Terra Mechanica: A Steampunk Anthology (35 page)

“But we have to meet someone.”

“It’s already done. A local came and went during the second act. I don’t think you noticed. You were so very absorbed in all the action.”

Marcel was astonished by his own lack of vigilance. “Then we have another note . . .”

“Yes, we do.” Noël handed him the paper.

The words were in French, but written too small for him to read in the poor lighting. He sighed heavily in frustration. “It is too dark in here for me to read it.”

“I can guarantee you perfect vision in both eyes.” The man bowed slightly again. “Will you not consider my offer?”

Marcel gave in more easily this time. If it helped him to further help resolve this case then why not?

They took another carriage ride to a business district. The sign on the shop door read in French: Dr. Bao Chiem, Premier Eye Specialist, so that at least helped to legitimize the whole affair. The first room was full of spectacles, both singular and double-lensed. Marcel was pretty sure none of those would work for an eye clouded by fire.

The next room was where the prosthetics were kept. It was full of mechanical objects. Binoculars, telescopes—all built to extend a man’s natural ability to see—lined the shelves. As the craftsman began to show off his many wares, Marcel felt somewhat ungrateful.

“I only want to be able to see,” he said. “Nothing fancy. Nothing even noticeable if that’s possible.”

“Ah, a minimalist in a maximum-minded world. Fortunately for you, I am the world’s premier specialist in micro-steam technology. Here is what you want.”

It was behind glass, and tiny. It was a circular iris and lens, with a micro steam engine behind. Its intricacy left Marcel flabbergasted.

“How does it work?” Noël asked with youthful exuberance.

“With the smallest of small connections to the eye itself, the optic nerve and especially the tear ducts to produce enough moisture to provide a continual source of power.”

“That sounds . . . invasive.” Marcel frowned. “We don’t have that kind of time to spare, do we?” He looked at Noël, who merely shrugged.

“Yes, yes, of course you do.” Dr. Chiem nodded. “You can heal while you travel. Come with me and we will get it done immediately.”

Marcel moved his wheelchair back, feeling almost defensive.

There was another reason he didn’t want to fix the eye. He had massive scars on that side of his face that he didn’t ever have to fully look at when he caught a reflection of himself because all he’d had to do was turn his head away enough that his left eye couldn’t see them.

With both eyes functional, he would have to see himself for what he was.

“I can’t make this decision right now, please,” he gasped. “We’ll get a hotel. I’ll think about it.”

“Marcel, this man is the best there is.” Junior Inspector Noël knelt by the chair. “You shouldn’t be worried.”

“I don’t doubt his work, it’s just . . . I’m not . . .” A rush of anguish struck him. “A lot of people died. I should have died . . .”

“You will die too, Monsieur, one day,” the specialist gave a slight nod. “You can choose a long life of seeing or a long life of not seeing, and that has little or nothing to do with how well your eyes work.”

Marcel closed his eyes a moment and took in the man’s solemn wisdom. “Fine, then . . .”

It wasn’t until he was going under for surgery that he realized he hadn’t even thought once about the cost.

Inspector Marcel Roux fought with demons in his drug-induced dreams. They loomed above him, monstrous and fire-breathing. He would try to get away, but always, when he turned there was an edge with only darkness below him.

And then he would jump into the darkness.

No matter how many times the dream recurred, he could never stop himself from jumping.

He awakened with a start. In the dream, a demon had stabbed him in the eye. Back in reality, it still felt like it.

“Welcome back, Inspector Roux.” Noël was sitting beside him in his wheelchair as he lay in a bed in a dimly lit room. “How are you feeling?”

“It hurts . . .”

“I figured. The surgery went well. You should be able to take the bandage off in seven days.”

“Where are we?” he asked. But the room had a familiar vibration. “Oh!” he gasped, and tried to sit up before he remembered it took more effort than just wanting to. Noël held him down in any case. “No!”

