I rounded another corner, east on Peyton Quail Boulevard, into the Makers Shoppe District. Tinkers and makers and contraptionists galore. Some salesmen sold what looked to be industrial garbage, heaps of scrap metal, gears, pistons, and other machinery meant to be re-purposed. Other salesmen sold complete automaton units of various design and use, and of varying quality. There were consignment shops and pawn shops and supply shops and repairment shops. There were skilled craftsmen in their offices above, designing and studying, coming up with new ideas.
Quail Station sponsored by RailWorks, situated there in the Makers Shoppe District, stood several flights tall. Elevated nimbulators flew in and out of the station regularly, though it seemed rather sparsely populated as I reached the platform after taking the lift four flights up. There was but one other man, who stood at the edge of the platform, reading the afternoon edition of The Gazette, his face buried in the newsprint, as he waited for the train. I found his presence quite striking as I immediately noticed he was wearing black leather gloves. In fact, everything on his person was black. I wondered if the summer sun agreed with his wardrobe choices. His noggin brain must have been boiling beneath his bowler.
My schedule normally brought me to the station much later in the early evening. With my lecture, and finals, and the send off, it was all enough for a day’s work, I decided. A cup of seavenly and an early supper would do, I thought. I considered a trip to the social club for a quick pipe, but figured there would be plenty of time for that over the coming summer months. Pace yourself, old boy, I thought as I began to grow impatient for the train.
And that gentleman was holding his newspaper upside down, I noticed as I peered from the corner of my eye. It certainly wasn’t upside down when I reached the platform, I clearly remembered reading the headline.
I heard the clunking mechanical sound of the lift making its way back up. And then it stopped. Just like that. The lift car jammed in place before making its way to its final destination. I could just barely see the individual in the car, a woman.
A mechanical sound clicked over repeatedly. It was a terribly jarring racket, annoyingly repetitive and obnoxiously loud. I looked to the man reading his paper, now right-side up, but he wasn’t budging, his face still buried in the newsprint, like he was hiding himself away.
“No worries, enjoy your copy of The Gazette,” I didn’t wait for the print sniffer, instead I jumped to and made my way over to the lift, I could see it was a blond woman and it was in fact Ms. Dorothy Shelton. How pleasant. I was taken aback and quite surprised, “Ah! Ms. Shelton! Hello!”
“Dr. Monocle?” She peered through the iron cage, “Oh, Dr. Monocle!” She at least sounded happy, pleasantly surprised, to see that it was me once she did realize that it was, in fact, me. “There seems to have been a malfunction. I think I’m a wee bit stuck in here,” she called out, a slight tone of worry in her voice.
“Yes, indeed. Not to worry. These lift cages can be temperamental. One moment.” I pulled the doors open just a tad to release the stoppage and slammed them back shut. The car continued up to the platform where she stopped it and I helped her open the doors. With a hand I escorted her from the cage.
I turned to the man reading the paper, “Everything is under control, thank you,” but he seemed to not care at all. So be it. I turned back to Miss Shelton, making certain she was free of the lift.
“Oh, thank you, so very much. The randomosity in all of this,” she now seemed relieved, “thank you so very much. Oh, my, I’ve already thanked you, but I can’t thank you enough. I couldn’t have hoped to run into anyone else at a moment like this.” Ms. Shelton beamed a radiant glow and seemed in a near-frantic state.
“Oh, you do flatter me, so.” I must have been blushing. I could see she was looking over my shoulder, most likely upon the odd chap who didn’t care to help.
She whispered to me, “That man,” and she paused to be certain, “that man is reading his news upside down.”
“Yes, yes.” I whispered back, “Just another nutter. No need to worry. Per chance, are you catching the next train?” I asked, for a moment lost in her smile. It was the way in which her cheeks rose up just slightly; the way her lip curled just so.
“Up one level, back to Haverton Falls,” she said still keeping her eye on the man behind me, “which I’m afraid I’m going to miss. I hope not to be late. I am sorry to have to rush off like this.”
“Schedules must be kept.” I smiled.
“Though, I must say, doctor, I will be visiting The University again this week for your lecture. I really can’t wait to see you then.” She stepped into the lift cage, “Well, I fancied bumping into you however odd the situation, Dr. Monocle.” She smiled and thanked me again. I helped her close the door and said goodbye.
How strange it was to see her again like this, I thought as I watched the lift rise up and away. I turned; I looked at my pocket watch as I stepped back, closer to the edge of the platform. As I put my watch away I could see the gentleman was again reading his newspaper correctly.
As I was about to open my mouth to inquire about his rather peculiar reading habits I heard the locomotive’s pending arrival and thought no more of the gentleman. I turned to look at the train as it approached the station, hanging from its rail, swooping into the empty space of the bisected platform before coming to a complete halt.
I sat down in the first seat I saw upon entering the front of the car. The man with the newspaper had already entered at the back of the car and had sat down before I even came aboard. I could see the newspaper was, once again, upside down. Perhaps he had a weird method of folding the inner pages as he read through, I thought, but I couldn’t figure out why someone would do such a thing. To each his own. Normally, the train was crowded without any seats available, at all; I supposed one weirdo wasn’t cause for alarm.
