Jeremiah Willstone and the Clockwork Time Machine

by Anthony Francis

  Simeon’s fist shot out and slammed into her gut.

  Jeremiah fell back to the deck, breath half gone, instinctively windmilling her legs to try to prevent Simeon from drawing his second holdout gun or falling upon her. But he sprung back, bringing the deadly black gun up in a blaze of red light.

  Jeremiah blinked. The gun had a sighting ruby on it, but far too small for any ruby, and she looked down to see a red glowing dot on her chest, glittering with the same eerie, grainy light she’d come to expect from Dame Alice’s glare.

  “Damn, chica, not bad,” Simeon said, feeling his mutton-chopped jaw. It had all happened so fast, she didn’t even remember kicking him; it must have happened when she windmilled. “I think you hit me three times before I got a bead on you.”

  “Care for a rematch?” she said, shifting.

  “Don’t,” he said sharply, raising the gun. He was still shaggy-haired and had the slightest twang to his voice, but clearly the nighttime boor back at the pizza parlor had been just a character. “No fucking way. Fists are the last resource of a fighter. You win fights with your head.”

  “You have a good one on your shoulders,” Jeremiah said, impressed by his resourcefulness and absolutely furious with herself. She should have anticipated that a city this size would have the resources to field satellite guards in nearby buildings. “I salute you, sir.”

  “You’re going to toss the lightning gun over the side,” Simeon said, keeping the gun carefully trained on her heart. “Then roll over, cross your ankles, and put your hands on your head. Anything else, I put a bullet in you.”

  Jeremiah swallowed, painfully reawakening the stinging in her smoke-burned throat. This man really would shoot her. She’d rarely been this close to death in a so-called civilized country—but she was no stranger to it.

  “Move,” he said.

  “I’m thinking,” she snapped, not moving a centimeter.

  “Toss the gun,” Simeon said, “or I put a bullet in your knee. Kapeesh?”

  Jeremiah stared at the scaffolding overhead, then glanced aside at the banded bell of the Maxwell Electric Repeater, useless now except hand to hand. “Ka-peesh,” she said, raising her hands slowly, unbuckling the blunderblast’s shoulder strap, and pushing it away. Her beloved weapon rolled off the planks and out of her view; the crashing of branches and a hollow sound, like the denting of a drum, followed.

  “I feel like I’ve lost an old friend,” she said, preparing to roll over.

  And then a black rectangular shape shot over her head.

  “Fuck,” Simeon said, with the sharp sound of a gunshot followed by a clatter and a bang. A second shape followed the first, slamming into Simeon before he could recover. She kicked her feet up and vaulted to her feet—to find Marcus standing in a tense crouch before the sprawled Simeon.

  Simeon was bleeding from his nose, Marcus’s skateboard at his side. When Simeon saw her flip up to her feet, he snarled and mirrored her motion, stumbling slightly as he came up to his feet. “Marcus, what the fuck are you doing?”

  “Fixing my mistakes, Simeon,” Marcus said, advancing on him.

  “Betraying your country,” Simeon said, dropping to a fighting crouch.

  “I’m not asking you to do that,” Jeremiah said, stepping up beside Marcus.

  “Somebody has to,” Marcus said. “Christopherson has the wool pulled over their eyes—”

  “More like she’s pulled the wool over your eyes,” Simeon said.

  “Like he hallucinated me aboard that airship in the first place?” Jeremiah said. “You and your superiors should have taken him seriously then, should have taken a description and posted it directly—and you would have had me in custody already. You should take him seriously now.”

  That got through. Simeon blinked—and Jeremiah moved.

  Men were typically better fighters than women; Jeremiah wasn’t ashamed to admit it. It was just a fact of life: more size, more testosterone, more muscle, less body fat. To win a fight, Jeremiah relied first on her wits, then her weapons, and, failing those, her carefully cultivated speed.

  Simeon, however, was not a street brawler or an underpaid footman. He was an expert, dodging her blows, not even blocking, using some martial form that turned defense into offense. Jeremiah found herself forced to switch from bartitsu back to straight boxing and its more solid defense as Simeon’s vicious blows staggered her more than once.

