Amazing Mister Brass
Chapter One
July 1st, 1884. Chicago, Illinois.
Something was burning and for Chicago it was an unsettling reminder of the city-wide inferno of fourteen years previous.
Two agents of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency walked down State Street towards the cloud of smoke in the distance. One, the older of the two, almost stumbled on the sidewalk as a bit of ash flew into his eye.
"Careful sir. You almost slipped," the younger man said as he steadied his older companion. Allan Pinkerton pulled his arm away from the young agent's grip and snorted. In his sixties, the founder of the national detective agency that bore his name was a stern man and it showed in every wrinkle and crevice in his lined face.
"Pah. The day I slip is the day I die," Pinkerton said harshly. He was a burly man, vibrant despite his age and dressed conservatively, his everpresent bowler hat perched atop his high-domed head. He looked around, eyes narrowing as he caught sight of the immense steel skeleton rising into the sky in the distance. "Godawful thing. Ugly as sin. Probably topple over and crush everything one day," he muttered before turning back to the younger man. "Do we know the cause of the fire yet Rast?"
"No sir. Got a few folks who say they saw, and I quote, 'foreign looking gentlemen' enter the residence through a back window," Rast said crisply. He was a thin man, baby-faced and dressed in an ill-fitting suit. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, he was considered one of the more effective agents the Pinkerton agency had at hand in Chicago. Which is why he was in charge of the current investigation-one whose client was the Agency themselves.
The fire that choked the sky with soot and smoke had its heart in the home of a man Pinkerton had called friend. A man whose son had been one of the most dependable agents the Pinkertons had ever had.
Before his...accident.
That was enough reason for Pinkerton himself to oversee the investigation. And for him to put Rast in charge over the protests of other, more senior agents in the Chicago field office. Rast knew-had known-Nick Sarlowe. They hadn't been friends per se, but Pinkerton didn't care. For good or ill, this investigation was personal.
"'Foreign gentlemen' hmm? I'll just bet those were the words used." Pinkerton gave a bark of laughter. "Wops, micks, dagoes or pollacks? Well Rast?" He said harshly.
"None of the above." Rast glanced at his employer. "Arabs."
"Arabs?"
"So the ladies and gentlemen in question claimed." Rast shrugged, hands spread helplessly. Pinkerton ran his fingers through his beard and frowned.
"Arabs. Really."
"Yes sir."
"Hrm. Well Rast, this might be more interesting than I at first thought."
"One can only hope sir." Rast said. Pinkerton glanced at him.
"Are you being funny Rast?"
"No sir. I'm told I do not have a sense of humor."
"Who told you that?"
"My mother sir."
"Wise woman."
"Yes sir."
"I knew him you know."
"Sir?"
"Sarlowe. Doctor Caspian Sarlowe. The body in question as it were."
"They haven't found a body yet sir."
"They will. They always do." Pinkerton said. He looked up at the smoke spiraling up into the sky and scowled. "They always do. Arabs?"
"Arabs sir."
"Foreigners are worse than rebels."
"So you've said sir."
"Have I?"
"Ad nauseum. Sir."
"Was that impertinence?"
"Yes sir."
"Hrm." Pinkerton watched the smoke for a second. Caspian Sarlowe. Funny name. Funny man. Angry man too. Good doctor though. Shame about what had happened to his son. Damn shame. Then again, they were living in an age of wonders. Air-ships, steam-men and explosions on Mars.
Maybe being a brain in a jar counted as a wonder.
Pinkerton frowned. More like a horror. He looked at Rast. "What about his son?"
"Sir?" Rast stiffened. A faintly queasy look crossed his face.
"Nick Sarlowe."
"Don't know sir." Rast said. The unspoken implication was that he didn't care either.
"We need to find out."
"Sir." Rast sounded unhappy about that prospect. Pinkerton didn't blame him. What had happened to young Nick could have happened to any agent who had taken that last assignment. Only a matter of luck it had been Sarlowe and not any of the others. And if it happened once, it could happen again.
