[2016] Timewarden

by Mark Jeffrey

  Bantam registered this with shock as his hand lurched out to steady the horrified Rachelle, barely keeping her from plunging to her death.

  “What happened?” Bantam shouted. “How did we get here?”

  Rachelle shook her head. “I don’t know! You were talking to that ‘Ton, and then we were here?”

  “Sonofabitch,” Bantam breathed. “How did he do that?”

  “I think he mesmerized us,” Rachelle shouted into the wind.

  “No,” Bantam said. “Impossible. There wasn’t enough time!”

  “I assure you it is possible,” Rachelle said, inching along the ledge. “There’s an open window around the corner . . . It is possible. I’ve seen it work, actually. He is a water-based automaton. Hydrologic circuitry. Humans are ninety-percent water. All he needs to do is set up a sympathetic resonance to put our organic minds into a suggestive state. It can happen in an instant.”

  “No wonder he looks down his metal nose at us,” Bantam said. The duo climbed inside: they had stepped out onto the ledge from the men’s washroom of Magfly. “This time I’ll go in there by myself,” Bantam said. “But if I come out all zonk-eyed, you slap me awake. Got it?”

  Rachelle nodded.

  Finding his way back to the door with the giant star and the words GASPAR THE GREAT blasted across it was not a problem.

  Bantam steeled himself and opened the door. He found himself exiting the dressing room.

  “What happened?” Rachelle asked him.

  Bantam cursed. “I don’t know. How long was I in there?”

  Rachelle shrugged. “Only for a moment.”

  “I don’t seem to be mesmerized.” Bantam said, slapping himself violently as he said mesmerized. “Ow!” he barked. “What was that for?”

  “What was what?”

  “Why did you slap me?”

  “You slapped yourself.”

  “No, I didn’t,” Bantam insisted.

  “You are mesmerized,” Rachelle replied. At that word, Bantam slapped himself again. “That wasn’t me!” Rachelle snapped.

  Bantam scowled and shook his head. “Okay. One more try.”

  He opened the door.

  The small herd of horses ran over to Bantam. Gaspar himself was in pieces: his head was inside a sphere, where it was receiving a treatment of oil on the jaw joints and buffing and polishing on the shiny parts. His legs were across the room where other smaller servant automatons were tuning them up, rebalancing them. His torso was open and his own hands repaired himself.

  “You’re back,” Gaspar’s head said, rolling its eyes. “How boring. Next time I’ll have you drop yourself from a growler.”

  “Wait!” Bantam said, bending to pet a mini-horse, figuring this would win him favor. “Wait. Before you do it again. I have a challenge for you. You think you’re so superior to humans, don’t you?”

  Gaspar’s head snorted. Several gears whirred and clicked in a transparent part of his head like grasshoppers. “Oh, darling. You don’t know what you’re playing with here, do you?”

  “No, I probably don’t,” Bantam admitted. “But what about this? What if I can hypnotize you?”

  Gaspar’s head gave a crooked smile. “Impossible. Humans can’t mesmerize automatons.”

  “But I’m good with magic,” Bantam said, picking up a card deck and shuffling it. “Most humans can’t do magic. Am I right?”

  Gaspar didn’t reply.

  “Here,” Bantam said, taking the top card from the deck and holding it to his forehead such that the automaton could see the face and Bantam could not. “Seven of spades. Jack of hearts. Two of hearts. Ace of diamonds. Three of hearts.” Each time, he pulled the card from the top of the deck and drew from the middle in rapid succession. “Three of spades. Ten of clubs. King of clubs. Queen of diamonds. Four of hearts. Shall I continue?”

  “Not bad for a fleshy,” Gaspar replied. “Maybe you can work the airway platforms. But you’ll never mesmerize these iron eyes, sweetie. Cold water runs through these hydrologic veins, and it is all ice. Can’t be touched. No human can do it, anyway.”

  Bantam shrugged. “I don’t know. You named yourself after a human magician, after all,” he said. “The original Gaspar the Great was—”

  “I know who he was!” Gaspar exploded. Then the torso leaned over and snapped the head back on. “You want to have a contest? Fine. But if you lose, I’ll put you in lavender slowly! I’ll have you fillet your own eyelids with a straight razor. All that wet juicy flesh of yours? I’ll pack pain into every nerve ending.”

