Addleton Heights Read online

  He pushed two ivory stem levers the size of walking canes forward while pulling a third one back. The carriage responded with a brief jolt forward. He anticipated it, but I let out a gasp.

  Hennemann laughed at this and said, “Don’t believe everything you read about these carriages.”

  Enough moonlight spilled through the front plate of glass for me to see him twist large copper dials and adjust gauges. Most of the instrument controls encased in the wood panel were unlike anything I’d ever seen, but he handled them with expertise.

  The mahogany wheel that extended from the panel in front of him had grips like the steering helm of a ship. His metal hand wrapped around one of them while he adjusted dials with the other. Most of the instrument controls encased in the wood panel were foreign to me, but he handled them expertly.

  Seconds later, there was a symphony of steam noises and gurgling water sounds outside of our compartment. The carriage vibrated, and my adrenaline soared. My muscles stiffened in anticipation of an explosion.

  As he returned the ivory lever to its original position, there was a clicking sound accompanied by clanking under our feet. The carriage made a slow advance as it dislodged from the snow caked at the base of its wooden wagon wheels.

  Hennemann cracked a genuine, “I-told-you-so” smile at me in the moonlight as the carriage’s speed increased.

  Once my eyes acclimated to the dim light of the cab, I noticed the vast amount of room in the space behind the wooden bench we shared.

  “Hey, stop this thing. I want to sit back there.”

  “No time to stop.” He stared forward as if avoiding wagon ruts in the road. “If I stop, it loses pressure, and we’d have to find a horse trough that isn’t frozen over to refill the water reservoirs. Plus, it’d take another fifteen minutes to build up the steam. No stopping until we get to the center of town.”

  “You don’t have to stop, just slow down enough for me to hop out. I can run along the side and open the back compartment. It’d be more room for you too if I sat back there.”

  “No, that’s Mr. Montague’s spot. You can’t sit back there. That’s for his powered chair.”

  “No offense, but you abandoned a machine that belongs to the most powerful man in the city in a neighborhood like this?”

  Hennemann adjusted a lever, and we accelerated. “Did you see the large metal emblem on the front of the carriage? It’s a letter ‘M.’ Anyone foolhardy enough to duck inside, even if only for a moment to ward off the cold, would find themselves banished to the Under before the sun came up.”

  “The Under? Only murderers and reprobates are exiled there. He can’t just choose who—”

  The carriage veered sharply to the right and skidded onto the main thoroughfare. Evenly spaced lamp posts lit the empty street with their halos.

  The big man cleared his throat as the carriage leveled off. “Well, those are the public banishments. Sometimes Mr. Montague is required to resort to . . . special measures for the good of Addleton Heights.”

  Before I could rebut, he added, “Your statue back there, the Aristotle bust. You fancy history, right?”

  “Yeah, I suppose. Why?”

  “You know his most famous pupil, don’t you?”

  “You mean Alexander the Great?”

  “Being allowed to work for Alton Montague is like being in the court of Alexander the Great, a high privilege. In my service to the magnate, I’ve witnessed how every now and again, things must be done to preserve order. Mr. Montague is a master at preserving the balance of order, even when that requires him to send a recalcitrant citizen down to be a scrape.”

  I shifted my weight on the bench but couldn’t get comfortable. “‘Recalcitrant citizen’—are those his words or yours? And so far as the preservation of order, Alexander the Great’s preservation of order didn’t work out so well for the folks in Asia Minor.”

  His voice boomed. “Mr. Montague watched his father negotiate a treaty for Addleton during the war. He learned a lot from that.”

  The hypocrisy was more than I could bear. Did he honestly believe this barn sludge? I blurted out, “His father was a profiteer. While the Confederate States of America were busy slaughtering Northern soldiers, his father, Frederic Montague, was selling the steel for war machines and dirigibles to both sides. Many say that the War of Secession wouldn’t have lasted a decade and a half if he hadn’t supplied both armies.”

