Jeremiah Willstone and the Clockwork Time Machine

by Anthony Francis

  “Commander!” Patrick cried, as glass and fire rained down around her, but she couldn’t respond, just tucked and slammed both feet down in a tight crouch, rolling forward through sparks and shards as the footmen blasted her landing zone. He cried, “Beside you—”

  Launching herself off one foot, she leapt aside, whirling midair, unloading both blasts into one footman, then tucked inward, letting her momentum spin her around. She kicked a leg out for balance, knocking the blaster from the remaining footman’s hand. Her spin carried her back upright, and she kicked the footman back with her other leg before firing both blasters square on his chest.

  “Quick, Harbinger,” Jeremiah cried, as the footman flew back. “Cover the—oh bollocks!”

  For when the footman had hit the wall, he was merely staggered, not felled, as thermionic charge dissipated out over the black mesh of his heavy Faraday duster. Dazed, his hand nonetheless snapped out, seizing a bellpull hanging from a brass farcall bolted to the tunnel wall.

  “Ha!” he cried, giving the pull a sharp jerk. Nothing happened—then his head jerked aside and his face fell as the farcall merely emitted the dull buzzing that indicated a failed connection . . . and the large brass alarm bell dangling from the farcall’s nethers steadfastly refused to ring.

  “Ha!” Jeremiah replied, clocking him on the forehead with the butt of her left Kathodenstrahl. The footman’s eyes crossed briefly before he went down. She whirled, but found she’d nailed all four of her assailants. “Best computer in the world, indee—oh, bugger me another!”

  Far down at the end of the tunnel, she glimpsed in flickering gaslight the tail end of a tailcoat disappearing down a side corridor, and she bolted after the miscreant even as the first of her forces vaulted over the barricade and gained the chamber, Patrick calling her name from behind.

  “Bugger my arse,” she muttered—she’d meant to lead her compatriots, not leave them! But there was no time—she had to kill the alarm, or the Baron’s forces would be able to marshal and hold them off until he was able to do whatever dastardly thing that he had planned.

  Jeremiah skidded down to the elbow of the tunnel, finding her foe far down an even longer corridor, a seemingly endless cylindrical passage lined with spiraling triangles of superstrong brasslite, likely drilled by Mechanicals working from the smugglers’ side.

  Jeremiah ran pell-mell down the passage, her men and women yelling as they followed close behind. At the last moment, she sprinted, hurling herself out past the corner of an L-junction, firing simultaneously with both Kathodenstrahls at the running blackguard who’d turned to fire back at her.

  He fell. Jeremiah smiled. But even as she landed in a painful slide, two more footmen leapt to action, one firing at her skidding form while the other picked up the relay for aid. She felled her assailant with one bolt—but just as she loosed another, she slid into the far wall.

  The jarred blast struck the fleeing footman in the seat of his striped slacks—morning dress, in the middle of the night?—and he yelped, but didn’t fall, hurling himself aside to dodge her follow-up volley. The footman limped on, crying for help, and Jeremiah rolled to her feet.

  “Bloody hell,” she muttered, “this is turning into a proper cock-up!”

  The chase went on through the warren of the smugglers’ tunnels. Each time she thought she’d caught up to them, more rats joined the race, and soon she was hopelessly lost even as half a dozen active enemies were live in the tunnels, firing back at her in a game of cat and mouse.

  No, keep going. Resist the urge to clear the area. Stop the alarm, or your true quarry will flee!

  Jeremiah steeled herself, then leapt over a tarped packing crate and unloaded both guns at the crouching footmen revealed behind it. Briefly surprised, they swung their blasters to track her and fired—and promptly rendered each other unconscious as she bolted through.

  She spun on her heel, fired blindly out into the storage room at forty-five degree angles left and right, making footmen duck; then as they leapt up to return fire, she let herself fall backwards into a back roll as blasts sizzled over her, then rolled to her feet and fired back at them.

  One, two at the left, then one, two at the right, but that wasn’t enough; they had cover, and Jeremiah stumbled backwards as the footman on her left glanced a blaster shot off her shoulder. Her Faraday mesh protected her, but she returned to simultaneous angled fire, walking backwards.

