by Jim Musgrave
“Very good, my boy! I knew you could do it. What kind of combat is this leader planning to have?” the rabbi asked.
“He wants a worldwide competition. He’s inviting royalty and leaders from all over to devise their own steam men and meet him on the battlefield in the spring. He has also commissioned an entire Steam City Amusement Park to be created under the direction of inventor and Archduchess Beulah Brownfield-Coldicott. Manette’s combat will take place as a climax to the springtime opening of the park. He is adding a five thousand dollar reward to any steam man who can defeat the one invented by Seth.” I could tell by the doctor’s smile that he was all in favor of such adventures.
“I would love to add that money to our program for New York orphanages,” said Doctor Adler.
“All in good time, Doctor. First, I must travel to the future to see what happened to a torpedo invented by a certain Captain Ralph W. Christie. This is the weapon that will be used by the Mocha Dick, the submarine we toured while underground. The Society has built this steam-powered torpedo based on the American Christie’s designs. It is steam-powered, and it was developed after the Japanese invaded Pearl Harbor, a naval base in the Hawaiian Islands. I wish to go to that base in the year 1941. I want to be there on December 25th, Christmas Day,” I said, standing up. “I must leave now, so if you gentlemen could give me an assist?” I walked over to the dreaded time machine, opened the crystal enclosure, and stepped inside.
“I don’t know why you must go, but I am certain you have your investigative reasons,” said Doctor Adler. “Seth, please do the honors. Detective O’Malley needs to visit the future.”
Once again, I could feel my heart rate quicken, my perspiration thicken, and my stomach sicken, as Seth turned the power switch on from the outside. The light show began, and I was soon swirling in the usual way, mixing my energy waves with the bombardment of the polarized neutrons, and then we were ready. I set the date and time on the panel, pushed the final control, heard the sound of buzzing light waves spinning, and I was gone.
My machine landed in an empty field just above the Submarine Navy Base. Nobody was in the immediate area, but I could see the pier downhill from me. I could also hear Christmas music coming from loud speakers—although the tune was not known to me. Something about a red reindeer, I believe. I climbed out of the machine capsule and checked my person for any injuries. I was still wearing my British inventor’s suit and disguise, although nobody would recognize Pat O’Malley here. I also knew where I would be heading. As a former military man, albeit of the Civil War variety, I knew that no officer would tell me what I wanted to know about the Mark 14 torpedo and its first use in battle. However, if I could find out where the enlisted men journeyed to partake of their alcoholic spirits, I was fairly confident I could overhear what I needed to find out.
Down at the pier, I stopped a sailor who was walking along the boardwalk next to the rows of huge submarines that were tied to the rows of piers. They looked like huge, black fish sitting on top of the water. “Excuse me, sailor?”
“Yes sir?” he responded.
“Where do the enlisted men let off steam?” I asked, pantomiming the drinking of a beer stein.
“Oh, the EM Club! It’s down the road about half a mile. It’s called Pig Boat Alley. You can’t miss it. You can smell the booze a hundred yards away! Merry Christmas,” he laughed, and walked off toward a submarine docked at the pier.
I sat inside the tavern at the bar. The bartender gave me a curious look, probably because of my clothes, more likely because of my British accent, but he still served me my root beer in a tall, sweating beer mug. It wasn’t as large as the ones I was used to, but it would suffice as I listened to the conversations inside the barroom.
I couldn’t make out anything worthwhile, until I heard a young voice crying out from the left side of the bar, in the second booth from the end. “Skipper fired eight fish at two fucking Jap ships. Didn’t hit a fucking one of ‘em,” the voice said.
“Aw, Jacobs couldn’t navigate his way out of a fucking phone booth,” said another sailor.
Jacobs. Commander Tyrell D. Jacobs of the Sargo. He was just the man about whom I wanted to hear. I listened very carefully to their conversation.
