The Friday Society (27 page)

Again, Nellie was at a loss for words. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

As if she was feeling left out of the conversation, Scheherazade flew to her shoulder and gave her ear a friendly peck.

“Could you watch Sherry for me?” Nellie asked, scratching the bird’s head. “She might follow. And she can’t this time.”

“This time?”

Nellie didn’t respond, so the Magician gave a small nod and plucked the parrot from her shoulder.

“Thank you.”

“Now go,” he said, taking a step back. “Join your team.”

46

And So . . .

I
N THE SHADOW
of Tower Bridge, three girls met in the dark.

“I love it!” said Nellie when Cora removed her overcoat and put on her goggles. She made her strike a pose. Cora, for her part, put her hands on her hips, but that was all she was inclined to do. “It came together beautifully, and you don’t look like a man at all.”

“Well, that’s good.”

There was a pause as Cora adjusted her tool belt. Nellie coughed to get her attention.

“Oh, you look great, too! Love the cape and the . . . mask.”

Nellie grinned. “Thank you!”

Michiko just sighed.

“Right. Okay, Michiko, I mean, Silver Heart.” Nellie grinned again. “Lead on.”

With map in hand, Michiko led the girls toward the river’s edge, just east of the neo-Gothic bridge. She stopped and looked at the map. Then at the building before her. She nodded and folded up the map, hiding it somewhere in her black ensemble.

“Is that the entrance?” asked Nellie, staring the small cylindrical building before her and reading the words around the top. “The London Hydraulic Power Company.”

Cora nodded. “Yes. That’s it. It used to be the Tower Subway. Then the hydraulic company took over. Should have an automated lift inside. At least I hope so.”

The steel door was locked, of course, but Nellie pulled out a thin piece of metal, picked the lock, and they were easily inside. Nellie lit a match and the room glowed for a moment. It was small, only enough space for a lift, and Michiko pulled its grate open as Cora examined the box next to it. It seemed to be a pretty standard winching device that ran on electricity. Nellie lit another match when the first one burned out. Cora examined the box carefully. The power had been turned off, but after a quick survey of the room, she found the generator. Soon she had it humming to life, and a small light in the ceiling turned on. She flipped two of the switches in the box and motioned to the girls to step inside the lift. Michiko closed the grate behind her.

“Well, here goes nothing.” Cora pulled the lever on the inside of the lift. There was a loud clunking sound, wheels turning, and the faint smell of burning.
Dust,
Cora told herself.
It’s just dust.
Then the cage they were in lurched up half a foot and returned to its original spot.

“Is that it?” asked Nellie, not particularly helpfully.

As if to say,
“No, that’s not it,”
the cage suddenly started to descend. Faster than Cora had anticipated.

“Here we go,” she said.

The ride was shaky and unsteady, and the girls stood in silence as they descended farther and farther from the light. Soon they were surrounded by pitch darkness, and it took Cora a few moments to remember she was wearing her goggles. She flipped down the thick secondary green glass, pushed the button by her temple, and the goggles filled with a gaseous substance. She should be able to see now. But she couldn’t. She could see a bit of the grate before her, but that was it.

“Damn it,” she said.

“What?”

“They’re not working.”

“What aren’t?”

“My goggles.” Cora turned to Nellie and was surprised that she could see her face and its confused expression all in a greenish tint. “Oh. I guess they do work. I guess I was just . . . looking at nothing.”

“What are you goin’ on about?”

“The goggles I’m wearing. I made them so I can see in the dark.”

“You can see?”

Cora nodded. Then she realized that Nellie couldn’t see her nodding. “Yes,” she said.

The lift landed with a heavy thud and the girls were thrown backward.

“Should I light another match?” asked Nellie.

“Let me have a look around first. We don’t want our presence to be known.” Cora opened the grate as quietly as she could and stepped out into the wide tunnel. She’d never used the Tower Subway herself, but of course she’d known people who had. And she remembered when the authorities had closed it down, too. People had been upset. Which, of course, she’d found odd. You’d had to pay a toll to use the subway. You didn’t in order to cross the bridge above. But some people hated change.

She looked both ways and saw nothing. Just pipes overhead that dripped onto the floor. It was worth the risk.

“Light a match,” she said.

