Mechanized Masterpieces: A Steampunk Anthology (22 page)

“What is this then?” Armand cocked his head, glancing uneasily at his partner.

“Tendering my resignation as I’ve just discovered we’ve a shocking redundancy of management around here,” Firmin was brusque in his reply. With a final flourish he handed off the crisp sheet to his partner then donned his coat, “Good day to you, sir.” He left the room.

Armand glanced down the page, eyes widening for a brief instant before he mastered himself. “‘Suppose I’d better go after the fool,” he muttered under his breath, donning coat and hat and scurrying after his fellow manager.

The managers made their peace, though it was a shaky one, and the company suffered for it. If Firmin said white, you could count upon Armand to say black. M. Richard’s instruction that they double the number of Saturday performances would result in M. Monchamin cutting all Sunday matinees. Everything from the length of intermission to the speed at which the orchestra should play was suddenly a bone of contention.

“I knew, I
knew
those two would be a bad idea. I said it from the first,” Mme. Giry was heard to gripe to the prop master.

“There were co-managers before Mm. Richard and Monchamin,” had been the counterargument.

“Yes. But them, I liked,” Giry had sniffed haughtily. Then, she tottered off to find a more receptive audience for her gossip.

As the Great Managerial Row raged on, much of the old company’s scenery was stripped away, ushering in a new era of rich, complicated designs that complemented the ghost’s latest operatic brainchild. Dioramas and engineering designs for a new configuration of stage trap doors and secret compartments were delivered and adopted (with contention, of course).

What is more, in the midst of the harried readying of a new set, stage, and score, the phantom found no small bit of time to inquire as to Madame Giry’s health via his intermediary, Meg. Hurrying down the hall on one of her never-ending errands for her mother, Meg unconsciously placed her hand upon her breast, her thoughts caught up on a different sort of thrill.

Her cheeks flushed, she bowed her head, feeling as though every eye were upon her. If they knew what she carried over her heart, beneath her bodice . . . She blushed anew, trying valiantly to ignore the letter concealed upon her person, a note penned to her in the Opera Ghost’s distinct hand and delivered alongside her mother’s latest dose of medicine.

All young women are fools at one time or another, and Meg was no exception. The ghost’s kindness to her mother forced her to admit, at last, that perhaps Mme. Daae hadn’t been wrong about the mysterious, though temperamental, benefactor.

The opera ghost’s latest production followed the life of an engineering prodigy, called upon to build a new manufacturing facility for two merchants. The plot outlined the commissioning, building, and subsequent betrayal of the artist by his benefactors who, in the end, turn on their architect, throwing him from the smokestack of the newly-built warehouse. The story ended with the triumphant return of the hero who, by luck, falls not to his death but into the river that flowed alongside the building, his machines rising up in his defense to turn on their masters.

To perfect his vision, the opera ghost delivered additional dance corps members and “extras” to supplement the cast, clockwork creations that far outstripped their predecessors in that an operator could remotely control them from behind the curtain.

Wild with delight over this gimmick, sure they would attract yet another sold-out run, Messrs. Richard and Monchamin pointedly ignored the covert threat being leveled their way by the storyline, especially once a hushed consultation with Madame Giry revealed the phantom’s opera to be more autobiographical of events before he settled in Paris. Though, with what followed, perhaps the managers should have been worried.

A small cluster of ballerinas stood at the end of the hall, not daring to pass, watching in suspense as M. Munier and M. Armand argued not forty paces away, the former gesticulating wildly, his face red and dangerously apoplectic. Rehearsal had, once again, been delayed by a mechanicorps gone missing. But this time, nobody yet had managed to find said machine.

Whilst the ballet chorus tittered in their dressing room, stagehands had searched high and low for the missing “cast member.” They discovered one of the control panels in a storage room, the device crackling with life and seemingly abandoned in haste, judging from its overturned state upon the ground. It sent M. Munier over the brink at last.

Bunned heads swiveled in unison, a movement that would have pleased their teacher had he noted it, the girls gawked as a newcomer puffed down the hallway in haste. The portly stagehand hailed the two arguing gentlemen with an apologetic shake of his head. Though they still huddled at the far end of the corridor, the young ladies could hear the news relatively easily: the missing mechanicorps had been located.

And it appeared that the timely discovery of its control device had averted true disaster, for the errant machine was found in one of the subbasements; most particularly, in the room selected for installation of the new electrical controls for the theatre. Tangled in exposed wiring, the machine’s methodical sabotage had apparently been arrested by the severing of the signal, saving more than just the better part of a month’s work.