  “You’re on,” Bantam said.

  The smaller automatons assembled the rest of Gaspar. When finished, he sat up straight in a wooden chair and said, “Very well. Make your attempt!”

  Bantam took Gaspar’s own watch and swung it in front of him.

  After several painful minutes, Gaspar moaned, “It’s not working.”

  “I know, I know,” Bantam said nervously. “Here. Let me keep trying.”

  “No,” Gaspar said. “I no longer wish to waste my time. You have lost: time to pay up!”

  “Wait!” Bantam said. “You have to give me a fair chance. This takes time.”

  “No it doesn’t,” Gaspar said. “I can do it in an instant.”

  “You’re hypnotizing a human. I’m hypnotizing a automaton! It’s harder.”

  “Not really,” Gaspar said.

  “I bet you couldn’t hypnotize yourself.”

  “Sweetheart, you must think me gulpy. You have no idea.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Big talk. You can’t do it. That’s why you’re anxious to shut me up.”

  “I could do it if I wanted.”

  “Then do it. Prove me wrong.”

  Gaspar snatched the watch from Bantam’s hand and swung it in front of his own face.

  After a few seconds, Bantam said, “Gaspar.”

  “Yes?” the automaton replied in a faraway voice.

  “Are you under?”

  “Yes. I did it.”

  “Good. I know you’re a courier for the Nazis. You have a message, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Give it to me.”

  The automaton opened a compartment in its chest and handed a rolled piece of paper to Bantam.

  GIVE SOLDIERS THE WEEKEND OFF.

  MAKE SURE THEY GET DRUNK.

  That’s it? That’s the secret Nazi communiqué ?

  “Rachelle!” he called out. She came in and he showed her the paper. “What could this mean? Do you have any idea?”

  “No,” she said. “Unless they want the army incapacitated. They want our guard down for some reason.”

  “Yes,” Bantam said, snapping his fingers and feeling stupid.

  The door opened. To Bantam’s horror, Veerspike entered the room with two army men Bantam recognized from the base. His eyes popped wide when he saw Bantam, and even wider at the sight of Rachelle. Instinctively, Bantam pushed Rachelle behind him and gripped her hand.

  Veerspike gave a sickly smiled and pulled out a gun. “Welly, well. So here’s where my fiancée has been. Kidnapped by the saboteur I thought was dead! Rampsman! How’d you manage that, eh? You think I tortured you before? The pinion can be turned up much higher.” He turned to Rachelle. “Come on, darling. Step away from the prisoner.”

  “No,” Rachelle said. She was shaking.

  “What’s that?”

  “No, Victor. Our engagement is at an end.”

  Veerspike went white as a sheet. “What talk is this? It’s been arranged. You’re an Archenstone. I’m a—”

  “Traitor!” Rachelle shouted. “You were the one who brought down the Pin! I’d only suspected it, but since you’re here to collect your next message from the automaton, I know it was you.”

  Veerspike’s face melted into a hurt-puppy look. “Sweetheart. You’ve got it all wrong. He’s the one. Bantam, the prisoner. He came to the automaton to get his next message from the Nazis. I had him followed here. He’s got you brainwashe
d.” Veerspike stepped forward. “I’m here to arrest him.”

  Rachelle was on the verge of tears. “I found the proton flame chemicals. You thought you hid them well enough but you didn’t. I know where you keep the whiskey. I wanted to know if you were still drinking or not. But instead I found . . . that. I didn’t even know what it was until you planted it in Benjamin’s room and pretended it was his!”

  Veerspike’s eyes fluttered. “Benjamin, is it? First name terms with Benjamin, are we?” Veerspike raised the gun. “A lady does not refer to a gentleman by his first name unless they are familiar.”

  Veerspike was going to kill him. Right here, right now. Bantam saw the baroque, dull gleam of bloodlust in his eye.

  Before he could pull the trigger, Bantam yelled out: “Gaspar! Mesmerize all three of them! Now!”