“Naw, then he spotted two more merchant ships and took extra care to get it right this time. We pursued the targets for almost an hour, fer Chrissakes. I’m the TDC operator, so I should know! The bearings matched each ship perfectly, and we were only a thousand yards away, I’m tellin’ ya. He fired two Mark fucked-up 14 torpedoes at ‘em, and they both missed completely. Skipper finally broke radio silence he was so pissed-off. It’s the damned torpedo’s fault!”
One of the sailors looked over at me. “Whatcha lookin’ at, bub?” he asked.
“Combs, you dipshit. You can’t be talkin’ about patrol maneuvers in the bar,” said an older looking sailor.
I decided to get up and walk over to their table. I did not want anybody suspecting me. As I stood beside the table, I thought fast.
“Gentlemen! I am from the British Admiralty. Doctor O’Malley’s the name, and I just wanted to extend my thanks to all you yanks serving over here. We thought we would have to fight this war alone until the Japs hit you chaps. Can I buy you all a drink? I am here to offer designs for a British torpedo. I couldn’t help overhearing the problems you seem to be having.” I kept my Irish accent, but I hoped my message was accepted.
“Doctor? Sure, why not? We need another torpedo on our boat,” said the short sailor who had complained. He looked around at his fellows and frowned. “Drinks are free, idiots. Doc here wants us to celebrate Christmas.”
I paid the bartender, and he delivered the drinks to the sailors’ table. I had the information I needed to know, so I left the bar and headed back up the hill to my time machine. Thankfully, it was still standing alone in the middle of the empty field. I climbed back inside the capsule and set the controls. I would now put a few more pieces together in my puzzle, just to be certain I was headed in the right direction.
The dark night on Pearl Harbor must have experienced a flash of light as I sent my time machine back home to 1868. I knew my mind was lighting up for perhaps the first time in this case, but I needed to be certain to plan my next steps very carefully.
Chapter 11: The Incredible Incident That Showed Me How Time Travel Can Crucify the Soul
April 20, 1869, New York City
During the months following my excursion to visit Pearl Harbor in the year 1941, following the Japanese sneak attack, the Society had extended its tentacles of influence deeper into New York. I knew we were getting closer to the 1870 take-over, and I also knew if we did not act quickly we would all become prisoners to these Steam City Pirates. I worked with Professor Thaddeus Lowe during these months to create a balloon modeled after a design he had been working on inside his farm laboratory at Valley Forge. This new airship of his could maneuver much more quickly than the ones he had used during the Civil War, and it also incorporated steam power because we assumed the pirates would have a craft just as fast and which also utilized the power of steam.
Bessie had released Hester Jane Haskins as soon as she found out Seth and I had arrived safely back in New York. She had two of her orderlies take the still-unconscious Jane the Grabber out to Central Park and place her near the Bethesda Angel Fountain. We knew Haskins would be able to find her way back to where she needed to be. All she would remember would be little Doctor Franklin’s dart injection entering her inside the Palace Hotel room. She had been kept well sedated for the weeks we were under Central Park.
When I finally took little Seth up in the balloon during our test, he was at first excited to be up in the air with us, but he soon became rather bored, except for wanting to play with the Gatling gun that was affixed to the inside of the airship’s gondola. In fact, at one point in our cruise over New York Harbor, the location where we would be facing off with the pirates’ craft, the little mazikeen started jumping from the
balloon and flying about on his own. Even though Professor Lowe knew about Seth’s supernatural abilities, he was still quite shocked when he observed the lad actually accomplishing such an unbelievable feat.
“Good lord, man! I don’t know what you’ve gotten me into. They don’t teach you about these things at the academy,” said Professor Lowe, observing Seth as he came diving down at us from a cloud like a screaming eagle.
“Oh yes. I believe we have yet to see the most of these kinds of supernatural occurrences. The pirates have one of their own mazikeen, and if Seth leaves us to go flying about, she will take his place, and believe me, she is not going to stop if she dives at us,” I told him.