  “How many shots does she have?” one of the footmen cried, just as she nailed him. She smiled, but more footmen came running up, all oddly attired in white shirts and grey striped slacks more suited for a morning watch—but all were as disciplined as their suits were neat, and she found herself outnumbered and overwhelmed. Her firing became more desperate as she retreated up the corridor—then she realized it was not a retreat, for one of them cried: “She got past us! After her!”

  With a prickling on her neck, Jeremiah realized she’d penetrated their line and was now in the thick of her foes. Turn around. Turn around! Their reinforcements will be coming at your back! Jeremiah shot one hand out behind her and fired, the wild shot catching a footman square on the chest as he ran towards the commotion. She ran deeper in as blasts rained from behind, but cries erupted from the storeroom behind her as her own forces caught up, engaging the footmen—which meant pursuit would be confused. Once again she had the advantage of surprise—she had to press it home! There was simply no point in coming this far only to fail, not with the Baron only a wing away!

  Jeremiah pressed forward, even as she heard Patrick call her name from behind. She sprayed the next room down, running up the service stairs as footmen and engineers fell to the floor. She unloaded both Kathodenstrahls into a first level farcall, disabling the Conservatory’s alarms as a faint patter of blaster fire became audible from below.

  As footmen streamed out into the corridors, she fired left and right, nailing six of them easy before one giant, mustached guard eluded her and bolted up a hidden stair, calling vainly for help. Jeremiah gave chase, following the giant guard up the tight staircase, zig-zagging down a flickering gaslit second-story corridor in pursuit of footfalls and a slamming door—then she found herself before a wainscoted stairwell leading up to the attic.

  Jeremiah’s eyes gleamed. If she’d read the plans right, the attic of the Conservatory extended over the workshops that served the hangar proper. These blackguards hadn’t just stolen a crate from the biggest cache of Foreign technology on the planet; they’d stolen an entire airship along with it, and, if the Peerage was right and the crate held a weapon, the Baron’s team would be here, quick-whittling the custom fixtures needed to mount it on the ZR-101. With luck, the Baron would be overseeing the process himself . . . and these attic stairs would put her right on top of him.

  And if she was right, and the thing in the crate was not a weapon . . . Jeremiah shuddered. Part of her sincerely hoped that the as-yet unseen thing the Baron had liberated from the Providence Museum of the Insane was merely a weapon, a part of some grand plan to thwart a Foreign menace that the Baron, in his ego and genius, had convinced himself only he could forestall. Hoped, because the alternatives—the Baron betraying the Crown, or betraying the Earth—were far worse. But that was the reason the Museum was called the Arsenal of Madness: the possibilities unlocked by the terrors of its dark vaults seemed to drive otherwise quite reasonable men completely insane.

  Jeremiah carefully crept up the stairs, suspicious that the cry for alarm had halted. With nary a sound, she gained the upper attic landing and inspected the heavy wooden door, thicker than she’d expected, with some kind of unusual banding on it not present in her surveillance daguerreotypes.

  Jeremiah stepped forward—then saw a hole in the door and an eye staring out of it.

  ———

  For an instant, gazes met—then the eye darted back, and the tip of a blaster replaced it.r />
  4.

  It’s Never a Bad Time for Goggles

  LIGHTNING GOUGED a chunk of wainscoting a centimeter from Jeremiah’s head, and she hurled herself backwards down the stair, bumping from tread to tread on her tailcoat, firing both Kathodenstrahls again and again until the oak door panels were blasted into sparks and splinters.

  Her shoulders hit the second floor landing hard enough to rattle her teeth, but Jeremiah didn’t lose her grip: she just kept both guns trained on that cracked attic door atop the narrow service stairwell, watching foxfire shimmer off its hinges and knobs.

  But as crackling green tracers crept glowing around the frame, she realized with horror the purpose of those newly-added iron bands: they were an ersatz Faraday cage, diverting the energy that would have normally split the wood. She’d intended to blast the thing apart and deny her hidden enemy cover but had just created more arrow holes for him-or-her to shoot through.

