by Anne Renwick
“Is there a model capable of pivoting yet?” he’d responded, contemplating if he’d be willing to endure another six weeks of rehabilitation to replace this joint with a better model.
Dr. Morgan’s scowl informed him there was not. “Are you keeping up with the exercises? Swimming laps in the BURR training pool?”
Swimming, certainly, though he imagined the doctor would blow an artery if he knew Alec had been in the ocean. And he thought it best not to mention the work he’d been performing aboard fishing vessels. It wasn’t at all what the man had in mind.
“A brace,” the surgeon insisted with a sigh. “Until your muscles are capable of compensating.”
There was one more unpleasant task to wade through before he could return to the field on a hunt for the elusive biomech octopus. Meanwhile, he checked the rookery daily, hoping for a return skeet pigeon from Mrs. McQuiston. So far, nothing. Was she not back yet? Avoiding him?
He rubbed the back of his neck as he paced down the hallway. The Ichor machine had failed to indicate high levels of copper. It had, however, spit out a long strip of white paper, informing him of the presence of hirudin in the swab he’d taken from the man’s neck wound. Hirudin—an anticoagulant produced in the saliva of leeches—was most definitely a biological peptide that did not belong in human blood. It would, however, prevent human blood from clotting.
A vampiric octopus?
Except this thing was not alive. Not exactly. Neither was it machine. The fragments he’d examined contained living tissue, yet incorporated artificial elements.
Octopus. Mollusk. Leech. Ceramics. Carbon mesh.
This was… biomech.
Alec was used to evaluating foreign biotechnological devices, but so far those had been mechanical in nature, interacting with living systems, but not incorporating them to the point where they were almost indistinguishable. The cube jellyfish gun he’d reverse engineered had integrated a nematocyst and its poison, but it was still ninety-percent mechanical and incapable of sustaining the nematocyst for more than a month’s time. After that, the biological material would degrade.
Could the same be said of this octopus-ceramic-wire mesh thing? Or was it more alive than he wished to contemplate? And what was the end game?
Five punch cards of tests remained to be run. If there were any more serum abnormalities, he’d find them. Not to mention the cards that Logan had carried away for analysis. Perhaps those might prove enlightening? Not that he’d heard from his brother since. Irritating, how Logan chose to ration out bits of information only at his own convenience.
Once this meeting was over and the final programs run, he could escape the laboratory and return to the field. No reason to stay. He had no interest in establishing an actual research project, a path that would doom him to a windowless laboratory and a staid existence. Neither did he wish to return home, where Mother lurked, eager to marry off her second son.
“Sir!”
Alec blinked and found a young man saluting him. Weary, he returned the courtesy. “Do I know you?”
“Jasper Sinclair, sir. Your replacement, sir.”
Already they’d replaced him. Alec suddenly felt old. At thirty. It struck him how young the new guy looked, his face still smooth, as yet unweathered by years of exposure to the elements, by exposure to the pressures of the job.
“You’re here for the board meeting?” Alec asked, striving for civility.
A nod. “Yes, sir. The entire BURR team was ordered to attend the inquiry, sir. About the aquaspira. Isn’t that why you’re here?”
A knot formed in his gut. Davis’s death was on the board’s agenda. They were convening to discuss his teammate’s death. Today. Now. “It was ruled an apoplexy,” Alec said. “Have new findings come to light?”
Sinclair kept his expression carefully neutral. “You’ve been hard to locate, sir.”
Once, he’d been inseparable from his crew. Now he was no more than a peripheral satellite hugging the edges, drifting further away with each circuit. His fault. It was time to correct such behavior. To start acting like the leader he hoped to become.
If he couldn’t operate at full capacity in the field, he could at least pass on all his hard-won knowledge. He could drill new operatives, organize and oversee training missions. He grimaced. And there was always paperwork.
No. He wasn’t ready to concede the winning point to his knee. Not yet. Not even if it meant more time on shore to pursue a certain widow.