“Don’t panic, Monsieur.”

“
Don’t panic
?” Marcel spat. “We are on a Zeppelin!”

“It is a very large, very safe Zeppelin.” Noël had not let go of him, which was probably for the best because he was angry enough to want to fight, and afraid enough to want to flee, yet he could do neither very well. “In fact it is our own French national Zeppelin built out of the newest in technology. Its route through some of our French protectorates, with a stop in Quebec to refuel, made it the perfect solution.”

None of that really mattered to Marcel. A Zeppelin was a Zeppelin and in his mind, a death trap.

Noël was still talking, something about natural gas fields of the former Confederate American States. “. . . and not by the crude hydrogen that so injured you before. Helium is incapable of burning at all.”

But injured and burning were the only parts of it Marcel comprehended. “I have to get out of here.”

“That’s really not an option; we’re over the Pacific Ocean,” Noël replied.

“Then let me over the side; drown me,” he lamented. A part of him knew he was being irrational, but that part had lost control. “If only I could walk there on my own.”

“Then, for that reason alone, I am glad you cannot walk.”

Marcel recognized an element of logic in Noël’s words, yet could not contain his overwhelming fear. “How could you do this to me?” He fought to catch his breath. “Are you not my friend? Could you even claim to be now? You’ve been so kind to me.”

“I am still being kind.” Noël replied. “Would you like some more of the sedative that Dr. Chiem provided to knock you out during the surgery? It seems to work a little too well on you, but you might benefit from a few more hours sleep.”

“I would take an eternity of sleep over this betrayal,” he gasped.

“I’m sorry.” Noël frowned, and finally let go of him. He took a bottle out of a bag sitting on the floor beside the wheelchair. The sedative was nothing more than a very strong alcoholic beverage. “Our trail now leads to the Americas, so I really had no choice.”

“A steamship, perhaps?” Marcel wished, and watched Noël measure the drink into a small cup.

“I had none at my disposal that could sail to from French Indochina to Quebec in under a week,” Noël said. “Not like this bird can.”

“I wish it was a bird." Marcel’s voice cracked. “Instead it is a prison.”

“I apologize for perhaps not recognizing the depth of your fear,” Noël set the cup in his hand. “But then again, any trial can become a prison when one is unwilling to seek help enough to work against it.”

“I will concede that you may have a point.” Roux was angry at Noël’s deception, but there was little he could do about it. “Still, I would lie here in pain and full of fear before I turn to alcohol to calm myself.”

Zelie would not have approved of using alcohol as method of becalming himself. Her first husband, a prestigious man with deep social fears, had employed self-medication with large amounts of alcohol, and abused her terribly.

He would not fall prey to the same. He handed the cup back to Noël.

“I swear you are as stubborn a man as I have ever met.” Clement Noël broke his optimistic façade. “Let me read to you the latest letter from our patron that he wired to us with the next payout money. Perhaps that will take your mind off your pains.”

“You might as well try,” Marcel growled.

“
Dear Monsieur Roux. It has come to my attention that you have taken my case after having been injured and that you are in fact gravely unwell. Forgive me if I am asking more of you than you feel you can give, but since you are the best in your craft, I must implore you to continue if at all possible. My gratitude knows no bounds that you would take this arduous journey to reunite my family. I will reward you handsomely. Merci. Monsieur M.
”

“He does at least pretend to guess how hard this is for me,” Marcel choked on his own emotions. “Of course I will continue, but then I am finished. Do you hear me, Inspector Noël? Finished!”

“Whatever you wish, Monsieur Roux,” Noël did not argue this time. “Is there anything more I can get for you?”

“Two legs that work,” he gasped. “But since you cannot do that, then please, I desperately need something for this pain in my head. But not the alcohol, unless that is truly all there is.”

“I have something that will work just as well,” Noël replied, and produced a small bottle. “Now I will leave you to rest.”

