Steam City Pirates (31 page)

“Give me a root beer,” I said. “And put a head on it,” I added.

I took no delight, as I had the first time, when the little hot air balloon was sent over bearing the root beer hose from the tap behind the bar. It floated in the air above my stein, and I took the nozzle and inserted it into my mug. Then, the rush of air came down the rubber piping, and the steam engine chugged, and my stein filled with the bubbling amber brew. As a final gasp, the foamy white froth was added, and I lifted the hose back out. It again floated away back to the mahogany bar to join all the other hoses of different spirits and types of drafts.

After about ten minutes, I watched as big Walter McKenzie thrust open the double-doors of the tavern. He had a big cigar in his mouth, and he was puffing on it like he was an engine. The little tavern wench approached him. “Yes sir! Would you like a seat?”

“Take me where I can be alone, lass!” McKenzie told her. They walked toward a booth at the end of the row, and Walter sat down with some effort and scooted his big frame across, so he was leaning against the back panel. There was a picture of a bottle of cognac above his head.

Finally, Becky arrived in her French military garb. She immediately walked up to the bar and sat down on a stool. She fumbled inside her purse, extracted a wad of bills, and slammed them down on the bar in front of her. “Let me have an ale. That’s what you are famous for, right? Don’t give me any of those obnoxious hoses! They remind me of how horrible men are!” she shouted. A few of the gentlemen around her stopped their conversations and stared at her. I assumed she was creating her version of a Feminist character.

We were to wait until she passed out at the bar. This was when we believed the Zofnist would arrive to do its duty. Before it could insert the diamond into her brain, we were going to attack and then Becky would take out her little hammer and chisel and do her duty. How it would all happen was what we did not know.

Nothing happened for about an hour. Becky had her head down on the bar. She was taking a nap. The bartenders were too busy to have anything to do with her. I saw another woman enter the tavern. She was about five feet tall, wore a red dress trimmed in black, and her bonnet was of the same material. Her face was covered by red netting. She regarded the bar as if she were looking for someone. She slowly began to walk down the row of booths peering into each one. When she came to my booth, I looked up at her and smiled. I could see the hint of a smirk behind the net, but I could not see her eyes nor her complexion.

After perusing the booths, she decided whomever she was here to see was not present, and she walked toward the exit as if to leave. However, she turned back around at the last moment and decided to return. Her destination was the unoccupied seat next to Becky. The gentlemen seated nearby tipped their hats at her as she sat down. Two women at the bar were, obviously, quite a treat. This woman was behaving properly, it seemed, and thus the men become more interested.

The woman, however, seemed much more interested in Becky’s reclined body. She placed a concerned hand on Becky’s head and I could hear her say, “Miss? Are you all right?”

Becky’s blonde locks did not stir beneath her
kepi
. She was down for the count. I was about ready to get up and tell Becky we should move on, when I saw that there was a movement coming from the woman in the black dress. Her entire body seemed to shiver and quake, and then its shape became elongated, and hairs began to grow from it, covering the surface of her back as her dress fell away to reveal the Zoftnist.

Doctor Biggs-Pemberton must have included a great portion of Giant Anteater genes for this creature because it had the shape of a five-foot hairy body that ended with a bushy tail. There was also a black and white stripe that ran down the side of its body. The only humanoid qualities were the arms and legs, which were those of a female. They were shapely and incongruently connected to the strikingly long proboscis that protruded about two feet out of her face. I could also see the diamond cutting tip inside the end of the nose that twinkled brilliantly under the steam-powered gas lights above the bar.

The other men in the bar backed away from this strange creature, but McKenzie did not. He rushed from his booth like a charging elephant toward the Zoftnist assassin. Becky did not move her body, as the nose of the big hairy female quivered above Becky’s pretty head. The diamond cutting knife sparkled and inched down to drill through Becky’s skull, but McKenzie grabbed onto the woman and pulled her back from Becky. The Zoftnist was surprised, and she attempted to squirm and fight, but Walter’s superior size and weight held her down on the bar.

Becky began to stir. I knew my gun would not do much good if this assassin had the same protective covering as the others, but I pulled it out anyway and aimed it at the head of the Zoftnist.