Sinclair cleared his throat. “No. No new findings. But there are those on the board who wish us to declare otherwise.”
Glowering, Alec followed the young man into the room, watching as he strode to the front, passing the file he held to their CO, Fernsby.
At the front of the room, five men sat side by side behind a long table, grumbling at each other and the papers that rested in front of them. Three men, including Fernsby and Commodore Drummond, who wished to see Alec removed from service, were dressed in military splendor. The other two wore fine wool suits. All of them politicians to one degree or another. Occupying the chairs before them were a number of other military types and more politicians, including one Lord Roideach. BURR team members occupied the shadowed corners of the rooms.
Lord Roideach turned, fixing Alec with a glare. He pointed to his chest and mouthed, “Mine.”
Alec ignored him and slid into an empty chair in the back corner of the room beside Shaw. “Bring me up to speed,” he muttered under his breath.
“Glad you finally made it back because something fishy is going on,” Shaw said, dropping a hand on Alec’s shoulder. “Heard you scored an Ichor. Take this sample of Davis’s blood.” The palm of Shaw’s hand concealed a glass vial. “Analyze it. There must be more to the blood thickening drug he took than we know, or someone wouldn’t be so keen to have his death deemed an aquaspira breather failure.”
Alec took the vial and slid it in his pocket. “Who’s the man next to Drummond?”
“Commander Norgrove, the Navy commander who gave the orders for our mission to proceed.”
His opinion unvoiceable, Alec narrowed his eyes.
“The aquaspira breathers were all thoroughly examined prior to the mission,” Fernsby said, passing pages from the file to the row of men. “The barium hydroxide carbon dioxide scrubber shows no evidence of failure, though sudden blackouts are not unheard of even at shallow depths.”
A uniformed steam maid appeared at one end of the table, accompanied by a heavily loaded roving table. The old men on the board perked up, anxious for their afternoon tea. A switch was flipped, and the conveyor belt built into the long table began to move.
Working quickly, the steambot poured tea—occasionally adding sugar and cream—and placed teacups upon the belt alongside individual plates of biscuits, sending the fine china rattling across the table. The conveyor belt came to a stuttering halt, and the privileged availed themselves of a nibble and a sip.
Alec resisted an impulse to roll his eyes. Aether forbid his superiors missed a meal.
Commander Norgrove cleared his throat. “I recommend we discontinue working with the aquaspira breathers at depths greater than nine feet. Submersible approaches in open water are ill-advised.”
Alec nodded. Yes. Too late to save Davis, but at least the man would not put the BURR men at further risk.
“I must object again,” Lord Dankworth said, nibbling upon a biscuit before continuing. “With the upcoming Icelandic-Danish wedding, we must be prepared to stop the radicals who object to the new alliance. That involves policing our offshore waters.”
Alec’s jaw tightened. Shaw hissed a curse. Rowan leaned forward. Moray rumbled.
They’d lost Davis over a royal wedding?
Shaking his head, Commander Norgrove said, “It is a mistake to become involved in such foreign affairs. It’s a wedding, for aether’s sake.”
Exactly. Picking a side offered Britain no gain, only loss. The best course was to
remain neutral.
Lord Dankworth pressed a hand to his head and swayed. “I disagree. The riot…” he swayed again, “in Reykjavik, last week… our waters…” He lifted a trembling hand before his eyes, then pressed it to his chest. “I’m afraid—” He collapsed, boneless, to the floor.
The BURR men leapt to their feet, shoving past rows of seated onlookers that far outranked them, in a mad rush to Lord Dankworth’s side. Alec half-knelt on the floor as the man convulsed, while he checked his vital signs. Shortness of breath. Slow pulse. In minutes, he was dead.
“Do you smell that?” Alec asked Shaw, who nodded.
He lifted the gentleman’s tea to his nose. Nothing. His biscuits. There it was, a faint scent of bitter almond. He passed the plate to Shaw. “Poison.”
Shaw sniffed, then nodded. “Cyanide.”