  The automaton’s gears whirred and chirped in his head. He emitted a strange blast of sound and the air shimmered. Bantam found himself yawning and doing head-nods, but Veerspike and his cronies immediately slumped to the ground.

  “I don’t know how long this will last,” Bantam said, grabbing Rachelle’s hand. “Run!”

  They bolted from the dressing room and out of the club. Within moments, they were on an outside platform thronged with people. “Airway cars over yonder,” Rachelle said.

  But one look in that direction and Bantam didn’t like it; there were too many people.

  “No. This way,” he said over Rachelle’s protest.

  No sooner had they stepped onto a new platform than Rachelle shrieked in alarm: her dress was caught in something on the ground.

  “Moving pavement!” Rachelle yelled at him. Bantam looked down in alarm. Rachelle pulled against the hem of her dress, but the cloth was stuck between two plates of a metal sidewalk that pulled her along with it. The plates screeched and crunched as they slid forward.

  Bantam glanced over his shoulder. To his dismay, Veerspike and his men were emerging from Magfly. They’d been spotted.

  The moving pavement yanked Rachelle mercilessly forward. Below them, clanking machinery hissed with great gouts of stream, driving the plates. Bantam dropped to the ground and pulled on the hem. He ripped the garment and freed her. Together they bolted up a nearby staircase to a platform.

  A Manhattan airway car was departing. They slipped inside just as the doors closed. Veerspike and his men arrived to see the car speed along a cable into the fog.

  “He’ll only take the next car,” Rachelle said.

  “I know,” Bantam said. “But I bought us some time.”

  A gunshot pierced the air, and the air car shook violently. The sound of a wire vibrating wildly filled the air.

  “Is he shooting at us?” Bantam asked, confused as to why the fog didn’t shield them.

  Bantam soon got his answer. Another gunshot, and the cable went slack. The air car began to fall.

  “Hold on!”

  The air car’s operator was smart enough to lock the brakes, so the car gripped the wire with a crunch. Within seconds, it went taut as the car slammed into the side of the building it had just departed. The passengers landed in a pile at the rear of the car, screaming in terror.

  “C’mon,” Bantam yelled to Rachelle. “We have to get out of here.” He stood and kicked out a window to the horrified looks and panicked yells of the other passengers.

  He and Rachelle eyed each other, and wordlessly made a decision: they jumped onto the helux balloon of a nearby growler. A great many were parked nearby, and Bantam and Rachelle scampered madly across their tops, great yawning deaths on either side.

  Veerspike and his men had wasted no time: they descended on the damaged airway cable and were already dashing across the balloons.

  They began shooting.

  Great spouts of helux gas shot out of newly-formed bullet holes. Helux was visible as a cloud of gold particles, almost like glitter. But it vented with a terrible force that would certainly toss them over the edge if it hit them.

  And it was heated, Bantam discovered with a shimmer of searing air against his face. It was like lava blasting up, and it could cook them where they stood.

  As the shooting started, growler passengers howled in terror. Nearby airway platforms emptied quite suddenly with uncivilized shoving and trampling.

  Rachelle pointed. “There! We must jump to the next level down!” Another clump of growlers floated one story below. Probably a taxi line, he reasoned.

  He gave a silent agreement, and they landed softly on a balloon top. Here, they were obscured by the taxi line above: Veerspike had no clear shot.

  “Again,” Bantam insisted, seeing that it had worked once. When they reached the next level, they slid down one balloon surface and into the carriage of another.

  The woman piloting the growler yelled, “Tut! Who are you? A screwsman and his toffer?” But Bantam pushed her away from the controls and headed back into the fog bank, away from the building. Rachelle tried to quiet her.

  “Perhaps we will lose him in the vapors,” she remarked to Bantam.

  “Maybe,” Bantam said. “I’m not taking any chances.” He pushed the steering wheel down and the growler descended, covered by mist. He couldn’t see a thing. He could hear a constant ping from all directions at regular intervals.

  “Set the doo-dah!” the woman yelled at him. “Are you mad? Nobody can see us!”

  Bantam looked at Rachelle, then nodded to the woman. “You set it.” She pushed a button near the steering wheel; instantly, Bantam’s growler began to ping as well.

