Steven Harper - The Doomsday Vault

“I see.” More notes. “So you’re saying your captain can’t vouch for you, you had illegal carnal knowledge of an enemy airman, and you deliberately collaborated with and gave comfort to the enemy?”

Gavin’s face burned. “It wasn’t anything like-”

“In any case, we have no positions for cabin boys on this side of the pond,” the clerk finished with a dismissive wave. “Check with the Boston office.”

“What? How am I supposed to get to Boston?”

“You should have thought of that before you decided to fiddle for pirates with your trousers down.”

For the second time that day, Gavin hit a man. This time it was with his fist. Even though the blow had to travel across the clerk’s desk, it landed with enough force to knock the clerk ass over teakettle. The entire floor went silent except for the clatter and hum of the sorting machine in the corner as everyone turned to stare. Gavin stood at the desk, panting, his fist still outstretched.

“Get out!” the clerk bawled, scrambling to his feet. His nose dripped blood on his spotless white shirt. “Get out! You’ll never work for us again! Police! Police!”

Gavin turned on his heel and stomped out.

An hour or so of mindless walking later, he managed to calm down, and anger gave way to fear. He forced himself to think. Money was the main issue. He needed it for the short term, and, unless he wanted to risk a life of crime, there was only one way to earn it. Eventually he found his way to Hyde Park.

Hyde Park wasn’t simply a park-exhibition halls, gazebos, outdoor auditoriums, carnivals, and other attractions peppered the place, and thousands of people visited every day. It was late spring, and many of the bushes were in full bloom, scenting the air with sweetness. Couples with chaperones, groups of young people and families, and schoolchildren on outings trod the roads and footpaths beneath green trees, some wandering aimlessly, some scampering with glee, some walking to a specific event. Food sellers with trays around their necks or pushing small carts hawked their wares. Gavin found a likely corner, got out his violin, dropped two of the small coins from his pocket into the open fiddle case at his feet for seed money, and set to playing.

He had done this before, busking street corners in Boston as soon as he’d been able to scratch out a tune on his grandfather’s fiddle. Being hungry had provided a certain amount of impetus to learn music faster; people didn’t give money to bad players, even when they were little boys with big blue eyes. He had done some busking again on three or four other occasions when he’d been caught short in other ports and needed some quick money, but it had never occurred to him that his livelihood might once again depend on his music. He smiled with all his might at passersby and nodded his thanks whenever someone dropped a coin into his case.

It felt better than playing for pirates.

Sometime later, he had several farthings-quarter pennies-and a few pence in his case, enough to buy half a loaf of bread. He kept on playing. A woman in a wine red velvet dress, unusual for spring, paused on the path to listen. Gavin knew from experience that if he met her gaze for long, she would feel awkward and move on, so he avoided looking directly at her, though he studied her out of the corner of his eye. She was tall for a woman, slender, and old enough to be his mother. Her hair was piled under a red hat, and the buttons on her gloves and shoes were actually tiny gold cogs. She carried a walking stick, also unusual. Behind her came an automaton, a stocky brass mechanical man with a boiler chest and pistonlike arms and legs. It carried a large shopping basket. The woman practically screamed wealth, and Gavin swept into “O’Carolan’s Argument with the Landlady,” a particularly difficult tune with complicated scales and turns. The woman stared at Gavin as if she were a lion and he a gazelle. Gavin felt uncomfortable, and he looked elsewhere so he wouldn’t make a mistake. The song rippled from his fiddle, and when it ended, applause fluttered about the park. A small audience had gathered. Gavin smiled and bowed. Several people tossed farthings into his case and went on their way. The woman in red velvet was nowhere to be seen. Gavin scooped the coins out of his case to avoid tempting thieves, and among them he found a shilling. He stared at it. This was enough to feed him for two days. Had it come from the Red Velvet Lady? It seemed likely-she had been the only one in the crowd who looked wealthy enough to throw that much money into a busker’s case. He went back to his fiddle. Maybe he could do this. He could earn enough money for a ticket back to Boston, where he could plead his case to BSMC in a country where he knew the people and where-he hoped-they wouldn’t have heard about Gavin punching a clerk in the face.

The rest of the day Gavin earned very little, though he played until his fingers burned and his feet ached from standing in one place. When darkness threatened and the automatic lamplighters clanked from lamp to lamp, he bought a day-old roll from a vendor who was on her way out of the park and searched the area until he found a hiding place between a bush and a boulder. Safe from night marauders and patrolling bobbies, he wrapped his ashen coat around himself and curled up to sleep.

Gavin jerked awake with a yelp of pain. His body was so stiff he could barely move. His back howled with pain when he sat up, and he hobbled about with old-man steps in the damp morning air, breathing sharply and heavily, until his body relented. In the interest of saving money, he skipped breakfast. At least the sun drove the plague zombies into hiding and he didn’t have to worry about them for the moment.

Hyde Park was largely deserted in the morning-no point in playing-so Gavin spent the time looking for a better place to spend his nights. Public buildings such as train stations were bad because the bobbies would make him move on, possibly with a crack on the head first. He considered looking for a job, then discarded the idea. The factories were almost all automated and hired few human workers. His reading and writing were decent for everyday use but not up to scratch for an office. And the thought of manual labor that required him to strain his half-healed back made him shake. The main trouble was, he had no real skills except music and flying.

He was wandering aimlessly around side streets, fiddle case on his back, and eventually found himself taking a dogleg through an alley. Brick walls broken by windows and ragged doors rose up to a narrow strip of sky, though the alley itself was quite clean-trash attracted plague zombies, and people rarely left it out. Still, human refuse might show up at any moment. Gavin hurried his steps, then paused. A trick of the light brought his attention to a ground-level window. It was supposed to be boarded over, but he could just see that the wood was coming loose. Gavin glanced around to ensure he went unobserved, then pushed the boards aside, crawled through the opening, and risked a drop into darkness.

A damp, echoing room of stone lay beyond. The only light crept in through the window he had just violated. Rats scattered as Gavin came to his feet, groaning with reawakened pain. Then he cut the sound off. What if this place was used by plague zombies as a daytime hiding place? He froze, listening, until his eyes adjusted to the gloom. The cellar room was small, maybe ten feet across. A pile of crates jumbled up in one corner, and a door loomed opposite them. No zombies. Gavin heaved a relieved sigh and examined the door, which had no knob and had been nailed shut from the other side. A real piece of luck at last-no one would enter from the main building. It wouldn’t be safe to leave anything valuable in here, but it would be a place to sleep.