It was almost too bright for her when Nellie did so. Nellie and Michiko joined Cora in the tunnel and stood by her, gazing out before them.

“Pretty straightforward. If you hold on to me, I’ll take you through,” said Cora just as the match burned out.

She led them down the tunnel, not sure how far they were going, just looking for something, anything, that hinted at what they should do next. They walked in silence, just the dripping of the water keeping them company. It wasn’t the most comforting of sounds.

They were maybe halfway through the tunnel, probably smack-dab in the middle of the river above, when Michiko squeezed her shoulder and said, “Stop.”

They did. Cora’s heart dropped, and she quickly looked about to see why they had stopped. Had something sneaked up on them? She should have been looking back more often.

But there was nothing. Nothing that she could see.

“Listen,” said Michiko.

Cora strained to hear what Michiko was hearing. But nothing sounded any different than it had a moment before.

“Hollow.” Michiko released Cora’s shoulder and disappeared. Cora turned and looked down to see the Japanese girl crawling on the ground, her hands outstretched before her. “Yes. Here. Come.”

“Where’s she gone?” asked Nellie, oblivious to what was going on.

“She’s on the ground. She’s . . . oh my God. There’s a trapdoor.” She bent down slowly so that Nellie could stay close to her and examined the door that Michiko had discovered. “I can’t believe I missed it. I was looking straight ahead; that was stupid of me.”

“How did you find it?” asked Nellie slowly.

“Walking sound. Different.”

Cora noticed a slight indentation in the wood, enough for a few fingers to slip into it. She pulled, and when the door opened, a crack, a beam of light hit her knees.

There was as sudden loud clang and Nellie gasped. Cora instinctively held her breath, waiting for the attack.

“Lift,” said Michiko.

It took a moment to process the word, and then Cora understood. Someone had just activated the lift. There was no time to lose now.

She opened the door wide. Beneath it was an iron ladder that led to a floor a short distance away. “Go down, go now.”

Michiko evidently didn’t need the ladder; she just jumped straight to the floor beneath. Nellie swung herself easily over the edge and jumped to a lower step. Then, placing her feet and hands on the outside of the ladder, she slid down.
Show-offs,
thought Cora as she hoisted herself onto the ladder and took each step as she carefully climbed down. She shut the door behind her.

Wherever they were now, it was bright, or at least brighter compared to where they’d come from. Cora flipped up the green glass on her goggles so she could look through the plain glass lens. The tunnel was narrower than the one they’d just been in. It was pretty primitive looking, created not for any regular use or any regular person. Electric lamps were connected to one another at intervals by thick black cables. They went along as far as the eye could see, showing the girls the way down the long winding path that eventually turned out of sight.

“I go first,” said Michiko, pulling the elegant sword from its sheath on her back and holding it before her.

“I’ve got no problem with that,” replied Cora. Nellie laughed, and they followed Michiko carefully down the hall.

It was exhausting, anticipating something terrible around every corner, and constantly looking over one’s shoulder. Cora was grateful that her adrenaline was surging, otherwise she’d probably collapse from the anticipation.

She glanced over her shoulder again, to see if whoever had called the lift was upon them yet. Nothing. She turned and walked right into Nellie.

“Watch it, Hyde,” said Nellie, stumbling forward.

“Sorry, you just . . . stopped.”

“I stopped because Silver Heart stopped.”

“I stop because light stop.”

And it was true. They had come to the end of the trail of lights, and a vast blackness opened out before them.

Cora flipped down the green lenses, pushed the button at her temple, and in a moment she was staring out into a wide, low-ceilinged cavern.

“Interesting.”

“What do you see?”

“A door at the other end.”

“Good!”

“And trip wires between us and it.”

Fine wires crisscrossed the space from top to bottom, and as Cora followed them up to the walls of the cavern, she saw that they were attached to devices that resembled small crossbows.

“Darts maybe, likely poisoned. Clearly he was expecting visitors.”

“What do we do?” asked Nellie.

“You do what I tell you. You two should be fine; I’m more concerned about my lack of flexibility with all these metal pieces covering me.”

“I go first,” Michiko insisted yet again.

“No,” replied Cora.

“Why no?”

“Because I need to practice giving instructions so that when it’s your turn I will be easy to understand.”

