The text itself was a study of hypnotic creatures that were common to the North American continent. It was astonishing that these tales recounting ancient horrors that had possessed people and forced them to kill their families were somehow boring but Alice found herself wanting to join her mentor in his mental preparations. Deciding that now was a good time to take a break she quietly left the room to stretch and get some fresh air. The train car itself was packed with eager tourists, anxious to get to New Orleans in time for the Mardi Gras festivities. It was a small miracle that the two of them had gotten a room to themselves, but to their benefactors in the church cost was nothing as long as they got the job done. Dodging past several groups of people bustling about the narrow hallway including a rather rotund woman who made her passage unnecessarily difficult Alice finally made her way to the door to the outer corridor of the train and managed to get outside of the stifling rail car. She wasn’t alone at the railing outside the car.
Casting a glance over his shoulder a tall, thin, gangly man took a long drag on his cigarette, finishing it and stubbing it out on the ashtray nearby. Wordlessly he fished a silver cigarrette case from his ill-fitting suede jacket and offered her one with a gesture. Alice turned down his offer as politely as she could as she proceeded to lean against the railing opposite. Closing her eyes she took a deep breath of the country air and allowed the noisy rhythm of the tracks to sooth her overworked mind. Alice had fallen so deeply, so quickly into her relaxation that it took her several minutes to realize that the smoking man was trying to get her attention. “I’m sorry, what?” She practically yelled over the clattering of the tracks “I was asking if you wanted to get something to eat in my cabin” was his shouted response. Alice nearly rejected his offer out of hand before she realized she hadn’t eaten all morning and that she would rather have something decent to eat rather than the travelling rations Jonah packed for everywhere he went. With a coy smile and a gentle nod of her head she allowed him to lead the way. Rather than lead her back into the cheaper car she and Jonah were staying in, the smoking man led her into the first class cabins beyond, and then led her even further into what appeared to be a private railcar.
When they finally arrived at the only room in an incredibly posh car he finally spoke again with a light southern drawl “Sorry it was such a walk. If I don’t put at least a few cars between myself and my servants I just can’t relax.” As if on cue a small boy, no older than 10 came into the room bearing menus. “Look, kid, I don’t care, just get me a sandwich and a stiff drink, she’ll have the same”. Alice wasn’t sure which offended her more, the casual disregard with which he treated the child or the way the child, obviously used to this form of treatment simply backed out of the room with an apologetic stammer. It was becoming very clear to Alice that no matter what this man said, she was not going to like him. “So I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself earlier, the name is Nathaniel Mann, of the Louisiana Mann family.” Nathaniel said while warmly extending his hand for a friendly shake. Alice took his hand and returned the greeting while studying the strange man across from her.
From Alice’s point of view Nathaniel was a series of contradictions. His clothes were slightly tattered and ill fitting suggesting that they were second hand or belonged to someone else, but that clashed with his obviously wealthy surroundings. He was undeniably charming and well spoken, but the way that he treated and spoke of his servants showed little regard for his fellow man. Finally there was the awkwardness to his physical appearance which didn’t match up with her notion of children from wealthy, powerful families. Generally when someone had the kind of money to afford a private train car they could also pay a cosmetic scientist for the genetic work to fix problems like his ungainly height and exaggerated facial features. This “Nathaniel” seemed to a man inhabiting someone else’s body altogether. “You look like you have something on your mind. Care to let me in that pretty little head of yours?” Alice bit back the retort that was already forming “You just seem a little out of place for these surroundings. Why would a wealthy son even have such a careworn jacket? Or even bother flirting with a common girl?” Nathaniel looked as though he were about to wave off her concerns with an explanation when he paused and suddenly looked very concerned. “Mah jacket?” he questioned suddenly with a strong cockney accent. Any further inquiry was interrupted by a loud crash from just outside the front of the car. Nathaniel let out a curse and bolted toward the cabin door. “Eh, sorry ‘bout this girlie but, er, we should run!” The moment he opened the cabin door a massive metal fist shot through and waylaid him, following the fist was a towering 8 foot clockwork guardian.
The clockwork guardian appeared to be a massive suit of armor and indeed would have been indistinguishable from a giant person clad in metal had it not been for the tempered glass that covered its face, exposing the inner workings of whirring brass gears and intricate pistons. Normally exposing the workings of such a machine would be a fatal design flaw, but Alice had the feeling that in this case the head was exposed for the express purpose of informing any would-be attackers that this particular foe was no mere human opponent. The smart thing to do would have been to simply run, hope that the guardian wouldn’t follow or that it would ignore her and merely subdue Nathaniel. The guardian had turned its faceplate toward Alice and stood to its full height. It started to take a step toward her when she sprung into action, grabbing her sonic glove from the tool pouch she always kept at her side. The sonic glove was a simple device consisting of a small device built into the wrist which would transfer a vibrate a thin metal plate placed into the palm, which would then send a sonic pulse through whichever object she happened to be touching. The guardian lunged for her with surprising speed and missed her only thanks to her magically enhanced reflexes. Narrowly dodging to the side of the lunge Alice planted her palm firmly onto the guardian’s back and triggered the pulse by pressing into it. The sonic pulse rippled through the side of the machine, shifting the gears and causing them to slip out of place. This machine though was built for a fight and was engineered so precisely as to sustain heavy blows such as this. The guardian slumped for only a moment before the internal computing machine it used as a brain adjusted for the pulse and had righted itself.
