The White City

by John Claude Bemis

  “I look ridiculous!” Marisol said the following morning. “This dress is about two decades out of fashion.” She stood before a mirror in the Pirate Queen’s chambers, brushing a hand across the green silk bustle skirt.

  “How do you think I looked wearing it?” the Pirate Queen snarled.

  Marisol’s face became blotched. “You looked … lovely, my lady.”

  Si covered her smile with her hand.

  The Pirate Queen called to the screen where Redfeather was dressing. “You suited up yet, Sparky?”

  Redfeather came out in Mister Lamprey’s plaid sack suit. “A little short,” he said, looking down at the cuff riding several inches above his brown shoes.

  “It’ll do,” Conker said.

  “Tell me again why we need to be the ones who go in,” Marisol said.

  “You two went to Omphalosa,” Si said. “You’ve seen the Darkness. If there’s something going on in Grevol’s hall, you’ve at least got Nel’s charms to protect you.”

  “But you and Conker could use them just as easy,” Redfeather said.

  “I ain’t going to fit in that monkey suit,” Conker said. “Besides, you two won’t stand out near as much as we would. You look like …” Conker paused to find the word.

  Si offered, “Dandies?”

  The Pirate Queen laughed. “Tourists. You’ll pass easily enough. Now, Mister Lamprey’s ready to take you ashore. He’ll wait at the docks for you. Leave the snake here.”

  Marisol had Javidos halfway up her sleeve. “But what if we’re caught by the Gog’s agents?”

  “That copperhead won’t get you out of that fix,” the Pirate Queen said. “And neither will we, so try to be careful. Now, get going.”

  Redfeather and Marisol glumly climbed the gangplank, where the pirates above howled with laughter as they emerged. Mister Lamprey helped them aboard a dinghy and rowed them to the White City’s docks.

  As the afternoon got late, Conker waited up on deck for Marisol and Redfeather to return. Other paddle-wheel boats and cruising yachts drifted up and down the lakeshore. Music and laughter seeped up from the Snapdragon’s galley. Conker looked up at the pilothouse and saw the Pirate Queen smoking a cigar in the darkness, watching the docks with a spyglass. A bandy-legged pirate named Malley kept watch down at the stern. Si and Piglet played a game with knucklebone dice on the foredeck.

  Conker’s thoughts returned to Buck, who was already asleep belowdecks. His coughing had continued, but according to Si, the Omphalosa man had survived for weeks after leaving the Darkness. Besides, maybe Mister Lamprey was right and Buck had taken ill from being in the lake or from the razor wounds. Conker felt that was almost too much to hope for, especially as Buck’s face had an ashen look to it.

  “My lady,” Piglet said behind him.

  The Pirate Queen was coming down the pilothouse’s steps. When she reached the deck, she snapped the spyglass closed and said, “Lamprey’s returning.”

  Conker followed her to the stern, and a few minutes later the rowboat appeared. When it reached the steamer, Mister Lamprey tossed a line to Conker. He held it while Marisol and Redfeather climbed back onto the Snapdragon’s deck.

  “Up to the wheel,” the Pirate Queen ordered. “Lamprey, bring us coffee! Piglet, I want you and Malley and two others on watch. Make sure they weren’t followed.”

  Conker hurried after the others up the steps to the pilothouse. Settling on a bench against the wall, Marisol and Redfeather loosened their collars to breathe. The Pirate Queen knelt to scratch the underside of Rosie’s chin, and Si leaned against the console beside Conker.

  “Well?” Si snapped.

  Marisol took the pouch that Ray had sewn from around her neck and gazed down at it in her palms. “We went in.”

  Conker realized that Marisol’s fingers were trembling. Redfeather looked shaken as well.

  “And?” the Pirate Queen said.

  Redfeather looked up. “It’s as Jasper said. The Hall of Progress is like a black fortress. It’s not beautiful at all, not like the other buildings. I suppose to the fairgoers it looks like something practical. Something functional. Like an engine or a mill. And I heard many saying such. That the hall represented the future, not a harkening to the past.”

  “I don’t care about the aesthetics,” the Pirate Queen said. “What’s inside?”

