The Alloy Heart Read online

  “You must get ’round to our Tuesday night dart game, Mr. Foster,” said Dr. Elliot sincerely. “Do you play?”

  “I dabble,” replied John.

  “Don’t let him fool you, Jackson. He may look like a lummox, but the man can clip a fly’s wings with a dart at forty paces,” said Thomas. “Why do you think I’ve never invited him to our game? Anyway, to what do we owe the pleasure of your visit? And how the hell are you walking upright? After last night, I honestly didn’t think you would see anything but the back of your eyelids today. Not a hair out of place, no dark circles under your eyes, you devil. You look fit as a fiddle.”

  “Ah, well, being a doctor does have its perks sometimes,” said Jackson. “There’s an amazing new drug being circulated amongst the medical community called aspirin. Still in the testing phase at the moment, but I happen to know a fellow. The stuff works wonders, knocks the headaches right out. And as to why I’m here, well, you obviously don’t remember inviting me.”

  Foster laughed out loud. “This keeps getting better,” he said.

  Hill too had to laugh at himself. “No, I’m afraid I don’t. Why did I invite you?” he asked Elliot.

  “Your case, of course. You wanted me to take a look at these funny heart contraptions, from a surgical point of view. You really don’t remember.”

  John broke into a full-on belly laugh. “And talking to civilians about confidential cases, as well.” He chortled. “This is too much.”

  Hill looked sheepish. “I’m glad my malfeasance amuses you, Foster.” He paused, considering the prospect. “But I’m sorry, Jack, I don’t remember that at all.”

  “Well, none of us were at our best last night, I’m afraid. I don’t mean to cause any trouble. I can be off.”

  “Now, wait a beat there, Dr. Elliot,” interrupted Foster. He turned to Thomas. “Perhaps we could let the doc take a peek. He is a surgeon after all. I’d bet my bowler that whoever is doing this also has a bit ’a medical knowledge ’a their own. It can’t hurt, could it? It might piss Quincy off a bit, havin’ another doctor around second guessing him, but that’s just icin’ on the cake as far as I’m concerned.”

  Thomas thoughtfully rubbed the five o’clock shadow that he hadn’t had the time or inclination to remove this morning before dragging himself into work. “That actually wouldn’t be a bad idea. If you don’t mind, of course, Jack.”

  Jackson spread his arms out wide. “I’m here,” he replied. “And it was your idea to begin with, even if you can’t remember it,” he said, clapping his friend on the shoulder.

  “Great,” replied the inspector expressionless. “That’s all I need, another wise guy in the station.”

  Foster and Elliot chuckled as they followed Hill through the door that led down to the basement morgue.

  A few minutes later, Dr. Elliot stood over the body of a young woman, staring down into her chest cavity. All three were silent as the doctor examined the mechanical device still lodged in the woman’s chest.

  “Remarkable.” Jackson breathed at last. “This took some real skill.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Hill.

  “Well, look how those veins and arteries are attached. It’s almost seamless, as if the device were custom-made to fit her. It’s hard to tell where the flesh ends and the artificial rubber tubing begins. Whoever’s done this must have a very intimate knowledge of the human body. I have to confess I’m a bit envious of your murderer’s skill with a scalpel.”

  “Do you know anyone who might be capable of it?” said Thom.

  “No one jumps immediately to mind. Maybe only one of my old instructors at the college would have the skill to do it, and they are the best, well, they fancy themselves the best, at any rate. Some of them still have a good measure of skill. It’s my opinion, gentlemen, that you are dealing with a very limited pool of potential suspects. There’s only a handful of surgeons in London to begin with. Of those, maybe only the top one or two might, might, be able to do something like that.”

  “That does narrow down our list of suspects, boss,” said Foster. “What are their names?”

  “Clarence Evans, he’s the top man for sure. He’s probably performed more surgeries than any other doctor in the city, complex stuff too. Amputations, arterial transplants, colon operations. After that, you might try—”

  “Wait,” interrupted Hill. “Did you say arterial transplants? What’s that?”

  “Blocked arteries. They can be replaced, preventing attacks of the heart. We use pig arteries.”

