Turnkey (The Gaslight Volumes of Will Pocket Book 1) (49 page)

“So?” I asked.

Madame B produced
the invite and ran her index finger across a typed sentence at the bottom of
the stationary.

DONATIONS WELCOME.

I frowned. “You
don't mean—”

“All you have to
do, Pocket, is socialize,” she said to me. “Just work the crowd long enough for
Jack and Gren to get their hands on the donation box and get it outside.”

“And if we're
caught?”

“You won't be.”

“But if we—“

“You. Won't. Be.”

I heard Jack
scream from the next room, grunting and swearing over a pinched thumb. I gave B
a look to let her know that I was less than reassured.

“Just have fun,”
she said.

“Under the guise
of someone else? Someone who might look nothing like me?”

“Eh, all these
financial types do their business in correspondence and letters. Chances are
that those blowhards have never seen those brothers' faces.”

“And if by chance
they
have?
”

She shrugged. “I
don't know, lie. Tell them you’ve stretched an inch or grew out your hair. Blow
a little smoke.”

“And what if the
actual brothers decide to show up?”

“To a ball they
haven't been invited to? Heh. I doubt it.”

I sighed, trying
to come to terms with all of this.

“And I don't have
to do any actual
stealing myself, right?” I asked.

“No stealing,” B
said. “Trust me, if the Priest and I could do this, we would. But we're wanted
by the Crown.”

“So am I!”

She laughed and
gave my shoulder a little pat that I found slightly condescending.

“Pocket, if you
were anywhere near as wanted as the two of us are, I would've tossed you over
the side of the ship by now.”

“Good to know.”

Evening came and
the Priest invited me to come view the fruits of his labor.

I was stunned.

On both sides of
the
Prospero
there now stood two tall poles welded and rigged with wires
that fed out from the engine. And at the end of the poles?

Miniature
propellers.

Gren was sitting
behind the driver's wheel, and he smiled as the Priest puffed out his chest
with pride.

“Not bad, right?”
Gren said.

“You expect us to
fly
this thing?!?” I asked. “This steam car?!?”

“Yep,” the Priest
said. “We worked the engine so it'll spin the blades. Clever, yes?”

“It'll get off the
ground?”

“Well...I wouldn't
go zipping around the sky like a maniac, but yes, it'll get you up enough to
clear the sea.”

“Are you sure it's
safe?”

“Not completely.”

“That's not the
right answer.”

“It's the honest
one. I thought that would be the one you'd want.”

“So did I.”

But despite my
complaints and reservations, I knew I was stuck in this arrangement. So I held
my tongue and helped the gents push, pull, and awkwardly drive the
Prospero
up
stairwells and corridors to the open deck of the ship.

Before I knew it,
I was climbing into the backseat of the vehicle with Quill as Gren and Jack
took the front.

“Move,” Jack said
to his friend. “I'm driving.”

“The hell you
are!” Gren snapped.

“Why not?”

“Because I know where
we're going, Jack! That's why! Now shut your mouth. We're on our way.”

Gren ignited the
engine, and once it started evenly chugging, he pulled a lever. The propellers
started spinning. Before long we were lifted, however slightly, off of the
deck.

The Red Priest and
Madame B were there to see us off, and as we wobbled off over the sea, they
called out to us with the encouraging words: “Don't botch this up.”

The oil sea was
below us. Closely below us. The
Prospero
bucked and bounced as we slid
through the air.

“Gren, are you
sure you can pilot this thing?” I inquired.

“Don't worry about
it,” he answered, steering towards land. “Driving's a passion of mine. I can
handle a carriage like it's an extension of me. Sure, this is a little
different, with the propellers and the sky and all of that, but put that aside
and it’s basically the same principle.”

Ug.

Miraculously, we
made it to the shore alive. Gren dropped us upon an empty stretch of road,
roughly, killed the propellers, and turned the wheels toward the city lights.

As we drove, I
found myself very quiet. I tried repeatedly to keep my mind on the present, but
my thoughts kept drifting back to Kitt and the Doll. Looking out a window at
the evening sky, I began to search amongst the stars for the silhouette of the
Priest's stolen shuttle. I wondered how far Kitt had gotten them in a day's
time and became suddenly impatient. Every moment that I sat around and waited
was another step further they became. I needed to act, to start moving. To get
away from these pirates and
do
something.

