The Hunchback Assignments (21 page)

At the far end of Fleet Lane they came to a round two-story building made of brick. At one time it had been the entrance to an underground railway. The afternoon sun lit the top of it, making the bricks glow. The door was nailed shut with several boards. “This is the entrance Taff spoke
of,” Octavia said, “but we won’t be going in that way.” They walked around back. “See the window?” Octavia pointed at it. “Show me how you can jump, Modo.”

“I don’t do tricks,” he replied. “At least not without double pay.”

He looked up and down the street for witnesses, then used a few overhanging bricks to climb to the window. As he squeezed himself into the tiny frame, he wished he had a child’s body. He worried he would be stuck there with his buttocks hanging in the air. The ridiculous image gave him the strength he needed to yank himself through to the inside.

He stepped down onto a support timber, lowered himself to the floor, followed a set of stairs to the front door, and shouldered it open wide enough for Octavia to enter.

“You’re a thumping big man,” she said, squeezing his arm. Modo shrugged.

A gold-lettered sign said
ENTRANCE TO ORLANDO RAILROAD
, 1870. Whoever had built this, Modo realized, had expected thousands of customers a day. Now, only three short years later, they were rewarded with spiderwebs.

Octavia stood under the sign, staring up at it. “Well, I’ll be.”

“You’ll be what?”

“The girl I found—Ester—kept saying, ‘Must go back to Orlando.’ It was like a poem. And this is Orlando Railroad. I think we’re on the right track, mate.”

Modo nearly fell over. She’d called him
mate.
It felt good. No, it felt wonderful.

Modo dug the pocket lucifer out of his belt pouch and
held it high enough to see down an impressive spiral stairwell. “Glad you found us another lucifer,” Octavia said.

“Me too. It means I get to lead.” The air grew colder and soon all he heard was his own wheezy breathing and Octavia’s footsteps behind him. “Someone spent a lot of money to have these steps carved,” he said. “They’re marble, for heaven’s sake.”

At the bottom, they pushed through creaking turnstiles, passed a ticket booth, and stepped onto a platform for an underground train. The black and white marble-tiled floors were layered with dust. A few rats skittered away and Modo let his light follow them, until a pair of human boots were caught in the beam. He stepped back against the wall and pulled Octavia along with him.

“We have a visitor,” Modo hissed.

“Where?”

“There!” Modo moved the light up from the intruder’s feet.

“He’s not moving,” Octavia whispered.

“No. But he must surely see my light. Should I put it out?”

“Too late.” She slapped Modo’s back. “I know him!” She dashed up to the figure. “You should, too.”

“Wait!” Modo said, running after her.

“The Duke of Wellington, I presume,” she said, hanging from the figure’s arm.

It was a statue of Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, standing as though waiting for the next train. Modo’s laughter echoed down the tunnel. He clapped his hand to his mouth.

Octavia pushed herself off of the statue. “I feel no pity for the rich fool who’d spend a fortune on statues to impress travelers, before even building the tracks.”

From the edge of the platform, Modo looked down the tunnel, and pictured traveling through it by train. If there was a fire, passengers would be trapped under tons of earth and rock.

They found steps leading down to the tracks and walked silently for a few minutes on the rails. The smooth rock floor became jagged. An ear-splitting scraping noise made them both shudder.

“Put out the light,” Octavia whispered between scrapes.

Modo clicked off the pocket lucifer and was able to see a dull light in the distance. They quietly walked toward it, scrambling over old railway ties that had never been laid. The light grew brighter, and it became clear that they were approaching an adjoining tunnel that crossed the one they were in, forming a T. Meanwhile, the tunnel in which they were walking had become so narrow that they had to follow one behind the other, with Modo in the lead. Now they could hear the hammering and squealing of machinery.

They stopped, staying in the shadows, and observed the set of tracks in the crossing tunnel. Three children slouched past them; they were small and hunched over, but well muscled. Ropes had been tied to the bolts in their shoulders and they were pulling a small trolley filled with metal bars along the rails. Two men in greatcoats guarded them.

“They’re using them as mules,” Octavia whispered.

“They seem to be building something,” Modo said as another cart passed. “The carts are full of metal bars and
gears. And there’s coal, too.” In all, nine children passed them.

