The Curiosity Killers (4 page)

Ambrose felt a pang of concern. “You want some menthol drops, guv? They do wonders for the ol’ noggin, they do. That what me gran always used to give me.”

“And clearly it did wonders for your intellect,” Claudio said. “Shut up and get the thing ready for testing.”

“You want we should find a recruit to—”

“On me,” Claudio cut in. “We’re testing it on me.”

Ambrose drew back, his eyes wide as he stared at his boss. It was then he realized common menthol drops were insufficient to repair what maladies resided in Claudio Florence’s brain.

Thursday, August 30, 1888, London, England

Claudio’s eyes were shut, but his nose was already assaulted. Sharp, sooty stenches assailed him—not mere smells, no, these assaults to his senses were
stenches
, hot and bestial—and he knew before opening his eyes that the process worked. It was coal and it was manure and nothing in the clean and tidy gardens of his southern compound just inland from Myrtle Beach. There it was salty sea air, singed car exhaust, and exotic flowers he imported from South America. Here…horses. Lots and lots of horses, and their hoof beats increased in volume from all directions, along with…no, he was still back in Ambrose’s laboratory, because that was his voice, wasn’t it?

“Good clean fish
es
!” the voice rang out, always emphasizing the last syllable of its throaty cry. “Good hot
breads
! Good clean fish
es
!”

Why was Ambrose telling him about bread and—oh. It wasn’t Ambrose. The tone was lighter, younger, though the accent was the same. Beneath him, Claudio could feel wetness seeping into his clothes, and there was a hard lump on the back of his head. He hoped it was something under him on the ground and not that he’d been injured and was now in the midst of developing a firm knot of swelling there.

He let his eyes float open at last, and above him was sky, gray and unforgiving and on the verge of rain. Framing this desolate air were buildings coated in black from the visible smokestacks belching inky smoke. Claudio coughed. There was tightness in his lungs from the mere idea of inhaling that foul darkness.

He sat up and spotted the food vendor.

“Good clean fish
es
!” The boy was very young and very dirty, his clothing all colors identical to the sky and the smoke. Around him were other salespeople—sales
children
, in point of fact—holding out wilted flowers or dirty rolls. Claudio imagined trying to wrap his teeth around one of them and losing a crown in the process.

“
Soup
only a pence!
Soup
only a pence!”

Claudio’s head rang. The lump came with him from the street, causing Claudio to groan in pain. He stood on wobbly legs. His vision swam, leaving black streaks across his eyes for an instant, and he had a sudden urge to vomit. He looked around at a small alley adjacent to a wider thoroughfare—on market day, it appeared—and nearby was a rain barrel sitting beneath the sagging eaves of a pub. The nausea intensified, and Claudio heaved
bœuf bourguignon and half a bottle of Spätburguner. Claudio thought through his sick, dizzy haze that the animal slaughtered for his meal wouldn’t be born for hundreds of years.

The barrel reeked of red grape and hot, noxious sick, but as soon as Claudio raised his head, he smelled only the grime and horseshit. He suspected some of the latter resided on the sole of his right shoe, as there was a suspicious softness there with every other step.

“You feelin’ a bit under the weather, luv? I got just the thing.”

Claudio looked up to see a woman grinning at him.

“Name’s Polly.” She batted her eyes and sidled up closer. “I got a bit o’ medicine back at me flat, if you’d like. It’s not far ’tall.”

Claudio considered the offer. He had nothing in the way of appropriate money, but perhaps he could offer something in trade.

The woman was snub-nosed, with her auburn hair in a messy topknot. Her clothes stank of drink and sweat, but there was a kind of devil-may-care appeal to her smile—yellowed teeth notwithstanding—that made Claudio think she could be an amusing companion for a few hours.

Polly giggled when Claudio nodded and indicated that she should lead the way back to her place. “Won’t regret it, sir. I’m well taught in how to please a gent, if I do say so me self. Got some whiskey, too, if you’d like a nip.”

“Sounds divine, fair Dulcinea. Do let’s make haste.”

“Dulci-whatnow?” Polly asked. They walked together. “Oh, gov, you lookin’ for another girl? Said it was Polly, though me mum called me Mary. Never cared for that. Ah, ’ere we are.” She nodded up at one of the soot-colored buildings. A sign designating the place as an inn without a name hung half off its hinges above the door. “Not technically me own flat, but I’m paid up for a time.”

