“I'm real,” Gren said immediately. “I can tell. I feel it.”
“Well, so do I!” Kitt snapped. “Don't go writing us all off as phantoms yet!”
“Tricky stuff,” Eddie said, picking blue apples off of a branch extending from a bookcase.
“Do you feel real?” I asked the Doll.
“I'm...not sure,” she murmured. “Do you?”
“Always and never,” I said, half-frowning.
“Now that's a dream answer!” Kitt accused.
“Ah!” Gren agreed. “Pocket's false!”
“You have a lot of nerve calling me false, Spader! You're half metal yourself!”
Gren retracted, obviously offended.
“I'm...I'm sorry,” I said. “I didn't mean that.”
“Sure. Whatever you say. I'm fine.”
“This is all just so confusing.”
“Gentlemen! Lady!” Alexia said, arising. “Let's not bicker. If we're all feeling good and real and firmly gripping our actuality, then let us assume for the moment that we all exist outside of this vision and get on with it already.”
“Get on with what?” Kitt asked.
“With the dream. The search. The unveiling of a discovered epiphany. Why do you think I conducted a reading in the first place?” She walked over to the Doll and peered into her clockwork eyes. “So much to learn,” she then added.
The Doll whimpered and moved back a few steps in caution. Kitt got up and started pulling books from the shelves.
“What's he doing?” Eddie said.
“We're trying to uncover some sort of truth, right?” Kitt said. “We're in a library. Where better to learn?”
I looked at the placard that was fastened to the top of the bookshelf.
MODERN ADVANCEMENTS: TO – YZ.
“That might be a little over our heads, don't you think?” I said. Kitt threw a book titled Pessimism at me. I ducked.
“Well, that one was over your head,” he said.
Come to think of it, what was Pessimism doing under a modern classification? It's hardly a recent development. Either this was a terribly managed library or Kitt had conjured the publication out of nothingness for his visual joke. Either way, I was displeased.
“We are people of this age,” Kitt said, gripping a yellow-covered book stamped with a cog emblem. “We should fare fine amongst words of progress.”
He opened the book and the printed letters spilled from the pages like grains of salt into a lumpy pile of deconstructed vocabulary at his feet. Kitt picked up a few fallen consonants and tried to work them around an “EA” that had stuck to his feet.
“Good work,” Gren said.
“You want to try?” Kitt snapped, kicking books his way.
Gren rolled his eyes and made a show of picking up one of the volumes.
“Fine. You want to get enlightened?” he said, cracking it open. “Let's get enlightened.”
Everything went pitch black.
“What happened?” Alexia said in the darkness.
“I didn't do it!” Gren said.
“Stay put. Don't move around,” Eddie said.
The lights returned and we found ourselves suddenly on a large, rotating gear, grinding away inside of some colossal machine.
“Gah!” Kitt yelped, losing his balance as the piece turned. He tumbled over the edge and hung by his fingers between the gaping metal teeth, his feet swaying over a bottomless abyss.
“Help me!” he shouted as the gear clicked along, bringing the fox perpetually closer to a grinding death between the meeting grooves of two connecting pieces. Eddie quickly moved into action, sliding over the side and grabbing Kitt's arm. He just about had him up and over when a pressurized spring popped out, caught Kitt under his jacket, and launched him up into the air. He screamed and landed on another turning piece, far above our heads.
“Kitt-Kitt!” Dolly shouted up. “Don't jump!”
“I wasn't going to!” he shouted back.
We found a greasy piston pumping upward and attempted to climb it. As we got a little up it, the lights went out again and we all fell downward. I landed on something soft beneath my back.
With a quick, whooshing sound, the world came back into view. We were lying in a crumpled mass on a large, moving conveyor belt under the copper dome of some great and hellish factory. Kitt was still above our heads, now sitting upon a high-placed support beam and signaling frantically at us.
