Clockwork Universe

by John W Dennehy

  A cannon at the bow of the iron-clad erupted. The big gun jolted back, chains rattling, and then a cannonball lobbed through the air. It sailed toward the barge and dropped into the water with a splash. Smoke whisked from the barrel of the cannon.

  “Merely a warning shot,” Cunningham said.

  Kevin smelled the gunpowder wafting through the damp air. The warship seemed to be marking its target as it closed in on the cargo vessel. Another moment and it would be within striking range.

  Then, a fog horn blew and an officer opened an iron hatch. He called to the man in the top hat, instructing him to halt the barge.

  The Frenchman grinned and extended his hands, palms up, as though implying he didn’t have control over his vessel. Kevin knew the Frenchman couldn’t steer or slow the barge. The iron-clad closed the distance.

  Soon, the iron-clad would pull alongside the barge and marines would fasten lines between the two vessels and board it. Although capture was imminent, the Frenchman didn’t appear concerned. In fact, his countenance reflected an aloofness that puzzled Kevin.

  Cunningham didn’t seem to pick up on the nuance. He stood beside Kevin eagerly, rubbing his hands together, and occasionally bumping his elbow into the young man’s arm. “They’ve about got him,” Cunningham jeered. “We’ll get the credit for this, instead of the 10th Hussars.”

  “I’ve got a funny feeling about this,” Kevin said, shaking his head.

  “You worry too much, lad,” Cunningham reassured him.

  “The Frenchman looks too cocky.”

  “That’s his nature. Reality will soon sober his arrogance.”

  “Not so sure about—”

  “What, lad?”

  “There is a reason for his pride.” Kevin pointed toward the sky.

  A massive airship descended from the clouds. It was a full-sized zeppelin with teak wings sprouting from each side. Wooden propellers were strapped under the wings, churning it along with steam power. Hoses ran from the propellers down to a large wooden hull suspended beneath the airship.

  The hull was shaped like an early naval warship. Portholes ran along each side with muzzles of big guns poking through the hatches.

  “Blazes!” Cunningham bellowed.

  As the airship sailed closer to the barge, a long tail-hook swung down from the hull. The Frenchman scurried onto the cargo carrier and picked up a pole. It was the type of rod used by lamplighters for gas lanterns on city streets.

  He slid the rod under a coil of rope and then held it high. Thick ropes ran around the cargo carrier.

  Another explosion from an iron-clad cannon, and a ball ripped through the deck of the barge. Two more cannon blasts followed. Each resulted in the deck being broken open. A shot splintered into the cargo carrier.

  The Rhino-pard bucked inside, desperately trying to break out.

  Then, a volley of aerial artillery erupted from the sky. Cannon balls rained down on the iron-clad. The crew scrambled to wheel its cannons back and shut the dense hatches. Lead round shots collided with the iron-plated vessel, denting the armor and then rolling into choppy waters.

  A few found purchase at the seams, splintering the wooden support beams inside the vessel. Panels of protective iron gave way and bent inward.

  At a break in the fighting, the smell of cordite wafted through the air.

  The airship closed in on the barge, hovered, and then gracefully swooped down. The tail-hook caught the bundle of rope and whipped the cargo carrier away.

  The wooden carrier swayed back and forth as it rose into the air. Rocking beneath the airship, the Frenchman dropped the pole into the harbor. He stood on top of the cargo carrier and clinched a rope tightly. Then, he smirked at the hunters triumphantly.

  Just as the cargo carrier steadied itself, the Frenchman removed his top hat, and gave the hunters a decidedly genteel bow. He stood erect and a button to his tailcoat came undone. A green glow emanated from his torso, revealing a timepiece with Roman numerals housed where the man’s stomach should have been.

  “Jeepers!” Cunningham barked. “The wag is part steam man.”