They swept through the downstairs, part lobby and part pub. The bar area was still playing host to a few men muttering into pints of ale, and Polly led Claudio past them to a sparsely furnished room on the second floor. “Not much, but then I s’pect we don’t need much,” she remarked, indicating the thin mattress.

Claudio chuckled and took Polly into his arms. The evening began with a hint of promise, but as the first pink streaks of dawn blossomed through the holes in the curtain, he was listening to her snore and holding his head in his hands.

Goddammit, man, you started a revolution. So why can’t you manage this one simple act?

He looked down at himself, at his thin form and unresponsive organ, and felt the first stirrings of rage. It was her fault, this disgusting whore, and he would make her pay. Never mind that this wasn’t the first time he’d been impotent, never mind that, indeed, he had authority and money and now powerful science behind him.

You’re no man. You’re worthless.

Claudio looked down at Polly and put one hesitant hand on her throat. For a moment, her breathing stopped, her face growing at first a jaunty pink to match the dawn, but then redder and darker. Claudio’s arm trembled. He tightened his grip and watched as the veins in the back of his hand stood out in angry lines like writhing snakes undulating just beneath his skin’s surface.

A little more pressure. One last squeeze…

Before Claudio could clamp his fingers down tighter, Polly emitted an emphatic snore and wriggled away from him. She snorted and fell back into her drink-induced slumber.

I could do it again, though. No one would miss her. She’s of no import to history. The way she bends her elbow, the cirrhosis will take her soon enough. My way would be merciful.

Claudio reached for Polly’s throat again, this time pressing with both hands. A knot in his left hand throbbed, and he gasped as the tiny room spun away from him. He felt himself falling, and then came a rush of wind and a feeling of being punched in the gut. He groaned and doubled over.

Friday, July 4, 2070, Flussville, South Carolina, RAA

When Claudio straightened back up,
Ambrose’s concerned face floated above his.

“You all right?” the younger man asked. “Hang about, don’t try to move, got to check you—oh, sir, you might…here.” Ambrose looked around his lab, grabbed a sheet from the exam gurney across the room, and tossed it to his boss. “Seem to have lost your clothes in the transfer. Did that happen when you arrived, too?”

Claudio shook his head, but then thought better of that response. Ambrose didn’t need to know that he’d been nude on purpose. “I…it’s a bit fuzzy,” he mumbled. He looked at Ambrose. “I didn’t mean to come back when I did. What happened?”

“Well, there’s a retrieval protocol in Vere’s notes,” Ambrose replied. “It’s linked with the subject’s left hand, but I didn’t think it would work without installing the chip under your skin. Perhaps it’s a biological connection that’s made, even without that. The chip could make the retrieval more precise, though.”

“More precise would be preferable,” Claudio snapped. He wrapped the sheet around his waist and stood up. “Get me something real to wear, and get to work on this chip. Tell me when you’ve got something.”

Ambrose tapped a pencil against a notepad. “Sir, when we do have something, where do you want to go? Where did you wind up, and it would be more helpful if we sent you—”

“Yes, yes, send me to something around the war, but…” A thought occurred to Claudio. “Keep this time handy, if that’s even possible. I may wish to go back there again regardless.”

“It takes a lot of power for each trip,” Ambrose said. “Just how relevant d’you think o’ that time and place?”

Claudio imagined slitting Polly’s throat, and a shiver of delight coursed through him. It wasn’t anything he’d ever thought of doing before, but the mere idea now stirred arousal in him. None of Polly’s ministrations worked, and yet thinking of killing her seemed to be doing the trick.

“It’s very relevant, Ambrose. Very relevant indeed.” He hurried from the room.

Monday, July 7, 2070, Flussville, South Carolina, RAA

Ambrose pored over the notes he’d transcribed from Edward Vere’s materials. The retrieval mechanism was still more theoretical than actual, and it involved binding a chip to the drive plate’s electronic signature and then implanting it in the subject’s skin. The left palm was recommended, the notes stated, because the biological retrieval was bound to a vein direct to the cardiovascular center. The heart, Vere posited, was the source of the subject’s own electrical functioning; therefore, the mechanism required a jolt not unlike jump-starting a vehicle.

