Mr. Grey had the grace to look away, past Seamus and across the river. At least the man would not tell an outright lie.
“And where is Miss September Wilde? Can’t she do anything?” Seamus asked.
“It’s complicated. There are things that can and cannot be done. I’m helping you the best I can. I’m doing everything I can without disrupting essential time threads.”
The spider machine was now destroying a workhouse where poor women sewed for a pittance. It was one step above walking the streets, and a fire burned in Seamus when he thought of the workers, mothers and young girls who had nowhere else to go to make a living. It wasn’t enough to go after buildings owned by factory owners or businessmen. McCullen was destroying the lives of the poor. But then, once word spread that the East India Company was attempting to destroy the South’s production and shipping systems, who but the lower class men would serve as foot soldiers in a war? Already, the North and their shipping interests were inextricably linked to England and John Company in the public mind. It was one step further to blame the North for this attack and bring on a war that would kill thousands. He and Miss Sanchez would be unable to prevent the Civil War. And even if it went on, there was no guarantee that the South would lose.
“Hazel, hand me that spanner,” said Seamus. She did so without comment. That was one thing he liked about her. When something needed doing, she did it.
“Do you know what’s just that way?” Seamus pointed south, down the river.
“No, what?” said Mr. Grey.
“The Port of New Orleans. We have a few riverboats docked up here, but that port is a beautiful target full of ships and cargo. It’s the largest port in the entire South. See how he’s moving that machine?” He pointed in turn at each building that had been destroyed. “He’s going to head south at some point, toward the port. And I’m going to stop him.”
“How will you do that?” Hazel asked.
“By ripping a hole in time.”
Chapter 34
“Don’t even let the thought cross your mind,” growled McCullen. “I haven’t hurt a soul. All those nuns were out and safe, and the other buildings were empty.”
Felicia leaned against the wall, glaring at the back of McCullen’s head. She only tried to forcibly wrest control of the hexapod from him after she had tried to talk him out of his spree of destruction without success. The best she had been able to do was to convince him to wait longer than he had wanted to before destroying each building. It would give people more of a chance to get out. Her attempt to redirect the hexapod had led to McCullen throwing her to the floor. He had not spoken to her in some time and she knew he was furious with her. She returned the sentiment.
“How many are you going to do?” she asked. “Aren’t you finished yet?”
“I’ll tell you when I’m finished, and it’s not yet. There are still a good number to go.”
“But how is the South supposed to survive and fight if you destroy so much? You do want them to win the war, don’t you?”
“I’ve thought it through carefully, I assure you. I am not going to be destroying any military facilities, nor will I do anything that would permanently cripple the area. Please, give me some credit. I am not a madman.”
“That’s debatable.”
She looked again toward the river, and again saw a shimmer. She thought she had seen three so far, though she wasn’t sure if her imagination was playing tricks on her.
“Please, Oren. You’re ripping more time holes and God only knows what that’s going to do. Would you really condemn others to our fate?”
“Seamus told me that the engines rip doorways, but I have yet to see a man-made doorway with my own eyes.”
“The shimmers only last a second or two. But the Mardi Gras celebration created too many synchronicities.”
“What are you talking about?”
“If the same, or at least a similar thing is happening on either side of the time rip, it allows the shimmer to occur. In my world, and presumably in yours, Mardi Gras had parades and crowds. So it created synchronicities. That’s what’s allowing the rips to form.”
She was about to mention the Delphia Queen and the rips along the riverbank created by the engines and the multitude of ships docked there in other universes, but she saw a shimmer directly below them.
“There, did you see it?” she pointed.
“Yes,” his voice was low and quiet.
“See? We could go back home. If you and Seamus worked together instead of arguing all the time, you could do it. But then I suppose you’d want to start a war in some other world.”
“I am not a warmonger. I am merely doing what is necessary for the good of this world. Getting the English to cease their colonial ambitions entirely is what must occur. Independence for my homeland would come next. And then independence for other nations who have been under their filthy English thumbs.”
“And what about the United States? You’ll be throwing them into civil war.”
“That’s a secondary concern.”
“Not to me, it’s not. And not to the soldiers and their families. And not to the people who are slaves. The North has to win, and they won’t if you give your engines to the South.”
“Miss Sanchez, you are short-sighted. War there must be, and war there shall be. The English will fight on the side of the North, and commit their troops. Then, when the English are away, the Irish and others can be armed and overthrow their colonizers. It’s necessary. And it will free so many. But afterward, don’t you think we could create planting and harvesting machines? If I can create the engines and this hexapod, I can create other machines. The South wants slavery because it’s economically dependent upon it. Once machines take the place of slaves, once machines are cheaper than people, the institution can die a natural death.”
“Over how many years?”
“Well, you can make that a personal project of yours. Discover germs, revolutionize medicine, free the slaves and give women the vote. Could you have done so much back in the twenty-first century?”