Becky raised up and reached inside her purse to extract the hammer and chisel. She moved toward the wavering beak, and McKenzie could not stop the snout from moving. I put my pistol back in its holster inside my coat.

I then did what I had to do. I ran over and grabbed hold of the long anteater beak and held it steady for Becky. The furry woman anteater tried to scratch and claw frantically, but both McKenzie and I held fast. Becky’s hands moved up to the end of the nose where the diamond beak was. She steadied the chisel against the diamond, and then she raised the hammer above the flat head of the chisel. Wham! The hammer came down, and the Zofnist screamed. The diamond’s two halves fell out of her nose and onto the barroom’s sawdust-covered floor.

Becky again raised the hammer, placing the chisel higher up the face of the beast this time. The edge was right at the base of the Zofnist’s skull. Wham! The hammer came down once more, and this time, the assassin’s body grew still in our arms. Immediately the long hairy body began to change. Soon, there was a dead woman lying on the barstool in front of us. She had a wedge-shaped hole in the base of her skull at the back of her head.

A shot rang out in the bar. I felt my friend Walter loosen his grip on the woman and slump over her body onto the bar. There was a perfectly round, bloody hole in the middle of Walter’s forehead. He was staring up at me, his pudgy jowls smeared with blood slowly oozing down the sides of his face.

The shooter was standing behind the bar. He was the bartender! His gun was still smoking. It was a single-shot Derringer. His hair was parted down the center of his head, and he wore a band around his white, ruffled right sleeve. Upon this band was the face of the warden from the Earth’s future moon, Doctor Franklin Biggs-Pemberton! The villain had lied! Instead of waiting until the last day, tomorrow, he had sent McKenzie’s assassin out the night before, and here he was, the fourth assassin, the Tosswik!

I pulled out my pistol and fired at the Tosswik. Again, the bullets did nothing but become enmeshed inside his silicone flesh. The monster merely flexed his pectorals and the bullets plopped out and fell onto the bar like copper pennies. “Don’t try that again, Mister O’Malley. I am a humanoid, but in the Earth’s atmosphere I am indestructible.”

The Tosswik set the Derringer down on the top of the bar and walked over to the panel between the two sides of the bar and lifted it up. He stepped out and came over to the dead body of McKenzie. The assassin’s mouth opened to reveal a set of all canine teeth! A razor pointed tongue then darted out of the Tosswik’s mouth and hung in the air, dripping a blue-green saliva from the sides of his mouth. He then plunged his face directly into the mammoth stomach of my best friend and began to feast upon his entrails!

“That will be enough dining for this evening!”

I turned around to see the person who had shouted this. She wore brass goggles, a black top hat and a white silk kimono with an enraged panda on the front. The brass clock I knew so well was firmly installed inside her bosom below her heaving breasts. In her hands she held a steam-powered device I had not seen before. It looked rather like a pogo stick with two handles and a long metal piston down the center between brass coils where the steam was pumped.

The Tosswik peered up at her for a moment, pieces of tumescent, grayish-purple intestine hanging from his mouth. He grinned, the canines flashing white and bloody.

“You are human, but on Earth silicone life forms can be shaken up by what I have in my hands. I call it a jackhammer because it causes me to jump up and down like a jackrabbit! Watch!” she said, and she tossed a connection hose over to another bartender behind the counter. He hooked it into the steam engine for the bar, and Jane the Grabber turned on the jackhammer. As she shook, she lifted the device and the piston reverberated loudly throughout the tavern.

When the jackhammer hit his body, the Tosswik was still eating. His body cracked like ice, and it splintered into hundreds of pieces. The remnants of this life form would have to be cleaned up with a broom and a dustpan.

I did not have time to mourn my best friend because there was a tremendous explosion outside the tavern. The windows burst inward and shattered glass covered the bar top and littered the floor. Outside, I could see the reptilian form of Doctor Franklin Biggs-Pemberton. He was staring at us inside the bar, his green arms holding a box of some kind and a leer was etched into his midget face.

