By Nick Dichario & Morgan Grant Buchanan
Morgan Grant Buchanan is an Australian writer of science fiction and fantasy. He has written for comics (Disciple, Zero Assassin), and film (Barrier), and he is currently collaborating with sci-fi actress Claudia Christian on Wolf’s Empire, a future Rome sci-fi series (coming soon from Tor). Babylon Confidential, the addiction memoir he wrote with Claudia Christian, is a bestseller on Amazon.com. Morgan is also the chief instructor at The Willow Tree School in Melbourne, Australia, where he teaches Taoism and tai chi.
Nick DiChario has published short stories in numerous magazines and anthologies in the United States and abroad. He has been nominated for the Hugo and World Fantasy awards, and his first two novels, A Small and Remarkable Life (2006) and Valley of Day-Glo (2008), both received nominations for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Novel of the Year. For many years Nick was the Director of Education at Writers & Books in Rochester. He is now living in St. Petersburg, Florida. His first novel has been recently optioned for film. You can visit Nick’s website at www.nickdichario.com.
In our first story, Rochester’s train of history has taken a very different track. Radically reimagining the New World of 1898, Nick and Morgan serve up a delectable blend of steampunk, comedy, and fantasy in “The Laws of Attraction.”
—
In the amazing New World many wonders are seen,
amongst the Queen’s colonies, in number, thirteen,
but the strangest of all live in Rochesterville,
which has many marvels, both man and machine.
In this town, in a house draped in vines,
lives a witch name of Alice, who is quite fond of wine.
She can sniff out a lie, and has only one eye,
and when drunk she can solve any crime.
Alice Munt, the guardian witch of Rochesterville, awoke with a blinding hangover, as she did on many a morning. She had been up a good portion of the night putting Amy and Isaac Post in touch with their dead relatives, and, as any good sister knew, the veil of the spirit world was best penetrated on a gut full of sherry.
“Fitch,” she cursed at no one in particular. Her mouth was bone dry, her one good eye failed to focus, and she had a headache of monumental proportions. Hangovers were an omen (often a good one), but a cripplingly bad hangover was a sure sign of a bad day.
Alice went through the ritual of preparing her morning cup of Hecate’s Ashes, a poor-quality blend that tasted like warm vinegar drunk from a dusty ashtray. Regardless, she felt the brew dampening the force of her headache, permitting her to think. If she could have afforded Greymalkin’s Potboiler, the witch’s blend of choice, then she might have obtained immediate relief from all her symptoms, but the British were not fond of Alice and her Massachusetts sisters. They had stockpiled the entire panoply of herbs and teas necessary for witches to perform their duties, releasing them in small amounts at high prices.
BOOM!
A sound like a thunderclap echoed in the distance, and Alice thought she felt her house leap up off its foundations. Her forehead throbbed ruthlessly, aggravated by the sound of a fist bang-bang-banging upon her front door.
Alice clutched at her ears in pain and croaked, “Have mercy! Cease that God-awful racket!”
“Please,” came the voice from the other side of the door. “Things are falling apart out here!”
Alice snatched her monocle off the nightstand, crossed the room, and swung open the door. The sign on it read:
Mistress Alice Munt
Witch of Rochesterville
Problems solved, both general and domestic
NO LOUD NOISES! PENALTIES APPLY!
Today’s curse is—
The sign had a small blackboard nailed to it, upon which was written: Head-Shrinking Curse of the Marquesas Islands.
Alice set the monocle in place and squinted. “Ben, is that you?”
A young man with a potbelly stood at her doorstep. His short frock coat was covered in soot, his knickerbockers were smudged with grease, and he seemed quite distressed.
Alice impatiently tapped one of her long fingernails upon the small blackboard. “That’s yesterday’s curse. Before you make one more loud noise, let me tell you that today’s curse is Javanese in origin. It applies only to men but, happily, still involves the shrinking of bodily parts.”
Ben, seemingly aghast and intrigued, automatically looked down at his crotch and then back up at Alice. “You can do that?” he whispered.
Another BOOM echoed in the distance, and the earth shook once more. The motion set off Alice’s full-fledged head-pounder again.
“I’ve given you fair warning, Ben Franklin,” she said, gritting her teeth.
“It’s not me causing it, Alice, I swear. Look!”
He pointed off to the distance, where she could see the buildings at the center of the city. Towering above them was a metal giant, spewing great jets of pressurized steam from vents as it moved. Its mighty fist shattered the crystal dome of the Hochstein Academy of Prismatic Musicology, releasing the tunes stored within it. The cacophony of musical styles leaked out into the sky, and even from such a distance Alice winced in pain.
“I see,” she said. “So you’ve finished your electric brain, then?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve put it inside the body of a hundred-foot high iron giant just for fun?”
“I was inspired by the story of the golem of Prague. It seemed like a good idea at the time. You know, for building bridges and laying track and such.”
“Ah. I see. And what happened to the golem of Prague in the end?”
Young Ben frowned. “My invention is not a golem exactly. It’s an iron giant.”
Alice crossed her arms and tapped her foot impatiently. “What happened to the golem of Prague?”
“It ran amok and destroyed the city.”
“Bingo. I’d wager that it doesn’t seem like such a good idea now, does it?”
“No, I suppose it doesn’t. Although it pains me to admit you’re right.”