  Kevin didn’t quite understand, but he remained silent. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know. They stood quietly, watching the airship get smaller in the moonlight. The only sound came from distant grumblings of the crew on the iron-clad.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Standing on the platform at North Station, Kevin looked over his comrades with mixed emotions. He wore the civilian clothes of his time. Kevin desperately wanted to get back home to his parents and the life that he knew. But part of him wanted to stay, and join in the next adventure.

  Sarah stood beside Cunningham, looking elegant in her Victorian attire. Her dress was black and silky with a bright pink liner that folded in front, revealing her bosom. Kevin longed to be with her.

  The Great Hunter smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. “You did a great job, lad. Showed a lot of courage. I knew you had it in you all along.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Kevin replied. “Just wish we could’ve gotten both of them.”

  “Nonsense. We’ll keep after the Frenchman,” Cunningham said, adjusting his Australian bush hat. “Don’t you worry about it a moment longer.”

  “Wish that I could join you. Seems like we made a great team.”

  “No need to worry,” Niles interjected from a rustic wheelchair. “You went above and beyond. I’ll never forget that night when you got the flare off in time for me to fire up the cogeneration plant.”

  Glancing at Niles in the wheelchair, oak boards and rattan seating, Kevin noticed the front wheels were the size of bicycle tires and the rear wheels were significantly smaller, basically the reverse of what you’d find in Kevin’s world. The difference made him understand that it was time to get back to his old life.

  He gave Sarah a kiss on the cheek, then picked up his portmanteau. He bid adieu to the others and headed for the train.

  “Keep hunting!” Cunningham said, tipping his hat.

  Kevin felt a tinge of anxiety and couldn’t look back. The pain at leaving them forever was unbearable. He hustled down the platform, and then rushed up a set of stairs to board the train. He shoved the portmanteau into the overhead. Nestling into a plush leather window seat, he finally turned toward his friends.

  The sendoff party began to break up. Cunningham spun the wheelchair around and pushed Niles away. While the two plodded off, Sarah stood watching the train, as though trying to determine where Kevin had sat down.

  She finally locked glances with him and waved cheerfully.

  A tear ran down his cheek. He waved back and hoped she hadn’t noticed. The sorrow he felt came as much from the thought of leaving her forever, as the lack of remorse that she exhibited. Perhaps she doesn’t reciprocate my feelings, he thought.

  He waved to her again, then wiped his cheek and faced forward. The train began to chug, and he hoped that it was only a matter of time before it transformed into a commuter rail.

  As the train slowly eased out of North Station, he noticed a man sitting across the aisle, familiar.

  Kevin couldn’t recall where he’d seen the man. The fellow dressed in Victorian work clothes, wool knickers, and a white shirt with suspenders.

  A conductor approached wearing a fine wool uniform. He asked to see Kevin’s ticket and punched a hole in it. Then, the conductor turned and faced the man across the aisle. The stranger didn’t have a ticket and seemed to be struggling to pull out enough money for the fare. That’s when Kevin recognized him as the freeloader from the inbound train.

  “We’re not going to have the likes of you aboard this train,” the conductor said in a heavy brogue. He pulled a cord and the train lurched to a halt.

  The man appeared desperate.

  “Off you go,” the conductor said, pointing toward a door.

  “He can have my ticket,” Kevin said, handing it over. He grabbed the portmanteau and alighted from the train.

  Kevin ran down the platf
orm, gripping his leather bag. He noticed for the first time, a faded stamp on the side of the leather bag, the seal of the Royal Society of Steam Engineers. He glanced back at the train and saw Roland in a wool suit, smiling from ear-to-ear.

  The crowds sending off their loved ones had disbursed. Sarah stood alone on the platform facing away from him, sobbing.

  He bounded up to Sarah and flung her around. She was halfway into a roundhouse punch when she registered him. Her face lit up into a smile.

  “We’re going to have great adventures together,” Sarah said coolly.

  Kevin kissed Sarah and then held her in a firm embrace. Letting her go, they walked down the platform hand-in-hand toward the Rover. He couldn’t wait to see the looks on the hunters’ faces.

  The End

  Read on for a free sample of Prehistoric Beasts And Where To Fight Them.