  Then Marcus leapt in, his legs whirling over and under Simeon, forcing him back. Simeon was a veteran fighter, expert at his craft, catching Marcus on the chin and the gut, but Marcus was younger, stronger, faster, and kept coming back.

  Soon Jeremiah and Marcus had Simeon cornered on a bend in the scaffold, both of them moving in one by one, but unable to close the deal as Simeon drove each of them back in turn with vicious lancing kicks.

  “You, chica, I’m going to kick your ass. And you,” Simeon said, pointing at Marcus, “I am going to eat your face.”

  “Bring it, asshole,” Marcus said, leaping forwards, hammering his fists into Simeon’s guard, creating an opening that he capitalized on with a sudden ram of his shoulder, hurling Simeon into a support pillar. Simeon elbowed him in the shoulder, driving Marcus to the ground, but then was staggered to his knees himself when boards rained down upon him from above.

  Jeremiah raised her fists. Simeon snarled, knocked the boards off, and stood.

  “Why didn’t you fall on me?” he said. “What were you waiting for?”

  “Wouldn’t be sporting,” she said. She smirked. “Besides, you need every advantage.”

  Simeon roared and ran down on her. This time, she was ready: when Marcus had attacked, she’d seen Simeon’s measure, and while she didn’t have Marcus’s strength, she had more speed. She rained a flurry of blows onto Simeon’s guard but did not try to drive him back, instead letting him think he was driving her back while she goaded him into overextending himself.

  Then he swung wide. Her fist shot out like a cobra, nailing his chin—and in the brief moment he was stunned, she kicked him in the groin, then followed immediately with a hopping one-two kick to his gut and face.

  Simeon’s eyes rolled back, and he tumbled to the planks.

  Marcus was just getting to his feet when she extended her hand to him. “I salute you, sir,” Jeremiah said, helping him up. “Clearly, the twenty-first century knows how to build soldiers.”

  “Thanks for the save,” Marcus said, feeling his shoulder. “Fuck!”

  “You’re welcome for both.” Jeremiah glanced down at Simeon, who was just starting to come round. “And I again salute you too, sir,” she said, patting Simeon’s cheek. “A capital show. Jeremiah Willstone. Look me up if you ever get to Victoriana, we’ll spar.”

  Then she clocked him hard on the jaw, and he went out again.

  “We gotta go,” Marcus said urgently, glancing over his shoulder. Sirens wailed in the distance, approaching fast: the police were apparently sending reinforcements. “Airship girl! We gotta go!”

  Jeremiah stared after her blunderblast, down into the trees, somewhere in the jumbled construction lot at the base of the structure.

  Ah well. She didn’t have another canister for it anyway.

  ———

  “All right, skater boy,” Jeremiah said. “Now really show me the town.”

  33.

  Like the Rain

  “WELL, LOOK WHO we have at this late hour,” Colin said, opening the door of his cozy little ranch home to Marcus and Jeremiah with a broad smile. He flipped a bit of his dark hair out of his eyes. “My favorite student of French Literature and his dashing British time traveler.”

  “Oh, bloody hell,” Jeremiah said; it was bad enough to have lost both her compatriots to the Americans, but she was wholly unaccustomed to having her mission so completely ex
posed. “Am I really that transparent, or did you brief him?”

  “Shit,” Colin said, his eyes going wide with shock. “You ain’t kidding.”

  “Yeah,” Marcus said, and Jeremiah could see his mouth quirking. “I—I—oh, I’m sorry, Jeremiah, I gotta do this. Yeah, Colin, she’s a time traveler from 1908, but she’s not just a time traveler. Get this: she’s from another reality.”

  “Oh holy cow,” Colin said . . . then rubbed his chin, with small, dexterous hands that looked like they’d never thrown a punch. “Naw, naw, you’re pulling my leg. Next you’ll be telling me you’re a secret agent or something.”

  Marcus and Jeremiah looked at each other.

  “Yes,” Jeremiah said. Instinctively she glanced around the neighborhood, which seemed to be entirely composed of nearly identical homes arrayed around a winding paved street. Hello again, paranoia. “I’m a time traveler from an alternate 1908, and he’s a secret agent—”

  “Jeremiah,” Marcus said, “Ix-nay on the ecret-say. You just outed me—”

  “You ‘outed’ me,” Jeremiah replied, again glancing around. At Colin’s baffled look, she said, “I know it’s late, sir, and I’m happy to explain . . . but can we please come in? Your reality never developed nonlethal guns, and I don’t want to get shot in the back.”