The Kinematograph building was next; the mechano-man knocked its roof clean off. Projected light came flooding out, the giant’s metal frame became a makeshift screen, and the garbled music of the Academy provided a soundtrack to the warped images of Sir Wyatt Earp: High Sheriff of Her Majesty’s Wild, Western Colonies.
“An iron giant, Ben! What were you thinking? Can’t you inventors invent things on a smaller scale? Is there a trade rule against it or something? You’ll all be the death of me.” Alice pursed her lips in disapproval. In a town of mad inventors, Alice had learned that you had to suffer a hundred near-disasters before one good thing came of it. “I don’t suppose there’s an off switch on that monstrosity, is there?” she asked.
“It didn’t seem necessary. I have a command station back at my workshop. I should have been able to control it from there without any difficulty. I don’t know what’s gone wrong.”
The giant flattened City Hall with a swift kick. Clouds of dust and chunks of debris rose from the rubble. The monster paused for a moment to survey its handiwork. After a satisfied belch of steam, it began pulling lengths of steel from the ruins.
“That’s where the problem began? At your workshop?”
Ben nodded.
“Quickly, then, let’s get there. Experience has taught me that the beginning is as good a place to start as any.”
Alice threw on her cape and cowl, scooped up her fox-head staff, and dashed out to the curb with young Ben Franklin to hail a hansom cab.
“Ahem,” Ben said, nodding toward the street.
Alice stopped and looked over at the wheeled contraption that was parked in front of her house.
“Your horseless carriage? I don’t think so.”
“You’ve been in it before. You know that it’s perfectly safe. We don’t have time to catch a cab, Alice. We need to get to the university as fast as we can.”
“Oh, fitch. All right, but I don’t want to make any attempts at flight today. We’ll stay on the ground if you please.”
“But—”
She held up her hand, silencing him. “I don’t care if it does have wings. It’s 1898, Ben, and we live in the invention capital of the world. If anyone was going to build a crash-proof flying car, they’d have done it by now.”
Alice climbed up into the front seat, placed her hands in her lap, and steeled herself for the bone-shuddering ride along the cobblestone streets of Rochesterville.
Ben cranked the shaft at the front of his flying carriage. The engine coughed up a bucket of smoke and came to life with a frightful noise, which for some reason seemed to please the young man. The engine made a squeaking sound that reminded Alice of a chipmunk’s mating call.
“I’ve given her a name, you know,” he shouted over the din. “Do you hear that noise? To my ear it sounds like ‘chit, chit, chit,’ and as I’ve modeled the wings on those of a hawk, I’ve decided to call her Chittyhawk.”
“I’m ecstatic for you.”
The chassis trembled and rattled as if the whole thing might fall apart at the seams. Alice thought Deathsquawk might have been a more appropriate name.
Ben climbed in, and their bumpy journey began. In the distance, Alice saw the giant bending I-beams into metal horseshoes.
“Did you name your giant, as well?”
“Why, yes,” Ben shouted over the roar of the engine. “I call him Vulcan’s Hammer.”
“Him?” Alice asked.
“I think of it as a giant, metal man,” Ben replied, sounding a bit embarrassed.
Alice smirked for a moment, then frowned as something unpleasant occurred to her. “Ben, you did say that you invented your giant for building and laying track and such, did you not?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Alice thought that she’d smelled the faint odor of cabbage and brimstone when she’d first opened her door to Ben, but now her nose was thick with it. A few discreet sniffs confirmed Ben as its source. It was a smell that only witches could detect: the smell of a lie.
A two-mile drive had taken them to the towers and steeples of the men’s campus of Rochesterville University. All the buildings of the college had been constructed at least one length higher than the Women’s Institute of Technological Marvelology. It was a slight to women everywhere, and therefore to witches, that Alice chose to ignore for the sake of doing business in a man’s town. But change was coming from women like Susan B. Anthony, a fellow Massachusetts girl and leader of the women’s suffrage movement. Alice was sure that women would not be held down forever.
Chittyhawk chugged into the tunnel under the tower that housed Ben’s workshop and spluttered to a stop just beyond it, out in the courtyard. From there they had a clear line of vision. They could see soldiers in bright red uniforms, Union Jacks aflutter, marching down Main Street in precise formation, on a collision course with the giant.
“Fiddlesticks,” Ben Franklin said. “I was hoping to have the giant under control before they got involved.”
Alice cringed at the unmistakable caterwauling of rifle and cannon fire. “I can’t see how you thought you could keep the military out of this. Did you think they wouldn’t notice?”
As Ben shut down the engine, artillery shells battered the giant’s armored hide, and bullets ricocheted off him like popping corn in a hot pan; the giant didn’t seem to notice. He had collected all of his bent and knotted beams into a pile and was now walking back and forth, joining the pieces together in some odd formation, as if it had a purpose in mind.
Alice stared at it for a moment and exclaimed, “He’s building another of his own kind—a second mechano-man. Look!”
Ben swiveled in his seat to get a better view. “I think you’re right, Alice. But why?”
Alice was hoping Ben would know the answer to that question, but she supposed that was too much to ask for. Regardless, it seemed clear the giant was banging out a torso, legs and arms, and was beginning to twist some steel into what might pass for a noggin.