He almost made it sound appealing, she thought. She glanced back toward the river and saw a man dragging a wheeled trunk. It was Mr. Grey. She looked in the direction he was heading and saw two figures, one a tall man and the other, a boy. Seamus pulled things out of his leather case while talking and gesticulating.
McCullen turned the hexapod down another street to destroy the tobacconist. She had watched him long enough that she had an idea of how to control the machine, but the buttons and levers were unlabeled, and he was the only one who knew exactly what they did. If she was wrong and did the wrong thing, the whole hexapod would crash to the ground, killing them both.
After McCullen tore part of the wall off of a butcher shop and a neighboring market, he leaned over to examine his handiwork below.
“I’m not going to do any more damage. Let them rebuild.”
“A surgical strike. How admirable,” she said and looked out the side window. McCullen was absorbed in driving the hexapod down the street, and Felicia stood on tiptoe to look toward where she had seen Seamus, Mr. Grey and Hazel. The riverbank came into view for just an instant here and there between the buildings. It looked like Seamus had some kind of machine set up.
Of course, Seamus knew that McCullen was piloting the hexapod, but the rest of the city would not. McCullen had told her that the British and the East India Company, and by extension, the Northern states, would be blamed for the attack. For a while, she had been frightened that the police or military would come tearing out from behind a building, guns blazing. But no such thing had happened. No one had opposed McCullen’s march of destruction.
And then there was Seamus, setting up some mad thing on the riverbank that could possibly kill all of them, or at least McCullen and herself. Seamus had
no way of knowing she was on board.
McCullen turned the hexapod south, along the riverbank. It stomped along the long, thin strip of grass that separated the riverbank from Jackson Square. In her world, the grassy area was called Woldenberg Park, but she didn’t know the name of it here.
Hazel, Seamus and Mr. Grey were all gathered two blocks south of Jackson Square. Their position was just at the place where the land jutted slightly outward into the water. They were at the middle of the grass, directly at the center point between St. Peter Street and the water. Felicia could see why they had chosen it. If McCullen drove the hexapod along the thin strip of Woldenberg Park or if he went straight down St. Peter Street, they could do whatever they had in mind. She knew that there were ways to interrupt electrical signals with magnetism. Maybe Seamus planned to stop the hexapod that way. But no, she had another idea of what he was going to do.
They were far enough away that McCullen wouldn’t see them unless he was looking for them. Mr. Grey and Seamus knelt, working on something on the ground. Hazel squatted nearby. Already, several machines stood ready, including the tripod sensors that Seamus had used around the cathedral earlier.
The hexapod stomped up next to the docked ships. McCullen turned the machine and it reached out its terrible arms, ripping railings and cabin walls from a beautiful old riverboat. It was empty, thankfully, but when he was through, it was a wreck.
“I won’t sink it,” he said. “They can rebuild.”
He moved on to the next ship. He seemed to have formed a little running commentary for her benefit, telling her how the damage he was doing was only temporary. It was all strategic.
“You didn’t destroy the Café du Monde,” she said. It was at the corner of Jackson Square farthest from Seamus, and even though it pained her, if its destruction gave Seamus more time, then it would be worth it. “It’s a huge landmark, isn’t it? It even survived until my time.”
“It’s owned by one of the krewe,” said McCullen.
She thought of arguing with him on the evils of sparing one’s partners in crime from the pain and destruction others would have to face, but it would do no good. Besides, who could say if the owner knew a thing about Krewe Taranis’s assassinations and involvement in nefarious political deeds? The owner could just be interested in mummy parties and balls.
“And what about the police? Does the chief belong to the krewe also? Is that why no one is trying to stop you?”
“A police chief would not be in the social class of the other krewe members,” he said.
Oh, yes. Of course. But a police chief could be bribed. And asking someone to leave a terrifying machine alone would not be so hard.
She looked out at the river and thought she saw a shimmer, but it vanished. Seamus looked up. He had seen it too. Then he bent back over the machine. McCullen ripped apart the next steamboat.
From this distance, Felicia could get a good look at the cathedral. The entire front wall was ripped off, and the side walls and roof were partially gone. The inside was a mass of fallen beams, shattered plaster and debris. The automatons were still scattered about like corpses and somewhere inside were statues, probably buried or broken. Felicia knew the people would rebuild, and by her time, the landmark would be shining and whole. But to see all the beautiful buildings destroyed was torture.
McCullen was focused on the riverboat and did not see Mr. Grey stand up and speak to Seamus. Hazel did a little spinning dance, jumping in a circle and clapping.
It was going to work. Seamus was going to open up a time rip as she and McCullen were passing by. They would be sent to wherever it led, past or future. They could arrive when no humans other than a few Native Americans were in the area. They would freeze or starve. Or they could come through in prehistoric times. Or maybe in some distant future time where she would be a strange relic, unable to function in the world.
McCullen finished with the steamboats and marched the hexapod down the strip of Woldenberg Park. Seamus crouched down next to his machine. Hazel and Mr. Grey moved off toward the buildings. Of course Seamus would want Hazel away from any time rip. But then, what was he doing so close to it?