  “Nonlethal? Shot?” Colin repeated—then ducked behind the door. “Jesus. Get inside.”

  As they passed through the small foyer into a spacious, L-shaped parlor, Jeremiah peered around curiously: this was her first visit inside a future home. And it stood up quite well: this reality lacked pattern cylinders and corner artisans, but thankfully mass-production hadn’t rendered all their furnishings as tacky as her 1850s. Here, the décor was surprisingly understated, even tasteful, but she was a spy, not an interior decorator, and as her eyes ferreted out clues about the occupant—mail, keepsakes, even a diploma—Jeremiah realized that this wasn’t, as Marcus had said, “Colin’s pad,” and she found herself irritated that Colin had answered the door as if it were his own.

  Still, when they settled onto the wide, soft cushions of a surprisingly comfortable couch . . . Jeremiah felt herself sinking into its depths. The little tartan-patterned throws reminded her of Georgiana’s décor back at their flat—making Jeremiah want to grab one like a lifeline.

  Because neither Georgiana or Patrick would be throwing her a lifeline anytime soon.

  “Is this safe?” Colin asked, as a woman with dark curly hair and a bright, flowing sundress cautiously stepped out of the kitchen. She glanced warily at her visitors, then half-sat on the arm of the couch next to Colin, who said, “The spook squad isn’t going to bash down our door?”

  “No,” Marcus said. “They know your address, but not where you’re currently crashing. Jeremiah, this is Rosalind, Colin’s new squeeze and the owner of this pad. Rosie, this is Jeremiah.” With a bit of glee, he said, “She’s a time traveling secret agent from another reality.”

  “Uh huh,” Rosalind said, sizing Jeremiah up, half-skeptical, half-bemused; Jeremiah smiled and shrugged apologetically. Rosalind shook her head and extended her hand. “Where are my manners? Good to see you again, Marcus, and pleased to meet you, Jeri.”

  “It’s Jer-eh-MI-yah,” Jeremiah said. As she’d suspected, a woman—this woman—owned “Colin’s pad.” Capital, she thought, then quickly reined in her sarcasm: the woman was of substance, a biologist apparently, and couldn’t people cohabit? They shook. “Charmed, Miss Cross—”

  “It’s Ms. Cross,” Rosalind said. “And how did you know my last name?”

  Jeremiah tilted her head. “The diploma over the desk.”

  “Good one,” Marcus said. “I’d have gotten it from the mail pile.”

  “Pretty observant,” Rosalind Cross said, glancing between Jeremiah and Marcus. “I don’t buy time travel, but I’m guessing you really are secret agents. And, from what I overheard, fugitives. Care to tell me how I took a couple of fugitives into my home near midnight, Colin?”

  “Uh—” Colin said, holding up both hands, and Jeremiah delighted to see him squirm after so casually treating this place as his own. “I . . . don’t really know. Marcus called earlier this week, said he had some kind of secret he needed to talk to me about . . . is this it?”

  “Yes and no,” Marcus said. “Sorry, Rosie, Colin really doesn’t know. The situation evolved rapidly since we talked. We need people with your expertise, and we’ve been planning to recruit both of you, but I couldn’t say anything until I had to. My agency works on a need to know basis—”

  “Look, guys, it’s late,” Rosalind said impatiently. “Seriously . . . what’s the joke?”

  “No joke,” Marcus said and reluctantly pulled out a gold badge. “NSA Operations.”

  “Holy . . . crap,” Rosalind said, staring at the badge. Then she shook her head and re-folded her arms. “I didn’t even know the NSA had an operations division.”

  “We . . . ah, don’t advertise it,” Marcus said. “But, come on. Do you really think that that big old black budget just pays for cryptographers?”

  “Fucking spooks,” she said, glaring—which taught Jeremiah a great deal about the relationship of these people and their government. Rosalind said, “If you want to ‘recruit’ me for something, you can set up a booth on campus. I’m guessing you’re not really a student.”