“I don’t understand how this could be happening,” Ben said.
“Well,” Alice sighed, “that’s why I’m here, to see if we can figure it out.”
A new sound filled the air, a rhythmic clanging noise. The mechanical giant began beating and flattening out a thin, square section of metal it had ripped off a factory on High Street.
“I’ll be dipped in pig’s mud,” Alice said. “Is that a top hat the giant is making?”
Ben grabbed Alice by the shoulders and stared intensely into her eyes. “I’ve asked for your assistance in the past, Alice, and you’ve never let me down, but now I think that I’ve solved this problem by myself. If the giant is performing actions contrary to my commands, there can be only one answer. Sabotage! Someone has tampered with his electric brain.”
“You’d best hope that you’re right,” a voice called out, “or I shall see the pair of you hang.”
A squad of the 136th Regiment of Foot, known colloquially as the Scarifungers, marched out from behind the tower, rifles aimed at Ben and Alice. Their captain stepped forward. The man was half Alice’s age, and yet, dressed in his scarlet uniform, his black hair slicked back, he looked at her with an expression that seemed to insist he was one or two steps higher than her on the ladder of creation, and he’d thoroughly greased the rungs in case she wanted to follow.
What had begun as a very bad day was quickly becoming a very, very worse one.
“Reggie Huffington-Spode,” Alice said. “What can we do for the Iron Fist of Rochesterville? We’re in a bit of a hurry, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
He curled his lip in displeasure, unconsciously opening and closing his prosthetic metal hand. The hand squeaked with each motion, inducing stabs of pain in Alice’s hung-over head. “A moment ago I believed you to be totally responsible for this catastrophe, Ben Franklin. But I suppose there is a slim chance you are only mostly responsible. I want this metal monstrosity stopped, and I want it stopped now!”
“Don’t!” Ben cried as Huffington-Spode raised and brought down his iron fist upon Chittyhawk’s polished bonnet.
The captain grinned at the deep dent he had made in the hood of the car. The grin vanished when he went to walk around the cab and was suddenly jerked backwards, his metal hand stuck fast in Chittyhawk’s new dent.
“What is this?” he demanded. He put his knee on the bumper and yanked mightily to no avail.
“I have an electric dynamo that helps power Chittyhawk for flight,” Franklin explained. “It magnetizes the bonnet.”
The captain’s face turned red. He positioned himself so that his men couldn’t see that he was stuck.
“Set me free right now,” he whispered venomously.
“Can you do it?” Alice asked Ben.
The inventor nodded, reached under his seat, and drew out a bag of tools.
“A sharp blow to the bonnet of the car with this will do the trick,” he said, holding up a cast-iron, ball-peen hammer.
“Right,” Alice said, snatching the hammer from him. “Best let me do it then.”
She climbed out of Chittyhawk and walked around to stand next to the captain.
The soldiers stood in line, their weapons raised. From the line, the captain’s aide-de-camp cried out, “Sir, are you a’right over there? Do you want me to shoot the witch? I reckon I can hit her square between the eyes from here.”
The aide was a short man who had, in place of a nose, the snout of a weasel. He was living testimony of the effectiveness of a witch’s curse. As such, he was surely not fond of any of the Massachusetts sisters.
“Just you try it, Percy Clinton, and you’ll see what part of you gets changed next,” Alice called back.
The man’s rifle wavered, his hands a-tremble. Huffington-Spode must have realized that one accidental shot could set off a hail of bullets, with him caught in the line of fire. He raised his free hand, signaling his men to lower their rifles.
“Stand down!” he commanded. “They have surrendered themselves to me, and I am negotiating a settlement. Hold formation and await my orders.”
He turned back to Alice. “You have ten seconds to release me.”
“Reggie, now, you know that this is all some terrible misunderstanding,” Alice said quietly, raising an eyebrow toward the giant and making no move to free him, “and holding us at gunpoint will only make matters worse. There’s no weapon you possess that can harm that giant. Brains and maybe a bit of witchcraft will solve this problem, not brawn, and you know that I have never failed to solve a problem that has come my way. Agreed?”
“Agreed, for God’s sake, just release me!”
Alice smiled and nodded. “I’m glad we see eye-to-eye. Ben and I are not under arrest, and we are free to stop this giant using any method we divine.”
“Agreed, agreed!” he said.
Alice brought the hammer crashing down on the bonnet. She was surprised as a jolt of electricity shot through her body.
“Ben,” she said. “I think I’ve finally uncovered a practical use for one of your inventions.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ve been shocked by your cab and feel quite exhilarated. It’s a perfect cure for the common hangover.”
The captain pulled his hand clear and called out to his aide. “Clinton! Present report.”
The weasel-nosed man rushed up, looked at Alice with disgust, and said, “Sir. The delivery is on schedule. It will be here within the hour.”
“It’s all right, Clinton. You can talk in front of them. Go ahead and tell them what I have coming.”
“A ton of explosives from Fort Irondequoit!” he announced happily.
“And what do you think you are going to do with a ton of explosives?” Alice asked, pointing a bony finger at the captain. She was horrified at the thought.
