by Garon Whited
“Where do we stand?” I whispered.
“We’re alone in the building, aside from some sleepers. I found one electrical alarm, but it’s pretty basic. I already spoofed it. I haven’t checked the vault, yet.”
“I thought we were doing a nighttime recon?”
“I just did. There’s nothing between us and the vault,” she said, grinning. I sighed and went along with her.
“Lead on. You know this place.”
Mary detoured past Mr. DeFalco’s office and swiped his nameplate before heading for the basement stairs. There were heavy cage doors at the head of the stairs, out of view of the public, but Mary’s tendril flicked through the lock and drew the bolt in seconds. Downstairs, the vault door was much more impressive. It was seven feet on a side, square, with big, thick bolts, a heavy spinner on the combination lock, and a sizable wheel for cranking back the bolts.
We both ran tendrils through the steel, feeling our way along the bolts and around the mechanism. Working the combination lock wouldn’t be a problem, but until the clock-timer inside the door reset, spinning the knob wouldn’t do anything. It was a wind-up clock, with a key access in the outer face of the door. A rocker inside the mechanism acted as a pendulum. Could I turn the gearwheel controlling the lockout lever? No, it didn’t budge and I didn’t want to break it. How about working the lever, itself? No, the gearwheel was in the way until it rotated far enough. But the rocker serving as a pendulum… it moved. It relied on the inertia of its mass to keep each click, back and forth, at the same rate.
“Diogenes.”
“Yes, Professor?”
“I’m going to use a little magic. You might want to edit this time frame from your calibrations.”
“Understood, Professor. Please let me know when to resume.”
“Roger that.”
I scrounged power from the local environment, squeezed it into a spell, focused it, guided it with tendrils through the face of the vault door, touched it to the rocker, and robbed it of all the inertia I could. Instantly, it moved from a tick-tick-tick to a high-pitched buzz. The timer flashed forward, spring unwinding, until the early-morning ka-chunk sound freed the tumblers.
“Okay, Diogenes. I’m done.”
“Thank you, Professor.”
Mary spun the dial to unlock the thing, turned the central wheel, and the vault was open. She went in while I re-wound the clock and reset the time.
After that, it was just a matter of sacking money. She left the nameplate on the floor of the vault—carefully wiping it and everything else down to remove fingerprints, just in case—and we locked everything up behind us.
I used the door to the manager’s office as our gateway back to Apocalyptica.
Apocalyptica, Thursday, May 26th, Year 1
Having a large pile of money—well over ten thousand dollars—is fine and dandy, but take it out of the world and it’s paper. You can’t spend paper money outside its own frame of reference. People look at you funny and try to arrest you. It’s weird.
On the other hand, it’ll be useful for buying a car and some Thompson submachine guns. It’s not about the money, really. Mary just wants the adventure. I’m not sure she even uses money as a way to keep score.
I don’t want adventure. I want a quiet little house somewhere. But her idea of adventure and fun is a lot better than being the Demon King, the Lord of Shadows, and basically shouldering the weight of crushing responsibilities. I can cope with her fun, mostly because it makes her almost gigglingly happy, which makes me happy.
Well… less sad. I smile more when she does. I’m willing to think of this as good for me. That’s an improvement and I can acknowledge it’s an improvement. If she needs a partner in crime, I’m up for it. Even if she wants to bring along a goofy sidekick on her adventures, I’m up for it.
Holding up a bank isn’t really too complicated, all things considered. We returned to our hotel room through a gate and I brought my small mirror with me. I also wore a spell for keeping cool. We took a walk down to the public library to do some research. After a few hours of looking through records and searching around the country by scrying mirror, we debated the merits of individual financial institutions—very quietly. It was a library, after all. Eventually, we selected our target and decided to combine our bank robbery with a sightseeing trip. We bought train tickets and went for a ride.
San Antonio is awfully far away from everywhere else.
On the plus side, a train ride is a pleasant thing in and of itself. It was a full-service ride, from sleeper car to dining car to regular passenger car. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
“I have another idea,” Mary offered, speaking in Rethvenese.
“Oh?”
“If we can find a world with old steam locomotives, can we rob a train?”
“Do you just like stealing things?” I asked.
“Jewel thief,” she pointed out. “It’s fun.”
“Whatever happened to burglary, rather than armed robbery?”
“Such as breaking into a bank and stealing everything from the vault?”
“Good point.”
“So? If we find something even vaguely like the American West, can we rob a train?”
“We’ll have to look it over first, but I don’t see why not.”
“You make me happy. Did you know that?”
“It’s one of my goals in life.”
Our train ride had a number of stops and, for us, two transfers. Eventually, we made it all the way to Montgomery, Alabama. Why there? Because I looked over dozens of banks in a scrying mirror and I liked the layout of this one. It was a smallish bank with open counters rather than cages for tellers. It had a pair of uniformed security guards. It wasn’t too near a police station. There were a dozen other things about it I liked, from a robbery standpoint. It was also conveniently located not too far from a cemetery with an absolutely lovely wrought-iron archway.
