Kim regarded her employer curiously. “And so... what? They paid for our aid?”
Smith chuckled. “They will do. If, as I say, this is a good time to move against the Company, then we shall need friends. Britannia’s eye is distracted from us, for the time being. Thanks to your actions, these past few months, Russia’s is likely to be as well. But there is still China to be considered. We will be needing powerful friends before too long.”
Kim curled up on the chair, musing, listening to the sounds of the market setting up outside the window. “Smith? These people, these new friends of yours... They’re machines, aren’t they? Difference engines?”
Smith huffed, smiling. “You really are very bright, Kim. Analytical arrays, I’m told they’re called, although I’m beggared if I know the difference.”
“What are their names?”
“Hm? Marx and Osman. You’ll come to know both names well enough, in future.”
“I see.”
Both man and girl sipped their tea in silence for a few moments.
“Smith?” Kim said eventually.
“Yes, Kim?”
“You said we could speak of my father, at some point. We never did. You said you and he, and your professor, went separate ways. Why? What happened?”
“Oh,” he said, and he closed his eyes. He looked very tired. “They died. Both of them, your father and Professor Ghandi. Assassinated. Your mother was right.”
“Who–” Kim’s voice caught in her throat. She cleared it and started again. “Who–”
“The Company, of course. They have people for it. I considered finding out who, after I started working here, but decided I didn’t want to know. What would I do? And to what end? Whoever it was, he was just the weapon. The hand that aimed it was the Company, one way or another. It’s the Company, ultimately, that I have to punish for it.
“For years I thought it was an old friend of Ghandi’s. A British man, who he’d known at Eton. He’d visited us a few times and tried to convince us that Britannia was the best for India. It was only years later that I found out he’d died right around the same time as Ghandi and your father did.”
Kim was shocked to find she was tearing up. “And did the Company kill him too?”
Smith opened his eyes again, shrugged. “Perhaps. I’m not sure.”
“What was his name?”
“The friend?” Smith fell silent for a moment, thinking. “Quicksilver, that was it. Hercules Quicksilver. Some sort of war hero, I believe. He was a good man. Principled. Didn’t understand India, really, or the Company; but good-hearted and brave. I believe he had sons.”
“Maybe I’ll meet them one day.”
“Maybe, Kim. Maybe.”
CODA:
THE EVE OF WAR
This is our home – yet this is not the whole of our world. For our world is where our full destiny lies – with men, of all people, and all nations, who are or would be free.
– Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 – 1969)
NEW YORK, USSA, 1999
“OKAY, SENDING HIM up now,” said the receptionist, her tinny voice echoing. The horn died abruptly, the whistling noise fading to silence.
“That wasn’t smart, pilgrim.”
Father Michelangelo wheeled around, heart suddenly pounding. There, one foot on the floor, the other still on the railing outside, stood one of the most remarkable men he had ever seen.
The man was black, and very tall, with a patch over one eye and a full, flowing moustache. He’d covered his clothes – a close-fitting white jumpsuit dotted with pouches, with a sort of star design on the chest – with a blindingly blue trenchcoat. It hurt the eyes to look at him, as though Michelangelo’s mind didn’t want to focus on the outlandish apparition.
“What did you say?” asked the priest, utterly at a loss.
“Have you told any of the cats back at the Vatican what hotel you’re staying at, daddio?”
“I–” Michelangelo hesitated. The stranger was right. “Then who–”
“A very dangerous Nazi cat by the name of Adler, and he ain’t here to share a toke and get down, if you know what I’m saying.”
Michelangelo wasn’t sure that he did. “He’s here to kill me?” he ventured.
The stranger nodded. “He’s been tasked by none other than the king of badness, Adolf Hitler himself, to burn that box of magic beans you got there, and it’s a safe bet he’s gonna see you as a liability. He’s gonna want to silence you, true believer.”
The priest shook his head. “Who are you? Why are you talking like that?”
“The name’s Jack Scorpio,” the stranger said, “and I’ll gladly answer all your questions in a little while, but there’s a seriously bad trip about sixty seconds away from that door, so I’d say now is not the time. Now, you can either come out this window with me and your little box of tricks, and we can go talk to a man called General Zitron who is seriously vibing to meet you, or I can walk away and let our friend from Berlin come in here and give you his spiel instead. What do you say?”
