His Clockwork Canary

CHAPTER 13

Simon had enjoyed many a tryst. Numerous alliances far more risqué than this recent dalliance with Willie. Yet his mind and body reeled in the aftermath. Never had he felt so focused, so driven, so lost.

Lost in the moment. Lost in her beauty. Lost in the passion.

Mystifying.

Terrifying.

Was it possible that he’d never fallen out of love with Wilhelmina Goodenough? Even though she’d broken his heart? Even though twelve years had passed and she was nothing like the young girl he remembered?

She was, in fact, more. Vastly complicated and assured trouble. Life with this woman would not be easy. Or boring.

Simon stared up into the darkening room, contemplating the future. Typically his mind churned with visions and calculations. Advanced designs that were not only functional but impressive. He had goals, monumental goals, and though he felt compelled to marry Willie—indeed, he would marry her, even if only in spirit—he could not yet imagine how she would fit into his life. The fact that she was a Freak was challenging enough, but her involvement in an underground movement, a movement ripe for radical upheaval should their cause go unrecognized, could prove inconvenient, if not detrimental to his career. On that score, her parents had been spot-on. In order to construct his more inspired creations, Simon needed the support of various government agencies and, upon occasion, assorted officials. This meant walking a fine line politically and not ruffling feathers. Willie’s association with the Freak Fighters would most definitely ruffle stodgy and fearful Old Worlders. If protests and demonstrations turned ugly, if Freaks and their supporters turned to more extreme measures resulting in violence and mayhem, New Worlders would be wary as well. A rebellion such as this would too greatly resemble the civil rights movements of the twentieth century. Movements that sought equality for Negroes and Indians in the United States, Catholics in Northern Ireland, and blacks and women in the United Kingdom, to name but a few. All cited in the Book of Mods and many resulting in bloody conflict.

Simon thought about Willie engaged in a heated protest and frowned. Just because she didn’t advocate violence, that didn’t mean she wouldn’t get caught up in a ruckus and hurt. Or worse. Killed.

“What troubles you?” Willie asked in a scratchy voice.

Simon turned his face into the pillow, toward the woman who’d been sleeping in his arms. “You’re awake.”

She looked at her wrist, then frowned. “I feel at odds without my timepieces. What hour is it?”

“Close to dinnertime.”

“I can’t believe I slept into the evening,” she said, pushing upright with her good arm. “My stamina is lacking. How frustrating.”

“In light of the severity of your injury,” he said, smoothing a comforting hand down her back, “I’d venture exhaustion is natural. Look at it this way, the more you rest, the faster your recovery. Perhaps we should not have—”

“I’m glad we did.” She looked over her shoulder at him and smiled. “You did not disappoint, Mr. Darcy. Indeed, I can’t imagine spectacular.”

“Rest and recover,” he said with a wicked grin, “and you will not have to imagine.”

She instantly sobered. “I’m not sure it is wise for us to persist as lovers.”

“Nor am I. What I’m sure of is an attraction, a connection that has gone unbroken in spite of the years. In spite of the misunderstandings. I’ve no intention of running from this. From you.”

Cheeks flushed, she looked away. “I’ve changed, Simon. I am not the carefree girl you fell in love with. In fact, I don’t know how to behave like a proper lady anymore. I don’t know how to live life as a woman whilst maintaining my career—a career that allows me to support, not only my father, but a cause I deeply believe in.”

“Ah. The Freak Fighters.” Simon sat up and swung his bare feet to the chilly floor. “Just how involved are you?”

She dragged a hand through her rumpled hair, shrugged. “Only as an anonymous voice to date. I pen articles under pseudonyms, draft pamphlets to distribute to the masses in an effort to properly educate Vics regarding our race. Old Worlders tend to circulate ignorant propaganda in hopes of suppressing our rights as a way of keeping us down. What they don’t seem to understand is that suppression and intolerance are fueling discontent amongst Freaks. Causing some to branch out as mercenaries—using their supernatural gifts for dubious gain. Whilst others—like the Freak Fighters—band together to instigate change for the better. The remainder simply try to blend, to be invisible, denying who they are even to themselves. It is for those intimidated few that I fight the hardest.”

Her passion and intent stirred his blood and indeed left him humbled. Aside from designing assorted contraptions and conveniences, what had he really done to make a difference in this unstable world?

“I do not oppose your cause,” Simon said. “Indeed I am moved by your plight and passion, but know this, Willie. Change is often perceived as chaos and not always won peacefully. As was evidenced by the Peace Rebels.”

She cut him an injured glance. “They came here, to this century, with good intentions. Were it not for a few bad apples—”

“You don’t have to defend your father—or was it your mother?—to me.” Sensing he was entering dangerous territory, Simon grasped her hand in reassurance. “Which of your parents was the Mod?”

Not breaking his grasp, she swung around so that they were sitting side by side. “My mother.” She licked her lips, then swallowed. “I think she was involved somehow with Jefferson Filmore. I saw her in his memories. They were arguing and—”

“Back up.” Simon angled his head. “You read Filmore’s mind?”

She shook her head. “Traced his memories. Went back in time and . . .” She furrowed her brow. “I have only explained this to a couple of people, and never to a Vic.”

He smiled. “Happy to be your first.”

She smiled back but averted her gaze, studying the toes of her pretty, bare feet. “In order for me to time-trace, there must be some sort of physical contact and I must be focused. It helps if I prompt the transmitter—the person who’ll be sharing his memories—with a subject or event that will trigger memories of the experience that is of interest to me.”

Simon recalled the way she’d shaken hands with Thimblethumper and the grip she’d had on Filmore’s arm. He remembered her intense focus. “Regarding your work with the London Informer, I assume this is how you obtain such in-depth information on the people you interview.”

