Falling Machine, The (The Society of Steam, Book One)

by Andrew P. Mayer

  “O'Rourke!” he cried out again, louder this time. If he was being honest with himself, it was long past time to let the old man retire. And under normal circumstances he would have worked out some kind of acceptable pension and sent O'Rourke off to live out his remaining days in relative comfort. But he currently had neither the time nor the inclination to break in someone new. Just the thought of attempting to find someone who could anticipate his habits sent a chill down his spine.

  Inside Alexander's head his businessman's voice chided him for being penny-wise and pound-foolish. Every day he waited would make the inevitable transition that much more difficult, and when the inevitable day came when he was forced to find someone new, O'Rourke might be in no condition to pass on any wisdom. It was, he told himself, one of the occasional poor investments a man must make during his lifetime. Poor excuses for poor choices, the businessman shot back. Unsurprisingly, it sounded just like something his mother would say.

  Hoping that his call might yet be answered, Stanton looked up the stairwell, then peered down toward the kitchen. Considering the amount of money that went into employing a full-service staff, he was always amazed when it appeared as if there was no one in the house.

  Like a rabbit bolting out of its burrow, he saw a figure in black and white scurrying across the hall, attempting to avoid detection. “Mrs. Farrows!” he yelled after her as she disappeared into the next room.

  “Mrs. Farrows?” he repeated. For a moment there was no response, and then a woman's face peeked out at him, the rest of her matronly figure still hidden behind the doorframe. “Mr. Stanton, sir?”

  “Could you please come here, Mrs. Farrows?”

  She scurried toward him, her skirts rustling across the floor. “How may I help you, sir?”

  “Mrs. Farrows, I seem to have lost Mr. O'Rourke.”

  “I'll go find him, sir!” she said, her body reorienting to head her off in a new direction.

  “Hold a minute, please.”

  “Yes, sir.” She twisted back again instantly, the skirts swirling around her feet as they worked to catch up.

  Stanton considered himself committed to the idea that there should be no aristocracy in an American household, but he had to admit that the proper deference from a servant sometimes scratched an itch deep inside. “If you find anyone capable of helping, please tell them the door to my office has become jammed. And,” he continued before she could find another opportunity to bolt, “I'd like you to find my daughter.

  “Once you've succeeded, send her to my office.” For a moment he wondered if Sarah and the locked door could somehow be connected. It was preposterous, but not, he noted sadly, completely outside of the realm of possibility.

  He realized that Mrs. Farrows was still there staring at him, blinking like a confused forest animal. “Well?” he asked her, trying to make his impatience as plain as possible.

  “Is that all, sir?”

  “Yes,” he snapped. “I'll meet whomever it is you find first right here.”

  He stomped back down the hall in a huff. With his luck they'd have to replace the door completely, or tear it free from its hinges. It had been carved from a solid slab of oak, and it would cost hundreds of dollars to replace it.

  With nothing better to do he put his hand to the knob and gave it another twist. This time the door swung open effortlessly. “What in hell?” he muttered to himself as he stepped through.

  He felt a bit wary as he traversed the Persian carpet in front of his desk. As he traveled around the edge of it, he threw down the envelopes that he'd held stuffed under his arm and finally plopped himself down into the chair. Both he and the springs let out a groan as he settled into it.

  He tapped his fingers on the desktop a few times, hoping that it would help some of his tension dissipate. Darby had always said that calming the nerves was fundamental to preservation of health—although the old man had a saying for everything, and being calm had proved to be of little help when someone had fired a harpoon into his chest.

  Alexander shook his head. No matter how difficult the old man could be from time to time, he had deserved to die with more dignity.

  And perhaps he was right. In all likelihood Stanton was suffering from too much anxiety. How long had it been since he'd last left New York City? But the idea that the door to his office might simply have joined in the conspiracy against his nerves bothered him more than he liked to admit. And superstitious or not, he'd fought with more than one maniacal machine in the past. The days of the great mechanical villains seemed to be slipping behind them now, as even the best wind-up contraptions proved no match for fortified steam, but there had been a good, long while where there didn't seem to be a spring or latch in all of New York that hadn't been connected to some kind of deadly device or mantrap.

  He still remembered the wave of terror that the Reformer had managed to create by installing his self-activating guillotines to the top of random wine bottles across the city. “Temperance or Death” had been the madman's motto, and the city had, for a short period of time, mostly chosen the former.

  When they had finally reached his hideout, the Reformer's multibladed “morality machine” had almost been the death of the Industrialist. Even though he had seen the villain chopped to pieces by his own devices, Alexander still got chills whenever he lifted up a bottle and heard a clicking sound.

  The thought made him thirsty. He glanced over to the liquor cabinet, considering that he might have a drink to take the edge off the day. But if he was being honest with himself, and lately it seemed he could be nothing but, an edge was exactly what he needed most right now.

  Still, something in the room felt off, although for the life of him he couldn't put his finger on exactly what it was—something missing? But from where he was sitting, everything seemed to be right where it should be.