The most important part of any endeavor is getting away with it. You can fail to kill your victim, you can fail to get the money, you can fail in any number of ways, but if you don’t get caught, you can try again.
Mary picked out a car and I counted out cash to the car dealer. I never actually drove a Model T before and the salesman was only too happy to give us a lesson. I was happy it had an electric starter and cranked up easily. The salesman seemed more enthusiastic about the twenty horsepower—and the top speed of over forty miles an hour!
I solemnly agreed it was an impressive car.
After that, we checked into a hotel to make sure we had our sunset plans covered. Prior planning prevents pyrotechnic problems. With our evening arrangements secure, we went shopping for guns. I bought a pair of Thompson submachine guns by paying cash.
That still amazes me. I mean, America, yeah. Second Amendment, yeah. But I was raised to expect… well… more red tape. At the very least, someone should ask for my driver’s license.
Nope. The gun store owner didn’t ask for identification of any sort.
Okay, to put this in perspective: The car dealer didn’t ask for my driver’s license.
This seems as weird to me as looking over the edge of the world.
I bought two spare magazines while I was at it and a couple hundred rounds of ammunition. I also inquired about good places to go target shooting and got several recommendations from the store owner. He was very friendly, either because I had a pair of submachine guns or because I spent as much on them as I did on my new car.
We drove out to one of the spots he suggested so we could get a feel for the Thompsons. They have something of a kick, let me tell you. The forward handgrip isn’t there just for show. And they chew through things like rabid beavers at a lumberjack contest. It’s a little disturbing to watch things disintegrate like that. I’m not terribly surprised, though. The Thompson in this world is, by default, chambered for a .50-caliber round. It’s a regular, pistol-sized bullet, just larger in diameter, not the monster-sized machine-gun rounds. But
still, whatever it hits is going to notice, probably briefly.
I’m going to admit it. It was fun. There. I said it. My only regret was the limited size of the box magazines. I wanted a drum, but we didn’t get one. Too awkward to carry and they won’t let you put a loaded gun in a violin case. I did tape two magazines together, though, upside-down to each other in case we needed to reload quickly.
And… I bought more ammunition. And a cleaning kit. Yes, we fired off all the bullets we bought. It made Mary grin from ringing ear to ringing ear. I might have smiled rather lethally, myself.
We spent much of the night in the hotel, discussing how to do this, what to do if this, if that, if the other thing. We planned it out thoroughly before I went to the cemetery and did some preliminary spellcasting on the entry arch.
I did not enter the cemetery. Maybe it would be all right. Maybe not, too. Since I didn’t intend to come back to this world for anything besides an occasional stopover, testing consecrated ground wasn’t high on my list of priorities. And I’m a coward.
Then it was just a matter of waiting through sunrise, cleaning up, and dressing for a gunfight. No, we weren’t looking for a gunfight, but if you know it’s a risk, you prepare for one.
Mary walked in with me. She had a shoulder bag and I had a briefcase. I wanted to use a violin case, but Mary thought it was a little too cliché. Besides, a briefcase wouldn’t draw attention. As she headed for the powder room, I headed for one of those table-islands with customer paperwork and captive pens. Coincidentally, these directions took us past the security guards. She hit one, I hit the other, and out came the Tommy-guns. I put one round into the ceiling to make sure I had everybody’s attention. Mary handed small sacks to the tellers.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, I kept track of the time, the people lying on the floor, and anything happening outside. Mary focused on motivating tellers. She didn’t shoot any of them, but strongly suggested it might happen. Waving a big-bore weapon at someone in point-blank range is extremely motivating. Mary was as giddy as a schoolgirl at her first formal dance, much to the concern of the various frightened people. A giggling bank robber with a huge gun is not a comfort.
I, on the other hand, remained serious, alert, and kept my back to a wall. When we hit the four-minute mark, I signaled Mary to finish up.
Gun slung, Mary collected sacks and we beat feet out the door. Into the Tin Lizzy, down the street, around the corner—that quickly, we were a respectable couple out for a drive. No sirens, not yet, so we probably had more time than we thought. Still, better safe than sorry.
I activated the prepared spell on the cemetery arch as we approached. I drove right through it and into the basement. The gate was only open for a few seconds, but it was a fairly sizable gate and cost us a lot of magical potential. Nonetheless, this was my first Model T and I didn’t feel like parting with it.
As soon as I stopped the car and set the handbrake, Mary kissed me thoroughly. All the robots capable of it applauded. Diogenes is sometimes a smartass.
Apocalyptica, Friday, May 27th, Year 1
As I handed Mary down from the car, I looked at it against the background of the basement workshop.
“Diogenes?”
“Yes, Professor?”
“How do you move robots and materials?”
“Please elaborate. ‘Move them’?”
“From one site to another. From here to Niagara.”