The captain was not to be intimidated. He puffed his chest out and pointed his own metal finger back at Alice. “You have your methods, I have mine. You may well be the people’s witch, but I am the guardian of Rochesterville as appointed by the Queen of England, and I will not see the city crushed and stomped to smithereens by an invention gone mad. It’s my job to protect Her Majesty’s interests. There has been talk of rebellion and treachery amongst the colonials. If this is a rebel attempt to build a war machine, I cannot allow it to progress beyond the city limits.”
“Well, that’s not the case here,” Alice protested, although she knew nothing of the sort. “This is simply an issue of bad wiring, another mad invention. Isn’t that right, Ben?”
The inventor nodded vigorously. “I was setting him off on a test run. I barely had him switched on when he went out of control.”
Huffington-Spode raised his eyebrows at Ben, and said, “Him? It’s a bloody machine!”
Alice snickered, “He thinks of it as a metal man.”
Five blocks away, the cannons still boomed, and the rifles fired. Vulcan’s Hammer reached down, picked up one of Reggie’s long-nosed cannons, and began to peel its barrel down in strips like a banana. Alice just shook her head. What the hell was that damned thing doing now?
“I know a war machine when I see one,” the captain said. “I’ll be talking to Mr. Franklin when this is all over. For now, if you want to save your giant, you’d best disable it before my delivery arrives. I’ll take down that contraption even if I take down half of Rochesterville with it.”
He turned and strode away, his black boots stomping out his leathery superiority in a stiff march. Alice did not doubt that he’d do exactly as he promised.
Alice followed Ben to the tower, where they jumped into the lift on the outside of the building. The pulleys squealed as the platform slowly carried them up toward Ben’s workshop. Alice could see what was happening down below through the latticework of the cage. The citizens of Rochesterville, veteran survivors of every kind of invention gone wrong, had begun clearing town, moving out of the path of the giant’s destruction on their bicycles, tricycles, and penny-farthings. As the shrill commands of the Iron Fist rose up, and the Scarifungers continued firing upon their target, the Rochesterians started to flee in a panic. A metal monster they could handle, but the military struck fear into their hearts.
“Can’t you just turn that Red Coat into a toad?” Ben asked. “That would solve all our problems.”
Alice’s empty eye socket itched with displeasure; the smell of brimstone and cabbage had only grown stronger in the last few minutes. Ben was hiding something from her, and she didn’t like it one bit.
“He’s already a toad, and a pompous one at that. Magic used for no other purpose but nasty inclination has a way of coming back to nip you in the bum. Besides, he is no liar, Ben Franklin. The only thing worse than a liar is having to lie for a liar, if you get my meaning.”
Ben glanced away, unable to look Alice in her one good eye.
From the lift, Alice looked out at the giant. He had already peeled back half a dozen cannons, and he now commenced yanking up flagpoles from the campus grounds and shoving one flag after another into the center of each barrel.
“You know, from up here it looks like that machine of yours is arranging flowers,” Alice said. “Do you think he’s making a bouquet?”
“A bouquet?” Ben said. “Eh, why would he be doing that?”
“I don’t know. I’m a witch. I work with intuition. It was the first thing that popped into my mind. And do you know what other silly thing came to me when the captain mentioned a rebel plot to cause trouble and overthrow the British?”
“No,” Ben said quietly.
“That fella over on East Avenue, the consulting detective, the one with the pale skin who plays the violin. What’s his name again?”
“I can’t recall.”
“It’s Washington, George Washington. I heard that he had thrown quite a bit of money behind the local ironworks.”
“Oh,” Ben said. “Yes, that sounds right.”
“Strange how these things just pop into my mind, isn’t it?”
“Very strange.”
The platform came to a stop and locked into its metal frame. The doors screeched opened, revealing a large, circular space and a glittering cornucopia of invention. Panels of switches, rolls of wire, and half-finished creations abounded. Beakers boiled; flasks bubbled. Various human-sized prototypes of the metal giant were sprawled about the room, arms here, legs there, rivets and joints and spare parts galore. Ben threw a large lever that flooded the workshop with light and powered a slew of various devices. Machines began to click and whir.
Alice pinched her nose and gave Ben a frustrated shove. He stumbled back, astounded. She couldn’t wait any longer for the young man to come clean. “Ben, you know what they say about witches being able to sniff out a lie? Well, it’s true. You stink of cabbage and brimstone, and I can’t take it anymore. So out with it. The whole truth. I can’t help you with your giant until I know the real reason for his creation.”
Ben collapsed into a chair and slapped his bald forehead with the palm of his hand. “Oh, Alice, I didn’t mean for all this to happen. He wouldn’t be using the Hammer to hurt anyone—that’s what he said—just to antagonize the British, to intimidate them.”
“Who said? And why does he want to intimidate the British? To what end? We witches suffer the worst of the taxes, and you don’t see us inciting revolutions.”
Ben stood, suddenly inflated with righteousness. “I had to do something. One hundred years under the bridle, Alice. That’s how long our people have been restrained. The New World has the potential to be a modern utopia, one built upon the shoulders of great inventors and giants of science.”
“And what, specifically, have the British done to inflame you?” she asked.
“They’re stifling the very spirit of invention.”
“They’re taxing ingenuity?”