A curious Meg Giry now joined her fellow dancers, having used the delay in rehearsal to minister to her mother. True to form, she was quickly caught up on the news, the excitable girls adding rapturous and dramatic assessments of the danger they’d narrowly avoided. With a frown, Meg took in the girls’ disordered description of events, wondering how close they were to the mark—a seventeen-story honeycomb of a building riddled with gas piping was not the place to spark an electrical fire.

Oh, Erik, please tell me you had nothing to do with this
, she pleaded inwardly, her mind’s eye picturing two glittering eyes and a wicked smile that gleamed in the dark.

The curtain fell on the first act, and soot-faced industrials exited the stage, transforming immediately into the fresh-faced young ballerinas they actually were.

“This blasted ash is ruining my complexion,” little Brigitte complained, espying herself in a mirror.

“It’s not ash, it’s stagepaint,” Meg chided, “And the whole thing’s rather brilliant.”

“Yeah, if you’re a smokestack-worshiping roast beef. I hear they’re positively clamoring to get this new opera,” one of the other girls piped up, pulling a face at one of the automated actors as it clomped past.

Meg turned to the long mirror on the wall. The inky smudges actually didn’t look all that bad, really. An added drama, a deeper contrast to rosy cheeks, it brought out the ebony hues of her hair and eyes. Wickedly, she wondered if the phantom watched tonight, if he approved of his having turned blushing young ladies into bedraggled industrial symbols. Such was the magic of theatre.

Still . . .
with a sigh, Meg thought back to three years prior. Christine, with the voice of an angel, the handsome comte with his endless bouquets of expensive hothouse flowers, the corps talking ribbons and silks instead of rivets and steam.

Movement in the hallway caught her eye. Meg turned to espy a rough-looking gentleman who simply did not fit in with the usual flurry of activity occurring backstage of an opera’s intermission. He appeared to be in hushed conference with someone who stood in greater shadow, unidentifiable at this distance. Curious, Meg crept forward, staying near the wall and out of the speakers’ line of sight.

“It is done then?” the figure in shadow spoke, his voice immediately recognizable to Meg as that of M. Firmin.
Who, by rights, should be out front,
Meg frowned.

“No, sir. I mean, we’re prepared and ready, but my man below said that the opera ghost was not at home. He reported scarcely half-an-hour ago that the phantom had apparently decided to view this evening’s performance in person. Said he came up passage 9B.”

Meg concluded from his manner of dress that he might be one of the electricians who had been re-assessing the Palais Garnier’s grounds. For the past several days, they had worked overtime—even during performances, so long as they did no electrical work.

“Show me,” a new voice sounded, that of M. Armand.

Interesting . . . Are they no longer on the outs, then?
Meg snuck a peek in time to see the electrician pointing obligingly to the aforementioned passage on a leaf of opera house plans. The managers certainly looked chummy as they gazed together at the schematics.

“And we can’t just take him now?” Armand suggested, his tone indicating he did not quite believe it a viable option but felt it needed voicing all the same.

“No,” Firmin shook his head, “Not without endangering the cast or audience. You remember Faust, my dear Armand. No, we stick with the plan until we seal that deformed rat in his hole. Your man is standing by, then?” This last he addressed to the electrician, who’d since furled his blueprints and clearly awaited further orders.

“Yes, monsieur. Soon as the phantom returns to his lair, we seal him in,” the man nodded smartly.

“Well, my dear Firmin, it appears I must quarrel with you a while longer,” Armand smiled, “Appearances, you know.”

“Quite right. Divide and conquer.” Firmin adopted a stern look. “Well then, we’ve about two minutes to curtain. Gentlemen, to your posts.”

Meg retraced her steps back along the hallway. She directed her most disarming smile at Monsieur Monchamin as he strode past.

“Positions. Positions!” M. Munier hissed out of the darkness, startling Meg out of her reverie.

So they plan to seal the opera ghost below?
She mulled the thought over in her mind as she took her position, unsure of what she thought of it. For all his apparent kindness of late, the opera ghost was a murderer, a sick and twisted fiend who suckled on fear. Or so they said.

After all, her own mother had agreed to serve him and received nothing but kindness from the poor wretch. And Christine—hadn’t he done her any number of favors? While Meg knew very few particulars, she had heard something of tenderness at the heart of the terror, reverence for the man, Erik, amongst the revulsion.