As Ambrose sketched a design before commencing to solder wires and metal together, he fretted.

Too many jolts to the heart could be catastrophic over time
.
Should I insist the governor get a checkup? What if he’s got an arrhythmia? Poor blighter could drop dead centuries ago, and I’d never know what happened to him. Or would I just summon back a corpse? No, the electricity’s the thing. He’d simply become a mystery. I got to make sure he’s fit for this.

Knowing his employer, however, Ambrose suspected Claudio would resist a medical evaluation.

When Ambrose had a workable design functioning, he read further in Vere’s notes, which cited a projection jump spot that the retrieval device could pinpoint—a safety zone, where within a certain radius the chip could detect if there were native humans or animals present that could get sucked up into the subject’s area. When the chip was activated, the subject needed to find the safety zone and be retrieved there, so as to ensure no one else would come back to the present. Though Vere had an annotation that indicated even he was unclear on that point. In someone else’s handwriting was the cryptic note “Intent—they have to want to go with you,” which left Ambrose more confused than ever.

Ambrose worked through the rest of the evening and into the next day, interrupted every so often by his impatient boss urging him to work faster.

“You want to get stuck centuries in the past?” Ambrose demanded at one point, feeling exhaustion and hunger overtake him. “Then, sure, bloody well let’s shove this thing right into your hand and just hope everything sorts itself out. I’m sure your citizens will be comforted knowing you died needlessly from your own fucking hubris.”

Claudio stalked off, muttering about Ambrose’s retirement plan getting smaller by the hour.

Saturday, June 7, 2070, Avon, Vermont, NBE

Several days after he’d first arrived, it was time for Wilbur to return home, leaving Vere and Alison to work out ideas in the present.

“Now, now, none of that.”

Alison turned around to face Wilbur, who stood with one foot on the plate. She readied the retrieval mechanism, a flat square of metal fitted into the palm of a fingerless leather glove. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said. She gestured to Wilbur’s left hand. “Let’s see if this fits.”

“I see the shimmer in your eyes,” Wilbur said. He held his hand out.

Alison had assumed he would take the glove from her and put it on himself, but this seemed to indicate otherwise. She took his hand in hers. His skin was rough, with callouses along each fingertip. As she tugged the glove onto his hand, her thumb brushed one of the hardened spots. “Does that hurt?” she asked. “Is it from controlling the plane? I imagine that’s not easy, keeping everything level and steady without electronics.”

Wilbur looked at his hand. “There? No.” He laughed softly. “That’s from the winding key on my Kodak. I do have other interests, you know.”

Alison felt her face grow warm.

Wilbur cleared his throat. “I have to go. It’ll be fine, Miss Keller. Not to worry.” He finished pulling on the glove and gave her a salute. “If I’m able to influence my present, perhaps your future will be brighter.”

~

“How long before we can tell if it’s worked?”

Vere looked around his still-shabby laboratory. “It didn’t,” he said. “It’s been hours, but for him it’s been a lifetime. If it had worked, my equipment wouldn’t have to be cobbled together like so much driftwood after a hurricane, and I wouldn’t have shrapnel in my leg or memories of young people being blown to pieces around me. We would have funding, and I wouldn’t have only you here to assist me.”

Alison tapped at one of Vere’s data pads. “His encyclopedia entry hasn’t changed,” she noted. “Still dies the same date, the same way.”

“And, honestly, it may have nothing to do with the machines that hastened his demise,” Vere said. “Disease and contagion aren’t uncommon back then.”

“But my shots are all up to date,” Alison said. “If Wilbur wasn’t able to do anything on his own, what if I gave him some help?”

Friday, July 11, 2070, Flussville, South Carolina, RAA

A full week after Claudio’s return, Ambrose knocked on his door, a small box in his hand.

“Got it,” he said. “But Mister Florence, before I do the install, I think…” He hesitated, running his hands together and staring at the floor.

“Spit it out, boy.”

“I’ll say again, sir. We ought to run you through some medical tests.” Ambrose flinched as he spat out the words.

Claudio saw himself running a scalpel along Polly’s abdomen, pictured feet of blood-slicked intestines spilling from the incision, and almost cried. More stupidity delaying him from his release, getting to feel so much warm, coppery blood slipping between his fingers? No. He wouldn’t allow it.