  Grabbing one of the envelopes he'd carried in with him, Alexander pulled open the flap and slid the contents out onto the desk. Written at the top of the form was the name of a man who was hoping to bolster the ranks of the Paragons. They had received a flurry of applications after Darby's death, and with the Automaton relegated to the basement, Hughes clearly already beyond the rigors of active duty, and the Sleuth too old to truly be of use in a fight, it was time to bolster the ranks with some genuine firepower before they faced a threat that they were simply not prepared for.

  As usual, the majority of the applicants had been easily dismissed. Some of them were outright jokes—fake applicants with rude names and ludicrous, impossible powers. He'd long passed the point where monikers such as “The Cocksman” or “Gas Pipe” were even remotely funny.

  On the next tier were the would-be heroes who thought that the basic requirements for becoming a Paragon were nothing more than a good workout regimen, a costume, and a desire to fight.

  Truth be told, it had been more like that in the early days. The hope had been to inspire others to follow their example, and to create a sort of costumed militia of heroes and do-gooders. But beyond the vigilantes who thought that wearing a costume was a license for violence, it had only taken two slit throats and a would-be daredevil blindly tumbling off a rooftop to make most people realize that putting on a costume and risking life and limb was a job better left to professionals and people who had more luck than sense.

  Of course there was no way to completely avoid what Darby had referred to as “intense personalities.” After all, it took a certain amount of insanity to put on a costume to begin with. But it wasn't like it used to be…in so many ways. Time had proven that being a Paragon was a dangerous business, and even the luckiest of them had ended up dying from something other than natural causes.

  He picked up the application in front of him and read the name aloud: “Hydraulic-man.” It was a good name—simple and direct. The attached daguerreotype showed that he was a strapping fellow in his thirties, clearly of aristocratic stock.

  The provided sketches revealed that he had created a series of mech
anical devices based around the principles of water pressure, primarily using them as a weapon. Grüsser would be very excited to have another damp hero around….

  But the machinery also looked suspiciously familiar. Most probably the basic designs had been purchased (or stolen) from the estate of an old villain, and then “modernized” by a well-paid engineer. Not that there was anything wrong with borrowing here and there, especially from the villains. The trick was being discreet enough to keep the source of your miraculous technology a secret.

  At first glance Hydraulic-man didn't seem powerful enough for the Paragons, although a “high-pressure water gun” might allow them to more easily subdue an enemy without the need to resort to lethal force. And any half-decent invention could be radically improved by the judicious application of fortified steam. Without Darby around it would be more of an effort to implement the upgrades, and they probably wouldn't work half as well, but it could be done.

  His fingers found the hidden latch without a thought, and he pulled open the desk's left drawer. From the jumble of objects inside he pulled out his self-inking pen. He stared at the device and frowned. Darby's legacy was still all around them, but they would need to find a way to move on, even if it meant going back to nibs and inkwells. Perhaps that was what Darby had had in mind all along when he tried to put the mechanical man in charge. But if it was, he should have said so. And he should have told Alexander about his decision before he died.

  The old man must have known that Alexander wouldn't have obeyed his orders from beyond the grave.

  This time the words in his head were in the stern tones of his mother's voice: Idealism and daydreams are both equal enemies of success. He often wished he could banish her from his mind, but it had been that old witch, with all her rules and homilies, who had given him the wherewithal and drive that had made him the man he was today. She'd never leave him completely.

  He slid the next application out of its envelope. “The White Knight” was printed across the top of it, along with a sketch and the man's true name: Jordan Clements.

  Stanton grimaced slightly as he read through the details. At first glance Mr. Clements seemed to have all the necessary qualifications; born and raised a Southern gentlemen, he had followed it with a distinguished record as a Confederate lieutenant in the last war. He also seemed to harbor little or no outward animosity for the North since it had ended, choosing instead to rebuild his family fortune in a postslavery world by taking advantage of the opportunities in the Reconstruction. And over the last decade it had all come together as a sizable fortune, allowing him to be welcomed back to polite society.

  Clements had also recently purchased a sizable piece of property just above the fashionable end of northern Fifth Avenue, not far away from the Hall of Paragons.

  But for all his success as a capitalist, the actual abilities of the White Knight seemed to be minimal: he claimed some degree of strength beyond that of the average man along with “exceptional reflexes” supposedly gained through some combination of chemicals and electricity that had bathed him in boiling liquid and given him some degree of superhuman powers.

  Alexander flipped through to the notes attached at the back. The Sleuth's research stated that if there had been an “incident” behind his origin as a hero, then it was far more likely the outcome of a whiskey still explosion than a scientific experiment. Alexander chuckled out loud at Wickham's remark that they might consider renaming him “Mr. Moonshine.”

  And on closer examination there were a number of disturbing elements to his costume: a white cloth hood, a noose tied loosely around his neck, and two crosses on his chest. At best it was morbid, and at worst it smacked of the kind of association that could easily fuel charges of racism and elitism.

  News of the white supremacy movement wasn't the kind of thing that Alexander had followed too closely after the war had ended. After the endless horrors of battle, he had, like most people, been content to concentrate on pulling the country back together and healing the wounds of a divided nation. He'd also been busy fighting crime and amassing his fortune.

