Dawn's Early Light

by Pip Ballantine

  The second exploded, and a hunk of flaming debris landed in the remains of the crystal ball. Sophia recoiled at the sudden explosion of light and heat, and she pressed herself against the closest wall, in an effort to catch her breath and keep her balance as the world continued to shake around her.

  When she lowered her arm, she could see Harris struggling to free Prince Albert from the hold of her interrogation device. Looking around at the fire and bits of plaster crumbling from the ceiling, Sophia smiled brightly. Chaos was always the best cover for escape.

  Sophia sprinted for the window, grabbing her backpack on the way and thrusting her hands into the form-fitting leather. She pushed open the window and kicked her legs over the sill, allowing momentum to carry her into open space. Her fingers reached forwards, digging once again into the stone. It was now gravity’s office, pulling her down, the descent leaving deep grooves in her wake. She gave a push and landed hard in the alleyway, rolling up to her feet on impact and disappearing into the dusk of San Francisco.

  That was all that made sense now: run. Find open ground. Or perhaps, better still, run to the harbour, take a boat, get away from shore. Sophia knew she had to get away from the towering structures, which swayed as the earth angrily shook underfoot. She was not certain how far she had run, but she would not stop until she felt safe.

  When Sophia looked up, she saw it—a brilliant white light on the horizon. It was not the sun, but a pure white beam of energy. Solid in form, piercing through the blue purple of an oncoming night. It was low on the horizon, and it appeared to be travelling out towards the sea. Whatever this strange anomaly was, it would serve as her beacon to safety.

  Something moved to her left. The building a block ahead began to falter, its façade sagging to one side then toppling, tearing down the rest of the building with it. Sophia turned and ran, back in the direction of the Palace, back into the madness, the screams for help that would not come, or at least not come until all was done.

  Dare she risk an alleyway? It could provide a shortcut around the way now blocked.

  Underneath her, the ground bucked and knocked her forwards. Sophia picked herself up and found her stride again. The open street, she feared, was no longer safe.

  Then she heard the building beside her explode, the windows along the third floor cracking in sequence as the shock rippled throughout it. Another grinding pop of stone, and the building leaned towards Sophia, as if it were a giant looking down, eager to consume her.

  The ground kicked again, and this time, sent her sprawling. She knew she wouldn’t clear the block in time.

  So this will be my end, Sophia lamented silently as more windows shattered, and pieces of architecture freed themselves to rain down from on high.

  Sophia dared to look up at the structure teetering over her. This was never the death she envisioned for herself, but she would not allow herself to die as a shrinking violet. She would face it. She would defy the fear it desired from her. As her stomach quivered with a strange tingle, Sophia pulled herself up on her knees and faced her fate.

  The world flashed before her. All was light, and then . . .

  Sophia’s eyes were still struggling from the momentary blinding, but when the white and the black and greys came in focus, and the recognition of colour returned, the assassin found herself in an electroporter chamber.

  She swallowed back the grit, dirt, and ash in her mouth, her throat painfully dry and demanding water. She turned to face her saviour . . .

  . . . and longed to be back in the earthquake.

  The Maestro, flanked by a paler-than-usual Pearson, was looking at her from his mechanical throne, but the state in which she found her lord and master at present filled her with emotions and instincts she had never known. Certainly, Sophia knew fear. She knew it intimately, from both perspectives. She also grew to know the differences, subtle but still prevalent, between fear and terror.

  This was something entirely and savagely new.

  His goggles struggled to remain on his head, but as they had been knocked askew they shuddered with each laboured breath he drew. His hat and hair—both attached to one another, as was the fashion of this elaborate masquerade, were tousled, as were his fine robes. What made ice tingle within her veins was the expression in his eyes, or at least the one eye that was visible. It was darting around the Electroporter Room, trying to take in the fantastic technology and its frightening power. His gaze was of paralysing helplessness, as if he were trapped in an Edgar Allan Poe story of a man falling asleep in the comforts of home and awakening in a surgery theatre surrounded by surgeons ready to begin their work. He did not know those around him. He was lost, confounded, and smothering in his own madness.