“Patents! They forbid all colonials from owning their patents. The Crown has a controlling interest in all inventions and any revenue raised by them. How will we generate the funds to continue tinkering? Soon, inventors will be forced to work for the government and have no freedom of thought or expression or experimentation. It’s in abstract tinkering that great ideas are born. Crookshank’s circumnavigational hoop for safely guiding a balloon around the world in forty days. Gutenberg’s printing press and Whitney’s cotton gin. These are not things born from the minds of government slaves. They are the culmination of a lifetime of elevated thought and free thinking.”
“I don’t know about all that,” Alice said, “but I do know that you can’t intimidate the British this way. Remember Nemo’s Brass Elephant of Majipoor? The Hindoos have already tried your methods and failed.”
“The rebellion of ’57. I’d forgotten! Coolies dressed up as peanuts and a mechanical mouse; it fell within a day.” Ben wrung his hands together, his face filled with anxiety. “It’s just that George Washington is so convincing. He has a way of logically dissecting your objections so that, in the end, you find yourself agreeing with him. He spoke of creating an elected council of men and women. A great stew of revolutionary idealists who will change the world.”
“A stew? Then allow me to add a pinch of common sense. If you want to intimidate the British, you’ve got to rely on irony, fearless wit, bitter sarcasm, not war machines. Do something that will make the front cover of Punch magazine back in England. Make the politicians worry; they’re the ones who move the armies and set the limits of the law.”
Ben nodded, remorseful. “So that’s the whole truth, Alice. Will you still help me now that you know it?”
Alice took a deep, weary breath and sighed harshly through her nose. The truth had cleared the air. The stench was gone. “Is Pocahontas the Maharajah of Algonquiana? Of course I’ll help you.”
They stood before a large viewing portal. The small tabletop contraption that was Ben’s controlling device opened up like a phonograph player. Alice squinched her one good eye at it. On the inside, there were rows of small black boxes with switches and bits of metal and horizontal glass tubes connected by a tightly wrapped road map of wires. The machine was alive with pin-sized blinking lights. At its center were the controls, a large wooden panel covered with small switches and six large buttons. The buttons were labeled CRUSH, SMASH, PULP, SQUEEZE, HURL, FRISBEE.
“So the fact that your giant is razing the city is not such a surprise after looking at these command buttons, but these commands still don’t explain his strange behavior. Why does he appear to be building another of his own kind? And why is he making bouquets out of cannons and flagpoles?”
The machine beeped and started printing a readout from a slot in its panel. Ben ripped the paper free and examined it, looking over the fine pencil marks the sensor needles had made upon the paper. He scratched at his thinning hair and said, “It sends a report when the giant has finished a preprogrammed card cycle. The data indicates that he’s obeying commands.” Outside, the giant picked up the large metal top hat he had made and placed it on his head. “But he should only be running through a test sequence, not pulverizing the city. I wonder if someone is sending pirate radio transmissions to the electric brain. I can’t think of any other explanation.”
“Ben. Focus. Tell me, what did you do when the metal giant first ran amok?”
“Why, I did what any brilliant inventor would do. I started randomly hitting buttons on the control panel. Softly at first, and then with increased intensity as I grew more frustrated.”
“And when that didn’t work?”
“I cut the power to the transmitter.”
“Would that be expected to stop it?”
“Well, no, actually not. It wouldn’t be much of a war machine if you could so easily grind it to a halt. There are groups of punch cards at the center of the electric brain, each group including a series of commands. Each button of my command center corresponds to a card group, and the brain can store a sequence of button commands. This way, Vulcan’s Hammer can run independently of my command center, at least for a while. If communication with my command center is lost, he completes the stored command sequence. But once that’s done, a signal from the transmitter is needed to start the next sequence. I suppose someone could control him if they got hold of the correct frequency.”
Alice quickly checked the position of the sun in the sky. “Well, I think we have about half an hour before Huffington-Spode ignites that gunpowder and turns Rochesterville into Flatchesterville.” Alice pointed to a small pile of cards stacked on a shelf to the side of the control panel. “These cards here, are they copies of the same ones that are in the electric brain?” she asked.
“Yes,” Ben answered.
Alice took down the pile of cards from the shelf and began to flick through them. “And you say they’re not war commands.”
“That’s right. Those are the mark one punch cards. The test sequences. The mark two set holds the actual war commands, and those are locked away in the wall safe. There should only be test commands in his brain, nothing to make him actually destroy anything.”
“Really? You’ve scrawled here in pencil on some of them. This one says ‘mark three experimental.’ I’ve a feeling it might be important.”
“Are you sure?” Ben looked up from a mess of wires he had pulled from the panel.
Alice cast a beady eye at him over the top of her monocle and he straightened up at once. “Ben, think now. Your current theory is that someone is sending a signal to the antenna to control the giant. What was he doing when you looked out the window just now?”
“Why, he was placing the top hat he made upon his head.”
“Exactly. And does that not effectively block the antenna with which he receives signals? I propose that your giant is still following a command sequence and, as you said, will keep doing so until he finishes. But he’s running through a different set of cards than you thought, Ben, he has to be.”
“Oh, God, Alice, you’re right! There is another set of cards, the mark threes. It’s a secret set. No one knows I was working on them. This is my set. The matching cards appear to be missing.”
“These secret cards, they’re the ones that are in the giant’s head, aren’t they?”
“Yes. That must be it. They’ve been swapped out! Someone must have snuck into my lab last night after I closed up, changed the cards and … and … I know I had the test cards in there when I finished battening down the head. It’s the first and last thing I checked. I swear it!”