The train doors had closed shut, but the train wasn’t moving. I looked at my pocket watch, three minutes past the time the train should have departed. Then a forward-moving jolt into a steady acceleration. Punctuality, so very important when keeping a steady schedule of appointments. Three minutes here, turns into several minutes there. Not that I had any further appointments for the day; quite the contrary, I had none. Though, the way a gear rotates does depend on the others.
The train ride was pleasant, station to station direct, no stops along the way. I always found the view from the window something of a hypnotic treat. The train would travel along that three story height for quite a distance before slowly dipping down, connecting to the ground rails and gradually leveling off at ground level and to my neighborhood station. The ride is always good for a relaxing view of the metroscape or the random fly-by of an airship of some intriguing design.
In that hypnotic state of travel, time flashes by. The constant inundation of the metro upon the eyes in such rapid succession lulls the mind into a calmed state. Then, like an alarm, the recognition of nearby landmarks close to home very abruptly brings me to. I looked at my pocket watch and we were just on time. Perhaps a three minute late start was not such a to-do. I shook the state of dullness from my brain and stood up, waiting for the nimbulator to come to a stop. I exited the car and stepped down to the platform, this one too, empty and devoid of people.
The train fired up, set to roll. I looked back. The man with the newspaper sat there at the back of the train, still reading. His newspaper held correctly. Perhaps he was finally getting the hang of it, I thought to myself. The gentleman then folded the newspaper away from his face to reveal a white, featureless, porcelain mask as white as a freshly fallen snow. The contrast between the gentleman’s dark suit and summery day became even more chilling as I stood there, frozen on the platform.
Those eyes were so black, I remember. I had been followed. My stomach dropped to my knees as he peered from behind that mask, seemingly through me, as the train slowly chugged to life and took off from the station. The gentleman and I stared at each other until our line of sight was broke
n.
I should have immediately known with his bumbleheaded tomfoolery, flipping the newspaper around, back and forth. And his lack of reaction to a startling event like the lift breaking down. That odd behavior only an outsider would willfully display. The aloofness of it all. What was going on? The question kept repeating itself in my own mind without an answer. At least the prudish fool who dares not get involved at least acknowledges that something is afoot.
I had done something, or other, in order to elicit a visit from GhostWurks.
11
Ominous. Ominous is not a word to be used lightly. It is not a word to be used flippantly, or only in passing, or without merit. It is the awaiting teeth of the hungry shark. It is the deepest black of night, your eyes straining with hope for something to take shape within your vision. Ominous are the shiny, black leather gloves and the way they stretch taught with an uneasy, deep crackling squeak over murderous hands.
Ominous is the reflective black glass from which their gaze you hope not be caught within. Ominous is the sound of their clicking and clacking as their footsteps upon the metro street coalesce into a fervor of organized chaos. Fancifully tailored, black three-piece suits within the crowd of a populated metro, coming together like a swarm of wasps. Faces masked behind scarfs, or upturned collars and handkerchiefs, some even by porcelain masks, some carved wooden masks, whichever the medium, the face is always distorted and twisted. Others use, and the trend has been growing, modified gas masks to conceal their identities. Though, what they all have in common are the black lenses upon their eyes and bowler hats upon their noggins, the kind a dandy ol' business-fellow or bureaucratic, lead-scraping, pencil pusher might wear.
A seemingly calm kettle, the water still. Then a bubble to the surface followed by others and rolling into a boiling, steaming squeal. Agents of GhostWurks would always bubble to the surface. From seemingly out of nowhere, there they were. And they were quick and efficient, almost frighteningly so. From seeming chaos, order emerged. Like a flock of ravens, crows, or gravends, they moved as one. I jokingly refer to them as bureaucratic ninjaneers, like the silent, efficient Eastern Bay warriors. Obviously this was much different. GhostWurks was a metro entity; a monster created of and by the system. GhostWurks Agents were so deep into BureauWorks they couldn't be traced, this by design. They used their own system as a cloak to work from within. They knew everything and they were everywhere. It is not uncommon to pass an Agent of GhostWurks, on average, at least thrice per daily outing and not even realize it. They have eyes everywhere.
It was some 30 odd years ago, in the 1840's, perhaps sooner, when word of strange to-do was about within the system of Works departments. The gossip and rumors started from within the system that high level Works department bureaucrats, those who stayed far from the public eye, were up to something. Rumors really. These things tend to swirl within exclusive circles before leaking to social circles and then into public knowledge. It is quite possible these stories we hear today are nothing more than elaborate exaggerations of the originals.
The basis of it all seems to always come down to these men of great wealth and power, unknowns, barely-knowns, sometimes even a well-known person gets his or her name thrown about. In whichever case, as it were, these bureaucrats began creating redundant offices. From those redundant offices other departments and offices were created. Some called it efficiency, usually the ones being the creators of said offices, those whose jobs depended on it. In reality, they were terribly useless wastes of time, space, effort, everything. Terribly maddening. From one redundant office another sprang forth. And then another. When one journo investigated how deep the actual bureaucratic mire went, she found that it could be never ending. The system was being used to wield terrible amounts of power.