  The other eye, the one still covered by the goggle lense, flared angrily with its crimson glow, a glow that only occurred when he was angry. It was a way for her to gauge how upset he was, and from the deepness of its colour and the glare it shone, the Maestro was incensed. Deaths were inevitable.

  Both of these emotions warred within this creature before Sophia, and she did not know what to do.

  “The Maestro insisted on seeing you upon your return, signora,” Pearson spoke drily. He too looked uncertain. That did not put Sophia at ease. At all.

  What had happened on board the Titan while she was away?

  “Signora,” the Maestro, his voice now switching intermittently between the mechanical box designed for him and his usual baritone, wheezed in greeting. “Tell me. How was your stay in San Francisco?”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Wherein a Prince Is Found and Then Promptly Lost Again

  Wellington Thornhill Books stood at the window overlooking San Francisco Bay and felt a heavy lethargy stealing over him. It had barely been twenty-four hours since their harrowing adventure over the Pacific Ocean. Shortly after the firing of the Tesla-Edison Death Ray, the massive airship had disappeared in the same spectacular fashion as it had appeared, and the taste of that loss cast a grimy pall over an already heartbreaking calamity.

  “I’ve been told the fires are under control now,” Eliza murmured coming up and standing next to him, “and the military have already begun ferrying supplies.”

  Their view was from a military outpost located on the Oakland Long Wharf. Alongside Army and Navy operations, the town also served as mooring stations for airships. Tonight Oakland skies were filled with traffic, offering resources to tend to San Francisco.

  Everything had been reduced to something of a dizzying blur once they had reached the nearest wire station. Wellington silently sorted through all the details of both the encounter in Montara, as well as the events beginning in Norfolk, Virginia. He knew this was going to be the topic of discussion when Felicity and Bill received communiqués with their new orders:

  All agents to gather at Oakland. Doctor Sound and Director Highfield to be present.

  It was a very stark room, without any particular decorations except for a portrait of the American president, Grover Cleveland. Only rows of tables laid out parallel to a large blackboard showed the room was meant for humans at all.

  Wellington turned and cast a sideways glimpse at the room’s only other occupants. Nikola Tesla sat in the far corner, scribbling notes on a pad of paper he had commandeered from one of the airmen. He was entirely ignoring them, and that was quite all right by the archivist. Bill and Felicity also sat at the long table, either taking stock of their transcontinental exploits, or silently mourning the tragedy unfolding in the Bay.

  “Did you see him,” Wellington asked Eliza in a low tone, “when we picked him up in the airship?”

  She frowned. “Of course I saw him, Welly. He might be a mad genius, but he’s not invisible.”

  “No,” he went on, “did you see if he was crying . . . or laughing?”

  She shot him an odd look. “Why on earth would he be laughing?”

  Why in
deed. As much as he admired Tesla, Wellington knew he had his weaknesses. What he had seen in the control room of the Duke of Sus— of the Maestro’s massive battleship was no illusion, no mistake. Yes, they had been hurried and the standoff was quite the heady rush . . .

  . . . but he knew what he had seen.

  “It is all so horrible,” Eliza said, pressing one hand against the window.

  “But there is cold comfort to be taken,” he offered, even as he watched plumes of smoke rise into the evening air. “San Francisco, had they received the full brunt of the death ray, would have been levelled to the ground.”

  “Terrible thought,” Eliza murmured.

  Everyone, save for Tesla still engrossed in his own notations, turned as the door to the room opened. Doctor Sound, carrying a covered placard of some kind, entered, immediately followed by a dark-skinned man of stunning carriage and confidence. The newcomer was about Sound’s age, Wellington observed, with a neatly trimmed beard and lacking the air of joviality that surrounded the Ministry director. In fact, Wellington could feel an intensity exuding from the man. It was as if he was taking the disaster in San Francisco personally.

