle of the road with your nose buried in schematics.”

  “Yes, and you have been a pain in my backside ever since,” Phineas retorted.

  “Is that who I think it is?” asked Abigail, pointing down the avenue. “What is William doing here? Checking up on you to see if you remembered?”

  “He said that he had a parts dealer in the city. The dealer must be nearby…or he waited around to see if I remembered. Why must everyone take an interest in my personal life? If we hurry, we might be able to run off before he notices us. Knowing him, he will wish to join us for dinner.”

  “Behave yourself. William is your dearest friend.”

  William spotted the pair, obviously after a serious scan of the theater front, and, after catching a wave from Abigail, he waved back and began making his way towards them.

  Something caught Phineas’ attention, which suddenly caught Abigail’s.

  “Phineas? What’s wrong?”

  His body froze as his eyes searched the street. Then he saw the pedestrians beginning to move in a wave in their direction. Screams carried down the street towards them as the panic grew. He watched as the wave passed and the street cleared. Then he saw them: four lumbering behemoths in the center of the street. Each had two men in their grasp. Some of the men were struggling; others were limp as a rag doll either from fear or punishment. Their quarry caught, the Dolonites began to turn back to whence they came. Phineas heard the wheezing tanks as they began to move away. His eyes never left them, either fear or fascination or both rooting him to where he stood.

  Finally, Abigail shook him from his trance. “William! Where’s William? He didn’t come through with the others.” Abigail quickly looked around for their friend. “Oh my God! They have William!” She pointed towards the trailing Dolonite, and, as she said, there was William being dragged behind.

  Phineas watched as the Dolonites pulled William and the others along.

  “Are you just going to stand there? Aren’t you going to do something?”

  He was frozen to the spot, completely helpless. “There is nothing to do. We cannot stop them,” Phineas said with resignation.

  “You are not even going to try?” Abigail began looking for something to use as a weapon.

  Phineas took her by the arm and held her tight. “They cannot be stopped. If we try, we will die. He is lost to us now.”

  “He is your friend. How can you say that? Don’t you have any feelings for him?”

  “It’s not that, Abigail. I have seen what they are capable of. I know that there is no hope.” He watched the disappointment on her face grow. She was a woman who took matters into her own hands. She built some of the finest machines in the empire and was a fearless pilot. He, on the other hand, was a professor…just a professor…never in harm’s way, never taking a risk. He knew nothing about fighting and, if truth be told, he was a coward in most people’s eyes. “Let’s follow them, at least…from a safe distance. Maybe we can find where they are going and then determine a course of action.”

  Abigail smiled at this. At least it was something…anything that would feel like they were taking action.

  They gave the Dolonites a fairly good head start, in order to avoid detection, which was a difficult task at the rate they moved. A slow, steady pace was all they could afford, until they reached an alley…and the Dolonites were gone. The pair quickly checked the few doors that were available to them. All were locked, and the alley that they were in ended in a wall. There was no way in or out except the way they had come…and the doors. The du
o exited the alley and inspected the building fronts. Both were shops. One was a seamstress; the other a cobbler.

  “Perplexing to say the least,” said Phineas. “We must be missing something here.” He removed a stick of chalk from his breast pocket and x’d the brick wall of the alley.

  Abigail gave him a disdaining look. “Do you always carry that?”

  “Of course. What woman can resist the alluring smell of chalk dust?” he replied. “Come on. We need to get to my lab and pick up a few things.”

  “Shouldn’t we wait until daylight? Find someone to go with us?” Abigail asked. Then, as she watched his face, it dawned on her. “I get it. This is a puzzle to you…and you hate not knowing.”

  “That, and…well, as you said, William needs our help. He also has my coil, which I paid him in advance for, and I am not going to lose that,” Phineas quickly added to cover up any sentiment.

  “Right,” she answered, obviously seeing through his transparent effort.

  Phineas burst through the door of his lab, startling Mrs. Popkiss as she was dusting off some of his clutter. “I thought I told you never to tidy up in here,” he said as he began digging through boxes.

  “Do you think that the dust just magically disappears in here, or that it is simply afraid to be around your abrasive charm?” she quickly retorted.

  He shook his head as he continued tossing box after box aside.

  “Ah, Miss Bentley…did you enjoy the show? Or did this lout leave you at your doorstep waiting for him again?”

  “No, ma’am. We actually had a very nice time; that is until…until William was taken by those brutes.”

  Mrs. Popkiss’ eyes widened in terror. “No! They didn’t take poor William?” She knew fully well who Abigail was referring to as ‘those brutes’. “How many others?”

  “At least six…that we could see. We marked the alley in which they disappeared, and we are planning a rescue, that is, when he finds whatever it is he is looking for.”

  “How is he handling this?” the housekeeper asked, nodding towards the rummaging professor.

  “He was hesitant at first, but now he seems determined to see this through. Why?”

  Phineas stood up and swung a large rifle towards them. “I found it!” he proclaimed as the two women dove for cover. “No time for games, ladies. We have no time to lose.” He grabbed two lanterns from the wall, set them aside, and then rummaged through his desk and pulled out a revolver. Handing that to Abigail, he turned to Mrs. Popkiss. “If we are not back by the noon tomorrow, consider yourself unemployed.” With that, he picked up his pocket belt and one of the lanterns and rushed out the door.

  “Famous last words, I expect. I shall keep them in my heart forever!” she called after him.

  Abigail just grasped her hand and gave a weak smile.

  “Keep him safe, dear. You know he shoots worse than he remembers things.”

  “I will, Mrs. Popkiss. That’s why I let him keep the bigger gun.”

  After Abigail had left to follow after Phineas, and Mrs. Popkiss had returned to tidying up the lab, she stopped for a moment and raised her eyes, which were full of tears. “Please watch over them tonight. The boy is stronger than he thinks. Let him use the talents he has to fight his demons.”