And then I
remembered that I was sitting in the back of a steam car.

A steam car that
would be unattended during the investors' ball.

And I had the
Doll's folded turnkey tucked into my coat. For luck.

“Pocket!”

“Don't look at me
like that, Alan. Men get desperate.”

“It just surprises
me, that you would—“

“Well, what would
you have done?”

“I guess I don't
know. But still...”

“It was just a
thought. Don't vilify me.”

“So did you do
it?”

“Don't get ahead
of me either.”

FINLEY AEROWORKS ANNUAL INVESTORS' BALL – 1888

I swallowed the
lump in my throat as I watched the banner waft in the windy night.

“Well,” Quill
said, reaching for the door's marbled handle, “here we go.”

And thus I entered
the ball, trailing skeptically behind Gren, Jack, and Quill, or as they would
be known, my brothers Stanley, Dominic, and Laurence.

This, I decided,
was going to be a long night.

As soon as we
passed through the doorway we were met by a thin man in a long tailcoat. Gren
gave the gentleman our pilfered invitation, and he took our coats. Our party
was then led through the hall to the main ballroom.

My eyes widened.

The room was a
sight, as large as it was gorgeous. Tall, tinted windows cut into tall,
ivory-colored walls that curved around the circular room. Grand chandeliers
hung above us, bouncing light off of a million tiny pieces of glass. The floor
was some caramel-colored wood, polished to a shine smoother that I had thought
possible. Waiters and serving girls moved about the room, weaving in and out of
gossiping clusters of sharply-dressed individuals of note. There was a harpist
in the corner. I had never in my life heard a harp played, and the music was
beautiful. And throughout this grand ballroom, long, vertical banners hung,
singing flash and pomp about
Finley Aeroworks's
role in “the new age.”

It was, to sum up,
a pretty nice place for a party.

The one quirk,
however, I immediately picked up on concerning the guests of this ball was the
strange way that they were each dressed. Well, perhaps “dressed” isn't the
correct word. More like...“decorated.” You see, nearly every socialite that I
could see, every man of industry or lady patron, wore upon his or her person
some bizarrely ornate piece of mechanical equipment. Gentlemen and ladies alike
wore thick flight goggles raised upon their neatly-trimmed hair. Goggles! In
such a stately room, free from the dangers of airborne debris. Others had thick
cogs and gears pinned haphazardly to their formal wear, leaving slight oil
stains upon the white of their costly evening shirts. I remembered one elderly
madame sitting to my immediate left who had draped over her frail arms not a
lavish set of silk opera gloves, but rather a thick, black pair of men's
welding gloves, as if after the night's festivities, she was planning to march
off to the nearest smithy and pick up a torch! My first impression of this lot,
clinking and clanking about, was what I similarly first thought of the
Lucidia's
pirate crew. Pack of complete loons. I eyed the words “modern age” on a
banner across the room from me and began to question where in fact this human
race was headed. I glanced at Gren, who I could tell was equally perplexed. He
shrugged at me and I tried not to laugh.

“Not to interrupt,
Pocket, but I do feel that I should point out the obvious.”

“Go ahead.”

“Well, if you're
going to criticize the fashion choices of these people, I will remind you that
you walk around with a spoon in your hat.”

“True, yes. But
that's different. That's necessity.”

“Necessity?
How?
”

“Well, I don't
really have access or means to acquire a more appropriate replacement.”

“Eh...and what
about Kitt?”

“What about Kitt?”

“Well, wasn't he
running around the streets in a pair of pilot goggles?”

“Again, necessity.
The kid's a thief, remember? Stolen ship parts? Airman's disguise? Haven't you
been listening to any of this?”

“Sure, sure.”

“Besides, I may
wear a spoon, but at least I had the sense not to wear it to a formal ball.”

“Heh, yeah. And
Kitt had so much fashion sense, he skipped the party altogether.”

“Hilarious.”

The thin gentleman
cleared his throat in a surprisingly loud tone that carried instantly through
the room. A hush fell through the crowd, and all eyes were suddenly upon us.