“What?” Eddie said to him. Kitt pointed and we realized the belt was sending us into a giant, churning vat of boiling rubber.
“Oh,” Eddie said.
“Run!” Gren shouted. We unanimously agreed to the suggestion and did just that. We took off, sprinting against the belt as it pulled us closer to the vat. Before long, the speed increased and we couldn't keep up. Leaping off of the side wasn't an option. Nothing but emptiness awaited down there. Before we knew it, we were at the edge of the scalding mess.
Eddie was the first casualty, falling into the boil. Gren was next, swearing as he disappeared into the rubber. I felt the heels of my boots come to the edge.
“Well, ladies,” I said, about to go over. “It has been a pleasure.”
I saw a frightened spark in the Doll's eye. She grabbed me and Alexia by the wrist and that spark became a glow. I felt the world move around us, and then once again, it went black.
When we could again see, we found ourselves outside and standing before us was a great storybook castle built not of stone and mortar but of plating and coils and rivets, expelling steam and firing gas from its tall towers.
“It's beautiful,” Alexia said.
A drawn bridge stood at the entrance and on each side stood Eddie and Gren, frozen statues held firm in place under a hard coat of black, vulcanized rubber. The striking monument was separated from us by a swirling, smoggy moat.
“Look,” Dolly said, spotting Kitt sitting high within a flagged watchtower. He waved at us.
“Stunning craftwork,” I said.
“What do you think all of those moving parts are for?” Alexia said.
“No idea.”
We looked at our reflections in the shiny metal. The Doll had none, Alexia did, and I could see Tekcop biting his thumb at me.
“Don't feel too bad about going without,” I said to Dolly.
“Oh,” she said above a whisper. “So you don't see one there.”
The scene blacked out and when the lights returned, we were standing in the same place, but the plating on the castle was now greatly bent and beaten.
“What is going on here?” I muttered.
Another great shadow was cast upon the castle, and the blanketing dark rolled to us.
“Stay within the light,” Alexia commanded. “Don't let yourself be consumed.”
But it was too late. We were swallowed up once more and when it again passed we found that the castle had become even more woebegone, half-covered in rust and popping worn screws.
“There must be some reason...” I began.
“Wait!” the Watchmaker's Doll said, pointing her mechanical arm skyward. “Up there!”
I couldn't believe it. In the swirled air hung a yellow crescent moon, and sitting perched upon its slope was little Iago. Well, not so little anymore. The child loomed over us on his celestial seat, an amused audience to our fumbling escapades.
“Iago!” Alexia shouted, lecturing angrily from the ground. “You come down from the sky this moment!”
“What's he doing up there?” Dolly asked.
“He made the moon come out,” I grumbled.
“What?”
“We were playing knights before. I'm guessing this is his castle.”
“I knew I shouldn't have let him stay up,” Alexia said. “Now he's gone and slept and gotten into the tea dream.”
“Seems to managing better than us,” I laughed.
“Iago!” she shouted before shaking her head at us. “We could be in real trouble now.”
“Why?�
� Dolly asked.
“Because of that.”
Far up into the sky, the boy pulled out a giant, intricately patterned paper lantern and held it out over the moon, blocking its glow. The moving darkness again stirred.
“No! Don't—” Alexia yelped.
Whoosh. All went black. After a moment in the dark, we heard a low rumbling. The sound built up to a low roar and when Iago finally removed his lantern, the castle was reduced to a pile of shiny rubbish. The statues of Gren and Eddie were half buried and Kitt was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly the cracked earth began to shake and split. Deep caverns broke open just beyond our feet. Dolly squeaked and shuffled back behind me.
“All right!” I shouted to the lantern boy. “I think we've had enough fun, kid.”
“He's not listening,” Alexia said, moving from the edge. “We have to somehow wake him up.”
“Wake...” Dolly repeated to herself.
There was a sharp, splitting sound as a deep crack cut through the unbroken patch of earth where we stood. We tried desperately to keep our footing, but our fate seemed inevitable.