  John W. Dennehy is a writer of Horror & Suspense. His first book Clockwork Universe is out now from Severed Press. He has two more books expected from Severed Press in 2017, including Pacific Rising and Deepwater Drift. His stories have appeared in SQ Mag, Disturbed Digest, Typehouse Literary Magazine, Beyond Science Fiction, and in anthologies such as Winter Shivers, Bones III, and SNAFU: Wolves at the Door, and many others. Currently, he is working on a Supernatural Horror novel.

  After graduating from Pinkerton Academy, he enlisted in the U.S. Marines, serving with MALS-26 Patriots. Then John earned a degree in English/Creative Writing at UNC Wilmington. John is a member of HWA, MWA, and NEHW. He lives in New England and can be found at http://johnwdennehy.com/.

  PREHISTORIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIGHT THEM

  One of Katherine Muir’s favorite things about taking a panoramic submersible down was watching the bubbling waterline crawl up the viewing windows, letting her see the old, familiar world get replaced by the new, exciting one under the surface. But that was about the only thing she regretted about the design of her new vehicle, this sleek and solid lozenge built with viewports that were much stronger than those of any panoramic-view vessel, but much smaller, too.

  Those bubble subs were wonderful for examining coral reefs, fish, and other sea life. Watching the amazing octopus as it changed its color, pattern, everything to make itself completely invisible to predators. The times she had watched them deploy such camouflage, the only way she even knew they were there was because she followed silently behind them and waited until they felt a threat. Then they slapped themselves against whatever surface was nearby … and disappeared. Truly, studying ocean life in the panoramic submersibles was a joy.

  But this new vessel, Deep Thoughts, was made not to explore ocean creatures, but the ocean itself. Katherine and her husband, Sean, had designed the submersible, working hand in glove with some of the most innovative subaquatic transport engineers in the world. It had been a difficult decision whether to create a one-person vessel or one more like the bubble subs, with room for two. She and her husband wrestled with how cool it would be to explore together, but a submersible meant to reach the floor of the benthic depths 20,000 feet below the surface couldn’t be very big. So it came down to either giving up the amount of scientific and observational equipment that would allow a second passenger to ride or giving up the fun of doing it as a couple.

  They decided in favor of more science. It was to be a research vessel, after all, funded by a variety of philanthropic and academic sources to expand the frontiers of human knowledge about the still little understood landscape and biome at the bottom of some of the deepest water on the planet. Benthic was as far down as one could go and still investigate “normal” undersea terrain. There were deeper fissures and channels, but the deepest average real estate on Earth was benthic, and scientists still knew near to nothing of what went on in the complete darkness at the bottom of this zone.

  This wasn’t an expedition, despite the fact that they had a small documentary and communications ship, The Moaning Mermaid, along with their main launch and support vessel, Sea Legs. This was the second of four tests to make sure the submersible—christened D-Plus by the whole smart-aleck crew (because it was “below C level,” har dee har )—could handle the greater pressure and harsher environment it would encounter the farther it descended.

  Katherine took the first test run, this to “just” 5,000 feet. Not terribly deep, but deep enough that a major malfunction would force the crew on Sea Legs to get the winch going and haul her back up by D-Plus’s tether, which also included data lines and fiber optics for communications. At a crisis point, however, the high-tech tether would just be a rope everybody needed to yank on immediately if they wanted to rescue the researcher tasked with making sure everybody got their paychecks.

  As expected, however, the first test went off without a hitch, and she and Sean were pleased. Any major hiccups would have been obvious—or at least detectable—at 5,000 feet, so each of the next two tests would be to make sure the things they designed on land worked under the stresses of the deep ocean. Also, going to 10,000 feet exposed the submersible to double the pressure of 5,000 feet, and 20,000 feet would double the pressure again. The second test, with Sean at the controls, would venture almost two miles into the black depths; and the third, this time piloted by Katherine, would dive to 15,000. If D-Plus didn’t exhibit any major issues during the third dive, then the final test would touch down on the seafloor at roughly 20,000 feet and come back up almost immediately. If everything worked the way it had been designed to work—or most everything; no exploration went off perfectly—then the first real mission would spend a few hours at the bottom and see what there was to be seen. Take sediment samples, look at creatures that somehow made a life at four tons of pressure on every square inch, and perform a preplanned battery of observations and measurements. This particular area of the ocean bottom had never been explored, and many in the oceanographic community were watching the Muir mission with great interest.