  Marisol shook her head slowly. “The strangest things I’ve ever seen. Engines that seem to run on little more than air. Armored locomotives, like the steamcoach we followed across the plains, but bigger and mounted with cannons. There was an enormous machine—”

  “An analytical engine,” Redfeather said.

  “What’s that?” Conker asked.

  “I’m not certain,” Marisol said. “But it could do all these calculations. Some of the visitors seemed awed by it, but we didn’t really stop to find out.”

  “At each display,” Redfeather said, “there were these clockwork men. What were they called? Automata, I think. Their skin was made from brass. They could speak through little horns placed in their mouths, and they explained each exhibit, just like a regular person would.”

  “Could they think?” Si asked.

  “I don’t know,” Redfeather said. “They didn’t answer if you spoke to them. They just talked, and they could walk and pick things up and move around just like they were alive.”

  Marisol’s face tightened. “I’d have been delighted if I hadn’t known these were the Gog’s devices. There’s a whole army of clockwork men in that hall! Other beasts too. Horses and dogs. Nothing like the Hoarhound. That would be too terrifying to display. What the Gog is showing to visitors excites them. It fills people with possibility at the future. If they only knew …”

  “Did you see the hammer?” Conker asked, uncrossing his arms from his chest.

  Marisol and Redfeather looked at each other before answering. Then Redfeather said, “The Nine Pound Hammer’s there, Conker. It’s on display at the center of everything.”

  “Like some trophy.” Marisol scowled.

  “Big crowds around it too,” Redfeather said. “We had to push our way to the barrier just to read the display. It tells a story, the one most people have heard, about your father taking on a steam drill in a competition. About how he beat it and then died.” He blinked hard before continuing, “But then it goes on to say, ‘No more will slaves and laborers have to die to build our industry. The dawn of great progress, the end to suffering, the birth of wondrous machines has arrived.’ It’s like a rallying cry.”

  “But it’s a lie!” Marisol’s face grew red. “We saw those workers in Omphalosa. The Gog does not mean to end slavery. It’s a secret enslavement he’s starting. Those workers—poor Gigi’s family and the others—they’re nothing more than machines themselves now.”

  “What’s happened to them?” Si asked. “If the Gog brought them all from Kansas, then where are they?”

  Marisol’s nostrils flared as she took deep breaths to calm herself. “I don’t know.”

  “But we saw those people,” Redfeather reminded her.

  “What people?” Si asked.

  “I saw this husband and wife,” Marisol said. “Their skin, it was ashen like the way the workers in Omphalosa looked. But this couple, they weren’t workers. They were dressed in nice clothes, not fancy but nice. I pointed them out to Redfeather and we watched them walk around the exhibit floor for a while. They never stopped to look at anything. They never spoke to each other.”

  “They just kept walking,” Redfeather said, “like they were drawn to something.”

  “We followed them to a corridor at the far end of the hall.” Marisol’s eyes were wide. “There weren’t any displays there. None of the visitors wandered back there. It seemed like a service area or some such. And down the hall, a pair of agents were waiting before a stairwell. They stepped aside with not so much as a word, and the couple disappeared down the steps.”

  “The agents spotted us,” Redfeather said
.

  The Pirate Queen grimaced. “You were supposed to be tourists. Unnoticed! If they realize you—”

  “They didn’t know who we were,” Redfeather quickly explained. “They asked if they could help us, and Marisol said she needed air and that we were looking for the exit. We got away without raising suspicion.”

  “Doubtful,” the Pirate Queen murmured.

  “But don’t you see?” Marisol said. “Those people. They were infected by the Darkness. Somehow the Gog has activated the Darkness within the walls of his hall—”

  “Or,” Redfeather interrupted, “they’re getting sick just by being close to where the Machine is being assembled.”

  “Either way,” Marisol said, “the ones who are growing sick are being taken somewhere. Someplace down those stairs.”

  “It must be where the workers from Omphalosa are completing the Machine,” Redfeather said.

  “Poor Gigi.” Marisol twisted the hem of her dress. “We should never have left him in that awful place.”

  The Pirate Queen stood and from her front pocket took out a cigar, which she waved at Redfeather and Marisol. “We’ll get you to describe the hall in detail for Mister Lamprey so he can work up a map.”