Nick Sarlowe had been a good agent. Knew Chicago like the back of his hand. Solid too. Dependable. And now he was something else entirely. Unless he was already dead. For the life of him Pinkerton couldn't figure out whether or not that was what he was hoping for. Rast touched his arm and Pinkerton shook himself out of his thoughts.
"What's going on?" Pinkerton rumbled as he and Rast stepped over the barricades the Chicago police had put in place in front of the Sarlowe residence. The house, or what was left of it, was a blackened skeleton. The walls had fallen inward and the floor had collapsed into the basement. Smoke still curled off of the remaining supports and wafted into the darkening sky above. Two more agents of the Pinkertons crouched over the place where a section of the house had collapsed into the basement area. One looked up. Pinkerton recognized his face. Something Gordon. Had a woman's first name. Greek goddess or some such. Weasley fellow. A devotee of Brainerd and those other so-called 'imagineers'.
Futurist mumbo-jumbo. Worse than the twaddle the Starry Wisdom was peddling on street corners these days.
"Gordon. I believe I asked a question." Pinkerton said. Gordon saluted hastily, his hand jostling the strange contraption on his head. "And what is that on your head?"
"Sir?"
"Your head Gordon. And that thing on it."
"My cranial light magnification skull-cap?"
"Head lamp." Rast whispered in Pinkerton's ear. Pinkerton grunted and waved his hand.
"Never mind Gordon. What's going on?"
"Noises sir. We believe there are survivors. Below sir."
"Oh?" Pinkerton gazed into the hole, eyes narrowed. "How interesting."
Pinkerton's words echoed around the rim of the hole and dripped down into it, falling like raindrops into the ashes below. And, with a metallic click, two eyes opened in the darkness.
•••
Dark. His first thought was that it was dark.
Not an unusual state in and of itself, but highly suspect considering his current circumstances.
Memories flashed through his mind, crawling across its surface like creeping flickers of lightning. Jumbled pictures whirled into place, showing him scenes he vaguely recognized. The flash of a gun, the bite of a bullet. An echo of pain that made him flinch. Other faces and places. Things, people he should know but didn't.
And, strangely enough, the smell of caramel.
A sweet odor that seemed to fill and cover him. Not unpleasant, but strange.
Different.
He remembered a name as well.
Brass.
Was that his name? He rolled it around in his head, tasting it. Maybe.
He tried to stand and found he could not. A weight pinned him. Strangely the weight was not in and of itself painful. Merely a hindrance. Gathering his legs under him he rose first into a crouch, then pushed himself up, the weight on his back groaning. Wood splintered and a cloud of soot rose up around him. A body lay beneath him, as if he'd tried to shelter it. The weight rolled off his back with a rumble and a roar as he stood and shrugged his shoulders. He looked down at the body. Knelt beside it and rolled it over.
An older man. Face blistered and sagging in death. Yet still familiar.
Father?
Something flowed through him, a feeling that made him shake. Was this his father? Why was he dead? Why-
"Who's down there?"
The voice was harsh, tinged with excitement. Lantern light crept down through the darkness, piercing the soot-gloom and shadows. Figures above. Had they killed his father? Or was there some other reason for their presence?
He was resolved to inquire in any event.
The light trickling down allowed him to see his surroundings for the first time. Broken lengths of shaped wood were angled in a chaotic fashion above and around him. Support beams. He was beneath the house. Whose house?
Yet another inquiry.
Soot and ash fell down in a steady drizzle. A fire then. The floor, the house itself must have collapsed. He was in the basement. Had he fallen, or simply been buried.
Again, more inquiries.
The figures moved above, peering down into the gloom. Talking quietly amongst themselves. They had not seen him yet. But they would.
He had questions.
He grabbed the nearest of the cracked, fire kissed beams and hauled himself easily up towards the next. He spared a swift glance for the body curled up on the floor below. Father. His father. Then his gaze was drawn upward again.
No. No he would not leave him here. Down in the dark. Leaping down he scooped up the body and gently swung it up onto his shoulder. Then, holding it tightly he began to scramble up the debris. As he climbed, memories drifted down on him like ash. The activity was stirring them in his head. He didn't know whether they were his or not, but he allowed them to come. Maybe they would answer some of his questions.
Maybe.
