Clockwork Firefly

Clockwork Firefly - Chapter Twenty-One

As soon as Peter had gone, the police had been called. For several hours Mary had given her statement, backed up by the maids who seemed the only people in the house. By their account, a man had just walked to the door, and fallen near dead. They had carried him to the parlor, but he had expired before they could call the doctor. The officers could tell, even before it was confirmed by the coroner, that the man had been beaten, badly, by large fists, and no woman could have done such damage. The police did not dismiss it entirely, but there was little doubt it was just as the ladies had said. They made notes to touch base with the Walters, who the ladies had said were out of town on business for the last few days, but it was only to dot the i's and cross the t's.

The last of the police slipped out just after dawn had fully lit the sky outside. It had been a terribly trying day, but at least there wasn't a corpse in the house anymore. She stayed with the maids, cleaning up the floor and furnishings, and gave them the remainder of the day off, fairly sure that Peter would not mind. There was no reason they needed to stay and care for her as she had no plans to even get out of bed once she showered and climbed in.

Instead of the day of bed rest and recuperation she'd planned, she woken at seven, unable to sleep a moment more. She showered and dressed for the day, determined to not show her inner turmoil, then made her way downstairs. She could hear music, and the soft harmonies that she knew to be the band practicing deep in the mansion somewhere. She was just about to head to the kitchen to make some breakfast for herself and for Pete, wherever he was being kept, when a knock came to the door. She thought it might have been the police again so she squared her shoulders and crossed the foyer, pulling it open a little to peek out.

The man on the step was not a policeman, or certainly not any as she'd ever seen. He wore a fine black suit, the hems cuffed above his polished shoes. He was young, and tan, built sturdily and wide shouldered like a Cavaliers lineman. His dark hair smoothed back from his high forehead when he swept his hat off when he noticed it was a woman at the door, his smile wide . "Good afternoon, Miss. Is this, perchance, the address of a Colonel Peter Walter?"

The smile somehow seemed a bit too toothy, the face too handsome, the shoulders too wide. "Yes, it is, but I am sorry to say that the household is not accepting visitors today, Sir. If you have your card, I can see that Mr. Walter gets it when he returns this evening."

"Are you the lady of the house? I only ask because I know he has only bachelor sons, his wife is gone, and you seem far too well-dressed to be a maid." He had a strange sort of accent that seemed familiar somehow to her ear though she could not say where she might have heard it before. That smile began to look slightly crocodilian to her.

"Not exactly." She smiled in what she hoped was an apologetic way for being so vague. "I'm sorry, I really cannot stand about with the door ajar all day, Sir. May I at least have a name to give to let them know who was kind enough to drop in today?"

He reached into his pocket, withdrawing a gold cigarette case from which he drew a long pale cigarette and lit it. "That depends on whether you are willing to exchange a name for a name."

She gave a small nod. "I suppose that is fair." She didn't want this to be some important business contact who'd report back she'd been rude to him. "I'm Mary."

He gave an abbreviated bow. "A pleasure to meet you, Mary." He wrinkled his nose. "My father named me Ignatius. Why would he do that to a little baby, I ask you?" He chuckled softly as he lifted his cigarette, the smoke let drift from his nose in a manner that made him seem like a dragon.

"Well, Mr um... Ignatius, I will certainly tell them you came by." She moved to close the door but his fingers curled around the edge and pushed gently to prevent it.

"Wait... wait a moment." He laughed softly. "You said they'd be back this evening. Where are they off to, Mary?"

"Sir, I'm just a guest here, I am not their secretary. I just happened to be closest to the door..."

"And yet no one has come to relieve you. That's quite strange. You'd think someone else would handle such a mundane chore." He ran his hand along the door, stepping closer, his voice lowered to just above a whisper. "You all alone in this big ol' mansion, Mary?" He was not wholly devoid of thoughts toward the lady herself, but his real goal was to get into the laboratory.

He felt the door jerk out of her hand and suddenly he was face to face, or rather face to general lower neck area, with a very tall person. Not a man, it was one of them. The figure was stoic and a cool silver. His eyes were sharp beneath ebony brows, his clothing impeccable. He looked it over with a rapacious sort of glee. His mind was racing how to turn this to his advantage. The automaton set his hand on Mary's shoulder and gingerly drew her back to insinuate himself into the doorway between her and the man on the porch. He was a marvel! Leaps and bounds, years, decades over anything he himself had attempted.

"Miss Mary, a friend of yours?" The robot's voice was not at all mechanical. It was almost ... cool. Detached in the way a person's would be when being derisive, and he found himself prickling instantly at the tone.

"He came to see Colonel Walter. I told him to come back tomorrow. That I would tell the Colonel that he'd come by, when they return tonight."

"Ah. Well, you heard the lady. Good day, Sir." and Ignatius M. Becile found the door shut firmly in his face.

It took him several seconds to put straight all that had occurred. He moved to his car, the driver opening his door and then taking a seat behind the wheel once he was secured inside.

"Where to, Mr Becile?"

"The Hotel Caesar."

Settling back into the seat, he gave in to the rushing thoughts assailing his mind. He had photographs, he had heard testimonies from people who had seen the robots performances before, but they paled in comparison to the reality of having one close enough to touch. The scientific mind had, in those few moments, taken in a great deal of information, but it was only a tiny taste that spurred a raging hunger for more knowledge. Why did he dress them in clothes? If he'd not been wearing that damnable attire... still, there was actual menace in the way it had stepped between the girl and himself. A tone in the voice that made his hackles rise. It was more than simple movement. It smacked of actual sentience. That complicated things. Free will was not something he had bargained on. Perhaps there was a way to blend the Blue Matter's longevity and stability with the control over minds and spirits that Green Matter allowed. He simply had to find it. The first step was to get his hands on one of the machines' power cores. He'd only seen the one, and the woman had claimed that the Walters' were not home. He could only hope that meant the message had been delivered, and that Peter Walter's son was even now lying dead in Tijuana with their father and the robot he had brought to exchange for his father's life would soon be cracked open, laying bare all the secrets of Peter A. Walter, the late, once-great inventor.

He knew the moment they turned the corner near the bakery that his plan had been foiled. The crowds gathered, the police cars and the large morgue van were still parked in the street outside. He threw open the door and slid through the crowd to where they had roped off the scene. He spoke with police, with people standing about, bribed and cajoled and intimidated in turn to get what information he could, and by the time he returned to his car, he knew that the authorities believed the deaths had been nothing more than a scheme of the local gangs to kidnap and rob what they thought to be rich Americans gone horridly wrong. Okonkwo was among the dead as well. The Walters had escaped and while he did not know how, he knew that he would not succeed by going to war. He would have to watch and wait. Eventually, a chink in their armor would appear, and he would be ready to stab through it to their heart.