Clockwork Chaos

by C. J. Henderson

“Duly noted, Squire. Now step aside and let us pass.”

  The crime scene was in an alley near the cross streets. The cab took him as far as the police vehicles.

  “Good riddance, Grimstone,” Stevie said.

  “Such a harsh way to speak to such an old friend.” Stevie snorted and made ready to leave. “Don’t be going anywhere just yet. I will need a ride when I leave here.”

  “Find yourself another cab. I’m off duty.”

  “You will wait for me.”

  “And exactly how do you plan on making me do that?”

  The men’s eyes met. Stevie tried to look dark and menacing. Grimstone simply smiled, but it was not a happy grin and in reality the slight upturn of his lips was far more menacing than Stevie could manage to be with his entire body. The cabby broke eye contact first.

  “Fine. I’ll wait.”

  Grimstone opened the door and stepped from the cab carrying his cane with him. It wasn’t something he needed to walk. It was partially for show, carved from rare black ivory that was tougher than steel and sported a small dragon head atop it for a handle. It was a weapon disguised as a walking stick. Instead of using it in the normal fashion, Grimstone held the bottom and put the upper end on his shoulder as he strolled jauntily toward the dead and bloody body of a young woman. His arrival did not go unnoticed.

  “Grimstone, you get away from the body,” Sir Reginald said. The knight cop was a big man both in height and girth, not so much fat as large. His strength was legendary, often being called in to singlehandedly break up fights among a dozen or more men. His dislike of anyone who wasn’t a fellow knight cop was as almost as well known. At the top of his particular list of those he disliked, Jackson Grimstone probably held the top spot. “What the blazes are you doing here?”

  “Sir Reginald! A pleasure as always. How are the wife and children? Haven’t eaten the wee little ones yet, have you?”

  “Grimstone, that is enough of yer mouth. Leave before I bodily throw you back into the gutter where you belong.”

  “Well, that is certainly something you and those big arms of yours might actually manage if I decided to let you. However, then you would have to explain why you did that after I was asked to come here and lend you my assistance.”

  “Who would ask you to come here?”

  “Why, her majesty, of course,” Grimstone said.

  “You’re bluffing,” Reginald said, as a small metallic sphere hovered around him. The gawker had a large lens making it look like a metallic eye was floating to one side of the knight cop, turning back and forth between the two men as they exchanged barbs. “As you can see I have the matter well in hand.” The knight cop had a sense of pride that the gawker had been following him. The flying spheres had a tendency to be around when interesting things happened. Of course, Grimstone was the only one who both knew and was troubled by the curse may you live in interesting times.

  “Showboating for the bug eyes and their little cameras? Reggie, it’s so beneath you.”

  The big knight cop began to look nervous. “I’m not ... what are you talking about ...”

  “Oh come now. We both know your alien masters watch life through the gawkers.”

  “Grimstone, be silent!”

  “Yes, yes. I know the Steam Table Knights are aware of the existence of the bug eyes and know this world is merely a stage for them to watch. One of many in fact. They have forgotten how to live so they choose to live vicariously through others. That’s the truth, even if you are under orders not to let the populous know. But there are rumors. They see the gawkers and the robotic tourists. They suspect the truth. They may be able to set hoops on fire and force us to jump through them, but you don’t have to look so happy about it. Personally, I try to put a sausage on a stick when I have to jump in order to at least get a hot snack out of it. However, if you don’t believe me about Her Majesty, why don’t you send one of your squires to a call box? Or contact one of your zeppelin watch stations and find out if I’m speaking the truth. If I’m not, you’re welcome to try to send me back into the gutter, but even if you do I shall be looking toward the stars.”

  The knight looked at him confused.

  “A bastardization of a quote from Oscar Wilde.”

  “Who?”

  “A writer you shall sadly never have the pleasure of reading.”

  The knight cop was not happy, but he called up one of his squires and sent him to a call box. The lad returned soon after, informing Sir Reginald that her majesty, Queen Theodora, had indeed requested Grimstone’s assistance.