  “You can do that?” asked Thomas.

  Jackson chuckled. “I can’t do it. Not yet, anyway. When I say we, I mean the medical community at large. Dr. Evans can do it. Dr. Frederick Vincent probably could—he’s the other man who might have the skill to do something like this—though I don’t think he’d be interested in this sort of thing. I’m hoping to learn at some point myself after I’ve gotten a bit more experience under my belt.”

  “Amazing,” said Hill. “But why wouldn’t Dr. Vincent be interested?

  Jackson chuckled. “He’s just a bit too … pragmatic, I guess you could say. He’s not going to be bothered to do anything that doesn’t directly benefit his own pocketbook.”

  “What about a mechanic?” blurted Foster.

  “Excuse me?” said Elliot.

  “Do you think a mechanic could do somethin’ like this?”

  “I’m afraid I wouldn’t know,” replied Jackson. “I don’t know too many mechanics. But why do you ask?”

  “We might have some leads that point to the guild,” offered Hill. “And this.” He retrieved the first mechanical heart from a shelf. “This is the device that was removed from the original victim. Come here.” Thomas removed the front flap of the device and walked to the east wall, placing the heart under the stream of morning light filtering in through the high window. Jackson followed and bent down to the contraption looking closely, noticing the refractions of pink light.

  “Flux crystals,” said Elliot.

  “Exactly,” said Hill. “Whoever’s made this thing must be able to cut the crystals. And that’s no easy feat.”

  “And, no offense, doc,” offered Foster, “but cuttin’ those bloody rocks is a bit trickier, in my opinion, than sewin’ someun’ up. You mess up, someone bites it. They mess up, a lot of people could take a dirt nap.”

  “None taken, assistant inspector. And I can’t say that I disagree terribly. The mechanics are masters over machines. Their creations are astounding. We doctors are far from masters of the human body. It’s the most complex machine of all, and we are just beginning to uncover its secrets.”

  “Nevertheless,” said Hill, “Foster and I will pay a visit to the two surgeons you mentioned. In the meantime, if you think of anything else that might help us, please let me know.”

  “Absolutely. I’ll check my medical books for something this evening. Not sure what I might find, but those books are written by some of the best minds in the medical community. I’ll be working in my laboratory tomorrow morning. Perhaps you could swing by if you have the time.”

  “I’ll make time,” said Hill.

  “Well, gentlemen,” said Dr. Elliot. “I’m due at the welfare clinic shortly, so I must be off. Before I go, however…Thomas, how is your sister? I feel terrible about our conversation yesterday.”

  Thomas burst into a short laugh. “You should have heard the tongue lashing she gave me with my poached egg this morning. I thought the devil himself was in our dining room. Nearly split my head in two, the state I was in. And yes, your name did come up. I don’t think it’s quite safe for you to call on her just yet. She called me every name she could think of. And that was nothing compared to what she was saying about you. Pompous ass … that was the nicest thing she said. It got worse from there.”

  “She never did like it when we drank,” said Jackson.

  “Apparently,” said Inspector Hill, “her sentiments on that subject have not changed.”

/>   Archimedes Tesla sat in his opulent office atop the enormous mechanic’s guild, listening to the constant background noises coming up from the floors below. The droning of bellows, the whoosh of steam-powered machinery, and repetitive ringing of anvils were a constant refrain anywhere in the entire building. Whereas most people heard a cacophony of noise, Archimedes heard Beethoven’s Eighth. Giant glass windows stood behind his desk so he could look down on the main floor of the warehouse and observe his mechanics going about their various experiments. Tesla pushed his wild mane of stark white hair back from his tired eyes and peered down to the shop floor. Two mechanics were trying in vain to attach a harness, affixed with a high-powered crystal laser, to the back of a German shepherd. A good idea, perhaps, but the dog was not cooperating. The old man turned in his chair when someone knocked on his office door.

  “Enter,” commanded Tesla.

