The Falling Machine (14 page)

Reaching a point where he figured he had at least a fair chance of escaping, the Sleuth leapt to his feet and bolted for the entrance to the alleyway.

The padding of his costume chafed and scratched him as he ran, and with every step his legs demanded that he stop sprinting and act his age. He had no doubt that he could outrun the potbellied strangler, but that wasn't who he was worried about. With his life on the line he could ignore the screaming pain in his knees for a little while. He'd pay for it later—if there was a later.

The safety of the alleyway was only a yard away when he heard one of the men shouting “Stop!” behind him. A second later a chunk of brick in the wall near his head shattered as it was struck by one of Jack Knife's blades.

He entered the maze at a full run, knowing that his pursuers must be only a few steps behind him. The shadows felt comforting, but this was their territory, not his, and the only advantage he had was the few yards he had gained with the element of surprise. But no matter how motivated Wickham was, he was too old to escape by vigor alone—he'd need to come up with a plan.

T
he sound that had caused Alexander to bolt from his chair brought all his senses to full attention. Until he felt the tingling in his nerves he hadn't realized how deeply the mystery of the stuck door had set him on edge, but now he felt a bolt of excitement tear through him, transforming Alexander Stanton into the Industrialist.

He looked in every direction, trying to determine where the sound had come from. If there was going to be an attack, he would need to find the best possible position for his defense.

The next sound was more of a dull thump, and this time he was positive that it came from behind him. More than that, it had come from
inside
the hidden closet in the wall.

He turned to the lamp, determined to open up the panel on the wall behind him. Just as his hand reached up to activate the mechanism there were a series of quick raps on the door to his office. He spun around, his hand automatically reaching for the Industrialist's gun at his waist, but there was nothing there.

For a moment he felt totally vulnerable—an unarmed man, facing a threat that it would take a Paragon to defeat.

But it only took a moment more for him to realize that there was no real threat at the door.

“Sir?”

After three decades he had become infinitely familiar with the sound of his butler's voice. “Come in, O'Rourke!” he yelled out with irritation.

The old butler opened the door slowly and shuffled into the room. “I see, sir, that you somehow managed to unstick your door.” Alexander had long given up trying to figure out whether the old man was mocking him, or simply had a gift for making everything he said seem sarcastic.

“Yes, thank you, O'Rourke. That isn't my problem anymore.”

“And what would be your problem
now
, sir?”

Alexander sighed and sat back down heavily into the chair. “It's nothing,” he said testily. “I thought I heard a noise.”

“A
loud
noise, sir?”

The idea of explaining his anxieties to his butler made the whole thing seem ridiculous. “It's nothing. I was concerned that we might be being attacked.” He paused and stared into the butler's emotionless face. “Because if something or someone were about to attack me, they would have taken advantage of the opportunity while I was distracted by my bumbling butler.”

“Most likely, sir. I am hardly a strapping hero such as yourself.”

“Your gift for understatement remains as strong as ever, O'Rourke.”

“Thank you, sir,” he said without a trace of audible irony. “It was probably simply vermin in the walls, sir.” As always, the old man's face remained utterly unreadable and totally placid.

Alexander didn't know all the details of O'Rourke's life before he had arrived in the United States, but he had learned that his family had been utterly destroyed in some terrible misfortune: a wife and two children, O'Rourke's entire young life had all been wiped away by a catastrophe that the man had chosen never to discuss. “Would you like me to call the exterminators?”

“No,” Alexander said, shaking his head. Try as he might to feel sympathy for the Irishman, he always found that it was quickly erased by the man's attitude, which seemed to travel back and forth from total disregard to utter condescension. “What I'd like to know is why it's taken half an hour to simply find my daughter and have her brought to me.”

“I could go and find out, sir.”

Stanton opened his mouth to yell at the man, and for the umpteen-thousandth time thought better of it. At first he had felt that the butler was too new to berated; then he had become too important to upset; and now he was simply too old. And for all his flaws he was an unswervingly loyal and damned efficient servant. For example, unlike the maid, O'Rourke knew better than to start a journey until he had been directed to do so.

“Then go do that.” Stanton waved him away, picking up the remaining application from his desk and pretending to stare at it.

As the butler turned to close the door behind himself, Alexander looked up at him. “And leave the door open, O'Rourke.”

“Open, sir?” Once again, his face refused to match the tone of surprise.

“Do as I say.”

“Just
as you say, sir.” The old butler wandered off down the hallway, each footstep echoing with a dull snap followed by a scraping sound as his feet dragged against the marble floor.

Alexander pulled out the last application and tried to focus on it enough to read it, but the meaning kept sliding away. He had to admit that the fresh jolt of fear from the noise in the wall had once again set his mind wandering in search of excitement.

His eyes wandered back to the gas lamp on the wall. He could use it to open the gateway to his other life. Then all he would need to do is put on his costume and be on his way, free of any responsibility that didn't involve adventure.

He was also sure that the exact moment he placed the Industrialist's hat on his head would be the same one that his daughter would come skipping in through the office door.

He actually dreaded the thought of talking with her, but it was clear that she had been greatly affected by Darby's death. For the first few weeks he had hoped that it would pass over her without the need for his intervention, like a winter cough, but things were clearly not going to be that simple.

Sarah was, no matter how difficult it might be for the average person to see it, grieving. And he, having been so wrapped up in his plans to succeed Sir Dennis as the leader of the Paragons, hadn't even been able to see it until a few days ago.

She was a sensitive girl, like her mother, and instead of dealing with her sorrow with weeping and lethargy, Sarah had become even more charged than usual—racing through the house, sewing a small army of misshapen dolls to “be given away to the orphans,” and disappearing into her room for hours on end.