  As the foxfire dissipated, the crackling continued, and Jeremiah’s eyes flicked aside to see sparks escaping the broken glass of her left Kathodenstrahl’s vacuum tubes. Its thermionics were shot, so she tossed the aetheric gun aside with a curse and checked the charge canister on her remaining Kathodenstrahl. The little brass bead was hovering between three and four notches. Briefly she thought of swapping canisters, but a slight creak upstairs refocused her attention.

  No. You only need three shots. Keep them pinned, wait for reinforcements.

  Light shifted in the holes of the shattered door above. Jeremiah cursed. There was cover to the left and right, but the moment she rolled she’d likely get shot in the back. Unless she kicked backwards and levered herself up on the wall of the landing, she was pinned.

  At last, aid! Patrick dashed round the corner onto the landing, then yelped and ducked back, firing a bolt from his blunderblast that knocked the armored door halfway off its hinges. Jeremiah kicked her feet over her head, rolled upright, and threw herself behind the corner opposite him as lightning chewed up the hardwoods where she had just lain.

  “Commander,” Patrick said with a sharp nod. He’d shed his heavy-weather tailcoat, his white shirt was torn, his dark skin shone with exertion—and a spreading splotch of red marred his gold-brocaded Faraday vest—but he’d kept a firm grip on his aplomb. “It strikes me you could give your team at least a sporting chance to keep up with you, but, as always, glad to be of service.”

  “Many thanks, Harbinger,” she whispered, raising her gun in salute. “Consider the service—and the reprimand—gratefully accepted. Leaving you behind, much less the rest of the Expedition, was not part of my secret plan to confound our enemies. The good news first, sir.”

  “It appears our computer has thwarted their alarm,” Patrick said, and Jeremiah smiled. “We’ve a fair shot at catching the forces in the hangar unawares—but I must commend our foes on their skill and marksmanship. Half the Expedition lies unconscious, and all the Rangers bold enough to follow me over the line are down. Herbert-Draper’s forces appeared caught in a pitched battle to breach the Conservatory’s mansion, so further reinforcements are . . . not guaranteed.”

  “They never are,” Jeremiah said. Patrick winced as he began turning the crank to recharge his weapon—and then Jeremiah’s eyes narrowed at the soot on the blunderblast’s discharge rod. “Pass it over,” she said, pulling a silk scarf from her Faraday vest. “You’ll ruin the chamber.”

  “Many thanks, Commander,” Patrick said, tossing the blunderblast to her. “Keep it, you’re better with it anyway,” he said, catching her Kathodenstrahl. He inspected the canister gauge and frowned, tapping it to double-check. “Only three shots? Where’s your left-handed one?”

  “Tossed it,” she said, pressing the brake to release the rod slowly. “Tubes cracked—”

  “Why not rescue the canister?”

  “It was hot,” she said. “I didn’t want to blow off my hand!”

  “Damn Austrian toys,” Patrick said. He watched her carefully clean the weapon, extending the discharge rod fully out of the brass firing bell before wiping the rod’s copper till it shone like her hair. “Good job polishing that rod. Pity a gentleman can’t get that kind of attention—”

  Jeremiah smirked. “If your rod was copper-hard, spring-loaded, and shot lightning,” she said, vigorously rubbing off the oil burnt up by the aetheric discharge, wiping the tip clean with a flourish, then slipping the silk back into her vest, “gentlewomen would line up to give it a polish.”

  “Touché,” Patrick said, flicking the night lens of his spectracle down over his left eye. But when he ducked out to sight up the service stair, a quick blast from the attic shattered the lens, forcing him back behind the corner. “Damnation!”

  “Harbinger!” Jeremiah cried. “You all right?”

  “Yes,” Patrick said, pulling off his spectracle in disgust. “Hope our foes aren’t invisible—”

  “Seconded,” she said, peering at Patrick: his cheek was twitching and bloodied, but his eye was still sound. “Rather not deal with a cloaker again.” She cranked the blunderblast’s discharge rod, ready to fire. “Assume we’re not. The clock is ticking. Suggestions?”

  “No more than eight shots between us,” Patrick said. “Risky, perhaps we should—argh!”