“I – I’ll come.” Michelangelo seized the box and stepped to the window. Some sort of flying contraption was floating in the street behind Scorpio’s shoulder. “Where are we going? What are we doing?”
Scorpio smiled. “We’re starting a war, baby. And what you got there is the best kind of ammunition there is. Welcome to S.T.E.A.M.”
About the Author
Born in Australia, David Thomas Moore has lived and worked in the UK for the past twenty years, and has been writing for roleplaying magazines, fiction websites and short story anthologies for eight years. The Ultimate Secret is his first novella. He lives in Reading with his wife Tamsin and daughter Beatrix. You're glad you met him.
A GALAXY-SPANNING ADVENTURE!
Doc Thunder – the gold-bearded, bronze-muscled Hero of New York – in his last stand against a deadly foe whose true identity will shock you to your core!
El Sombra – the masked avenger, the laughing killer they call the Saint of Ghosts – in his final battle against the forces of the Ultimate Reich!
The Scion of Tomorrow, the steel-clad Locomotive Man, in a showdown with cosmic science on the prairies of the Old West!
Jacob Steele, the time-lost gunfighter, defends the 25th Century against the massed armies of the Space Satan!
And a deadly duel of minds and might between the Red King and Red Queen in the mystery palaces of One Million AD!
‘ONE OF THE BEST SUPERHERO PASTICHES I’VE EVER READ’
Pornokitsch on Gods of Manhattan
‘NOT ONLY A POET OF PULP, BUT A POET OF BEATING-TO-A-PULP... AL EWING’S GOT THE GOODS.’
- The Steampunk Scholar on El Sombra
www.abaddonbooks.com
Join Ulysses Quicksilver – dandy, detective and agent of the crown – as he battles the enemies of the Empire in this thrilling steampunk adventure.
A RACE AGAINST TIME!
Paris. City of lights. City of lovers. City of dreams. Yet if one man gets his way, its inhabitants will soon be forced to endure a nightmare such as they have never known.
Hero of the British Empire Ulysses Quicksilver is determined to stand in his way... even as he returns from the past to appear on the scene of a horrific murder!
Before he can hope to rescue the French capital from its fate, Ulysses must go on the run and track down the real killer. His intention: to clear his good name, and get back to England in one piece. And quickly, for the love of his life is about to take a most ill-advised trip to the Moon.
Can Quicksilver stop the terrorist known only as ‘Le Papillon’?
“I love knowing I can pick up certain authors and be guaranteed a good time. That’s just what I got with Anno Frankenstein.”
– Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review on Anno Frankenstein
“The reader feels like the cozy universe of Pax Britannia is truly, irreversibly changing.”
– Pornokitsch on Dark Side
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.com
ACTION AND ADVENTURE IN A NEW AGE OF STEAM!
Join Ulysses Quicksilver – dandy, adventurer and agent of the crown – as he battles the enemies of the Empire in this collection of rip-roaring steampunk adventures. This action-packed tome brings you three sensational tales...
UNNATURAL HISTORY
Queen Victoria is celebrating the 160th year of her reign, but all is not well at the heart of the empire. An eminent professor of evolutionary biology goes missing. A catastrophic Overground rail-crash unleashes the dinosaurs of London Zoo. Is this the work of crazed revolutionaries, or are more sinister forces at work? For Ulysses the game is afoot!
LEVIATHAN RISING
It’s all aboard the Neptune, the latest in submersible cruise-liners, for a jolly ocean jaunt. But what starts out as a holiday quickly turns into a voyage of terror for Ulysses and his companions. A brutal murder is committed and then an act of sabotage plunges the Neptune into the abyssal depths. There a deadly secret awaits them, as the Leviathan awakes!
HUMAN NATURE
The Whitby Mermaid is stolen from Cruickshank’s Cabinet of Curiosities and Ulysses Quicksilver is soon on the case. What does the theft have to do with the mysterious House of Monkeys? And what of the enigmatic criminal known as the Magpie? Ulysses’ investigation takes him to Whitby, where something sinister lurks on the moors, carefully choosing its victims!
“Jonathan Green gets mileage out of his monsters, with big action set-pieces that read like things we’d like to see in a rip-roaring summer movie.” - SFX
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