  Maybe I was overreacting due to the confinement of the cab, but my annoyance flowed and I let him have it. “There are even theories about how Frederic persuaded Queen Victoria to align with the South in exchange for low-cost exports of cotton. You can’t seriously deny that without Britannia helping the South, the North would’ve won and we’d have a single nation today instead of two confrontational countries. That’s the Montague legacy for you.”

  “Hold your tongue, boy.”

  I was past the point of caring what this buffoon thought of me, and my mother’s father had died in that war, bequeathing to her a legacy of poverty. “Frederic prolonged a gruesome war to peddle more steel. That’s what Alton Montague learned.”

  Hennemann shoved a lever forward, causing the carriage to skid to an abrupt stop and thrust me headlong into the glass.

  “Apparently, it can be stopped after all,” I mumbled as I checked my hat for damage.

  As best as the cramped space allowed, he turned to face me. He activated his red eye scope to get a better look at me in the dark. In the red glow of the light, I watched his face contort into a venomous glare. “After the war, Frederic Montague saved this city. When it was destroyed by the hurricane of ‘45, he and the city founders rebuilt Addleton. It was his idea to rebuild it hundreds of feet above sea level so that could never happen again.”

  When he pressed my chest with an index finger the size of a sausage, I winced. My injuries hurt like hell.

  “But I doubt you’d know anything ‘bout that, since you weren’t even born when the stilts holding all this up were erected.”

  “I know enough,” I mumbled, thinking of how much money Montague Steel must have pocketed by the sale to undergird and lift thirty square miles of real estate high above the island.

  Only the Devil gets rich off war and disaster.

  Hennemann looked me over a few seconds. “If you bring any of this up when we arrive or act the least bit rodney, I swear I will snap your neck like a twig the first chance I get.”

  He waited for me to acknowledge. I tried to look as blasé as I could, given the circumstances. After a few seconds, he huffed an exasperated sigh, then reengaged the carriage.

  We’d traveled a ways down the road before he spoke again. “You don’t understand, because you don’t know Mr. Montague like I do.” The words were emotionless, as if he were relaying a fact like snow was cold or night was dark. “He took me and made me into something—something with purpose.”

  This sudden burst of sentimentality took me aback. It forced me to reconsider this man. We rode a great distance in silence, save the hum and clatter of the engine.

  Four

  I could tell by the way that Hennemann’s posture stiffened on the cab’s bench that we were near our destination. Even though it’d been a few years since I’d come this far into the municipal sector, the area looked relatively the same. My stomach clenched as I thought on my final days working in the district. If the regret I owed to a bad temper and a moment of stupidity could be bottled, it would fill a dozen distilleries.

  With the sleeve of my jacket, I wiped the condensation from the side window for a better look. By gaslight, I could see that the streets and perfectly spaced buildings were impeccably clean.

  We approached one of the large windup mechanicals that serviced the affluent sector. It was as tall as a horse. These street-cleaning machines always looked like mech spiders fused with canvas-covered wagons to me. The rhythmic scraping sound of its tetrapod gait against the cobblestone street faded into the distance as we sped by. I wondered
how much Montague steel had been purchased to build the contraption.

  We entered the eastern gate of the municipal district and rolled through without stopping at the checkpoint. I had to admit that using the industrialist’s personal transport did have its advantages. If my former so-called friends on the force could see me now, it’d likely choke those weak-kneed bastards, especially my former partner, John Higginbotham. That scrape still avoided me to this day, ducking in alleyways when he saw me from across the street.

  Far in the distance, Montague’s estate hovered high above the ocean beyond the city’s southernmost edge. Cables as thick around as elm trees connected to the massive balloons holding the compound in the sky. It was like Mount Olympus looking down on ancient Greece. If the industrialists who governed Addleton Heights were gods, Montague was unquestionably Zeus.

  I’d heard rumor once that a week’s supply of hydrogen for the twenty-four bladders that suspended his floating castle cost more than a patrolman’s three months’ wages.

  Hennemann turned onto a paved one-lane road without a bassel rail above us and increased speed. Montague’s brightly lit mansion was directly in front of us now and growing larger by the second. I could already smell the saltwater in the air, which meant we were getting close to the south ledge of the city’s platform.