“Gentlemen,
ladies, esteemed guests,” our escort spoke, “introducing the brothers Falston,
investors.”

We were met with a
round of quiet, polite applause.

“Hey there!” Jack
brashly shouted. “How are ya?”

The onlookers
stared for a moment and then returned to their own conversations.

“Friendly bunch,”
Jack commented to the usher, who bent his thin lips into a smile, bowed, and
left us alone.

Thrown to the
wolves, it would seem.

“Well!” Jack said,
loudly clapping his hands together. “Let's find the food.”

Or maybe, I
considered, the wolves were us.

I turned to ask my
“siblings” what they thought we should be doing, only to find that they had
already disappeared.

Great.

With nothing else
to do, I took a breath and started to work my way through the ball, trying my
best to appear relaxed while not meeting anyone's gaze.

“Be witty,” I
remembered B had told me. I looked up and saw a young lady smiling and looking
my way. I smiled back as I approached her...and kept on walking. Be witty, huh?
Not unless I have to.

As I weaved
through the party, I noticed that whoever I passed would seem to immediately
break into a fit of whispering as I strode by. Perhaps, I thought, it was just
my imagination.

A banquet line had
been set up at a row of tables along one wall. A line of hungry guests, looking
particularly annoyed, waited quietly as Jack moved around the banquet, dumping
half of it onto a single plate. An angry hand soon grabbed his collar and
yanked him away. Fortunately, that hand was mine.

“What?” he said,
mouth already full of potatoes.

“You think maybe
you could tone it down a bit?” I whispered.

“Tone
what
down?”

“I mean, blend in,
for God's sake! You're drawing attention.”

“So? There's food,
so I'm eating. I thought that
was
blending in.”

“Just do it
quietly, okay?”

“Boys,” a third
voice said. We looked up to find a portly, blue-eyed man extending his hand.
Instinctively, I took it and shook.

“Uh, good evening,
sir,” I said, trying to sound proper.

“You know,” Mister
Blue-Eyes said to us, “I was hoping I'd get a chance to speak with you this
evening. It's William, correct?”

“Yes,” I replied.
Great, someone who knew these brothers. My heart sped up.

“And this must
be...”

“Dominic,” Jack
said while chewing on a goose leg. “Hey, this stuff's not bad.”

“Of course,”
Blue-Eyes said. “Little Dom. My, how long has it been?”

“Couldn't tell
ya,” Jack truthfully replied.

“You boys probably
don't even recognize me, but I used to know your father, years and years ago.
Why, the two of you were just babies when I last saw you. He was a good man,
your father. But I'm sure you know that.”

“Right, sure,” I
said. “Good man. Absolutely. Wouldn't you say, brother?”

“Huh? Oh yeah,
Father,” Jack said. “Good bloke. Hell, better than good!
Great
bloke!
And don't you forget it!”

“I...won't, son,”
Blue-Eyes said, surprised.

“You're damn
right, you won't!” Jack said, raising his voice and swinging his goose bone in
the air. “In fact, I'll bloody fight whoever says elsewise! I'll knock 'em
cold!”

Again, those
around us stopped and stared for a moment.

“So,” Mister
Blue-Eyes said, “anyhow, which one of you is the scholar of the family? I had
wanted to ask a few questions.”

I was about to
offer up Gren's name as an escape, but Jack was quicker.

“He is!” Jack
said, elbowing me. “Now if you'll both excuse me...”

Blue-Eyes and I
watched as Jack wandered off toward a well-shaped serving girl who was wielding
a tray of sparkling drinks.

“He, uh, he
suffered an illness as a child,” I said.

“Oh, I see,”
Blue-Eyes said. “I'm very sorry to know that.”

“Yeah. So was I.”

I grabbed a drink
myself from a passing server's tray and downed it in one swallow.

“William,” the man
said, leading me through the room, “my daughter is of age now, and I have been
trying, so far unsuccessfully, to acquire for her a proper tutor.”

“Uh-huh...” I
said, eying the crowd for my companions.

“Anyhow, I know
you are a learned young man from good stock, and I was hoping...ah...William?”