Jeremiah Willstone and the Clockwork Time Machine

by Anthony Francis

  Jeremiah let that sink in for a moment. Then she straightened, arched her back slightly, let head turn aside to watch her wings creak outward. “You’re corrupted by the Tea,” she said. “And want to give your ship to the Scarab?”

  “We both know,” Birmingham said, “the Scarab is better than the Tea.”

  She turned further, staring at Zenta. “And what of them?”

  “They’re not a bad lot,” Birmingham said. “And they don’t deserve to be infested.”

  “They’ve treated us well,” Georgiana said earnestly. “Quite well. First class, I’d say. And regardless, they’re better than that black muck, or Christopherson’s lot—”

  “Lord Christopherson’s lot,” Jeremiah said, “are not so bad.”

  “Really,” Georgiana said. “Jeremiah, are you feeling quite well?”

  “Quite well, and I stand by my words. You’d like their computer,” Jeremiah said. “Special Agent, you’ve taken great strides towards proving yourself, but you weren’t right about our chain of command. Lord Birmingham was corrupted, and Lady Westenhoq is a computer—but I’ve got enough Foreign wires in my head to count as both corrupted and a computer.”

  “Sergeant Natasha was also infected,” Zenta said. “Everyone in your crew—”

  ———

  “Not everyone,” Jeremiah said, folding her arms. “Bring me the last uncorrupted man.”

  61.

  The Last Uncorrupted Man

  PATRICK HARBINGER struggled mightily as two huge guards wrestled him into the interrogation tank. Behind the glass, Jeremiah’s mouth quirked up as he nearly threw the two men off: still good old Patrick. If anything, he’d gotten better at fighting since she’d last seen him.

  But Zenta hadn’t lied: fail to cooperate, and these people made things . . . difficult.

  With effort, the two men cuffed Patrick’s wrists to the iron ring in the empty metal table, then left him alone there. Jeremiah did not like the room: black tile, harsh lights, one door, two chairs . . . and the mirrored window: in ways, it was worse than a torture chamber. She grimaced.

  Patrick shouted, twisted at the cuffs, then fell back into his chair, panting. He was down to his traveling breeches and his white service shirt, its collar thrown open, exposing a dark muscled chest beneath. Jeremiah was tempted to undress him with her eyes, which she could do now.

  Commander, behave, Patrick would say.

  Special Agent Simeon joined Patrick in the room. He’d been cleaned up since Jeremiah saw him last, but he still showed the damage of the time burns: white sideburns, hair now wiry, lines around his eyes—but strangely, he looked younger. Strangely . . . he looked like Jackson.

  “No folder, no games?” Patrick asked, as Simeon sat on the corner of the table.

  “No games,” Simeon said. “Lieutenant—”

  “Don’t do me the courtesy,” Patrick barked back. “I remember you, playing dumb at that ridiculous pizza parlor your confederate dragged us to—”

  “Fellini’s,” Simeon said patiently. “Lieutenant—”

  “You look worse for wear,” Patrick said, looking Simeon over. “Get hit by a truck?”

  “Hitched a ride on that Clockwork Time Machine,” Simeon said. “I saw Christopherson’s men grab your friend Jeremiah—and I grabbed on to its outside. I’m told it may have shifted me five years, though they can’t tell me whether it made me younger or older—”

  “Hang on,” Patrick said. “Jeremiah? They caught her? What happened? Is she all right?”

  “She,” Simeon said, turning and staring at the glass. “She is now—”

  “What do you mean?” Patrick asked. “What happened to her—”

  “She’s fine. She’s better than fine. She’s an outstanding soldier, Lieutenant, and I am proud to have fought alongside her for all of five minutes. She’s actually waiting to see you . . . but I gotta warn you, Lieutenant: she stopped Lord Christopherson’s plan . . . by taking his place.”

  Patrick tensed, then steeled himself. “What happened?”

  “I’ll let her explain,” Simeon said, “but first, Lieutenant, you’ve been a fucking firecracker. We’d have already taken you to your friends if you’d behaved. You don’t gotta break your neck to get to her. If I undo those cuffs, will you wait until she joins us, or will you just clock me?”