“This session has not produced the flavor of results that I was expecting,” Alexia said, balancing on a jagged point.
“Wake...” the Doll kept repeating. “Wake...” Her eyes then exploded with that same wild glow I had first seen upon turning her key. Her body lifted into the air, and the surroundings began to blur.
“Wake,” she said, her voice a grand echo.
The scenery melted together as a cold gush of wind blew in over my shoulder. I looked at Alexia. She was just staring, overcome by awe and amazement.
“I knew it,” she whispered, a joyous smile of discovery upon her face. “I just knew it.”
The tea lady dissolved into the glow. Another burst of air propelled me from the ground and lifted me into the sky.
“Wake?” the Doll said, smiling at me.
“What are you?” I managed.
She only giggled and put a mischievous finger to her lips. “A woman's secret.”
Eternity closed in around me and, warm in her glow, I moved to the Watchmaker's Doll and took her hand.
“Time to wake up now, Mister Pocket,” she said into my ear. “Time to wake up.”
And with that, I opened my eyes.
Chapter Eleven
Lucidia
“So then what?”
“Then nothing. That's it. We woke up. I'd slept all night and morning was ready to kick me in the face. Alexia demanded that no one discuss their dreams, so I never found out whether or not we actually shared a sleeping fantasy. Still, I doubt it.”
“Hmmm. So if you swore yourself to secrecy, why'd you just tell me?”
“Oh...yeah...I did, didn't I?”
“And in pretty great detail.”
“Ah. Whoops. Well, no great harm done. Just keep it to yourself.”
“Yes, you have my eternal silence. Now, what happens next?”
“Next, dear Alan, I found for myself a moment of absolute euphoria.”
“Meaning?”
I exhaled slowly and happily as I slid my freshly-cleaned black overcoat over my shoulder.
“You seem pleased,” the Doll said, passing by.
“Pleased to get out of those pajamas.”
A day or so had gone by and we were preparing to take our leave from the tea house. Gren had left that morning for a small air dock in the area that a few commercial vessels occasionally used for shipping outside of the city.
“So you're sure you can hunt down your friend?” I had asked before he left.
“The ship will be there, and if the ship's there, Jack will be hanging around...possibly drunk.”
At this time of the morning? No, best not to criticize.
“And you're sure we can trust him?”
“Jack?” Gren laughed enthusiastically. “I've known the oaf for years. Trust won't be a problem. Getting a moment's peace around him, there's your problem.”
“And the rest of the crew?”
“Solid human beings. They aren't going to turn you over for something as meaningless as a wanted poster.”
“Even if it has a nice number written across the bottom?”
“Trust me, they don't need more money.”
“Everyone needs more money.”
“Would you have a little faith in humanity, Pocket? These are good people.”
“All right. Fine. So what, these merchants have a soft spot for the amateur outlaw?”
“Something like that.”
Gren returned to the tea house that evening and announced that his scouting had been successful.
“We leave at noon,” he said. “Jack's just got to do a little maintenance on the main boiler.”
“Boiler?” I asked.
“Water boiler. These ships run on steam engines, Pocket, not hopes and dreams.”
“Don't be an ass.”
“So he'll be staying with the ship. But one of the others will head over here to collect us.”
“What's the name of this ship?” Kitt asked.
“What does it matter?” Gren said.
The fox shrugged. “I've sneaked onto a good amount of steamships in my time. Maybe I've been aboard.”
“It's the Lucidia.”
“Pretty name,” Dolly said.
“Yeah,” Kitt said. “Lucidia...huh. Can't say I place it.”
“I figured,” Gren said.
Sure enough, right at the stroke of noon the following day, a pronounced series of knocks, almost sounding like a tune, came rapping on the front door. I was in the front room, spoon in my hat, bottle at my side, collapsed turnkey tucked into my coat, ready to depart. Gren answered the door and called me over to meet the man on the other side. He was thin and pale, a bit older than me, with a curious smile placed above a trimmed, red goatee.