  Another gunshot rang out in the mist, then another. “He is vexed,” Rachelle said. “He aims he knows not where, hoping chance alone will save him.”

  A shriek rang out with a horrific popping sound. A naphtha lamp above them to the right dropped rapidly. The terrified howling of the pilot grew fainter until it could not be heard.

  This continued for several minutes before they finally emerged from the far side of the bank. Bantam spotted a platform on a nearby building. He let the woman have the wheel back. “Drop us off over there.” Scowling, she did so, and cursed them out as she left.

  Bantam and Rachelle entered the building, but after twenty minutes or so, they were surprised it was completely empty of people. As they descended a staircase, it began to shake violently. “What now?” Bantam said.

  Out the window of the next landing, they saw the building was moving. They were below the mist layer and could see all the way down to the ground. The building was mounted atop a wide locomotive-like vehicle that steamed along on a giant track.

  Another gunshot caused Bantam to snap away from the sight: on a landing many stories above, Veerspike and his men were running. Bantam and Rachelle exited to the floor they were on.

  They were in luck. This floor was open to the sky on the far side, and it was stacked with hundreds of personal dirigibles. The crafts looked like ski lifts with a helux bubble attached. Bantam realized that’s why the building moves. They were in a mobile parking garage! It probably rolled all over the city on a set schedule, letting people drop off and pick up—

  Rachelle uttered a noise that indicated exasperation. Oh right. Somebody’s trying to kill us.

  Within moments, they were airborne again, doo-dah pinging and naphtha lamp cutting through the fog. “This time, I will pilot,” Rachelle said. Bantam demurred.

  They rose into the busy, crazy sky, barely avoiding several collisions.

  “Jesus. Haven’t you people invented lanes yet?” Bantam said. “A little tip from my world: look into it.”

  “Lanes. Lanes are for bumpkins. This is New York City,” Rachelle replied, a little smugly. “If you can’t handle it, go back to the deadlurk.”

  “There,” Bantam said, pointing at an airway car headed their way. “I want to catch the uptown line. Those zip along faster than these balloon things. I want distance between us and Veerspike as quickly as I can get it. Set us down on the roof.”

  She did so wonderfully, Bantam admired. I
might be in love.

  They let their growler float aimlessly as they clung to the roof of the car. Bantam already had the top hatch open when Veerspike and his men appeared like a hawk from clouds, their growler rising up over the prow of the car, barely avoiding a collision. Veerspike seemed as surprised as they were by this turn of events.

  Bantam and Rachelle crouched in a panic as Veerspike’s foot almost clipped them both in the head. “Turn around! Turn around, you fools!” Veerspike yelled. But balloons did not turn well suddenly. With a tight grin, Bantam realized that Veerspike was going to miss them. The airway car would be gone long before they could manage the turn.

  But another gunshot sounded. With a start, Bantam saw that Veerspike had shot out his own helux balloon. As the craft fell, Veerspike jumped out and landed on the car. His two men, taken by surprise, watched helplessly in confusion, and then terror as they plunged to their deaths.

  “The führer thanks you for your service,” Veerspike said with a sneer to their quickly-receding screams. He rose and aimed his gun at Bantam. “I’ll be needing my communication from Berlin now.”

  “Sorry,” Bantam said. “Get a coggler to check your gears. I don’t truck with Krauts.”

  Veerspike pulled the trigger.

  Empty.

  With one swift motion, Veerspike pulled a dagger from his sleeve. The dagger was already in the air and almost to his head! Bantam thought he saw an SS death head on the handle.

  “Mesmerize!” Rachelle shouted. Bantam slapped himself, nudging his head out of the path of the dagger at the last sliver of a second.

  But he was off balance, teetering, falling . . .

  Madly, his fingers clutched and grabbed onto the footrail. The passengers of the car gasped at the window. He barely had a grip as he dangled from the Air Way car, zipping along at eighty miles an hour.

  Veerspike turned to Rachelle, who clung to the open hatch door in the howling wind.

  “Dollymop!” he yelled at her. “Common tramp! How could you betray your husband?”

  “How could you betray your country?” Rachelle shot back. “You destroyed our space program!”