Annabell George, a Gazette journalographer and all-around nosy-body, took interest in an official Clockwork Foundation internal listing of offices, departments, ministries, divisions, bureaus, stations, agencies, branches, centers, commissions, committees, boards, and their addresses. Upon investigating the more obscure departments such as The Commission for Workless Automatons, The Committee for the False Complaint Board of Review, and The Analytical Review Ministry for Works Agencies, Annabell found that some of these official government agencies were nothing more than fronts. Run down offices collecting dust. Office hours by appointment only. Upon that, there were sub-divisions of offices that didn’t really exist, but on paper. Strange and worth looking into, she thought.
Her investigation looped her around and around from offices and departments and ministries that all seemed to prop each other up, as it were. Then she found her loop was actually swirling and spiraling down into something at the center of it all. Before she found what that actually was she was met by what she called, “Three ghosts in the night dressed like bureaucrats, but their faces that of white porcelain masks, their features hideously askew. Their eyes were that of night.”
She had come home late one evening, her flat chilled with the night air entering from an open window, the entire place dimmed by malfunctioning gas lamps. A glance to the open window at the fat end of the main room and the silhouette of three men shown against the moonlit sky. They all spoke her name within seconds of each other, Annabell George, slowly in repetitious whispers overlapping each other. The agent who was front and center quietly demanded she stop her investigation. He revealed personal information about Annabell and her family. While the one spoke, the two others rummaged around clumsily, still repeating her name in whispers. One agent started tearing paper from a desk drawer into long strips, she wrote, and he would hold a strip aloft and watch it drop downwards before moving on to the next piece.
The other agent walked around the perimeter of the room. Each time he passed a piece of artwork hanging on the wall, he would make certain it was the piece hung askew. When he passed by the clock hanging on the wall, he wound the hour hand backwards a half turn about the clock face. As he passed the bookcase, he would randomly rearrange books, setting entire volumes out of order.
Ms. George then said the lead Agent started rattling off numbers at random, never repeating a single one. He circled her slowly while enunciating each number just so. She was frozen in place stunned with such fear. The one agent rummaging through papers and making a mess of the place grabbed a broom. The other agent stopped circling the perimeter of the room and took a jar, half-full of marmalade, and emptied it into his pocket.
They left the flat through the window and onto the fire escape as they must have come in. As they were off into the night, the Agent’s voice trailed into silence. Numbers fading into darkness. And that was that. Annabell George ceased her investigation, fearing the unknown. Fearing the random and bizarre actions of the men who broke into her home that night.
During the same time, there was the strange occurrence which started the tale of Werner's Bag of Goodies. Beau Werner was a Gear Monger, he worked a crew of 7 within a rather dense area of The Walls. During Werner's daily rounds of clearing fromm beetles, checking for rust and cracks within the gears, something stood out in manner one could only refer to as stupendous.
It was somewhere within The Walls between Haverton Falls and Bridgeport, the far northwest. During his routine check, Werner was taken aback by a loud clanging followed by the sound of grinding metal, the teeth of gears slipping and falling back into place. The sound must have echoed throughout The Walls something awful. There was a stoppage. The gears had ground to a halt. Werner and his crew found the source. Upon removing various gears and cogs they found within the stoppage a man ground to mushy bits. Within the mess they found cracked goggles, a strange ring, black leather gloves, and a mashed bowler hat.
The men carefully removed what was left of the man and placed the remains in a burlap sack. Werner claimed the bag for himself, of course. The remnants were washed down, the corpse sent to the ground, and the personal artifacts were kept along with the burlap sack inside Werner’s toolbox. Nicknamed Werner's Bag of Go
odies, Werner showed the remains to whomever would look. Eventually he garnered enough interest to charge a fee for a peek.
Strangely, no one questioned what the man was doing in The Walls or how he came to his end within the gears. He was just assumed to be some nutter lost within the architecture of The Walls and happened to meet an unfortunate end. He had no identification and any distinguishing marks were easily erased. His ring, though, it was something very interesting. Silver, worth a fair sum. Engraved along the band, the words, “Winding the Watches.”
What did it mean? Who was this man? Why was no one coming forward with viable information about the occurrence? Someone was obviously missing and now found, but no one seemed to care other than the fact that it was an enthralling mystery and a fascinating find. A wife or close companion did not come forward looking for him. He was an unknown nobody; a ghost.
Werner was a uneducated sod. Never picked up a piece of reading material in his life. Perhaps during lunch, fish and chips every work day, he would glance down to the newspaper his meal was wrapped within. Perhaps then, maybe he would read. Alas, Werner took to the written word like a totalitarian took to the drink. Perhaps he would have learned of Annabell’s articles in The Gazette. Instead, Werner made outrageous and unfounded claims based on word of mouth. Whatever Werner heard through rumor, he took as fact and made further lies about them. His stories grew out of proportion, eventually culminating in a tale that his finds were trophy for defeating a so-called GhostWurks agent within the walls. Werner would claim that upon defeating the agent, he just disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving his worldly possessions behind.
Spectacular Moments of Wonder with Dr. Monocle: That Certain Gentleman Page 10