He remembered the smell of the river and the clamor of the station as he waited for the Michigan Central to come in. He'd been waiting on a man.
Moriarty.
•••
April 5th, 1884. Chicago, Illinois.
There were strange explosions occuring on Mars and Nick Sarlowe was standing in the union station, waiting on an Englishman.
Sarlowe was a small man, wiry and handsome with sharp eyes. Curly hair, the color of rusty tin, was slicked back on a narrow skull and he wore his tailored suit well. He took a breath and adjusted his waistcoat. The train was pulling in, a new model Brainerd Rail Titan, an armored juggernaut used for ferrying the important folks back and forth across the country. It looked like a black worm covered in steel and dotted with gunslits, the idiot jack-o-lantern face of the Steam-Man insignia on the front, top hat and all. Sarlowe repressed a shudder as the insignia swooped past him.
He'd seen the Steam-Man once. Ugly thing. Smelled like soggy cabbage and burnt paper and its joints had squealed like a farm's worth of slaughtered pigs as it moved. He'd watched it tear apart a group of Confederistas that had tried to hi-jack it. The rebels had been shredded like grass in those big black iron fingers as the Steam-Man continued to smile his idiot-smile.
Machines shouldn't smile. And they shouldn't look like men.
The train hissed to a stop and expelled a cloud of steam that curled up over the edges of the platform and around his legs as he waited for the doors to the cars to begin opening up. He pulled his pocket watch out and looked at it, forefinger rubbing absently at the symbol engraved on the back. The open eye of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. 'We never sleep'.
Funny how that was all he wanted to do.
For two days he'd been ferrying people back and forth between the trains they arrived on and the hotel the convention was being held at. The 'convention' of course being the World Astronomy Summit, with J.P Morgan himself footing the bill. Sarlowe couldn't recall whether or not there had ever been another such summit, then abruptly decided he didn't care. There were a lot of practical sciences. Astronomy wasn't one of them as far as he could see.
Honestly, who gave a good goddamn about volcanoes on Mars?
"Well, I do for one."
Sarlowe choked on a curse before it left his lips and looked up as the bone-thin man in the undertaker black stepped down from the passenger car, his bald head oscillating like that of a snake as he gazed at his surrounding with large, hawk-like eyes. He tapped his cane on the platform gently. Tap-tap-tap.
"Forgive me. Didn't realize I'd spoken out loud." Sarlowe said as he adjusted the bowler perched on his head. The thin man turned his head, examining Sarlowe from every side. He blinked. Once. Twice. Three times.
"Quite all right. Idiocy is the easiest sin to forgive. Pinkerton?"
"Yes sir. Nick Sarlowe sir. I'm here to escort you to the convention center."
"Ah. Good. I could do with a walk."
"Sir."
"Professor."
"Sir?"
"If you must call me something, call me Professor. Professor Moriarty at your service." Moriarty's cane went tap-tap-tap as he spoke. He smiled, thin lips curling uncertainly. "James to my friends."
Tap-tap-tap.
•••
Tap-tap-tap.
Bits of burnt wood and stone bounced off of the top of his head, shaking him loose from his memories. Moriarty? He gazed up, holding onto the beam he was climbing with one hand, his fingers dug deep into the wood. No. Not Moriarty. He didn't know who was above him. Maybe it was the little bald man. Maybe it wasn't.
Lights flashed across his eyes and he wondered that he wasn't blinded. He continued to climb, splinters showering his face as he clawed at the wood, speeding up his ascent as much as he dared. It was holding his weight so far but for how much longer? Best not to think about it. Best to get to the top, sort it out later.
Climb. Climb, climb, climb. Climb Sarlowe climb.
Sarlowe. That was his name wasn't it? Memories seemed to say so. But memories couldn't always be trusted. Maybe his name was Brass. Maybe Sarlowe. It didn't matter. Get to the top first. Then ask the questions of who was there. But the questions continued to burst to life in his head like firecrackers going off behind his eyelids.