  “No, I am. I was a field agent for a couple of years,” Marcus said. “My bosses decided they were better off putting me back through school—it’s easier to get a cover for a French speaking country if you have an actual degree in French lit—”

  “That still doesn’t explain why you’re here,” Rosalind said, “near midnight—”

  “There’s an APB out, and we needed to get off the streets,” Marcus said. When she glared, he raised his hands. “We’re sorry to barge in, but . . . I trust you guys, and Colin has already met Jeremiah, so I thought it would go easier. Look, just give us a few minutes to recover—”

  “Fine, fine,” Rosalind said, rubbing her brow. “I . . . understand getting in trouble with ‘the man.’ We’ll give you a place to cool your heels until the heat’s off.” She sighed. “You both look worn out. Can I get you guys anything? Cocoa, iced tea . . . or a mint julep?”

  “Thank you, Ms. Cross,” Jeremiah said, still trying to parse what Rosalind could have possibly meant by “the man,” but relieved that the woman extended her trust to Marcus—and wouldn’t just kick them back out in the street. “A mint julep would be absolutely capital.”

  Even though Colin peppered them with questions, Jeremiah demurred while Rosalind worked the kitchen. Manners or no, if Rosalind was the woman of the manor, shouldn’t Colin fetch the drinks while she entertained? Jeremiah shook her head. This was a different world, with different mores, and getting hung up on these minor differences continued to distract her from divining her uncle’s real goal. Stewing, she waited, finding herself in stern need of that drink.

  It was worth the wait. The mint julep was precisely as she remembered her grandmother’s: sweet sugar, sharp bourbon, the tang of mint fresh-picked from the garden, all served icy-cold in a tall Collins glass. It was like a sudden flash from another universe, another time, and Jeremiah felt a pang of homesickness—and forgotten loneliness; her grandmother was long gone, and Jeremiah realized she was more than a decade into the project of redeeming her mother’s good name. After a long sip of mint-muddled bourbon, Jeremiah marshaled herself and spoke.

  “I am a time traveler from another century, another reality,” she said, the words sounding outlandish even as she uttered them—yet Jeremiah saw flickers of belief sparking in Rosalind and Colin as she outlined her mission tracking her uncle and how it dovetailed with the day’s excitement of an airship buzzing downtown, then disappearing. “The Baron is a powerful and persuasive man who has something you people want very badly: on
e of our invisible airships. Unfortunately, he also has something else, something you’d very much want to nip in the bud: the larva of a Foreigner.”

  “The egg of an alien,” Marcus clarified.

  “Aliens,” Rosalind said. “Really?”

  “Really,” Jeremiah said, eyeing Rosalind; her instincts told her this woman was sharp and had perspective on this world she hadn’t yet gotten from Marcus and his compatriots. “Foreigners—what you call aliens—first appeared on Earth in 1845 in our reality—”

  “For God’s name, why?” Colin asked. “Our television signals have gotten only sixty light years or so. Why would aliens have been attracted to the Earth in the late 1840s? Did . . . did Michael Faraday invent the television in your world or something?”

  “Or Benjamin Franklin the radio,” Rosalind quipped.

  “Yes, and no,” Jeremiah said, laughing. “Though I’d love to visit a world in which Franklin did—or give Shakespeare a recording aerograph, there’s a thought. No, at first, we didn’t know why. Then, in 1905, Einstein figured it out . . . and unwittingly, opened the floodgates. May I?”

  When Jeremiah gestured at her holster, Rosalind’s brow furrowed, but she nodded—and Jeremiah pulled out her Kathodenstrahl and charged it up. Glowing blue energy sparked within its reaction chamber, then coiled through its discharge tubes, slowly shifting to green foxfire.

  “The thermionic blaster,” Jeremiah said, as all of the Americans—Rosalind, Colin, even Marcus, who had seen them before—gawked at the light show. “A nonlethal weapon developed in . . . 1843, I think, by a scientist named David Christopherson—no relation. She—”

  “She?” Rosalind said, eyeing the gun suspiciously. “A female David?”

  “Women take men’s names in my world,” Jeremiah said. “As a statement of equality—”

  “Then how are they ‘men’s’ names anymore?” Rosalind asked, with an impish smile. “How much equality can your ‘world’ really have if women still need to take men’s names as a statement? Why do they need a man’s name and clothes to contribute?”