  Grumbling, the knight cop motioned for the Spellpunk to follow him.

  “This is the fourth girl we’ve found this month. They have all been prostitutes, each of them cut up in similar fashion with a blade.”

  “Damn bug eyes. So obsessed with The Ripper that they can’t get enough so they have to make more. They choose to prey upon the weak-minded.”

  “Are you saying the aloff are behind this?” Sir Reginald whispered.

  “They are behind everything, pulling puppet strings, putting schemes into place that might not play out for years just to entertain their sick, twisted masses. Or haven’t you noticed that every few years there is a new knife-welding killer that has to be stopped?”

  “I admit I do find it disturbing.”

  “The bug eyes take a child, make sure he is abused, and then arrange for a patron to adopt him so he may rise up in society. More often than not, the boy becomes a doctor. Although I admit this is the first one in some time that has focused back on the ladies of the evening. Do you have any witnesses?”

  “None yet, but the squires are still canvassing. Not one clue left behind as to who or what did this.”

  “So, Sir Reginald, what are your plans to catch this murdering bastard?”

  “We will put undercover knights in the areas where the prostitutes frequent. We were thinking of taking most of the women off the streets and closely watching the few that we allow on in order to set a trap,” the knight cop said.

  “Sir Reginald, on a personal level I may find you to be a bore, but you are a quite a decent cop. I will help you set the trap, but it would hardly be chivalrous to put a young lady at risk. Perhaps we should provide other bait.”

  “Not a bad suggestion,” Sir Reginald said.

  “I’m glad you agree. Which one of us do you think should dress as a woman? Personally I would love it to be you, but you may have to shave that lovely handle bar moustache and we may have to convert a tent into a dress.”

  The knight cop scowled at Grimstone. “I was thinking more along the lines of using one of the squires. Many of them have not even grown their first beard and could more easily pass as a woman.”

  “It makes sense, but hardly as much fun as getting you in a dress. Where shall we dangle our bait?”

  “All of the murders have been within a mile of this spot, although none have repeated locations. That leaves only two areas for the working girls to be.”

  Then we best get our plans in action. Shall I ride to the zeppelin watch station with you?” Grimstone asked.

  The knight cop grumbled, almost growling. “Fine. Shall I send out one of the squires to dismiss your cab?”

  “Nah.” Grimstone grinned. “Let him wait.”

  As night fell across the city of Thames a different element took to the streets, especially in the poorer neighborhoods. Some were criminal, most were not, at least in the strictest sense in that they were not actively engaged in criminal enterprises. These denizens of the night were concerned with the pursuit of pleasures, whether they be of the flesh, mind, or soul or sometimes a mixture of any or all of the three.

  True to his word, Sir Reginald had set up traps in the most likely areas to catch the latest Ripper. Both he and Grimstone decided to wait at the most likely spot. Hours past without so much as a customer browsing, let alone partaking of the secret and carnal pleasures being laid out for sale on the shadowy street corner.

 
“This isn’t working,” Grimstone said, tapping his shaved head with the dragon’s head. The gawker floated down as he spoke. “And I told you to back off out of sight or I’ll melt you down for scrap.” He pointed the tip of his black cane at the gawker and it floated behind some ivy on the nearby building.

  “And why isn’t it working then, being you have such great expertise on the going and comings of prostitutes and their clients,” Sir Reginald said snidely.

  “Other than your mother, I’m not really acquainted with many in that line of work,” Grimstone said with a wag of his eyebrows. The knight cop growled. The Spellpunk grinned.

  “You still haven’t told me what wrong with my trap,” the knight cop said.

  “What’s wrong? Besides you dressing them all in pink and giving them parasols?” Grimstone said.

  Sir Reginald shrugged. “The parasols seemed the best way to hide the fact that they weren’t really damsels. And the pink was to make them look more girlish.”

  “In the entire time we’ve been here, not one paying customer has come along and met with any of our ‘girls’. It probably looks too suspicious.”