“Ah!” I said. “A pleasure. I'm Will Pock—“
“Try this,” he said, handing me a small, fat bottle of rum.
“I'm sorry?”
“Try it,” he said, tossing around a friendly tone.
“Uh...all right...” I popped the cork and sniffed. “It's rum.”
“Yes, of course it's rum, now taste it!”
What an odd gentleman. Still, nice enough fellow, so...
“Why not?” I said. I took a quick swig and rolled it around on my tongue. “Huh,” I commented. “It's sweet.”
“See that?” the man said to Gren. “What did I tell you?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Gren mumbled.
“I told you, didn't I? Sweeter batch. Not so much bite.”
“Eh, it all tastes the same to me.”
“How could it possibly?”
“Excuse me,” I interjected. “Sorry. Are you here from the Lucidia?”
The red-bearded gentleman nodded. He was wearing a long, buttoned, coachman’s coat that went to his knees.
“I am he,” he calmly spoke.
“Good. Very good.” My laundered coat still contained in its depths my calling card, now dried out and slightly brittle. I felt it and instinctively pulled it out with my welcoming hand. “Will Pocket.”
The man inspected my hand, did not shake it, and plucked the card from between my fingers. His smile dropped into a frown of confusion. “Why did you—“
“Typographical error,” I cut in. “Ignore it.”
“Mmm...so you're Mister Pocket, then?”
“Yes.”
“All right then.” He returned the card and went back to his conversation with Gren. After about one minute, I realized that I no longer had any reason to be standing there, and to continue to do so would make me appear quite brainless, so I muttered something about preparations and slid back into the main room where Kitt was waiting.
“That man,” he said aside to me. “He's—“
“Yes. Our escort.”
“Huh,” Kitt said, looking at the stranger. “Interesting.”
I'd like to take a moment if I may to talk about fi
rst impressions. The rule, as I believe it is understood in New London, is not to trust them. If a merchant ever approaches you with the word “Honest” pinned before his first name, the example goes, never spend a penny on anything he's trying to sell you. The assumption that every law-abiding, God-fearing servant seems to cling to is that every other law-abiding, God-fearing servant that he or she may pass on the street on any given day is most likely a walking lie hiding beneath a very thin set of casual pleasantries. Therefore by this logic, if a gentleman passes a lady on some morning, smiles, tips his bowler, and says “a good day to you, miss,” we can assume that he is most likely using this nonthreatening presentation to lull the young woman into some sort of unwanted physical encounter. This of course has made things difficult for the honest, outgoing patrons of the city, who have since adopted false outward personas so that they don't look like liars.
Keeping up an impression is as equally exhausting as learning to see through one. When I was, uh, let's say fifteen, I was for a short time employed by a corner druggist who had grown so popular amongst his customers that he needed a few extra hands to fill and tag bottles. The druggist was a nice man, kind and quick-witted, and spoke with such charm and conviction that anyone who came into his shop quickly adored him and would buy anything he suggested. Repeat business was never a problem. Then one day, the druggist died and his assistant had to take over the shop. He was a bookish, quiet man and therefore severely doubted his ability to maintain the same commanding presence of his predecessor. Not surprisingly, profits began to dwindle. People bore fast, and without that element of captivation, that spark, customers started drifting to less expensive vendors. Determined to save the shop, the owner started to broaden his horizons. He took public speaking lessons, read thick books of limericks and anecdotes, improved his posture. These choices became habits which later became obsessions. In the last weeks that I worked under him, the owner spent nearly every waking moment forcing himself to learn, to improve, to change himself into the foregone image of the late druggist. He began dressing and having his hair trimmed in the style of his former boss. Each day he was looking paler and hungrier and wearier. His hair began to turn prematurely white, which only strengthened his resolve.
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