Then it came. The shimmer appeared, but it was over the water, not on land. And McCullen was not about to drive the hexapod into the water. That was where the synchronicity must be. All the riverboats through the centuries had traveled that route. Vehicles as large as hexapods driving down St. James Street were much more of a rarity.
Seamus was doing something with the machine, most likely trying to get the rip to appear over land. He turned the machine sideways and then pounded the top with his fist. She would have laughed if she hadn’t been so terrified.
“Ah, there’s my boy,” said McCullen. “I was wondering when he’d show up.”
This was Felicia’s only chance. McCullen paused to watch Seamus’s frantic movements. She was fairly sure she knew which levers to pull to steer the hexapod the forty-five degrees necessary to hit the center of the shimmering time rip. With luck, she could open the bottom hatch and get out. But if not, at least she could spare this world from McCullen’s madness and war. She would spare Hazel and Seamus, and even secretive Mr. Grey.
She leapt forward, shoved the levers and then, when McCullen grabbed her from behind, she elbowed him hard in the stomach. She levered her torso forward and when she felt McCullen become unbalanced, she flung her head backward into his face. McCullen’s nose make a soft popping sound as her skull cracked into it. His arms released her as he grabbed at his face. Instead of checking to see what he was going to do next, Felicia pushed the levers farther, adjusting them to what she thought was the correct setting.
The hexapod swayed wildly, then staggered in the direction of the water.
“You damned idiot!” screamed McCullen. “You’ll kill us both.”
He went for the controls and shoved her aside. The front feet of the hexapod stepped into the mud on the riverbank. Felicia pushed McCullen and he as he lost his balance, he grabbed her. The edge of the chair hit him in the back of the knees, sending him backward onto the floor, with her sprawling on top of him.
The hexapod lurched sideways. The floor tipped one way, then the other as the hexapod tried to stabilize itself. It then slogged forward, pulling its feet out of the mud two by two, its engines roaring with the effort.
“We’re in the mud. It will get stuck!” shouted McCullen. He leapt into the chair, so when the floor tipped backwards again, Felicia slid to the back of the compartment while McCullen stayed put. He righted the hexapod for an instant, and through the glass, Felicia saw the air shimmering in front of them. They were now pretty far into the Mississippi River and the water was only about five feet below the base of the hexapod’s body. The hexapod swayed sickeningly and Felicia saw shimmers on either side of the hexapod, just a few feet from the side windows. It was just like on her bus back home. The shimmers seemed to be all around them.
McCullen worked at the lever and cursed in Gaelic, but it wasn’t the lilting and amusing way that Seamus cursed at his machinery. McCullen just sounded ugly. The hexapod’s feet had a harder and harder time pulling free of the mud. It leaned forward for another step, the feet straining to find purchase. But it was too late. Brown and white crashed outside the windows as the body of the hexapod splashed down into the river. Then dark water covered the front windows.
Felicia grabbed onto a pipe as the hexapod floated on its side, some of its feet still stuck in the mud. Water poured in through the cracks between the window panes. Moments later, something broke free in the mud below, and there was a different sort of movement, gentle and undulating. The current was carrying them. The hexapod was floating directly into the shimmering time rip.
Chapter 35
Seamus watched the hexapod splash down into the water. A few of the lights on the underside of the machine flickered an
d blinked off, but enough were still on to give plenty of light. It seemed like there was somehow too much light. The body of the machine was half-submerged and he saw a figure inside.
A few people were gathered on the riverbank. They had been hiding inside the shops and down side streets and now that the machine was crippled, they ventured out to watch its death. Seamus thought that the gigantic contraption would have been magnificent, if only it had not been used as an instrument of destruction. Then he imagined hordes of the machines, stomping through Atlanta or Memphis, Philadelphia or New York. Would McCullen stack the war in the South’s favor, or sell machines to both sides? The monsters could tear through London, through Dublin. The world was hardly at peace, but machines like these would tip whatever fragile balance currently existed. The thing had to be destroyed. Or better yet, removed entirely from this world so no one could ever learn from it or create another.
But what if the rip sent it to the past? It could change the entire course of history. But then, if that were the case, then history would already have been changed. Did that mean that the rip was to the future?
“Professor!” screamed Hazel and pointed at the machine. “I see white inside!”
It took a moment for Seamus to know what she meant, but by the time he understood, the hatch on the bottom of the machine banged open. Out came a foot, a slim foot clad in a purple canvas and white rubber shoe.
He ran toward the water. He was a God damned idiot. He tore off his coat and cursed himself with all the viciousness brought on by his ice cold fear. Miss Sanchez was with McCullen. Of course. She had been with him when Seamus had left her. And she would have wanted to learn what McCullen was up to. But how had she ended up in the machine? Had McCullen forced her inside?
When he was waist-deep in the water, Seamus turned and made eye contact with Mr. Grey. “Turn it off!” he yelled. “Shut it down!”
The Time Corps Chronicles (Complete Series) Page 27