  Patrick glared at him, then shrugged. “I’m sure you’ve posted guards in the hall,” he said. “What good would it do me?”

  “I have a Victorianan deranger on me,” Simeon said with a wink. “You could overpower me, steal it, and escape with no loss of life.”

  Patrick stared at him for a moment.

  “You have fought alongside Jeremiah, haven’t you?” he said. “All right. I’ll wait.”

  As Simeon undid the cuffs, Jeremiah pressed the button that slid aside the glass.

  “Hello, Harbinger,” Jeremiah said, as he was rubbing his wrists. “Long time, no see.”

  Patrick bolted to his feet, the chair falling behind him, his eyes fixed upon her.

  “Commander,” he said, half-saluting, half-reaching for her. Then his eyes slowly took in her great brass wings, and his face fell. “My word. Oh . . . Commander. I’m . . . so sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” she said. “I can see through walls and fly. A fair trade, I think.”

  “A fair trade?” Patrick said, eyes now rising to the antennae coming out of her forehead. “What did you trade for those wings?”

  “My old life and a whole lot of pain,” she said, stepping forwards. Patrick stepped back, and she sighed. “Simeon, can you give us a minute?”

  “Certainly, Commander,” Simeon said and stepped out the door.

  Patrick watched him go, then looked back at Jeremiah nervously.

  “So, shall we make a run for it?” Jeremiah said. “Or do you want to run after him?”

  “Commander,” Patrick said.

  “Jeremiah,” she said. “I’m still Jeremiah. Just a little bit more.”

  She stepped towards him, but he stiffened and straightened, and she stepped back.

  “Sorry,” she said and explained to him how she’d been bitten by, then merged with the Foreigner. “So it’s completely clear: I never wanted this to happen, but once it began, I volunteered to take it to completion. I do not regret it, and, I hate to say it . . . I think I misjudged my uncle.”

  “Oh, now that last bit’s gone too far,” Patrick said. “You’re definitely possessed.”

  “It is a concern,” Jeremiah said, laughing. She gave Patrick an accounting of all that had happened, down to Zenta’s plea. “They’ve offered us a base of operations to help retake Victoriana from the Black Tea, if we in turn help defend them from similar assaults—and it appears one already is in process, so the clock is ticking. What say you, Patrick? Should we help them?”

  “Is that even a question?” Patrick said. “That’s our mission. Why ask me?”

  “You are the last person in our chain of command who isn’t corrupted by a Foreigner,” Jeremiah said, flexing her wings, “or otherwise disqualified by brain surgery. And the people who run this place have made peace with Foreigners. Perhaps they’re corrupted. What say you?”

  “What say you?” Patrick said. “You’re not corrupted by a Foreigner.”

  Jeremiah looked aside at her wings. “I . . . think I am. Just a little bit.”

  Patrick stared at her, his eyes tracing her wings . . . then back to her eyes.

  “Bollocks,” Patrick said. “You’re not one whit corrupted, brass wings or no—”

  “I—I am too corrupted,” Jeremiah protested indignantly. “I’m no longer just Jeremiah. I’m merged with a Scarab now, a representative of a proud and noble species, with a billion years of race memory running like fire through my veins
—”

  “Prove it,” Patrick said. “Say something Scarabish.”

  Jeremiah blinked. She was a hybrid now, filled with knowledge she’d never had . . . but she certainly felt like Jeremiah. Had she erred in rebuilding herself? Then another bit of knowledge bubbled up from the alien side, something that made her blood of fire run cold with fear.

  The real reason that the Scarab never implanted in sentients wasn’t ethics or kindness. A billion years of race memory or no, the personality of a Scarab egg that spent centuries sleeping in the dark could not compete with the fully formed personality of an adult sentient host.

  “Oh God,” Jeremiah said. “I ended up with the host’s personality.”

  “I think you have,” Patrick said.

  “Never mind the ethics or practicality, that’s why we don’t take sentient hosts,” Jeremiah said, embarrassed by her sin at biting into herself and dismayed by her staggering miscalculation. But it wasn’t her fault! “Not that I had a choice! I was tricked into manifesting by my uncle—”

  “I know,” Patrick said. “I was there.”