  Sound gestured to the seats before the chalkboard. “If you’ll all have a seat.” As Wellington and Eliza took seats opposite their counterparts and Tesla, Sound gestured to the black man sitting next to him. “This fine gentleman, Agents Books and Braun, is Mr. Luther Highfield, Chief of the Office of the Supernatural and Metaphysical—my American equal. As this mission is under OSM jurisdiction, I turn the floor over to him.”

  “Thank you, Director.” Highfield stepped forwards, tucked his thumbs into his pockets, and ran his eye over the line of people before him, his gaze lingering on Tesla who still had not acknowledged their entrance. Wellington had been sure he’d never meet someone as imposing as Sound. Highfield lifted that bar higher. He towered over everyone, and his brown eyes were flinty, stern.

  “A man of his . . . heritage . . .” Wellington whispered to Eliza, as the chief’s attention was currently on Felicity, “. . . in such a high position? I’m impressed.”

  “Actually,” he began, his voice soft but still carrying a tenor that demanded respect, and Highfield turned his attention on Wellington, “no one else wanted this job.” His hands on the desk between them, OSM’s chief was now giving the archivist his full attention, and that made Wellington feel two inches tall. At best. “Let’s just say OSM is not the most prestigious branch of the United States government.” He stood up and strode back to the chalkboard. “After yesterday, it is hard to say if that is likely to change.”

  He unveiled the placard that covered most of the chalkboard. It was a detailed map of the San Francisco Bay Area, and part of the Pacific Ocean. Reaching into his coat pocket, Highfield pulled out a green star slightly bigger than his palm. It magnetically attached to where Montara was. “You all were there.” He attached a red star in an area of the Pacific. “This is the impact point of the death ray, some ten to fifteen miles off the coastline.”

  Wellington glanced at Tesla. The scientist was paying attention now, and looked as if he were about to correct the chief; but closed his mouth, remaining quiet.

  Another red star snapped on to the placard between the impact point and Montara. “Disappearance of the airship. And this,” he said, attaching a red circle that covered the western half of San Francisco. “This is the scope of the event Edison caused yesterday. The names of the dead and missing are still coming in.” He turned his dark gaze on Tesla who, Wellington would have gathered, would have felt slightly intimidated by the man, had Tesla not returned to his notebook. “Mr. Tesla?”

  Covering his open notebook with his hands, Tesla looked up at Chief Highfield, wide-eyed and ready, it appeared, for debriefing.

  “Please repeat the events that happened at Montara, leading to the firing of a death ray you were supposed to deactivate.”

  “I was given the task of taking control of the death ray from the auxiliary control room which, Agent Books here correctly deduced, was located by the lighthouse itself. I would have done so had Edison not engineered what I have heard called a ‘fail-safe.’ The auxiliary was designed to take primary control if control was lost at the main control point, the airship.

  “The fail-safe, however, was also designed to follow an auto-firing protocol if auxiliary was employed without a failure from main. This was a safeguard to prevent the shutdown I was attempting. Once I gained access, the auto-fire sequence initiated. I had few options remaining, so I set all power to maximum in order to burn out the device and repositioned the beam to fire out into the ocean.”

  “How fortunate you were Edison’s fail-safe was so rudimentary,” Wellington said. He could see Eliza start at his sudden contribution. “Had it been otherwise, Edison’s auto-fire protocol could have locked out would-be sabateours from changing targeting coordinates and overloading circuits.” He gave Tesla a slow nod. “Excellent work, Nikola.”

  He opened his mouth to reply, but then another thought came to him, and he merely returned a tight smile.

  “Nikola?” Eliza whispered. “You two are on first name basis?”

  Wellington never took his eyes off the scientist. “We are now.”

  Highfield considered Tesla for a moment, then turned his gaze out the window. “In order to maintain an illusion that we know what is going on, we are not correcting the general population who currently believe it was an earthquake.”

  Suddenly Tesla erupted, making everyone jump. “You are not revealing Edison’s part in this?”