Alice sniffed the air. No lies. “I believe you. Why would someone switch the cards?”
“I can think of only one reason. To replace the test sequences with real acts of war. Someone must have thought the experimental cards were the actual war cards. But why would someone do such a thing?”
“To antagonize the British, perhaps? Who knew you were working on this project?”
“Lots of people, unfortunately. Washington talked about it at our last meeting. Word would have gotten ’round.”
“Of course. All right, following this line of reasoning, let’s assume that the cards have been switched, and the switcher placed the mark three cards in the giant’s head thinking they were the mark two war cards. What are the commands driving the giant’s actions now?”
Ben looked down at the cards once more, his cheeks burning red, and reluctantly answered, “Ah. Well. They were designed for a smaller, human-sized prototype.”
“And what was the nature of the prototype?”
“It’s quite complex. Not at all easy to describe.”
“Then let’s make it simple,” Alice said, and pointed to the control panel. “This button here should read what in place of SMASH?”
“That one relates to music. Listening to music.”
“And this one here that says PULP?”
“In the mark three model, that button is associated with the appreciation of moving pictures.”
“And FRISBEE?”
“Flowers. You were right in that regard. That must be what the giant was turning those cannons and flags into.”
“Ben, what was the purpose of the experimental cards? Tell me now.”
“Ahem.” Ben cleared his throat and looked down at the ground. “Does the term ‘ladies’ man’ mean anything to you? The iron giant is progressing through the stages of a romancing ritual. It was an experiment. I never intended to actually use it that way.”
“Your giant is getting ready to woo someone?”
“Yes. I thought it might impress some young women I’ve been courting. But whoever switched the cards wouldn’t have known that. It was never discussed at the meeting. So the giant smashing things up is just his attempt to play the role of the perfect suitor. I suspect he might even be going as far as constructing an appropriate partner from the resources at hand, Rochesterville itself, which explains why he’s trying to build another of his own kind.”
“Fitch!” Alice exclaimed. She needed time to think, and there wasn’t much time to spare. There were test cards and war cards and courtship cards. The test cards should have been in the electric brain, in which case Ben would have been able to run through some harmless exercises to check the giant’s mobility and responsiveness. But someone had swapped out the test cards for the courtship cards, thinking they were the war cards (that wily Washington or one of his cronies, no doubt). As a result, the courtship cards, meant for a human-sized prototype, were now inside the giant metal monster, and a one-hundred-foot war machine was deconstructing the city in an attempt to build a lady worthy of his favors. And at this point, there appeared to be no stopping him. The Hammer wouldn’t respond to more transmitted signals until he finished the current command sequence, even if the hat weren’t blocking the signals in the first place. Dagnaberdashery on fiddlesticks! Why couldn’t these inventors ever do anything simple?
There was a great kerfuffle below, and Alice looked down to see that Huffington-Spode’s shipment had arrived. Alice watched the Scarifungers as they efficiently unloaded bundles of gun powder, passing them down a long line of sentries. The hair on the back of her neck bristled with anger. They were going to blast her city to rubble, and she didn’t have any idea what would stop them or the giant.
Alice gazed desperately out at the city from Franklin’s perch. It was then that Rochesterville, perhaps sensing its guardian’s concern, provided an answer.
“Queen Victoria!” Alice shouted, pointing at the statue on the bank of the Genesee River. “By the customs house at High Falls! She’s our answer!”
“The statue? The one Huffington-Spode’s family commissioned?” Ben asked.
“Yes. The queen shall be our savior, my young inventor.” Alice produced a hip flask from inside her robes and took a good long belt of Kneegrinder’s Nerve Stabilizer, which was mostly gin with a dash of cough syrup, methylated spirits, and bourbon. “We know that the monstrosity of yours won’t stop until he runs through his command cards. Our only chance is to help him get to the finish line before the Red Coats blast our fair city into a pile of ashes. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you’d better crank up that flying coffin of yours. You and I need to take flight with your toolbox, a spool of copper wire, and a blowtorch. We’re definitely going to need some serious heat to end this nonsense once and for all.”
“WooooHoooo!” cried Ben Franklin. “Let’s fly!”
Alice clung to the sides of Chittyhawk’s back seat as they flew through a sky thick with storm clouds. Her knuckles were white, her hands cold, bloodless claws.
Huffington-Spode could be heard barking out orders. Rifles fired. A volley of artillery shells filled the air, barely missing them. Alice, Ben, and Chittyhawk were their targets.
The statue of young Queen Victoria was in sight. Alice shouted above the sound of the rushing wind. “Ben, bring us around behind the queen’s leg so we’re out of their line of fire. We’re going to need a few minutes for this procedure.”
The amputation of Queen Victoria’s leg was a tricky concern in midair, with Ben trying to keep Chittyhawk from crashing and Alice working the blowtorch. Both of them cursed like seasoned sailors, but after some fiddling about with the torch and a tow cable, they had liberated the necessary portion of leg and were able to hang it beneath Chittyhawk from a generous length of copper wire. Fortunately, the sculptor had chiseled the long line of the queen’s leg in a stepping-forward stance, so that the gown was parted and the leg was visible under the cut of a thin, petticoat-like garment, revealing a tantalizing outline of a strong thigh, a slim calf, and a smoothly rounded upper foot. Alice hoped this would be enough to tempt Ben’s mechano-man.