  “—and then I just had to go blundering into my own way, as I always do—”

  “Yes,” Patrick said. “You always do.”

  “What—what do you mean by that?” Jeremiah began—then looked at him. Really looked at him. Patrick stood before her, as always: stalwart, upstanding—and unseen, not in the way that he wanted. And now it was too late: blundering into her own way, indeed. “Patrick, I’m so sorry.”

  Patrick looked at her, then smiled sadly. She looked away.

  “Jeremiah, I fought alongside you,” Patrick said, sitting down on the corner of the table like Simeon had. “I can tell you’re the same person inside. Better than anyone. Yes, I carried a torch for you. I really do like you. But not just as an unrequited love. You’re my compatriot. Always.”

  Jeremiah stood there, stunned. Perhaps it wasn’t a bad thing to be Jeremiah.

  “Always,” Jeremiah said awkwardly—then she lunged and hugged him. “Always.”

  “Well, now,” Patrick said awkwardly, his hands reaching around her, then pulling back when his fingers brushed her wings. “Quite a thicket back there. Will I hurt you—”

  “Doubt it,” Jeremiah said and grinned as his arms closed around the limbs jutting from her spine and gave her a big squeeze. She felt her new spine crack a little under the unexpected pressure, but it felt quite good to feel her friend’s embrace again. “See? One bear hug, and right as rain.”

  Patrick gave her that sad half-smile, then wiped his face and nodded.

  “Right as rain,” he said. “You’ve probably connected with that boy Marcus already.”

  “That . . . remains to be seen,” Jeremiah said. “I’ve not yet seen hide nor hair of Marcus—”

  “Commander,” called a voice from the door, and she turned to see Zenta, who nodded in recognition to Patrick, who looked a bit embarrassed. Zenta said, “It’s . . . ah, it’s good to see you again, Lieutenant. I’m glad to see you’ve chosen to become . . . more cooperative.”

  “Yes, well,” Patrick said. “Sorry about the jaw, sir.”

  “Never mind, nothing broken,” Zenta said, eyes twinkling at Jeremiah. Halfheartedly, she smiled back; despite the insanity of the situation, she seemed to be taking to the man. “Did the Commander brief you on our offer and the situation with your chain of command?”

  “And on its urgency, yes sir, she did,” Patrick said. “The Commander’s concerns about her possible ‘corruption’ are unwarranted, sir, and I declined her offer to assume command. I have full faith and confidence in her ability to lead the Expedition and will go where she leads.”

  Zenta raised an eyebrow. “Well . . . Commander. The question is back on you.”

  ———

  “You know my answer, sir,” Jeremiah said, standing. “How soon can we depart?”

  62.

  It’s Always A Good Time For Goggles

  “HANGAR ONE” WAS a mammoth structure, a smooth-walled white mountain, as large as any airship hangar you could find in Victoriana. The Prince Edward was . . . “safely” inside, behind closed doors well out of angle of the cannons in its nacelles.

  But in the hangar floor and workshops below, the men and women of the Prince Edward who had recovered were already working hard with Zenta’s men and women; he had apparently assumed she would agree. It was there that she found Marcus.

  He was in one of the open-topped, yet oddly gender-segregated locker rooms, changing into a black combat suit made of a tightly woven material. Controlling her wings, Jeremiah stole through the canyons of lockers like a ghost, slipping behind him, but still . . . when close enough, he felt her.

  “Jeremiah,” Marcus said curtly, not turning around.

  “Marcus,” Jeremiah said coldly. “What’s the delay on refitting the Prince Edward?”

  “She’ll launch when ready,” Marcus said, equally coldly. “You really did a number on the airbags, we haven’t the materials we need for proper repairs—and even harvesting every LTA enthusiast in the West Coast, we have a skeleton crew, with half your crew still possessed—”

  “Bollocks!” Jeremiah snapped. Unable to resist the temptation to undress him with her new eyes, she’d seen dark matter running through his veins. She lifted her goggles off her eyes, so he’d be able to see the glow in her pupils. “I can see you’re still possessed by the Black Tea.”