  But the Klan's crimes had been heinous enough that they had generated nationwide news and conversation in a postslavery world, and when the organization was finally shut down by the government almost everyone had breathed a sigh of relief.

  Adding a Klansman into the mix would surely be a poor way to improve their standing in the popular imagination, not to mention how the newspapers might respond. The Paragons already had enough problems, with the working classes considering them to be an organization of elitists and upper-class snobs.

  Altogether the White Knight seemed to be a rather dubious character, and had it not been for his heritage, and the fact that some upstanding members of the community had vouched for his abilities, he would have rejected the application without a second thought.

  But now that he had made it this far, and the others seemed to think he was worthy of their attention, Alexander had to at least give the man a chance to state his case to them directly.

  He considered his response for a moment, then pulled out a sheet of paper and wrote out a note to that effect, emphasizing that it would be necessary to see the man prove his claims of superhuman powers before they could even make a decision. He attached his note to the bottom of the stack and slid it back into the envelope.

  The last application was simply marked “King Jupiter” on the outside. As he lifted the flap, a mechanical snap echoed through the room. Alexander leaped up from his chair.

  As he fell, the Sleuth could feel the knife cutting into the left side of his chest. He had no idea how deeply it had penetrated, but it was clear that it had done some damage, and landing on it would certainly not improve the situation.

  He twisted violently, managing to land flat on his back, and coughed out an involuntary “ungh” as the cobblestones smacked the air out of his lungs. He was dazed, but the thick padding of his disguise had absorbed some of the impact, and hopefully the majority of the damage from Jack Knife's blade as well.

  The air around him was still cloudy with white smoke. The exploding glass balls had been Darby's concoction, based on the description Wickham had given of a device he'd seen a Japanese assassin use during his adventures in the Orient. The violent cloud of smoke hadn't managed to allow the Sleuth to make the spectacular escape he had intended, but it had given him a moment of surprise—and he was still alive.

  He heard his cane clatter to the ground nearby, returning from its journey into the sky. From time to time Sir Dennis's attempts to “improve” something had been so effective that they were almost useless for their original purpose.

  His ears were still ringing from the explosion, but he could hear the thumping of shoe leather against stone as the villain's lackeys jumped into action. If he had any hope of escape, he would need to get moving and find a weapon.

  At least he knew the stick was close by, although it wouldn't be much use until it was in his hand.

  Wickham rolled over onto his stomach and began to crawl toward where he thought the cane might have landed. He had only traveled a few feet before he ran into a pair of legs covered in threadbare herringbone cloth. Looking up he saw the dirty face of the youngest henchmen. The scruffy lad was wielding a short length of chain and smiling down at him. He was quite young to be missing so many teeth. “He's over here—uhhh!”

  Wickham had wrapped his hands behind the young man's calves and pulled. The boy crashed backward, arms flailing, his head making an unpleasant smacking sound as it bounced off the paving stones.

  Wickham felt a twinge of guilt, but he had no time to check on the condition of his opponent. Instead he continued to grope his way forward, managing to grab the boy's chain as he rose to his feet. It was not a weapon he was as comfortable with as his stick, but it would be more effective than bare hands. “Five left to go,” he thought to himself, but it didn't sound convincing.

  The forms of the other henchmen were starting to swim ou
t of the smoke as the cold winter air swept the smoke toward the sky. “He's got Donny!” one of them yelled.

  Realizing that his cover was almost gone, he wrapped his left hand around the other smoke ball in his pocket.

  “Give it up, old man.” Jack's broken accent echoed off the brick walls that surrounded them. “I'd rather take you alive than dead, but I'll have you either way.”

  Wickham doubted that there was any hope of appealing to the villain's thin mercy. The man was terrifyingly accurate with a knife, and if the lethal intent of his previous attack was anything to judge by, the offer to spare him was a lie.

  As final shreds of white mist cleared away he saw his cane—it sat directly in between him and Jack. The tip of it was somewhat scorched by the explosion, but otherwise it was little worse for wear. A couple of feet behind that, and slightly to the right, stood another henchman. The look of surprise on his grizzled face made it obvious that he hadn't realized just how close his prey was until the smoke was gone.

  “Now watch, boys,” Jack said, letting out a single barking laugh. “If you can get the blade to stick in deep between the eyes sometimes they'll dance a jig before they drop.” He pulled his hand back toward his ear, ready to throw.

  The plan that flashed into the Sleuth's mind in that moment was born of an instinct that had been trained through half a century of practice, fueled by a sense of desperation that was only a few seconds old. He dropped into a run, moving one step to the right so that he could put the henchman directly between himself and the lanky psychopath. With his second step he hurled the glass ball up into the air, sending it up with a prayer that Darby's tendency toward being dangerously overzealous when it came to explosives was consistent.

  With his third step he dropped downward into a crouch. The last thing Wickham saw before he stared down at the ground was the look of annoyance on Jack's face as the marksman hesitated, unwilling to risk hurting his own man.

  As he landed, Wickham's hand hit the ground, his palm perfectly centered over the cane. He tucked his head and let his momentum carry him forward, ramming into the henchman and grabbing his stick at the same time. The man tumbled over like a wooden skittle.