Beth Ciotta - His Clockwork Canary

“Your humor is unwelcome.”

“Who’s joking?” The ash on Steele’s cigarette glowed like a taunting beacon of disrespect. “What do you need to know? Who do you need to contact?”

His list was long, but he homed in on his most fervent concern. “I need to contact a Mod Tracker by the name of Crag. I need coordinates on a man by the name of Jules Darcy. But mostly I want to make sure Professor Maximus Merriweather is exactly where I’ve been told he would be.” At that moment, Bingham shared his most detailed coordinates.

“You’re a demanding but direct bloke, Lord Bingham. Let’s see what we can do,” Steele said whilst pushing multiple buttons. “Meanwhile, a word of advice. Your traveling companion, Renee? I’d treat her more kindly, mate. Hell hath no wrath like an automaton scorned.”

Bingham barked a humorless laugh. “Renee has no feelings.” In addition to enlisting one of his Mars-a-tron crewmen as a bodyguard, he’d brought Renee along as a way of amusing himself should he grow bored. He had, in fact, been most bored last night. Her stamina and inability to register pain or fear was both a boon and an annoyance. “Renee is a machine.”

“When abused or neglected, machines tend to malfunction. Just a friendly observance, mate. Oh, crikey,” he added, leaning forward to peer out the transparent shield overlooking the landscape. “Damn.”

Bingham leaned forward as well, spying a cloud of dust a few meters off. “What is it? A sandstorm?”

“Bushrangers. Runaway convicts who thrive in these parts due to their impeccable survival skills. Robbers. Highwaymen.”

The hair on the back of Bingham’s neck prickled as Steele utilized an intercom system to inform his crew of an imminent attack. Out of the voluminous dust broke a pack of armored vehicles. He’d expected horses. Not steaming, belching weapons on wheels. Was that a bloody cannon rocket?

“Looks like the Musquito Gang. Thievin’ cutthroats.”

Bingham wiped his moist palms over the trousers he had ordered Renee to steam press just that morning. Indeed, he was not dressed for a skirmish. “What do they want?”

“Whatever I’ve got.” Steele chucked his cigarette, then jerked his thumb. “Best take cover in your cabin, oh, Kingpin of the Universe. It’s gonna be a rough one.”

Bingham pushed out of the chair, heart pounding. “You promised me safe passage, Mr. Steele.”

“Yup.” But his attention was on the controls and the incoming cutthroats.

Bingham heard the first explosion and hurried toward his cabin. He weaved and stumbled as the Iron Tarantula swerved, then vibrated as though taking a hit. He heard the crew shouting and bellowed for his own bodyguard. But when Bingham breached his cabin door, he only found Renee. She was sitting stiff-backed in a chair, darning his socks.

Bingham hurried to the window, saw one of Steele’s men arming a rapid-firing cannon from a balcony on one of the Tarantula ’s legs. Good. They were fighting back. Still, Musquito’s gang comprised at least seven armed vehicles. No telling how many men. What if they got on board? Where the devil was his bodyguard?

“Put down the bloody socks, Renee, and get my Peabody 382. We’re under attack.”

“Attack. To set upon forcefully.”

“Yes, I know what it means. Just get my bloody gun. I have not come this far to be felled by a band of bloody bushrangers. We must fight back. Kill the enemy.”

“Enemy,” she said in that monotone voice that grated. “A hostile force that seeks to injure.”

Furious for the delay, Bingham spun around. “What the . . . Don’t point the gun at me, you brainless, worthless bob of junk. The enemy ! Shoot the—” He saw the flash, felt the blow, the pain and the astonishment. His knees buckled and Bingham pitched forward. His thoughts blurred as he spied his blood pooling. The pain was excruciating, then numbing. His lids fluttered, then started to close. His last vision: Renee sitting stiff-backed darning his socks, a smoking gun at her feet.

CANTERBURY, ENGLAND

“One more time,” Simon said. “From the beginning.”

“Maybe we should sleep on this,” Phin said, elbows on the table, his head in his hands. “We’ve been at it for hours. Swear to God, my brain hurts.”

“I agree with Simon,” Willie said.

“Of course you do,” Phin said.

“We’re close to making some sense of all this,” Willie said. “I feel it. Each time we create a scenario, it jogs another detail of one of the memories I experienced via Filmore or my father.” Willie’s cheeks burned. Her gut twinged. She did indeed feel guilty about time-tracing her father, but she couldn’t focus on that regret just now. Nor could she meet Simon’s gaze. She’d disappointed him. Even though the tracing had been accidental, the fact that she’d willingly gone along for the ride made her question her morals. A new and wretched feeling.

“Right, then,” Phin said. “Another round. But not on an empty stomach. I can only go on coffee for so long and we already missed a midday meal. Go on,” he said as he moved toward a bank of cabinets. “I’m listening.”

Willie straightened in her chair as she gathered her thoughts. Her shoulder felt stiff and her back ached. After this round, she vowed a bracing walk on the main deck. Phin was right. They’d been cooped up in this small, rustic galley for hours. Even so, she wasn’t ready for a break. Not just yet. “Starting with what we know of 1969,” she prompted. “My mother—”

“Agent Mickey Price,” Simon clarified.

“—was a security specialist with Her Majesty’s Mechanics.”

“Formerly with NASA,” Phin said whilst slicing a loaf of bread. “Hence she’d been exposed to advanced aeronautics and the concept of exploring new worlds in the quest to benefit mankind.”

“Logical that she would be assigned to the ‘voyager’ who traveled through time,” Willie said. “A phenomenal endeavor not yet accomplished by the American, British, or Soviet space programs.”

“National treasure, indeed,” Simon said. “Briscoe Darcy was not only the most famous man on the planet at that moment, but also the most wanted. Every national intelligence agency in the world would be keen on unlocking his mind in order to learn his secrets. If the ‘Space Race’ was intense, imagine the motivation to possess the knowledge enabling men to travel into the past and future. Could jumping cosmic dimensions be much farther behind?”

“So Briscoe’s under lock and key,” Phin said, attacking a block of cheese. “And the time machine’s under lock and key. Maybe someone in the Mechanics tried to take it for a test run, but it didn’t work. Maybe Briscoe alone knew how to activate the clockwork propulsion engine.”

“Which brings us to the assumption that my mother, who’d had unlimited access to Briscoe, tricked, coerced, or convinced the Time Voyager to impart her with that vital information.”

“She then helped to coordinate the theft of the engine with the Peace Rebels. We know from things she told you,” Simon said to Willie, “that she had been involved with the underground organization for almost a year.”

“I’m almost certain it was Jefferson Filmore who drew her in,” Willie said. “I think he was some sort of professor and I know he was a fierce peace activist. I’m convinced they were acquainted on an intimate level. I saw them embrace. I felt his affection. In a memory, that is.” That specific knowledge cramped her stomach, made her ache for her father, but at the same time, she sensed the affair had been short-lived.

“Soured on her life in America, she pursued a new existence in the UK,” Simon said, “but things weren’t much better there. The world was careening toward self-destruction and she was desperate to make a difference.”