She had also taken to long walks in the park in her mourning clothes, necessitating that one of the house staff go along with her as a chaperone, taking them away from duties that were far more pressing.

In the end it had been Jenny Farrows, the house maid, who had brought the issue of his daughter's suffering to Alexander's attention. She told him that if there were to be any chance for Sarah to get over it, then he would need to speak to his daughter,
specifically
on the subject of “the passing of her mentor.”

He was already getting wound up simply at imagining their conversation, and she hadn't even entered the room yet. But Stanton promised himself that he would keep a cool head. What Sarah needed was guidance and wisdom, and neither of those things was delivered effectively at a loud volume.

Since the death of his wife, there had been many days when Alexander wished there were someone to comfort
him
with quiet words, but he had been alone long enough that he'd found he could replace that feeling with action.

But the work before him meant that he was denied even the simple pleasure of putting on his costume and running through the streets of the city as the Industrialist.

Truth be told, even before the Professor had been murdered, the number of times he could sneak out of the house in his costume with a gun strapped to his belt had been fewer and farther between with every passing year. There were dozens of reasons, all trumped by the fact that he was simply getting older. And these days he spent a good deal of the time simply wandering the streets in search of a little peace and quiet instead of hunting ruffians.

Sometimes he would stop and chat with a concerned citizen or one of the police. Dressed up in uniforms of their own, many of them were enamored with vigilante heroes. Technically the Paragons were outlaws—illegal under the same statutes that had been used to shut down the private police forces when the municipal constabulary had first been established. But the city and its heroes had come to an understanding, and when the mechanical villains had started their reign of terror even the newspapers had agreed it was good to have Paragons protecting them.

“The Paragons,” he said with a sigh, and glanced down at the last application. He read the man's name out loud. “King Jupiter.” It was an odd name, and like the White Knight, there wasn't much that made him stand out on paper except for the description of a few superhuman abilities that made his authenticity even more dubious. “Skin like that of a stone. Master of electricity. I am able to throw lightning bolts at will,” he said, reading off the paper.

“Doubtful, unlikely, and poppycock,” he muttered to himself.

He couldn't even really make out the man's costume from the supplied image. It was a strange affair that covered him from head to toe, like a union suit—although lacking the rear hatch. It had been sewn from a thick fabric, and from the glinting light that had been picked up by the camera in his portrait, there were clearly golden threads sewn into the material as well. Tied around his neck was a piece of ermine fur that, he did have to admit, gave the whole thing a slightly regal air, especially when you paired it with the scepter in his hand and his obvious physique.

Alexander let out a slight guffaw when he realized that points on the top of the man's helmet were actually supposed to make it appear as if a crown had been attached to the top of his head. In front of King Jupiter's face was a solid metal plate that had a blank visage except for the eyeholes, and a beard of stylized curls that turned into fine golden chain mail that covered his neck, making sure that his features were completely hidden.

The chain mail was another point against him. “I hope for his sake that his skin really is made of stone,” he mumbled to himself. He had seen men try to dress in that kind of armor before, with unpredictable results.

Years ago, when he was just getting started, Alexander had spent some time fighting crime with a young hero who had called himself “Pendragon.” The man's heart had certainly been in the right place, and he had carried an electrified sword that had managed to put a quick end to more than one dangerous situation.

But Pendragon's career as a Paragon had come to a sudden end when he went face-to-face against a maniac calling himself the Steel Woodsman. Failing to dodge in time, he had taken a nasty blow from the villain's axe. His armor had protected him from losing a limb, but the blade had driven the metal links of his chain mail deep into his skin. He had managed to use his sword to permanently chop down the Woodsman, but the “Arthurian Avenger” had limped away from the combat badly wounded, and was never seen again.

Half a decade later, Alexander had run into a man on lower Broadway who claimed that he had once been Pendragon. By this time the identity of the Industrialist was no longer a secret, and Stanton had put up with a number of people who tried to claim that they knew him as one masked hero or another.

The man's skin was flushed and red, his teeth yellow and crooked, and he was well out of shape—except for round. The strange fellow was a far cry from the lithe young swordsman who he had once partnered with. The only way he could prove that he had really once been the hero he claimed to be was by showing Alexander the rings of metal that were still lodged in his flesh. Alexander had warned anyone off of chain mail since that day.

Shaking away the cloud of nostalgia, he returned to the application on his desk. King Jupiter was claiming to be a genuine “Miracle Man,” with powers that were more mystical than mechanical. As a Paragon Stanton had seen his fair share of unexplainable events, but discovering a person who had true superhuman abilities was very rare indeed.

Most heroes were simply people with one or two skills that, with training and focus, could undeniably put them in a better class than the average man.

But true superhuman abilities—whether they came from machines, chemicals, or even the supernatural—were no guarantee of survival. After all the wars, riots, and villains that Alexander had battled against, he had learned that what gave you the best odds of survival were a desire to fight for what you believed in, the ability to rely on the men who fought beside you, and a lot of damned good luck. “And sooner or later, luck always runs out,” he heard himself say in a dark tone.

The idea that
both
the White Knight and King Jupiter would prove to be what they claimed was impossible. One of them had to be a fraud. He'd need to see them in action and find out which one it was before he'd take either seriously as a possible Paragon.

But why was he being so negative? He had wanted to be the leader of the Paragons, and now he was. If Alexander was upset by the responsibility of finding new heroes, he had no one to blame but himself.

Grabbing a pen, he wrote “to be considered” across the top of King Jupiter's application and stuffed it back into the envelope. After all, if you were going to judge the measure of a hero simply by the cut of his costume, then the Industrialist would be the first to go.

Having finished his review, his eyes turned back to the gas lamp. Maybe he
could
sneak out after all, just for a little while. It wasn't like Sarah wouldn't be around when he got back—this was her home But there was something else that was bothering him—something was missing….