Modo tapped Octavia’s shoulder and pointed at two large dogs walking alongside the third cart. The nearest hound turned his massive head ever so slowly toward them and stopped. Modo held his breath. Then, the hound turned and walked further into the tunnel. The other followed. In a minute the tunnel was quiet again.

Octavia patted his shoulder and motioned for him to move forward. Modo crept a few feet along and checked both ways at the opening. Gaslights dangled from lines on the ceiling. The crossing tunnel seemed new. It stretched to his right for a hundred yards. In the opposite direction the tunnel ended at a set of large loading doors. On the other side of the doors a foghorn echoed.

“It must open onto the Thames,” he said. “Come on.” They stepped out into the tunnel, keeping to the shadows, moving toward the loading doors. There was a small door off to one side. Modo bent to it and listened. Seagulls. He opened the door an inch.

Fuhr stood only a few feet away, exhaling cigar smoke. Modo glimpsed the wrought iron arches of Blackfriars Bridge. They had traveled further underground than he’d imagined. He backed away, pulled the door closed and put a gloved finger to his lips.

Once they had snuck back past where they had come in, Modo whispered, “Fuhr was there.”

“Ah, wonderful,” she said sarcastically. “What are they up to?”

The possibilities were endless. At the very least they must be creating something destructive. What would they make under the city, hidden from the eyes of the police and Parliament? “A giant gun?” Modo finally said.

“But surely those can be manufactured somewhere else?”

Modo glanced back to be sure the door hadn’t opened. At least he’d hear Fuhr coming, hissing and spraying like a teakettle. A clanging of hammers was building at the far end of the tunnel.

“At least we know what they’re doing with the children,” he said. “Slave labor. Now, what is it they’re being made to build?”

“And how will we stop it?” Octavia added, searching the eyeholes of his mask.

Modo allowed himself the luxury of studying her eyes. Even in the dull light they sparkled. He gave his head a shake and said, “I guess that means we’ll have to see where this track takes us.”

I
n the end, it was Modo who came up with the most useful idea. They couldn’t just saunter down the tunnel; it was lit too well. So, hanging upside down, clinging with his hands and knees to the beams, Modo crawled along the ceiling, high enough that the gaslights couldn’t illuminate him. It took all his skill and remaining strength to inch along. The mask had slipped so that one eye was pinched closed. There was no place to rest, and he couldn’t look back to where Octavia waited for his hand signal to follow him.

The tunnel curved. Modo lowered his hand near a gaslight and waved, hoping she would see that it was safe to come this far, at least. He rounded the corner and the light was brighter.

Looking at everything upside down made his eyes sore. The tunnel opened into a huge cavern carved out of the
earth and rock under London. Here and there forges burned as smithies hammered on metal, steam rising from their cooling troughs. Near one fire a long line of children stood next to rows of metal boxes. Along the far side, at the end of the track, was a passenger car.

Modo motioned again to Octavia. A minute later she was at the edge of the cavern, crouched behind an empty trolley.

“Are you up there, Modo? I can’t see you,” she whispered.

“I’m here.”

“Can you see what’s going on?”

“They’re making the children lie down in metal beds.” It didn’t make any sense to Modo. “A hundred or more children. And they seem to be clamping them in somehow. And running wires here and there.”

A flash of red hair. Even at this distance he felt a chill. “That woman, with the red hair, that’s Hakkandottir.”

“She’s very pretty,” Octavia whispered.

“Her heart isn’t.” Modo was shaking, having held himself aloft for so long. He heard a hiss, but he couldn’t see or tell which direction it came from.

A second figure was clear in the distance. A man with white hair, wearing a white apron. It must have been Dr. Hyde. He was making the children drink from a flask, one by one. Modo could only see part of the structure that they were being attached to.

There was another loud hiss and Octavia let out a surprised cry. Modo twisted around to see Fuhr holding her by her hair. Two more men, nearly as large as Fuhr, joined him.
A hound snapped at Octavia until Fuhr bellowed, “Stop!” The dog immediately obeyed.

Why didn’t it bark? Modo wondered. Then it came to him. The doctor must have removed its vocal cords. They weren’t guard dogs, they were killers.

Octavia kicked Fuhr’s leg. It clanged, she grunted. “A sneaky little rat,” he chided. “What are you doing here, missy?”