  Katherine took the first dive, and they were supposed to take turns, but somehow her klutz of a husband—they named their boat Sea Legs in honor of his many times he almost fell over on any size of watercraft—had managed to run afoul of a line on board the launch ship and dislocated three fingers on his right hand just that morning as they were setting up the winch for the next test. It was 2016, for the love of God! They weren’t sailing with Blackbeard here—who got caught up in rigging anymore?

  Nevertheless, there it was: if a second test was to be performed, it would be Katherine Muir, not Sean, who would take D-Plus down. Piloting the submersible, even a deep-sea vessel going on what was essentially a controlled drop, required both hands and all ten of the pilot’s digits. But they told only their crew chief, Mickey Luch, about the change, since professional mariners, like those who worked the boats while scientists did their science-ing, were still a superstitious lot. Changes in plans made them antsy, to say the least. So she and Mickey just secured her in the sub without any announcement. Once she was in place, he told the crew they were making a switch—never you bunch mind why—and Katherine would be executing Test No. 2.

  There was a small murmur of protest—the winch greaser (a job title that always elicited snickers but was quite important) and the camera specialist on deck were especially superstitious and vociferous—but Mickey just helped Katherine into D-Plus, and the assistants got it locked up tight and ready to go. This crew had overseen 10,000-foot dives many times, and that’s why they were hired as a team by the Muirs.

  “Let’s move ’er out and get ’er down!” their chief shouted, and the A-frame winch structure slowly stretched its long crane out over the water. With a thumbs-up between Katherine and Mickey, the winch whined and the submersible was lowered into the choppy sea.

  This would be a very awkward and dangerous point to stop the operation, so it wasn’t until that moment that Sean Muir stepped out onto the deck, his first three fingers wrapped in a splint. The next test dive wouldn’t be for two days, and he’d work through the pain if necessary—he was no stranger t
o the sea, and he had “played hurt” through worse than this. The crew was preoccupied with the task at hand, but when they saw the researcher on the deck, they took a moment to bust his balls and laugh at his “horrible” accident.

  Some of them weren’t laughing, though. Sean knew that this switch—obviously due to the injury they could see with one glance at his right hand—would initiate rituals of touching wood (where they could find it) and prayers to Saint Michael, not to mention whispered oaths and grumblings about the expedition leader at the mariners’ table come chow time. Slipjack and Toro and Vanessa—the winch team—looked especially upset, although obviously trying to hide it so as not to visibly challenge Sean.

  He nodded at all of them and released them to work on the dive. He and Katherine exchanged “See you soon! Love you!” through the interior camera feed and monitor as she was lowered into the water. Once in the water, she started testing instrumentation and such while Sean supervised the support crew on the surface.

  The winch would be turning for an hour or so, meaning relatively little to do for the boat crew but help the scientists, if needed. Sean took the opportunity to motion for the three shaken-looking members of the winch crew to join him on the lee side of the huge spool, where it made enough noise to render eavesdropping impossible. When they had assembled, Sean said, “So what’s the rumpus here, guys? I know it’s considered bad luck to change things at the last minute, but —”

  “It isn’t superstition, Doctor Muir,” Vanessa said, and just from that Sean knew she was trying not to be a nuisance but truly was upset. After their first meeting, he had asked the solid, sun-leathered woman to call him “Sean,” and she always had. But calling him by his title and surname was like her filing an official complaint. “Last-minute changes mean other last-minute changes, and those make for mistakes. We should’ve put off this dive until you were recovered from … did you break your fingers?”