War Time Machines - Part One - Dearest_Writer

I can remember as clear as the back of my hand the events that took place that summer day. Damn it was a show really. My comrades and I were just soaking in the warm sun as we strolled through the many exhibits at the World's Fair in Paris. It was a fantastic day. It was Johnny Do-Goody, myself, and Warren War-Time Boy. Our spirits were high and the ladies were beautiful. We were sneaky, the three of us. Johnny being too good to do anything bad would walk to the ice cream man, pulling him away to chat him up while we swiped most of the bowl of ice cream. Chocolate being my favorite was the first to be gone before he even saw what hit him. We laughed and shoved each other as we made our way to the Palace, or the center stage where a beautiful voice sung to her heart's content. We'd move and jive with the rest of the carefree souls to the beats of the tunes, not seeing what was coming. We didn't know. We didn't see it.

They appeared from the heavens, at first like angels before raining down their wrath. That's how we were brought into all of this. Dragged to be the proper term for the shit storm that came. That's how I met old man Peter Holstein, one of the scientists that created those shit for brains machines that saved the world. Tell me, how were we to know that this was only the beginning. The Four Horsemen; just like in the Bible. Yoshida, Konstantinov, Brahms, and Ambrosi. These names send shivers down your spine. No one knows of their whereabouts nor how far their connections go but you'll know. You can tell. No one's that stupid. So, that's it. That's how my life both begun and ended. I'm left with nothing but my tail between my legs and a drinking problem that leaves me in a stupor. But that's all about to change. I'll make sure of that. We all will. 

***

by CarolinaC

My case walked through the door in a red dress, her hair loose and damp, gold waves framing her face like a halo. I'd been sitting at the desk while the rain streamed down the windowpane in sheets. I'd also been nursing a bottle, but when the dame walked in, I stuck it back in the bottom drawer. I had fallen off the wagon for the third time since my partner had gotten himself a terminal case of lead poisoning to the back of the head, but the girl didn't need to know that.

"Mr. Walsh?" She asked, the single syllable of my surname dripping off of her tongue like uncertain honey.

The door wheezed itself shut behind her, a faint whiff of motor oil ruining the scent of the alcohol atomizing on my tongue. This building was a warehouse during the war. The rent's low, and it shows - there isn't a doorknob or a keyhole in the place.

I tilted my head towards the dame with what I hoped was a reassuring smile. It was probably just the vacant mushiness of a guy who's downed more liquor than he can handle. "In the flesh," I said, "Clarence Walsh, Private Detective. Take a seat, Miss -"

She lowered herself onto the wooden seat directly across from me. The slightest hint of a flush springing to her cheeks, she said, "Sparrow. Helen Sparrow."

My eyebrows shot up my head, making my expression significantly less vacant. "Not the Helen Sparrow who's appearing at Scott's Orpheum every Saturday?" I neglected to add, the Helen Sparrow that every back-row hopper and limelight-lover of my acquaintance claims is Edwin Scott's latest bit-on-the-side?

The dame nodded, averting her eyes in a pretty show of self-consciousness."Yes. I sing, you see."

"So, is this about Scott?" I asked. I hid my next statement by rooting around in the top drawer of my desk, pulling out a pack of cigarettes. My usual brand, Ecrivain's Specials. I pushed one out of the carton as I said, "I hear you know him pretty well."

What had been a slight pink about the girl's cheeks blossomed into a full-on rosy blush. "It isn't what everyone thinks. Mr. Scott is very kind to me, yes, but I'm engaged to be married – and not to Mr. Scott."

Miss Sparrow reached into her little, flat purse, then held out a photograph. The picture showed an boy in a neat military uniform, all shiny eyes and an eager expression. Lieutenant, based on the outfit. I had a photo like that myself, except in mine, I was wearing the uniform of the last war, and if had been eager the day the photo was taken, well, it didn't last long. I looked up at the girl, confused.

"That's Robert Hartwell," she said, tapping the photograph with two fingers, "My fiancé."

"Smart-looking boy,"I said.

"He's missing,"Miss Sparrow said. "He was supposed to meet me for dinner last night. He never showed. I called the base this morning, and they haven't seen him either."

I tried my hardest to repress a sigh. "You seem like a sweet kid, and I hate to have to say this to you, but he probably just found himself another girl. One who doesn't have Edwin Scott for an admirer."

