Copper Visions (12 page)

“I can't say that there's anybody I would want to have following me at the moment, George. If you can get away from them, I would say that would be a prudent thing to do.”

“Airdocks are the best way to do that, sir, if I do say so. We'll get lost in the crowd and I know some streets that will take us where they can't follow straight away.”

“Good man,” David said, turning the horn back to the wall.

“Doctor Blue couldn't have gotten a carriage ready that fast, David. He was still in his office when we left.”

“I don't think it's Doctor Blue, Sophie.”

“How could they have found us at the hospital?” She asked, panic rising in her voice.

“I take it there are other people who wish Miss Sophie ill?” Brian asked.

“Several, and I'm not entirely certain they were completely honest with their intentions when we first met them except when they expressed a desire to take her apart.”

“They never actually said they wanted to take me apart,” Sophie protested.

“They wanted to duplicate the process?” Brian guessed.

“That was what I surmised, though they were insistent that it was necessary to save her soul from the influence of the demons that were controlling her thoughts. Apparently, she was having visions and levitating in the hospital.”

“Ah,” Brian said, his body language showing embarrassment. “When she gave me permission to use her body to communicate, I tried in vain to get somebody to release me from my prison in the lab. After it became obvious that nobody could understand that the demands were coming from me rather than from the girl on the bed, I started telling stories from my childhood. Some of them are quite fantastic.”

“I imagine they would be,” David said.

“Although,” Brian said, turning to consider Sophie. “She still talked before she gave me permission and some of the things I saw in her mind were not things I would have thought would be there. Dreams, I think they were, though less disjointed than any I've ever seen. She spoke of a great tentacled beast that broke ocean going ships apart and would grab whatever low flying airships were within its reach.”

“The Kraken,” Sophie said. “I had dreams about the Kraken?”

“Does it exist, then?” Brian asked.

“What, you've never heard of the Kraken? It's terrorized all the ships that have managed to leave sight of the shore and sometimes would come closer if it was hungry. It's the reason the airships were made. Their was a cloudship, too, that was supposed to be launched to try and fight it but it was taken over by pirates and it's been terrorizing the airships that cross the ocean instead.”

“My people live in the middle of the jungle, Miss Sophie, I've never heard of such a thing,” Brian said.

“The stories around the Kraken are shrouded in mystery, mostly because there have been very few survivors when it's sited,” David explained. “It's been a menace to any ocean-faring country as long as anybody can remember, with myths going back thousands of years. With the enclosed airships that can go higher without freezing, people have been able to explore the lands beyond the ocean and there hasn't been much danger of a Kraken attack.”

“Unless you're a rum runner,” Sophie said.

“Some merchants have been bringing cargoes back from the settlements in the other lands,” David explained before Brian could ask. “But they have to stay light or they end up flying too low and get taken by the Kraken.”

“That would seem to ensure that anything imported from the settlements is expensive,” Brian said. “But one of the things I overheard in the lab was the doctor bemoaning the lower classes imbibing rum to excess.”

“Well, we can finally afford it now,” Sophie said defensively. “And when you know how hard it's been to get and you hear the stories of all the flyers who have had a narrow miss with the Kraken to get it here, well, maybe you can have some of their adventures if you have some, you know?”

“So rum has gotten cheaper recently?” Brian asked, looking to David.

“I don't typically purchase it but if Sophie says it is, I would take her word for it. Which makes me wonder how there's enough of a glut to allow people of Sophie's class to afford it.”

“An interesting puzzle, and one that would be worth investigating when there's less immediate reason to worry about other things.”

The cab took a sharp turn and began moving faster. David grabbed for the horn. “What's going on, George?” He demanded.

“You told me to lose the people following us if I could, sir. We just got the chance to run for it where they couldn't follow us. You're in for a bit of a jostle, sir, but we'll lose them here for sure.”

“Do what you have to, George,” David said and turned the horn away.

The previously smooth ride became one that jolted them all over the place, causing Brian to slide along the floor of the cab and hit hard against the door. David picked him up and held him on the seat next to him, letting go of the wooden box that went sliding. Sophie caught it and held it close, not shifting much in her seat and thankful for the extra weight that kept her from moving too hard.

George came over the horn and shouted down to them. “Sorry about the ride, sir, but they're following closer than I would have thought they could for this area. If I go any faster, it's gonna be dangerous to be in the cab.”

“Find a place to drop us off, George, we'll run for it,” David told him.

“Run for it?” Sophie asked. “Where are we going to run if the cab can't get away from them.”

The cab came to a swaying halt in a dark alley off a busy street. The three passengers exited quickly and David pushed them into the shadows between buildings before it left. It moved faster than they'd ever seen a cab move in the city, not being overly careful about the obstacles in the alley. A carriage came past, obviously chasing the cab, driven by a man in a dark coat, his scarf pulled up over his mouth and flying goggles over his eyes. If there was anybody in the carriage, they couldn't tell and didn't wait in the alley long enough to find out.

“I really hope you have a plan, David,” Sophie said, picking her way past the garbage in the thin passage between the buildings. “I'm barely dressed, we left what little I have in George's cab and there's no way anybody is going to mistake Brian for anything other than some kind of monster.”