  “And how do you propose we fix that, Grimstone?” Sir Reginald asked.

  Grimstone tilted his hat jauntily to the side, covered up the dragon top of his cane with the palm of his hand and strutted merrily toward the squires in women’s clothing.

  The Spellpunk staggered slightly as if he had a bit too much to drink but not so much as to be incapacitated. The gawker floated out to follow, but Sir Reginald grabbed it with one meaty hand.

  “Regulations or not, if you blow this trap, I will crush you myself,” the knight cop whispered. The gawker floated back behind the ivy, but its lens adjusted to keep Grimstone in a close up.

  The Spellpunk had made his way across the street and put a hand on the wall that one of the squires in girls’ clothing was standing in front of as if to hit on her. And hit on her he did.

  “Good evening, sweet lady. What will a crown and a loaf of bread get me?” The lad seemed horrified. It was the same squire that had let Grimstone in the area that the police had quartered off earlier in the day.

  “Grimstone, what are you doing? This is very unseemly,” the squire whispered, as his eyes darted toward the hiding places of his fellow coppers, embarrassment not only storming his face, but taking up a stronghold on his face that it appeared ready to defend against all comers.

  “Nonsense. The lot of you aren’t fooling anybody. You’re supposed to be out here to make money, yet you’re horrified that I am trying to engage your services. You put aside those Victorian mores and act like a woman of the evening. You should be working hard in an attempt to disengage me from my money, which means you don’t pull away, you lean forward, you smile, you giggle, you laugh. You put a wiggle in your step when you walk. So what we are going to do is you are going to take my arm and we are going to walk around the corner as if I were a real customer and we were actually going to do what a customer and a lady of the evening engage in for there to be an exchange of currency. That would make the lot of you look more likely to be prostitutes and less likely to be coppers.”

  Grimstone led the squire around the corner, stopping once to squeeze his bottom. The squire almost clobbered him but managed to stay in character. Sir Reginald had seen the logic of the Spellpunk’s plan and had sent a knight cop to engage the services of another of his undercover squires. They too walked off, but around the corner on the other side of the block. A single squire was left alone acting nervous, which was good for his cover. A woman alone on the streets at night would be anxious. It wasn’t long before a man in a long wool coat and a hat lumbered down the street toward the squire. While it was not exactly a sweltering summer evening, it was not nearly cool enough to justify the scarf the man wore around his neck and face. Or the cloud of fog that seemed to follow in his wake.

  “How much for the rest of the evening?” the man in the scarf asked.

  “A crown,” the squire said in a falsetto that cracked only slightly. His gentleman caller didn’t seem to notice.

  The scarfed figure reached in the pocket and handed over the requested amount. “Now come with me.”

  “Where are we going?” the squire asked.

  “I’m not paying you to ask questions. I told you to come with me, whore,” the scarfed figure barked. The squire seemed at a loss. He didn’t know if this was the killer, but he didn’t necessarily want to go off with a man who wasn’t, especially since he had no intention of providing the services that were paid for. His hesitation lasted longer than the scarfed figure was willing to wait, so he reached out and grabbed the squire by the wrist and pulled. The squire tried to pull back, but was unable to break the grip, so he took a swing at the side of the man’s hat with his parasol, which had the added value of being a large wooden club with metal inside to give it added heft. Sir Reginald hadn’t wanted any of his squires unarmed. The blow should have at least stunned the man. Instead all the squire got for his trouble was an ominous sounding metallic clunk.

  The scarfed figure strolled away, dragging the disinclined squire in his wake. The lad at first stumbled and then ran to keep up. Sir Reginald held back until he saw the scarfed man reach into a special pocket on the side of his long woolen coat and pull out a long metal blade. He blew once and three times rapidly on a whistle and the Steam Table coppers moved in. Eight men, two knights, and six squires, rushed the man. Each was equipped with their own specially weighted club. Dozens of blows rained down faster than hail during a spring storm, none of which affected the scarfed figure in the slightest. Next the men tried to wrestle him to the ground and were tossed aside like rag dolls for their trouble. The only thing the melee accomplished was knocking the killer’s hat off and tearing his long coat, revealing a silver metallic body beneath.