  Suddenly he flinched, hand going to his forehead—and a crushing headache struck Jeremiah too—accompanied by a dizzying hallucination, no doubt a psychic message from their precognitive team, relaying messages to the officers from the Eyrie in Boston.

  Unbidden, the image of the young Chinese twins called the Owl and the Falcon leapt to her mind: one male, one female, in elaborate formal dresses with namesake birds on their shoulders. They sat on twin thrones before the glowing dial of a vast spectroscope, clasping left and right hands in their habit when they spied the future. On the glowing dial behind them, their visions were writ large, precognitions of disaster, distorted images of the Conservatory and the Baron . . . with some fell shadow, a spiny thing of metal and fire, looming closer and closer.

  The hourglass has run out, the Twins “said,” straight into her mind—their raw fear delivering far more urgency than the simple words of their message. The stars align, the Messenger approaches—and the Order of the Burning Scarab is ready. If you would stop them, it must be now.

  The migraine passed, and Jeremiah opened her eyes. “The Messenger approaches when the stars align?” she said. “The Peerage keeps alleging the Baron’s here to mount and activate his stolen weapon, but, Harbinger, I must confess that premonition sounds more like”—and she grimaced, but there was nothing for it now but to say it aloud—“like a Foreign Incursion.”

  Patrick grimaced and nodded. “We’ve all been afraid to say that, even the Peerage. I hope the Baron is simply using a Foreign weapon, not calling in Foreign invaders, but regardless, that prevision put him at the heart of the disaster the twins want us to avert.” He kneaded his brow. “Bloody telepaths! Glad they didn’t send that head-twister while you lay on the landing—”

  “Thank heaven for small favors,” Jeremiah said, fortifying herself. The last thing Earth needed was another invasion of Foreign monsters from faraway stars! “If he’s calling down a monster, we’ve got to stop him before he gets started. Wind your braces, let’s do this—”

  But they did not even round their corners before another fusillade drove them back. “Ammunition is clearly not their problem,” Patrick said. There was another creak atop the stair, and he cocked his head. “Hear that? Like a spring drawing? Or a bow? Perhaps a six-string?”

  Jeremiah listened closely, then heard the sound again: it did indeed sound like the cranking of a bow of a six-string crossbolt, a crossbow-like weapon with six firing chambers, powered by those literal strings. Not the most formidable aetheric blaster, but, with a bit of elbow grease, endlessly reloadable. Then she realized the implication of hearing that so
und twice.

  “Maybe a pair of them,” Jeremiah said, staring at the bit of stairwell she could see behind the corner that gave Patrick cover: soot streaks paralleled the railing. Impulsively she flipped off the catch on the blunderblast’s single-shot ratchet. “Just five shots in this? Let’s make them count.”

  She slipped her goggles down, flicking their night vision off, making Patrick scowl.

  “Jeremiah, I know you love the look, but it’s near pitch up there,” he said. “You won’t be able to aim. Now isn’t the time—”

  “It’s never a bad time for goggles,” she said, lining the blunderblast up with the rail. “Draw their fire, then shield your eyes. Follow me up, as fast as I go. Ready? Now!”

  Patrick ducked out, fired, then leapt back as a dozen energy bolts rained down the stair, squeezing his eyes tight as Jeremiah thrust her gun out and let loose. With a teakettle scream and a blinding flash the blunderblast completely discharged, saturating the stair with aetheric fire.

  Jeremiah leapt up onto the stair, gritting her teeth as tendrils of foxfire tore at her from the stair, the rail, the gaslights. She leapt towards the sparking door and kicked it wide open, swinging the butt of the blunderblast straight into the chin of a walrus-moustached, waistcoated footman.

  The giant footman fell, two six-string crossbolts clattering to the floor beside him. Jeremiah slung her blunderblast, kicked one crossbolt up into her hands, and slid the other crossbolt away, leaning down to quickly check his pulse: a touch thready, but perfectly regular.

  “This lot tends their weapons well,” Jeremiah said, examining the crossbow-like aetheric blaster’s six independent strings, each capable of ramming its own silicon quarrel into one of the six stacked discharge chambers. “But not very Liberated. Not a woman among their men—”