“My dear Sophie, where is your sense of adventure?” David asked with a smile she couldn't see.

“I left most of it in my burned down apartment and the rest fell off after the hospital caught on fire. Now, I just want to know where we can go that's going to be safe.”

“The young lady has a point, Mr. Alexander,” Brian said. “There are few ways to disguise who I am and we have none of them here. Most of your people may not look down except to see where their feet are going but all of them will recognize that I am not human.”

“You look enough like a dog in the shadows,” David said. “If we're near the airdocks, there's a place we might be able to go and wait for George.”

“Do you really think he's going to come back for us if he manages to lose the people chasing him?” Sophie asked.

“George is a good man and loyal to his friends.”

“Are we his friends, David? We've been nothing but trouble since the start. I wouldn't blame him if he wanted nothing more to do with us. Hell, I want nothing more to do with this mess and I'm in the middle of it.”

“Take heart, Miss Sophie. I have the feeling you are but a small part of a much bigger conspiracy.”

“I don't care about the bigger conspiracy, David, I care that my part of it is to be taken apart so they can use my pieces.”

“An understandable concern, Miss Sophie, and one reason I'm glad George brought us to the airdocks. We're going to need to get you away from the city in something faster than a cab.”

“How? I don't have enough money to buy one ticket much less three,” Sophie said, panic rising in her voice.

“You've trusted me this far, Sophie,” David said, steering them through the dark streets. “Trust me a little longer and we'll get through this.”

Sophie and Brian followed him as quietly as they could and they came out in a badly lit street, one that had almost as much trash in it as they alley they emerged from, to the sounds of several fights and raucous music competing from several open doorways.

With a single glance to get his bearings, David led them two buildings over and ducked inside the dimly lit
Gas Leak
, motioning for Sophie and Brian to stay close.

There were private booths for hire and David parted with some of Sophie's dearly held coins to secure one, asking him to let the word go around discreetly that they were looking for a quick ship out of the city. A short nod and a grunt seemed to be all David needed to lead the trio to a curtained alcove near the back and usher them inside.

A serious looking serving girl, dressed as properly as possible for the surroundings, brought a round of drinks to set on the table. “You've someone wanting to talk to you,” she said.

“We're only open to certain kinds of visitors,” David replied, accepting the drink in front of him.

“This is one I'm thinking you'll want,” she said. “Something about only being in the docks for a short while longer.”

“Very well,” David said and the girl left, closing the curtains firmly behind her.

“Did you order these?” Sophie asked, gesturing to the drinks in front of them.

“No, they are sent as a symbol of goodwill from the people requesting an audience,” David said. “I would, however, suggest waiting to drink until we hear them out.”

“Can you drink this?” Brian asked.

“I have the physical capabilities of ingesting a liquid though it will do me no good and will need to be expelled before it corrodes the metal.”

A puzzled look passed over Sophie's face before she shook her head. “I don't need to know anything else about that,” she said.

Brian laughed and leaned forward to sniff the drink in front of him. “That's not beer,” he said.

“It's grog,” Sophie told him. “Rum and water, the kind of thing flyers drink when they're over the ocean.”

“I've never heard of such a thing. I thought rum was expensive,” he said, giving it an experimental lick. “Too expensive for flyers, anyway, and not likely to be served in a fine establishment like this.”

“You get a taste for it on the way over, when you're on a ship from the plantations, from what I understand. The water is to stretch it, or perhaps the rum is a way to make the water more palatable after being processed through the steam rooms, but it certainly is less expensive than a bottle of rum would be. Although, with the price of rum going down, I would not be surprised that the taste for it has spread to the land drinkers.”

“There's been a good market for rum, these days,” a voice said outside the curtain. It opened to reveal an older man, tall and obviously a flyer, standing in the hallway outside the alcove. “Always has been but now it's opened a bit wider.”

“Hello, captain,” David said. “I take it you sent us the drinks?”

“Aye, I did. I heard you were looking for a ship that was heading out soon. Is that true?”

“True enough, as that goes,” David answered. “Won't you join us, Captain?”

“Murphy, James Murphy, Captain of the Tropical Steam. Where are you heading, metal man, with your metal woman?”

“No destination in particular,” he answered. “The city has gotten a bit too hot for the likes of us these days and we need to leave in something of a hurry.”

“I heard something about an arsonist who tried to kill her landlady and set fire to a hospital? That you?” He asked Sophie.

“Only technically,” she answered and the captain laughed.

“I wondered. I'm heading over the ocean to deliver machine parts and pick up more rum. We're flying low as it is but I can take on a few more if you can do the work. Keeping the ship afloat is tricky business over the ocean and not something I like entrusting to someone who's never flown.”

“We learn quickly,” David assured him. “If you can take the weight, we're willing to do whatever work you have.”

Sophie looked doubtful but Brian nodded.

“You have a plan for when you reach the islands?” the captain asked.

“Nothing beyond getting out of the city as quickly as possible.”

“Dangerous thing to admit to a stranger,” the captain said.