  Hennemann pointed at what first appeared to me to be a comically giant barn on the ground to the left of us. “That’s the hangar where Mr. Montague’s airship is tethered, not that he uses it much anymore. Most dignitaries and statesmen from the mainland fly up to where we are to visit him.”

  It was too dark and too far away to see nestled in its holding bay, but if the size of the housing structure was any indication, the craft must have been mammoth.

  “Have you ever been aboard it?” I asked.

  “Once, a few years ago,” he answered proudly. “It’s magnificent.”

  I nodded, returning my gaze to the floating fortress a quarter of a mile ahead of us. I felt that his statement warranted some type of response, so I said, “I’ve only ridden the Addleton Heights aerostat ferry down to stateside twice my whole life.”

  He grunted as if there were a kinship between us. “Up here’s really the only place to be.”

  We approached a narrow two-story brick tower positioned in front of a horse stable. To the right of the tower was a sentry compartment. Outside that structure were a half dozen horse-drawn carriages. The teams were harnessed and hitched, but there wasn’t a driver in sight. I suspected the men were likely waiting for their patrons inside their cabs or gathered around a stove inside for warmth.

  The sputtering of the cart slowed as a satisfying sigh of steam erupted from behind us. Hennemann brought the carriage to a stop, and we exited the vehicle. I was glad to be out of the contraption. I stretched in hopes of restoring blood flow to my legs.

  I’d forgotten how windy it was on the edge of the city platform and braced myself against the gusts reaching up from the Atlantic hundreds of feet below. The scent of saltwater hung heavy on the air.

  “Ah, there’s Trudeau,” Hennemann said.

  A uniformed man with a clipboard rushed to meet us on the stoop of the sentry compartment. The sheen of his darker skin gleamed in the gaslight of the overhead pole. “Didn’t expect to see you back here tonight, Mr. Hennemann.”

  Hennemann grunted an acknowledgement. Taking the pencil from his vest pocket, the big man signed the sheet, then shoved it at me. I scribbled my moniker and handed it back.

  The guard looked it over. His toothy smile was unsettling. “Have you ever been to the southern edge of Addleton Heights?”

  “Been to City Hall and the police headquarters, but it’s the first time I’ve been this far south,” I said.

  Trudeau pointed. “Well, Mr. Kipsey, that’s quite a drop over there—nearly six hundred feet to the Under below.”

  I was already looking at how the ground just disappeared two hundred yards in front of us. There was a waist-high railing, which was hardly adequate. A good gale could easily take someone off their feet and deliver them over the edge before they knew it.

  At the moment, a large gyrfalcon occupied the rail. Why these birds didn’t flee the platform for the Amazon basin during winter like most other avian beings was beyond me. I watched the silhouette flap its wings to right itself against the buffeting wind. Maybe the bird and I were alike, gluttons for punishment with nowhere else to go . . . or maybe we were both just too tired to do anything about it.

  I craned my neck upward at our destination, the floating Montague estate. Like a magnificent kite tethered to the edge of the platform but as still as the moon overhead, the complex extended far over the darkly shimmering ocean waters.

  Hennemann pushed me aside, away from the guard. “He’s not a guest, Trudy. He’s here on business. There’s no need for the tour-guide presentation.”

  The man’s smile reverted to an unenthused line. “Oh, all right. The airlift bassel will return to the pad in about ten minutes.”

  “Fine,” Hennemann said. “You got any more of those cigarillos?”

  Trudeau answered, “Yes, sir,” and ducked back into the guard station.

  “He’s kinda simple in the head,” Hennemann informed me. “But a pretty good attendant for a darkie.”

  The statement caught me by surprise. “Huh?”

  “You know, he’s quadroon—darkie blood in him,” he answered, cracking the knuckles of his real hand. “Not that there’s a correlation—just a fact that he’s slower than most.”

  There was so much to dislike about this man.

  “He’s able to read, isn’t he?” I offered in the guard’s defense.