Whirling around the guardian charged Alice who had picked Nathaniel up and was trying to get him out of harm’s way. With a massive shove Alice threw Nathaniel out the door of the cabin and herself back into the room, just out of range of the several tons of metal that charged into the space occupied by the both of them a second before. Finally coming to from the vicious blow to the head, Nathaniel watched in confused awe as he saw Alice, framed in the now broken doorway of the cabin, bobbing and weaving around the assailant slapping it repeatedly and somehow crippling it with each blow. It seemed as though the battle raged for hours though truthfully it was over in mere moments as Alice systematically sought out and destabilized the delicate clockworks inside the guardian until it could no longer compensate for the damage and finally twisted itself into a broken heap on the floor. Alice was standing over the massive form panting from the exertion when she heard Nathaniel getting to his feet in the hallway. “That was bloody brilliant love! How’d you take down one a them bigguns?” Alice spun on him fury blazing in her eyes. Covering the distance with two quick strides she grabbed him by the ear and bent him painfully toward her. “I think you have some explaining to do ‘Nathaniel’”
Jonah was awake and sitting on the train floor with his back to the door, busily sorting through his large case when Alice stormed back into their cabin dragging Nathaniel behind her. “Out enjoying yourself kiddo?” he asked just before she threw the stranger into the cabin landing him squarely in the seat across from the one she took with a huff. Turning a bemused eye on the stranger Jonah simply chuckled “Well you’re new”. Alice, pointing an accusing finger at the overly lanky man shouted “He got me into a fight in a private car” as a way of explaining his presence here. Turning that bemused eye on Alice he simply asked “Do I want to know why you were in a private car?” Throwing her hands in the air with an exasperated shout Alice took a deep breath and related the whole story to Jonah, “Nathaniel” for his part simply sat there looking as apologetic as he could. Finishing the story Alice sunk back in her seat with her arms crossed, her eyes shooting daggers at the stranger across from her. Sighing Jonah latched his case and stood between the two. Turning to “Nathaniel” Jonah began his own interrogation “Am I to assume, son that you’re a conman?” Under the withering gaze of the unbelievably imposing old man the stranger found himself unable to lie. “Yessir” “Is ‘Nathaniel Mann’ even your name?” “Nosir, it’s the name of a man who was supposed ta have been on the train today but had been held up in the city and didn’t make it on board.” “Am I correct to assume that you had something to do with his delay?” “Yessir” “Judging by the fact that the servant did not question you at all but the clockwork guardian attacked you I’m going to guess that you have some device which affords you a measure of control over the minds of those around you but was unable to fool a mechanical brain. This was how you were hoping to impersonate this ‘Nathaniel Mann’. Such devices are hard to come by and not exactly cheap. From the state of your dress I’ll assume you were hired to impersonate him for some reason and given the device to carry out your assignment.” With each word the conman sunk lower into his seat, terrified of the old man who was able to peer so easily into his mind. Rubbing his temples Jonah eased into the seat next to Alice, sighing heavily. “We have ourselves a problem. The broken guardian in your cabin is going to raise a lot of questions, but there’s going to be a lot more questions raised if ‘Nathaniel Mann’ suddenly goes missing while several witnesses saw him on this very train. I don’t particularly care what job you were hired to do, but we’re going to step out of the way and let you do it. We’ll rig that machine so it appears as though its clockwork brain broke and that it no longer recognized you. In return you’ll not tell anyone about us and do your best to shut down any inquiry of the sort. Do we have an understanding boy?” The conman meekly nodded.
Alice had shifted her rage from the imposter to her mentor. “We’re just going to walk away after he almost got me killed?” she practically screamed. Jonah leaned in close to his apprentice and whispered so only she would hear “You and I both know that thing wouldn’t have stood a chance against you. Besides now he owes us a favor and, call it a hunch, but we might need the wealthy son of a rich family to owe us a favor while we’re investigating the area.” Alice’s mouth tightened into a slightly less furious scowl and nodded to let him know she understood. The rest of the train ride was spent sabotaging the intricate workings of the clockwork brain and coming up with a suitable story as to how “Nathaniel” had escaped the wrath of the guardian. By the time they arrived at the station on the outskirts of town everyone had returned to their rooms, Jonah and Alice deciding to stay in their cabin for a while longer to avoid the hustle of the excited crowd. They finally exited the train carrying the few bags they owned just in time to see the conman board an expensive looking auto-carriage. Slinging her travel pack over her shoulder and shaking her head in frustration Alice turned to her mentor and asked “So where are we starting this little investigation?” Stretching out his tired back Jonah took a deep breath of the pungent city air and looked out at the city before him from under the brim of his hat. “I’ve got an old friend who I heard set up shop in this city a few years ago. Knowing him, his place would be the best to find information.” They found an unoccupied taxi waiting nearby and threw their bags in the trunk. The cabbie turned to face them as they climbed into the back and greeted them with a cheerful smile and a thickly accented greeting “Welcome to New Orleans!”
No comments:
Post a Comment