  EPISODE

  4

  Upon returning to the alley, they found the street slightly less deserted than when they had left. Few citizens ventured out for fear of the Dolonites’ return. Frakture, however, knew that their nocturnal activities were at an end…at least for tonight. He had studied these creatures’ habits since he was a boy. There was very little he didn’t know about them. He scoured the newspapers for every account of their movements; who they took, and where they took them from. His inner sanctum, or his war room, however he thought of it, was the epitome of Dolonite research. And yet, with all his knowledge, he was no closer to finding from whence they came or how to stop them.

  Now, due to the unfortunate events of the evening, Phineas suddenly felt as if he was on an out-of-control locomotive, hurtling towards the answers he had sought all these years. Even in his fear, his analytic mind was piecing together every bit of data, filling in gaps and connecting dots. All this time, denied vengeance hovered around him like a veil, and he could not break through to find his closure. However, this was no longer the fear of the little boy, watching as his father was taken from him, that was holding him back. It was the determination of a man who could reason, who would stop at nothing to solve a problem, that drove him forward.

  Phineas and Abigail rechecked the doors and walls and even the cobblestones. There was nothing to indicate where the Dolonites had gone. Phineas pulled a lock pick from his pocket belt and began fiddling with the lock to the seamstress shop.

  “What are you doing?” Abigail hissed. “We are going to get caught!”

  “You’re the one who insisted on doing something. So, I’m doing something.”

  “Breaking into a business was not my idea of doing something,” she retorted.

  Phineas heard a click and eased the door open. “They had to go somewhere. It’s either here or the other shop. We’ll just have a quick look around and get out before anyone finds us.” He reached out for her and tugged Abigail inside with him. The shop interior was dusty and unused. Obviously it hadn’t been occupied for a long time. Phineas quickly turned and dragged his companion back into the alley.

  “That was quick,” she whispered. “I thought we were going to look around.”

  “No point,” Phineas said, pointing to the floor. “Our tracks are visible in the dust. If they had come through here, there would have been much more of a disturbance. On to the next.” He closed the door and made sure the lock was secure once again.

  “I still think that we should get some of the soldiers out here to help,” Abigail said.

  “They’re worthless. No one will help us but ourselves. Besides, you’ve never been one to share the glory.”

  “Glory is no good if you are too dead to enjoy it,” she muttered.

  The lock on the cobbler shop was much easier to open than the one on the seamstress’. They slipped inside just as a nervous watchman scurried past the alley; not that he even ventured a look down the last place where the Dolonites had been spotted.

  Once inside, Phineas suddenly grabbed Abigail’s sleeve and she felt a plunging sensation as he dropped into a hole in the floor, dragging her down with him. They landed with a thud and a ‘whoof’ as they reached the bottom a short distance down.

  “You just had to take me with you, didn’t you?” Abigail said, as she untangled herself from him.

  “I didn’t want you to miss the fun,” Phineas replied sarcastically. He stood with a crackle of joints and stretched his aching back. “I landed on my gun.”

  “Probably the most damage it will do tonight,” she muttered. Swinging her lantern around, she spied a long trail of displaced sewage, garbage, and muck. “It looks like we go this way.”

  They followed the trail for what seemed like miles, carefully watching for recent disturbances in the sewage where the sewers branched off. As they walked, Phineas marked the walls with his arsenal of chalk.

  “They have been quite busy, from the looks of it,” Phineas commented. “The tracks go off all through the city.”

  “And have you noticed that we haven’t seen a single rat since we have been down here?”

  “Sewer kraken have probably eaten them all,” he replied nonchalantly.

  Abigail paused for a moment and wondered if he was serious as she scanned the water they were traipsing through. “Mrs. Popkiss seemed very rattled about the news. She was concerned about you…more than usual.”

  “Hmph,” replied Phineas. “She is always doting over me…probably concerned that she will not get paid this week.”

  “I find that hard to believe. I think that woman would work for free if you let her. Phin, is there something that you are not telling me about all this? How do you know
about these creatures?”

  “Let us just call it a personal thing and leave it at that.”

  Abigail carried on in silence. This man, who she inexplicably would follow into the depths of the abyss—as she was doing at the moment—had more to him than it appeared. He held back so much that she was beginning to question how deep this seemingly shallow man really was.

  Finally, they came to what looked like the end of the trail.

  The pair stepped into a dry room set off to the side of the sewer tunnels. What was probably once an area for city workers to rest and store equipment, was now, it seemed, the entrance to the lair of the Dolonites.

  “There is nothing here,” Abigail said as she shone her light around the room. She opened the shutter to emit full illumination and set it on the floor, giving them an un-obscured look at the room. Bare walls surrounded nothing. There was no equipment, no clutter, no tracks to even hint at the presence of the beasts. “Are you sure we didn’t miss a turn?” Abigail said, double-checking the trail outside.

  “I was thorough!” proclaimed Phineas. “This is where they went. I am sure of it.” He leaned against the wall and rubbed his eyes. “Arrgh! This is hopeless. We are never going to find him.”

  “Have faith,” Abigail responded as she came back into the room. “We just have to think about…Phineas?”

  The room was empty, save for the lamp on the floor.

  “Phineas?” Abigail ran around the room in bewilderment. “Oh, it’s just like that man to go and get lost in a room with one exit. PHINEAS!”

  There was a pounding somewhere and a muffled shout, and, upon closer inspection, Abigail found that a portion of the wall opposite the entrance was slightly offset from the rest. She gave a slight push and then a hard shove. Unfortunately, the wall gave way easier than she expected, and she went flying into the chamber beyond and straight into Phineas, who caught her in his arms.