“You did say that the two of them repelled each other, and so they cannot be physically close together in the same area. I suppose that this new supernatural world we seem to have gotten ourselves into has its own rules,” observed the inventor. His frock coat was blowing in the wind as we glided past the Sandy Hook Lighthouse at the entrance to New York Harbor and headed back toward the city. The balloon was fifty-eight feet in circumference, and it used helium instead of hydrogen because Lowe believed hydrogen to be dangerous because of its flammability. We went up by dropping bags of sand overboard, and we drifted down by releasing helium from the balloon’s innards through a special lever at the pilot’s controls.
We kept the balloon in a warehouse on 42nd Street near where I used to live in my apartment. When the first attack came, we would release our balloon and attempt to stop the pirates in the harbor. However, I now had another plan on the skillet based upon what I had learned in the future at Pearl Harbor. If what I believed would happen really did occur, then we might not need our balloon at all. In addition, ever since I discovered that Doctor Franklin Biggs-Pemberton may have lied to me about having worked for the pirates, he had been placed on my prime suspect list once again. The potential dangers from this one man were incalculable at this point, and I needed more evidence to verify my suspicions about him.
Meanwhile, the city was gearing up for the announced opening of the Colossal Steam City Carnival. Boss Tweed and the Tammany Hall group were all behind it, and I was certain they had concocted a deal with Manette’s representative, the Archduchess Beulah Brownfield-Coldicott. She was sending out posters to be plastered on every wall in Five Points, the Bowery, and all throughout the wealthier neighborhoods. Her personal flamboyance and sense of humor made her an attraction at civic organization meetings, church and temple groups and women’s auxiliaries. Everybody, it seemed, was looking forward to the grand festivities beginning on April 21.
As for the construction of all of the amusements and rides, many citizens had gotten jobs, and the entire project was completed by April 20 and ready for inspection. The Archduchess and Mayor Hoffmann did the honors, and they proclaimed to the newspapers that our “world’s largest all-steam amusement park was ready to open!”
It was on this day, the day before the park opened, that the pirates decided to send out the submarine to attack the foreign merchant ships coming into the harbor. We received word about this occurrence from a newspaper boy who came running down Fifth Avenue alerting all who would listen. “There’s a great white whale out in the harbor! Come down to the docks and see!” There were shouts of alarm, and many citizens dropped everything and began to run toward the shore.
I, however, decided to go in another direction. I headed for the old mansion on Fifth Avenue where the Society’s headquarters was supposed to have been located months before. As I arrived at the structure, I saw that the Italianate was locked up and a sign was nailed upon the door that said, “Closed by Order of Tammany Hall.” Since everybody had gone down to the docks to see the pirates’ submarine, I was able to use a skeleton key to enter the premises. The door opened slowly, and I saw, with some delight, that the entire mansion was as I remembered it on that day Bessie Mergenthaler and I visited it. It still reeked of dust and oil, the same Behaved Gita rug was on the floor, along with the drawings of steam-powered inventions that were hung on the wall. And the same steam-powered autos, bicycles, washing machines and irons were standing, like sooty toys, all along the walls inside the large drawing room.
There was one place I wanted to see especially, however, and that place was the room where I had witnessed the vision of my Dream Mother. If this place were still the same, then I had an idea that Manette and Bat Carry were lying to me. Biggs-Pemberton had told me the Society used the Dream Mother and Dream Master as a trick to fool me into believing that they held a curse over me.
The door was different. There was no warning announcement on the entrance and no combination lock. I could open it easily and step down the stairs into the basement. The steam-powered lighting came on when I flicked the switch on the wall at the bottom of the stairs. No longer was there a Dream Mother sitting atop a pile of human skulls. There was nothing down in the Society’s sanctuary but a small writing desk, a swivel chair, and a name sign at the front of the desk. The sign read, “Doctor Franklin Biggs-Pemberton, HMPS.”
I quickly opened the top desk drawer. Inside, I shuffled through some papers until I came to the one I wanted. It was an official government document with the heading of “Her Majesty’s Prison Service” at the top, with the address of the headquarters in bold. It was a simple supply requisition form, but my eyes gravitated to the date, “July 6, 2344.” The signature of the person requesting the supplies, which were mostly drugs, was one “Franklin Biggs-Pemberton, Warden, HMPS Lunar Facility 8.”