  The door opened and in walked Mr. Tesla’s most loyal mechanic, George Watt. He was slightly over six and a half feet tall and slender as a pole. Despite his narrowness, he was not unattractive. He had a straight nose framed by hard, piercing blue eyes. He kept his face shaved smooth, his only blemish a faded scar on his left cheek—a scar he’d received while working in the very shop that Tesla had just been observing. The visitor’s lips were thin, his mouth turning neither up nor down. He wore gray tweed trousers and a vest under a brown leather work apron.

  “Ah, Mr. Watt, you have good news to report, I hope,” said Tesla as he motioned to a pair of chairs opposite his desk. The newcomer sat unceremoniously, his knees jutting outward, clasping his hands in front of him.

  “Mixed, I’m afraid, Master Tesla,” responded Watt. “The test—”

  “Hold on,” interrupted Tesla. He pulled a brown cigar from his desk and stared it. Slowly, he held it under his nose and inhaled the scent. The aged scientist then retrieved a brass cigar cutter from another desk drawer and took his time snipping the end of the cigar before he lit it and puffed small circles of blue smoke into the air around him. “Now, the bad news first, George. Let’s have it.”

  “Well,” the slender man began, “none of the test subjects have responded well to any of the mechanical organs. It seems the components are too small, too fragile. The power of the crystals is too great. None of the subjects are yet to survive an implantation. The results have been catastrophic.”

  “What do you mean catastrophic?” Archimedes asked, his brow furrowing, showing the deep horizontal age lines etched into his forehead.

  George swallowed thickly before answering. “I mean the organs are being blown out of the subjects’ bodies, sir. It’s quite … gruesome, I’m afraid.

  “Bollocks!” Archimedes swore. “What’s the good news then?”

  “The good news is we’ve finally completed the body and the circuitry for the machine. We’ve been able to force it to fire on command … using steam power, of course. We could, if Project Alloy doesn’t pan out of course, retrofit the parts to walkers, or dirigibles, or some other sort of delivery system.”

  Tesla sat his cigar down and stroked his long white beard. “Other delivery system?” he questioned. “Other delivery systems,” he said louder. “There are no other delivery systems!” He slammed his fist on the table and rose to his feet. “Don’t you get it, Watt? Lord Grey and Queen Victoria will not accept failure on this one. War with the Americas is inevitable. We were only able to hold them off in 1776 because of my lasers. You can’t know how close they came to declaring their independence. But the colonists knew they would have been destroyed if they had tried to secede from the Empire. Our machines are just too devastating. It’s only a matter of time, however, before they develop their own lasers. Then what? We cannot defeat them on their own turf if they have equal firepower. We would be forced to lose all the resources in America. Victoria will not let that happen.”

  “But they don’t have crystals, sir.”

  “Not yet, no. But it’s a big world out there, George. I’m not willing to gamble that India is the only place on earth the flux crystal might be found. Hell, America itself is huge. Miles and miles of land. I’ve been there, Watt. You can’t even imagine it. The colonists haven’t begun to explore it all. Last I checked, very few had even made it past that giant, muddy Mississippi River or whatever the blazes they call it. What if one of them ambles over a mountain one day and trips over a load of shiny rocks?”

  “But surely, other weapons would be suitable,” protested Watt timidly. “The dirigible, for example. Death from above.”

  “The dirigible?” roared Tesla. “Have you found a crystal that cranks out enough power to fly one of those things across the Atlantic? No? I didn’t think so.”

  “What about our walkers?” retorted Watt.

  “Can a walker think for itself? Can a submarine take prisoners? Or fight in formation? No, only a human can do that. But humans are too weak. They get tired, hungry, their feet develop gangrene, they get shot, they bleed out. Imagine, Watt, a fighting force that never tires, that never stops, that never dies until its enemies are totally obliterated. But these aren’t just mindless machines, oh no. Something vastly superior. Machines with the hearts and minds of men. Hearts and minds bent on serving the empire above all else. That is what Lord Grey wants, and that is what we are going to give him. All other projects are secondary until we can show Grey some results. Are we clear on that, Watt?”

  “Yes, Master. I’ve got my best men on it. I will not rest until we can deliver a working prototype,” said the slender man as he rose to his feet.

  “See that you don’t.” Tesla growled and turned back to his window, muttering something under his breath about the incompetence of subordinates.