  Marcus stood there frozen, a statue of muscle and darkness. Then he turned slowly to her and pulled the goggles back up above his eyes . . . revealing the same two black pools that she had seen before. “They know,” he said. “I reverted not long after you purged me.”

  “Of course.” Jeremiah now knew what the Scarab had long suspected: the Tea’s technology stole photons, appearing like a flow of darkness, but beyond that, even purged, some essence of the Tea remained, wholly transparent even to her eyes. “And Zenta just … turned you loose?”

  “Yes,” Marcus said icily. “As he did you.”

  “Well,” Jeremiah said; a fair point. “Still, he put you in charge of refitting the weapon we’re using against your own kind? That makes no sense, no matter how I turn it. If Zenta was in league with the Tea, he’d have had that Carrier of his blast me while I lay unconscious—”

  “Zenta’s not in league with them, and neither am I,” Marcus said. A bit of the coldness faded, and he looked Jeremiah over: her jeans, her cut-up “lumberjack” shirt—her wings. “I’m in your boat—I can no longer live without the Black Tea. After you purged it from my system, they had to give me a transfusion—but the Black Tea of this world isn’t like that of your world.”

  “So they say,” Jeremiah said, folding her arms.

  “We don’t even call it the Black Tea,” Marcus said, talking more quickly, trying to cover up what she had already guessed. “Here it’s the Black Oil, and they’re not mankind’s mortal enemies; humans have reached an accommodation with them—”

  “So you say,” she said.

  “It was half a century ago,” Marcus said. “If the Black Oil was going to attack—”

  “They think you’re in league with the Black Oil,” Jeremiah said, arms still folded, wings tense, eyes scanning him carefully. She had seen rightly: the traces within him were not the same as that within the Ambassador. “But I know you still have the Black Tea within you, driving you.”

  Marcus smiled. “Yes, I do,” he said, folding his tattooed, muscled arms over his chest, smile growing into a smirk. “And what are you going to do with this knowledge? How do you possibly think you can convince them, when you’re the embodiment of the Black Oil’s mortal enemy?”

  Jeremiah tilted her head. “Ah,” she said. “That was the Scarab talking.”

  “And what does Jeremiah say?” Marcus said. Hi
s face softened. “You’re right, I do still hear the voice of the Black Tea. But it’s a part of me now. I can’t disavow it. All I can do is try to live with it. What are you going to do about it?”

  Jeremiah’s mouth quirked up. “No, what are you going to do about it?” she asked. “I’m given to understand the people of this world don’t care what your allegiance is, but what your actions are. They should give you the same deal they gave me—”

  “Defend this world,” Marcus said, “and you’re free to live on it.”

  “That was the deal,” Jeremiah said. “They called them the Tranquility Accords—”

  Marcus laughed, and for the first time it really sounded like Marcus and not something with a different spine motivating his body. “Aliens!” he said, shaking his head. “I told you that we’d not met aliens, when the whole point of the space race was to set up a base for negotiations—”

  “Shh!” Jeremiah said, stepping up to him, hands touching his lips. She got a tingle, but nothing like the vicious spark she’d gotten when they’d first touched after his possession—after their respective possessions. “We can walk free, but there are still secrets, you know.”

  Marcus’s breath had caught when she stepped up to him, and his hands jerked. Then he slowly, slowly, reached up and touched her shoulders. She shivered and could not tell whether the sparks through the flannel were from Scarab vs Tea . . . or just from Marcus touching Jeremiah.

  “Grunge . . . is a good look for you,” he said.

  “Borrowings. Don’t get used to them,” Jeremiah said, looking sideways at his strong hands. “I’m buttoning back up as soon as I can find myself a proper tailor. I’m wearing three women’s garments typical of this world, and not a proper pocket between a one of them—”

  “Jeans, T-shirt, and flannel,” he said, enumerating her outfit. “Going commando?”

  She smiled at him in challenge. “I don’t know what that means, but I can tell it’s innuendo.”