“Looking for roasted nuts,” she said.

Modo inched across the beam, hoping to drop down and save her. He would at least have the element of surprise on his side.

“All by yourself, are you?” Fuhr growled suspiciously.

“Yes. Just lost.”

“People don’t come this far down these tunnels without a purpose.”

Modo would have to shinny closer and time his drop perfectly. But before he could move, Octavia shot him a look, which he assumed meant
Stay where you are.

“What you looking at?” Fuhr grumbled. Modo hugged the beam and held his breath as Fuhr’s eyes passed by him. Then Octavia was yanked into the cavern, along the tracks toward the passenger car.

Modo cursed. If only he’d acted, he could have beaten them!

But he had to admit the truth: Fuhr was more than he could handle. Add a dog and two henchmen and it would have been impossible.

Octavia was gone. How on earth to rescue her? He stayed still for a full minute, trying to figure out his course
of action. If he retreated, there was no guarantee that he could find Mr. Socrates. Even if he could find him, would Mr. Socrates deem a rescue necessary? Of course he would. It was Octavia.

Modo decided to forge on, crawling upside down along the crossbeam to the edge of the tunnel.

A dog was guarding the entrance. Its ears flicked. Modo stayed perfectly still as, hackles raised, it sniffed in a circle right below him. It settled a few feet away and Modo eventually felt safe enough to move. When he couldn’t go any further without dropping, he stopped.

Scaffolding was rigged along the high walls. Hammers banged on metal, their echoes filling the cavern. He spied a spot where he could leap across and land on a darkened platform. He’d be hidden by the height of the platform and shadows and could glean a better view.

But the distance meant he had to leap. If anyone happened to be looking that way, or the dog heard him, he’d be doomed.

Arms, he thought, be strong! He lowered his legs and swung himself back and forth a couple of times, letting go at the end of his arc. He hit a rock wall, but kept his balance when he landed on the platform. He thanked Tharpa, silently, for all the training.

He got his first right-side-up look at the chamber. Gaslights were strung both across the ceiling and closer to the ground, illuminating the metalwork. How many children were lying down in perfectly fitted frames, one next to the other? Several tall men were with the doctor, moving from child to child. They leaned over and attached each
child to his or her compartment with large iron wrenches. The bolts in their shoulders held the children in position. The structure had a few higher extensions, and large rectangular extensions that looked like small towers.

The whole chamber was warm and moist, as though they were inside the belly of a whale. Modo looked at the lit windows of the passenger railcar. If Octavia was anywhere, she was there.

No time like the present. Modo dropped down onto the ground.

Good! No one had seen him.

He caught a flash of movement and turned. A hound leapt at him out of the shadows, jaws open.

“A
re you alone?” The red-haired woman stood inside the passenger car, holding a glass of wine in her metal hand. Octavia tried to give her a nasty look, but it was made difficult by the way the man holding her had twisted her neck. She yanked her arm, testing his grip. Not much chance of breaking free.

“I’m not alone,” Octavia said. “A whole regiment of marines is coming.”

“Ah, you are young and full of spite. I remember those days.” There wasn’t so much as a glimmer of kindness in her eyes, only determination. What had Modo said her name was? Hack. No, something Nordic so it ended with
dottir.
Hakkandottir. The woman went on: “A pity we don’t have time for conversation. Who sent you here?”

“Queen Victoria,” Octavia answered. “Got a messenger pigeon from her this morning.”

Hakkandottir took another sip of wine, then squeezed the glass till it shattered. “Alan sent you, correct?”

“Alan?”

At that, Hakkandottir laughed. “Forgive me, you don’t know that Mr. Socrates’ first name is Alan. The old spider is still hard to kill.”

Octavia remained expressionless. Did that mean Mr. Socrates had survived the attack in the house?

“He’s desperate, sending a child to spy on us. His Association falters.”

The door opened and Fuhr stepped in, joints hissing. A man with short gray hair and glasses entered with him. His withered right arm was encased in a series of metal rings that supported it. His tiny hand was enhanced by several large metal fingers, so it looked as though he were wearing an iron glove. The contraption hissed steam as he pointed at her. “She belongs to Socrates,” he said. “Her name is Octavia Milkweed. She’s a very low cog in his network.”