  Watt cursed under his breath as he closed the door behind him. He was sick of his brilliance going unrecognized. He’d made more contributions to the guild than any of these other so-called mechanics. They couldn’t hold a fluttering candle to his cognitive abilities. Most of them were intellectual ants compared to him, and the others only cockroaches, including that overrated Tesla. How many years had Watt faithfully served that miserable old bastard? Twenty-five years, and what did he have to show for it? Nothing but disrespect and empty threats. Tesla didn’t see him as an equal, even though he, Watt, had worked on the flux lasers with that conniving Tesla all those years ago. It could have just as easily been Watt that had gotten credit for the work. He could be the one in charge right now, and he’d be doing a damn site better than Tesla at running the place. It was time England recognized who the true genius behind the mechanic’s guild was. He would get the heart working, and he didn’t care how much blood he had to spill to do it. The disgusting work he was doing, the work he had to do under the cover of darkness, was unpleasant, for certain. But it was a paltry sacrifice for the glory to come. And when he got the automatons up and running with their newly installed mechanical hearts, unceasingly marching to the beat of unrestrained flux crystal power, all of London would find out who the real genius was. They would all know then—Tesla, Queen Victoria, Lord Grey, every one of them would tremble when they heard the name George Watt.

  Chapter Seven

  Wednesday, 4th May 1887

  Sometime around 2:00 p.m.

  A line of London’s most impoverished souls wrapped around the entirety of St. Teresa’s church in Cheapside. The Sisters of Mercy free clinic, which opened its doors to the public every other Wednesday from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., was about to close for the week. Not because it was nearing two o’clock, but rather because the locked cupboard where the clinic stored its always insufficient supply of antibiotics was nearly bare. The heavy onslaught of cholera, scarlet fever, small pox, mumps, rubella, and measles that seemed to plague the destitute, especially the children, was overwhelming this season.

  Dr. Jackson Elliot, the only doctor who volunteered at Sisters of Mercy with any regularity, sat in a cramped room at the back of the church, its only door, opened not to the sanctuary, but to the alley running behind
the building. With stethoscope in hand, Dr. Elliot examined a small boy, whom he already deduced upon seeing the boy’s inflamed eyes had contracted the measles. Jackson was now simply trying to determine whether the boy had any other maladies that might prove to be life threatening. Other than the measles and being severely malnourished, which was all too common amongst the citizens of Cheapside, the boy seemed as healthy as he could be under the circumstances. There was no cure for the disease, unfortunately, but Vitamin A had been shown recently to reduce the symptoms and, luckily for this boy, the Sisters had one bottle left. Dr. Elliot passed the bottle to the boy’s mother, a woman with hollow eyes who spoke only a few words throughout the entire examination. She thanked him in a meek voice and shuffled her son along, quickly stowing the pills closely in amongst the rags she was wearing.

  Regrettably for the scores of children waiting in line with the same malady, the clinic wasn’t expecting another shipment of drugs any time soon. With Britain still reeling from quelling the rebellion attempt in India and gearing up for war with America, which everyone seemed to think was inevitable, the country’s coffers were next to empty.

  Dr. Elliot pulled a rope across the opening and tied it to an iron ring nailed into the wall of the church. “Sorry, everyone. Clinic’s closed for the week,” he shouted over the crowd. “There’s no more medicine. You can try St. Edward’s over on Surrey Street. Make sure you get plenty of rest and drink lot of clean water. I can’t stress that enough, clean water.”

  There was a collective moan from those waiting, coupled with the muffled sobs from mothers clutching their children. One such lady in question, a small girl clinging to her skirt, hung back while the crowd dispersed. Jackson, knowing what was coming, busied himself by packing up his medicine bag and stowing the few supplies the clinic did have inside a locked cabinet just inside the door of the church.

  “Excuse me, doctor,” she finally said after almost all the other patients had shuffled away. “We’ve already been to St. Edward’s. They don’t have no medicine neither. Isn’t there anything you can do for my girl?” she asked, pushing her scared-looking daughter in front of her. Both of the girl’s cheeks were swollen so that she looked like a hamster storing away food.