  Hennemann shrugged. “True.” Surprisingly, he stepped away instead of arguing his point.

  I looked back up at the compound. A small speck appeared on the metal cable that stretched up to the mansion. I blew into my hands to warm them and turned to ask Hennemann if his clockwork arm got cold in this weather. He was relieving himself next to the side of the steam carriage, so I decided to let the question go.

  After a few minutes, Trudeau returned with the tobacco. He dutifully lit the cigarillos for both of us before saying good night and retreating to the sentry box.

  I was able to make out the rectangular shape of the passenger cabin as it zipped along the cable to us at an even pace. There were distant sounds of laughter and peppy accordion music.

  Scattered on the ground beside the landing platform were a dozen or so crates. The long, rectangular wooden boxes reminded me of oversized coffins stretching nearly twelve feet—coffins for giants.

  “What are those?” I asked.

  “Nothing of your concern.”

  I moved over to one of the numbered crates. Snow hadn’t had a chance to form on their tops yet. “What does this mean?” I asked, pointing my cigarillo at large stenciled letters on the side of the box. “FD/Montague #11. Does that stand for Fredric Montague?”

  Hennemann took a long drag and then exhaled smoke. “Founder’s Day. Gifts that Mr. Montague is sending to the city. It’s a surprise.” He placed his metal hand on my shoulder. “Come on, the bassel’s nearly here.” He turned me to face the landing area and prodded me forward.

  I yielded to his strength. “But Founder’s Day isn’t until January 13th .”

  “Well, maybe Mr. Montague is just being overly punctual this year.”

  At our destination, Hennemann took a final drag and exhaled a puff of smoke in my direction as he mashed the butt into the snow.

  Now that the cab was nearly to us, I could make out six to seven passengers. When it landed, they tumbled out of the lift cabin with drunken laughter. Hennemann gave me a nod of displeasure and motioned for me to go inside.

  A hired minstrel playing a tink-modified double squeezebox gleefully met us at the door. “Happy 1901, gentlemen.”

  “Happy nothing,” Hennemann barked. “Get out.”

  “But I’m supposed to be—”

&n
bsp; Hennemann effortlessly tossed the man out with his mechanical hand. “I’m a special business officer of Mr. Montague. You can ride up when it comes back.”

  “Uh . . . yes. Sorry, sir.” The musician pulled the gearwheel-covered accordion from the wet snow.

  I stepped around the man. “Not much for music, I see,” I said to Hennemann.

  He ignored me as he slid the door shut. He dimmed the hanging lantern and pulled a lever down to engage the sky ferry.

  The small bassel only offered eight seats instead of the standard twenty in the street trolleys in town. I sat facing Hennemann in a leather-upholstered seat studded with rhinestones. An ivory pole ran between us from floor to roof for patrons wanting to stand for a better view. In the back corner of the shuttle were straps, fasteners, and hooks on the floor the same size and space designated for Montague’s powered chair in the steam carriage.

  The metal wheel clanked a rhythmic cadence above our heads just outside the roof of the cab. Standard bassels ride parallel above the street, but I had to shift in my seat to adjust to the steep incline of this carrier.

  What the transport boasted in luxury it had lost in sturdiness. I decided some small talk might serve to distract me from the swaying of the cart. “How often does Mr. Montague use this bassel?”

  “Hardly ever. He works with the Commonwealth by proxy. Every now and then, someone from that group comes up to the mansion for a face-to-face meeting with him, but it’s rare.”

  I leaned back in my seat. “How did you start working for Montague Steel?”

  “I’ve always worked for Mr. Montague, in a manner of speaking.”

  “You told the squeezebox player back there that you were a special business officer. What does that mean?”

  Before he could answer, a light shone into the compartment. I shot to my feet, grabbing the pole for balance.

  Hennemann sounded annoyed. “Settle down. It’s only a skiff.”

  The floating single-person vessel loomed overhead, its searchlight scanning. The distant buzzing of the motorized engine finally reached my ears as I took my seat. I attempted to regain my composure. “I thought Charon only patrolled the Under.”