Junior Inspector Noël left the room, but not before Marcel caught a glimpse of the bright sun coming in through the gondola windows. There were a multitude of people on board, visiting and playing cards and enjoying themselves, not realizing they were only ever a single spark away from a flaming death trap.

Alone in the darkened room, Marcel breathed deeply. It was strange, but he took solace in the fact that if this Zeppelin did burst into flames at this altitude, over the Pacific Ocean, there was no way he would survive it.

By the time Noël returned, he was no longer in pain and feeling calmer.

“I see you have come to some resolve, Monsieur.”

“Yes. First, I have resolved that there is no pain that compare to the burns I received in Champagne, so I will endeavor to stop complaining; and second, I am not as afraid of dying as I once was.”

“That does not make me want to help you back into your chair.” Noël smirked.

“I have no further intention of driving myself over the edge,” he admitted. “That was a moment of irrational fear. I’m very sorry you had to witness it.”

“Apology accepted.” Noël sat down in the wheelchair again. “I hope you will accept mine. I was a fool to think you would not guess immediately where we were.”

“Yes, you were. I’ll trust you not to do it again.”

“We will be landing in French Polynesia—Tahiti to be exact—in two days to refuel. I cannot be expected to leave you there.”

That was a dilemma. “I will continue to Quebec, but no more.”

“Then I promise.” Noël nodded.

“How long?”

“Two days to Tahiti. Four from there to Quebec.”

“I should not have asked.” Marcel ’s breathing quickened.

“Tell me about yourself, Monsieur, if it will help to pass the time,” Noël requested. “I wish to learn all you can teach me while we are together. What has been your greatest triumph in your work as an inspector?”

“My greatest?” Marcel had to think hard to categorize all of the feats of his career into any sort of order or importance. “I don’t know about greatest, but the one I remember the best was my first case. I was as green as you are now and not specifically assigned to kidnappings at that point.

“There was a boy in Palaiseau missing. There were very few clues to go on—a ransom note and a key much like the one we found in this case, except I tracked it to a local smith who left his mark on everything he made.” He paused and looked at Noël, who was looking disinterested. “Too long a story?”

“Oh, no, please go on,” Noël gasped, revealing not disinterest but barely controlled emotion.

“In interviewing him, I came to suspect his involvement, even though my superior officer thought him above the deed. I broke a few rules and poked around in his shop while everyone was out at Christmas Eve mass. Turned out, I was right. I found a door in the shop floor and a shallow basement beneath. It was down there, in the dark that he was keeping that poor little boy.”

“How awful,” Noël whispered.

“Right up to that point, yes.” Marcel nodded. “I’ll never forget his dirty face, his reaching hands, his cries for his papa, and how he clung to me as I lifted him out and ran with him covered in my coat against the cold to the nearest police station.

“Sadly the smith never faced justice. He hung himself later that night.”

“But the boy was reunited with his family?”

“Yes, and on Christmas morning, no less. My superior got all of the press for it, but I didn’t care. I’d found my calling. That was seventeen years ago. How time flies.”

Noël sniffled and nodded. The boy was a sensitive fellow, like Marcel used to be.

“You get numb to it after a while,” he admitted with a heavy sigh. “Numb to everything but yourself until you find a reason not to be.”

“And your reason?” Noël asked.

“Her name was Zelie Guerin. And now my story has come full circle. You know the rest.”

“Thank you.” Noël nodded. “That story could give anyone the drive to want to do what you do.”

“To do what I used to do,” Marcel corrected.

“What you’re doing even now. Enduring a ride in this awful machine to look for a lost mother and child.”

“Enduring badly, I suppose, but yes. Perhaps a little sunlight would do me good.”

“Are you sure?”

“I want to try.”

Noël stood by to assist as Marcel lifted himself into his chair and then maneuvered it forward slowly. They went out of the dark interior room and into the public area. There, beyond the windows, was the blue sky and clouds.