The Dead Gentleman

A mist had settled over the city, the leftovers of the sort of downpour that scrubs manure from cobblestones and soot from buildings. Inside, candles were lit, and outside, gaslights hissed and popped to life. The streetlamps made little difference in the soupy evening fog. But staring up at the Percy Hotel, with its tall windows and new electric bulbs, you’d have thought someone had gone and built a tower of bonfires on the edge of Manhattan.

A new century. It had only just begun and the world had already changed.

Eyeing my chronometer, I triple-checked its charge. I fidget a lot, but it’s not that I’m anxious—I just have trouble standing still. Years of living on the streets will teach you that it’s dangerous if you stay in one place for too long. You’re better off keeping on the move.

I adjusted the paragoggles on my forehead and cinched the leather delver’s gloves around my wrists, tight. Any tighter and my fingers would go numb.

“What’s the bird say?” asked Bernard, wiping little water droplets from his glasses.

I tried to answer but my words were lost in the hoof steps of a passing horse and rider. The man shouted at us as he trotted by—something about two boys being out after dark and loitering where we had no business, and so on. I answered the man’s concerns with a nice, rude gesture.

“Merlin’s still on about something,” I said again, after the clatter had died down. The clockwork canary on my shoulder gave one of his tin can chirps. “
Something’s
funny about that hotel, and I’m betting on the basement.” Merlin had been singing up a storm ever since we’d spied the Percy, and the metal bird’s squawking usually signaled trouble.

“I don’t know,” said Bernard. “He’s
really
acting up—I’ve never seen him this twitchy before. Maybe we should go back.”

For an Explorer, Bernard was a bit on the cautious side. In his book, there was no situation so urgent that it couldn’t benefit from a little extra preparedness. Not a bad way to live if you’re looking to make assistant manager by the end of the year at Such-and-Such-Mister-Stuffy-Pants’ Bank. And maybe it’s fine if you want a really exciting profession, such as … an accounts clerk. Or a grocer. But Explorers are adventurers. This may mean that at times we can be a little foolhardy and, yes, even reckless. But if you saw just half the things I’ve seen, you’d be jumping out of your boots, too.

I promise you, there’s just
so
much to see out there—you have no idea.

“Go back?” I asked. “Look, Bernard. Time to get back in the saddle and stop dwelling on the past. Can’t worry our way through life, eh?”

“I’m not worried, per se,” answered Bernard, his milk-fat cheeks blushing red. “It’s just, after the Hidden City, I’d have thought you’d—”

“Let’s not talk about that right now, partner,” I interrupted. As I said, I’m a fellow of action—I don’t care to dwell on the bad stuff of life. And believe me, what happened to the Hidden City was the worst.

“Besides,” I said. “We’re Explorers, Bernard. Even if we’re the last, the title still means something. So let’s do some exploring.”

Merlin looked at each of us in turn and tweeted.

“See? Merlin’s here to protect you if things go south. You keep hold of the bird while I take the lead, and if there’s anything in there worth poking into, I’ll do the poking. Agreed?”

Bernard nodded, but he was hardly enthusiastic.

I gently scooped Merlin off my shoulder and onto Bernard’s. The bird’s surprisingly delicate for a creature made all of metal.

Bernard wiped a fresh coat of mist from his spectacles as he frowned at the canary. “Tommy, I’ve also been doing some reading …”

“There’s your first mistake.”

“The Percy has a history. This very spot was the site of a multiportal event, years before there was even a hotel here.”

I squinted at my friend. Now he’d managed to pique my interest. “You mean like a nexus?”

Bernard shrugged. “It’s unclear. What is known is that multiple portals opened at once and there were casualties involved. The
Academy declared it off-limits to further exploring. You know, there
are
some doors that are meant to stay shut, Tommy.”

“We’re just having a quick look-see,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder with one of my biggest, most lying-est just-trust-me grins. “We’ll be extra careful. I promise.”

The basement turned out to be a forest of junk—cluttered trails overgrown with old lobby chairs, cracked clawed tubs and curtain rods. An upright roll of musty carpet marked the entrance, and the exit (if there was one) was lost somewhere in the darkness. As the basement hadn’t been wired yet for electric lights, a single gas bulb hung uselessly near the doorway, black with soot. This was a place where things were thrown away, cast off and forgotten about. A graveyard of old lives.

Merlin chirped worriedly as we eyed the room.

Adjusting the chronometer on my wrist, I set it to count backward from ten. The little brass hands whirred and clicked into place before starting the soft ticking of minutes. Then I pulled down my paragoggles and waited a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the cobalt glow of paralight. Where the room was once hidden in shadow, I now saw distinct blue shapes.

“I’ve set the clock to ten minutes. That should give us more than enough time to do a little reconnoiter.”

“Are you sure?” asked Bernard, squinting beneath his own goggles. He never did have the knack for seeing in paralight. “It looks a bit dodgy, if you ask me. Looks like a perfect place to walk into an attercop web. Or worse.”

“If the two of us can’t handle a single attercop, then we’ve got no right to the name Explorers,” I said. The awkward way Bernard wore his oversized goggles made him look like some kind of fat,
blue-eyed bug. “C’mon, we’re wasting paralight.”