He wondered why he didn't notice the weight on his shoulder. Dead men were heavy. This much he remembered. But not now; easy as carrying a bag of sand. He was strong, but he couldn't smell anything but caramel and sweetness. Couldn't feel the wood that crumbled beneath his hands as he climbed up towards the light. Couldn't taste the ash that fell into his mouth. Couldn't feel his muscles come to that. His senses were dead but he wasn't getting tired.
Was he dead? He remembered stories of walking dead men his father had told him. He glanced at the body he was carrying. His father.
Why didn't he feel sad?
Why couldn't he feel anything?
Wood began to crack and disintegrate beneath his palm. Time seemed to slow and blur at the edges as he gathered his feet under him and leapt straight up as the remaining timbers crumbled and collapsed with a tortured roar. He flew upwards through a cloud of ash and dust, cutting the air with inhuman precision and landed with a similar grace. He barely felt the impact as he landed in a crouch. Seconds later he rose smoothly to his feet.
The sky was orange. The sun was setting.
His skin gleamed dully in the fading light, he noticed.
•••
Pinkerton allowed himself to be pushed back behind Rast as the younger man pulled his revolver, thumbing back the hammer even as he swept the gun from beneath his suit coat. Gordon and the others were scrambling backwards, clawing for their own pistols. Gordon's eyes were wide with an almost religious awe as he stared at the man before them. And why wouldn't they be, Pinkerton mused.
The man, if he could be called a man, was stick thin and above average height. He was nude but there was nothing to hide regardless. His 'skin' was nothing more than interlocking brass scales that seemed to cover a skeletal network of tubes, wires and rods that scraped together at the slightest move. His face was that of a Hellenic statue, carved curly hair over Adonis-perfect and emotionless features.
Over one shoulder hung a limp sack of meat that had once been a man. Pinkerton had seen enough dead men in the War to know one when he saw one. The brass man knelt and gently slid his burden from his shoulder and to the ground. Pinkerton bit back a curse as he recognized Caspian Sarlowe. Rast glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.
"Sir?"
"It's Sarlowe. He's dead."
Gilded eyelids clicked in a parody of a blink at the mention of Sarlowe's name and eyes like twin golden lamps gazed at them. They blinked again when the first bullet whanged off the muscles carved into the plates covering his torso. He reached up with clockwork fingers and tentatively touched the slight dent the impact had left. The eyes clicked again and the cold, cold face looked up, yellow eyes fixing on Rast.
"I probably shouldn't have done that, should I?" Rast said out loud, frowning slightly.
"No. You shouldn't have." The voice was like a tin can full of metal shavings being shaken, a distorted noise that made Pinkerton's teeth itch even as he found it familiar. The brass man was moving a second later in a hiss of unseen gears, metal fingers clapping down on the barrel of Rast's pistol and yanking it effortlessly from his grasp. Gordon and the others were trying to draw a bead on it as it spun the gun on one long finger and deftly cocked the hammer, aiming it at Rast's head.
"Hello Jimmy." The brass man grated. Pinkerton noticed with the slightest sense of revulsion that the brass man's lips moved as he spoke. Every part of his face was articulated. Rast paled.
"N-Nick? Nick Sarlowe?"
"I'm not sure." He cocked his head, gun barrel digging ever so slightly into sweaty skin between Rast's eyes. "I'm not even sure how I know you Jimmy. Do I know you?"
"Yes. And we are very good friends." Rast said hurriedly. The brass man blinked. Click.
"You're lying Jimmy."
"Damn it."
"But I forgive you." The brass man stepped back, twirling the gun around his trigger finger and proffering it to Rast, butt first. Pinkerton stepped forward, not hesitating even when the eerie yellow eyes fixed on his face.
"Who are you?" Pinkerton asked, his voice thick with some unspoken emotion. The brass man blinked.
"I don't know. But I think my name is Brass."
// disclaimer
The characters, concepts and ideas presented within The Amazing Mister Brass are the intellectual property of Josh Reynolds and are © 2009. The Warhol Superstars artwork is the intellectual property of Mike Rasbury and is © 2007. Grapefruit: Pulp with a Twist, Grapefruit logos, and site design are all ™ and © Mike Rasbury 2005-2009. Any reproduction or use is strictly prohibited. All rights reserved.