Behind Biggs-Pemberton, standing like automatons, were Police Superintendent John Kennedy and his men. Each of them also had boxes in their hands. Standing beside Superintendent Kennedy was a big spray hose attached to a steam engine. The sound of silence permeated the entire atmosphere outside the little tavern on Fifth Avenue. All of us inside began to whisper to each other, wondering what had happened outside. We did not have to wait long because Biggs-Pemberton was ready to speak.

“Attention! Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls! You have now had your chains broken by my crystalline bounty. The Simnocols are from the planet Gertospine in the galaxy Oleustind of the universe Rildnak. The single prisoner I had was enough to use on this small city, and I will soon be spreading him into the water supplies of all the world! What was he convicted of doing back on his planet? He was able to insinuate himself into an entire species and alter their behaviors at my thought command! It was very tedious living behind prison walls, and this was how I could spend my free moments. The Simnocol can enter any ingested matter that humans inhale, drink or eat. For example, after I first had him enter Superintendent John Kennedy’s daily coffee, the good officer was kind enough to introduce his growing crystalline amoebae to the others in his office. They, in turn, placed an organism into the water supplies and steam engines of all the city and private reservoirs, homes, warehouses, ships at sea, and theaters downtown. I have saved your establishment for last, as I did promise that I would put an end to the Society and Detective O’Malley in one fell swoop!” Biggs-Pemberton opened the box in his hand, and inside was a pulsing red stone of crystal. I remembered instantly where I had seen that pulsing stone before.

“Officer Kennedy, would you please do the honors, and release the crystalline steam inside the Steam City Ale House?” Biggs-Pemberton pointed to the steam hose, and John Kennedy marched over to the engine, turned it on, and the chugging and hissing began. It was the only sound in the usually teeming streets of Fifth Avenue on Manhattan Island.

I looked up into the air, and Seth was flying up there. He shouted down to us. “Every citizen in New York is a silent worker. They are all responding only to what Biggs-Pemberton tells them to do with his mind! I flew all over, and he has everyone in his power!”

There was only one thing left to do. I took Jane the Grabber by her hand, and I whispered in her ear, “Take us to Manette!” We then disappeared before the cloud of steam began to waft over everyone left standing inside the Steam City Ale House.

Epilogue: The Conclusion Wherein Our Heroes Discover That a Wedding and a Feast Do Not a Comedy Make

When we entered Master Inquisitor Abraham Toky Manette’s cave, I knew he would be unharmed by the crystalline infestations. When I quickly explained what had happened at the Steam City Ale House, Manette looked down upon me as if I were the Jack who had climbed the beanstalk. His magnetic red eyes glowed their usual power force, and I knew this was the source of my question, which I now asked.

“How powerful are your eyes? Do you know how they were made?” I knew that the source material for Doctor Biggs-Pemberton’s crystalline organism could perhaps have the same elemental basis as Manette’s eyes.

“These eyes are made from quaztlemblem. The Network brought this from their universe and installed it as the means of transmitting my unlimited knowledge. I have the ability to increase its power until all of the life forms on any planet must follow my orders.” Manette placed his giant hand upon my shoulder. “You have come here for a reason, Detective. I know what it is. As you know, I have been following the developments in New York very carefully. I told you we were allies.”

“That’s fine, but now I want to ask a favor of you. Can your eyes be used by others?” This plan had been developing inside my meager brain the moment I saw the pulsing red glow of the crystalline Simnocol.

“Yes, I suppose so. What did you have in mind?” Manette asked.

“O’Malley’s always full of bright ideas,” said Jane the Grabber, snapping at her top hat by flicking her index finger against her thumb and striking the brim.

“I would like to rent your eyes and their power for a little while. Would I be able to use them if I needed to? If so, how would I control them?” I asked.

“They are always under my computer brain’s control. However, since I am not human, my parts can be made portable. Brain waves control my eyes and their magnetic power. Thus, if I hook myself up to one of my inventor’s powerful wave transmitters, I could, theoretically, transmit my control to the moon and back. However, you can have control only if you designate a certain time that we both know will be when I will release my power for you to use.” Manette’s eyes glowed with inner reflection.