Beth Ciotta - His Clockwork Canary

This moment her hair was a brilliant red and she wore a fashionable and shapely ModVic greatcoat and a feminine, accessorized derby. Instead of brown corneatacts, she’d opted for the color of her youth, the same vivid green shade as her mother’s, and she planned to introduce herself as Mina. Her goal was to engage Thimblethumper in casual conversation and then to segue into a subject that would set her up to time-trace specific memories.

Her pulse skittered as she crossed the threshold. A bell tinkled as she shut the door behind her.

“With you in a moment,” Thimblethumper called from the till.

“Just browsing,” Willie called back.

He was speaking with another shopper and she preferred to have the merchant to herself. She’d wait until this customer left and pray for a slow period.

Willie pulled off her gloves and stuffed them in her pocket. She skirted a few tables, examining collectibles past and present, as well as a few reproductions of futuristic devices. Merchandise as described by the Peace Rebels or portrayed in the Book of Mods. She recognized a bong and a model of a moonship. Her mother had owned a similar model, a reminder of her time at NASA.

Intrigued, Willie skimmed more items—a jar of marbles, a telephone with buttons instead of a dial, and a mug sporting the sign of peace—but spied nothing similar to the thingamabob in her purse. The thin black square was a little over twenty centimeters in diameter, near the size of the front cover of the Book of Mods, and had a hole in the center. When she’d first discovered it, soon after her mother’s death, Willie had shown it to a few Mod enthusiasts, but no one recognized the article. Someone had likened it to a futuristic beverage coaster. Someone else, a durable page keeper or perhaps a portion of a modern ringtoss game. Willie had ended up tucking the black square back into its secret pocket, cherishing it simply because it had belonged to her mother—whatever it was. Perhaps Thimblethumper would have an inkling.

The sole customer, aside from her, brushed past Willie and out the door. Intent on taking advantage of the privacy, she pulled the plastic square from her sizable drawstring purse, turning just as the old Mod Tracker approached.

Thimblethumper winced as though slapped, stumbled back, and knocked into a table. “Mickey?”

Willie blinked at the sound of her mother’s modern nickname. She grasped Thimblethumper’s arm as he tripped over his own feet, connecting not only physically, but mentally.

“There was too much information for one disk. This is but one of three.”

“So the Aquarian Cosmology Compendium is in fact a trilogy?” Mickey said. “Where are the other two volumes?”

“As far as I know, Professor Merriweather is still in possession of one disk. The other he entrusted to Dickey Everest.”

“Dickey was killed last month.”

“I know.”

“So where is that disk?”

“I don’t know. Maybe someone stole it. Maybe he hid it. All I know is that I don’t want the responsibility anymore. As if protecting the clockwork propulsion engine isn’t enough. I’ve been saddled with this additional enterprise for twenty years. I’m too old for this cloak-and-dagger bullshit. My eyesight is going and my reflexes are poor. I want out, Mickey.”

“But you’re a pledged Houdinian.”

Willie broke contact and blinked out of the memory, her chest tight, her heart racing. Out of habit she glanced at her time cuff, but since she hadn’t checked the time before tracing, she could only guess how long she’d been in this man’s memory. Three seconds? Five? He was staring at her now as if in shock. She was more than a little stunned herself. “Ollie Rollins,” she choked out. She’d seen him in Filmore’s memories, but as a much younger man. The years had not been kind.

He licked his thin, chapped lips. “How . . . how is this possible? You’re dead.”

She realized then that Thimblethumper, Rollins , still thought she was her mother. Michelle Goodenough had had red hair and green eyes and she was probably around Willie’s age when she and Rollins first met in the future. Worried the man was on the brink of having a heart attack, Willie corrected his misassumption. “My name is Wilhelmina Goodenough, Mr. Rollins. I’m Michelle . . . Mickey’s daughter.” Her previous plan of how to handle this situation had been blown to smithereens. Like any good journalist, she would now operate on the fly.

Rollins pushed his thick spectacles to the top of his balding head, shut his milky eyes, and rubbed his wrinkled lids as if trying to dispel a hallucination. “Lock the door.”

Willie rushed over and turned a locking mechanism. She also flipped the WELCOME sign to CLOSED.

“How did you find me?” he asked, his weight propped against a table. “Where did you get the memory disk?”

So that was what it was called. “My mother bequeathed me her copy of the Book of Mods. The . . . disk was hidden in a pocket devised into the inner cover.”

“I can’t decide if that was a brilliant or hideous place to conceal such dangerous and valuable information. And it’s been in your possession these past seven years?”

“It has.” One-third of the legendary Aquarian Cosmology Compendium. Willie was beyond incredulous. “I have some questions, Mr. Rollins. Some concerns.”

He winced, looked over his shoulders in a cautious and worried manner. “Please. I am known as Thimblethumper now.”

She nodded. “You are retired. No longer an active Houdinian and afraid of being publicly branded a Mod. I understand.”

“No you don’t. No one understands. No one is capable of understanding what I have seen. What I have done. I want only to live out what is left of my life in anonymity. But I will answer your questions, Wilhelmina Goodenough,” he said whilst pushing off the table and gesturing her to follow. “Out of respect to your mother and because I sympathize with your dismal and colossal responsibility.”

She did not understand how an innocuous black square translated to a collection of scientific designs from the twentieth century. She could not believe her mother, a woman who had been so emotionally and physically distant, had entrusted her daughter to keep something so valuable and volatile safe. As Willie followed the retired Houdinian, an original Peace Rebel, to the back of his shop, her heart swelled even as her knees quaked.

• • •

“Willie just turned the ‘Welcome’ sign to ‘Closed,’” Simon said, whilst peering across the street. “Why?”

“To assure privacy?” Phin ventured.

“I don’t like it.”

“Of course you don’t.” His friend gestured for an attendant. “Something stronger,” he ordered.

“I’m sorry,” the female server said with a tight smile, “but we don’t—”

“Of course you do,” Phin said, flashing a banknote.

“One moment,” she said, then scurried off.

“I’m going over,” Simon said.

“Don’t be a mug,” Phin said. “Give Willie a chance.”

Being likened to a half-wit chafed, but Simon recognized the good intention behind the cocky slur. Relax and show trust in your wife’s abilities. Simon tried but to no avail. He’d allow Willie ten more minutes and then he was busting in. “Tell me about Dr. Caro.”

“What about her?”

“Jules’s lover?”

“For a time.”

“Your lover?”

“No. Although I was tempted.”

Intrigued, Simon raised a brow.

“When Jules backed off from the affair, Bella turned to me. For a cool and aloof woman, she’s extremely . . . passionate. I almost succumbed to her wiles, but then I realized she was only using me to make Jules jealous.”