She said it a few times, adding gestures, until Michiko understood, giving a sharp nod. “Yes.”

“You ready . . . Lady Sparkle?”

Nellie gave her a smile and nodded. She tied her cape tightly around her waist, then she turned toward the blackness and took a deep slow breath, focusing on the task ahead.

“The first wire is low to the ground, so lift your foot up perpendicular to your knee . . .”

“Are all the instructions going to be this detailed?”

“Yes.”

“Lord, this is gonna take forever . . .”

And so it began. Nellie was a very good listener and followed Cora’s instructions to the letter. Well, except for the few times when she offered her own suggestions, like doing a roll over some wire instead of flattening herself under it. She was remarkably bendy, the way she could twist and turn and lift her legs just so. And when she made it to the end, she did a little cartwheel, just for fun.

“Your turn, Silver Heart.”

Michiko didn’t move. There was a pause. Then: “Me?”

“Yes. You’re Silver Heart.”

There was silence from behind the mask and then Michiko took a step toward the blackness.

This was going to be harder. But now that Cora had directed someone through the wires once, she felt more confident in her ability to tell Michiko what to do. For her part, Michiko proved to be a wizard at interpreting her meaning, and, like Nellie, came up with her own solutions. There was a series of wires she could pass under, snakelike, simply because she was so slender. When she got to the other side, she didn’t cartwheel. But she was attacked in a ferocious hug by Nellie.

“My turn,
” said Cora to herself. She had been fearing this moment. It was one thing to have a sense of the full scope of the situation, and to guide others across the wires, but to be in it herself . . .

Plus, with all the pieces of the Chekhov tucked around her body, she wasn’t nearly as agile as the other two.

“Just take your time,” called out Nellie into the dark. Cora wondered what it was like for the other two to be standing in the blackness on the other side. Though they weren’t completely blind, she realized; they could see her body silhouetted by the lamps that stood behind her in the tunnel.

“Can you see the wires?” Cora called out, maybe they could help her.

“A bit, but they disappear in and out of the light,” replied Nellie. “I’ll help you when I can.”

Every step Cora took, she made sure to examine everything around her, up, down, side to side. She made herself lie on her back instead of her front so that she could keep an eye on the wires. She hopped over one and nearly lost her balance, and she heard Nellie gasp as Cora tried to stay upright. Once in a while Nellie offered a few suggestions, and at one crucial moment stopped Cora just before she tripped a wire. It seemed to take forever, but eventually she made it to the other two.

“That wasn’t fun,” she said, panting slightly.

“I thought it kind of was—”

“Move.”

Cora pushed Nellie to the side so she could examine the door they were now standing before. It was a thick, solid metal, no handle, no obvious lock.

“Can you do anything with this?” she asked.

“Let me borrow your goggles,” replied Nellie.

Cora passed them over, and after Nellie let out a laugh of appreciation and a “This is amazin’!” she started to examine the door.

“No . . . it opens mechanically, I think. From the other side.”

“That’s what I was thinking, too.”

Nellie passed back the goggles.

“I wonder . . . if we break the seal, if it would then slide open,” said Cora, again studying the door closely. “The bullets in my pistol are filled with acid.”

“They are?”

“Let me try. Both of you stand back.” Cora knew that she could probably use the Chekhov to blow a giant hole in the door, but she didn’t want to activate the weapon if she didn’t have to. She didn’t know what kind of collateral damage shooting it off might cause, and then, of course, there was the fact that once the gun was assembled, she’d have to carry the thing around for the rest of the mission. Sure it could quickly fall apart at the push of a button, but putting the pieces back all over her person? Not so easy. So it made sense to try the pistol first.

She aimed for the stone frame around the door, not the door itself. She wasn’t sure what kind of metal it was made out of, and definitely wasn’t interested in having acid-filled bullets ricocheting off its surface and back at her.

“If they didn’t know we were coming before . . .” she said, and then . . . fired.

She discharged her entire supply of bullets, and when silence fell, she examined her handiwork. The stone around the door had melted away, and she could even glimpse into the room behind it.

“Come on, ladies, let’s see if we can pull this thing open.” She directed Michiko and Nellie to grab the exposed side of the door. “One, two, three . . .” They pulled. They kept pulling. They pulled some more.