Seeing Reggie’s hand stuck fast to Chittyhawk’s bonnet had given Alice an idea, and from that idea a brilliant plan had formed. But whether it would be successful remained to be seen.
“Alice, they’re bringing their guns ’round. I’d say they’re fairly upset that we vandalized a likeness of the queen,” Ben yelled.
“Well, I simply don’t see why. I mean, they’re planning on blowing the whole city to kingdom come, but we’re not allowed to deface a single statue to save it?”
Ben pulled starboard without warning, sailing them clear of another barrage of shells. Alice’s stomach lurched, and she felt her complexion shift one shade closer to white. Her robe kept flapping about madly, so she tucked it under her bum and braced her feet against the sides of the cab as Ben leaned forward on the control stick.
The vehicle sank, the engine groaned under the sudden weight of the severed queen’s leg, and Alice thought desperately, I’m going to die up in the air! My worst nightmare come true!
It was her secret, the greatest shame any witch could know: Alice was afraid of heights. The thought of riding a broom turned her intestines to jelly. Yet there was Rochesterville, laid out beneath her, and despite all her doubts and fears she was flying. Fitch, she thought. What choice did she have? It was no good being a guardian of a city if there was no city left to guard.
They came in low for a pass over Vulcan’s Hammer, trailing the leg along behind them. The giant’s head swiveled around at once as the leg swung past him. By the time Ben and Alice had come about for another pass, he was standing at attention, fully focused.
“By God, Alice, you were right!” Ben exclaimed. “I think he’s taken a fancy to the queen’s gam!”
“Men are men. Flash them a bit of leg and they’re yours forever. Quickly, now. Let’s lead him to the rest of the prize.”
Ben pulled Chittyhawk away and off toward High Falls. The giant gathered up his cannon flowers with one hand and raised another to hold his self-made top hat in place. Then he started to follow. They could hear the echoing footfalls landing hard on the earth. Alice didn’t dare look around. Somewhere between the height and the fear, her heart would give out, she was certain. She reached inside her robe, pulled out her flask, and took another healthy swig of Kneegrinder’s Nerve Stabilizer.
They flew back toward the statue, directly into the oncoming path of Huffington-Spode and his men.
“They’re still shooting at us,” Ben hollered. “At least that’ll distract them from blowing up the town.”
“Stay on course!” Alice yelled. “Make sure you hit our target. We won’t get another chance.”
Ben flew straight toward the hundred-foot-high statue of Queen Victoria, the iron leg swinging in tow. Just when Alice thought that they could not but crash into it, Ben pulled up and away, leaving Alice’s stomach behind. They heard the loud and satisfying clunk of iron against iron, and the leg dropped firmly into the cradle of Queen Victoria’s arms.
“Bulls-eye!” Ben confirmed. “Never before has a woman presented her leg to a man with such panache!”
Alice braced herself and began playing the remainder of the wire out over Chittyhawk’s side, extending the lead between the flying car and the giant leg at its end.
On the ground, the British soldiers now found themselves in the path of the giant as he stormed toward the queen. The sound of artillery fire was replaced with the sound of Huffington-Spode’s desperate voice: “Stand your ground, you cowards. Get back here!”
“Hold on,” Ben shouted to Alice as they began to fly in circles around the statue. The first loop of wire fixed the leg in place, and then another loop wound around her, and then another, forming glinting circles, like tinsel wrapped around a Christmas tree, the Queen’s leg held in her arms.
The giant came to a sudden stop before Queen Victoria. He stood there for several seconds, his head turning from side to side, the lights behind his eyes blinking on and off. Suddenly, a great gust of steam shot out from the vents on either side of his neck. His hand lurched forward with great, slow power, presenting the cannon barrel of flowers. From inside the giant’s chest, a loud, groaning noise emerged, echoing about the sky. Alice thought the Hammer was singing.
“We’ve done it!” Ben exclaimed. “He’s infatuated!”
“Now that they’ve been introduced, let’s make the match stick. Lock us on course and we’ll fasten that leg in place in the name o’ love and country!”
Alice looked up and saw the vast, black clouds and vibrant blue sky slowly turning gray. A storm was coming. There would be lightning. Ben jammed a wrench between the control stick and the vehicle’s floor, locking Chittyhawk’s wings in position. They circled the sky above the river, with the wrench and the copper wire ensuring that they’d stay locked on course.
“Now, be silent,” Alice called out. “I must try to catch the lightning before it passes.”
She held on for dear life and closed her eyes. Often, when Alice closed her eyes to concentrate on a spell, she would see visions of Rochesterville: not the same Rochesterville she had come to know and love, but a city of the far future, or perhaps of an alternate universe, a twin city both similar and different. In her vision she would see a skyline dotted with grand towers named Xerox, Chase, and Kodak, a beautiful skyscraper with vast, aluminum wings called the Times Square, elegant bridges and plazas and hotels. It always comforted her to see it, as if it were proof that worlds were no more than chances, card flips in a game of blackjack or spins on a roulette wheel. Better yet, it was a sure sign that her powers were gathering and her incantations gaining strength.
