Automatic Woman (11 page)

“What’s shameful, sir, is your lack of imagination. Our bible, assuming we’re going by the King James version, says that God made the earth in six days, that Noah lived for over nine hundred years and yet how time is measured has changed and changed and changed. Who’s to say six thousand years to one species can’t be a million years to another. Who says that time cannot be relative?”

“That’s a fools’ argument and I won’t debate with a fool.”

Darwin smiled. He looked so old, like father time himself.

“That’s fine, sir. I hold my belief, you hold yours and we shall live on until the end of our days. If either is wrong, let our father judge.”

“That’s not good enough!”

“Sir?”

“We cannot agree to disagree. There are no more realities than the one. To think a man can hold an opinion that is wrong is blasphemy. Our world is objective and no two men can hold opposing opinions and both be right.”

“Alright, then I’ll claim the right. You are wrong. Logic and evidence support me.” Darwin said.

“Faith and popular sentiment back me,” the American said.

“Then we find ourselves at an impasse, without the means to win except to defame our opponent or stave off and return to our honest fulfilling lives. Good luck, sir.” Darwin held his hand out. The American ignored it. He addressed the audience.

“Can we declare me the winner, then?” He asked the silent and smoky crowd. “Is this my victory to claim?”

No one said anything. Even Darwin was silent. The American shook his head in disgust.

“You will pay for your lack of faith in time. Ours is not a forgiving God, and hell is not a place for splicing words and opinions.” The American turned away from Darwin and ascended the arena stairs.

“Just so we’re clear,” Darwin called to the escaping man’s back. “I think you’re wrong about the Hammites as well. I don’t think God started the colored races with just one man. I think we all started colored and adjusted our colors based on location and time. The only difference between us and them is how we’ve adapted to these surroundings.”

The American stopped, turned, spat on the floor, and proceeded with his exit. All very dramatic. The audience gave a polite applause, and shuffled off to whatever else their days held. Other lectures, other debates, others places to puff the day away in cloudy contemplation. A small group stayed to shake hands and offer platitudes to the venerable academic. I joined this crowd and approached the esteemed naturalist upon his ascent. He dismissed his well-wishers with patted handshakes. His eyes found me in the group and he presented a hand.

“Good sir, pardon me for saying but you look as though you should be under a physician’s care.”

“What, this? Just a scratch.”

I shook his hand.

“I need to talk to you about Dr. James Saxon.”

Darwin showed no surprise. He took my arm for support and waved away the rest of his followers.

“What you should have said is, ‘I’ve got something to gain from you.’ In an honest society that would be the only honest greeting.”

I nodded at this. Darwin’s words had the sound of observations often repeated.

“We say ‘hi’ to gain recognition, or as pretense to gain knowledge or ask a favor.”

The old man guided me to an ornate double door. It looked more like the entrance of a church than the entrance to an academic’s office.

“Mr. Fellows, I have something to gain from you.”

My eyes went wide at that one.

“You know my name?”

The codger smiled and ushered me through the massive doors. Darwin’s office was circular and vaulted like the lecture hall we’d just left. Instead of rows of seats, the upper rings were lined with bookshelves. The stage floor held two oak desks, one empty, the other occupied by a giant bloke who rose at the sight of me. He was dressed the part of an academic secretary; spectacles, gray suit, stripped vest. Aside from his suit, Darwin’s secretary gave me the impression of a circus strong man or bare knuckle boxer. The only hair on his thick-necked cranium was relegated to a fantastic handlebar mustache.

“Mr. Stevens, please see that we are not disturbed,” Darwin said. Stevens looked like he was going to say something, then changed his mind and sat back down.

Darwin guided me to a bookshelf that swung open at the click of a hidden lever. A trap door behind the shelf led into a smaller office. Darwin’s personal sanctuary, I assumed.

 The cramped space was made more cramped by stacks of books, mounted insect collections, boxes of unlabeled fossils and bones: the tools of this old man’s livelihood. Darwin removed a stack of books from a King Louis chair and beckoned me to sit.

“Impressive debate, Mr. Darwin,” I said.

Darwin gave me an irritated look. The frail grandfather of science outside had become a wholly different creature in this office.

“No it wasn’t,” he snapped. “Everyday my ideas and observations are questioned and ridiculed and every day I find myself defending what should be obvious to the masses. I didn’t invent evolution or fitness of species, I was simply the first to put it to popular record. Kant, Malthus, Lamark, Wallace, all men who observed the trends of species and applied it to man. But I take the label of father and now have to answer to every fool who comes calling. That man you saw me debate, that’s Dr. Thaddeus Warfeld, a respected theologian from the Harvard School of Divinity. And yet to me, he’s just another fool in a long string of fools, in a lifetime of fools. I could have defeated him with three simple words. ‘Are you sure?’ The burden of genius is not the labor of our endeavors but in sharing the world with fools who don’t know they are fools. Mark my words, the pseudo-intellectual will be the death of us all.”

Darwin slumped down onto an overstuffed leather couch. It bore the cracks and scuffs of an item well-used and well-loved.

“Are you armed, Mr. Fellows?”

How vast the coincidences of this world that Charles Darwin was now asking me the same question I’d asked a pimp this morning.

“Is it obvious?” I replied.

“Mr. Fellows, I’ve sailed in three oceans and seven seas. I’ve spent innumerous hours in the company of sailors and I’ve spent time in America. I know when a man has pistols under his coat.”

“Nothing personal, sir. If you’d had the week I’d had you’d be armed too.”

Darwin smiled an old man’s smile of brownish teeth.

“That I believe, Mr. Fellows. You look as though someone threw you from a flaming dirigible.”

“Close enough to the truth, that. Are we safe to talk here?”