  “Mr. Edison is very well-known, and his inventions are in widespread use across the nation. If it became known what really happened, there would be widespread panic.” Highfield shared a look with Sound. “The director and I have come to an agreement that both British and American agents will abide by this decision.”

  All of them took this silently, except for Tesla who kicked his chair as he sat down. Wellington imagined the Serbian would need persuading on this front, but then who would believe Tesla if he began ranting about electric death rays?

  The chief stepped back, and Doctor Sound now took the floor. “There is one other matter that needs our attention.” He turned and called out, “Albert!”

  Eliza and Wellington scrambled to their feet when the Prince of Wales opened the door and walked over to stand with the director. Even Felicity let out a little squeak at Albert’s entrance. Only Bill and Tesla, neither of them even slightly impressed, remained in their seats.

  At his side was a younger woman, dark-skinned, and quite breathtaking. The matter that the Prince of Wales was in the company of an attractive, young woman was no shock. What was shocking was just how well armed this lady was. She had a pistol strapped to her waist, and a throwing knife sheathed in a leather wrist gauntlet.

  “Evening, Bill,” she said. “You look good, all things considered.”

  “Likewise, Martha,” he replied.

  The prince looked tired and downcast, but a slight smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Oh please, don’t stand on ceremony . . . besides, I am the former Prince of Wales . . .” He trailed off.

  Wellington began to feel that they were tumbling further down the rabbit hole. First, Edison in league with the House of Usher. Then the appearance of the Maestro who was, in fact, the Queen’s Privy Council. And now, the Prince of Wales? Here? In the States?

  Sound cleared his throat, looking almost embarrassed. “Bertie and I are suspicious that the Queen, after so long not taking an interest in him at all, was insistent he come to San Francisco. His attendance at this conference was her idea, and then this Maestro chap shows up—”

  “Who just so happens to be one of her Privy Counsellors,” Wellington interjected.

  “Indeed,” Sound intoned solemnly. “When I read that in your report, it confirmed our suspicion that she intended him to be killed.”r />
  “Bugger me,” Eliza blurted out.

  The prince smiled, but it had an edge of despair to it. “Yes, quite. As you can imagine, a shock for me as well, but based on a few close calls I managed to avoid, thanks to the admirable skills of Miss Harris here,” the prince said, motioning to the woman at his side, “Basil and I have decided that for the time being, Mother should continue to think that I died in the ‘earthquake’ along with my valet,” and his voice tightened as he uttered the name, “Morton.”

  “I will be using the æthergate to find a pleasant spot to hide Bertie.” Sound afforded a wry grin. “He and his admirable virago, Miss Martha Harris, if you have no objections, Luther?”

  “Agent Harris?” he asked her.

  Harris gave the prince a slightly hesitant look before saying, “We’re used to one another by now. As we know how each other operates, we will be good for each other.”

  “Where will you send them, Doctor Sound?” Felicity asked.

  “A place only I will be privy to,” he replied.

  Those were the words that sent a chill down Wellington’s spine. Sending the Crown Prince of Britain off to who knows where with an American agent in tow, suggested that the director could not trust his own agents.

  This rabbit hole was descending deeper and deeper into madness.

  “And what of the Maestro or, as he is commonly know, the Duke of Sussex?” Eliza asked. “He’s got Edison.”

  “Yes,” the director said, “we shall have to deal with him back home, I am certain, but for now we must be on our way.”

  The chief and he exchanged a glance, one full of professional courtesy. “We’ll leave you to it, Director. We have to debrief Mr. Tesla fully on what he understands of Edison’s device.”

  After salutations and pleasantries were exchanged, Bill and Felicity lingered.

  “It’s been good working with you,” Bill said, slapping Wellington a little too soundly on the shoulder. “Hope we’ll meet again.” Eliza however got a far more enthusiastic good-bye. The embrace lingered rather too long for the archivist’s liking and he appeared to be whispering something in the agent’s ear—Wellington distinctly heard “Lizzie” in the exchange—but his chance to protest disappeared when Felicity wrapped him in her arms.