It was time. Alice muttered the spell under her breath. The air grew icy cold, and the dark clouds above began to rumble.
“It’s working!” Ben cried.
The first tongue of forked lightning flashed past them and struck the ground below.
“Well done, Alice. Look!”
Alice followed Ben’s gaze. The military wagon, which still contained the majority of the gunpowder, had been struck in the wheel, and the entire load had tipped and fallen into the river. “That was a lucky strike,” Alice admitted. “Let’s hope our luck holds.”
A gigantic artillery shell flew past them, missing them by a fraction of an inch. Ben looked down and saw Huffington-Spode and Clinton wheeling a large cannon, tracking the path of Chittyhawk’s flight.
“They’ve realized we’re on a locked course. It won’t take them long to hit us,” Ben said as he carefully climbed out onto the frame of one of Chittyhawk’s wings. He reached back for Alice.
“Come. Quickly. It’s a long way down, but the river will break our fall.”
Alice only heard three words that came out of Ben’s mouth: down, break, fall, and she didn’t like a single one of them.
Another bolt of lightning struck the earth, another near miss.
“The clouds are almost upon us,” Ben yelled. “If your magic is as good as I know it is, the next bolt will strike its mark. Quickly, Alice. We’ll die if we don’t jump.”
Alice went to take his hand and then suddenly pulled back. “I can’t,” she cried. “I’m afraid of heights!”
“Alice, I’ll not go without you!” Ben cried. “But I don’t want to die!”
A second shell from the Iron Fist’s cannon flew by. It should have missed, but it came too close to the magnetic field of Chittyhawk’s bonnet and was pulled suddenly up against it, rattling in place against the copper casing like an angry bee.
Ben looked around desperately. “Alice! He’s presented the flowers. We’ve done all we can. I know the next step in the sequence of the programming cycle—”
“Please tell me that he turns into a giant stepladder.”
“No, I’m afraid not,” Ben replied with a smile, “but he will do what any gentleman would do upon meeting a lady.”
Alice’s eyes brightened with comprehension. She would not have to face the void of the open air after all. She joined Ben out on the wing just as Vulcan’s Hammer reached up, bowed, and doffed his iron top hat.
“Now!” Ben cried. They leaped the short distance, landing in the center of the hat. The giant completed its bow, lowering them closer to Mother Earth. Their combined weight broke the giant’s grip. The hat, with them in it, went gliding the short distance down toward the rushing waters of the Genesee River.
A split second later, the lightning struck Chittyhawk. Blue electricity rippled across the vehicle’s body before being conducted down through the copper wire and into the statue of Queen Victoria.
Alice and Ben landed with a great splash in the river, but the hat stayed upright. The waves carried them along until their makeshift boat lodged onto the muddy bank. They pulled themselves up just in time to hear a satisfying clunk as the iron giant was irresistibly drawn up against the statue of Queen Victoria.
“A true attraction,” Alice said.
“An electromagnetic attraction,” Ben corrected.
Alice threw her arms around Ben. “We’ve done it. The giant is disabled.”
The sound of gunfire, again, and a bullet dinged the giant’s hat. In the distance, Huffington-Spode and his aide Clinton were running toward them, rifles ablaze.
“Damn Red Coats,” Ben said. “Will they never quit? We may have saved Rochesterville, but I don’t think that man will rest until we’re full of holes.”
“All right then, I’ve officially run out of patience with that saucy toad. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was the one who sabotaged your giant, the way he’s so eager to kill us. Ben, push us back into the river. I’m going to show you how you get on the cover of Punch magazine back in England.”
Alice closed her eyes and began to mutter under her breath. A violent wind whipped up, and Chittyhawk was pushed suddenly forward. It heaved about and began to loop around the statues, the copper wire shortening with each pass until the flying car crashed into the base of the statue.
The artillery shell, still held fast to the vehicle’s bonnet, struck first, exploding Chittyhawk’s engine, which added to the power of the blast. A moment later, there was a great groaning sound. The metal couple teetered, and then they toppled to the ground. The customs house by the river, stockpiled with tons of herbal teas, lay in their path. Its roof collapsed beneath the weight. As a crescendo to the final crash, clouds of tea rose up and filled the air.
“Your herbs! My Chittyhawk!” Ben exclaimed. He looked despondent. “I knew I’d have to lose her, but that doesn’t make it any easier.”
“I’m sorry,” Alice said, “but wait, this may cheer you up a little. Here comes your cover.”
The large clouds of tea broke apart, and the air cleared. In the wake of the destruction, the two statues lay, the giant atop the queen. As Vulcan’s Hammer struggled to rise, he could only manage to separate himself from the magnetized Queen for a split second before being pulled back down by the force of the attraction. Locked in this cycle, the motion was perpetually repeated.
“Noooo!” Huffington-Spode cried in despair.
“My God!” Ben exclaimed with a whoop of surprise. “They look like they’re … they look as if they are …”
“Indeed they do!” Alice shouted, perhaps more delighted than a proper lady should be. Oh, fitch and Hades, she was no proper lady and didn’t care to become one now. What fun would there be in that?
“Let’s go find George Eastman and his camera,” Ben said. “We need a daguerreotype of that right away.”
Alice smiled as they floated down the Genesee. “Now, that, Ben Franklin, is how you irritate the British.”
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