“I’m safe, Mr. Fellows. You, on the other hand, are not safe anywhere.” Darwin leaned over and struck the trap door with his ash cane.

“What was that for?”

“Tea. Care for some?”

I let out a long breath. Darwin was right. I was a man without a country, a ship without safe harbor.

“You said something about gain?” I asked.

“Knowledge, good sir. You have an inside perspective to a matter which has aroused my curiosity. You must know from your work in the thief-catching trade that there is no currency more valuable than new knowledge. I hope to gain new knowledge from you. How did know to find me?”

“I found an old envelope in Saxon’s flat. Figured you might have insight regarding his creation.”

“I’m no engineer. I couldn’t build you a clock let alone a humanoid automaton.”

“But you knew about them?”

“I did.”

The office door opened. Mr. Stevens crouched in, holding a silver tea service. For the first time I noticed the bulge of a pistol beneath his suit jacket. He poured a cup for Darwin, then myself. Stevens smelled like the circus. There was a tinge of animal musk I noticed when he neared. He left the office the way he’d come in.

“You have a trial coming up, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And you claim as your defense that the automaton slew Dr. Saxon?”

“Yes.” I didn’t like how Darwin was smiling through this line of questions.

“Tell me what happened to James, every detail. Leave nothing out.”

I gave Darwin the full version of events, just like I’d given the Metros after my initial apprehension. The old man’s smile broadened in the telling.

“That old scallywag! He did it!”

“Did what?”

“Years back we had a debate. The subject was whether the functions of the organic mind could be replicated through inorganic means. The invention of the difference engine sparked our debate and Saxon was convinced that he could create a self-reliant, independently powered brain. I was fascinated, but countered that true self-reliance was no different from perpetual motion, and thus unlikely due to the second law of thermodynamics, or natural entropy. Really we were interested in immortality. How old are you?”

“Thirty.”

“If you survive to your twilight years you will find that mortality dominates your thoughts. It is why middle-aged men pursue young girls, or grand adventure, and why the elderly seek the bosom of the church. We need an avenue to avoid the inevitable conclusion of our lives.”

“So Dr. Saxon built his brain?”

“If what you say is true, yes. The next piece of the puzzle is to determine how smart she is.”

“No,” I countered. “The next piece of the puzzle is finding her.”

“I already have her.”

I had no response to this. Darwin continued.

“You were right to confide in Nouveau. As far as engineers are concerned, no living man is his equal. His talents are wasted in the art community.”

I took my hands off my tea cup and let them rest in my lap, closer to my guns. What next? Ambush? Darwin observed my gesture and shook his head.

“There is no cause for fear, I am not your enemy. I have Nouveau cloistered in a safe location. Also, I’ve moved his closest associates and a poor unfortunate slut-house porter who inadvertently stumbled upon Nouveau’s exit.”

“So you paid my bail? You put down ten thousand pounds?”

“I have more money than time to spend it. Anyway, what I require transcends money. Dr. Saxon’s secret could be the answer to immortal life. To creating the animate from the inanimate. Dr. Saxon’s secret is God’s secret and right or wrong, finding it is more important than the petty money concerns of mankind.”

“Why did you release me?”

Darwin smiled again. Lord God how I hated that smug grin.

“Call it a joke. A spirited ruse. I’m not the only one after Saxon’s secret. My, let’s say ‘competition,’ plays a fierce game and I needed him distracted from my moves.”

“So I’m your pawn?”

“Don’t underestimate yourself, Mr. Fellows. You’re not a pawn. Pawns move forward in predictable steps. They are sacrificial, defensive, of little value except in numbers. No, you are a bishop. Firing off at strange angles, appearing behind the enemy formation, charging, retreating, charging again. You’re definitely my bishop.”

Rage filled me. I’m no man’s toy and no man’s patsy. “This is my life, Darwin!”

The door behind me clicked open. I did not have to turn to know Stevens was looming behind me.

“Yes, it is your life, and if I win this game, your life will be your reward. If I lose your life will be forfeited by an assassin’s bullet or a hangman’s noose, though you seem much harder to kill then anyone assumed. Do you understand your part in this?”

“No.”

“You are here to make my competitor fail, nothing more. Turn away from Saxon’s machine, and focus on undermining my opponent.”

“And who is your opponent? Who am I up against?”

Darwin laughed and slapped his knee.

“You should know, Mr. Fellows. You shot his nephew.”

Oh shite! Pieces of the puzzle fell into place. Everyone knew Owens was connected, a family hire though no one knew whose family. If Darwin’s opponent was matched in resources, was bright enough to cross wits with the genius naturalist that could only mean…

“My opponent, your opponent, is Lord Barnes, Mr. Fellows. Happy hunting!”

Jolly Fellows is declared Persona Non Grata

I sat in the evening train willing it to go faster. Go, go, go, get me to Mary’s place. The walls of my little world were closing in and the more I saw, the more I knew about the danger posed to myself and anyone in my proximity.

Lord Barnes was, is, the greatest thief catcher to ever live. London bears no secrets to this man. His tracking me was more a question of when than if.

The train arrived and I sprinted past ushers and porters and commuters. I sprinted past the regular folk on their way to regular spouses and children and sit-down dinners.

Mary’s flat was cleaned out and turned over, just like my flat, just like Saxon’s. China cups were smashed, the easel and chairs were rendered into sticks and stacked in the room’s center. All like before. I went to the bedroom and found another torn mattress, shredded clothing and a note pinned to the wall by a gold pen knife.

The cards don’t belong to you.

Neither does the girl. Stop by

the office tonight. -B

The front door creaked in the next room. I unholstered my Colt, thought better of it, and unholstered the Engholm too.

Saucy Jack was creeping into the living room with a giant butcher’s knife clenched in his fist. I nudged the bedroom door open to greet him.