  “Blazes, it’s a tourist!” Sir Reginald snapped, moving in himself. Although the knight cop was a giant among men in both strength and bravery, he was a weakling when compared to the might of a metal man. The knight cop did his best to pin the mechanical arms to the tourist’s side but his grip was broken and he too was tossed aside.

  The gawker had left its ivy perch and followed, moving in for a close up of the mechanization. The tourist swiped at it, but the sphere dodged it easier that a horsefly avoiding an old mare’s tail.

  Both Grimstone and the undercover squire had returned to the scene running and breathless.

  “What do we do?” the squire asked. Instead of answering, Grimstone reached his hand inside the neckline of the squire and down into his brazier. “Grimstone, what the hell are you doing?”

  Grimstone put his hand out and with it the four pairs of socks that the squire had used to augment his chest size. “Figured you wouldn’t need these. How far away is the nearest zeppelin airship?”

  “Five minutes or so,” the squire said.

  “Go contact them and get them here.”

  “On whose authority?”

  “Mine. Remember, the Queen asked me to poke my nose in. Tell them to pilot right over me and drop anchor, minus the anchor. Trust me, in the long run, Sir Reginald will thank you. Now run,” Grimstone said, tossing one pair of socks aside before sneaking up behind the tourist and the three exhaust ports that were hooked up to his back. Grimstone shoved a pair of socks in each. He raised his cane over his head and used the tip to push the stockings further in. The tourist continued to move, although much more slowly.

  “What did you do?” the mechanical automation demanded.

  “You bug eyes can project your consciousness into these robots, but you’re foolish enough to bind yourself to the themes of this world, meaning you are allowing them to run on steam-based technology. That means I block your exhaust pipe and you have to slow down.”

  “You can’t stop me. No human can match the strength of a tourist,” the automation said. Stepping forward, the machine seeming to actually strain with the effort, pushing harder until its internal pressure b
uilt up and two of the three pairs of socks were shot out of the exhaust tubes like woven cannonballs.

  Grimstone stuck his cane between the tourist’s legs as the mechanization took his next step. The result was a very ungraceful fall that brought the unfortunate squire the tourist was holding down alongside the mechanization. There was a trough meant for watering horses on the front of a nearby building and Grimstone ran toward it. Sir Reginald had a similar idea and followed him. The two men picked up the trough, carrying it between them back toward the tourist, although even Grimstone would admit that Sir Reginald bore most of the weight. The automation was back on his knees when they dumped the water down his pipes.

  The water ran all over the automation but the robot was waterproof except his exhaust pipes, which quickly filled up and then poured down into the section that burnt coal specially designed to last a day without being replaced. The water was enough to put out the fire within and stop the automation from moving.

  Unfortunately the steam-powered Ripper didn’t seem to be playing by the rules because even as the fire within burnt out his limbs began to become active again.

  “What the blazes is happening?” Sir Reginald said, bending forward to try and pull the automation’s leg out from under him to knock him back down. The tourist only wobbled.

  “Obviously he has managed to modify the mechanical shell,” Grimstone said. “An obvious violation of the rules that govern visitation of the playworlds.”

  “How do you even know that? Not even the knights are privy to all those rules.”

  “This isn’t the first playworld that I’ve visited. Or the firstprivy, which is where the bug eyes belong. But this is the one they’ve hidden my daughter on, so I’m staying until I find her.” Grimstone looked right into the gawker’s eye lens as he spoke. “And then I’m coming for the ones that did this to us.” He turned toward the tourist. “Now if you don’t come quietly, I’m going have to report you. Oops, I think I have. They don’t take to kindly to rouge tourists, do they? Throws off the whole entertainment dynamics. Can’t have the camera fodder catching on and getting ideas of their own, can we?”