Lord Dankworth had received the first plate of biscuits, a planned poisoning that had permanently silenced him.
“Find the steam maid!”
Chaos broke loose.
Chapter Nine
AS DUSK GATHERED ITS arms about the streets of Glasgow, Isa stepped inside her terraced house and dropped her bag on the floor. Dark and musty, the walls seemed to smirk, reminding her of all the dreams she’d brought to the city with her as a new bride, nearly every one of them thwarted or outright denied.
The townhouse was hers alone now. Located on a street near the docks, nearly all her neighbors were Finn—including her brother’s family—and most were tied in one way or another to the nearby boatyard. Finn had comprised the majority of her practice during her time in Glasgow, knocking on her door at all hours, a small room in the back of the house serving as an examination room.
She’d abandoned it all when Anton died, taking her practice onto her boat and out to sea.
Now that she was back, word would spread quickly. Though she wouldn’t turn away patients, she dreaded the arrival of the matchmakers with their lists. To date, every last man fit one of two categories. Either he needed a wife to care for existing children, or he was convinced he could give her children. All turned a blind eye to her career, all pretending—or perhaps believing—that it was something she would be happy to jettison.
Could she stand to live within these walls again? Possibly, but that would depend upon the answer to another question: would the University of Glasgow School of Medicine grant her admittance? To date, not one woman had matriculated. Odds were against her.
A written response to her last application had pointed out that the expectations placed upon their students were high. That the conflicts of a husband along with the possibility of children were distracting influences they couldn’t ignore.
Application denied.
Now that such circumstances no longer pertained—the required mourning period had passed—would her chances improve? Unlikely. But unless she wished to leave Scotland, her options were limited.
There was nothing to do but apply once more.
First things first. She would begin by tending the lights and dispelling the gloom. Setting down the Lucifer lamp she’d brought from the boat, Isa drew an eyedropper from the drawer of the hallway table. With a tug on the pulley rope, the overhead light fixture lowered.
Peering into its basin, she was relieved to find the gel matrix still adequately hydrated, though the bioluminescent bacteria had long since died. She transferred a measure of bacteria from her boat’s light into the hall lamp, adding a sprinkle of powdered agar and other nutrients. Hoisting it aloft, she wound the rocking mechanism and stood back. The gel oozed from one end of the long cylinder to the other, slowly mixing bacteria with food and oxygen, rewarding her with a few tiny, faint blue sparks.
Isa whisked through the house, rekindling Lucifer lamps and yanking dust sheets from furniture. In the cellar, she fed coal to the black, hulking iron beast of a furnace and set fire to its innards. Hauling the steam cook from her closet, she oiled joints, filled the water reservoir, and shoved a few lumps of coal into the burner. She inserted a simple punch card—tea and biscuits that could be made with the available stale supplies—and tossed in a match. With the flip of a switch, the steam cook creaked to life.
From the kitchen window, the metal-ringed eyes of a skeet pigeon blinked at her, and her heart leapt. The mechanical birds were forever dropping by with messages of medical emergencies, but no one—save Dr. McCullough—knew of her plans to return to Glasgow.
Throwing open the sash, she retrieved the message and read his note with wide-eyed interest, dismayed that it held so little detail. And not the slightest flirtatious remark. He merely requested permission to call upon her when she returned. She huffed in frustration and dropped the message on the table. What had she expected, another offer of a non-matrimonial dalliance?
She’d been unable to stop thinking about him. About that word he’d used. Lover. She’d barely slept a wink ever since. Then again, she had discouraged him, and if he’d learned something of import, it hardly belonged on a scrap of paper bound to the ankle of a skeet pigeon.
She turned on her heel. Time to decide. To test—or not to test—Dr. McCullough’s blood?
He had no knowledge of the Finn people and didn’t exhibit any Finn physical features. But, injured, he’d swum back to her boat though extremely cold waters. It was possible an unknown Finn ancestor lurked in his family tree, that—like her—he was both Finn and Scot.