The girl shook her head. "No, he's missing. Really, genuinely missing. I spoke to his mother before I decided to come here. She's worried, too. I think it has something to do with Mr. Scott."

I gestured widely, an expansive shrug, the cigarette balanced between my fingers."Why come to me? Army takes care of its own; they'll find him for you, if he can be found. "

"Because, Mr. Walsh," Helen Sparrow leaned in, elbows on the desk, "You were in Automatic Division, weren't you? So is my Robert."

My mouth fell open as the Ecrivain's Special fell from my fingers.

"That was years ago," I said, quietly. "How'd a kid like you come to know about that?"

"Robert told me. You were a bit of a project for him, figuring out what happened after you left Automatic. He admired you."

I snorted. "Your Lieutenant Hartwell needs a new hero. I was out of Automatic as soon as the war ended and they let me go my own way. I told that idiot Warren where to go and what to do when he got there. Most satisfying experience of my life. I think I inspired him to quit, too."

"You mean you won't help me?"

"I mean I don't think I can. This is army business; like I said, let them take care of it. It'll probably turn out Hartwell's the Kaiser's nephew, and he wants one of our tanks that drives itself, get his uncle back in power."

The girl wrung her hands, looking like a frightened teenager rather than a woman of the world.

"But they can't help me, Mr. Walsh. You can. Just come with me and – and talk to Mr. Scott."

I didn't ask why she thought Scott was involved. I just looked at the pinched expression on her face, and the hopeful eyes, welling with tears, and scooped my fedora off the desk.

"Let's go." I said gesturing toward the door.

~*~

Miss Sparrow and I got off the self-motivated streetcar at the foot of Scott's skyscraper. The building is a block and a half from the Orpheum, and, by extension, ten blocks from my office. Too far to walk, and my pocketbook didn't much care for the fact that I had to pay Miss Sparrow's 25-cent fare as well as my own.

The rain had stopped, but everything was still wet; the brass doors and window-frames on Scott's art deco edifice glistened in the grey light. The man was a millionaire, and it showed. I could help but see the flying billboard that swam along overhead, advertising jobs that likely didn't exist.

The streets were packed to the brim with people of all shapes and sizes walking to and fro almost robotic-like to a destiny they probably longed wished they never had. The streetlights finally turned red, halting all traffic from going. The train tracks was what made this place a metropolis, it being in the center of the city and all. Further down the street, I could see the neon and pale yellow lights of the signs all beckoning the weary to enter its threshold of comfort food and alcoholic dreams.I willed myself from straying right into those dreams at that moment.

The doormen matched the building, their coats the same red-brown as the stone, with brass buttons, and they held the doors open as if Miss Sparrow and I had been expected.

Inside, we were met by an overweight ex-con with the same outfit as the doormen and a halitosis problem and a broad smile.

"Miss Sparrow! Mr. Scott was hoping you'd be by to see him today."

Sparrow tossed her head, but then schooled her lips into an almost-realistic smile."Hullo, Torrence. Might it be alright if I brought Mr. Walsh here up to meet Mr. Scott?"

Torrence looked me up and down, his small, piggy eyes taking me in. I was taller than him, but he was definitely bigger. He must have reckoned he could take me, because he shrugged, saying, "Go ahead."

Miss Sparrow smiled and linked her arm through mine, dragging me towards the elevator, where another of the liveried monkeys ran the little lever. Sparrow seemed comfortable enough, but she didn't noticed what I noticed –Torrence making his way to the stairs.

I held my breath as the elevator climbed, not as quickly as I might have liked. Torrence wasn't exactly the athletic type, but the elevator was slower than a snail on the back of a turtle. Finally, we reached the top.

"Sir, Miss," said the kid running the elevator, "we have reached floor 47."

"It's a trap," I said, as the doors opened.

"What do you mean?"asked Sparrow.

I didn't answer. The elevator had dropped us right in an office. And it was an office that was a sight more high-class than mine.

Edwin Scott was a collector; that was obvious. The room was lined with shelves, and those shelves were weighed down with all sorts of stuff. Flint arrowheads, sparkly little geodes, and lots of comic books. Who would've thought that a millionaire like Scott would be into kids' funny pages? I picked one up and thumbed through it, some kind of adventure about a vampire slayer from the future.

Helen Sparrow ignored all the collectibles. Instead she made her way across the room, towards a big desk backed by a tall wall. And then the wall began to turn.