  “When are we going to get the Nine Pound Hammer back?” Conker asked.

  The Pirate Queen put a hand on his arm. “Patience. We’ll get it back. But not without a solid plan first.”

  Conker scowled.

  Si slumped back in her chair, shaking her head. “You realize what this means. There’s no doubting it any longer. Buck … he’s been infected by the Darkness.”

  OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS, THE GROUP GRUMBLED OVER Lamprey’s incomplete map of the hall, went back and forth on possible plans, and generally argued over next steps. Conker hardly slept for worrying over the plans and about Buck, who continued coughing but so far seemed to grow no worse.

  It was late one night, as Conker was watching the moon set over the lake, that a bit of luck came their way. “We were reassigned,” Mister Lamprey announced before the rowboat had even touched the Snapdragon’s stern. “Malley, Jimmie, and me.”

  “To the Gog’s hall?” Conker bellowed, as he caught the mooring line. He pulled hard, and the boat smacked heavily against the steamer’s hull, nearly toppling the crew into the lake.

  “Easy there,” Mister Lamprey said as he scuttled up on the deck. “Let’s go first to the Pirate Queen’s chambers.”

  As the others stumbled off to bed, Conker followed Lamprey to the Pirate Queen’s door, where he gave a small rap. “Are you awake, my lady?”

  “I am now, you idiot,” she grumbled. “Come in.”

  Conker followed Lamprey inside. The Pirate Queen sat up in her plush bed and placed the pistol she slept with at her side. Rosie, sleeping beside her mistress on the floor, opened her beady eyes and then closed them again with a whine.

  “What is it?” the Pirate Queen asked.

  “The crew assigned to the Hall of Progress,” Mister Lamprey said, “apparently they’ve disappeared. At least, the boss said they didn’t show up for work last night or tonight. So he put us on their route. We got in.”

  “What about the danger of the Darkness!” she barked.

  “Marisol and Redfeather, they already gave us those charms to wear,” Mister Lamprey said, patting the front of his shirt. “Just in case we got in.”

  “But there’s three of you,” the Pirate Queen said. “Wouldn’t one of you get—”

  “Big Jimmie never goes in,” he explained. “It’s the routine. Two collect the trash in the halls while the third unloads it in the wagons.”

  Conker waved his hand impatiently. “Could you get the hammer?”

  Mister Lamprey shook his head. “We don’t go on the main floor. There’s a service entrance around the back, down a ramp and below street level. All the trash for the hall is picked up there.”

  Before Conker could say anything, the Pirate Queen raised a hand. “We learn more before striking. Lamprey, memorize the routine of the guards at the service entrance. Do they use the same men every night? See if there’s a chance to explore further in the hall. But be careful! No unnecessary risks.”

  “Aye, my lady.” Mister Lamprey smiled and then nodded toward the door at Conker. Conker followed him down the hall and out onto the deck. Although he was trembling with impatience, he knew the Pirate Queen was right. And more important, they at last had a way into the Hall of Progress. The Nine Pound Hammer was nearly in his grasp.

  One afternoon, just before Mister Lamprey and the others left for their evening work, Hobnob ran over to where Conker and Si were talking in the shade on the foredeck. “Ray!” he chirped. “Going to see Ray.”

  “What do you mean?” Si said, laying the book she had been reading to Conker across her lap.

  “Reckon he’s needing me, en’t he?” Hobnob opened his hand to show them the small collection of gray dandelion seedpods. “En’t but one that carries one of my dandelions around and that’s Ray. I’m setting out straightaway once I get permission from the Pirate Queen.”

  He dashed off for the pilothouse, nearly colliding with Big Jimmie.

  “Ray …,” Si said, looking at Conker.

  “Think he’s all right?” Conker asked.

  “I hope so.”

  After a moment, Hobnob leaped down from the pilothouse. He waved his dandelion hat at Conker and Si before plopping it on his head. He disappeared in a scattering of white pods being blown away by the lake’s steady breeze.

  As Conker turned back to Si, Marisol came up from belowdecks and hurried toward them. “It’s Buck,” she said. “He’s getting worse.”