She slid her hand into the deep pocket of her wool skirt and pulled forth the bloody cloth she’d used to dab at his head wound. She couldn’t. It was unethical and immoral to study his blood without his consent. What right did she have to pry into his ancestry merely to satisfy her own curiosity? She tossed the scrap into the waste and turned away.
Her steps slowed as she walked toward the study. Once she and Anton had worked side by side, studying Finn blood, documenting an unusual trait they termed factor Q. Those Finn possessing this—greater than ninety-five percent of the population—were especially sensitive to traditional anesthesia, a trigger that could induce the dive reflex.
Ignoring her protests, Anton had taken a number of Finn blood samples with him to work, to the Glaister Institute, insisting that factor Q could be better analyzed in his laboratory using a device he called an Ichor machine. She’d asked to accompany him, to study the results generated by the instrument. He’d refused both requests, always ready with an excuse, growing ever more secretive during the last few months of his life. Then her husband had died, severing the fragile connection she had to the Glaister Institute. If any documentation of his discoveries existed, it was tightly locked inside the bowls of the research facility.
One to which Dr. McCullough had access—a thought to contemplate later.
Before she would allow herself to anticipate his arrival on her doorstep, she had a task to accomplish: reapply to the School of Medicine. Forcing herself into the room, she reignited one last Lucifer lamp and, as it slowly rocked itself back to life, tugged away one more dust cloth, uncovering a massive oak desk.
Perching upon its chair, she sat down before a keyboard that resembled a mechanical sea urchin with round, lettered discs mounted upon its spines. A Malling-Hansen Writing Ball. Manipulating the spiked creature, she mounted a fresh sheet of paper upon its curved, semi-cylindrical paper frame before raising shaking hands above the alphabet.
What would she do if they denied her entrance?
What if they did? She’d simply apply again. And again. Schools in London and Paris had accepted women. Perhaps the tide would turn in Scotland.
With that, her fingers began to strike the keys…
~~~
They found the steam maid in a closet, her cipher cartridge charred and burned, the paper punch cards within incinerated. The whispers “murder by steambot” could be heard throughout the institute’s halls. Terror had overtaken the kitchens as the BURR team searched for t
ainted supplies.
With the board meeting at a macabre end, all submersible exit aquaspira exercises were ordered to cease… and Lord Roideach’s petition to claim the Ichor machine was indefinitely postponed. Despite the death of a board member, Alec couldn’t suppress a spiteful smile when Roideach cast a narrow-eyed gaze in his direction.
Patting his pocket to ensure Davis’s blood sample was secure, Alec jabbed an elbow into Shaw’s ribcage and jerked his head in the direction of the door. Together, they took advantage of the confusion to slip away.
“You have your lock picks?” Alec asked, relieved Dr. Morgan’s adjustment—and the brace—allowed his bad leg to match Shaw’s stride.
“Always. What are we breaking into?”
“Records room,” Alec said.
If Dr. McQuiston had left behind any research notes, that’s where they would be stored. He’d yet to hear back from Logan about the unmarked punch cards. Between Lord Roideach’s rabid interest in the Ichor machine and a need to analyze Davis’s blood, Alec felt his actions justified. If there were any connections, he’d find them.
Perhaps because of the commotion, perhaps because of the intricate lock, not a soul guarded the door to the Records Room. Shaw had them inside in less than five seconds.
“Barely a challenge,” Shaw commented. “Might want to tip your brother to the fact. The security here needs a serious upgrade.”
If or when Logan bothered to reappear. Alec had tossed repeated skeet pigeons in the air and not heard a peep in return. His mistake. He should have found his own programming specialist. Shoving irritation aside, he scanned the room until he located the shelving labeled “L-N”.
Shaw followed. “Who are we looking for?”
“McQuiston,” Alec answered. “Former owner of the Ichor machine and hematopathologist. Anything Roideach takes an inordinate interest in is suspect. The man hasn’t had an original scientific thought in years. As such, I want to know what McQuiston was studying and how—exactly—he died.”