“The process begins with a remote flyover to map potential routes. Small, highly-mobile robots examine the ground of these routes and their survey data determines the final course. Once determined, a squad of robots with suitable tool appendages is dispatched to clear obstacles and construct whatever road structures may be necessary. Transport units take charged batteries to the road crew robots until they are too distant for remote refueling. Then they transport solar panels to establish a charging station and begin recharging the road crew from there.
“Once the road is adequate for routine transportation, appropriate robots are dispatched to the destination point, charging as necessary along the way. In the specific case of Niagara, the robots arrived on site and began building a water-powered generator to provide more power for renovation, recycling, and construction of higher-capacity power systems.”
“And the bottleneck for packing up the university base is… what?”
“Primarily, transportation. To maintain a constant supply of elf-clones will require the transfer or construction of a large quantity of specialized manufacturing equipment at the Niagara site. The university base is the primary fabrication center for all my industrial production, so the cloning tanks are built here. Once clone production is secured, the inter-universal transfer case will be relocated, possibly causing a minor delay at the delivery end. Then we can begin transfer operations for the rest of the industrial infrastructure.”
“But you say you’ve got a road already?”
“I have a pathway,” Diogenes corrected. “It is traversable by tracked robots.”
“I see. Do you plan to make more vehicles?”
“Yes, Professor. My current plans call for a rotastat vehicle as a primary transport. This will also permit rapid deployment of robot work forces in each location without the delay of road-clearing.”
“What’s a rotastat?”
“A hybrid of a helicopter and a dirigible.”
“All right. Get me a parts list of things you’d like dropped on your doorstep. In the meantime, how much ruthenium do you have? And can we get a couple of sets of doors put in this garage so we can drive stuff out?”
“Re-opening the access ramp to this level is relatively straightforward. As for the ruthenium, I presume you want it for magical charging, which, taken with your earlier comments, leads me to believe you intend to use an interuniversal gate with some frequency. May I suggest relocating the gate to more traffic-friendly surroundings?”
“Of course.”
“Along the same line, I would like to keep one EM transformer near my primary processor, if you don’t mind, Professor.”
“I intended you to, but I should have specified.”
“As for the parts list, a number of rare-earth materials are abundant in the salvage, but they usually require extensive reprocessing for our applications. I will draw up a list based on priority.”
“Way ahead of me. Thank you, Diogenes.”
“Thank you, Professor.”
“Mary? Would you like to steal some stuff for Diogenes?”
“Romantic questions like that are all a girl lives for.”
By nightfall, most of the old ramp was dug out. It was a lot of earth to move, but robot laborers controlled from a central intelligence never get in each other’s way and never stop—they never even slow down. By morning, they would have the shallow grade hard-packed and cobbled over, ready to be driven on. There would even be doors at both ends of the ramp, as well as some light-blocking curtains.
Diogenes is a clever computer.
Meanwhile, Mary and I set up every electromagical transformer in another building, a former auto shop garage, I think. It was big, open, and had roll-up doors suitable for a school bus or semi-truck. She and Diogenes did most of the electrical wiring and tuning. I did the magical power conduits. Rather than simply allowing the things to radiate magic in all directions, I routed the power directly into the gate enchantment and the power crystals connected to it.
I also built a large power-jet, mostly as an experiment. It ran on its own, but not well. Giving it a small transformer of its own made it run beautifully, however, and the net power we got out of it was slightly higher than the transformer alone. I pretended I understood how it could do that and left it running.
Then it was time to walk all around the campus, building the low-power version of the magic compression jets—power fans. These “blew” power from all around the campus perimeter toward the enchanted gate. With a jet sucking in power, these would help the magical flow into the depleted area… I
think. It ought to work that way, but I’ve never tried it on this scale before.
I was planning to open some big gates. Almost as big as the tunnel mouth Mary and I went through to avoid being followed. But these would be between universes, not a simple geographical shift.
Diogenes provided me with some gems and other crystals. Since I can already build a spell that acts a bit like a solar panel—radiant energy went in and some of it was converted to magical energy—I could set them up to charge themselves without wearing myself out to do it. It was a poor conversion, but if left alone long enough it would pay for itself and more. I wanted portable power to take with me, mainly because I couldn’t be sure of where or when I would need to open my gate, only that it would be in a magic-poor environment.
I set them up on the rooftops, one to a building. After covering the roof over with an energy-conversion spell, the enchanted gems would absorb the magical energy converted from sunlight.
It would be quicker, of course, to feed them magic from an electromagical transformer and let the rooftop solar panels have all the sunlight, but the bottleneck is the ruthenium. We don’t have enough transformers. But the conversion spell only blocks about four percent of the energy hitting the rooftop—less, from a practical standpoint, since some of the sunlight it absorbs isn’t a type the solar panels can convert to electricity.
I’m amused at being so green. Being a vampire with solar-powered spells is ironic.
Apocalyptica, Saturday, May 28th, Year 1
As morning started in the east, Mary and I cleaned up for the day.
“Got a question, Professor,” Mary said.
“Miss Mary, that’s what I call him,” Diogenes said, from his floating drone. “Firebrand calls him ‘Boss.’ You need your own term of endearment.”