  Throughout the evening, Buck’s coughing spells racked him for minutes at a time. The Pirate Queen ordered him to stay in bed. She also wanted him to return to her chambers so she could keep a closer eye on him, but he refused.

  “I’ll cough just the same wherever I lie,” he grumbled at the small mob surrounding his bunk in the pirates’ sleeping quarters.

  Si brought a damp cloth to his forehead, and although he frowned, he also relaxed. Buck was burning up with a fever and occasionally moaning insensibly about hope lying at liberty’s feet. Conker frowned as he saw the cowboy’s complexion. His skin was the ashen gray of the workers in Omphalosa that Marisol had described. How were they going to help him? If Nel had not been able to save the man Si had spoken of, the man from Kansas who had died at Shuckstack, how could they save Buck?

  Conker thought with longing of Nel. He missed the old pitchman terribly. It was somewhat of a consolation that Marisol and Redfeather had sent the telegram to Nel so he knew that Conker was alive. But could he be sure that Nel had received it? Had he gotten the warning that Shuckstack was in danger … that the Gog knew of their whereabouts?

  Overcome with anxiety for Nel and for Buck, Conker went out on the deck. It was late. The lights of other bobbing boats were dimmed. A trail of cloud drifted across the setting moon. Conker strode to the bow and hooked his elbows on the railing, dropping his forehead to his arms.

  He was there only a moment before a hand touched his back. “You okay, Conk?”

  Conker lifted his head enough to see Si. “I’m tired of all this waiting around,” he said. “When are we going to get my father’s hammer back? It’s so close and yet …”

  She nodded sympathetically and then rested her head against his arm. Conker felt his worries subside. They could not disappear. Even Si could not do that for him. But with her at his side, he always felt reassured.

  After a week of learning the guards’ routines in the Hall of Progress, Mister Lamprey felt they were ready. Gathering the others around the table in the galley, the fish-eyed pirate explained the routine of the agents who guarded the service entrance, the procedures he and Malley had to follow in collecting the hall’s waste, and their best guesses as to how the service entrance led to the main floor above, where the Nine Pound Hammer was displayed. With a crude map rolled out before them,
Conker listened to every detail.

  “In the other buildings on our route,” Mister Lamprey said, “we have to pick up these big bins of trash on different floors. But not in the Gog’s hall. They don’t let us go more than a few feet inside. He’s got all the trash sent to the one location in the basement.”

  “Who dumps it there?” the Pirate Queen asked, chewing on her cigar.

  “In the other buildings, it’s normally cleaning crews that work during the day,” Lamprey said. “But not at the Hall of Progress. Mister Grevol has a kind of plumbing system built in. Air sucks the trash through a series of pipes.”

  “Vacuum tubes,” Big Jimmie said.

  Mister Lamprey paused and crooked an eyebrow, mystified.

  Jimmie shrugged. “That’s what the guard called them.”

  The Pirate Queen rolled her eyes. “So there is a brain in there! Go on, Lamprey. How do these tubes work?”

  “Ain’t sure,” Mister Lamprey continued. “But after we shovel all the trash out, we’re supposed to pull this lever one last time. To suck out any remaining trash around the hall. I guess they have stations on different floors where people dump the trash, and by the offices on the upper level. When we pull that lever, it makes a huge noise like a cyclone, and there’s a howl of sucking wind. Terrible loud it is.”

  “Who cares about those tubes?” Si scowled. “How are we going to get the hammer?”

  “Ah, there lies the problem,” Mister Lamprey said. “None of the three of us collecting the trash can go.”

  “Unless we knock out the Gog’s men,” Big Jimmie said, his smirk clearly showing his eagerness for this course of action.

  The Pirate Queen narrowed her eyes. “If one of them fires a shot, the whole plan fails.”

  “Right, my lady,” Mister Lamprey said. “Best we not tip off the guards.”

  “What if I go with you?” Conker suggested. “I could stay hidden and sneak past the guards if you’re able to distract them.”

  “I’d be better at that,” Si said.

  “You’re forgetting,” Mister Lamprey said. “Malley and I need those charms so we can enter the hall without being harmed by the Darkness. Whoever sneaks in to get the hammer will be exposed to the Darkness.”