“Another universe, indeed!” I mumbled to myself, as I stuffed the paper down into my coat pocket. I kept thinking about the association of insanity with the moon, and the images of the Master Dreamer and my Dream Mother. And, of course, I was also thinking about the image of Doctor Biggie and his mind-altering, mind and body-expanding and mind-killing drugs! Prison Warden Franklin Biggs-Pemberton of Lunar Facility 8 was now suspect number one on my list, and I was truly living Poe’s “dream within a dream.”
After the torpedoes had missed their target out in the harbor, the Mocha Dick submarine disappeared inside an underwater tunnel, and nobody could find her. Of course, I knew she had traveled the thirty-six miles back to her port under Central Park. I had also had time to discover that Doctor Franklin Biggs-Pemberton was up to no good. I now wanted to confer with my inner circle to see what we could do to plan our own grand opening at the spring amusement park.
* * *
“He told us he was from another universe,” I said to the gathering of friends. Edgar Allan Poe had once explained to me about universes and their creation, so I thought he was telling me the truth. After all, we had the visions from Seth, and Bessie and I saw the headquarters on Fifth Avenue. Biggs-Pemberton was able to stop John Allen, and he helped us get into the underground stronghold of the pirates. Now I have this evidence that makes me want to strangle him on sight.” I was sitting inside our Temple Emanu-El sanctuary telling Bessie, Becky, Seth, Doctor Adler, and McKenzie everything I now knew about the case. Doctor Franklin was hunting around town for parts to create a weapon to terminate Master Manette.
“But he told you he had worked for the prison service in England. Maybe he just had the wrong date. Perhaps this Network officer who entered his body in New York City wanted to keep his actual location a secret for some reason,” Becky offered. She was always very logical when it came to my cases, and I valued her suggestions.
“Yes, Becky, that sounds logical, and I could understand it if giving us the wrong date meant this Network officer were trying to protect Doctor Franklin’s job. Franklin did say that if they were successful at putting a stop to the pirates he would get his original, full-sized body back as a reward,” I said.
“Yes, Detective, but you also said that the sanctuary inside the Italianate mansion did not exist. I assume you must believe Doctor Franklin—excuse me, the Network officer--caused you to hallucinate or see whatever you did. If it were the Network officer, it means Franklin was telling you th
e truth about being possessed when he was turned into a midget by the Society. But now you say you have evidence that shows Franklin might be lying. What do your instincts tell you?” Doctor Adler asked me.
“My instincts tell me to be prepared for both enemies. In other words, until we can find incontrovertible proof that Doctor Franklin or the Society is lying, then we must be ready to combat them both when the time comes. And the time is coming tomorrow. If we don’t stop them tomorrow, then I am afraid there will be dire consequences which will unfold immediately,” I said.
“Either way, you’ll have a real fight on yer hands, me boy-o,” said McKenzie. He pushed his mammoth chest out for emphasis. “The whole city is ready to accept these pirates right now. Did you see ‘em out at the docks today? When the torpedo missed the ship, they all booed and hissed. The people hate the merchant classes right now. If the people turn against us, then we will be down for the count,” he added.
“The only reason the Mocha Dick missed was because Captain Christie built a bad torpedo. I found this out when I visited the Pearl Harbor submarine base on Christmas Day. It will only be a matter of time, however, until they discover how to fix it,” I pointed out.
“There is a way you can possibly eliminate one of the prime suspects, Detective O’Malley,” said Seth. His eyes had the adult gleam in them, and I knew he had come up with an interesting proposition.
“What do you have in mind, son?” I asked, leaning forward to give him my undivided attention.
“You have the location and the date on the form. Why not send someone to the future to see if what Doctor Biggs-Pemberton said was true? If there is a prison on the moon, then it was only the date he gave you that was incorrect. If there is no prison on the moon, then he was lying to you about everything,” said Seth.
“Yes, but I can’t afford to go right now. We have until tomorrow to get our plan in place. If I have to travel around in time, then who will watch things back here?” I asked.