It turned out it wasn't a wall at all; it was a huge, black-armoured, self-propelled chair. And I recognized the middle aged man revealed as the chair turned.

"Warren!" I practically spat the name out.

~*~

Warren quirked an amused eyebrow at me, and Sparrow looked between us in confusion.

"No, no, Walsh,"she said, "this is Mr. Scott!"

"What you missed, kid, is that Scott is my old commanding officer."

Helen took this in stride, much more so than I would have anticipated. "So you were in Automatic Division! Robert was right!"

Warren– or Scott, apparently - sighed. "Of course young Mr. Hartwell was right. He was never stupid, Helen. That's the problem."

Sparrow perched herself on a stenographer's chair, tilting her head to one side as the eccentric millionaire continued his monologue. "I liked Robert. You'd have liked him too, Walsh. Eager, smart. Could program a self-propelled tank to run circles around anything anyone else had."

Sparrow looked proud. Me? I was focused on the fact that all of Warren-or-Scott's verbs were in the past tense.

I was about to ask more, to ask what had gone wrong, when a door burst open to reveal a panting Torrence. He then drew a gun.

"Get down!" I yelled, throwing myself onto the burgundy aubusson.

Sparrow, being a young, pretty sort of girl, didn't react right away. Warren, though, was an old hand at this kind of thing. Automatic Division didn't get to see front line duty often, but if anyone of us could manage live fire, it was Warren.

The huge autonomous chair rolled forward, armour growling forward from the armrests to cover Warren. Torrence squeezed off a shot that ricocheted around the room, a cacophonous imitation of the rain that was starting again on the outside of the window. Helen Sparrow yelped and threw herself down beside me on the carpet.

The chair rolled on, crushing Torrence. It didn't go the way I had expected. I expected blood, torn meat, maybe a smear of brain. What I got was a metallic crunch and the stink of diesel. Warrens chair slowed to a stop.

I sat up as Sparrow ran and knelt by the body – except it wasn't a body. She held up a cogwheel, then looked up at Warren.

"Mr. Scott," she said, "I don't understand."

"Don't you?" Warren sighed. "This was Hartwell's idea. The logical next step of the research Walsh, me and the rest of the division did during the war. Self-driving tanks, hah! Super-soldiers, that was our goal. The four horsemen of the apocalypse . . . they're right bastards, all four of them, but war is the most profitable of the lot."

"But I thought – I thought Torrence was – he's come to every one of my shows at the Orpheum." Sparrow sounded like a dog who ran out of the yard to bark at a squirrel and came back to find his master had moved away in the meantime.

"Ah, that was the genius of the thing," Warren smiled, "Hartwell's idea. A real man's mind in a mechanical body."

I felt my stomach plummet all 47 floors back to the ground, twisting as it went. I fought down the nausea, saying, "That isn't possible, Warren. You know it isn't. And if it were -" my stomach lurched again, "what a way to go – locked in a lump of unfeeling metal, slowing going insane."

Warren nodded. "I told Hartwell he was wrong. I told him that he was mad."

"Robert would never do such a thing!" Sparrow insisted. I felt a little whisper of compassion for her; the girl was on the verge of tears.

"Don't be naive, Helen," Warren said. "The boy was no good for you; I've told you that a million times. When did Hartwell ever buy you a theatre, for you to sing in?"

"He didn't need to!" Helen protested. "He loved me!"

"Never mind all that!" I interrupted, turning to Warren. "Where's Hartwell now?"

"He came to see me, you know. Looked me up like he must have done you. When I heard what he wanted to do, I threw him out. He told me I couldn't boss him around just because this was my place. I told him 'you're damn straight this is my place! Now get the hell out before I make your head a wall decoration!'. And then I had the chair push him out."

Sparrow, still on her knees, idly twisting the cog wheel in her fingers, asked, "But what did he tell you he was going to do?"

"He told me -" Warren looked at Sparrow, then looked away. "He told me he wanted to be one of them."

Sparrow burst into tears.

***

War Time Machines - Part Two - Dearest_Writer

The little Sparrow mourns for her loss. I have some vague idea as to where he is but I'm not too sure. Gonna have to call up an old friend of mine to get to him. No matter how much I try to convince her, she still won't believe it. I say he's alive. She says he's dead and there's not a damn thing I can say otherwise that'll convince her. She cried at his funeral, you know. It was only a handful of people, with the rain pouring on those poor souls; you know the cliche. But don't worry. Every thing will be okay.