“No doubt you think it is an invasion of privacy, but I view it as a means of survival. And I assure you I have never publicly reported anything I learned via a memory unless the transmitter willingly, verbally offered the information.”

“After you prompted them, asking a question or swinging the conversation toward something you witnessed in the memory.” In other words, not information granted entirely of the transmitter’s accord. “Not that I’m judging,” Simon said. “Just assessing the whole picture.”

She gave a small shrug. “That is one way to look at it.”

“So you mentioned Edinburgh or the Houdinian, connected physically with Thimblethumper, then focused and traced his memory.” Simon pressed on. “How does that work? What is it like?”

“It’s like . . . being an invisible voyeur. I dwell in the shadows, in the recesses, of the memory and simply watch it play out. I see everything, hear everything, as if I were there, living the moment, only I’m not. I’m just . . . visiting. I never stay long and I never interact. Except . . .” She shifted, frowned. “When I traced Filmore’s memory and saw my mother, I was caught off guard. They were arguing about the clockwork propulsion engine. About where to hide it.” She looked over and held Simon’s gaze. “This made no sense to me. From the time I can first remember, any tale my mother shared with our family regarding her arrival to this century, she swore the Peace Rebels destroyed the Briscoe Bus. She described the explosion in great detail. The destruction of the exterior and interior portions of the vehicle, including the engine. Why would she lie to us?”

Simon registered the betrayal in Willie’s mesmerizing eyes, knowing he was about to intensify her confusion and possibly her pain. “The list I showed Thimblethumper. There were three names.” He smoothed a thumb over her knuckles. “One of them was Mickey Goodenough.”

She blinked.

“You never told me your mother’s first name,” he went on, “but I knew your father’s was Michael. It occurred that his nickname might be Mickey. But then Thimblethumper declared that Houdinian dead, and you said your father lives.”

“My mother’s name was Michelle,” Willie said, looking impossibly pale. “In Filmore’s memories, he called her Mickey. All those years . . . I thought . . .” She shook her head. “In the twentieth century, she had been a security specialist for a British firm and before that NASA.”

“National Aeronautics and Space Administration. An American venture,” Simon said. “I read about it in the Book of Mods. Or what little there was pertaining to the space race.” Indeed, his father and sister, both avid fans of aviation, had always mourned the fact that there had not been more information regarding NASA nor the competing space program in Russia. To them it was all so fantastical and inspiring.

“In this century, she claimed she was doing vital, top secret work pertaining to world security,” Willie continued. “Wesley and I assumed she worked for an elite agency that policed the development of advanced weaponry or transportation. We even fantasized that she was working undercover for Her Majesty’s Mechanics.” She barked a humorless laugh. “How naive we were. How wretchedly duped.”

“Not really,” Simon pointed out, steering clear of the Mechanics and defending Michelle—Mickey—Goodenough, if only to make Willie feel better. “If, as a Houdinian, she’d been charged to keep the clockwork propulsion engine well hidden in order to ensure it didn’t fall into unscrupulous hands, then her job did indeed pertain to world security.”

Willie smirked. “Yes, but what if their motives were not so pure? A few days ago you suggested that perhaps the PRs had decided to steal away and sequester the engine on the chance that, at some point, Mods wished to rejoin and return home to their own time. If that was the objective, then her job was not only selfish but based on cowardice. If you travel back in time with the express intent of altering the future,” she said, her face growing red and her voice loud. “If a portion of your team defects and shares technological knowledge in order to build a fortune. If you muck things up so badly that you trigger a transcontinental war. Then you should have the gumption to stick around and monitor your mess!”

Although he did not want Willie to overtax herself, he did not want to stifle her either. From everything she’d said over the last day, he assumed she did not confide in too many people, if any. So, not only did she conceal her gender and race, but she denied herself friendship and free expression? Simon could not imagine. True, he was a diplomat whilst dealing with people and matters affecting his work. But amongst friends, and certainly with his family, he expressed himself often and loudly on a good many subjects. He could not conceive of stifling his thoughts and opinions on a daily, hourly basis. How extraordinarily tiresome.

“How is it you did not learn about your mother’s role as a Houdinian via her memories?” Simon asked. “I assume as mother and daughter there must have been an abundance of physical contact.”

“There was a goodly amount when I was quite little,” Willie said. “But as a young child I did not fully recognize or understand my gift. One thing that Freaks have in common aside from our kaleidoscope eyes and unique blood type, whatever our given supernatural gift, it strengthens and intensifies with age. When I realized my ability to peek into people’s memories and mentioned as such to my mother . . . henceforth she kept a modicum of distance. Caresses and hugs were saved for Wesley. Logically, I presumed her intent was to protect her top secret assignment. Regardless, to be shunned by one’s own mother . . .” She shook her head, and pulled her hand from Simon’s grasp. “I detest the bitter tone of my voice. I have no patience for self-pity. Life is what you make it and I have made a good life, for a Freak.”

She met his gaze and torched him with a fiery conviction. “I do not wish to be rescued, but I would appreciate your assistance in preserving the career that enables me to care for my father and surreptitiously and peacefully advance the cause of my race.”

Simon was not keen on her choice of words. Nor her subtle refusal to marry him. But he would not argue the point now.

Later. When she’d more fully recovered. At that time he would not take no for an answer. “The primary objective, then, is to locate the Briscoe Bus’s engine.” He lifted a challenging brow. “Are we in accord, Canary?”

She narrowed her eyes. Obviously she did not wholly trust him. Smart. But then he did not wholly trust her. “Aye,” she said.

“I have no clue as to where the Houdinian might have taken the engine.”

“Nor do I,” Willie said, then smiled. “But I do know of someone who might have the past knowledge to point us in the right direction.”